#t; theseus | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

unbrydledfury · 7 months ago

Text

- UNCUT -

( Hey everyone. For better readability, here's the entirety of Sons of Theseus in a single post. Please note this is enormous, clocking in at over 7300 words, so brace for a mountain of text under the Read More. If you'd like a TL;DR version, click here, though it contains spoilers, naturally.

The icons indicate separate posts. Snakes = Bryan's POV, owls = Dragunov's.

As far as content warnings go, please be aware this contains, in no particular order: canon-typical violence, brief gory depictions, lots of foul language, war, pain, and death.

Likes and comments are very appreciated! Thank you for reading! )

- 𓆚 -

The world's largest celebration of an ex-corpse turned Hollywood Boulevard into a teeming sea of cheering crowds. Countless arms pumped and snatched at the rainbow of confetti snowing from the flawless blue sky. Excited screams punctuated the trumpets blaring from mariachi musicians stationed on rooftops like heralding angels. The day was seventy-five degrees with forty percent humidity.

The doors of the Chinese Theatre burst open and Bryan Fury stepped out into Southern Californian paradise. His audience roared with praise as he tugged the lapels of his suit jacket, his grin gleaming like the sun off his designer shades. Flanked by a cadre of slim supermodels in slim dresses, the cyborg descended amongst his adoring fans.

Arms spread wide, hands brushing and being brushed by jittering, shrieking devotees, he approached the blank concrete square in the sidewalk. Kneeling before it, he thought about what to inscribe. Simple was best. With a finger he drew his name, all caps, bigger and bolder than life with underlines like missile trails.

The crowd exploded, bodies bobbing in seismic waves as the music swelled to a crescendo. Bryan rose to his feet and thrust his fist skyward, a triumphant cry tearing from him that hundreds echoed back. Cameras flashed like starbursts while cannons cascaded streamers and silver glitter and a glowing warmth he hadn't felt in ages filled his mind. He was seen. He was known.

A pair of arms curled under his own, hands resting on his sternum. Bryan could recognize their scars anywhere. A face pressed briefly, affectionately, into the back of his shoulder, and lips softly brushed his ear.

"Well done, darling," Dragunov murmured.

Despite the postcard weather and rock concert crowd, the pit of Bryan's stomach turned to frost. Never once had he heard Sergei speak. That was not the soldier's voice. That was his own.

Pale fingers trailed over his throat.

Fury swung a punch behind him, and the vague shape there broke apart into streams of navy mist. The sounds and smells of the Walk of Fame felt as distant as his plummeting mood. What the fuck was that? He tried for steadying breaths, heartbeat pounding in his ears.

A heartbeat he did not have.

He looked to his entourage. They were nothing but smears of peach and tan, brushstrokes emulating hourglass figures and beehive wigs. Whirling back around, he saw his audience was a wall of faceless blotches and stains, an endless LSD trip projected on suffocating wildfire smoke. The music stuttered and skipped. Impossible. Wasn't it playing live?

Trying to blink the insane mirage from his eyes -- no use, it was still there, its cheers warped long and low into funerary wailing -- Bryan reached to remove his shades. Something larger than lenses stopped his fingers. Bulkier. Pulling on it, he felt it press against the back of his head. He grabbed the crown of his head, arms straining to rip his skull apart.

CRUN--

--nch.

Still breathing hard, it took Fury a moment to gather himself. He was in a small white room, standing on some sort of small round treadmill. Mechanical arms attached to the machine and hanging from tracks on the ceiling lashed cuffs around his ankles and wrists. In his hands were two pieces of some sort of helmet, cracked down the middle with technicolor wiring exposed.

Two men and a woman in white coats stared from an observation window, eyes wide and mouths agape with fear. A fourth researcher stood in the room with him, frozen in place, laptop clutched to her breast.

Bryan looked himself over. Left arm and right leg devoid of synthetic skin, check. Camo pants, check. Ocular HUD reporting normalizing respiration rate, adrenaline levels, and latency between brain and limbs, check, check, check.

He couldn't help but chuckle.

It had been a whirlwind, even by his standards. Receiving word from a Hollywood studio that wanted to tell his story was unexpected but interesting. He remembered walking into their office and shaking hands with the director -- yeah, that was him in the observation room, wearing a nametag from a private military company. They wanted to try a new technique, he said, a type of VR AI that captured and generated visuals from memories. Always willing to play my greatest hits, Bryan recalls saying. They'd strapped him in and turned it on. The next week had been a tour de force, carnage reimagined: gunning down insurgents in Middle Eastern deserts, plowing through waves of Zaibatsu even as his flesh tore like fishnets, a second extinction of the Manji clan.

Grinning, he loosed a nostalgic sigh. The little black box between his lungs was worth its weight in diamonds. He sent it a kind, simple query: where would I be without you?

He interpreted its response as followed: here, where you've been for the past one year, four months, and eleven days.

The researcher inched toward a door in the corner.

Still smiling, Bryan craned his head toward her. "Oh, you clever bastards," he muttered, and threw the broken helmet through the window, impacting the director's face with a spray of blood.

As he slumped to the ground, the others bolted. Seconds later the room was shrouded in red as an alarm blared. The woman with the laptop had her hand on the doorknob.

Pain exploded down her side as Bryan grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her close. She could feel his breath, hot and humid, on her neck. "No you don't," he snarled, "You have some explaining to do. Looks like I've been out of the loop for a while."

Guards are coming, she thought, trying to contain her panic and her bladder, It's okay, it'll be okay. The guards had guns. They'd take him out.

Yet he held her in front of him, his grip like iron. She had seen for herself Bryan's opinion on collateral damage.

Jackboots thundered closer.

His words were beetles in her ear: "Start talking."

- 𓅓 -

The Tattered Blackbird was one of many pubs in Kensington, yet as it came into view, Polya Dragunova's heart wedged itself in her throat. She cut across a gap in traffic and maneuvered past the businesspeople finished with work and waiting out rush hour milling on the sidewalk outside. The interior was worse, a veritable sardine can of twentysomething professionals reluctant to return to flats they shared with half a dozen of their peers. White collar gaggles blocked the typical pub decor from sight and a chorus of weekly gripes drowned the news on the TV over the bar. Polya didn't care about any of it. All that mattered to her was the man taking an entire booth to himself in the corner, sipping a pint like nothing was wrong.

Her brother.

Polya bowled her purse into the seat across from him hard enough to hit the wall with a heavy thud, and threw herself down right after. "Make it quick."

Sergei Dragunov steeled himself in the bottom of his glass. This was never going to be painless, but she needn't start swinging right off the bat. Fine. Very well. He could do quick. He tossed a yellow envelope onto the table, trying to ignore how his sister flinched.

She stared at it for a moment, then tore it open. The card inside was black, bordered in gold stars, YOU DID IT! printed under a paper mortarboard. Within were four salmon pink notes -- two hundred British pounds. She picked them up, watched their watermarks appear and hide in the light.

"What the fuck is this," she said.

Here we go, Sergei thought.

"No, really, what the fuck is this." Polya's features darkened to an apocalyptic scowl. "Is this a bribe? Are you fucking bribing me to talk to you? You could rob a fucking bank for me and I still wouldn't give you the time of day, you fucking fascist!"

Her volume was steadily rising. Dragunov could feel perplexed looks pointed toward their table.

She kept going. "I don't want your blood money. I don't want you in my life. I feel fucking stupid for even looking at your text. My graduation was really nice, you know? Going out with normal people, people who aren't war criminals. But then you drop out of the blue and my whole fucking week is ruined."

Sergei rubbed his brow, eyes squeezed shut, his other hand clutching his elbow. He had hoped otherwise, but couldn't deny the truth: this was a terrible mistake.

She was on her feet now, face livid, tossing the pounds at him. "No contact means no contact. How fucking dumb do you have to be to not get that?" Her voice was a bitter screech, every word a needle. "You're a drone. An ant. Disgusting. All you do is destroy -- innocent lives, my peace of mind, Mom's heart--"

"ENOUGH!"

The shout ripped from Dragunov's soul like a malfunctioning rocket, propelling him onto his feet and his fists onto the table. His throat immediately protested, nicotine-scented phlegm knotting in his windpipe. He couldn't breathe. What little air he could reach was spent on muddy, racking coughs until he was bent double, hacking black mucus into his palm.

A few pub patrons inched toward him, unsure about the situation but unwilling to watch him suffer. Sergei waved them off. Through blurred vision and blood pounding in his ears, he saw all eyes on him and Polya, stunned yet still trembling with rage.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter that he was protecting his home -- protecting her -- the only way he knew how, skimming money he could have easily spent on anything else for months to wish her the best. For someone who had spent four years mastering artistic expression, she refused to see an olive branch.

A long, loud tone blared from the TV. Breaking news. The general gaze turned toward the screen. Murmurs went up, hands clasped over mouths, cheeks drained of color.

Across an ocean, a city burned, and a demon proclaimed the end of the world.

Polya glanced between the broadcast and her brother. A curious paradox: he was right there, and so was the rest of the pub, yet seemed separated by lightyears. The thing on the television, the warning crawl about falling satellite debris, on the other hand, was as close as a dangling guillotine blade. And as her worldview sat on the chopping block, more than anything else, she felt very, very alone.

She looked for Sergei. The front door slammed, and he was gone.

- 𓆚 -

The Colosseum was an apt place to hold the Tournament. No amount of time could cleanse it from a history of bloodshed. Built to commemorate imperial power, a new emperor now sat at its head, eking judgements on nations from the fists and feet of their finest gladiators.

Not like Bryan cared. What the Colosseum needed, in his humble opinion, was some extra defacing.

Any wall would do, really. The one he was walking past now? Perfect. Ocular lenses flaring to compensate for the low light in the hypogeum tunnels, a smirk turned his lip as he pressed his finger against the stone. Simple was best. His name, a permanent mark on the world wonder, all caps, bigger and bolder than...

--shit.

The cyborg dropped his hand, his amusement extinguished like a match. He'd just done that. The memory of Hollywood was still fresh in his mind, even though it'd been a dream. Right? He'd felt the sun on his face. Smelled the perfume of his entourage. Reaching out, he stroked the wall. The rock was rough under his touch. He heard the spectators in the stands above calling for the next fight. This -- this was real. This was the King of Iron Fist Tournament! This was as real as it got! Combat against the best of the best for the highest stakes imaginable!

--which meant this very well could be an illusion too. If he could think it, there was a real possibility it was not real.

Bryan groaned, leaving the wall to its own devices. Life was better when I just killed people, he thought, I am never dealing with those fucks at Netflix again.

Turning a corner, he saw a group of men in military fatigues ahead. He heard the language they spoke, saw the flag patch on their shoulders. In their midst, leaning on his knees in a folding chair, uniform blue as an arctic sea, was Dragunov.

Fury froze. If this was all scripted, Sergei was the exact person who would make an entrance at this time. What was the next play? Approaching him fell right in line with whatever virtual plot was unfolding, if there even was one, but Bryan couldn't ignore him either. Breaking this chain of events would only cause new ones to form...

