#there’s already so much war she really really doesn’t wanna be the cause of one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

soultek · 1 year ago

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Lover. Fighter. - A Concept

Everybody says there's two kinds of hearts Where one loves and one goes to war I know, it's not easy or that simplified, no But you and I are on each others side I know, it's not easy or that simplified, no But don't you know that I'd lay down my life

I will be your Lover. Fighter. Harder. Higher. Lover. Fighter. I wanna fight for Lover. Fighter. Under fire Lover. Fighter. I wanna fight for love

--- [Playlist] ---

Word Count: 1879

Concept: After being released into the world on the anniversary of Markus’ Hart Plaza march, the RK900 model is sent to Detroit PD. Said to be deviant proof, many want to test that theory... But there are more pressing matters, threats to lives in D.C. due to the ever increasing number of protests lead Nines to his first real test. And she doesn’t like him much, either...

Warnings: Mentions of violence and death threats.

A/N: This is only a prologue to the above ‘concept’ I have some more info for you in the tags though! 😊 Had to post this for the anniversary! It’s been in my drafts since May 9th 2022... 😅

---

In the just over 18 months since Markus’ march on Hart Plaza, plenty had already changed in the world. That was just in the immediate circle of the movement and their allies within Detroit Police Department. Connor hadn’t given up his role as a detective, and nowadays he had almost as many rights as his human counterparts – give or take a few, Markus and co. were in Washington D.C. seemingly every other weekend negotiating something or other.

Cyberlife had turned into something more of an android repair shop and upgrade centre. Those who chose to remain with their human families certainly needed such things – and those who didn’t could still drop by. Even with Jericho also open to welcome and service all commers. And – like it or not – certain androids still needed to return to Cyberlife for such tuning. Connor being a prime example – though these days he hardly ever went unaccompanied. And, Kamski was more or less back in the driver’s seat, so… it was unlikely anything untoward was going down.

With one notable exception. Nines. The RK-900 model was released exactly a year after Markus’ revolution – that was no coincidence. Cyberlife had been working on an android that was impossible to turn Deviant for a long while. They weren’t just going to lock him away. No, instead Nines (as he was now affectionately dubbed) was shipped out to the central precinct of the DPD to be the very last machine. Even if he was the first of his kind. The most advanced model cyberlife had ever created – and at least as far as the foreseeable future was concerned, the last model to ever be released. He may not have been a prototype – but he was damn near as cold and efficient as Cyberlife had wanted Connor to be. And also eerily looked like him, which had caused many to steer clear for Nines’ first few months on the job.

Though, considering for some insane reason he’d been paired up with Gavin Reed, it was fairly understandable why anyone would want to steer clear. Try as Gavin might to protest it, no one budged and try as he might to insult his partner into giving up, Nines was unflappable. But, had a sense of sarcasm where it was never quite easy to tell if he was joking or just plain being mean. (When he was talking to Gavin it was nearly always the latter).

Markus and Connor – what with the power they had to deviate android models as prototypes - had always talked of doing something about it. Regarding testing if Cyberlife’s “incorruptible” android really was all that. But Ilyana – Jericho’s sole Human ‘member’, for relation purposes – was always adamant that if Nines were to turn, it would have to be on his own terms; his own realisation, just as it had been for them. She had been the one to first call him “Nines” instead of his model number, and he’d duly adopted it. If he could show any form of affection and emotion, it was usually to her. Which is how this sudden change in plans had really come about.

Paige Carlin, CSI, was one of the people who had taken a long while to warm to the new presence in the precinct. She liked androids well enough, but… considering her situationship with Connor it was never going to be easy getting used to someone who looked almost identical. As she stepped into the office this morning however, having just about got used to his presence, she found Nines standing at his desk with a box – packing. She raised an eyebrow, stuffing her hands into her pockets. This was unexpected, and sudden, he’d not said anything about moving. Glancing to Connor and Hank, she found herself none the wiser, they were both working at their desks seemingly unbothered (though, Connor would probably like being the only android in Central again.)

She approached Nines slowly, not to seem nosy but only appropriately curious. “Where are you off to!?” He looked up, gave a slight nod to acknowledge her – his version of Good Morning she supposed, and then went right back to packing. “I’ve been reassigned.” Paige almost couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows in shock, “T- To a new precinct?! Where are you going? We’ve only just got used to you being here and integrated, and they’re making you leave?! That doesn’t seem fair!” Although, she could assume with almost 99% positivity that Gavin probably had something to do with it – despise Androids as he still did. Paige had issues of her own with Nines’ partner. Ex-Partner. Even though the android seemed pretty unbothered by this change of plans, Paige couldn’t help but glare into Gavin’s back. “We’re all gonna miss you! Especially Gavin but I’m sure he’ll get over it - after 2 weeks of uncontrollable crying.” She was impressed with herself, less than five minutes in the office and already able to get digs in at her least favourite co-worker? Must have been a new record. The man in question turned around and shot her a look. Needless to say, she wasn’t his favourite person either.

This time Nines stood still, giving her his full attention, to address her question properly. Which she appreciated, even though his blue eyes were still unnerving. Did CyberLife really have to make them THAT blue!? She thanked God sometimes that he at least didn’t have the same voice they’d given Connor. There was the same kind of tone, same rhythm, but it was a little deeper – and he pronounced words and letters ‘properly’- The ‘t’s and ‘g’s, in particular, were never dropped. “I’m going to D.C.” Paige stalled for a second - well, she hadn’t been expecting that. “Washington!? Wow. What!?” Nines nodded, looked like he was about to hesitate telling her something and then decided to say it anyway, “More specifically, the White House.” “The- the White House!?” She spluttered, eyes wide, before collecting herself. Actually, that seemed very logical. “Well, yeah, I… I guess with all you can do that makes sense! Security?” He blinked once, straightening to his towering full height; “In a way.” That was Nines’ way of politely asking her to drop the questions before he started telling her everything was classified. Paige merely nodded, understanding. “I guess they… didn’t really build you for…” She waved her hands at the station floor, “this! A lot of wasted potential in your design just being here!” That was true. Connor had been built for police work, for all intents and purposes, Nines had been built for war.

Speaking of her favourite android, from the other side of the precinct Connor couldn’t help but look up, a little hurt. Paige didn’t even need to see him to know this had occurred and pointed back at him, “I knew you were gonna take offence to that!” Connor looked from her to Nines and back, head tilted, “I didn’t even say anything!” She looked back at him with a wink, “Babe, I know you!” Before turning back to Nines with a smile, “Congrats boy, you’re going places! You’ll have to remember your friends back in DPD central precinct when you’re up in the lofty heights of DC political society!” What ghost of a smile emote she presumed CyberLife had coded him with for ‘happiness’, Nines gave her in return, “I’m sure I’ll be back visiting – it’s not like Detroit isn’t a political centre itself these days.” The ‘what with’ was left unsaid, but in unison they both managed:

“Markus.” Before Paige nodded again, “Makes sense! You’ll have to let us know every time you’re in town! Does Ilyana know, she’ll be upset for sure!” Nines – as Paige predicted – managed to make his smile a little more genuine at the mention of said woman. It almost reached his eyes. “Yes. I was discussing things with her recently, in fact she is where this comes from.” Paige’s eyebrows raised again, this time she leaned forward onto his desk, “From Il- no, I changed my mind I shouldn’t be concerned if she’s upset! I should be blaming her!” She took a breath, and chuckled, “I’m kidding, this will be great for you! I hope you enjoy it!” If he even knew what that meant. Still, Nines responded as expected. “I’ll do my best.”

There were a few seconds silence that followed, but the intent stare that Paige was giving him told Nines all he needed to know. Exactly what she was asking when she wasn’t even asking it. Nines could read her like a book. “I can’t tell you what I’m doing there, Ms. Carlin - it’s classified!” There was the word she expected, but it disappointed her all the same. Couldn’t he make an exception for the group of people here he might be able to call friends? Ilyana would probably know – but getting anything out of her would be just as hard, Paige would reckon. Connor quirked an eyebrow, still listening into the conversation. Eyes flicking to his computer. Classified? Yeah right - he could have that file cracked in two seconds and Nines probably knew it. Paige would likely know the information she was after before he even got the chance to leave the building. Still, as far as Nines was concerned it would remain classified if he hadn’t told her.

Truth was it wasn’t just any normal type of security Nines would be heading to the White House for – and it wasn’t really government work either. With Androids gaining their own rights there were obviously a lot of people who, having previously had problems with Androids when they were viewed as ‘machines’, had even more problems with them now. Anti-Android protests and groups sparked up across the country and whenever they were on the news, they were a great point of contention. Usually this was the point that Nines would hear Hank and Paige swear most and turn off the news so as not to get so mad they’d put their fists through the screen. On the other side of things there were the pro-android groups; those supporting the android movement, who felt like the government weren’t doing enough, even when they were working in collaboration with Markus. Mostly the protesting was non-violent but, that didn’t mean they all were. And, during all of this the president had received a number of death threats. Warren wasn’t so concerned about herself – she had the best of the best in the secret service guarding her.

What she was worried about was the number of credible threats against her daughter’s life. In the hope that they could sway her decisions one way or another. Having offhandedly mentioned this to Ilyana one day on a visit, Markus’ young, quick thinking, human relations partner had the perfect solution. The most advanced model CyberLife had ever created? Virtually indestructible? Not a deviant? (In fact, Nines was programmed to patch any potential source of deviancy – hence unconvertable.). Paige was right, his talents fit him in the DPD fine, but they were wasted. A few weeks and negotiations later Nines found himself assigned to be the personal bodyguard to one Ms. Rie Warren.

And he believed he was looking forward to it. ---

Thank you for reading! Happy Anniversary DBH! 💙

#Nines 💙#Not a real concept... more the prologue of it...#The concept is as follows: She's President Warren's daughter and like her Mom she's a social media influencer / vlogger type #And cuz of everything kicking off with Markus' stunts in Detroit tensions are high between pro and anti android groups alike #How do you get the president to listen? Why not threaten her daughter.#Soooo CyberLife goes ahead and sends its RK900 to protect her.#Because imagine the most advanced piece of technology in the world having to look after a <25yo influencer who does NOT want him around #That'll go down well with everyone involved!!!#The vibes will be like... the stoic one is soft for one person only // dislike to lovers (don't really think it's enemies but... whatever.)#and also a Bodyguard AU because I do what I want.#No I'm not doing this with Markus and Connor that's... too complicated.#[But they are all interconnected because whhhhy not!]#I know y'all aren't listening but on the off chance you arreeeee... lemmie know ya thoughts on the play list!#RK900 #Detroit Become Human

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mojowitchcraft · 11 months ago

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hi, I want you to know that "living in a lunar spell" lives fully rent free in my head.

so much so that I either dreamed or hallucinated that chapter 6 had been uploaded a couple days ago. I was fully convinced it actually happened lol

then when I went to go read it just now I was severely disappointed to find that it was a figment of my imagination lmao

Okay this is actually so sweet I wanna cry 🥹

But then I want to cry for you cause chapter 6 still isn't done 😬 I had a bad cocktail of writers block, procrastination, busy real life, and writing for two holiday exchanges that got in the way of my plan to post one chapter a week.

All I can promise at this point is that I'm working on it, and it'll get posted as soon as it's done!

