#usually i want evil to win but this game is brutal

[natjennie]

oh my god this is such a niche post but whatever it's my blog this clocktower game is driving me crazyyyy like everyone is pretty certain it's a vigor game and there's been an organ grinder in play the whole time so they do a little test nomination to see if votes are secret and say "well, organ grinder's still alive" LIKE. unless they've been vigor killed!!!!!! which is what happened!!!! but no good player is even SLIGHTLY considering anything close to that. what's wrong with yall did a year of botc knowledge get knocked out of your head. it's a vigor. the minion absolutely does not need to still be alive. what are you talking about!!!!!!!!

[bowlvers]

uno — ft. katsuki bakugo

the living room of the ua dorms was unusually calm for a friday night. katsuki bakugo sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the couch, eyes trained on the uno cards in his hands like they held the secret to life. across from him, y/n sat with a grin on their face, their own cards fanned out expertly in one hand. the rest of the class 1-a students were either hanging out in their rooms or off doing their own thing, leaving the space feeling cozy, almost intimate.

“you look like you’re planning a battle strategy, bakugo,” y/n teased, drawing a card and placing it in the growing pile between them. it was a blue reverse.

bakugo grunted, eyes flicking up to them briefly. his usual scowl was in place, but there was something different in his expression tonight. “shut up. i’m gonna win this. you won’t even see it coming.”

y/n raised an eyebrow, amused by his intensity. they had to admit, even when bakugo was being competitive and grumpy, there was something about him that drew them in. they’d developed a crush on him without even realizing it, but they hid it well behind their usual banter. after all, bakugo wasn’t the type to get caught up in feelings, and they didn’t want to risk ruining what they had.

bakugo, on the other hand, had his own dilemma. he would never admit it—not even to himself—but playing this game with y/n had become a weird sort of ritual, something he looked forward to after long days of training. they weren’t like the other extras. they didn’t cower in fear or kiss up to him. they challenged him. he hated how it made his heart race in a way that had nothing to do with adrenaline.

he slapped down a red draw four card, looking smug. “take that.”

y/n groaned dramatically, reaching for four new cards. “you’re evil, you know that?”

“yeah, yeah,” bakugo muttered, but his lips twitched slightly, almost like he was fighting a smile. “don’t act like you didn’t see it coming.”

as the game went on, their playful back-and-forth continued. y/n would groan whenever bakugo made a brutal move, and bakugo would make snide comments about their strategy, but beneath it all, there was an undercurrent of something unspoken. something neither of them had the courage to acknowledge just yet.

it wasn’t until y/n, smirking, placed their final card—a blue uno wild—that the moment shifted. “uno,” they said, eyes twinkling. “and i win.”

bakugo’s eyes widened in disbelief. he stared at the stack of cards and then at y/n, mouth open as if he couldn’t believe what just happened. “what?! you… how?!”

y/n leaned back with a satisfied grin. “told you i had a strategy. maybe next time you should pay more attention instead of glaring at your cards so hard.”

he scowled, but there was no real venom in it. if anything, there was a flicker of admiration in his gaze. “whatever. don’t get cocky.”

y/n laughed and stretched out their legs, nudging bakugo’s foot with their own. “guess that makes me the reigning champ now.”

bakugo felt his face heat up at the touch. he was grateful for the dim lighting in the room because the last thing he needed was y/n seeing him blush like an idiot. he could handle battles, villains, and challenges of all kinds, but dealing with the way his chest tightened when y/n looked at him? that was a whole different story.

before he could stop himself, the words slipped out. “you’re lucky i let you win.”

y/n raised an eyebrow. “oh? let me?”

he grumbled, not sure why he was even talking at this point. “yeah, next time, i’ll crush you.”

y/n smiled softly, their teasing tone dropping slightly as they said, “i’ll be looking forward to it, bakugo.”

for a moment, neither of them moved. the warmth between them felt a little more noticeable now, and bakugo’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what that look in y/n’s eyes meant. it wasn’t until they stood up and stretched, breaking the tension, that he snapped back to himself.

“well, i should probably head to bed,” y/n said with a yawn. “thanks for the game, bakugo.”

bakugo grunted in response, watching them gather their things and head for the stairs. just as they reached the door, y/n turned back with a playful smile.

“same time tomorrow?”

bakugo felt his chest tighten again. he looked away, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “yeah. whatever.”

y/n chuckled and disappeared down the hall, leaving bakugo alone in the living room, staring at the scattered uno cards. he let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair.

“damn it…” he muttered, but there was no real anger in his voice. maybe he had let them win. maybe he just liked the excuse to spend more time with them. either way, tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for “weaponizing the police” against my ex boyfriend? I (27) dated my ex (24) from late July to early October 2023.

TW: harassment, stalking, gaslighting, police (obvs lol)

You may remember the “AITA for breaking up with my boyfriend over pizza and a blowjob” and “AITA for telling my ex not to use a picture of himself in my bra as his pfp” stories.

TLDR:

I wouldn’t give him head bc my shoulder hurt from making him a custom mask for a fandom he’s super into. He screamed at me for asking him to get half-cheese pizza going forward (because the pizza we were eating had pepperoni under the cheese and I’m vegetarian); triggering my ptsd. So I broke up with him. NTA, conscience cleared. 👍

Months later; he sent me a screenshot from his twitter and his pfp was him wearing the mask I hurt my shoulder making for him… and my bra. When I told him to change it, he said I was using “white girl tears” and “treating him like Hitler.” He did change his pfp though.

I was voted NTA and encouraged to get a restraining order and “block him” which I had done over a dozen times, but he keeps making new numbers.

/TLDR

NOW…

From late October to now, he’s been on-again-off-again harassing me; using temporary phone numbers to accuse me of being narcissistic, abusive, evil, etc. I usually don’t respond, but he has a way of phrasing things so they stick in my mind like thorns.

No threats, just verbal abuse, gaslighting, victim blaming, and other mind games that he always wins.

I’ve told him to stop and blocked every number he’s contacted me from, and I’m looking into changing my number.

I also told him that if he didn’t leave me alone i would get a restraining order, and he told me i would be “weaponizing the police.”

He’s black and we live in the USA so I honestly don’t want to involve the police. I know police brutality is a very real problem and even though he’s made my life miserable and tanked my mental health, I would never wish that upon him. I just want him to leave me alone.

I looked it up, and the police would only be involved to serve him the court summons; everything else would be through the courts.

I still worry they would hurt him while serving the orders.

If IWBTA for getting the court system involved, please offer (realistic!) alternative solutions in the comments. I’m already looking into changing my number, but he lives 1/4 mile away from me and I can’t afford a security system.

Sending love and safety to you and everyone who read this whole mess. ❤️‍🩹💝💖

What are these acronyms?

[harpy-scout]

I’ve so badly wanted to do this forever now so I made my tf2 oc The Jammer into a freak so here’s her like… entire thing

FF2: Lollipop Chainsaw 🍭

Characteristics

Type - Freak

Alignment - Chaotic good

Attitude - Belligerent, erratic, nice if kind towards, hostile if mean or intimidating (or any other thing it finds to be offensive towards her), feral

Fighting style - Melee

Abilities - Shooting lasers out her eyes, Universe traveling, Time eating

Status - Alive

Allies - Ass Pancakes, Scoutit, Cristian Brutal Sniper, Painis Cupcake

Enemies - Nuclear Scout, Friendly Scout, *** Scout, Christian Pure Spy (sometimes)

Lollipop’s catchphrase - I WANNA KILL YOU!!!