--if he was still being force-fed lies. Or was life simply chugging on?

--shit.

This was ridiculous. Why did it disturb him so much? Ultimately, there was no correct choice.

But there was a fun one.

Swaggering up to the convoy, Bryan grinned as chitchat died and hands flew to holstered guns. "Hey there, sunshine," he said, "Hah. You look like hell."

With the weight and chill of icebergs, Dragunov levelled a narrow stare at him. Bryan didn't remember him being so pale. Perhaps it was the contrast with the dirt on his clothes, the bruises on his face.

"Bet Shaheen looks worse," Fury continued, "Beat him half to death, didn't you. I'm sure he'll be fine. His country, though? You opened it up to the Zaibatsu's nasty little claws. A lot of people are going to die, Drag."

Expression unchanging, the Russian picked up a canteen, took a swig of water. The justification for his indifference was obvious: better them than us.

"Psch. Don't tell me you get your rocks off saving lives now. Wasn't that long ago you had the time of your life completely thrashing some of the very meat-bags in this ugly, old ruin. I know. I was there. Or did the thing in Vegas change your tune?"

The canteen paused halfway to the floor. Looking back, Sergei's gaze turned to a glare aflame with acrid cold.

That's it, Bryan thought, teeth bared in an ear-to-ear smile, There he is. "Y'know, between you and me, we could nip this whole fuckin' thing in the bud. C'mon. Kazuya is a purple people-eater, but you're an expert in that sorta shit and I'm me." He slowly shook his head. "There's gonna be no better time, Drag. We stopped a disaster before. Let's do it again."

Deliberately, as if facing down a prehistoric python coiled to strike, Dragunov rose to his feet.

The explosion tore down the tunnel in a shockwave of dust and pressure, knocking them all to the ground. Under the echoing roar of the blast and the rumble of ancient stone breaking came panicked screams from the crowd above.

Sprawled on his back, covered in grit, Bryan barely acknowledged the diagnostics crawling in his eyes. His body was fine. His grip on reality, however, felt as unstable as the fissures in the ceiling.

- 𓅓 -

Dragunov, meanwhile, scrambling to his feet, had other things in mind. Survival, first and foremost, and the well-being of his men. They had taken up positions with guns out and ready, but they were clearly scared out of their wits. These were not hardened operatives. These were boys fresh from basic, a scant few the Russian Army could spare, assigned simply to escort him to Italy to represent and defend the lives of his people. A relatively easy mission, until someone or something decided they could not leave well enough alone.

Creaking noises from above. It wasn't safe here. Grabbing his own sidearm, Sergei pointed into the tunnel in the direction of the blast and ran to take lead.

Behind them, moaning, Bryan began to rise.

Sounds of a stampede grew louder as they drew closer to the surface. They raced the cracks in the walls up a flight of stairs into an aboveground passageway. Despite the evacuation broadcast directing where to escape, a handful of panicked, bleeding spectators stumbled past them. Dragunov caught one, a man in a bright red Hawaiian shirt, by the shoulder, shoved him aside, and paid no heed as he plunged out of sight. For treating the fate of millions of innocents as primetime viewing, there was no salvation.

Another shockwave rocked the Colosseum. The floor rippled under his feet and fresh dust stung his face.

New voices ahead, shouting over the din. Sergei lifted a fist beside his face, calling his men to halt. An armed squadron corralled escaping civilians toward refuge. He could recognize their baby blue berets anywhere. They were UN.

Ravens.

Outrage smothered self-preservation. This went miles beyond meddling. This was escalation. The state of affairs was far from ideal, but in ruining the Saudi champion, Dragunov secured a measure of safety for Russia. Now these scavengers, these carcass eaters, jeopardized it all.

He raised his gun. His men aimed their rifles.

The next trickle of seconds lasted years.

A thunderclap from on high slammed them all to the ground once more. Dropped weapons scattered in every direction.

Horror speared his insides as the world went dark, but he was not blinded -- hellish clouds blotted out the sun and turned the air frigid.

Footfalls and terrified cries hammered around him as peacekeepers and his own soldiers fled.

Hauling himself to one knee, Dragunov caught glimpse of two glowing eyes. Bryan, standing at the top of the stairs, staring at him with uncertainty.

Outside, Azazel roared its rebirth--

--and the Colosseum finally gave up its ghost. The ceiling buckled, pouring an avalanche of stone, concrete, and steel.

Sergei had time for one, last thought: his family.

And he was overrun.

- 𓆚 -

"DRAG!"

Bryan ran towards the collapse before the dust had time to settle. A nova of light made him flinch, eyes overwhelmed by brilliance and turning the world even darker. His ears clocked the accompanying snarls as louder than jet engines. Whatever was happening in the arena, he didn't care. It didn't matter. A desperate mantra dominated his mind.

No. No. No.

Throwing pieces of rubble was too slow. His fists smashed stone and steel asunder.

No. No. No.

The knuckles of his right hand frayed, revealing black alloy underneath. He kept going.

No. No. NO.

His tether to normalcy couldn't leave him. He couldn't.

"DRAG!"

There. A line of a blue sleeve amidst heaps of gray. All of Bryan's CPUs cycled faster as he tore through the last pile of rock. They would laugh about this later over drinks in a dive bar, how Fury dug him up like buried treasure--

--sudden realization turned Bryan motionless.

He freed Dragunov, all right, but those insides were not supposed to be outsides.

The cyborg sank to his knees. It did not compute. It was unthinkable.

And because it was, it was real. This was not a dream-- --this was nightmare.

Time became unmoored this far north. The sky, full of chrome clouds, concealed the position of the sun. It could be noon, it could be half past midnight. The harbor jutting into the Barents Sea was bathed in a nondescript un-light, the snow tinged gray with the various drippings of loitering military vehicles. Two men, bundled head-to-toe against the numbing cold and carrying automatic rifles, stood at attention on either side of an enormous, circular blast door embedded in the rocky cliffside. When Bryan Fury crested the other side of the harbor, their thick snow goggles hid any reaction.

The cyborg, for his part, felt nothing. Had felt nothing since the Colosseum. A hurricane inhabited his head. There were no thoughts, no foresight -- just a Category 5 maelstrom of barbed wire, sheared metal, and whipping winds. A complex of commands kicked on from somewhere in the bowels of his machinery and roared in animal defiance for the past twenty-four hundred miles and forty hours. He had paused only to hijack another car or truck when his latest ride fell apart, overworked and riddled with ammunition.

His trek crossed seven countries, and all mobilized against him. It was a blur of battlefields, the stink of burning explosive clinging to what remained of his skin. His black and red endoskeleton was littered in chips and tears and coated in layers of dust, ash, and dried blood. Some part of him dripped inky fluid, forming a dark trail as he approached the door.

Behind him dragged a rope tied to a wood crate.

The guards remained still as he drew within twenty paces. It was possible they were robots. Bryan had faced enough of those crossing most of Eastern Europe, both Zaibatsu and G Corp made. Not even a glance as Fury wrenched the rope around, flinging the crate forward in a dizzying spin across the slush until it slid to a halt.

His voice, with ballistic volume: "FIX HIM."

Utter silence. Finally, in unison, the guards stepped away from the door. Locks disengaged with bangs and groans like breaking sea ice, and it sluggishly swung open.

Bryan grabbed the rope and entered the Gold Raptors base.

The ramp was a steady decline illuminated by florescent lamps, their bumblebee hum the only sound aside the rumble of circulated air and the scrrrrp of wood on concrete, leading to a massive hangar. All that moved were motes of dust. A single light over an elevator gleamed in the otherwise cavernous shadows.

Had Fury still the capacity for nuance, he would have been offended at the blatant instruction, but that was long discarded back in Italy. The prime directive came closer with every step. Nothing else mattered.

The elevator opened on its own. Bryan stepped in, crate in tow, and descended one thousand feet into the earth.

It delivered him to a hallway. The layout was familiar -- he'd been in a containment wing before. As he walked down the empty corridor, he spared the briefest glances through the viewports on various doors. This was where they housed the horrors. A rust red boar the size of an elephant -- a ballerina in arabesque, perpetually aflame -- clumpy smoke with yellow eyes orbiting an antique stove--

One door unlocked with an electronic buzz and click. He went in.

Tubes and cables, some as wide as Bryan's torso, ran like entrails across the floor, snaked up the walls, and hung from the ceiling. Monitoring equipment sat in powerless consoles. Something on the other end of the cell glowed a sunset halo. Fury approached.

At first, he couldn't tell what it was. It resembled a giant steel fennel seed, seven feet long and cherry red. It sat embedded in a nest of metal spines that seemed to grow out of the wall itself, a lattice of iron urchins dark as interstellar space. Its upper half was transparent, revealing a hollow interior full of raw chicken pink fluid.

Suspended within was Dragunov.

For the first time in hours, miles, and devastated countries, the storm in Bryan's mind dissipated, and clarity returned to him. The journey, his wounds, all were forgotten.

A gentle crack, and the cradle unhinged open. Looking in, Fury noted the soldier was nude, hair floating around his face, eyes closed, breathing. Fast asleep, not a trace of tension in his body. Covered in scars.

Beautiful, Bryan thought.

Distant rumbling came closer, building into an electric roar. Arcs of lightning tore through the cell, bounding off the tubes and cables. Bryan barely had time to brace himself, but the surge danced around him and drove directly into the cradle itself with a deafening bellow.

Sergei opened his eyes.

An instant later, he wrenched himself upright, shouting in pain, pink fluid sloshing onto the floor. He clung to the side of the cradle, knuckles white, wheezing as his lungs filled with air.

Bryan knelt so they were face-to-face. Dragunov, wet, naked, and trembling, was exquisite. More importantly: he was alive. The nightmare was over, and the world was finally, undeniably real.

Eyes and smile glowing, Fury cocked his head playfully, chin resting on his hand. "First time?"

Dragunov punched him in the jaw.

- 𓅓 -

Chaos. Utter disarray. There was no other way to describe it. Dragunov felt his mind had melted and he was scrambling for handholds in a titanic whirlpool of impossibilities. The Colosseum. He remembered that -- remembered an instant of crushing pressure, the familiar sound of bones cracking deafening in his ears. What happened? Why was he drenched? Why the fuck was Bryan here?

"Welcome back."

A single screen on an otherwise dark console burst on. The grainy picture displayed the silhouette of a man, his details obscured by the brilliant spotlights behind him. He sat in a chair, one leg across the other, hands folded in his lap.

Sergei knew him by his voice and, despite his tremors, saluted. The man was the Major, the head of the Gold Raptors.

"At ease," he said.

Dragunov dropped his hand. Better to keep hold of the cradle. It was more grounded than he felt himself.

Moaning, rubbing the pain from his face, Fury hauled himself to a seat on a wooden crate. Why was that there?

