#this is about a great many characters over the years

[taelophone]

Malevolence ⋆˙⟡ — Academic Rival!Luigi Mangione x Reader CWs: Slight narcissism . Mean Luigi (what did u expect) . He Makes You Cry . Identity Issues . Feelings Denial . Masturbation (Luigi) . Jealousy . Pebbling (literally lol) . Apology Sex . Oral (F receiving) . NOT PROOFREAD!! ⟡ — Reader is hinted Mid-Western cuz I thought it was funny lol. It’s NOT major tho + a cliffhanger cuz for some reason nobody wanted to wait n just wanted to blow my inbox up about this fic. Suffer.

Luigi had always been hailed as a smart boy. From the time he was born to when he opened his mouth, complexities and conundrums rolled off of his tongue that would leave the oldest and wisest of men in a marveled stupor.

He was used to having eyes on him at all times, and admittedly, it almost grew too much to handle at such a young age. However, after a couple of years of balancing paranoia and self-righteousness, Luigi had grown to adore the affections that seemed to shower him from all angles.

He was smart, incredibly talented, had both feet firm on his moral sands, and was at least somewhat attractive. What more could a man ask for?

He carried through his adolescence with the world nestled gently on his shoulders. The threat of faltering or underperforming wasn’t a possibility for him. He was better than that.

So when he got accepted into an Ivy League, he felt like he was on top of the world. No object stood between him and greatness, and if there were, he would conquer it like he had hundreds of times before.

On his first day of college, he wiggled through orientation with a relatively quiet presence. He didn’t speak unless spoken to, letting himself get a feel for his environment and how to acclimate before plunging himself in headfirst.

However, one of the people his eyes seemed to pull to the most was you.

Whispers and remarks whisked around him, flicking drops of color and light over your shadowed character. Valedictorian…pretty…community service warrior…and a STEM major from somewhere in the States that he had been ignorant of in his prior years. 

Love and hate are two sides of the same kind. Both require one to feel so deeply for the other, and it drives them mad and in anguish. For a man as intelligent as Luigi, it seems he wasn’t aware of this common concept.

He had never even properly interacted with the poor young woman, yet the years of evolution sent bells ringing in his mind that categorized you as a threat. The empire he had spent so much time building to better himself as a man— for the sake of other people, threatened to capsize with the introduction of a new apex predator.

You didn’t do anything. He didn’t even know you yet, and he was never one to believe mindless rumors or unconfirmed information. But alas, man is still man when placed in a foreign environment.

Ever since orientation day, he’s kept a close eye on you. He wasn’t ready to relinquish his title of valedictorian, especially not to some random Midwest malevolence that posed a threat to his persona’s integrity.

One thing Luigi loved about the grand and precise creation of man was the mind; what does it take to make it tick and writhe in shame? What can you do to influence the brain to tear itself apart until it reduces itself to its simplest biological form— vulnerable prey.

Well, there are many ways. Depravation, intimidation, ostracization, or simple bullying.

Luigi was never a bully, no, that’s too far. What Luigi really was, however, was wholly mad and half obsessed with the woman who sat two rows in front of him with a pen in her hand and a pink journal next to her arm.

Ostracization it is!

When you first spoke to Luigi, things seemed pretty…interesting. It was the day before midterms, a little later into October, and you were cooped up in the library with a large cup of liquid energy and a near-overheated computer.

Papers surrounded you in a way that would seem near manic to passersby, watching yet another engineer go mad with determination and get high off stress. You were so immersed in your work, the multi-colored highlighters gliding across the dry paper as you recited different codes in your mind and punched them into your computer, that you neglected to hear the footsteps that had stopped at the end of your table.

“Oh…you look…tense,” he smiled, his brows furrowing with mild concern. “You sure you got this, girl?”

You paused, gazing at him with what could only be described as disheveled innocence.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I’m Luigi,” He added, giving you a small smile as he sipped the coffee—…no, tea, in his cardboard cup of mystery.

You nodded, giving him your name in response with a half-there smile. You weren’t trying to be rude, but the near weeks of study and lack of sleep were starting to eat away at the back of your brain and left you feeling a little more vulnerable than you’d care to admit in front of a six-foot man.

“Yeah I’m…fine, sorry, just cramming,” you sighed, your hands resting on your head after you dropped your little pen.

“Oooh,” he whistled, sucking in a shallow breath through his clenched teeth. “That’s not good. Are you sure you’re meant to be in computer science?” He chuckled, boyish and unserious.

Crackle…Crack…KSSSHHKH.

You chuckled, breathy and shallow as your brows pinched together a little at the subtle audacity behind his joke. 

���Haha…ha, no, yeah I’m right where I wanna be. It's stressful but I’ve loved it ever since I was in middle school,” you nodded with a polite smile.

Well played, girl!

He nodded, the bone of his jaw locking up a bit more as he fought to keep the smile on his face. 

“Oh…that’s cute, yeah!” He beamed, readjusting his black-and-silver browline glasses that began to slip down the bridge of his nose. “Well…good luck!” He nodded before he slinked away almost as quietly as he had arrived.

Cute…? What’s so cute about my interest? Has he been involved in robotics and computer science longer than me? What does cute even mean…

You sighed, the slight feeling of insecurity and confusion creeping up through your spine and drowning your head in the murky black sludge of inferiority that infiltrated your mind. What a fucking condescending man.

Actually, I was gonna pack up and leave, but now I’m mad.

Pity the disease that plagues the mad scientist. For she has naught the skill or composure to stop the self-made machine that drives her into Abaddon.

Wholly mad and half-obsessed, you were now just as focused on Luigi as he was on you. Eager to prove him wrong— hungry for an outlet to be just as abrasive and patronizing to him as he was to you.

Maybe you were overthinking it. Maybe he genuinely thought your life-long interest in engineering and science was cute! Whatever that means.

But his strange and slightly infuriating comments became a habit of his. Every time you had a conversation with him, he made a little vague comment that left you feeling more slighted than before. Hidden under the guise of elderly concern, his viperous venom of hatred poured from his mouth like a child who couldn’t stand the taste of his food.

Everyone seemed to love Luigi, though… Whenever he came up in a conversation, at least one woman in the room proclaimed her platonic—or intimate—love for the nerd. He was so kind and reassuring, the kind of man who can only be born from a lifetime of gentle love and firm parenting to keep him on the right path.

But little old you never got any of that. He was always so surface-level, slightly cold, and maybe even aggravating– but nothing could have prepared you for when you finally began to get grades and mid-terms back.

A ninety-six.

You were ready to jump and shout with joy, do laps around the whole building, or maybe even praise the god that sat upstairs that willed your success into existence. Unbridled joy poured through your eyes as you nearly passed out from relief, much to the dismay of someone nearby.

Something about how your eyes twinkled like stars, the wet salt pooling at your waterline glossing them over like a beautiful orb of light. It made his stomach jump and twitch with…irritance.

Did you think you were better than him? He’s supposed to be the gold standard, not you! But that’s okay, but he got a ninety-eight on his exam and knew just how to knock the wind out of you.

Just as silent as last time, he approached with a slightly confused look on his face.

“What did you get for forty-seven?” He asked, folding over the packet of paper to reveal the only question he got wrong.

“Oh wow, you’re…really good,” you murmured, scanning over the big red number on the back of his paper.

“Oh, thank you! I think the class average was like ninety-eight or ninety-nine. I need to study more, really…” He fibbed, the little white lie falling over his words and casting a spell of superiority over you.

You instantly stopped smiling, the joy you once had flickering away drastically. You had always considered yourself a good student, but why now were you underperforming? 

“Oh, I guess I’ll just have to study more and beat you,” you joked, the weight of your words dying on your tongue as you attempted to placate the rage that ran rampant in your mind. It wasn’t a joke, you were one hundred percent serious, and you hoped deep down that he knew that.

Here you were, performing at below-average levels and celebrating it like some sort of fool with her red nose and fiery hair. Luigi had made as many comments as he could over three months, now all that had burned from the embers and ash of your strained relationship was unspoken rivalry and hatred. 

Rather than trying to find the root of Luigi’s strange animosity toward you, you matched his academic attitude. Sometimes, you even spent full days hunched over your desk in your dorm rapidly correcting and tweaking code in Hello World to organize and understand each command and its result.

Coffee, eyebags, pain, tears, and suffering were poured into your day-to-day life. Many philosophers claim women's strongest motivation is love and determination; In your case, Gandhi had never been more wrong.

No, what propelled you forward in your academic prowess was nothing short of abhorrence and resentment. The bitter citric acid of his words burned the tip of your tongue, the thoughts that had once flowed so easily from off of the wet muscle stumbling and pausing from the sheer weight of his vitriol.

And the worst part of it was, you were all alone in this feeling. There was nobody else who seemed to believe or have witnessed these small moments of malice.

Lashing out and crying was never an option. You were grown now, according to American law, and your days of crying because someone was even slightly mean were over. That wouldn’t do you any good, and why bitch and moan when you can just violently better yourself?

You buried yourself so deep in your work, immersed in the realm of source code and computing. In the rare moments where you managed to break free from your computer, your surroundings morphed into strings of code…you even found yourself trying to type the language into the ATM at Chipotle just off campus.

Your brain was so wrinkled it rivaled a dried grape, your eyes nearly crossing over from how hard you had pushed yourself the entire semester. Academic weapon was a criminal understatement— you were more like a philosophical firearm.

What you felt was your only outlet for coping with your classmates' puzzling animosity towards you wasn’t necessarily hurting you, after all, it was making you smarter! Unbeknownst to you, some eyes began to catch on to the subtle charge between the pair of you.

Both your professors and peers alike had noticed the rising tension. When one outperformed the other, suddenly all the other party could do was study until they threw up. In fact, your roommate had dragged you from your desk about twenty times in the past month so you wouldn’t deprive your body of sunlight and nutrition.

“What’s been going on with you and Luigi?” Ruby asked, attacking her pizza with the gentle bite of an untamed puppy.

“Who? Oh, Luigi?” You murmured, tearing your gaze away from your computer. 

You didn’t look terrible, but you certainly didn’t look put together. Your hair was a frizzy mess, your eyes had grown accustomed to their lack of sleep, and your sweatpants were low enough on your hips that you were sure there would be a problem if they weren’t your size.

“He’s just… passive-aggressive, and it pisses me the fuck off. I feel like he’s just putting me down constantly and being so fucking nitpicky…” you sighed, your arms crossing over your chest as you leaned back in your chair.

“Really?” She murmured, her face fixing into a look of disbelief as she bit into an overly salted French fry. 

“And that’s the fucking problem! Nobody sees it but me and it’s driving me up a fucking WALL!” You groaned, your hands running over your face and pulling down your bottom eyelids and lashes in their trail.

“Well…he’s like, really really nice to literally everyone. I’ve never seen him not being of use to someone,” she explained, a pitying expression on her face as she mirrored your stance, crossing her arms and throwing her ankle over her knee. “Why’s he doing that to you, then?”

“I don’t know! He’s been like…on my dick since orientation,” you sighed. “Is it obvious that we don’t like each other?”

“I mean, dental knows, so…yeah,” she nodded. “It’s actually a very known fact…but everyone’s confused because both of you are like, really nice and you’re literally so alike, so.”

“Oh wow…” you hummed.

“Yeah…well good luck with that, girlie, but stop locking yourself in the dorm that shit is not healthy. Take a break, you need it…like really fucking bad,” She smiled, reaching over to hold your hand with contrastingly gentle affection.