Appearance -Lollipop appears similar to regular RED Jammer but without the tights under her shorts and the brown roller skates are replaced with neon pink glittery ones. Her usual long curly hair is replaced with short and choppily cut hair in messy pigtails like spikes. Instead of pink lipstick it wears dark black lipstick and her helmet actually appears as a jammers helmet in roller derby. The knee pads are still black but now with neon pink nuclear symbols and it now has sharp vampire teeth instead of bunny teeth.

Personality and behavior - Lollipop is similar to Ass Pancakes and Painis Cupcake in her behavior, only being nice to people when treated with kindness. If it thinks it’s being treated with rudeness it will take out her scythe and cut the person in half while screaming ‘I WANNA KILL YOU!!!’ But if nice to it will be moderately good (good as in will just stare at you, smile if it really likes you)

Powers and abilities - As put above, Lollipop uses a grim reaper style scythe to cut people in half it doesn’t like. It isn’t actually very strong similar to Jammer, it often struggles carrying around the weapon when not angry. It’s only able to cut people clean in half when they piss her off.

Lollipop Chainsaw is also known to ‘eat time’ the ability being to eat an hour out of the day which with fast forward time, doing it too much though could completely collapse the space time continuum and everything will disappear as everyone explodes, this has happened on numerous occasions and every time Lollipop just universe hops to another dimension where that didn’t happen. It’s on her eighth universe. Every time it does this it also gets weaker, it knows it’ll kill her eventually but it can’t stop.

Faults and weaknesses - While a hard opponent to beat when angry, it still has a few weaknesses that can be exploited to win:

* Without being pissed off enough it can’t use her scythe, it’s still good with her other less heavy weapons but not as great with the scythe

* It often thinks it can just win battles by eating time till you’re weak enough to lose, but this often just ends in another universe collapse

* Her own powers are really her weaknesses

Trivia

Unsurprisingly, its name is after the 2012 video game Lollipop Chainsaw. This is mainly because the original oc, The Jammer, was based off Juliet Starling.

Lollipops old theme song is Less Than Three instrumental by Disko Warp

Her new theme song is Chainsaw Whoops (also by Disko Warp)

After killing someone she either drinks their blood or makes ballon dogs out of their entrails

In an alternate universe there’s a version of Lollipop Chainsaw that couldn’t escape her universe collapse and was forced to stay in the dark where nothing but her existed, it’s still floating around there and it’s unknown what happened to her

In another version of her universe it died and went directly to hell, yet satan declared her so evil he didn’t even think it was worthy of hell so instead he made her immortal so it’d have to forever live in the true hell; earth

It’s also pretty inspired by Art the Clown cause it’s just silly like that

Okay that’s it I’ll be going now

[swamp-spirit]

Dipping my toe into the MXTX tag again, and it reminded me that I wanted to share my experiences of having to read around 500 pages of various REALLY BAD cultivation novels (for work). SVSSS especially relies on knowledge of shitty cultivation webnovels.

To be clear, I have a lot of sympathy for (some) of these authors. Chinese webnovel writers are often under brutal time requirements (often around 1-3K a day, 7 days a week, fully edited and posted) for very little pay. They’re also under government requirements and corporate requirements to write something that’s pre-proven to sell. You have to get well established to ‘earn‘ the right to experiment, and that’s a 1/10000 lottery.

That said, there’s a lot of authors who write some amazing shit within those requirements (the people who write historical revenge rebirth stories for women knock it out of the fucking park 99% of the time tbh). So here are some of my horror stories from my months reading bad cultivation novels. (warnings for sexual assault mention)

There are three types of men in bad cultivation novels:           1. Simpering lackies who do everything the lead says and feel lucky to do it           2. Comically evil bullies, physically ugly, always attacking women or simpering lackies. The lead will horrifically murder them casually.           3. Comically evil bullies, but hot and high status. The lead will horrifically murder them OR humiliate them and destroy their meridians (and they will be disabled, worse then death!)

Speaking of disability, and, unfortunately, not confined to this genre, replacing a mentally disabled person is a REALLY common setup. Either the MC is disabled through evil machinations but cured via magic at the start, or the MC replaces a disabled person. Everyone will be shocked, amazed, and pleased that they have been ‘fixed’.

Things are even worse for women. Women are sweet and innocent (romantic interest or little sister figure. Or both), doting caretakers (romantic interest, mother figure, or both), cold ice-queens (to cast their pride aside and become a romantic interest), or evil, sexy seductresses (to be murdered. Or seduced). Of the three novels I read the most of           1. EVERY SINGLE WOMAN was introduced in the exact same way. The lead would accidentally see her naked, she would unjustly attempt to murder him, and then she’d realize the truth and decide marriage was the only solution to maintain her honor.           2. Every single woman who showed up had dudes attempting to sexually assault her, from romantic interest to random village girl. Every. One. This dude could not go five feet without witnessing a sex crime.           3. This one just forgot women existed? And honestly? Thank fuck.

Characters advance via video game logic. For example, in one novel, the character Became Neurotypical, immediately murdered some dudes, stole their cultivation items, sat down, and meditated. There was no internal description on what he did to meditate, his state of mind, his faith, or his growth as a person just LITERAL CHAPTERS of describing his cultivation levels going up. “HE BROKE THROUGH THE 3RD LEVEL NOW HE COULD DO THIS IT WAS AMAZING AND UNHEARD OF“ That’s the entire arc. Character gets items, meditates, numbers go up, goes and wins battles by killing everything in one punch. And not in a cool, genre deconstruction way. It works on a logic where the main character can’t do anything ‘uncool‘. He can never struggle, even for a second. One novel involved every enemy (usually human) being turned to ‘meat-paste‘ with a single punch

You know when you’re watching an anime that needed to fill out runtime, so it keeps cutting between the hero and the villain and then somebody in the crowd going “wait, is he going to use a soul punch“, “that’s impossible, somebody that young could never use a soul punch“ “wait, how could it be“ “damn, I underestimate him“ “It’s a soul punch!“ “A soul punch!“ Have you ever craved that experience in novels? Yeah. Me neither

MYSTERIOUS FUCKING CAVES. One of the main mechanics for a character to advance is being taken in by some spirit or trapped god or soul sealed in a sword, but the primary mechanic is ACCIDENTALLY STUMBLING ON MYSTERIOUS CAVES OF RARE ITEMS. Often found when falling into a ravine and landing on a mysterious ledge. To date, none of these caves had any explaination or plot. The character just found a cool cave, took the scrolls/ate the rare wine/soaked in the magic spring, leveled up, and left. In one of the novels, by the time I got a good chunk in, the main character had stumbled into THREE DIFFERENT MAGIC CAVES. To be fair, the third cave did also contain a skeleton which put him in contact with a sealed soul who took him in so like, that’s something.