For now, here's a long snippet of a scene I first jotted down the idea for months ago. Our boy Dustin is home from camp!!

👐💌🦇 🍦

“Again, Batty? Really?” Dustin says with the most sour-puss judgmental expression on his stupid little face. “Yeah? So what, dude, I didn’t know what to call him! That seemed like the simplest thing.” Steve adds, looking pointedly at Robin. “Rather than giving him an actual name like a pet, or something.” Robin doesn’t need to know that he already considers Batty his pet and he’s not planning on getting rid of him any time soon. Dustin sends him a flat look, “Steve, come on, literally anything else would be better.” “I’m inclined to agree with our weird little friend here,” Robin interjects. “You really couldn’t do better, Harrington?” Steve throws his arms up, “I’ve never had to name a pet before, sue me!” He points at Dustin, “This is rich coming from a kid with a cat called Mews…oh wait, it’s Tews now, isn’t it? How original.” Dustin glares at him, “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Steven. And my mom named them, do you want me to tell my mom that you don’t like what she named her cats? I think she’d be less inclined to have you over for dinner again.” “Alright, alright, pulling out the big guns.” Steve says, raising his hands in surrender. “What about D’Art though? What in the hell kind of name is that, Henderson?” “What about it? D’Artagnan is a perfectly respectable name,” defends Dustin, voice going squeaky. “Where the heck did you pick that up? It’s nonsense,” snipes Steve. “D'Artagnan is the protagonist in The Three Musketeers,” Robin answers matter-of-factly, and Dustin gestures to her. “See! Common knowledge, not my fault you’ve never read a book in your life.” “Hey!” Steve protests. He knows Dustin is being a little shit, that he doesn’t really mean it like that cause he doesn’t know that Steve struggles with reading and has always been kind of sensitive about it. Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath, “Fine, we can rename Batty…how about,” he snaps, “Henderson what were those little teddy bear guys from Star Wars called? He’s cute like one of those.” “They’re called Ewoks. Seriously Steve, do you not pay attention? And how many times do I have to tell you that it’s Episode VI: Return of the Jedi,” Dustin snarks, continuing to try Steve’s patience. The attitude of this kid, Jeez. “Fine, so we’ll call him Ewok then.” Robin snorts, “Ewok is their race, not their actual name.” “Fine! You two pick a name then!” Steve says, exasperated it’s easier to just let them have their way sometimes. Batty is his and he’ll call him whatever he wants when they’re alone anyway.

Hope that holds you over Anon, and takes away the sting of Chapter 6 not being done yet!

👋 also hi, hello, if you're reading this and you're new here and want to read the fic you can find Chapters 1-5 available on ao3 here:

Living In A Lunar Spell 🦇🍦

#ask mojowithcraft #living in a lunar spell #mojowitchcraft fics #bat eddie #bat eddie munson #steve harrington #robin buc #robin buckley #dustin henderson #steddie #steddie fic #steddie fic rec

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another-corpo-rat · 2 years ago

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Fem V Friday but I didn’t take any screenshots of my baby recently so I’m gonna ramble about her soap opera of a life instead.

(Putting the majority of it under a Read More because I know I ramble and don’t wanna clog the tags)

- Victoria was born in Night City but she wasn't raised there - she lived in England with her mother until she was 23, when they both moved for work-related reasons. Her accent is still quite prominent and it's common enough to hear other people refer to her as Mary Poppins. Angelo once called her it in the middle of an argument and she proceeded to beat him with an umbrella. It sounds funnier than it was - it was severe enough that Trauma Team were alerted.

This event, causing an embarrassment for their parents, was what spurred the two into a different approach - small competitions, bets. Harmless to the duo and their parents reputations, not so much for the mercs they moved like chess pieces to up each other. This 'truce' would be in place until their father's health took a severe decline and the question of inheritance became prominent.

- Doesn't really participate much within the commonly tight-knit netrunner community. At most, some may recognise the username V1P3R in certain forums, usually ones theory-crafting potential new daemons and quickhacks - what would need to be targeted in the system to get x result and so forth. One time she asked for advice about what cyberdeck she should invest in, knowing full well it would start a war between the Netdriver and the Rippler girlies. (She herself uses the Netdriver Mk.5, and has a bad habit of overclocking it to increase upload speeds; burning up the cyberdeck and giving her the nosebleed of the century.)

- That said, the quickhacks are more a hobby, something she picks away at when she needs to stop actively thinking about the big work project: a new virus named OIZYS that she is heading the development of for Arasaka. Secret to the point that even Adam Smasher knowing of it was considered a security breach.

I want to ramble about the idea for it, so -- OIZYS can lie dormant for some time once uploaded, not affecting the target in any way nor showing up in most scans until they encounter something that sets off their threat/fear response. Victoria is trying to find a way for them to activate it remotely, but her experiments in that regard haven't worked thus far and she refuses to consider the project complete or even viable if their targets getting scared by their own children jumping out at them can trigger it.

OIZYS would kick in during that response in the brain: overwhelming the amygdala with stimuli and convincing the individual that they are surrounded by threats even if its not the case, blinding them to the difference between friend and foe. It's results have been comparable to cyberpsychosis and are increasingly effective when the target is in an already stressful environment or position. After the initial, typically violent outburst test subjects showed an increased paranoia that led to them refusing to eat or sleep. The reason for its development is simple: cause political rivals/public figureheads to make a fool of themselves in the public eye, tanking stock and trust in rival companies. So they kinda need to be able to control when the virus kicks in.

While not intended, OIZYS focus on the brain also makes it somewhat effective against cyborgs - noted to occasionally trigger a disconnect between the biopod and conversion frame. Those results have been kept quiet from a certain tinman and have been struck from any official documentation.

- She used to be engaged to an Arasaka security agent, Marcus Larson (seen below). However, their relationship was tenuous at best and wouldn't last due to his aggression and her frequent infidelity and gaslighting. Marcus broke off the engagement following Victoria's assignment to Adam Smasher, after she told him to go fuck himself when he demanded she refuse the transfer. Ever spiteful, Victoria has maintained a fairly good relationship with his mother and sister - who still consider her part of the family even if she didn't marry into it. Her not-nephews prefer her over Marcus, courtesy of her spoiling them rotten. She's never considered herself an actress, but she plays the part of doting aunt well.

- Owned a Quadra Type-66 Avenger. When her half-brother bombed it in an attempt on her life, Victoria was initially more pissed about the destruction of the car than the half-assed murder attempt. That Angelo killed himself shortly after this attempt was surely just a coincidence, and not at all tied to his netrunner sibling who is known to keep fatal quickhacks in her arsenal.

- There was an investigation into Angelo's death; headed by a certain Detective Ward. River could smell there was something off about the whole thing, and while the pettiness of getting fixers and mercs involved is commonplace among self-important Corpos, the timeline of events was too suspect for him to just write it off as a suicide. (A dying rich father, half-siblings known to hate each other, a failed car bombing and then a suicide? Yeah. He wasn't believing what Victoria fed them: that Angelo was paranoid after her car exploded, worried he was next. His suspicions grew tenfold after learning she was a netrunner.) However, all of that was circumstantial and while he might have been able to hold it against a common citizen of Night City; a suit was nigh untouchable without something solid.

Victoria was NOT happy when she was taken in for questioning, a colleague of River's tried to soothe her ruffled feathers by explaining that River was on edge due to a personal circumstance (the disappearance of Randy) however they had instead just given her a means to antagonize the man. And she did, accusing him of being a shit brother and uncle without explicitly saying it. River was so fucking close to clocking her, frustrated af knowing his hands were tied and he had nothing that would stick if he kept to official channels. Watching her walk out added to his quickly building grievances with the force.

- Due to her mother's ailing health, Victoria oversaw the burials of both her father and half-brother. Their niches read the following:

Joseph Benjamin Morris-Crane A waste of space even in a box

Angelo Victor Morris Finally knows something we don't

#cyberpunk 2077 #corpo v #cyberpunk oc #Victoria Crane #Angelo Morris #Marcus Larson #somehow still alive #river ward #only mentioned but fuck it he's there #i love him but Victoria does not #sometimes you just gotta ramble about your OCs #today was one of those days for me #oc rambling

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dedmar · 7 months ago

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All I wanna do is talk about Leonidas all day but I have to be a normal person >:(

-Physically in his late 30s (37-ish?) but I keep bumping this back— he could be pushing 40s honestly. Actually 255 and doesn’t age. -really smart but also very very ditzy

-has Raynaud’s and Marfan Syndrome (lips/toes/fingers are cold/turn blue easily d/t genetics and connective tissue disorder that causes ppl to be really tall)

-with his 2 ahoge he’s 6’7”, without he’s 6’4” , weighs maybe 145-150lbs

-fucking loves sugary coffee and desserts

-technically has a doctorate in medicine but it’s from 1880-something so ???

-mentally stuck in the 60s-70s. Considers it the best era for fashion/music—but not for food. He prefers modern food (especially junk food)

-bi/pan but too dense to realize ppl wanna fuck him

-charisma powerhouse and very outgoing but also an introvert that gets exhausted from socializing and needs a lot of time to recover

-the overt charisma is probably a cover-up for his insecurity

-is the more responsible one (but that’s not saying a ton…)

-very much a stoner in the 60s-70s, stopped as he grew more detached from the world and became more introverted. Still has plants he tends to tho. Will smoke with Ruby occasionally.

-Very well meaning and has a good heart but finds his exuberance and obsessiveness over details often hinders goals and makes things worse

-also very much a caregiver, but again struggles with overdoing things and complicating them.

-perky and positive!!! Except when something goes wrong, then he wears his heart on his sleeve and cries. A lot. Rarely ever shows anger or frustration (it usually bubbles over into tears anyways)

-experiments on himself. Of course. He’s gotta know why he’s living so fucking long and not aging. -his favorite color is yellow

-his favorite song is “love the one you’re with” by the Isley Brothers

-probably was present at the first sci-fi/comic conventions

-read every single one of the Star Wars extended universe books plus any pulpy sci-fi books he got his hands on

-fine at cooking, better at gardening than you’d expect

-hates having his head touched but likes having his hair short, so 99% of the time his hair is this awkward shaggy cut with 2 cowlicks poking out where he either half cut it and gave up, or he’s overdue for another cut and putting it off. Sometimes puts it up in a low ponytail or clip

-big time cuddler. Starved for affection (like 200 years starved).

-overfunctioner that overthinks for other peoples’ sake, even to his own detriment or it becomes illogical (ie “oh I think I’m in love with him but if I tell him he’ll feel obligated to reciprocate and I don’t want to put that on him, he’s already been through a lot. I won’t say anything and wait for him to approach me, and if anything just be a good friend!!! *cries*” or “If I help her with her groceries she’ll feel the need to thank me or compensate me in some way and I don’t want to make her uncomfortable. Besides, I don’t want her to think I don’t think she’s capable!”)

-loves with his whole heart and honestly probably lets people in too easily. He gets hurt a lot :(

I’m in love with him your honor he’s everything to me he was my best friend when I was a lonely kid and he’s still my bby man!!!!

ok thanks bye!!!!

