#the phoenix never truly died. it just became something new.

[penname-artist]

How are you so famous? How did you get so many friends?

*roams up the stairs towards your throne*

Tell me.. what are you?

I don't think I'd consider myself famous...or at least, I wouldn't call myself that, if I was. I dunno, something about having too big a head about it, and thinking you're All That just cuz you're in a good spot has never sat well with me. If I ever do one day fit into a bracket of 'famous', I don't want something like that getting to my head. I want to remember my roots, my beginnings and all my struggles. I know how far I've had to climb and where I've had to crawl out of. And I know all the people that have been the reason I keep going.

And to the second question, I think that the first one bleeds over to it: I want to be a good person. A humble person. Not because of some monetary gain or contest of kindness, but just because...I know the monster I used to be. The monster I've come to terms with, and learned how to grow out of, slowly but surely, with each little step. And I owe it, to myself, and the people around me, to be better than that. No one deserves to go through what I've gone through alone. If I have the power to reach out to people, and bring community together to keep people from feeling alone, then I'll gladly do that. If benefits come out of that, well, then I have further branches to reach for to help more people.

I really never thought I would be in the kind of places I am today. Even just the littlest stuff amazes me. I know that I'm still a very broken person, and I've been through and caused a lot of things that I'm not proud of, and don't intend on returning to. But in that, I know where I've grown, and changed, and been taught the strength of kindness. I've done horrible things before, and I've had to make peace with myself over those matters years later, like old scars. I carry those with me as a symbol of that journey and change.

I still struggle. I'm far from perfect, I'm still making a lot of mistakes. But I'm still growing. I'm not done learning yet. And damn it, so long as I've got air in my lungs, I'm going to be happy. I'm going to help others feel happy. We all deserve some peace of mind, and a reason to smile on cloudy days.

Seemed as good a reason as any to make content about silly little airplanes. :)

[elfecassepied]

What if... Ikki and Shun swap cloths?

Aka Andromeda Ikki and Phoenix Shun au

It's an ua I see pass by time to time and I really love it, I wish there were more contents about it. So I decided to give it a shot with a brainstorming post. Maybe I will write a fanfiction with it one day.

WARNING: I do this without having a re-watch of the full series or a re-read of the full manga. It will be full of spoilers, piece of all type of Saint Seiya contents even non-canon ones and my headcanons/theories. Enjoy the ride :)

___

Ikki failed to convince Mr. Kido to switch Shun's and his faith. On this faithful day Ikki takes the boat to Andromeda's Island and Shun to Death Queen Island.

Now we know that the cloths have some kind of spirit/sensibility because they can choose their saint and "speak" in a sort of way. I believe this spirit is an echo of the original mythic entity behind the constellation. Since the greek mythology happened in Saint Seiya's canon.

ALL TO SAY. Andromeda watched anxiously at the brothers were separated. She always knew one of them will be her chosen saint, if Ikki awakes his cosmos successfully she will accept him with open arms. But Phoenix was more a picky chooser, even if he feels a connection with the boys it doesn't mean he will be soft.

I don't think the Phoenix spirit is about hate and revenge as Ikki's master said, the man only projected is own cruelty on the cloth. If it was the condition Phoenix would have rejected Ikki early in the series as he lets go his rage and hate.

On the contrary, Andromeda and Phoenix are the two faces of the same coin, that why they can bound with both of the brothers. They share this idea of sacrifice and reborn. Phoenix knows that something has to die and to be sacrifice for something new and stronger to rise from these ashes, he's willing to throw himself in death's arms to come back stronger, able to protect. Andromeda knows the way of resilience, that sacrifices need to be made for the greater good, she's willing to give up her own life to protect what she cherishs and to insure their safety.

.

On Death Queen Island Shun faced hell, half of the island is controlled by black saints and the other one is under his master, which is worst. Esmeralda was his anchor and so he was for her, two of the kinder hearts reassuring each other that yes goodness is still here, that there is more in the world that this blind hate the master teaches. Shun never wanted to hate anybody, neither to hurt them, but days after days his feelings toward his master became more and more... complicated. He didn't HATE him but as he hurts non stop his own daughter and the other disciples the boy starts to really really want him AWAY. Away from all of them, away from everybody so he couldn't hurt them anymore. Shun just didn't know how much away it need to be.

Then the others boys died or ran away to join the black saints - but he couldn’t run, he needed this cloth, he promised Ikki -.Then his master said that the only way for him to go back to Japan with the cloth was walking on his dead body. Then he killed Esmeralda because she tried to protect him.

For the first time in his life Shun felt pure, powerful rage. His heart was aching with sorrow and blind hate at the same time and it hurt so much and so indescribably that his cosmos burnt like it never did, like an eruption, or like pyre.

And in the ashes of this broken heart rise the Phoenix who for the first time in forever answered his call. A lot of sacrifices have been made, maybe even too much, and all sacrifices needed a payback so they won't be in vain.

Shun barely remembers killing his master, but he hates (truly hate) the feelings associated with this particular memory. The rage, the pain, the sadness, and then the emptiness as he watched the corpse, the disgust which made him throw up next to it and the, far more horrifying, satisfaction, knowing this man paid for his crimes and will never hurt anyone anymore. He was scared of himself, of what he can do, of what he did. He took another person life, just like his master used to do, now how was he different of that man?

The next days were at best blurry, he took back the Phoenix cloth the black saints had stolen, wearing it for the first time, it slightly calmed his racing heart as the cloth recognised him as its saint and anchor the bond deep into his soul.

I don’t know if he kills black saints on his way for the cloth, for the following arc to happen he need to have them at his side, so to gain their respect. But I wan’t to stay in character and I think even as the Phoenix saint Shun will kill as little as he can. However he certainly beats their ass, puts the fear of gods in their hearts and traumatises them in a way that made them sleepless for the rest of their life.

Then he received the letter from Kido’s corporation inviting/convoking him to the galaxian wars and he went ballistic. How dare they, after everything they (he) have to go through, to play with their life and their destiny once again like if they owned them ? They better be prepare because he’s coming, all claws and teeth out and cosmos raging as magma, for them.

.

On Andromeda Island Ikki faced hell, days hot as Sahara and nights cold as Siberia, but at least his master, Daidalos/Albiore (I’m not sure which one to use), was a good teacher, severe and rigorous but never cruel. On the contrary all the other disciples were brat, except for June, June was tough and the only one he liked a bit. He was clearly the strongest one of the group but his master was never satisfied, always telling him he missed something, telling him he didn’t understand sacrifices which made Ikki want to scream at his face. How could he doesn’t understand lose ? He, the boy who losed the last thing he had while coming here ?

Everything he did again and again tasted like defeat but he couldn’t abandon, he promised Shun. So in the last days of his formation, after his master repeated him that no he wasn’t ready to claim the cloth yet for months, Ikki used his last chance, the sacrifice. This ritual wasn’t really use these days, it was more common for the student to wait for his master approval but he didn’t have the time for that, six years had passed and he needed this cloth now.

Unlike what it can seem the most difficult part of the sacrifice was patience, waiting hours under the sun on chains, waiting for the tide to come, waiting with only his doubts turning non stop in his head. When finally he was under water he immediately started to drown, he knew he was strong but the panic of choking on salt water clouded his judgement and no matter how hard he pulled on the chains they just wouldn’t cede.

And in the desperate calls of this devoted boy drowned Andromeda who once again answered the prayer. Sacrifice wasn’t about fighting back, it was about letting go for something dearer in your heart than your life.

Ikki stood out of the water, chains in his hand and a cosmos profound and dangerous as the waves. Andromeda cloth had waited almost a decade for her saint and when he finally came, true to her words, she accepted him with open arms.

He wasn’t particularly interested by the little show the Kido planned but if it was the way to see his little brother again then he will participate even twice. As the tournament advance he saw, fought and reconnected with familiar faces but never the one he wanted to see more than everything.

Until he did. The little boy he knew and cherished, now surrounded by traitor saints and stealing the gold cloth, looks down at him with a crooked smile, a burning cosmos and eyes that now seems so empty. He stops his chain and stays deaf to his calls.

“Please ! Shun I know you.

-I don’t think you ever did.”

——-

Okay so I kinda lose control and started some angsty shit. I will try to calm down and had the rest of my thoughts by tirets.

-Shun is in a complicated place at the start of the canon. He genuinely thinks he does the best for everyone (at least for the other bronze and he) following what he learnt the hard way on his island: Kidos can't be trusted and neither can be the Sanctuary. He still unconditionally loves his big brother but has also been convinced he's now a bloody monster Ikki would hate and reject so he didn't even try to reach out to him.

-Don't know what to do about Django (leader of the black saints), in the manga Ikki kill him while taking his cloth and in the anime he comes back killing him later as the man tried to refund the black saints. I think either way Shun will ultimately need to kill him even if he doesn't really want to because he need to learn that sometimes a death is necessary to protect other lifes, he couldn't fight in the Sanctuary arc if he didn't learn that before.

-Ikki will probably be closer to the other bronzes than in canon, like he’s already the big brother now that he doesn’t loiter at the other side of the earth he becomes the parent friend of the group. In this au he’s more open about his feelings even if he’s still reserved so bounding with them is easier.

-Linked to that question not sure if it will follow the anime route (the kids are randoms picked by Mitsumasa Kido) or the manga route (they are all half-siblings and Mitsumasa is their father) because it will change the dynamics.

-things will probably stay the same till Sanctuary arc (at least close to the manga because Andromeda is such a damsel in distress in the anime it’s a crazy running gag). But I don’t know if their fights against the golds needed to be swaped or not. On pros: Shun get to be closer to Shaka which make more sense for the future-virgo-saint thing, he is the one with the armure which can reappear itself for the final battle against Saga, he will probably be in the I-need-to-save-them-at-any-cost-to-apologise-for-my-shitty-behavior mindset so it makes sense for him to do that, the whole fight against Aphrodite is about avenging Daidalos/Albiore's death and in this ua he's Ikki's master. Cons: the most homoerotic HyoShun scene of all time will be Hyoga and Ikki and I don't know how I feel about that, the whole twist in Aphrodite's fight is that it reveals Shun's true power he hasn't using and I think even as Phoenix and Andromeda respectively Shun will limit his cosmos and Ikki will be a 100%-or-nothing bitch like in the canon... Meh still need to work on this question.

-the fights in general is something I need to work on.

-Shun is youngest kid going in his rebel phase coded.

-Shun is still Hades’ mortal because why wouldn’t he be?

___

I will probably do more post about this au in the future to go deeper in the different arcs. Maybe it’s a good occasion to re-watch the series.

PS: Shout out to @kainshana because it’s their fanart for saintober which give me the motivation to put into words what have been doing roller coasters in my head for x time.

[briamichellewrites]

63 - Part I

Having a puppy was not easy. Bella was not house-trained. Phoenix had to be sure to take her outside, or else she would leave a “surprise” for him to clean up. He learned that the hard way when he almost stepped in a puddle. Linsey was not going to remind him to take her out. Yeah, he cleaned it up with paper towels before washing his hands with soap. Ever since then, he made a point to bring her outside every couple of hours to use the bathroom.

She was also afraid of going down the stairs. The first few times, he carried her. Then, he tried to get her to do it herself. She would grow into a big dog, so he wouldn’t be able to carry her forever. The vet gave him tips on how to help her combat her fear. Puppies learned by encouragement and rewards. It was something they were working on.

He also preferred to use redirection, rather than discipline. She was not a bad girl. Rather, just a puppy who didn’t know any better. One of his best traits was his patience. He displayed that with Bella, along with his go-with-the-flow attitude. His therapist was thrilled he finally got a puppy because he had been talking about it for a while. Yeah, he was able to convince his wife after some negotiations. One of the things he agreed to was that she was his dog and he had to be the one to take care of her.

She would help out when he was unavailable but the job was his. Did he feel as stressed out with his new dog? No, he found joy in taking care of her. Every negative emotion disappeared when he was with her. Linsey commented on how she didn’t have to worry about him relapsing because of how genuinely happy he was. Good for him!

Bria was not doing well. She was frustrated because she didn’t know who she was. Every part of her life was gone from her memory. How did she know she was Bria Michelle Johnson? What if everyone just made that name up and her name was something entirely different? Mike asked her what she thought her name was. Emma Taylor. How old was she? Eighteen. Where was she born? Los Angeles, California. Was that something she truly believed? Yes.

Her therapist didn’t believe she had any symptoms of schizophrenia or Dissociative Identity Disorder. Rather, she was creating someone entirely new to create new memories. What was Emma’s background? She was born as an orphan. Her parents both died in a car accident. They hired a surrogate, who was carrying her. When they died, she raised her as her daughter.

But, she never adopted her. When she graduated from high school, she moved out with the money her foster mother gave her. Did she still speak with her foster mother? Occasionally. She moved to India to be a nurse. Because of the costs of phone calls, they only spoke every so often. Where in India was she working? Bacharach. She was working as a nurse while she was growing up at UCLA, but she always wanted to travel the world helping people.

Now, she was. Mike was told to encourage Emma to find out who she was. How would he know if it became a problem? They would know when she could no longer tell reality from delusions. Okay. He was given information about delusions, along with schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder. Thank you. He would look them over and share the information.

He did. When she was with Brad, he went to the studio where he was meeting with the band to discuss their new album. They knew he would be late because he was going to an appointment with Bria. How did it go? He didn’t know. Uh oh. He nodded before asking them not to tell Emma he told them about her. Who’s Emma? She was Bria’s new identity. He explained everything the best he could. It didn’t make sense to him. Was this a symptom of a new illness? Her therapist didn’t think so.

“She’s an orphan because her parents died in a plane accident. The woman who was their surrogate raised her. She’s currently in India as a traveling nurse.”

“Let’s keep an eye on her. While pretending that we know nothing about this”, Bradford said.

They agreed. That meant treating her the same as they always did. It didn’t make sense but they had to put it aside for the moment. Bradford and Phoenix would talk to him more about it later. They wondered why she made up the story of her guardian being in India. Was that because they would never meet her and she needed a reason why?

It caught their attention that her parents in her story died the same way as her real-life parents. Brad kissed Emma on her forehead. He hoped that this was just something she needed to go through for a while. She went through something traumatic and maybe this was her mind’s way of processing things. Even though he wasn’t sure, he would call her by her chosen name Emma. That was what she wanted. They were sitting in her living room when Anya came over to them.

Hi, humans. At one year old, she was officially a teenager. Emma was getting used to her mood swings and disobedience. She meowed loudly when she didn’t get her way or when she was told no. Woody disciplined her. He swatted at her with his paw whenever she misbehaved. The dogs avoided her because they didn’t want to be blamed for something she did.

Are you going to be nice to me? Meow. I’m always nice, human. Brad laughed. She used to joke about how her cat, Woody was an asshole. Now it was Anya’s turn. They couldn’t be kittens forever. She did have fun with Bella, Phoenix’s new puppy. They sniffed each other out. She smelled like a dog. Woody hoped the puppy wasn’t staying with them. They had enough dogs running around with Missy and Buddy. He was grateful when she left with the other humans.

Bella was getting used to her new home. She sniffed around while one of the humans followed her around. What did she think? She was unsure. Before leaving the shelter, she heard the other dogs talking about being adopted by humans. It was something they all wanted. Was that what happened to her? Was she adopted? That’s what the vet said.

She didn’t like the vet. It was scary and she just wanted to stay in her crate. The vet and his assistant were very gentle and friendly. They called her a good girl and gave her treats when it was over. Yum! Yum! While in the waiting room, she looked around at the other animals. She saw cats and dogs of different breeds and sizes. A dog introduced himself as Barkley. She raised a paw to wave hello before introducing herself as Bella. Was she just adopted? What’s that?

It was where a human came to wherever she used to live. They then took her to their house. Yes, she was! He congratulated her! Humans were the best! How many humans were in her house? Two. He only had one. Before they could continue the conversation, Bella was being picked up. She said goodbye to Barkley. Goodbye, kid! It was nice meeting you!

Now, she was back home. The house was quiet as she took a nap.

“Emma” was not an alter or a sign of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Bria used her to find out who she was. Losing her memories through amnesia was traumatic. The way she dealt with that was by creating “Emma.” It was as if she was starting her life over. Emma was just Bria with a different name. She made up a backstory for her because she lost the memories of herself growing up. That made Brad feel better. He didn’t have to worry about her having a new mental health diagnosis.

Emma asked him to call her that name until she told them otherwise. Okay, he would do that. A loss of identity or struggling with identity was a symptom of BPD. It was such a complex disorder, it had many symptoms. Some were subtle and others were more pronounced. Such as her anger, depression, or hyperactivity.

After a year of informally dating, Brad officially asked to be her boyfriend. Yes! He laughed and then kissed her. Ever since their first date, he wanted to go out with her again. She made him feel like a man who could do anything. He loved her because he was constantly inspired by her. She gave every obstacle she faced the middle finger. Never say never because she would prove them wrong. He was so in love with her, he wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon

[yanderes-galore]

Yandere Halloween Prompts Day: 24

Word/Theme: Rebirth

Yandere! Phoenix! Aesop Carl (Fenix)

A/N: I finished the event ^^ Although I will be differing from it a bit. It feels a little rushed but the event confused me a little.

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Female Darling, Yandere behavior despite it not feeling like it, Kidnapping

The immortal bird, a servant for the God of Death. A being that took the form of a Phoenix, something that came back anew after it died. A fitting servant for Samhain.

Despite Fenix knowing his role as spy for Samhain, he did enjoy his childhood. Snuck in as a child with a younger Saintess, he grew up with you. The young Phoenix child thinking of you as the family he never truly had.

You were inseparable. Despite Fenix usually being quiet, you gave him company. He was always a great listener to you and wished he would never have to part from you.

You made him deviate from his original plan without even knowing it. Fenix knew sometime in the future he'd have to destroy this town, but thinking of what would happen to you stopped him slightly.

Then, you left the village for three years. Fenix became...worried, vicious at some points even. Demons were outside this village. What if he never saw you again.

It sent the Phoenix into a panic. His most precious human could be gone for good and the town wouldn't let him leave. That also went against Samhain's orders....

"It's too dangerous!" The church calls.

"But you people let her go!?" Fenix counters.

It was unbelievable. It only added more fuel to the Phoenix's fire, making him reconsider Samhain's plan. Maybe that's what Samhain wished for.

Maybe this was all set up.

Then, Moonblessed came bearing news.

"Did you hear she's coming back?" Moonblessed hums towards Fenix. Fenix stops what he was doing and looks towards his companion.

"Do you mean who I think you mean?" He's eager, it's been three years. Three years of him missing you. Now, close to the time of the festival, he could see you again.

But why now?

Why did you have to come back when the ritual was in full swing?

He felt as if he was betraying you. That him having to reveal his identity as the actual immortal bird would cause problems between you.

But, he decided he would go against Samhain's wishes for the village.

For you.

"I'll sacrifice everything for her...."

No one would listen to the plan he had come up with, another attempt at tricking Samhain failed.

There was nothing left to lose when the storm intensified. If only the church listened to him.

"Fenix!" You call, fear gripping at you tightly. He could see it in your eyes. When you saw the blue fire around him and the blackish blue wings on his back, he knew what you were thinking.

That he was some sort of demon sent by Samhain to kill the village and reverse the seal.

While he may truly be a monster in disguise, he wished to tell you that he'd never hurt you. That these blue flames burn for you. That he'd protect the village if it was for you.

"Please, just trust me on this-"

The fight against Samhain was long. In the end it requires Fenix's life to seal Samhain.

You mourn, trying to find some other way, but Fenix says for you not to cry.

"Do not worry, I will see you again." The dark phoenix promises, hand touching your cheek.

"Fenix...?" You ask, noticing the intense emotions in his sapphire eyes.

"Wait for me." He huffs, holding you close.

After the ritual was complete you didn't fully understand. What did Fenix mean?

Months passed and you kept your duties up around the village. Keeping demons out and away while trying to recover after hearing both of your friends betrayed you.

The night is quiet in your home. You lay in bed managing to fall asleep. You're feel light in your sleep, the sensation of flying.

You think you're dreaming until you try to pull your blanket towards you. It isn't there... in fact you open your eyes to see Fenix staring right at you. You don't know where you are, you're terrified.

"I told you I'd see you again." Fenix chimes, kissing your forehead. You push him away.

"Right...Immortal bird- You were reborn...."

"That is correct."

"Where am I?"

"Somewhere safer. The church would have a fit if they saw me, a traitor, back."

"You didn't have to take me away, Phoenix. I'm safe in the village."

"I can't bear leave you alone with the church. I'll protect you. You've seen I'm capable."

"This isn't right, Phoenix!"

The immortal bird frowns, nodding before leaning closer.

"This world isn't right. Who's to say what I'm doing is wrong?"

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

I was going to actually post this before asks closed (didn’t get the chance), but Teddy Bear Anon, you are one of my favorite people and a magnificent creature. You get my vibe. 