[comradeboyhalo]

Honestly I think it was poorly organized in that some parts seem to have been intended for rp and some for pvp but no person is clear on what is appropriate when. So people are pvping in their accustomed style because it looks like a hunger games or other big arena situation and others are rping their way through and suddenly bam, they're dead, and every time a cc does something half the fandom screams at them because "clearly it's supposed to be the other thing!" and that's how we get tubbo crying on stream and long threads about how evil cc!bad is and all the nasty side of fandom coming out this week.

Not saying it's entirely the planning fault but definitely should have been more thought out. 5 hours a day for two weeks straight leads to huge amounts of stress for the ccs and way too much anger in the fandom.

yep, it really should've been all or nothing. and i feel bad for people like etoiles, who constantly have to cater to the rp side of the server but...this event is set up to be important to the lore while also more catered to the playstyle hardcore minecrafters and its....messy.

i think the rp clash issue is pretty well documented on bad's streams, because he is a clash of roleplay and competitive minecraft. he's making his character much more brutal and bloodthirsty (apparent to anyone who watches him in competition) while also enjoying the grind(tm) and wanting to win. and hes a bit lucky in the fact that his character currently aligns very well with the prospect of winning, but it makes it so i think the line blurs a lot for non-viewers, and in a negative way?

for example: he and cellbit will both enjoy trash talking or having boldly wrong perspectives (roleplay) but he and cellbit have also both ranted about things theyve disliked about the event (irl). and i think im familiar enough with both of them by now to figure out which is which (and, crucially, both are not serious because its just minecraft) but when fans cant tell the difference, then real hate starts spreading around. q!bad and q!tubbo are in conflict rn. cc!bad said that hes excited to explore this character conflict tomorrow. but not every tubbo viewer is crystal clear on this distinction.

and its even worse when the ccs all have different rp styles. its fair and good for cc!phil to take etoiles' fighting him as a betrayal for his character. but does cc!etoiles necessarily want to commit his character to a betrayal? and, again, their fans will react completely differently based on these actions. some ccs just wanted to have a good time with the egg event! other ccs took this as a shocking revelation to what could possibly have been their children's death. how do we weigh these out? how do we balance fun with such high lore stakes?

im not sure what the answer is here, its a problem faced often in mcrp. but this event, like the election, really kicks this dilemma up a notch and makes it a lot more stressful than it usually does.

[pathfinderunlocked]

Hakkari Adherent - CR8 Humanoid

The Altar of Blood must be protected.

Artwork by Vablo on DeviantArt.

This NPC is a follower of a hakkari kami, a guardian spirit of spilled blood, which I posted earlier this week. The hakkari kami is based on a Warcraft creature named Hakkar. Hakkari adherents make blood sacrifices to their kami in order to win their approval, gain their blessings, and maybe be chosen to ascend and became hakkari kami themselves in death if they're devout enough.

Although more common races like orcs and gnolls would make fitting hakkari adherents, I used the kuru race for this creature. Kuru are an obscure humanoid race of cannibalistic, tribal island-dwellers - Black Dragon Gaming has a good video about them. If you want a hakkari adherent of a different race, changing its racial features should be relatively trivial.

I built this NPC as a unique creature, rather than giving it class levels.

It usually uses its totem ability to cast either blood armor, resist energy, or magic weapon, depending on what bonuses its allies would actually benefit from.

Because blood blaze is an absolutely terrible spell, it probably isn't even worth worrying about fire resistance for it, but it's enough to make this creature pick fire as its default element for resist energy if it doesn't have any information about its enemies.

Hakkari Adherent - CR 8

The brutal-looking man is covered in fresh blood, poured over him like spilled paint. He resembles a muscular human, but with an unusual face with beady eyes, and discolored skin.

XP 4,800 NE Medium humanoid (kuru) Init +2 Senses light sensitivity, low-light vision; Perception +10

DEFENSE

AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 mage armor) hp 71 (10d8+30) plus 10 temp hp Fort +13, Ref +7, Will +12 Defensive Abilities bare berserking, blood courage

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft. Melee +1 shortsword +12/+7 (1d6+4/19-20), bite +6 (1d6+1 plus cannibalistic vitality) Special Attacks bleeding sneak attack 1d6, cannibalistic vitality

Spell-like Abilities (CL 10th)     Constant—blood blaze

Spells Prepared (CL 10th; concentration +13)     4th—blesssing of fervor, divine power*     3rd—blood armor, rage (dreamed secrets), vampiric touch* (touch +9)     2nd—blood of the martyr (DC 15) (x2), death knell (touch +9, DC 15), resist energy (x2), spiritual weapon* (attack +12, 1d8+3/19-20)     1st—cure light wounds (x4), mage armor (dreamed secrets, already cast), magic weapon*, protection from good     0th—bleed, detect magic, light, stabilize

Domain blood (* indicates a domain spell)

STATISTICS

Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 7 Base Atk +7; CMB +10; CMD 22 Feats Dodge, Dreamed Secrets, Great Fortitude, Spell Focus (necromancy), Toughness, Weapon Focus (shortsword) Skills Heal +9, Knowledge (religion) +5, Perception +10 Languages Kuru SQ aura, dreamed secrets NPC Gear +1 short sword, cloak of resistance +2, wooden unholy symbol, wand of cure light wounds (30 charges), 10 gp

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Aura (Su) A hakkari adherent has an evil aura as a cleric of its level.

Bare Berserking (Ex) While a hakkari adherent is wearing no armor, at the start of each of its turns, it gains number of temporary hit points equal to its hit dice (typically 10), which last until the start of its next turn.

Bleeding Sneak Attack (Ex) A hakkari adherent can choose to deal either an additional 1d6 damage or 1d6 bleed damage when it attacks an opponent that is denied its dexterity bonus to AC or when flanking an opponent. The target must be within 30 ft., and the attack must deal lethal damage. Targets immune to precision damage are immune to this ability.

The hakkari adherent must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A hakkari adherent cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment.

Blood Courage (Ex) Once per day when a hakkari adherent makes a saving throw against a fear effect, it can roll the saving throw twice and take the better result. It must decide to use this ability before the saving throw is attempted.

Cannibalistic Vitality (Ex) When a hakkari adherent hits a living creature with its bite attack, it gains 1 temporary hit point by ingesting the target’s blood. This ability does not work on creatures that do not have blood.

Dreamed Secrets (Ex) A hakkari adherent gains Dreamed Secrets as a bonus feat, despite not worshiping a great old one or outer god. It typically prepares the rage and mage armor spells with this feat.

Spellcasting A hakkari adherent casts spells as a 10th-level warpriest. It gains spells (but not other abilities) from the blood domain. It does not gain any other warpriest class abilities.

Totem (Su) When casting a beneficial spell with a range of touch or close that targets a single creature, a hakkari adherent can cast the spell into a totem which it plants into the ground at its feet as part of the casting of the spell. Instead of affecting a single creature for the duration of the spell, the spell emanates from the totem, affecting all of the hakkari adherent's willing allies within close range of the totem (typically 45 ft.). If a creature moves further than close range from the totem, the spell stops affecting that creature, but any ally of the hakkari adherent that moves into the spell's range gains its effects.

A hakkari adherent can only have one totem at a time. A totem is a small unattended object with 1 hit point and 6 AC, and is automatically destroyed by any amount of damage. If a totem is moved or destroyed, the spell cast through it ends.