"You have many questions," the Major continued, "I shall answer the most pertinent, as time is of the essence. At 13:44 hours CET, forty-one hours and three minutes ago, you were killed by traumatic asphyxia. Through anomalous methods at our disposal, you have been resurrected, your self duplicated from a remote biotic snapshot taken at the moment of your death. We have made some minor adjustments to your overall physical condition, including removal of the stage three tumors in your lungs and trachea."

Oh. That explained the perfluorocarbon bath. Sweeping loose hair out of his eyes, Sergei peered over the edge of the cradle. Yes, he recognized the spines now. They'd been extracted from the bottom of the sea not far from here, come to think of it. There had been some chatter about potential cross-testing with other specimens in the past.

-- wait, what was that last par--

"You will be deployed immediately to Yakushima in Japan to represent Gold Raptors' interests in the area," the Major said. He leaned closer, voice graveyard cold. "Your reconstruction goes against the core tenets of our organization. That you are our best option, even in death, for combatting this threat to global security is the only reason we did so. Do not squander the gifts we have given you, Admiral Dragunov." He settled back. "You are dismissed."

The screen blinked to black.

Sergei's throat was tight -- with emotion. The plug was pulled on the vortex, flushing it down the proverbial drain and leaving an unfamiliar residue: fear. He palmed his heart, its two-step steady. My God, he thought. They scrubbed him out like an old iron pot.

God, my God.

Two men in white coats entered the room. One carried a blanket.

What choice did he have? His mission, and he had to accept it, was abundantly clear. Once spetsnaz, always spetsnaz. Death would have him when he was no longer needed.

Resolving himself, Dragunov climbed out of the cradle. He had a job to do.

He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and departed the room, white-coats in tow. He wished he had a hair tie.

With little option himself, Bryan followed, scowling as he processed what just happened. This reality was weird.

The twinkle of moon blue grit in the cradle water went unnoticed.

- 𓆚 -

International borders again, this time on fast forward. Bryan had last been on a military aircraft that had willingly carried him two lifetimes ago. Looking out a window at the approaching island made his pistons clench in excitement.

Dragunov, not so much. He looked fantastic in tactical armor, that was a given. Kevlar suited him, and the red beret a no-brainer. It was the scowl, heavier than usual, that soured the atmosphere of the entire cargo hold. Didn't he care about the morale of his men?

Crossing the belly of the beast towards him, Bryan patted a pallet bristling with weaponry, gun barrels poking out at random. "Couldn't decide what to get from your boys, so I ordered one of everything."

Nothing. Not so much as a wayward glance.

Dragunov had no one but himself to blame for his terrible mood. Back at base, while being patched up with new synthetic skin, Fury caught him investigating the wood crate. "I wouldn't look in there if I were you," Bryan had hollered.

Sergei gave two seconds consideration. A pointed finger dropped with sledgehammer finality. A crowbar made quick work of the lid.

The green stench of decay bloomed over the entire medical bay. To the Raptors' credit, there had been less revulsion than Bryan expected, their doctors and nurses hardened by routine treatment of anomalous illness and injury, but heads still turned away, lunches still fought down.

Sergei stared into the contents of the crate for a long time. The pulped tangle inside stared back.

He waved his hand once. The lid was replaced, the crate taken away.

There was the gurgle of a flamethrower. Barbeque scents.

Fury looked around the hold. Somber faces on every soldier. Being a complete sad-sack had to be a prerequisite for joining the Gold Raptors. At least they all perked up when he kicked the pallet closer to the cargo hatch. "C'mon, boys and girls," he cried, "Who hasn't wanted to visit Japan? I hear there's a chance of hail. Bullet hail, courtesy of yours truly. Hey, everyone strapped in?"

Yanking a lever on the wall bathed the hold in red warning light and drilling klaxons as the hatch bowed open. Howling wind threatened to suction out anything not battened down. The pallet spilled over the edge and out of sight.

Bryan turned back to Dragunov. Sergei still sneered, but there was a new glint in his eye -- a let's get this done hardened resolve. Fury knew it well. He'd seen it before every fight they'd had, with or against each other. It meant someone or something was in for a world of pain. It meant Dragunov was feeling better. Feeling himself.

He'd be fine.

Grinning, Bryan bowed like a Hollywood actor, and jumped from the plane.

An instant of freezing freefall, synthetic muscles bracing, then impact -- jarring, dirt and debris flying, barely tickled. Brushing off his pants -- the leather scuffed, but oh well, plenty of alligators in the sea -- he approached the pallet. It hadn't survived the drop, guns strewn like a popped pimple. No problem, it just meant he could fine tune his selection. He thought he wouldn't be thinking again soon. The storm was already blowing.

Zaibatsu forces already took up position in a valley. G Corp had the high ground. Oh, this was going to be good. A real two-for-one deal, with Tournament morons sprinkled on top.

Bryan lifted the Gatling gun. It was time to make new memories.

- 𓅓 -

Back in the saddle again. Dragunov could do this in his sleep. He could do this dead.

No. No, don't think about that. Don't think about being alive for just over twelve hours. That doesn't help anyone. That doesn't keep his people safe. Focus.

It's hard when it's this easy though. The Raptors had hardly been deployed yet. Sergei and his squad watched the battle unfold from their vantage point halfway up a mountainside. This was not their fight. At the first sign of anomalous behavior, it would be.

He let one or two of his soldiers pick off a target every so often. Someone who looked important. Someone who would make the course of events more entertaining if they died. Dragunov spotted them through binoculars, relayed positions through gesture. These were veteran Raptors. They understood.

A sniper rifle blasted. In the valley, a head popped. Business as usual.

It was almost boring.

A flash of yellow in Sergei's sights caught him off-guard. Frowning, he looked again. It was King, complete with full feathered regalia. King. Really? Was G Corp that strapped for combatants, they had to send in a Mexican wrestler? This wasn't a battlefield, this was a goddamn three-ring circus.

It would be mildly interesting to see what kind of skull lay under that stupid mask. Dragunov pointed into the valley. It wasn't hard to determine who he wanted killed. Shifting her stance, the Raptor sniper took aim. Crosshairs centered on golden fur and black rosettes. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

The Doppler effect broke open overhead, crashing waves of sound down upon them. A plane, black as night, Zaibatsu emblem on its sides, crested the mountaintop then dipped downward. A bombing run. Its payload hung one-handed underneath, over seven feet tall with veins of electric red.

Sergei's pulse quickened. They had no intel on a new Jack model. Despite superior numbers, Zaibatsu forces were losing ground. That they chose to utilize it now made his hair stand on end. If this was their ace in the hole, what made it so?

The possibility of anomalous enhancement could not be ignored. Dragunov swung his arm ahead. The Raptors moved.

The terrain was steep and rocky, a combination that required careful planning of every footfall. By the time they had descended, the war had advanced to meet them. Blood, dirt, and gunpowder hung heavy in the air. Dragunov didn't remember combat smelling this way, itchy on his skin.

The difference a new windpipe makes, he thought, and before that train could start rolling, something slammed hard into his side. He lost balance, fell end-over-end down the slope.

His brain kept going after his body rolled to a stop. Until now, all he had experience had been discomfort compared to this. This hurt, and his factory settings flesh had no idea how to deal with it. Groaning, he crawled to all fours, looked up.

Who wore a white suit to a combat zone?

- 𓆚 -

Wholesale slaughter -- now that was living. Biopics? Overrated. Celebrity? Not when you had infamy. The movie studio thing had been a novelty, sure, but the killing fields was where Bryan shone.

He'd long lost track of his body count.

It was incredible, really. From his perspective behind the Gat, deep amidst the torrents of bullets and bodies, the Zaibatsu and G Corp forces were schools of minnows, and he a shark. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The gun mowed them down like grass, blood spraying, severed limbs flying, their death screams music to his ears.

He might have been laughing. He could not hear himself over the storm's hellish shrieking in his mind.

A flash of lightning blue caught the corner of his eye. A pink-haired pixie, darting between volleys of shots.

Fury grinned, his targeting reticules locked onto her every movement. Could this day get any better? Boots on the ground, tank shells in the air, destruction and agony and he in the thick of it, pushing the world order into a whirling blender of meat hooks and razor winds, and now this, the chance to forever exterminate a challenge to his throne of Doctor Bosconovitch's Greatest Contribution to Mankind. Forget seedy Chinese alleyways, downing fighter jets in flight with just a girder -- fuck, forget Yoshimitsu. This was going to top the charts.

He swung the Gat around, aimed slightly ahead of her. The barrel spun up with an eager squeal.

--then there, below her, an un-color that did not belong to nature, distracting him. Radioactive bubblegum. In the sheath of a sword. That was slashing Dragunov in two.

No.

Bryan froze. A beam of light burst through his tempest, rooting him to the ground. He could only watch as the old stranger's blade left a deep, steaming gouge in Sergei's chest armor. Dragunov raised his arms to block the next two cleaves only to catch the handle on the backswing with his face. He collapsed to his knees.

Bryan dropped the Gat.

No. No.

Sergei craned his head up. Wiping his knuckles across his cheek left a comet tail of blood. Resurrection had placed him right back in meat. Fallible meat, as Fury knew too well.

Dragunov tried to stand. His face twisted in agony as a leg failed to respond, stiff as a board. As rigor mortis.

He was not fine.

No. No. NO.

Bryan grabbed the reins of his mental storm, willed it to his feet to fly him the twenty paces between himself and the injured Russian. Each step echoed like a hammer. A heartbeat. The sea of bodies around him dissolved their details into bruised, sickly smog. Reality was soup, and he fought time's quagmire with every carbon fiber of his being.

The stranger lifted his sword for the killing blow.

NO NO NO NO--

Impact. A millisecond's awareness to brace Sergei's neck as momentum raced them onward and gravity tore them down. A dozen jolts and blows as the ground got its licks in. One last tumble before the world came to a halt.

He'd ended up on top of Sergei. Grabbing him by the bulletproof vest, Bryan yanked him close, eyes burning with crazed desperation.

"You fucking moron," Fury cried, shaking him, "I can't lose you again!"

Under him, Dragunov's mouth was slack with shock, then confusion. Bryan gave him a once-over, hunting for wounds. They put him in meat, how cruel was--

--there was a combat knife in his fist.

Oh. OH.

Sergei was a spetsnaz super-agent with enough CQC tactics to massacre an army, and playing possum was well within his repertoire. Just because it was the oldest trick in the book did not make it inviable. Hell, Bryan had seen him do it before. There was that time in Barcelona against father and son Laws. He'd laid on the floor of the -- bar? restaurant? dance club? Fury didn't remember -- feigning unconsciousness, and when Law the Younger went to investigate, he'd surged forward and toppled him, kind of like what'd just happened, and the look on Dragunov's face turned volcanic with rage, and then Bryan had eleven inches of sharpened steel embedded in his thigh.

Fury howled as white-hot pain lanced up his side. Sergei shoved him off, scrambled to his feet. Bryan winced as he yanked the knife free.

The emotions bristling on Dragunov's face were fascinating. Anger, volatile, ready to explode at any moment, lined with disbelief. He had the man in the white suit right where he wanted, doing exactly what he wanted. Now he still lived. A Raven, if the anomalous weapon proved anything, one of Sergei's killers, still lived.