“If I take a break that fucker will catch up to me…I need to stay on his neck until I die,” you rasped, a deep sigh emptying from your lungs before you stood up to leave for your dorm.

It just wasn’t fair. Your entire college experience seemed to be going wrong from the very beginning all because some stupid future frat boy decided he wanted to make your life difficult.

Hate was a strong word, and rivalry was another, but you felt very strongly about Luigi. He did too, but unfortunately for him, not in the way he thinks he does.

He was unsure at first, the hornets and sickness that stung and bruised his stomach when he laid eyes on you served as his first warning. Then, it was the agonizing heart palpitations that came from seeing you pay attention to him.

He wanted your eyes on him and him only; your beady black pupils to burn searing hot holes into his own. He wanted the fiery red embers of the flame he had cast upon you to open up and swallow him whole, condemning him for the plague of madness he had released upon your soul.

You made him so mad, so bitter and disgusted, so hot with envy that he wanted nothing more in the world than to just see you crumble beneath his hands in a fit of…tears. And so what, maybe it does stem from a place of insecurity, but he was grown enough to admit that he was the only perfect specimen!

Fire cannibalized his body from head to toe, burning and blazing the expanse of his skin, rivaling the scorching hot droplets of water that dribbled down his shoulders in the foggy shower. He hated you more than he had ever felt for anything before, but he couldn’t explain for the life of him why.

He had seen you stalk the streets of Penn’s campus in the passing weeks, and you looked more exhausted than you did anything else. Still, he wasn’t able to pull his attention off of you.

He had chalked it up to envy, green and scaled with fanged fury that bit him at the neck and fueled him full of venom, but he wasn’t able to deny the bubbly side effects of the initial bite that kept his heart a little fast. Or maybe he did, and he just refused to acknowledge it.

Regardless, he hated you. Your stupid small hands, your dumb gorgeous hair that you barely even changed anymore, your stupid fashion sense that was oh-so-true to your character…oh god—

Hatred is a strong force, but pleasure is another. He would never speak of what happened in the shower, but he’d bear the burden of his sin as soon as he finished.

When spring rolled around, her trail of warmth melted the icy roads and awakened the creepy crawlers from their deep slumber. Spring was a time for flowers to bloom and praises to be sung— and more importantly, break was just three months around the corner.

As you made your way into the levine hall for what felt like the millionth time this month, you were nowhere near surprised to see your professor absent with instructions displayed on the large projector board. Class project; develop a tool to identify potential vulnerabilities in computer networks. Due in two months. You will split up into the following groups.

Nikoletta Wiley

Hayden Stein

Rico O’Brien…

Luigi Mangione…

You.

Your fight-or-flight senses lurched in alarm, alarms and screams of rage echoing in your head as a deep and slow breath filed out from your lungs like a hasty bullet flying from its chamber. You could be cordial…you could be calm, you could be tame.

Could Luigi? You’d come to learn if that was the case soon enough.

You dispersed from the front of the room to go find each member of your group, starting with Rico and ending with Nikoletta. Finding Luigi was simple, you just didn’t wanna talk to him right now.

“Yeah I’ll make, like, a group chat and then we can talk about everything there,” Nikki beamed, you all standing huddled together with your phones out while quickly punching in each other’s numbers. 

It seemed everyone already had Luigi’s and didn't need to retrieve it from him, but Hayden still beckoned him over so you could fill in all the details and plan as a team. As soon as you felt him join, the energy seemed to shift as three sets of eyes burned searing holes into you and Luigi’s heads.

“How do we wanna do this then? Like, what program are we using? Cuz Billards has been using VS, but we can use Sublime, too, I think…did he say what we had to use, actually?” Hayden asked, peering over at the board once more to double-check the requirements.

“No, I think we should just—“ you began, powering your phone off and slipping it into your back pocket.

“Nah, we should just use VS. I think it’s the easiest, plus it’ll be much easier for some people.” Luigi smiled, completely ignoring the fact that he just spoke over you in favor of observing the nods from everyone else.

“I wasn’t finished, but sure, Luigi, we can use VS. It’ll be much easier for you, don’t worry,” you nodded with a contrastingly kind smile.

“I was thinking that it would definitely help you out more, but thank you for the advice,” he nodded with a smile just as kind as yours.

You chuckled, straining against the will of goddesses to not lash out at him in the middle of the lab. The icy exterior that coated his words disguised as warm concern had hit you just as hard as he intended them to, and it was even worse considering you were in front of all of your partners.

“No, I’m actually extremely talented with VS right now! I’ve been coding apps in my free time. I even have an app that lets you track your finances and predict stock market changes…I think I’m fine. What have you made this month?” You smiled, your eyes intensely focused on his as your chest subconsciously puffed out a little bit more.

For the first time in a little while, Luigi became slightly intimidated by you. He hadn’t done anything this month, and it was a grave error that would follow him to his grave and fatal embarrassment.

“I’m not working on any projects right now, actually…I heard you haven’t stopped working, though. That’s not good, maybe get some rest. You look like you need it…” he hummed, watching as your partners wordlessly exchanged slightly panicked glances.

“Guys, I think we should just use VS…” Nikki interrupted, placing a hand on your shoulder to calm you down.

The rest of the group nodded, adjusting their bags on their shoulders in an effort to self-soothe before Rico spoke up. “Yeah, it’s no problem…we can work on VS, and then we can all code together and fix any bugs we find in the process.”

Everything was over just as quickly as it began following Nikoletta’s excellent timed bucket to the budding forest fire. With that out of the way, you began to file out of the room to carry out your separate strings of life.

You’d reunite later at around seven at night via a discord call that featured nothing but silly side chatter and furious typing in a shared file. It was much too serious to your grades if you decided to start throwing jabs at each other— but whenever you or Luigi made even the smallest mistake, like missing a semicolon or even a typing error, your cursor would immediately fix the problem with the most passive-aggressive speed possible.

“That’s wrong…” Luigi murmured, his brows raising and dropping with haste as he highlighted a whole section of your code.

“No, it’s not…are you sure you’ve been coding recently? This is perfectly fine,” you sighed, glaring at your monitor’s camera briefly just to catch the eyes of a very irritated Mangione.

“Yes, all my life, actually! That’s wrong. When you put this in, it’s not gonna do anything, because you’re missing a bracket, and that’s the wrong function…I think you should drop this course,” he chuckled, shaking his head like you were being ridiculously stupid before rewriting your code for you.

He took immense and almost sickly sadistic pleasure in seeing your face scrunch a little and your brows pinch together. He was right under your skin, nestled between your nerves and kicking his feet like a toddler throwing a tantrum on the ground.

Good. Just like how he wants you to feel.

“I think you should shut the fuck up and stop being a dickhead…” you murmured, your hands now completely off your keyboard.

“I think we should all take a break!” Hayden beamed, immediately leaving the call after waving with a bright smile on his face.

“Yeah, he’s probably right…it’s like, one in the morning, and we have class tomorrow. I’ll see you guys in the morning,” Nikki yawned, exiting the call as well and shortly followed by a very laggy and loud goodbye from Rico, leaving you and Luigi alone in the files.

“No, like, actually, what the fuck is your problem? You’ve been on my dick since before we even met?” You groaned, saving all changes in the file so nothing would mysteriously delete itself later.

“You’re slowing us down! Like, everyone knows you’re not the smartest in this class! Some of us worked hard to be here, and if you’re just gonna fuck around—“ he began, leaning back in his all-black gamer chair and running his hands down his face, the expanse of his neck on full display.

“First of all, we never even had a proper conversation. I am trying my best! If you feel like I’m such a burden, then join another fucking group!” You huffed, throwing your arms out to the side in defense. “You literally gave me shit the first day we met, and all you fucking do, is belittle me, and—…and make me feel like I’m not good enough…”

Your voice wobbled, its usual sturdy and focused tone lacking its regular discipline as you came completely apart in your dorm room. How fucking embarrassing…

“And I’ve felt like shit, and I haven’t been getting proper sleep, and fuck you! You’re so nice to everyone but me! Literally, what did I do to deserve this?” You warbled, rubbing your waterline with the knuckles on your pointer finger.

It was like you couldn’t get it to stop. He had popped the cork, and now all the bottled-up insecurity and sleep deprivation came pouring out like shower water, and he had no idea how the dial worked.

In that moment, the weight of his actions finally hit him. The woman on the other side of the screen was in tears, all because he didn’t know how to cope with the fact that there were other smart people in his environment.

Poor, sweet thing…a lamb too close to the frenzied blade of the executioner, forever stuck with the inner turmoil that stems from unrest. Maybe if he indulged the flames, jostling the hot coal with his bare hands and made amends before your altar he’d no longer be bound to the eternal suffering from the merciless and bloodied hands of Aphrodite.

He didn’t mean for it to get this far. After seeing your tired and shaky form sob and whine on screen, he suddenly didn’t have the same drive to compete anymore.  

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin— and Luigi now understood that he was never really threatened by you in the first place he was heads over tails in love with you. Even though he didn’t want to admit it and wasn’t going to admit it, Luigi understood the consequences of being a jackass after the smoke from the machine cleared.

“I’m not doing this, no,” you sighed, ending the call immediately and ejecting Luigi from the file.

Ouch.

Following the storm of emotions that raged between the both of you, the heavy silence of guilt filled his dorm room.

“Dude, you’re a fuckin’ dick…” Luigi’s roommate, Logan, murmured from his half-conscious slumber in his bed.

“Shut the fuck up,” he groaned, his hands carding through his hair as he took a deep breath.

In with renewal and purity, out with grudge and taint. This was going to be the longest, most shameful two months of his life.

And long was an understatement— the painful stretch from early February to late March was just as terrible as he imagined. Now you wouldn’t talk to him, or even give him a second glance when your group congregated to work on your project.

By now it was well within its development, and the app was able to identify potential security threats and offer solutions to whoever wanted to keep their information within a concentrated network. As much as it pained his ego to say it, the constant studying he had forced you into paid off entirely. 

After he had corrected your code once, he was never able to do it again. There were no more passive-aggressive changes, no silly side conversations, and much less any interaction outside of your group.

You made yourself completely unavailable to him, even going as far as moving farther away from him when it was a lecture day. You had no reason to cross paths, and that’s exactly how you wanted it.

So you can imagine your surprise when you holed yourself up in a corner, typing away like normal before you heard the familiar foot pattern of a certain Italian man approaching. You stilled the anger and hurt bubbling over in the glass pot that certainly wasn’t meant to be on the stove.

“What,” you stated, not tearing your eyes away from your work.

“I just wanted to say that I’m…really sorry for how I treated you earlier. I had a lot going on that I’m still trying to address, and it was really…really wrong of me. If I’m being honest your grades are probably better than mine, and I just felt threatened by your intelligence,” he explained, holding a little blueberry muffin and a baby-blue crystal as a peace offering that he slowly slid toward you.

“My roommate told me girls like crystals…this is untumbled blue topaz…” he mumbled, avoiding eye contact by all means necessary before he pulled out an extremely large chunk of what you recognized as Rose quartz from his little tan canvas bag. “I picked out this one cuz I didn’t know if you liked blue topaz.”

You stared in disbelief, the casual implication of the crystals he gave you was enough to almost make you laugh, considering he gave you the stone that’s symbolic of uncovering lies and the stone of love. How fitting.

“How much was that…?” You asked, sizing up the fat pillar of pink that surpassed the circumference of your hand. “You’ve been carrying that all day?”

