#these casting decisions are great why lie

[sufferingbooknerd]

Actual twenty year olds playing twenty year olds, the world is healing! 😭

[novaursa]

req for an aegon ii x reader who has a similar role of margaery tyrell? (love-bombing him so they can be betrothed and stuff)

she very easily manipulates aegon and basically uses his mommy issues to get whtv she wants (obviously bothers alicent to no end).

Web of Gold

Requests are closed!

- Summary: Alicent could only watch as you handle her son like a lioness who plays with her food.

- Pairing: lannister!reader/Aegon II Targaryen

- Rating: Mild 13+

- Next part: aegon in love

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround

It’s a beautiful morning, yet the tension between you and Alicent Hightower crackles like a summer storm. You can feel her eyes boring into you from across the room, but you’ve become quite accustomed to her watchful glares. If anything, you thrive on them.

You smile sweetly, dipping your head toward Aegon as he lounges on the Iron Throne, looking far more relaxed than any king should. He’s watching you with that same eager gleam in his eyes, waiting for whatever praise you’ll offer him next. It’s become a game for you at this point—how much can you say before he completely melts? And it’s easier than it should be.

"My king," you say softly, stepping closer, your golden Lannister curls bouncing as you move. "You look especially regal today. Like Aegon the Conqueror himself reborn. Do you know what I see when I look at you?"

Aegon straightens slightly, his eyes widening with interest. "What?" His tone is eager, as though whatever you say might be the single most important revelation of his life.

"I see a man destined for greatness. Aegon, you are so strong, so powerful, and—" you let your voice drop into a breathy whisper, "so very wise." You emphasize each word, drawing out your compliments in a way that sends a flush of pride creeping up his neck.

Aegon shifts in his seat, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. "Do you really think so, Y/N?" he asks, his voice almost boyish, seeking that reassurance from you.

"Of course I do, darling. And I would never lie to you." You reach out, letting your fingers brush against his hand in a gentle, lingering touch, just enough to make his breath hitch. "Unlike others who may have their own agendas…" You throw a quick glance toward where Alicent stands, her expression tight, lips pressed thin. The corner of your mouth twitches into a hidden smirk.

Aegon doesn’t notice. He’s too busy basking in the attention you're lavishing on him. "Mother just worries," he mumbles, though even he seems half-hearted about it.

"Worries?" You tilt your head, feigning innocence. "I think she underestimates you, my love. You’ve already proven yourself to be a far better ruler than anyone could have imagined. I can’t imagine why she continues to hover over you like you’re still a boy."

You know exactly why. Alicent cannot stand the idea of you influencing her son. It grates on her to see Aegon so smitten, so easily swayed by your honeyed words. But that’s precisely what you’re counting on.

Aegon chuckles, clearly amused. "She just doesn’t understand, does she?"

"She doesn’t," you agree, leaning in closer so your voice is only for him. "But I do." You place your hand on his chest, right over his heart. "I see you for the man you are, Aegon. A man who doesn’t need his mother whispering in his ear, telling him what to do. You’re king now. You should be able to make your own decisions. Isn’t that what you want?"

Aegon’s eyes flicker with something—desire, admiration, a need for validation. "Yes," he says, his voice firm, though you know it’s more out of wanting to please you than actual conviction. "That is what I want."

You smile, letting your fingers trail lightly down his chest before stepping back, your eyes sparkling with the satisfaction of a job well done. "Then take what’s yours, my king. Trust yourself. Trust me." You cast another glance toward Alicent, who looks like she’s about to bite through her tongue.

She’s always there, lurking like a shadow, trying to pull Aegon back into her grasp. But he slips through her fingers every time you’re around. Alicent has power, but you? You have Aegon. And he doesn’t even realize it.

You turn to face the queen mother, giving her a radiant smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. "Your Grace, you must be so proud of Aegon," you say, your voice saccharine sweet, as though you’re not fully aware of the tension between you. "He’s grown into such a strong man under your care."

Alicent stiffens, her lips twitching in a forced smile. "He has always been capable," she says, her tone clipped. "Though I think he still benefits from wise counsel."

You tilt your head, pretending to consider her words, though you already know exactly how to respond. "Of course," you agree, "but I think he’s ready to make his own choices now. Don’t you?" You let the question hang in the air, a gentle reminder that Aegon is your king now, not hers.

Alicent opens her mouth to reply, but Aegon cuts in before she can get a word out. "Mother, Y/N’s right. I don’t need to be told what to do all the time." He laughs, clearly proud of himself for standing up to her, oblivious to the fact that he’s only echoing your words.

You beam at him, eyes sparkling. "Exactly, my love. You are your own man. And no one, not even your mother, can take that from you."

Alicent’s gaze narrows, and for a moment, you think she might say something sharp, but she bites her tongue. You know it’s eating her alive inside, watching Aegon slip further under your influence, but she can’t do anything about it. Not without making herself look overbearing in front of her son.

"Come, Aegon," you say lightly, turning back to him. "Let’s take a walk in the gardens. You could use some fresh air after sitting on that throne for so long."

Aegon rises eagerly, flashing you that boyish grin that only makes him seem more malleable. "Yes, let’s."

As you link your arm through his and lead him out of the hall, you don’t bother to look back at Alicent. You can already feel the weight of her stare burning into your back. You have Aegon wrapped around your finger, and she knows it.

But as long as you continue to feed his need for affection, for someone to praise him and treat him like the king he so desperately wants to believe he is, he will never stray far from your side. And Alicent can do nothing but watch.

[anime-grimmy]

Soooo, you've probably noticed Ive been replaying HZD recently so my mind's been stuck on the franchise for a while.

I finally took the time to actually try and experience Burning Shores for the first time, this time with an unbiased opinion.

Bcs, ngl, when it came out, I was very negative towards it for a couple of reasons. It already started out with me not being able to freaking play this DLC, even though I was so excited for it, cos while HFW was on PS4, the DLC wasnt. And Im wasnt going to buy a whole ass PS5 just for a DLC.

(I will get it once I buy a PS5 for MH Wilds though).

And then, ofc, the elephant in the room - Seyka, or rather Aloy's relationship with her.

I'll preface this with, though it should be obvious with my content, I do NOT have a problem with Aloy being in a gay relationship.

What rly irked me, and honestly still irks me, is that Aloy finally gets to experience new feelings IN A FUCKING DLC. AN EXTENSION A LOT OF THE PLAYERBASE WONT PLAY.

The second reason I didnt enjoy this decision was bcs it felt so rushed. I mean, we're talking about Aloy here! Miss "I dont have time for feelings bcs I gotta save the world"! Miss "I barely just learnt to let others in"!

From what Ive heard, the DLC is over the course of a few weeks/months, so it's not like they fell in love just like that, but Ive also heard that while playing you do not get a feel for that passage of time. I'll have to experience that for myself though.

Now that Ive had some distance from the franchise though, my feelings have changed a bit

Im not going to lie and say I now loooove this decision. No, I am still miffed such enourmous character developement for Aloy is stuck IN A DLC. Not to mention that it was such a bold move to try this with a new character, cos this relationship being perceived well hinges on the player liking Seykay and that fast. Imo she's a fine character but also nothing special.

Now, I do have to say, I am really happy that Aloy has finally come so far that she allows such intimate feelings to develop, or rather, that the devs let her be this way. I know a lot of us still perceive Aloy as this single minded protag, that wont let anyone in bcs "the mission is too important", so Im glad Guerilla shows us that Aloy has undergone quite the growth.

Im also pleasantly surprised that Guerilla has the guts to include romance for Aloy, bcs they were one leg in the "strong women need no (wo)men" pit, so it's great to see they dont let Aloy fall into that trope.

Now, for the FUN part.

I actually have a conspiracy theory, ie I am gaslighting myself on why such a big thing is stuck in a DLC.

I think Guerilla is testing the waters to see how players react. I am pretty sure they can gather the data on what dialogue options players used, so Im thinking this:

Guerilla is trying to gauge the player reaction on a) Aloy developing feelings, b) players thinking Aloy is ready/willing for a relationship, c) same sex relationships. They tried killing quite a few birds with one stone.

I have seen quite a few teasing, winky face posts and replies from Guerilla staff about romance options in the third installment, so my guess (delusion) is that the relationship is hidden in the DLC so Guerilla can plan on how much and obvious to include several romance options in the last title.

I know this is all just wishful thinking, but even if Seyka is a good character, I hope to fucking god that they dont just take that relationship decision away from us, esp with a character bound to a DLC.

Guerilla gave us such a wonderful cast of characters over the last two games, and if they want to give Aloy an "end game" in the third title, I hope they do let us choose with who. Or at least I hope they dont force a relationship we cant choose onto us.

Cos as much as Aloy is her own person, it is still US that make the decisions in game. Through our individual playstyles , we give Aloy our own interpretation. Now, we cant change her core values, but still, I hope to GAIA that Guerilla will give us enough wiggle room.

(Guerilla, Im begging you, Ive already waited 8 years, please dont let my ship sink)

[aspiringtrashpanda]

My Nightbringer Season 3 Thoughts

Alright. Here we go. I have so many thoughts and I needed to write them all out. Please do not proceed past the cut unless you have completed Nightbringer lesson 60, for LOTS of spoilers lie ahead.

FIRST OFF, I want to acknowledge that this is being written prior to reading lesson 60 HARD because I have to finish lesson 59 HARD first and I need to yap.

SECONDLY, I want to say that I am not hating on the writers here AT ALL. Nightbringer has always been a slow burn. It was set up that way. The writers were absolutely forced into a corner here and had to wrap a long story up speedy quick and they did what they could in a short period of time. As someone who loves long fics and slow burns, I like to think I understand where they were trying to go with the story, and I do genuinely feel like the overall point of the Nightbringer season 3 art makes perfect sense, but the execution leaves more to be desired for a multitude of reasons. 

So, let’s get into it.

WHAT WORKED

THE RAD SCIENCE FAIR

This may be a controversial opinion, but I believe the Science Fair was a great inclusion as it mirrors the progression of the human world over the years. Hear me out: considering we are spanning thousands of years here, it’s worth looking at the mentality of the human race over history. For a long time faith in your chosen religion was considered the answer to most troubles, and only in more recent history have we seen a shift towards a reliance on science and modern technology. 

It is important to note that I am an atheist, though I strongly believe in freedom of religion. I’m drawing from basic observation here, and am not well-versed in the details of religion and science, but I do think it’s fair to say that we as a species have gone from believing illnesses to be due to demonic possession to looking for a more scientific reason why we’re coughing up blood. THUS, I think the Devildom Science Fair is a cool way to show this progression, but it leaves one problem: We don’t know the Celestial Realm’s views on all of this. See the next section on WHAT DIDN’T WORK for more on this. 

The Science Fair did present numerous opportunities for light shenanigans with the cast that hint to other things going on, which has been Nightbringer’s modus operandi since the beginning. There is absolutely an issue with pacing here, however, but I will cover that later and again, not the writers’ fault. Regardless, the Science Fair started off strong. We had a great brotherly moment with Asmodeus and Leviathan, Mammon managed to win by still doing things his own way, and Satan shone in Beelzebub’s arc (RIP Beel, I’m so sorry.) Not to mention the slow reveal that something is going on with MC’s powers due to the time jumps and that there is unrest in the Devildom by those who don’t agree with Diavolo’s values and projects as the stand-in leader of the Devildom. We got a lot of information in between the lines, which is what Nightbringer does best.

On top of that, if the goal of the Science Fair was to a) introduce the biology component with the genes to aid in returning Simeon to exclusively a human, and b) culminate with the whole power imbalance that has the moon wanting to… fuck the MC or whatever, idk, changing the order in which the subjects are presented would have been beneficial. See the next section on WHAT DIDN’T WORK for more on this. 

SIMEON'S ARC

It was clear from the moment it was revealed that the MC was returning to the original timeline that Simeon would be in the spotlight in Nightbringer season 3. Simeon’s corruption arc (or redemption arc) was executed well for the most part. Simeon’s motives and desires were in line with his character, and there was growth in his decision to try and work towards becoming an angel again, because he would still be part of the group regardless of his species. 

Simeon saying “To me, it’s not so much ‘what I am’ as ‘who I’m with’ that matters” is a great way to summarize his little character arc. We’ve seen him thrive in caretaker roles (with Luke, of course), but it’s important that we acknowledge how badly he’s always wanted to be a part of the family the brothers have made for themselves. By refusing to become a demon, he’s fulfilling a caretaker role by providing company for Luke and Raphael, but he’s doing it on his own terms, understanding that he is loved no matter what. 

It was cute watching the cast worry so much about Simeon, and really give their all to try and help him. The explanation in Lesson 58 that the Ring of Light purified the demonic energy from Simeon was very important, because at first I was just like… Simeon, you can’t just say you aren’t going to be a demon anymore and be cured. It doesn’t work like that, honey. BUT THEN AGAIN, we don’t know that because we have no idea how ideology in the Celestial Realm has changed over the years. This ties in perfectly with one of the main goals of the Science Fair, and how it would have worked well if executed better.

RAPHAEL'S ARC

Oh, sweet Raphael, you were absolutely supposed to be integrated into the intimacy system at this point in the initial planning. I’m sure of it. I don’t have too much to say on this, other than that it was some nice exposure on how lonely the Celestial Realm is. Which makes you wonder: is the Celestial Realm pretty empty or is Raphael simply mourning the loss of his closer friends? Again, there have been thousands of years since the brothers fell to now, and yet Raphael hasn’t made too many important new relationships in the Celestial Realm? Is there a lack of angels? Is this because of science being considered treasonous to Father and it’s increase of relevance in the modern world? 

Questions aside, it was really nice to get a spotlight on Raphael and how much the rest of the cast mean to him/how much the rest of the cast care about him (lookin’ at you, Mephisto). 

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

PACING, FORESHADOWING AND CHARACTER SPOTLIGHTS

Big sigh. Let’s talk about the devil elephants in the room right now, shall we? The last 5 or so lessons in this season were SO RUSHED, it was laughable. Multiple characters got completely bulldozed by the looming end of the season, and it was so frustrating as a Leviathan fan to get hardly any quality time with him (sorry to Belphie fans too, my goodness). Again, this is not the fault of the writers at all, but I would like to present that the season should have ended with the fallout from Raphael’s breakdown in Babel. 

In my personal opinion, the main goal of season 3 should have been to return Simeon to human status, and the main goal of season 4 should have been to address the power imbalance due to the time jumping. As I mentioned earlier, Obey Me! has always excelled at providing information and foreshadowing between the lines. If the Devildom Biology and Devildom Studies competitions had been held earlier in the season (ideally after the Devildom Information Science finals), with outcomes indirectly related to Simeon’s genes and the magic of the moon, it would have noted something like genetics and historical magical surges in a manner that would foreshadow what is to come, hinted through shenanigans like with the trip to Meowcao. Then, season 3 would end with Raphael’s meltdown, Simeon deciding he doesn’t want to be a demon, and the Science Fair being put on hold momentarily for everyone to catch their bearings. Starting in season four, we could add so much more about MC’s protective magic surges, with Belphie and Satan inching closer to the truth about the time travel, and the magic balance being thrown off in the Devildom. Then, the entirety of what happened in lesson 60 would make much more sense and wouldn’t feel like it was just thrown at us out of nowhere. Not that the writers had any control over that, though. If only we were able to get one more season 😭

CELESTIAL REALM POINT OF VIEW

Someone in one of the servers I’m in mentioned that it’s annoying that we’re being given scientific solutions for moral consequences that were emphasized in the original game, and that’s why I think it’s possible the writers were trying to show the progression of science over many, many years. However, having no insight into how this progression is affecting the Celestial Realm creates confusion instead of intrigue. We are not given any clue to believe that “He” or “Father�� has changed his stance on what is considered treason to the Celestial Realm. So to go from more ethical and moral reasons to cast beings out of the Celestial Realm, to sciencing away demon genes seems bizarre. Why would Simeon be welcomed back into the Celestial Realm because they forced the genes from his body? If he’s still being punished for a lack of loyalty to “Him”, then he hasn’t atoned for that at all. 

