#they put him in a kids show because he would have been too powerful otherwise | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kaybreezy3000 · 8 months ago

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~alternate S4 ending and a look inside Five's world both before he jumped to the apocalypse and post season 3.

~~~~~~~~It all begins and ends with Five....

(Rated Teen and Up or General. 10,409 words)(alt season 4 story with ending, reader insert style that allows anyone to be the 'you' character,-as a potential friend to Five or whatever you want to imagine, meant to be sad and sweet.)

warnings: mild description/mention of child abuse, and signs of panic attack, potential trigger by mention of bombing a building

tags: anarchist Number Five, Hero Number Five, ideas from the Gene and Jean script release but not based on what really happened, whump, fluff, trauma, heartbreak, love, revenge, forgiveness, Mr. Pennycrumb, all the Hargreeves and some of our new character mentions from season 4 but not as the show had them because this was written before it came out, Five deserves better, Klaus is awesome, You x Five, Five is amazing and with this one you get to imagine yourself a part of his story/future 👍

He Who Holds The Power

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From across the table, the couple staring back at Five took a drink from their coffees at the same time.

Five’s lips turned up ever so slightly as he swallowed down the warmth from his own caffeinated beverage. “Jean was it?” he questioned, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, I’m Jean and this is my husband Gene,” the woman replied while the man next to her intently watched him with bright blue eyes that filled his otherwise aged face with youthful looking excitement.

They were nervous, and rightly so. They were finally meeting the mysterious person who had hired them five years ago to hunt down things that shouldn’t exist but did.

Shifting forward, Five set his empty cup down between them, then casually pulled up the cuff of his dress shirt and glanced at his wrist, noting the time before he raised a brow. “Do you have it?”

“We do,” the man said, passing him a folder.

Five opened the manila file.

His breath caught in his throat.

Staring back at him were six masked children, all decked out in matching academy uniforms as they proudly stood there with the Eiffel Tower behind them.

Five had seen plenty of evidence already, but this was the nail in the coffin. This was all the proof he needed to verify he was right and he was justified in what he was about to do.

The date on the newspaper clipping was from early April of 2001.

It was only five months after The Umbrella Academy’s infamous bank job.

They were only twelve years old.

He had lived a lifetime since then, but the memories of that day, and what happened to him after it, hit Five in waves of near crippling anxiety. As if the world was out to get him, it was all made worse by the hateful looking woman who had just walked by with the little yelping dog that she just zapped into submission through the shock collar that looked like it was choking the life out of him.

She looked too much like The Handler, with her fancy dress and spiked heels, and those blood red lips forming a wicked grin. Her sick satisfaction over the animal’s paralyzing fear was exactly how Five’s ex-boss looked at him as she heartlessly manipulated him into doing her bidding.

His fingers curled as his body tensed.

He forced his eyes back to the article with the faded image of his family.

He had looked about as smug as a kid could at the press conference that cold day, and he was, but not long after that, Five would find out how foolish he was to think that by merely doing his best and putting on a show for the press that he could trick his father and himself that he was good enough.

“How is this stuff possible,” Jean questioned with her eyes darting from the stained article Five had just laid down, to his hand retreating under the table where they couldn’t see it trembling.

Pushing aside all that, Five flatly said, “It doesn’t matter.”

Gene didn’t like that.

“What?” he angrily barked. “We have been searching high and low for this stuff and we have given you tons of proof that this shit is real. That kid in front looks a lot like you,” he pointed at Five in the picture, “and that girl looks like the actress from the VHS tapes we gave you! Something is not right here!”

“It never was,” Five stoically replied while promptly pushing out his chair.

Not waiting for them to argue with him further, he left them and the paper on the table that showed evidence of his past that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. The envelope full of money he’d dropped next to the file should be enough to quiet them. Not that it would matter.

Time was up.

Five was done sitting around playing Reginald’s victim.

Five’s fingers gently cradled the detonator in his pants pocket as he walked down the busy sidewalk with his eyes aimed at the tallest building on the horizon-the one that was adorned with huge letters spelling out the last name he had once called his own.

Reginald had erased Number Five Hargreeves and left him with almost nothing. Five had tried to move on and take his second chance for what it was, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t escape his thoughts of retribution.

In trying to reclaim something he’d lost and couldn’t figure out how to repair, Five was finally going to erase the father that had never loved him.

~~~

Not long before this, across town, with a heaviness tugging at what was left of his cold heart, the heavy door thumped closed behind Reginald at what was once The Umbrella Academy. Though parts of the exterior were in horrible states of disrepair, burnt and bashed by the spray of angry graffiti, the main stones holding together the building stood as they always had, but the home of the once famous children that were born with superhuman powers was now nothing more than another one of his many derelict properties.

Reginald had left it to rot and had taken the world for himself, and he’d done so by using them in the worst way, stripping them of the gifts inside them to fuel his machine that rebooted life on his terms.

He should have been happy with the result. He had gotten everything back that he’d always wanted, but inside, behind those walls that no one was allowed, a life from another time sat silently covered in dust and it told another story nobody else knew.

Ironically, all Reginald cared about always turned out empty.

The Umbrella Academy may not have existed in this timeline but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still there, just like his regret.

Those around him didn’t realize it, but many things were hiding just beneath the surface.

His expensive dress shoes left ghosts of his presence across the once sparkling black and white marble checkering of the foyer at the old manor. His cane tapped along, its echo hollow.

Reginald tiredly climbed the grand staircase, then slowly walked the quiet upper hall, past his children’s closed bedroom doors, heading towards the viewing room.

At a darkly paneled wooden wall, he stopped.

He glanced behind him at the settee where Grace had once sat to recharge. He could almost see her sitting a few feet away, staring off into space, blissfully incapable of truly understanding the dire situation at hand.

Flickers of another face, the same as hers, only animated with life and love, begged him for the truth he wouldn’t give. She was just another mistake haunting him.

He could have found some semblance of peace and maybe even true happiness in those he’d hurt, but like so many times Reginald couldn’t see what was in front of him, he hadn’t realized that until it was too late.

Despairingly, Reginald looked away, opening the hidden paneled door he’d felt drawn to that morning, then he shut himself inside its secret darkness.

The dimly yellowed light from the small desk lamp turned on, the chain slipping from Reginald’s fingers as his weight fell into the familiarity of his old chair. Stuck somewhere in the memories of his past, he clicked on the monitor in front of him.

His eyes fell from the surveillance screen that was playing the live news, moving across the small workspace. The pages of his detailed notes, files filled with medical records, and all the numerous journals about his children from the years he had spent with them all lay there before him.

More than ever, he wondered if he could have done things another way.

Reginald Hargreeves knew all too well the power of love and relationships of the heart, but he also knew that they could be wiped out of existence in the blink of an eye by an ugly twist of fate.

By what he could see, in this case, that ugly twist was the world’s end, again.

He’d seen the signs. Clues of his charade were all around them, buried in boxes of seemingly useless junk put in the trash as someone emptied a musty basement or sold as seemingly worthless treasures on the streets for a small fortune to those who knew.

Yes, there were those that had formed conspiracy theories about him and who claimed they were living in a false existence. They were anarchist radicals, but they weren’t wrong.

Reginald also knew his machine that had been holding this all together was failing.

The end had always loomed, and he’d thought he’d finally beaten it even though he’d done so by failing the ones he himself created and had once dared to call his own. He stole away their chance at a normal life with parents that loved them, then he made them nothing more than his adopted wards. They were his dream of a future, but he was no father to them.

“It has been said that a man who has been through bitter experiences and traveled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time.” Reginald laughed bitterly. “Sadly, not true,” he said, mocking the line he’d just quoted from The Odyssey.

The faraway sound of a determined voice calling out to him, then perfectly reciting Homer in ancient Greek suddenly caused his chest to ache.

Thinking of his wayward son that had rightly lost faith in him and then tragically became lost in time, only to suffer so much more horribly because of it, Reginald looked up at the screen again, looking at the backdrop of Paris with the glitching pulsation of reality starting to reveal the truth. A thick cloud of digitized blackness began to descend over the Eiffel tower and all around it.

He’d prevented nothing and he had caused all of this in his inability to let go of a past that was no more.

Abigail…

He’d done it all for her when really, what they’d had was gone a long time ago, he just couldn’t accept it.

A broken heart was a powerful thing. It could alter everything, and he did. He’d destroyed his children's trust in him and in each other. In his blindness, he was the one that set off this chain of catastrophic events.

It was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. He wished he could turn back time. That was why he’d come to the place where he’d messed things up so badly. This was where it happened.

Reginald clicked off the channel filled with blaring sirens and blurred pixelations from the distortion of time as it crashed.

No one was safe.

It would be happening outside his doors soon enough.

Once again, he stared blankly at the black screen.

He pushed himself up from his chair, ready to return to his tower and wait for the end, but then his weary eyes came back to the tall shelf next to him. It held dozens and dozens of videos from experiments performed on his children. His index finger slowly ran over the titles and the dates, stopping on one.

In bold black ink it read:

April 3rd, 2001 Corrective Training-Post Paris Incident (Subject: Number Five) Speed and Precision Exercise

He pulled the tape away from the many others and stuck it in, making the monitor light up with an old video that showed a day he'd rather not remember.

