#sticking with his brother being alive and present and probably not being aware of his letters showing up along with like ten other letters

[waywardsalt]

tbh theres probably not going to be all that much studying stuff in the bellum x linebeck fic bc tbh there isn’t a ton there and everything else is going on. prolly just some general linebeck watching him do stuff and being rlly curious abt the way he works between everything else going on

[under-lore]

How does Sans feel about Papyrus' death ?

A lot of common Undertale-related debates revolve around the morality of a character.

But among these, the one about Sans' reaction to Papyrus' death somewhat stands out. Both because of how widespread it is, but also because of the way two opposite yet equally inaccurate interpretations of it repeatedly seem to clash against one another.

So let's take a look at how Sans actually behaves in Undertale after his brother is killed :

First, we can observe a number of changes in his behavior, showcasing that he is not unaffected by it.

To start with an obvious one, the fact that nearly all of Sans' other casual appearances during that playthrough will be gone, Sans just... doesn't show up.

No pranks with telescopes, no stacking 29 hotdogs on your head.

While one flavor text with Shyren mentions that he is still 'watching over us' in some form even then due to his promise, he is evidently not as thrilled about this as usual.

But his lack of enthusiasm when it comes to watching over Frisk isn't the only thing that changes.

For instance, there is a present for Papyrus under the tree in Snowdin. However, as soon as Papyrus is killed and Sans vanishes, the present disappears along with him. Implying that Sans has retrieved the gift that his brother will not be able to open anymore.

He also appears to not have gone to Grillby's after our passage in Snowdin this time around. Something that's apparently quite unusual for him as it is part of his routine for that time of day.

And of course, in some iterations of his judgement scene in neutral routes :

...Needless to say that claiming Sans is totally unaffected by the death of his brother is inaccurate. While we do not see much of it, it is fairly solidly implied that Sans does grief his brother at least in his own way. And he does hold it against us to an extent.

However, that isn't all there is to it.

Sans' knowledge of RESETs does play a role in the way he handles the situation. Just not quite in the way it is often portrayed.

First, Sans may be aware of resets, but he does not remember them. This means that for a given Sans, the loss of his brother still feels permanent for that particular timeline iteration's Sans.

Knowing his brother will probably be alive again in another timeline eventually doesn't mean his loss in this one isn't real. Even if it does happen, he will not be there to see it. At least not this version of him.

However, Sans does still have a couple tricks up his sleeve, that maybe, if things work out, could spare of that fate the other Sans'es.

I showed this line earlier on :

However, this line isn't just Sans showing us his feelings about our actions. Instead, it is a part of a much more tricky strategy Sans begins engaging in after Papyrus is killed :

Psychological warfare.

The anomaly has reset this world many times before, and in neutral routes, he is left with the impression that it will likely do so again. This thought had previously been a demotivating one for Sans as he explained in genocide.

This was the case whilst Sans lived a semi-regular life under the constant threat of everything being undone on the snap of a finger.

However, now that what Sans incorrectly believes to be the anomaly has revealed itself and killed his brother, the situation has actually somewhat changed.

A reset, while it would wipe out his memories, would still bring his brother back to a different Sans. Papyrus' death doesn't have to be truly permanent. Because of this, Sans now wants the anomaly to reset. Not to keep doing it forever, but at least just one more time, to make sure that this timeline won't be the one that'll end up sticking around for good.

He also has a secondary motive :

While he is at it, he might also try to get the anomaly to changes its ways. Of course, Sans knows he's not a time traveller, not a god, but just a guy who is probably not capable of forcing a being such as the anomaly to change.

That being said, maybe, just maybe, he could help in giving it a little push to make it decide to want to change on its own.

To incite a RESET to happen, Sans has one main strategy : Making the anomaly regret its actions.

Sans believes that the anomaly keeps on RESETing the world because it is unable to find fulfillment, and that it keeps consuming timelines out of a desire to find happiness one way or another.

Thus, Sans aims to make the anomaly feel like this timeline can't be what they were looking for. Ensuring that, for the anomaly's quest for happiness to continue, they will have no choice but to reset this timeline as well.

That is the reason why Sans asks us this question :

The question was very carefully chosen on his part.

It both serves to confirm the anomaly's identity, but also more importantly, no matter what they answer, it allows him to either point out that the anomaly's actions did not match with their own morals, or forces them into making a selfish confession which he can then use to make them feel like they've done the wrong thing.

In either case, Sans is able to present his brother's death as an event that would only bring the anomaly further unhappiness. And thus, might get the anomaly to reach by itself the conclusion that the only way for it to find happiness now would be to RESET this world once more and avoiding killing Papyrus again in the future. A pretty good outcome for Sans.

This is what he refers to as taking it the 'easy way' to deal with an aggressive anomaly in a few routes. (as opposed to the 'hard way' he mentions halfway through his genocide dialogue).

In the neutral endings in which Papyrus was slain, Sans once again attempts a similar strategy. Although the awareness that a RESET still hasn't taken place even after quite some time passed since the anomaly was last seen in the underground & his last attempt at it is likely quite worrying to him.

This leads him to be a little more blunt than last time when it comes to the ways he tries to make the anomaly feel like this timeline isn't the one. Although his approach method remains broadly the same.

Though these lines are still rather noteworthy :

Given Sans wants the anomaly to go back, they might sound odd to hear at first.

It turns out that the more brutal we have been throughout the run, the less optimistic Sans' approach to dealing with the anomaly becomes during the phone call.

Here, Sans might be trying to play on another bleaker aspect of his psychological profiling of the anomaly : The consideration that they may view the world as a kind of game to explore, in which if they 'can', then they 'have to'.

By saying it is not welcome down here, he is also saying that it won't be able to keep exploring the possibilities of this world unless it makes them all forget everything.

In another of the neutral endings where both Toriel and Papyrus are killed, Sans seems to begin to doubt wether the anomaly can really be redeemed after all.

This all ultimately culminates in the leaderless endings.

In this one, Sans acknowledges that this is likely not our first time hearing him saying those kinds of things over the phone.

And that his 'strategy' seems to have failed to push it towards the right path.

In this route, Sans appears to have reached a similar conclusion as in the genocide one, that his hope of a redeemable anomaly merely looking for happiness may have been just naive/wishful thinking on his part after all.

In sum, Sans' awareness of the RESETs does not prevent him from missing his brother if Papyrus is killed. However, it allows him to weaponise his own grief using the psychological profile he has made of the anomaly in order to attempt to push it to RESET. Although he knows his own memories would be wiped out if he is successful, it would ensure Papyrus' death isn't permanent. Depending on the run, he also still harbors a dwindling hope that the anomaly itself could be steered towards a better path.

He mostly just needs to convince them to RESET one way or another though.

Past that point, it'll be up to the other Sans'es.

[kame-writes]

Some Hazbin Hotel Head Canons I have:

Pt.2

Alastor was both a moonshiner and bootlegger when he was alive. He would have been in his prime during Prohibition, and the hoof prints on his shoes were actually common among bootleggers. They were used to trick police that might try to track them by their footprints.

Those shoes are why he was mistaken by a hunter for a deer. The hunter was tracking the hoof prints.

Mimzys club was a speakeasy, and she was fully aware of Alastor being a serial killer. She used to provide alibis for him when he was alive, which is a reason he covers for and protects her now in their afterlife.

Angel and Husk probably crossed paths in life, but are completely unaware of it. Husk was born and raised in Las Vegas, and the mob was very heavily involved with running most of the casinos. Angel being a mafia son, would have definitely been in Vegas a fair amount before his death.

Sir Pentious used to be seen as a very powerful and dangerous Overlord. Then technology and electronics were introduced, making his steampunk innovation style outdated and people started to see him as a joke. He tried to keep up with the times, but it very bad at it and doesn't understand modern things.

The reason Vox has so many aquatic things and likes sharks, is thematic. The envy ring is aquatic and Vox is a very jealous and possessive person.

Valentino uses his saliva and smoke to make people more pliable and willing to agree with him, this also includes Vox. This is partly how they got together, because Valentino saw Vox as a way to further himself and grow his own power.

Nifftys Soul isn't actually owned by Alastor. She sticks with him because of mutual benefit for the both of them. He's also such a bad boy that she's drawn to being around him and helping him with his schemes.

Husk lost his soul because Alastor made him play an honest game, while Husk was a notorious card shark. The little gold token on Husk's hat is the dealers chip from their game as a reminder.

Husk was not a nice overlord. His redemption is going to rely on him admitting how bad he was in the past and accepting himself as a changed person.

Charlie is the only one who still doesn't realise Alastor is a cannibal. Which is why she was surprised he had a friend in Cannibal Town.

Lucifer knew full well who Alastor was, he was just being an ass. He correctly assumed that implying Alastor was a nobody or not important was the biggest insult he could throw at him.

Angel Dust is always broke. This is partly because before coming to the hotel he was renting an apartment from Valentino with ridiculous rent, and he's still working/paying off his debt.

Before meeting Valentino, Angel was more mafia with his brother. They had a very turbulent relationship, since they weren't very close when they were alive due to Arakniss being more Conservative and serious like their father. They have barely spoken since Angel became a famous porn star, and Angel just assumes that Niss now hates him for being 'an embaressment'.

Part of the reason Angel let Valentino take his soul and lead him to where he is now, is because Val was the only/first person to really encourage Angel's more feminine side and sexuality, and find it attractive. He fell hard for the love bombing, and then had a very rude awakening once Valentino no longer needed to play nice.

Fat nuggets is very special to Angel. He was never allowed pets, and despite him being one of Vals love bombing presents, it reminds him of how happy he was before he learnt the truth about why Val was so loving to him.

[elliespuns]

what are your thoughts on game tommy? I hate that there seems to be a good amount of ppl that aren't really a fan of him :( ik it was kinda fucked that he guilt tripped ellie into going after abby again but also like people need to remember that joel was literally tommy's older brother and they've known each other for longer than anybody else (i was about to say they've known each other longer than joel and ellie have but actually most parents have known their siblings longer than their own kids and ofc their own kid still comes first, but anyways that's kinda besides the point lol). He lost his wife and his brother, became blind in one eye and also can't even walk like he used to ofc he's gonna be bitter. I also kind of thought they'd grow closer after joel's death but when he visited the farm it felt like him and ellie probably didn't see each other that often :(

It's true that he made Ellie go after Abby again, but who can blame him. As said, he was his brother, and he was present for the horrendous moment of Joel's death, just as Ellie was. Only the two of them saw what Abby really did to him, and I mean, go and try to live with that memory in mind.

I think that Joel's death hurt Tommy as much as it hurt Ellie (not gonna debate who was hurting more because we'll never know; both of them loved Joel with different kinds of love, but it was still vast for both of them) and I'm almost certain that Tommy had trouble sleeping at night too. Just imagine closing your eyes and seeing your brother's skull being bashed in while looking into his eyes.

And even though he had no right to judge Ellie for deciding to stay hidden on the farm, I still think him, guilt-tripping her isn't exactly what a lot of people think it is though. They tend to see it from the spectator's point of view, but not as much from Tommy and Ellie's point of view. Ellie and Tommy were on the same level of perception of this tragedy, so when he came and started being all pushy towards her, I think she understood his actions and his anger despite of how she felt at that moment.

And yes, she didn't want to go at first, but I think it was because of Dina and JJ. If she didn't have them, she wouldn't have thought twice about it. She just didn't want to hurt Dina with the decision because she was well aware that she almost died because of her.

I also think that Ellie was always emotionally intelligent enough to make her own decisions. Understanding Tommy's intentions of coming all the way with all those angry feelings was why she decided to go at the end. Not because he guilt-tripped her, but because he pushed the button inside her that she hid from Dina. It was always in her - wanting to finish what she started and all Tommy did was encourage it.

I'm not saying it was a good thing he did that, but I guess all I'm trying to say is that no matter what he said to Ellie, if she found out on her own where Abby is, she would've still chosen to go.

I think that both Tommy and Dina played a part in Ellie being so indecisive even though she knew well what she wanted. She loved Dina, and she wanted to make it up to her, so she promised she would let go. But at the same time, she had to suppress these feelings inside, and it was eating her alive. And Tommy, on the other hand, felt like she didn't care enough, not sticking to her promise to make Abby pay. It was a lot for Ellie. Pressure from both sides.

This game is so complex. And I love it.

[mythomagically-delicious]

Routine

Corsica gives her sister a ride to school every morning. Her much younger sister. The baby, Ant. The surprise. When they first learned that their mother was pregnant again, Ajax (visiting home) had kicked Prospero (about to graduate) under the table and asked if their mother was losing her edge in tactics, not seeing that coming. Prospero had choked on his protein shake and Ulysses had tried to smother his own laughter behind his hand, and Corsica had really just been staring open-mouthed at her parents as they made the announcement.

It’s a routine, something the Jones’ are good at. Wake up at 4:30 AM, begin the workout routine, shower, eat breakfast, do some light sparring—verbal or physical, depends on the day—go to work. Corsica still lives at the compound because it’s easiest while she works at the Academy. She did her time under the Council of Chosen, and now she teaches some next generations of adventurers. Fighters.

Breaking the routine is immediately noticeable followed by thorough investigation. Antiope usually found an alternate way home from her classes, knowing Corsica often had meetings or staff duties to attend to after school. Her baby sister was often more reserved in the evenings than the rest of her siblings had been. Well, she was a brat for sure, but she could get away with it in the evenings more. Sometimes Corsica got home from work and didn’t see Ant til the next morning.

Ant doesn’t come down one morning.

Ant doesn’t come down at 4:30. Or 4:45. Or 4:50. Corsica is biting her lip as she stretches, splitting her attention between the stairs and their father, who’s complaining about missing his workout buddy loudly, pointedly.

She volunteers to go drag Antiope out of bed. Might as well get this over with. Ant knows the routine by now, and knows she actually enjoys it some mornings, and doesn’t want her baby sister to get read the lecture from their mom about the importance of physical fitness again. Corsica knows it by heart. She could say it backwards, probably.

She punches up the stairs, making noise and overall being a horrible example of her style of fighting as she comes up to Ant’s room.

And finds it empty. Bed unmade but cold, unused. Her pajamas still thrown in the corner by the little rug in front of her desk. The mirror at the opposite end of the room reflects the same thing she’s seeing: empty, unoccupied space.

Corsica checks the other rooms, just to be sure. Ajax’s and Prospero’s and Ulysses’ old rooms, which are now mostly additional recreation/work space, or set up for their mother’s tactical puzzles.

Nothing. She heads back down, asks if Ant was spending the night elsewhere, if their parents had just forgotten.

Hector stops running on the treadmill and hops off, pulling a sweat towel from around his neck and dabbing at his face, reading the look in Corsica’s eyes. Athena purses her lips, thinking. She orders another quick, thorough search of the compound. They all return with nothing, no sign or notice of Antiope.

Corsica calls the police. The detective who meets her—a goblin woman—asks all sorts of questions. Corsica was the last of their family who was with her. Dropped her off at school, didn’t give her a ride home. Didn’t see her come home. At school—which school? Aguefort Adventuring Academy.

Corsica suddenly remembers the girl from her junior class. The half-orc, the girl who hasn’t returned to classes since she noticed her absence. It may mean nothing. But two fighter students, in the same year at Aguefort go missing? The detective voices the same thought that crosses Corsica’s mind. She promises to do everything she can to find Antiope. She leaves.

Corsica calls her brothers on the way to work that day, driving solo for the first time in three years. From whatever corner of Solace they’re in, they listen, they look. They try to gather any scrap of information that may be related to where Ant went and who is responsible.

For seventeen months they are unsuccessful.

In the sixteenth month Corsica is pulled into one of the “cameras” on the property of the school. It’s a palimpsest in disguise. She is captured and held and unable to leave. She is captured along with every other teacher in the school, it seems. All of the competent staff, anyway. The former adventurers, the ones who could do something if a threat arose.

When she’s released from the palimpsest she sprints to the noise, the flashing lights and thunderous roars coming from the gymnasium. She sees her baby sister Antiope, at least six inches taller than she remembered last, her clothes all stretched and too short for her limbs. She’s firing arrows and her aim is wonky and the bow seems too short for her reach, but her sister is alive and she pulls her crystal from her pocket and group calls her family to get to Aguefort right now and the Jones’ all find a way to Aguefort in the next hour. But Corsica hugs Antiope first, and apologizes, for her and for the rest of the family.

Antiope hugs her back but doesn’t talk much. The next morning she comes down earlier than routine and finds Corsica in her room, still getting ready, and asks to be dropped off at the mall later to get new clothes.

In the light of day she can really see all seventeen months stolen from her baby sister. How angled and unsure of her new height Antiope looks. How her spatial awareness is the most off it’s been since Ant was a kid. Since around the first time she got a growth spurt.

That morning she lends Antiope some of her own gear. It’s not a perfect fit, but it will work until they get something better.

Their parents offer to give her the option of summer school to make up on the training Antiope lost to being out of time, and she refuses. She sticks to the routine. Corsica starts offering rides home after school as well. Ant refuses, but her eyes are hiding something as she says no.

In the seventeen months Antiope was gone, their parent’s didn’t touch her room except to tidy it in anticipation of her return. To come back to something orderly would be a relief, surely. To come back to routine.