And then, if it was alluded to that the Celestial Realm was willing to incorporate science into their forgiveness system, that still opens so many more questions regarding the reason the brothers fell in the first place. Would they be cast out of the Celestial Realm now? Of course, they would absolutely choose to remain in the Devildom if given the choice, but if both Simeon and Lucifer and co. were punished for acts of love (familial or romantic or platonic, just love in general) and Simeon is welcomed back while still standing by his choices, some sort of acknowledgement of how things have changed for the better would help tidy things up. We all live and learn, so if that’s the argument that the Celestial Realm wants to make, it needs to be a bit more clear. 

Of course, Simeon does not officially return to angel status by the end of lesson 60, but he is invited to return to talk to Michael, so that’s kind of a big deal. Who knows what will happen next (if we continue on this story in another way, or something).

LOOSE ENDS

It’s time to talk about Nightbringer. I have… so many thoughts on who Nightbringer is, but there is no point in going into that because we will never, ever know, apparently. Leaving things vague is cool and all, but there’s a difference between “vague enough to theorize” and just “so vague it’s irrelevant”, and unfortunately the end of Nightbringer drifts into the territory of the latter. It no longer matters why MC was sent to the past to create a power imbalance (because isn’t that something–was MC sent to the past to make the pacts again and therefore cause a power imbalance that would draw the moon in and help a nameless demon usurp the throne/another realm gain an advantage over the Devildom?), because nothing ever comes of it, which is super unsatisfying. 

There are other loose ends of course, too, but I’m too tired from writing all this to think about that right now, so feel free to talk about it in the comments. 

FORCED LUCIFER KISS

Listen, I groaned so loud at this. I like Lucifer as a character but I cannot stand him as a romantic interest, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. Yes, the game absolutely supports polyamory and that’s cool and all, but I don’t wanna kiss Lucifer, okay. He is not part of my polycule and he never will be smh. 

(sir why did you have to smooch me right in front of Levi?! His little hummingbird heart can’t take it and we all know I only wanna be with him.)

ANYWAY, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. I needed to get this all off my chest. I love Obey Me! so much and I believe this IP has so much potential. I truly hope we can be optimistic about the future, but I know that’s hard to do right now. I’m here if anyone needs to talk about Nightbringer ending, and I still intend to create content for these silly characters 💕

[whimsiwitchy]

I hear the secrets that you keep (series)

chapter two: life isn’t real

Pedro Pascal x F!reader 

series masterlist

series summary: 24 year old y/n is an insecure and struggling actress in Los Angeles until she finally books a leading role in a big Hollywood movie next to her leading male, Pedro Pascal. A spark of friendship flickers between the two and slowly begins to blossom into something more. As y/n is navigating a new found fame and a new found romance, she fears that a lie she has been sitting on might ruin everything.

Warnings: plus size reader (no specific description of reader, slight descriptions of weight: stomach fat, stretch marks, etc.), hefty age gap (24 years/14 years), female anatomy description, she/her pronouns, use of gendered terms (girl, girly, etc.), y/n used, descriptions of nudity, swearing,  use of the word fat, warnings may change as the story progresses. 

authors note: Hi everyone. Thank you so much to those who read and liked chapter one. I was so excited logging in and seeing the engagement. This chapter might be a little boring as we are leading up to actually filming the movie, the pace should be picking up soon! I hope you enjoy chapter two! <3

chapter summary: y/n processes everything and prepares to start production. 

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

“Oh shit..”

You felt like you couldn’t breathe. It felt as if your spirit had jumped out of your body and watched as you received the news of your life changing forever. You were frozen. You could hear Angie speaking on the other line but all you could do is stand there and cry tears of joy and bewilderment. When you finally came to your senses, you caught the end of Angie telling you she was coming over. The two of you partied and celebrated all night long. You were on a high of life. 

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

It had been a few weeks since the audition and the excitement slowly died down. Fear started to replace that feeling of excitement with all of your insecurities plummeting to the front end of your brain like an avalanche. You knew fear wouldn’t be a stranger on this journey and it first accompanied you when Angie asked if you had shared the good news with your family yet. When you told her you hadn’t said anything to them, she asked why. You simply told her that you wanted to enjoy the moment for yourself before celebrating with everyone else. She accepted that answer and the two of you went about your day, but deep down you knew that wasn’t the truth. 

The truth was that you were scared. Terrified that all of this would go away in the blink of an eye. That the casting director had made a mistake. Maybe there was another y/n that auditioned and got the part. Maybe they realized that you weren’t good enough or even decided to rethink their options. They did make a decision pretty quickly. Usually it took weeks to hear back from casting, not four measly hours. You weren’t someone who often doubted their talent. You did however often doubt how someone may perceive you. You knew you were a capable actress, but you saw the other women auditioning. They were gorgeous. Perfect smiles, perfect style, and most importantly, they were skinny. 

You had always been an insecure person when it came to your body. You became hyper aware of your weight at a heartbreakingly young age. For as long as you could remember, you had been sucking your stomach in and comparing yourself to other girls constantly. You had always believed that you were a pretty person and you had some confidence, but it all seemed to wither away once you grasped the concept that other people might not see all the great qualities and beauty you held behind the weight. You knew that being a plus size actress was possible, but being a plus size leading love interest alongside one of hollywood's hottest bachelors was different than just playing the fat funny friend. You were scared of what people would say about you and filming hadn’t even started yet

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

Before you knew it, a whole month had passed and life went back to normal. You were sitting on your couch watching Twilight for the thousandth time and eating hot cheetos when you heard a knock. You stood up, licked the cheeto dust off of your fingers and made your way to the door. You stood on your toes looking through the peephole to see that it was Angie. The two of you gave each other a quick greeting and made your way to the couch. Once you guys sat down, she pulled out a large manilla envelope from her bag and held it out towards you. 

“Is that what I think it is?” you asked with a hint of excitement in your voice and a smile. She doesn’t say anything, she simply gives a warm smile and passes you the envelope. You take it and can immediately feel the slight heaviness it holds. You stare down at the envelope that has your name written in black marker. “What are you waiting for? Open it!” She practically screams. You slowly open the envelope pulling back each of the metal prongs and peeling back the top flap. You reach your hand in and pull out a thick packet. Setting the envelope to the side, your eyes begin to well up with tears. Inside the envelope held the script. On the front it read “Risky Disco” in big bold letters. You can’t help but laugh as a tear falls down your face. “I’m so proud of you y/n. You finally did it, this is your big moment! I can’t believe I’m the best friend of a movie star!!” Angie jokes as she gives you a tight hug. You cry into her shoulder as she holds you. 

Once you composed yourself, the two of you caught up while eating some take out. After eating, Angie begged you to read through the script. The writing was just as cringy as the title. The movie was literally just a guy time traveling, roller skating, and getting it on with a bunch of women. What a shocker. It wasn’t until half way through when your character showed up.

Janet Cromwell. 

“Janet is a sexy name, you’re gonna look so hot in this movie.” Angie says with a giggle.

“If I get to wear gogo boots, I’ll be oozing sexy, just you wait.” Both of you laugh and continue to read. Angie was dramatically reciting the lines of Daniel Mendez, my character’s “boy toy” as described in the brief character description. She stops abruptly and her eyes go wide. You give her a questioning look. “Oh my fucking god! I was right! You get to be sexed up by Pedro Pascal!” She says as she folds over into fits of laughter. You yank the script out of her hand and look for what she was talking about. Your cheeks heat up with embarrassment as you read over the description of a very passionate sex scene that you had to perform with the very man you’ve been trying to get your mind off of since you left the audition room. 

When Angie brought up that he was the main character in the movie, you honestly didn’t know much about him. You had heard his name in passing and had most likely seen him in a show or film at some point in your life, but it wasn’t a name that you could put to a face, even if it were a life or death situation. When you got home after the audition, you whipped out your phone and did a little research. You looked at picture after picture, he was such a beautiful man and just as Angie said, he was indeed pushing 50. That didn’t stop the fact that you thought he was sexy as hell. You couldn’t get the way he smirked at you out of your head. 

“You know, you were right. He is pretty hot.” You smirked and leaned back into the couch, setting the script down on the coffee table in the process. Angie shot up from her hunched over position.“I told you he was! What picture did it for you because I personally love th-” You cut her off before she could continue rambling on. “I didn’t see a picture of him.” She looked at you with a puzzled face. “Oh well did you watch one of his movies or something because I can also tell you which one of those made me-"

"He’s who I read lines with at the audition.” You said calmly. Angie stopped speaking and just stared at you, giving you a few slow blinds before speaking again. “WHAT?!?!?” You laugh at her reaction and cover your face as you blush remembering how you felt during the reading. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that? I have so many questions. Was he even hotter in person? Did he smell good? Oh my god…did you shake his hand? Did you get to touch that god of a man? Were his hands soft?” You waited until she was done rambling to tell her all about the encounter.

 “Well I might have shook his hand when I first walked into the room. I told you I was nervous and just introduced myself to everyone at the table. I think I blacked out a little at that point to be honest.” She’s giving you all of her attention as you continue. “ I just did what I needed to do and it felt good. When they asked me to read lines, he just kind of appeared. I really don’t remember him being there before that point.” You reminisce the moment you looked at him.“He caught me so off guard. His eyes were so intense.” You pause for a brief second. “Ang…I’ve never felt like that before. Like I had all of his attention, like there was no one else in the room with us.” You looked back up at Angie. She was wearing a soft smile. “You better get ready girlie pop. You’re gonna have to see that man shirtless in all of his glory. You’ll have to kiss him and caress his manly chest-” Your face heats up and you smack her arm before she can continue on about what you might have to do with Pedro. 

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

You’re getting ready for bed when you get a notification. You reached over to grab your phone and saw that Angie had sent you an email. You gasp as you read the subject line. 

“Risky Disco Filming Schedule- Fleeting Productions” 

You fumble to open the email as quickly as you can. “Holy shit..” You whisper as you read over your schedule for the next few months. First up was a table read with the entire cast, one week from today. Followed by costume fittings, dance rehearsals, roller skate call, dress rehearsals and intimacy coaching. Your eyes linger on the last one a little longer than the rest. You skim over the rest of the schedule that is filled with various filming dates. Your scenes are being filmed sporadically, giving you time in between to lock in your lines and prepare to be in the presence of a curtain man. 

You were really excited for the table read. They were always so much fun. Everyone gets to showcase their interpretation of their characters early on and as time goes on, you get to see the progression of those characters. You already had an idea of how you would go about playing Janet, but it will ultimately depend on how Pedro plays Daniel and what the director wants. 

Shit. In one week you’ll be face to face with Pedro again and instead of running a few lines together, you’ll be reading about 30 minutes worth of dialogue. If the table read goes in the same direction the audition did, you’re fucked. You just hope you can avoid him outside of reading lines for as long as possible. You really don’t want to embarrass yourself…

╚══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╝ 

Thank you for reading <3

next chapter

[folklore-barnes]

Grotesquerie 1x08 | 1x09

Thoughts

We need to discuss how Redd used the word “ritual” twice in her scene with Marshall, and then later used it again when talking to Lois. Like????

I needed Megan to murder that nasty man so bad. I was so ready to ride at dawn for her, but thankfully Lois took care of it, and it was so satisfying.

Marshall is so diabolical, pls😭. Whisphering in Lois' ear that he wanted her to “fucking die” was insane. And then calling her a c***???? Like ik we're using that word a little more lightly these days (I still can't bring myself to say it or even write it), but the way he said it was crazy. Like he really meant every bit of what he said. I'm giving all the flowers of the world to Courtney B. Vance.

I wanted to be suspicious of the psychiatrist, but he looked so nice, like I could not see an ounce of evil in his eyes. And that's precisely why a part of me still believes there's something wrong with him.

I loved the confirmation that Megan was possessed in Lois' dream because I love being right.

Lois and Megan's chemistry still intact. You love to see it.

Doctor Charlie looking a little worried when Lois said that she heard everything, like... sir what are you hiding? A part of me thinks that he's obviously very evil, and another part of me thinks he said freaky things to Lois while she was asleep and maybe that's why she pictured him as freaky in her dream. Which would explain why he seemed to look at her with desire when he approached her the second time.

Maisie started off creepy, but when just got really endearing and funny, but with some creepiness still lingering.

I could feel Merritt's disdain towards Lois through the screen. Oh, Raven Godwin, the queen that you are.

Guys... wdym Merritt was in a cult?🧍🏽‍♀️

I'm sorry but Lois being in a coma 'cause of COVID out of all things was so stupid to me. Like I genuinely thought it would've been something bigger that could've been possibly related to the story, so it was a little disappointing to know that it was because of that.

Redd wanting to go to the same place that Lois suggested she'd move away too pissed me off so bad. Like okay, so now you want everything Lois wants or has??? That aside, I love Redd idc. She's so wholesome.

That last scene of Ep 9 was so weird and satisfying at the same time. Like a part of me is questioning that reality as well, especially 'cause Ryan mentioned there'd be more than one “reset” in the last episodes. But another part of me thought that Megan and that asshole were saying it wasn't real to use her former state against her and confuse her, so she wouldn't do anything. And ALSO???? That Justin guy was repeating the same thing that the old man said in the conference the psychiatrist had attended to. What the hell was that about???

The cross in the knife that Megan cut Lois has me wondering a lot 'cause wth was that about as well.

In conclusion, I'd lie to you if I said I wasn't expecting something else. I was expecting them to wrap it up a little bit quicker and for us to see more than one of the crimes. But looking back at it, I'm glad they didn't because now it makes even more sense for them to have a second season like Ryan mentioned because there'd still so many things to wonder about. I know some folks have been saying that it was boring after the twist and I understand where they're coming from, but I'm glad that they took some time to show us Lois coming to terms with her new reality, trying to make sense of it and dealing with the people in her life that were affected by her bad decisions. That led to some great acting performances from all of the main cast members, especially Niecy, Courtney, Raven and Micaela, who we got to see the most on the screen. I also think there's a lot more going on than we think, so I'm very intrigued to see what that's about.

Teaser

At first I just thought the three men are guilty. But there's no way they're telling us that in the teaser, so my guess is Ed and Marshall will be framed or are doing some sus activity that's being misunderstood or is not as bad as what the actual brains of the operation is doing. I have no idea.

Creepy dude in the shadow looks a lot like Charlie and the shot that is shown after hints at it. It's making him look hella sus, but a part of me thinks there's no way they're making it that obvious. So we'll see...

[remylebeaugambit]

So, I decided to wait a little to think this show over. As a Gambit fan I’m still pretty much bitter about it all. However, as an X-Men fan, I can say I understand why people love the show. But I also believe there’s an exaggerated amount of praise due to the fact that we’ve been starving for good X-Men content. 