"It's always Number Five. He was always the key to everything, and I broke him," he whispered with his eyes glued to the small boy who was angrily staring back at him from the screen.

~~~

Using the skills he’d learned in his years as an indentured assassin, Five had done it. The explosives were all set and placed precisely where they needed to be to take Reginald’s Tower of infinite power to the ground. It was just a matter of time, and he would get his confirmation that the building had been cleared due to the fire alarms he’d hacked into and programmed to go off.

Potential casualties were a thing Five would need to add to the blood already drenching his hands. His conscience was unbearably heavy, that was nothing new, but he justified delivering even more death with the knowledge that most of the occupants of the building would be cleared of the tower, as well as the area around it due to simultaneous warnings going off in all the nearby buildings.

Quick enough, what Five had done was easily going to be seen as a false alarm, and that was intentional. Due to safety compliance rules and insurance reasons, people would still be forced to evacuate, but it was well known that Reginald and his wife rarely left the protection of his imposing skyscraper.

They would be right where Five wanted them to be.

As Five sat on a park bench in the spot he had chosen to view the glory of his efforts, he thought again of that article and his family.

He hadn’t seen any of his family members in years, but just as it was in the apocalypse, he could almost hear Diego’s voice as if he was right there, saying something dumb or bitching about the reporters that headlined Five and Luther and not him. His knife throwing brother’s heroics that day were worthy of note, but like so often in their life, the things they did right did not get them the recognition they had so badly craved.

As annoyed as Five was by Diego at times, he never felt that he deserved the punishments he received. None of them did.

Five wanted to protect them. But the truth was, he couldn’t protect them. He couldn’t even protect himself and that was never more apparent than after Paris.

On that a chilly Monday morning in April of 2001, Five and his siblings were all up before sunrise, scrambling to make it downstairs for inspection before their dad got there.

Only the night before, they had just got back from France, having completed their most recent mission. They were all a bit jet lagged and worked up still, bickering and carrying on the way only a pack of twelve years could at 5:30 am. As they thundered down the stairs, Luther and Diego were going on about who stopped the terrorists, both sure that they were the hero in the story.

The truth was nobody had individually done it, but that never stopped them from each trying to take all the credit. As a team, albeit a not very coordinated one, they took down a group that had threatened to bomb several famous landmarks, one being the Eiffel Tower.

Prior to the Umbrella Academy’s arrival in the city of light, these terrorists had been carrying out these types of attacks all over Europe for months, and it was all over the news. The agencies in place trying to stop them were no closer to doing so, and it was gaining more and more worldwide attention by the day.

When Reginald heard about the imminent threat going on overseas, he immediately loaded his academy on his private jet and set off to save the day. At first, the authorities were against sharing information with him or letting a group of superpowered kids near that kind of trouble. But when the first bombs went off outside at the Place Dauphine, injuring dozens, and killing eight, they were more interested in what he and his infamous Umbrella Academy had to offer.

As Reginald worked with the local law enforcement to pinpoint where the terrorist group was based, another bombing happened. That time it was on a sightseeing boat floating down the Seine. The Hargreeves were nearby, so Reginald was able to quickly get his team there. They did what they could to help get survivors to safety and even managed to gather some evidence that ultimately helped track down who built the bomb. Things were coming together, and it was just a matter of time before they were caught. A day later, before they could set off the next round of bombs, Reginald received intel that allowed him to intercept them before they got to their target.

As a vehicle full of explosives tore towards the Arc De Triomphe, the six extraordinary children were positioned and ready with their dad on the mics watching from above. They spotted the van trying to pull out from a side street. Luther immediately moved in and blocked its path, using his enormous strength to shift parked cars across their exit. Unfortunately, this caused them to deviate onto the narrow sidewalk to get around it.

Allison and Klaus were already trying to clear the area of civilians when the van came speeding in their direction. Five had seen it coming and managed to teleport from his position in time to move them, just missing getting plowed over.

Reginald’s screaming rattled their ears. It was nearly deafening and completely garbled. Diego improvised by hitting the driver in the neck with one of his knives as the van tore past him. All at once the vehicle started to lose control, swerving at a breakneck speed across the lanes as the driver bled out.

Reginald barked at Five to get in there and stop the van, so he jumped again, with his goal to land inside the moving target and take the wheel.

He missed.

Five had never been able to blink on or into a moving target and he shouldn’t have been surprised that he failed, and neither should the alien who had ordered him to do it.

The young boy landed on the road right in front of the van. He saw his life pass before his eyes just as Luther slammed into him, knocking him down to the cement before blocking the van from splattering his small body across the pavement. The vehicle smashed into his brother’s shoulder, coming to a metal bending screeched halt.

Five rolled back away from the wreckage, staggering to his bloodied knees as he watched in shock as Luther tried to untangle himself from the bent hood. That was when they heard Reginald ordering Ben to move in.

From Five’s vantage point, he could still see movement inside the van. There was someone else inside other than the dead driver. He blinked, landing next to the man inside who appeared to be desperately trying to set a bomb off even while he was still inside with it.

He looked over at the dark-haired boy in disbelief, his hand reaching for the gun strapped to his vest. With little to work with, Five charged at him before he could shoot, knocking him back against the side of the van. Thankfully, the gun sprang loose from his hand, clattering across the floor. The guy had at least a hundred and fifty or more pounds on Five, and was clearly trained in combat, so his effort, though carried out skillfully, didn’t take him out, it only pissed him off. He quickly turned the tables on the dazed teleporter, throwing him back like he was nothing.

Five went airborne, then landed and tripped backwards right over the bomb. The next thing he knew, the man had the gun pointed at his head. Before he could pull the trigger, using the same trick he’d done with the stapler during the bank job, Five teleported the deadly weapon away.

Just then the back doors of the van flew off. Luther had torn them off, and the moment Five saw Ben set up beside him, he got the hell out of there, blinking himself back out onto the road behind them.

Their dad yelled orders for Ben to unleash The Horror.

Seconds passed…

The terrorist, though taken completely off guard by all this, pounced for the bomb again.

Ben hadn’t moved; it was like he was paralyzed.

Completely out of breath, Diego suddenly rounded the corner, skidding to a stop alongside Five. He had a knife at the ready and instantly sent it sailing towards the persistent and apparently suicidal criminal, landing it deep in the center of his chest. The guy fell to his knees, gasping as he clutched at the blade as his blood quickly drenched his shirt.

That pretty much ended that.

Fortunately, before he died, Allison was able to rumor him into giving up where his accomplices were hiding. After that, the authorities were able to take them down before they could carry out another attack.

It was a success. No one else was killed or hurt.

After, Reginald had his children carry out interviews and partake in the usual media events that followed any mission they were ordered to take. They did as was expected of them, smiled for the cameras, and answered the questions carefully, just the way he would have wanted them to.

On the flight home, Reginald didn’t say a word.

Now, as they stood behind their chairs and his coldly calculating eyes fell over them, Five couldn’t escape the sinking feeling growing in his gut.

After a silent breakfast, before he could leave with the others to attend classes, Reginald abruptly pulled him aside. Five was quickly informed that he was of the opinion their mission was hardly a success, and each of them required aggressive corrective training to make sure it never happened again. As such, he would not be joining the others.

In his naively young mind, Five mused that his father must have liked him the most because he was the lucky one who got to be ‘corrected’ first.

Wide eyed, his siblings all watched him go. Five squared his shoulders as he dutifully walked behind his father, not willing to show his growing unease.

The Monocle had a specific exercise area for Five back in one of the old factory buildings that made up his city block. It was made up of three mostly empty floors that were exposed by a large open galley in the middle. To Five, it was clear what he intended to do with him. That place, and the things that happened there, were nothing new. He used to do bad things to him there all the time. It had just been a while since they’d played that game, so the timing of it seemed suspect.

The boy couldn’t escape the thought that maybe this time he should simply say no, no more, but he didn’t. Refusing to do what his dad wanted or even arguing would send Reginald into a fit of rage, so that was out of the question unless he wanted to start a war with him, which he didn’t. That was far from what Five really wanted from him.

Once Reginald had led his son to the secluded end of his property, well away from the others, the boy resentfully stood there with his wrists willingly exposed because he knew the drill. Reginald unkindly looked down at Five before wordlessly slapping on the two cuffs specifically made for him that acted as a sort of shock collar like a dog would wear. If Five missed a mark by even an inch, he would be punished for it. The targets were wired, and only landing on top of them perfectly stopped the cuffs from zapping him less than a second later.

To Five, this whole song and dance had always felt like a sick game of Operation, or maybe Battleship, only instead of a silly little rubber band or a marked ill-fated ship, he was the one destined to snap or sink to the depths of his own personal hell. That type of training could have been done without the cuffs, but the Hargreeves children’s award-winning dad of the Year always felt that without them, there was nothing at stake, nothing driving this most defiant son to do better.

The truth was it only drove Five to hate him. Over time, he had gotten better. Reginald’s Number Five grew more apt at wielding his power and then he wasn’t subject to that particular form of punishment; not so often anyway.

Reginald set his tea down and made himself comfortable at a small desk in the center of the lower level. He took a moment to look over his notes as his son obediently stood there waiting for him to start.

Five’s thoughts moved at the speed of light, but it felt like he was always waiting. Waiting for something to change, waiting for him to be good enough. Waiting for his father to see him.

It never came.

Once again, he was stuck, waiting for his mercy, for Reginald to see him as something other than a tool to achieve his ends. Five may have been a genius but that didn’t matter. He was so alone and powerless, which in his brilliant mind seemed counterintuitive to what his father was trying to achieve which only made him even more confused.

“It’s time to begin,” Reginald announced without so much as looking at his son as he stared at him down, wondering the reason for his cold indifference and why he didn’t care about them.

Five wanted to stop feeling this; he wanted it not to matter, but it did, it always had, and that was the problem. He needed to stop caring, but he just couldn’t, so he waited, and as always, he tried harder to prove him wrong.

‘I am worth something,’ the boy kept mentally repeating. All he had to do to make things better was to make Reginald see it! Then everything would be okay-he’d finally be able to know what it meant to be happy.

Reginald hit the timer, activating the system while at the same time barking out a slew of coordinates to specific locations. Five blinked as fast as possible to each, and of course, none of them were easy and most he couldn’t see ahead of time, which made landing them harder.

Sometimes it would be three floors up above, or on top of a narrow ledge or precariously placed on some other obstacle Reginald had created for him, with nothing more than a few measly inches to land. Five quickly noticed there were marks everywhere. He couldn’t begin to count them because there were so many. That was out of the ordinary, even for The Monocle, so he knew this was going to be bad.

Five’s mind played games with him, singing imaginary taunts in his father’s cruel voice. ‘Welcome back home, son. I am going to sip tea while I enjoy watching your mind shatter.’

At least Five was on it that day. He completed each order without a single shock until nearing over an hour of jumps, which was a new record. Unfortunately for him, at that point he was drained, sweat drenched, and dizzy, having lost count of how many times he had blinked. He knew he couldn’t get the precision required for what he was doing anymore. That was evident by his shaking hands and the stars at the edges of his vision.

Even though he started to protest, Reginald kept him at it, saying he needed to get better, figure out how to land on moving targets, and learn to go past his limits, because someday he would have no other choice and it would be a matter of life and death for everyone.

Five fought back.

He started to make more and more errors, and the shocks became more and more frequent and stronger each time. Normally, that type of exercise was an hour max, but that time was different for a reason. Reginald wanted to see him fail. It was becoming more and more apparent that his collapse was the point all along. His father wanted to prove to him that he wasn’t as strong as he pretended to be.

Five’s anger and desire to prove Reginald wrong were the only things fueling him in their sick game. That was until he finally crumpled to the ground nearing the end of the second hour.

The boy crashed to the floor after an especially bad jump, missing the precariously placed mark completely. He helplessly fell from an open ledge down to the unforgiving tiles over twenty feet below. He landed hard, the whole left side of his body taking the brunt of it. His head bounced once with an excruciating thwack. Then his dad proceeded to let the cuffs shock him back into consciousness until he was folding in on himself, unable to do anything other than tremor violently as his entire body spasmed.

When Reginald finally turned it off manually, Five could hardly make a sound or move. The mad man that owned him didn’t so much as bother to tap him with his shoe as he laid helplessly in his own drool at his feet, with blood-stained tears streaming down his face. Reginald simply announced, ‘We are done.”

Then he left his son there, broken and alone.

When Five finally made it to his knees, he lost what little contents his stomach still had in it, and then he ended up back on the tiled floor with another thwack of his head against the hard surface.

He lay there too exhausted and dizzy to move or save himself, that was until Grace came to his rescue. Then, when she tried to move him, the sudden disorienting movement and sheer searing pain of it caused Five to pass out. When he woke up an undetermined amount of time later, he was in the infirmary, and it was with his dad standing over him as he lay on one of Grace’s operating tables.

Five was unable to move, but he didn’t know why.

His eyes wildly darted around him as he fell into an all-out panic. He was attached to an IV and it was administering fluids into his right arm. Some type of bandage was on his head, concealing what felt like had to be a hole the size of the Grand Canyon based on how horrible it felt. His current mental state was not good, and he was having a hard time remembering what had happened. He vaguely remembered hitting his head.

‘Was I training?’ he innocently wondered. ‘Did I pass out and fall down the stairs again because I wasn’t eating enough to power my jumps, or was it...’

Five was visibly confused and terrified, but his father only looked down at him hatefully.

Five had to look away from him because it was only adding to how much he hurt everywhere. He looked to his right instead. The sun was low, indicated by how little light was entering through the small stained-glass window above the tall storage cabinets where his mom kept her supplies. Grace was standing there in her operating gown, a heartbreaking look on her normally comforting face.

When Five heard the main doors open and close, he reluctantly turned back. To add to his confusion, his sister was there, standing next to their dad. Before he could so much as ask what was going on, Reginald played his next card, one he wouldn’t have guessed the old monster had in him, and that was saying a lot since the boy already knew that Reginald was the devil incarnate.

“Do it,” he ordered, not taking his eyes off his questioning eyes.

Allison looked like she had been crying. Five’s heart began racing faster as she looked back at their dad, looking completely horrified by whatever Reginald was asking her to do. Then she looked right at him.

“I heard a rumor you couldn’t speak,” she said, her voice trembling as new tears ran down her face. Automatically, Five’s eyes locked on hers in that familiar memorizing trance only her powers could induce on her victims.

It was done; he couldn’t speak a word, not until she said he could.

After that, Five spent the next three days in the infirmary, unable to speak about what had happened or make one word of complaint, not that anyone came to visit him anyway. He had suffered a severe concussion and he had broken his left clavicle. He had also fractured the tibia in his left leg.

On the fourth day, just before dinner, Grace helped him get vertical and assisted him as he dressed. Then, he was told to go straight to dinner. He managed to stumble in on crutches, though it hurt like hell because of shoulder, and he was late, a fact immediately pointed out by Reginald.

Five all but fell into his chair next to Klaus and Luther, looking as bad as he felt, and unable to respond to their questioning stares other than to glare at their father with his hate filled eyes. Reginald merely looked back impassively for a moment before going back to his papers in front of him.

The second Five entered the room, he could tell they all wanted to say something, but one very clear look at the imposing man that owned them, and they didn’t make a peep. Instead, they looked down at their food. Allison kept her head down the entire time, unable to meet his eyes at all.

Everyone else, for the most part, looked stunned and very scared. Even though their dad had done that type of training with Five more times than he could count, none of them knew exactly what they did in their private time. Five never told them what Reginald did to him, and it had never gone that far before. Even without an explanation, they knew something bad had happened because it was written all over his broken body, not just all over his pitifully pale face.

That night, Klaus and Ben came to Five’s room, long after they should have been asleep. He was able to write down what happened to him even though he was hardly strong enough to do so without visibly shaking. They already knew what Allison had done because she had told Luther before she hysterically locked herself in her room. He then told Ben. Allison also warned them they were not to intervene, or Reginald would make her do worse.

Sitting on his park bench, looking back on all of it, Five figured that, all and all that particular training session wasn’t one of his best. Worse, the others didn’t get away unscathed.

When Reginald was done with him, Five learned later that he had moved on to each of them. His taste for suffering must not have been quenched, because he spent the rest of his days that week tormenting the rest of his children, and each was treated to Allison’s special kind of gag order, either before or after, depending on which made the most sense.

Reginald was trying to make the point that real soldiers were not to be heard but to listen, to take orders and comply. He was tired of their complaining and their arguing and their many mistakes. He made it clear he felt that they had it too easy, and it was getting in the way of their development. These sessions were meant to throw their individual deficiencies in their faces but as young and emotionally stunted as Five still was, he saw that all it had done was make them more isolated from each other, feeding the numbness growing inside.

In comparison to his experience with Reginald, Klause’s time in his company was pretty tame compared to his usual in that he was merely forced to take a field trip for a day to the city’s busiest morgue. There, Klaus was put front and center with untold amounts of corpses, both fresh in and refrigerated. Five never heard how many ghosts were there, because by the time Klaus was allowed to leave and come home, he looked horrified and exhausted. His nerves were a complete mess, and being rumored into quiet submission after entering the house did nothing to hide how he really felt.

The idea of that venture was that Klaus may be able to relay information about the deaths of homicide victims or even important messages to loved ones from people who’d passed unexpectedly. Five had mused at the time that Reginald maybe did have a soul because that was actually not a horrible way for Klaus to use his power. But Klaus wanted nothing to do with it, even if it was for a good cause.

Later, Five learned that Klaus did have several success stories from the day, but the price he’d paid for it was evident the moment he walked in the door. He looked more disturbed than they had ever seen him. After that day, Klaus turned to things heavier than alcohol to dull the voices that followed him home and ceaselessly tormented him.

Later that week, the Hargreeves children were all called out to the courtyard after lunch to witness Diego and Luther fight. They were forced to battle it out until both were beyond bloody and bruised. Diego took it like his father knew he would, but Reginald was using his son’s desire for approval and acknowledgement against him in the lowest way.

The sheer force of Luther’s hits, even when he was holding back, were something no one could take for hours and hours on end without excessive damage. Luther wasn’t allowed to use all his strength on Diego, or it would have killed him, but it was during this fight that Diego received the long scar along his temple that he would always bear.

Luther, though built like shit-house ton of bricks, was not impenetrable either. Diego, being allowed to use any projectile he could see, inflicted his fair share of damage. Neither did anything life-threatening to the other, as that was explicitly prohibited, but Luther had to have stitches in numerous places, and he would have several hidden scars to show for it on his otherwise perfect poster boy skin.

Diego’s nose was broken as well as several of his fingers on both hands. He had numerous broken ribs, a minor hip fracture that gave him a limp for a long time after, and his throwing arm was in a sling, fractured in three places.

Afterwards, though they were both rumored not to speak, just like he and Klaus had been, Five didn’t think they would have, not to each other anyway.

The sad thing was, before that, they actually had gotten along ok-not great, but ok.

When it was Ben’s turn on Saturday, he spent a beautiful spring morning riding upstate to a farm, listening to their dad berate him for his inability to handle The Horror’s rath. He was continually reminded how weak he was and that the only way he would become stronger was to take control of the darkness within him and own it.

“You are the killer. You are the one in control,” Reginald had told him.

“Our Ben was not a killer,” Five sadly whispered as he looked down at the pigeons gathering in the grass in front of him.

Ben may have killed more people than any of them at that point, but it wasn’t really him, it was the thing they called ‘The Horror,’ hence why he was so messed up. He never wanted any part of that life and the last thing he wanted was to take ownership of it.

Unfortunately, his field trip to the farm wasn’t to learn about the dairy industry. It was to learn how to be a one man, or better put, one eldritch tentacle baring slaughter machine. He was forced to unleash the monster inside him, over and over, letting it decimate anything alive in its path, which In that case was several head of cattle destined for the meat market anyway, but still awful to say the least.

Ben was still a mess when he got home that night. He had been carelessly hosed off and left with traces of blood on his otherwise caulk white skin. He was put on a piece of plastic in the backseat of the car on the way home, like he was some kind of filth not good enough to touch the smooth leather of Reginald’s Rolls. When his siblings saw him, his jet-black hair was clumped in a gore of sticky redness and his clothing still bore the evidence of how gruesome his day had been. Once he was stripped, Grace threw his academy uniform away.

Too bad the memories weren’t as easy to dispose of.

Ben was speechless after that, even before Allison needlessly rumored him. The only reason they all knew the details of what happened to Ben was because Vanya overheard Reginald talking to Pogo and Grace about it. The whole thing left him in an almost catatonic state. Seeing that he was unable to function normally, Ben was put under watch by Grace and excused temporarily from daily activities, spending the next two days alone in his room.

Though Allison usually got away with almost anything and she was rarely on their father’s radar when it came to anything, that time proved she was not immune to his madness. Though she may have felt she had Reginald wrapped around her pretty painted fingernails, she quickly realized she was not the one calling the shots.

It was obvious she was devastated about having to rumor them into silent submission. None of the traumatized children blamed her, but it hurt anyway. Five was bitter but he had understood. It was no wonder she normally refused to use her power unless Reginald forced her to. Taking someone’s will away from them was not a good feeling from either side of the situation and it was hard not to feel some anger at her about it.

For a long time after, Five couldn’t be in the same room with Allison without hearing her voice stripping him of the right to use his own mind the way he wanted, and that resulted in fear and mistrust that couldn’t be fixed while they were under that roof.

To him, it felt like the man that called himself their father wanted them to loathe each other as much as they hated him, because that was basically what he’d caused. They could scarcely look at one another when it was all done.

Even without words, it was clear everyone was in shock over what had happened. They were looking for someone to blame and not just their dad. To add insult to injury, quite literally, they couldn’t talk to each other about it when they were each in their worst time of need.

They went through the next week without one word of complaint because they couldn’t. Until then, Five wasn’t sure if Reginald could get Allison to rumor them like that permanently, but if he could have, he knew that he would, so at least he had that to cling to but it did little to ease how heartbroken and hateful he felt.

How they felt and what they needed did not matter to their father.

They had seen the truth. They were nothing to him and never were.

~~~

Feeling slightly off from thinking about the tragedy of that week, Five looked up, finally noticing that there was a little boy coming along the shady path he was sitting along. As if energized even more by Five’s eyes landing on him, the excited puppy the child was trying to hold back suddenly broke free of his hold, sprinting for the park bench.

“Woah there, buddy,” Five laughed as the golden ball of fur aggressively leapt up with its fuzzy paws landing on his knees so it could lick his face. Within seconds, Five’s once pristine wool pants were covered in slobber and dirt.

“Mr. Pennycrumb likes you,” the boy laughed, while scrambling around on the ground, trying to get his hands on the leash.

Just as Five was going to stand up to escape his new friend’s overly affectionate greeting, you came running up to them. “I am so sorry!” you cried as you jumped in to help get a handle on the wild pup.

Once you got the small dog pulled in tight at your heel, Five got to his feet. “It’s okay,” he assured while brushing himself off.

When he looked at the boy, the child staring up at him said, “This is my babysitter. We get to hangout while my mommy is at work. She has to work three jobs ever since the mean monster she called cancer took my daddy away.”

“I am sorry,” Five quietly replied, not sure how to respond to someone so young or to something so awful.

You looked even more embarrassed as you quickly tried to change the subject, “Really. I’m so sorry about your suit. It looks like I owe you a new pair of pants.” Your eyes flickered downwards, taking in the damage. When you looked back up, you added, “Obviously my little guy is very social. Having a four-legged beast is great, but a bit much sometimes. He's up for adoption if you're interested?” you laughed.

You reached down, petting your foster dog, then did the same to the giggling kid, ruffling his fluff of hair. Your smile faded just a little as your eyes returned to the serious looking young man who was curiously studying you.

“Not my nephew here. He is social too, but I didn’t mean to say that he’s a four-legged beast,” you corrected, followed by another laugh that touched something inside Five, making his face animate with a spark of life.

His dimple deepened.

“This kiddo is bit much too, but I love him so, so much and we’d be out here doing this together even if I wasn’t his mom’s go to babysitter,” you rambled, flustered by the way Five was looking at you through the curtain of hair that had fallen over his kind but calculating eyes.

“Don’t worry. I get it, and you don’t owe me new pants. I don’t mind getting a little dirty every now and then. Sometimes I quite enjoy it, and this is turning into one of those times since it meant that I got to meet this little guy, and his very nice companions," Five smoothly replied, and your cheeks glowed even brighter.

Just as you were about to say something, your nephew interrupted.

“You looked lonely. That’s why Mr. Pennycrumb came over to say hi,” he cutely pointed out, then surprised Five even more when he added, “Want to go for a walk with us?”

Five’s mouth opened but nothing came out at first.

Suddenly feeling like he needed to do something with his hands, he tucked them in his pockets and rocked back in his shiny shoes. Of course, that did not help him feel like he was successfully playing off his normal guy act, especially considering his left hand was sitting right next to a button that was about to destroy the city’s largest building.

“I…uhmmm. I would love to, but I have a prior engagement I need to attend to,” he finally replied with his cool green eyes moving between the expectant little boy and you.

Five almost never engaged in conversations that weren’t required of him. When he did, they were never like this. This felt different. All this from a chance encounter and a conversation with real people that were nothing but kind to him.

It felt…good.

Five hadn’t felt the glimmer of hope, or met anyone that didn't have an ulterior motive, or experienced the surprise of something that wasn’t catastrophic in…

He couldn’t remember.

Clearing your throat, you looked back at him while putting a hand on your nephew’s shoulder. Five knew that meant you were leaving, but he found that he desperately didn’t want you to.

He wanted to go on that walk, if only to have a taste of something positive and not so isolating for once.

Five’s brows furrowed as he glanced at the skyline where Reginald’s building stood as if taunting him. When he looked back at you standing between him and what he felt was preventing him from moving on, something in him fractured, but it was the exact opposite of feeling like something inside of him was broken.

“Well…” you started. “If you change your mind about those pants or the walk in the park, we’ll be strolling by here about the same time tomorrow.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Five said, dropping his head to the side while giving you another small smile.

As you turned and left him standing there, Five was unable to stop smiling.

He took his hand from his pocket, looking down at his palm where the electronic device lay waiting.

Killing Reginald would only prove that he was right.

Five was not weak and never was and he wasn't broken.

He pried the casing open and pulled at the wires under the button that could have activated the bombs.

The switch was dead, but Five wasn’t. Somehow, while lost in his crushing hatred and near debilitating loneliness he’d forgotten that. In his fight to end his father, he’d accidentally given up on himself.

But Five Hargreeves was not a quitter.

Chucking the broken trigger in the bushes, he started to head back the way he’d entered the park.

That was the moment when the sapphire canvas above him started to falter.

The many colors of blue and white and gray in the clouds suddenly scattered into millions of floating dots, rapidly separating in a way that was not at all natural. The phenomenon of pixelating pulsations quickly swallowed the long needle piercing the sky above the massive glass covered pillar bearing Reginald’s name.

As the top of the building where he and his reclusive wife resided was obliterated, a glittering dust of marigold colored rain began to fall over the park, blowing in the rush of wind before dusting Five’s hair in its otherworldly magic.

The site was almost just like when Reginald had drained them, only happening in reverse. The sensation of first bone chilling ice, then scorching heat began crawling under Five’s skin.