About Bad canonically being Sapnap’s dad I feel like that has so much extra angst potential when we consider the rest of the found family. Like. Sapnap, Tommy, and Fundy all have dads who started with the best of intentions but for one reason or another ended up slowly becoming a danger to them. I imagine Tommy and Fundy one day showing up with a cake and telling Sapnap “We regretfully welcome you to the shit dad club” and Sapnap is torn between being upset still and laughing over the absurdity of the situation.

Bonus points if Tommy made the cake using a recipe book that Niki gave him, the last gift Niki ever gave to Tommy. Tommy was originally a really bad cook/baker but after the egg really started to take over he went full survivalist. Leaning to cook was necessary but learning to bake was something he did as a way to raise everyone’s spirits. He’s never gotten the flavor quite to match with Niki’s perfectly but everyone agrees he’s gotten pretty decent in terms of skills. He and Fundy in particular will sometimes just spend an entire day in silence baking and then quietly eat their creations while reflecting on the friends they’ve made and lost over the course of L'manberg’s lifetime. When the group got back to the past and Niki made cookies for Tommy and Fundy the pair very nearly started crying.

Tommy is in an interesting position as a character since he did commit a lot of minor crimes and acted as a general nuisance but he was also still a child. (A very traumatized one considering I canonize SMP Earth with its unlimited lives but even more wars. Including against God. Tommy fought God just let me have this.) He acknowledges the moments when he went over the line and has tried to apologize. In particular at some point before the egg fully takes over he pulls aside Jack and tells him that he’s sorry for the way he acted when he was still in exile, taking one of Jack’s lives and all. Jack and Niki in particular are an interesting subject to address and a painful one for immune!Tommy to think about when he sees younger Niki because the three never fully tossed out the hatchet but it was obvious in the eyes of someone like Sam that both of them were growing more and more hesitant to hurt Tommy. It was made worse by the fact neither were even marginally immune, and it didn’t take long for the egg to get to them.

He never stopped being chaotic. Tommy at his core is just that kind of person. He did, however, grow up enough to act in a more mature manner. Started to recognize what’s too much. In particular he became a lot less violent and willing to lash out after Sam Nook in essence reparented him. He’s still an absolute wild card of a person, which in the eyes of Sam and Sapnap is a good thing. For this au I think we should actually address Tommy having severe ptsd and during the building of his hotel/the early days of the egg before it becomes a noticeable threat it shows. He’s a lot more subdued. Shows of aggression all carry a kind of desperation and his typical jokes feel flat. Lashing out at people slowly becomes more of a defense mechanism to see if someone’s going to leave or betray him, to test the limits of how nice they’re willing to be. After all, nice people have only ever been nice to Tommy when they wanted something from him. His eyes, especially after L'manberg is blow sky high, are well and truly gray. The first time Tommy genuinely laughs after filling Sapnap’s room with chickens is considered celebration worthy to them. His pranks take on a more hermitcraft-esque feel to them which honestly makes them more funny.

By the time they get to the past Tommy has recovered, but he still carries the kind of maturity that like Teddy Bear mentioned is reminiscent of age swap Tommy. When he gets especially stressed though, Immune!Tommy will slip into moments where he acts as tired and done with the world as age swap Tommy. With that said, most of the time he just acts like a more mature Tommy. Nothing could ever completely erase his unique vibe which Ranboo has gone on record as describing “Willing to fight God deaf, blind, and backwards just to prove a point." 

Immune Fundy and Tommy get on really well once Fundy manages to catch up with the rest of the group. It gets to the point where everyone from the past is kinda shocked since smp Fundy and Tommy do not get along. At all. Literally the first night Fundy’s back someone goes to wake them up and they find Fundy asleep on top of Tommy which is a wild experience since this Tommy is a goliath who often refuses to take off his full Netherite max enchant armor. He really becomes a "looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll” kinda mans.

Also, yeah, this is Dream’s retirement arc. He is literally just sitting in the corner watching Tommy dote on his younger self and Tubbo before completely pile driving two of the most powerful people on the server straight into the dirt. At some point Tommy sits down with past Punz. He tells this Punz that their Punz died protecting him and Tubbo and that Tommy never got to properly thank their Punz so he’s going to thank this Punz. Tommy then gives Punz an entire stack of Netherite. If we’re gonna go ahead and agree on Phoenix Tommy then Tommy is fire proof, meaning he probably spent a large amount of time in the nether to avoid the egg crew and get rare supplies. Meaning he also probably did a lot of mining just to distract himself and it resulted in him being loaded. Tommy used to have a fear of tnt and explosives but he seems like the type of mad lad to say “exposure therapy” and make a massive cavern in the underbelly of the nether.

I think it would also be really interesting to dedicate like, a couple of chapters to other people’s perspectives. I kind of want to set the time they arrive in the past partway through the Pogtopia arc since I like mildly unhinged but not completely gone Wilbur. Plus then it also makes more sense for Techno to be there. Just prefer the aesthetic really. I want to have Wilbur see this version of Tommy and come to a sudden “oh” moment. I want to have a moment where Tubbo looks between his Tommy and this new Tommy, seeing himself nowhere to be found, and has enough what the fuck moments to become aggressively protective of his own Tommy. Especially if immune!Tommy ever admits to the past Tubbo why he is the way he is, what he faced under the thumb of the people he trusted. Which, out of everyone on the server, Tubbo would be the first one from the past to actively learn. 

I am fully on board with Tommy knowing how to sew. That should just automatically be canon in literally ever AU. Tommy for all intents and purposes is still Phil’s child for me. Survival runs in the family the same way that chaos does, so he’s got a ton of basic survival skills that he just doesn’t show off because it’s still Tommy. He would have been completely fine in exile if it wasn’t for Dream. Whenever someone ruins their clothes in the Immune group they automatically go to Tommy and at first the past versions are very confused (except for past Tommy and Tubbo obviously) and then Tommy’s just “Sapnap this is beyond ruined it can’t be saved, let me make you something new” and within a couple days he makes Sapnap a completely new outfit. Like maybe Sapnap fell into a lava pool because Blaze Sapnap Supremacy and his clothes are beyond saving and everyone is beyond baffled when Tommy just acts like this is a weekly occurrence. He’s memorized Sapnap’s measurements and style tastes and already had a new outfit in the works for him that Sapnap immediately adores upon it being presented to him. It takes about a week for past Eret to learn that Tommy stress sews new clothing and he cannot think of a better model. Eret has never had such a full closet. Eret has everything from three piece suits to ball gowns now. Eret lives in terror of the days where Tommy disappears god knows where with Fundy and the two reappear with a new wardrobe for the entire god damn server. 

Speaking of disappearing I really like the idea of part phoenix and part tanuki Tommy for a couple reasons. Being a Tanuki he’d have access to enough magic to hide his hybrid traits, which if they’ve been present for long enough would be a necessity to him. Additionally think about Fundy and Tommy building a den under Church Prime that slowly turns into a maze. Think about it. It starts off simple and then they both start digging more and it gets deeper and deeper and more complicate and the two just refer to it as their den and the only ones who are fully aware of the connotations of that word are Sam, Sapnap, and Ranboo who remember the absolute hell that was trying to navigate the original. Just Fundy and Tommy bonding over the fact they are literally the only creatures on this server that have this catacomb memorized and at the end of the catacomb is their saferoom which connects to rail way that the two spent a month straight on. It goes at least 25k blocks from spawn and it’s a final emergency resort in case they can’t stop the egg and the Immunes needs to regroup and essentially try again (if they keep bringing their younger selves with them then hopefully they’ll finally get an army large enough to stop this, but everyone really hopes it doesn’t come to that.)

I’m working on the first chapter of my fic right now actually if I’m gonna be honest and phoenix Tommy is absolutely without question canon to it but I’ve still been going back and forth on if I want him to be part tanuki as well or just blessed/favored by one like Teddy Bear mentioned. I’m also tucking away the whole thing about the magma blood for later use. Phoenix Tommy just makes sense. They used to call him Zombie Kid for a reason back on SMP Earth, he just literally does not die ever unless he decides he does.

~Snapdragon & Firefly

[officialleehadan]

Introducing Flame

Today's story was brought to you by Jennifer! Darling, this was a loot of fun, and I can't wait to see whaere this series goes int he future!

Prompt: a character prompt for Capability Seen.

+++

“I called in some help,” Shieldwall told Natalie. He had officially been her bodyguard for three days now, prevented two more attempts to nab her, and still hadn’t asked what she and Mister Gold had talked about behind closed doors. “Talked to your boss. Told him I wanted a woman on your detail in case you need or want to go somewhere that guys aren’t welcome.”

“I’m not letting a bodyguard watch me pee,” Natalie said, since there were things she would put up with to not get kidnapped again, and there were things she wouldn’t. “But I guess at least one more person making sure I don’t’ get nabbed would be nice. Who do you have in mind?”

“Another of the ‘left to die’ crowd in the Powered community,” he replied, apparently involved in working on some of his gear. He spent a truly impressive amount of time fiddling with his little buts of tech, but Natalie had seen him in a fight, now, and she knew just how useful and important all of it was. His Power, as his name implied, was to create walls of force whenever he wanted. Not, Natalie supposed, that they were always walls. He seemed to be able to make them appear in whatever shape or configuration he wanted, including as shield bubbles around himself, or around her. “Phoenix is a little crazy, but she’s good people.”

“Ringing endorsement. Crazy?”

“Thinks she’s actually a phoenix and that when she dies, she’ll be reborn from the ashes.”

“Is she right?”

“No idea. As far as I know, she’s never tried it.”

Well, that might be a problem later, but Natalie wasn’t going to worry about it right now. Not when there was a crazy villain who, Mister Gold suspected, knew about her Power.

Her Power. The probable cause of all the drama. Damn it all, Natalie didn’t want to have a Power. Powers were always trouble. She wanted to be a nobody, thank you very much.

But no. Her father had been a Somebody. One of the most powerful heroes on record, apparently. He had been able to duplicate other Powers after seeing them a single time. He died stopping a massive villain attack that would have killed millions. Natalie wasn’t sure how she felt about it. About the man who she could barely even remember, who had given her more than just a stubborn chin and a pair of blue eyes.

And now Natalie had a Power. His legacy carried in her genetics, so well hidden that no one but Mister Gold ever knew it was there. A Power that the entire Powered community would kill to possess.

She enhanced other Powers.

It wasn’t the flashy sort of Power. It wasn’t a save-or-doom the world sort of power wither, or even one she could consciously do anything with. It was just there, in the background, doing its thing on any Power who got close enough for long enough.

“So when does your friend get here?” Natalie asked, since talking about her Power seemed like a no-go. She liked Shieldwall, but so far, he hadn’t offered his real name, and she hadn’t asked for it. He was a great boyfriend so far, but she just became the Powered community’s new Most Valuable Player, and that wasn’t a secret she was ready to share. “Seems like a big step, meeting your friends.”

“Perhaps soon, I’ll meet some of yours,” he said with a wink. “Nix is on her way. Should be here any minute.”

“If that’s not an entrance line, I don’t know what is.”

Natalie looked up in time to see a slight woman step through the door. Like Shieldwall, she was dressed in dark tactical clothing. The normal kind, not the kind that Powers usually favored. She wasn’t armed, however, which told Natalie that she was a Power herself. Her hair was short and flaming red, and burn scars crept up her neck and across one cheek.

“Natalie, this is Phoenix Flame,” Shieldwall introduced the new arrival and stood to clasp hands with the woman. “Nix, this is Natalie, my girlfriend and the person I called you about. Frost Orchid is after her. I could use some help keeping her safe, and I’d be happier if it was a woman.”

Phoenix was quiet and gave Natalie a slow, measured look. There was a little hint of something crazy in her eyes, but Natalie had never been bothered by a little crazy. Shieldwall trusted this woman. Trusted her enough to call her, even given his granddaddy of all trust issues. That told Natalie what kind of person Phoenix was.

“You seem cool. We can hang,” she said brightly and proffered a hand to shake. Phoenix blinked once, apparently bemused, but shook her hand and nodded to herself. Natalie noticed that the same burn scars on Phoenix’s neck were echoed on her hands, and that her hands were callused from whatever training she did. She was also just a little too hot for a normal human, which probably meant she was a pyro of some flavor. Made sense, what with the name. “I’m Natalie. Mild-mannered secretary and apparently new hot topic for the Baddies Convention.”

“Just the one, we hope,” Shieldwall laughed, used to her irreverence by now, and just amused at her antics. Phoenix chuckled, but she sat when Natalie waved at a couch across from her. “So, what do you think. You in?”

“Guess you could probably talk me around. I want my usual fee, plus extras if we hit combat with more than two other Powers at the same time,” Phoenix said with a half-grin. She let flames play over her hands, confirming Natalie’s guess about her Power. “So, Frost Orchid. I owe her some pain. What’s got her panties in a bunch, and how can I make it worse?”

+++

Capability Seen:

Clink Zap

Twenty Questions (Subscriber Only!)

Not a Drill

Chase Music (Subscriber Only!)

Hide Out Freak Out (Subscriber Only!)

Call Home (Subscriber Only!)

Office Revelations (Subscriber Only!) (NEW!)

Introducing Flame (NEW!)

+++

MASTERLIST

[echoes-of-the-clockwork]

Book One: Gold (Prompto x Reader) Chapter XVII

The following day, the royal retinue and guardian left Lestallum. With Gladio now back with them and the mythril refined, they were ready to head back to Cape Caem. It was a two-hour drive and once they arrived, they headed straight for the lighthouse. As they were about to step into the elevator, a dog with black and white fur ran up to Noctis. The boy kneels down, patting the canine's head. He then checks the notebook it's carrying.

While Noctis read Lunafreya's message, the golden-eyed dog trotted over to (Y/n). The spirit glanced down at the animal, wondering what it wanted when it barked at her. Squatting down, she held out her hand. The canine licked her hand, then nuzzled its nose against her palm.

"Hey, Umbra likes you!" Prompto stated excitedly.

"Umbra?" The girl reiterated.

"That's his name. He's a divine messenger of the Astrals." Prompto kneeled beside her and petted the top of Umbra's head. He abruptly stopped his ministrations when a thought crossed his mind. "Wait, wouldn't you be considered a divine messenger too? Y'know, since you can talk to an Astral?"

"Doubtful," she scoffed. "I'm not a divine being like Umbra. All I am is a vessel."

"Still, it's pretty cool."

After Noctis writes his reply in the book, Umbra moves away from (Y/n) and Prompto. He sits and waits patiently for the raven-haired boy to put the book back in the bag. With the book now back in his possession, the canine takes off. Everyone then boards the lighthouse elevator and rides it down to a basement area in a seaside cave. There, they find the hidden harbor and a makeshift living room area. The boat they'd be using to cross the ocean was docked nearby. Talcott, Iris, Cid and Cor appeared to have been waiting for them.

The little boy stepped forward with an excited gleam in his eyes. "Look, Prince Noctis! Even the marshal came to say goodbye!"

When the group reached the bottom of the stairs, Cor spoke up. "Something I gotta get off my chest."

Noctis met the marshal's somewhat melancholic gaze. "What's that?"

"I'm sorry. Sorry I wasn't there for your father. I swore an oath to protect the king, but I wasn't strong enough to uphold it." Cor lowered his head in shame.

Cid, who'd been silent until now, spoke up. "Ain't nothin' nobody could've done to stop what happened."

Noctis was quiet for a second before responding. "Yeah, I realize that."

"But you need to realize just what you mean to the boys by your side."

"I do."

"Even if they can't solve your problems, you can't hide what's goin' on from 'em. It hurts like hell. Remember—those ain't your bodyguards, they're your brothers. Trust in 'em. Always."

As Noctis glanced at his three closest friends, Cor finally took notice of the (h/c)-haired girl standing behind Prompto. He saw her slitted eyes and the golden gemstone embedded in her upper right arm. After recognizing her as a spirit, he approached her. "You..."

(Y/n) met the marshal's gaze. She felt a somewhat familiar sensation when staring into his eyes. The moment she went to speak, Prompto beat her to it. "Is there a problem, marshal?"

Cor's gaze never left the guardian. "May I speak in private with her, Prompto?"

"Um..." The blonde glanced over at the girl. "I...don't see why not."

"Then let's head topside."

(Y/n) followed Cor up the stairs and into the elevator. They rode it back to the top and stepped off. He leaned against the wall of the lighthouse, eyes still focused on the guardian. "It's been a while since I've met a spirit."

"You're familiar with my kind?" She asked. The marshal slipped one of his hands into his pocket and pulled out a necklace. The jewel adorning it was black, cracked, and had a silver phoenix wrapped around it. The guardian easily recognized the gem. "Marshal, you...?"

"I once had a guardian. Viola was my entire world until the empire killed her. Her death was entirely my fault." Cor gripped the necklace tightly. "Before I became a full-fledged member of the Crownsguard, I was nothing but a punk. During my training, I was sent on a mission outside the city. Damn imperials swooped in out of nowhere and ambushed my squadron. She protected me and lost her life in the process. I truly never knew pain until I lost her."

(Y/n) hung her head with a sorrowful frown. "I'm sorry for your loss, marshal."

"Even though it was over 20 years ago, the pain has never faded."

"Was Viola the one to tell you about the conduit?"

"Yeah. She learned about it from an elder guardian and told me about it during our final mission together." The marshal put the necklace back into his pocket. "So tell me, are you the conduit she spoke of?"

"I am. I only learned the truth after leaving the city and encountering the Archaean," she stated.

"Then our gamble paid off."

(Y/n) blinked in bewilderment. "What gamble?"

"The Crownsguard was aware of your presence within the city. You were only four years old when you and a baby were brought to Insomnia by one of our spies. We've kept tabs on you and the child in secret to ensure you weren't a threat to Lucis. Turns out, neither of you are." Cor analyzes the girl's face, but was slightly taken aback when her expression mellowed out. "You're not surprised by this news?"

"I'd be lying if I said I was," she confessed. "I never knew how I got to Insomnia, but I was aware of who I truly was. Verstael Besithia is my true master, not Prompto. I'm not the real (Y/n), I'm just a reproduction."

"So your memories of your creation are intact," Cor muttered. "Remember anything else?"

"Of course I do," she sneered. "That bastard is the one who killed the real (Y/n). I was made to replace her after she betrayed him. He thought making a perfect replica would erase the memories of the past, but he was wrong. I remembered everything when I turned 12."

Cor was thoroughly intrigued by the revelation. "Why did the real (Y/n) betray him?"

"His mind became corrupt and she no longer wanted to support his twisted experiments. She was set on leaving and sharing his secrets with Lucis, but he killed her before she could." She turned her back to the marshal. "I'm but a mere imitation of her with her memories. I'm a false guardian. Why the hell would Brahma choose me to be his vessel?"

"You might be a copy, but you're still a guardian nonetheless. If an Astral deems you worthy to wield his power, don't question it." Cor took a few steps back towards the elevator. "I've kept you long enough. You need to be on that boat with His Majesty."

(Y/n) stopped him before he could call the lift. "Wait, I want to ask you one last question. How'd you know who I was?"

A smirk appeared on the marshal's face. "You threw a fireball at me when you were five. Guess you don't remember."

"That was you?" She gasped. "So this isn't our first meeting."

"I was impressed by your power for a guardian your age. I'm the one who told His Majesty to keep you and Prompto together. We gave the bracelet to him once he was taken in by a family."

She rubbed her arm with a smile. "And I'm grateful you did."

"You kept your presence hidden well from the family. I'm surprised."

"Yeah, well, I was slumbering in the gemstone until Prompto turned five. How would I explain my situation to his adoptive family in a way they would understand?"

"You got me there." Cor summoned the elevator. When it arrived, they both rode it back down to the hidden dock. When the two stepped off the lift, they saw the boys and Cid were already aboard the boat. Seeing they were waiting for (Y/n), she said farewell to the marshal before quickly making her way to the boat. She climbed aboard just as the vessel came to life.

As the boat pulls away from the dock, Talcott suddenly shouts out to Noctis. "Hey! Your Majesty!"

"What's up?" Noctis replied.

"Please come back soon! We need our king!"

He nodded with a faint smile. "Yeah. Count on it."

Talcott and Iris wave goodbye and Noctis waves back. The boat leaves Cape Caem and soon enters open waters. (Y/n) stood near the stern of the boat. While the boys chatted, she leaned against the metal railing and stared across the glistening sea. Her (h/c) locks blew through the salty breeze, washing away the weariness in her body. She sighed contently and closed her eyes for a few seconds before reopening them.

Spotting a multi-colored reflection on the surface of the ocean, the guardian's eyes traveled up to the sky. There, she saw the Celestial Crescent glowing radiantly with an array of beautiful colors. Her blissful smile fell as she recalled her conversation with Cor. Curious, she spoke to the god of creation. "Can you hear me, Brahma?"

Yes, Child. I am always with you.

"You said I have a pure heart and hold no ill-will, but I'm a fake. How can a replica be a pure spirit?" She inquired.