I was going to write a much angrier version of this text (I actually outlined an angry rant but there were too many fuck yous), however I’m trying to be reasonable here. The animation is mostly impeccable (don’t like the way the women are drawn, but that’s a minor complaint), it’s colorful and vivid and fluid. The action scenes are mostly awesome too. So, yeah, there’s a lot of good in it. Having said that, there’s tons of problems as well and the great majority of fans are willingly blind to them because of, you know, the good and the lack of content for years. 

I want to be bluntly honest and say I’m glad that the showrunner had been fired. I wholeheartedly don’t believe he is deserving of all the praise he’s been getting because my biggest issues with this show come from the writing. It’s amazing and exciting to see scenes from the comics being brought to life in beautiful animation? Yes, definitely. But it’s not enough when the writing is rushed and lacking.

First, I thought I was biased because I hated what they were doing to Gambit, but now I really, truly don’t think this show that amazing. The first half of the season was mostly decent, there were things I didn’t like but that wasn’t enough to called it bad. Episode 5 was when the show peaked (although to be fair Gambit wasn’t in it much, it was the way he went down that made it memorable) but after that it just went downhill.   

All the plot holes, the playing favorites, the inconsistencies, the rushing through storylines, the terrible pacing, the loose ends, the weak motivations, the terrible character development, the retcon to characters’ relationships (so Ororo and Jean are sisters now? Ororo was way closer to Rogue in the original cartoon, but, you know, Rogue had to be isolated for her disgusting retcon and inconsistencies of character and decisions to work out. Newsflash asshole: they didn’t. Rogue was character assassinated. And though I love her in the original show, I wouldn’t be this angry if it hadn’t directly affected Gambit the way it did), and, of course, all the foreshadowing of Gambit becoming Death left to be (hopefully) resolved in the second season. That means there was no payoff. I repeat: the show was mostly curveballs and no real payoff. With a cast that big, you don’t expect all the characters to have satisfying character arcs but in this case if you aren’t a Jean, Scott or Magneto fans you’re left hanging. 

Storm, who has been friends with Gambit, simply didn’t even mention his death. The excuse was that ended up on the cutting room floor, but don’t be fooled, there was enough time for Ororo to smile and hug Jean and later tell her platitudes (what a boring, cheesy speech!). There was also plenty of time for all those insufferable Magneto moments. “You killed more people than the Nazis? Awwww that’s fine, cause you’re family.” 😉 None of it was cut, right? That leads me to my biggest gripe with his show: fucking Magneto. I hate that took so much space and was unironically written as an old man who groomed a teenage girl (they can lie all they want and say she was an adult. She WASN’T. She was a teenager with serious emotional issues), manipulated her, gaslighted her, isolated her and told her pretty things to bang her. I guess that’s what’s called romance nowadays. I mean, the show runner didn’t even try to hide his fetiches for the old creep. All those plot contrivances and conveniences to accommodate someone’s wet dream. 

Ok, so, I don’t want to go ad hominem on the show runner here, but to be fair, he’s been dishonest with us fans this whole time, he’s lied straight-faced, said a lot of stuff that hasn’t panned out, given dubious answers, manipulative and evasive comments, asked for our trust, even though he’d been lying and giving us false hope (trust is earned, dude; I stopped trusting him after the first lie, if ever), and there are people, Gambit fans, still being hopeful and taking his words at face value. Fucking seriously? THAT dress was just another spit in our collective faces. Wake up!), also he’s self-indulgent, and pathetic in his comments about being the master of magnetism (ok, I lied. So what?).        

All in all, I don’t think that show is as good as so many people are making it out to be and I’m way too happy about the firing of the show runner. To him, I say, thank you for tainting the legacy of something dear and pure from my childhood. Good riddance, please, don’t ever come back, sink into oblivion and go fuck yourself (ok, I needed at least one fuck you, he’s had it coming). 

Ps. Romy fans, mark my words, the old creep will be making passes at Rogue and since she has no personality in this, we can expect the worse, like little Charles next season or anything else that is just as irreversible. I’m mean, an old man fucking a teenager is already irreversible to me. But that’s me. 

[blackraged]

MORTAL KOMBAT 1 Thoughts Pt2.

[❌❌contains SPOILERS❌❌]

Continuation from yesterday

Chapter 6

They keep switching between Bromance and Romance for Kenshi and Johnny. Which one is it now???

I adore Johnny being protective of Kenshi, and Kenshi holding onto him while walking.

The way reptile switched from human to lizard, makes it look like he is not actually shape shifting, merely casting an Illusion to seem human.

Nitara is hot and all, love the design, but....who thought it was a great idea to have Megan Fox voice her? No shade but the voice acting is pretty awful.

Kenshi trying to run in with Sento but is pushed back in a comedical way by Ermac SENT ME. I felt so bad but I couldn't stop laughing.

Sento activating in this fight was pretty cool, I will not lie.

Not Jerrod shouting out for Sindel😭😭

Chapter 7

I wonder why Liu Kang didn't get fully rid of Krusty Kronika. Just because he is playing god now doesn't mean she's any harmless. But also wasn't Kronika fully destroyed?

Lesbians

Johnny and Kung Lao trying to knock out Quan Chi in the middle of the street while dressed up in those carneval suits was a sight for sore eyes.

NOT THE SIDE KICK PREDICTIONS WITH REPTILE AND KENSHI LITERALLY FLYING IN PLSSS

This entire chapter is full of comedic bits, and I'm here for it. We need more stuff like this.

Chapter 8

I like the implication that some things are inevitable, no matter how you think you shaped things differently.

I enjoy Geras and Liu Kang s friendship a lot.

So Liu didn't intend for Kronika to be alive in this timeline after all.

"Father" Is smoke now Bi-Han and Kuais brother??Was he adopted adopted??

Aight but am I the only one who thinks Smoke looks like Elon Musk? Like, for real,, it's freaking me out.

I know Smoke is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal but I keep hearing Troy Baker.

That manipulative parallel from when Shang Tsung was a Merchant still was very clever

Chapter 9

Okay crazy theory, but what if Kronika isn't Kronika, but Alt Shang Tsung in disguise???

Why am I not surprised by the betrayal. Still having hopes that Bi-Han is just bluffing to save Kuai.

Kuai being out for blood is really entertaining. That melting sword scene was so damn cool too.

Scorpion being affected and literally burned by heat somehow doesn't make sense to me. Especially with Subzero seemingly not being harmed by frost and ice. Also Havik recovered from that melt off really fcking fast. Bowing down to you, king.

Bi-Han literally showing up from behind the cold wind was such an amazing entrance. I was even jumpscared a little.

5bucks that new course is the Shirai Ryu

Chapter 10

If the second timeline the ending to aftermath where Shang Tsung won?? If so, that is the coolest decision NRS has ever made so far.

Li Mei is so pretty. I adore her so much.

Have y'all noticed how weird the run animation in this game is. It's so awkward and looks half-assed.

Mileena is such a good fighter but I hate how much she is being babied. I know it's because of Tarkat, but it's kinda silly.

Lesbians

I am very amazed with the character design improvement in this game. I thought MK11 was already damn pretty, but MK1 really put the icing on top. There are so many fine details in the environment and outfits, I am eating this up like desert.

Will hopefully finish the rest of the game tomorrow though! Last and Final thoughts coming in soon!

[tia-amorosa]

Sunset Died - Bachelor/Clavell/Wan

Certainty

The next day. It was still quite early in the morning when Morgana made her way to her neighbors. “Just such a short way and it's cold as hell, huhuhu…hopefully they're home. Oh, what am I saying, of course they are…”. Morgana was not only shivering from the cold, but also a little from excitement.

Pauline also let Morgana into the house. “Good morning, you're not at work?"/ ‘I'm starting a bit later today, I wanted to see you first…’ ‘See us?…’ Pauline suddenly felt a bit sick to her stomach. “Ha-have you…”. Morgana nodded with a slight smile. “Hey, I'm in the room too, what's going on?” Xander said, watching the two women while he was eating. Pauline looked over at him briefly.

Morgana cast a questioning glance at Pauline: “Um, well… maybe you finish your food in peace first, then I'll have to explain something to you”. He looked up from his plate briefly. Her face was a little red and there was a serious expression on it. Then he looked at his hit again without making a face. “Well, I'm curious about that.”

After Xander had finished eating, the three of them went over to the living area and sat down. Then Morgana took an envelope out of her bag and placed it on the table. “What's this?"/ ‘I'll get to that later.’. Then she looked at Pauline. And she took that as a sign that it was time to talk to Xander.

“It's about your blood test"/ ‘huh? What do you have to do with it?’/ ‘When I went to Morgana for the ultrasound, she told me that you can do a paternity test with a blood test…’. He looked at Morgana “Wait… that's why I went to see you yesterday?”/“No, Xander,… well, not only”/“so a paternity test was done…without me knowing anything about it?…great.” His voice sounded a little ironic.

“I know that wasn't entirely fair of Pauline and me. But the good thing is that she's involving you now. She actually wanted to know on her own first alone…"/ ‘oh, how gracious’. He looked at Pauline seriously and somewhat dejectedly for a moment. “hey, don't be angry now, okay?”. Then he turned his gaze away from her again and looked at Morgana… “hm… So you've got the results?"/ ‘Yes, and the results about your health.’/ ‘Am I supposed to decide what I want to hear first?’.

“You don't have to, I could take the decision off your hands. Anyway, I've got some good news and some not so good news…"/ ”Oh boy.” Xander was getting nervous, cracking his fingers, which were trembling slightly. “That's really nasty, really, it could be anything"/ ‘Xander…’ . He puffed briefly and shook his head. Then he continued. “Okay, the bad news first… that's how it's always done, isn't it?”. His tone was again ironic and somewhat cool.

Morgana didn't want to add to his nervousness. “All right, then. The less good news is that you have an iron deficiency, but we'll get that back into balance with the right supplements. Apart from that, I couldn't find anything in you that would indicate any illness, no tumor markers or anything like that…” Xander breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Man, I'm sweating…and… the other News?”.

“well, and the other one, hn. Now that I was able to create a DNA profile of you, I could compare it with the baby's. And…” Pauline could already see from her face what the answer would be. “Oh my God… Morgana,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “You can both look forward to a together-Baby, Xander.” A Relieved laughter came out of Pauline's mouth.

He looked at her almost a little incredulously.“ You… You're sure about that?”/ “Well, the data doesn't lie, Xander. I was surprised that the results came so quickly. This device is incredible…”. He took a deep breath for a moment. Then he heard Pauline start to sob beside him. “I…h-h, I had the right feeling all along. I'm so grateful, Morgana,” she said in a voice choked with tears.

Xander turned to her and wiped away her tears. All the tension of the last few months came out of her. And he, too, realized that a big blockade was loosening inside him… “Hey,… it's all good"/ ‘I… I don't know who was more nervous all this time’. He stroked her face lovingly and smiled. “I guess we both were… Oh man, and where do I get all this baby stuff now?"/ ‘nhnhn“.

“As for the baby stuff, you can contact me or Judy Bunch."/ ”Thanks, Morgana. So… what's this envelope all about?” Xander asked, pointing to the paper on the table, “It just confirms that you're the biological father of Pauline's baby. I had printed it out… You can keep it or burn it"/ ‘o.k.’/ ”well, then I've taken care of the most important thing for today. I'll leave you two, um, three alone again now, hnhn”.

Morgana was already very late that morning. But it was important to her that the parents-to-be finally had some certainty. After the front door had closed again, Xander took Pauline's hands in his. “They're cold"/ ”From the excitement. And what do you say now?"/ ‘well I… I was skeptical until the last second, don't hold it against me’/ . She smiled.

“No, don't worry. I felt a bit like that. But… I had this quiet voice in my ear the whole time telling me that everything would be fine"/ ”hmm. And… did the voice tell you what we were getting?”. She tilted her head slightly and smiled again. “She did, mhm. You'll soon have one more woman in the house"/ ‘hmm, I kind of thought so’/ ‘aww, are you disappointed?’.

he grinned a little and pulled her onto his lap. “because I'm not getting a progenitor? Nonsense, girls are cool“/”hnhn, they can be quite bitchy“/”I think I can deal with that. Hm, the kids are still at school, so…"/ ‘what are you going to do?’/ ‘Show our child how to make love’/ ”hnn… let's wait a bit longer, shall we? I don't want to risk anything…”. Of course, Xander knew that making love to a pregnant woman could also trigger something negative. That's why he held back and they enjoyed the remaining time without a full house.

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

@greenplumbboblover😊

poses by: @poses-by-bee , @purplepxls (?) , @danzxncrd (come sit with me) @aikea-guinea & others

[ajesterwrites]

7. therapy

summary: you sneak out to see your therapist. bonnie begins to become suspicious of you.

pairings: stefan salvatore x reader (brief mention), bonnie bennett x reader (platonic)

word count: 2.2K

Dear Diary,

For the first time in ages, I've woken up with a smile on my face. I'm ready to start the day. I'm ready to say "I'm fine" and smile and mean it. And I don't know, this may be the giddy teenage girl inside me speaking, but I believe I'm one step closer to full recovery. Clearly, there are still some problems that I need to address... Like Jeremy's addiction, Vicki's recovery, and Jenna's discomfort.

But despite all these problems, I have the feeling that I'm gonna have a great year. All I have to do is keep my family intact and manage to get through without telling Bonnie and Caroline where I was all summer. They haven't asked but I know they will. They'll mention my disappearance in one of our regular conversations, and there will be a point where I can't avoid it without slipping up. I have a lie prepared. But if I tell them, they won't see me in the same light.

"So..." You drawled, tapping your foot against the floor as Holly finished reading your most recent entry aloud. "What do you think?"

Holly paused for a moment, recollecting her thoughts. She removed her reading glasses and set them on the drawer, allowing you to look into her frosty green eyes. "I think you're not being entirely truthful, Y/N," She said. "And honesty is vital to a longstanding relationship such as this one, don't you think?"

Here we go with the subtle accusations.

"What are you talking about?" You asked, irritated and exhausted. Despite the night whisking past you as you got caught up in the most random discussions with Stefan, you'd been having an exceptional morning. You had acknowledged the scarcity of your mood, but now your joy was being torn apart by your own therapist. "I am honest! I even put in that bit about Bonnie and Caroline, which I've almost never done."

"Because you wanted to protect them."

You averted your eyes to the clasped hands in your lap. But Holly didn't seem to mind your caginess. She understood it more than anyone and knew that being a therapist was about gaining trust. That took time, especially when you had such a questionable connection.

Holly smiled. "It's okay, Y/N. I know you didn't trust me before because of what my father did to you—and I'm glad you do now, but...I'm sensing that you're holding back. In all of the problems you listed, you didn't mention your own once." 

"That's not true," You scoffed. "I mentioned Jeremy and Jenna-" 

"Those aren't your problems, Y/N." 

"They feel like my problems." 

Holly set her clipboard aside. You bit back a groan. "I've noticed your aversion to vulnerability. You deflect. You omit. You're not honest." 

"Okay..." You tried not to roll your eyes in Holly's face. She could be such a nuisance when she wanted to be. Did she not consider you hiding your past a problem? Because it ate you up inside at every moment. "And what would you have me say?" 

Holly sighed, catching on to your annoyance. "I don't know. Maybe what happened to your leg?" You glanced at the band-aid above your foot. You mentally swore at yourself for not getting changed out of your sleepwear and met Holly's disappointed glare. "We've made so much progress, Y/N. I'd hate for any impulsive decisions to ruin that."