[cipheramnesia]

Okay okay I actually want to get into this, because not all final girls are the same.

The very first slashers and proto slasher final girls, from around the late seventies to roughly 1981 were probably more properly called survivor girls. A good amount of the time these characters were less about clinching victory over an antagonist as distinguished by coming through severely traumatic events alive. Your average survivor girl was more characterized by screaming flailing and fighting to escape rather than fighting to win. Even Laurie Strode, by far the most self actualized of the early slashers, spends a fair amount of time fleeing and flailing. It's worth noting many of these movies featured survivor couples, with the man more responsible for actively fighting against the antagonist.

It wasn't until the second wave of slashers where you'd really see the major change from survivor girl to final girl. An early entry was Halloween II at the end of 1981 and numerous others like Slumber Party Massacre, Nightmare On Elm Street (yes, despite its iconic status it was late to the game in 1984), Friday the 13th part 3 and others, maybe Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 if you want to count it as a slasher (which it is not). This second wave is where we see the more composed final girl - fighting back and usually triumphant over the antagonist. This era also brought a more explicit prominence of the final boy in movies like Evil Dead and Nightmare On Elm Street 2. This second wave also began the long standing tradition of killing the prior movie survivors in franchise sequels.

Nightmare On Elm Street is also probably most responsible for what could be the third wave of slashers and final girls, characterized by prominent supernatural elements, and the protagonists often able to wield some manner of their own magic or supernatural powers. These final girls and boys were unique in being able to meet the antagonists on something closer to equal footing. Many of them were veterans of prior encounters and able to use experience to further level the playing field. This was also when the wave of Scary Little Guys launched with such franchises as Child's Play, Gremlins, Critters, Munchies, Ghoulies, Puppetmaster, and of course Troll.

After this, there isn't so much a wave as a kind of graceless exit of the old school slasher class. There were films obviously made barely past the 80s aesthetics, attempts to create new franchises, but it wouldn't real coherent until Scream in 1996 created a new paradigm of the cinema slasher and final girl. While many of the similar movies were characterized by genre awareness, this fourth wave of final girls were not necessarily genre aware themselves. It's probably more accurate to call them something like irony final girls. They're level headed, cool, and modern - they assert themselves and have a rebellious streak but notably all tend to fall within a social range that conforms reassuringly to social norms. They're fashionable and fight back.

Past this point, I don't think there's enough distance to see a clear new pattern. Most of the 2000s were occupied with the fourth wave, and slasher movies got overtaken by home invasion movies as the popular format. Of the more modern slashers out there, many of them feature more deliberate and unambiguous genre savvy meta horror final girls, in movies like Behind The Mask or The Final Girls or Final Girl. We also have final girls who have moved fully into the aggressor with movies like You're Next, a home invasion movie with a final girl who is probably a more brutally efficient killer than Michael Meyers ever was.

Why did I write all this? Variety of course. Maybe you're not a fourth wave final girl but you are a first wave one. Pick your place in Slasher history, not just would you be a final girl but what final girl would you be?

okay but we can’t all be final girls. realistically who would u be in a horror movie?

[quotes-ig]

for any followers of mine who aren’t familiar with the Lads but wish to stick with me through the rebrand regardless, here’s

A Brief Introduction to the Irish Lads

They’re essentially a group of Irish youtubers who played together on Paddy’s day as a joke once and accidentally meshed really well, so now they’re a quasi-youtube group.

Here’s a role call:

RTGame (also known as Dan or the Drift King in college) is one you’ll be familiar with if you followed me for mcyt cause he plays with Wilbur on occasion. An absolute agent of chaos who revels in destruction...until he made the mistake of collabing with Kevin, at which point it became apparent that the moment he’s playing with someone even more chaotic than he is he swings straight into mum friend mode. Considering the nature of the Lads, this is his default with them. The most competent of the Lads, and usually the one to win, though he seems to indulge in his chaotic side whenever he thinks he can get away with it.

Signature Quote: Oh no...

CallMeKevin is what you would get if you made a chaotic evil character with literally no stats except maxed out charisma. If you get this man into a game with a voice chat then he is gonna gaslight and girlboss his way to victory and no one will even be mad about because he’s just that weirdly likeable. Good natured to the point that he slightly raised his voice at Daithi once and Brian and Jack shat themselves in fear. Hobbies include breaking games, pissing off Daithi, joking about that one time he got hit by a car, and keeping prisoners in his basement.

Signature Quote: I don’t know how I keep making these cults...but I’m not complaining

Jacksepticeye is one you’ve almost definitely heard of, and he’s the definition of true neutral alignment. He’s the oldest of the Lads and the one with the biggest mainstream career, so it’s very obvious that he has the greatest maturity when it comes to managing the platform they have and calming things down when they go too far. He also used to be the one to fall into the mum friend role when Dan was away...but then he decided that was too much effort and instead chose to engage in mummy kink roleplay (no you’re not getting context). He’s also the first fucking one to go along with Kevin’s shenanigans and also will be the first to engage in what i like to call ‘weird shit humour’ (see: the mummy kink thing) so he’s as much as a problem child as the rest of them.

Signature Quote: Ah sure jesus I came out the pussy ‘top of the mornin’ing. Doctor slapped me on the arse and said ‘It’s a YouTuber’

Daithi De Nogla’s another one who’s usually the chaotic troll in other groups he plays with, but the moment he’s subjected to Kevin he instead becomes the one who is trolled. Daithi is characterised by extreme anger (usually caused by Kevin or Brian), a thought process so all over the place that it’s difficult to follow, and an irish accent so thick it’s legitimately hard to understand him, especially when he’s yelling (read: most of the time). Highkey has dad friend vibes tho when he’s not playing up the toxic gamer persona, and if Dan isn’t the one pushing the Lads to actually progress then it will probably be Daithi. His usual group is the Vanoss crew, which Brian is also on, so expect to hear them arguing like a married couple

Signature Quote: *unholy Irish screeching, usually including “kEVIN” at least once*

Terroriser (aka Brian) is v busy and so can’t always make the streams, but when he does he’s usually fuelled by spite and spite alone. He is just a small angry man who is often the close runner up to Dan and it angers him. He is usually motivated by wanting to see Dan lose, Daithi suffer, Jack struggle, and Kevin just keep being the funky little dude he is. Characterised by sarcastic commentary, brutal roasts, actually trying in games, and being the first to call people out on their shit

Signature Quote: Nice going, Drift Bitch

~

Honorary members:

Kiwo is a British Twitch streamer who is friends with Dan and Kevin, and so has played with the Lads a few times. A dedicated role player who seems to be perpetually in an existential crisis, she often begins games fairly chill before being enveloped by an all-consuming need to w i n. Actually plays games seriously, which somehow doesn’t clash with Kevin doing the exact opposite when they play together (usually because Dan acts as a mediator)

Anna is the literal fucking Woman Chess Grandmaster, a three-time Hungarian women’s chess national champion, and a child prodigy who speaks several languages. She’s also Kevin’s girlfriend, which both makes no sense and total sense at the same time. She usually streams chess on Twitch, but increasingly will play other games with various Lads and other friends of hers. An absolute sweetheart who is simultaneously terrifyingly intelligent and the nicest/most trusting person in whatever game she plays

Minx is another one who dabbles in the mcyt sphere, so my followers may recognise her. She’s an Irish streamer who’s a friend of Dan and Anna, and so occasionally plays with the Lads. She’s been described as a female Daithi but i don’t think that’s doing her justice; she’s equally loud and equally unintelligible, but Minx uses language that would make Daithi blush. It’s been theorised that she’s incapable of saying a sentence without swearing and/or yelling, which the evidence supports. A great fit for the Lads when she joins them

Turg is a mii created by Kevin, first used when the Lads played Mario Kart. He’s a wholesome little caveman who’s just here to have a good time. Everyone loves Turg. Turg!!