You are no mere replica. You are a pure Child of Pneuma regardless of your fabricated body. No other spirit has proven themselves to be as pure as you. Cast your doubts aside for they will only cloud your mind.

She hung her head with a heavy sigh. "I understand, but that still doesn't mean I'm okay being a fake. The real (Y/n) died years ago."

Believe in yourself. That is all you can do. Whether you are a replica or not, you must see your worth. You are the inheritor of my power and none shall take your place. Hold your head high and walk tall, Child of Pneuma.

The god was right. She needed to stop calling herself a replica and believe she was her own individual. Her powers and experiences were her own and no one could ever tell her otherwise. The belief she had in herself that she extinguished was burning brighter than ever. She smiled up at the sky. "Thank you, Brahma." Pushing herself off the railing, she walked towards the plush bench Noctis, Prompto, and Ignis were sitting on.

"Nice of you to join us, short stuff," Gladio commented as she came to a stop in front of the bench.

"Sorry, had to clear my head," she said.

"You've been doing that a lot lately. Gil for your thoughts?"

"I'd rather not talk about it. It's more of an inner turmoil that I need to deal with myself."

Prompto was too curious and pried further. "Does it have to do with what the marshal said to you?"

She shook her head. "Not really, no."

"What did you two talk about, anyway?" Noctis inquired.

"He told me about Viola, his guardian. He lost her over 20 years ago. She's the reason why he knew about the conduit. That's...all we talked about." It wasn't the whole truth, but only a portion of it. The rest of the conversation she had with Cor would remain between her and him until she was ready to spill her darkest secret.

"The marshal had a guardian...?" Prompto gasped.

"He still carries around the necklace with her gemstone."

"He must've truly cherished her," Ignis commented.

Unconsciously, the marksman fiddled with the bracelet containing (Y/n)'s gemstone. "Yeah..."

Everyone fell silent. They enjoyed the sea breeze for a while until Cid sparked a conversation with Noctis. "So, soon you'll have yer old man's ring back."

Noctis nodded slightly. "Yeah. When we arrive in Altissia."

"Good thing. To him, it was his heritage."

"Is that what my dad said?" The raven-haired boy asked.

"Carrying a royal line ain't a task to be taken lightly," Cid explained. "For a small thing, that ring can sure weigh heavy. After he became king, I only ever saw his face in the paper."

"Wait—weren't you at the coronation?" Gladio questioned, interjecting into the conversation.

"Nah, I was long gone from the city."

"Must've been invited at least," Noctis commented.

"Had a fallin' out o' sorts with your old man. Right at the end of the trip," the old man said.

Prompto was taken aback at the revelation. "You did?"

Ignis then spoke up. "I was given to understand you stayed in touch."

"We buried the hatchet years later, but never talked face to face again. Shoulda paid a visit while I had the chance," Cid sighed sorrowfully. "Well, no use dwellin' on it now. Got the Regalia in the hold, but y'all gonna stay in Altissia for a good while, right?"

"Yes, we believe so."

"In that case, I'll tune her up for y'all. Not that I'll have much to do, though, what with Cindy lookin' after the old girl."

"If you say she's good, she must be great," Prompto said.

"She was never afraid o' hard work. Heaven knows she had a hard childhood."

""A hard childhood"?"

"He means her parents," Gladio clarified.

"Lost 'em both when she was little. Was big enough to understand, though...an' to hurt. But ya wouldn't guess that, seein' her now," Cid stated.

"Not at all. She's always so cheerful," Prompto said.

"Well, that oughta tell ya how far she's come."

(Y/n) decided to remain silent and listen to the conversation. She clasped her hands together behind her back, admiring Cindy from just how Cid talked about her.

After the conversation about Cindy died down, Gladio changed the subject. "Man, you must have seen your fair share of Altissia by now."

"Yeah... Only done been the once. Stayed a good while, though," Cid said.

Prompto leant forward, curiosity written all over his face. "What's it like?"

"Big ol' city."

""Big." Okay." Noctis was expecting more than just the word "big" and was clearly unamused.

"Well, it ain't the Crown City," Cid stated.

""Different." Got it."

"You'll see for yourself: foreign lands seldom lend themselves to trite explanations," the strategist claimed.

"Change o' scenery oughta do you good," Cid added.

Gladio huffed out a sigh. "Well, I'm all talked out. Can't be far to Altissia now, right?"

"We'll be there in no time. Nice having the wind at our backs."

"What should we do first when we arrive?" (Y/n) asked, glancing around at the boys.

"Lodging is our first order of business," Ignis answered.

Prompto sighed. "All work and no play..."

"Makes Ignis a dull boy," Noctis said, finishing his best friend's sentence.

"Someone has to babysit you two," Gladio stated. "Well, Noct still needs a babysitter. Prompto's already got one." His amber eyes landed on (Y/n).

The blonde went to retort, but then an idea came to mind. "You and Iggy can babysit Noct. I'm taking my special lady on a date!"

"It's not a date if she has to babysit your ass."

Prompto pursed his lips. "Hmph, you're just jealous I've got a beautiful goddess to walk around with."

"We're not good enough for you?" Noctis asked.

"I don't wanna walk around a city with a romantic atmosphere with three guys," the blonde groaned.

Gladio walked over and smacked (Y/n) on the back. "Good luck with this one, short stuff."

"I think a date would be nice," she confessed.

Prompto flew to his feet, pumping his fist into the air. "All right! This is gonna be so much fun!"

Once the blonde calmed down and sat back down on the cushy bench, Cid spoke up and mentioned he knew someone by the name of Weskham who runs a place by the name of Maagho. The group made note to visit the place after securing lodging.

A few minutes later, they enter Altissia waterways. The boat's radio came to life as a newscaster began broadcasting. "The government issued a statement promising that the reasons behind awakening the Hydraean would be clarified in the ceremonial address."

"Got a signal!" Prompto cheered.

"Delivering the address will be Lady Lunafreya, who was previously reported dead. This will mark her first public appearance since the violence that befell the signing ceremony."

"Lady Lunafreya's gonna give a speech?"

"Sounds like it," Gladio said.

"Lord knows—this world could use some wisdom," Cid sighed.

Ignis looked over at the raven-haired boy. "Won't be much longer now, Noct."

Noctis nodded. "Yeah."

Eventually, the boat pulls up to a guard who stands along the waterway. He asked the old man, "Does this vessel have an entry permit?"

Prompto was beginning to worry. "Uh, entry permit?"

"Relax. I got one." Cid holds up the entry permit the guard was asking for. "Here."

The Altissian guard examined the permit and nodded. "That's as old as they get. Seems in order. You may pass."

Cid drives the boat on ahead. Ignis eyed the old man and asked, "Prepared in advance?"

"You could say that. Thirty-odd years ago," Cid said.

"That's what the guy meant by "old"," Gladio remarked.

"Lucky us, eh?"

"That could've ended badly," Noctis commented.

"We could've always done some persuasion if it did," (Y/n) stated.

The prince met the girl's golden gaze. "You talking about bribery?"

"Something like that."

"Dude, that'd be sick!" Prompto chuckled. "Bribing our way into Altissia would totally be an amazing story to tell the others."

"I'm afraid we lack the funds for such a heinous act," Ignis said.

"Aw..." He hung his head with a dramatic sigh.

Cid slowly brings the boat into the docks. Everyone makes their way off the sea vessel and towards the city. Noctis walks up to a queue where some gatekeepers await. He was immediately stopped by one. "Sir! What is the purpose of your visit?"

"Purpose? Uh..." Noctis immediately looked at his advisor. "Ignis, a little help."

Ignis stepped forward and came up with the perfect excuse for them to enter the city. "We are scholars of the culinary arts, and we've come to study the renowned cuisine of your fair nation."

The gatekeeper believed the strategist. "Is that so? I wish you an enlightening stay."

The bespectacled man adjusted his glasses, turning to face Noctis. "Another one you owe me."

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter || Masterlist

[dvmnedsaints]

{ cis man, he/him } ❝ name one hero who was happy. you can’t. ❞ huh, who’s JORDAN CONNOR? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually JAMES ‘JEM’ SNAPE. he is a 28 year old HALF-BLOOD wizard who is THE DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS PROFESSOR AT HOGWARTS. he is known for being ARROGANT, RETICENT, ABRASIVE, BRAZEN, and ENIGMATIC but also ASTUTE, ADAPTABLE, CANDID, VALIANT, and AMBITIOUS, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song SIXTEEN BY REAL FRIENDS and A DARK MASK PLACED OVER THE BEST OF INTENTIONS, YOU CAN’T HOLD THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ON YOUR SHOULDER TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR FATHER’S SINS, EVERYONE EXPECTS THE WORST OF YOU ; YOU MIGHT AS WELL USE THAT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE, YOUR WORLD IN ONLY FILLED WITH SUNSHINE WHEN SHE IS NEAR, DISTANT MEMORIES OF BEFORE YOU KNEW WHERE YOU CAME FROM. i hear he is aligned with THE DEATH EATERS, so be sure to keep an eye on him.

emotional abuse tw

basics.

full name :  james achilles bowie wilkes snape

nicknames :  jem, bowie

age :  28

date of birth :  january 30, 2001

zodiac : aquarius

place of birth :  paris, france

blood status: half-blood

gender :  cis male

pronouns :  he/him

sexuality :  pansexual

family.

father :  severus snape

mother :  violetta wilkes

siblings :  1 older step-sibling, a twin sister, 2 maternal half siblings & 2 paternal half siblings.

spouse : TBA

children : rosalie hera olethea wilkes snape

physical.

hair color :  black

eye color :  brown

height :  6′5″

personality.

morality :  chaotic neutral

positive traits :  candid, astute, adaptable, valient & ambitious

negative traits :  arrogant, reticent, abrasive, brazen & enigmatic

job :  defense against the dark arts professor at hogwarts

hogwarts house : slytherin, although he only went to hogwarts for his sixth and seventh year, the first five were spent at beauxbatons.

alignment : the death eaters the order of the phoenix

background.

james achilles bowie wilkes snape. the eldest child of violetta wilkes and severus snape. the wilkes family was wealthy, owning properties through out europe, a fact that did not change after violetta’s father was killed by aurors in the first wizarding war for being a death eater. the family simply moved to paris. violetta and her siblings finished their schooling at beauxbaton’s, where she would later teach potions. in the year 2000, violetta visited hogwarts to teach for a semester. it was there that her brief fling with severus snape began, nevertheless she fell pregnant with twins. violetta returned paris without a speaking a word of the pregnancy to severus until the twins were born. it was only then that the two decided that they would each raise one of the babies and have little to no contact. violetta chose to keep the older of the two, her son james, who she affectionately nicknamed jem.

three years after the birth of the twins, violetta met and married a wealthy french pureblooded wizard, with a child of his own. the two would go on to have two children together. violetta was very secretive with jem, refusing to tell her son about his father. her story often changed. sometimes she would say that he was an old friend who died before jem was born, other times he was a spy, someone living a secret life and couldn’t settle down to have a family. as a child jem just accepted the tales his mother spun, even creating his own fantastical version of who he thought he father might have been.

jem was brought up being instilled with the idea of pureblood superiority, although he was a half-blood himself, it became something most of his family either ignored about him, or blatantly criticized the boy for, step-father often opting for the latter option. jem did everything he could to be the perfect son, but it never seemed to be enough.

when the time came for him to go to school, jem went to beauxbatons and he loved it there. he quickly became popular among his peers and excelled in his classes, but still, nothing he ever did seemed to please his mother or step-father. whenever he would argue with his parents jem would go back to wondering what his real father was like. the once sweet boy hardened. his personality completely changed when he was home from how he was at school. at beauxbatons he was charismatic, popular, the best of the best in his class. at home he was in the way, a good for nothing.

jem was fifteen years old when his mother told him about his biological father and that he had a twin sister. the two went between fighting and giving the silent treatment for what felt like weeks before jem ran away. he didn’t have a plan, he barely had any money on him, but he knew he couldn’t stay in paris another day. he wanted to meet his father and twin. maybe then he’d feel like he was more than a waste of space. he was wrong, of course. severus snape was nothing like the idea of his father that jem had built in his head. 

severus took the boy in nevertheless and enrolled him in hogwarts. jem was sorted into slytherin. though his father had since retired from teaching, there was still whispers to be heard of his treatment of students all those years ago. unlike his sister, jem hadn’t grown up with his new peers, they didn’t know him, he was mysterious and new. he seemed to have a reputation before he had even begun school at hogwarts. jem decided to embrace it. if everyone wanted to see him a certain way, he would let them. jem snape became an enigma, no one truly knew him.

after his two years at hogwarts, jem continued his studies, focusing on the defense against the dark arts. four years after graduating, jem was offered the dada position at hogwarts where he has been working for the seven years since.

in the years since, jem has gotten married and become a father. he made up with his mother and reconnected with his family in france.

[edourado]

Together, ch viii

This is probably the silliest thing I have ever written for these two. 

Please don’t abandon me.

Much love. 

----

“Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande are leading the charts”, Karen said one morning, while they both lounged in bed, after he decided - well, she persuaded him - to skip his jog just once. 

“Hmm”, was his reply, eyes closed. “And they are...”

Karen chuckled, and he suspected she had already told him about those two people. 

“Singers. Extremely famous.”

“Oh.”

It had become a running joke. She would read him pop culture news once and awhile, claiming he knew far too little about what went on outside his own life and general politics. 

David was actually the cause for that. He had called one day, to give them updates on the puppies - now named Blake, the girl that belonged to Leo, and Iron, the boy that was Zach’s - and said something about someone called Black Pink, which turned out to be several someones. 

“It’s this Kpop band, Leo plays their stuff non stop”, he told Frank, when he looked confused. And then, immediately, “Do you know what Kpop is?”

“Should I?” 

And Karen thought that was so endearing, kissed him and said he was “adorably clueless”, and started reading him these news here and there, that he barely understood most of the time.

“You liked Lady Gaga”, she said, turning to look at him, a sliver of sun on her skin, from a gap in the curtains. “Remember, we watched that movie?”

“The, uh- with the girl that gets famous and the guy…”

“Yes.”

“That’s her, then. Ok.”

Another day, he was sitting at the door, while Leilani played with Pooka in the hallway, when she took out her phone and turned to him. 

“Can I do a Tik Tok with him?”

Frank looked at her a little puzzled, and she showed him her phone. “Like a video? For the internet.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Karen came back from the walk with Lady and he asked her about it, after they all got inside again. 

“It’s like Instagram, but mainly for teenagers, they do these challenges.”

He blinked.

“It’s social media, like Facebook and Twitter.”

She showed him said Tik Toks on her phone and he watched a few, only to declare “I don’t get it”, giving her phone back to her after a few minutes. 

“You never tell me about people I know, like… Prince, he’s cool”, he said after she told him something about someone called Frank Ocean. 

Karen blinked at him.

“Frank…” she started, her voice almost careful. “You know he- he died, right?”

“What- Prince did?”

“Yeah. A few years ago.”

That truly surprised him. 

“Shit. How?”

He spent a few days in a controlled rage about that fact, and started going through a list of artists he knew and liked, checking they were still alive.

“Any more of the Beatles die?” 

“No, they’re good.”

It was Karen’s turn to be surprised when she came home from her own jog one day, to find him sitting on the couch watching reality TV. The Kardashians, to be more specific. 

They had watched the OJ Simpson season of American Crime Story, and she had explained to him that Robert Kardashian was the father of a very famous family that had a show that was still on. 

“I thought it would be like… Different”, he explained when she asked, extremely intrigued, why he was watching that. “But they’re just… Famous because they’re famous, I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, no one does”, she said, walking to the bathroom to take her shower.

To Karen’s further surprise, he kept watching the show. 

“That’s that rapper you told me about”, he said, when Kanye West showed up on the screen one day.

“Yeah, he’s married to Kim.”

“Will it last longer than her other marriage?”

The Kardashians became background noise for a while, and Frank’s knowledge in current pop culture improved greatly, and he spent a lot of time on his computer after Caitlyn Jenner transitioned, researching, Karen suspected.

Eventually, he stopped watching the show, claiming he couldn’t handle anymore. 

“You know what you should watch?”

She sat down to watch Queer Eye with him, and while he didn’t cry once - like she had, the first time she watched it - he didn’t get distracted, sometimes commenting things like “That’s fucked up”, or “nice”, or laughing at something or other. 

Frank sat through six Star Wars movies - which he knew about but had never watched - but was fidgety once he started on the more recent ones, turning his attention to the dogs almost immediately, giving up on actually finishing the saga. 

He sat for almost an hour one day on a video call with Leo, while she explained to him what her favorite Kpop bands were and why. 

“Do you understand what they say?” He asked, and Karen smiled, sitting at the desk, looking at her own computer. 

“That’s what Google Translator and subtitles are for”, she girl replied. “And some of them speak English. And I’m actually picking up on some words, now. ”

Little Victor from upstairs told him that he was reading the Harry Potter books for the first time, and while Frank knew about the books, since his own kids had read them all, he knew next to nothing about it. 

“I know Harry”, he told the boy, as always lying in his hammock, while Victor sat in his own fire escape, little legs dangling. “And there’s his friend, right? With the red hair?”

“His name is Ron”, said Victor.

“And there’s a girl, too. Her name’s complicated.”

He made Victor laugh while pretending not to know how to say the name “Hermione”, going “Herman? Herald? Horace?”, and the kid giggled.

Karen found him reading “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in his hammock, after Victor lent it to him, before going inside to have dinner. 

“It’s a kid’s book”, Frank whispered to her when she got out to join him.

“The first three are, very kiddy. But the other four are more mature. Stick to it, you’ll see.”

“You read it?” He asked, reaching out for her hand. 

“Yeah”, she said, and then smiled. “When I was eleven. But!” She went on, when he made to argue that they were, in fact, kids books. “The last one came out when I was, like, nineteen, and I didn’t read it until I was twenty one, so there’s that. You’ll be fine.”

He read the three books that Victor lent him in two days, and told her that “shit was starting to get intense for Harry” after he finished the Goblet of Fire. 

“Is he gonna end up with Hermione?” He asked during diner one night when Victor tossed him The Order of the Phoenix. 

“I’m not gonna tell you!” Karen protested, putting a big spoonful of mashed potatoes in her plate. “Why? Do you want them to?”

“Nah”, he said. “I’m just asking, because I think her and Ron make more sense.”

“Aw. Do you ship Romione?”

He looked at her, swallowing a mouthful of steamed broccoli. 

“Do I what the what?”

Karen smiled. “Nevermind.”

His pop culture knowledge hadn’t made it to the lingo yet. 

[yatorihell]

In The Darkness Chapter 53 - The Patronus Charm

Noragami x Harry Potter AU

Words: 4,406

Summary: Yato begins teaching the Patronus Charm with surprising results.

Thank you @kiun​​ for beta-ing me

Also available on Yatorihell AO3

Yato’s last class on a Thursday afternoon was Care of Magical Creatures with the sixth year students.

The class trailed behind Kuraha to their next creature hidden within the forest, with Bishamon walking ahead of Yato. This was the only class that the two of them shared alone as Kazuma hadn’t chosen Creatures as an elective, but it seemed Yato and Bishamon had a small friendship growing from their Defence training.

Kuraha picked up a bucket from outside his little groundskeeper hut as he passed. He didn’t stop as they neared the paddocks which was filled with Jackalopes, which were basically horned rabbits.

He led them further into the forest where it became more shadowy and into a small, empty clearing. Dead leaves littered the ground and every shade of darkening auburn hung over their heads as the autumnal leaves continued to fall.

Here, they were introduced to something Yato had never seen before.

Yato watched the creatures move, their hooves scuffing up the bracken and fallen leaves. At a glance they seemed to be a type of winged horse, like a Pegasus, but further inspection revealed something far more sinister.

Its skeletal body was covered by a smooth but thin black coat which defined every bone as they walked around the glade. Two leathery wings sprouted from each wither on their backs and folded at their sides, extending every now and then as they flexed. They easily had the same wingspan of a Hippogriff but lacked feathers and flesh under their impressive structure.

The face was the most unusual as they did not have an equine resemblance. Their faces were leathery and worn like their wings, dragon-like with a hooked beak at the end of its long snout. Milky-white pupil-less eyes directed their attention to Yato, and Yato understood why anyone would be afraid if they saw this creature.

“These are Thestrals,” Kuraha said. He dumped the bucket on the ground and a wet sloshing filled the air.

The class looked at him, confused.

“They are social creatures which is why there is a herd – not that you can see them,” Kuraha said gruffly. “Only those who have seen death are able to see them.”

The class shifted, eyeing each other to work out who was able to see them. Not many people had experience with death nor seen it first-hand, but in Yato’s case, he could see them clear as day.

Unbeknownst to Yato, Bishamon could see them too.

Whilst the rest of the class couldn’t see these creatures that lurked before them, Kuraha could easily demonstrate their existence.

He reached into the bucket and pulled out huge slabs of dripping meat and threw them into the air before the class. Invisible forces snapped up the heavy steaks instantly and bird-like screeches sounded from nowhere as the steaks were torn apart before their eyes.