He nodded, a light pink dusting his cheeks as he found himself suddenly interested in the window next to you. He felt like you were prying him apart for the first time, and he didn’t like it…it felt like losing his virginity somehow.

“It was a hundred dollars…” he mumbled, his voice barely audible as a hand came to the back of his neck.

“A hundred dollars!?” You repeated, your brows pinching together as you stared at the madman in front of you.

He nodded again, this time a small ghost of a smile pulled at the ends of his lips as the steady red began to creep up to his nose. 

“I didn’t really know what else to get you…I don’t know you that well” He blushed, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket.

“Oh…uhm…thank you?” You murmured, more of a skeptical question than genuine gratitude. After almost six months of torment and competition, you weren’t entirely ready to forgive or forget. “I don’t really know what to say.”

You stared at the cute little offerings, pondering if his apology was genuine…he seemed slightly on edge. After all, he was rocking back and forth on the tips of his toes, his teeth nervously chewed on his bottom lip, and if his face was any redder he’d be competing with many women’s blush routines.

“I accept your apology, but I don't forgive you. That was really cruel, Luigi. Like, we literally could’ve been best friends. But thank you, for the things,” you nodded, watching as he mirrored your nod as well.

“Yeah, I get that, and I’m just really sorry…you don’t have to forgive me, I know that trust comes with time,” he nodded, giving you a rather cute awkward smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow..? I think?” He added, tilting his head to the side in thought.

“Sure…I’ll see you” you nodded.

And just like that, he was off again. 

Now that he wasn’t spitting hatred and torment at you, you were able to conceptualize just how attractive he was…his chiseled nose, sharp jaw, and gorgeously high cheekbones added a blow tint of masculinity to his boyish face. Both adorable and sexy— a rare combination that was scarce these days.

Now that you were prepared to deal with him again, you thought it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him if he spoke to you. Usually, when he did, you’d end up having short conversations about code or crystals, a small spark of a bond being built from the debris of the fire that had scorned the two of you before.

You came to learn that he was a kind man with a special interest in Pokémon, and he had recently rushed into the “virginity rocks” frat of Penn, Phi Kappa Psi. It seemed fitting, besides the fact that he began to grow into somewhat burlier as he spent more time in the gym.

Now you were in the lab after hours, helping Nikki wrap up with a little robot designed to detect and pick up trash in a small environment. Somewhere in the distance, you saw Luigi tinkering with the 3D printer, printing out pieces for his plans and mini Pokémon in between.

“Alright, I’m gonna go home…I’m hungry as shit and my man is probably stuck in his dorm alone right now,” Nikki sighed, packing her bag and reorganizing her station before giving you a tight squeeze and a wave. 

The wind whistled against the windows, rattling every loose pane of glass as the gentle pitter-patter of rain pressed against the casements while you scrolled on your phone absentmindedly. That was until Luigi approached you with a mini-printed figure of Jigglypuff and a stupid smile.

“I made this in like…four hours,” he chuckled, placing the pink figurine on your table for you to inspect.

“Oh, that’s so cute…” you murmured, pinching it between your finger and thumb and running your eyes over the little details printed on its plastic. “Where are you gonna put it? Your shelf?”

“Nah, I was gonna just give it to you. My shelf is literally so full,” he smirked, watching as you rolled the pink Pokemon between your fingers.

“If only you had a desk,” you sighed, a sarcastic but amused smile creeping up on your face against your will.

“If only there were a pretty woman to alleviate me of my creative burden…” he sighed, pretending to be a woman in distress clutching her imaginary pearls with a limp wrist on her forehead.

“Pretty?” You hummed, tucking the cute figure in the shallow back pocket of your high-rise denim.

“Is complimenting you off limits, too?” He challenged, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his hip against the side of the desk you were sitting at.

“No, it’s just unexpected…” you chuckled, pinching your brows together slightly as a smug expression overtook your features, piloting the steady rise of heat that boiled at the apples of your cheeks.

“Why? I’m sure you hear it all the time,” he hummed.

“From men? No, they don’t voice their affections” you shrugged, propping the back of your heel up on the white table.

“Stop it, don’t do that, fuckin’ vandal,” he chuckled, immediately grabbing your ankle and gently moving it off the table, opting to just hold it for you instead.

The silence was heavy, bated breaths and mixed signals mingling with the cold air of the room as you stared up at him with a playfully defiant scowl. He smirked, the right side of his teeth flashing at you briefly as he tilted his head to the side.

“What?” You asked, gazing up at him through his lashes.

He didn't respond, only cutting his eyes at you briefly before chuckling deep in his chest.

“Nothing. C’mon, let me walk you home, it’s pouring,” He offered, dropping your ankle with careful abandon before pulling the drawstrings of his hoodie taut around his neck.

“I can walk perfectly fine on my own,” you shot back, gathering your things regardless of what had spilled from your mouth.

“I know you can, but let me do it with you. It’s raining, you have no umbrella, and it's getting dark. I don’t care what beef we had, you’re not walking home alone,” He murmured, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and guiding you out of the Levine hall.

“Okay, Hero Time…” you scoffed with a light chuckle.

“Is that a Ben Ten reference?” He asked, turning his head to face you after holding the door so you could pass through.

“Maybe.”

“You like Ben Ten?”

“I watch it sometimes.”

“Huh…You’re a lot cooler than I thought. We’ll talk about that later,” he nodded, keeping you firmly against his side as you trekked and trudged through the heavy rainfall together.

“Will we?” You asked, raising a smug brow at him as you began to direct him across the wet pavement.

“Maybe. Who knows if we’ll talk at all later” he mused, the sneaky double entendre rolling off of his tongue like hot water from an overheated kettle, the scorching fire causing it to bubble over with heat.

“Interesting…define talk?” You asked, an innocent chirp in your tone.

He didn’t answer, only chuckled under his breath as he made his way into the college house. The difference between the chilly spring rain and the warm comforting heat was stark, immediately engulfing you in a sudden burst of gentle kisses of comfort.

“What I mean is…” he began, pressing the button for the elevator with his knuckle as he waited in front of the heavy metal doors. “If you let me, I’ll show you how sorry I am versus tell you.”

“Oh, you’re forward,” you chuckled, your right hand gently trailing down the veins that rested just underneath his olive-toned skin. “Don’t tell me you acted an ass because you wanted to fuck me…”

“No, never!” He gasped, placing a hand over his heart in exaggerated scandalization. “I acted an ass because I had identity issues, and didn’t know how to talk to pretty women.”

“Funny, I recall hearing you were everyone’s favorite on campus,” you hummed, your hand sliding down to his and taking two of his larger fingers in a closed fist.

The elevator dinged, the doors opening up to reveal the hospital-esque elevator, illuminated by its bright white fluorescent lights and the gentle glow of the red floor number on the opposite wall.

“Duh, I’m great,” he joked, a sassy little grin on his face as you pressed for floor number four. “I didn’t struggle to talk to anyone cuz nobody’s as pretty as you.”

“Oh wow,” you purred, your fist enclosing around his ring and middle finger a little tighter, giving them an experimental tug that would mimic the motion of a handjob.

“Oh wow indeed…” he mirrored, his eyes slowly trailing down to your half-intertwined hands, watching as you pumped his two fingers.

“I wish you weren’t so mean to me earlier, we could’ve been the best of friends…” you sighed, now leading the way to your dorm room after releasing his fingers from your selfish hold.

“Now we both know that’s a lie,” he murmured, following you over to your dorm room like a lost puppy trailing after their owners' calves.

You slid your little keycard over the keycard entry system attached to your door, waiting for the green light to flash and flicker before pushing the door open by the silver handle.

“Is it? We’re very similar,” you hummed, letting him waltz into your dorm room like he could rip the title from thin air and declare ownership.

“That’s the problem, there's no way we’d just be friends…” he chuckled, watching you place your keys on your desk and shuffle into the bathroom with a new shirt and dry pants in hand.

“That’s a bold statement…” you chuckled, kicking off your shoes and throwing on your dry clothes before emerging from the bathroom. “I don’t know, you’re a dick…I don’t think we would’ve been that close.”

“C’mon, I said I was sorry,” he sighed, his hands in his pockets as you stepped up to him, leaning your chin on his chest and peering through his soul.

“Yeah, but you don’t seem sorry…” you snickered, letting his hands come down to your waist as his brows furrowed together slightly.

“You want me to show you?” He purred, lifting you by your hips.

He let you dangle just above the ground, smirking like a smart Alec at the way he knew how easy it would be to toss you around if it was this easy for him to lift you. Watching you place your hands on his forearms in a slightly panicked attempt to steady yourself was adorable.

“Luigi, please.” You squeaked, unsure of whether you wanted him to put you down or devour you whole in your very own room.

“Nah, that’s not enough,” he hummed, his head tilting to the side with an amused snarl. “What are you asking for? Matter of fact, where’s that attitude?”

You chuckled, immediately tapping into this little power-play dynamic that broiled in front of your very eyes. 

“I’m sure you’re not sorry, actually…I'm sure you do this to all the women you talk to,” you giggled, watching as his brows shot up with a faux-shocked and slightly offended affection.

“Oh wow, okay, so you need that actually…That’s a’ight, I’ll show you how sorry I am,” He purred, tossing you over onto your bed with a boyish chuckle as you bounced off the mattress with the weight of gravity.

Your bed was soft and comforting, the familiar gentle sheets folding and creasing under your elbows as you propped your upper body up to watch the downright predatory glint in Luigi’s eyes as he took his shirt off. The impurities in his normally angelic aura shimmered in the dim lighting of your dorm room, the black iron bits of his soul reflecting the sterling silver desires that shielded yours.

“I’m sorry,” he smiled, wasting no time in climbing over top of you, slotting his leg between your thighs as he peppered your face with kisses and apologies.

You whined, the pressure his kneecap applied to your achy cunt through the restrictive fabric of your sweats, eliciting sinful sounds of seductive shudders underneath Luigi.

“I’m so sorry, pretty,” he breathed, hooking his fingers in the waistband of your sweatpants and pressing chaste kisses down your neck trailing to your navel.

“That was very wrong of me, I'm sorry,” he pouted, pulling your sweatpants down to your mid-thigh to press his fiery kisses to the hem of your panties.

“I should have never let my emotions and pride get in the way of such a beautiful lady,” he continued, his teeth pulling your panties down your thighs just so his mouth could attach to your glistening cunt.

Your eyes snapped shut, too embarrassed to hold his heated gaze as his tongue explored your folds with hunger. You were lost in the sensations, waves of pleasure blocking your vision as the sounds of sin echoed across the four walls— until a loud pop interrupted, along with a sharp sting on the side of your thigh.

“I’m apologizing to you, it’s rude to not look at me…you wanted this apology and you’re gonna take it like a grown woman,” he ordered, cutting his eyes at you before his hand came to soothe the pain on your skin.

You whined, fluttering your eyes open to meet his as the heat of shame and ecstasy caught up to your face.

“That’s better,” he hummed, his tongue resuming its relentless attack on your folds, his wet and pink tongue working itself near exhaustion as he coaxed you into two shaky orgasms.

“I’m sorry, I hope you can forgive me someday,” he pleaded, his little pout flashing you his apologetic glare as he kissed all over your stomach and womb.

“F—forgive! I forgive you—!” You choked out, your senses feeling all tingly and sensitive as you pushed his head away from your body weakly.

“No, no, I insist…I don’t feel sorry enough, you can take more.”