Reacting to the intense pain that felt like it was tearing him apart, Five dropped to his knees, his hands clawing at his body as he screamed.

A fire of blue light engulfed him as his powers violently reclaimed him. Within seconds, Five was filled with an ethereal glow that radiated from his eyes and his fingertips, making him look like a wingless archangel in a tailored business suit.

Then, the world as Five had come to know it evaporated, the ground bearing his weight, slipped away into the bottomless depths of time and space as he fell.

~~~

In the beginning, there was nothing. That was the way it always was. Just emptiness and possibilities, and the one who could not only manipulate time and space but could also create it.

It all started with a boy, only that boy didn’t know it until just now, when life and all material things were gone and his consciousness was all that was left.

Like Reginald had said, it was always Five.

Suspended in a vast swirl of everything that ever was and ever would be, grasping at the fibers of light flashing past him, Five began pulling with invisible hands, starting the unimaginable task of piecing together something better for all of them.

~~~

Much, much later, or six years later, but actually the exact same day it was, but back in their original timeline, but also not, depending on how you wanted to look at things and wrap your head around the fact that time only seems to be linear, Number Five Hargreeves set his coffee cup down on the table between him and his ghost whispering brother.

He was at the same coffee shop he’d been at that fateful morning in another timeline and in another time that he’d filed away among many others that were left behind closed doors inside the vast hallways of his mind.

“Oh, come on Five,” Klaus moaned. “I just got here. I thought we were hanging out today. I even told the rest of the family that we’d meet up with them later. Diego and Lila’s little brat rat is dying to see her favorite uncle Fivey.”

After looking down at his wrist bearing his Umbrella Academy tattoo, taking stock of the time, Five rolled his eyes heavenward and sighed. “Klaus, we were supposed to hangout and have breakfast, but you showed up an hour later. I have already eaten. I bought you your favorite smoothie and a bagel, so that’s going to have to be good enough because I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Where?”

“None of your business.”

“I know you. You’re up to something,” he accused.

Musing over what Klaus would say if he told him where he was going, Five got up, his hand coming to his throat to straighten his tie.

Five knew that he painted an odd picture. One of a just turned nineteen-year-old, dressed like he wanted to take on the wolves of Wall Street, but as silly as his choice of attire may have been being he had no intention of doing that, this was him and always would be. A nice suit meant you weren’t messing around, and he wasn’t anymore. Besides, it wasn’t like the world didn’t know about his crazy life story, or the fact that he wasn’t exactly the young man he appeared to be.

Thanks to having the rug pulled out from under him, or better put, reality as he had known it, Five was seeing things from a much different perspective.

Looking back on it, he still couldn’t stop kicking himself for not putting it together when he saw the other ancient version of himself laying in a diaper in that hyperbaric chamber in The Commission’s paradox proof bunker.

Now it all made sense how he had become the founder.

“Whatever,” Klaus muttered, pretending to grumble when Five didn’t take the bait and tell him what he was up to. “At least you’re finally an official grown up again and you sometimes get out of your apartment and mingle with the rest of the world every now and then. But still, buddy. Reading is fun and Dolores is great and all, but you need to spread those cute little wings of yours and fly. There are tons of other real flesh and blood birdies out there looking to strike up titillating conversations with the right dove, and you sir are all sorts of ripe with things you can use to bore people. Things like how you mastered traversing the bend in the time helix or other confusing stuff like that you like to go on and on about.”

“Shut up, Klaus,” Five dryly retorted as his fingers threaded back through his strands of hair that were hanging every which way, making him look every bit his outwardly young age.

“Go. Off with you then, young man,” Klaus teased. “Next time, it’s my plan for our date day and you are meeting me to get our nails done and then we are going out salsa dancing with Diego and Lila and Sloane and Luther. We need to show them how the better Hargreeves do their damn thing.”

“I don’t dance,” Five huffed as his fingers curled around the bready treat hidden in his pocket.

“Yes, you do,” Klaus laughed, to which Five gave him a quick scowl that just as quickly turned into a smirk because they had gotten exceptionally plastered at Klaus’s apartment only a week ago, and he’d made a total ass of himself dancing in a hula skirt and sombrero on the coffee table. When Klaus and Viktor and then Luther joined him, it was too much and the flimsy piece of Ikea furniture exploded, leaving them in a heap on the shag carpet.

Yes, things were different this time around, just as Five had hoped they’d be after he’d brought them all back to the day of Reginald’s funeral, and then proceeded to avoid all the mistakes he and they had made after it.

It didn’t mean that all the bad things didn’t happen in the years before this. It meant they got a second chance while all knowing everything that they had known about the original run through when they’d been brought back together and then messed it all up.

Miraculously, Five wasn’t just a time traveler with trigger finger you didn’t want pointed at you. He could create time, and that is how he saved the world and brought everyone back, but he did not rewrite like Reginald had tried to do.

He was smarter than that.

No one can erase the past. It will always be there one way or another. The only thing you can do is learn from it and he did.

“I’ll see you all later?” Five softly offered, before turning to head out the door.

“You better,” Klaus said, calling after him with an outpouring of brotherly love.

The bell on the door chimed as Five walked out into the bright morning sun.

The sidewalk was packed like it always was that time of day and that was why Five almost didn’t see him.

Reginald wasn’t dressed in his usual fine wool suit of tightly woven tweeds and righteousness. The familiar posture and weakened step aided by his cane appeared in Five’s periphery and the next thing he knew, he was looking into the eyes of someone that wasn’t supposed to be there but was.

To all the others, the eccentric inventor Sir Reginald Hargreeves had died, just as he originally did. But that ruse was a necessary end, just like it was originally intended to be the first time and Five didn’t alter that on purpose.

He knew their adoptive father was more than just the monster he appeared to be. Reginald had been wrong for what he’d done to them, but like him, he’d been desperate and he’d paid for his mistakes, over and over.

Now, as time had intended it, Five was in a place to do something about that.

Having real power had nothing to do with ruling others or having superpowers. It was in not succumbing to the demons inside you.

Real power happens in making the right choices.

Knowing that he had made the right choice, Five nodded ever so slightly, and in doing so, he received a silent bow in return from the lonely creature passing him by.

It wasn’t over for Reginald yet, and it was far from over for Five. With his excitement building and aware that he needed to move faster, Five pulled at the power simmering just beneath his skin, throwing open a portal.

Less than a second later, he reappeared, stepping out onto a shady pathway in the park.

Eyeing his favorite bench, with sweaty hands hidden in his pockets, he sat down.

As he was looking out, his eyes seeing a ghostly mixture of realities twisting through his memories, he heard the small voice of a boy, calling out to the dog that had just broken off its leash.

It was happening almost the same as the first time.

Mr. Pennycrumb raced across the grass, kicking up the pigeons that were nibbling on the bread Five had thrown down for them.

Reaching the young man on the bench that he’d chosen as his newest friend, the puppy jumped up, paws digging into Five’s thighs as he assaulted his face with his wet tongue.

“Hey, buddy,” Five whispered as the little boy came running over with you behind him.

After slipping the yellow lab a doggie biscuit that he’d purchased that morning at the doggie bakery, Five looked up.

“I am so sorry!” you breathed as you frantically kneeled down to get your hands on the dog’s collar. “Oh my gosh, your pants!” you gasped while also trying to brush off the mud covering Five’s knees.

Realizing what you were doing after it was too late, you pulled your hand back. Your face got even redder when Five merely raised a brow at you and smiled.

“Oh my God, I shouldn’t have done tha- I just- Well, shit,” you moaned, giving into your embarrassment.

“It’s okay,” Five calmly assured. “I don’t mind getting pawed at by the wild animals roaming the park.”

You burst out laughing, your hands flying up to cover your mouth.

“Mr. Pennycrumb and my babysitter seem to really like you, Mister,” the little boy said while giggling. “Do you want to come for a walk with us since you are just sitting here all alone now that your bird friends are gone?”

“My schedule is open so I suppose I could do that,” Five returned. “But only if your babysitter wants me to…”

“Absolutely, you should totally come with us,” you quickly replied. “Please, let me pay for some new pants. I know a decent men’s store off 48th street and we are heading that way. This little fluff head just ruined your pants, so it’s the least I can do,” you added while looking only slightly less mortified.

“How about I let you buy me a coffee and I buy you and the kid a treat and we skip the new pants,” Five countered. “If after our walk, you aren't sick of me and still want to get me out of these dirty things, I can probably find a way to accommodate that while also coming up with something else fun for us to do together."

You had no clue what to say to that, your baffled expression only made Five look all the more thrilled.

"I mean, maybe we can take this kid and the pup swimming. I have two nieces that I know would love to join us and I don't need a suit for that," he clarified followed by a chuckle.

The look in your wide eyes said it all. You were as amused by Five’s odd but funny comments as he was by your kindhearted smile and fidgety ways.

Just then, the little boy’s mom and dad came strolling along, their faces showing humorously shocked levels of concern when they saw all the mud staining the lap of Five’s three-piece suit.

The boy’s father glanced at his wife just before they reached them, mouthing, “Is that who I think it is?”

It was the time of truth.

Hoping for the best, Five extended his hand to you as you stood there stunned, all of a sudden realizing who he was.

“Five Hargreeves, and you are?”

Visibly shaking your head as you looked him up and down, you reached out, lacing your fingers between his. Giving Five your name, you then introduced your family.

From there, the walk Five had been waiting for finally happened. He finally had people in his life who wanted nothing from him other his friendship.

With a world that wasn’t on the verge of falling apart, Five was about to get what he deserved all along.

Happiness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading this. ❤️ I hope you enjoyed it, and if you have read my original Five Centric 3-part series, and the parts of this one that were describing what happened to Five and his family after the Paris mission seemed familiar, you are not wrong. 😂👍 I have been wasting my time going back to re-edit my older works and I came across a chapter in 'Number Five and the Girl' that covered that sad memory for him. I love anything whumpy and I felt that part had it in a way that touched on something for all of them. I enjoyed revisiting it, and I hoped you would find something of value in it too. That story goes down much different than this one, but I couldn't help borrowing some of that to turn into something new that tickled our brains with some of the stuff the show has been putting out there lately to get us excited.

Long live TUA and the people who keep the fandom fun. 🤗

Link to my A03 home page

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hope-you-brought-kneepads-bitch · 2 months ago

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Agatha all along spoilers

Okay okay sure

First off! I’ve seen people on Twitter already going mad but I think I need people to understand, this show was never targeted at a specific lesbian ending, yes! Very queer show and of course lots of Agathario but Rio is death, I always thought a kiss of death would happen because otherwise we’re being silly with ourselves it’s not queer baiting and it’s not helpful to be mad because marvel wont want to do things like this again if we start getting angry, the cast and crew were so proud of this and we should be too (we can vent a little and I plan too but I won’t tag actors or creators because I’m not weird)

But! I will say dying for Billy (technically I know she did because of Nicky because Billy got into her mind like a loser and a bitch and she wanted to redeem herself or whatever) is a bit strange I guess I get people saying ‘oh well of course lesbians get screwed over’ but you know for a marvel show to have actual canon lesbians who are kissing, yeah it’s scraping a barrel but if it’s received well I have no doubt they’ll do it again, I mean in the comics agatha gets resurrected and who’s to say that won’t happen? Anyway I’m ranting and yeah a little sad about the ending because it does feel like the killing eve ending but! Let’s get into the two episodes

Alice! My love, my baby I’m so sorry! Rio was right you died doing your job as a protection witch but it still hurts! I hope the afterlife is good to you and treats you well I love you 🥰

Jen! My beloved you did it! You got your powers back, I can’t believe agatha bound her that’s so funny and messed up! God agatha were you that low on cash???

“He’s an abomination” Damn right Rio get him!

Also the change in agatha a little about not wanting to see Rio when she died like yeah it’s a quick change but I think it’s Agatha putting her shields back up, she does want Rio back she definitely does but also it’s like ‘oh actually I’m putting my guard back up because I’m scared and you did something that hurt me’ (she is my scar!)

Rio being pissed off that agatha doesn’t want her and that she loves it when she’s like this unfortunately ladies this foreplay went a little too far and got ruined by a man (fucking typical) them basically flirting through their whole fight was great too

Also going back to episode 1 where Rio said ‘so take my power’ and Agatha replied ‘cute, but you know that would kill me’ BECAUSE SHE HAD TO KISS HER TO TAKE HER POWER! Did I get it right? Pretty sure I did so I declare that in their private moments agatha never kissed Rio but just started at her neck so not to accidentally kill herself during sex (dramatic lesbians)

Also in ep 4 when Agatha tries kissing Rio but then Rio stops her, I have a depressing feeling that Agatha was so upset at being reminded of what happened to her son she was willing to take the kiss of death I guess? Or maybe Rio can control stuff like that and kiss Agatha fine if she holds her power in but thinking she’s death I think it’s the first one

Rio cutting the road and stepping through I’m not gonna lie I was shocked! I gasped guys and I don’t do that often like obviously they knew was fake but I didn’t I love just thinking about Rio stepping in and out of the road but also where is the ‘road’? Is it just Agatha’s house? Have they been walking around in circles this whole time, god the citizens of westview may need to start looking for other places to live

The Salem era! I loved it (I do want more backstory but I think we’ll get some interviews explaining it so that’ll be fun) ‘born from scratch’ beautiful line Rio turning up I was like ‘oh daddy’s here to help with the birth’ then I quickly remembered she’s death and agatha begging not to take him and then I realised daddy isn’t here to stay for good reasons (like most dads)

Little Nicky was adorable! Such a cute kid and helping his mother trick witches? Putting him to work agatha, I like it! Start them early I say

Also they created the balled! So cute and heartbreaking since Agatha had to sing it all the time when killing these witches constantly being reminded of her son

Also her killing everyday then the one night she doesn’t rio takes their son??? God Rio give her a fucking day don’t you have like billions of other souls to take?? Just walk very slowly 🙄

Billy carrying the trauma of killing three (that’s right I count Sharon too!) witches because he created the road makes the ending worth it actually (not by much) because he has to suffer the consequences and deal with ghost agatha, get recked!

Rio and Agatha will definitely reunite (source: Me) Rio says she hates ghosts but only because she’s death and ghosts probably don’t want to move on, be a bit like trying to round up cats. HER AND AGATHA CAN FINALLY WALK TOGETHER FOR ALL ETERNITY

Anyway I have work in an hour and I’ve been up since 4 it’s now 6 and I’ve slept about 3 hours soooo if this is all ramblings I’ll try to add things later but yeah I loved the last two episodes yeah we could’ve gotten a bit more Agathario but I truly think they didn’t anticipate the overwhelming reception for them (Kathryn and Aubrey did though definitely)

I’m up for any discussion too I love talking about this stuff but works been hectic recently hence why I’m watching the episodes before work because after I’m just knackered but I’m off this weekend so I can reply properly to people

#marvel #mcu #agatha #agathario #agatha all along spoilers #agatha x rio #agatha coven of chaos #agatha all along #agatha harkness #rio vidal #billy maximoff #billy kaplan

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quirkwizard · 1 year ago

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I'm not sure why I made this. I just thought it would be fun to do and now all you have to see the fruits of my labor. So, without further ado, the Pro Hero Parent Tier List. Hope you all enjoy it and try not to take it too seriously.

F Tier: Gran Torino, Recovery Girl, and Yoroi Musha: The simple fact is that these three characters are way too old to be parents. Maybe if this were a grandparent tier list, they'd be higher, but it isn't, so they're all going in the F Tier.

D Tier: Endeavor: Look, do I even need to explain this one? You all know what he did. One of the biggest problems in the story is the result of all the messed up stuff Enji did as a dad. His attempt at redemption was to remove himself from his family. Easy bottom tier.

Nana: While I'm someone who tries to understand Nana's position and decisions in regards to her kid and her role as a "One For All" user, she still didn't seem like a very good parent even when she was around. She herself even admits that, so that is what puts her so low.

Gang Orca: What few interactions we see him having with kids is screaming about their failures and throwing them when he is dissatisfied with their answers. That is bound to cause some trauma later. Like some Pavlovain response when they think of Free Willy.

Hound Dog: He may be a guidance consular that works with kids, implying some understanding of child psychology, but if his first reaction is to yell and growl at any emotional problems in front of him, he probably isn't going to communicate with his own kids.

Thirteen: I get that Thirteen is someone who takes a lot of care and consideration with her power and is quite safe to be around. That being said, I don't think that someone who is at risk of destroying their own child at the atomic level should really be handling children.

C Tier: Edgeshot: There really isn't a lot to say about Edgeshot as we don't get a lot of personality outside of being stoic, which could certainly be an issue for a parent. That being said, being willing to sacrifice yourself for a kid does push him above the bottom of the tier list.

Mount Lady: If we're considering her early in the series, she'd definitely be at the lower tier given how irresponsible and self-centered she is. Though considering her development and how mature she's gotten in general, she barely scrapes by as an average parent.

Kaumi Woods: Kamui Woods is just kind of average. There just isn't a lot going on with him that could give or detract merit from the little hero work he's done. He's here by default. His inability to hug his kids without giving them splinters would certainly be an issue.

Manual: Again, he's average. The most we have is that he seemed to do pretty well with handling Iida's whole situation but didn't seem to notice it in the first place. Otherwise, he's pretty plain. I could see him being the lame dad his kids don't want to talk to or be around.

Miruko: Definite Tiger Mom. She'd be making her kids do all kinds of sports stuff and getting them to exercise all the time. She cares, but she shows it by trying to make her kids excel at what they're doing. Great if they're into that, but I can see it fostering a lot of resentment.

Sir Nighteye: Like Miruko, but at the other end of the spectrum. He would be the kind of dad to make his kid study a lot because that's what he would think would be best for them. Cares and can loosen up when needed, but is emotionally distant most times.

B Tier: Ms. Joke: She is a teacher, meaning she must have some understanding of kids. She'd definitely be the "Fun Mom". She'd always try to keep a smile on her kid's face, even if that meant making terrible mom jokes. Be ready, she has been working on them for years.

Ectoplasm: He seems to be pretty good with kids, but the real clencher is his power. No matter what, he could always be around to be present in his kid's life. And hey, family dynamics are always changing. Who is to say a family can't be just a kid and their thirty-six identical dads?