“Those shrieks you’re hearing are the Thestrals communicating with each other.” Kuraha picked up some more slabs and threw them into the frenzy. “Thestrals can also be trained to understand a rider when asked to travel somewhere specifically.”

Kuraha wiped his bloody hands on his slacks and looked at the class. His eyepatch covered one of his grey eyes which observed the confused but understanding faces of his students.

“They can understand you, and whether or not you’re a friend, so watch what you do around them. If they see you as a threat, they will attack.”

For a moment Kuraha’s good eye raked over the students, searching for those who could perceive the Thestrals. His gaze fell on two students at the far side of the group, their eyes clearly following a baby Thestral as it approached them.

Whilst Thestrals were eerily beautiful, they could not be appreciated by those who could not see them. Kuraha gestured for the students to follow him down a worn path which led to the outskirts of the forest where the paddocks were located, each class a new creature waiting for them.

Yato watched the Thestrals for a moment longer as the class began shuffling through the thick blanket of leaves that carpeted the forest floor. Yato turned to leave as the footsteps faded, but his eye caught on two things. The bucket of meat that Kuraha had left behind, and, first and foremost, Bishamon.

Yato paused. It wasn’t like her to wait up for him.

Yato placed his hands in his robe pockets and mooched his way over to Bishamon, feet kicking up rotting leaves and small twigs. However, Bishamon didn’t acknowledge him when he stopped beside her, her gaze fixated on something ahead.

The penny dropped as Yato turned his head; a Thestral was looking straight at him and Bishamon.

“You can see them too?” Yato asked. He sounded incredulous, which may have been rude given the circumstances one had to have been through to see a Thestral.

Bishamon nodded and the eye contact between her and the Thestral was broken. It turned away from the pair, wings flexing as it headed towards the far end of the clearing.

They watched the creatures in silence, observing the herd as they sniffed the ground for remnants of food and let out gentle shrieks.

Yato thought to himself about the tragic nature of a Thestral. Invisible to those who hadn’t seen death, their presence was a harsh reminder of lost loved ones and painful memories. It was a shame that someone had to see death to see these hauntingly beautiful creatures, and it was all the more tragic when someone their age could see them.

“Who did you see?” Yato hated himself the second he said it; what an insensitive question.

Surprisingly, Bishamon didn’t seem to mind answering. “My grandfather.”

They fell into silence once again. Bishamon didn’t need to ask Yato the same question; his person was Suzuha.

Yato wracked his brain for a less sensitive topic, but the only one that came to mind was what she had done in their last Defence training class. He’d yet to ask Kazuma about it, but if Bishamon was friends with him now, then it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“So… you and Kazuma?” Yato said slowly, testing the waters.

Bishamon smiled, eyes following a baby Thestral as it stumbled around and snapped at falling leaves. “We started dating in the summer. Our families have married a few times, to keep the bloodlines pure.”

Yato realised that she was talking about the Sacred Twenty-Eight. These were ancient families that were supposedly still ‘true pure-bloods’, and Bishamon was descended from one of them. However, it could be debated that there were no longer any pure blood families; some members would eventually marry half-bloods, Muggleborns and even Muggles as the generations passed.

Yato wondered if the idea of marriage had been considered by Bishamon’s and Kazuma’s families now that they were dating.

“Do you think your parents will want you to marry?” Yato asked. “Not Kazuma, per say, but into one of the twenty-eight families?”

“My parents died when I was a child.”

Bishamon’s short answer shocked Yato. He’d known her for six years and – whilst they fought for most of them – he never knew she had no parents.

They stood in silence, the hooves of the magical creatures surrounding them rustled the leaves as they wandered around the barren glade. The baby Thestral had become disinterested in catching leaves and looked around, eyes falling on Yato and Bishamon. It trotted over to them, flapping its wings and causing an updraft of burnt orange leaves to flutter at their feet. It eyed the pail of food at Bishamon’s side and snapped its beak with a small screech.

“Can I ask how they…?” Yato asked gently. He trailed off at the end to indicate that she didn’t have to answer such a personal question.

Bishamon remained quiet and reached into the bucket. She pulled out a slab of meat that dripped some blood onto the bracken and threw it towards the baby Thestral. It reared slightly on its hind legs and caught it, tearing it apart with its razor-sharp beak and swallowing large chunks whole.

After a second of watching the Thestral, Bishamon answered. “They died in the First Wizarding War, fighting for the Ministry with Professor Tenjin.”

Yato stared at her as she threw another piece of meat to a larger Thestral who had caught wind of the free food.

‘With Professor Tenjin…’ Her parents must have been in the Order of the Phoenix. Yato kept his mouth shut and looked away, hoping Bishamon would reveal more, but she didn’t.

“I was raised by what was left of my family afterwards, but mostly it was just me and the house staff who stayed around to look after me when my grandfather died,” Bishamon continued. “As an only child, it's my job to continue my parent’s legacy.”

It sounded wrong for Bishamon, only sixteen years old, to think that her job was to continue an outdated tradition in the name of family legacy, but Yato said nothing. It was her choice and hers alone if she wanted to honour her family tradition, and she didn’t need to be told that.

But finding out her parents were in the Order of the Phoenix just like Sakura’s, that was news to him.

Yato wondered how many more of the Sacred Twenty-Eight had joined Professor Tenjin’s Order of the Phoenix, and whether or not Sakura had reached out to them. Bishamon seemed clueless about its existence, but if she knew that her parents joined the Order – and who they truly fought for – then maybe she would continue that legacy fighting the Sorcerer. He would have to ask Sakura, but since she had recruited Yukine and Hiyori as his friends, Yato would ask her to do the same for Kazuma and Bishamon.

Bishamon interrupted Yato’s train of thought in a gentle voice. “I believe you. About the Sorcerer.”

Yato looked at Bishamon, and she gave him a small, genuine smile. She had never done that before. “If you need anything, you can always ask.”

Yato nodded his head duly, not knowing what to say aside from ‘Thanks’.

Bishamon’s hair fluttered in the slight breeze as she stepped forward, carefully petting the baby Thestral which protested her departure loudly.

Yato scooped up the empty pail, throwing a glance at Bishamon with a light smile. Today, he’d seen a side to her that he hadn’t seen before, and their rivalry had ended.

After all, a friend was better than a foe.

~

Sakura was right when she said they were on their own.

On Monday morning, a framed sign appeared on the stone wall beside the Great Hall which caught the attention of all students who had come down for breakfast. A crowd had gathered quickly, all staring at the sign, which perplexed those who were too far away to see anything aside from the grey stones. Yukine was one of those students.

Yukine cursed under his breath and pushed his way through the crowd, bashing younger and smaller students unapologetically as they refused to budge. Hiyori and Yato were at the forefront of the crowd, faces stony.

“What’s going on?” Yukine asked. He looked at Yato for an answer, but Yato wore a scowl as his eyes scanned the sign for the hundredth time.

 Yukine turned his attention to the framed parchment and read the cursive font.

Proclamation: Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four

All Student Organisations are henceforth disbanded

Any student in noncompliance will be expelled

Yukine leant forward and squinted at the smaller text underneath, which was half covered by Professor Oshi’s signature and a seal from the Ministry of Magic.

“’Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Oshi)’,” Yukine read under her breath. “’No Student Organisation may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor, punishable by expulsion.’”

Shit.

Yukine looked at Yato and Hiyori, lost for words. Professor Oshi banned all clubs for no reason… or did she have a reason?

Hiyori caught Yukine’s eye and nudged her head to the side. Yukine took the hint and began making his way out of the crowd; they needed to go somewhere private to talk. Hiyori tugged on the sleeve of Yato’s robe, towing him out of the crowd behind Yukine. They made their way down the corridor and the crowd behind them started dispersing into the Great Hall, eager for breakfast, as the trio followed Yukine into an empty classroom.

As soon as the door shut behind them, they let out frustrated sighs.

“How did she find out?” Yukine hissed.

“Someone must’ve seen us,” Yato ran a hand through his hair. He was beyond irritated. They had been so careful…

“She might not know…” As soon as she said it, Hiyori knew it was a stupid idea. Why else would Professor Oshi disband all student groups?

“She can’t do this, can she?” Yukine asked. He looked at Yato for an answer, who paced the room annoyedly. After a moment he came to a stop, and the room quietened.

“Oshi is only a teacher because the Minister passed an Educational Decree to appoint her for a vacant teaching post that the Headmaster couldn’t fill,” Yato said.

They knew the vacant position was Defence Against the Dark Arts, and whilst it was true they had a bad streak of teachers, it was obvious that the Ministry had placed Oshi in Hogwarts to spy on Professor Tenjin.

“Why isn’t Professor Tenjin stopping her?” Hiyori asked. “He is the Headmaster.”

Yato shook his head. “Tenjin probably can’t defy her if the Minister thinks he’s going to overthrow him. That will just prove it.”

“We aren’t going to stop,” Yukine announced. He turned to Yato, green eyes flashing with burning passion and anger. “You said so yourself that you would train us when the Ministry banned practical magic.”

Yato nodded, felling Hiyori’s eyes on him expectantly. “I did.”

“Then train us!” Yukine exclaimed.

Deep down, Yukine knew that Yato, Hiyori, nor any of the other students would let something like a disband stop them, not when so much was at stake. The scars – mental and physical – gave him cause to continue to fight, and he wouldn’t stop until justice was done.

“We are Hogwarts’ Order of the Phoenix,” Yukine declared. “We will protect ourselves.”

~

October slipped by and November brought snowfall to the castle. The Quidditch teams had been allowed to reform after Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four was enforced, but Yato, Hiyori and Yukine were thankful that they didn’t have to play through the cold season.

Wintery snow drifts began to pile in the windowsills and hallway arches, refusing to melt in the cold sunshine air. The dusting of snow led to most students wrapping themselves up in their house scarves, woollen hats jammed on their head and fingers stiff with cold as they tried to put on gloves.

The warmth of the castle kept the students warm in their classrooms, but the Room of Requirement struggled to keep out the cold as the tower was surrounded by nothing but sky. Yato and Yukine decided to steal some logs from the woodpile outside Kuraha’s hut and bring them up to the classroom before their training session, igniting the fireplace for the first time that year. 

Hiyori shivered as the first wave of warmth hit her as she entered the Room of Requirement. The snow had melted on her clothing as she made her way upstairs, leaving her damp and frozen, but the sound of a crackling fire was welcomed.

Hiyori pulled off her hat and scarf as she crossed the room to the fireplace, meandering her way through the few students who had arrived before her.

Yato and Yukine stood before the hearth warming their hands, a few more logs piled next to the firepit waiting to be added. Yato noticed Hiyori approaching and offered a greeting, moving to the side so Hiyori could get in next to the fire.

They had hung their sopping wet hats, scarves, gloves and robes next to the fireplace on some hooks that she hadn’t noticed, and Hiyori followed suit. Shrugging off her robe, Hiyori tutted when she saw the wet patches that had leaked through onto her jumper. Hopefully, the fire would dry them off before dinner.

Hiyori held her hands out to the fire and shivered again. “I wish they would move Herbology out of the greenhouses in the winter.”

Yukine smirked; Hufflepuffs didn’t have Herbology with Gryffindors since the greenhouses were too small. “Steal some of the gardening gloves, they’ll keep your hands warm and dry.”

“I’m not going to steal, Yukine,” Hiyori scolded.

Yukine shrugged. “Your loss.”

They stood around the fireplace, allowing other waterlogged students to huddle around the fire and warm up a bit before they started class. Defence training was going well, and they had begun to breach new topics. One that Yato was adamant to teach before the Christmas break was the Patronus Charm.

By the time the last students had trickled in, class was beginning. They took their places around the class spread out from the others, wands in hand.

Yato stood at the head of the room in front of the fireplace, arms behind his back. The flames backlit his figure and shadows of snowfall beyond the lattice windows filtered across his face. In that moment Hiyori could see that his confidence and command of the room had grown.

When Yato stood before them, they knew class was in session.

“A Patronus acts like a shield against a Dementor, using a positive force that the Dementor can feed on instead of its caster,” Yato echoed the words Professor Daikoku had told him about the Patronus charm. “To cast this charm, you need a happy, powerful memory.”

Yato looked around the class, finding Hiyori and Yukine within the crowd a short distance away from Kazuma and Bishamon.

“Close your eyes.”

The class closed their eyes.

“Find a happy memory.”

The crackle of flames licking at splintering logs in the fireplace seemed deafening. Not a whisper nor breath could be heard as they searched their memories for their happiest moments.

For Bishamon, her happiest memory was her first Quidditch Cup victory, whereas Kazuma’s was his first date with Bishamon to the Quidditch World Cup. Yukine’s was his first kiss with Suzuha in the greenhouses, and for Hiyori, it was the entirety of the Yule Ball.

“Now speak the incantation, ‘Expecto Patronum’.”

“Expecto Patronum,” the class echoed.

“Focus on the memory, open your eyes, and cast the spell.”

In near unison the class uttered the spell, wands raised. Some wands glowed with a hint of white light at the tip, others did not. The voices became disjointed as the class uttered the spell over and over, more forcefully as they willed their Patronus into existence.

Yato began pacing around the room, examining the way wands were held silently. He couldn’t really do anything to help aside from telling them to find a happier memory, as Daikoku had told Yato.

However, it wasn’t long before someone conjured it.

The first Patronus to emerge was a blur of a tail as it ran overhead. Excited gasps rang out as a few students stopped and turned, their own wand tips dying out as their attention was diverted.

Yato caught a glimpse of a Golden Retriever leaving a trail of whispery silvery-blue as it raced across the air, bounding in manic circles across the length of the room. It surged downwards and wove between the forest of legs, tongue lolling, before it hurled itself straight at Kazuma.

Kazuma grunted at the force of a would-be 30-kilogram dog slamming into his chest, wand and glasses clattering to the ground and knocking him off his feet. Concentration gone and disarmed, the excitable Patronus faded in an instant to the applause of Kazuma’s fellow trainees.

Bishamon picked up Kazuma’s glasses which – miraculously – had survived the fall, and handed them back to him on the ground. Kazuma wheezed a ‘thank you’ and picked himself up, Ravenclaw tie askew.

With that, the class redoubled their efforts.

Within minutes, whispery trails had poured from wands and formed into half-formed Patronus’ or even fully formed ones. Kazuma rendered his own once again, attempting to control the rambunctiousness and avoiding getting knocked over again.

Yato watched as something slithered out of a Ravenclaws’ wand and writhed in the air, shaking itself violently as if to fend off a predator. If Yato didn’t know any better, he’d say it was a worm.

What a tragically funny Patronus.

Bishamon conjured her Patronus next, and to everyone’s astonishment, it matched the crest of Gryffindor. If he thought about it, it wasn’t much surprise that Bishamon had a lion; she was a true Gryffindor after all.

The lion roared and shook its mane, sending sparkles shimmering down on Bishamon as she grinned up at the majestic beast that paced above her head.

Kazuma’s mouth was agape as the lion paced towards his seemingly much smaller Patronus dog, worried it may tear the poor pooch apart. However, the golden retriever didn’t seem to understand that he may have been in danger. It wiggled playfully in a bow at the lion, pawing the air every now and then as it jumped around in circles in front of the unimpressed big cat.

After a moment, the lion swiped a big paw at the dog, the way in which a cat might bat at a pest. Bishamon laughed, and Kazuma smiled when he saw their Patronuses interacting. Golden retrievers were loyal, and he liked to think that said something about his character.

The class tripled its effort at seeing another Patronus – and a lion at that – appear before them playing with the Golden Retriever.

However, Hiyori couldn’t seem to get past a bright white light on the tip of her wand as she focused hard on her memory. Yato wandered over to her and cast a glance at Yukine who also seemed to be struggling.

Hiyori didn’t seem to notice Yato, too intent on conjuring her Patronus that she didn’t see him watching her closely. Even though he couldn’t help her memory, he could encourage her.

Yato came up behind Hiyori and gently covered her hand with his own, guiding the wand upwards.

Hiyori barely flinched, although she would admit her concentration wavered at the feeling of Yato’s warm skin on hers. She could sense his face next to hers, eyes on the space ahead where she willed her Patronus to appear.

“Concentrate,” Yato said softly.

Hiyori’s Patronus burst forth as soon as Yato uttered the word in her ear, electrifying her senses and giving a surge of energy to her spell. It appeared similar to Kazuma’s at first, dog-like and shaggy, until it tipped its head back and let out a long howl.

A wolf, Yato said to himself.

He smiled and looked at Hiyori, but she was focused on her Patronus with a small, shy smile. She may have been blushing, but then again, her cheeks may be rosy from the heat of the room.

Yato turned to help Yukine, but it seemed he had managed to make his memory strong enough to reveal his Patronus.

His wand trailed thin smoke-like wisps that created a small cloud above his head. Yukine watched excitedly as it formed, hoping it would be something as strong as a wolf or a lion.

Two ears sprung up and its head popped up, alert and curious. Its stout, chubby body reared on its strong hindlegs, paws on its tummy and nose twitching as it looked around.

It was… a rabbit.

“Are you serious?! Hiyori gets a wolf and I’m a fucking bunny?!” Yukine raged. He wanted something fierce, not the Easter Bunny.

“Well, you do kinda remind us of an angry bunny, Puff,” Yato chided, using an old nickname he had given Yukine when they’d first met.

Yukine flipped him off with his free hand in response, looking at his cute Patronus forlornly. Hiyori couldn’t hide her smile when Yukine pouted angrily.

The class continued, with most students being able to form some sort of shield or even a bodily Patronus form. Yato instructed those who couldn’t to find more memories they could try in the next session, reassuring them that he had tried a few memories before he had been able to use the spell.

The class picked up their bags and clothing as they filtered out of the Room of Requirement slowly. Yukine kept watch as students filtered out in small groups to ensure that no one was watching, the fear of expulsion a genuine concern for some of the younger years if they were caught in a secret society.

Hiyori wrapped her scarf around her neck and threw her warm robe over her arm, stuffing her gloves into the pockets. A smattering of students remained in the room, waiting their turn to leave.

Yato was talking quietly to Bishamon and Kazuma were in the centre of the room. After a moment, Yato collected his things from the fireplace and joined Hiyori by the door as the final group of students slipped out and down the hallway.

“Ready?” Hiyori asked.

Yato hummed in agreement and Hiyori slipped out of the door. Yato caught the door and looked behind to call out to Kazuma and Bishamon to hurry up, but he closed his mouth quickly and slipped out of the door.

Yato let the door close softly so as to not disturb them. Yato turned, trying to get the image of what he had just seen out of his head and faced Hiyori and Yukine, who had come back from his watch-post.

Hiyori was filtering through her satchel and robes, hair curtaining her face as she searched for something.

“What’s wrong?” Yukine asked.

“I left my hat on the fireplace,” Hiyori answered.

She stepped around Yato and placed a hand on the door handle. Yato caught her arm before she could open the door.

“I wouldn’t go back in there if I were you,” Yato advised.

Hiyori paused, hand still on the door handle and looked at Yato quizzically. “Why?”

Yato smirked.

Hiyori didn’t see, but when Yato had turned to call Kazuma and Bishamon, he’d noticed a sprig of mistletoe emerging from the cracks in the ceiling and dangle above the couple.

“Because Kazuma and Bishamon are making out.”

[threelivesthreeworlds]

EXCERPT FROM PILLOWBOOK, CHAPTER 21, BOOK 2. IN WHICH YE QINGTI’S FIRST (AND LAST) LOVE IS A GODDESS.

Ye Qingti never thought one day he would cultivate into an immortal, and yet he had only to wash away the dust of the mortal world in the Jade Pool, and go see Da Luo Heaven Qing Yun Hall's Eastern Lord, and he would become an immortal.

Ye Qingti remembered that the lifetime during which he was a human was four hundred years ago. He was born to the Ye family during the Jin Dynasty, and was the first son of the Marquis of Yong Ning. The house of Yong Ning was a militaristic one. Every generation of the Marquis of Yong Ning died at war, and his father spilled his blood on the battlefield when he was thirty five, and so he was only seventeen when he became the marquis.

At that time, the Jin Dynasty was at the end of its strength - sons of great families were predominantly good-for-nothings, but the sons of the Ye family were the best out of a rotten lot, and Ye Qingti was the best of this best. According to common practice, since Ye Qingti was handsome, had a good personality and a great house, he ought to be first on the list of every house looking for a son-in-law. However, since the start of the Jin Dynasty, the Yong Ning peerage produced an infamous amount of widows, and the great families that truly cared for their daughters usually did not wish to marry them, and so for every generation the Marquis of Yong Ning had a hard time getting married and could only hope for the Emperor to arrange a marriage.

When Ye Qingti became the Marquis, conflicts at the border were endless and troubling, and so the new, young Marquis could not wait till the Emperor arranged a marriage before he went off to patrol the border, and stayed there for five years, driving away the the Da Tan tribe that was causing trouble at the border in the process.