"It was an accident," You said impatiently. You didn't like the assumption. And you were offended by the fact that your therapist of all people didn't believe you. If Holly couldn't believe that you would battle your demons with everything you had, then who would?

"Y/N-"

"It was," You insisted. "I was running, and I tripped. Besides, if I was going to hurt myself, I wouldn't do it in such an obvious place, you know that."

Holly stared at you for a moment, her eyes casting about for a trace of truth. Finally, she surrendered. "Why don't you tell me why you were so happy waking up this morning?"

At this, you beamed. "I met someone," You announced. "A guy. And we talked... almost all night. But I think I fell asleep at one point because one minute we were out laughing on the balcony and the next, it was four in the morning, I was in bed, and he was gone."

"Did you have the usual night terrors?"

Why ask about my personal life if you don't even care? You thought. Every session was always centered on your struggles, but never on your happiness. "One."

"You didn't mention it in your journal."

"That's because I don't remember what it was about," You responded.

Holly's eyebrow arched. "Then how do you know it was a night terror?"

"I don't," You confessed. "But on my way here, I remembered something, like part of a dream, and I almost crashed my bike." Holly gave an intrigued hum as she grabbed her clipboard to jot down notes. "That was accidental, too."

Holly looked up at you, her eyes narrowing. "I didn't say it wasn't."

"You didn't have to. I know that look. It was the same one your dad gave me when he thought I was lying."

"Well, did you lie?"

No, I stayed completely honest while he tortured me and deceived me every chance he got. "I told selective truths," You clarified. "It was the only way to survive there."

Alarm flashed across Holly's face. "You believed Dr. Blake was going to kill you?"

She wouldn't be Holly if she didn't collect information every moment she could. She truly was a Blake, and their similarities were beginning to get slightly unnerving.

"No, but I knew that by the time I got out, there were parts of me that wouldn't exist anymore," You admitted, choosing her words carefully. "And I didn't want to look in the mirror and not recognize my reflection. Obviously, I wasn't successful."

"Y/N," Holly spoke gravely as if time was of the essence. "Do you know what happened to the doctor?"

You leaned back in your chair, unappreciative of her accusatory tone. The number of times you'd been asked this by Holly was countless. You sighed heavily. "No. I don't. But whatever it is, I'm sure he deserved it."

◇◇◇

Sneaking in and slipping out wasn't as nearly as easy as it was conveyed in movies. You couldn't just hop out of a window and run for it. No, you had to go through the whole process. That meant hiding your bike in the bushes, climbing up a less-than-sturdy ladder to quietly hop onto the roof, treading across so as not to wake anyone, and then crawling through the window. The effort was ridiculous, but was it worth it?

...Sometimes.

So, by the time you completed that routine and your daily routine, you were always shocked by the amount of energy you had left, despite your exhaustion. But you never questioned it. However, that morning was different.

Almost directly after you stepped out of your room, cold fingers brushed against your arm. You flinched and looked up to see Jenna dressed in a simple but stunning eggplant-colored dress and black pumps. "Morning," Jenna greeted. "Do I look adult? As in respectfully parental?"

"Where are you going?"

"Jeremy's parent-teacher conference," Jenna answered, strutting to a mirror hung up on the hallway wall. She tilted her head to the side and scrunched her hair upwards with her hands. "Should I put my hair up..." She let her strawberry blonde curls falls to her shoulders. "..or hair down?"

"Up," You said instantly. "Definitely up. Unless you want to look like a hooker or if we're going in the more parental direction, a boozy housewife."

Jenna scoffed. "Up it is. Hey, what's wrong with your face?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You're smiling," Jenna said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "You didn't switch your brother's shampoo with bleach again, did you?"

You scoffed, but your grin widened when you thought of Jeremy walking around with yellow hair.  But you snapped out of the memory when you realized Jenna was still eyeing you.

"No, of course not. I'm just in a good mood. Why wouldn't I be? It's bright...and sunny...and I think I heard birds chirping outside of my window this morning."

Jenna laughed as she fixed her hair in the mirror.  "I'm sure you did."

"So, where is Jeremy anyways?" You asked, peeking inside his empty room. It wasn't like him to leave so early. Normally, it took a bucket of ice to even get him to consider getting out of bed. 

"He left early. Something about getting to a wood shop early to finish a birdhouse." You frowned, giving your aunt an 'Are you serious?'  look, but as soon as the words tumbled past her lips, Jenna dropped her hand from her hair and lifted a finger. "There is no birdhouse, is there?"

"Tricked by Jeremy of all people," You commented and clapped her on the back. "That's gotta hurt."

"Oh quiet!" Jenna said, and you giggled. "Don't you have to get to school?"

"Yep. And before you ask, I'm catching a ride with Bonnie and Caroline."

"Good," Jenna remarked with a satisfied smile. "I'm glad you three are hanging out again. It's nice to see they've pulled you out of your usual slump."

"Mm-hm."

"Do they know why you were gone all summer?"

You and your aunt turned and descended down the staircase. You cleared your throat. "Um, no, I haven't told them yet."

"Y/N," Jenna began softly, giving you a gentle smile.  "You went through something incredibly traumatic. Going to a trauma recovery center is nothing to be ashamed of. We've all been there, and I'm sure they'll be glad to know you were able to heal in a healthy way."

As you reached the end of the stairs, your eyes shifted anywhere except your aunt's troubled gaze. "I'm not ashamed, Jenna. I just..." I'm terrified. But you couldn't say that. You couldn't say anything. 

Jenna nodded. She had no way inside your mind but knew you better than you thought. "I understand," She said, offering a kind smile. "But if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here."

"I know," You said, smiling. But you weren't going to talk about it, no matter how badly you wanted to. "Oh, and by the way, if you want to find Jeremy, you should try the hospital. He probably went to visit Vicki, bring her flowers or something."

"Then why didn't he just say that?"

"You know him," You shrugged. "If word gets out that he's done something nice for once, it'll annihilate his image."

Jenna sighed. Not only did he have a tortured soul, but he had a confusing mind, the worst combination. But at least he wasn't a borderline psychopath. "See you at school?"

"Definitely."

Jenna turned to give you a quick hug before her unusually calm departure, with the promise of buying enough frozen yogurt to last the week after the meeting.

As soon as the front door slammed shut, you checked your phone. No new messages. You dialed Ryder's number. "Come on...pick up."

"The person you have called is not available at this. Please leave a message at the tone." Beep.

"Shit!" You shouted, banging your fist against the wall. You took a deep breath. "Hey, Ryder, it's Y/N. I need to know you're okay. Please call me back. I love—I miss you. Bye."

Stuffing your phone in your jean pockets, you found yourself wandering inside the kitchen. You opened the refrigerator in search of something to eat. After a moment of contemplation, you grabbed the last cup of yogurt, ready to dig in, when someone asked, "That's it?"

You whirled around to see Bonnie standing by the kitchen entrance, appearing just as confused as you were. "What the–"

"Aren't you going to eat anything else?"

You sat down on the stool, giving your friend a nonchalant shrug. "Not very big on cooking."

Puzzled, Bonnie opened her mouth to respond when another voice rang out. "Then it's a good thing we brought you breakfast!"

You looked to see a certain blonde beside Bonnie, grinning from ear to ear and holding up a bag of diner food. Your gaze switched between a perturbed Bonnie and an oblivious Caroline, and slowly, the corners of your lips tugged upwards.

"Let's eat."

Caroline squealed before placing the paper bag on the counter. She plopped onto the stool, pulling out various trays to display your options. Bonnie pulled up a stool beside her, still eyeing you with a hardened frown. She didn't know what had happened in the last three months, but she had the feeling that whoever was sitting across from her wasn't her best friend.

[oldworldgal]

{ gen, 8k words, rated T+ }

Nick wasn't expecting any rescue party to show—but nothing surprises him more than who exactly comes knocking. Some mysteries walk and talk and follow you to hell and back.

characters: Female Sole Survivor, Nick Valentine, Piper Wright, Hawthorne, John Hancock, Skinny Malone

warnings: references to child death, canon-typical violence, brief senses of unreality

tags: Chance Meetings, Nick and Sole have a slight history (but not like that), Canon Rewrite, One Shot

link to ao3

full fic under the cut

It’s on the twelfth day of his captivity that he hears the gunfire. Long, empty hours interrupted by the sudden and muffled but unmistakable reports from some distant place behind lead and steel and dirt.

He pauses in his pacing, listening intently, gaze shot toward the lone porthole of a window in this, his cushy prison cell. Only, there’s no disturbance on the other side of that glass. A few seconds more and the great thumping slows then ceases, like the death throes of some immense beast.

His personal watchdog and unfortunate company for the evening didn’t hear it.

He gives a short hum in thought because the noises were… peculiar. More echo than anything, with a deep metallic timbre when they thundered into the room, emanating from a particular place. Opposite from the door and window.

He drifts toward that area now, and doesn’t have to wait long for another burst of far-off violence. The steel of his skeletal hand meets a set of standing shelves with a tap, and on hidden wheels they move easily away from the wall.

Behind those shelves, a certain panel of the fake wood vinyl has a larger gap around the edges compared to its neighbors.

And here he thought he’d already found everything there was to find in here. The terminal alone he went through five times from a sheer lack of anything else to do.

With a brief glance cast back over his shoulder, he tests the gap with his metal digits—his most resourceful set of tools, he would have to admit. Not the first false panel they’ve pried up, and he still has a bit of hope that it won’t be the last.

Once a thin fingertip is jabbed behind it, the vinyl comes away as easily as a page in a book. A solid section little more than two feet wide, three feet tall. Only when he sets it aside it doesn’t reveal any door or hidden passageway and for the first time in his operational existence he’s glad for that fact, even if it would have made his predicament a hell of a lot simpler. Going two weeks in this godforsaken box-in-a-box without spotting it simply would have been too much. He’d have hung up his hat on principle.

But what does lie behind that panel might be even more curious.

Five circular vents, each about the size of a plate of Port-a-Diner pie. The radial slats are all shut tight and each vent has a little handle that could be levered out and pulled clockwise a short distance, presumably to open them.

“Huh,” Nick Valentine says.

Someday he’d have to answer once and for all the question that nags at him the most: why exactly mysteries are so prone to finding their way onto his lap even when he’s not looking for them.

But for now, at least he has something to do.

The preceding minute and a half of silence is cut short by two dull but decisive bangs, each chased by a faint metallic rattle. It ceases just as the synthetic polymer that serves as Nick’s skin touches the first vent. Still, he thinks he can feel the last traces of reverberation, picked up by the filaments winding through his endoskeleton all the way down to the fingertips of his left hand.

He waits. Whatever it was, it’s probably now over before it even really began. There’d been no less than five shmucks at the front office alone when he himself had strolled into the Park Street station a week ago, and many more besides from there to the vault entrance itself, from which he suspects the sound first originated. And they all are armed to the teeth. (How confident he’d been then, that he and Malone could have worked this out like decent men. Like old acquaintances if not old friends.)

But then—there it is again. No more than ten minutes go by before another ruckus kicks off. And this next volley of gunfire is a prolonged spat, more unsettling the longer it goes on, accompanied by indistinct shouting. Whoever’s here, it is one hell of a party.

It’s the second vent that shudders ever so slightly this time. Flicking that particular handle out and easing it down rotates an interior plate just enough for a yawning void to peek through the slats. Just enough for the gunshots to become not exactly clear but a hell of a lot sharper: the tell-tale rattle of a whole fleet of weaponry that he doesn’t have to guess at the make and model of, having been prodded and jeered at with them enough times these past two weeks to last him a couple more generations. That many automatics working together forms the rhythmic and systematic sound of manufacture, a diligent and savage machine, but behind it are a few stabs of sound that are certainly a pistol or two, punctuated by the booms of some maniac with a shotgun. Boom. Boom-boom. Two maniacs with shotguns?

So perhaps four people total, if none of the SMGs making up the industrial clatter are on the away team. Too few to be a rival gang, not enough explosions or general chaos to be raiders. But the notion of a rescue party seems unlikeliest of all; all of three people outside this vault are aware of Nick’s last known whereabouts and none of those people are crazy enough to pull off this stunt, which is sounding mostly like an interesting way to die by suicide.

Nick closes the vent again and sticks on his thinking cap. (That is, he resumes his pacing and taps out his last prized cigarette, jabbing it between unfeeling, crumbling lips. He doesn’t light it just yet—if all else fails it could still come in handy, if not as a tool then a bargaining chip with some particularly dull and desperate tough.) The gunfire continues, muted once again. Just firecrackers down the street, lit by the neighborhood kids.

There’s no telling what Skinny Malone plans to do with him. If it were only Skinny he were dealing with, the gangster might let him walk. But not with that new moll by his side. She knows just what buttons to push and where they are.

The only thing Nick detests more than being locked in a room with absolutely nothing of interest for two weeks is leaving a case unresolved—or letting it end unhappily. Tragedy is already too common in their current era for him to not fight for something better, come hell or high water—but right now, his priority needs to be getting out. There’ll be more happy ever afters.

Second-best case scenario, he can use the ongoing chaos to his advantage and slip out between the cracks one way or another. He’s made crazier escapes. But if the assailants are actually here for him—wishful thinking—there’s not much he can contribute from inside this private little retreat of his, much as he’d like to.

Just as he turns to complete his ambulatory circuit he pauses, thinking back to the first day he’d been thrown into this office. Going through the various drawers and cabinets had produced the construction plans for the vault. And wasn’t the map divided into sections, delineated by pen, by hand? Numbers One through Five?

Nick wheels around and grabs for where he stashed it, wedged beside a drawer in the desk, sure it would be useful. When it’s laid out on the ground out of sight of the window, with one rusty phalange he traces the section labeled ‘2’—Maintenance, right at the edge of the unfinished excavation site. There’s a tumbleweed of scribbled ink; a rough dot in the middle of the hallway that he would bet his hat marks the location of a suspect and oddly conical air duct. Rather effective at funneling sound right up to the Overseer’s office through a network of metal tubes that perhaps would have been replaced with a more sophisticated system had the vault ever actually been completed. A simple method reminiscent of the old Old World, but there’s some artistry to it. He could at least hand them that, the nosy, voyeuristic bastards.

If he can’t physically help his unknown hypothetical saviors, he could at least keep track of their progress and maybe suss out their destination. Won’t do him much good if they drop dead at the front door.

For an hour he listens to the intermittent bouts and tracks their movements from one section to the next, his optics flicking from the map to the little porthole window that serves as his only view of the world outside every time he has to inch open a vent to get a better bead on their location. It seems more and more unbelievable that the man on the other side of that window hasn’t heard the gunfire, even as the party draws closer. But then, the large gaps between volleys seem to suggest that many of his gracious hosts are being caught unaware. Turns out that vaults aren’t just marvels of architectural engineering and capitalist greed and moral deficiency, but of soundproofing as well.

Or maybe Dino just fell asleep outside. Surely Nick couldn’t be that lucky.

Regardless, the longer the racket drags on and the closer the newcomers get to the atrium, the more Nick can’t help but get his hopes up, to the point where the long stretches of silence in-between become somehow even more worrisome than the gunplay itself. It’s a veritable war out there, the whole of the Malone Crew bearing down on this small, over-ambitious force.

And still they push forward. And still their guns number four. The sheer force of will or providence or skill or even luck is nothing short of inspiring. Nick finds that he’d like to get to meet them after all, whoever they are.