But Corsica did notice her parents act a little…different, in the time that Antiope was gone. A more noticeable version of empty-nest behavior than she’d seen from them before. Not that they didn’t care or weren’t looking, but they had no kids to currently raise. Their habits shifted accordingly.

And when Ant came back, they didn’t revert back to the old routine. They kept going as is and Ant had to adapt to the new way. Corsica saw something growing in her little sister, the baby, the brat, Ant, that she had only occasional glimpses of before.

When Ant’s temper flares and she gets into staring matches with their mother over breakfast, when she says things that are wild and disrespectful and unimaginable, she’s sweating just imagining saying that to their mother, she sees that her baby sister isn’t the same girl they lost a couple years ago. She is, age wise, nineteen and going into her senior year. She will be twenty by the end of it. She is a teenager who lost seventeen months of life in suspended animation, body growing without her mind present. She is someone completely new and relentlessly familiar wrapped into one.

Corsica gives her a ride to school. She gives her advice. But she doesn’t break routine.

Antiope does.

[stiltonbasket]

can we have some nielan for the art thief au? author's choice :D

(this is more lxc-focused but there's still a dash of sweet nielan! (≧◡≦) ♡ click here for AO3 link)

__

Twenty years ago.

The last time we celebrated Muqin’s birthday with her, it was twenty years ago.

Upon later reflection, perhaps the realization ought not to have affected Lan Xichen as it did. But twenty years is long enough to be called a long time by any measure of reckoning; and Lan Xichen is thirty now, an orphan for fully twice the span that he had either of his parents, and sometimes it feels as if he no longer remembers how it was to call for A-Niang, and Fuqin instead of Shufu, or not have to explain to new acquaintances that his parents have been dead for nearly two decades.

What did he and Wangji do on Mother’s last birthday? Lan Xichen remembers their father making a cake—a flourless one, because Mother wanted to try a new recipe she found at the library—and Wangji lay down on his stomach in the living room and labored over a card for her all morning, squeaking in dismay when Mother pretended to peer over his shoulders to see what he was doing, and then he wrapped it up in silky tissue paper and presented it to her with such delight on his solemn little face that Muqin refused to let go of him for the next twenty minutes.

Xichen was in the kitchen helping their father with the cake, he thinks. Fuqin handed him three little bottles of food coloring and told him to color the frosting, which Lan Xichen did with breathless care to ensure that the frosting turned out their mother’s favorite shade of buttery yellow.

None of them knew then that it was the last birthday they would celebrate together as a family. Mother died only two months later, quietly in her bed at Fuqin’s side, and a heart attack carried their father off six months after that.

Mother’s birthday has always been something of a private holiday within the family. When she was alive their father organized quiet celebrations for her, and Lan Xichen always spent time with Wangji that day after she passed on. But today his brother has been caught up with grading at the university where he works, so Lan Xichen is celebrating the bittersweet anniversary alone.

“You would have been fifty-six today, Mother,” he says, as he burns incense at the family memorial altar and puts a pair of red-bean buns on a platter in front of her photograph: one for her and one for Father, who loved mother’s sweet baozi so much that Shufu used to tease him about it at family dinners. “Shufu and Wangji are doing well, and so am I. And Jingyi is big enough to fit into that sweater A-Jue made from the yarn you were saving—do you remember when you took me and A-Zhan to help you pick it out?”

His mother’s smiling face looks down at him from her wedding picture, as silent and tender as she always is. Muqin is resplendent in the old qipao dress she wore that day, the only luxury she really had for her hasty wedding; Lan Xichen can almost feel its smooth embroidered flowers and pankou under his fingertips, since she often took the dress out to look at it and show it to her two sons. It was eventually put away in storage along with the rest of her belongings, but Lan Xichen found the qipao while he was preparing for his own wedding some fifteen years later, and he brought it to the house he moved into with his husband just after their son was born.

Prodded by some strange urgency, Lan Xichen makes his way to the bedroom and rifles through his closet, pulling out the long silk sleeve where the qipao dress has lain undisturbed for the past eighteen months. The dress, when he removes it from the sleeve, is mostly unchanged: only creased at the spots where it was folded, and a little dusty-smelling from being in the closet.

He shakes it out, breathing in the familiar scent of his mother’s perfume clinging to the collar, and then he walks over to the full-length mirror by the bed and holds the qipao up in front of him.

For a moment, it almost looks as if—

Lan Xichen stares at his reflection, bewildered.

“Oh,” he gasps, holding one of the bedposts in a vice grip. “Oh.”

_____

When Lan Xichen was in his teens, Shufu hired a family friend to teach him how to do makeup: mainly how to make his face more angular, and deepen the shadows around his nose and eyebrows, and render his eyes just a little narrower than they truly were with highlighting powder. But it was an art like any other, so Liang-popo showed him how to do different kinds of makeup, too: how to make his cheeks look rounder, and his chin smaller, and call more attention to his lips and eyes than natural light did on its own. Lan Xichen never expected to use that half of what Liang-popo taught him, but he still remembers the basics: and his own face, still smooth and unlined by the sun thanks to the skincare regimens Nie Huaisang keeps coaxing him into, accepts the blush-toned powders and creams like paper soaking up ink.

Moisturizer, primer. Foundation, and concealing cream under his eyes. He took off his glasses and replaced them with contacts earlier, and tied back his long hair while he smoothed on a pale red lip tint; and now, with most of his makeup finished, he paints a small, dark mole high on his forehead—one that his mother had, but neither he nor Wangji inherited—and mists his face with setting spray.

He yanks his hair elastic out with shaking fingers, groping in the vanity drawer for bobby pins before putting his hair up into a loose chignon, and then he finally lifts his eyes and looks into the mirror again.

If he were not sitting, Lan Xichen thinks dizzily, he would have fainted dead away.

With shaking fingers, he removes his pants and shirt (one of A-Jue’s thicker pajama tops, since the weather was chilly last night) and divests himself of his binder, tossing it onto the bed with the rest of his clothes before he unbuttons the qipao and pulls it on. The dress fits like a second skin despite being several inches too short, but the side slits are so high that it hardly matters, and the collar encloses Lan Xichen’s pale throat exactly like it did his mother’s in her wedding photograph: just lax enough that he can’t really feel it, but smooth enough not to bother him either way.

Lan Xichen pads back towards the mirror, his bare feet dragging over the carpet as he goes, and then he looks up and meets his mother’s eyes for the first time in twenty years.

The resemblance, so far as it goes, is astounding. Mother was shorter, but she seemed quite tall to the ten-year-old son she left behind; and she had the same eyes and brows and nose and even the same cheekbones, with slightly fuller lips which were never thinned by parenthood as Lan Xichen’s lips have been. But then again, Wen Mingyan was a schoolteacher and not a harried lawyer who doubled as a museum thief by night, and her children were not so accomplished at getting into trouble as Lan Xichen’s own tiny son is.

At the thought of his baby, Lan Xichen hurries into the next room where A-Yi is fast asleep in his crib, with his thumb in his mouth and his pudgy little legs sticking straight up in the air. He rolls into Lan Xichen’s arms without waking, like a ball rolling into a comfortable hollow in the ground, and nestles happily under his chin on the short trip back to the bedroom.

Lan Xichen pulls a chair up in front of the mirror and sits down with Jingyi yawning in his lap, gazing at what could have been a window opening onto the past: his mother, young and strong and still with the bridal blush on her cheeks, cradling a fluffy-haired toddler that could have been the Lan Xichen of twenty-eight years ago.

He presses his lips to A-Yi’s chubby nose; and in the mirror his mother, seemingly overwhelmed by some kind of great feeling, kisses him.

Lan Xichen’s lips quiver. “Muqin—”

Suddenly, a door bangs on the ground floor, and Lan Xichen jolts back to full awareness just in time to hear his husband and brother talking in the kitchen. Mingjue seems to have returned with armfuls of grocery bags, which crinkle so loudly that A-Yi blinks awake and starts to fuss, tugging at a lock of hair that slipped out of Xichen’s loose updo.

“A-Huan?” Mingjue calls, followed by the swift thuds of his feet and Wangji’s coming up the stairs. “A-Huan, is A-Yi…”

And then both of them screech to a halt on the landing, gawking through the open door at Lan Xichen’s soft hair and make-up and the red bridal qipao. For a moment, Lan Xichen wonders what the picture looks like—he hasn’t worn a dress since before Wangji was born, and he’s certainly never worn make-up like this, so for all he knows it might look like some strange woman broke into the house to kidnap baby A-Yi.

But then Mingjue lets out a quiet breath and comes over to kiss him, brushing aside the tangled curls A-Yi pulled down, and wraps him up in a tight hug that smells of soap and sawdust from Mingjue’s woodworking studio.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he breathes, pressing his cheek to Lan Xichen’s. “I stopped to pick up dinner and fetch Wangji from the university after I left work.”

“It’s fine,” Lan Xichen murmurs back, as Jingyi stares at the large buttons on Mingjue’s sleeve before testing his tiny white teeth on them. “I got some egg porridge ready, earlier. Do you want to eat a little before we get dinner started?”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth, probably to declare that hot vegetable congee with pidan would be delicious after being outside in the cold; but he never manages to say so, because Wangji makes a choked noise from the hallway before taking a shaky step forward.

“Xiongzhang,” he says hoarsely. “You look, you look just like—”

Mingjue takes A-Yi into his arms, and Lan Xichen reaches out towards his brother. When Wangji staggers into his embrace, all Lan Xichen can think of is that their mother never had the chance to see A-Zhan grow up so well, or know what a name he would make for himself, or even how his face would grow into a perfect meld of hers and Fuqin’s after his baby fat melted away.

She would have had to wait many years to know that last, Lan Xichen smiles to himself. A-Zhan’s cheeks were as round as A-Yi’s until after he started college.

“Ge.”

Lan Xichen pats Wangji’s shoulder. “Mm, A-Zhan?”

Wangji hugs him impossibly tighter.

“Thank you.”

[sweetteaanddragons]

Here am I again bc apparently the Silmarillion™️ now lives in my head rent free and I like ur interpretation of the characters (some of ur fics also live in my head rent free) ... Do u think things would improve or go more horribly wrong if Feanor was the youngest Finwean? Like if Miriel was the second wife? Idk if everything is less or more of a disaster bc in one hand I think Fingolfin is a tiny bit more well adjusted than Feanor at least when his mother is the one living (Unless he like Feanor would feel a lil bit threatened by his lil brother genius? Is he being replaced here?) and there’s also the fact that I hope that Feanor would be a little less of a disaster If his mother lived (Unless he convinced himself that he has to be better than everyone if he wants her to stay or something like that) but on the other hand that family is a powder keg waiting to explode no matter what u change

Ps: Is Feanor still Finwe favorite child or does this change bc he’s not the only living reminder of the wife he loved and lost? Bc if he’s still the favorite I don’t think that would help with the feelings of “is dad replacing us?” That could possibly arise in his other children.

If Feanor is still the favorite I suppose there’s a little more protectiveness now that he’s the youngest...

Ps 2: Does Feanor being younger affect the age of his children by much 🤔

Thank you! This one took some thought.

Okay, so the initial change is easy enough. Finwe marries Indis, Indis dies in childbirth . . .

And that brings up the first question.

Which child?

Fingolfin? It’s certainly a possibility, but then we have to consider what’s going to happen without Finrod and Galadriel. (And his other sons, but they’re less impactful.)

Findis or Lalwen? Do they even exist in this AU?

Or Finarfin?

If it’s the last, then we also have to consider what the age gap between all these kids is in this AU and how their feelings about little baby Arafinwe are complicated by this.

We also have to consider how the political situation gets even trickier. 

Because Indis wasn’t just the Queen of the Noldor.

She was also a princess of the Vanyar.

Which means that while the Vanyar may not get a direct say in what goes down with a potential remarriage, they are definitely going to have an Opinion on it.

I feel like there is probably at least one frosty offer to foster the children that Finwe immediately turns down.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that Findis is on the cusp of adulthood. She is politely present at the marriage ceremony and stays a very precise, very respectable length of time afterward before going to visit her relatives indefinitely.

Nolofinwe, as the crown prince, stays. He has a lot of feelings about the collapse of his once happy feeling, but he’s well into his adolescence and used to hiding things at court. He mostly reacts by emotionally shutting down and very politely refusing to talk to his father about it. He daydreams about storming the gates of Mandos and demanding his mother back.

Lalwen is just on the verge of adolescence and would prefer to spend as much time in the trees in the gardens as possible. She is torn between wanting to play with her baby brother and wanting to avoid him.

Arafinwe is old enough that he is aware that Miriel is not his mother but young enough that most of what’s going on is flying over his head. He warms up to Miriel almost immediately and then spends a few weeks avoiding her out of a vague idea that if he’s around her too much, she’ll die.

That eventually gets more or less cleared up.

So then Miriel has Feanaro! And Miriel - what?

Is fine?

Dies? (Finwe is pretty sure he’s cursed. Arafinwe figures baby Feanaro is like him and they should stick together. The gossips are going wild.)

Survives but is unwell?

Let’s go with that one.

So the thing is, Feanaro is not Feanaro if he does not have something to throw himself against. In canon, it’s his determination to not be replaced in his father’s affections. Here, it’s his determination that he be considered worth it. Worth all the gossip about marred marriages and what comes of them; worth all the trouble with the Vanyar; worth the fractures between his half-siblings and his father; worth his mother’s illness and pain.

What he has going for him, though, is that his mother is still alive and supporting him. He still loves language and still has Opinions on the language shift, but he’s not as ride-or-die about it as in canon; his mother is still alive, queen, and perfectly capable of insisting on whatever pronunciation of her name that she likes, even weakened.

The thing about his relationship with his siblings is that in this AU, they get to set the tone. They’re the ones establishing that tone when he’s still too young to have an opinion on it.

He has almost no relationship with Findis. She sends very polite notes and very respectable gifts on all appropriate occasions; his mother reciprocates on his behalf until he’s old enough to do it, at which point the gifts get a little half-hearted or pointed, depending on the year.

Nolofinwe is . . . fine, but distant. Feanaro doesn’t understand him at all and doesn’t really care to try.

Nolofinwe is also established as the crown prince, and it doesn’t occur to Feanaro to try to take it from him. Politics are boring, court is infuriating, and his projects are much more interesting. Sure, Feanaro is convinced he’s the smartest person in the room, and he wants to be listened to, but in his father’s court, he mostly is already. He’ll poke at Nolo, sometimes, but he has no interest in trying to usurp him. Of course, if something ever does happen to Atar and Nolo does become king, then the distance between “not willing to fight you for the throne” and “actually willing to treat you as an authority figure I should obey” is going to become apparent very quickly. 

As long as Nolo doesn’t tell him to do anything he wasn’t going to do anyway, they’ll be just fine.

Lalwen is fun, but, due to the age gap, is more of an impromptu babysitter than a playmate. As they get older, they’re genuinely affectionate, but it’s complicated by the family mess and made more so by the political one; Lalwen always takes Nolo’s side, and Feanaro has no patience for it.

Arafinwe . . . Arafinwe is a different story.

Arafinwe is a lonely little kid who latches onto his new little half-brother and takes him everywhere and shows him everything in the early days when everyone is still really unsure whether or not Miriel is actually going to die. This closeness remains even after those concerns mostly pass.

What happens from there is . . . I have no idea. Probably not worse of a disaster, but maybe not notably better either.

[tigerseye46]

D..... if were working with 'Pigsy was Baije' then does Wukong know? Were Wukong and Baije a thing too or is that exclusively an 'in the now' thing?

I mean either way that will be FUN to find out

TW: Death, Blood and Injury

Also Season 2 spoilers

Okay so I’ve thought about this a lot-

Thank you for giving me a chance to ramble, anon. This is going to be long

So, I would like to believe Wukong finds out eventually, either through Sandy (who I’d like to think is Sha Wujing), his golden eyes or a build up of hints. Since they’re stuck together on a ship, I think he has more time to figure it out because maybe he’s never really paid attention to MK’s friends until they had to be forced together. Or he did know before that and is just hiding it extremely well.

So for the ‘were Bajie and Wukong a thing’ I believe that even if they weren’t a thing, they at least had feelings each other that they never acted on because I am also a massive Zhuhou shipper.

Either way, it’s Wukong mourning for his lost love. We get a tragedy from two sides if Bajie died (from “To Catch a Leaf, it’s very implied something happened to him), although there are as just as much angles if we got with an alternate universe where Pigsy is just Bajie in disguise which I will elaborate on further.

If Bajie and Wukong were a thing, either married or still in the dating phase, and Bajie died, Wukong knows he has just lost the person he loved the most. Bajie’s death takes place possibly years after Wukong has already sealed DBK and has given up fighting. At this point, demons are still causing havoc and Bajie, who’s maybe matured a little bit, has decided to step up and be the hero for both of them.

Bajie, as shown in the first chapter he appears in, can fight Wukong on equal grounds but usually he does get lost in his cowardice and desire (since desire is what he’s supposed to represent) although when they do need him, he’s there.

Wukong isn’t worried about him fighting because he is strong. One day, there is word about an extremely powerful demon that people are having trouble with so they need Wujing, Bajie and some other warriors to help. Wukong feels something in his gut telling him to not let his husband go but he ignores it, the pig can handle himself. He gives his husband as much kisses as he possibly can with “Do your best, idiot. I love you.” Then he pats Wujing on the shoulder and watches them leave.