Ye Qingti made incredible progress, and the Emperor was very happy, and not only rewarded the house of Yong Ning greatly once he returned to the city, but also arranged a marriage with Councilor Qi's eldest daughter, and then gave him a beauty to be a second wife. In this dynasty, past emperors sometimes liked to give beauties to their subordinates, but the current Majesty lived for forty something years and was on the throne for twenty something, but never gave a beauty to a subordinate. Even though he was a general, and did not think as much of the atmosphere at court as the civil officials did, he thought this matter was somewhat bizarre.

After a few rounds of secret investigation, he found out that the beauty that had been given to him was a Consort Chen that had been living in the Emperor's palace, who had not at first been particularly noticed, but had saved the Emperor from the water at the Wei Tuo Hu Fa Dan four years ago, and earned His Majesty's interest. According to the rumors, Consort Chen loved His Majesty ridiculously deeply when she was unfavored, but without reason, when His Majesty became deeply in love with her, she was very cold with him and made him angry constantly. An even more private secret was that even though Consort Chen was so cold, His Majesty still favored her greatly for four years, and no night in those four years did Consort Chen ever let him near her.

Ye Qingti was sat on the wall drinking and watching the moon, and hearing the spy say this, dropped the jar in his hand, shattering it on the floor, paused for a long moment, and said, "What a curious woman. If His Majesty has tolerated even that, what great mistake could she have made that cause His Majesty to give her to me as a second wife?"

The spy paused for a moment, and said: "She...wrote Her Highness the Noble Consort a love letter."

To take a second wife was not like marrying a first one, from engagement presents to meeting the bridal party, carrying all out according to the etiquettes. To marrying a wife took up many months, and to take a second wife was only to pick a day, and lead her in through the back door. Ye Qingti's whole heart had been on the battlefield since he was young, and rarely took an interest in matters of romance, but he was rather curious about this Consort Chen. The day Consort Chen came to the house, even though Ye Qingti left the study late at night, he decided to go to Bi Yun Courtyard to meet this curious woman.

Because he was too lazy to get maids to come open the door, Marquis Ye flipped over the wall directly, and without even touching the ground, he heard a light laugh like a silver bell, and looking toward the sound, saw a blue lotus pond, full of lotus leaves, and a great distance away there was a white-clad woman with light footsteps walking between the water and the lotuses to chase the fireflies in the pond.

Beneath the silver moonlight, that woman suddenly turned her face, and between relaxed, dark eyebrows there was a flower, bright eyes as if the stars were melted in them, the smile touching her lips adding to an already beautiful face. Marquis Ye heard a great noise in his mind, and two phrases from a text he'd read as a young man crashed into his heart: like the moon concealed by light clouds, floating and swaying like the snow on a flowing breeze.

When he flipped over the wall and landed beneath an old pear tree, he stepped subconsciously and broke a branch, and in the silent night the sound was especially attention grabbing. As expected, the woman in the pond appeared alarmed, a warm white light shooting straight into the pavilion in the middle of the lotus pond, and after, the woman was gone.

He hurried to the pavilion, and within, a green-clad woman rubbing her eyes stood up from a stone stool. The green-clad woman had a round face and could only count as somewhat good looking, looking at him blankly for a moment, and then said: "Marquis Ye?" But he noticed the flower on the woman's forehead. No, it wasn't a flower - it seemed more like a birthmark in the shape of a beautiful flower, like spread phoenix feathers, like the one on the white-clad woman's forehead a moment ago.

He stayed at the borders for long years and had seen all sorts of bizarre things, and thought her playing dumb was adorable and laughable, narrowing his eyes and asking her plainly: "You're a demon?"

He thought she would deny it, like a snake demon that had married a hunter of a border village that he had encountered when he had been twenty, who denied it to the end even when her tail came out. But she only paused half a moment, and asked him with a distressed expression: "Someone like me looks like a demon?" Before he could respond, she sighed. "This is getting ridiculous. Before, they just thought the flower on my forehead was a demon flower, and now my real body is being thought to be a demon." After sighing, she continued to ask him: "Do I really seem like a demon? Why do I seem like a demon? Have you seen a demon as pretty as I am?"

It was because she was so beautiful it seemed impossible she was human, that he was sure she was a demon, but she asked him if he had ever seen a demon as pretty a demon as her, and so his heart was moved, and though he thought the hypothesis was somewhat ridiculous, asked her with a smile in his eyes: "What, are you a god from the heavens?" 

She pursed her lips a little: "Do you mortals think there are only gods in the heavens? I'm not a god from the heavens - I'm a god from the country of Qingqiu. Have you heard of the Eastern Wilderness? I am the goddess of the Eastern Wilderness, Feng Jiu."

When she said this, her clear eyes danced with teasing, and even though she wore the round face of Consort Chen, one forgot her face and only saw her clear eyes.

The heart in his chest began, violently, to beat.

Ye Qingti had lived twenty three years, and had not known what love was. The first time he tasted love was to fall in love with a god. This god was very beautiful, lively and gentle, was an excellent cook, liked to mess around with weapons, and made good conversation with him. According to her, she came to the mortal realm to make a love calamity for the current Emperor.

She asked him: "Do you know what it means to create a calamity? I'm actually not a professional at creating calamities, but I have such bad luck. I came to the mortal realm to to repay a debt of gratitude, but then I met my aunt who was here to change someone's fate and got roped into it." She complained about the Emperor to him: "Siming made me create a love calamity for him last minute. Do you understand how difficult that is? Siming gave me a play, and I used all the ways the horrible ladies use to hurt men written on there, and he still loved me deeply without regret." She shuddered. "I didn't have any other choice than to go with a bad idea and write his Noble Consort a love letter." She sighed: "I did something like that, don't you think he should've given me a noose or some poisoned wine? What was he thinking, to give me to you as a second wife? Now even if I want to leave, I don't dare to, for fear of implicating you!"

She took him for a friend, and sincerely complained to him, and so he held a jar of wine, drank and smiled. He remembered hearing someone say that gods had no feelings, that those who were gods had neither the seven emotions nor the six desires. That he fell in love with a god meant there would be no conclusion. Sometimes he hated that his heart was moved that night, hated that that moment of being moved could last for five years, taking root deep inside so that he could not remove it if he wished to. He had been lost, and had struggled, listened to Taoist lectures from the Councilor, and meditated with Buddhist monks, but after all that still wanted to return to her side, even just to watch her from afar. She said she was here to create a love calamity for the Emperor, but it seemed she also created a love calamity for him.

He didn't want to burden her, in actuality, thought to bury his feelings until he too, grew old and died and would be buried, but when it came to the moment of death, he couldn't keep it inside.

After Consort Chen hurt the Emperor, the Emperor began to take a liking to studying Taoism, trusting especially an old Taoist, giving him the rank of royal advisor and constructing an Imperial Tao Temple, discussing Taoism with him on the fifteenth of every month.

He only knew that night that this Taoist was an evil demon, who had wanted to take the Emperor's soul to create a magical pill with it, plotted for five years and thought to take the Emperor's life during that rare astronomical period of yin, and took a demon blade, Lan Yu, to attack the Emperor when he came to the temple as usual.

He hadn't thought the silver bell always attached to her wrist was a magic item that could tell when the Emperor was in danger, and he hadn't thought that a god could have feelings. When the demon blade Lan Yu was flying toward the Emperor, her face was clearly pale, and when she put herself in the path of the blade in front of the emperor, her voice seemed as if her heart was ripping out of her chest when she called "Donghua!" The Emperor's name was not Donghua, that was the first time he had heard such a name. Without hesitation, she threw herself in front of the Emperor, and without hesitation, he threw himself in front of her. 

The tip of the blade stabbed into his chest, but he held it tightly in his hand. 

He was afraid the point of the sword would travel through his heart and hurt the woman standing behind him. 

The demon Taoist died under her sword, and when the guardes belatedly formed a protective circle around the Emperor, he finally collapsed into her arms.

When she chattered to him, he always liked to smile, and even at his death, his pale face held the trace of a smile. "They say...Gods have no feeling, and I...believed it. But...Gods can have feelings....yes?"

He saw her nodding as she cried, and wishfulness blossomed in his heart: "This life...our fate has ended...Can we...make a promise....for the next life?"

She was still crying, the tears falling on his face, but did not give him the answer he wanted. Choked with tears, she said, "Qingti, I owe you a life. I will pay you back."

"Qingti, I'll observe mourning three hundred years for you."

"Qingti, please rest in peace."

He loved her so deeply, he gave his life for her. But there was nothing in the world that said one could exchange a life for a feeling.

He thought, she said gods could have feelings, but refused to feel for him. She cried and said she would pay him back - a life, yes, but could someone pay back a feeling?

[oh-boleyn]

jane / infamy

words: 6216, one shot, language: english

anne / jane /  katherine / catherine

as I said on my ao3, this might be my last one shot in a while (I’m really struggling with college right now, like in this moment I should be doing two assigments which... clearly I’m not doing), but still I hope you all enjoy this piece of garbage of story!

TW: canon, Jane being mean? probably more swearing that what is expected from a jane one shot

the commentary between scenes are things I got from internet about Jane Seymour

Remembered for: being the only wife to provide Henry with a son and male heir.

(…)

Jane Seymour was relieved.

The light is brighter, and her dizziness is starting to fade.

No more pain or ache in her lower body, and she feels quite better than in a long time. Her arms are longing to hold her baby, dear Edward, who has just secured her the position of queen.

She opens her eyes, but instead of finding her chambers, she is in a strange looking room, with Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon. Jane wants to cry, knowing immediately what it meant. She is dead, there is no other way to turn it around. She died and was found guilty of her sins, was it her hell? Being with the other two queens? God punishment for seducing a married man?

They all stare at each other, not knowing how to proceed.

(…)

Virtue and common good sense.

(…)

The new house is nothing like what she was used to, and sharing a room with both Catherines wasn’t exactly in her dreams.

She had less problems with accepting Catherine rather than Anne, after all, with the last the relationship had been more than rocky, but Catherine probably wasn’t Jane’s biggest fan either. Even after the older queen’s death, Jane had always tried her best with Mary, attempting to help her image, trying to reconcile with the religion.

Parr wasn’t bad, but she was quite closed. They weren’t acquaintances in their past lives, but that didn’t mean Catherine would introduce herself and invite her to grab a snack or something. It was hard to think about her, how connected both were but how apart too. The most she would talk was about history, or science, or another thing Jane couldn’t bring herself to truly understand and would be left just nodding along.

(…)

When she died, he actually sunk into depression, officially mourning her for two years before marrying again.

(…)

Looking for a job is not an easy task, it’s not like she ever had to do that before. Her kinsman secured her a good place as the lady of the queen, and even when the court became hostile and fell apart, she managed to still have her place.

But now jobs required so much, not just her needlework and knowing how to perform the arts —whatever arts you want that to mean. Modern positions searched for way too many qualities she doesn’t have.

When Catherine offers the idea of doing a show, she says yes out of desperation of not knowing how to do anything else, not even how get the oven to work. Once it goes out of her mouth, she truly wishes the rest of the queens don’t notice how needy she is of the opportunity.

(…)

By that account, she was practically a saint!

(…)

Opening night was stressful to say the least. There are at least a hundred pairs of eyes on her, and her song – her song! While everyone clapped along Aragon’s and Boleyn’s, her part was different, way out of the upbeat modern pop style.

She couldn’t even have a fun, upbeat song.

It’s not like she didn’t want to, Jane tried so hard to add comic relief to her story, trying puns and obnoxious screaming. But her song was slow, more of a ballad instead of the pop-rock songs the show featured. And, to top it, she was the only one who talked about understanding Henry, about loving him, staying by his side.

Of fucking course, she had to be the sweet woman who just happened to love a horrible man.

(…)

Jane was Henry’s true love.

(…)

It is hard to fill her place, her own shoes she left behind when she died.

Jane Seymour, known because she was the one he truly loved. The one he asked to be painted years after she died, instead of just letting her rest in peace. Jane, the dutiful wife, the one who had the son he so desperately wanted.

And the audience loved it, they loved to see the dutiful mother, the one who can’t stop talking about her son. They cheered, they heard everything they always knew.

Because she wasn’t an interesting character in the story, she was just another woman there to obey the orders of the king.

She wishes she was known for something else, but that’s not her life. Of course, playing another character would be fun, being the temptress, the evil stepmother, the fun one, someone people actually cared about. Instead, she was the tedious, boring perfect wife. Reduced to her uterus capacity, and ability to shut her mouth.

(…)

I assure you she is as gentle a lady as ever I knew, and as fair a Queen as any in Christendom.

(…)

“Good morning, Katherine.” Jane says.

The teenager enters the kitchen with heavy steps, still not quite awake from the night of sleep.

“Morning.” She replies, voice small.

“Would you like something to eat?”

“Do you know how to cook?” Katherine retorts, a smug look on her face. “Don’t worry, I will buy something. Maybe cheesecake? Or apple pie?”

“Why not a chocolate cake.” Jane offers, getting the water off of the stove, almost burning herself in the process.

“Do you like chocolate cake?” The younger asks, “I would have pinned you as a vanilla kind of person.”

Jane feels judged. The smile on Katherine’s face just says it all.

“I prefer it, but never mind.” The teenager finishes.

(…)

Here lies Jane, a phoenix / Who died in giving another phoenix birth.

(…)

They move into a new house.

The moment Jane enters her new room, she knows it will take at least two months to get it completely clean. There are spiderwebs, and the white walls look more of a light grey. She makes mental notes to buy bleach, and other cleaning supplies.

At least her bed is clean, but she makes sure it doesn’t touch any wall for the sake of it not getting dirty.

(…)

Jane Seymour was a kind woman too, a better person than Anne.

(…)

“Are we coming to the bar tonight?” Anna asks.

Cleves is nothing less than an interesting character to say the least. They never got to meet in their past lives, but the woman knew her son. She even lived long enough to see him dead.

“I’m not sure,” Jane replies, “I don’t think that Boleyn is going to want me there.”

“But I would want you there.” The fourth queen says easily. “If it’s your decision, that’s alright, but I would like you to come.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

(…)

Her ladies-in-waiting and her maids were held to a strict code of behavior and insisted that they “serve God and be virtuous”.

(…)

The people, and society as a whole has changed.

Feminism is a common term, and women can –almost, to a certain point– hold the same power as men do.

Still, Jane feels more judged than ever. In her past life it was easy, if she did exactly what she was told, nobody would question her. She was bound to serve and obey, and planned to let everyone know about it. Unlike Anne, she was not going to take her chances. She couldn’t say that it brings her happiness, but it gave her peace of mind.

Nobody would contradict the orders of their king.

Nowadays it is different. People talk about freedom, about being able to own yourself, your body, your choices. Nonetheless, they talk about her. Judged her for saying good things about Henry in her speech, for loving him when it was her only choice.

It was her choice to keep her hair long, not like Anna’s. Her choice to wear make-up, to prefer dresses rather than pants. To talk about her son, to own her past. The public sometimes hated her for it, for her decisions, calling them a part of patriarchy leftover from the century in which she used to live.

They hate that she reduces herself to it, to being a mother, to fill what was expected of her, but that is still the only thing they know about her.

(…)

Jane herself was known for her quiet and soothing manner.

(…)

She sometimes sees it; the way Aragon and Boleyn are mothers.

Sometimes it is just a word, a name. Something totally irrelevant that snaps them into it, into caring in a way only mothers do. The way they treat Katherine, or how they look at a little kid on the street. How they talk to the younger fans of the show.

Jane feels like she doesn’t have it. She doesn’t care about babies and kids. Doesn’t have an attachment to them, to the idea of being a mother. If someone handed her a baby she would probably freeze and don’t know how to proceed.

Was it justice? Did she die so Edward wouldn’t have to put through with her as a mother?

Jane thinks she was just not born for that, to have a kid, to care for them. There were women who had maternal instincts, but she didn’t. Instead, when having to tend for Katherine, she grew overwhelmed, not having a clue of what to do next.

(…)

We will never know if Jane sought the king’s favor or was a frightened pawn of her family and the king’s desire.

(…)

“Would you like to go to brunch tomorrow?” Aragon asks one day.

It’s Saturday night, which means she is totally exhausted after a two show day, but still, she nods. Slowly, Aragon and Jane had started to rebuild the good relationship they once had. Both of them holding so much respect for the other.

“Have you seen Kat?” Parr interrupts Jane’s thoughts.

“She was here just a minute ago.” Aragon says, looking around.

“Well, Anne is looking for her and there’s no trace of where she could be.” The survivor explains quickly.

“Let’s look for her.” The first queen concludes, taking action.

They pass fans, excusing themselves, still taking a few pictures just for the sake of fulfilling the stagedoor the queens always did. Once they are out, a cold breeze hits their faces. Walking through the streets seems dangerous, but luckily enough Kat is near, curled up in herself. They signal to Anne and Anna to quickly come with them.

“Kitty, can you hear me?” Anne is fast to get on her knees, getting to be at the same height as Katherine.

“We should take her inside,” Jane states, “it’s not safe here.”

“Outside air can help, Jane.” Boleyn snaps at her. “Kat?”

She wishes she could be mad at her, but at the same time the second queen is just trying to do the best for her cousin. She acts almost instinctive, as if anyone would do that. The way she stays near her, but without invading personal space amazes Jane, even if that decision makes sense. She would’ve tried to pull the younger girl closer, thinking about it makes it seem like not such a good idea, the immediate response to fight or flight after a panic attack wouldn’t help.

“I’m okay.” Her voice is small. “Can we go home?”

Jane nods, and starts walking behind her towards the car. It comes as a surprise the fact that Katherine rides with them, instead of Anne and Anna as she usually does, but they don’t say a thing. She maintains her eyes on the girl, worried about her.

Once they arrive, Katherine is the first to get into the house, leaving the other two queens alone.

“I’m worried about her, should we try to have a talk?” Jane asks, Catherine denies with her head.

“No, we have to just make her trust us,” she says easily, “once she does, if needed she will come to us. Confrontation is mostly not the way to go with teenagers.”

“How do you know that?”

Aragon smiles.

(…)

She was the only one of his wives to be buried next to him.

(…)

If Jane said that she never wanted to be queen, it would be a lie.

The idea always sounded appealing. Who wouldn’t want to be one? Even in a modern context, girls still pretended to be queens, to live in the prettiest castles.  Being queen came with power, not nearly as much as men had, but still a fair amount. The chance to change things, to have opinions. Not counting how good it could be to the family, to secure a future.

Jane would be lying if she ever said that becoming a queen was not something she longed for. But she didn’t want Anne to suffer such a horrible death, no matter if it was or wasn’t fair.

(She used to think that another kind of death wouldn’t be as bad, to die for natural causes would just be God’s will, and to have a divorce would be the Man’s will.

Now she thinks every ending is horrible until proven different.)

In this life she kept quiet about it, knowing how she might have interfered in what Henry ultimately did to Anne. She preferred to not talk about her time as queen, how he threatened her with the same fate her predecessor suffered.

She once thinks about boarding the subject with Parr. She saw that the writer went through the same, a warrant order for her head that was never finished, and the painful death after a childbirth. Still, she doesn’t do so, knowing that her and the survivor are not the same.

Catherine Parr was smart, got her way because of her words. Jane Seymour was just the ignorant fool who kept quiet to please the man.

(…)

The ladies in waiting were expected to wear a belt of pearls with at least 120 pearls in them, and if they didn’t, they weren’t allowed to appear before her.

(…)

“Did you bring something for the cold?” Jane interrogates.

“Yeah, my pink sweater, I left it in the dressing room.” Katherine explains.

“Okay, I will look for it, finish taking your makeup off.” She orders.

The third queen stops staring at the queen, instead looking around. Finding the piece of clothing, she reaches out for it, but winces for a moment when the younger talks.

“Jane, just stop it, okay?” Katherine asks.

“It’s cold, put on a coat or something more, you will catch a cold.” She tried to give the teenager her pink sweater, but all she got was rejection.

“Just don’t. Stop acting as if I’m a child.”

It doesn’t come as a surprise, after all, Katherine usually snapped at her.

“You are nineteen.” Jane indicated, anger bubbling up in her voice.

“I am like almost five hundred years old.” There was bitterness in the statement. “Nobody cared about me being eighteen when the king beheaded me. They didn’t even care when I was younger, why now?”

“Because I care about you.” The words come out before she can really think about it.

Did she really? Cared for the younger?

Of course, she didn’t want harm to come to her, but then again also not to any of all the strangers she knew in this life. Nonetheless there is something about Katherine, an innocence, a broken past. Jane wanted to take care of the girl, to help her through whatever she was going through.

“You shouldn’t.”

It comes out almost aggressive, like a threat. The queen who died of natural causes doesn’t know how to feel about it.

(…)

She learned pretty quickly that it was best to stay out of religion and politics, and instead focused her energy on domestic issues.

(…)

Jane doesn’t break like Katherine, but she still does.