Ryukyu: She can be hard on herself, but she seems to have a soft spot for children and do well with her wards, given how well they have turned out, being commanding without being harsh. And let's be real: who wouldn't want to have a dragon for a parent? That alone would put her pretty high up here.

Eraserhead: This may be a controversial pick putting him so low, but hear me out. I think Aizawa would try to be a good dad, but he's married to his job, being too tired and absent to really make it work. And did you see what he bought for Eri to wear? What self-respecting father would ever do this his child?

Fourth Kind: A good role model to any kid who tries to foster strong moral foundations and understanding of community in his wards. All around, a pretty stand-up guy to have as a dad. He loses points because punching kids is not a good way to punish them, even if it hurts him more than it hurts them.

Midnight: This could be because I read Vigilantes, but Midnight actually shows quite a few parental traits, like being highly empathic and understanding of those younger than her. Then again, I can only imagine the kind of teasing and general awkwardness that would come from having the R-Rated Heroine as a mom.

A Tier: All Might: If we're counting him without "One For All", otherwise he'd be working too much to be a dad, I think that he'd be a parent. If his students are anything to go by, he'd be a pretty effective parent. We can also tell that he plays favorites with his kids, and that knocks off a few points.

Present Mic: This may be a surprise pick, but I can see him doing pretty well as a parent. He can be the fun, comic dad that plays with his kids and can get on their level, but he can instantly go into serious mode if he needs to. The fact that he can do both so well, which you kind of need as a parent, puts him pretty high on the list.

Best Jeanist: Another stand-up guy, just trying to be a good role model and look amazing while doing it. I mean, the guy had an actual positive impact on early series Bakugou. That has got to count for something. Probably has all kinds of weirdly good life advice if you can understand fashion metaphors.

Rock Lock: One of the few real parents on this list, Rock Lock just seems like a responsible parent. He did try to call out the kids for being on missions, but he was kind of right in that regard and just looking out for them. Probably try to keep his kid from doing stupid stuff. He'd be a good, but restrictive father.

Hawks: Like Present Mic, I could see Hawks being a chill dad who doesn't seem to know what's going on but actually knows everything that happens and always has one eye open when it comes to his kids. He'll give his kids their freedom, but he's going to be there to catch and guide them when they really need him.

S Tier: Mandalay: Another one of the few real parents here, and one with a pretty bad hand. Mandalay not only had to take over as a guardian out of nowhere but had to do it with a heavily traumatized child while trying to lead a team as a pro-hero. The fact that she seems to be doing as well as she is puts her this high without question.

Fat Gum: No one should be surprised that Fat Gum is this high. He's super protective without being overbearing, tries to instill valuable lessons to make them develop, and does his best to encourage his wards to be the best they could be. And could you imagine him giving hugs? That would make any problem vanish.

Tensei: Tensei is just such a good guy. He's a good role model and leader for his team without it being detrimental. He knew Koichi for about a day and he was able to understand Koichi and tried to set him up for success. Imagine how well he'd do with his own kid. Plus, he's an older brother. That's like a being a parent with training wheels.

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yet-another-deanw-girl · 19 days ago

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Chapter 19: You again!

She knew for 15 years that this day would come. She knew her destiny had already been written. That her death had been foretold.

She knew she would have to stop him. She knew she would have to kill him. And she thought she was prepared for all of it. But the day she met him she realized how wrong she was…

Set in Season 10

Pairing: MoC!Dean x Female!OC

Warnings: the usual SPN, language

Episode mapping: During episode 17 of season 10 "Inside Man"

Note: The events of this story are following season 10 of Supernatural and are taking place between October 2014 and July 2015. I tried to make sure that all the references to weapons, tech, etc. are accurate with the time period.

AN: This is my first time writing a fanfic but the story has been in my head for too long and it just needed to get out. I hope you like it.

AN: English is not my first language, I apologize for any mistakes.

I slowly descend the bunker's stairs, gripping the railing to keep my balance. My head is throbbing… Fucking hangover! That's why I don't drink!

GIF from Pinterest

"Just on time!" Sam says coming from the library. " Let's go!" "Where?" "I need to check out something." "Where is Dean?" "He called to tell me he is running some errands in town. Come now. We don't have much time." "Can I at least get coffee first?" "Can we take the Jeep?" Sam counters me. "Yes, but you are driving." Just now he looks closely at me and raises his brows. "You ok?" He asks. "I feel like I was hit by a truck… twice…" "Are you hungover?" He muses. "I thought you didn't drink." "I don't… Last night was an exception. The only exception."

He sits in the driver's side of the Jeep, adjusting the seat. I offer him the key when I climb next to him. "Actually…" I pull back the key and I press my finger next to the ignition. "Jarvis, say hello to Sam." "Entering a new biometric signature." The car's computer answers. "Please, state your full name." I make a gesture for Sam to reply. "Sam Winchester." "Voice pattern saved. Please put your hands on the steering wheel." Sam obeys every command the computer gives him. I show him how to work with the dashboard and then I lead him to the truck to explain the equipment.

Created with Microsoft Designer

"Here you go!" I say to him, finally giving him the key. "It is yours." "What?" He asks, confused. "Why?" "I've meant to do this for a while." "But why?" "Just take it and say thank you!" I snap at him. My head is still hurting. He starts the engine and drives out of the garage without saying another word.

"Jarvis… Really?" He says after an hour driving in silence. "You are such a nerd." "I never said otherwise." I chuckle.

Sam parks the Jeep by the side of the road, behind Cas' car and he goes to talk to him. I desid to wait in the car, since my head is still throbbing a little. I'm way better than I was in the morning and the burger I ate on the way helped a lot.

"What are we doing here, anyway?" I ask Sam. "We need Metatron's help." "Because you think Metatron might have information about The Mark of Cain?" "I know he has." "Are you sure, though?" We are approaching a playground when a man stops us. Not a man. An angel. Four of them. And they are not happy to see us. And… definitely not letting us talk to The Scribe of God. "Cas, let's go." Sam pulls the angel away. "What? We're leaving?" "Yeah, we can't fight off four angels." "So… so what? You just want to give up on Metatron?" Castiel protests. "No, we need him. Time for plan 'B'... We break him out."

We are walking down a dark street toward a house. "So, back in the '50s, Oliver Pryce was a kid psychic." Sam fills us in. "He performed everywhere… carnivals, Atlantic City… you name it. He was the real deal. Now, The Men of Letters were teaching him how to control his powers when they got… you know."

"Mr. Pryce? This is Sam…" "Winchester. You're Sam Winchester, Man of Letters." A bald man opens the door. "Yeah. How did you, uh..." "Mind reader, remember? And you're... What are you?" The psychic asks Cas. "I'm an Angel." "That... No, you can't be." "Why not?" Cas asks, really confused by the man's statement. "Because I'm an atheist." I burst into laughter. That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. "Not anymore." Sam says passing by Mr. Pryce, entering the house. "And you…" The old man looks sadly at me. "What happened to you?" "I'll just stay outside." I'm quick to interrupt him. "Oh… no, no, no! Someone can see you standing there. And then… they will all start knowing on my door. No, no, no!" He pulls me instead. "You can wait here." He points to an armchair for me to sit.

Sam, Castiel, and Mr. Pryce are sitting around a table with candles on it. Sam's plan is to contact some old friend named Bobby, who died a while back. By the way he is talking about the man, I believe he was more than a friend… more like a father to him and Dean. So… Cas is explaining the plan to Bobby and I'm sitting in the corner the entire time. "I like her!" The psychic says when they are done. "She is smart and funny and really sassy, despite her dark thoughts!" Sam looks at me and then at the psychic. "She was wondering if the angels had changed the place of the door to Earth in the last 50-60 years." The bald man shrugs. "Metatron changed it to be behind door 42 when he was in charge of Heaven." Castiel answers. "And they call me a nerd!" I laugh out loud. "What?" Cas is confused once again. "I'll explain it later." Sam says and gets up from the table. "You will need to talk to that young lady as soon as possible." I hear Mr. Pryce says to Sam, just before he shuts the door behind us. Yeah… we will need to talk.

I splash water on my face and when I look at the mirror my eyes flash black for a second… Panic fills my chests and I blink at my reflection. No! I'm not giving up control. Not yet! Not until I'm sure Emilia will be ok.

"Been waiting for you." I say to the demon when he finally appears. I expect him to start a fight, to try to kill me, like his mother tried just an hour ago. "Squirrel." He just retorts.

GIF from Pinterest

"Look, I'm not saying that I didn't want to slice and dice the witch. I'm just saying that that's not how it went down." We are sitting in the empty bar. "So she's a liar." "Must run in the family." "Mother says The Mark is just a curse, can be removed. Of course, she doesn't know how." "Figures." I pour myself another drink. "But I'm good, thanks." "Who's the liar now?" Crowley frowns.

"What do you know about…" I hesitate for a second but I clear my throat and ask the question that was bugging me for a while. "What do you know about soulmates?" Crowley looks at me with a question in his eyes. "Is this bullshit real?" I ask. "Well… yeah… It is… but it's rare, as far as I know. Why don't you ask Castiel? It's more in his line of work since it's Heaven's way to arrange their perfect future heroes." He is quiet for a moment, then he continues. "Actually… I’m kinda surprised they haven't hooked you and Moose up with your own already… Imagine… the poor girls… they will be dead in a week…" I do not answer him, do not even look at him… "Oh! Bloody hell! They did! Didn't they!"

Cas walks through the portal with Metatron. Well… it turns out, the angel was trying to play us out until he could escape. He knows nothing about The Mark. He has no idea how to remove it. I'm not surprised but I keep my comments to myself. There is no point of told-you-so-s. But the sneaky angel manages to convince Cas he can take him to what's left of his grace.

"So… why did the psychic insist that I need to talk to you as soon as possible?" Sam asks me. We are going back to the bunker. He is driving and I'm just staring through the window in the rain. "We had run out of time." I breathe out. "It can happen at any moment now…" He looks at me confused, trying to keep his eyes on the road at the same time. It takes him a moment to understand what I'm talking about. "But you said…" He starts but then looks at me again, finally catching up. "It was your birthday yesterday…" I turn around staring at the rain again. I don't need to see the hate returning into his eyes. I'm the enemy again.

"Hey." Sam greets his brother. "Hey. How was the movie?" "French." The younger Winchester lies. "What about you? What did you do last night?" "Played some pool. It was kind of boring." Dean is lying too. He is definitely hiding something. But we all are…

I decide to wait for an hour before entering the bunker. It's obvious that Sam doesn't want Dean to know where we were. Or that we were together. Well… there is no point in telling him if Metatron doesn't know anything. So… I'm standing outside in the dark trying to get in peace with my fate once more… Hope is a dangerous thing…

"Look who decided to come home! Did you have fun?" Dean smiles at me but there is a bitterness in his tone. "Kinda…" He is looking to start an argument but I have no strength left in me for it. "So… Sophie!? Another alias?" He pokes. "Aham…" I mumble. "And this guy… Thomas… was it? Another ex fiancé?" He continues to push the subject. "No… just a simple undercover job… in and out… just four or five days… nothing too complicated…" I quickly answer and hurry to my room, not wanting to deal with lying anymore today.

Chapter 20 - Coming soon

||The Prophecy Series||

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riotwritesthings · 1 year ago

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Who Guards the Bodyguard

T, 3k - No-Powers AU, Humor, bodyguard!Bucky

One college bar, one bodyguard, one sleazeball who can't take no for an answer. Shaken, not stirred.

Hey remember when I took birthday prompts, like… 9 months ago? Good times. Anyways guess what I finally finished.

The prompt was some combination of “You’re my new bodyguard and you’re cute” / “Help me I’m being hit on at a bar please be my fake boyfriend for a second” / “I’m going to save you from the terrible date you’re having” So I really just mashed all of those together and ended up with this lol. I hope you enjoy it @clarajanedesperaux!

This job is supposed to be easy.

All Bucky has to do is keep an eye on a billionaire’s spoiled, wild son and make sure the kid doesn’t end up kidnapped or otherwise killed. Easy.

And yet, it has not been easy, most notably because Tony Stark can’t know that Bucky is guarding him. Howard had been very insistent about his son’s ability and determination to ditch his previous bodyguards, and half of the stories were honestly impressive if true. So Bucky has a very strict set of guidelines to follow that most days make him feel more like a stalker than anything else.

He gets a ping whenever Tony leaves the Stark family’s Fifth Avenue mansion, and satellite tracking makes it quick work to follow him anywhere in the city. Bucky’s not exactly sure how Stark has GPS-tagged his son, but he’s not paid to ask questions.

He’s paid to put his experience in black ops and undercover work to good use and not be seen while he’s following a twenty-year-old around the city making sure no one kills the kid.

Totally normal, super easy.

Yeah right, Bucky thinks to himself in bemusement as he watches Tony over the rim of his beer.

This is the third bar the Stark heir has been to tonight, and Bucky really must be getting old because all he wants is to go home.

He’d kind of like to tell Tony to go home too, and not just because it would mean Bucky could go back to his apartment to hang out with his cat. It’s because he knows what Tony is doing, he knows the rotating cast of friends that meet Tony at one bar just to abandon him at another. He knows how damn lonely that is.

He might be watching from a distance, but Bucky is pretty damn good at what he does and he can tell there’s a lot more to Tony than the kid lets on. He’s got a bigger heart than he likes to show and hidden scars, he deserves better than fake friends and a father who won’t even give him a chance.

But that’s none of Bucky’s business.

Two more bars later, Bucky is feeling a lot less generous towards his charge. This place is too damn crowded, and loud, and Bucky has to keep moving around to keep Tony in his sight. And for what, just to watch him half-heartedly flirt with some asshole in a trucker hat, of all things? The kid could at least have the decency to have some taste.

Bucky forces down some more unsavory thoughts about trucker-hat-douche as he slides onto another seat at the bar and waves for a refill on his beer. He pointedly ignores it when the guy on the next stool spins to face him, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on Tony near the pool table across the bar. Even if he wasn’t working right now, he is in no mood and he does his best to convey that with the side of his face.

The asshole doesn’t take the hint though, and Bucky can feel the weight of his sleazy smirk as he asks, “Well hello, you come here often?”

“Nope,” Bucky says shortly, which is conveniently both true, and will hopefully cut off any further conversation.

"That makes sense,” the man says with a nod and a widening smirk, continuing to ignore all of Bucky’s not-so-subtle hints, “I would remember seeing you before.”

He probably thinks it sounds flattering, but he just comes across as gross. Bucky takes his eyes off his charge just long enough to glance over at the man next to him, taking in his flushed, sweaty face. The asshole is definitely drunk, probably completely hammered, and Bucky doesn’t want to deal with this.

He fixes his eyes forward again, hoping the guy will at least take one of his hints if he just keeps throwing them in the asshole’s face.

“C’mon, I’ve seen you moving all around the bar,“ the man says, because of course he can’t just give up. ”It’s obvious you’re looking for something, only to wind up next to me,“ he continues in what he probably thinks is an alluring tone, ”there’s no reason to play hard to get now.”

"‘M not playing anythin’,” Bucky snaps, cutting his gaze to the side just long enough to give the man a sharp glare, "and I’m not interested."

The asshole on the next stool just laughs, and Bucky can smell the vodka on his breath as he leans closer. “Don’t be like that,” he says with another slimey laugh, “you don’t even know me yet, and I’m very interesting.”

Bucky lets himself outright scoff at that, because he very seriously doubts that this bar-regular who can’t take no for an answer has any sort of hobby that Bucky would find interesting. He can see it from the corner of his eye when the asshole scowls, when his fingers curl tighter around his drink, and Bucky sighs internally.

“What, you think you’re too good to even give me the fucking time of day?” The guy demands, abandoning his attempt at a sultry tone in favor of a snarl. It sounds more natural for him, honestly.

There are a lot of ways Bucky could answer that.

He could point out that technically at this point it would be ‘time of night.’ Or he could get brutally honest and say that while he doesn’t usually think very highly of himself at all these days, he does still think he can do better than this random bar asshole. Maybe not a whole lot better, but better.

Instead of saying anything at all though, Bucky reluctantly tears his eyes away from the Stark heir across the small bar. He turns to finally face the man next to him and fixes him with a dry, expectant stare, quirking an eyebrow and letting the man fill in how ‘interesting’ Bucky thinks he is for himself.

The asshole’s face starts to twist with rage, but he smooths it out again with what looks like a fair amount of effort before saying, “Well, how about you let me buy you a drink and give me sixty seconds to change your mind.”

“No,” Bucky says shortly and starts to turn away. But then the man starts to reach for him, like he’s going to grab Bucky’s shoulder to stop him, and Bucky goes tense all over.

Part of him, a big part, wants to break this asshole’s wrist and be done with it, but that would draw way too much attention. He doesn’t trust himself to grab the man’s hand without breaking something, and he can’t even risk punching the jerk when his entire job relies on Tony never noticing him.

So Bucky has to settle for moving out of the asshole’s reach, shifting half off of his stool to accomplish it, and glaring harder as he snaps, "Do not touch me."

If the man was less drunk, and less of a dick, there’s no doubt that Bucky’s best death glare would be enough to chase him off. But he is a drunk asshole, so instead of running he grits his teeth and narrows his eyes.

“Listen, asshole,” the guy starts and Bucky does outright laugh at that, sharp and mocking.

He’s not surprised that the man’s face flushes an angrier shade of red, but Bucky really couldn’t help himself. The asshole continues to sputter for a second before sliding ungracefully off his stool and pulling himself up to his full height, wobbling slightly in the process.

“I don’t appreciate you- fuckin’- talking down to me,” the asshole spits furiously, but Bucky isn’t listening to him anymore.

With a sigh, Bucky slides the rest of the way off of his own stool and he can only hope that Tony is still distracted with the trucker-hat-douche because this is definitely about to become a scene. At least it’s somewhat gratifying to watch the drunk stumble back half a step when Bucky pulls himself up to his full height and squares his shoulders, but it doesn’t look like the man plans on backing down.

“Last chance to walk away,” Bucky warns because he has had it with tonight. At this point he will be perfectly happy to get kicked out of this shitty bar and fuck this job.

The asshole has his mouth open to respond, but then his eyes go wide as Bucky feels someone winding their arms around his and plastering themself tightly to his side. Bucky feels his own face twitch in shock when he jerks his gaze to the side and realizes that it’s Tony clinging to him.