Perhaps it is this thought that finally ends his own internal war that he’d been conducting, judging what horse to bet on, what his best move might be. To play it safe and hide and wait for his mysterious benefactors to scour every last inch of the vault when their bloody work is done (because no scavenger worth their salt would pass up a locked door in a vault) and jump out when the time is right? Or to hope for friendlies and maybe distract his guard dog from their arrival? Maybe even send him packing, if Nick could play his cards right.

The gunfire draws ever closer to Vent 4. Passes right beneath it, and away again. The inky dot is just a few halls away from the Atrium.

What’ll it be, Nicky? Hope or hide?

“Ah, hell,” he finally mutters, making it to his feet with the creak of a joint or three, a ting in the left knee in particular, which hasn’t sounded quite right since his date with a certain young lady and her baseball bat. There was only so much repair work he could attempt with what he had on him and what he could find in this glorified box.

He needs eyes on the door to the Atrium, and he’s gotten pretty damn tired of sitting still and shutting up for days on end, anyway.

Nick straightens out his shirtsleeves, fastens the cuffs, snatches his coat from the back of the mostly dismantled office chair. Everything is put where it ought to be: coat slipped on, collar straightened, wall panel placed over the vents, shelves in front of the panel, and finally the map tucked into an inside pocket of the coat. He suspects no one here is going to need it anymore after today.

His last cig he holds casually aloft between two skeletal digits as he approaches the window, casting a glance up and down the walkway outside, across the atrium to the door on the second tier walkway below, and over the tables and their assorted relics and detritus on the open bottom floor. No sign of Dino, but no sign of any of his fellows, either.

“What’s a guy gotta do for some decent conversation around here?” he calls out in the crankiest voice he could muster.

There’s a pause, the scrape of chair legs across the floor, a leisurely tap. tap. tap. of footsteps before Dino’s form appears, smug as ever, hands tucked in his pockets.

Nick was right. The man hasn’t a single damn clue. And there’s no movement in the rest of the room that he can see.

Nick composes his expression into something he hopes is monumentally unimpressed. Not that this particularly pugnacious foe is difficult to goad. “You’re still here? Ah, and here I was hoping for something civil.”

“What’s the matter, Valentine?” Dino jeers. “Ya gettin’ bored? Want a snack?”

He rolls his cigarette between three fingertips, considers it briefly while he speaks. “Dino, you and I both know the only appetizer with which you’re familiar is a knuckle sandwich. And not a particularly good one, I’d wager.”

No dice. The man doesn’t spare a glance toward the object of temptation. Not a smoker. But at least he loves to hear himself talk.

“Naw, don’t be sore about Darla givin’ you what-for. The leg still in three pieces? Ya lookin’ to own a matchin’ set, that it?”

Nick doesn’t have to look directly at a certain door across the room to see it open as the goon chatters on, oblivious. Now or never. He can use the threats and the topic of Darla to pull the ace from his sleeve: an important morsel of information he’s kept in mind from years past, about a certain little black book belonging to a certain ironically named mob boss, and the nature of the names written within back then. It’s sure to keep his attention, at the very least.

Nick opens his mouth and Dino’s blood and brains explode across the window with a crack. His body flops to the ground.

“Christ,” he sighs quietly to himself. Well, that’s one way to solve a problem. He looks to the proffered smoke in his hand, what could have been a peace offering, and at that turn of events finally lights it up with a few flicks of his lighter. He raises it in a silent salute. So long, Dino, you sorry jackass.

His imprisonment, it seems, is finally coming to an end one way or another. Whether what’s next is better or worse remains to be seen.

It’s quiet outside, and difficult to see through the red painting most of the glass. Only the faintest shuffling; steps on the stairs. Detectable only through the echo it sends through the room.

Though weaponless, Nick Valentine readies himself. Come what may.

And still he could not have prepared for the face that pops into the window, peering around the gore.

“Nicky,” Piper chides with a relieved grin, “we gotta stop meeting like this.”

“Piper?” He manages to keep his composure though the revelation could have bowled him over. Piper lead the charge into a vault through what must have been dozens of mobsters, and survived? She’s a decent shot, but running and gunning isn’t typically her style. And last he knew, she was on an extended investigation in Southie. He gives an astounded chuckle, shaking his head. “I’m always happy to see your face, Ms. Wright, but never more than in this moment.” There’s a flash of movement behind her, a single person rushing past.

“And you look like hell,” Piper replies with a brief glance spared toward the terminal barring his exit. “Geez, Nick, what’d they do to you?” At this she looks genuinely disturbed, eyes lingering on oil stains and fresh damage to his jaw. Not even the worst of it, since she can’t see the torn pant leg. One of his best pairs, of course.

He waves away the concern with a tap of his cigarette, dispensing flakes of ash to tumble through the air before returning it to its perch between his lips. “I’ll be fine, as long as you get me the hell out of here. Boredom is the mind-killer, Piper, and the amenities here are somewhat lacking.”

Before she can reply there’s a faint beep from the terminal, cracked in record time, and a muffled, indistinct voice. Piper’s visage disappears from the window, and he follows suit.

Nick stands a few feet back as the door hisses open, but his reporter friend isn’t the one it unveils.

The woman standing in the doorway, light pouring around her into the dim office, seems more a vision than something of this grim reality. An ancient kind of beauty, something that peers out of a magazine, something from so long ago that it might as well have been from a different world altogether.

Strangely familiar. The kind of beauty that has gone long extinct.

It’s not even the measure of her looks, necessarily. It’s the particular quality, from the neatness of her brows to her unblemished skin all the way down to the way she’s tied off her button down above the waist of her jeans, making a hundredfold hand-me-down look like the height of fashion. A faded red is even detectable staining her lips.

The only things anchoring her in this world are the grime on her clothes, the threadbare patches, the submachine gun cradled in the crook of a lightly bandaged arm that also bears a near-pristine Pip-Boy. The way a few runaway brown curls have escaped her ponytail to cling to the sheen on her neck. And then the blood flecking her shirt. Some of these don’t seem to suit her, but actually a few kind of add to her charm.

And when she in turn first sees him, those blue eyes narrow inquisitively, as if discerning something.

That specific look sparks something buried deep, a fish nibbling at the surface of a murky, neglected pond. Nick starts to shuffle through the filing cabinet that is his memory, searching.

Whatever she was looking for, she finds it fast. Disbelief relaxes her eyes and she gives a half-laugh, mouth slanted in awe. Shouldn’t those lips of hers be painted a dusty rose?

“Detective Valentine,��� she greets, like she knows him. Her voice, low but soft and suited for late-night radio, is definitely colored with recognition.

Recognition…something about that voice…

A hand curls to prop itself on a protruding hip, and those nails should be jewel-toned, and longer, and not chipped.

A sense of unreality instantly descends over him. Or it would if not, he suspects, for the fact that his synapses are synthetic. It hasn’t escaped his notice these past decades that he owes his sustained sanity to his mechanical body.

“Holy Hell,” Nick says eloquently, and the cigarette drops right back out of his mouth to scatter sparks on the floor, forgotten because he has remembered. The sleek skirt and heels, a courteous smile but decisive questions. The daily impeccable cascade of side-parted waves. The bands of brown around her pupils, islands nestled in the blue.

All of a sudden, he’s not the only specter of the 21st century.

“Montgomery,” is the name that finds its way to his mouth, a lightbulb beginning to flicker on behind his optics, the years flipping all the way back to the earliest files in the cabinet. What was her na—? “Natalia,” he says in revelation, sure this time. “The hit-and-run in front of Castello’s.” A shake of his head. “How the hell are you alive?” And—he doesn’t voice this thought—still in the condition you’re in?

“Whoa,” Piper answers in her stead, looking between them in bafflement, “whoa, whoa, hold on. You know each other? You didn’t say you knew each other.”

The woman opens her mouth, hesitates. “What you had said, I—I just didn’t think it could possibly…”

“Well, well,” chimes in another familiar voice from down the walkway, albeit this one with the tonal quality of sandpaper in a box of rocks. “200 years and the gals still chase after ya. And I thought I had game.”

It effectively broke the spell over the impromptu reunion and Nick follows that voice outside to meet the rest of the crazy crew they’d gathered. And in terms of mugs he wasn’t expecting to see today, on a scale of Piper Wright to Natalia Montgomery the glazed eyes and beef-jerky complexion of one John Hancock ranks somewhere right under halfway. The ghoul stands at the railing, frock coat, tricorn, and all, a double-barrel resting against his shoulder in a deceptively casual manner. The pale lenses of his eyes occasionally rove the floors below, keeping a sharp look out despite all appearances.

“Ah, Mr. Mayor,” Nick says at the sight. Not often you see him outside of his domain, but this perilous endeavor made a hell of a lot more sense now. He knew Hancock to be more than slightly insane on his best days. “Well, I guess now there’s no use asking who popped our friend Dino, here.” His optics stray to the body between them, the pooling blood just now slowing to a crawl. Shame about the suit.

“What can I say,” Hancock replies with a vicious nonchalance, suddenly producing a 10mm from his coat and spinning it once around his trigger finger. “I don’t take kindly to people threatening friends of mine.” He smiles. “I’m considering us even now.”

Nick eyes him with some skepticism as he steps to the body of Dino to see if he couldn’t secure a weapon of his own. His revolver is surely a lost cause by now, stashed somewhere in the depths of the vault. “You would.”

The ghoul flips the pistol once more, offering the grip towards the old-but-newcomer, and Montgomery takes it with a degree of uncertainty. “Thanks for the loan, doll.”

There’s a handgun in the waistband at Dino’s back and Nick slips it free. An aging Mauser in remarkable condition, with its slim protruding barrel and boxy magazine. A similar enough profile that it should fit the shoulder holster beneath his coat. He pulls back the hammer and checks the magazine. 9mm is rather rare in the Commonwealth, but with the firepower surrounding him, it’ll do for now. Gun like this shouldn’t go to waste, in any case. It must have cost a fortune. Or a life.

Nick looks to the grisly corpse below him. Well. Two lives, now.

Lastly, he checks the man’s pockets for extra ammunition and comes up with three clips in one and in the other, a familiar rectangular silhouette. “Ah,” he says as he pulls out the cigarettes and gives the pack a shake. More than just a few. Dino was holding out on him, the rascal. “No wonder. Cheers, pal,” he adds in farewell before finally standing to rejoin his rescue party.

With most of their greetings over with an uneasy quiet had settled over the group, each holding their weapon ready with varying degrees of confidence. The only expression visibly flagging was that of his former acquaintance, the ex-lawyer. This is new to her; the shooting, the blood, the death. He’s seen a similar look on more than one Vault Dweller, not to mention a certain wearable computer. Really, it was as if their last acquaintance couldn’t have been all that long ago.

Mysteries abound.

Nick looks to the other two in turn. That accounts for two pistols and a shotgun. “So, where’s the fourth member of this little get-together?”

Montgomery looks to him in momentary surprise and begins to motion over the railing with a tilt of her head, her lips parting before:

Tap-tap. A metallic knocking. From below.

“Heads up,” Hancock mutters, and everyone drops to a crouch in concert.

In the ensuing silence voices could be heard below and behind them, further away than the alerting sound, in a hall that leads to the living quarters and, naturally, the way out.

There’s a duet of clicking safety switches alongside him and they all aim towards the bottom floor and wait. With a setup like this Nick can begin to see how at least some of the mobsters didn’t stand a chance. His optics rove for any hint of the mysterious fourth individual, hoping they’re nowhere in the line of fire.

A door hisses open.

“Dino! Quit razzing that detective and go grab Simon, you’re late for the game.”

A pause.

Again, louder. “Hey! Wake up sunshine; move your ass! You two ain’t clearin’ us out this time!”

A longer pause, a shuffle. In the corner of Nick’s vision, Hancock adjusts his grip, eager but calm.

“The hell…?”

A second voice. “Well, where the fuck is he?”

And then several pairs of shoes against concrete, unhurried. At least three people.

Nick’s finger brushes the trigger. One trilby appears out from under the walkway below them, then another, tilting up—he begins to squeeze—

A boom, and blood blooms out in a fan-shaped array below them. Cries of impact and surprise.

Thump. One body.

Boom.

Two bodies.

One staggers backwards, further into room and into view, bumping into a table. “Oh sh—”

Nick pulls the trigger.

Thump. Three bodies.

They wait. The sound of a shotgun cracking open, shells slipped inside, and snapped back shut. “We’re clear. Better get moving.”

And golly, he knows that one too.

A handsome face of dark brown skin and close cropped hair pokes out from under the walkway and peers up at them as Hawthorne emerges from the corner where he’d hid. “Hey there, Nick. Glad you’re in one piece.”

“Hawthorne,” he greets with a slight tip of his hat as he stands again, “Good to see you.” With each new face, he understands more and more how they could have made it this far. Hawthorne is a talented gun-for-hire, has a steady head on his shoulders, and is always willing to help friends. A good man.

His expertise, Piper’s instincts, and Hancock’s brutal will to do whatever’s necessary make for quite a cocktail. Time will tell what Montgomery brings to the table, he supposes.

“All this for little old me?” Nick muses once they’d reconvened on the bottom floor. “Hope I’m not the one footing the bill.”

“Couldn’t abide by our favorite detective being in need,” Hawthorne grins at him. “My gran would be real upset, after what you’d done for Freckles.”

Nick pats him on the shoulder in greeting and gratitude while Hancock and Piper search the fallen, dispensing (or pocketing) ammo and caps. “We certainly can’t have that. How is Eustace?”

“Still waiting on that afternoon tea.”

“Ah,” Nick says regretfully. “I keep meaning to stop by. The work piles up.”

The man nods sagely. “Cheating husband, priceless missing artifact, getting kidnapped and held prisoner for weeks. I know how it is.”

Nick chuckles. “Oh, I’m afraid I walked right into this one. They didn’t used to be so bad,” he says with a glance back to the bodies before he pokes his head into the hall ahead, pistol at the ready. Quiet and still as the grave. “But what changes a man more than time? And misguided affection, I guess,” he continues, mostly to himself. And grief. He looks back to his friends. “Speaking of, any sign of the man himself?”

Hawthorne gives a grim shake of the head. “Not yet.”

“Still can’t believe the great Nick Valentine got taken out by Skinny Malone of all people,” Hancock approaches with jangling pockets. “This guy is smalltime. Couldn’t find his own ass with both hands.”

“Turns out trust may be the most dangerous possession of all,” Nick surmises. He glances between the others. “We all set?”

Weapons are once again readied and they advance. Nick witnesses the group’s careful gameplan in real-time, how they compensate for Montgomery’s inexperience with Piper shifting in front and her retreating behind, and Hancock and Hawthorne taking point for both of them with the scatterguns.

They find themselves in the lavatory, two groups of showers and toilets on either side of the long hall, and each room is quickly declared clear.

Nick positions himself by the door at the end and nods to the others. Hawthorne takes the other side, raises three fingers, then two, and then one. Nick hits the button and braces.

The door doesn’t move. Doesn’t even make a sound.

“Hell,” he mutters, inspecting the panel. One obstacle after another. “They can’t even maintain such an exceptional hideout? …This’ll take me a minute.” At least it’s not a tumbler lock. With the current company present, he could do without the comments from Piper about his phalange being hinge-deep in a keyhole.

“So,” she starts anyway, looking between Nick and over her shoulder at their new friend. He nearly gives her a warning look, but a different topic has her attention, for once. “About you two knowing each other.”