[edelegs]

black eagles relationships i like but don’t see talked about enough

Ferdinand and Petra - I adore their supports. You see a lot of Ferdinand’s dorky side with his reading about historic weapons, and you see that he is genuinely curious about Petra’s culture. He admits that he initially didn’t realize how sophisticated Brigidian techniques are and I just adore his vulnerability with her. And then there’s Petra in their A support, admitting she found a second home in Fòdlan, and the two discuss their loneliness? It’s such interesting insight into both characters (especially Ferdie; I’d say these are some of his most well-rounded supports)

Hubert and Dorothea - Dorothea sees right through Hubert’s edgy theatre kid persona. She approaches him like she would any friend right from the beginning and teases him about his love life. She also respects and believes him when he says that unrequited love isn’t his motivation. I would’ve liked a conclusion that wasn’t Dorothea suggesting they marry, but it is really funny that she did that. I love their paired ending too--completely platonic espionage opera! What could be better?

Hubert and Byleth - in my head they have a quirky sitcom where Byleth keeps trying to arrange Edeleth/Ferdibert double dates and Hubert has to attend them. (but seriously, the appeal of Hubert is looking at this man and saying “I’m gonna make you like me”, and then you do it). Outside of my shipping biases, his threats to you are funny as shit considering that he has no power over you and he’s always dying in battle, but once you win his trust he admits that despite looking Blatantly Evil, he truly abhors TWSTID and is already planning their follow-up war. I could easily see him and Byleth co-leading the war in the shadows (and that’s where the dialogue of the aforementioned platonic Huleth workplace comedy takes place). Also my friend who played as m!Byleth told me the “we could be a couplet of birds” line in the A-support still exists regardless of gender. Hubert is demiromantic bi and you CANNOT change my mind 

Edelgard and Petra - “Don’t settle for being the bird. Be the arrow instead” Both have a great deal of mutual respect for each other, even though Edelgard is heir to the nation that has kept Petra’s country down for years. You see the same beliefs Petra holds in her supports with Caspar here--that being, “we are not our parents, we can make different choices”. It’s a shame they only have 2 supports. I think it would’ve been cool to see Petra asking Edelgard for Brigidian independence or otherwise talking about how she can achieve her goal. 

Edelgard and Linhardt - I actually think people talk about this a bit, but it’s one of my favourite Black Eagles support chains so I have to mention it. This one is the key to understanding that Edelgard’s better world is only possible in her route, when she has the support and opportunity to trust others enough to learn how to listen to them and consider their perspectives. I advise anyone who thinks Edelgard would be a brutal dictator to watch these supports, because they so blatantly contradict that idea? Linhardt initially frustrates her because she knows he’s talented and smart but he doesn’t want to do anything to help the world with that. Characters like Linhardt are usually given an arc in which they overcome an initial selfishness to help others. This is not that. These supports are about Edelgard learning to understand Linhardt and accommodate him. Edelgard agonizes over finding the perfect way to allow him to do his research in a way that suits him--and when she senses his hesitation at her initial plan, she presses him for the problem and reconfigures the idea because she won’t put him in a situation he’s not fully content in. This is astounding character growth (from both of them, but mostly Edelgard). Also the struggle depicted in this chain is just something that spoke to me when I first saw it--”be useful” versus “learn for knowledge’s sake” is pretty much my exact struggle in life 😂 Seeing two of my favourite characters reach a resolution that satisfied both of them was hopeful, to say the least. 

Caspar and Ferdinand - What strikes me about their supports is that it compares and contrasts these characters’ ideas of justice against each other. Honestly, the Black Eagles as a whole have takes on morality that are just slightly skewed, and these characters’ arguments about it exemplify it. Caspar just thinks that people who hurt others should be hit right away, head empty no thoughts but j u s t i c e. Ferdinand initially believes that all sense of justice comes from being nobility, and with that comes an obligation to be morally superior. Having Caspar just go “uh yeah, what does nobility have to do with it? I just had to hit that guy” is one way in which Ferdinand’s ideals are challenged. It’s a cool contrast that I think highlights an interesting aspect of the Black Eagles and what they were taught. 

Dorothea and Bernie - I love everything about their interaction. If Dorothea were a lesser character, she’d be the mean popular girl who shames Bernie for her messy hair and her anxiety. Instead, Dorothea is patient and Bernie is like “oh no she’s Too Cool for me”. Dorothea also makes note of what Bernie says as she gets too anxious to continue the interaction and aims to comfort her in their next support. We get a good Bernie character moment in their B-support, where she mentions her father ruining her friendship with a commoner boy--and a cathartic moment where Dorothea tells her that her father’s an asshole and that they’re going to be friends anyway. Bernie cries in Dorothea’s arms and AHHHH why didn’t we get MORE of this???

Bernie and Petra - If I could add any support and ending to the game, it would be Bernie/Petra. They have such a good starting point--because of Bernie’s anxiety and Petra being a second language speaker of Fòdlandish, they are prone to miscommunications (which is the general theme of early Bleagles supports). They had a nice 2-support arc where they understand each other a little better--but then there’s the paralogue, where Petra encourages Bernie to come to her homeland with her and Bernie realizes she wants to travel and see amazing things like carnivorous plants. This is fantastic character development for her and is a satisfying conclusion to her arc. I feel like most of Bernie’s endings involve her just reverting back to her hermit self instead of developing a balance between who she was at the beginning and who she’s grown into. I think Petra would offer to let her come to Brigid again, where she helps her navigate a new language and culture. Bernie’s anxiety is still bad but Petra has been in her position and can offer advise and reassurance. Petra is also patient and would give Bernie a safe little house near the carnivorous plants for her to retreat to when overwhelmed. It becomes both of their refuge, with Petra taking time away from her regal duties to spend time with Bernie and her art and her stories. Whether it’s romantic or platonic is up to preference but I low-key ship them 😏

[freddie-weaselbee]

Capture the Flag//F.W.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Fem!Slytherin!Reader

Warnings: Language, Cedric hate (but like loving hate)

Summary: The big capture the flag game had commenced, and Fred quickly found himself captured and thrown into the other team’s slammer. Little does he know he has a cellmate who’s willing to do whatever it takes to win, even if that means teaming up with a Gryffindor. 

Prompts: Detention/Being Detained with dialogue prompts “oh well fuck me then,” and “half the time I get too embarrassed to say anything”

Word Count: 5.1k

A/N: Day 6 of @theweasleyslut‘s 2k writing challenge --au where there’s no voldemort so Cedric’s alive and let’s say Umbridge never existed--

Fred had almost gotten away with it. If it weren’t for that meddling Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory and his band of stupid cronies. 