Tony, who Bucky is supposed to be keeping an eye on, and who is not supposed to even be aware of Bucky’s existence. Tony, who is smiling up at him like Bucky isn’t a complete stranger to him, like he knows Bucky.

“There you are, hot stuff,” Tony says, his tone as familiar as his grin, and Bucky has a terrible feeling about the future of his employment. “I was starting to think you were standing me up,” Tony continues, fluttering those long eyelashes up at him.

The eyelashes that Bucky has tried so hard not to notice, but he’s sure as hell noticing them now.

Even caught off guard, and maybe a little distracted, Bucky isn’t a complete moron. He knows what Tony is doing, so he quickly pulls it together and works up a smile of his own.

“Wouldn’t’ve been so hard t’ spot you if you’d picked a less crowded place,” Bucky finds himself saying, because he can’t not complain about this dive bar now that he’s been given the chance.

Tony throws his head back with a laugh, and Bucky does not let himself get caught up in the sound of it. Not even a little.

“I * knew* you would hate it,” Tony says gleefully and the light in his eyes isn’t just teasing, it’s knowing.

Like Tony actually chose this bar just to annoy him, and Bucky is officially in so over his head.

He is also reluctantly charmed, and Bucky can’t fight down a tiny grin of his own even as he shakes his head and says, “You-”

“Hey,” the asshole interrupts, apparently not happy with being completely ignored.

He’s glaring at both of them now, and Bucky automatically shifts so he’s a little more between the drunk and the person he’s supposed to be secretly bodyguarding. He can at least still do half of his job. Tony grins at him like he knows exactly what Bucky is thinking, and hell, he probably does. Just like it’s probably no accident that Tony is wrapped around his good arm, making it much less likely that he’ll throw a punch.

Nothing would really surprise Bucky at this point, Tony is so damn smart and apparently Bucky has been underestimating him, too. And apparently, Tony has been watching him back, and Bucky has no idea what to do with that.

When the asshole makes another impatient sound Tony finally deigns to look over at him, barely tearing his gaze away from Bucky long enough to flit his eyes over the man from head to foot.

“Bye,” Tony says, his tone artfully dismissive, and then goes right back to grinning up at Bucky like the other man doesn’t exist.

To Tony’s credit, his cold, superior tone has the asshole automatically taking a step backward, even as he sputters, "Dude, wh- what the fuck-"

“What part are you not getting?” Tony asks, one sharp eyebrow crawling up his forehead as he slowly turns to face the asshole again, like he’s still unconvinced that the man is worth the effort. ”He was looking for someone, now he’s found me,“ Tony continues as he smoothly fits himself under Bucky’s arm, ”no part of this has anything to do with you, so you can go ahead and leave now."

Bucky can’t quite bite down his laugh when the drunk man sputters dumbly again, and the tiny grin that Tony flashes up at him has Bucky’s heartbeat doing truly concerning things in his chest. But he’s not thinking about that, just like he’s not thinking about the way his arm has automatically fallen around Tony’s shoulders, the way Tony fits perfectly against his side.

“L-Listen here, you little-” the asshole stutters and then trails off, his face going scarlet as he seems to notice all of the people staring at them.

"Little what?" Tony asks coldly, the look on his face just daring the asshole to come up with something that Tony hasn’t been called before. Bucky is equal parts impressed, enraged at his employer all over again, and trying his best not to be completely smitten.

The asshole’s face is nearly purple as his eyes dart from side to side, taking note of the increasing number of people watching them with open interest and amusement.

“Fuck this,” he grumbles and finally starts to back away, deciding to save what little face he has left in front of this crowd of college douchebags. He apparently has to try and get the last word though, because as he turns he shoots Bucky a final glare he loudly mutters “I could do better anyways.”

“Doubt it!” Tony calls after him gleefully, and the on-looking crowd laughs. Then he turns his bright grin up at Bucky, and oh, fuck.

Bucky is so fucking fucked.

“Do you want to get out of here, now?” Tony asks, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Yes,” Bucky groans instantly and emphatically, all thoughts of his imminent unemployment momentarily forgotten in the force of his relief over getting to leave.

Being caught by Tony is the least of the rules he’s broken, but he can worry about that later, or maybe never. It’s not like anyone needs to know that he’s been slowly but surely failing the first rule of bodyguarding over months of catching glimpses of the real Tony. Except Tony might know, because he’s been watching Bucky back.

And Tony is still grinning smugly as he starts to drag Bucky out of the bar with his arm still looped comfortably around Bucky’s waist, staying plastered to his side. Bucky has no idea if it’s necessary or not, he can’t tear his eyes away from Tony to see if the asshole is still hanging around.

He does spare the most fleeting thought for the trucker hat douche that Tony was flirting with before, but that’s only to think that at least this mess is getting Tony away from that asshole. Tony deserves so much better, of that Bucky is sure, he’s had way too much time to think about it while watching Tony flirt with every type of douchebag.

Once they’re out in the cool night air Bucky drags in his first deep breath in what feels like hours, relishing in the slightly less disgusting smells of the city. At least there’s less old-vomit smell.

When Tony snickers Bucky looks over at him again, honestly not sure what to make of the teasing, knowing smile on Tony’s face.

”So, where to now?“ Tony asks innocently, like he’s not still actively throwing Bucky’s life into chaos.

”Off to look for a new job, probably,“ Bucky grumbles, but he can’t actually force any annoyance into his voice. It’s not like he actually likes this job, after all, but…

He’ll probably never see Tony again, once he’s fired, and that thought sends a sharp pang through his chest that Bucky is trying not to think about too hard. Tony is still staring up at him as they start to aimlessly wander down the sidewalk, apparently trusting Bucky not to run them into any street signs, and Bucky is trying not to think about that either.

”Why?“ Tony asks, sounding genuinely confused, and then he pouts as he adds, ”I can go back to pretending not to notice you, is that more fun? Little weird, big-time stalker vibes, but I can work with that.“

Bucky huffs out a laugh, then raises an eyebrow as he asks, ”“S that what you’re into? That why you haven’ ditched me yet, like all th’ others?”

“Give yourself some credit,” Tony says, patting his side, “I did try at first, but you’re hard to shake. Plus, you’re much cuter than the rest of them were.”

Bucky tears his eyes away from Tony’s teasing, flirty grin, looking back down the dark street and trying to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks. ”Maybe I’m jus’ sick of bein’ dragged to college bars,“ he says after a pause that’s probably tellingly long.

”Okay,“ Tony says agreeably, and when Bucky looks over at him in surprise, he finds Tony grinning up at him with an almost hopeful look in his eyes as he asks, ”How do you feel about burgers?“

Bucky finds himself trailing to a stop, still staring at Tony, who stopped right along with him and is now watching with a nervous little smile, like maybe he thinks the ‘better’ that he deserves is somehow Bucky.

For a second all Bucky can do is stare, his mouth gone completely dry. He has to lick his lips, watching Tony’s clever gaze track the motion, before he can croak out, “Seems like I’m gonna be fired for a different reason.”

Tony laughs, delighted, and starts leading him down the street again as he asks, ”What are you talking about? What better place to guard me from than up close and personal?“

Bucky is pretty sure that the elder Stark would not agree with that statement, but like hell is he going to be the one to point that out. He knows this is probably a terrible idea, and he’s definitely going to get fired for this sooner or later, but with any luck, it won’t be the last time he sees Tony.

”So, burgers?“ Bucky asks as he tightens his arm a little more around Tony’s shoulders, and when Tony smiles wider Bucky finally lets himself acknowledge the way it makes his heart flip over itself in his chest.

#my fic #winteriron #bucky/tony #starkbucks #riot writes

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navree · 6 months ago

Note

I genuinely think Slade is only in Task Force X because he wants to be paid for killing people, and hasn't yet figured out he can go freelance

I'm assuming, based on the emphasis put on Lex gaining power in Task Force X in combination with Waller dismissing Slade at the end of the last episode, that they might be gearing up for him to eventually leave and embark on his independent mercenary career. I'm a bit iffy on it, if only because I think that only works if they do a shared universe kind of thing, since Deathstroke isn't really a Superman villain. He's a Teen Titans villain, his most famous and most emotionally impactful stories involve his beef with these fucking kids (tho he can also show up sometimes in Batman stuff, not even Nightwing related Batman stuff, considering he literally pops up out of fucking nowhere during the Under the Red Hood arc to offer Black Mask a hit squad to take out Jason, tf did Jason ever do to him why did he just decide to send a goon squad after a literal nineteen year old for no reason whatsoever????).

I'm also not entirely sure if that can be his entire motivation for Task Force X specifically, for two reasons. One, if Leslie clocked him correctly and he is former military, then he didn't need to join a super secret black ops division to be paid to kill people, that's what the military is for. I don't even mean that in a "the evils of the army" kind of way, I mean that if Slade wants an opportunity to commit homicide in a situation where this wouldn't land him in jail and he could amorally use some flimsy justifications to allow himself to go further than most would approve, he already has it by being in the armed forces. Two, Task Force X doesn't really kill people. I think part of that is just that this is meant to be a somewhat family friendly show (I don't think it's a kid's show, but they are erring strongly oln the side of caution rather than giving us something like Invincible), but the brutality of Task Force X and Waller's (and previously Lane's) whole enterprise is in what it does to the people it apprehends. Task Force X seems to specialize in weapons manufacturing to fight Superman/Kryptonians, and in human experimentation. And while Waller's the one who ratcheted it up by taking random civilians from the prison system, this is something that's been at work for a while, apprehending people deemed disposable and experimenting on them or otherwise torturing them into compliance to fit their agendas. It's something Slade is involved in, and probably an outlet for some sadism, considering how goddamn cheerful he was when administering electro-shock to Leslie (does it say something about me that this is what cemented him as "new favorite guy" in my head?), but it doesn't seem like he has a lot of opportunities to kill people, since killing people other than Kryptonians during the eventual invasion isn't really the goal.

Am I aware I'm reading way too much into a side character? Yes, but this is a side character who has been consistently present since the premiere and is literally the first antagonist we ever really met, and I have thoughts about him and the hints of backstory and characterization that get dropped seemingly at random.

#personal #answered #anonymous #my adventures with superman #plus how am i not supposed to be obsessed when this version of slade is totally different from literally any other version of slade #anyway glad that the absolute constant excitement i have had for this dude since the moment he showed up on screen #is starting to entice other people #let's discuss him more he's the best #i cannot overstate the joy i felt when i was watching 1x02 already knowing deathstroke was slated to show up #and then i saw this dude in a black and orange color scheme and realized what was gonna happen

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sibillascribbles08 · 9 months ago

Text

Babysitting

Morning, I actually wrote a HypnoWarren fic, sort of. They're already married by this point so

Note the fic also established Jasonnie so if you can't stand that uuuuh sorry bye

Hypno let out a sigh as he sunk into the giant, plush sofa in the living room. He had half a mind to turn on the TV, but after a morning filled with the joyful screams of children at the nearby kindergarten, he preferred the silence. Besides, the light was on over Warren’s door which meant he was currently recording. The less noise the better.

The silence kind of made him want to nap. Maybe just a quick one. He did have to wake up early to get ready, after all.

But just then he heard the faint creak of a door. Hypno glanced down the hall to see one of Warren’s doors open, the light up top going off.

One of his doors, because two smaller ones were built into the main door.

When Donatello built this apartment complex, he took great care to renovate all the flats to accommodate whatever mutants wanted to move in. So for the worm’s bedroom—in which all the furniture was designed for his small size to the point it was practically a house—had a door up top for him to hover out of, and a door on bottom for him to crawl out of.

The upper door opened this time, and Warren hovered into the hall on the little hover scooter that Donatello also built. The worm mainly just used it to get around the building. Otherwise he just sat on Hypno’s shoulder.

Warren looked like he was going to head to the bathroom, but then his gaze met Hypno’s and he smiled.

“You’re home earlier than I thought.” The scooter shot across the room and stopped next to the sofa. “How were the kids?”

“Eh, could have been worse.” Hypno didn’t hesitate to pick his husband up and put him on his shoulder. The hover scooter gently drifted down onto an empty cushion. “Got the new episode recorded?”

“You bet.” Warren beamed, hands on where his hips would be if he still had them. “I was excited to get to work on it this week. Breaking news, famous chef making a comeback with a new restaurant for mutants and yōkai alike.”

Hypno’s ears perked up. “Oh gosh, is the opening next week? We gotta go down and tell Rupert congrats.”

Warren waved a hand. “Way ahead of you. We can tell him on opening night, I got us a reservation. A romantic date and a chance to do a follow up report with a review. The listeners are gonna love it.”

‘Listeners’ referred to the hundreds of mutants and yōkai who tuned into Warren’s weekly news podcast. Not the same as being an anchorman, he often insisted, but it was familiar enough that he enjoyed it. He had fans again, and a means to earn them some extra income.

Plus, mutants and yōkai in the city had been complaining for a while about their lack of personal news outlets. It’s where Warren got the idea in the first place.

“I’m just proud of Rupert.” Hypno leaned back against the sofa. “Took him so long to give up all that crime stuff.”

“Yeah, well, even if Orange Boy hadn’t enticed him with that deal, I’m pretty sure the power houses those turtles turned into would have changed his mind.”

No kidding. Hypno was glad he and Warren started going on the mend years ago. After ruining Leo’s first magic show and having to work at a bagel shop to pay it off, the slider actually did something nice by giving Hypno some work recommendations. With a far more reliable and legal source of income, he and Warren didn’t have to stress too much about a living space.

And when Donnie built this first apartment complex, well, that just sweetened the deal. No insane rent costs. As long as you paid your portion of the utilities and for any damages you caused, the rent was rather low.

He supposed the owner of a very successful tech company didn’t really need the extra money.

“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” Warren knocked Hypno’s top hat off and climbed up on his head. His tiny fingers played with the hippo’s hair. “I need to get to editing that audio, but I can do it tonight. Should we go to the park or something?”

Hypno thought about it for a bit, and was going to fire back a reply, when someone knocked on the door. He immediately turned his head to the right, forcing Warren to look that way as well.

“Who could that be?” The worm muttered. His tone obviously frustrated that they were interrupted.

Hypno got up. “Possibly just a neighbor who ran out of something in their spice cabinet.” It happened more than once. Especially considering that while mutant sightings were common these days, going to the grocery store was still an ordeal.

Hypno didn’t even peek outside before opening the door. He was a bit surprised to see Donatello standing there, but not by much. The turtle lived just a few doors down.

“Oh thank goodness you’re home.” Donnie's eyes looked absolutely exhausted as he closed them and clasped his hands together.

“Sure are, Flapjack,” Warren said. “Need a favor?”

“I know this is extremely short notice. But could the two of you watch Holly this afternoon?”

Now that did surprise Hypno. He knew Holly, of course. He’d seen the infant turtle more than once—mainly because her dads could not stop showing her off—but baby sitting?

“You sure you want us to do that?” Hypno pointed to himself.

Donnie groaned. “Look, Draxum is at work. Holly Blue and Jason are also at work and stuff has gone absolutely off the walls there. They need my help. The sooner I get over there the better so trying to drag one of my siblings over to watch her isn’t an easy option. You guys live right over here.”

Hypno didn’t know if it was worth bringing up their history considering they hadn’t fought in, what, a decade at least.

Still, “I don’t know all that much about infant care.”

Donnie kept running his hands over his face. “Not a problem. She doesn’t act like a typical infant. It’s super easy, I promise, if you guys are free at least.”

“Well—”

“We’re not doing it for free.” Warren mumbled.

“Warren.”

“What?”

“No, it’s fine.” Donnie waved a hand. “If you do this, I’ll waive your water bill for the month.”

The hippo balked at that. Not having to pay for water? That meant he could take as many long soaks in the tub as he wanted. He usually tried to limit it—despite how badly his skin needed it—due to, well, how much water he had to use per bath.

Warren must know exactly what he was thinking, because the worm snapped his fingers. “Deal. Show us what we’ve gotta do.”

“Sure.” The turtle nodded. “Grab anything you think you might need and meet me over there.” He turned and left.

Hypno wasn’t sure they’d need much, and they could always just hop back over here if they did, but Warren insisted they grab a couple of those canned coffee drinks just in case. He also insisted Hypno change out of his work clothes.

Yeah, that was fair.

Now with a much more casual button up, Hypno carried Warren and the coffees over to Donnie’s apartment. The door was propped open so they let themselves in.

Always so surreal how different it looked despite the similar floor layout. Where Hypno and Warren’s apartment was decorated wall to wall with posters and had silly nicknacks and props in every corner, Donnie and Jase’s apartment looked far more sleek. The fancy TV and speaker system, the massive massage recliner chair, and all the purples made it feel like something on a sci-fi themed cruise ship.

But as they followed Donnie to Holly’s room, the entire vibe shifted. At present, the tiny turtle baby mostly stayed in a personalized tank. Not that it was small by any stretch of the word. The tank was custom built, taking up half the room. The entire thing was built in a U shape—likely so you could reach her from anywhere while giving her plenty of space to move around. While some areas looked like a traditional tank, with sand, plants and water, the other half looked like a tiny bedroom. Blankets, pillows, and toys were scattered all over it.

Hypno wondered where the child even was, but the smallest squeak alerted him. He finally spotted her pressing her hands against the glass wall as Donnie reached in and picked her up.

She was definitely bigger than the last time Hypno saw her, but still tiny enough to fit in the turtle’s hand, and therefore Hypno’s as well.

“Okay,” Donnie began, eyes unfocused. “You guys know Holly. Holly, this is Hypno and Warren.”

The baby turtle didn’t even look in their direction. Her attention was completely fixed on her father.

“Good news, you don’t have to bottle feed her. She knows how to drink water and eat solid food, though I recommend you chop it up small for her. There’s a number of containers in the fridge labeled for her, just pick what you like.” Donnie pointed to a pair of bowls in one part of the tank, then a bottle that hung from the glass. “She has water in more than one location, food goes in that bowl.”

“Kinda sounding more like pet sitting than babysitting,” Warren mumbled.

Hypno gave his shoulder a sharp shrug to jostle his husband.

“What?”