The way Katherine breaks suddenly, they can all point at that moment and say that is when she started changing. Harming herself in not obvious ways, drinking more caffeine than what she should, sleeping less, eating the unhealthiest food she can find. They notice, but their own egos and need to not gossip in order to not be the catty bitches fighting against each other like history has painted stop them from acting as a group.

Instead, the way Jane breaks is slowly, anger destroying her. Consuming every inch of her, growing and taking parts of her life.

It starts as a bitter, indignant feeling when she is left to cook or help cleaning up, but it quickly grows. Gets infuriating, maddening when people call her good . She is not, she might have been in another life, but not in this one. She was not innocent, but rather had a fair amount of guilt. It evolves to be hostile when she realizes that nothing will change it.

Jane Seymour, the mother figure who not only failed at being educated and staying alive, but also failed at having maternal instincts. The good queen, who did nothing but harm. The mother of the king, a king who died young and so did she.

She hates herself for it.

(…)

Her ladies-in-waiting and her maids were held to a strict code of behavior and insisted that they “serve God and be virtuous”.

(…)

She tries to self-isolate, to take a step away.

It doesn’t help, instead the anger comes back stronger each time, and she hates it. Jane hates how violent the feeling can be, how abrasive. She controls herself as she had always done, but it doesn’t make it any better, a resentment towards her fellow queens growing.

Seymour was not a jealous woman, not in her past life and not in this one. She didn’t want to be like the other queens knowing that there were so many things wrong in their lives. It was not about it.

It was about making a mistake, and how she never got to commit those. Jane couldn’t regret anything in her life without someone telling her that “she had it easy”, after all, she was the one he “truly loved”. Even when her problems were addressed, it always came before a way to minimize it, or worse, blame her for them.

The queens knew that it was none of their faults, but people still pinned them against each other, choosing favourites, giving each other a role. And she couldn’t say a word, because hers was good.

It didn’t matter what she truly wanted, or what her opinions about it were, because their mind was made up.

Why change something that is not broken? Why get mad over a good thing? What was better, being a bitch or a saint ?

Jane thinks that being the villain of the story would be easier, liberating. Heroes are just too unreal to exist, but pushing the narrative meant forgetting her own flaws, thoughts, problems.

But who cared?

All they ever wanted was a devoted woman.

(…)

Jane curbed her tongue and accepted her place as the dutiful wife.

(…)

"Can you stop being such a stuck-up child and act mature for a fucking moment?" The third queen asks, becoming irritable, "I just fucking asked you to do one thing. One fucking thing. You are not a toddler, stop throwing a fit!"

It turns out, living up to five hundred years of expectations become harder the angrier you get. The worse the feeling of burning grows, the worse it hurts inside. Jane refuses to let it slide, to let it show, but Anne is not making it any easier.

"Go off, Janey," the green queen laughs, "or chill out, it's not that deep."

"Except, it is." She demands. "I asked you to please do one thing, and it's not the first time. I ask you, you do it for a week, and then forget about it. Are you taking me for an idiot?"

"Honestly? No," she replies easily, "I just don't care enough."

They stay watching each other for a moment.

It brings back memories, but their roles are reversed. In another timeline Jane would be childish, not caring enough, or maybe caring so, so much, about the locket and chain around her neck. Anne would watch her with such a fury in her eyes, and the blonde would internally laugh.

She regrets it. Jane hadn’t seen it coming. The dreadful ending.

“But I know you do; I will try to change it.” Anne answers, her voice just above a whisper.

A soft: “Thank you” it’s all Jane can say.

“You’re welcome, darling .” A playful smirk passes through her lips.

“Bloody idiot.”

“I know.”

Boleyn gives her a sincere smile.

Maybe sometimes yelling is useful.

(…)

It is also true that she was not as sharp or witty as Anne Boleyn.

(…)

It doesn’t last long. Before she knows it, the show must keep going.

Jane smiles, sings her song, sings about Edward. Edward, her Edward. Her brother too, was named Edward. He died. Her brother too, was Thomas. Thomas who did so much wrong. Thomas who apparently loved Parr. Thomas who got sentenced to death.

Thomas and Edward. Thomas. Edward.

She doesn’t realize how much panic creeps in until she is alone in her room crying. An unexpected feeling of grief for the family she once had, as much grief as hate and resentment towards them. Horrible atrocious acts made just for the sake of it.

The Internet says that her son, her little baby, luckily died young.

They talk about luck, something good. And even as much as she wants to believe that her kid won’t ever be a threat, she knows his father. Henry was atrocious, ruthless. Growing under his influence was probably not the ideal childhood. If only she hadn’t died.

Her skin aches, and she has to ground herself controlling her breathing.

Was it possible that every man in her old life was terrible?

(…)

She never seemed to cause drama or do anything without her husband’s permission, and she managed to maintain her carefully crafted image of being virtuous, loyal and obedient.

(…)

“Jane, can we talk?” Aragon questions, knocking on the door.

The blonde nods, slowly looking up.

“What’s going on?” The divorcee asks, rather bluntly. “You stopped coming out of your room, and when you do, it’s just to fight. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m good. Great even.” She smiles.

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

Bloody hell.

Jane doesn’t want to hold this conversation, knowing that she has all the cards to lose it. But at the same time, she wishes to reach out, to explain what is going on. To say that she doesn’t know how to be angry, how to defy someone, how to speak up. All she knows is shouting, crying and hiding her real emotions.

She must conceal what she feels, to not let it show. The less she thinks, the less she feels, the less danger it represents. Jane can’t be the next one. If what happened to Aragon was an awful experience, where she couldn’t see her daughter or talk to her for the last years of her entire life, and Anne’s death was way worse, what is left for her? Torture worse than death.

“ Bonita, breathe with me.” Aragon commands, sitting a hand on Jane’s shoulder in an attempt to ground her. “Jane, breath in. Hold. Breath out.”

“Go away, Catherine, please . ” The queen begs.

“No. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want you here, please .”

“I just want to help.” Catherine says, trying to get closer.

“Why don’t you try and help yourself first? I know I’m dumb, but even I can notice what you do, Catherine.” Her voice becomes steady. “Why are you so obsessed with fixing people? Is this because you couldn’t fix Mary from the monster she became?”

The venom in her words acts quickly, Catherine’s face changing in a few moments. First a pained expression, then developing hurt. She stands up from the bed, and Jane rage rises.

“Why can’t you just keep for yourself, Aragon?” She expels the name. “Is that because you don’t know us? Is this a trick? I know you loved him, is this your way to check us as competition? Or just because you want to see which one of us can take the blame for what happened with baby Mary?”

Catherine stays silent. Humble and loyal after all.

“I told you I wanted you gone.” Jane finishes.

“And I told you, you need help. You should seek it before it becomes too late.”

(…)

Jane’s son Edward was at best a useless boy-king, and at worst a divisive religious extremist who disinherited his sisters.

(…)

Maybe no other queen truly understands her.

Or maybe she doesn’t understand the others.

How Anne talks about her beheading makes it sound like a celebration, a great day everyone was looking forward. She talks about how people cheered, even if it sounds mostly like an old tale made by people who hated her. Jane doesn’t try to tell the truth. She hides it in her silence, just like she hid from Henry.

She should. She should make it better for Anne, but a part of her can’t do so. Can’t bring herself to tell the truth. To confront the other queen. She can’t break the need to be perfect, the need to be good, and innocent.

Talking to Boleyn would be an admission of guilt she is not ready to commit.

(…)

Jane Seymour fulfilled her most important duty as queen, but she was never crowned and died just twelve days after the long and arduous birth.

(…)

Catherine is distant, which shouldn’t surprise her.

Asking for help sounds like a trap. She can’t trust anyone. Even if she knows how much it would change things, even if she doesn’t feel like the queens would hate her or judge her, deep inside something tells her they will. And she can’t allow that.

She can’t break the idea of being perfect after fighting so much for it in the past.

(…)

The fact that she had died producing Henry’s only surviving male heir gave her a mythic near-martyr status in his eyes, and he would do creepy things like having her appear in a family portrait eight years after her death (and not even as a zombie or vampire, much to my dismay).

(…)

“Why are you here?” Her therapist asks.

Wasn’t being a reincarnated Tudor queen who died after giving birth to the next king of England enough reason to be?

“I think I’m having problems with being impulsive, and out of control, and managing my emotions.”

“Which emotions would this be?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s good that you are looking for help, Jane.” The woman says.

She takes the files and starts asking more questions, Jane finds herself being more honest than in a long time.

After the session she feels happier, lighter.

(…)

Let’s get down to business and look at just why Jane was in fact not a cute little wifey BUT a calculating master manipulator.

(…)

It doesn’t last long, and that is what hurts the most.

Feeling good for a moment just to then descend into the pain of unbelievable sadness that invades her. Not knowing how to handle it, making her go slowly mad.

It makes her think of her death.

Everything was good, happy, easy. But then it started going bad, failing. Her own body, organs shutting down, fever, agony. A pain in her chest that barely leaves her breathing. Death coming to her. And sometimes she feels it again.

Short, confused breath. A weight so heavy on her chest. Her thoughts all over the place. Death creeping on her. Her psychologist calls it a panic attack, stress coming to her. And she doesn’t know how to react to the idea that it’s just her brain. Drowning in thoughts, so deep that she can’t see the surface.

(…)

That’s two Queens brought back into the folds of power, a feat Jane achieved in just 6 months, thanks to her skill at manipulating Henry without him even realizing.

(…)

Anna doesn’t come to her, just the contrary. Jane tries to help.

Watching the queen crumbling down, makes her feel smaller. Just the contrary to her stage presence. This Anna is not partying, no joking. She is broken. Not a unidimensional character that they pull each night. Cleves has kept a mask for so long, that is just now breaking.

Jane can’t help but wonder if they all do. But it’s different. Jane had always been allowed to be sad, to cry, to be sensible and weak, while Anna never had that privilege. Each role assigned to them had their good and bad parts.

“We might not be great. I know I’m not. But we are here for you. We are all in this.”

“Do you really mean it?” The fourth queen asks.

She doesn’t doubt it. It’s just the way it worked, everyone had their places, what they tried to fulfil. It was harder on some of them. To keep or to destroy what they were. Create a new self being idyllic, impossible.

“Of course, I do.” Jane smiles.

(…)

Jane was not beautiful. She was not outspoken, or alluring, or exotic.

(…)

An article said he was sick for months. That he died slowly, painfully.

Her son had died when still young. And she never held his hand. She wonders if he was scared. If he thought what death might have felt like. Sometimes it keeps her up at night, her sick son who had to lay in a bed. Who she can’t help.

She wasn’t scared of death, as she never quite understood, fever coming to her, letting her slowly go. Making her confused, as she didn’t understand if she died until she came back.

What was better? To go without knowing or to stay knowing that the ultimate end is near?

Jane used to be catholic, used to devote herself to religion. But since she came back it all feels like a lie, an elaborated truth that kept her from making errors. Still, for his supposed last words, she hopes God had mercy on him.

(…)

Nobody wants an unfun queen.

(…)

“Jane, may I sit with you?”

The older nods, making space on the sofa. Katherine practically jumps to the spot but doesn’t relax until Jane opens her arms for the girl to get into the embrace. They stay like that for a few moments, just enjoying each other’s company.

They had managed to somehow have a good relationship. Maybe because Jane never feels as if Katherine judges. Maybe because Katherine never met her in life. Maybe because they know the least about their past. It somehow brings them closer.

“Is everything alright, sweetheart?” The third queen wonders.

She keeps in mind Aragon’s words, if Katherine feels safe enough, she will open up. Slowly the changes had been more noticeable, especially after starting therapy.

Maybe it’s the need to be a mother, maybe it’s just the way Katherine can charm anyone, with shy smiles and childish glee.

“I feel bad.” Katherine admits. “I… I have tried to ignore things and I just feel guilty about it.”

Jane nods, knowing what the feeling is about. Remorse is an even more common feeling in the queens’ household than it is probably in others.

Maybe they are both broken.

“What about?” She wonders.

Maybe it’s just meant to be.

“They beheaded the woman who helped me.” Katherine admits. “They beheaded her too.”

Maybe it’s because they both feel the blood on their hands.

“But it wasn’t your fault. You can’t make yourself responsible for others’ actions.” Jane confirms.

“I never cried. Since I came back, I never cried for her. I just pushed it to the back of my mind, acted as if it did not happen.” Her eyes water. “She died for me. And I am back, and she is not. I still don’t try to bring those memories back.”

“Some emotions need time.” The older one tries to explain. “Grief it’s not lineal, there’s denial, there’s guilt.”

“She didn’t deserve it.”

“You didn’t either. But you can honour her. We have a second chance, something impossible.”

“What are you using your second chance for?” Katherine wonders.

Jane doesn’t have an answer.

(…)

Jane Seymour: (shrug) enh.

(…)

Sometimes talking with fans is easier. They comment about the play with blissful glee, about the shiny costumes and loud music. Some go as far as making copies of her costume, to draw her, to write letters. They still don’t know her fully and they mostly don’t care to find out.

Jane can’t help but wonder if Edward ever felt love like that, blind, from someone who doesn’t know who you are. She can’t help but wonder what her son knew of her, because he never met her. She didn’t get to really meet him either, but she has Anna, who sometimes would drop a funny story of a young king, Katherine who remembers a little boy, and Catherine who talks about how smart he was.

She hopes that he had someone to tell him her story.

(…)

In her entire 18 months as queen, Jane Seymour failed to say one single thing that anybody thought was worth preserving for the future.

(…)

“Catherine, can we talk?” Jane asks.

The first queen nods sternly, sitting in front of her. Even though their relationship had been less tense since she started therapy a while ago, things were still not quite resolved within them.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Catherine starts. “I shouldn’t have pushed, specifically not when I told you not to push Katherine.”

“No, it’s alright.” The blonde smiles. “Katherine shouldn’t be pressured, that’s true. But we are different. I didn’t understand what you were trying to do but now I do. And I’m sorry. I have been realizing things slowly and it’s just a matter of time until I will feel better again.”

“Penny for your thoughts?” The first queen asks.

“It’s the idea of being perfect. To fill in my own shoes. To comply, and obey and serve. You knew me before, and you know me now, but I just feel so much responsibility to be who people think I am. I talk about how I stayed, firm by his side, but in reality, I didn’t. I was scared. I am scared. And it’s such a weird feeling, because it drives me to do the exact opposite thing of what I try to do. My death was just something that happened, but I can’t help and think that I was lucky to have died. Who knows what could’ve been of me otherwise?”

“You don’t have to be perfect.”

“But I do.” Jane replies. “It’s just my place, and I’m a character. I just have to learn where and when I should be myself.”

“Are you sure? No one is expecting anything.”

“They are. And it’s okay. They want it, the love story, the tragic ending. I wish it was like that, but it was not. But I’m going to be fine, because I’m pretty tough. And it doesn’t come from screaming, being the loudest or the most anything. It comes from me, and I don’t have to prove it to anyone else.”

(…)

Or, god forbid, are you a fan of the insufferable Jane Fucking Seymour?

(…)

“I might miss some foods from the past, but I love this.” Anne said happily, devouring some chocolate lentils.

“Stop it! I want some too.” Her almost namesake replied, trying to take some.

“Anna, don’t worry about chocolate and help me pick a movie.” Parr insists. “I saw that this one was good, this account said that they used a new kind of animation to do it. Created a new program and all.”

Jane smiles, laughing lightly at Catherine who can’t keep facts for herself. Each time it becomes better, less superior talking and more nerdy, passionate about useless knowledge.

“Whatever you choose, please let it be short, I’m so tired tonight.” Aragon asks.

“That one is ninety minutes long.” Katherine offers.

The third queen sits, gossiping about the plot

(…)

So, don’t overlook Jane. Sure she’s quiet, but remember it’s the quiet ones you have to watch.

(…)

Second chances were overrated, that much could be said for Jane Seymour.

Sometimes, people don’t change, themselves or their minds. In her two lives, she dealt with it all. With trying and not, with fighting and keeping quiet, with being looked up to and with being irrationally disliked. Society, as a whole, would never be pleased. Setting standards too high, as much as those vary from time to time, from one century to the other, there was always going to be something wrong.

But it didn’t mean she had to just follow it.

Second chances were overrated, wasting hers into demonstrating things to anyone except herself. The general opinion might not change, but Jane does. She learns, grows. She cries, gets sick and has horrible days, she fights, speaks out, she loves, she smiles. It’s hard, to live a life she shouldn’t have, but it means that is her opportunity, not to be revolutionary, not to be a queen nor a mother.

Jane learns to be herself, to explore, to know her limits. And it never ends.

Second chances were overrated, but it doesn’t mean that Jane was going to try and make the best out of hers.  Maybe it is boring, or naïve to not try to take an impossible opportunity, but she doesn’t need it. To be true to herself is more than just enough.

[hotel-japanifornia]

Can we all agree Morgan is a Karen?

Ok, so I really hate Morgan, alright? And it’s not the kind of hate I have for villains like Von Karma or Dahlia where it’s like, “Oh yeah! I want to take them down!” No, it’s “This person is so horrible and isn’t even charismatic.” The thing about villains is that they can be charming and rather interesting. A well-written villain makes the audience intrigued; getting to know the villain through their motivations and who they are as people can in a sense, make a villain more well-rounded and intriguing. Obviously, you don’t want your audience to root for them, but you don’t want your villain to be uninteresting; the more interesting a villain is, the more you want the heroes to take them down. It’s a great concept  and one that AA usually executes well with its main villains. And four of the five big bads of the AA trilogy (Matt, Dahlia, Gant, and Von Karma) execute this really well and are better villains because of it. They’re interesting, they’re well-written, and everything I know about them makes me want to take them down.

Morgan, on the other hand, does not get this treatment. Actually, she gets hardly any treatment at all because she disappears after 2-2 and masterminds 3-5. The problem with Morgan lies in that we only see the results of her plans, we don’t necessarily ever confront her and that’s what makes her fall short in comparison to the other villains. We don’t even learn of her eventual fate: while I personally think she got executed for both being an accomplice to murder and later plotting a conspiracy to assassinate someone which ended up killing someone else, it’s never officially confirmed.

Regardless, Morgan honestly just doesn’t have any redeeming characteristics in the slightest. Her husband abandoned her when he found out that she would never become the Master. But who’s to say that she even wanted them that much? Remember, Morgan was willing to murder so her children could inherit the position of Master of Kurain. With Iris and Dahlia having no spiritual power at all, I can see Morgan just tossing them off to the side.

She’s not even a good mother either. If Pearl’s attempt at fixing the Sacred Urn are anything to go by: Morgan never taught her how to spell, and that’s quite disturbing considering that Ami isn’t exactly all that difficult. Also, when Dahlia talks about meeting Morgan in the detention center while on death row, she mentions that Morgan wanted to murder her alongside Maya which is pretty disturbing. I mean, Dahlia’s a murderer sure, but killing your own kid is just something you don’t do.

Either way, back to my real point: Morgan is such a terrible person for what she was willing to do. Morgan was willing to traumatize her daughter, a sweet and innocent nine year old, by having her assassinate the cousin that she loves so much. And like, she was willing to have her channel the spirit of her psycho killer cousin to do it who was probably going to leave Pearl’s body right when Maya died leaving her to see the body of her beloved cousin. And it’s like, to me, how was this woman not thinking that her daughter wasn’t going to get caught for this? If Pearl gets arrested for Maya’s murder, she probably goes to jail for a long time.

If she somehow never goes to jail, Pearl is left traumatized for life after  murdering her cousin. She never becomes the Master, she likely abdicates and abstains from spirit channeling from that point on; so Morgan’s plan is a failure regardless. And guess what, if Maya dies, Pearl’s left without anyone to take care of her. Iris doesn’t know they’re related, Phoenix will probably offer to do it but Pearl probably won’t show her face to him ever again, and Morgan sure as hell isn’t getting out of jail anytime soon. She was willing to leave her nine year old kid, traumatized for life without anyone to look after her and that’s fucking disgusting.

It doesn’t hurt that in the anime version of 2-2, they take a different direction with the culprit and Morgan’s role. While it’s never stated explicitly whether or not Morgan headed the plan to frame Maya for murder in the games, I always assumed it probably was her idea. In the anime, Mimi Miney just wanted to do a fake channeling. She didn’t want to hurt anybody at all and Morgan pretty much blackmailed her into murder under threat of her identity being leaked. I honestly don’t think Mimi was ever going to hurt Grey; she probably just wanted him to leave her alone so that she could live a completely new life on her own.

Morgan’s reason for doing this could be probably chalked up to that she wanted Maya out of the way for sure. True, a prank channeling would have called Maya’s abilities into question and Grey may have even called her a fraud knowing him. It would’ve been much harder to prove that Maya was framed but Morgan definitely would have wanted to ensure Maya was out of the way. By sentencing her to prison for the rest of her life, Morgan would have been able to get what she truly wanted with Pearl being the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique.