“You’ll pay for this, you hear me?” he yelled out, but the handful of boys dragging his body across the grounds just snickered and ignored him. 

“Oh shut it, Fred,” said Cedric, walking in front of the group. “You got caught. Rooky mistake. Now, you get to face time.”

Fred groaned, letting his shoes scuff in the dirt in hopes of slowing the boys down, or at least annoying them. It was his own fault he had ended up in this situation. He had gotten too reckless, trying to take on a group of Ravenclaws all by himself. He should’ve known it would’ve been a trap. 

The official student Capture the Flag game was a tradition amongst all Seventh Years that took place the spring right before they graduated. It was completely student-run, mostly because if the teachers found out they would shut it all down, but that did mean that the students could be as creative and brutal as they wanted. Fred, pioneer of horrible pranks and traps that attacked the opposing team, was a prime target for capture. 

The gang of opponents that had captured Fred was slowing now, having reached their destination. In front of him, Fred saw Hagrid’s hut now painted yellow and blue, the house colors of team one. Hagrid was nowhere to be seen, but Fred figured he probaby would be fine with the vandalism of his hut as long as they cleaned it up once they were done, and with magic that would be fairly easy. 

“Into the slammer,” one Hufflepuff boy snickered, opening the door and throwing Fred in. “We have one guard watching the hut. Any attempted escapes in which you’re caught result in a one hour penalty from the game, but if you manage to escape without notice--”

“I know the rules,” Fred muttered. “My older brother bloody made them 10 years ago.”

Cedric, who had been standing outside the door, smiled wryly. “See you soon, Weasley. I’ll make sure you’re the first to see us carrying your flag back to our home base.”

Fred mouthed along to what Cedric was saying with a mocking expression plastered to his face. “This isn’t over yet Diggory!”

The other boy just snickered before slamming the door shut and locking it from the outside. Fred raced to one of the windows which had been boarded up for the game. He was able to peak out a hole between two of the boards. Cedric and the other boys were making their way back into the forest, whooping and slapping each other’s backs in celebration. The leader of the group spotted Fred watching them, and before he and his friends disappeared into the trees he cupped his hands over his mouth and called back one more thing. 

“Enjoy some one on one time with the other inmate!”

Fred was confused by what Cedric had just said. Other inmate? What could he possibly…

For the first time, Fred actually looked around the small hut and was surprised to see a girl, clothed in black pants and an emerald green top, headband, and facepaint laying down on the couch, feet thrown over the armrest. “Hello.”

He stepped back for a second, hesitant and fearful. “Y/N? What are you doing here?”

You gave him an ‘are-you-stupid’ look before sitting up. “Same as you.”

Fred mentally smacked himself for being so dumb. When deciding which houses were on which teams, the four names were thrown into a hat and then two were pulled out at a time. This year, against the wishes of every single person in both houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin were on the same team, which meant Fred was staring at one of his teammates dressed head to toe in your signature house color. 

Still skeptical, as most Gryffindors were of Slytherins, he sidestepped over to a nearby chair, eyes never leaving you. Your face shone with amusement at his obvious fear, and it only made you all the more confident. Godric how he hated that. 

“I’m not gonna bite, Freddie, you can join me on the couch. It’s much more comfortable than Hagrid’s huge chairs.”

Fred’s face tinted red at the nickname. He couldn’t remember the last time you had spoken to him, much less called him Freddie. It made him slightly uneasy, how comfortable and self-assured you were. It always put him on edge. 

Eventually, after a few moments of silence and pondering, Fred decided that joining you on the couch would be fine. You were teammates after all, and what was the worst you could do to him? He sat down, stretching as far away from you as possible. 

You cocked an eyebrow, scooting closer to him as a test. He flinched away. 

“Bloody hell,” you said, moving back to your original position, “you really are afraid of me aren’t you?”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say? You always made him speechless, for reasons he never understood, heart beating faster whenever you were near. He assumed it was out of fear. You were sorted into the evil house after all. 

“My friends all called it too,” you continued, smiling a dazed smile. “They always said that you would get weird around me, something you never did with anyone else. Am I really that terrifying? Afraid I’m gonna bite you in your sleep?” Your eyes shone as you teased him, and he couldn’t decide if it made him want to relax and talk to you or get the hell out of there immediately. 

You leaned your head toward him again, but this time he didn’t move away. You seemed to study him, looking his face and body up and down as if you were taking mental notes of every part of his person.

“For someone so incredibly loud, you don’t seem to talk much when I’m around.”

“I…” He trailed off, words catching in his throat. 

“Well, that’s gonna have to change if we’re gonna get out of here.” You clapped your hands together and stood up, brushing the dirt off your pants and fixing your ponytail. “What’s the plan, prank man?”

He stared at you dumbfounded, even more so than he was before. You reached out your hands to pull him off the couch and he reluctantly took them, brows still furrowed in confusion. “The plan?”

“There we go, I got ya talking!” You cheered loudly, beaming at your teammate. “And yes, the plan. For how we’re gonna, y’know, get out of here and get the flag and beat all these losers.”

Fred’s throat was suddenly dry. A plan? You expected him to have a plan? What kind? He’d been there for no more than 5 minutes and you were already throwing him back into the game. 

“I...uh, I don’t h-have a plan.” 

You crossed your arms, staring down at him and biting your lip. “Really? You, Fred Weasley, don’t have a plan?”

“Why are you talking to me like we’re friends?” Woah. That came out way harsher than he had wanted it to and he regretted it the moment it left his lips, especially seeing you wince at his blow. You covered it up quickly, face becoming darker with determination. 

“We may not be friends, your words, not mine, but we are teammates. And I don’t know about you, but I like to win, and I’ll be damned if I’m stuck just sitting in here for the rest of the game because you don’t want to be partners with the likes of me. Now are you in, or not?”

He hated how quickly your tone had changed, starting as a warm playful banter and now becoming something hard and defensive. For reasons unknown to him, at that moment he would do anything to see that other side of you again, the poised and bold persona you always made sure everyone saw. But it was never a cocky confident, not how he could be sometimes. Rather, it was just assured. You knew what you wanted and what you were worth and you didn’t let anyone give you shit for anything. He envied you for that quality sometimes. The amount of time and energy he’d put into hiding his insecurities, and here you were being more confident than he could ever pretend to be. 

He realized that you were still waiting for a response. Forgetting his nerves and the butterflies in his stomach that were always there whenever you spoke to him, he sat up straighter and mustered all the charm and confidence he usually carried. “You really think I’d let you win and take all the credit for yourself?”

A smile grew back on your face, one that Fred thought he would give anything to preserve. 

“Alright then Freddie--oh, can I call you Freddie?”

He nodded, shyly at first and then more forceful. “Yeah, but I think this would be more fun with codenames.”

Your eyes grew wide at his suggestion and you started jumping up and down, energy rustling inside you just begging to get out. “Yes!” you almost screamed. “Oh perfect, ok, you can be...Eagle 1. Ooo, I like that. And I’ll be…”

“Why the 1 after it?” Fred asked, interrupting your thoughts. 