"Oh, ex-fucking-scuse me," Fury bellowed, tossing the knife away, "If you didn't look like such a bitch--"

Dragunov ran at the cyborg, throwing his entire body behind his fist.

To an observer, the fight was initially any other slugfest. But as it progressed, something changed. A cadence emerged -- punches and kicks dealt with surgical finesse, energy conserved or spent with atomic accuracy, bodies moving with dancer's grace. Sergei and Bryan had done this before, helpless to resist the primordial hatred burning in their veins and cables. Neither man wanted to. It felt right. All of spacetime could crunch down to their bubble of violence; they wouldn't care. In their grimaces, their spilled blood, they were singing.

I hate you, I loathe you, I could do this forever.

But good things had to come to an end.

Bryan saw it first -- a purple thorn hanging in the sky. "The hell is tha--"

Flames rained from above, dousing everything in eldritch plasma.

- 𓅓 -

It was eerily quiet. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and soon the air would prickle with the moans of the pained and dying, but Dragunov, armor smoldering, took the opportunity to lie on the dirt. Just for a moment. There was peace amongst the pebbles.

Behind him, Bryan coughed a cloud of dust. Time to get up.

He wrenched himself onto an elbow, giving himself enough of a vantage point to see the aftermath. Huge, steaming fissures stretched from one side of the valley to the other. Half-melted tanks sat in piles of useless slag. Smoke billowed like parades of pallbearers into the ashen expanse. Beneath, those who remained clung to their last ounces of strength.

A thought occurred to him: who was he kidding?

In less than an instant, hundreds had been vaporized. How was he meant not only to compete with that, but triumph? An ant would have a better chance leveling a mountain. Once upon a time, there had been a man who could do that, his faith his shield against the devil. That man was dead. The thing that bore his name, ordered his soldiers, and defended the fate of his nation was a pale imitation in comparison. A cracked, oozing egg, rotting from the inside out.

Sergei sank back to the earth.

Blessed silence.

Behind him, again: thop-shff, thop-shff. Bryan, pulling himself over by one arm. Judging himself close enough, the cyborg rolled onto his back, loosed a harsh breath. "Hey, Drag?"

Muffled against the soil: "Nnm?"

"That fuckin' hurt."

Yes. It did.

More quiet, infiltrated by a breeze. Sergei raised his face to catch its freshness.

"Like...how did you do that? I've been in a lot of knife fights, but that's a first."

--what?

Strangling the protests of his aching flesh, Dragunov heaved himself to his knees. Bryan himself sat up, pulling apart the gash in his pants to stare at the deep puncture in his leg. "You stabbed me between the muscles," he said, "Muscles that can stop bullets. If I had a femoral, I'd be bleeding like a stuck pig." He looked at the Russian, face slack with sincere awe. "You weren't even trying. You just did it. I mean, you have past experience with my thighs, but...whole armies have wanted me dead for years. You killed me two minutes ago with no effort."

Yes. Yes, he did that. Sergei alone had accomplished something no one else on the planet could, not even the man he used to be. And as realization sank in, heat like molten iron blossomed from his chest, spreading to his fingertips and pooling in his toes. He was not damaged, he was hatching, even if he did not know what form the wings within him would take.

It didn't matter. He was seen. He was known.

It must have shown on his face because Bryan's expression lit up, a grin crawling from ear to ear. Just like old times, baby, that grin said, The world lies at our feet.

A tremor tore through the ground. In the distance, a stadium-sized chunk of rock blasted into the sky, shrouded in a veil of supersonic flight. It tore past the clouds for a destination in the upper atmosphere.

"Oh, get over yourselves," Bryan yelled. Grunting with pain, he threw a stone after it. It clattered far short of its mark.

Dragunov, meanwhile, watched as his Raptors emerged from cover. They seemed no worse for wear, shedding their combat gear for hazmat suits. Using modified Geiger counters, they fanned out across the battlefield, searching for anomalous particles left in the wake of the purple flames, pausing only to execute anyone dying in their paths. By the number of samples they took, the results were promising.

"So...now what?"

Sergei didn't bother glancing at Fury as the cyborg scooted next to him. He was not actually asking for advice. He was testing the waters. Once he knew where Dragunov's mood lay--

"Got it!" Bryan leveled a finger between Sergei's eyes. "You need a vacation. That's what I did last time I cheated death. It's good for you, y'know. Do some soul searching. Figure out what's real to you." A beat. "Uh, I'm going with you, of course. If you want."

Dragunov let his lip curl in a small smile. Yes. He did want.

Somewhere on the steaming wastes, welcoming the dawn of a new age, someone was whistling.

- FIN -

#t: sons of theseus #blizzardrush #( cut for length )#( seriously this is a large lad )

5 notes · View notes

inaconstantstateofchange · 9 months ago

Text

Who Builds Theseus' Ship?

This ties in to a greater discussion about Larian's changes to the game post-Full Release, and whether you consider those changes to be a good thing or a bad thing. Personally speaking, the quality-of-life and gameplay mechanics improvements were appreciated, while the direct changes to characters and especially characterization were not so much.

In such discussions, I often see people downplaying the actual changes to characterization that have been made thus far as "minor" things, but I often see one of the most glaring examples of a characterization change left out, because so many people aren't even aware of it ever happening:

Halsin.

For those who don't know, if you were romancing Halsin at the time of the original full release, and for almost four months afterward, if you took him with you to Act 3's orgy scene in Sharess's Caress, he would open up about a situation in his distant past. He would tell you about how he had briefly been "something between guest, prisoner, and consort" in a drow House, and been kept there for three years before escaping.

He stated that this was something that happened "a long time ago", when he was "a foolhardy young druid", which would mean it would likely have been between ages 100 and 245 — or at minimum 105 years ago, and at (likely) maximum 250 years ago. He closed the discussion with a line that really struck me, and that gave me such an appreciation for his character, and for the writers who had created it:

The passage of time has a strange way of polishing even the most arduous of memories into precious keepsakes.

As someone in their late-20s, with a number of traumatic events in my past, this resonated so much both with my experience of those events – once harrowing and haunting, now just simple happenings that do not affect me the way they once did – and as an inspirational message, that hurt would not necessarily linger forever.

Not only that, I really valued the insight it gave into Halsin's personality, further showing him to be someone who was deeply complex and meditative, always looking for meaning and something to take away or learn from any experience. It also served to showcase the likely reality of the relationship elves and druids both would have to the concepts of time and memory. (Another example of this is the experience of Shadowheart's father compared to her mother at the hands of the Sharrans.)

I started playing the game almost immediately upon its release in August, and was intrigued by Halsin from the start. He was someone who was kind and heartfelt, but also very settled in himself and with a simultaneously rigid and very flexible moral code. It was that complexity that drew me to him, and I appreciated the inclusion of a character distinct from the Origin companions, all at close to the lowest point of their lives.

It was to my surprise to find that this appreciation for his character and perspective on his Act 3 revelation was not unanimous. As it turned out, there was a vocal group of people claiming that this writing was problematic, and that Halsin clearly didn't even realize he was actually traumatized, and that Larian needed to fix it. Not everyone joining in with this crusade had even played the game.

And, ultimately, in a pattern they have continued to follow, Larian responded. They fixed it. At the end of November, as part of Patch 5, they uploaded an edited version of the scene with new dialogue, where the player could express this "reality" to Halsin, in one of the most gallingly patronizing statements I've ever seen.

Sounds traumatic. You may need to reflect on that.

(If someone said this to me after I had opened up to them about my trauma and my experience of it to them, we would not be maintaining a cordial relationship afterward.)

Halsin's new response to these dialogue options is a cringing, self-deprecating cascade of how the player is of course right, and he should have known better, and time could "prove to be a trickster on one's recollections" and that perhaps he had "lost perspective".

Quite frankly, it is a completely different character answering, and an almost directly opposing overall message about the role of time in healing, and the path forward when it comes to trauma. No more "one day these events will not hurt to recall the way they do now". In its stead: "only healing that looks a specific way and follows a specific path is acceptable - anything else and you are simply a poor fool lying to yourself."

The following quote is from a comment left on a video of Halsin's original dialogue in that scene, before the changes, and is just one example of how much that representation meant to more than just me to see:

That said, Halsin is trauma recovery goals for me absolutely. Being able to remember without actually being triggered? Being able to fully and freely engage HOW ID LIKE TO instead of being fettered by trauma responses? Goals. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there 100%, we don’t get elven lifetimes irl, but his level of healing brings me hope.

Ultimately, this post is not meant to argue that you should agree with me that one is better than the other. More so, I want to highlight that this existed — for many people, this was their experience of events and characters, and that is not so easily redacted. And I also want to just state, for the record, that Larian's way of approaching narrative and characterization changes to their full-release game has been incredibly frustrating. I did not agree, in August, to play an Early Access game with the inherent understanding that any potential narrative aspect might change at any time. I purchased a full-release game, and immersed myself in the story and the characters, to get to know them as the writers had originally presented.

And when Larian makes these changes based on fan feedback, they are explicitly making decisions about which fans matter, and specifically, which fans matter most. Rather than allowing everyone to experience the story they decided to tell, and draw from it what they take away, and let that spark discussion and engagement, they made the decision to defer to some fans over others, and prioritize their experience of the narrative — something that, no matter how well-intended, is always going to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

#voidling speaks #bg3 #bg3 meta #my meta #it feels insane to have to do archival work for a six month old game #but here we are #halsin #larian #larian critical #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 halsin #meta

845 notes · View notes

lacollectionneuse1967 · 1 year ago

Text

slip of the tongue part 2 - jealous

Theseus Scamander x Reader

“He was all over you,” he hisses. “I am not a possessive man, but I could’ve killed him then and there. He doesn’t know what’s mine.”

summary: after confessing your feelings for (and sleeping with) your boss, theseus, you join his brother newt's team of wizards attempting to thwart the notorious gellert grindelwald. when you're tasked with distracting and seducing a powerful dark wizard on your first mission, theseus gets uncharacteristically and fiercely jealous.

fem!reader. theseus scamander x reader.

category: smut with plot

warnings: 18+ smut, (light) mdom/femsub elements, unprotected penetration, semi-public sex, jealousy/possessive behavior, also the reader suffers brief unwanted sexual advances in a scene

part one / part two

Your dreams are uninventive. Your nightmares are even less so.

Often you are hounded by dogs: drooling, snapping canines, bloodthirsty past the point of cognizance, they’re more open mouths than animals. Or, you’re standing on the hill where your old orphanage used to sit in North London, barefoot on the roof while the rest of London floods below, water rising, you know you’re going to drown. Or some other tired, boring allegory for your past catching up with you, at last, your blessings, your wand, crumbling to ash—you know what the dreams mean and they don’t scare you anymore.

But tonight you are perfectly dreamless. The dream dogs, the wintry world outside, the sound of the wind whistling through the empty London streets, it cannot touch you now. The fireplace is crackling and warm orange light spills in beneath the door from the living room.