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mcrcki · 2 years ago

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Was that [ADELINE RUDOLPH]? Oh no no, that was just [EMMA VANITY], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [HARRY POTTER]. They are [TWENTY EIGHT] years old, use [SHE/HER], and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here -

as of 1.18.23 , emma’s just gotten here, let’s a say a few hours? she’s woken up in dc and has to say she’s not too happy about it. she doesn’t like america from what she’s seen so far, england is already far superior and all she wants is to find a way back home already.

when in your fandom has your character been pulled from -

she’s pulled from a few years after the first wizarding war, specifically around summer of 1984. she survived and fled after voldemort was defeated, denying ever being involved with the death eaters, able to avoid azkaban as she left england for a short while, retreating to france for the first few years. she was on her way back to england to return to her life at home when there was a shift and she woke up here in dc in 2023.

has the magic affected your character -

not at all, she’s just the same as ever, so good luck to everyone. she’s just cockier now know that she survived and avoided any consequences for her involvement in the war.

what is your character’s job -

trust fund baby. doesn’t want a job if she doesn’t need one. she can’t play quidditch here so what’s the point of making money any other way. could maybe be convinced to help out as a partner in something, but she’s just looking to pick up where she left off.

other notes -

hello here is my evil child emma :)) she is ThE WoRsT. i really just have two speeds of characters, Dumbass or Bitch. and emma is definitely the latter. here is some quick information about my girl , i am going to be taking my time getting used to her again but very very excited to have her causing some drama on the dash :)

pure blood, quidditch prodigy, some of the smartest in her classes, manipulative, loyal to her people, will be sure to remind people why they’re here, and none of it is to make friends with anyone who doesn’t support their goals.

she was in school around the same time as the marauders, but was the slytherin quidditch captain from 1972-1976 , still trying to figure out how a 12 year old made it to captain but she may or may not have pushed someone over the stairs, or is truly just that good. we’ll see. i mean the real answer is she is just that talented but the rumor is funny and emma never tried to disprove it

was a death eater during the first war. was a damn good one at that, but managed to avoid consequences later after the war thankfully. honestly, just enjoyed the whole concept of being able to use magic and spells as much as she wanted without having to hide it or deal with any real consequences to them. just wanted to be rid of muggles so wizards didn’t have to keep hiding their abilities.

she was highly skilled in the imperius curse that only helped her rise in ranks. along with her connections within the death eaters. shoutout to having friends in high places.

was betrothed to a man , but solely to help keep her family happy and follow in the path that was laid out for her since birth. emma never wanted to marry, and took that opportunity as the war ended and her fleeing to run from that part of her life. she understands her role in this world but she wanted anything but an arranged marriage.

emma is less involved in the whole “i absolutely hate muggles for being muggles” ideaology, and more so just hates that wizards have to hide. they’re the stronger people, why should they be the ones hiding? also the order is cocky and annoying she refused to be friendly with them

will definitely keep fleshing her out as i write her more but for right now i’ve got some connections if y’all wanna plot with my girl. we can also come up with some stuff that isn’t on her of course!!!

✩ her betrothed

** will be sending in a wc to the main **

this would be someone who was around in the marauders era, i will link the connection when i have it submitted ♥

going to require a lot of plotting !!

✩ her sibling

** will be sending in a wc to the main **

i am flexible on either a brother or sister. happy to discuss ages, etc. but they would not be SUPER CLOSE.

i will link the connection when i have it submitted ♥

going to require a lot of plotting !!

✩ teammates from the slytherin team

anyone who was on the slytherin quidditch team during the 70s, emma was the captain and was super strict about it

but they won A LOT and that’s all that matters.

definitely considers these people close friends, even if she’s a hardass about them.

✩ classmates from school

marauders era slytherins, future death eaters, etc.

emma lowkey has the rich girl who peaked in high school vibe but she refuses to acknowledge it

✩ people she bullied / general enemies

mean girl energy. i’m sorry, this will really be anyone lkgfjdglfd

she loves to make enemies where ever she goes, and will not stop now that she’s here!!!

✩ rich girl club

if your character is rich, she’ll probably look past you being a muggle lmao

✩ death eaters she’s been paired with

went on LOTS of missions, would easily be paired with a bunch of them and probably did her best to get along with everyone. she wasn’t about to be labeled difficult to work with

✩ victims

old and new! she’ll attack anyone!

✩ hookups/flings/past partners

bad at commitment, so she definitely would have some past hookups. doesn’t matter who you are as long as you’re hot.

emma is a lesbian

✩ slowburn ship

again, emma is a lesbian, so just a heads up. i also am big on writing with chemistry, so this is gonna be one of those, we’ll play it by ear, see how they vibe together.

emma has bad commitment issues so she wouldn’t be likely to just immediately jump into a relationship , you gotta prove that you’re worthy of her.

#hw: intro #e. interactions #e. muse #e. visage #e. event #e. memes #e. texts #e. tasks #e. intro #long post tw #death eaters tw #war mention tw #discrimination tw

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captainpikeachu · 1 year ago

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Worse than Alexei? Who happily let two young girls be taken away to be trained and abused as slaves and assassins? Worse than Yelena? Who had no problems killing a bunch of innocent guards just because she needed to break Alexei out of jail for information and caused an avalanche to bury the other prisoners? Worse than Clint? Who went on a 5 year murder spree and killed for the Kingpin and never faced any consequences and even got Kate Bishop to lie for him so he can hide his past and live a nice little life with his family and everyone still supporting him as a hero? Worse than T’Challa? Who decided fuck due process so he was gonna murder Bucky in the streets right then and there if Steve and others hadn’t stopped him?

Does everyone else get excuses and still get to be faves and heroes but not Walker?

You act like he just randomly decided to kill someone in broad daylight because he felt like it, as if it wasn’t because the group of people who lured him to a building so they can stab him to death got his best friend killed instead? As if the person he killed wasn’t the guy whom seconds before physically held him hostage so that Walker could be murdered? Even in real life we recognize heat of the moment, we recognize people put in extreme circumstances can react emotionally because we’re human beings. Walker killed a guy who seconds before tried to help murder him and is an accomplice to the killing of his best friend. He killed his attempted murderer. Hell, Walker is hardly the only person responding with violence and revenge at the death of a loved one in the MCU, even among the heroes.

And even without talking about him losing the job that he gave his entire adult life for and bled for, or his access to health care (which is already shitty enough for war vets), it’s not a slap on the wrist to lose his best friend. Walker loved Lemar as much as Steve loved Bucky.

It’s always fascinating how people just forget that Walker is actually a victim of the Flag Smashers. They tried to literally execute him just so they can use his death to send a message. Just because they killed the wrong person in that execution attempt doesn’t mean Walker wasn’t a victim. He chased down and in his emotionally grieving state, killed the guy who tried to help kill him and got his best friend killed. That’s not a bad evil human, that’s just a human. Imagine if a group of people tried to kill you but killed your best friend who tried to save you instead and then tried to run away from responsibility for it and you killed one of them in anger and grief, are you really the monster? The real bad guy?

I get that by law and logic, Walker shouldn’t have killed the guy, he should have arrested him instead, but I’m not gonna pretend it’s not an entirely understandable human thing to do to seek revenge after you’ve been harmed. MCU heroes themselves have done this.

You want to see Walker as the worst, go ahead, that’s your opinion and I can’t stop you. But I think I’ll take the guy willingly complicit in child abuse or the lady who casually kills people just to suit her own purposes as more worse than a guy who killed someone in a moment of grief and revenge.

I can understand someone emotionally spiraling after trauma and grief, and that’s not the worst a human being can be.

And if you wanna talk about cop propaganda, we should also look at how Sam literally opens the show working for the military and killing enemies for the military, while his story ends with him again helping out a government entity whom he at most just chastises to “do better”.

Okay so this prevailing sentiment that I keep seeing about how “this doesn’t make sense why would Bucky be with a team of bad guys” really kinda annoys because…most of the MCU Thunderbolts team members aren’t even bad guys???

Ghost, Taskmaster, and Yelena literally all share similar kinds of backstories to Bucky, they are all victims of a system that either mind controlled them or forced them into doing horrible things. They’ve all broken free and are trying to make their own choices and trying to recover and get better in their own ways.

Alexei is literally just a chaotic man being chaotic, and the last we saw of him, he was part of the protagonist team of the Black Widow film. Hardly any sense of being a “bad guy”, just a big dork guy who really wants to punch some folks and admittedly trying and sometimes failing at being a dad.

And as much as folks want Walker to be a bad guy, even the Falcon and the Winter Soldier show didn’t bother making him the villain of the story, instead head writer Malcolm Spellman even stated that Walker and Bucky are two sides of a veteran’s story, and the last time we saw of Walker, he was actually trying to save hostages and helping Sam and Bucky, with him and Bucky even working together.

The only person with remotely a whiff of possible “bad guy” is Val, and we don’t really even know enough about her to say if she’s actually doing bad things because she’s evil or if she’s just like a Nick Fury who sometimes do shady things for what she thinks are the greater good.

Sure, many of these characters have served antagonistic roles in the stories they appeared in, but being an antagonist does not equal to being a “bad guy” or being the villain. Protagonist doesn’t mean Hero, and Antagonist doesn’t mean Villain, and sometimes I fear that fandom spends so much time trying to shove characters into boxes and ends up losing sight of the characters’ complexities.

The Thunderbolts are not just a “team of bad guys”, even in their decades of comics history, this team line up has run across all ends of the spectrum with Bucky being a member of this team at various points. The most recent new comics run is even a team of heroes led by Clint Barton himself.

And if one really takes a good look at this currently known line up of the MCU Thunderbolts team, with the exception of Val whose backstory is shrounded in mystery right now, these are all characters who’ve had trauma, who’ve been through a lot, who are soldiers and warriors who’ve all fought for what they thought was right. Sure their moralities can be a bit skewed, but they aren’t just people who go around killing people for no reason and just enjoying being bad for the sake of being bad. This is a team of broken traumatized messed up chaotic warriors seeking for another chance to prove themselves, for redemption, and is that not the kind of people whom Bucky would share commonality with? Is that not the kind of people that he might be able to help, to provide guidance and advice to? He’s walked their path, he of all people knows what it takes to make a recovery stick.

What better way to continue his journey from the ending of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier than to make him the “mentor” of a group of people each trying to seek their own redemption in their own way? Wouldn’t it be character growth for Bucky to go from the learner to now the teacher?

Honestly I think Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier said it best:

I just think The Thunderbolts are an exciting opportunity to take these characters that have been seen in a certain light and kinda bring them together, and through coming together, possibly view them in another light.

So many of these characters on the team, we all have a way of seeing them through our various biases and perspectives, and this film might actually teach us all to let go of certain biases and see these characters in a new way through their perspectives.

#mcu thunderbolts

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years ago

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OKAY so on the topic of Star Wars takes wrt “character ends up in an A/B/O universe where they’re an omega, but they were previously a cis male in their canon”

@atagotiak and I had some Thoughts on discord

So, obviously, Anakin would make a good omega and he’s also incredibly murdery. Foregone conclusion that we're using him for this.

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse. He shows up JUST as the war is starting. Canon timeline is in the third year of the war (he’s 22), but whatever dumped him into omegaverse also tossed him back a few years. No de-aging, just a bit of mismatched timeline stuff.

He's... really good at war, and clearly a Jedi, so the Temple just kind of goes "WELL OKAY THEN, SURE, YOU'RE IN, EVERYONE PRETEND HE'S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME." The Jedi, by and large, don't care about omegaverse dynamics beyond 'what do you need, medically, to be happy and healthy' and 'what do you need to be aware of so you can be prepared for biases you encounter in the field?’