[waywardwizzard]

OKAY SO,

(Warning; long post/rant ahead)

Like @rubyonyxred said, they can't quite be called a found family yet. It's there, it's growing, it's seen in the small things the crew do for each other/how they act. For example, the first thing that comes to mind, is the way Zoë took River's hand in Bushwhacked. She didn't grab her arm or her wrist and pull her along, Zoë took her hand. Maybe I'm looking too deep into things but this small gesture means a lot to me.

I've known too many people (especially a specific teacher in primary school) who didn't even do this to kids they've known for almost 4 years. They grab and pulled but almost never gently took someone by the hand and led them. Also, another example (from the same episode, I think?) is when Zoë claps Simon on the shoulder. She sees him, she accepts him and she tries to make him feel part of the crew.

Also, the whole 'you're on my crew'/dinner scene at the end of Safe and the entirety of Objects in Space are prime examples of the slow growing found family endgame, too.

Anyway, so, sure, we can technically say they're found family. They're nine people, stuck together on a ship (even though they don't have to be and this in itself says a lot), and they continue to fight for each other even when it would be easier to just not. They also fight with each other but continue to trust the other(s) (side eyes Jayne and Mal). But, we need to remember that we were robbed of almost a season and a half's worth of character development as far as we know.

Firefly is rich in character development, even in epsiodes that weren't as plot heavy. According to someone (can't remember who, I need to go find it again), they were supposed to find Miranda, from the movie, at the end of the second season. Unfortunately, that never happened, and we lost so much in the way the crew could have been fleshed out and shown as even more of a family. As it stood, they were found, they had chosen but they still needed to pick away at each other's prickly shells/break each other's walls in order to fit together. Firefly's found family dynamic wasn't just a quick burn, it was a slow burn that needed time to fester. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled, and we lost that slow burn, established found family ending (I like to think) we all were hoping for.

And then, the movie. Serenity is great, don't get me wrong. I spent almost two years looking for a copy (only for it to be shown on TV the next week). I also understand that they had to make the movie watchable/understandable for newer viewers who didn't know that the show existed. But, to us who did know the show, it didn't carry the same vibe as the crew we all loved. The movie changed the slow burn to a 'we're all gonna die in a big ball of flames' speedrun and tried to fit in character development for two groups of people who didn't really overlap. They did really great, but it was sad, in a way, to see the established development go through a retrograde just to be speedrunned again. Although, I like to hope, that if they did something like the movie's plotline for the show, we would have gotten to see how the crew's relationship deteriorated over time and why everyone acted like they did, while getting to see how it was built up again when all was said and done.

So, yeah, the Firefly crew can be seen as found family, but they didn't reach the full family potential they were capable of and that the writers were (hopefully) building up to, and that really really makes me sad.

(Shout out to @jaytodd1129 whose Firefly analysis made me feral in a good way and inspired a lot of my feelings about this subject)

What are some of your favorite fictional teams and crews? Groups of characters whose relationship is founded on the goal of accomplishing something together. They might become close friends and important presences in each other's lives--or just finishing the mission without biting each other's heads off might be a win--but either way, they have to work together and use each other's skills. I love this type of dynamic--tell me yours!

[anghraine]

Can't lie, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the representation of Kirk in The Wrath of Khan (yes, a great movie in many ways, and internally to the film it's a compelling arc, but—). The film persistently presents Kirk as a man who has refused to truly face death throughout his life thus far, but instead evaded and tricked and outmaneuvered his obstacles in such a way that he only accepts victory and has never had to really contend with death and serious loss.

It's interesting as a character concept and executed well within the film, but the more I think about it, the more absolutely baffled I am by it as an interpretation of James T. Kirk specifically. As a refresher, these are some highlights (by no means exhaustive) from Kirk's life in TOS:

The obvious one: at age 13, Kirk survived starvation and genocide in the colony he lived in to become one of only nine surviving eyewitnesses. He remained markedly grim into young adulthood (Kirk as a very young man is described as severe and somber across multiple episodes). He discovers in the first season that someone has been methodically killing the other survivors of the genocide. Early in the relevant episode, he has already become the eldest of only two remaining eyewitnesses, and spends the whole episode carrying the weight of stopping the murders and remembering enough to finally see justice done (and perhaps avenge the dead).

In S1, he gets stranded in 1930 and falls deeply in love with a principled pacifist/social activist who loves the stars as much as him. He has a very sweet, romantic courtship with her, only to discover that she has to die young to prevent a Nazi hellscape future (it makes sense in context). Kirk desperately hopes they can find another way, but in the end, he faces reality and helps Spock prevent McCoy from saving her life. He ends the episode obviously devastated.

In literally the next episode, he finds the dead body of his brother Sam (his only sibling; Sam, his wife Aurelan, and their young sons were all present to support Kirk when he formally received command of the Enterprise, and he seems quite close to them). Kirk tries to save his sister-in-law and nephews from the same excruciating death that Sam suffered, but they aren't fast enough to save Aurelan and, like her husband, she dies in anguish.

In S2, a fellow starship commander and friend of Kirk's who is grief-stricken after the deaths of his entire crew launches a suicide run at a largely invincible, planet-destroying monstrosity. Kirk begs him, "Matt. Matt, listen to me. You can't throw your life away like this" but fails to convince him.

Also in S2, there's a whole episode about Kirk's intense guilt over an attack he survived at age 23 that killed 200 fellow crewmen and a captain he was devoted to. Kirk has spent the last 11 years believing all of this was the result of a two-second hesitation on his part (records of the time indicate he's wrong, as does the evidence within the episode, but he's so haunted by surviving yet another slaughter that for much of the episode he can't really accept the reality that nothing he could have done would have made a difference).

In another episode, the entire crew of the Enterprise shows up just in time to witness, but not prevent, the deaths of 400 Vulcans. Later, Kirk fully believes Spock has died heroically, and in the midst of disaster, takes care to leave a record of the highest commendation to Spock in case he himself dies.

There's another episode where intergalactic conquerors start transforming Kirk's crew into cubes of salt and they straight up destroy the cube "containing" a dutiful yeoman simply to punish Kirk. His log of the incident concludes: "I can't forget the picture of Yeoman Thompson crushed to a handful of dust."

In one of the various Kirk vs. AI episodes (and in my opinion, the best one), the AI forcibly installed on the Enterprise takes control and through a programming error, ends up wiping out another Starfleet ship with hundreds of people on it. Kirk is horrified and angry, and sets about trying to find some way to keep the AI-supercharged Enterprise from killing the thousand or so other Starfleet crew still out there, even if it means the deaths of many members of his own crew. They have so little power after regaining control that he can't communicate with the other Starfleet vessels, and takes the massive risk to his and his crew's lives of lowering all of the Enterprise's shields to signal peaceful intent.

It's honestly hard to overstate the degree of repeated horrific losses that mark his entire life. The show was designed to not require knowledge from any other episode to watch a current one, so it rarely references specific events in other episodes, and continuity instead tends to come from persistent character traits or development. And for Kirk, one of his most persistent TOS traits is white-knuckling through horrific losses he cannot prevent (and sometimes has to enable) over and over and over again.

J and I talked about it a little, and about ways to try and make some sense out of this characterization ... like, J pointed out that Kirk has endured many horrific losses, but his relationship with Spock specifically is a unique kind of sanctuary in his life and that's something he couldn't face losing. And that's true enough, but it's not really my feeling that this is what WOK is saying at all; this is not presented IMO as a quality of his relationship with Spock individually, but as a major element of his character. He refuses to accept the possibility of losing in general, he says he was always able to trick or maneuver his way out of confronting death and loss (?????????????), etc. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me beyond an interpretation of a kind of pop culture-inflected idea of Kirk rather than anything he experienced in TOS.

[randomfoggytiger]

The X-Files (In-Depth): Scully's Pregnancy, Mulder's Abduction, and the Truth Behind Requiem and Season 8

This meta is going to uncover the (oft jumbled) web cast around Season 7 and Season 8, from Amor Fati's planned pregnancy to Existence's closure and Season 9's irreparable fumble. Scully's pregnancy: was it in-character? Mulder's abduction: was he supposed to be killed in Requiem? Closure and "Domestication": what was and wasn't planned? What is truth, and what is obfuscation?

TLDR: @bakedbakermom's post here was right on the money.  

The first two sections are going to be pulled directly from Marc Shapiro's book The Official Guide to "The X-Files": all things-- those quotes will be italicized-- and the latter five sections will stem from collected interviews, Tom Kessenich's EXamination, and my own thoughts.

THE HISTORY BEHIND REQUIEM

Marc Shapiro's The Official Guide to "The X-Files": all things begins:

The rumor had begun toward the end of Season 6. Season 7 would be the last season for “The X-Files.” Or would it?

“We always anticipated that, most likely, we were going into the final season,” recalls producer Paul Rabwin. “We knew David's contract was up and we felt that, maybe, the show had run its course.” And so Season 7 started out in a decided state of flux. Many crew members felt they had to protect themselves and their families by investigating potential jobs for the year following the current season, while others insisted that they would wait for a final answer. Needless to say, Chris Carter was on the horns of a dilemma, one that he was agonizing over. 

“I just remember that I felt bad because I had no clear and firm answers to give everyone about whether we were coming back,” he admits. “It was all about David. I kept saying that I would not do it without David. Fox was asking me to commit to doing another season with or without him.” 

But Paul Rabwin remembers that things began to change as Season 7 got under way. “As the season progressed, we found ourselves starting to get energized again. Word started getting around that maybe this would bot be the end. The network certainly wanted us back and Gillian was still under contract for another year. As we got toward the end of the season, everyone was kind of hopeful.”

But hope did not translate into a final decision as the days counted down to the point where the final script of the season had to be written. There were several options. The episode could end the series, it could be a cliffhanger for an eighth season, or it could be the cliffhanger for the long-talked-about series of “X-Files” feature films. Early on there was talk about the season finale being a two-hour or ninety-minute show, but those ideas were quickly discarded. Stage meetings between producers and writers took on an extra sense of urgency. 

John Shiban recalls what was going through everybody’s mind during those meetings. “If this were the end, what would we want the end to be? Where should Mulder and Scully end up emotionally? Where should the conspiracy and the aliens end up? We didn’t know what the status of the show was and so we decided that whatever we did would have to apply as either a conclusion of the series or a cliffhanger.” 

“The first thought we had was, what… are we going to do?” recalls Spotnitz. “We were tossing all kinds of ideas back and forth and finally the suggestion was made to go and finally the suggestion was made to go back to the pilot. Our idea was that if this was going to be the end, let’s go back to the beginning. At that point, we only had one idea that was definite. Since the beginning of the season, we had known that Scully’s pregnancy would be a great idea as a whole, a wonderful way to end things if this was going to be the end. So we had to devise a story that would allow for all possibilities.” 

It went without question that Chris Carter would write the script. And, in an attempt to keep the element of surprise, the particulars of that episode were made known to only a select few. Consequently the rumors began to fly thick and fast, along the Internet superhighway as well as round the Fox Studios lot. There were hints that since Duchovny would, most likely, not return to the show, a recurring cast member would step into the Mulder role. Mentioned quite often as a possible replacement was A.D. Skinner.

“Me?” Mitch Pileggi laughed during a break from filming “Requiem.” “That’s probably the most ridiculous rumor I’ve heard so far. I’ve heard millions of them and that’s all they are.” 