He chills on his mountain, suppressing the dread that lies in his stomach and eventually, he sees the top of Wujing’s hair and thinks “Oh, they’re back. I wonder how it went. I can’t wait to shower Bajie with kisses.” He sees Wujing’s face which is a mix of sadness, guilt, grief and anger all wrapped into one. The fish demon gets closer, holding Bajie’s body in his arms, bruises and blood present, the pig isn’t moving, isn’t breathing and Wukong feels sick to his stomach.

He rushes towards them, demanding to know what happened and Wujing explains that during the attack, Bajie blocked a blow meant for Wujing, the fish demon was on the ground when the demon was about to strike him, he was on his knees, breathing heavily and his reactions too slow to fight back. The pig gets knocked to the ground where the enemy demon hits him again and is about to give another blow when some soldiers attack him. It left Wujing enough time to go over to Bajie and try to help with his injuries but the bleeding was too much for him to stop, the pig leaves some parting words and passes away.

When he finishes, Wukong says the demon better be dead or he’ll go kill him himself, Wujing says he killed the demon and Wukong growls out a “good” and goes quiet.

He takes Bajie’s body in his arms, either remaining quiet with silent sobbing mixed in or screaming his lungs out and weeping more than he has ever before. He decides to bury his husband, aware that Bajie will be reincarnated one day, he has no idea when that will be. He leaves a small “Goodbye, my love…” as the pig is buried. And it hits him that he couldn’t protect one of the people that mattered the most to him and he decides to hole himself up on his mountain with the rest of his family occasionally checking up on him, he’s too lost in his grief to care rather they’re there or not while Wujing is in lost in his anger.

Eventually they stop visiting and Wukong believes they passed on just as Bajie did so he sets up a shrine for them.

Wukong holds on to whatever he has of them left, like the courtship bracelets. He makes sure to clean those regularly, holding back sobs as he does so, he gets defensive when anyone asks what they are, no one needs to know what those are except him.

Centuries pass and he finds Xiaotian, the perfect candidate to be successor, he watches the kid carefully, mostly focusing on him, barely taking note of the people around the kid.

So he trains him, hardly leaving his mountain, he doesn’t need to after all. Being around the kid brings him more joy than he’s felt in years but he still misses his family like crazy so he has the kid destroy the mural. It’s a painful reminder of what he has lost.

New Years comes around and we know how that whole thing goes, at the end, when Wukong is near MK’s friends, getting a closer look than he ever has before, maybe he realizes those are his family. He questions, did Tripitaka and Wujing reincarnate as well? An overwhelming feeling pops up in his chest at seeing them after so many years. When he gets a glimpse of Pigsy, he thinks “Oh my gods. That’s him. That’s my husband. He’s here, he’s alive… but he isn’t my husband, not anymore” and Wukong has got to get out of there before it becomes too much so he leaves.

And he suppresses all of it because he has bigger things to worry about.

Then at the last moment, when he finally has what he needs to defeat WBS, he flies just in time to see the kid lose to WBS and he pulls him out of there. Then he gets scolded by the man he once loved, still loves and he knows his husband the pig demon is right.

He tries to convince the others that they shouldn’t go, they’re mortal after all but they refuse and he has to bring them along. Now he and his family’s reincarnations are stuck in close quarters and he wants to get close to them again, he does but he doesn’t deserve it. He let the person he loved die and Pigsy doesn’t think that highly of him anyway so it’s better he just stay away as much as he can. Yet he’s still so hopelessly in love and he tries everyday to not wrap Pigsy in a hug and apologize, the same goes for the rest of his family.

Wujing, I mean Sandy, notices the king’s mood and asks what’s wrong where the king pushes him away, explaining how it’s none of his business. When Sandy tries to push further, Wukong shouts at him how the demon has probably never lost family and Sandy stays silent then explains how he lost a brother. And it hits Wukong, this is Wujing, actually Wujing, not some reincarnation and they hug and sob, maybe the others catch them and they don’t explain.

They’re all each other has and they cling to each other with the others questioning their new found closeness and Pigsy feels a twinge of jealousy but he has no idea why. Wukong tries to connect with Bajie while maintaining his distance because it still hurts way too much.

Now to explain, what happens if they weren’t an item. So, basically the same thing happens with Bajie’s death except they think something happened to Wukong since they couldn’t find him after he sealed DBK. Again demons are still popping up like crazy, taking advantage of the fact that the king is no longer around.

So Bajie steps up, gaining a more responsible attitude and despite, rumors spreading that the king dies, he ignores them as he believes Wukong will return one day. He gets extremely irritated when people say Wukong died or abandoned them. The same thing happens where he bleeds and dies, leaving Wujing, Bái Longma/Ao Lie and possibly Tripitaka, if he hasn’t reincarnated, to mourn (using this angle for a fic I’m working on).

Obviously Wukong thinks they’re dead and again, possibly at New Years, the king finds his family’s reincarnations and questions what happened, feeling a good amount of guilt for leaving them.

Then while they’re all stuck on the ship together or some other thing, Wujing reveals that he is still the same person and admits what happened to Bajie which just grows Wukong’s guilt and he has to stay away from everyone for a few days.

I would imagine he tries to respectfully maintain his distance from Pigsy while also trying to get closer, possibly sticking to him like a puppy. Again, does he really have the right to be near him? Because he left them and it could have been preventable if he just stayed.

The pig has no idea why the king sticks to him sometimes, he finds he doesn’t really mind it for some reason?? Also it’s easy for him to keep an eye on the king and makes sure he takes care of himself. And the king is kinda cute, he’ll admit. Wukong calls Pigsy little nicknames in his head a lot.

Wukong falls deeper in love with Pigsy, noting that no matter what life he takes on, he still loves him. Very much so and he doesn’t know how to tell him about who he once was.

In either sides, should he tell Pigsy this? Does he have a right to see Pigsy? Does he have the right to see any of them? It hurts to watch his family go on without him, but they’re happy, right? He shouldn’t interfere with their lives more than he already has. They don’t deserve that. On both, there is tragedy, longing and mourning and Wukong feeling guilty for so many reasons.

And we have the third take, the universe where Pigsy is Bajie in disguise.

Pigsy mourns Wukong like the king mourns him. Wukong is one of the few people that Pigsy has ever truly loved and vice versa. They miss each other like crazy, believing the other is dead and wishing they could talk to each other once again.

They wish they could have said something to each other, confess their feelings and maybe it would have changed something. Maybe the other would have stayed alive and well. While Pigsy’s working, sometimes it hits him that it’s better that he never said anything, after all, he isn’t Wukong, he’s not a hero, he doesn’t consider himself one. He was a slacker, a coward who did everything to cause problems and does Wukong really need someone like that in his life? Maybe that’s why he left. Pigsy ignores his good qualities from when he went by Zhu Bajie because he doesn’t think he has any good qualities.

The monkey would have rejected him, no doubt about that so it’s better he never admitted his feelings.

Time passes and he takes in Xiaotian, the kid can be good at his job, but annoyingly distracted. The kid is a big fan of the Journey to the west and a part of him feels joy as hearing someone so close to him enjoy the adventures but it’s also another reminder about all his stupid actions. Especially when Tang likes to point out his past mistakes to tease him for always getting them in trouble.

And one day, he sends MK on another delivery because he should really be working instead of listening to those stories. And what’s this, a bad review? Okay, Xiaotian needs to explain this! Where is he?

He’s about to scold him when Xiaotian reveals the staff and no, no, no, no, that can’t be Wukong’s. It just can’t be. Laugh, Pigsy, the kid must have just found a cheap imitation.

Then the kid accidentally breaks the table with it and oh my gods, it’s Wukong’s.

And Pigsy takes them to Sandy. MK believes that Wukong will be there and could the king be there? Yes, it is his home but they haven’t heard a word from him, the pig still believes Wukong is dead. There’s a small ray of hope that the king is alive.

Somehow, Tang and Sandy manage to convince Pigsy to go with the two. He grumbles about it and inside it hurts to go to the home of the man you once loved, still love, knowing that he won’t be there.

Then the fight with Princess Iron Fan happens and Pigsy believes he lost his kid as well.

And it turns out that Xiaotian is fine, thankfully. When Mei asks if MK managed to find Wukong and MK says yes, that cements it, he’s alive. And he never visited them. He tries to not clench his fists in anger and watches as the kid fights DBK.

His kid, the one he thought was dead, is now Wukong’s successor. The king let him believe that Xiaotian was dead, stupid monkey.

That night, he goes on and on to Sandy and Tang about how he hates Wukong, that’s a lie, and how the king should have told him he was okay. He manages to convince them that they shouldn’t see Wukong. If he wanted to visit them, he would have done so.

Life goes on with the pig hearing little things about what the king is doing from Xiaotian, his chest aches. He wants to punch the king in his handsome face and he is so tempted to charge up onto that mountain and do so but he holds off.

And he kinda wonders why the king left. And a thought crosses his mind, maybe it was because of him. Maybe the king didn’t want to be around him any longer and decided to leave. He knows how bad he was in the past so the king probably had enough and decided to go.

Maybe Xiaotian decides to finally introduce Wukong to his favorite people, he’s heard some thing and the kid convinces him to do so. And he meets them and they remind him of his family because they are his family including the person he loved, loves most in the world. Either Wukong knows they’re the originals or believes they’re reincarnations and how they’re so close yet so far.

Wukong yearns for that closeness once again especially with Bajie, the pig who has captured his heart even with their differences and he tries to impress Pigsy a little. Pigsy tries to keep the monkey at arms length, he is not having his heart broken again, that monkey is not getting close to his family.

And yes, I made this insanely long. Thanks to whoever reads this.

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 310 Spoiler Thoughts: “The First and Second Holders”

Some fan translations are out and it’s time to flex some thoughts out again!  I couldn’t do them last night because I didn’t have all the scan images with me and I didn’t want to jump the gun with only text descriptions.  Anyway, this was mainly an exposition chapter that properly introduces us to the second and third OFA Holders, especially the 2nd and what his relationship to the 1st is.  This might not be as long as others “Spoiler Thoughts” I’ve written, but let’s see:

First off, we have a colored cover page by Horikoshi-sensei himself!  It’s a solo page featuring Vigilante Deku and he looks badass!  Deku looks ready to kick ass and take names.  And, his Mid-Gauntlet is colored red like a lot of us thought and it adds to the theory that Melissa Shield did create it like she did with Deku’s Full-Gauntlet back in Two Heroes.

The chapter starts in a dark and rainy night.  A large woman (she’s like maybe 10ft tall; she’s taller than All Might who I think is 7ft) with a mutant-type quirk who’s getting attacked by some civilians because they think she’s a villain.  Deku jumps in to stop the attacks and the woman explains that she was just trying to go to one of the evacuation centers at a hero school.  Deku is kind enough to give her her umbrella back and reassure her that things will be ok.  

I gotta say that this whole situation is scarily close to real life right now.  I don’t like getting too political, but we live in a scary world where discrimination is, unfortunately, alive and well...  If you are a POC, you can be attacked from anywhere with the only reason being that “you’re a danger because of the skin you were born with”. It’s horrific, it’s disgusting, and it’s been around for a long time.  Even in the BNHA universe, there used to be cults solely dedicated to discriminating against mutant-type people (we learned this back in the My Villain Academia Arc).  So, like in the real world, this problem has risen again.  Thankfully, there are people like Deku and All Might who are more than willing to help someone in need regardless of who they are.  BNHA hits too close to home sometimes.  

Anyway, going back to the BNHA story.  Before All Might leaves to help the woman in his Batmobile, he hands Deku some Pork Katsu in a cute bento box wrapped in a bunny cloth!  Deku is visibly happy and thanks All Might for the meal.  This is so cute!  I’m so glad to see that All Might is making sure that Deku is being properly taken care of.  Boy needs to eat if he’s going to save the world.  I’m also glad that Deku can still show signs of happiness despite, well, everything.  I swear, if All Might doesn’t legally adopt Deku as his son by the time this series is over, I’m going to jump into this manga and force him to sign those documents myself. 

The next panel shows Deku standing on what looks like Tokyo’s famous Sky Tree (or Sky Egg if we’re going off what Vigilantes showed us).  He’s back to talking to the OFA Holders like they’re angels on his shoulders.  Banjo talks about how it’s like the world’s reverted back in time when things were worse and Deku responds that if he doesn’t use all of OFA’s power, he’ll never be able to defeat Shigaraki and AFO.  I know we’re in the final act, so Deku’s gotta get to 100% fast if he wants to win this war.  Last we checked, he was at 45%, but he might be at a higher percentage now since he’s unlocked En’s Smokescreen.  Also, Deku’s looking more and more like Batman each chapter and I gotta say that it really suits him.

Back to the Vestige Dream back when Deku was still in a coma after the war.  The 1st Holder begs the 2nd and 3rd to corporate with him so that they can provide their power to Deku.  The 1st calls the 2nd and 3rd “My Heroes” which causes some awkward silence lol.  Neither one is responding, so Banjo breaks the silence by suggesting that Deku learn everyone’s Quirks so that he’ll get used to them once he starts using them.  We learn why the 2nd and 3rd are the 1st’s heroes soon, but it’s actually a good idea for Deku to learn about all these different Quirks while he’s sleeping so that he’ll get a good idea on how to execute them when he wakes up.  It’s kind of a way of training for Deku just without actually using the Quirks themselves.  

The 3rd Holder (the one with the spiky ponytail and headband) starts to talk.  He says that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd came from the “Harshest era of history”.  It was a time where AFO ruled all and peaked in power and control.  He was going to take over the whole world if the first 3 Holders didn’t step in to stop him.  My guess is that after AFO was defeated for the first time, society started to calm down and become more or less the world we knew before the War Arc.  So, things weren’t as bad during the 4th Holder’s era and so forth.  This would explain why Shinomori was able to hide in the forest for so long without being detected.  

And now the big part of the chapter: the 2nd Holder.  Who does in fact look A LOT like Bakugo.  Big difference is that he has a massive scar across his face.  I am aware of the whole “time travel” theory that people have going on with Bakugo and this dude, but I’m not on that train.  Instead, I think that the 2nd Holder is one of Bakugo’s ancestors.  Like, a really, really-great-grandfather.  Horikoshi doesn’t just design his characters for no reason.  The fact that the 2nd user looks so much like Bakugo, has a costume similar to Bakugo’s, and that future panels in this chapter straight up parallel that iconic scene with young Bakugo and Deku in the river only add fuel to this fire.  Unless Horikoshi says otherwise, this is the theory I’m sticking to: this “Ancestor” theory.

And we know of the 1st user’s real name now too, which is Yoichi!  If Horikoshi is keeping up with the “numbers in names” theme, then I’m positive that Yochi has the kanji for “One” somewhere in it.  And, if we’re going to believe AFO at all, then that means that the 1st user’s full name is Yoichi Shigaraki.  We don’t know AFO’s full name yet.  But, again, AFO could be lying with his last name, so I’m taking this one with a grain of salt.

Back to the 2nd Holder, he tells Yoichi that a lot of lives were sacrificed in order to stop AFO back then.  He believes that there is only victory or defeat in battle; that there’s no hope of saving their archenemy.  He has doubt about putting his faith in Deku because of this.  Given how the 3rd Holder still has his back turned too, I’m lead to believe that he also thinks Deku is crazy for wanting to save Shigaraki.  I don’t exactly blame them.  Really, none of us know if Deku will be successful in saving Shigaraki.  He might have to kill him in the end.  I think they should offer Deku help, but I don’t blame them for being at least a little skeptical.  

But, Yoichi reminds the 2nd and 3rd users that they saved Yoichi back when AFO locked him up to die.  They found Yoichi with the intention to kill him it seems, but the 2nd Holder showed sympathy for Yoichi and lent him a helping hand despite Yoichi being AFO’s little brother.  This is the parallel panel I was talking about.  Yoichi is kneeling down on the floor and the 2nd user is standing up extending his hand to help Yoichi.  I don’t even need to look back in the manga to know what inspired this.  Hell, I don’t even need to tell you!  We all know what Horikoshi was doing when he drew and wrote this.

Yoichi convinces him that he should believe in Deku as Yoichi does think Deku will save the day.  If the 2nd user didn’t extend his hand to help Yoichi, OFA wouldn’t have begun.  I think that the trust between these two is ultimately the reason why the 2nd user finally agreed to help Deku; the same with the 3rd user too.  And, kind of a tangent, but I really like how Horikoshi draws Yoichi and the 2nd user’s hands as they’re reaching for each other.  Horikoshi has always been really good with drawing hands like they’re facial expressions (something my ass could never do 😭) and this one shows kindness and empathy.  It’s almost like what would’ve happened if Bakugo accepted Deku’s hand for help when they were young instead of letting his pride and ego get in the way.  Oh, the parallels! 

Finally, the 2nd user speaks in present day telling Deku that they’re going full speed ahead now.  My guess is that Deku’s going to have to improve on OFA and the rest of his Quirks quickly in order to find and beat the LoV.  We are in the Final Act after all.  The chapter ends at a good place if we want to switch to the UA kids, which is honestly what I’m hoping for.  Again, I love Deku and his Vigilante adventures, but I miss the rest of the kids.  The new BNHA Exhibition in Japan apparently has a giant drawing of the main class, All Might, Aizawa, and Shinso in his new hero costume!  Which tells me that 1. Shinso probably took Deku’s place in the class for the time being, and 2. We’re definitely going to see the other kids again.  I’m hoping soon.  But, I wouldn’t be surprised if Horikoshi decided to continue focusing on Deku’s Vigilanteism and have him practice with he 2nd and 3rd Holder’s Quirks now that they’re working with him.  We’ll just have to see.