“No, you’re right,” Donatello sighed. “But truthfully, even if the mechanics are different it’s not that far removed from raising a human baby. Moving on.” He pointed at Holly, more specifically at the cloth wrapped around her bottom half. “Diapers. We have to custom make them and they’re all cloth. We keep clean ones in that drawer.” He pointed to the dresser that was barely visible over the array of fabrics. Were those just the ones not yet cut up? “Used ones go in that hamper.” He pointed to what looked more like a trashcan than an actual laundry hamper. Probably for smell reduction. “Any questions so far?”

Warren asked, “Do we just leave her in the tank?”

“Pretty much. She’s allowed to wander around this room but only this room. We haven’t baby proofed the rest of the apartment.”

“So why call us?”

“Because she eats. A lot. And she can also get bored pretty easily. And also I just worry a lot about something going incredibly wrong if one of us aren’t around.” His eyes went so wide they looked like they might fall out. Then one of them twitched.

Hypno would suggest the guy take a nap, but that would probably be rejected immediately.

“It’s just the afternoon.” Donnie lowered Holly back into the tank. She let out a few high pitched squeaks of protest. “Jason and I should be back at six at the latest.”

Six? That was more like the whole day considering lunch hadn’t even passed.

But this did seem like a fairly low stress task. Make sure she didn’t hurt herself, toss around some magic to keep her entertained, order some delivery for them to eat?

And also, no water bill for the month.

“We’ve got it.” Warren answered. “Go do what you need to do.”

“Right.” Donatello nodded and went for the door. “You have my number if you have any questions or there’s an emergency or—”

“We’ve got it.” Warren insisted. “Go help your husband out.”

Another nod. Hypno peeked out into the hallway to watch Donnie leave. The turtle gave him a few looks, one more curious and the final one deathly serious. As if to give a brief warning of, “Nothing better happen to my daughter or else.”

And yeah, Hypno knew that. In fact, what worried him the most about this was if something did go wrong, Donatello could blast him and Warren into the next country.

It’d be fine. Low stress.

Hypno went back into the room and sat on the floor. At least there were plenty of cushions around here to use. Holly was already moving about her tank. She went straight for the big pool of water and dove right in.

“Yeesh, four-month old is already swimming.” Warren slid off Hypno’s shoulder and onto his lap. “I bet she’ll be walking in another month.”

Quite possible given that the turtle was already crawling.

“Did you put those coffees in the fridge when you came in?”

Hypno shook his head and got up. “Nah, let me go do that. I’ll locate the food too while I’m at it. Make sure I know where to find it.”

He found the cans still sitting on the small table in front of the sofa where he left them. Hypno picked them up and went to open the fridge. The frigid space was far more organized than his, but not to the point it looked unnatural. Donnie wasn’t kidding either, multiple containers had Holly’s name tapped on the top. Hypno picked up a couple to glance at the contents from the bottom. Looked like sardines, ham slices, and even peeled shrimp.

Hypno put them back and returned to the bedroom. Warren managed to pile some of the cushions together for him to climb up to look into the glass of the tank. Holly pressed herself against it as well, staring at him with her tiny eyes.

“Keeping her entertained, Love?” Hypno stood behind him.

Warren smiled when he looked back. “She seems to be enjoying the silly faces, at least. Why don’t you see how she reacts to some magic?”

Well, why not? Hypno leaned over the top of the tank. Holly almost fell over when she tried to look at him, appearing a bit more nervous.

Then Hypno reached into his sleeve and plucked a flower out of nowhere. The child didn’t laugh or clap, like most children did, but those small eyes widened. Hypno lowered the flower into the tank and she instantly reached for it. Her little fingers wrapped around one of the petals and then she tried to bite it.

Only to quickly reel back and stick out her tongue.

Hypno and Warren both chuckled and he pulled the flower back out. Just in case eating it wouldn’t be good for her.

“Man, this is gonna be the easiest job of our lives.” Warren snapped his fingers.

Hypno shook his head. “Don’t count your rabbits, Love.”

—-------------------------

Well, at least so far it was going well.

The kid really did get bored easily. She needed as much stimulation as some of the toddlers Hypno would do tricks for. And he mainly took the charge for that, on account of the fact he could summon tons of colorful flowers, sashes, and even balloons. He did make the mistake of popping one, however, which resulted in Holly hiding under a few pillows for a solid ten minutes.

Warren lured her out with a snack. She seemed to really enjoy the peeled shrimp.

The biggest problem came from diaper changing, but that was mainly because Warren had to do it with his smaller hands and he had to complain about it the entire time.

Hypno could see right through him, however. Especially after the anchorman washed his hands and picked the kid up to return her to the tank. Her little hands touched his face and she squeaked and the worm melted in an instant.

Maybe it was just due to the rare occurrence that Warren met anyone smaller than him these days. Even human babies were typically larger.

“News flash.” Warren posed as he held her. “The most handsome man in the world spotted with the most adorable child in the world. Ron, take a picture.” He waved his free arm.

Hypno chuckled and took a few shots. “Let’s not turn her into a photo op, Love.”

“Are you kidding, she was built for the camera.” Warren held her up and she giggled.

But not long after that, the kid got wiped out. Hypno placed her in the tank where she immediately curled up in a nest of blankets. The sight of it was so cute, Hypno took another photo. He sent that one to Donnie, just in case the guy needed some reassurance. A miracle the turtle wasn’t spamming them with texts asking if she was safe.

Donnie replied with a heart emoji, then a thanks, and then a message saying that Jase appreciated it too.

Hypno added some details about how well it was all going.

“Well, with her asleep we should take a break.” Warren scooted toward the door. “How about a snack and those coffees?”

“I’d feel bad taking their food.” Hypno stood. “I think I’ll hop back over to our place to grab something. You good with getting to the kitchen?”

Warren rolled his eyes. “Oh I can get to the kitchen just fine. Getting to the coffees… might be tricker.”

Hypno chuckled and opened the door. “I won’t be long.”

And he wasn’t. They hardly locked their doors in this building so it was simple to grab a couple of apples for himself and a bag of Warren’s favorite chips.

He returned to Donnie’s apartment and got the coffees out of the fridge before placing them and his husband all on the table. They ate and drank and chatted about weekend plans.

Only about thirty minutes later, when they finished up, Hypno went back to the bedroom to see the door open.

“Warren, did you not shut this?” He glanced at the worm on his shoulder.

His husband crossed his arms. “Why should I? Kid is fast asleep and she can’t get out of that tank anyway.”

Hypno’s ears went back as he went inside. “Better safe than sorry, you know?”

“Come on, Babe. The kid is right—” Warren pointed down to the blanket nest, but it was empty. “Er…”

Despite the stab of panic, Hypno didn’t let it consume him. The tank was huge. The kid could have gotten up and wandered somewhere else in it. But after searching back and forth in there—and turning over every pillow or other large object she could hide under—they found nothing. Hypno even dug into the sand at the bottom of the pool.

“Did she get out?” Warren shouted. “How?”

Hypno darted over to the door to shut it. Just in case the kid was still in here. “It doesn’t matter. Start looking. If Donnie finds out we lost his daughter we are going to get launched to the next state.”

“Donnie?” Warren raised his voice even higher. “Are you kidding? You think Donnie is the threat here?”

For a second Hypno wasn’t even sure what his husband meant.

Then he immediately recalled the short lived mess where Donnie got kidnapped by some business rivals. He recalled the look on Jason’s face when he left the building that day. And he recalled the news report less than an hour later of a massive dragon tearing a warehouse down to nothing but scrap.

Hypno put his hands on his head. “Jase is gonna have his dragon rip us to shreds.”

“Just start looking!”

Hypno did. He let his husband focus on the floor while he checked everything else. He didn’t rule out the shelves, cabinets or even the drawers. He tossed aside every piece of clothing, every box, and even tipped over the empty water pitcher just in case.

They still found nothing.

“I’m going to start looking outside.” Hypno tossed the door open and went into the hall.

On the bright side, all the other room doors were closed, including the bathroom. So that meant Holly had to have crawled into some place in the living room or the kitchen.

Hypno crawled around on the floor, looking under the sofa, the chairs, and even peeking under the rugs. Then he checked the TV stand, every shelf and behind any of the blocks of machinery. Still nothing.

Eventually Warren came out to help. Hypno hoped that his much smaller husband would have an easier time checking out the more cramped areas, but it still didn’t work. Damn it, Holly was so small. Could she have fit into the ventilation. Oh no! They’d never be able to get her out of there.

“What do we do?” The panic was definitely getting to him now. “Warren, what do we do?”

“I don’t know.” The worm snapped back, just about as good at dealing with stress as he was. “Wait. Wait! Newsflash!”

“What?”

“The shrimp.” He pointed to the fridge. “She loves that stuff. Pull some out, maybe we can lure her.”

A brilliant plan as any right now. Hypno got out the container and gave a piece of the shellfish to Warren who sneered at the smell of it. Still, he began to crawl around, waving it.

Hypno did the same, though in the kitchen this time. He was still on the floor, praying that the tiny child hadn’t found a way to climb up on the counters or something. There were knives up there!

As he moved closer to the fridge, he heard a squeak.

Hypno’s ear and then his face turned toward the noise in an instant. “Holly? Is that you, Love? Come here.” He waved the piece of shrimp closer, hoping the smell was strong enough.

Another squeak, a bit louder. Then finally the tiny turtle wiggled her way out from underneath the fridge.

Just how did she get under there? When?

Hypno snatched her up in an instant. Holly squeaked in surprise and even struggled for a second.

“Warren, I got her.”

“Oh thank goodness.” The worm shouted. “Let’s get her back.”

Hypno headed in that direction, but then realized just how much dust and grime Holly had picked up on her little adventure. “Maybe we should give her a quick wash first.”

“Fine, but make it quick.” Warren reached up. “We need it so her dads have no idea this happened by the time they get home.”

Hypno agreed. He handed Holly the shrimp—that she kept reaching for—and then put his husband on his shoulder. He carried them both to the bathroom where he plopped Holly in the sink. Donnie didn’t give them any bath instructions, but there was a tiny basket on the counter with some light soap and a soft brush.

Warren handed her the other shrimp and turned the sink on. “I hope she doesn’t splash a lot.”

Hypno chuckled. “Don’t count your rabbits.”

—----------------------------

One messy bath later and a lengthy dry off—which was mostly Warren trying to fix his soaked shirt—the pair returned Holly to the tank.

Upon which her method of escape soon became clear. As soon as they left her in there, Holly stepped away from the glass only to take a running leap at it. She tried to grab the edge, but missed it, smacking into the glass instead.

“Hm, Donnie’s going to have to make the walls higher.” Warren pointed to one of the pillows. “Kid is too smart. Prop one of those up so she doesn’t bruise herself.”

Hypno did. And it sort of worked, with Holly crashing into the plush material instead.

“How does she still have energy?” The hippo sighed. “No wonder Donnie looks so wiped out.” Even he was feeling it at this point.

Thankfully, after a few more failed jumps, Holly gave up. With a tiny yawn she fell back asleep on the blankets, and this time Hypno kept watching her to make sure she stayed there. Warren climbed onto his lap as he sat, also flopping over like he’d take a nap.

Hypno began to doze himself, but then he heard the front door open.

The hippo sat up straight, jostling his husband in the process. Warren complained, but didn’t protest as he got picked up and placed on Hypno’s shoulder.

He opened the door right when Donnie got to it.

“Hey,” the turtle didn’t look any less tired. “Everything good?”

“Yeah,” Hypno gave a nervous laugh. He waved at Jase who came up behind Donnie, then stepped aside as the guy came into the room to kneel next to the tank. “You guys might want to raise the walls a bit though. Seems she’s learning how to jump out.”

“What?” Donnie groaned. “She’s barely grown two inches since she’s hatched but she’s doing this?”

“Are you really surprised?” Jase carefully lifted his sleeping daughter out of the tank, cradling her in his hands. “Your dad did say you guys were escaping into all kinds of places as babies.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t have a custom built tank.”

“We’ll just put a few extra inches of cushioning to block her.” Jase shook his head. “Thanks for babysitting, guys.”

“Yeah, of course.” Hypno smiled and glanced at the two of them. They both looked beyond exhausted. “Anytime, actually. You guys look like you could use the break.”

“Probably,” Donnie admitted. “But we knew what we signed up for.”

“Still,” Jase added. “We could probably allow someone else to watch her for a bit by this point.”

“After I adjust the tank.”

“Of course.”

Hypno chuckled at their usual banter.

“Well, this was fun.” Warren snapped a finger. “But I’m hungry. Have you guys eaten?”

“Nah,” Jase sighed. “Came here right after work.”

“Oh, let us go get Chinese then.” Hypno slipped past Donnie. “Our treat.”

“Our treat?” Warren scoffed.

“Well, they are paying our water bill this month.”

“Fine, fair enough.” He waved a hand.

Hypno looked back at his neighbors. “Is that good with you guys?”

“Well I definitely don’t want to cook,” Jase said. “So yeah. Just get our usuals.”

Hypno gave them a thumbs up and headed out of their apartment and toward the stairs.

Warren was oddly quiet on the way down the steps. Usually he loved to ramble after such a chaotic event.

Hypno shrugged his shoulders to nudge him a bit. “Something on your mind?”

“Hm?” His husband blinked. “Well, no, maybe. Mostly tired. Just made me think um…” He kept looking up as he tapped his chin. “Did you uh… ever want to have kids?”

Hypno’s ears went up. “What brought this up?”

“We just babysat one.”

“I know but… did you want to have them?”

“Not really?” The worm cringed when he said that. “I mean, I guess I wouldn’t hate it, but it’s not something I really want to do either. But we still haven’t talked about it even though we got married years ago so…”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense.” Hypno opened the side door and stepped out onto the street. “Can’t say it’s something I really want to do either. Sides, I think helping look after that little one will be more than enough.”

Warren chuckled, a genuine smile on his face as he leaned against Hypno’s head. “Yeah, you’re telling me.”

#rottmnt #scribbly fics #hypnowarren #hope that's the right tag F #they end up baby sitting Holly often enough they become her unofficial uncles #A while back I saw a clip from an article about #how some softshell turtles will do running leaps to escape their tanks #so you have to make sure they're tall enough lmao #posting this early idc

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ominous-feychild · 6 months ago

Text

✦ HEIGHT COMPARISON ✦

Thanks for the tag, @yourpenpaldee!

RULES:

Use this site to compare the heights of your OCs.

I'm not going to lie, I have mixed feelings about this tag, haha. I mean, it was pretty fun in a lot of ways! But the website was also laggy and, uh... diverse body types and stuff? Definitely not, whoops.

On a more positive note! I decided on the colors for each of these characters a while ago, and this is also a cool way so show them off! Tell me what you think of everyone's colors, and if I did a good job making them distinct from one another!

(The amount of my characters I saw related to blue without even realizing it... I had to move some to shades of purple!!!)

SUN AND SHADOW

This one was disappointing in body types both for ridiculous reasons (why no harpy for poor Crow? 😂) aaaand... a lot more valid ones. Like, okay, there wasn't a single icon for a person with a cane. Not even for a thin one! So instead we just got Soren with his hands in his pockets.

THE ARCANE RIFTS

Large cast, sorry guys! 😂 Believe it or not, I actually made a separate one with a few more of the characters if you guys want me to post it separately! I just didn't want to crowd this post up any more than it already will be, haha.

Gene is a smol boy, both from genetics (😉) and malnutrition, whoops. Although they won't show up in the Arcane Rifts (or... not any time soon? 👀), I have a lot of Gene's family built out and they're all pretty short, haha. So it was a given he would be, too! Thennnnn there was also the "no option for a cane" thing. 😑

Adilzhan, on the other hand, has always been planned out to be gigantic, haha. If there were any harpy icons, I could've done one for him and shown another reason this man is considered to be hulking! Dude's terrifying, I love him. 10/10.

This is the kids' fully-grown heights btw! Obviously seven-year-old Gene isn't 5'3, haha. He'll only be that tall later into book 2.

RISING FROM THE ASHES

Another place the lack of diverse icons reallllly didn't vibe well with me, oops. Guqayya wears a headscarf for religious reasons, but there weren't any avatars with it and, well... idk, maybe she's not a real person, but I really don't like having anything representing her without one.

Sammy, on the other hand? Great, 10/10, haha. One of the Things™ about him is that he looks much younger than he actually is, and one of the ways that shows is in his height! He's actually 15, though, he just absolutely does not look it, haha. Poor kid.

Also it greatly amuses me that not only is Caron not that tall (meanwhile his son towers above him), but Guqayya is taller than him. Cranky old healer lady ftw am I right?

(More seriously, it amuses me because he's a super intimidating presence. Tbh he's got a lot of muscle--though he hides it under loose-fitting clothes--and he's got a lot of other factors that makes him more intimidating. Like, famous and known to lead a knight's college for one. But also he's got a generally very collected manner, doesn't really show his emotions, and--oh, right. Is powerful enough magically that he radiates an aura of power, haha. Still! It's so funny to picture that in an otherwise almost average-height man! I think it's not done that often tbh.)

ALL MAIN CHARACTERS

Aaaand the actual main characters of each of the stories! (Well, technically minus the MCs of the later books of tAR, but that's not really relevant, so--)

Turns out my MCs tend to be kinda short, haha. Oh, well! I think I did a great job diversifying the colors for them, though, so hopefully it'll be easy to distinguish when I start making posts about them again!

Despite the lack of diversity, I did mostly have fun with this tag! It's interesting looking at the characters' heights actually put side-to-side visually like this--I've never gotten to see it before, haha.

Also, this might've let me mess with the numerical heights to better match those that I saw visually occurring between the characters... I'm not that great at converting numbers to distance in my mind. The aphantasia doesn't help, whoops.

I'm proud that it seems I've done a decent job of varying the heights and generally making them accurate to irl averages, though!

Tagging (gently!!!): @the-golden-comet @darkandstormydolls @the-letterbox-archives @illarian-rambling @wyked-ao3

@ath3alin @mysticstarlightduck + open tags!!!

Gorgeous divider by @saradika!