Now, an “X-Files” script being completed at the last possible moment was not uncommon. But as the days wound down and the time when the production company would have to begin prepping the episode drew closer, everybody connected to the show mentally geared up for yet another wild ride.  

Paul Rabwin remembers the day the first draft of the script came out. “The first clue as to the kind of script it might be was its title, ‘Requiem.’ It was a significant title: a Mass said for the dead. The first thing I read on the script was ‘Bellefleur, Oregon.’ I immediately recognized the site of the pilot episode. It sounded like a full circle situation. I didn’t know what to make of it.” 

Slowly but surely, literally one act at a time, the script came out. Cast and crew were finally getting an idea of what “Requiem” would be. Rabwin relates, “By the time we started shooting, we knew Mulder was in the woods, there was a spaceship that took off, and Mulder was nowhere to be found. But, like anything else in ‘The X-Files’, that really didn’t answer any questions.” 

…”I wasn’t surprised that they called me back,” insists Lea. “I would have been shocked if they hadn’t. They’re opening up the closet and bringing everybody back, so why not Krycek? It’s always been that way. Nobody knows where I’m at or even if I’m alive and then I just sort of pop up.”

Filming began on “Requiem” on April 20, 2000, on Soundstage 5 at the Twentieth Century Fox lot. There was the usual joking and good-natured banter during the first few days of filming. But there was also the underlying tension of not knowing, even as the last episode began filming, where “The X-Files” would be back. 

Chris Carter remembers his unease: “I honestly did not know, even through the filming, if we would be back.” 

Adding fuel to the uncertainty and rumors on the set was the fact that the now-completed script was missing the final two pages. 

Pileggi acknowledges, “I don’t know what I was feeling at the time. I was kind of numb.”

For Anderson the missing script pages were not the major source of concern. “It had more to do with not knowing if we were coming back for another season or not and if a new season was going to be involving David.”

…Bruce Harwood saw “Requiem” as the prototypical Lone Gunmen episode: “That was actually the most typical appearance we had that year. Basically we just showed up and used our supertechological information to move the plot along.”

There was nothing typical about A.D. Skinner’s role in “Requiem.” Mitch Pileggi was enthusiastic about the fact that after a season of being largely office-bound, he was now in the thick of the action. “He goes out into the field and is there when what happens to Mulder happens. He’s definitely involved.” 

“The X-Files” production wrapped up shooting at the studio at the end of Day 4 and relocated to the mountain resort of Big Bear, California. The picturesque mountains, glassy lakes, and long stark stretches of forest made Big Bear the ideal backdrop for the final days of the “Requiem” shoot. The Big Bear stay coincided with a number of the episode’s most demanding visual effects and stunts….

THE ENDING (WITH GILLIAN ON BOARD)

Shapiro concludes:

Back in Los Angeles, Chris Carter was sitting in front of his computer. The final day of shooting “Requiem” was a day away. It was time to write the final two pages.” 

Carter remembers, “I did not write the final two pages until the day before thy were to be filmed. We had been talking about two pages for a long time, but I held back on writing them until the last minute because I didn’t want to create something that would let the cat out of the bag and give anybody the opportunity to spoil our fun. Then I called line producer Michelle MacLaren and asked her to make sure she scheduled the final hospital sequence between Skinner and Scully as the last shot.” 

Frank Spotnitz was well aware of the attempts to keep the ending secret. “Clearly the idea of the pregnancy was built into the structure of the show but we didn’t want anybody to know until they had to know. We wanted the element of surprise. We knew Mulder’s abduction would get out, but we wanted the pregnancy to be a surprise. Chris finally wrote the ending, showed it to me, printed up one copy with the exception of the last paragraph, and had somebody drive it up to Big Bear at ten o’clock on the morning of the last day of filming. Chris left at four that afternoon with the final paragraph and drove up to Big Bear.” 

Carter arrived at the Big Bear Hospital shortly before the scene was to be shot. He approached Kim Manners, Gillian Anderson, and Mitch Pileggi and calmly handed them the final paragraph. Carter remembers their reaction. “Gillian said she knew it. She thought it was a great idea and it just blew everyone else away.”

WHAT DID MULDER MEAN IN BELLEFLEUR?

Mulder and Scully have an important-- albeit ambiguous-- discussion in his Bellefleur motel room. Quoting from this transcript:

MULDER: It's not worth it, Scully.

SCULLY: What?

MULDER: I want you to go home.

SCULLY: Oh, Mulder, I'm going to be fine.

MULDER: No, I've been thinking about it. Looking at you tonight, holding that baby... knowing everything that's been taken away from you. A chance for motherhood and your health and that baby. I think that... I don't know, maybe they're right.

SCULLY: Who's right?

MULDER: The FBI. Maybe what they say is true, though for all the wrong reasons. It's the personal costs that are too high.

MULDER: There's so much more you need to do with your life. There's so much more than this.

MULDER: There has to be an end, Scully.

In Requiem's script, Mulder's concerns are highlighted clearly and Scully's reactions are more physically engaged and questioning:

There's important interplay here. Scully and Mulder are both concerned about her health; and, while the script writes that she downplays her struggles-- only to internalize them later-- the episode amplifies Scully's anxiety: when he puts forward the idea that she's suffered enough, she doesn't outright disagree. Further, they both have no idea what she's suffering from-- "Why is this happening to me?"-- and fear it's connected to her former abductions. When Billy Miles disappears, Mulder packs up and takes them home, effectively abandoning the case with barely any notice: Scully's safety, he is proving, trumps the files-- trumps his own wishes and fears and needs.

all things resolved what had been brewing in Scully's heart since Never Again-- a fear and frustration she succinctly repackaged in her pointed Biogenesis question: "Mulder... look, after all you've done, after all you've uncovered-- a conspiracy of men doing human experiments, men who are all now dead-- you exposed their secrets. I mean, you've won. What more could you possibly hope to do or to find?" Scully made her peace: the x-files was still Mulder's passion and pursuit; and she chose to stay the course because she wanted a life with him. She was-- they were-- content.

...But. There's always a 'but'. The basement isn't end game for either Mulder or Scully-- not really. Chris Carter to this day maintains he has a vision of their final moment on-screen-- a vision he tries to bring to fruition but can't fully realize due to his aspirations (to be discussed below)-- of them together, victorious. Mulder was meant to find his closure (post here), Scully was meant to find her voice (post here), and they were meant to find the Truth in each other and leave the world to chase its own tail in futility. As Frank Spotnitz famously declared,

"You can't get the truth. You can't. There's a larger truth, though: that you can't harness the forces of the cosmos, but you may find somebody else. You may find another human being. That may be kind of corny and all of that, but that's really it: Love is the only truth we can hope to know, as human beings."

Circling back to the original topic: what did Mulder mean in Bellefleur? Did he mean Scully and he should leave together? Did he mean they needed a healthier work-life balance? Did he mean to go it alone from now on in order to keep his partner safe? Had he wanted Scully to simply verbalize her own thoughts? Had he even reached a substantial conclusion?

Tom Kessenich makes some good points in his book EXaminations:

"The Pilot:" To look at how this relationship has evolved, we obviously have to go back to where it all began. ...I believe the scene in Mulder's hotel room in Oregon is the one that truly laid the foundation for this relationship. Not only are we given insight into Mulder's quest, but Scully is enthralled as well. She (and we the viewer) can feel Mulder's passion for his beliefs, and the intensity with which he relays the mission he is on is seductive. In fact, you could say Scully is seduced by Mulder's words and the powerful way Mulder intently describes his past, present and where he believes his future is headed. In that instant, Scully is hooked. And so are we.

"Fight the Future:" ...Scully is wracked with self-doubt, questioning her place alongside Mulder, convinced she is yet another obstacle in his dogged pursuit of the truth. Mulder's response is crucial. For the first time, he extends the nature of their relationship beyond the aspect of trust. When he tells her that she has made him a whole person, he is pulling Scully inside him, filling the gaping hole created the night his sister was abducted, the night Mulder lost a part of himself as well. Mulder can't go on without Scully because she has become as essential as "the truth" had always been. The elusive truth was the fuel that drove Mulder's quest. But Scully had now provided the soul he needed to not only persevere, but to survive.

"Requiem:" Much of this episode is about looking to the future while feeling the past nipping at Mulder and Scully's heels. From an FBI audit which threatens the future of The X-Files to, more importantly, the progression of the Mulder-Scully relationship, it's clear a new chapter is being written. Mulder seems resolved to move to another place in his life. He wants something more for Scully, something more for himself and his growing relationship with Scully symbolizes the change in his life. He is prepared to move forward, but before he can, he believes he must put an end to the past that had driven him for so long. The irony of Mulder's abduction is that it came at the precise moment in his life when he no longer needed it or was driven to embrace it. His "quest" no longer sustained him entirely.

Requiem, then, was the final gasp of their old existence.

I believe Mulder senses something is changing-- the same sense that led him to predict "A change for us, it's coming" in Tooms. This same sense alerts him to the FBI's looming intent to close the files and leads him back to Oregon seven years later.

Unfortunately, authorial intent has been lost to time, along with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's thoughts on the matter. That leaves us, then, with three routes of conjecture:

Mulder is prepared to move forward, and ready to let go. Tom has already explained that point thoroughly, so I won't belabor.

Mulder and Scully are preparing to leave... but not quite yet. I'm going to pull from @baronessblixen's thoughts (who so generously had many chats about this topic) because they sum up this point so well: I think both were questioning things. To me, Mulder wasn't as determined anymore as he used to be - and why would he be after finding Samantha? His priorities have shifted and his priority is Scully. So yeah, he wants to do the right thing and wonders whether Scully should go home, stop working on the X-Files, but I think he was wondering about himself too. They were definitely in transition. The X-Files aren't just Mulder's; Scully's lifeblood is in them too. So yeah, she's not ready to let go either.

Mulder is not prepared to move forward, but doesn't want to hold Scully back-- hence, he will carry on with the work while she (hypothetically) goes to "be a doctor."

As is always the case in these gray matters, the choice is left to viewer interpretation.

Where I stand currently (subject to change): I don't believe Mulder was ready to let go. He is dispirited after the audit, knowing the Powers That Be are looking for a way to shut him (and Scully) down. The phone call from Bellefleur perks him back up because it was proof there is still work to be done. That hope morphs into regret when he sees Scully cuddling a baby-- the truth is a never-ending line that will swallow them whole, he realizes-- then fear when Scully becomes ill at the motel; then terrified resolve when she collapses in the forest.

As Mulder said in Fight the Future, "They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid and who now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling...." Two years later, no one listened-- still, there are aliens conniving and scheming as he howls at the moon. But FTF taught him he can't do "this" without Scully-- that he'd rather she "go be a doctor" than live in a world without her.

I believe his fears in Fight the Future are the same in Requiem: that Mulder thinks Scully should "go be a doctor" for her sake yet doesn't want to lose her, or the connection of their partnership, either. I believe Mulder is still struggling to let go of the files, even after his sister's closure-- and that he ignores multiple signs to let the truth be and live his life on this planet with Scully (and their unknown baby.) I believe that struggle lures him into the jaws of captivity and face-first into the darkness of death. And, I believe, he has to learn to let go after his resurrection: not because he's afraid to reenter life (Three Words, post here), not because he's forced out (Vienen), and not because he's turning away from his true nature to avoid the pain of losing that connection (Alone.)

DID MULDER MEAN TO LEAVE?

As Tom Kessenich rationalizes in his book EXaminations:

The question then becomes: Did he leave willingly?