Theseus’s arm is draped over your body, your head is on his chest. Every part of your body where your bare skin meets his buzzes with contentment. His room is like a sanctuary, his arms a house that holds you.

You don’t think you’ve slept for even a full hour. It’s still dark outside when you feel Theseus jostling your shoulder.

“Y/N. Wake up, darling.”

You sigh in response and are about to put up a fight, but when you meet his eyes they’re full of sore regret, apologetic. He wouldn’t ask you to leave his bed unless it was important.

You emerge from the covers and start to stretch.

“What time is it?”

“I’m sorry, love, but it’s nearly four in the morning. We have to be going, it’s urgent.”

You turn to look at him, he’s raking a hand through his hair, sitting up in bed.

“Did you sleep at all, Theseus?” You ask incredulously.

“No, too much to think about. And besides, I knew if I slept I wouldn’t be likely to wake. Better you sleep…”

Your heart wrenched. In a swell of affection, you went to him, crawling back over his body on the bed.

“No,” he groans, but his hands come around you, sliding down to your hips, anyway. You kiss his neck, raking your teeth over the skin there.

“Don’t do this to me,” he anguishes. His grip tightens on your hip, it’s meant to be chastising but it makes you want him more. “Please. We need to leave, Y/N.”

It wasn’t easy letting go of him. You know he would’ve given you what you wanted with enough persistence.

“Okay, okay!” You relent, kissing his mouth with a smile. “I’ll stop terrorizing you now.” You leap out of bed again without complaint.

When he stands he’s serious-Theseus again, your boss. And you love him still.

For his sake, you pretend not to notice his erection in his boxer shorts. It looks painfully hard.

“Get dressed,” he says to you before turning to the bathroom. “We need to get to Hogsmeade.”

It was wonderfully strange to see him like this—hair in wavy disarray, looking soft and subdued, barefoot and in his t-shirt. You want to appreciate the sight, you want to talk about what had happened between you and all that had been said. But his mind is elsewhere, preoccupied, and it seems you are both running late.

At your insistence, he lets you apparate to your apartment for a change of clothes, but then the two of you are off, running down the stairs of his building into the dark world below.

—————

Hogsmeade is more of a detour. There is an incognito meet-up organized with none other than Professor Albus Dumbledore. You’d, mercifully, taken a train--the Hogwarts Express. Theseus mentioned that Dumbledore was being watched by the Ministry, and that there were anti-apparition charms put up around the village and the castle.

You were just grateful to see him sleeping, at last, on the way there.

It was barely daylight when the two of you arrived, the sun bleak and pink over the Highlands, providing no warmth. You were grateful for the coffee you'd nursed on the train, as you were grateful to relieve yourself of the confidential documents from the Ministry. Their weight was an invisible one for you, evidence of your betrayal.

"Some aspiring Auror you are," you thought to yourself, bitterly.

“I tried to organize them for you. I started to, actually,” You supplied sheepishly when Dumbledore regarded the haphazard stacks of parchment, laid out on one of the tables in what you assumed was his brother's inn.

Dumbledore smiled warmly at you regardless and thanked you sincerely.

When you step out of the inn, you look to Theseus just as he looks over his shoulder at you. You're both more or less sleepless, and cold, and it seems the both of you have betrayed the Ministry and embarked on a hopeless mission, without many allies in the world.

But you were a united front.

It surprises you when he says, so earnestly that the tension in his shoulders seems to deflate, “God, I missed you. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

You blush, but don’t break his gaze. You’re not afraid to let him see you anymore.

“Where to, Mr. Scamander?”

He flexes his jaw like he’s not thinking about the plan at all, like he’s thinking about last night. But then, with a sigh, the moment is broken.

“Germany,” he says. “It’s time you meet my younger brother and the rest of the resistance.”

He says ‘resistance’ like it's some inside joke, some funny jab. You don't understand it until you arrive at the hotel room in Berlin.

-----------

Other than the hair, that uncommon shade of reddish, honey brown, and the apparent kindness and sense of humanity, Newt is nothing like Theseus. In fact, when he comes over to greet you he can hardly meet your eye, his head is half bowed in the other direction, his mouth a nervous, flat line.

"Pleasure to meet you, Y/N. I was sure that you'd do the right thing when Theseus sent you his letter. It was... very brave of you."

You look to Theseus in sharp amusement, eyes sparkling.

"Was there ever a question of whether or not I'd betray you? Did you really think there was a chance I'd turn you over to the authorities?"

Theseus places a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

"Come now, Y/N," he says. "You know if I were to die I'd prefer it to be at your hand anyway."

You want to roll your eyes, but you're not sure to what extent he's joking.

You shake Newt's hand. You're soon after introduced to a muggle baker named Jacob and an astute, somewhat brash Auror from America named Tina. You're not much of a people-person, but you find that you like them both, immensely. They feel genuine, the sort of strong, singular characters that couldn't deceive anyone if they tried. That is why Newt's explanation of your task for the night sends a bolt of dread down your spine.

"We need to need to retrieve a magical object from a German Minister's office. I-I can't say much, it's better you don't know, but it's safe to assume that a large portion of the German Ministry of Magic has already fallen. Helmut, Vogel--and who knows how many others are under the influence of Grindelwald."

"Which German Minister's office?" Theseus says. His hands are in his pockets, he's leaning against the windowsill, the picture of nonchalance, his hair swept back. He's so handsome you could cry.

Newt ignores him. "Now, tonight may be our only chance. There's a diplomatic gala at the ministry itself. I can get us all in, Pickett and I can handle sneaking into the office itself, but there are five people who know about the object being at the ministry, who will be on the lookout and who need to be distracted until we're out."

He doled out assignments swiftly. Theseus was to distract the head of security. Jacob, the two waitstaff who served as the Minister's private informants. For Tina, the German Auror, Helmut. And for you? The Minister himself.

"Which Minister, Newt?" Theseus asks again, the edge in his voice unmistakable, though you don't understand it.

"Baron Dietrich, the Minister of Finance," Newt says at last.

Dietrich. Most of your work for Theseus was domestic, but you try to remember what you can. Dietrich was some Bavarian-born descendent of the aristocracy. Hedonistic, high society. He fought in the war, but gained his reputation in the drinking clubs of Berlin. Even you knew he was ruthless, notorious. A brute of a man without much respect for the law. That was the extent of what you knew.

Newt is rushing to explain before you or Theseus can speak.

“Please, Y/N, Theseus." He looks between the two of you, trying to appeal to both. "Dietrich, h-he likes…he likes beautiful women and he-"

Theseus crosses the room to his brother in a single stride. "Yes, and do you have any idea what he likes to do to those beautiful women, Newt?” He's seething. “Even everyone at the British Ministry knows he brutalizes them."

“I-I wouldn’t ask her if it weren’t absolutely necessary. So long as she’s able to distract him at the party, keep him interested there, at the party, nothing will happen to her—to you!” Newt turns to you now, addressing you directly. “I’m sure of it…”

Theseus sucks his teeth and turns away from his brother, still fuming. “Absolutely not. You will not send her away from my side, that’s final. Not to that man.”

“Theseus, please-"

“She’s muggleborn, Newt! Do you know what men like Baron Dietrich do to wizards like her? If he found out, if any one of Grindelwald's followers did, she'd be killed.” Theseus is speaking with such firm authority, but you know him well enough to detect the barely concealed panic in his eyes, the fracture just beneath the fortress. “Send Tina instead, she’s an Auror.”

“But Y/N is exactly the sort of girl that Dietrich would be-"

“I want to be an Auror too,” your voice sounds strange to your ears when you find it. It has a clear, confident quality, musical and lucid.

Theseus looks to you in shock. You wonder if he knew about the promotion you’d been offered at all, if he knew all you’d sacrificed to stay close to him—your very dreams dashed to pieces. From his expression, naked and open as day, he did not.

“I can do it,” you make an effort to sound settled. Unshaken.

Being a young, vulnerable girl in the streets of East London, at the orphanage after, and then being a woman at the British Ministry as an adult, you’d dealt with plenty of over-friendly and entitled men. Boorish men were everywhere and were not uniquely monstrous. You hoped Baron Dietrich wasn’t either.

"It's settled then," Jacob claps his hands together, seeming relieved that the tension between the two brothers has evaporated. Theseus is slumped over, leaning back on the nightstand in apparent defeat. "We're going to a party!"

Tina places her hand on your arm, leading you towards the closet. She doesn't seem to be terribly affectionate, so you're grateful to her for extending you this small kindness now.

"Here, Y/N," She says. "Let's get you dressed. We have plenty of time to go over the plan. It'll be okay."

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

Your outfit, "disguise" you suppose, is nothing like the subdued robes of your companions. You don't know why you're surprised when they ask you to enter the ministry ten minutes after them, alone.

The skirt of your dress is flowy and short, like a dancer's, ending just above your knee, something that might've been acceptable a decade prior, given the fashion trends. It's made of delicate petals of off-white fabric, adorn with tiny silver and pearlescent beads, glittering. Meant to draw attention. It's sleeveless and the top is breathtakingly form-fitting, pinching in your waist and hugging every curve of your body, but you are gratefully afforded an elegant high neckline. Silk, ivory-colored, wrist-length gloves that do nothing for the cold cover your hands and a fur half-coat is draped over your shoulders. Your lipstick is a deep red.

You understand what it means, these luxury items, your styling, the fact that you were instructed to enter alone. By no design of your own, the implication was that you were an escort, a madame of the night. No wonder Newt had Theseus leave the hotel first, before he could catch a glimpse of you. You didn't dare imagine his reaction.

As you enter the gala, handing the doorman your fabricated invitation without a glance, every head turns to you. Chatter stills as you pass, the women gawk and the men look stricken, hungry as the pack dogs in your dreams. Plates and trays sail overhead and the instruments play on, unattended. The German Ministry of Magic has spared no expense.

Patrons lean in close and speak hushed and anxiously. You assume the upcoming election for the highest office of the International Confederation of Wizards is on everyone's mind.

You head for the bar with your head held high, hoping it doesn't show on your face, your discomfort at being so seen. You were told Baron Dietrich would be at the bar with some of his men. With a trembling, gloved hand you motion the barman over and order a drink.

You don’t dare look for your friends. You assume things are going swimmingly for them, but for you? You are drowning in your finery.

You’re not even alone for a moment before the wolves descend. You should've known a man like Dietrich would come find you.

"Mädchen!" He approaches you partially, but expects you to come the rest of the way, waves you over with a meaty hand. When you raise an eyebrow, haughtily, he switches to English.

"Girl, come here." The timber of his voice is low, gravelly. He has a heavy brow, his hair is thick and peppered with gray. The gray does nothing to diminish the impression of his strength. In a fight without your wand, he could have your neck snapped, broken and rolling around its stem, in a heartbeat.

You walk over, leaving your drink at the bar, untouched.

The gala is housed in a mammoth, marble room, twenty foot ceilings held up by smooth columns, something that reminds you of Gringott's. But around the massive bar at the room's center are half-circle booths and tables, spiraling out like lily pads. You slide into Dietrich's booth and his arm goes around you immeditely.