Halfway back down the hall, Montgomery is testing a water fountain and looking in surprise at her Pip-Boy when it fails to give any cautionary tck-tck-tcks.

“A passing acquaintance in the courtroom,” is Nick’s answer as he inspects two wires, prepares to strip them. It was so long ago. A different life entirely.

“Oh?”

“I… was a defense attorney,” the other woman says at length as she swiftly shrugs off the pack on her back, a military-issue brown canvas rucksack in shockingly good condition. There’s a name embroidered on the flap, one N. ANDREWS.

“And you were both on the same case…?” Piper asks, needling for details. She does love to hear about how justice used to function. When it actually did.

“Well, this one wasn’t typically my beat,” he says simply, and Montgomery smiles as she digs out a canteen and two stocky brown liquor bottles.

“He was the witness, actually,” she elaborates. She dumps out one bottle of not-quite-clear liquid and starts refilling them with the most precious commodity of all in their new age.

“Guy ran his Corvega into a man in front of a sandwich shop and took off,” Nick explains. “Broke a leg and fractured two of the unfortunate victim’s ribs, if I recall. Only reason Nick was involved was good timing and a weakness for mortadella on focaccia.”

The professional façade on Hawthorne’s face cracks as the man looks at him perplexed and asks, “I’m sorry, whattadilla on fuck-a-what?” and Piper gives a snort in laughter.

Montgomery’s eyes linger on Nick in silent question, probably at the usage of the third person. But it will be awhile before he digs into that particular bag of cats.

“So, what happened?” Piper looks back at the former attorney. “You defended the guy?”

She sighs, and Nick has to give a chuckle at the memory of the trial. He speaks up again when she doesn’t, apparently reticent about that particular client. Or maybe speaking of that other life at all is simply too painful. Perhaps the wound, too fresh?

“Well, the one they dragged in was practically a kid, barely twenty-one. Matching description, but all Nick had seen was a white guy, brown hair, skinny physique. Red Corvega, polished to a shine, no license plates. Fresh off a lot. And this kid—Johnny was the name?”

“It was.” She leans against the wall watching him, slight smile and far-off gaze warring for dominion on her features.

“So Johnny had a decent alibi, a less-than-decent father, and a shiny red Corvega with nary a dent or even a scratch.” He pauses in his work, lost in his own thoughts. “Even I wondered if it was the right guy. Then three days into the trial—after a couple delays—young Johnny finally takes the stand. Only, Ms. Montgomery here requests that the court allow him to testify in the narrative. The judge grants her request, she sits right back down, and Johnny is told to continue his testimony without questioning. And the kid was none the wiser that his attorney just signaled to the court that he was lying through his teeth.” He can’t help but laugh again, shaking his head. “I hadn’t seen someone crucify themselves through perjury so thoroughly. Well—he hadn’t. Nick hadn’t.”

“Huh,” Piper says in amazement, and Montgomery picks up the thread.

“He turned out to be a real ass,” she muses. “Sought out a pro bono defense to try and prevent dear old dad from finding out.” The ponytail swings side to side as she shakes her head, mystified. “Sure did pay to have his car fixed up real quick, though.”

Hancock gives a faint derisive scoff, “Sounds too complicated. Guy like that? Thinking he’s better than everyone else? Can’t imagine having to stick up for scum like him.”

“He wasn’t exactly the type I was in it for,” she admits, giving a light shrug.

“Ah, you did good,” Nick tells her, and snaps the panel shut to bring himself back to the present, so he can stop being two different people in two different timelines. Most folks involved then are dead. That particular brand of justice doesn’t matter to very many people now. And fewer every day. Damn, he finds himself thinking again, optics flicking to the earnest face of the brunette down the hall, recognizing someone drowning in grief almost as if he were looking in a mirror. Who dragged you into this mess? And: is it any better than dying to nuclear fire? “Think I got it working again. Get ready.”

“He-ey,” Hancock says appreciatively when the door actually opens and nothing jumps out to kill them. “Nothing better than a multitalented dick.”

Even Piper rolls her eyes at the double entendre, although she’d laugh at it coming from anyone else. In fact, Nick is pretty positive he’s heard her say something very similar. It’s almost a miracle they’re not friends.

They form up and move forward.

What follows is a nightmare maze of thin hallways and branching living quarters everywhere Nick looks, a guy with a gun in any shadow; many, many stairs, over which his left knee has severe complaint—and one aforementioned poker game they do interrupt, which John proceeds to pick clean, whistling.

But they do well for themselves, faring even better with the addition of Nick and his new 9mm. Montgomery tucks herself behind crates and corners and pillars and lays covering fire with her borrowed SMG while the others pick their targets off, one by one. There’s certainly plenty of .45 to spare.

But still no sign of the head honcho. When they get upstairs to the depot, there’s no one at all until they open the door to the vault entrance.

And who else could be standing there at the very end of it all but Malone, blocking the way through the vault door. His expression alone could kill, not to mention the armed entourage of three men and his new flame.

Nick holds his hand up, specifically to stay Hancock and his twitchy trigger finger. There’s still a chance, whether Skinny really deserves one or not. Darla does. Her parents do.

The tactical calculus is apparent on the mob boss’ face. They could all certainly be wasted in seconds, easily—but then there’s the old history between them, and the fact of a certain mayor of Goodneighbor. A rival of Malone’s, to be sure, but one with far more influence and power than he, especially with a vault of dead henchmen.

Not to mention the fact that Malone isn’t exactly fond of shooting women. History has proven that to be a fact.

“How could you do this to me, Nicky?” Skinny is imploring him, equal parts anger and betrayal. “Busting in to my digs? Shooting up all my guys?”

“Me? I just spent two weeks in a damn lockbox, Skinny,” Nick says, affronted. “You did that. I came here looking for your two-timing dame, and when things got violent you stood by and watched. None of this would have even happened if she wrote home more often.” He eyes the dame in question, equipped with a metal bat he’d rather not get reacquainted with. Even as the one with the least blood on her hands, she might be the genuine problem here. A real agitator, that one.

Darla just hisses at her paramour, electing to ignore him. “I told you we should have just killed him. All that sentimental crap you gave me about the old times, look what happened!”

“Darla,” Malone says in warning, “I’m handling this. Skinny’s always got things under control.”

At this moment that couldn’t be further from the truth. Nick has to make him see that. “Skinny, you’d better take a good long look at who all just came knocking. And that was just for my sorry hide. Who do you think is gonna come looking for them?”

The gangster’s eyes waver from him to his companions. To Hancock.

“My people would burn this place to the fucking ground,” the ghoul at Nick’s side says matter-of-factly. Then he opens his mouth again, and the vicious smile is audible. “Not that any of you are gonna keep me from walking out of here.”

Nick grits his semblance of teeth. The mayor’s input will be not exactly helpful, if Darla’s tightened grip is anything to go by.

On his other side, Montgomery lowers her gun in a show of faith, splays her empty hand in more an entreaty than a surrender. She speaks not to Skinny, but to the woman beside him. “Darla,” she beseeches, “your parents just want you back home.”

“That’s a load of bull,” the gun moll spits back, focus narrowing to a single point at the words. “My dad doesn’t give a damn. He was waitin’ for me to go.”

Nick has plenty to say on the subject, but he and Darla already got off on the wrong foot, to say the least. And he figures Piper and company must have done their homework and gotten their information from dear Ellie—so he keeps his mouth shut and Montgomery continues.

“If that were really true, do you think they would hire a detective to find you? They’re worried sick. They don’t want you to throw your life away. For this.” She brandishes her empty hand at the group’s earlier handiwork; a man with buckshot filling his chest. “It’s never too late to go home.”

That strikes a chord. Darla stops short, her shoulders dropping just a fraction. “I…”

“Hey!” Skinny Malone barks at Montgomery. “I’m in charge here. You got something to say, you say it to me. Unlike all of you, she’s right where she belongs.”

Nick sighs, digging in deeper. It was over. The boss just hadn’t realized it yet. “This is the road you walked, Skinny,” he says. “And it only has one destination. You really think this is how Lilly June would want things to be?”

Burning eyes turn to him. “Don’t you give me that. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You got no idea. None.”

But the name had gotten Darla’s attention, as it was meant to. In fact, it had drawn a couple of glances. “Lilly? Who the hell is Lilly?”

“No, it’s not—it wasn’t like that,” he says in a near-panic. And maybe it’s cruel, to twist the knife like this. But that didn’t make it any less true.

“Oh yeah? Then what was it like, Skinny?”

“Darla,” he pleads, “we can talk about this later.” Behind them, even his henchmen had relaxed their postures, tossing looks to one another.

And Darla just shakes her head. “God. My ma was right. You gangster types are all talk. Puffed-up windbags.”

“Wha—?”

But her grip on the bat was already loosening, and it drops to the floor with a sharp ring. “I’m outta here. We’re done, Skinny. It’s over.”

“Wait! Darla, where are you…” His own gun hangs limp at his side, and his protestations fade when his supposed sweetheart doesn’t even look back as she walks away. Finally, he turns back to Nick. “I can’t believe you would do this,” he says again. “First my crew, then you cost me my girl.”

“It’s for the best, Sal,” Nick says calmly, using a name not spoken in years. “You’re no good for each other. I thought you’d recognize the signs, after all this time.”

“Out,” he replies, thoroughly demoralized. “Get out. I never want to see your face again.”

Nick starts to walk. Past his old rival-turned-familiar face, and past the henchmen who look none too impressed after that display. They might not be sticking around, either. “So long, Skinny.”

The others follow quietly, and no one stops them from leaving.

Hawthorne lets out his breath when they’re across the dig site, part relief and part awe. “Nicely done. I’d always heard about you talking folks down off the ledge. Glad I got to see it for myself.”

Nick nods, optics straying to Montgomery, quiet and thoughtful. She didn’t do bad, herself. He always was impressed by her way with words.

“Who is Lilly June, Nick?” Piper asks quietly as he leads the group toward a service entrance, nervous glances cast over her shoulder.

“Lillian June Malone,” he reflects, hand automatically straying to the pack of cigarettes in his pocket at the memory, for his second smoke of the night. For once, Hancock doesn’t complain about him wasting it. “Salvatore ‘Skinny’ Malone’s little girl. She would have been fourteen, now.”

“His daughter?” parrot both Hawthorne and Piper, aghast.

He flicks his lighter, each strike the memory of little shoes on quarry blocks, jumping from one to the next to the next, until…

“Aw, geez,” Piper mutters under her breath, adjusting her cap and pulling it down tight. “Don’t go making me feel bad for the guy.”

“He’s made nothing but bad decisions ever since,” he says, looking up at the ladder leading topside before he starts to climb. “One after the other.”

There’s a pause, and then Montgomery’s low voice joins the conversation for the first time in several minutes. “There’s a lot of things someone might be driven to do, after a loss like that.”

From his perch at the top of the ladder, finagling with the exit hatch, he can only barely hear Piper’s low exhalation, and he looks to see Montgomery with an arm wrapped around herself. She looks lost. The sight sets his clockwork ticking with the implications.

It’s a dark, cloudy sky above when they’re finally standing in the street, but Nick is thrilled to see it all the same. If he closes his eyes, the fresh breeze feels almost like it used to.

Dawn is just a handful of hours away. Home, even closer.

“I, ah, wanted to say,” he finally starts, turning to the others, “thank you all for coming. Truly. I was sure I’d be stuck in that office until the world ended all over again.”

“Ah, quit it,” Piper chides with a gentle knock against his shoulder. “No need to thank us. I wasn’t about to leave a friend down there. You know I don’t have many of those to spare.”

“Diamond City folk should take care of their own,” Hawthorne says. “It’d be a better place for it. And you’re the one who showed them that, Nick.”

“Aaaand that’s my cue,” Hancock says, stepping away in the direction of Goodneighbor. He lifts the front of his hat with a finger, revealing more of the American flag tied like a bandana around the remaining strips of his scraggly and stained blond hair. “See you around, Nick. Welcome back.”

“Hancock,” Montgomery is the one to call before he can turn away. “Thank you for the help.”

He nods at her. “Remember our deal and we’ll be square, sister.”

And that’s certainly interesting. Nick isn’t sure it necessarily bodes well.

As the ghoul walks away, a distinct feeling strikes the aging synth. A feeling that John may have looked at how things turned out for Malone, and seen opportunity for himself and his people.

And next time, Malone won’t be so lucky.

Nick tips his hat down and turns away. Someone should make better use of the vault anyway.

Montgomery catches his attention then, as she detaches the drum magazine on her scavenged SMG and he watches her unceremoniously dump the gun in the mud, stashing the ammo. Whether the look of distaste he caught in her eyes was more at the firearm or what she had to do with it… perhaps time would tell.

One final look is aimed at the retreating form of Goodneighbor’s macabre mayor before they start their own way back to Diamond City, and Nick falls into step beside his good friend. “Piper, if I’d known I was the one getting in the way of you two working together, I would have gone to ground ages ago.”

As predicted, she gives an exaggerated groan. “Don’t start. Every other word out of his mouth just bumps him further up my list. If it was just the two of us we would have killed each other before we even got in the door.”

“Every other word, huh?” Nick ponders. “Well, it’s an improvement.” He can spy the edge of a smile on Montgomery’s face, behind the evident exhaustion now that the adrenaline of fight-or-flight was ebbing. John’s charms had clearly worked on her at least a little bit.

“I may not agree with all the guy’s methods, but he didn’t seem that bad, really,” Hawthorne was saying. “At least, not nearly as bad as I expected. Not as bad as the stories.”

“No, not you too,” Piper mourns.

The gunhand gives a shrug. “Sometimes, you need a guy like that on side. Like when dealing with an army of gangsters out for blood,” he offers, and she grumbles in turn.

They continue on in this manner for a time, and Nick hangs back a few steps to walk alongside Natalia Montgomery, mystery woman of the hour. She offers a slight smile, looking more haggard by the minute.

“I, ah, got the impression there was a particular reason you came to find me,” he says quietly, “And I’m betting the story is a long one.”

Her gaze suddenly averts to look up into the midnight sky and she blinks hard. Even in the subdued moonlight, he can see how her eyes start to shine in mere seconds.

He bets she’s been barely hanging on by a thread for a while now. Ahead of them, he spies Piper glance back for a few moments, a knit of worry to her brow. Gal got attached quick.

Finally, Natalia takes in a long, slow breath, lets it out. “Yeah. It is.”

“Bit of a walk back to Fenway,” he reasons. “How about you tell me about it on the way, if you’re up to it. That way when we get back, you can get some sleep and I’ll get to work. And then we can tackle it fresh-faced in the morning.”

A twitch at the edge of her mouth. “No vacation for Detective Valentine, huh?”

“Not when I’m needed. And I don’t sleep. One of the rare perks of this rig,” he says, motioning to himself with a skeletal hand. Besides, he’s certainly had enough idle time lately.

Another deep, steadying sigh as her arms wrap around herself, a look cast up and down the street. After a few moments she speaks, and her voice wavers like the water of the Charles. “Yeah. Okay.”

And she begins.

Nick crushes his cigarette underfoot, dispersing the last wisps of smoke into night air. He tucks his hands into his pockets, looks up at the roiling clouds threatening an early September rain.

And he listens closely to the whole, sad story.