Episode 14 of the Ace Attorney anime also gives us scenes with Morgan hurling abuse at Maya for daring to take her cousin out to see the ocean and calling the main family a disgrace to the Fey bloodline. Pot, meet kettle. And if Maya’s reaction is anything to go by, this probably has happened before. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Morgan did abuse Maya: the woman decided to forgo teaching her daughter to read and spell in order to plan to murder her niece after all. 

And, Pearl lived a relatively sheltered life in Kurain to the point that she didn’t think there was anything outside the village besides mountains. If Maya wasn’t around, and Pearl continued to live under Morgan’s thumb even when she became the Master, how was Morgan expecting her to complete her duties as Master? Was she just expecting Pearl to let her handle them herself or something? 

Honestly though, Morgan is just a horrid human being. She was willing to sacrifice as many lives as she needed to achieve her own goals and doesn’t have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. You don’t even get the satisfaction of confronting her on the horrible things she does and taking her down for the last time, I almost wish she WAS the killer of 2-2 so we would get at least that much. There’s just nothing redeeming about her: the other villains are at least fun to take down and interesting characters. Morgan isn’t, plain and simple.

[nikcosterwaldaus]

DON’T GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY

you’re sure for a quick demise

the town of exile has always been full of strange goings on, a safe haven for all that is unexplained and unnerving, but no one quite believed that there were bodies buried beneath the earth until the summer of 1993. seven teens went on a camping trip to the woods and all hell broke loose.

what started as a simple prank between a couple of them, setting traps around the trees, bushes and stumps to scare the rest of their friends, led them straight to ezekiel sutton - a leader of a very unsavoury cult, called the church of the all seeing eye, from the next town over - burying a mangled body in the damp earth. the air seemed to still, the wind blow ice cold, and the two pranksters ran back to their hideout to tell their friends exactly what they’d seen.

the problem was, ezekiel followed them back too.

in the dark of the night, the seven teens were stalked through the woods, tripped up by idiotic pranks and traps set by their friends. ezekiel got to them, one by one, taking them down and trying to make it so none of them would see the light of day. but, through the power of team work, they managed to outwit the killer; string him up, tie him down, wait until dawn to get help and escape from this forest of madness.

it’s been 27 years since the incident and it affected each of the group deeply. still living with the trauma of not knowing if they’d see another morning, they went their separate ways, trying to forget about that night and get on with what life they could salvage. now, however, things are about to change; ezekiel sutton has been released from prison and the teens - now adults - are all brought back to exile on a lie: their friend, mike, is dead.

but, when they all turned up at the church in their mourning clothes to pay their respects, who came out to greet them but mike themself. it was all a rouse to get them back, here, to exile. they needed help. ezekiel sutton was put away for one murder, but mike is convinced they’ve committed countless more. the only way they can prove it is by finding the bodies, and they can’t do that alone.

the characters listed below are based on archetypes from the it movies (and book), as well as the until dawn video game. please bear in mind you don’t need to have watched, read or played any of these to be involved in the plot. while they’re based on the characters from these franchises, they’re not identical and do not have any of the same relationship plots; we don’t expect anyone to adhere to gender or ethnicity when creating them apart from mike who we will want to keep bipoc; however, it would be fantastic if the rest of the group was diverse (characters of colour, disabilities, gender and sexuality), though it’s not mandatory - just something to think about!

all of the characters will be between the ages of forty-four and forty-five, so please make sure you follow the site’s play-by rules when choosing someone for the group! the request will include themes of murder, horror, death and stalking (serial killer > the kids). we’ll be trigger warning everything within the plot, but if you’re sensitive to any of these themes, please let us know and we’ll do our best to help you feel safe.

please note: we are more than happy to discuss any of these blurbs and they are completely open, we just wanted to give you something to go off if you’re creating a character from scratch. if you have anyone else that you might want to bring to this plot, let myself or pomona know and we’d be happy to chat with you!!!

main characters

bev / mike → prickly, confident, aggressive, independent

with a bad home life and bullied at school, bev struggled to fit in; that was until they found the rest of the group. being an outcast didn’t seem so bad when they were friends with a bunch of other outcasts and they became somewhat protective over the others - not that they let any of the group know that. they stayed in exile for a while after the events, slowly watching their friends leave until they realised there was no point; there was nothing to fight anymore. everyone had gone. now they’re back, bev is wary. they don’t want things to go back to the way they were because, last time, everyone left. they’re keeping the others at arm’s length until they can really work out where everyone’s priorities lie.

reserved for: lana

ben / ashley → shy, sweet, lonely, intelligent

the softest and kindest member of the group, ben took the incident in the woods the hardest and has suffered greatly since. barely able to keep their life on track, they’ve hopped from one thing to the next, never quite able to settle down. it’s a shame, for someone with so much heart, that they’ve had it broken and damaged in so many ways; yet they never let themselves become jaded. needless to say, they’re trying to keep the group in exile to help mike find more bodies, not only feeling some semblance of loyalty to them (and the others), but finally feeling whole again after so many years of turmoil and strife. 

reserved for: mc

bill / sam → haunted, honest, reckless , brave

they always thought they were the leader of the group, but at the end of the day they were the first to leave town after the incident. their seat at the police station barely cold, they disappeared from exile almost a week after the group came out of the woods and no one ever saw them again. that is, until now. bill’s surprisingly straight and quiet about what’s happened in the intervening years - something about finding out who they really are and learning to forgive themself - but one thing’s for sure, they’re fitting back into that leadership role like no time’s passed at all. it’s just whether the rest of the group really wants them “in charge” after bailing out the first time around.

reserved for: pandora

eddie / emily → neurotic, loyal, obsessive, genuine

having lived a half shut-in, medically induced hell of a life as a kid along with their sibling, eddie was both ecstatic and terrified at the thought of moving away from exile. their mother made them believe (truly believe) they had a plethora of illnesses and it was only at the age of twenty-three, when their mother finally passed away, that they could go and leave the horrors of their childhood behind. they moved to another small town, settled down into a quiet little life and they were happy and dandy until mike’s letter came through. now, more than anything, even more than before, they want out of exile. but something is keeping them there, and they can’t quite pinpoint what. whatever it is, it’s fucking annoying.

played by: anais (miriam chomsky - rachel weisz)

mike / josh → intense, caring, introverted, observant

after the tragic, violent deaths of their parents, mike was raised under the stern but firm eye of their aunt and uncle. mike was something of an outcast at their school but in the summer of 1993, after a run in with the infamous bully henry, mike’s bond with the rest of the group was forged in the fires of joint misfithood. a grounding presence and the self appointed guardian of the group, mike was the one who remained in exile - literally and figuratively - to ensure that the influence of ezekiel sutton would be forever stamped out. yet, life rarely goes the way we want it to, and since the release of sutton, mike has been desperate to get the old crew back together to see sutton punished for the monster he truly is - desperate enough to even fake their own death.

reserved for: yenna

richie / chris → joker, insensitive, determined, brash

the nerdy clever clogs that forged themself a suit of armour out of terrible jokes and snide remarks, richie was desperate to cut loose of their past in exile and forge a new path in the bright lights of tinsel town. best buddies with stanley since their kindergarten days, but cementing themself in the ranks of the group with his corny humour, richie has always been happy to play the clown. yet, as with all clowns, the smile is little more than a mask, and beneath the mask and the armour is a soul wracked with guilt and self loathing. no amount of gallows humour will keep these old demons at bay, and richie is a hair’s breadth away from high tailing it back to beverly hills as fast as their porsche convertible can carry them.

played by: pomona (seth spector - joaquin phoenix)

stan / matt → weak, trusting, wise, sceptical

though stan has always been a key part of the group, they’ve never exactly felt like an integral part. they’re kind, generous and trustworthy, but always seem to be in the background. always seem to be the weakest link. not much has changed over the years. the initial pranks were stan’s idea and they’ve never let themself forget it, believing that if they hadn’t decided to trick everyone with stupid games, then they wouldn’t have all almost died. their bravery and strength haven’t improved and they still can’t quite find a foothole to grab onto. their life has been an undulating mess since they left exile and it doesn’t look like coming back’s going to make that any better.

reserved for: michelle

additional characters

henry / beth

a lost and twisted soul, henry was never destined for a life of bucolic bliss or carefree contentment. raised under the iron thumb of a domineering parent, henry vented their frustrations and rage upon their school peers with infernal ferocity. the infamous bully of their school, henry perhaps would have burnt themselves out with their own banal forms of sadism if it weren’t for ezekiel sutton. meeting sutton was like henry’s eureka moment, and while his connection to sutton’s foul deeds was never revealed back in the 1990s, it is henry who has been keeping the church of the all seeing eye alive and well. now with the return of their idol and mentor, henry is keen to prove themself as sutton’s most devoted follower.

pennywise / hannah

ezekiel sutton is a man of great importance. no one in exile knew who he was up until the events of summer, 1993; now everyone wishes they didn’t know his name. dubbed the executioner of exile, he’s been in prison for the past 27 years on one charge of murder. the police could never pinpoint the location of any of the other bodies he so clearly buried in the woods, and ezekiel never let on to having done anything but put the man he did bury out of his misery. the kids? well, he never meant to scare them. and you know how teenagers can be; so dramatic!

now he’s out on good behaviour and has no clue (yet) that the kids he never meant to scare at working to find his very real skeletons in his metaphorical closet and expose him for the serial killing ass he is. still, his old cult are welcoming him back with open arms, delighted he’s managed to maintain his innocence throughout his arduous trials.

ezekiel is a npc thus unplayable.

[jeaniegreysummers]

phoenix three || jean, scott & erik

SUMMARY: jean uses the phoenix to bring scott back. she freaks out thinking how to explain this to the others. she finds herself on erik’s doorstep. the three plot a revolution. that’s the jist.

WHEN: the day jean brought scott back from the dead (happy valentine’s day, go visit your father in law)

TRIGGER WARNINGS: grief, death, murder mention, violence

FEATURING: scott summers, erik lehnsherr

JEAN: Emma said Jean lacked control. She said she was bitter, and immature, and that she lacked a true understanding of what was needed to preserve the lives of their people and to push them into the future. Jean agreed with most of that. She died. She missed out on years of her life, spent months in a room filled with nothing but white fire that wasn’t hot to the touch because she was the nuclear bomb in the room, and came back to a world divided and a family split. But Emma was wrong about one thing.

No one had any idea how much Jean kept control.

They would begin to understand, she knew. The truth of what occurred on the Raft would come out, and they would know what she was capable of. They would know that Jean lost it for a single fraction of a moment, and that a wave of her hand extinguished dozens of lives. They would know she allowed them to slap cuffs around her wrists so she would be brought right to the place where she could suffer, and then failed to stay in her self imposed punishment.

They would know, the second they saw Scott by her side, exactly what she did to bring him back. Everyone knew the bird was still there, everyone but Jean. Everyone knew she’d never be rid of it. Now, she knew it too. She knew it, and she still passed it on to one of the people she loved most in the world despite her best intentions to push that affection down so far she couldn’t feel it anymore.

The second Scott slipped on his shades, the moment they caught their breath, she thought about the man she’d fought against, the man she trained with down by the Hudson, the man who came for her when she didn’t even realise she wanted him to come — and Scott knew. He had to. . Jean’s hand shook as she raised it to knock on Erik’s door. Once the sound rang out, she moved back to hold onto Scott’s arm, her other hand already clasping his. The door opened, and Jean could feel the rush of energy, the low simmering threatening to boil over, as they stood.

“I did something,” she said, voice thick but strong, stronger than it had been in over two weeks. She pulled lightly on Scott’s arm, bringing him into the doorframe. “I asked for a favor, Erik, and I …”

How did she start with this? How did she even pretend to be sheepish about the consequences that were sure to follow?

“We need your help.”

ERIK: Ever since he'd realized there were other people like him, other people with gifts, Erik had been terrified of telepaths. His whole life, he'd been trying to get out from the control of others, restraining parts of himself to keep himself alive and sane. The idea of a telepath, of someone getting inside his head, influencing his thoughts, controlling his actions--that was the stuff of nightmares, compliance forced from the inside.

It'd been a relief to find himself resistant to that particular gift, though not immune--certainly not to telepaths of the calibre of Charles and Jean. He'd grown to enjoy their presence in his head, after he finally stopped throwing walls up when it became apparent that they had no desire to be in his head without permission, to do anything but understand.

The Phoenix was different. It wanted control, wanted Erik to lose his own, to yield to those dangerous whispers that had always been in his mind but that the bird amplified and twisted. It was already inside his head, and intent on keeping people he'd found a comfort in, like Charles, out. He could feel things changing, when he'd wake up in the morning, would have the distant sensation that his brain was being quietly shuffled around, searched through, edited oh so quietly.

Like the fear. He couldn't bring himself to be terribly concerned about the Phoenix, now, couldn't hold any thought like that without it slipping away like water through a sieve. Jean had said it was fine. That he'd be safe. He trusted Jean.

They were fine. Him and the bird. If he couldn't quite draw the dividing line, well. No one was asking him to. His apartment had changed, since the Raft--the curtains were drawn constantly, and where paintings had once hung, the wall space was increasingly occupied by various schematics.

The New York City power grid. The United Nations building floor plans--hand drawn on top of what was publically available, thanks to a painstaking day of using the bolts in the walls and the flow of bioelectric traffic to form an accurate mental schematic. A map of all the ways into and out of the island of Manhattan.

War was like chess. He would see that mutantkind did not squander their next move. There was a way to checkmate, and he was getting there. Slowly. Lots of pieces from the other side would be lost, but that was the game.

( They took his kids, his family, his freedom, time and time again, and they would pay in blood. )

He's got a fresh cup of tea steaming on the coffee table in front of him as he regards the images pinned to the opposite wall when the knock comes. The familiar warmth from the other side of the door, the other piece of the same stuff that runs in his veins, now, calls to him and tells him he needn't worry before he even opens it.

But then he sees her face, and concern wells. And then she's tugging something from behind the doorframe, something likewise warm and alive, and Erik feels the world tilt briefly on its axis.

Jean had brought Scott back. The Phoenix had brought Scott back. ( What else could it do? Who else, he thinks selfishly? )

Jean looks like she's worried, but Erik is stepping forward to wrap his arms around both of them in the next moment, squeezing as if he can keep them here, safe, alive, through sheer force of will.

( Can he? )

"I-- anything. You know that. Anything for you. Both of you."

SCOTT: He was alive. The word repeated in his mind over and over again, echoing with each beat of his heart. Alive, alive, alive. It sounded more and more foreign every time, made nonsensical with the repetition. It shouldn’t have felt as strange as it did. He’d done this before, after all, come back from the dead into a world that felt infinitely different than the one he’d left behind, but… this was more distinct. This fire burning in his chest, this strange power that mingled with that familiar anger… It hadn’t been here last time.

And neither had she. Coming back to a world with Jean Grey in it was much better than coming back to one without her, Scott thought. He’d prefer it this way every time, want this more than anything. His hand gripped hers like a lifeline, fingers intertwined with hers as if she was doing what gravity couldn’t and keeping his feet on the ground. He didn’t have to ask her where they were going when she lead him out the door. He didn’t know if it was their psylink, the Phoenix, or simply the fact that he knew her better than he’d ever known anyone, but he knew where they were headed. Part of him wondered if he ought to be surprised by it, but… He wasn’t. Standing outside of Erik’s door after dying in the war Magneto had always warned them was coming… It made sense.

He was quiet as Jean spoke, uncertain as he stood just out of sight. Jean wouldn’t have brought him here if she didn't want Erik to know he was alive, but Scott was still hesitant. There was a lot of explaining to do with his resurrection, a lot of things he wasn’t sure he was allowed to say. But Erik would understand. He could feel the power burning in Erik, matching that fire in his own chest. Jean had said a piece of the bird went into him, too, and that probably made Magneto one of the only two people alive who knew what was in Scott’s head now. That scared him less than he’d thought it might. . Scott ducked his head as Jean pulled him into view, looking almost sheepish at Erik’s wide eyes. Scott opened his mouth, ready to say something (and the only thing that came to mind was hi, which was, all things considered, incredibly anticlimactic), but he didn’t get the words out before Erik’s arms were around them both. Scott relaxed into his grip, feeling suddenly less tense, like something had been unwound, like a screw had been untightened allowing him to loosen up just a little. “It’s good to see you, Erik,” he offered quietly. He wanted to say more, wanted to say you were right, wanted to say I’m sorry I wasted so much time fighting you, wanted to say I understand it now, but he couldn’t quite find the words for it.

Glancing to Jean, he nodded. “They don’t know yet,” he said, and he didn’t have to say who they were. The people who’d shot him down in that park, the ones who’d gone on television to frame him as the villain of the story, the one who used his death as an inciting incident to prove just how violent mutants truly were, they didn’t know he was back. He didn’t have to say just how bad things would be when they found out. “When they do…” He trailed off, letting the implication hang. When they knew, things would get worse, for all of them.

JEAN: Growing up, Jean never had a shortage of safe places. Her parents, her siblings, her school and her best friend. Charles and Erik. Scott, when she sat down beside him on that park bench. Warren and Bobby and Hank, always pulling her from the fire when she needed it, watching her back. The older she got, though, the more experience she had with losing that stability. John and Elaine would speak to her only if she pretended to be a different person. Her sister was dead. Jean ripped her old middle school from its foundations, causing damages they were still paying for years later. Annie was hit by that car. Charles, Scott, everyone couldn’t stop Jean from falling on that battlefield, and even as she was lying in Scott’s arms bleeding out she felt entirely, achingly alone.

And Erik had left. The memory of it was still bitter, sharper in her mind than she would ever admit to. Scott knew, of course. The link between them meant that they couldn’t keep secrets if they wanted to, and they never had. Erik had left, and every day since Jean had tried to maintain the initial anger she felt at going downstairs and realising the Institute would be going on without its lifeblood.

They’d found a way to cope, her and Charles and the team they formed, but it would never be the same. Jean said she would never forgive him for that, for changing things from how they were supposed to be, for altering destiny because of his dedication to one never-ending cause.

Sometimes, though, forgiveness came from the strangest places. The fire brought Scott back from the ground, and immediately the only person Jean wanted to tell about it was the man standing in front of her now, the man putting his arms around both of them. Jean found herself buried easily between them, one hand clutching to the back of each of their shirts, breathing in the feeling and wishing that it would never end. . But things always ended. It was what you did between the beginning and the final page that mattered. She knew that now.

Scott’s voice came low beside her, and Jean turned her head only for a moment so she could wipe at her eyes with the heel of her hand. When she met Scott’s gaze through his shades, she was solid once more, or at least could appear that way.

“No one knows,” she continued, turning to meet Erik’s eyes. “I don’t know how to … We’re going to need to explain it. All of this.”

Charles would know before long. He would feel the Phoenix splitting the first time he went to search for Jean’s mind, and he was doing that more often than ever before after Scott’s death. The three of them were tied in this secret now, but there was only so long before the fire burned through the self deception like it always said it would.

She swallowed thickly, one hand going for Scott’s, the other reaching for Erik’s. “Whether Scott is alive or dead, they’re going to come for us,” Jean said. “This is what you were talking about, wasn’t it?” Erik had been claiming humans would come to fight them for years. He had a plan. Jean knew that. She knew she needed that.

ERIK: Scott and Jean were in his arms, and a bit of the world repaired itself. He wondered distantly if Scott had checked his voicemail. If he'd heard the apology that would never be enough, even now that the man is back.

It doesn't matter. Here, in this moment now, the three of them and the shared fire between them are one. They're all in the same boat, now, and Erik had meant his promise to the ghost on the other end of the phone. He would not fail again to keep his people safe. They would not fail.

Erik's hand tightened around Jean's, and his other hand wrapped around Scott's shoulder. "Yes." He'd long ago learned to prepare for the worst when it came to humans. He could say that he told them so, told the world so, but there was no point to that, now.  So instead, he smiled, and there was something angry and cold in that baring of teeth, even as warmth towards the two of them is practically shining from him.

It would be unsettling to him, too, if he could think about it. . "Let me show you. I just finished putting on a kettle."

He opened the door, released his hold on the two of them, and stepped aside to let them come in. Two metal teacups and saucers flew across the room to join his on the coffee table, the kettle lifting to fill each. At the same time, Erik melted the metal edging of the doorframe down over the door, sealing it far more securely than a deadbolt ever would.

The Phoenix made splitting his powers to focus on different tasks child's play.

"The things on the wall are for... later. We can talk about that. But we need to plan for breaking the news about Scott. About us." He settled into one of his armchairs, stretched his legs out in front of him, and waved a hand to turn down the music drifting through the apartment.

"The humans used your death to inspire fear. Your resurrection should terrify them. Mutants are holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, one way or the other. You've always been well-liked, Scott. Those who've found me too militaristic still respected you. I've been warning of war for years. You have the ground to tell them that it is here and that we must fight it."

They needed to break news about the Phoenix, too, at least to certain people, but that was going to be a far trickier conversation. Jean didn't know about the... difficultly reached equilibrium he and the bird were slowly coming to.

He didn't especially want to talk about it.