He smells chokingly of cigars, a perfumey, sickly sweet smell. He is a bloated, thick-limbed man. No, you couldn't have fought him off. There are so many uniformed men at his table that some of the younger ones have to stand. With a sting of shock, you don't see how you could be of any influence on these men at all, they hardly see you as a person, aren't speaking to you. You hope Newt and Pickett work quickly.

Another young man, dressed in what looks like a soldier's uniform, slides into the booth after you, sandwiching you in next to Dietrich. You let out of noise of shock and begin to push him off you when Dietrich grabs both your wrists.

"Don't be fussy. This is my young friend, newly recruited. I plan to make him my protégé."

The other men slap the boy over the shoulder, jostling him in congratulations. He smiles meekly. You could hate him for that meekness. That pathetic deference to power.

"We'll share you tonight, of course." Dietrich is looking at the boy, not you. "In my office."

Dietrich's hand clamps over your exposed thigh and his fingernails jab into the fat of your thigh. You don't react to the bright bite of pain. The other boy begins to lean into you, breath hot over your neck.

Whatever small bird lives in your ribs begins to beat itself against that cage, flailing and thrashing.

"No!" You can't help the edge of panic in your voice. Dietrich is too strong, so you don't bother, but you shove the boy off of you and out of the booth without much effort. The boy stumbles out, dumbfounded.

Dietrich snatches your wrist with real fury, bruisingly.

"What?! You're for sale, aren't you?" He won't hurt you in front of his men, not at the gala, but his face is so colored with anger that it's nearly purple.

"Please," there's a real plea in your voice when you say it, you try to cover it up with a hurried smile, you try to look charming. "Dance with me, sir?"

That seems to sedate him. He looks irritated, but pleased by your attention. At least he won't be able to molest you in front of all his colleagues and superiors.

He leads you to the dance floor and the entire way your mind is racing, scrambling for purchase, trying to figure out how you're going to keep him out of his office. He made it clear he had plans to go there later tonight with his men. With you.

And he was an even cruder man than you'd thought, he'd made no attempt to even flirt with or seduce you. His interest in you was moreso entitlement, the same interest a predator has for a slab of meat.

Your wand, concealed on your person, gave you little comfort. Newt had asked that you did not reveal yourself, didn't make a scene. But if it came down to it, you would fight Dietrich rather than submit to him. He was more than repulsive. He wanted to hurt you.

"Please," you think to yourself. "Please, God, don't make me-"

You startle at the large hand that grips your waist and spins you away, just before you reach the dance floor.

Dietrich, abandoned, turns in flustered outrage and is swallowed by the crowd. You're being whisked away before he can fully react, Theseus guiding you deftly out of the overfull room of diplomats.

You sob with relief. "Theseus-" you start, but he's leading you deeper, still, away from the gala.

It's not until you're in some pitch-dark, gaping mausoleum of a hallway that Theseus finally stops, pressing you delicately against the wall, holding your face in his hands like water, like something precious. He examines your body.

"Are you okay?" He asks, pressingly.

You could cry out in joy, the sight of his face is balm-like, giving you a familiar relief.

"Yes, yes!" You reassure him. "Is it done? Did we do it?"

Theseus nods in confirmation, still looking over you for injuries, turning over your wrists in his hands.

"The others are already out. It was quick. No one noticed a thing, we probably took too many precautions this time around..." He finally meets your eyes. The look in his is dark and indecipherable. When he swallows, it's raggedly. "You're really okay, Y/N?"

"Yes," you answer, hesitant at the intensity of his look. "Why?"

Theseus presses his body against yours harshly, you don't even have time to moan before he's swallowing it with his mouth. Your hands are all over him, but he gives you no room to move, it's as if he doesn't notice, the way he's pushing you up against the wall, kissing you like he wants to consume you.

"You're so damn beautiful," he mutters. "When you walked in I almost blew my cover just to go to you."

"Theseus," you pant. You're needy, you want him to keep kissing you but he's leaning his neck back, pinning you against the wall but holding himself away so he can look at you when he runs his warm hands from the backs of your thighs up to your ass. He hooks his fingers around the waistline of your panties and pulls them down so they're only hanging onto you by one of your ankles.

He leans in for another kiss, just as deep and wretched as the last, just as maddening.

He pulls away again with a pant.

"Your dress is too damn short," he curses under his breath.

"Are you angry at me?" You ask quietly, still writhing against him, desperate for friction, but suddenly self-conscious.

"No, no sweetheart," he soothes. "Not at you. You did so good. Such a good job." His praise has you leaning into his palm, which is cupping the side of your face.

You whimper, "I want you." You realize it's true as you're saying it. You can't ever lie to him. "I want you," you repeat, more insistently.

“He was all over you,” he hisses against your ear. “I am not a possessive man, but I could’ve killed him then and there. He doesn’t know what’s mine.” He punctuates the last word with a squeeze to your backside.

"Theseus," you breathe out, helplessly. You can't believe this is happening. The wing of the German Ministry that you're in is completely dark, you can barely make out the tapestries and curtains hanging loose from the walls. But there's distant light at the end of the hall, and dim voices and music filter in and out from the gala a few rooms over.

But you want him to keep touching you more than you know better, know you should stop. More than anything.

He starts to hike your dress up, his movements urgent, when he stops abruptly. The spot where Dietrich's nails dug into your upper thigh is small, but he drew blood.

Theseus pauses, loosens his grip and lets you slide down the wall. With a slow-thudding heart you briefly fear he'll be so furious he'll run back to the gala, to find Dietrich, but he only bends down and kisses the wound, just barely, lips ghosting over skin, so gently you could cry. Kneeling before you, he looks like a prince, a knight. He's careful to avoid the wound when he lifts you back up against the wall.

You can't help but stare down at it, in awe, when he takes his dick out. Your body still thrills at the sight of it, there, huge, resting at your entrance. Theseus grinds a slow circle, sliding it against your wet folds, against your clit. You just stare.

He flashes you a lazy smile.

“What? You want me to help you put it in?”

You moan, audibly. You're not doing a very good job at being discreet, but how can you when he says things like that to you and expects you to answer?

"Yes, please," you close your eyes, too flustered to meet his burning gaze when you say the words.

He grips the base of his cock and guides it into your pussy. Clamps a hand over your mouth to muffle the noises you're making, you whimper dumbly against his palm. Only releases his hand from your mouth once he's fully seated inside of you. The stretch is so big you know it would hardly take any movement at all for him to break that tension and make you come, drive you mad, unravel you completely. Just a few rocks against the wall, a few rolls of his hips and you'd be brainless and spent, crying out his name. You're already dripping around him. But you want to last longer for him this time.

He's looking directly into your eyes.

“You’re taking it, Y/N. You can choose where—in your mouth, on your face, inside. But you’re taking it all.”

You nod. Then once again he's fucking you dumb, you don't even care that anyone could walk by, you're just thinking about how big he is, how good it feels. He's fucking your body slack now, you don't even have to do anything, he’s holding you up, lifting you onto and off of his cock roughly, debasingly.

His hands nearly circle your waist completely, they’re so large. Your mouth is stuck open, making stupid, feeble noises and he’s grunting small words of encouragement.

"Say my name," he says.

When you don't respond immediately, too blissed out to think, he slams your body down harder onto him and you nearly yelp.

"Hngh, Theseus. Theseus, please-"

You can feel him get almost unbearably hard inside of you, then he’s heaving you up and flipping you around, manhandling you, so your back is his against his torso, his right arm a bar across your chest, still inside. He brings a hand down roughly to your clit to touch you through it, and then you're both coming hard, your loud, jagged breaths echoing through the empty hall.

Your head spins, you're seeing stars.

"Baby," he says, when you don't come back to yourself immediately. "Was I too rough? Are you okay?"

You nod, breathlessly, but stumble when he finally stops supporting your weight. Your body is still juddering with pleasure, your fingertips quiver and feel numb as you smooth down your dress.

He's right, you think with a laugh. My dress is too damn short.

Theseus has the decency to look around the hall to make sure no one was watching, and to help you fix your hair and what's left of your lipstick. Your lips are pink and bitten now, swollen.

"They're probably wondering where we are. We should go." His voice is serious, unemotive, but there's something like devotion in the way he looks over you from head to toe, just one last time, to make sure you're beyond reproach. He hands you his jacket, which is huge on you, and slings your fur cape over his arm, bearing the cold himself like a gentleman.

A flurry of snow has begun to spiral down in the streets of Berlin, white particles curling and dancing in the wind. You've always found this type of snowfall to be so fanciful, the closest thing to magic in the muggle world. You walk back to the meeting point in comfortable silence, Theseus's hand clasped firmly around yours.

"He doesn't know what's mine," he'd said about Dietrich, about you. And last night, not that long ago, he'd said, "I love you."

Albeit, after you said it first. You look over to his oblivious face, checking both sides for cars before leading you across the busy street. His kind eyes, the line of his jaw..

You wonder how he could mean it... You'd so meticulously tried to conceal from him all the ugly parts of your life, your past, your fears, even your wants when they seemed to inconvenience him.

Could he love me? Could I let him?

"I want you," you'd said to him in the hall of the German Ministry. You realize now that you meant more than his body. For so long even just a look from him, just a word, was enough to sustain you.

But now you wanted more. Maybe it was selfish, undeserved, that the magical world was giving way to crisis, the dark forces were closing in around hope, and yet here you were, wanting to ask him for more...

part three here

author's note: hiiiiii! YES i switched to present tense from past tense in the last part, and no i'm not sorry... please let me know if you'd like me to continue this fic! i have a third & final chapter in mind. or i can take other theseus requests. the theseus brainrot is real... some AUs would be fun too! as always, feedback is welcome <3 taglist: @mystic-mara

#theseus smut #theseus x reader #theseus scamander #theseus scamander x reader #hp fic #fantastic beasts

1K notes · View notes

getinthefuckingjaeger · 8 months ago

Text

I'm so so glad and happy and IMMENSELY relieved that you liked it 😭😭😭 I had this in the draft since you first posted your snippet and it kept building as you post hc on the au - the first draft had Bucky's parents alive and well in US, just that Theseus still couldn't bear to have him in England while Newt and himself make targets out of themselves.

Then you said "maybe Bucky's parents were killed by Grindelwald, some food for thought" AND I DID. THOUGHT. MUCH OF IT. So this Bucky, whose dad is the Scamander and who married a muggle he met in University (Scamander men has their peculiarities- this one was fascinated by muggles and managed to successfully live among them for a while - he then took it further by going to university in the States to see how those muggles live) lost his parents with his Aunt Artemis (picked that from Newt's middlename - reckon that's in honour of his mom).

And yes yes - Bucky's youthful confusion on that day. He's lost his parents and Aunt, Newt's gone missing hours after they got the news - a gentle palm to Bucky's face and a thumb wiping his tears was all he got before Newt just left, his uncle catatonic in the master bedroom from the loss of his wife, and then there's Theseus who's absolutely livid - pacing back and forth in the parlor like a caged Horntail while the Aurors from his own squad tried to placate him, telling him that it was probably a botched kidnapping of prominent bloodlines for ransom and not Grindelwald.