None of the civilian natborns (mainly politicians) want to put him on the field because of those biases. Anakin, being Anakin, is VERY blatantly an omega in scent, has never been on suppressants (because it wasn't a thing he fucking NEEDED), is incredibly emotional as a person, loves kids, etc.

Like, nobody wants an omega fighting a war anyway, but THIS one is like PINNACLE omega, and those awful Jedi are making him FIGHT just because he's good at stab!

The Jedi: Actually, it's because he's got several years of war experience that we don't, and he's a good tactician that works well with the clones-- Coruscant: You MONSTERS The Jedi: Look, we gave him the option to not stab and he looked absolutely devastated. Anakin, several days earlier: You don’t want me? I’m not good enough??? Jedi: Also he can beat up at least half the temple.

He doesn't know a damn thing about dynamics, but he DOES know that sometimes he's so horny he wants to stab HARDER. The clones are largely disinterested in their generals' dynamics because between mostly-Mando* trainers and no-dynamic Kaminoans, they only really care if a person can shoot.

* Mandalore approves of Fighty Omegas. As far as (traditional) Mandalore is concerned, you want an omega that will kill the threats to your children as well as you do.

Anakin: You know more about being an omega than I do. Rex: ...I'm an alpha. Anakin: Yeah. Let that one sink in a bit.

We have two options for Obi-Wan!

Omegaverse local Obi-Wan (beta) has never met this man before, and is very unnerved that the immediate default reaction Anakin has to his presence is releasing Family pheromones as if Obi-Wan is his DAD and like. This strange, too-tall man from another dimension has got absolutely NO control over what he projects in the Force OR in his dynamic.

Obi-Wan was ALSO transplanted from canon to omegaverse, and is also an omega, for contrast reasons. He is nice and friendly and and likes poetry and that sort of thing... but also he has the highest dismemberment count in the movies. Also he doesn’t prioritize romance.

We went with the second one because it's hilarious.

Someone watching them spar: Wow, omegas from that universe are terrifying.

As previously mentioned, now with some tweaking to account for both: Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don't exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood. (It's mostly not theirs.)

Nobody realizes either one is an omega until they "naturalize" to this dimension and Anakin goes into heat... and doesn't realize it, actually, because his primary symptom is heightened protectiveness and aggression. Everyone else with the right nose realizes, because the man has no control over his pheromone production, but Anakin? No. He just stabs. He’s angry and horny and he will cut someone.

Ahsoka has no reaction to human pheromones but basically everyone smells Anakin's "my child!" reaction to her, so... Cool. Have a padawan, we guess.

Anakin ends up sparring a lot with Aayla and Ahsoka, because only humans and near humans have dynamics, so these two don't REACT to the pheromones situation.

(Palpatine is a Kindly Old Beta who tries to treat Anakin the way he EXPECTS Anakin wants to be treated, which is. Not. Accurate.)

(Anakin hates it.)

I'm just so in love with "An omega can't fight." "You wanna fuckin' bet?"

There are plenty of omega Jedi, by the way, it's just... most of them can keep it relatively low-key instead of Anakin's jet-engine broadcast. Some, if they're known to be omega, probably take advantage of being underestimated, like Obi-Wan probably (and especially a version of Obi-Wan that was always an omega, unlike this version). They have a very different way of presenting themselves than Anakin, who's not subtle about being an omega and also not subtle about being all aggressive and stabby.

At one point, Anakin has to protect some Very Traditional Individuals who get all "Stay back, Omega, it's not safe!" and he's just... so tired of this shit. “You are squishy civilians and I'm a trained Jedi Knight and accomplished GAR General who's killed more people in one sitting than there are in this entire palace. Sit the fuck down and let me do my job.”

It starts making the rounds that Anakin insisted on fighting in person, and the rumors shift from "how dare the Jedi force an omega to fight" and over into things that are deeply hurtful in-universe in the vein of "broken omega" and some people try to say it to his face but like...

He didn't grow up here.

He doesn't care.

Say that to one of his friends and he's going to rip out your spleen, probably, but say it to him and he's just staring at you flatly and asking if that's a negative on getting away from the encroaching battle droids, sir?

"You're rather unpleasant for an omega, aren't you?" [deeply offensive] "I literally could not give less of a fuck about your opinion. Move."

It's not that there aren't omegas that act like Anakin, either, it's just that most of them aren't, you know, Jedi who regularly interact with the upper crust, or capable of his level of destruction. Unbeknownst to Anakin, everyone clocks him as Outer Rim based on his behavior, well before his accent gives him away, and certainly before he mentions he's from Tatooine, because Core Omegas Don't Act Like That.

Someone they meet in a more diplomatic setting says something decently passive-aggressive about how at least Obi-Wan acts more like how an Omega should. Then a battle breaks out for some reason, and... well. Anakin and Obi-Wan cause such a scandal by keeping score of kills in a battle, don’t you know?

Turns out sending Anakin to fight Ventress is great because she keeps expecting him to react a certain way but NO he's here to STAB.

I like the idea that Obi-Wan's favorite opponent these days is Grievous because the cyborg doesn't have a nose, and thus gives zero fucks about dynamics or heats. Dooku is a rich old man who has opinions heavily influenced by Sith Juice Making Him More of a Dick, and the Dathomiri can smell dynamics even if they don't have them, and so they have biases about those things. Meanwhile, Grievous is just there to Kill, and Obi-Wan genuinely appreciates the lack of commentary on his dynamic.

Dooku’s probably an alpha, or a beta who's used the whole "we are more level-headed" thing as one of several angles to keep himself the public face and supreme commander of the CIS.

On to more fluffy things that have less to do with political biases.

There's a lot of "I'm upset that my loved ones don't know me," but also please understand the appeal of Obi-Wan marching up to Quinlan like "Yes, hello, I understand you've been read in on the full situation behind myself and my former padawan. I was close friends with your alternate universe self, which I feel is necessary disclosure before I propose the following: Would you like to join me for my upcoming heat, as I have minimal experience with the dynamics situation and even fewer people I actually trust, and I believe I can put my faith in you to treat it as casually as necessary while still having control and respect for my person."

(The Team is in a fairly safe place to process stuff, but having sudden unexpected changes to your biology has gotta be a little traumatizing, on top of ending up in a universe where none of your friends know you and people have a whole host of unfamiliar forms of sexism to point at you.)

Obi-Wan, who wasn't quite touch-averse but was much more easily overwhelmed by physical contact than Anakin (who craved it), suddenly finds his body switching gears and insisting on cuddles with Trusted Loved Ones, which is.... mostly Anakin, on account of nobody else really knowing him yet. Also Ahsoka, who is aware that she's something of a replacement for her alt-universe self, but Anakin explained it as "I love you so much no matter which dimension I'm in or what you're like, and I'd like to get to know you the way I got know her."

(It's rather eloquent for Anakin. He got Obi-Wan to help him draft up the script for when he pitched taking on omegaverse Ahsoka as a padawan.)

Anakin gets a more intensely sexual heat than 'usual' at one point for Reasons (IDK it could be as innocuous as 'we got better food than the usual rations and my body is reacting to the higher fat content with the belief that it's safer to have a baby now'), which nobody takes a whole lot of notice of because they're in a WAR, and also this is only his fourth one so it's not like he's got a lot to compare it to... except then the predominantly alpha clones can't stop themselves from reacting to the pheromones, mostly by wandering past his door and asking if he needs anything, offering up alpha-scented blankets and stuff for the nest to soothe the hormones, bringing snacks and electrolyte drinks, and like, Anakin is flattered, really, but fuck off please.

(He got a warning from medical a few hours before it hit that it would be different, so he actually does have alpha-scented fabrics to help him out. Apparently that's a thing you can just ask friends for, so he asked Rex if he had anything on hand that he could spare. He now has one of Rex’s recently-used sheets and a bodyglove in the nest.)

(Anakin has no idea how to feel about the nesting instinct, but at least it’s warm.)

Tia asked "Oh hey, who has the scared and horny reaction to his carnage?" and like.

Listen. I'm not saying I've been low-key imagining this as Rex being a very subby alpha who's really into Anakin's whole Thing but...

At one point Anakin gets injured in a way that requires painkillers and he ends up whining to the point of almost crying about the fact that nobody is cuddling him right now in medbay and Kix just gives up and comms Ahsoka to come hug her weird older brother.

And Then There Is Purring.

That’s a Thing Now.

Rex ends up in the pile somehow. He came over to check on Things and ended up yanked in by half-asleep, half-high Anakin, who has a grip like an octopus and no impulse control and is purring like a pod motor while NUZZLING HIM.

There’s a lot of blackmail photos featuring Rex’s very intense blush as he’s cuddled by his commander (giggling at him) and general (clinging like a tooka and rubbing himself all over).

Anakin is deeply offended that ANYONE thinks he'd want to get pregnant by just any old person, NO he needs to fall in LOVE there needs to be EMOTIONAL DRAMA and if Padme won't have him (apparently she's in a relationship and no he's not BITTER) then he'll find someone else to have a whirlwind romance with!

People think Anakin's a slut because he can't control his pheromone production (he has NO practice and for health reasons he can't go on suppressants) so he always smells open and ready for flirtations, which Obi-Wan also has to a somewhat lesser degree (he's older so his body just naturally produces less), and then someone tries to cross a boundary and grabs his ass and ANYWAY Anakin has to now fill out an incident report for breaking a civilian's arm.

Again.

#Anakin Skywalker #Obi Wan Kenobi #Ahsoka Tano #Captain Rex #Rexwalker #Quinlan Vos #star wars #the clone wars #time travel #omegaverse #alpha beta omega #phoenix posts

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musclesandhammering · 3 years ago

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Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

#antisylki #loki meta #kinda #loki series critical #loki series negativity #anti loki x sylvie #anti loki series #anti sylvie #frosty bby #loki deserved better #I don’t even like TVA!Loki tho so I guess it doesn’t matter with him lmao #tva loki #loki laufeyson

926 notes · View notes

thesolferino · 4 years ago

Text

Favor

⤷ dream x f!reader.

⤷ genre: angst, fluff

⤷ word count: 8.4k

⤷ requested: yes, by this lovely anon!

— summary: dream asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend for a day. things only seem to go downhill from there.

It started as a favor.

On a quiet night in your apartment when you stared at your phone for way longer than your eyes could physically take and rolled around on the bed, talking to one of your best internet friends, Dream, he asked you for a favor. His voice was muffled through the mic on his phone, the one connected to his computer way cleaner, but neither of you could bother getting off FaceTime and call on Discord instead - yet you still heard him loud and clear, because you burst out laughing right after.

“What the hell did you just say?” you laughed, turning on your stomach and opening the call, now entirely focused on the timer that counted every second you spent talking to him instead of your Twitter timeline.

“It’s embarrassing, don’t make me repeat it!” And for that sole reason, you wanted him to repeat it, loud and clear.

“Is this why you were so insistent on me coming down to Florida? So I could pretend to be your girlfriend at your cousin’s wedding so your family doesn’t think you’re a loser?” you laughed, finding the situation entirely absurd as he sputtered, words mashing together, trying to defend himself.