SCOTT: When he’d died, he’d died angry. Rage had flowed through him like fire through his veins, ignited at the sight of children with guns pointed in their faces, unquenchable even as the blood filled his lungs and drowned him on solid ground. The anger had not died when he had, hadn’t left him during his brief exit from the mortal plane. Scott was still angry. There was still fire in his veins, even if that fire was a little more literal than it had been when he was sputtering and wheezing in the grass, begging Logan to kill him.

The people standing with him now, they understood that fire. They understood him, maybe better than anyone else ever had. Scott had tried all his life to be like Charles, had fought to be optimistic, to believe in a resolution that would find humans and mutants living side by side in peace. He’d tried, but he’d never succeeded. Not really. Deep down, he’d always been a little too much like Erik. He’d always been a little too angry, a little too ready for a war. Nathaniel Essex had seen that. So had Jack Winters. So had Erik himself. And maybe Charles had, too. Maybe the only one who was only just now realizing the inevitability of this partnership was Scott.

His eyes darted from Jean to Erik, and the discussion of his recent death didn’t bother him the way it probably should have. It felt senseless mourning a death that had already been undone. (Or, he told himself it did. If his heart continued to pound, if his chest ached with wounds already healed, no one had to know it but Scott. He was allowed to be senseless in the privacy of his own mind.) What mattered now was what came next. That was where his focus needed to be, what he needed to keep his eyes on as they moved forward. They needed to come up with a plan. They needed to find a way to keep what had happened to Scott from happening to anyone else.

They needed to save their people. . Nodding as Erik spoke, Scott trailed behind the older man, following him into the entryway. He felt the door shift behind him, knew that Erik had locked it in the way only he could. Not long ago, that might have made him nervous. Now, it was a comfort. Erik was not his enemy --- he never had been.

His eyes settled on Erik’s, and that familiar anger burned in his chest. The people who’d killed him had used his death. They weren’t hiding what they’d done --- they wanted people to know. They wanted people to be afraid.

Scott could make people afraid, too.

That was what Erik was asking of him, he knew. And it was a good plan. Their people were already angry. Their people already wanted to fight. All they needed to do was organize them. Good people would fight where they were needed, would do what was necessary. All they had to give them was a little direction. “I’ll make a statement,” Scott said, speaking for the first time since the discussion of the plan began. “In the Bugle. They’ll publish anything that sells papers and…” He trailed off, smiling tightly. “This will sell.”

JEAN: She walked into the apartment slowly, sticking close to Scott’s side until, paradoxically, the door was bolted closed and Jean felt some of the tension loosen itself from between her shoulder blades. Logically, she knew trusting Erik was a mistake. He’d burned her once before — but did that compare, she wondered, to the hundreds of times he had the opportunity to but hadn’t. At any stage down the line, especially in the early days when they were teenagers going against a man who had refined his powers for decades, they could’ve been knocked out of commission. Jean and Scott in particular were tested by Magneto, but never significantly harmed.

Now, she couldn’t help but wonder if their faces had ever been tacked to a board like this, if that overwhelming focus from one of the most feared mutants in the world was less about tactics and more about him knowing that one day, they would arrive on his doorstep and they would be having this conversation. Was that manipulation, or foresight? At this point, Jean wasn’t even sure if she cared.

Erik moved the kettle to pour out some tea, and it was only then that Jean realised she’d never been in this place before. It didn’t feel that way, not with Scott and Erik talking, not with the easy familiarity of a cat she’d never seen jumping up onto the arm of the couch to rub its head against Jean’s hand. She scratched behind its ears, whispering, “Hi,” softly to it as Erik and Scott spoke, before turning her attention back to the board.

He said not to worry now. He said to think of it later. But Jean’s eyes narrowed nonetheless, her attention flickering from photo to schematic, piecing it together. It was easy, relatively speaking — she’d always had a special understanding with Erik, and under the fire and anger she knew she was intelligent. She also knew this was something she had to expect. . “You think telling people about us is a good idea?” Jean asked, turning from the board to look back at Erik, a frown remaining on her face. “In my experience, people don’t react particularly well. They never … they thought it made me angry. They thought it turned me into something else. We bring the flames out into the open, and we’re allowing everyone to start shooting at us instead of the enemy.” Calling them revolutionaries, doubting their sanity, thinking their emotions were taking over when they should be impartial. Jean had seen it all before, and she doubted it would be any different for Erik and Scott than it was for her.

It was selfish to be grateful for the fact she was no longer alone in this. It was selfish, but this past month had proven Jean was pretty firmly in that camp already.

Fifteen years ago, Jean finally managed to pin down why, exactly, she loved Scott Summers, why she admired him, why she wanted him to look at her more than she wanted anything else in the world. That list of reasons had only grown over the past decade, but in the beginning, one of the main reasons was that he didn’t speak unless he had something to say. He weighed up his options. He spent most of the time in the safety of his own mind, ticking things over until he was ready to put his thoughts out into the world.

When he agreed with Erik, Jean looked over at him, keeping his gaze for a long moment. Her heart was pounding loud in her chest, there was a creeping dread in her gut, but there was no other option. There was no turning back.

She lifted her hand, causing one of the cups of tea to come towards her. As soon as it was in her hand, she settled down in one of the chairs, crossing her legs as she settled back. “Glad you two are getting along,” she commented, taking a sip. “I don’t think everyone else will be so easy to convince.”

ERIK: Erik was a selfish man.

His entire life, he'd wanted only one thing: safety. For himself, for his family, for his people. He was infamous for his singular focus on his goals, and there was no denying that he would--that he had--run over the desires of those very same people he wanted to protect in that pursuit.

Charles' peace. Jean's stability. Lorna's family.

Each had been sacrificed at the altar of his own goals. And despite the pain of doing so, he didn't regret it. He was sorry for the damage caused, but he would not apologize for the things he'd done, would do them again in a heartbeat.

When he'd left, he'd hoped that Jean would come after him. He knew she shouldn't, knew that she was better off with Charles, with a man who could give her all of the attention she deserved without reserve, who could teach her how to navigate her powers in a way that Erik couldn't. He knew that she was safer in the Institute.

He also knew she wasn't content to stay inside the bubble of safety, which meant that he needed to make the requisite arrangements. His fights with the X-Men had always been carefully considered, a mental calculus of how far he could push the children, how much damage he could do without putting them in true danger but still get them to push their powers. It was manipulation, put simply.

But one day, they would be facing people who didn't hold back like he did. . And perhaps he'd hoped that on that day, they would know what side they belonged on. Who was right. Despite the reasoning, despite what had brought them there, Erik was selfishly pleased that finally, they were here in his apartment, here and safe at his side and ready to fight the war he'd seen coming for decades.

Jean got what she needed from Charles. Now was the time for Erik to give her what Charles never could.

Her question earned a wry twist to his lips. "Schätzen, they already think I'm angry. Unstable. A warmonger. Growing aware that I have the Phoenix won't make them call me anything different: but it will make the humans as afraid as they ought to have been from the beginning. You're right, it will paint a target on our backs--but we can take it, where others cannot."

Scott agreed with him, and something made Erik certain that in the aftermath of the Park, Scott would find himself agreeing with far more of Erik's ideas than he would have before. ( And if he felt grateful for that, too: well, he was a selfish man. )

Erik took a sip of his tea, watched Mischa stalk over to settle on Scott's lap with a small meow.

"The Brotherhood has had hundreds of mutants coming to the meeting places I indicated in the radio show in the time since the Park. A spike after the Raft, as well--even if the government hasn't released details about what happened, the mutants we freed have been talking about it. Sure, there will be some who refuse to wage the war for survival that has been thrust upon us, but most simply need organization. And they need to see that even those who once advocated peace have realized the futility of peace through words. They need to see that we can form a united front against a common enemy."

He glanced between Scott and Jean, raising a brow. "I'm certainly open if you have any suggestions as to other ways to ensure this united front. The X-Men trust you more than they trust me. If you talk to them..."

SCOTT: They were safe. It was an odd realization to come to, for a number of reasons. Primarily, if you had told Scott years ago that he’d one day find safety in the home of the man he’d spent the better part of his teenage years actively fighting against, there was no part of him that might have believed you. Magneto had been more concept than man back then, too big to be considered a person in any sense. Things had changed over the years. Scott hardly ever even thought of him as Magneto anymore, not even in a fight. No, more often, he was simply Erik. Erik, who Jean loved like a father. Erik, who Scott trusted with the safety of his people even when he didn’t trust him with much else. Erik, who was the only person he’d ever feel confident coming to with something like this.

It wasn’t only the person he’d found safety with who was surprising, of course. Feeling any semblance of safety after something like what had happened in Central Park was laughable. When he’d been laying in that grass, his life bleeding away into his fingertips, Scott had been sure he’d never feel safe again. Safety, he’d thought, tore out the barrel of a gun and ripped through his chest cavity. Safety bubbled up in his throat and pooled into his lungs with every beat of his heart. Safety died when he did.

But he was alive now. And maybe, maybe that safety had been resurrected with him.

And maybe it would not remain alive much longer. (Maybe he wouldn’t, either.) . Jean was right, of course. If Central Park had proven one thing, it was that the Accords had never been designed to protect people like them. The enforcers there had been willing to aim guns at children whose only crimes were anomalies in their DNA they hadn’t chosen, had killed Scott for daring to stand up for them with a flicker of too much anger in his eyes. To them, mutants were threats long before they were people. They were little more than vague concepts, ideas to be squashed. That, Scott thought, was where they had royally fucked up.

People could be killed. It was an easy thing to do, a simple goal to achieve. A bullet here, a blade there, a blunt object swung at the right angle towards a head. People were easy to kill. It was more work keeping them alive, harder to make sure they didn’t die. If the government treated the X-Men as people, they would have made their jobs far easier on themselves, but they didn’t. No, instead, they saw mutantkind as an idea. And an idea was the one thing you could never kill.

“They’ll find out eventually either way,” he pointed out, reaching down to pet Erik’s cat absently as it climbed into his lap. “You might have been able to hide it on the Raft, but now…” He trailed off, shifting in his seat. People might not question how two powerful mutants destroyed a portion of the Raft. That was the kind of thing they could explain away, the sort of thing they could easily pretend was normal. But a man returning from what had been a very public execution? That was a bit harder to smooth over with logic. Unless Scott spent the rest of his life in hiding, people would realize something was up. Those with any sort of knowledge of the Phoenix and its relationship with Jean could make the jump to the correct conclusion with little effort. . Scott’s eyes flickered up to meet Erik’s, and he shifted in his seat. “I won’t ask anyone to fight who isn’t comfortable doing so,” he said. “People who want peace can choose peace, and I’ll fight for them, too. They all deserve to make that decision for themselves. But…” He trailed off, looking to Jean and Erik and back again. “I don’t think we can avoid a fight any longer. They want a war. I don’t see a lot of options that don’t involve giving it to them.”

Talking to the X-Men wasn’t something that would be easy. Just telling them he was alive would be painful, but adding in the fact that he’d joined forces with Erik and the Brotherhood? It complicated and already complex situation. But, just like they deserved the chance to choose peace… They deserved the choice to fight, if they wanted. “I’ll try to broach the topic with some of them,” Scott said, glancing to Jean, “if you think it’s a good idea.”

JEAN: They were talking amongst themselves, and in what was a rather uncharacteristic move, Jean was sitting on the sofa in silence, a cup of tea going cold in her hands and Mischa using her as a stepping stone to move onto Scott’s lap. It was rare that she didn’t attempt to become the centre of attention, even subconsciously. It was something she’d grown used to as the youngest of the Greys, then as the girl that ripped the school from its foundations, as an Omega level telepath at fourteen, as the woman who died and died and died and kept on coming back. There was a reason she clashed so vividly with Emma, after all, why she found herself immediately falling into step with the man beside her who wanted nothing more than to fade into the shadows when he wasn’t leading an army into battle.

She always had something she needed (something she wanted) to say. Jean thought best when she was thinking out loud, even if her domain was within the minds of others, sorting through their memories and working out where they stood, what experiences they were coming from. At this point, though, Jean was just watching the two men in the room beside her and in front of her, eyes flickering between them and back to that board on the wall, and then to the cat stretching out leisurely as if they weren’t discussing war (and how would the cat know? All Mischa knew of this world was that Erik would take care of things, and that was what Jean relied on when she showed up on his doorstep, too).

Taking it all in, turning it over, finally lifting the cool cup of tea to her lips only to find that the flavor was just as potent as it would’ve been boiling. It was the first time she’d had something proper to drink in the past two weeks. Her stomach began to curl as she realised she’d barely eaten in that time, either. . She’d changed, since Scott went down in Central Park. She’d changed since Erik came to her on the Raft, since they worked together to take lives and break collars and free their people, people that Lorna (a child, Erik’s child) had ferried across the border because she refused to step down when something mattered as much as this did.

She’d changed since she was a bitter, lonely little girl desperate for a place with the X-Men, desperate to prove herself, desperate for a father who loved her for what she was instead of what she could’ve been if she just missed out on that one little gene. She’d changed since Scott first met her on that park bench.

She wasn’t sure she liked the change.

Scott shifted beside her, and although her mind was still a thousand miles away, Jean’s hand still went instinctively to his leg, resting there for a moment as if her touch would be enough to ground him in a world void of anchors, void of meaning, void of justice. Jean chewed on the corner of her lip, trying to imagine how Logan would look at her when she said Scott was back, when she told Rogue how she dipped into that power that terrified all of them purely so she could have Scott under her hand again, could feel him breathe deeply beside her in contemplation, could feel as if her feet were on ground again no matter how unstable.

It was only when the room shifted into silence (she wasn’t sure how long they must’ve stood there, both of them, looking at her and looking at each other) that Jean realised Scott asked her a question. She searched his mind and the answer came easily. Talking to the X-Men. Asking them to join her in a war. Taking what Charles said about starting a fight or ending one on her own terms because she wasn’t a child anymore and turning it into a reality. . This was when she made her choice. This was her defining moment. She had no doubt that Erik would do what he thought necessary, knew he’d been doing that all along, but Scott …

Scott was asking what she thought. One word from her and they would leave. One word from her, and the allegiance would be sealed.

She set the cup to the side, pushing herself up off the sofa, hand brushing lightly against Scott’s as she moved. Her hand went to Erik’s shoulder as he sat in one of the chairs, squeezing gently on her way past to stand in front of the board. The plans stretched out before her, and she could touch them. She could feel the electricity under the city, how it called to Erik’s blood. She knew without looking back at Scott that this was something he needed.

War was never comfortable. That explained the feeling deep down in her gut, the feeling that she’d started them all on a path they’d never get off again -- but then again, wasn’t it better than death? Wasn’t anything, anything at all, better than the expanse of darkness or bright, blinding light, better than knowing you were never coming back to make another mistake?

“We’ll talk to them,” she decided, her voice stronger now, pulling from both men’s resolve to steel her own. “They can make their own choices, but we will give them the information.” Jean turned, slowly, and with the distance from the seats she could see both Erik and Scott without turning her head. “The humans won’t get the same luxury. We can’t keep going in circles. It’s time-”

Jean took a breath, and right on cue, she felt the flames in her veins, warmth curling in the palms of her hands that tightened into fists at her sides.

“It’s time to make a change. All of us, together. And those who don’t want to fight … we’ll change things for them, too.”

[thelostboys-rp]

New characters!

The muns’ minds are always busy with new characters so here’s an introduction to the characters you’ll be seeing in our stories or have already come across them.

Lance Emerson

Face claim: Julian McMahon

Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Lance’s childhood was comfortable and filled with privilege. His mother was the COO (chief operator officer) of a corporation, and his father a traveling businessman—both came from well-to-do backgrounds. Lance was the first-born son out of five children and was the clear favorite. Living in a gated community, he attended the most prestigious private schools the country had to offer. Money was never an issue for him or his siblings, but he was well aware that his parents gave him the biggest allowance of them all, and he had more freedom to do whatever he wished. He developed an aggressive and superficially passionate charisma that drew people to him like moths to a flame. This gained him plenty of followers who admired his sharp wit and business perception that he learned from his parents. 

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Rory Hawthorne

Face claim: Jensen Ackles

The biological brother of Leon, Rory was only five years old when he lost his life. Both boys carried the skin-walker gene, but only one of them would be allowed to embrace it; the other had to die.

Rory's young soul was sent to Purgatory, when he was forced to quickly adapt to a strange, dark world where only the strong survived. After much running and hiding, Rory came across a collective of monsters, lost souls like him. They took him under their wing and taught him how to fight. During this time, Rory was able to adapt to his surroundings and develop his own, unusual powers. The rage he felt toward his own brother had never left him, and thus created malevolent energy within. While his physical body died at the tender age of five, his spiritual body grew into adulthood.

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Mason Sawyer

Face claim: DJ Cotrona

Mason Sawyer was second in command up until the moment Dick Roman met his end by a group of hunters, this sprang Mason forth as the Leviathan’s new Master and leader. He quickly established his dominance over the other Leviathans and began his master plan to convert all humans into livestock for the Leviathans to slaughter and eat. 

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AJ Frog

Face claim: Chandler Riggs

Number Thirteen is a dhampir, and the biological son of Alan Frog. Having been developed in a secret lab unknown to Alan, the child was created as part of a eugenics experiment by vampire hunters who desired to create the ultimate weapon against the undead. Raised in a sterile underground bunker, the boy was the thirteenth attempt at creating life and the only one to survive past the first year of his life.

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Eris

Face claim:  Draculangelica/Angelica Rose

The goddess of strife, chaos, and discord, Eris is the essential “shit starter” and queen of grudge holding. Compared to all the gods and goddesses, she is among the least liked, given the hostility and negativity that arise every time she’s present. She delights in people’s misery, regardless if they’re considered good or bad; she chooses no sides, only her own. The only time she is every truly happy is when people are miserable. All arguments, no matter how big or small, stem from Eris. Her need to start trouble sparked one of the greatest wars in ancient history which saw the destruction of Troy during the Bronze Age, and it started off with Eris being snubbed.

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Rachel Benton

Face claim: Nikki Reed

Born into the criminal underworld to a family of assassins, Rachel grew up learning how to fight and kill early on. She also learned about her heritage as a werewolf, but all of her family members refused to give into "the curse" and discouraged her from allowing the nature of the beasts to consume her. While maintaining their human form, she and her family were still much stronger and faster than normal humans. They were also capable of killing others without triggering their true forms. On her sixteenth birthday, Rachel was recruited by a rival crime family to be their personal mercenary. Unable to resist the wealthy temptation they offered her, she left her family without a word. 

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Belladonna Alexander

Face claim: Darya Goncharova

Belladonna was orphaned as a young girl after the deaths of her loving parents by the Roman Catholic Empire.As a child she ended up a prisoner and became the Roman Catholics King’s Sorceress. She was a kind, headstrong, caring, brave, and extremely attractive young woman with a slender, voluptuous build, and average heart, gray eyes, the lightest skin complexion, and long straight black hair.

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DJ X

Original actor: Seb Castang

Alternate face claim: Ian Somerhalder

Xavier was born in 1452. As Xavier grew up, he was taught the many painful ways to torture a human when they were to be put to death. When reaching legal age Xavier took on a job of being an executioner. In a lot of ways, you would think one wouldn’t get pleasure out of preforming these kinds of acts out on another human being, but Xavier did. Xavier enjoyed his job to the fullest and would sometimes suggest new ways that one could be punished. Many people including Xavier’s parents thought of Xavier as a cold sadistic human being because after each person he executed he was known for always having a sick looking smile on his face.

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Chanel Dixon

Face claim: Loren Gray

At the age of fourteen Chanel began running various hustles on random people for money. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but to kept food in her stomach she had to do what was necessary. Her mother and father were always strung out on various types of drugs – to stoned out of their minds to even remember they had a teenage daughter who was practically starving to death because of their drug addictions.

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Caroline Fox

Face claim: Candice King

Caroline was a popular girl  in school, the captain of the cheerleading squad. Always organizing the parties and always displaying a high degree of leadership among her friends. Beautiful and chic, she was also extraordinarily strong and determined, much like her mother. She was extremely loyal and protective of her friends. She had a sensitive and loving nature. Despite having a confident exterior and high social prestige, underneath it all Caroline was very insecure and neurotic which often tended to make her an overachiever at times, creating flaws and complexities within herself, leading to various matters that factored into her development as she worked to overcome them. 

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Cassidy Quinn

Face claim: Elizabeth Olsen

It was several years into their perfect Santa Carla life when everything changed. Twelve-year-old Carson was babysitting a seven-year-old Cassidy and a group of rabid vampires attacked. They were playing outside just after dark even though Cassidy had been telling Carson that they needed to go inside, but he was hell bent on them staying outside. It turned out he was being mentally influenced by the creatures watching them from the woods. These were not normal vampires – they were more like wild animals. By the time the attack was done, both kids were seriously injured and had lost a lot of blood. Thankfully, Cassandra has come home not too long after the vampires had run off and she called an ambulance to try and save their lives.

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