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truearchangel · 4 days ago

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@radioiaci meme tag 48. one muse betrays their long held loyalties in order to save the other’s life from their own allies [ I imagine it’s much more likely for Alastor to betray Hell for Michael than vice versa but feel free to do whichever~ ] (INU) <- couldn't think of a way to answer it like that. I did my best with this if it didn't hit the prompt exactly I hope it was at least enjoyable to read. ( word count; 3,347. )

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The thing about Heaven was that despite the height of Michael's position up there? It was still dependent. As he tried to explain to people before, he wasn't all powerful. he couldn't make choices entirely on his own. He could change some things without the input of others, but big drastic changes, was put to a vote. And still, Gabriel's position as the second in command meant that he too could take control of things while Michael was not there.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Which was something else that people didn't seem to consider, the Archangels worked systematically together, all of them upheld specific roles, all of them were part of the pillar that supported the Clouds.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎There was a system, maybe one that Hell didn't agree with or like, but there was a system. And the problem with that system was that sometimes—sometimes Michael could be overruled.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Michael never realized how long he had been in Hell until he actually needed to notice. It was a curious thing, to be quite honest, how easily time got away from him while he was down here. Granted, he was still doing his work for Heaven. he was still doing the things that he needed to and meeting the deadlines for his paperwork. The things he did helped keep Heaven running.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He never fell behind because he knew what sort of damage it could cause. So while working on himself, while studying the hotel, while playing first aid kid for Alastor, he continued to do all of his work too.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He was actually quite proud of that, how much he could keep ahead of everything and continue to work on it all. How he kept ahead of it without cracking and falling apart from the stress. Though the amount of sleep he got was entirely dependent on someone else and he was awake far more than he should be to accomplish all of this, he was managing somehow.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The sleep aid, otherwise known as Alastor, was someone that Michael never expected to grow attached to while he was in Hell. Honestly, as it was a note in his journal, he intended to not grow any sort of bonds while down here. Not even with Lucifer. The Michael that had been preparing to come down here knew that his brother would have the biggest sway on him. He had not anticipated someone else having that effect on him too.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Yet, Alastor certainly had something on him.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Each day was spent thinking about him far more than Michael would think he would. Or that he even should to be quite honest. He finds his head drifting toward him constantly even when he did something as small as listen to music while he worked. Just the stray passing thought of would the Radio Demon enjoy this song too? Would he play it on his show? Would he listen to it while they napped? Thoughts that shouldn't matter, thoughts he shouldn't have. What does it matter if a song he likes was one that Alastor liked too?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Lately, too, he's even been trying harder to cook. Paying more attention when they're in the kitchen, studying what he did, learning just so that he could make something edible for the gluttonous demon. What a ridiculous waste of his time.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎An attachment to sinners was something that Michael only ever thought young, naive and reckless angels would do. Children who didn't know any better, who didn't understand the dangers that Hell presented to Heaven. Angels like Emily.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎So why was he finding himself so attached to the other? Why did how Alastor was, what he was thinking, what he liked or disliked,if the angel was pleasing him—what did any of it matter?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎With how long he has been in Hell, Michael should have realized that eventually someone would come looking for him. Maybe it was just naive hoping that as long as he kept up with the paperwork, no one would have questions. They wouldn't wonder what he was still doing down here, why he was wasting time, why he hadn't submitted any reports since those first few days in the Hazbin Hotel. Maybe he should have tried harder to keep Heaven updated—but he hadn't.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎And this was the price he paid for that.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Gabriel's sudden check in came at a very impromptu time.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎For once, Alastor and him were in his room, the one he made no use of but was more storage for his paperwork rather than anything else. Sometimes they ended up in his bed, sometimes they took a nap together. But most of the time, the lack of scents in his bed actually bothered the Radio Demon and he was dragged to the familiar nest that was Alastor's bedroom. He wonders if at this point Alastor's bed smells like them rather than just him. A thought for another time.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎They had ended up in his room because of the paperwork, and Alastor had just been keeping him company. Innocent, normal actually, almost a bit domestic he dared call it. While he worked away, the Radio Demon read quietly, the subtle sound of jazz music coming from his gifted radio on the bookshelf in the room. He doesn't remember turning it on, so the other had probably done it himself.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎When the portal opened in his room Michael had jerked hard in his chair, his elbow smacking into the teacup and knocked it to the floor, shattering it and spilling what was left in the cup across the hardwood. Not seeming to notice that himself, he turned quickly the rest of the way and stood, watching as the circling golden portal opened more and out walked the long blonde haired Archangel.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Gabriel, the Messenger of God, was a good person. Michael sometimes considered him his balance which was why he worked so well as the second in command. Where Michael took such a hard edge to guiding Heaven, his brother tried to find a more gentle approach. That, however, didn't mean he was a pacifist.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Messages were not always delivered on paper, after all.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The portal snapped shut behind Gabriel and Michael took a cautious step to the side, moving him the slightest bit closer to the sinner in his room. His younger brother's gaze quickly took the room in, the mountain of paperwork he was working on, the packed slightly messy suitcase and then Alastor. It happened so quickly that whatever expression briefly crossed his brother's face (perhaps surprise) was gone just as soon as it had appeared. And then blue eyes were focused on Michael properly once more.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"Brother," a brief greeting, a smile pulled onto his delicate lips that Michael couldn't tell if it was genuine or not. "I came to check on you." A step toward him, hands neatly folding in front of him. "You've been gone so long that we've all started to worry about you. Even Father was wondering if you're alright."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Doubt.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Actually, Michael hasn't doubted something so hard in a long time, and that thought startles him slightly. Before, when he was in Heaven and tucked behind that dark wooden desk, he would have never questioned a single word that left Gabriel's mouth over their Father. But instantly now the disbelief that passed through him was startling.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Has he changed since being down here…?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"I'm fine." The reply is soft, not a single bit of hesitation in his voice, and he struggles to remain rooted to his spot. He doesn't want to draw more attention to Alastor, despite the temptation to stand guard in front of him. At this point he's noticed too that the Radio Demon has moved to his feet, the book he was holding gone in exchange for his cane.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Like he anticipated a fight.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Michael wasn't sure yet himself if it would come to that or not.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"Of course, I can see that." The smile wanes slightly before it's pulled back in place, soft and soothing as if he was talking to a spooked deer. Michael was now certain it wasn't real. "However, you've been down here—ah, six months now? Without a single word to us. No report in five months. The paperwork makes it on time, but we get no other indication to what's going on down here. No word on what you're doing or even the study progress of the hotel. Surely you understand the problem with that?"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎And he does. He does. If the situation was reversed, if it was any one else, Michael would have had a fit over not being informed on what was going on. Gabriel's words are justified as much as they are worrying.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Worrying because he doesn't have an answer.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He doesn't know what to say.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎In his defeat, his silence, his brother takes another step toward him and speaks once more. Quieter, to not be overheard by Alastor. "Michael, what is holding you down here? If the hotel doesn't make progress, that is not Heaven's burden to carry. I know supporting Lucifer's daughter feels very important to you, but she is not our problem, nor is this project of hers. A wishful and idealistic dream, a noble one even, but if it does not work then it does not work. There is no use in prolonging your time down here for a failed child's dream."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Truthfully, Michael doesn't know if the hotel works or not. He's seen things worth noting, interesting marks and changes in sinners. He can see why it should work, he can see what her intentions are. But aside from that, he hasn't noticed anything else. Again, Gabriel has a point. That shouldn't trap him down here. He could come down once a week to check in, to see if anything has changed. He could make more notes, submit progress reports, and then move on to his true responsibility in the Clouds.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Why he hasn't done any of that is quite obvious.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The hotel was never the thing that held him back from returning.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The truth that he would have to give to Gabriel to provide that answer though? It required admitting more than he was willing to.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎So his mouth stubbornly remains quiet and his gaze slowly averts from Gabriel's own, a bit of discomfort and nervousness settling in him. It almost felt like fear… and maybe it was. Feeling the weight that settled over his chest, the heaviness that clenched at his heart, he failed to notice the way that Alastor moved a bit closer toward him. Not until Gabriel's gaze finally removed itself from him to focus on the Radio Demon.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Unclasping his hands the other Archangel motioned toward the sinner. "Oh, and who is this, by the way? Whatever is a sinner doing in your room?"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Would it be weird to admit he was spending time with him? Yes, absolutely. With the stigma Heaven had on Hell, on sinners, Gabriel would think he's probably lost his mind. And maybe he has, actually. There's a fierce temptation to reach for Alastor, to grab him and yank him behind him, but he doesn't. Doing so would draw more attention toward him, and it would probably damage Alastor's pride too. Something he really doesn't want to do.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"This is Alastor." He finally states, waving his hand toward the sinner. "The Radio Demon. Alastor, this is Gabriel, the Messenger of God and one of my brothers."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"Oh, the Radio Demon? What a curious sight. After the rumors of you vanishing for seven years we all sort of assumed you died."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Fair. Michael had thought so too, till he saw him in person. Michael had told him that Heaven had been briefly aware of his existence.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Now though, Gabriel lost interest in him about just as quickly as he had gained it. His eyes once more returned to Michael and he waved in Alastor's direction. "What is he doing in here? I find it hard to believe that you somehow grew attached to a sinner."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The nervousness was back, clenching in his chest like a heavy weight. Michael took a breath and lifted his head to meet his brother's gaze head on. Honesty, he always thought, was the best policy. "He's my friend." Well, maybe friend didn't fit entirely, but Alastor had said he wanted to be careful about who knew what. What they acted like in front of others. Friend was just about the only word he thought could fit.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎To be honest, he wasn't sure what he expected as a response to that either. Gabriel could be unpredictable, he wasn't even sure how the other felt about sinners. What he didn't expect though, was the sudden laughter that slipped from his brother. Sharp, disbelief, perhaps even a snort in there. The Messenger got himself under control quickly, especially when he seemed to realize that Michael was serious.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Alastor was at the very least his friend.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎For at least a couple minutes Gabriel is silent, his gaze moving between Michael and Alastor, as if he was trying to understand or see things. He watched, observed, seemed to try and guess something. Then finally he settled his eyes on Michael again and watched him closely. "Is he what's keeping you down here then?"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎No?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎No.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎No… at least, not entirely, right?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎It doesn't feel like a certain answer. Doesn't feel like a confident one. And with that doubt that filters through his mind, he feels rooted to the spot. Frozen, again. Like he's doing something wrong. Would their Father think that? That Michael was slipping?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎That's what he accused him of before he came down here, right? "I can read you just as I did Samael before his Fall." That's what he had said. That Michael was becoming like Lucifer.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He doesn't want to fail, he doesn't want to be a mistake, he doesn't want to screw things up. But no answer he gives Gabriel is going to make this better and no answer feels correct. Somehow. somewhere in all of this, he's started to lose sight of everything. He grew comfortable, complacent in his time spent down here in Hell. And Gabriel was reading right through that.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Gabriel moved suddenly, stretching his hand out and drawing his sword. The tip of the blade pointed at Alastor's throat and Michael took a startled step toward him. Except, this time, the Messenger wasn't looking at him. "If he's become a problem, we could just take care of him."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"Gabriel, Alastor hasn't done anything wrong!"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"He's a sinner, by definition they've all done something wrong. If he's the reason you're still down here, then it makes perfect sense to remove him from the equation."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎This was quickly dissolving out of hand and Michael could feel the way his heart clenched in his chest. Fear now, actual fear and terrorthat the other would actually go through with it. So he did what he had wanted to do from the very beginning. He reached out for Alastor and grabbed his hand. A tug, a harsh pull to get him to his side and then he stepped quickly in front of the Radio Demon.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Shielding him with his own body.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The sword was lowered, almost reluctantly in response and Gabriel turned to face him. "You would be a fool to not see the hypocrisy in yourself."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He does.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He does see it.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"It doesn't matter." The hand still circled around Alastor's wrist clenched it tighter, the subtle tensing in his posture as he waited for some sort of verdict to be delivered. "I told you, Alastor didn't do anything wrong and it's not his fault." That Michael was still down here, that he was unable to return to Heaven. That he had been fearful of going back up there. He might be part of the entire thing, Michael might be reluctant to leave him behind, but it wasn't entirely his fault.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎And it never would be.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎A twitch to the other Archangel's face, the pinch in his brows and Gabriel's hand clenched around the sword slightly. "Then what is it? You know we need you up there. It's been forever since any of us have seen you. Uriel is worried and the Heavenly Army needs your support. You can't keep wasting time down here, Michael."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎He knows that, realistically somewhere he does know that. Yet still, the answer isn't that simple. He just can't go back yet. And as he stood there, clenching Alastor's wrist to the point it was perhaps hurting the demon, he lowered his head down and gathered what remained of his courage. Honesty, even now, was still the best policy to him.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎What good would lying do him anyway?

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"Did you know He knew, Gabriel?" God. The Heavenly Father. The Omnipresent being who was supposed to know everything. And his messenger, his voice—did Gabriel know too? If he did, he was doing a good job of pretending he didn't. Silent in front of him, a pinch to his brows, either genuinely confused of feigning it remarkably well. When he didn't reply, Michael elaborated. "He knew what Sam was going to do and he let me hurt him. He didn't try to stop anything, didn't prevent him from giving away the Apple in the Garden. He let it all happen, and he let this place become Sam's prison."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"Michael—"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"I'm not wrong!"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Not this time. Not this time. He's known the answer for a while, he's just refused to accept it. The first answer to one of his questions, the most obvious and glaring one. He let him hurt Lucifer and allowed Hell to become created. Allowed it to be his brother's chains.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"It was always his intention to this place to exist, and for Sam to be the reason for it. But why? So there could be someone to pin the blame on for it? For him to become the scapegoat to shove the blame for sins off onto? He wanted freewill to exist?"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎There's a nervous edge to Gabriel now and the sword had vanished, his hands clenched tightly at his side as he stared Michael down. Silently willing him to shut his mouth probably. Angels, especially Archangels, weren't meant to question like this. Weren't meant to doubt. But the words were already out, the feeling was there and he couldn't just make it stop.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎God help him he's tried to.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"And do you know what that means then, Gabriel?"

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Silence.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"It means Lucifer was right all along."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Like the final nail in the coffin, another question answered, another tick in the box and with it came the first crushing reality of his situation. The typically hidden halo that rested above his head suddenly burned into existence, the shimmering gold light of it spinning it into place above his head. Gabriel's gaze flickered up toward it and Michael lifted his own head, blinking as he watched with growing horror what doubt apparently did to it.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎As if someone hit a pressure point on it in just the right way, along the golden side of it a crack chipped into place. The sound far louder than it should have been, deafening in his own ears.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Horrifying to look at.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎A weight dropped in his stomach, bile rising in his throat, he suddenly felt horribly dizzy and only sheer stubbornness to not appear overly weak in front of his brother was what kept him standing. He couldn't remove his eyes from the halo above him, that crack, not even when Gabriel spoke.

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎"I see. You're falling from Grace, Michael." A rough swallow, his heart racing in his chest. He knows, he has been for a while. "I wonder if he has something to do with that."

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Without another word a new portal appeared and Gabriel vanished, leaving them as alone as they had been before he arrived. with him gone the strength that had been supporting the Archangel finally left and Michael crumbled like his very soul had left his body, his face burying itself into his hands.

#○ — 「 radioiaci 」 hold me close ; like i’m the sun to your moon.#radioiaci #○ — 「 asks 」 prayers answered.#long post cw

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io-lu-art · 1 year ago

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just a looong ramble analysing and rethinking Rey's character and turning whatever conclusions I get to into my headcanon without changing any plot points in TFA because I don't have the energy for that....

First things first. With everything I write here and publish on my blog from now on I refuse to believe that TROS ever existed. Everyone is free to have their personal opinions as long as they don't harass or hate on anyone, and this is mine. Almost every choice in that movie has left me scarred, even up til now, 4 years after its release. I thought I can ignore it, like any other healthy human being, but - oh boy, I cannot. If you are interested in reading another ramble on that, here's the post.

Since I am writing my own take on what could happen after TLJ (you may call it a fanfiction, I'm gonna call it a fanscript since that's gonna be its format), this post serves the purpose of getting my head clear around what's the deal with Rey, analysing, and lying down a solid foundation for my WIP. The story I'm writing has barely reached the end of Act I (out of III) at the moment I am composing this commentary, and I constantly notice that I get stuck with Rey's character every time I have to think about her for different reasons I will address down below.

I will make some rewrites as I see fit and necessary along the way for her character to make sense to me. All rewrites are in Tumblr's

chat style

This post will be linked to my AO3 fancifction as a reference for people to understand how I treat her character as soon as that one will be finished... *clears her throat* ...ANYWAY-

Let's have a look at Rey, shall we?

Rey's introduction.

When we first meet Rey, there is already a lot we get to learn about her. She's a scavenger. On a pretty much deserted desert planet. Water and food are scarce. She gathers parts during the day to sell them in exchange for food rations.

She has no friends, no family. She's lonely. And has been for quite a while. And yet, though hard, it looks like a pretty peaceful and stable life. If it were significantly different, we would have gotten introduction scenes of her battling some gangs or other scavengers for parts or something. But instead we were provided with beautiful, peaceful cinematography and John Williams' incredible score.

She manages. She manages because she has to and has never known to do otherwise. This on its own is already a very solid introduction. And it becomes even more powerful as we are provided with additional context later on, as she tells BB-8 that she's waiting for her family.

We know who she is, what she does and what she wants. No more questions, right?

Well, this is where it gets confusing, at least for me: there's one shot in Rey's introduction which always leaves me puzzled about her actual wants. It's the moment she puts on the rebel pilot helmet.

Maybe I am reading too much into it, but it feels like it kinda wants to draw parallels to Luke Skywalker in ANH? What exactly is the purpose of this shot? Is she putting on the helmet just for fun? Is it to show that she is still a kid inside? She seems to enjoy herself. Is it to show us that she maybe wants to be a pilot...? The gesture on its own is too little information to imply that, let alone that she already is a very skilled one, so probably no. Then, is it, perhaps, to show us that she dreams of more? Like Luke, who wanted to get off the planet that is "farthest away from the bright center of the universe"?

The interpretations, especially when looking at it in context to the rest of the movie could go on and on and on.

Quick detour.

The reason it works so well with Luke's character is because from the very beginning, with everything he does and says, it is perfectly clear that he doesn't want to stay on Tatooine. It's his only want when we first meet him.

Luke has friends who tell him about the galaxy. He seeks adventure.

And he's very impatient about it.

Everything he says basically SCREAMS how much he hates it there.

Now back to Rey.