“No! No, I wanted you to come here because we’re friends and I-I wanna meet you, this is just a… benefit, of sorts.” he replied, and you couldn’t help but laugh even harder at his poor attempt of trying to save face.

“Alright, I’ll bite.” you chuckle. “What’s in it for me?”

“Whatever you want.” he responded, much too quick. Your eyebrows raised.

“Whatever I want?” you parroted.

“Yes.” he confirmed. “I’ll buy you something, if you want; I’ll even pay you-”

“Pay me?! I’m not a whore, Dream!”

“That is not AT ALL what I was saying!” he cut in, yelling as you burst into a new fit of laughter. “It’s just… I sort of already told them I have a girlfriend and I was just hoping you’d say yes ‘cause it’s gonna be very awkward if I show up without the girlfriend in question.”

You put your head in your hands and he sort of dryly laughed at himself when he heard your palm hit your forehead. “What is wrong with you, man?”

“Listen, it’s not gonna be so bad! Just stay by my side for a bit, look pretty, we’ll get some drinks, and then dip. That’s it, I promise.” he reasoned.

“And here I thought we were gonna make out in front of everyone. What’s a fake relationship if we don’t make a show out of it?” you sarcastically snickered, and could practically see his eyeroll from miles away.

“If that’s what you want, then we’ll do it, by all means.” he replied and you laughed, shaking your head in mild disbelief.

“Alright, well, if you already told them, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” you huffed, pretending to be way more bummed out about it than you really were. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so much, oh my God.” he replied and you chuckled at the sheer relief in his voice.

A few seconds of silence pass. “What’s the catch?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“How do you want me to publicly embarrass myself in exchange for this favor?”

“Personally, I think that forcing you to tweet that tweet about pissing yourself in bed again and also tweeting that everyone should subscribe to me isn’t “publicly embarrassing” at all.”

“Maybe I should’ve picked a different fake girlfriend.”

“Sucks to suck, pissbaby.”

The weeks leading up to your meetup felt like years, with every treacherous minute of you two talking over muffled mics and shitty webcams feeling longer than it should, your empty apartment feeling emptier and emptier by the day. Was it even possible to miss a person you hadn’t even met yet?

It turns out that it very much was, because as soon as the painfully long weeks were up and you were finally metres away from him, you jumped in his arms like a woman finally seeing her soldier husband after the war, standing on your tiptoes while he bent down the best he could to hug you back. His chest rumbled with a warm laugh when you turned your head ever so slightly towards his ear.

“Hello, boyfriend.” And just like that, the warm turned into a groan of faux annoyance while you burst into laughter and he pulled away, scanning your face with an equally annoyed look.

“I should’ve never asked you for that. You’re never letting it go, are you?” Yeah, you were kind of annoying with the amount of corny boyfriend jokes you threw his way - you had to give him that. But then again, he crafted his own fate and now he must accept the consequences.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realise your majesty wasn’t appreciating the work I’m doing! I just won’t show up at that wedding, how about that?” you bit back, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You’re such an idiot.” he laughed. “Give me those bags.”

A blissful week had passed, and he hadn’t pissed you off in real life nearly as much as you thought he would. It took a bit of getting used to to his family calling him Clay instead of his beloved internet username, and you did get a couple of suggestive looks from his mother the first few times she visited - you had a couple of “eye conversations” in which she never exactly asked if you were his girlfriend, and you never exactly denied it, but you knew both of you felt the weight of the unspoken words yet you had to keep everything secret and ambiguous. Or at least you thought you did, before he revealed to you that he told his mom the two of you were dating already. Seems like the glances were knowing and not questioning. Maybe you weren’t as good at eye conversation as previously thought.

Living with him was fine, mostly because he had godly air conditioning and a house that was probably way too big for him, and also a very cute cat that followed you everywhere and made living with a man for a full two weeks way more bearable. Finding out that he can’t cook was one of the most bizarre revelations about him that you’d had in the years of your friendship, and you demanded he watched as you made chicken wraps. You complained about how he was 21 and couldn’t cook for himself, he complained about how it’s 2021 and he can just order from Chipotle or something, dude.

A week of goofing around and trying to hide the fact the two of you temporarily lived together from the internet had passed quicker than it should’ve, and for the first time in seven days, Netflix was turned off and the two of you were dressing up for the wedding, ready to set off with his parents and younger sister. He spent ages trying to convince you to match with him, which was quite literally impossible because he wore a black suit and you brought a red dress, which resulted in the two of you roaming around a local mall at 10 am, half asleep, looking for a reasonably formal black dress, because of course Dream always got his way.

An hour of arguing and your fashion tastes clashing later, you picked an off shoulder black dress with a high slit, along with a pair of pumps, both of which you forced him to pay for, and went back home, ready to glam both of you up as much as humanly possible because you were not ready to let him show up in some horrendous pair of shoes and claim to be your boyfriend.

“Is this okay?” you questioned, turning from the mirror to face him and let him be the judge of your shimmery black and white eyelids, spending way too much time on a makeup look for a wedding of someone whose name you didn’t even know. He blinked at you as his judging gaze washed over you like a wave, scanning you up and down while you nervously cocked your head, leg tapping in faux impatient annoyance to cover up the fact that you felt like prey under his eyes.

“It’s… yeah, it is. You look good.” Dream confirmed, nodding his head at you in a movement that was way too quick and snappy and you turn back to the mirror with a huff, watching him stare right back at you.

“Too much, right? I should try something else.” You say, grabbing your makeup remover wipes, but he cuts in before you can even wipe a single smudge.

“No, no, it looks good, I promise. Really good. Don’t touch it.” Something way too sincere in his voice makes the air tense, more tense than usual, but you drop it, deciding to just take the compliment with a tight lipped smile.

“Okay. You ready?” you ask, and he nods, nervously straightening out his suit before looking back at you with an anxious grin.

“Yeah, I think so. Do I look fine?”

He did. He looked more than fine. You’d never seen him actually dress up for something and put proper care into his looks - he was practically forced into doing it by you this time as well - so seeing him in an actual black suit, all formal and expensive looking, messy dirty blond hair properly combed for the first time in ages, made you gulp and look away. You sort of never understood the argument that women and men can’t be friends because you were never attracted to one of your male friends, ever. Dream was born to be an exception to every rule, it seemed.

Realising that you abruptly looked away, you attempted to awkwardly clear your throat and smile at him.

“Yeah, you do. Let’s go.”

During the ride there, his mother seemed to finally explode and the words that have clearly wanted to pour out of her mouth for ages finally came out. You supposed it was better for the poor woman, and did your best to suppress a laugh when Dream dramatically sighed and leaned against the window when she nosily spoke up.

“So… since when have you and Clay been together? He’s told us absolutely nothing!” She spoke up from the passenger seat, shifting to look at you, excited smile plastered on her face and you politely smiled back, mentally noting that you’d have to bully the shit out of him for acting like his mom is embarrassing him in front of his 8th grade crush.

“Ah, we’ve been friends for a long while, but we only started dating a month or so ago, because it’s hard doing long distance and all that.” you said, hoping it would sound believable enough because the two of you rehearsed this a few days ago, writing out a whole backstory from how you started dating to what exact words he used when he asked you out. There were a couple of arguments here and there, such as the fact you refused to say you confessed you’ve been in love with him for years and he refused to say he admitted he’s been your “bottom bitch” for 3 years but in the end, you somehow managed to agree on a cohesive timeline of events.

“Oh, does that mean you’re going to move here?” she questioned, and that one didn’t surprise you either, Dream having prepared a full list of answers to questions that people might ask in your notes app. He was a perfectionist to the point it got on your nerves, but that had its own perks.

“No, but I’ll definitely visit more often, and if it goes well, I might as well move here.” you smiled back at her and she nodded, going back to staring through the windshield. You and Dream exchange a relieved glance that you hope his younger sister doesn’t notice.

“Let me tell you, I was waiting for you two to get together! He always talked about you, I was getting tired of him, you know that?” she giggled and you widened your eyes at Dream who, snapping out of somewhat of a daze, immediately jumped to protest, light blush adorning his pale cheeks.

“No, I didn’t! I did not, mom, don’t lie to her.” he argued while all she did was laugh.

“Oh come on, it’s not embarrassing now that you’re together!” she kept going, and his younger sister joined in, to make it even worse.

“Yeah, you do talk about her a lot, not gonna lie.” she spoke up and his cold glare directed her way told you everything you needed to know, hanging on by a thread not to burst out laughing. He refused to even look your way, turning back to the window as his cheeks started heating up. You couldn’t help but let out at least a bit of a giggle, placing your hand on his arm in fake comfort.

“It’s okay, you can admit it now.” your tone borderlined on mocking and he knew you’d make fun of him for days to come so he stayed silent while the rest of the car burst into laughter.

The wedding was truly beautifully set up, set in a hotel wedding venue, walls painted in pure innocent white with hints of gold here and there, and you nudged Dream as the two of you observed in awe, asking what sort of money the groom had to be able to afford this sort of expensive venue. Nudging him proved to be way easier now, because you linked arms - you originally made fun of him for suggesting to walk like that instead of holding hands like normal people, telling him you’d look like you were at your high school prom, but he persisted, and you didn’t end up looking as goofy as you thought.

“He’s a doctor or something, pretty sure.” he replied, quick feet trudging down the long hallways, your own struggling to keep up with him, especially in your heels. He seemed to be in a rush to sit and get it over with as soon as possible so he could avoid any nosy family members, but bad luck followed him everywhere, it seems, because as soon as you two entered the place where the bride and groom would unite, at least three different pairs of eyes locked on you, and you immediately saw a fairly elderly woman get up with open arms, staring at Dream with a grin on her face. You saw him immediately tense up, and almost laughed right then and there.

“There’s my boy! Oh, you’ve grown so much, come here!” The woman looked to be in her fifties and Dream let go of your arm to nervously laugh and fall into her hug, the two rocking from side to side as she kept going on about how it seemed that he grew taller and taller every time she saw him.

When the two pulled away, her eyes fixed on you, judgingly scanning from head to toe and you suddenly realised why Dream tensed up the way he did - old white women sure had a way to make you anxious. Thankfully, he stepped in.

“Aunt Bessie, this is Y/N, my girlfriend. Y/N, this is aunt Bessie, my mom’s older sister.” he generously offered the explanation you were so obviously lacking and you grinned, as if that information helped you in any way, and stuck out your hand in an offer of a handshake. However, she seemed to have different plans, because as soon as she heard the words “my girlfriend” her face lit up as if she won the lottery and her lips stretched into a smile, opening her arms for you the same way she did for him.

“Oh my God, you finally got a girlfriend? Come here!” she said, shaking her head at your outstretched hand and gesturing you to return the hug which you quite hesitantly did, politely laughing as she hugged you tighter than you’d deem appropriate. Dream came from a family of huggers - that much was apparent from him, you guess, but you weren’t exactly prepared for this.

Aunt Bessie seemed to be way louder and screechier than expected, because the word “girlfriend” boomed through the room and off the snowy walls, and at least five other family members of his turned around to check who the lucky fellow that finally got a girlfriend was. Another one of his aunts seemed to notice the commotion and suddenly, another older woman with shoulder length, dyed blonde hair, along with her two younger kids, was hurling at you as well.

“I always complained to him that it was about time he got a girlfriend! He’s a fine young man, no wonder you picked him, honey.” Aunt Bessie shot you a knowing look and you closed your mouth in a tight lipped smile in a feverish attempt to keep down the laugh that threatened to escape you.