Poor thing was alone dealing with the fallout and next thing he knows, his hero is sending him back to his mother's family whom he's only ever seen a handful of time in his life. Where was the Theseus that taught him his first charm or the Theseus that jokingly told him, through their letters, that he'll come down to Hogwarts and string up Bucky's bullies by their ankles himself.

Ah, Bremen. Who's to say that the Auror's Office doesn't have plants in all of the Allies' base - this is a two front war as far as the wizarding world is concerned. He's also thorough when it comes to Newt and Bucky - he knows who Bucky cares for the most, but he also remembers how easily Bucky loves people. So, in a way, he's protecting Bucky by suggesting that Bucky protects these muggles he adores. Big brother/cousin will smooth the way, just do as you're told baby cousin.

(Maybe when he does faint when he lands, when almost the whole group made it back by some sheer miracle, is when Harding gets a visitor in his office - a representative from the British International Relations office)

the problem with Scamanders

for @jakes3resin (you did a lot, my turn for presents now)

“You could have written, you know.”

Bucky’s legs stopped as though glued to the cobbled street of the little village he found himself wandering that night. His shoulders fell back along with his head, neck tilted almost painfully to the night sky as he heaved a great sigh. Christ and Merlin, here we fucking go.

He stayed stubbornly still, ignoring the crick in his neck the longer he tilted his head like that. It's not a bad view - an explosion of stars in the night sky fills his eyes in the absence of a German air raid. The shops in the highstreet of this unassuming village in Ipswich are all asleep around him. Thin fog that isn't really a fog flows languidly between his military-shine boots before climbing his legs like vines to a tree. The magic is warm like sunshine and soft as a caress when it touches Bucky’s hands. He flexed his fingers to disperse the white wisps and tuck them into his trousers pockets.

He still absolutely refuses to budge. No, sir.

“Merlin, you’re still as stubborn as a Hippogriff, aren’t you Johnny?” A low chuckle cuts through the otherwise quiet night and Bucky can hear the sounds of expensive Oxfords getting closer to where he stands, until there is a wall of flesh and magic by his side, a firm shoulder pressing against his. “Come on, then. Give us a smile.”

Bucky grimaces at the sky. Looks down at his feet with another sigh. Then looks to his side, and into a face so much like his own.

With wizards' lifespan as long as it is, the face Bucky sees had barely aged from the last time he saw it. The same gold skin tanned by Quidditch, the same dark mahogany curls falling from its coiffed hairstyle and hanging over the same dark blue eyes - almost navy in the darkness.

But where there’s an absence in signs of age, there is stark evidence of war on that familiar face. Bucky notes the discolored scars peppering the left side of the man’s face like something exploded too close for comfort, the way his nose sits a little crooked like it was set-wrong and far too late to rectify, and - Bucky paused a moment to stare - a thin, barely visible line that runs from under his left ear to his adam’s apple.

Familiar aftershave fills his lungs, reminding him of a childhood on a vast estate and the summer sun warming his back, as he paddles through cool sparkling waters of the massive fountain on the cul de sac of their mansion’s driveway. He can almost hear his aunt’s exasperated complaints and boisterous laughter of his cousin and uncles, the sounds of struggle as his father tried to push Newt off his perch on the edges of the marble fountain.

That was another life, then.

“Auror Scamander, sir.” Bucky lets the mask of Major Egan take over as he steps away from his cousin. “Hope you’ve been well, sir.”

Only years with Buck could ever prepare him to withstand the quiet, appraising look that Theseus is giving him. The stare weighs heavy on his chest as he looks just over Theseus’ shoulder as he would to any senior officer in the USAAF. Theseus, damn the man, tilts his head just so and catches Bucky’s eyes - his smile is tired, resigned.

“I’ve been better - the ah, hunt keeps me on my toes, so to speak.” Bucky watches as Theseus tugs lightly at his coat and white silk scarf. “Newt sends his regards, as does Tina - he also sends his thanks, for looking after Frank the... Thunderbird?”

Bucky and Theseus share a commiserating look, the first one in almost a decade since Bucky was sent back. It wasn’t a chore to disapparate from Texas to the deserts of Arizona after lights out a few times a month. Certainly one of the most rewarding things he’s ever voluntarily done, to be able to run his hands over the beak of such a majestic creature. It’s through Frank that Bucky realizes the calm that one can find sitting in the middle of a literal storm as the massive avian flies over his head.

I fell in love with the big birds, Buck told him once. Bucky had agreed, but couldn’t explain that his big bird is a little more literal than Gale’s. And that it creates thunderstorms when it flies.

The glint of Theseus’ cufflinks pulls Bucky away from desert storms and back into the cold English night air. The Scamander crest twinkles under the starlight like a taunt. Bucky didn’t even realize Theseus had put out all the street lights. Goddamn aurors.

He moves to a parade rest to remind himself of who and where he is now - that he’s no longer just John Egan, cousin of Newton and Theseus Scamander, the three remaining Scamander.

“Why haven’t you written, Johnny?” Theseus remains a respectable distance from him, but Bucky can tell how much he’s probably itching to shake him by the shoulders in frustration. “Years of silence from you and your mother’s family in Wisconsin. Newt tried to look for you when he’s stateside, but you’re always never there. It's like you vanished - if Frank hadn’t hinted at it, or if your likeness weren't still moving on the family tapestry we’d have thought you dead.”

Bucky tenses just as Theseus rocks back on his heels like the weight of his anger was a physical thing.

“What was it all for then, if we thought you died, too?”

It plays out like a picture reel in Bucky’s head - him, at eight years old with his right hand in Theseus’ left as they walk down the carpeted floor of the Scamander ancient mansion. 27, a war hero, as tall as the suit of armors that used to dot the hallways and the greatest wizard he’s ever known. Then there was Newt, only a year younger than Theseus, his figure painted in hues of red, purple, and green from the large stained glass windows - Bucky can still recall Newt’s excited chatter about all the wonderful creatures on the estate and the Hippogriffs that Aunt Artemis has in her enclosure.

Then Bucky, at thirteen years old and shaking with barely suppressed excitement as he clutched his shiny new broomstick that Theseus gave him for Christmas. The grand bubble of joy that buoyed him through the entire afternoon of flying lessons with Theseus, half the family sitting on picnic blankets spread over snow covered grounds, the fabric charmed to be warm and dry. The lightness he felt as he shot himself across the estate grounds despite Theseus’ yelling is something he has tried time and time again to recreate as his fort lifts-off.

And finally at eighteen, once again walking down the carpeted floor of the Scamander mansion. Alone, at night, confused and hurting. Aunt Artemis had gone to town that autumn morning with his parents but none returned. Newt has disappeared - likely on another errand for Dumbledore - and he has never seen Theseus so angry as he threw Aurors, his own colleagues, out of their parlor.

The subsequent argument he had with Theseus - just the memory of it brings him shame of how it inevitably ended.

“You need to go, Johnny - Grindelwald is hunting us down.”

“I can fight, T - I’m of age!”

“I know, I know, you can. I just can’t allow you - think of the family, Johnny. Grindelwald will try to kill you and Newt to get to me, and I can’t protect both of you at once.”

“Fine, I get it. Can’t trust the half-blood to take care of himself, huh?”

“You said I needed to go and I did what you told me to.”

Bucky drops the parade rest and shoves his hands in his pockets where Theseus cant see how they shake. Un-fucking-believeable that he’s flown multiple missions, have survived so many things he shouldn’t up there where hell resides above the clouds, but his hands have never shaken like this. Not once. “I had a lot of time to think and I realized - as much as I fucking hated it- you couldn’t afford distractions.”

“It’s not like that-”

Bucky shakes his head and shuffles in his boots. He itches for a cigarette. “I ain’t saying that to be an ass, T. I understand that now more than ever - this war I’m fighting… it puts things in perspective.”

“I see.”

And Theseus does see - Bucky holds his gaze for as long as he can stand. He kicks a loose stone and it skids neatly over to Theseus’ toes. His cousin nudged the stone back to Bucky. They share a grin. “How bad is it, your end?” He falls back into parade rest, puts away John Egan who was once Mr. Scamander to his peers in Hogwarts, and brings Major Egan to the forefront once again.

“As well as it is going for yours, I’d imagine Major.” Theseus, always the best one out of the three Scamander scions at reading people, adjusts his posture from soft and imploring, to hard and imposing. Demanding respect, like the Head of the British Auror Office. He pursed his lips in thought. “You may want to properly practice your wandless magic, Major Egan. I’ll take care of MACUSA and the Ministry.”

Bucky splutters. He thinks of an alder wand that used to be an extension of himself and how the yoke of his B-17 can never replace that kind of power.

“How do you expect me to do that, sir?” He grits out. Easy, John, easy now the Buck in his head soothes his ire. “Between the suicide missions and trying to keep everyone’s head on straight - how the fuck do you expect me to do that, sir?”

“You’ll figure it out, Major.” It came out like an order. Theseus’s lips quirked. “You apparrated from one state to another back in your Muggle flight school, didn’t you? Apparating from London tonight must have been a breeze. Power like that needs tending to. Particularly when you have talent for wandless casting.”

“With all due respect, sir, but last I checked you’re not my CO - you ain’t even an American, so you can kindly shove-”

“Do it for Major Cleven and your boys, then.”

The ensuing silence rings through Bucky’s head as the streetlights come back up one by one. Theseus’ hard look softens just a touch as he walks backwards and away from Bucky.

“I heard your boys are flying a mission tomorrow morning - Bremen again, I think - arresto momentum and subtle shielding charms will do.” Theseus winks, then apropos of nothing, said “I’ll come round’ for tea.”

That broke through Bucky’s bewildered suspension, but not fast enough to stop Theseus from disapparating with a soft pop.

“Goddamn wizards.”

Bucky spun and disapparate just as the last streetlight returned.

#oops i accidentally wrote a mini essay #mota fic rec #mota #john egan #theseus scamander #YEAH THE WISPS THAT WAS T BEING AFFECTIONATE

94 notes · View notes

ship-it-sideways · 5 months ago

Text

"It's freezing, but isn't this place gorgeous?" Grian asks and Mumbo can't help but agree, the view from the pier is lovely—ocean waves from miles away roll until they hit the shoreline, breaking into gentle pale foam on the rocks and masses of kelp.

We're on a Road to Paradise! has been in the making for just about 3 months now and it's finally done !! I'm suuuper proud of this and now it even comes with a playlist and art :3c

(Please check the tags for this fic <3 It's a happy fic rated T, but it touches upon some darker stuff so don't walk in blind !!!!!)