[raayllum]

Partially inspired by the new “Lost Child” story about Claudia and Sir Sparklepuff, partially inspired by my old “Aaravos and Harrow are thematic opposites” meta, and partially something I’ve been kicking around in my head for a little while now, let’s talk about

Aaravos’ view of children

This is one of the most interesting smaller facets of the series to me, partially because all the information we have is quite contradictory (not unlike Aaravos himself). However, we do get some key understandings of how he views things in his monologue scene in 4x04:

Aaravos sees children, primarily, as a threat worth dismissing. He specifically targets Ezran according to age, dismisses them not just as “pathetic” beings, but specifically their youth, even as our cast is two years older than they were previously, with Rayla two weeks shy of eighteen and Soren being close (if not already) twenty. 

However, his manipulation and dismissal feels particularly contradictory given that Claudia - a teenager not much older than Callum or Rayla, and younger than Soren - is currently taking up her father’s mantle, and is the one freeing the being from his cocoon. The Orphan Queen was similarly young, seemingly mid-to-late teens, when she revealed his treachery to the Archdragons and subsequently helped with his imprisonment. So Aaravos knows that ‘children’ are capable, not only as opponents, but also as tools.

So why have dismissal on the basis of youth?

Well, I’m going to posit that Aaravos dismisses children not on the basis of capability, but on the basis of usefulness.

Children in the Narrative of Strength 

I talked more about this in my Harrow and Aaravos parallels meta linked above, specifically the way Harrow admires/cites that “The great illusion of childhood is that adults have all the freedom and power. But the truth is the opposite: a child is freer than a king.” And freedom is very important to Harrow, both from a personal standpoint (“But as a father, I have a selfish wish: for you and Ezran to be free. Reject the chains of history”) and from a thematic standpoint (“Fate is a lie, nothing is written in stone, you are free”). This viewpoint is important, then, in the way the trio embodies this specifically because of Zym, and how he causes people to confront (or not confront) their biases and understandings of personhood. 

To a certain degree, to recognize a person’s childhood and/or that they are a child is to recognize their personhood, but not necessarily. Soren can recognize that Ezran is a child, but it’s not enough to make him defect from his father’s plan at the time (2x02). Aaravos is aware that two of his pawns (Callum, Claudia), at least, are children, and yet he treats both of them as valuable assets. Claudia can understand that Sir Sparklepuff is like a child in her eyes, and accordingly associates it with helplessness, rather than subsequent agency. She’s not entirely wrong to do so, as Ezran’s naivety does get him into trouble, and Callum and Rayla’s young natures are part of their own coming-of-age stories in Arc 1. 

But Soren and Runaan identify youth as an obstacle to Callum and Rayla’s goals. For Callum, he wants to protect the people he loves (“He’s the king, and he’s my father. It’s my duty to help him”) and for Rayla, it’s that she’s already failed at her duty and in protecting her troupe (“I messed up, I know I did. Because I let that soldier go we’re all in danger”). 

An exchange between Viren and Soren in mid-S1 perhaps spells this out most explicitly. The Narrative of Strength - of clear cut power, protection, and subsequent dominion and perpetuation of the cycle - believes that youthfulness and qualities more commonly found in children are weakness.

V: If we are strong enough to make the right decisions, humans may finally return to Xadia, and take back the great magical lands that are rightfully ours. But if we are led by a child king... S: He’ll make bad choices? V: He will make weak choices.

To be a child is to be, not bad, but something much worse: weak. To be weak is to be helpless; to be helpless is to be exploitable, if not also expendable. It means you cannot protect the person you love (and as I’ve gone over before, that tends to be most people’s motivations in the show - or at the very least, it’s what they believe their primary motivation is.) 

But what is the place of a child in a Narrative of Love, and how/why does this factor in for Aaravos - or at the very least, seems to?

A Beautiful Upside Down Truth

Harrow, again, says this most clearly in 2x06:

I now believe true strength is found in vulnerability, in forgiveness, in love. There is a beautiful upside down truth, which is that these moments of purest strength appear as weakness to those who don’t know better. For a long time, I didn’t know better. I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength, and instead have faith it can be a Narrative of Love.

Moments of legitimate strength - to lay down arms, to take a chance, to engage in faith and mercy - appear as weakness to those who subscribe to a Narrative of Strength. The same action appearing differently depending on your perspective, as with many things. But how does this relate to Aaravos? Well, beyond the fact that Aaravos’ chest and main symbol is also the fact that he literally has an upside down star arcanum on his chest, there’s also a more complicated, overt layering going on that S4 brought to the forefront. 

A narrative of love isn’t always that simple. A desire to protect someone can lead you to do despicable things (Harrow and Viren believing they will murder Zym, an innocent child). Love can turn and be warped to grief. Love makes people angry; love makes people hurt. The fear of losing love can cause people to make destructive choices, both to themselves and others, and with consequences they cannot fathom. Love can be strength, yes, but it can also be weakness:

And if I stay much longer, you’ll wake up and try to stop me… from doing what I know I have to do. Leaving. But I can’t let you stop me, Callum. No matter how much I want to. I have to be strong. No matter what. And if you said even one word to me, I wouldn’t be—couldn’t be. If I stay even until your eyes open and you yawn your silly morning yawn, I’ll break. I’ll still be here when the sun rises today, and the next day, and the next…

I should go. I have to go.

—Dear Callum, Reflections Vol. 1

Her hands itched with the horrible lightness of each scattered piece, her feet ached as she walked and walked and walked to gather her father back together… And then the voice, the thread she had caught and clung to and used to haul herself out of the darkness.

“Do not fear,” the Startouch elf had said. “You are a dark mage, powerful and potent. With my help, there is nothing you cannot fix. Not even death.”

Claudia breathed in pine and earth, and the faint tang of the water.

It’s up to me again, she thought. It’s always up to me. [...] There I am, she thought. I’m not a mess. I’m a dark mage. And I’m stronger than almost anyone knows. Maybe her mother hadn’t seen that strength. Maybe Soren had chosen to ignore it. But Aaravos had known—and her father did, too.

—Lost Child, Reflections Vol. 2

And Aaravos preys upon this directly:

Viren is motivated by love (“She is not an asset, she is my daughter” / “I have always been ready to do anything to protect my family”). Claudia is motivated by love. Callum already is, and will presumably continue to be more overtly moving forward into S5. Aaravos pushes people into corners where they feel weak (“I felt so weak and out of control,” Callum says of the possession) in order to manipulate them further. This is likely because of his own history of trying to “win” over others and humans and still ultimately feeling betrayed by them:

Tests of Love bring the two aspects of the Narrative together, breaking down the previous binary the series has constructed between Love and Strength. While Strength is easier to buy into, it does not mean that Love is impervious to corruption or coercion. It’s just another path, unless you have the foresight and capabilities to avoid it. 

After all, games are routinely associated with children (Ezran’s hide and seek motif anyone? / Zym playing in the most recent short story by his father’s resting place) and subsequent helplessness (“Entire armies have fallen before [Avizandum] like toys, how can we hope to kill such a godly creature?” 3x06) and Aaravos is playing a game. The main difference is that he’s playing his game with people’s lives, specifically centred around his pawns, with anyone else as collateral damage. He is simultaneously ancient, and yet also stunted in maturity, relegated to a destructive and childish view of the world and the people around him. 

But as anyone who knows me, well, knows, is that for the first three seasons, the most consistently referenced piece in Aaravos’ game is, well

What does this mean for the Key?

Children are, series wise, inherently about potential. Zym has the potential to be destructive and dangerous and to hate humans, and that’s seen as a good enough reason to get rid of him. Ezran has the potential to make ‘bad’ or ‘weak’ choices, and so he and his brother must be removed from the equation as heirs. Rayla could hesitate again; Callum could play into Aaravos’ hands. But all of these are treated like certainties by various characters, and sometimes even the character who the belief is held about themselves.

Potential isn’t always a good or bad thing; our beliefs of where that potential will go can be neutral if they’re measured. For example, Callum once thought that the Key of Aaravos, more commonly and consistently referred to as a game piece / toy, could be beneficial: “I just have a feeling this cube thing could help me.” Seeing every side turn to the dark magic sigil and routes to primal magic feel closed off in 2x08 represented a lack of potential. After all, a set destiny is just one path; it means there is no potential. There is only one path forward. 

Now, the cube could still have the potential for great good; that would be very in line with Aaravos’ and the series’ persistent fascination with duality and well, potential itself. However, I do think the Key will lead to something disastrous first. I have a couple of theories of what the cube may be (the key to his prison, or his heart and memories) but they both hinge on well, probably the biggest Assumption any of those theories make: that Aaravos wants the key at all. 

Simply put, any speculation that Aaravos wants or needs the key is just that: speculation. We have no idea what its capabilities are, although it is implied to be a powerful relic and/or to unlock something (or someone) powerful in Xadia. Aaravos has also required for Claudia and co. to obtain objects he made and gifted to other mages (Ziard’s dark magic staff, now in Viren’s hands) in order to help secure his freedom, so there is precedent for something made by or belonging to Aaravos to have a part to play in releasing him, at least partially. If Aaravos doesn’t want the Key for one of his plans, after all, then it purely exists right now as implied bait for Callum in some capacity. If the Key has any sort of power, it makes sense that Aaravos would at the very least want it for himself. Thus, Aaravos wanting well, his Key, does make the most sense, even if we don’t know why. If it is his heart or tied to his memories, both of those and their associations with childhood (“a child sees with their heart, not just their eyes” from the book one novelization) could help explain why we see child Aaravos on the star chart map in S4′s intro(s). 

But it is still an assumption. It does indicate, though, that if Aaravos does want the key, acquiring it and/or his freedom (whichever comes first) is his checkmate moment, if you will. The moment he Wins the Game, because his instruments - his pawns - are destined to play into his hands. They are destined to lose - to participate in a song of Love and Loss. Aaravos is writing their destinies. At least for now.

Conclusion(?)

What does this all mean? To be honest, I don’t really know. Mostly, I just think the consistency and duality / cognitive dissonance Aaravos is operating under is 1) interesting as hell from a character / theory standpoint and 2) important as hell from a thematic standpoint. The Cycle, after all, is perpetuated by children who grow up to be adults, or by children themselves. Likewise, the Cycle must also be broken for the sake of future generations, as Ezran and Janai say, so that their children, and their children’s children, can live in peace. 

And the you have Aaravos, a character embodied by duality and contradiction, and defined as heavily by this dual view of child/childhood as he is by light and dark. He  has childlike qualities, but he’s also an ancient being fully aware of and responsible for his actions; he plays games, but with people’s lives; Aaravos is monstrous, yes, in many ways, but he was once a child and is still a person like anyone else. I expect that seeing how he turned into, well, what he is now, will be a major part of the show going forward for all the reasons mentioned above, and indeed one of the many reasons I’m beyond excited for future seasons.

Season five can’t come soon enough.

[tame-a-messenger]

not you changing your tune immediately after sword AF came out lol like let’s be real, you were being way too intense for no reason- saying smosh lied??? dude where??? going on and on about how they let down the community and it was really scummy and it being a podcast was a horrible thing of them to do, and then it comes out and you’re just posting about how great it was?

like im not sure if it was maybe an impulsive bunch of posts but honestly your reaction to all of that made no sense

I never changed my tune?

I was upset at HOW they went about breaking the news. How they changed it after promising that it was going to be better then the last season.

Maybe you got confused, my tune of how Smosh as a brand handled the change (re-read my old posts) has NEVER CHANGED. I still think it was VERY scummy what they did. (They DID LIE. They said S2 was going to be BETTER and that they had a lot in store after S1, then took away visuals?? yeah definitely not "better")(they went about it the whole wrong way)

But I never said that I wouldn't still keep up with Sword AF. Not once.

I LOVE Sword AF, that's why I was/still am very pissed at whoever made the initial post 'welcoming' it back. It DESERVES BETTER.

The cast and story is what I care about, at the core.

Do I still think it was a dumb decision to change to audio only? YES. Am I not going to listen to it because of that? NO. (I love it too much)

Plus I think it's a horrible thing to think that they can get away with tossing SAF. If they're going to push it to listening only, I'm going to watch(haha) THE SHIT OUT OF IT. If that means they see how much we love the series, so they do a S3 WITH VISUALS (they said they would focus on visuals for 'future ttrpgs')(I think that means SAF S3 if it gets enough backing by the community)

I don't want the series that I love to die quietly.

[darkstarofchaos]

Well. I said I didn't want to watch TF One, but I did. Spoiler-free thoughts: I actually enjoyed the first half, but after a certain point, it collapsed under the weight of the status quo. Much better than the trailers suggested, though, I'll give it that. Whoever made the marketing decisions needed to be fired.

Spoilery thoughts from here on out.

I guess I'll start with the little technical things and work up to the characters. So:

Music was great. Animation was pretty good. Was very much not a fan of the few shots where their faces move in really exaggerated ways after being hit or subjected to high velocity, with the flappy lips and stuff. But I also don't like shots like those when the characters are human and not made of metal, so that's a personal thing, really.

Voice acting could have been better. The main cast was fine (yes, even Elita. I loved her line delivery, actually), but you could tell me the background characters shared one actor and I'd believe it. Except Darkwing, Shockwave, and Soundwave are considerably deeper, so maybe two actors doing all the background characters.

Getting into the worldbuilding, I want to know what the mechanism is for those self-producing roads and train tracks. Like, how do they work. Why does this world have magic. I don't necessarily object, but how and why, and why do they use it specifically for roads? It's a delightfully mundane use of magic, but where did it come from. What happens to the roads after the vehicle is gone. I need answers.

Also, why do only some sections of the planet move independently like that? It can't be the entire planet or things like vegetation wouldn't be able to grow anywhere, so is it like areas of elevated seismic activity? Are these Cybertronian fault lines? I am less in need of answers than I was with the roads, but still want to know more. Also want to see more fauna, because I was hoping for more than just the ungulates (unguloids? Deer bots).

Getting into some of the worldbuilding that irked me a bit, um... Why are all of the miners and civilians Autobots and the Decepticons are all part of the High Guard? Why do we already have the factions segregated from each other? Why is Megatron the only exception? Okay, that last one isn't a mystery, I know why he's an exception. But in universe, why is Iacon full of jets and cars, and Megatron is just a random tank hanging around? I'll talk more about it when I get to him, but why?

For that matter, if the High Guard had been working against Sentinel and knew he betrayed the Primes, why did none of them go back to the other Cybertronians and tell them the truth of things? Even in the present day, why do they just assume strangers in their midst are working with Sentinel and not that he's been lying to them for years to keep his crimes hidden? Did any of them ever think, "you know what, Sentinel was a traitor to our kind, I bet the rest of our species would turn on him if they knew"? It seems like Sentinel had been hunting them - probably *because* he knew they knew the truth - so why did they never reveal it? If they tried and failed, why not say as much?

Characters and story are kinda wrapped up in each other, so I'll start with the characters who had less impact on the story and go from there.

Bee: he was actually not that annoying, and not as much of a comedy relief character as the trailers made him look. He is still there mainly as comedy relief - he has like, one scene where he's of any relevance to the plot - but his behavior is a lot less annoying in context. And, not gonna lie, I love how he got knife hands and immediately went murder-hobo. He's just so happy and excited to cut things (and people). Only thing that kinda bothered me was him hitting on Elita, but I'm honestly not sure if he was supposed to be hitting on her or if his "I have been alone for so long, please talk to me" thing just hit differently with her than with Orion and D-16 because she's a she.