“Oh yeah, he definitely is.” you giggled, looking up at Dream again who looked like he wanted the earth below his feet to open and swallow him whole. Before you could nudge him in the ribs and tease him for hours to come, the other aunt suddenly spoke up.

“Clay! Oh my gosh, is that you?” she exclaimed, shocked grin on her face, and you briefly wondered if Dream ever even visited his family. He nervously smiled, obviously not really sure who this woman even is, but he hugged her back anyway, clearly walking the line between ‘happy to see his family’ and ‘insanely uncomfortable’.

“I haven’t seen you in so long, your dad hasn’t visited since we moved to Toronto! Look at how tall you are, you’re taller than my husband now! You used to be so tiny, whatever happened to you?” Upon hearing the word Toronto he seemed to realise who he was talking to as his eyes softened, and you wondered if he really was so expressive or you could just read him that well.

“I grew up, I guess.” He awkwardly laughed and she laughed harder than she should’ve before turning to you.

“Oh, and who is this?” She said, gaze periodically switching between him and you, a knowing smile on her face which told you she definitely knew who you were.

“Ah, this is my girlfriend, Y/N. Y/N, this is… my dad’s cousin, Mabel.” He introduced, large hand landing on your back, and you felt like you were experiencing déjà vu at the way her face lit up at the mention of a girlfriend.

“Wow, it’s so nice to meet you, Y/N!” She said, energetically shaking your hand, before turning back to Dream. “You never told us you got a girlfriend! You’re finally planning on settling down, huh?”

Your head snapped in his direction at the speed of light when she mentioned settling down, and you could see him tense up as well as he nervously laughed.

“Yeah, we haven’t visited in a while, so nobody from the family really knew. And, uh… we haven’t really thought of that yet, we’re taking it slow and everything.” He said and you were almost in awe at how good he was at bullshitting. The woman did nothing but laugh.

“Ah, don’t lie to me, I see the way you two look at each other! It’s your wedding we’ll be attending next!” She winked, and just as Dream got ready to fake laugh once again, her family called her over and she excused herself, walking off.

The two of you hurried to your seats as well, sitting down next to his younger sister.

“Your family is insane, man, holy shit.” You laughed in disbelief, staring at him as he shook his head, clearly as distressed as you were.

“Literally nobody in this family gives a single fuck if I’m single or not except the old aunties. And I seem to have a shit ton of those.” He muttered under his breath. “The way you look at each other - I literally didn’t even look at you properly that whole time!”

You cackled at that one, hitting his arm. “She’s right, Clay. You’re one fine young man, eh?” You nudged him as he groaned in embarrassment, only turning your way to glare at you.

You didn’t get to tease him for much longer, though, because the organ started playing and the bridesmaids and groomsmen lined up, the groom standing at his designated place. The bride walked in, arms locked with her father, thin white veil covering her face as she walked down the aisle, looking angelic in her puffy wedding gown. Silky brown hair fell down her shoulders, curled towards the ends, and you could see the hint of blood red lipstick beneath the veil. She looked beautiful - the groom seemed to think so as well, because you could see him tapping the corner of his eye lightly, wiping any stray tears.

She finally made it to the end and stepped to face her soon-to-be husband as her father moved away, sitting back in his chair. The wedding officiant stepped up, and held a speech much longer than it should be, which just led you to zone out.

One day you’d be beneath that veil, wouldn’t you? One day, you’ll face your fiancé the same way she is, and you’ll let your hearts link with a string that nobody but the two of you could snap. Who would that be, though? Who could you even trust with your heart in their hands? And you’re not aware of how and why and when, but your eyes shot up at Dream, whose eyes also glinted in that way where you knew he wasn’t paying attention, and maybe he was thinking about the same thing as you. Maybe one day, you’ll be attending his wedding, forcing one of your friends to play a fake boyfriend as he wipes his tears, waiting for his bride to get to him.

It was disheartening, the thought of being a bystander while he locks lips with somebody else. You supposed you just liked being the center of attention, so you let yourself pretend you were his bride in your daydreams. Separating daydreams from rational thoughts was mandatory, because you weren’t sure how you’d explain to yourself that you can’t stand seeing Dream marry someone else.

Dream, the infamous hopeless romantic, still seemed out of it, maybe even a little emotional, despite not being that close with either of the two. He was probably thinking about his own wedding as well, thinking about his future, the face he’d see when he pulled back the veil.

Just then, his eyes darted to yours, and you realised you were caught staring, snapping your head back to the couple that started reading their vows by now. You started going red from the neck up, cheeks on fire as you could feel his gaze burning into you. He turned back after a few seconds, though, probably assuming you stared at him because you were bored, and neither of you spoke, even though you kind of wish you did. What even is there to say, though?

By the time you snapped back, the “I do”s were already being said, and her veil was getting lifted, showing her beauty to everyone present, and as they kissed the whole room bursted into cheers and applause in support of the newlyweds. The two exit, teary eyed, their parents follow close behind, and that’s when Dream’s family rushes both of you to your feet, following the two into the reception hall where the actual party would take place.

From then on, the wedding is the same as any other. The two have their first dance, they give a welcoming speech, and Dream lets you stuff your face with cake and repeatedly refills your wine glass as repayment for dragging you into this whole thing. At some point, he stretches his hand out to you and asks for a dance like a rom-com main character, and you’re not sure exactly why he did that because he’s mostly terrible at dancing, but you had fun letting him twirl you until you got dizzy anyway.

You also realised just how much he did actually need a fake girlfriend, because it seemed like every twenty minutes some sort of relative of his would walk up to the two of you and congratulate him on “finally getting a girlfriend”. You ended up bullying him for that as well, wondering just how long he’s been single for if they’re all this surprised that he’s got a girlfriend, to which he just downed the glass of water he’d been sipping for half an hour and asked you about the weather.

His family took a few pictures with the new couple - you even got to speak to the bride at some point, congratulating her and wishing the two of them well, but in the span of a few hours, the wedding was over and the newlyweds made a great exit, signifying the end of the party. The two of you were driven home by his parents, and you waved them goodbye as you stumbled to the front door, your heels insanely uncomfortable and the red wine in your stomach weighing down on you; you just wanted to get out of this dress and into a pair of pajamas and pass out on his couch in the living room.

That’s sort of exactly what you did - you half-assed taking your makeup off, wiping down your face a couple of times, deciding that was enough before changing into some worn pajamas and plopping down on the couch next to Dream who already claimed his place and sunk into the cushion while a random movie played on the TV. The two of you basked in the comfortable silence that surrounded you, the exhausted, tired type. You both appreciated the quiet and fell asleep sitting next to each other, wedding already forgotten.

That night, he went from Dream to Clay.

The departure was bittersweet. You left two days after that, your hug at the airport tight, warm, filled with a sugary sweet feeling you couldn’t quite place and sour acid that ate away at you because you didn’t want to leave in the slightest. His arms were warm, inviting, whispering for you to stay but you left anyway, waving him goodbye, setting off to home.

It seemed like all your problems came and went with him, because a week later, at 3 in the morning while you were up editing a video, you got an all caps message on your Discord from Sapnap.

“YOU’RE DATING DREAM?”

You blinked at your computer screen, white letters blinding you in the dark, brain trying to keep up with why he even thought that. Within 10 seconds, another message, this time from Dream.

“so i told george and sapnap that we’re dating”

“don’t kill me pls”

Yeah, you weren’t going to kill him, per se, but he definitely made your life a lot harder than it should be. You opened Discord, Premiere Pro and the unedited video abandoned, typing back to Clay quickly.

“WHY”

He responded immediately, as one panicked man does.

“they’ve been making fun of me for being single for ages now :(“

“we already did this fake dating thing before and it went perfectly fine”

“just play along for a month or so”

“pls”

You audibly sighed. And as if he could hear you, he started typing again.

“i’ll promote you on my channel more”

“just pls do it”

“you love me, right”

Another sigh fell from your lips before you could stop it. Of course you did, because if you didn’t, there’s no way you would be playing into this. You typed back.

“fine”

He messaged back immediately.

“THANK YOU”

“LOVE YOU <333”

With a shake of your head, you mumbled “idiot” with the ghost of a smile flashing on your face, switching back to your video, opting to ignore Sapnap for a little bit. He could wait.

Fake dating seemed pretty damn easy during the first week - you thought you were killing it by sending corny tweets and staged selfies so he could screenshot them and send them to the groupchat, giggling on call about how oblivious they are and how you’re fooling them so good, both of you opting to ignore the parts where they claimed they knew the two of you were gonna get together eventually. It was fun, lighthearted, and an excuse to flirt with someone you had nothing official with.

As much as all your problems came and went with Clay, though, they came and went with his friends as well, especially that hopeless man Clay called his best friend.

Because yeah, of course Sapnap was the one to accidentally spill to the public that the two of you were “dating”.

George was streaming at what was apparently a normal time in the UK, not so much for Florida, and Clay was sleeping while you were watching his stream while making some food for yourself. It was going fine, a bit of a chill stream, and you leaned against the fridge as your oven preheated, tired eyes following his Minecraft skin.

“Sophie, thank you for the dono! ‘Hey George, I love your videos, just wanted to ask if you were speedrunning with Dream today?’” he read out, and you could faintly hear Sapnap join the stream through your headphones.

“No I’m not, Dream’s… I don’t know what Dream’s doing right now, actually. He’s not responding to me, though. Probably talking to his girlfriend still.” he continued, exaggerating the last part mockingly, still playing into the whiny role of being upset that Clay was ditching the two of them for you. That majorly woke you up, though, as you stood straight on your feet immediately, because oh no, nobody was supposed to know.

You exited out of the Twitch app quickly, letting the stream play in the background as you tried to fish for Sapnap’s profile on Discord and text him as quick as possible, trying to warn him to not let anybody know, but before you could do it, you heard his laughter clear in the stream.

“Yeah, Y/N, his sweetie poo.” Sapnap said, causing George to laugh even louder, before moving onto the next topic, and your heartbeat picked up an insane amount, nails loud and probably damaging your phone screen as you typed as quickly as humanly possible to yell at him because this was not planned, at all.

You heard him go quiet after you shot him a couple of messages over Discord (“SAPNAP” “ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID” “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU” “NOBODY KNOWS YET” “IM GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU”), type something to George who then fell quiet as well for a few seconds, pure horror on his face, and then went back to streaming as if nothing happened while Sapnap profusely apologised to you on his and George’s behalf.

No apology could fix what had already been done, though, and you were left alone with the warzone that was Twitter who had already speculated the two of you were dating long before while Clay peacefully slept somewhere in his house at 4 am in Florida. You bombarded him with messages and waited until he woke up ‘cause what were you even supposed to do?!

You chose to spend your time finishing the pizza you were originally supposed to make and almost burnt your whole apartment down because you forgot the oven was on for a whole hour while yelling at Clay’s idiotic best friends. You yelled at Sapnap, who kept apologising to you, you yelled at George, who yelled back that it’s not that big of a deal because people were bound to find out anyways, and you yelled at Clay, because he was the guilty one somehow for not being awake during your breakdown.