Am I expecting Rey to show the same interest in getting off Jakku with the same attitude and level of energy as Luke, should that have been what TFA was going for? No, of course not. They are (supposed to be) two different characters after all. But I do believe that, given the setup, that helmet scene leaves too much room for confusing and unnecessary interpretation. (More so because I am trying my best to avoid nostalgia bait wherever I can.)

I am not denying the fact that she wouldn't have heard about the wider galaxy, that she wouldn't wonder about what it would feel like, being out there. People travel. And with people traveling, so do stories. So if you want to hint at that, do it subtly, all the while keeping the focus on her biggest want.

I might really just be reading too much into it, but still, in my humble opinion, a way to solve this confusion is cutting out her interaction with the pilot helmet completely. Let me demonstrate.

Inside her home we already see this self-made rebel pilot puppet. Just like the puppet lying around, instead of having her pick it up and putting it on,

the helmet remains part of the environment, stuck in the sand. There could even be a close-up on it as Rey puts down her empty plate next to it when she has finished eating if you really want to show it. She then rests her arms on her knees and looks up into the sky, following the ship that has just departed from the far outpost into the high atmosphere until it disappears. Waiting.

What is achieved by changing the interaction with the helmet is that it keeps her wants just as clear as Luke's. Luke wants adventure. She wants her family back. Period.

...I rewatched this scene after writing these paragraphs and yes, I admit, in the end it happens so fast that one could probably just let it pass and interpret it as Rey being very bored and using it as entertainment to wait out the days. But even if it were just that, the effects this little tweak would have on the following scenes is quite interesting to look at nonetheless.

The tweak I am going with from now on: Having her not actively wonder about possible adventures at all. She doesn't believe those stories to actually be true, because she's never allowed herself to. She's never allowed herself to actually want to ever leave Jakku.

What would it mean for her characterisation? It would make her slightly more serious and grounded. And the movie (except for the helmet scene) actually already treats her that way. Notice how she, while fixing BB-8's antenna, takes a moment to look at him before asking:

She's never seen such a droid before. At least not in such good condition. So, of course, she's curious. But when BB-8 says it's classified, she only laughs about it. "Classified? Really? Me too. Big secret," as if to say, haha, yeah, right. She rejects that possibility. And she doesn't bother asking any further, because when she is confronted with the choice to go and explore, she is reminded of her promise to herself, which is that she will wait for her family until they return.

Now, here is where I insert some very subtle "rewriting". When Rey first meets Finn, she is suspicious of him...

...and should actually remain suspicious,

instead of admiring him and falling into this, let's call it, "excited, fangirly smile"...

She doesn't know him. She has no reason to trust him. Instead, the tone of this line should be one that reflects her emotions as it slowly gets to her that those stories she's been hearing about might actually have some truth to them, that there might actually be a wider world out there. So make her be gradually interested.

Huh. This man I just forcefully hit to the ground, a Resistance fighter, knows about BB-8 and his classified information. What are the odds of that?

"So you're with the Resistance?" Rey asks suspiciously, looking down at the man.

The man stands up, brushes the sand and dust off his jacket and answers, "Obviously. Yes, I am. I am with the Resistance."

Rey frowns, "I've never met a Resistance fighter before," scanning him with her eyes. Why would there be any on Jakku? Nothing ever happens here.

"Oh, this is what we look like, some of us. Others look different."

Rey cannot help a little smile at his strange attitude. She looks back to where BB-8 rolled off to. Puzzled, she tells him, "BB-8 says he's on a secret mission. He has to get back to your base..." Even hearing herself pronounce that out loud feels so surreal to her. None of this makes any sense. Why-

"Apparently he has a map that leads to Luke Skywalker and everyone's after it."

What? "Luke Skywalker?" she asks, confounded.

CUT TO ACTION.

Whether she wants it or not, the plot forces her into the stories she's been hearing of. You don't want to believe they are real? They're real, all right. She has no choice but to run and get along. And later, she does get more and more interested, specifically when she meets Han Solo, the legend himself. Her whole beliefs turn upside down. It's exciting and she embraces it. Why? She's made a promise to BB-8 that she will get him home, and those things kinda come hand in hand.

Rey's physicality.

Rey is very fast to jump into action. She doesn't think twice about what she's doing. She just acts. Because that's how she's learned to survive all this time on her own. When she but hears BB-8 struggling in the distant sand dunes the first time they meet, she immediately reacts and goes to help (which also shows how compassionate she is towards people - and droids - in need of help).

And she's incredibly stubborn about it. If I may even word it like this: it's something she carries with pride.

So she's a good fighter. And I have but one request: DO. NOT. FORGET. THAT. HER. FIGHTING. STYLE. IS. ROUGH. AND. DIRTY. AND. HAS. NO. TECHNIQUE. WHATSOEVER. WHILE. THE. STORY. PROGRESSES. OK? Ok. What else? Ah, yes. Piloting. I don't know which of the two aspects has brought more uproar in the SW community, with the addition of the Force to these 2 points making people call her a Mary Sue, her being overpowered and so on. Let's have a look at that.

Rey's piloting skills.

She obviously knows her way around the Falcon. And it's plausible. "This ship hasn't flown in years!" It's been there for quite a while. Maybe she has had the opportunity to sneak onto it once. What about her flying skills? Well, that takeoff definitely had me worried. At this point I am even amazed this ship is still all in one piece. Which has me thinking... just a thought...

While trying to get those TIEs off their tail, Rey damages a visibly big part of the Falcon's exterior. "Ups," she comments, hastily checking the controls. Ok... The ship still flies. All good.

"What was that?" Finn calls from the gunner position, seriously worried for their lives.

"Nothing to worry about!" Rey quickly shouts back. All in all, the flight is messy as hell, and the Falcon needs some heavy repairs. But they still manage to get out.

"Nice shooting!"

"That was some flying! How did you do that?"

"Thanks! I don't know! I've flown some ships, but I've never left the planet."

(This is me reacting to their dialogue in the new context:) Yeah, guys, good work! You've almost destroyed the Falcon in the process, but you're alive, so I guess it's fiiiiiine.

What am I going for here? Adding to their level of expectations, which are... pretty low, and hopefully Rey's likability.

And then, later, Han is horrified of the state his ship is in, "Who did that?" Rey doesn't answer his question, but instead immediately offers her help, "I can fix that for you," feeling a bit ashamed of handling the ship of a legend this carelessly. And Han is... well, Han about it.

When would the Falcon get those repairs, you might ask? Eh, *hand gesture* there's plenty of time on D'Quar for that while they discuss how to blow up the third Deathst- *clears her throat* Starkiller Base. And obviously it's not gonna be Rey doing those repairs.

This addition tones down her abilities, puts more focus on her skills as a scavenger and makes her more relatable. I'd also argue that it puts more weight to her decision to eventually decline Han's offer to join the crew because of her wants. You see, once immersed into the real thing, the stories becoming true, meeting the legends, she becomes genuinely curious. She asks questions. Why did Luke leave? What fight? She gets incredibly excited when Han offers her a job. And yet, despite all, she still wants to go back.

Nevertheless, Rey displays pretty amazing piloting skills under those stressful circumstances on Jakku. After all, flying the Falcon is....

Her instincts are implacable. One might even say that she*

She just isn't aware of it yet. It is not until some scenes with Han and the rathtars later that we get the first hint.

The Force.

Now I might be wrong, but I have a theory, which is that the piloting performance under high pressure on Jakku might have been it. The Awakening.

The Force calls to Rey through Luke's lightsaber. And she listens to it, not knowing what will follow. She experiences the Force vision, and is horrified.

"That lightsaber was Luke's, and his father's before him, and now, it calls to you!"

"I have to get back to Jakku." Again.

Even when Maz tells her, "You already know the truth. Whomever your waiting for on Jakku, they are never coming back,"

she still refuses to believe that.

Tears run down her cheeks

and she shakes her head. No.

"But there's someone who still could."

Rey frowns. What is Maz implying there? "Luke?" she asks and realises what it's leading up to, and doesn't like it. Her emotions are a mess. She gulps back and keeps shaking her head as Maz speaks.

"The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. [...] The light. Feel it. [...] The lightsaber. Take it."

Rey doesn't want to hear of it. Any of it.

"I am never touching that thing again!"

Rey just witnessed complete horror. She is in denial. Keep in mind her clear wants from the beginning of the movie. Ideally her want for her parents to come back should be replaced by the character fulfilling her needs at the end of her arc. But we're not nearly there yet. What Maz tells her about the Force completely contradicts Rey's experiences. She cannot just accept the truth. And how does she handle it? She runs away. She's terrified.

She wants to go back to the way things were before any of this mess started. But the plot doesn't let her run away that easily. It knows she has to face her fears, one being her fear of the Force and one the fear of perhaps never making it back to Jakku ever again.

It forces her further into these situations, making it impossible for her to get out of them. She's trapped. Literally and figuratively. And fighting her way out won't work this time, the one ability she always relied on to save herself. It's her darkest moment. And if that were not enough, Kylo Ren, this stranger, this man inside that mask, the man from her vision, shoves all her insecurities right into her face.

"And Han Solo." Rey jolts up. Either out of fear of possibly betraying Han and slipping, giving away a location, or out of rage that Kylo has gone too far into her personal space. Either way, this rage gives her some strength to oppose him. "You feel like he's the father you never had. He would have disappointed you."

"Get out of my head!" He backs away for his own reasons, not wanting to think any more of his father, but still holds onto her mind. Rey does all she can to withstand him, and the longer she does, the more time it gives her to understand what is going on.

And Kylo senses it. What he's trying to do here is not working. Concern washes over his face, which makes him lose control over the situation. The connection opens, inviting Rey to tap into his mind. She's inside his head. Now she understands. She understands she can use this power on him, too. So she does.

And there it is. She's strong with the Force.

And that's intentional. Why? For reasons we discover in TLJ and numerous other fanfictions. (TROS? w-what's that-)

She has found a way out of the situation. Now, has she ever heard of Jedi mind tricks? Maybe? But remember what she just discovered: She just tapped into Kylo's mind. So she tries that again on the stormtrooper. Because when she knows how to act, she just does. She's always been confident in her physical abilities and skills. Why would she have to treat this new power any different? And luckily it works, after 3 tries.

And that's fine. Let's move on. Kylo kills Han. Explosions.

Notice this. Even though she knows she now has these new powers, the same powers Kylo has, she still draws her blaster at him after calling him a monster. She acts on emotion and choses the quick, familiar way.

I actually like to believe that Rey really doesn't know what the Force is and how it works, at all. How would she? Yes, Maz did tell her about it, but how do Force-powers manifest in people? She's never seen anyone use it before, upon meeting Kylo Ren. So in every scene she does use it, she just copies Kylo. That's the only reference she has. Remember how proud she is of her physical abilities. And she is so naive that she just goes and tries it for herself, without thinking of whether it will work out or not. And it works out for her. Because, again, she is strong in the Force.

It's true that her flaw, her naivety, is not really addressed in TFA. It never really backlashes on her. And, to be completely honest, I have no idea how to make room for that without some heavier rewrites yet. But maybe it's not necessary. TLJ takes care of that. TFA just introduces us to Rey as a character after all.

Now, is the force-summoned lightsaber making her overpowered? If you interpret it as "Kylo couldn't get that thing out the snow but Rey could," then yes, yes it is. BUT, if you see it as "while Rey is observing the fight, she sees Kylo trying to summon it, so she copies him, the way she copied him with the mind-tapping, and reaches for it the moment Kylo conveniently gets it out of the snow for her," I don't think it is, though I do agree that in order for the second version to be true, the scene happens too fast with too little shots to explain it. *OP takes a breath* So, here is what I suggest:

Kylo reaches out for the lightsaber. SHOT of the lightsaber in the snow, fidgeting slightly. BACK TO Kylo, pulling anew. BACK TO the lightsaber. It gets free. CUT. Another shot of it flying through the air towards the camera.

SHOT on Rey witnessing that - she is already on her feet again - and immediately reaching for it as well, outstretching her arm towards it.

SHOT of Kylo as he feels the momentum of his pull shift and dodges out of the way. The lightsaber flies past him, into Rey's hand.

Rey has always been fast to react to action. So it would make sense for her to be able to do that. Ok. Now to the fight itself.

*sighs* I don't even know where to start. ...One thing's for sure. Kylo at this point is pretty much destroyed emotionally from having killed his father, but he's still big and strong and aggressive in his movements. Rey, on the other hand, kinda seamlessly knows how to handle a lightsaber, which... is definitely not believable at all.

Let's step back for a moment. Why do we have this fight? Rey needs to get Finn and herself out of there and Kylo is pretty much in the way, so she wants to eliminate the problem. And what does Kylo want? Sure, he is interested in Rey and her raw powers which eventually adds up to them being equals in the Force, so he doesn't want to kill her...

But he also wants that lightsaber, doesn't he?

(God, I am looking at this fight to find any clues and I'm just sitting here, elbows on the table, resting my head in my hands, massaging my temples, wondering, "why the hell are there so many cuts in that fight scene?") (I am no expert in fight choreography, so bare with me as I try to make this work.)

Rey is the one who draws first at him.

She has never wielded a lightsaber before, but knows how to handle a staff... so she treats the lightsaber like a staff within its limitations.

Because remember, HER. STYLE. OF. FIGHTING. IS. ROUGH. AND. DIRTY. AND. HAS. NO. TECHNIQUE. WHATSOEVER. So, pretend we have some well thought out choreography in this part.

Kylo blocks her with ease. Rey is frustrated. The lightsaber feels heavy and difficult to handle. It doesn't take long for Kylo to

get her cornered at the edge of the newly formed cliff.

"You need a teacher! I could show you the ways of the Force!" he exclaims.

Rey considers, out of breath, "The Force?" Rey takes a moment as her mind connects the dots. So that's what these new powers are? Kylo watches her, waits for her to make a move. No time for pondering about the Force any more. Rey moves. Kylo LETS her duck and free herself from his block. She runs, backs away from the crater. He follows her. He outstretches his arm. Rey is stuck. She's literally petrified. Again. Kylo draws nearer. He twirls his saber, now holding it backwards (you know, Ahsoka style). "No," she hisses through her teeth, struggling. Heavy breaths. She closes her eyes. When he almost touches her hand holding the lightsaber, "No!" she RESISTS his force-cage and GOES FREE.

Because, you see, even though Maz told her to "close her eyes" and "feel the light", Rey has never done that before, and when under stress, I do believe she would rather choose a quick, familiar way to get out of the situation. The only thing she knows how to do with the Force at this point is to copy or resist Kylo. She wouldn't know how to to draw power from the Force, yet. She'll have plenty of time to learn that from Luke later, should she survive this fight, so we better continue.

Kylo stumbles back as she draws at him. Rey goes for a swing to hit from above, which Kylo manages to block last second, bringing his lighsaber up from behind his back. As their lightsabers are crossed again he quickly reaches for her right hand, which is holding Luke's saber, with his left hand and moves it aside to his right towards the ground, using his crossguard for more momentum to force her down. He steps his left foot accordingly to keep himself stable. Rey cries out from the unexpected movement. They are kinda back to back. His left shoulder against her right one. The position is uncomfortable. He squeezes Rey's wrist. Rey cries out in pain. Then, she realises how close they are.

Time for some close combat, ladies and gentlemen.

She gives in and lets go of the lightsaber, lets it fall to the ground. Kylo releases her to reach for the fallen lightsaber. But before he can pick it up, Rey KICKS his left hand away with her right heel and PUNCHES his JAW with her right elbow from below. Kylo's head rocks back. He stumbles backwards from the harsh impact, causing him to turn his back to her in order to catch himself. Rey summons Luke's lightsaber back into her left hand, and ignites it. When Kylo turns back to his opponent, left and unprotected side first, Rey is ready to stab him in his left shoulder.

Kylo stumbles back some more, she brings her hands together for another strike leftwards, he barely blocks it, he stumbles back some more, it leaves his posture open, Rey strikes again, rightwards, lower this time, wounding his leg, he falls to his knee, leaving Rey the final blow to provide him with his scar.

The reason I started writing this entire ramble in the first place is a conversation I had with my friend which brought up the fact that Rey should be able to beat Kylo by using her rough, unpredictable moves. Shout out to my friend who, bless her, is willing to listen to and survives every one of my sw rants and who pointed this out in the first place!

Is this a good fightscene now? I have no idea. I hope so? I do have it very clear in my head now though, so I might go and have some fun storyboarding it in the nearest future.

You know the rest. The ground splits, she runs to Finn, Chewie picks them up. . . .

There are some more moments which I believe need some tweaks, like the meeting with Leia, which is just so unfair to Chewie, really, but if I go on and on about this, I would end up changing the entire movie, which I do not have the strength for atm. This ramble was supposed to be about Rey and her alone, so I am done here.

I guess in the end Rey does realise her needs and is able to let her wants aside for a bit longer and focus her hope on actually helping the Resistance and get Luke. Hope that, with finding Luke, she will get to understand these new powers. I do feel like the movie could have provided us with a more emotionally rich reactive scene to the fight and her abilities, and generally just more of those, but then, what am I expecting from a JJ Abrams film? We have Rian for that.

My conclusion? I'm bad with conclusions and summaries, so here you have it, my take on Rey by only adding to the existing dialogue, changing some attitudes here and there, adding a scene, and changing the fight sequence at the end and how she treats the Force.

I do have a clearer understanding of her character now, which was the entire purpose of this ramble, so I guess, mission accomplished. Congratulations on having made it till the end. It was a long ride. I did consider splitting this beast into 2 parts, but while writing this, at one point I just decided to fully commit to it.

You are totally free to, of course, agree with me and stay tuned for my WIP fanscript or disagree, never read through this thing ever again, ignore it and leave it to die on Tumblr's graveyard.

Before you ask, because I also considered doing that just for the sake of having fun with GIFs on Tumblr (all text gifs are taken from YARN btw), I will not do a post like this on TLJ, since I have no problems with Rey's character there at all. Props to Rian Johnson at this point, for managing to make sense of her with what TFA gave us.

#rey #rey nobody #the force awakens #the force is strong with this one #character analysis #character rewrite #headcanon #this is my headcanon now #ramble #long ramble #long reads #have i mentioned it's long?#star wars #star wars fanfiction

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