Leaving Scully behind willingly is an affront to their relationship. But I would venture a guess as to say Mulder was intoxicated by the events that were transpiring around him and caught up in the moment he has dreamed about since the day his sister was taken from him.

The power of that moment swept him away. Literally.

...as the alien bounty hunter approaches him and Mulder looks towards the heavens, that opportunity [to see the truth firsthand] is there. Does he take it willingly or is he being led by the moment? I would say it was the latter.

But let's not take Kessenich's word here. The script describes this moment as:

The authorial intent, therefore, seems to be that Mulder stepped into the light of his own accord, but was forced onto the ship against his will.

However, David Duchovny plays this scene differently: purposefully hollow. His expression mimics the faces of the other encircling abductees-- not one in awe of a wondrous new phenomena (@dd-is-my-guiltypleasure's comparison here.) Mulder barely reacts when his captor appears before him; but his eyes are troubled and unwilling. DD, it would appear, is playing a character under control of some sort of influence, similar to Scully's second abduction experience in "Patient X."

The answer, no matter how you cut it, is a resounding "No."

SETTLING RUMORS ABOUT MULDER’S ABDUCTION AND SCULLY’S PREGNANCY

I’ve read elsewhere that it was speculated by fans-- nay, planned by the producers-- to kill Mulder off in Requiem’s finale. By the same token, I’ve seen echoing sentiment that Scully’s pregnancy was tacked on as a last-minute attention grab to green light Season 8. And while there may be degrees of truth to both ideologies, the facts presented reveal a different, more realistic truth: Scully’s conception was planned around the alien ship in Biogenesis-The Sixth Extinction (post here); and Mulder’s abduction, not death, was going to be filmed the same with or without an eighth season. 

Quoting Marc Shapiro’s book:

“Requiem” wrapped filming on May 5, 2000. The consensus was that the season finale was stark, bleak, and ultimately satisfying episode. But there still were no answers. 

“Nobody knew when we started that episode that we were coming back,” concludes Spotnitz. “Nobody knew it at the wrap party. It was a very odd wrap party. We were all saying, ‘This can’t be the end because it doesn’t feel right.’ It just didn’t feel like we had closure.” 

Shortly before “Requiem” aired, Fox announced that “The X-Files” would be back for an eighth season. David Duchovny had agreed to come back but would only appear in a total of eleven episodes….

That fact is repeated in other interviews, which also claim-- over and over-- that Scully’s pregnancy was definitively planned when The Sixth Extinction and Amor Fati were penned:

This May 2000 joint interview--

Did the producers shoot an alternative ending, as reported?

That`s just crazy talk, insists Carter: “I would have played it the same way whether [Duchovny] came back or not.” In fact, Carter says he`s been planning Mulder`s abduction and Scully`s pregnancy since the start of the season. “I thought it was a finale that would work for any eventuality. And because we had planned to do movies, I thought that would be a place to pick up with those things.”

Perhaps the alternative-ending rumors stem from the producers` clandestine high jinks: Because they wanted to keep the prenatal plot under wraps, the pregnancy scene wasn't revealed to the crew until the night it was shot. “The last page of the script was never published,” says Spotnitz. “That was a secret we were trying to hold as long as possible.”

--this July 2000 interview-- 

“I [Carter] had to write the season finale — which is called ‘Requiem’ — I had to write it without knowing whether or not we’d be back.” 

--this November 2000 interview--

We heard there were 2 possible endings for “Requiem”…can you tell us what the other ending we didn’t see was and how long before you filmed the episode did you decide to make Scully’s pregnancy an option?

"It was never an option, it was always the ending. I [Carter] just did not inform the actors or the crew that Scully’s pregnancy was going to be in the script. I had planned this for months with Frank Spotnitz and only delivered the script pages to Kim Manners — the director — and to Gillian and Mitch Pileggi minutes before they performed the scene. I’m just paranoid!" 

--this Frank Spotnitz December 2000 solo interview--

When was the decision made to pursue a storyline in which Scully becomes pregnant?

Spotnitz: "At the very beginning of season seven, we hit upon the idea and it seemed wonderful to us. There was beautiful symmetry to it. We knew that was our target all season, and so we did a number of things in episodes that would be tantalizing for fans who later were to look back at the episodes and try and figure out when Scully might have gotten pregnant and how. And that’s something we will continue to explore this season. But all questions will be answered by the end of the season, we promise." 

--and the information presented in previous sections of this post all bear up under the same narrative.

But potentially the most shocking bombshell of all, Spotnitz admitted in May 2008 that a pregnancy for Scully had been in the works since Season 5:

Q: When (the year or the season) did you plan the storyline about Scully’s pregnacy?

FS: We had thought about it for some time (at least since Season 5), but we didn’t definitely decide on Scully’s pregnancy until Season 7.

Although CC’s word is tentative at best, Spotnitz never wavers from honesty when asked a direct question; and I'm inclined to believe him.

But if neither are to be believed-- understandable-- then one glance at Amor Fati’s ending script should crush any remaining doubt: 

(More Amor Fati script bits can be found here.) 

A parallel with purposed intent. 

Is a pregnancy at odds with Scully's personality? No, I don't think so: she's open to having kids as early as The Jersey Devil and brings the subject up pointedly to Mulder in Home (post here.) She mourns her infertility in A Christmas Carol-- "I just never realized how much I wanted it until I couldn't have it"-- and grasps at an IVF chance in Per Manum's flashbacks (posts here and here.) The FBI itself is actually a considerably safe career, and quite supportive of their agents' familial obligations. The problem-- if one could call it that-- is The X-Files: an undeniably, astronomically unsafe and unstable career that is not conducive to family needs or structure... which the writers crafted purposefully, as will be discussed below.

Mulder wants a normal life just as much as Scully (@thursdayinspace's post here) but gave up those aspirations-- literally in The Jersey Devil-- in order to find his answers and unveil the Truth. His character arc and growth is a meta post all its own; but though his journey was concluded in Closure, his detachment from and transition away from the files didn't conclude until Season 8's Vienen. Be that as it may, he speaks about a wish to settle down in a place like Home and dreams about "another life, another world" with a wife and children and his sister, safe at last.

Why, then, does the baby arc feel so tacked on-- despite the roots of its conception (pun intended) tracing back to at least Season 5?

Surprise, surprise: the writing is a mess.

In March 2003, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were both glad the show was coming to a close. She gently hinted, “I think it’s good to finish now. We had a great run, but we’re getting out at the right time when the show is still a hit" while he blatantly asserted, “You cannot say it died anything but a natural death." No surprise, considering their excitement over Scully's pregnancy and Mulder's abduction were reduced to footnotes--

Tom Kessenich’s EXaminations:

...Anderson wasn't thrilled with the amount of attention the writers were lavishing on Doggett. ...she believed with Duchovny gone this would be her chance to step into the show's spotlight. Instead, the light shines on Doggett...

...Duchovny felt some frustration as well once he returned full-time for the final six episodes. In interviews after the season, he lamented the lack of resolution to Mulder's abduction and that Mulder was rendered into being a "peripheral" character.

...Duchovny also did not care for the paternity tease since it prevented him and Anderson from establishing any proper dramatic foreshadowing. The two stars were also reportedly unhappy the relationship between Mulder and Scully was not expired more fully since Duchovny planned to leave the series at the end of the season.

--and both had to begrudgingly accept, as parents, that their characters effectively abandoned (for his own good, we're told) William--

"Duchovny, Anderson, and Shiban (all parents) reportedly were not thrilled with the idea. They grudgingly consented only after Carter revealed his plan to end the series with Mulder and Scully on the run, hardly in the best position to raise a child."

What's worse, then and now, is: both agreed, largely, with the direction and decisions of the show heading into Season 8; and heavily disagreed with the direction and decisions of the show unfolding in Season 9. Not only was David and Gillian's interest in Scully's pregnancy and Mulder's abduction squandered, but their own characters' recovery and happy ending was swiftly destroyed not even a year later.

A COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH CLOSURE

Something gave me pause: in Marc Shapiro’s book, Spotnitz (as mentioned above), admitted: “Nobody knew when we started that episode [Requiem] that we were coming back…. Nobody knew it at the wrap party. It was a very odd wrap party. We were all saying, ‘This can’t be the end because it doesn’t feel right.’ It just didn’t feel like we had closure.” 

Which begs the question: what is "closure" to the open-ended minds at 1013 Productions? And why, then, did they toss it away once they had it?

Carter has long maintained that The X-Files is not a domestic show (post here); however, he has also maintained that Mulder and Scully fell "in love" in the Pilot-- a knitting of souls more than a romantic attraction-- and that Scully wanted "a normal life" (and children) while Mulder wanted answers to his sister's disappearance (and a peaceful existence not dissimilar to Home.) CC also let us know, obliquely, that "domestication" refers to anything personal in his characters' lives-- be it their friends, hobbies, life outside of work or, most importantly, their personal and romantic connections. Wedding these two beliefs together gives birth to the indisputable fact that Chris intended (as he's reiterated, many times) to build up to a final closure for both: ride Mulder and Scully off into the sunset-- away from the files-- and let them have their happily ever after, miraculous cherub included... off-screen, of course (post here.) Top off that union with the knowledge that he has a vague idea how the show will end--

March 2001:

I’ve heard many times that you’ve always had an idea of the last episode of the X-Files. Has that vision changed with the absence of Mulder and the addition of Scully’s pregnancy, or is it mostly the same?

Chris Carter: Mostly the same.

--and you'll notice that: A. CC has a specific 'end credits' scene in mind but B. no mapped-out footpath leading to that vision.

The writers were at their best when they had to channel towards a goal-- e.g. crafting Fight the Future during Season 4, creating the cancer arc to separate then re-bond Mulder and Scully, and building Season 5 towards the basement disbandment. Amor Fati, all things, Requiem, and Existence fall into that same category by letter-of-the-law standards: pre-plotted end points all aiming towards a final conclusion. As @gaycrouton points out here, Carter flipped Sartre's 'existence and essence' philosophy around to tie the concept into his "fate versus freewill" mytharc; and as I pointed out here, William was meant to be-- Mulder and Scully's happy ending-- but only came about because of Scully's freewill choices.

The truth, in full: CC never knows when to stop. He and Spotnitz brainstorm on a possible pregnancy for Scully as early as S5 (in case that season is the last, I'd wager.) He continues to tease the MSR angle until Fight the Future, then pulls the characters back from a kiss because that wasn't the end of their story. He teases another kiss or avowal of their feelings through Season 6, knowing he has another season (Season 7) still to go. When Fox drags their feet on Season 8's confirmation, Chris and Frank reveal the secret pregnancy ace and smudge in Mulder's abduction-- writing off David Duchovny while leaving a window open for his return, and giving Scully her own form of closure or bittersweet happy ending, regardless: an ending, as Spotnitz says, that doesn't "feel like closure." (Because it isn't, really.) Season 8 is a go, but DD only agrees to come back intermittently, and Gillian's contract is almost up. Then, and only then, do CC and Spotnitz craft a healthy transition and happy ending-- a closure, if you will. Hence, the resolution in Existence-- Mulder opening Scully's apartment door for the first time with his key (post here), Scully cementing William as his son (through Mulder's father's name), Mulder affirming they both knew but feared the truth. And Scully asking, pivotally, what that truth is; and Mulder, pivotally, confirming it with a kiss. The actors and crew on-set are touched by this heartfelt moment--

[Kim Manners]: “As they come together to kiss, you’ll see the camera pull out of the door and that was the last shot of David and Gillian together. We wrapped and David and Gillian stood in that room together alone and held each other for a good five minutes. They didn’t talk. They didn’t move. They just held each other, tears running down their faces.”