So, that’s it!  Solid chapter overall.  I’m glad we finally got to see the 3rd and 2nd Holder’s faces.  I think the “Kirishima is the 3rd Holder” theroy has been debunked at this point, but I’m still on the “2nd Holder is Bakugo’s ancestor” train.  The similarities and parallels are too strong for me to deny it.  Horikoshi-sensei, please confirm or deny soon 🙏.  We are getting break next week for Golden Week BTW!  All of Shonen Jump is actually, so no One Piece or JJK either (I’m not sure about Jump+, so we might still be getting some Spy X Family for example).  So, basically all our favorite mangakas are getting a well-deserved break as they should!  I hope they enjoy their vacation!  Waiting’s going to suck tho, I’m ngl about that...  Oh well, I’m willing to take the sacrifice if it means having healthy mangka.  Thankfully, we still have the anime and the new exhibition to tide us over until then.

Edit: OR NOT SINCE THE EXHIBITION IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED BECAUSE OF A CERTAIN PANDEMIC GOING NUTS IN JAPAN AFTER ONLY BEING OPEN FOR 2 DAYS 😭 

Edit: I went back to re-read the chapter and I completely missed the date for the next chapter (chapter 311) which is set to release on May 9th!  So, we’re actually getting a 2 week break instead.  Damn...  Sucks for us, but it’s good for mangaka to get breaks when they can especially considering their absolutely insane schedule.

Me reading this chapter:

[squishneedsahero]

Oh Yeah, I Remember Now

It’s Who I Am Part 4

Word Count: 2555

Warning: I didn’t go into much detail but there is mentions of abuse and other things which the reader went through during their time with HYDRA

How would The Falcon and The Winter Soldier have played out if you, the younger daughter of Howard Stark got involved? You had been kidnapped by HYDRA at a young age, your mind taken from you as they forced you to work towards creating new weapons for them and when HYDRA had fallen you had gotten free with your scattered memories for you to slowly piece together.

You'd had a relatively good childhood, sure your father was a dirtbag to both you and Tony but your mom was good. She tried to protect the both of you, Tony had done his best to protect you as well. But you'd always lived in their shadow. It was always, "oh you're Howard's daughter? I didn't know he had a daughter," or "aww what a cutie, you must help your mom take such god care of your father and brother." All of this made you sick. None of it was Tony's fault it was all misogyny and your father's sexism.

The next thing you remember is a science fair. It's third grade and you've made a tiny drone, which you can fly around and take pictures with. You were so excited to show everyone, to show your dad that you could be an engineer as well, but only your mother and Tony came. They tried to encourage you but you didn't say anything, it isn't until you get home and you're lying in bed that you cry. You're good at keeping your crying quiet, quiet enough that no one would know you had spent the night crying and when you got up in the morning the tears were gone.

Then you're at boarding school, somewhere they could teach you to be a proper 13 year old girl. One night sticks out above the rest, the dorms caught fire everyone was getting out. You tripped as you tried to get out of bed and then when you tried to get up a cold metal hand covered your mouth and someone picked you up, throwing you over their shoulder, you feel something prick your arm as you begin to kick and scream, and then things go dark.

You're in a small cell with grey walls and grey floors. You're 15 as you're sitting there, refusing to cooperate with HYDRA's current plan, the door slams open and in walks one of the nameless agents. They show you a newspaper, the headline announcing that your parents had died in a car crash, they then show you other photos, and tell you how they had had them killed by the Winter Soldier. From there they go into great detail on the fact that if you didn't begin cooperating they would bring your brother to be the next one they make you torture.

From there things get especially messy in your mind. Some days remembering your past and other days not. Some days you're the one doing the torturing and other days the one being tortured. HYDRA had forced you to commit many atrocities in their name, so many you couldn't begin to count. There were the times where you were the one who was in charge of resetting Bucky's mind, wiping it and preparing him for a mission. There were other times when you were difficult and they had the winter soldier beat you into submission.

There was one day, one day during which nearly all of HYDRA's agents disappeared and never came back. You were locked in your tiny cell, you don't know how long you were there on your own, hunger clawing at your stomach and dehydration quickly becoming an issue. You don't remember how but you got out and escaped.

It's who knows how many months later that you become aware of anything again. You're lying in some alleyway somewhere and have none of your memories. You find your way to a library, feeling safe there, from there you begin to figure out how exactly the world works and how you can survive.

It's another few years after that, having short term memory loss and being slow to pick up on anything. It is at this point where you've some how ended up in NYC and as you're walking down the street that you bump into Tony. You don't recognize him but he recognizes you. It happens quickly, he gets a DNA test to be sure but soon you're living with him and have some of your life together but still no memories. It's during this time that you meet a few other people, but thanks to Tony they keep the fact that you're still alive quiet, not wanting to overwhelm you with his life when you barely have yours together.

After that you're sitting in the Avenger's compound with Rhodey when something happens and people you haven't meet before show up. First it's just one guy named Bruce, then a group of people Steve, Natasha, Wanda, Vision and Sam. That was the first time you had met Sam, though you hadn't spoken to him. From there you all go to Wakanda, try to save Vision, apparently cross paths with Bucky, fail to save Vision, fight some aliens in one of Tony's suits, punch a giant purple dude in the face a few times then ultimately get turned to dust with a few billion other people on the planet.

Then you find yourself lying on the ground in the jungle of Wakanda with half of the people you'd been fighting Thanos with. Some sort of portals open up in front of all of you and you fight even more aliens. You pass by Tony at some point and give him a quick hug in the middle of all of it, despite not having memories you still knew you cared deeply for him and was one of the few people you felt safe when you were with. Then as soon as your world had come together, it falls apart again, Tony had sacrificed himself to save the rest of you.It is when you're at his funeral that things begin to set in for you, your brother is gone, you're once again alone in the world... except you weren't. Tony had a wife and a daughter, Pepper and Morgan, it didn't take much for them to take you in and act as though you had always been part of their family.

It's in the six months following that when you create your own suit, and somewhat get yourself together. At least you have it together enough that your memory of that time is pretty solid even if your mind felt scattered. It is after those six months of relative peace and calm that brings you to the present. Where you had met up with Sam and Bucky on accident and teamed up with them to figure out this problem.

There is a knock on the door you have your back too, and it shakes out of the state you are in. "Hey, y/n," it's Sam, "are you alright in there?"

"Uh- yeah- yeah- I'm fine." You stand up and quickly wipe the tears which had formed in your eyes before opening the door. "Hey," you can see the concern in Sam's eyes, "I'm fine, just needed a minute," you pause before changing the subject, "so what's the plan?"

"Sharon is going to be hosting some people here and will ask around to see if anyone knows where we can find Naegele," Sam explains, "so we can join the party and just have to blend in with the crowd."

"Sounds good," you look down at your dress that has some blood splattered on it then look back at Sam, "you think she has a different dress I can wear?"

"Probably, we can go ask her."

You let Sam lead the way back to the other room, where you give Zemo a death glare before asking Sharon, "hey, you have a dress I could borrow? I don't think blood will blend well."

"Sure," she goes over to a closet and gets out a dress which she hands to you, "here, put this on, I'm going to get headed down to begin letting the guests in."

You nod and take the dress, going to change quickly before coming back out, where you're greeted by Sam and Bucky telling you Zemo had gone with Sharon. "Can I help you?" you ask with more than a hint of sarcasm in your voice.

Bucky doesn't hesitate, "what happened?"

You raise an eyebrow at him and pause for a moment before say, "shit. Shit happened, and I... remembered." You shake your head a bit, "before you ask, no I don't want to talk about it. It's a lot, it's fucked up and it's a lot but like, I can get drunk so I'm going to go do that downstairs right now then drunk cry it out so I'm good to go tomorrow."

You admitting that you remembered has Bucky feeling uncomfortable because you were right it was fucked up and he had been involved in it.

"Y/n, getting drunk it's going to help," Sam says.

You sigh and look at Sam, "I know that but I'm going to do it anyways because at the moment I don't want to deal with it. Plus I don't think I've ever gotten drunk before so it won't take much to do so I'll be good to go in the morning."

"It's still a bad idea," Sam says but isn't going to argue further since you're obviously set on this plan.

You go through with your plan, and you were right about it not taking much for you to get drunk, but its enough that you don't have to think about life for a few hours. Then in the morning you wake up hungover, but with enough time to mostly recover by the time it's time to go find Naegele. You get dressed in in your 'suit' of leggings and a shirt before heading out with the other four to find Naegele.

You go with them down to the docks, where they keep all the shipping containers. Sharon leads all of you right up to the one he is supposed to be in. You let the boys go in and you stay out with Sharon, mostly to make sure Naegele doesn't make a run for it but it ends up being pretty convenient for fighting some of the guys the power broker sent to stop all of you from getting to Naegele.

It is with ease that you take them down, discovering that the reason you hadn't been great at fighting before was because of HYDRA wiping your mind. They took the methods you picked up over time from your mind, making it nearly impossible to improve even if you instinctively knew what to do. There is a lull in the fighting, during which you and Sharon slip into the shipping container and go to the back and into the secret are to find the others.

The two of you barely make it into the room when a gunshot goes off, Zemo killing Naegele right there. You only have a chance to shout, "what the hell?!" Before the box around you explodes.

You tuck and roll, escaping the flames and second rocket fired at the shipping crates. You don't know if anyone else made it out but for now you just need to make sure all of you will survive past this point. Your suit had protected you well, and you were thankful since you'd learned the evening before that you weren't at all enhanced but just had an unusually high pain tolerance. It doesn't take you long to spot one of the people who were after you and you focus in on them, one thing you could control. You could control that they were kept busy fighting you and you could control where they were so the others could get out.

As you throw yourself at the man in front of you, you hear gunshots and you're thankful. That means the others made it out of that explosion. You don't want to kill anyone, you had come close when Zemo had activated whatever it was HYDRA had put in your head, but you'd done enough killing in your life. You just needed to incapacitate them, and you do. It's just a matter of hitting a few pressure points and he should stay down for a few hours at least.

From there you move onto the one other person you can see but you are beat to them by Sam. You jog up to him now that things had calmed down a little and see Sharon and Bucky, leaving Zemo as the only one unaccounted for. "Hey, did we get them all?"

"Seems like it," Sharon responds.

Sam looks at her, "come with us."

Sharon shakes her head, "just get me that pardon you promised."

Sam nods once then looks at Bucky, about to say something only to be interrupted by Zemo pulling up in a car. "Shall we?"

You get in the car without hesitating, taking the seat behind Zemo so you can keep an eye on him. Bucky claims the front seat and Sam gets in behind him, saying something about him not moving the seat up. Then you're off, leaving to get back on Zemo's plane and head to the location they had gotten from Naegele.

When all of you are on the plane there is a short conversation as you go over the plan. Then silence falls over all of you, not a nice silence but an awkward silence and you can feel their eyes on you. You finally decide to break the silence and look at Bucky, "hey, I should apologize for all the shit HYDRA made me do to you, so... sorry," you frown and shrug a bit in an attempt to play it off like no big deal as it's always awkward to experience emotions with other people around.

Bucky just shrugs a bit, "it's alright, not exactly your fault. Sorry for kidnapping you."

You don't know why but you laugh. Maybe because it's so ridiculous but you shut up as quickly as you can and shake your head, "it's alright, not exactly your fault either."

"Having less of a memory problem I see," Zemo cuts in on the slight moment the two of you are having.

Your head snaps around to look at him, "you're on thin ice, so tread lightly, or I'll make you wish you'd died in that explosion back there."

Zemo laughs, "ah, there is the Stark attitude that HYDRA had so much trouble controlling." He presses his fingertips together and relaxes in his seat before continuing, "HYDRA was only able to get Lemonade to stick in your mind. It was in case you needed to protect one of the agents from a monster you had created. They had to manually mess with your memory thanks to you being so stubborn, as they couldn't seem to break you."

You can't help but feel a little nauseous as he speaks but you know he's telling the truth. "Yeah, and you better not use it again though I'm pretty sure I broke it last night." Then you look at Sam, "in the case that I didn't break the programming I have weak knees if you hit them from behind and a peanut allergy, knock me out if needed I shouldn't die."

You don't get a response to that but you felt better knowing they could easily stop you if Zemo pulled anything. But that was it and with that you were able relax for the rest of the flight.

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

Lifeline - aka Ahsoka reaching out for Anakin post Malachor Oneshot

There was a sudden flicker.

So distant, so weak and wavering a gleam that she just might have thought it to be a fallacy, a trick of the mind. Her imagination willing it into existence. If that had been all, she might have ignored it. Might have denied it, might have told herself it was only an illusion. That it was only her weary state conjuring hope into her aimless life.

Until it sparked again.

Persistent, as it traced the periphery of her senses like the appearance of an unexpected, old friend. Not calling out to her in particular, but rather to anyone. To anything familiar, perhaps even unknowing of the fact that its was writhing in despair. Screaming for recognition, for comfort, for notice. Stumbling in the dark for a lifeline to cling to.

Ahsoka's chest felt inexplicably tight, as she allowed herself to taste the presence, so size it up. From afar, it seemed so much more like the man she'd once known. The man she remembered, the man she no longer recognized.

Anakin.

She hesitated, knowing that to invite him meant danger. Meant he may be able to locate or pinpoint her, however well she'd conceal her tracks. Opening up to the Force these days, with the Empire's shadow looming over the Galaxy, always came with horrible repercussions. Yet, even with that in mind, she couldn't deny him. She had promised him she’d stay.

Ever since Malachor, ever since she'd lost touch with the Rebellion, she'd found herself restless. Unable to stay in one place for too long, constantly glancing over her shoulder. On alert, highly strung. Barely able to sleep, for fear of Inquisitors finding her in the night. At the same time, she had expected to die that day. Had been set on staying beside him til the bitter end, even if it may be by his hand.

His hands were drenched in figurative blood. His conscience black and charred with sin, bearing the weight of countless innocent lives snuffed out. All for what?

She couldn't understand how the gentle, sensible, nurturing man she'd once known could have fallen so far from grace. But, as the tainted yet distinct Force signature she'd once felt such a kinship with reached out blindly for aid; she responded. What else was there to live for, if not him? He was the last link to her past; their shared past. As if reaching out her hand, she grasped at his unseen, extended conscience. When a cold, sodden weight settled at the pit of her belly she was convinced she had made contact.

"Anakin."

She breathed the name, trepidation colouring her tone as the words carried over the established bond. She felt the tremor as the connection wavered, as if the man himself was now hesitant. Or perhaps her initial assumption that the cry for solace hadn't been intentional had been right all along. Still, she shut her eyes as she latched firmly onto his signature, to his aura.

It was so much colder than she remembered it, so much darker. All harsh edges, and prickling tendrils of agony sinking deep into her core like grappling hooks. Daggers, greedily burrowing into whatever they could find. None of the warmth he had radiated in the past persisted. The only thing remaining a constant was the uncertainty, the bottomless anguish.

'I’m not good enough, I will never be good enough'; he had once said in a moment of emotional overload. His entire Force signature seemed to be vibrating with that unspoken sentiment now. As if his entire psyche was made only of suffering and pain and doubt, as if that was all there was to him. All that was left of him.

"Anakin," she attempted again, firmer this time - demanding.

She refused to let him slip away.

She knew he wouldn't want her to call him by his real name, so few of those who knew his secret left alive. She should be proud that she had lived to see another day, if only by the help of a friend. Had Ezra not found a miraculous way out, she too would pile onto the heap of his victims.

Her shoulders slumped in near relief, as some of her tension wore off when she was greeted more openly by the presence. So he was intending to stick around. She allowed him to pry into her mind, channeled distinct happy memories towards him. Albeit buried deep beneath the surface, she knew he too must be able to recall the moments when presented with them. Memories of them together, fighting side by side or throwing teasing quips at each other. All while she was still under his tutelage. While she would still look upon him as her older brother, as her guardian, as her master.

"I no longer respond to that name."

That stung.

Ahsoka had known he would reject it, but she'd hoped he would accept it for what it was just this once. They both knew his new name was nothing but a title, nothing but a mask to hide behind. Nothing but a facade. It helped make him anonymous, helped in washing away all his crimes. He had been a hero once, before donning the suit and mask. Before the Dark Side sunk its claws into him. Before he was twisted into but a shadow of himself.

Even worse, was the fact that his voice came out clear now.

Without the use of actual sounds and syllables, without the vocoder translating his words for him. Without the forced diction, much less monotone. Even with the different speech pattern he’d picked up, the differing pronunciation - the voice was human.

Distant, icy, dismissive. But it was not the mechanical baritone - it was the voice of the terrified, insecure young man she'd once known. The same voice that had spoken to her on Malachor, as one blood shot, golden Sith eye peered through the cracked face plate of his mask.

"It's the name your mother gave you."