Elita: She was okay. She plays a key role, but there's nothing special about her that makes her qualified for that role. She could have been replaced by any other character who went from disliking Orion to believing in him, and we'd have gotten the same results (would have preferred if it was Jazz, tbh. Or Ironhide. Actually, I would have preferred a Decepticon to balance out our main group instead of a third Autobot, but I really thought maybe the fourth bot was Jazz when I first saw everyone's silhouettes in early promotional material).

Starscream: Starscream contributed nothing to this story. His one reason for existing was to get beat up so Megatron could take over the Decepticons High Guard. The only reason I put him above the other two is because he's relevant to Megatron's personal arc. Barely. You couldn't swap him out and put someone else in charge of the High Guard, but only because we need to meet our quota of Megatron pounding on him. And I guess because someone thought it would be clever if Megatron was the usurper in their relationship this time around. And it could have been, if anything was done with it.

I'll go into this more when I talk about Megatron, because it's really about his arc. So for now, I'll just say that I liked that Starscream's voice actually sounded damaged and like it was a struggle to speak. It allows me to set aside any sort of "this was supposed to explain why his voice is Like That" intentions, because even if that *was* the intent, his voice in other continuities actually sounds, y'know. Not damaged. On the other hand, I can't imagine him having very many *lines* sounding like that, so he's been basically relegated to forever be a mere background presence if there's a sequel. Unless they handle his new impairment far more respectfully than I have any reason to expect.

Sentinel: Um. What exactly were his motives again? I'll freely admit that I might be forgetting something important (the problem with theaters is there's no rewind button), but I don't understand why he did... Anything. Take betraying the Primes: was he just bored? Power hungry? A coward who was approached by the Quintessons and made a deal with them? Was the war against the Quintessons going so badly he believed it necessary? What was his motive for taking new bots' T-cogs away? Was it to keep them weak? How did he explain why the new bots didn't have them when it's implied everyone did before he came into power? It's reasonable to assume the loss of the Matrix was blamed, since its loss already meant energon had stopped flowing, but there's just too much we don't know.

Motives aside, he was a fine villain. I guess he was supposed to be a charismatic manipulator type, but I have trouble seeing it? He lacks presence somehow, and never actually feels powerful except for a brief moment during the climax. Which is appropriate in a way, since he obtained his place through betrayal, but I just have trouble taking him seriously.

Orion/Optimus: Yep, we're getting to Orion before D-16. He may have been vital to the plot (which wouldn't have happened if not for him), but in the end, it wasn't his actions or decisions that brought us to where the story ended (well. Not directly. But we'll get to that).

Orion actually won me over pretty quickly. As soon as D-16 asked him if ancient data was worth dying for and Orion cheerfully replied, "Yes it is!", I decided, "you're an idiot. I like you". And then by the time of the Iacon 5000 I was left wondering why D-16 put up with him, because it was implied that he pulled stupid stunts constantly, and either pulled D-16 into trouble with him, or had to be bailed out by him constantly. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm here for Orion having flaws. He was incredibly selfish and kinda manipulative, and I love that for him. But I'm not the one who had to put up with him every day of my life.

He also doesn't really get any incentive to change that? Like, he drags D-16 into the Iacon 5000, getting them both injured and making D-16 worry about punishment, and then Sentinel is thrilled. He convinces D-16 to join him on a cross-country adventure and they learn a vitally important truth. For most of the movie, Orion is being rewarded for his impulsive, arguably selfish decisions. Elita calls it "optimism" and "being inspiring", and yeah, he did want to inspire others to believe they could be more. But he did so without regard for the feelings or physical safety of the one closest to him, and he never left room for D-16 to be content with the life he already had. And that ultimately costs him. But hey, he gets to be a Prime now, named after the "optimism" that cost him his friend. Hope it was worth it.

(Yes, I said friend. I *almost* decided MegOp was canon in this world when Orion brought D-16 to the Iacon 5000's starting line and D-16 asked, "You did this for me?" But then Orion replied, "I did this for us", which might sound romantic to some. But I was just like, "You're supposed to say yes. Stop thinking about yourself for five minutes, geez." And then oh, look at that, "this" was not front row seats to watch the start of the race, "this" was "I'm entering us in that race you explicitly didn't agree to be part of". You do not spring that sort of surprise on your partner, Orion. Let your autistic friend have his routines and think about how your actions affect the people who aren't just watching you from a safe distance. Primus).

D-16/Megatron: On that note, yes: TF One Megatron has been added to my list of autistic headcanons. My army grows.

So. I like corruption arcs, when the villains aren't evil just because. But this arc was... Painful. And not in the tragic "he's turning on his closest friend" way. I mean painful like, "Okay, why is murder how you choose to handle things? You are becoming a completely different character, can we please keep to existing traits for this corruption?" Like, yes, D-16 punched Orion once, and threatened to kill him several times (though never in a context where it would read as a serious threat). Yes, he yells when he's angry. It's been established that he has a temper.

But there was nothing mean in him. There was no sign of violence towards anyone but Orion, and the only thing that suggests he believes in corporeal punishment is a remark that Darkwing was right to hit him because he was being insubordinate. We needed more remarks like that. More fragments of the outlook that allowed him to decide someone deserved to die. I cannot look at D-16 as he was before they find Alpha Trion and see the seed of darkness that led him to become Megatron. What makes him so different from the others that he's the only one angry enough to literally kill?

Unfortunately, things do not get better after the initial anger sparks. I can understand D-16 being mad at the High Guard because they knew the truth about Sentinel but didn't do anything with it (at least as far as he was concerned), and I know why he fought Starscream. I know he had to take control of the Decepticons. But he is an untried novice, and Starscream has presumably been fighting longer than he's been alive. Even if Starscream wasn't taking him seriously (which is likely, considering how he kept goading him), there is no reason why Megatron should have won that fight. Back down when you have a giant gun in your face? Absolutely! Then get up and shoot him in the back, and call it a lesson in claiming victory without making sure your enemy is truly defeated. I cannot believe I need to complain that Starscream didn't do the most opportunistic thing.

You could have done something with this role reversal. You could have kept Starscream being impressed after D-16 stands up to and kills Sentinel, and had him decide to take this powerful young mech under his wing. But no, we had to get the entire status quo in place by the end of the movie, even if that means handing Megatron victories that feel unearned. I don't even like the dynamic of Starscream being the bigger, older, more experienced one in their relationship, why am I the one complaining that that's not what we got?

Ah, right. Because what we got reduced Starscream's role in the plot to "punching bag". Jazz got a more meaningful role in the plot, and I'm pretty sure he had less screentime.

(Look, just because I decided to watch the movie doesn't mean how Starscream was handled stopped bothering me. That "fight" with D-16 was the most uncomfortable and frankly unnecessary part of the movie. I thought D-16 was going to have an "Oh fuck" moment and back off when he suddenly had a cannon on his arm, but no, I guess we're already in too deep. We don't get any brief, painful reminders of who he used to be along his way to damnation, he's just gonna march straight into hell).

On that note! I actually loved the moment when he accidentally shoots Orion. Because it was the last glimpse of his old self before he officially becomes Megatron, but also because it was an unexpected callback to G1, where Orion becomes Optimus as a lifesaving measure after Megatron shoots him. Also, the way all the sound and music just stops. Beautiful sound design. Interspersing clips of Orion becoming Optimus and D-16 killing Sentinel and becoming Megatron was also very nice. Only problem was Megatron declaring an end to Primes and calling them "false prophets", where did that come from. Sentinel was the one who killed them all and lied to you your whole life, the others didn't do anything that we're aware of.

Also not really a fan of D-16 going from "I just want to be a good miner" to "I will rule Iacon" in like... Two days. Wanting to kill Sentinel, fine. Not trusting authority figures anymore, sure. But the leadership thing is... Quite a change in the scale of one's ambitions. Another thing that could have used more foreshadowing.

(Also also, I have seen people suggest that if he hadn't been interrupted, D-16 would have followed up his remark about not trusting leaders by telling Orion he still trusts him. I think otherwise: I think the moment D-16 takes the map from Orion and refuses to give it back is the moment that shows he's stopped trusting him. He wants to kill Sentinel and Orion doesn't: their goals are at odds and Orion does what Orion wants, so D-16 can't count on him to have his back this time).

And finally. Optimus banishing the Decepticons. Sir, you have had the Matrix for five minutes. Why is your first official act as Prime to divide your people. Fine, punish Megatron, he's the one who killed Sentinel, but ignoring the battle that you partook in, the worst the High Guard did was property damage. Maybe it would be a good idea to... I don't know, talk to a few of them and try to understand their anger at Sentinel's regime instead of exiling them because they like the mech who killed him? No? We're doing the exile thing?

Okay then, good luck fighting the Quintessons, I guess. Not like unifying your people would make you stronger or anything.

Becoming a Prime does not necessarily mean you are qualified to be a leader. But we've already made Megatron a leader despite his barely doing anything to prove himself, so sure, give them both positions of power. Why not.

[2hoothoots]

First of all, congrats on destroying the BIG TOP! So to speak. (I'd ask if you could give it to me but they haven't invented that technology yet). Secondly, since you asked for Asks, what got you so into Norma as a character? I wanna compare and contrast. :V

hahaha THANK YOU! some day modern medicine will unlock the secret to equivalent exchange… some day

anyway, great ask because i Always have stuff to say about Norma. putting it under the cut for length (although to be fair, if you don’t want to see lengthy impassioned essays about Norma i’m not really sure why you’re following me in the first place)

first of all: i unapologetically like women who kinda suck. listen, okay, listen, i absolutely understand that the line between “fun to dislike” and “just obnoxious” is different for everyone but Norma falls entirely on the fun side for me. from her very first appearance, she’s so unnecessarily petty and snarky and competitive with this ten-year-old she literally just met, and i can’t lie i just find it incredibly entertaining. and also, y’know, i think she sucks but in a way that’s ultimately harmless and also so believable. she’s not a terrible person, she’s just a shitty teenager. i’m a Norma apologist, not in the “she did nothing wrong <3” way but the “yeah she’s mean but that’s what’s interesting about her” way. give me more female characters who are complicated and unlikable and make bad decisions!

secondly: she’s a shitty obnoxious know-it-all teenager, and boy, do i relate! maybe part of this is filling in the gaps and part of it is projection, but i look at her and i see someone with the compulsive need to “win” every conversation and prove they’re the smartest person in the room; someone who clings to their model student status because deep down they’re afraid it’s the only worthwhile trait they have, the single thing that makes them anything more than a useless waste of space with no friends and no redeeming qualities. characters who are jerks or bullies are really interesting to dive into for me, because there’s always something underneath that. Norma’s combination of annoying pretentiousness and deep insecurity is really compelling to me, and a lot of it is because i see my younger self in her. i feel like i really grok her as a character, and because of that i find her interesting to explore and write for!

thirdly, the big thing that drew me to her the same as it did the other interns was, ironically, their lack of screentime. PN2 has one too many ensemble casts, and individual development for some of the characters feels rushed, and i am first in line saying i wish we’d gotten more intern content. but what we did get was just enough to pull me in and hook me on the characters. the game left me wanting more, and honestly that’s what drove me to write so much fic of the intern cast in the first few months after release. they were so charming and felt so underutilised and i was desperate for more from them – and at the same time, because they had fairly little screentime they made a great starting point to develop further with headcanons and filling in the blanks and just turning them over in my head and imagining what could have been. what really gets my creative juices flowing is taking something from canon and building on it with my own stuff (which is also why i’ve gotten so invested in the future AU!), and the interns all have such strong concepts and starting points while also giving a lot of freedom to develop them and flex my own creative muscles.

like, i was thinking about why i never really got into the psychic 7 in the same way, and i think it does just come down to them being more fleshed-out characters in comparison. which feels so funny to say, haha – i love the old people’s club, they’re great, but i never latched onto them like i did the interns, and i think it’s because they don’t have the same fill-in-the-blanks potential. we get to learn about their backstories in pretty great detail, we get to explore 6/7 of their minds, and they all feel very succinctly developed but in a way that ties a bow pretty neatly on most of their characters. we learn so much less about any of the interns in comparison, but those unanswered questions just end up tickling my creative brain that much more. there’s a theory that people engage in transformative fanwork to give them the kind of engagement they didn’t get from the canon, and i think that’s definitely true here! maybe there’s an alternative universe out there where we got way more intern content and i never ended up writing any fics with them in, hahaha

[your-anime-boyfriend]

Last wednesday I ended "Oshi no Ko" (2023) and I have A LOT to say... I LOVED IT.

I have to say I didn't expect an hour episode (no one did I think), but it's a great way to introduce this anime because the first episode is about Hoshino Ai, her life and what happened before everything. We got to meet her, we got to love her and we got to SUFFER.

I cried a river IN THE FIRST EPISODE... Well deserved the best score in MAL.

In the following episode we know what happened after Ai's Death. We have this new version of Aqua, which is horrible because he lost all hope, and we have Ruby, blinded by her brightful future.

Next up, we meet the new cast, and everything flows. Oshi no Ko shows how it works in the idols industry. They have to go where they don't want to because it's work, they have to do things they don't want because it's work, they have to be real, be fake, have a smile, don't smoke, don't drink, be happy, etc. It's really exhausting.

Every character has something relatable:

Arima Kana. She started as a genius kid in acting. She's really good, but she discovered that it doesn't matter how good you are, they drop you when there's a new star. Because of this, she overthinks a lot and she has a very mature point of view, that's why she goes for the best option to survive. She was that much in the entertainment industry for a reason. She also thinks she doesn't deserve nice things (as Taylor'd said), but she's very nice, really amazing in general.

There are a lot of Arima Kanas, it's really sad.

Kurokane Akane. Akane tried to be real in a show, she didn't shine because her personality isn't that brightful. When she had an accident with another actress people went for the throat. She was bullied almost 'til death, she tried to kill herself, but Aqua avoided that. People was SO MEAN, that she wanted to die. It's a relatable story, in East Asia countries it takes one story (verified or not) to destroy someone's career.

MEM. She wanted to be someone, but she couldn't due to her family. She had to support them, and when she was able to pursue her dreams, she was too old. Agencies don't usually go for trainees of more than 20. Finally, she got to debut with B Komachi. I'm so happy for her.

Aqua learned things tended to discover his father, so he knows who killed Ai. He enters the entertainment industry because this would help him in his plans.

Ruby wanted to be an idol, and she did. She's very optimistic, I guess it's because she didn't witness Ai's death. Ruby is the opposite of Aqua, she has dreams and she's hungry to fulfill them.

Hoshino Ai. She died too soon, but she's so relatable for me. She thought she could never love someone, she lied her fans everytime because she want them to be happy, she did her best always. She never lied to Aqua and Ruby, but it's so sad that she realised she loves them when she's dying. I think she died in a horrible way, but I think it's lovely to hear Ai saying "it's not a lie, I love you" to Ruby and Aqua.

And now, this has to end. BUT-

Let's talk about IDOL by YOASOBI... HOW CAN THEY MAKE SUCH A MASTERPIECE AND SLEEP LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED???

The music is brilliant, it is "sparkling", like a pop/idol song; the lyrics are amazing: the chorus is what everyone thinks "she's the most powerful Idol", there's a part like... distorted, with the bad opinions people who don't like her say, and we end with Ai's thoughts, she thought she could never fall in love with someone, and she did with her sons "this isn't a lie, I love you". I was devasteted when I read it.

My decision is...10 out 10! And well deserved, It went #1 in My Anime List after his first episode for a reason.