-- and communally feel that, finally, Mulder and Scully have closure together. Finally, domestication. Finally, the end.

And then the writers fumbled.

I say "writers" plural because Spotnitz cosigned a lot of Chris Carter's creative choices in Season 9-- breaking Mulder's character to lazily write out Duchovny; neglecting Scully's arc until she became a hormonal, irrelevant mess in her own story; handing off William with little care or concern to a random couple in the middle of nowhere (who were, canonically, later murdered because of that adoption); etc. In fact, it was David Duchovny who kept returning and salvaging their disaster (and who gave fans many memorable Season 8 and 9 moments, post here); but that's another post for another time.

But why?

Simple: Carter wanted to make a movie series instead of Season 8 (interview here.) When that fell through, he realized he'd have to bring on another actor to eventually replace Gillian; and hired Robert Patrick accordingly. Doggett became the focus for that and the following season (which upset GA and DD)... but still no movie deal materialized, despite Spotnitz's speculation that The X-Files could extend into a tenth and possibly eleventh season if the show was able to attract an audience (interview here.) Subsequently, the writing suffered-- parallel to Chris's passion for The X-Files-- and the ratings tanked until he admitted defeat and pulled the plug to save everyone's dignity. Still, he refused to acknowledge the flailing writing; and Spotnitz seemed to agree with him, stating:

January 2002:

 Some may argue that it was one season too long, but Spotnitz isn’t sure what caused the decline. He is sure, though, that it wasn’t competition from ABC’s “Alias,” starring Jennifer Garner as a secret agent, in the Sunday, 9 p.m. ET time slot. “That’s silly,” says Spotnitz. “I’ve heard many, many theories about the show this year, but I don’t think there’s anything to that. If you look at the numbers for ‘The X-Files’ this year, in the very first episode, there was a significant portion of our audience that just didn’t come. They just weren’t there.”

Spotnitz also doesn’t see a connection between FOX’s pickup of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon’s science-fiction series “Firefly,” and “X” creator Chris Carter’s subsequent announcement that his show was over. “No, it’s just a coincidence, because the decision really was Chris’, and the timing of it was Chris’. He came to them. He had thought about it over the Christmas vacation. We delivered two really strong episodes at the beginning of January, and the audience wasn’t any bigger. He said, ‘Let’s get out while we’re ahead. We don’t want to limp out.'”

In short, Chris (and Spotnitz) couldn't let go; and hasn't to this day, still pitching The X-Files to anyone that's interested (say, a reboot.)

Where does this leave us?

For me, Season 8 is the true bookend of the series, with Season 7 serving as its necessary precursor. For others, Je Souhaite is the dropping off point; and they can ignore the seeds that were sown in Amor Fati and all things with a clear conscience. For the rest, canon continues until the point they deem best to stop, be it another movie, season, or all the way. The choice, really, is up to you.

CONCLUSION

Finally, the Requiem meta has been exorcised.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[deerlybelov3d]

Reposting this from my secondary blog on my old tumblr account (@deerly-belov3d) and migrating over to this one as my new main!

Hazbin deaged AU! ♥️✨ Generally, the older characters become younger, and the younger characters are a little older! So Alastor is 6, Husk is 4, Angel is 8, Charlie and Vaggie are 12, and so on! Luci is 100 years younger but you can’t tell bc he’s so old! 😆 the one exception is Niffty, who’s 2 years old because it’s just cute and fitting that she’s a tiny lil baby!

You’re free to draw lil Al or Husk or both, together or separate or with Lucifer or any other combination (in fact I’d CRY if you did!🥹) so long as you tag me!! I’d love to see it!!! 💖

Some rambly infodumping if you’d like to know more about the AU:

Alastor a feral little rascal but is capable of being a polite little gentleman if he chooses to be! 😆 As a de-aged gremlin he does love to scamper about with his hoovsies out, usually forgoing shoes, which adult Alastor would loathe hehe! In being de-aged, a lot of the things Alastor tries to hard to present himself as (refined, in-control of his every reaction, put-together and neat, etc!) are mostly stripped away, and he’s left even more impulsive, reactive (both negative and positive emotions!), inclined to blab what he’s thinking, act messy and unrefined, etc! Which again, older Alastor would HATE 😆

Little Alastor absolutely WILL bite, no hesitation! He also loves to eat things that most definitely should not be eaten! 😆 Alastor’s shadow shrunk down to match him and helps him get into mischief too hehe!

Lucifer makes all the de-aged kiddos their outfits and delights in doing so! 😆 He makes them other outfits and little pajamas too! He loves being able to be a dad to little ones again, even if he is SUPER overwhelmed by just how many there are that he’s responsible for! Particularly without Lilith here to help this time☹️ His mental health, as we know, isn’t—great! So this is a good motivator, in a way, that he can’t bedrot for days on end with no word to anyone, but also, for that very reason, it’s also very hard on him that he can’t just have a moment to decompress! Charlie and Vaggie are old enough that they can help out some, but young enough that Lucifer can’t rely on them to be left too long with the little ones without supervision! 😆

All the kids have very different food preferences, different levels of development, different bedtimes, different clothing preferences, different play styles, some need baths/showers more often, some need help and supervision bathing, some don’t, and it’s very hectic all the time, and Lucifer is having a TIME trying to accommodate everyone and make sure no one gets into trouble or gets hurt and everyone has what they need!

Little Al is obsessed with 4-year-old Husk and treats him like his favorite stuffie, hefting him around—with little regard for if it’s comfortable for Husk or not—and petting him, pulling on his tail and wings, nibbling on him, etc! Little Husk can walk an all fours and on two legs, and he doesn’t speak, only make kitty sounds, and the rest of the Hazbin Hotel doesn’t know really know for sure how old he is or if he’s not speaking by choice or not! Alastor also adore baby Niffty, but he’s noticeably more gentle and tender with her than he is with Husk! 😆

Lil Husk is very picky, and loves drinking from bottles even if he’s technically too old to be doing so! (BECAUSE IT’S TOO CUTE😭)

If there’s any nterest for this AU I can post more of my thoughts and make more art and just share more about the AU in general! If you read any of this I love you and any sort of engagement is so very super appreciated! 🫶💖✨

[daenerysmacfarlane]

Friends Will Be Friends - Rupert Campbell-Black and Declan O'Hara

Rupert Campbell-Black x Bestie Reader, Rupert Campbell-Black x Taggie O'Hara, Declan O'Hara x fem reader 18+

Authors Note: Another Rivals fanfic from me?!!! What?!!! Told you the brainrot is real. Spoilers for Rivals, you’ve been warned. This one is not a full smut warning just a little bit of spice with our dear Irishman, Declan but also Rivals does not do Rupert as a bestie justice. The books go into great detail about how he can actually be an amazing friend, especially to Billy Lloyd-Foxe. Inspired by a shit week in my world that only didn't get to me because I'm moving in with my bestie soon. Readers nickname is Snow White which is what my nan used to call me because all animals love me hehe. Characters belong to Jilly Cooper. Enjoyyyy!!!!!

Rupert Campbell-Black was worried. It was a strange feeling, he was never worried. His time as a show-jumper taught him how to be calm and collected at all times. But the woman he called his little sister, his best friend since her birth, his Snow White on account of all animals wild and domestic loving her instantly, wasn’t “feeling great” and cancelled Friday family dinner. 

Something was wrong. She cancelled dinner. She always has Friday family dinner no matter what. If she was having a bad week, it was the thing that always healed her. Especially since Taggie had joined. She was the first one Rupert told about him and Taggie and she was over the moon, after all he loved her most besides Taggie and the animals. Rupert’s hands trembled dialling the O’Hara’s number. A sweet voice belonging to his other half answered the phone. 

“Rupert what is it?” Taggie’s voice calmed his thumping heart but only a little. 

“It’s Snow, she cancelled dinner.” His voice cracked. 

He heard Taggie call out over the phone. “Sorry Freddie, Caitlin and Daddy are watching the football. Maybe she just needs a night to herself. Daddy said it’s been rough at work and he caught her crying in her office.”

Rupert sighed, feeling guilty. He was the one who recommended Snow for Venturer. She was the perfect employee, insanely talented, hardworking and everyone adored her. Declan was more besotted with her than anyone and always singing her praises. Rupert suspected Declan’s feelings were always a little more than professional towards her.  

“I’m going over there. She wouldn’t leave any of us alone if we weren’t okay. You’re coming too, don’t bring any food I’ll grab a big greasy pizza on the way.” He said. 

Taggie hums. “You know she might be sick so the pizza might not be a good idea. And I have to start dinner for Daddy, Caitlin and Freddie. I assume that he’s staying, Valerie’s not much of a cook.”

“She’s not fucking sick, Tag. I know her! Fuck the dinner, bring them too. And Gertrude. Love you darling, see you in a bit.” Rupert put down the receiver. 

He winced. She wasn’t sick. She would’ve told him if she was, she’s told him about her bowel movements before for Christ’s sake. He thought back to the day she was born. Rupert was ten, waiting in the hall with his dad. Snow had been born around about three hours earlier. Her dad ushered them in and told his father to say hello to his new goddaughter. Rupert fell in love with Snow the minute he saw her. A real sibling love that he never felt with Adrian. Everyone joked that Snow was his favourite sibling and she was in many ways. All the girls Rupert ever brought home were insanely jealous of her, everyone except his Tag. 

He promised her dad to protect her when he passed six years ago but Rupert had been protecting her from the moment they met. 

But he couldn’t have protected her from this week. It was just a week that everyone gets, that makes them tilt their head to the sky and ask any deity ‘why?’ 

To begin the week off, it rained sideways whenever Snow went outside. Then she had to fire an assistant audio engineer. The little shit was incompetent and it was her job as Venturer’s head of Audio but she hated conflict. She then stayed at the studio and worked until the wee hours to fix up the mix on Declan’s interview with Princess Margaret. All in all, she was sure she’d only got around 8 hours sleep all week. After a tense meeting with the rest of the consortium, Rupert’s dearest Snow White fled to her office and just sat in her chair. It was only when Declan O’Hara, absolute angel he is, came to check on her after that everything just got far too much and she had enough. 

Declan sat there, brows furrowed at the bawling, snotty girl in front of him. He felt a bit guilty himself having been a bit of an ogre lately waiting for his and Maud’s divorce to go through. He felt a little selfish too as he’d actually come in to ask her out on a date… and a possible shag. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she clung to him and moaned in his ear in their late night tryst last week. Fuck, Tag and Rupert were going to kill him if they found out about that.

He was brought back by her mentioning that his daughter and Rupert were due at her house that night for family dinner night. 

“I just… I can’t remember the last time I had a night all to myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever have one ever again!” She cried even harder than Declan thought a person could. 

“Cancel the dinner.” Declan said. 

“What?”

“You heard me. Fuck em, say you’re sick. Run a bubble bath and watch a movie.”

She sighed. “Wonderful idea, Declan but I’m a terrible liar.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll keep Taggie occupied. Football’s on tonight and Caitlin is home, I’ll just invite Freddie over. Take tomorrow off as well.” He smirked. 

“I could kiss you.” She sighed. 

“Could ya do more than that, darlin?” 