There was no response to that, only a wave of pure rage accompanied by the undercurrents of hurt and distrust. Indignation, as if he was questioning how she dared bring up Shmi Skywalker so casually. She had said that with the intent of wounding him, of reopening his scars. She had succeeded, but she took no pleasure in that knowledge. She wasn't out to harm him, although she probably should.

"What do you want?"

Now, it was Ahsoka's turn to squirm. She wasn't sure what she wanted per se. She had responded to the cry, perhaps expecting him to deny her. Perhaps expecting him to turn her down, to turn away, to shut her out. Now that he was acknowledging her, she found herself lost. She had so many questions, but none seemed reasonable to ask. She didn't imagine he would reply to them even if she tried.

"You knew I survived," she found herself blurting out, an overpowering melancholy clouding her judgment before she could reign herself in.

A pause, as if he was contemplating. Or perhaps, it was a silent admission of guilt.

"I could not be entirely certain."

He was lying.

She knew he was, she knew him too well. She could feel it, could sense the dishonesty behind the careless statement. He was dismissing it as a lapse of faith on his part, but she knew better. She shook her head into the emptiness, he must know she wouldn't believe him.

"Why? I know who you are. Both who you were before, and who you are now. It's not like you to keep those aware of your identity alive."

“A simple oversight on my part. It shall not be repeated, take that into consideration. Be grateful.”

“You’re lying. I know you are,” she pressed.

"You are mistaken. You have never known me."

"That's not true. You know it's not true, you're only denying it to yourself," snapped Ahsoka sharply, her frustration slipping through the cracks.

She'd known he would behave this way, known he would be stuck in denial. Why had she hoped for anything else? She suspected he dreaded what might happen if he did admit to who he was, if he did admit to the fact that even now, he was the same man. That there was no phantom of malice possessing him to commit atrocities.

That it was all on him.

Ahsoka herself had wanted to ignore the truth for so long, had been desperate to accept his proclamation of having killed her old master, had longed to stay blissfully unaware. Had tricked herself into believing he was right, that there was nothing left of the Anakin she'd loved.

But she knew better, she'd stared into his uncovered eye. Into his bared soul. She'd looked into his mind, peered behind the fortified walls of torment and turmoil - and there hid the same, frightened boy who'd grown up as a slave on Tatooine. She feared he denied because admitting the truth would destroy what was left of his sanity, as much as it had crushed hers when she'd allowed herself to take in reality.

There was no Darth Vader.

There never had been. There was only the pitiful being Palpatine had twisted Anakin Skywalker into, more machine than man. Less than human, so much less than he had been.

There was only Anakin. And he must sense her stubborn wish to force the same epiphany onto him.

"Still as foolish, and naïve. You cannot appease me with your affections towards a dead man. Skywalker was weak, indeed his apprentice appears to be no better off."

In another lifetime, such a degrading statement would have insulted Ahsoka. When she was still quick to anger, following the whim of her rebellious emotions before reason. Now, all the words inspired was sorrow. The fact that he was referring to himself as weak, as feeble, as insufficient. The jab at her meant nothing; the one aimed at himself not as easily overlooked.

"You weren't weak. You never were. I may not know or understand why you've become... this, but whatever the case, I refuse to believe it was a choice you made out of your own volition. I refuse to believe you could commit to such evil without a good cause, without sensible justification. You always had a way out of trouble, Palpatine must have manipulated you beyond comprehension. He must have backed you into a corner, and extorted you!"

"You know nothing."

It was a warning Ahsoka didn’t heed to.

“What did he say, Anakin? What did he do to put you of all people on a leash?”

“Silence.”

Another tremor through their bond, and this time she feared he would block her out. That she had crossed the line too far; that she had been too bold, too daring. That she would once more appear only as a dot on his hit list, as an enemy of the state. Up for elimination, standing to be eradicated. The command was no longer an insinuation, as much as a promise. The one word urged her to recuperate, and try again coming at him from a different angle.

Still, he hadn't rejected her use of his real name this time. The importance of that wasn't lost on her.

“I just don’t understand. You were always so kind, so caring. You were invaluable. To me, to Rex, to the entire 501st, to Obi Wan...” she paused before adding, “to Padmé--"

"Do not speak her name, you do not deserve to take it in your mouth!"

Ahsoka shuddered and recoiled as if slapped when he raised his voice.

“You know nothing of her, or of me. Learn your place and watch your step closely. You have crossed the line more than once, you do not wish to press me any further.”

The delivery was so vile, so full of livid fury and loathing that it made her stomach reel. Made her feel dizzy, nauseous, faint. Her forehead clammy, her chest tight. The fact that the mere mention of Padmé's name could conjure up such unbridled rage was both shocking, confounding, and heartbreaking.

Ahsoka had been outright aware of the involvement between senator Amidala and her former master, had caught hints at their intimacy. She'd liked the senator, viewed her much as an older sister and a good friend. Her master's high opinions of her had been enough for Ahsoka to accept and appreciate the woman. She wasn't stupid, she'd understood there was more than a friendship between the two. Even when the senator tragically passed, the event made public to the Galaxy after the fall of the Republic, she had mourned a friend and a fellow candidate of democratic justice. She suspected the sudden death had more to do with what Anakin had become than would ever be revealed.

"What happened?" she finally softly inquired when she spoke again.

"It is beyond your concern, and shall remain that way."

His arrogant, uninterested approach was back. Dismissing her offer of comfort, of consolation, of someone to listen to his side of events. Of forgiveness. Ahsoka couldn't say she'd be unbiased, but she longed to understand. Longed for that final puzzle piece that would put it all together. That would explain his descent into what could only be described as madness.

"Please," she pleaded, aware of the disappointment and forlorn sadness she was radiating into the ether, pouring into their Force bond.

"Please, Anakin."

Just for a moment, something shifted. The change so vague, it would have been undetectable if she didn't know him so well. So closely, so thoroughly. His carefully composed facade cracking, just enough for her to glimpse what lay inside.

“I can’t.”

The bitter, freezing cold of darkness that had pierced every fiber of her being throughout their conversation abated with those words. Left was only a void; so vast and deep and harrowing that it would haunt her nightmares for the remainder of her life. A loneliness so stifling, a guilt so crippling, it left an excruciating, hollowing ache in its wake. She blinked rapidly against the involuntary tears welling up to blur her vision, choked up and speechless. This torment wasn't hers, it had only been lent to her, extended into her psyche. Laid bare for her, as a truce. As a silent plea not to ask any more.

The searing wound left behind, however; that was her cross to bear. She had wanted him to share, and this was the price to pay.

"You cannot save me, Ahsoka," he begged with such regret, that she could almost see his pained expression.

Before Ahsoka could protest or properly process it, before she could cling to him and keep their connection up - he was gone. Those steadfast, blue eyes of her memory etched into the back of her head. Along with the fading touch of his Force signature. Trembling, she heaved an unsteady sigh before covering her face to weep, grieving the man who would not mourn for himself. There was no one else to put the blame on.

There was no Darth Vader.

Only Anakin Skywalker, who suffered in constant anguish.

And that was the worst part.

--------------

This was intended as another chapter for Mask of Death, but I believe it works better as its own standalone piece. I wanted to write something for Anakin/Vader and Ahsoka, and Ahsoka’s POV is always fun to play around with - especially since she’s the only one besides Luke to really accept that Anakin is still Anakin, even while he calls himself Vader.

So, I hope you enjoy my spin on the idea of them conversing post Malachor!

Link to Ao3 version below, and subsequently my account:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25578304

Lose Companion to Ablaze:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25636756

https://stuffilikeipostno2.tumblr.com/post/634786811339816960/ablaze-aka-obi-wan-learns-the-truth-about-what

[shyrose57]

Thank you other anon for wishing me well!! That means a lot to me! 

He does but Raq doesn't actually know Rans backstory. So he doesn't know Ran has siblings. He just assumes his mom either died or abandoned him due to finding Ran completely alone and being a hybrid. Before Ran would just scream at Raq in Enderian, now both Raq and Ran scream at eachother in it. Jackie describes it as, "A screaming match to assert dominance." 

Yep, his body was already straining itself to fend off the posion and the teleporting ended up straining him more than he could handle. So as soon as he teleported them he collapsed and wasn't able to even stand. 

That just made me imagine them digging down only to look up and see Phil clambering down after them like a mole. 

After he made a scavenger hunt made out of everyone else's items. Phil found his axe in a destroyed tree trunk and Ran found his sword buried in the ground. While Sapnap found his bow hidden behind stones and Jackie was never able to find his particularly because Ranboo forgot where he hid it. 

Yes, although its very rough. 

Porkius is very very suprised and needs time to come to turns with them being there. While Porkius reacts well to Techno, Techno does not like Porkius and has threatened to punch him a few times and one time he followed through and punched him hard enough to make him fall to the ground. 

Definitely.

---------------------

Ranboo is still his ancestor! Ran feels mostly confused, startled, scared, and oddly a bit comfortable. Phil makes him feel comfortable because he reminds him so much of Watson who was a very close and comforting figure to him. But Techno kind of scares him cause while Porkius was kind to him he was also strict, so he's afraid Techno will be stricter and mean just due to how he looks. He also just kinda ignores Ranboo at first because he can't handle the fact he's looking at his now alive ancestor. 

Not really I'd say, even though they all have different enderman percentces, they have the same instincts. Though due to Ranboos memory problem, his memory of enderman culture is almost non-existent, and instead presents itself through his instincts. If any of that makes sense? 

Karl is terrified upon seeing Ran, as soon as he even hears he's here he immediately drops what he's doing and after a few questions runs off to find and confront him. Tubbo is incredibly fascinated by Ran and at first he respects Ran's boundaries and stays away from him, but as soon as Ran is walking around outside and exploring the surrounding environment, he sees that as the perfect opportunity to bombard Ran with questions. Eret (who I like to headcanon is like a medic and knows a lot more about medicine than most), doesnt comment at first and is instead focused on helping him, but after he learns more about Ran, he is fascinated by him but takes time to get to know Ran and work on making a friendship with him. No one else, not even Michael knows about Ran being there, though they do eventually find out. 

A multitude of reasons 1. He landed wrong and ended up breaking an arm and cracking two ribs due to the sudden stop. 2. He isn't used to traveling through time so time travel had the affect of making him very sick, including headaches and nausea. 3. When he was dragged into the timetravel a match in the Pit just ended and he had a few bruises and cuts that hadn't been taken care of yet, so the travel and harsh landing just aggravated them and re-opened some. 4. The harsh landing ended up also giving him a concussion. 

When Ran is finally consciousness enough he refuses to speak in anything other than Enderian. At first Phil and Techno are scared he can't speak nor understand their language. But Edward steps in and tells them he can both understand and speak it he just doesn't want to necessarily. So Edward does the communication with Ran on their behalf, he also takes the time to comfort and help him come to terms with him being there. Edward is also the one to gently push/convince Ran to actually speak to them. 

Agreed, uh, maybe From Future to Past? Idk. 

------------------------

I already have a name for this au thankfully, Tip of the Iceberg AU. (Also I wanna say real quick not every single character in the Dream SMP or Tales From The SMP will be featured in this au because it's just to many characters for me to keep track of, it'll mostly be characters I feel like I understand if that makes sense)

They end up everywhere, the Bandits end up in Las Nevadas and end up robbing the place before they bolt, running with no real direction in mind. Zack and Cletus end up just outside of Las Nevadas but they run off into the woods once they hear yelling inside the country. Isaac, Porkums, and Grievous end up in Kinoko Kingdom. Ran lands in Erets castle and accidentally breaks a window from his entrance. Jackie, Jon Jon, and Sheriff Sherman end up in Pogtopia but manage to get out (expect Jackie who is stuck and they can't get him out so they actually left for help). Benjamin lands into the ocean around the Guardian farm. Ranbob also lands near the Guardian farm but instead on land. Charles and Watson land somewhere nearby Foolish's summer home. Ranbulter and James get dropped onto Tommys Memorial Island. And Ash lands in Snowchester. (Note I believe these will be all the tales characters I'll be mostly using, but if any get added I'll probably mention where they also ended up). 

Something important though is that almost no one stayed where they landed, Ran ran off into the surrounding forest so he could focus on regathering himself and calm down without worrying about getting attacked, Benjamin just randomly picks a direction to go (North) and ends up picking up Ranbob to join him. John John and Sherman went different directions to look for help; the Kinoko Kingdom group argues before finally Porkums and Grievous head off together having elected to follow the oceans edge (they think the Kingdom is abandoned and think following the ocean will eventually lead them to a city or something), while Isaac calls them stupid and stays around the Kingdom, exploring and taking stuff; and Charles and Watson just kinda walk around though stay in the general area. Anyone I did not mention stays where they landed or is close to where they landed. SOMETHING IMPORTANT THOUGH IS THAT NONE OF THEM GET DIRECTLY SEEN BY ANY SMP MEMBERS RIGHT AWAY, its only found out what happened when Quackity accuses Fundy of stealing from him which he heavily declines. And instead says that he saw others riding out of the country so it must've been them (he saw them from a distance), and their descriptions are enough to unnerve Karl who then goes back to Kinoko Kingdom to look at his Tales from the SMP books where he runs directly into Isaac and realizes what he feared is true. 

Once Karl gets confirmation that people from both the past and future are here he immediately calls an emergency meeting and just tells everyone almost immediately that he's a time traveler so it doesn't become a problem later, they don't believe him but Isaac is kind enough to help convince them. Soon everyone is convinced and while everyone is included only a few are actually part of a active search party. Those people being Techno, Phil, Ranboo, Tubbo, Foolish, Quackity, Sam, Eret, Bad, and of course Karl. Everyone else is assigned to just keep a eye out. Not everyone is in the party because they didn't want to be or they had other stuff to be doing.

He explains the In-between and Other Side but other than that they never really interfere, if anything he gets dragged into both sides when sleeping and the two sides both push him to find everyone and fix it all.

Jackie, as per usual, is the funniest gremlin on the block.

Poor Ran!! At least he gets some rest?

Absolutely terrifying image, I pity the poor fool who witnesses it.

Pfft. Can you just imagine the chaos? Half the time it's probably just caused by his memory issues. Prank war a few weeks ago? Ranboo forgets the traps he put up, and everyone ends up with brightly colored hair, and a large amount of rabbits in their house, and he;s standing right there with them trying to figure out who did it.

It's something, so I'll take it!

Technoblade: Nearly starting wars since...uh, whenever he spawned in, I'm not really sure of the details there.

Good.

-----------------

So Ran is aware Ranboo is his ancestor? Does he have the same backstory as Brothers AU!Ran?

Does this mean Ranboo is working solely on instincts when around other Endermen or Ran? How does that work out?

And since Enderwalk has all his memories, what are Ran's encounters with him like? Is he aware of Enderwalk state, or was that lost to time? Where do their instincts lead them? Does Ranboo get a bit more hesitant towards Ran when he's leaning more on them? Or is he more open and welcoming? Can he tell Ran shares his blood?

Confrontation? Uh oh, how does that go? Especially considering Ran's possibly the only one to have a vague idea of Karl's hobby? Does it end up coming out?

How does Ran feel about having Tubbo constantly ask questions? Is Tubbo just curious, or is he trying to figure things out? Does this mean Ran ends up in Snowchester, or does Tubbo head to the Antarctic? Medic Eret?? What kind of relationship do they have with Techno and Phil to get called in and come to their aid? How do Eret, Karl, and Tubbo learn of him, if this is being kept hush-hush, and why is it being kept such?

Poor Ran, he's really gotten the short end of the stick here. So time traveling can negatively effect those not used to it/built for it? Does Karl suffer similarly?

And Edward speaks Common, then? Also, Edward!! Is he still Techno's roommate here? Does he have a little nearby area? Or does he head back to the End when he's not hanging around? Has he been helping Ranboo as well?

Sounds good!

-------------------------

Gotcha, gotcha.

The fact that the bandits first instinct upon appearing in a strange new place with no prior warning is to rob it brings me great joy. How does that go for them? How far do they get, what do they steal?

Cletus & Zack: Dunno who you are or where I am, but I don't like the sound of that, so lets bolt.

Issac, Porkums, and Grievous actually don't sound like a chaotic combination, so they probably don't cause too much trouble.

Poor Eret. Imagine just trying to enjoy your day and coming back in to see your window broken.

Jon Jon and Sherman with Jackie just sounds really funny actually. The blatant contrast from time periods and all, and Jackie's pure chaotic energy...Also, they'd both be so much taller than him. Why was he stuck though? What happened?

Another question is, at what point was everyone tossed back? Long after Karl had left, before meeting him, in the middle? Is it different for some? How do those who've met him before react? Why does Isaac believe Karl, and how does he help convince the others?

Who's found first? What happens then? Is anyone hurt? What are both sides definition of 'fixing it all', and how does being dragged in between the two effect Karl?

[wiipes]

In light of recent events, I will now call on my comfort characters; presenting a small fic on what happens when you discover your piglin brother can actually turn into a human/somewhat/!!

Context: Phil has a home hidden in the side of the mountain and leaves on adventures for supplies every now and then and this is how he finds Techno and then the twins. Techno is a shapeshifter, piglin/pig to human and so forth. And decides to be introduced to his new brothers as a pig to get them used to this form. But forgets to show them his human form.

Looking back, it probably would have been smart to introduce Techno to the boys as human self, but he knew, the moment they saw a piglin instead of the brother they knew, they'd hate him.

They'd be terrified.