“Because it sounds cooler,” you replied immediately. You snapped your fingers. “I’ll be Mantis, like a praying mantis. That’s cool. Ok, sound good?”

“Sounds perfect, Mantis,” he said, holding his hand up for a high five. You had to jump to reach his hand, giggling at the use of the new nickname. 

“Alright, Eagle 1, any observations?”

Fred scanned the room, mind whirling with ideas. His eyes landed on the corner, a brick structure cemented into the wall. “Actually, I think I do have a plan.”

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

“This was a very stupid plan!” 

You had to whisper yell so the guard down below, a Ravenclaw girl, couldn’t hear you. You and Fred were currently on the roof of Hagrid’s hut, holding on for dear life and trying not to make a sound. Somehow, against all known laws of physics and magic alike, you had both climbed up the chimney and had failed to be detected so far. 

“Shh,” Fred said, looking around for a way down without being discovered. 

“What’s the next part of the plan?” you hissed, nearly losing you footing on the steep slant of the rooftop. 

Fred looked down sheepishly, glad it was too dark for you to see his ears grow red in embarrassment. “I didn’t think that far yet.”

His admission almost made you fall off the roof. “Oh, well fuck me then! How are we supposed to get down?”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking! Just give me a minute.”

The hut was small, meaning that the girl who was walking circles around the bottom would do a full lap in about 30 seconds, and they would be visible in 15 no matter where they dropped down, if they could even make the drop without breaking a limb. Plus, the noise would no doubt alert her, and no matter how fast they ran she had her wand and would stun them before they got more than 10 metres away. You and Fred had your wands confiscated, which made this whole ordeal much harder, if not impossible. So the ground was out of the running. 

Fred turned his head to the sky, wishing he had his broom so he could soar over everyone. Over everyone… That was it! 

“Come here.” He grabbed your hand, yanking you away from the chimney and to the edge of the roof. 

“Freddie, if you push me off of this I swear to Salazar that I will--”

He clamped a hand over your mouth, effectively cutting you off. You glared at him but stopped trying to talk when you saw what he was looking at. A group of people wearing blue and yellow were not too far off, and they were heading your direction. If they got any closer they would most definitely see the two of you up there and you would be screwed. 

“Listen to me,” Fred said, quickly and quietly. “See that big branch over there?” Fred pointed at a thick branch that was extended toward the hut, about a metre away from the edge of the roof. “I’m going to throw you onto that--” your eyes widened in surprise “--and then I’m going to jump onto it as well. From there, we take the high road, climbing from branch to branch to make our escape. Understand?” 

Before you could say anything, shouts rained through the air. 

“Look, up there!”

“On the roof!”

“Oh fuck, it’s Fred and Y/N, they’re escaping!”

Wasting not a single second, Fred grabbed you under the armpits and tossed you with all of his might, sending you screaming through the air. You landed harshly on the branch and scrambled to keep your balance. Spells were blasting through the air, barely missing you. Fred took a few steps back in order to get a running start, but right as he was about to jump his foot slipped. 

He pushed off with all his might, hoping against all hope that he would still make it there. A spell raced by him on his left side. This was it. He was about to get caught, again. 

Then, against all odds, something grabbed him. He looked up to see you, legs wrapped around the branch and struggling to keep your balance, both on your hands grasping onto his with all of your strength. It took him a second to realize that you had caught him, but when he did he swung his other arm up to grab the branch, allowing you to hoist him up. 

“Stop them!” He didn’t have time to thank you or celebrate the victory. Still holding his hand, you shuffled toward the trunk of the tree, 

“Follow me,” you said, letting go and crawling out on another branch. You hopped from tree to tree, always finding another large place to grab onto or walk across. You both went as fast as you could without putting yourself in any danger of falling. After what felt like an eternity, you both failed to hear any more shouts or voices. You must have lost them in the thick forest. 

“I think…” Fred said through panting breaths. “I think it’s ok to go down now.”

You nodded, gesturing for him to descend down the tree first. When your feet finally touched the ground you collapsed in exhaustion, arms and legs sprawled out. Fred soon joined you, his head right next to yours as your breaths slowed and went back to normal. 

“That was fucking incredible,” he finally said. You laughed, coughing a bit as you did so, and turned to face him. 

“It was, wasn’t it.”

“I’m serious!” he said, turning on his side. “You were amazing. I thought I was a goner. How’d you catch me?”

You shrugged. “I’m fueled by fury and spite, and there’s nothing I hate more than a cocky Cedric Diggory.”

He laughed, reaching out to rub a hand up and down your shoulder. “You and me both, love.”

His eyes widened at the accidental nickname but you didn’t seem to mind. You just continued to smile before sitting up, leaning back on the palms of your hands. “Alright, love, what’s the next step?”

Even though you said the name in a teasing manner, it didn’t stop Fred’s heart from fluttering in his chest. He shook his head, telling his stupid thoughts to leave and never come back. There were more important things to deal with. 

“Now, we get the flag. We just need to find out where they hid it.”

He stood up, staring out at the expanse of forest surrounding you both in all directions. If he were Cedric, where would he hide the flag? 

“This might take a while. We’ll have to scour the West side, the East has already been checked, but I supposed we’ll have to double check just in case--”

“It’s in the tree by the Black Lake.”

Fred froze in his tracks. You had said it so casually, as if you were just telling him what day of the week it was. 

“What?”

“The Black Lake,” you repeated nonchalantly. “I followed Roger Davies as he made his rounds and he kept going back to the lake, like an alarming amount of times. And when we were being attacked at the hut, the group was definitely coming from that direction. And one of them had birch leaves all over her clothes, and the only birch tree is the one that is right by the lake. I say, who would climb that tree if not to hide something? It’s not tall enough to be a lookout tree and it’s not thick enough to hide anything or anyone bigger than, say, a flag. It’s gotta be there.”

He stared at you with his mouth hung open, completely dumbfounded. For the umpteenth time that night, you made him speechless. 

“You’re fucking insane,” he finally said, rubbing the back of his neck as he continued to stare at you in surprise. “That’s incredible.”

“Thanks,” you said, winking at him. “It’s a gift.”

You reached a hand up to him, asking for him to pull you off the ground. He did so, and you immediately linked both of your arms and started off to your right. He didn’t know how you knew which way the lake was when you were both so deep in the forest, but he decided not to question it. 

The two of you walked in silence for a little bit, you deciding to skip alongside Fred in order to keep up with how fast his long legs carried him. 

“Y’know,” he said, breaking the silence, “you’re a lot more...chipper than I expected you to be. 

Without missing a beat, you rolled your eyes and looked at him. “Why? Cuz I’m an evil Slytherin beant on world domination?” You spoke in an imitation of a dark voice, wiggling your fingers like you would when describing something as spooky. 

“Well, yeah,” Fred admitted, suddenly feeling bad that he had always assumed so much about you that was obviously not true. “You guys don’t have the best reputation, that’s all.”

“Oh and all Gryffindors are superheroes that are meant to save the world?”

“That’s not what I--”

“I know,” you interrupted, “I’m just teasing. I hear it enough anyways that it doesn’t bother me anymore. The people who care will get to know the real me, and those who don’t try just don’t matter.” You shrugged as if it was the simplest thing in the world and Fred wondered how long it must’ve taken for you to be so content with it, how long you must’ve beaten yourself up for something you couldn’t control until you were finally at peace with just being who you were. 