She did exactly what Declan said, hoping to all the gods above that Rupert believed her and took Tag out to Bar Sinister like she suggested. Snow snuggled up on the couch in her fluffiest dressing gown post bubble bath, having just put a tape of Young Frankenstein in the VCR. She’d order some takeout in an hour but she just wanted to destress and enjoy the silence. She knew she’d have to thank Declan later. 

Not ten minutes into the movie, there was knocking and doorbells going off. She had the latest VCR courtesy of Rupert which came with the game changing feature of pause. She paused the movie and went to the door. Snow was met with a chorus of her name for there were her friends. Rupert, Taggie, Caitlin, Freddie, Lizzie and Bas who were bored and tagged along once they found out where the group were headed. Behind them was Declan with a sheepish grin on his face. The bunch were holding all sorts of treats and drinks and Rupert gave her the biggest bear hug. 

“I’m sorry it’s been a shit week, Snow. You should’ve told me.” Rupert sighed. 

Her arms tighten around her best friend. “Would you have still shown up if I had?”

“Of course. You would done the same for us.” Taggie joined the hug and squeezed her. 

She moved aside and the others filed into her house. Lizzie noticed the movie first. 

“Ooh what are we watching?” Lizzie asked

“Young Frankenstein. I’ve only just started it. The remote is on the coffee table. Rewind it and I’ll get some of the snacks ready.” She smiled. 

Declan held up the popcorn and headed to the kitchen. Snow began to follow behind when she heard Bas in the living room. 

“Right how the fuck do you work this fucking thing?” Bas mutters. 

Freddie’s laughter ran through the house. “Oh giz it ‘ere. They don’t call me the King of Electronics for nuffink.” 

In the kitchen, Declan and Snow got the bowls out and put the popcorn in the microwave. Declan had a cigarette hanging precariously between his lips and was taking in Snow’s gown and fuzzy slippers. She looked back at the handsome man and frowned. He gave an apologetic shrug. 

“I tried darlin’, I really did.”

“Oh yes I’m sure you did.” She laughed. 

He smirked. “Ya got anything on under there?” 

She smiled and pulled the Irishman close to her. 

“Were you going to come by later to find out?”

“Nah, you needed tonight to rest. But tomorrow… you heard Maud and I are finally done?” He held the lovely girl close. 

She nodded. Tag had told her earlier, glad to finally be done with Maud and her mess. It had explained why Declan had been incredibly foul all week although she knew he’d make it up to her later and she was most definitely looking forward to that. He could do that while she was thanking him. She plucked the cigarette from his lips and took a puff, something she only did in times of stress and once every six months. 

“Christ, you’re magnificent.” He sighed. 

Declan leant down and captured her lips. She moaned instantly, her hands going straight to his curls. The pair pulled apart and rested their foreheads together. 

“Can I stay tonight, Snow?” He asked quietly. 

“What about Rupert and Tag?” She replied. 

He shrugged once more, not caring in the slightest. “They’ll have to find out sooner or later.” 

She sighed as his hands roamed her body, resolve crumbled by the second. She met his lips again as they waited for the popcorn to cook. However it’s not the ding of the microwave that pulls Snow White away from her Prince Charming, but rather Rupert’s anguished cry after what he’s just witnessed. 

“What the fuck is going on here?!” He seethed. 

Snow looked between her lover and her best friend. “Well shit, cat’s out of the bag now dearest.”

[princess-of-the-corner]

Miraculous Ladybug - Headcanons

Mostly shit I think of about background characters, things I read about in fics that seem plausible, or just stuff I think is neat.

- Ivan lives with his grandmas (great-aunts, actually) and little sister. His parents aren’t dead, but are never around. His mom and dad spend the whole year flying around to various places, doing shit for their jobs, and are very in love, but neither ever wanted kids. Ivan and his sister, Violeta, were both accidents. The parents quickly left them with the mom’s mother and her “roommate” (girlfriend. “They’re lesbians, Harold. How do you not know this about my mother?”). The parents send money but never visit.

- Alix and Jalil’s mom is either dead, or lost in time, and their dad has no clue which. Or how to try and tell his kids. Somewhat ironically, her name was Alicia Little (Similar to Alice Liddell).

- While Jagged bonds with Luka over music and Heartsongs, he’s at first stumped on how to bond with Juleka. Even if you see Juleka as Luka’s half-sibling, and technically not related to Jagged, she’s still Luka’s sister, so Jagged wants to try and get to know her. What finally clicks for them is they have the same taste in monster movies. The crazier the monster the better.

- Nino’s parents are amicably divorced, with his mom remarrying. His mom is actually a lesbian who didn’t figure out her sexuality until Nino was three or four, and felt very guilty telling her husband. The guy was quite understanding, and their split was fairly easy (as easy as divorce can be, anyway). Nino spends equal amounts of time with both of his parents, and has a pretty good relationship with his step-mom. His little brother, Chris, is his half-sibling.

- André the Ice Cream Man is a divorcee, whose ex-wife got custody of their child. André went against his own Soulmate Ice Cream Prediction to marry his ex-wife, and now is a bit jaded about it.

- as a result of the way the Peacock Miraculous effected her, Emilie’s current coma is in part because her soul has become slightly untethered from her body. She is currently in a ghost-like state, not truly alive or dead, which is why a lot of ways Gabe has tried to heal her with haven’t worked. Emilie, in this state, can sort of visit her loved ones, and is aware of what Gabe, Nathalie, and Adrien are all up to, but she can’t do anything about it.

- Fu, at some point, had a kid. No idea what happened to them.

- Tikki and Plagg are not the only Kwami that can combine, just the ones with the most effect when they are.

- the Order of Guardians is actually a secret, world-wide organization, with many sects. While each sect has a few core principals that are shared and followed religiously by all, they are otherwise distinct in how they are run and operate. Their major power used to be Tibet, but after Feast, said power shifted around as the whole organization scrambled to figure out what happened and how to proceed. Current seat of power is either America, or Australia. The return of the Tibetan Guardian Temple has thrown the whole organization into disarray.

- sidenote to above, the UK - France, Britain, Wales, etc - is one of the few places where the Guardian organization doesn’t really have a foothold. Other places include Russia, most of China, and the southern halves of Africa and Brazil.

- if there are Kwami for every concept in existence, there is a Kwami of Magic. I want them to be a tortiseshell cat, and basically Plagg’s little sister.

- Rose’s unnamed illness is likely a form of auto-immune disease, but this isn’t confirmed, and treatment is still in the early stages.

- August (that kid who got Akumatized into Gigatitan) has a wellspring of natural magical talent. In the future, he’ll end up trained by the Miraculous users, and become a powerful witch.

(Note: How I categorize magic users-

Witch - Someone born with natural magical ability, stemming from themselves 

Wizard - Someone who doesn’t necessarily have their own magic power, but with training can channel the innate magic of the world around them, or that of magical artifacts

Warlock - Someone who made a pact with a magical being, and channels their power for their own, ie…the Miraculous Heroes, actually)

-

Oh see some of these I’m 100% on board with and others I have the exact opposite thoughts for HC/LL

- Ivan is kinda close to what I had though it’s much smaller in like. Mom didn’t really want to be a parent so she dropped him with grandma.

- I actually write Alix’s mom as having up and left with little to no explanation. (It was originally supposed to be a mental health vacation for a few weeks and then she just..... never came back.)

- yes! yes! Juleka isn’t Jagged’s biologically but he’s gonna claim her as his and monster movies are a hell yeah!

- This one is somehow close but also the exact opposite lmao. Because I have Nino’s parents as still together but one of them is transfem and didn’t realize it until way later. Nino is old enough to remember when it was ‘mom and dad’ but Chris only knows ‘two moms’.

- Andre being divorced adds a FLAVOR I love it

- Oh so my thing with the Peacock is Complicated™! But essentially Emilie’s Magic is broken causing her to constantly drain energy even when she’s not doing anything. This is a condition that could usually be managed by rest or even occasional ‘transfusion’ of a sort, but Emilie’s condition is bad enough that she looses energy faster than she can make it, resulting in her body shutting down.

- Fu having a kid also adds a Flavor I love it

- Honestly yeah it stands to reason that any Kwami can combine in a way. Tikki and Plagg are just the most.... well. Powerful

- Personally I think the thing with the Order works best in a more mobile way? Like the temple in Tibet is the main one and they have members that travel as needed. But then the temple was destroyed and it was the 1800s so no one had any means of communication so it just fell off

- magic tortoiseshell cat my beloved!!!

- Rose’s thing being an autoimmune disease makes sense!

- hell yeah for August

- My categories for words for magic users is a little different! Witch - a catch-all word for any Spellcaster. Wizard - Someone whose job is Magic, like an Enchanter. Mage - Someone who studies Magic, like a Magic Scientist. Warlock works for those in Familiar Contracts though!

[subsequentibis]

will never stop making me mad how people talk about how fictional characters deal with grief. criticizing someone for doing something that doesn't make sense because they're deep in mourning for a loved one? a family member or someone they loved romantically or platonically? 'oh skill issue lol i would never' shut the fuuuuuuuuck up!

[myimaginationplain]

bill x ford x stan love triangle real....

[mrs-gauche]

I beat Veilguard.

It's 4am. I'm a mess. I'm in tears.

[professorjirt]

listen it’s none of my business but when you say “Bilbo would have been better for taking the Ring” and then state “Frodo’s character was mishandled” I think maybe you like the Lord of the Rings inside your head more than the one actually written 💀 as if it wasn’t stated multiple times both in the text and by Tolkien himself why Frodo was the Ringbearer. Pleeeeeaaaase PLEEEEAAASE stop giving me gray hairs and take an interest in the text you read and it’s deeper meanings beyond power scaling characters, favoritism and finding the “most efficient way to take the ring to Mordor”. The debates about who should have taken the Ring are the exact same as “they should have flown the eagles to Mordor” except it’s spoken by people who genuinely are avid fans of the books and movies.

[hana-bobo-finch]

erm…..posting about an OC via a rushed shitpost was not on my 2025 bingo card!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂get it??? 😂😂😂because his name is bingo??(GETS SHOT)

these are all things he has done or has attempted to do so consider this the full intro post for that freak for now. he’s still too undercooked to fully introduce but damn I love him

[rox-and-prose]

Okay I'll be honest. "Doomed by the narrative" is a nothing phrase to me. Meaningless. Which is to say I have no idea what y'all mean when you say it and how it is distinct from concepts like fate or tragic flaws in a sort of ancient greek play sense

[deus-ex-mona]

series i’m gatekeeping from my family vs series i’m ✨ok✨ with my family knowing i’m into:

[moeblob]

Lander: Did you just call my romantic options I give to Gavvin "a multiple choice test"...... Basil: Yes. Lander: It's not a test - Basil: If there is a wrong answer in your mind to the options provided, it's a test.

Lander runs a convenience store (he got it after his parents died) and he has a huge crush on very broke Gavvin who showed up one day out of the blue. And so Lander hires him and lets him live with him in the back of the store and honestly it's love at first sight for Lander. But Gavvin is much more "mmmmm kinda wary of you for hiring a guy off the street you've never seen before but I accept the job thank you".

Basil unfortunately is a teacher who has to not only put up with his teenage students but also Lander (and their very weird friendship) and Gavvin (very socially awkward new guy in town who asks a lot of questions to him specifically). Basil is chronically done with everyone while everyone is like "ah yes, he can help me with my problems".

[blue-eli]

Thinking about Kairi & Sora but mainly Kairi and going insane. Girl you have so many issues