So Techno, being the socially anxious warrior he is, held his brothers for the first time with his calloused hoofs instead of squishy fingers.

Phil had announced that he'd found these two boys on the side of the road. One of them screaming profanities at him as the other curled behind him around a bee toy. How could he leave them behind, when the cold environment would surely eat them alive if the monsters didn't get to to them first.

But they were so small.

They were smaller than anything, smaller than Wilbur had been when Phil introduced him to his biological son. Smaller than the other baby piglins he'd seen as a child.

No, they were teeny, and they had sticky hands. Grabbing at his clothes, tough skin, even at his protruding teeth. He sort of begged for his brother or Phil to take the two toddlers out of his arms.

Wilbur took the bee-plush-holding one in his arms and the loud one went in Phil's hands.

"Do you want to show them anime Techno?" Phil teases him, nudging him with his elbow as he adjusted Tommy on his hip.

"Not particularly right now, maybe another day."

But days had gone by, turning into weeks, turning into months.

Soon, years have passed and they'd still yet to have met the Techno that Wilbur and Phil had the pleasure of seeing.

Today, though, Phil had told him that Tommy and Tubbo would be inviting some kids for their birthday party. And that it would be best if he was human. He apologized profusely but Techno didn't take it personally. These kids weren't his brothers, they weren't used to his towering height and his clicking hoofs, weren't used to his presence as a pig.

They weren't them.

So, without a second to spare, Techno inhaled the cold air, feeling his tough skin relax, his hair growing past his scalp and to his waist. Phil kept him calm, raking his thick fingers through his long hair. Techno could tell he was shorter, seeing the door frame taller than he remembered. Everything was just slightly bigger and that annoyed him more than he thought it would.

But he's used to it.

"Want me to braid your hair?" Phil had asked, pulling on a drawer by his bed, taking out some hair ties. But Techno shakes his head, only taking one from his dad.

"That won't be necessary." He says with no hurry and as he's pulling his hair up into a half bun, the door creaks open. Hair tie being in his mouth, he didn't think much of it when Tommy came in, blasting off about how he ought to get many, many presents. He did notice when he fell silent.

Noticed when Tommy started screaming at the top of his lungs, and Phil and him had to cover his ears. Half of his hair was still down and the bun wasn't finished, so it all came down and framed his thin face.

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" Tommy shouted, and Tubbo instantly slid in on the moment, bumping into Tommy as he did, and equally as loud, freaks out.

"Tommy,what are you on about?" Wilbur groans, rubbing his ears and eyes, holding several unlit lanterns in his left hand. "Don't you have a party to get ready for?" He notices the panicky expression on the younger boys' faces and sees the confused one on Techno's. "Oh, your hair's longer, Techno!" He beams, pushing Tommy aside and coming to stand beside his brother.

"That tends to happen when you don't cut it, Wilbur," Techno states as he gives him a bored face. "Now can you explain to me why these two children are screaming so early in the morning?"

"FIRST OF ALL, DICKHEAD-" "HEY WE ARE NOT CHILDREN-"

"Oh well have they seen you like this?"

"Ahh, there's the problem."

"Wilbur-" Tommy buts in the conversation, pressing into the non-shifter's side as he bites out a question that Techno doesn't try to listen to.

"No, yeah, that's Technoblade. Your brother."

That day, the birthday party was delayed a few hours when Tommy and Tubbo refused to leave their brother's hair alone. It was just so long and so soft, how could they not want to touch it?

Phil, later that night after tucking the boys in bed, he talks with Techno, brushing out his hair as Techno rambles about the day.

"I can't believe they've never seen me like this, like this is normal. More normal than me as a pig, right?"

"Well, you're Technoblade and to them, you've always just been one big pig, and they weren't aware you could be something different."

"But wouldn't that be something better, me as a human?"

Phil tugs on his hair, receiving a yelp on his son's end. "Quit talking crazy, we love you as a pig, if only a little bit more. And to them, you're their big brother. And that's what you'll always be to them. Nothing more and nothing less."

Techno was silent but they noticed a tug on the bed sheets. They turn to their side to find the boys teary eyed and holding their thin blankets. "We had a bad dream," Tubbo mumbles, his fists holding onto his blanket and Tommy's shirt as his bee plush was tucked into the crook of his elbow. Tommy, himself, stared down at his feet, both of his hands holding onto his blanket.

"Then come here," Phil didn't hesitate and helped Tubbo onto the bed, pulling him to his lap.

Techno turned to his normally loud-mouth brother, noticing how his little hands fumbled with each other. How the tables have turned.

The boy gives out a small shriek, as he's yanked onto the bed, Techno pulling him to lay down with his pillow under his head. "Do you want to talk about it?" He muttered, staring ahead as tugs on his head turned to soft brushing again.

Tommy shook his head, coming to stand on the bed before collapsing in Techno's arms. "Can you tell me about the greek myths again?" And with a bit of adjustment, Techno held his brother again his arms, a blanket wrapped around them both and his arm acting as a pillow.

After a while, Phil pulled out the mattress underneath Techno's, sleeping on it. Tubbo sprawled across his chest, his arms and legs sticking out and forming a cross accidentally.

Techno told him his brother to get some rest. "Can- can you do one last thing?" Tommy asks, eyes falling on the long, pink hair on Techno's shoulders.

Techno shrugs, "depends on what you're about to ask."

"Can you turn back into a pig?"

At first, Techno was about to protest. About to say how he felt less threatening here. About to say how it was a bad idea before Phil's voice rung through his head like bells.

You're their big brother. That's what you'll always be to them.

So, he inhaled and felt everything about his human form recede back into his conscious. His clothes stretch with his new form, and Tommy seems to sleep with no problem, sleeping on his large stomach.

Phil doesn't hesitate to take a picture in the morning before he leaves.

And he leaves right after he places Tubbo right next to Tommy.

Shaking the developing picture, he frames it right next to the picture of young Wilbur and young Techno. He smiles something soft, something warm. "My boys..." He mumbles, tracing a finger on the frame.

When he leaves, he doesn't notice Wilbur taking his spot on Techno's spare mattress. Then taking a spot on Techno's tummy.

Everything was perfect.

Until the piglin himself woke up.

[smallheathgangsters]

Doomed | Part Two

Masterpost

A/N: I’m sorry you had to wait so long for part 2 and that this seems like a filler, but I promise it isn’t! I also enjoyed writing some soft Bonnie, so please don’t come at me for the lack of action lol.

Tag List: @imgrullas @beautycinders @maggiescarborough @lovemissyhoneybee @ellaestloved @swweett-insanityyy @peaky-fookin-blinders-addict @writeroutoftime @namelesslosers @elisabethisdead @amirahiddleston @sinfulshelbys @yoheyyosup

Pairing: Bonnie Gold x Shelby!Sister Reader

Word Count: 2801

Type: lots of fluff, violence, swearing

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The sound of men cheering, talking loudly and shouting met you, when you pushed open the large entrance to the vehicle factory, in which Tommy and Arthur prepared automobiles for their Russian clients. You knew it was a dream come true for Arthur, working with and on cars being a passion of his and you were happy for your eldest brother. He’d been fighting a lot of demons in the last few years, even though he didn’t want to admit it. And it hurt you to see Tommy banning any personal and emotional battles for the sake of the business, forcing Arthur into a position of having to ignore his feelings, exactly the way Tommy did. But you knew, Arthur was going to break sooner or later. Surely sooner than Tommy.

Your heels clicked on the floor covered in little pools of oil and water, as you walked past the many vehicles, some disassembled, most of them ready for dispatch, towards the hall in the back. You turned around a corner and immediately frowned by the sight that was presented to you.

Around two dozen workers stood around a makeshift boxing ring, following a match going on within the rope. As you got closer, you noticed your two older brothers standing together with Aberama Gold outside the ring, watching the fight take place.

You cursed under your breath, remembering Mr. Gold’s words about seeing each other again soon. The killings at John’s funeral had only been the start of the alliance.

You already dreaded the encounter with Gold after ignoring the handshake he’d offered you when you’d first met. After all, he’d saved you from being shot by the Italian. Meaning, he was the reason you were still alive, and you honestly hadn’t thought about it too much. Until now.

You went around the ring, walking in the direction of Tommy and not paying any attention to the two men throwing and dodging punches. When you stood behind your brother, you tapped him on his shoulder. Startled, he whipped his head around. “What are you doing here?”

“Polly sent me. She’s calling a meeting.”

“Can it wait? I’m busy.”

You scoffed. “With what? Arranging weird boxing matches in the vehicle factory?”

With that, you finally threw a gaze at the boxers. Your breath got caught in your throat when you spotted Bonnie stripped down to his undershirt, hands stuck in red gloves. His movements were quick and even though he wasn’t sending a lot of hits, he somehow seemed to know what he was doing. The only thing concerning you was the obvious fact that his opponent was a heavyweight. And Bonnie clearly wasn't even close to being a heavyweight. The sight made you gulp, and worry settled in your stomach.

“What is Bonnie doing in there?” you gasped, eyes wide in disbelief.

Tommy just shrugged. “That’s what we’re going to see.”

“Your boy knows he can hit back, right?” you heard Arthur tease. Aberama, who was standing next to Arthur, luckily unable to spot you from that position, was quick to respond. “Told him in the professional game people want their money’s worth, don’t win too fast.”

Aberama’s eyes were fixed on his son, watching him carefully. Bonnie swung out and landed a precise hit on the opponent’s face. Another punch followed, only a split second later.

“But if you’ve seen enough …” Aberama said, still not taking his concentrated gaze away from the match. “Finish it, Bonnie!”

That seemed to have been Bonnie’s cue. The larger man hit his gloves together, preparing himself for what was coming. But only a few moments later, it was clear that there hadn’t been a chance for him to prepare himself for what Bonnie was able to do. The heavyweight lunged forward, missing Bonnie by a lot, his fist hitting plain air. That mistake gave Bonnie the chance to take over control and surprise him with powerful strikes into his abdomen. Stunned, the man stumbled backwards, moving his hands to shield his face from the attack. But Bonnie was quicker. He sent a punch from below and then a last one directly at his temple, knocking him out completely.

“Fuck me, that was a punch,” you heard Arthur exclaim, while one of the workers ran up to the heavyweight to help his slumped body onto his feet again. “What’s he got, horseshoes in those gloves or what?”

“No,” Aberama replied, ducking under the rope to get inside the ring, “just his dad’s strength and his mother’s temper.”

Aberama helped his son out of his boxing gloves before Arthur and Tommy moved closer to the Gold’s. That was when you moved a few steps backwards, but not too far away from the scene. You were too intrigued.

“Does he have fits?” Tommy asked.

“No.”

“Asthma?”

Aberama denied again.

“How’s he cut?” Arthur questioned.

“Well, no one’s cut him yet, but his skin’s think.”

You scoffed at the way Bonnie’s father answered all the questions. It just showed you how much control Aberama seemed to have over his son, just like Tommy did with you. Families like yours and Bonnie’s clearly functioned very likewise.

“Does he drink?” Another question from Tommy.

“Water, sometimes.”

“How many fights?”

“Twenty-five, bareknuckle, all knockouts. Five with gloves in pastures, all knockouts,” Aberama boasted, his eyes, filled with a proud gaze, moved back and forth between Tommy and Arthur.

Arthur cleared his throat. “Against Romani fighters?”

“That’s why they won’t let us in the fairs no more, he keeps winning,” Aberama replied, right before Bonnie interrupted with a comment of his own. “I could fight a fucking tree and knock it out, Mr. Shelby.”

His son’s words made Aberama chuckle pridefully and throw an arm around him. Arthur snickered in response to Bonnie’s statement. “I like him, I like him.”

Suddenly you felt somebody push themselves past you, towards your brothers. It was Tommy’s assistant.

You watched him lean forward and whisper something to Tommy. Your brother nodded and answered in a tone, just as quiet. The assistant then ran off, up the stairs to one of the meeting rooms.

Bonnie and his father moved from one side of the ring to the other, giving Arthur and Tommy some time and space to stick their heads together about the boxing matter. You decided to join your brothers, curious about what was going on.

“What was this all about?” you asked, stepping out of your spot behind one of the large wooden pillars in the hall.

“Bonnie wants to fight and we’re deciding on whether we’re going to help or not,” Tommy replied, looking over to the Gold’s.

You let out a scoff. “You mean control him, not help him.”

Tommy let his blue eyes wander back to you, the usual unimpressed, blank stare plastered on them. “Everything I do is business, Y/N.”

“I just want you to see him as a person,” you said, a reproachful tone in your voice. You watched as your brother slightly rolled his eyes.

“Why do you care?” Arthur asked, a little confused about you getting involved in the boxing subject.

You rolled your bottom lips between your teeth. “He seems nice, Arthur. And kind. Something my family often seems to lack.”

Arthur frowned at your remark. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying, Arthur.”

Tommy seemed to have enough of your opinion and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, guiding him a bit away from you to talk in private. You watched as they discussed Bonnie’s performance and how they could profit off of it.

It didn’t take long for them to call over Bonnie and Aberama and by the way Arthur pulled out a bundle of cash and started counting the notes, you knew they had agreed on working with the Gold boy. And just before Tommy sped off to the office upstairs, he handed Bonnie a cap. “You’re a Peaky Blinder now, son.”

You noticed Bonnie sending his father an unsure look, but eventually put on the cap when Aberama took the money from Arthur’s hands. The deal was settled, and you weren’t sure how to feel about it. Weirdly enough, you were anxious about Bonnie being a Peaky Blinder now. Anxious for the son of a dangerous hitman. The more you thought about it, the more ridiculous it got.

You’d been so caught up in your mind, that you hadn’t noticed the Gold men approaching you. When you lifted your gaze, Arthur was nowhere to be seen.

“Came here to finally properly introduce yourself to us?” Aberama sneered. Bonnie nudged his father, his face showed a hint of embarrassment. “Dad, c’mon.”

You shook your head. “No, it’s okay. I really should apologise.”

Aberama lifted his eyebrows in surprise. He probably didn’t expect a Shelby to ask for forgiveness. At least not this quick.

“I’m aware that I … let’s say, owe you my life in a way? And I wanted to thank you,” you said, a slightly shaky hand pushing a strand of hair behind your ear. You weren’t used to apologising. Being a Peaky Blinder meant you weren’t sorry. For anything. But since you started to distance yourself more and more from being solely associated with your family name, you actually truly wanted to apologise.

“And I’m Y/N, by the way.”

You carefully held out your hand, knowing very well you had left Aberama hanging when he’d introduced himself to you. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have any bad feelings left, accepting your hand, gripping it firmly and shaking it. Then, he sent you a confirming nod and let go of your hand. “You’re not like the rest of your family, are you?”

“I take that as a compliment,” you said, a small smile creeping onto your face.

Aberama didn’t respond, simply tipping his hat and walking off, leaving you and Bonnie to yourselves.

Your eyes followed Aberama for a while, before they eventually landed on the pretty man in front of you.

“I’m impressed,” you stated, giving him a wider smile than the one you gave his father.

“Have you been watching the entire time?” Bonnie chuckled, scratching the back of his head a little awkwardly.

You nodded. “Polly sent me to call a meeting, but it seems as though neither Tommy nor Arthur felt addressed by it.”

Bonnie let another chuckle escape his lips.

“Anyway,” you said, “I see that you’re one of us now.”

“I am and I’m excited to start training as soon as possible,” Bonnie responded, a wide grin on his face. There was no doubt, that boxing made him happy. A happiness you were still searching for. Making you feel a tiny bit jealous.

Angry at your reaction to his cheerfulness, you swallowed down the lump in your throat. “It doesn’t look like you’ll be following in your father’s footsteps.”

Bonnie shook his head, taking off the cap and running his strong hands through his dark, curly hair. “No, but I don’t think he minds. My goal is to be a professional.”

“I like that, you know?”

“You do?”

You hummed. “I’m not planning on doing anything even close to what my family are doing. Trying to get away from the business, but with the situation we’re in at the moment, that’s not an option. Not right now, at least.”

Bonnie rolled up the cap with his hands. “I didn’t see you at Charlie’s yard after the funeral.”

You sighed. “I needed some time … to myself.”

“I understand,” Bonnie said, giving you a weak smile of comfort. “I’m sorry, about your brother.”

Bonnie’s words sent an unfamiliar warmth to your chest. It reminded you of the feeling you had gotten sat behind him on his horse. So many people had offered their condolences to you, but none of them felt like they truly meant it.

And then there was Bonnie.

“And I’m sorry for what happened at Charlie’s Yard,” you mumbled, looking down at the ground sheepishly. He immediately understood that you were talking about his father wanting to buy the boat yard and Tommy making the disgusting move of involving Bonnie’s eldest sister in the deal. The sacred coin.

“You don’t need to apologise on behalf of your brother, Y/N. It had nothing to do with you,” Bonnie promptly replied, lifting your head up with his index and middle finger. The subtle, but intimate gesture made your heart beat faster.

“It was still quite the dick move,” you murmured, trying to escape his mesmerising hazel eyes.

Bonnie laughed. “Yes, it was. But the good thing is, Charlie still has his yard.”

You were in absolute awe of Bonnie’s personality. So positive and kind. The complete opposite of what the Gold’s represented. What is father represented.

“Can I ask you something?”

You tilted your head curiously. “Anything.”