Crop version and plain text of the songs listed :3 I can't give you a spotify version of it though bcs it would out my main acc sorryyyy

❦ Going-to-the-Sun-Road — Fleet Foxes // Evening Chorus — Cosmo Sheldrake ❦ The Climb — Dear Nora // bannerzszsz — Argo Nuff ❦ Gibraltar — Beirut // These Days — Still Woozy ❦ Atom 15 — Sleeping At Last // Bust — Lomelda ❦ Road to Nowhere — Talking Heads // Intro — Black Country, New Road // Interlude II (Guitar) — Alt-J // 13.0.0.0.1 — TTNG // Theseus — The Oh Hellos

#hermitshipping #grumbo #hermitfic #playlist #waffleduo #my art #YES i can type normally LMAOOO I just think it's fun to type silly :3 a side-blog-sona even

172 notes · View notes

aroaceleovaldez · 3 months ago

Text

I HAVE BEEN REMINDED OF SOMETHING i think i've made a post about it before but maybe it's just sitting in my drafts. idk, whatever, I will ramble again. Said thing that reminded me was a tiktok by madison_murrah about how the PJO TV show doesn't get the balance between mundanity and magical correct for pjo and I want to expand on that cause while a.) it totally is a problem in the show and i take issue with it, b.) it is also a problem in later books and i ALSO take issue with that too and i would like to elaborate on it

this got long so ramble of the day below the cut:

so the thing is that PJO is actually pretty unique in it's approach to hidden world modern fantasy. like, hidden world modern fantasy is a decently established genre with a ton of examples, but there's a reason why PJO stands out so much, and that's because technically it's NOT "hidden world." There is very intentionally no distinction between the mundane world and the mythological, at least in first series. They 100% overlap. And you do not necessarily need to be "special" to see the "mythological world-" some mortals are totally naturally clear-sighted, a lot of kids are clear-sighted, and it's like 50/50 for if mortals can become clear-sighted. In fact, most demigods aren't immune to the effects of the Mist, all that really matters is if you're actually thinking about being able to see through it. And there's a reason for that!

In general, this format of the "hidden world" modern fantasy serves two purposes: One, as the series is meant to introduce people to Greek mythology and explain why it is relevant and how it can be relatable in modern contexts, it intentionally juxtaposes myths against modern concepts: Medusa runs an apparently average garden statue store. Procrustes runs a mattress store. The entrance to the Underworld is in LA at a record store. Circe lives on an island paradise that's secretly dangerous. Hydras are like chain donut stores that seem to pop up on every corner. Perseus and his mother struggle in Perseus' childhood but get a happy ending. Calypso has an island paradise where the challenge for the hero of our story is being tempted to leave behind his goals. The plot of Sea of Monsters is blatantly the Odyssey, and it's about Percy trying to get to his best friend (who he shares a literal psychic link to) who is in danger of getting married to someone awful (a literal monster) to help you understand Odysseus trying to get back to Penelope and how important to each other and in sync they are. Battle of the Labyrinth is Theseus and the Labyrinth and it's Percy/Theseus trying to protect his home and his people and fellow kids (like Nico) from the dangers in the maze. These are all supposed to help us understand what is actually going on in those stories.

We also still see how Greek mythology influence shapes and influences western culture in general in their world (which is supposed to be our own and so uses real-world examples) - in government, in architecture, in pop culture - Mythomagic is clearly supposed to be your standard TCG like Magic The Gathering. And in general there is no distinction between where the mythological ends and mundane begins - Camp Half-Blood is both a magical training space for demigods and your run of the mill underfunded summer camp, complete with cheesy camp songs and t-shirts and crafts. Olympus is located on top of the Empire State Building which is operating completely as normal except for when a demigod asks to go to a non-existent floor. Your best friend with a muscular disease in his legs is secretly a satyr. Your brother with down syndrome is a cyclops. Your teacher in a wheelchair is secretly an immortal centaur. Your crappy algebra substitute is a literal fury. But also they're still your teachers. The satyr is still your best friend, the cyclops is still your brother. And that brings me to the second aspect of all of this (which i have talked about before [here] and [here]) - the other purpose it serves is that it is an extension of the overarching disability themes that form the core of the series.

The entire reason that meshing of mundanity and magical is so intertwined is entirely because it's part of the disability metaphor, specifically inspired by early 2000s parenting/teaching concepts for children with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, as trying to reframe disabilities as "superpowers" to empower kids (and still exists in some more modern forms - like referring to disabilities as "being differently-abled") (I talk about it in my previous post on the subject but this generally fell out of favor due to many kids/students finding it belittling of their struggles) - this is why we get the description of ADHD and Dyslexia being framed as "demigod superpowers." In the series this structure is intentionally made to encourage kids to reframe how they view disabilities in general as not something negative but something interesting and fantastical that they may be more open to engage with - and PJO does this in a really nice way where a lot of the disability struggles are still acknowledged and treated sympathetically. Kids still get bullied, Percy and Annabeth struggle in school or with reading/spelling, they grapple with both internal and external ableism. The entire reason for the titan war in the first series, at least from the demigod perspective, is criticizing flawed systems meant to support disabled people that don't do their job effectively or let too many people fall through the cracks. The Mist "hiding" the "mythological world" from mortals (and even some demigods) is about how most abled people (and some undiagnosed people) don't recognize disability struggles until it affects them personally. None of these things are glossed over! It's handled with nuance and care! The series says "you can be disabled and you can be like these fantastical heroes - not in spite of your disability, but alongside it. Neither negates the other." The series was explicitly made so Rick's disabled son could see himself in a hero and learn about mythology for school. Those are the two pillars of the entire franchise: Disability and learning about mythology.

So, when you mess with that "hidden world" structure, the entire thing falls apart and it immediately doesn't feel right, because it's no longer serving either of those two purposes when it needs to be fulfilling both. Late-series Riordanverse has a tendency to compartmentalize the mythological and keep it entirely sectioned off from the mundane. Think about first series and even TKC versus later series - how many mortal characters are there? what do they do? are they just in the background or do they interact with the main cast frequently? are they more than just family or an extension to the main cast? First series we see Percy's classmates frequently, Percy talks about his mundane experiences at school, multiple mortal parent characters (and other mortal characters like Rachel) are active participants in and vital to the plot. We even see a lot of background mortal characters. In TKC, not only are all the magicians technically mortal, but also Sadie's completely mundane best friends help her out. Now think about HoO, or ToA, or even MCGA. Think about the mortal characters in those series. How important are they? Out of the important ones, how much are they in mundane situations versus being almost entirely involved in something mythological? How many aren't related to any of the main cast? How many aren't actively working for a god? The answer is basically zero! Why is that? Because Rick stopped letting the mundane exist. The entire draw of the main series is that Percy does continue to live this mundane life and that adds to his mythological life and makes the balance and meshing between them interesting, but basically all mundanity ceases to exist by HoO. Camp Jupiter is an isolated entirely magic town. Percy and Jason's schools are full of mythological beings as basically the only people they interact with. The Tri's headquarters is an entire giant building in New York City that they completely control that just so happens to ALSO be directly across the street from the local Oracle's house, because even where Rachel lives isn't allowed to be mundane anymore. Why is Olympus just at the top of the Empire State Building versus the Tri having an ENTIRE building? That feels weird and unbalanced, particularly given the difference in importance between those two! Because one is playing into that balance of the meshing of mundane and magical and the other isn't! The show continues this trend. It doesn't allow any of the mythological to exist within mundanity like it functions in the books, which creates a completely different atmosphere and doesn't allow those spaces or scenes or characters to serve their actual narrative purposes, either making it easier to understand mythology contextually or what disability metaphor or representation is occurring there.

It's part of the problem with show!Percy being too mythologically-savvy - Percy is supposed to be the mundane lens unfamiliar with mythology that the audience is learning by proxy through. That's the entire point of the series! If you have Percy already know everything because he's already too ingrained into this mythological environment from the start, and he just exists in this entirely magical world where he understands everything immediately then the literal target audience of the entire franchise (students being introduced to mythology) is left behind! That's part of why the pacing of the show feels so bad! It's rushing through every scene that's more or less the same as the books, particularly anything mythological, because the show is assuming you've already read the books and already know enough mythology to know what it is and what happens and that you don't want to see it again, so it rushes through. The show doesn't explain things that it presumes you already know - worldbuilding, character decisions, basically any mythology, etc, so it doesn't even bother with it.

Later books in the franchise do this too - as long as it's tangentially Greco-Roman mythology, or if it's anything to do with the main series like a reference in TKC or MCGA or etc, it's not going to elaborate much if at all. HoO speeds through Jason's introduction to CHB, and the only reason we get much introduction to Camp Jupiter is because it's actually new. We're no longer trying to contextualize or learn about mythology, it just all becomes set-dressing and references thrown at you rapid-fire as filler. By late HoO and into TOA and TSATS and such, we're not longer even within the realm of pretending like we're adhering to mythology at all. Why is Iris a vegan? Why is Rhea a hippie? Dunno, don't care! Literally doesn't matter! Why are the pandai panda/elephant-monsters and the troglodytes frog-monsters when that's not part of their actual history at all? Well a.) literally just word associations and b.) possibly a little bit of racism (they're supposed to be humans from India and northern Africa, and you made them monsters. cool. okay. and their plotlines totally aren't horrible within those contexts. awesome. please try thinking literally at all next time, thanks). We're not even bothering to look at mythological instances anymore for a basis, a lot of it's written like we're just going based on the first results on google (hi Menoetes and the cacodaemons - the latter of which is not even spelt correctly once in the entire book - which is weird because they do say "daemon" so they know the word. Not that the cacodaemons are mythologically accurate at all because then they would be humanoid. Instead they seem to just be inspired by the things from Doom). None of it serves the purpose of the narrative at all; we're literally just making random choices, some of them quite distasteful! In large part due to refusing to acknowledge the actual contexts of the myths and how that might translate into something similar or equivalent a modern setting to help conceptualize it - something the first series did inherently by design. And we need this! A.) So that you're less likely to make bad decisions because you are inherently thinking about the historical and cultural contexts of these things and how to compare/explain it, and b.) because the audience for later books/the other series and the show is going to be the same as the first series! Those nonsensical references may be at best cameos to people who are already familiar with them, but if your intended audience is new to mythology then making references like that is just going to leave people out of the loop! You don't shift your target audience in the middle of a franchise!

Later books in the series and the show are failing to understand what the first series was actually doing narratively and how it was approaching these subjects and its audience. When you fail to do that, it completely messes up the general worldbuilding and the core themes and intentions of the franchise as a whole. Once you lose touch with that you might as well just be writing a completely different franchise. You need to approach it from the same lens or else it will feel completely off, because otherwise you've lost all base touchstones that make the series what it is.

#pjo #percy jackson #riordanverse #rr crit #pjo tv crit #disability #analysis #long post //#tsats crit #< WHOO all the tags today huh. this rant has everything. i wont tag the troglodytes since its a small portion #but i go on my obligatory rant about the troglodytes being offensive in this one too towards the end #this is what happens when i wake up early. i write an entire rant before noon #if its nonsensical i blame the fact that i woke up before the sun rose #as per usual i am happy to elaborate on any points further if people wish

127 notes · View notes