He did eventually wake up though, to the shitshow that were his notifications with at least thirty messages from each of you, messages from his other YouTube friends who were fairly surprised, and his entire fanbase going ham on Twitter. He was surprisingly calm about it - calmer than you were, anyways, and sheepishly said over the phone that the fake dating thing may have to go on for a little longer since you couldn’t just date for a month and then break up, and you were sort of okay with that.

And of course, the business side of him awoke at that moment, and he giddily told you about the amount of views the two of you could pull if you did the same shit you do with George and Sapnap anyway, but on livestream.

You rolled your eyes.

And then agreed anyway.

And so, the charade began.

His Twitter statement was up shortly, telling the people that you’d been dating for a couple of weeks and weren’t planning to tell anybody yet until a certain someone spilled their guts live, and the fact Dream was dating someone, let alone another popular streamer, took the internet by storm. You expected hate, and you got quite a bit of that, but the people that had shipped the two of you before were certainly more than delighted and a lot of Clay’s fans were supportive.

Now, both of you had excuses to do chill streams together and just hang out and you took the opportunity and ran with it.

You’d sit and play Geoguessr or just try and speedrun Minecraft a bunch of times for hours on end, doing stupid bits and things you’d be doing offline anyways, with a little more flirting than usual, because that’s what made it interesting.

“Oh this is France, for sure.” you claimed one night, two or three weeks after the secret was officially out, chewing on the fries you bought for this specific occasion, streaming on his alt to a few thousand people.

“You think so? It could be Belgium, too.” he responded, humming in thought as he looked around.

“I know so.” you responded.

“How?”

“I just do. Gamer intuition, babe.” you said, and he wheezed at your response, repeating the words gamer intuition under his breath.

“No, seriously. It is France, I know it is, I’ve seen so many pictures of that place I know it like the back of my hand now. That’s Lyon, or something.” you continued, plopping another french fry into your mouth.

“You have? Why do you know so much about France, that’s so random.” he responded, opening the map and pointing to France, although he keeps looking around, unsure of his decision.

“I dunno, I like it there. I wish I could move there.” you replied.

“Why, though?”

“It’s pretty and heavily romanticised! Just like me!” you joked and he laughed, before letting you continue. “I dunno, it’s the city of love. Be a little romantic.”

“The… the city of love is whatever city the two of us are in.” he said, and it took a few seconds for you to process the joke before letting out a fake disappointed sigh.

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone as corny as you.”

At that, he bursts into wheezes, and you follow along, enjoying the sound of his laughter coursing through your headphones more than you used to a few weeks back. It feels nice, feels right, acting like this. You like calling him your boyfriend more than you think you should.

A few weeks go by, and it feels all too natural. It feels too natural, talking to him first thing in the morning when you’ve barely even had your coffee, calling him pet names, throwing sweet words at each other publicly like they mean nothing. It feels all too natural, and nice, and all too right, and you don’t even notice when the two of you cross the line between public and private, and you’re stuck making stupid jokes about making out when you first see each other when there’s nobody to witness them except the walls of your rooms, but you don’t like thinking about that, because you know it’ll bring nothing but confusion. The current this that the two of you have is perfect to you, perfectly lighthearted and funny and fun, and you intend on keeping it that way, refusing to think about it in any way past jokes.

That is, until you can’t anymore.

It’s late, again, and you’re staring at his contact name on your phone screen, lazily lying on the bed. It reminds you of a night from roughly 3 months ago, when your whole friendship seemed to change in the few seconds it took you to process what he’d asked of you, and it feels weird, but nice.

“My mom really likes you, you know?” Clay breaks the quiet that you’ve learned to appreciate in his presence, and you exhale through your nose, the noise just short of a chuckle.

“Yeah?” You laugh, and he does as well.

“Yeah.” He reaffirms. “She thinks you’re a great girlfriend. Apparently I seem brighter ever since we got together.”

You laugh again. “I am a great girlfriend, to be fair. She’s totally right.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know that. If you’re as good of a girlfriend as you pretend to be, though, then you’re amazing.” He says, and words fly out of your mouth before you can stop them.

“Yeah? You wanna find out?” The flirty nature is nothing strange to the two of you, but this time it feels kinda different, it feels like you’re stepping into dangerous territory that there’s no coming back from. You feel like you’ve ruined everything, for some reason.

He laughs, like normal, though. He laughs like nothing happened at all, and you’re so, so grateful for that.

“Sure, let’s do it. You’re about to unpack the full Clay boyfriend experience.” He snickers and you laugh as well.

“That means I just unlock the dick as well as the personality.” you respond, quick as always, and the wheeze that escapes him is so loud that it makes you laugh too.

“...Unlock the dick…” he repeats through another wheeze and you nod, laughing.

“Yeah! I mean I’m literally experiencing the boyfriend experience without actually having a boyfriend, it’s fuckin’ great.” you say and he hums.

“You could have one, though.”

The implications are crazy, his words are crazy, he’s crazy and everything that he could mean and couldn’t mean by that is driving you crazy too, brain faltering and heart seeming way too big for your chest to contain it. It’s silent.

“I could, I guess.”

You choose to say, and he switches the topic naturally, like he never said anything.

Things are never the same again.

It’s not in a bad way. Sure, it is kind of a bad way for the feelings you’re trying to push down inside you, a bad way for hot nights when the unbearable heat forces you to stay up even when you don’t want to and you have no choice but to think about why you feel the way you feel as you melt into the burning sheets below you, a bad way for when he jokes about finding somebody else and you feel your stomach churning. A bad way for realising that this fake dating thing is really getting to you, but not a bad way in general.

Maybe it’s in a good way. Maybe the underlying implications whenever he makes jokes about making the relationship real are good, maybe the way he calls you in the middle of the night when he’s anxious and freaking out and defends himself by saying: “You’re my girlfriend, you’re always there for me, I just figured I could call you.” and you end up wondering if it’s possible to say jokes in such a vulnerable state or if he’s serious is good, maybe the way it’s been a few months and he won’t tell his own best friends that it was a joke the whole time is good, maybe the way you confronted him about it and he said he likes having you as his girlfriend is good.

Maybe the way the two of you are always walking the line between joking and being serious, between being friends and something more, between lies and pranks and emotional investment and fear of committing, and the way you’re always trying to push the other off, is good.

The fans love it. The fanart is incredible (serves especially well for those hot nights when you can’t fall asleep and you scroll, watching yourself fall in love with Clay in every universe, tales told by people who observe your story and find it worthy enough to retell in their own words, to take the love you pretend to have and turn it into something real), people love to gush over the compliments he sprinkles in at random times during conversation and the general flirty dynamic is loved by many, pulling in more views and attraction for you.

And you suppose that’s good too, but at some point, the good warps into bad, bad warps into terrible, and you wonder if this is all even worth the sleepless nights, wondering if he feels the same way.

Those thoughts haunt you more and more often every day. When you wake up, and text him first thing in the morning, your brain acknowledges that the camera is off - nobody’s around, people aren’t listening, so why are you still playing the role of a girlfriend and starting up a conversation with him when you haven’t even brushed your teeth properly? When you’re editing in the middle of the day and he calls to keep you company, making more stupid boyfriend jokes, your stomach flips in a weird way that makes you hate him, hate the way he can joke about these things so freely, like it doesn’t hurt him. Like it doesn’t affect him like it affects you.

But, as much as you wish you could hate him, you couldn’t bring yourself to, and that was the worst part. Because, in reality, whenever he laughed you’d smile without realising you did, whenever anything exciting happened to you he was the first one you went to, whenever you wanted to laugh or cry or sit in silence for hours or complain you always went to him, the one person who you know would listen. In reality, whenever he made a joke about giving up on the fake dating and making it real, you wished so bad that he was serious this time, that this was what it took and he’d crack and all of your suffering would end.

It eventually happens.

It’s a pretty chilly morning, birds chirp outside and the sun that slowly rises is covering the kitchen floor in a golden hue as you pour milk into your cereal with one hand and hold your phone in the other, letting Clay ramble about whatever it was this time, when he brought it up.

“So, when do you wanna come down to Florida again?” he asks casually, and you almost drop the gallon of milk in your hand.

“What?”

“I said, when are you coming down to Florida again? Last time you came was pretty fun.” he says, and an empty silence follows. There’s an unsaid “I miss you” that you don’t hear, and he’s too afraid of saying it.

“Florida wasn’t exactly on my schedule this month, man.” you say, placing your phone on the counter for a second. Clay sure knew how to surprise a person.

“Well put it down, then.” he jokes, and you hum.

“What, you got another wedding coming up?” you giggle and he groans - you never really stopped making fun of him for that wedding.

“No, I don’t. Can’t a man just miss seeing his beloved girlfriend?” It’s unbelievable how quickly dread can wash over you as soon as he makes one of those jokes. You were convinced the mix of anxiety and butterflies that appears in your stomach was gonna kill you sometime soon.

“He can, he’s just being weirdly insistent.” you argue nonetheless. “But sure, I’ll consider it.”

You do more than consider it - in a few weeks, you’re back at the airport, and falling into his arms has never given you such an adrenaline rush in your whole life. Something about having him wrapped around you, close to you, the warmth of his body radiating into yours sent you spiraling, head clouded with nothing but love and the fact that you wish you could stay there forever. You wished you could press pause and cherish the moment, let yourself bask in that feeling of pure love, pure adoration that you helplessly drowned in. But you couldn’t, and you left his arms feeling oddly empty.

Hiding the fact that you were unapologetically head over heels for him proved to be a hundred times more difficult when you were right there, next to him, talking to him, when you could just kiss him any second, feel his lips on yours and nobody would stop you - the opportunity was right there, looming over you, the devil on your shoulder taunting you, telling you to do it.

You got to wake up in the same house as him, watch his hair stick out in different directions and his raspy morning voice as he complained about the smell of your coffee, watch his eyes glint whenever he talked about something he liked and observe as he carried around Patches like a little baby. You got to experience every bit of domestic without the consequences of committing, and you wondered just how far this would go. For how much longer would the two of you blatantly ignore the fact that you were a couple that slapped the title “fake” on it because you were cowards who refused to admit what this truly was.

Not for long, apparently, because you grew tired, and decided to put an end to everything on one random Thursday night - and if he hated you forever for it, then so be it.

You were sitting on his couch, watching a random movie together, drowning in one of his Dream hoodies while you chewed the popcorn he made. It was dark outside, just past midnight, and you could see the branches of a tree swaying calmly through one of the nearby windows - the silence while he scrolled through his phone lazily was comforting too, everything was lazy and serene and it would’ve been perfect if it wasn’t for the constant anxiety that gripped you by the throat whenever you were in his close proximity, the nervousness that killed you, the upset feeling of wanting to cuddle up with him but knowing you can’t because you guys are just friends, and nothing more.

The couple on the screen kiss while a violin plays in the background - how fitting. Maybe that’s what pushes you to the edge, or maybe you were just that sick and tired.

You were exhausted, beyond exhausted. Your eyes were tired, the anxiety was morphing into annoyance and anger and you were ready to give up on it all. If this ended the friendship, at least you two had a good run. Your heart couldn’t take it anymore.

“You know, you still owe me a favor in return for pretending to be your girlfriend.” you say, and you sound gone, zoned out, more than you wish you were. You hear his phone turn off with a click.

“Yeah? What do you want?” Clay asks, and you blankly stare at the TV for a few seconds before turning to face him, eyes burning.

“Kiss me.”