“What did you mean when you told Tommy about feeling safe with me?”

You cursed at yourself internally. You’d almost forgotten that you had said that out loud. It had felt right momentarily, letting go of everything you had been bottling up, but thinking about now made you cringe.

Your desperate tries to avoid his stare were useless. All of his attention was directed at you, burning into your skin, impossible for you ignore. So, you looked up and met his gaze.

“Can I like … take it back?” you chuckled, trying to turn the topic into something funny.

He grinned, shaking his head. “Fuck no.”

You let out a groan, burying your head in your hands. “I just really loved your company, for a change.”

Bonnie let out a laugh. “Only for a change?”

You moved your head back up, rolling your eyes, with a grin on your lips. “You know what I mean. You’re different and I like that.”

“Different because I don’t want to cut out people’s eyes and shoot them in the head for a living?”

You giggled. “Yes, that too. But mostly because you care. I knew you cared about me being safe, back at the funeral. And I knew you meant it, when you said you were sorry for what happened to my brother.”

Bonnie seemed to be overwhelmed by your confession, a cute shade of pink appearing on his cheeks. “Uh– I’m glad you felt that way. Although, I am concerned that you feel like nobody else cares about you.”

“It’s not that,” you sighed, your voice traced with sadness. “I just hate the way everything is about business. It’s as if feelings and emotions are prohibited in this family.”

You heard Bonnie sigh as well. Then, he put a hand on your upper arm, giving it a squeeze. Gentle enough to comfort you, strong enough to let you know you weren’t alone.

“Would you like a hug?”

Bonnie cleared his throat, when he noticed you staring at him in surprise. “I’m sorry if this was awkward, I–“

“No,” you cut him off, “I would really like a hug.”

The way he had asked you, had made your stomach erupt in thousands of butterflies. Tickling your insides in a manner that was wonderful and annoying at the same time. The way he didn’t just pull you into an embrace without making sure you were comfortable with the closeness.

Bonnie smiled down at you and let go of your arm before wrapping his muscular arms around you. Your cheek was softly pressed against his chest and his pleasant scent made its way into your nose, briefly numbing every part of your body.

Too early, Bonnie pulled back again. “Feeling a little bit better?”

“A lot,” you admitted, sensing your cheeks imitating the colour Bonnie’s had before. Although you were convinced it wasn’t the same sweet pink, but a deep cherry red.

“You’re very beautiful, you know that?” Bonnie suddenly said.

You placed your cool hands on your flushed cheeks, trying to calm them down, but it was useless. The heat just travelled further to your ears, making this whole encounter even more embarrassing for you.

“Are you flirting with me, Bonnie Gold?” you asked.

He laughed. “Of course, I am! Would’ve been very awkward if you were that oblivious.”

You playfully hit his arm and opened your mouth to respond to his cheeky remark, but were suddenly interrupted by a loud voice.

“Bonnie! Let the lady be, we need to get going!”

Aberama’s voice resounded in the wide, open factory hall. Bonnie pinched the bridge of his nose in slight annoyance.

“I need to get going,” he announced. You chuckled. “I heard.”

“Even if it doesn’t seem like it, I’m not dependent on my father.”

Your chuckle turned into laughter. “Understood.”

Then, he sent you a last, beautiful smile, his white, gorgeous teeth shining from behind his lips. “I’ll see you around. I’ll make sure of it.”

[anomander-dragnipurake]

Vengeance and Ambition

This was supposed to be a full story with Fawful and King Boo being victorious in the end. I was super excited for it because it's my 2 fav Mario villains teaming up and winning. But then it slowly dawned on me that no one would care in large part because Fawful's not a popular character. And while I have no issues writing solely for myself (I stopped expecting any kind of substantial interaction with my writing a while ago now) how hard Fawful's dialogue is to write (I don't even know if I did it right but I tried my best) makes the fact that virtually no one's gonna read it quite demotivating, killing my enthusiasm. So, because I still really like the idea and worked hard on this part, I decided to just upload this.

~

Fawful came to as if waking from a long sleep, slowly regaining consciousness. Which… wasn’t right. One would expect oblivion on the other side of exploding what was left of the Dark Star’s power within themself. He’d been dying anyway so might as well go out with a bang and bring his enemies down too. But nope, he opened his eyes to see that he was in the courtyard of Peach’s castle, very much still aware. Which included awareness that something was wrong with his body.

A quick look down at himself confirmed his growing suspicions. He was transparent and floating, his body tapered off into a tail instead of legs. He was a ghost; dead but not gone… free of the Dark Star’s power though. Presumably it had dissipated, leaving him here, powerless and defeated again. … Maybe not entirely though; his foes could still be dead, he had to exploded himself right in front of them, there was no possible way they’d escaped… right?

What if they’d also become ghosts though? … He’d deal with that problem if and when it presented itself. He didn’t even know the criteria for when or why someone turned into a ghost upon death.

So, eager to know the full outcome of his last-ditch efforts for at least a partial victory, he started for the castle. Floating along was quite simple, it was just a matter of wanting and choosing to move forward. He could even ascend and descend freely; so much more convenient than his usual means of levitation.

Where the final encounter had gone down, he wasn’t sure, but judging based off the position of the sun in the sky it was late morning. In his last clear memories, it had been past sundown. Meaning he’d lost some time and thus whatever or whoever was left after his explosion would’ve likely been cleared away by now. With no clear leads on where to start looking for what he wanted to know, he’d head for the throne room first.

He was in luck, Peach was there. Along with her elderly Toad advisor and… the red and green plumbers. They were alive and well, seemingly undamaged by Fawful’s explosion. Ugh! Twice now they’d beat him down and took away everything he’d had, coming away unscathed from it. How? He’d worked and planned so hard to get them out of the way while he took over the Mushroom Kingdom. It had been the perfect plan and should’ve worked… it would’ve if Bowser hadn’t far surpassed Fawful’s expectations for him.

And now he was back at square one. Less than that actually because he was dead. He didn’t have even an ounce of the Dark Star’s power anymore.

Holding back the urge to curse and shout, he floated closer, intending to eavesdrop on his enemies’ conversation. He was too late though, they were already getting ready to separate.

“See you later,” Peach said with a smile as the brothers walked away.

They strode right past where Fawful floated invisible. Green slowed down as he looked around, pulling his arms in a little as if he were cold. His eyes slid right over Fawful of course but it couldn’t be a coincidence, he had some sense of Fawful’s presence and possibly of the hate Fawful was glaring at them with too.

“You okay bro?” Red asked.

“Uh… yeah, I’m just tired, I guess. It’s been a long day.”

With that, Fawful turned away from them as they moved on.

The throne room was still a mess from when he’d forcefully taken it over. Many of his statues were still up in here as well as outside. He’d had it in his grasp, he’d been so close. … Too close to just give up. He would take out the plumbers and he would take over the Mushroom Kingdom, he just needed a new plan.

 -

First things first, he went back to his workshop hidden away in the sewers. He got lost for a while phasing through walls and thus eventually settled on following the paths the way a living person would have to. He’d been so sure he’d never have to venture down here again but… ugh. Failure was even worse when he’d been the sole person in charge.

Maybe if he’d still been working with Cackletta things would’ve gone better. Two heads were better than one after all, right? It was impossible to say though and it wasn’t worth dwelling on; she was dead and gone, even her ghost had been destroyed. … He’d have to be careful to ensure he didn’t suffer such a fate.

By the time he reached his hidden workshop behind his mostly failed attempt at a shop – he’d had to settle for sneaking out to steal things instead until he got a bit more clout – he was equal parts anxious and furious again. He’d lost Midbus and his entire robot army that he’d spent so much time and effort building, how was he supposed to rebuild from here? He’d thrown everything he had at his plan and it wasn’t enough. How could he possibly have done anything more? Why did fulfilling his ambitions and getting vengeance have to be so hard?

 -

He may have allowed himself to wallow around in his workshop for a while. He deserved a bit of self-pity at this point though, didn’t he? And it wasn’t like anyone was around to see anyway so who cared? In the process though he found he could no longer sleep which sucked really hard because it meant no more breaks from his thoughts or anything else. It meant he had to get up and get to work sooner than he otherwise would’ve too because lying in bed unable to fall asleep was the worst.

What should he do though? Maybe look for Midbus, it was possible he’d survived and if so trying to patch him up was probably a good idea; he’d been a good minion. And if he was dead, Fawful was a ghost so maybe Midbus would be too and thus the same principle still applied.

 -

If he’d still had blood it would’ve been boiling at the sight of what was left of the Dark Star extractor. A group of Toads was dismantling it with all the technological grace of a particularly stupid mountain goat headbutting a brick wall until it finally broke. All the many, many hours Fawful had put into designing, building, and perfecting it – not to mention everything else that had gone into this plan as a whole – and they were just ripping it apart like it was worthless scrap. And to top it off, there was no sign of whatever had become of Midbus anywhere in the room.

He floated over to grab one of two the spare hammers left on the ground and flung it at the nearest Toad. Unfortunately, it missed, sailing right over his head, but he screamed anyway, drawing the attention of the rest of the Toads. Oops, maybe Fawful shouldn’t have done that. … Oh well, he was too mad to really care.

“The hammer levitated and flew right…” the Toad was saying, cutting off with a small yelp as Fawful lifted the other hammer to throw as well. This one hit the Toad squarely in head. He teetered for second before going limp into the arms of the Toad beside him who, along with the other two, screamed and bolted for the door, dragging the unconscious Toad with them.

Fawful zoomed over to grab the hammer again and throw at them. It hit the door right as they closed it though. Ugh!

He snapped back around to face his invention again. It was almost entirely dismantled, there’d be no saving it. Not that he had any further use for it anyway, the Dark Star had been destroyed and it was all Bowser and the two wretched fink-rat plumbers’ fault.

But… as angry as he was, he should focus on finding Midbus. His help would be nice for whatever Fawful’s next plan would end up being.

 -

After searching the whole castle and the ground surrounding it, there was still no sign of Midbus. He was either dead and gone, a ghost who’d decided not to stick around the way Fawful had, or alive and recovering from his wounds elsewhere. The latter two might be because Midbus had figured Fawful had been completely destroyed or as was more likely the case that he didn’t care enough to even think to look and was choosing to abandon Fawful.

It didn’t really matter though because no matter what Fawful for sure no longer had Midbus. Which was… fine, he didn’t care, why should he? He’d been on his own before and risen so far, he could do it again. And he’d be successful this time, third time’s the charm after all, right? … Hopefully.

***

Being trapped in a portrait was in some ways worse than in a vault and in some ways better. In the vault he could move even if there wasn’t much space to do so, and speak freely even if no one could hear him, but he couldn’t see anything that was going on outside. In a portrait though, while trapped and unable to move, he could see what was going out in front him.

E. Gadd could’ve easily put something over him, depriving him of even that. But he didn’t. Instead he’d hung King Boo up in the front part of his lab. There wasn’t much to see most of the time but it was better than nothing and he could bide his time here. He’d been dead for a long time so time meant little to him. … Except he’d always been impatient compared to how long he’d existed for.

One could only cycle through all the ways he could’ve improved his prior plans to make them more likely to succeed or about possible new plans and what he’d do to his enemies if/when he finally defeated them before even that got old. And now he was just thinking about being bored for the umpteenth time, making it a boring thing to think about too. Truly one could not get any more bored than that. And yet there was nothing else to do but think and think and be bored and hate the people who’d done this to him and be bored some more. If only something would fucking happen.

As if the thought had brought it about, the doorbell rang. It was most likely just Luigi coming for a visit because he did that sometimes or a door-to-door salesperson but it would break the boredom of staring at an empty room for a little bit at least. And if he was really lucky, Luigi might even glance his way with a nervous expression before following E. Gadd into the lab proper.

As was often the case, it took three rings before E. Gadd came out of his lab to answer it. He didn’t spare King Boo a single look as he walked over to open the door. “Oh hello,” he said in a tone that indicated that it wasn’t Luigi at the door. Which could only mean it was someone new. Awesome! Too bad King Boo couldn’t see them from this angle.

“This be the residence of E. Gadd, yes?” The voice had an odd quality to it almost as if it might be coming over a speaker or radio.

“Yes, now might I ask why a…” He cut off as a cloud of thick purple smoke engulfed him, centering on his head. “What is…” Another cloud puffed in from outside. Whatever was going on here was getting more exciting by the second.

Before the smoke had cleared, a little green drone flew into them room. It looked around for a bit before it seemed to freeze looking at King Boo. It zoomed over for a better look.

“Aha!” whoever was controlling it said through it. “I have success! … I think. It could be being a painting that is normal. Hopefully and probably not because why would E. Gadd be having a painting of King Boo if it is not being actual King Boo?”

Weird way of talking or no, whoever this fellow was had just made King Boo’s day. … Assuming he was here to rescue King Boo anyway, it was possible he just wanted to steal the portrait. But even that would be exciting and changing hands would increase the likelihood of his boos being able to come in and free him.

The ghost of a beanish person with swirly eyes, wearing a cape and holding what had to be the drone’s remote control floated through the still open door.  “Stay in corner,” he snapped at E. Gadd who was kind of just standing around now. “Fawful has no time for the gloating yet, in humans mind control spray be wearing off faster than the joy of eating the last cookie in the jar.”

“Yes, right away, Lord Fawful,” E. Gadd said, his cadence almost normal as he moved to obey.

Fawful then looked down at the controller to neatly land the drone on the desk. He placed the controller next to it before zooming over to pull King Boo’s portrait off the wall. He poked and prodded at it a bit before turning it over, presumably do poke and prod at the back too for a few seconds before flipping it back over.

“E. Gadd! How one be freeing King Boo from the frame?”

“Shine a dark light on it.”

“Where is dark light? Fetch it for me, quickly.”

The sound of E. Gadd walking out of the room indicated that he obeyed. He returned a few seconds later to hand one of his flashlights to Fawful. “The switch on the side turns on the dark light.”

“Good, go back to corner.”

King Boo was mentally vibrating with anticipation as Fawful leaned him back against the wall. Next, he floated back to shine the dark light squarely on the portrait. The sensation of being pulled out of it was odd and uncomfortable as always but as soon as he free, he was laughing with exhilaration. Freedom at long last was his!

The very first thing he did with this newfound freedom was levitate the now empty portrait out from behind him and float over to E. Gadd to put him inside it instead. It was harder to do without an enchanted crown to channel his magic through and lacking its stored power to assist him but he got it done. E. Gadd, still affected by the mind control spray didn’t fight it, resulting in a rather calm looking portrait of him. … Expressions of fear were preferable but whatever; King Boo was free and E. Gadd was trapped and that’s all that mattered right now. He might try to fix it later but for now…

Leaning the portrait against the wall to be retrieved later, he snapped back around to face Fawful again. “I appreciate the rescue. I know you didn’t do it for no reason though. What do you want in return?” As long as it was reasonable and within his means, he’d probably grant it. He was that grateful and being generous had gained him many loyal followers in the past and he was always open to more followers.

Fawful grinned wide, even chuckling a little as his ghostly tail curled in visible anticipation or perhaps nerves. “I have the wish to offer an alliance.”

King Boo had been down this road before with Hellen and that had turned out terribly but it didn’t hurt to hear him out. “What kind of alliance?”

“Well… as new ghost, Fawful was wondering around Peach’s castle unseen, hearing many things, seeing many more. Whispers about King Boo were common, your hatred for the red and green plumbers clear as a glass of wine after one has found nothing but sorrow at the bottom of. So the alliance: Fawful will be helping take down plumbers and at the same time, King Boo will be helping in the conquering of the Mushroom Kingdom for my taking.”

“You want to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom, huh?” King Boo wasn’t into kingdom conquering himself, he was perfectly content with the land he had and didn’t desire any more especially if it was infested with living.

“Yes.” Fawful nodded. “I be wanting a kingdom and I don’t be liking the red and green plumbers so I will be taking their kingdom. With our alliance like the icing on the cake, I leave the vengeance of them to you.”

Given how many times Luigi had sucked him up into that wretched vacuum of his, King Boo might actually be willing to go along with this even if to an outsider looking in, Fawful would appear to be getting much more out of it. But really, a good chunk of the work in taking over the Mushroom Kingdom would be done with just taking out Mario and Luigi. If it worked, King Boo desire for vengeance was more than strong enough to make assisting with the rest of it worth it. But… “How do I know you can carry your weight in such a scheme?” No way was he going to be doing everything himself with his supposed ally barely helping.

“Because if was not for a certain spiky snack being much spicier than expected, Fawful’s last plan would’ve been success.” With that, as if eager to share his tale, he launched into it explaining his last plan and how close he’d gotten to succeeding.

Honestly it was a rather entertaining tale, especially the way he told it. King Boo had been around more than long enough to know about the Dark Star so that gave credibility to his tale because few living knew of it by now. He had gotten rather close to succeeding though.

“And so,” Fawful said after his tale had winded down, “I be thinking in terms of evil schemes we are near equals. Our goals don’t align but they be overlapping like multilayered cake of ambition and vengeance. Working together we could perhaps be making a plan that is unstoppable like large boulder made of vengeance and knives rolling down steep cliff crushing any daring to be standing in its path, including nasty plumbers.”