It’s silent. The characters on screen are arguing. You hear the wind through one of his open windows.

“What?” he asks, voice cracking, and his expression falls. You’ve fucked it. Oh well.

“I want you to kiss me. Kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me like someone’s watching and you wanna make it believable.” you say, eyes boring into his, your words having nowhere near as much of an effect on yourself as they do on him. Your eyes sting like they’re being lit on fire, and your throat is sort of closing up, but it’s fine. “Let me have this before I go, because once I leave, I don’t wanna do this anymore, Clay. I can’t pretend like I don’t want you to introduce me as your girlfriend and fully mean it. I can’t lie to your face anymore.”

Silence. Deafening silence, once again.

“I love you.” he blurts out, and you don’t even register it at first. “I don’t want this shit to be fake either. God, I really don’t. It hasn’t been fake for a while now, at least not on my part. I’m sorry, it’s just- it was easier to keep this bit going than it was to actually admit that I’m… into you.”

And once again, the room falls into silence, much like it always does whenever the two of you share moments like these.

And then, you burst into laughter.

“So… so you mean to tell me, that both of us have liked each other this whooooole fucking time, and just refused to admit it and ‘pretended to date’ instead?” you burst into giggles, and he looks sort of hesitant to laugh, but he does anyway.

“I mean… yeah? I was waiting for you to call me out for doing all that when nobody was watching! Why did you never call me out?! Don’t blame me, I made it so damn obvious that I wanted you!” he protests, and you almost can’t believe what you’re hearing.

“Excuse me? You should’ve just fucking told me instead of making a million and one jokes about how I’m your girlfriend! We’re not in middle school, Clay!” you argue.

“Yeah, but I thought you’d catch on and talk to me about it at some point! You never called me out for anything!”

“So what, I’m supposed to just read your mind now? You’re fucking unbelievable.” you huff, crossing your arms over your chest and turning away in annoyance. As soon as a warm hand lands on your shoulder, though, the annoyance melts like wax under fire, leaving nothing behind.

“I still haven’t returned that favor, you know?” he whispers in your ear, breath fanning your neck, closer than he should be. The hairs on your neck stand up as you turn back to Clay, who wore a mischievous grin and a glint in his eyes that suggested no good.

You suppose bad can be good, sometimes.

As his lips press onto yours, that theory is proven true, because he sends a flicker of fire burning down your spine, spreading into your limbs, making your fingertips electric as you pulled him in closer, hand snaking up to grip at his hair - the everlasting grin against your own proves, once again, to be no good as his hands slip under your hoodie and grip your sides, but you think you enjoy this sort of bad.

They sneak up further, and you hear him chuckle into the kiss as your insides melt at his touch. The two of you silently agree that maybe he should ask for favors more often.

#dreamwastaken x reader #dreamwastaken imagine #dreamwastaken fluff #dreamwastaken fanfic #dreamwastaken angst #dream x reader #dream x you #dreamwastaken x y/n

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onecanonlife · 4 years ago

Text

Tommy is dead. The server reacts.

(word count: 1,732)

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

“What have you done?”

His voice is a reedy whisper, thin with horror and the realization that he is too little, too late. He doesn’t expect the sound to carry over the lava, but a response comes soon enough.

“He wouldn’t stop talking. And he killed the cat.”

Dream’s voice is even, calm, almost a bit defensive, as if he truly believes that he is justified in his actions. Sam swallows down his mounting nausea, places his trident against the floor to steady himself. The lava crackles, hisses, bubbles, orange and glowing, and he can’t cross it. Not now. Not when the security threat remains unresolved. Not when any wrong move on his part could very well mean Dream’s escape.

But he’s already made the wrong move, hasn’t he? Made the wrong move, and Tommy has paid for it. Has been paying for it, this whole last week. He kept him in there, kept him locked in a box with Dream even though he knows very well how it would effect him, kept him locked in with the reasoning that it was temporary, that he would let him out as soon as he could, that he couldn’t risk Dream’s release for anyone, even for Tommy.

But it’s not temporary.

Tommy was sixteen and loud-mouthed and bright-eyed when Sam last saw him, when he said that this would be the last time, that he was going to put his past behind him and look to a new start. Tommy will always be sixteen and loud-mouthed and bright-eyed, and locked in a box. There will be no new start. No seventeenth birthday. No triumphant return, no shining hotel. No tricks, no scams, no pranks.

Tommy was sixteen and loud-mouthed and bright-eyed. Tommy is dead.

He can’t even get his body.

Sam stands on the edge of a curtain of lava, staring into the orange glow that hides a monster in a room that is now a child’s pre-made coffin, and he wonders if he is a monster himself.

***

“He’s fine.”

It’s the only thing to say. The only truth. The only possibility. Sure, the message is there, glaring up from his communicator in bright yellow letters, but it’s not real. It’s a joke of some kind, a trick. Something to fake everyone out. Maybe Sam’s in on it, too. Tommy must be going crazy in there, to think that this would actually be funny, but it sounds like something he would do.

“Tubbo,” Ranboo says, and then stops. Nothing else. His face is pale, though things like that are hard to tell, with him, considering that half his face is always pale. But he’s gone an ashy-grey sort of color, and it doesn’t look great.

“He’s not dead,” he says, and laughs a bit. “Tommy wouldn’t just die like that. That’d be ridiculous.”

Tommy’s death would never be so meek. Tommy’s death, when it happens, will be a spectacle, a dramatic showing with speeches and explosions and the sun rising at just the right time and haloing his hair, because TommyInnit deserves nothing less than the best death scene. Women wailing and the like. So Tommy is not dead, because if Tommy were dead, that would mean that he died alone, in the company of no one but his murderer, that he died scared, trapped in a small space with no way out, that he died without Tubbo by his side.

“Right,” Ranboo says, and his voice is doing a peculiar thing that Tubbo can’t quite work out. “Yeah, of course. Do you wanna—do you think we should go check it out? Go stop by the prison?”

“What for?” he asks. “Sam’s not going to let us in. He didn’t even when I built a dick on top of it.”

And here is another thing: Tommy can’t be dead because it was never supposed to be Tommy first. Tubbo has tried to live without him, and he found it very hard. So Tommy is not allowed to die before Tubbo does. That is the rule that he keeps locked up in his heart, because Tommy would be upset if he knew about it. But it’s a rule that Tubbo intends to follow, so Tommy can’t be dead.

That would be against the rules.

“Just to see?” Ranboo tries. Tubbo’s not sure why he’s being so insistent about this.

“Nah, we’ve got a hotel to build,” he says. “C’mon.”

Ranboo follows along behind him. His feet drag, like he’s reluctant. But Tubbo has long since given up on understanding why Ranboo does the things that he does.

***

He’s dead.

She should be glad about it. This is what she wanted. Tommy dead, punished for all the pain and suffering he’s caused everyone else. No longer able to start wars, to cause harm, to blaze his way through the server and leave a path of destruction in his wake.

Tommy is dead. She should be glad about it. She is glad about it. She’s even smiling.

There is a message from Jack. She doesn’t check it.

Tommy is dead, that blue-eyed, wide-grinned boy who followed along on his brother’s coattails. Tommy is dead, that fiery spirit crushed and his overbearing, fast-talking voice silent. Tommy is dead, that loyal friend, the protector and defender of all that he called his, the fighter, the scammer, the boy who loved with all of his heart and then some.

Tommy is dead. Dead, dead, dead. There is no coming back from dead. Dead is final. Dead is an ending. Dead means it’s all over. Tommy is over. Tommy is gone. Tommy will never grow old.

It’s what she wanted. She should be glad about it. She is glad about it. She’s even smiling.

Niki brings her hand to her mouth to check. It’s a smile. A smile, for sure.

Her fingers come away from her face wet.

***

It was an empty castle already, but it feels emptier now. The different between a possibility and its lack, they suppose.

Tommy was never supposed to die. They can’t fathom it, somehow. Can’t fathom that it’s real, that Tommy will never grace these halls again. They’d finally begun to fix things, begun to work toward redemption, well and truly. And now Tommy is gone.

Eret grips their communicator tightly in their hand.

“I’m sorry,” they murmur to no one at all.

It was never meant to be echoes in their head, over and over and over again, an apology that means nothing but so much scattered dust.

***

He closes his eyes. Breathes. In and out.

This happens. People die. They die, and they leave, and he’s left behind. That’s his life. That’s how it is.

It still hurts, when it happens. He’s still learning how to make it not hurt. Still learning how not to be angry, that people find it so easy to abandon him. That people find it so easy to go where he can’t follow. Wilbur first, now Tommy, and he doesn’t have anyone left, really.

But it’s fine. It’s alright. He can manage on his own. He always has.

Fundy decides to go to bed early.

***

He takes a moment to breathe. To process. To absorb.

To regret, for what might have been.

The voices in his head call for blood, as they always do, but he will not give them the satisfaction. Not this time. The blood he wants most is not readily accessible, and he will not put himself in the position of confronting the favor owed. Not now. Not like this. Not ever, if he can help it, though he knows that these sorts of things always take their due, always steal their pound of flesh.

“I know, chat,” he says. “You can all shut up, I know.”

It doesn’t appease them. He wasn’t expecting it to.

Tommy is dead. Tommy is dead, and their relationship with it. Any tentative attempts toward repairs have been left to rot, to burn on the funeral pyre. Theseus, fallen from the cliff at long last.

The story was always going to end this way. No one can stop the Fates from severing the string.

He stands with a groan. He is not built for this weather, for this cold, and it is a wonder that he keeps being drawn to it, time and time again. It is a balm, he thinks, but for what, he doesn’t know. For nothing, at the moment, as the voices threaten to crowd out all the rest. But he can’t deal with them right now.

Phil has his own house, now, and a bridge to connect the two. A bridge over still water, such that Tommy will never cross. He should not feel the way he does. Tommy betrayed him. Tommy used him. Tommy discarded him, so he tossed him aside in turn.

But once they were called brothers. Does it mean anything, in the end?

Phil is standing in the middle of the floor, ruined wings on full display. His face is blank, his communicator held loosely in one hand.

“Phil,” he says.

“I failed him,” Phil says. “I should’ve been there for him, and I wasn’t.”

Technoblade has no comfort for the truth.

But he has comfort for his friend, for his friend who is perhaps his father but is definitely family, so he stretches out his arms and catches Phil as he falls, falls and falls and screams, and it is good, he thinks, that the wings are already ruined, because Daedalus tried to catch his son and failed. It is good, he thinks, that the wings are already ruined, so he cannot try again and ruin the rest of himself, too.

***

He nudges the body with his foot.

“You shouldn’t have killed that cat,” he murmurs. The body does not reply, and he sighs.

Tommy’s face is beyond recognition. The blood coats his knuckles. He hopes that there’s enough water in the sink to wash it out before it sets. He hates it when the blood sets.

He didn’t mean to go as far as he did. That doesn’t mean much, in the end. This will work just as well.

He is a god, after all. He is a god, and he will have what he deserves, and more besides.

“Don’t worry, Tommy,” he says. “I’ll make a believer out of you yet.”

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #tommyinnit #awesamdude #dreamwastaken #tubbo #technoblade #philza #niki nihachu #eret #ranboo #fundy #dsmp spoilers #/rp #once again i speedran writing this so it's not edited #forgive any typos or weird wording i just have too many feelings #cat writes fic

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