Maybe King Boo should take a bit to think about this, confirm Fawful’s tale of near success over the Mario bros with one of his castle spies, but after spending who even knew how long trapped in a portrait after his third defeat, he was rather eager to set in motion some vengeance. Besides, he was starting to like Fawful, he was odd but in a way that made him interesting, far more so than Hellen – not that that was too difficult to do. And who knows, maybe all King Boo’s plans had been missing was a horde of killer robots. So… “All right, I’ll agree to an alliance.”

With an excited snicker, Fawful extended a hand out of his cloak to shake King Boo’s hand – something that stubby boo arms always made weird but he didn’t say anything about it – sealing the alliance. If this didn’t turn out well then so be it, it wouldn’t be the first plan or even first failed alliance King Boo had attempted. But it was worth a try in case it worked and regardless it should at least make for an interesting time. “First though, I need to free my boos. Then we can go somewhere to discuss the finer details.”

[claramurphyqueenoffandoms]

Well, I had a weird dream last night. At least, I think it was all a dream. Parts of it might have been me imagining it while I was half-asleep, I don’t know.

So, it starts out, Milo is in a coma. He was on an adventure with Cavendish and Dakota, but Murphy’s Law happened. Some alien generator or a portal exploded or something, and he got hurt, like way worse than usual. Now he won’t wake up. The doctors called Milo’s family, and Cavendish and Dakota are there waiting for them. They feel just awful because they let him get hurt (though it wasn’t actually their fault) and Cavendish takes out this pocketwatch. I think he was gonna give it to Milo as a birthday present, but now he can’t. But he gives it to Dakota, who loops it around and puts it on Milo like a necklace. I could see them saying something like ‘please, kid, come back.’

 But this whole time Milo’s asleep or in a coma, he’s aware of what’s going on except he can’t hear them. I couldn’t hear them either (but the dreamers get special privileges like knowing what’s being said without hearing it, I guess). All he can hear are these weird ethereal singing voices that keep glitching in and out. Suddenly, the whole world kind of glitches, and he wakes up, and he and his hospital bed are in this weird room with these four other people.

 …Okay, this might be a good time to tell you, this dream was basically VoicePlay’s “Queen in 5 Minutes,” but with all Disney XD characters. (I think it was because I’d been watching the video on loop basically all afternoon, including right before I went to bed. Because that video is seriously awesome.)

 So these four other DXD characters are the gods of Death in this multiverse.

-         Varian was Layne/Guardian, and he was wearing this grey furry vest and carrying a sword. But as soon as I saw him, I thought, he’s got Cass’s sword and Quirin’s vest. So that was super cool.

-         Stan Pines was Eli/Yama Nirvana, and his 8-ball cane was gold.

-         Scrooge McDuck was Geoff/Baron, and he was wearing his normal clothes, except the collar was red and the rest was black.

-         Wander was J. None/Anubis. He was wearing this jacket with the star from his hat all over it.

Also, they all had the face paint on them. It was probably not very much like the video, it was kind of vague, but they did all have some kind of face paint designs.

 Okay, so they’re the gods of death in the DXD multiverse. All of them died at one point or another (and most of their shows died too), so they were given the choice to either pass on or become gods of death. Scrooge was a little different, because his show wasn’t dead, but I think what it was was kind of like the Doctor, but also kind of like that Greek myth about Persophone, where every time something happens that kills him, he goes and has to do a shift as a god of death, then comes back. I just kinda knew that was the case, though, I don’t think they said it. I kinda want to figure out how on earth he got into a situation like that. (Now that I think about it, though, that’d probably be why there are so many hiatuses.) But the whole point is, when Milo went into his coma, they saw he was gonna die, and so they shifted reality to bring him into this special inbetween room. If he gives in here, he gets to be a god of death with them (basically forever).

So they all got introduced to Milo, by their names appearing beside their heads like in the video. Which Milo could apparently read. And after they’re all introduced, Wander just dances over to Milo and yanks his heart out, singing cheerfully. Man, he don’t care. He takes the scales out of his hat to weigh it. Once he’s done, he puts it all back in his hat, and throws that off to the side. Then Milo falls out of his bed, and in this he knows they’re all from cartoons and stuff, and he’s like, I think my writers are forgetting about me, so that’s why I’ve been so weak ever since I got back (from Octalia I guess?) So he’s actually getting scared, because he doesn’t have his backpack, he’s not being backed by his writers, and he’s not strong enough to fight back on his own, and he’s all alone. His friends won’t find him here.

 And he was imagining them wandering through this weird mystical dimension hospital—Zack, Melissa, Cavendish, and Dakota—sneaking around, trying to find him without getting caught. They kept avoiding the other people in the hospital. I’m not sure what qualified as a patient and what qualified as a doctor or nurse or something, but they had to avoid them both. They kept almost running into Bill Cipher as a human, which was something they had to avoid or something very bad would happen to them. They met Baby Cavenpus, I think. And Richard Maxwell. Which didn’t quite make sense, because he’s not from a DXD show? But whatever. They also kept seeing these five shadowy figures down at the end of hallways, and I kept thinking they were like the ghosts of VoicePlay or something. But the MML group met some of the patients in the hospital, which were… let me think, I seem to remember Ford, and Quirin, and… dang it, what was the purple horse’s name? … yeah, I don’t remember. Maybe it’ll come to me later. But anyway, they were all patients, and trying to escape, and find their friends/family (I guess not knowing they were now gods of death). So they teamed up with the MML gang to find their friends. But they passed right by where Milo’s room was, because it didn’t have a door, or maybe it was invisible.

 Then it went back to Milo. He thought they were actually passing by his room, or thought he saw them, and he yelled for them, but they didn’t hear him. And he wonders why they couldn’t find him. Then Scrooge puts his cane under Milo’s chin like in the video and says this isn’t a plane of reality people can just find. Milo is actually scared now, too scared to move. Where did I go wrong, he wonders? Scrooge lifts his cane and makes him stand, and he tells him he’s done nothing wrong, it’s not about that. No, it’s not exactly fair, but neither is life. And he takes his cane back and starts singing the part from the song. The other three are just glaring at him the whole time, partly because he’s the only one who’s still technically alive. But he slams his cane into the floor and makes Milo fall back onto the bed, and he sings the part about bad mistakes, and “I-I-I-I’ve made a fe-e-ew.” He didn’t even sound like Geoff, he literally sounded like Scrooge McDuck singing. The others are rolling their eyes, like, yeah, a few. But he’s ignoring them, and says he’s had to deal with all that, but he came through in the end. And the others are singing the background parts about “He could go on and on and on…”

 He does this evil laugh (well, maybe not evil, but you know what I mean) and he looked like he was about to continue, but then Stan and Wander and Varian start singing “We Are the Champions” all together, and Scrooge just gives them a death glare like, you wicked warblers, ye stole mah part. But they’re totally ignoring him, except for Stan, who’s just flaunting it. And Milo’s here in the middle of it, watching this whole rivalry thing play out. Wander and Varian are ignoring all that, though, just singing at the top of their lungs, and Wander dancing around, and being so friendly to Varian and getting him to have fun and dance around with him, and they seriously looked like they were having a super fun time, those two. #cinnamonrolls  I think they’re trying to get Milo to dance and sing too, and he almost looked like he wanted to, but he held back. But while Wander and Varian are completely ignoring the rivalry of the other two, Stan sings right in Scrooge’s face, and Scrooge does the thing in Stan’s eye like “No time for losers,” and Stan starts to get mad.

 So then he starts yelling at Scrooge, and everyone else shuts up to watch. I’m not entirely sure how this whole part went, but it was a lot about the rivalry. I think it might have played twice in the dream. The first time he was getting mad specifically at Scrooge, because they were partners(-in-crime) and worked together to make money, but Scrooge went on and did his own thing, got rich and successful and all. Oh, wow, just like his brother. But yeah, he was mad about it, and he’s like, yeah, you happy about that? Then… you know, I think it did play twice. The second time, he was just talking about his life in general. And Stan’s like, you think you had it tough, Mister Zillionaire? Look at all the crap I had to put up with, and all the stuff I had to pull to fix that stupid portal, and save my stupid brother, and I still died trying to stop a stupid triangle, and you’re talking about troubles? I had to stand ALL the heat, how long can you do it? How long before you have to face the bullets and die like the rest of us? And guess what, you might still have some kind of life, that might be your little solo here, but death is OUR beat. This time, it’s our call. We get to decide what happens now. It was actually kind of a cool speech.

 And I think it kind of gets the others on his side about this, and they join in the argument. They all want to decide what happens to Milo now, so they’re going back and forth about it. I think Stan wants to decide for himself, Wander wants to take him somewhere else, Varian wants them to stick to the rules, and nobody is sure what Scrooge wants. Then they all just jump in at the same time to grab Milo, to pull him to whatever fate they decide, or to keep the others from taking him, because they all have different ideas of what his fate should be. And it’s like in the video, where they’re all surrounding him, and Stan’s cane and Varian’s (well, Cass’s) sword crossed over his chest.

 Of course, Milo is freaking out over this whole process. I mean, how would you like four gods of Death fighting over you with their weapons at your throat? He shuts his eyes tight and just screams PLEASE STOP, I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!! The others stop pulling at him, but just stay right where they are. I can’t handle this, he says, it’s just too much pressure. All of you trying to drag me away to my death. But then he starts singing “Pressure” from his show, instead of the song from this part in the video. Musical accompaniment from nowhere, of course, for literally the only time in the dream. And… wait, were there words? I think there were. I think he sang his own lyrics to it, but I have no idea what they were. Dang it, why can’t I ever remember the songs in my dreams??

 But the others are like, well fine, fair point, but we’re the gods of death here, whaddya WANT US to do? And he just replies by singing the part from the song “I want to break FREE-E-E-E!” and throws his hand in the air. And for some reason that knocks all of them back, and they’re all really confused. But Milo just looks at them and he’s like, you really don’t care what happens to me, you just care about yourself and this crazy rivalry. You don’t need me, and I don’t need any of this. Well if your so smart, what do you think you need, they ask? And he says, I don’t know what I need. All I know is I want to break free from all this. They shake their heads as they step closer. ‘Fraid you can’t do that. It’s not your choice. And the lights go dim, because time’s almost up. Milo realizes now: he’s about to die.

 I think here it went back to the MML gang and the patients. Because apparently they aren’t just in Milo’s imagination anymore, and they’re just randomly really there. The whole thing could’ve been Milo’s dream, but I kinda don’t think so. But they saw the lights in the hospital go dim, and somehow knew that meant Milo was going to die. Maybe the patients knew, like Ford or something. So they rushed to find him quick. But then they went around a corner and ran right into the human Bill Cipher. He looked a little like the tall red guy in Hazbin Hotel, except yellow and black, and, you know, BILL. (I haven’t watched the show, but I’ve seen a few clips in music videos) So they all ran away, and he kept chasing them through the halls of the hospital. Here it kinda turned into nightmare, because it seemed like we just couldn’t get away. (oh and in this part of the dream, I was seeing it through Cavendish’s eyes, not just watching it happen). At one point, I think the patients turned around to fight him, but he made the blue chains appear around their necks and pulled them back to him. Then he started chasing us again. When he was chasing us, they weren’t there, though. We couldn’t get away. It was like almost every time we turned a corner to get away from him, he was there where we were about to go, ready to spring. We kept running, but he finally cornered us. The patients were there again, floating chained in the air behind him and struggling to get free. I think it was only Ford and Quirin this time though? Not… SYLVIA! That was her name! Sylvia. But she wasn’t there at the time for whatever reason. But we were cornered, and I was just so upset (well, Cavendish was). Cavendish said he let Milo get hurt and he’s about to die, and now he’s led two more kids and his best friend right into Death’s hands. He says he’s sorry to them, and whispers it to Milo, like “I’m sorry, Milo.”

 Well, I don’t know if you’d say Milo felt that or what, but I think he did. In his last few moments, Milo looks down and finds the pocketwatch Cavendish and Dakota gave him, and he touches it and thinks about them. They’re like these crazy sci-fi uncles to him, but they’re really his friends. And then he remembers his family, and Zack and Melissa and his other friends, and he just really hopes they think of him after all this, because he misses them a lot. The moment he gives in, he’ll be losing all of them.

 I feel like there was a part of the dream that I remembered here that didn’t actually happen before, where Bill said that Cavendish and Dakota were supposed to die, and he’d let the other two go if they agreed to stay, because he’d been cheated out of getting Cavendish way too many times, so he wanted them both now. He couldn’t let Milo go, because he was in with the gods of Death, nobody can get him out of there. And I think Cavendish and Dakota just looked at each other and nodded, and Dakota told the other two to say bye to Milo for them, and Cavendish stepped up to shake Bill’s hand. Of course the thing about it is that I just kind of remembered this as happening, in the middle of the scene with Milo, but I hadn’t seen it happen. Dreams are weird.

 But I remembered that happening, and I thought, well, Milo is still losing them all. He’s losing C&D to death and losing all the others to life. He can never see any of them again until the moment they die. And this time, the others around him are just quiet. They all had to leave people behind when this happened, too, and they know this is the case for all of them. Most of them are also remembering the people they lost in life too (Scrooge lost Della, Stan lost Ford, Varian lost Quirin). So they know how this poor kid feels. But they’re like, they say it should be easy, but even though it isn’t, these are the rules. This is how you gotta play the game, and now it’s your turn. Just give in.

 And it was at that moment that I suddenly thought, wait, did you seriously just invite Milo freaking Murphy to play a freaking game?

 Well, I think Milo must have had the same thought, because he stands up on his bed and rips out all the cords and IVs hooked up to him. Then the lights suddenly undim and he looks around at them and he says, you know what, you can knock me right down with whatever you’ve got, but I’m always getting back up again! Then he points right at the camera (or whatever it is in a dream—I remember thinking he was talking to Dan and Swampy) and he sings, you think you can love me and leave me to die? Well, sorry, but you can’t! I’m getting out of here, and I’m getting back to my family and friends, because I’ve got something no game and none of you can beat!

 So then, Varian draws Cass’s sword, and he’s like, careful, I like you, but if you try anything crazy, I’m gonna have to use this. But then Milo looks down at his hand, and it starts supercharging with this red energy: Murphy’s Law. He then shoots it right at Varian, who vanishes in a puff of smoke. And here I was aware of two scenes going on at the same time, this one and the one with the others. When Milo shot Murphy’s Law at Varian and made him disappear, Quirin’s chain snapped. When Milo turns and does the same to Stan and Wander, the chains for Ford and Sylvia (who’s back now I guess) snap too. Bill is freaking out because he doesn’t understand what’s happening (and neither do the MML gang). But I think they can hear the song going on, and they know Milo’s doing something. And Milo does the exact line from the song, “I’ll face it with a grin, I’m never giving in, oh no,” while Scrooge is giving him this smile that says, go on lad, you’ve earnt it. He shoots Scrooge with Murphy’s Law, and he vanishes too. Bill gets knocked back on the ground when that happens, and the wall nearby turns into a door. So the MML gang run toward it, because it’s Milo’s door. Then Milo turns right toward the camera and sings “SHOW MUST GO ON!” before turning around and walking up to the curtains behind his bed. Behind him, the others come through the door. He opens the curtains…

 And wakes up in his bed. Cavendish and Dakota sit up straight in their chairs and gasp. They look at each other like, wait we’re still here? Was that real? But then Milo groans, and they see he’s there and he’s alive. And they both come over and hug him. Milo just says, thanks guys. Then Zack and Melissa rush in, and when they see Milo, they give each other the same kind of looks C&D just did. Then they run over and hug Milo too. It’s a very happy tearful reunion, and then it fades out into white, just like the video.

 And I mean, that’s not exactly the end of the dream, because then there was this kind of dream epilogue or something, where the four guys are just watching the happy ending from the white place that the ending faded into. They’re actually looking pretty pleased. I think they cheer when Milo’s family comes in a minute later. They start talking about how it was better he didn’t become one of them just yet, he’s still got his life to live. Stan looks over at Scrooge and is like, I bet you just set the whole thing up to prove it, huh? Prove the kid? And Scrooge replies, believe me, I wasn’t about to rouse your rivalry without a very good reason.

 But what about that dreamtime death demon, he asks? And Stan’s like, don’t you worry, I think there’s some people that’ll be more than ready to give him his. Cue Bill getting up surrounded by Ford, Quirin, and Sylvia. He laughs and says, you really think you’re gonna be able to stand up to me, with the power I have over you? Ford says not really, but they probably will, and thumbs behind him. And the ghosts of VoicePlay come up and they look mad, because Bill messed with their reality and put it together with all these others and made it all crazy like this, so they go beat him up.

 Stan and Scrooge laugh. But now they don’t have anything to do, because Milo was the last thing on their list. So Wander is just like, let’s have a dance party, and Varian’s like, yeah man, let’s do it, and highfives him. Or however many fingers they have. And they just start dancing, to… I don’t know what the song was. It might’ve just been made up. Or maybe it was part of the actual song? I don’t know. And I think there might’ve been more, like another dream, but I don’t really remember it. I think it was another one with VoicePlay.

 So yeah, that’s about it. I just spent the last three hours typing that up, as soon as I got up, so hopefully it’s good? It’s just so bizarre, but also kind of cool? And I haven’t had cool dreams like this in a while, so it was definitely welcome. I guess it’s kind of an indicator of what’s going on in my brain these days.

 (now I kinda wanna fic it)