“I want to care,” he said without thinking. “I mean, I want to get to know you. You’re a lot more fun than I expected you to be.”

You laughed, nudging him with your shoulder. “And how come you’ve never tried talking to me before? We have gone to school together for, oh I don’t know, 7 years now!”

Although you were just messing around, your words hit hard. He had had classes with you for 7 bloody years and not once had he reached out to you for anything other than when you were assigned together for a project.

“You kind of called it earlier.” He said, making you furrow your brow in confusion. “I was a little bit afraid of you. Well, maybe afraid isn’t the right word. Intimidated, that’s it. You’re just so...I don’t know how to describe it, but you make me feel funny.”

“Funny?” you asked, now more muddled than ever. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t kow,” he repeated. “My heart starts racing and whenever I say things to you my mouth starts to go dry. Hell, half the time I get too embarrassed to say anything! I don’t know if it’s cuz you’re a Slytherin or because you’re absolutely stunning--”

“True true, continue.”

He laughed, leaning in to you as he did so. “And so incredibly humble, it appears.”

“Ah, yes, a trait we both share,” you replied. “It was you who deemed himself the ‘Prankster King’ as well as started the ‘Hogwarts Biggest Hottie’ competition just so you could convince everyone to vote for you, was it not?”

“Yeah, and bloody George won,” Fred grumbled. “We’re identical for fucks sake!”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I think you beat out George on the attractiveness levels.”

Fred perked up. “So you voted for me then?”

“Actually,” you said, an evil smirk growing on your face, “I voted for Cedric.”

His jaw dropped and you took off running through the forest, crying with laughter as he chased after you. 

“You bloody traitor, I’m the attractive one! Get back here!”

You sprinted through the trees, dodging trunks and ducking beneath branches praying that Fred wouldn’t catch up to you. But before you knew it, you had been tackled to the ground, flipping your body around in the process so you were now pinned beneath Fred, heads facing each other. 

Both of you were still laughing, you wiping tears from your eyes at the chase that had just ensued. 

“Say you were lying,” he demanded. “Say that I’m the most attractive one.”

When you refused, he had to resort to a kind of torture that he only used in the most extreme circumstances. He started tickling you. 

“Ok, ok!” you screamed through your fits of laughter. “You’re the most attractive guy here, I swear it on Salazar himself!”

Finally, his fingers released from your side and you were given a chance to actually breathe. It was then that he realized how close your faces were. Mere centimeters apart. How easy it would be for him to just lean down and capture your lips in his, kissing you with all the breath he had left, letting his hands roam up and down your sides as yours got themselves tangled in his hair. How easy it would be to forget about the whole game and just spend the rest of the night wrapped around each other under the light of the pale moon. He dipped his head down, slowly closing the gap, your voice hitching in your throat as you licked your lips and closed your eyes, their color shining so clearly. 

Fred suddenly sat up. Your eyes. He could see them, and he could see them well. The moonlight was shining just enough to allow him to see the color. Which could only mean…

“We’re here.” Sure enough, Fred had tackled you right at the edge of the forest by the clearing, much brighter than it had been in the forest. You both quickly made to get up, dusting yourselves off and avoiding eye contact as much as possible. 

“Well,” you said, not daring to take your eyes off the birch tree in the distance. “Ready Eagle 1?”

Fred smiled, getting his feet ready to make the fastest sprint of his life. “Ready Mantis. On your mark--”

“No I get to say it! I’m the one who got us here after all,” you argued. 

“Ok but who got us out of the hut?”

“I saved your ass from falling off the damn thing!”

“Well I--”

A branch cracking from behind you broke both of you out of your playful argument. 

Fred looked at you and raised an eyebrow, offering his hand out to you. “Together?”

You took his hand and nodded. “Together.”

Fred squeezed your fingers tightly in his, staring at the target ahead. 

“One..” he said slowly. 

“Two…” you followed, catching a glimpse of a blue and yellow flag at the top of the tree. 

“THREE!” You both sprinted through the clearing, feet carrying you as fast as they could as you raced to your destination. A loud whistle was being blown off to the right and shouts came from the left but you both just ignored them as you kept running. 

A huge body appeared in front of you, almost out of nowhere, wand at the ready. You screamed in surprise and hit the person square in the jaw, sending them stumbling backwards until they tripped and fell back on their ass. 

“Shit, sorry Roger!” you yelled back. Fred swore he could’ve kissed you right then and there. 

You both made it to the base of the tree, not sturdy enough for the both of you. “Give me a boost,” you told Fred. He cupped your foot in his hands and hoisted you up, jumping out of the way just in time to miss a hex coming his direction. Your hands and feet moved as if you were a monkey swinging through vines. You heard grunts and yells from the ground but were too focused on the flag to care. 

With one final push, you grabbed it, yelling triumphantly as you gripped the prize with all your might. All you had to do was get back to your team’s side and victory was yours. 

“Y/N!” You looked down to see Fred standing at the bottom of the tree, two more boys laying on the ground and holding their noses. He must’ve taken them on with no wand and still managed to beat them. Fucking legend. 

“Jump down!”

You were alarmingly high up, something that hadn’t occurred to you until just then. It panicked you to think about jumping. Maybe you could just climb back down? But even as you thought about that you saw more people coming, ready to capture you both again. This was your only chance. 

Clutching the flag with all of your might, you jumped down from the tree, screaming as you free fell through the air. You landed not on the hard ground, but in a pair of strong arms that steadied you and held you bridal style. 

“See, now we’re even. We’ve caught each other.”

“Stop flirting and fucking run Fred!”

He did as told, taking off with you still in his arms, the flag in yours. Even though he was carrying your body his adrenaline still gave him enough energy to run like the wind, just as if not faster than many of the others chasing them. 

Over rocks, through a stream, past so many others who tried to stop him. But he wouldn’t stop. He just kept running and running and running until--

“Fred!” Angelina Johnson and George saw you both in the distance. They grabbed their wands out and hexed those in your pursuit, stopping a Ravenclaw girl just as she was about to hex Fred’s legs. You could see the line you all had drawn shimmering in the distance. More Gryffindors and Slytherins saw the commotion and raced to help, slowing down as many opponents as they could. 

You were 50 metres from the line. 40. 30. 20. 10…

Fred’s legs gave out, a mere 5 metres from the line. Someone had finally hit him with a curse, sending him sprawling out on the ground. You gasped as your body hit the ground, rolling across the grass, closer and closer and--

A firework exploded, then another, and then another. The signifier of victory. You looked up to see what had happened. You were on the ground as well, your right arm laying in front of you with your right wrist and hand over the line. The hand that had been holding the flag. 

“We did it!” You didn’t know who screamed, but whoever started it set a trend of wild cries and yells, whoops of victory and laughter filling the air. Your friends were by your side in a matter of seconds, helping you up and to the other side. 

You stumbled a bit, the reality of what happened finally hitting you. “We won!” You and your friends jumped up and down, hugging each other and screaming as loud as you could. You were bombarded with questions, everyone wondering what happened and how you managed to pull this off. Ignoring them, you looked around for Fred, who was starting to push himself off the ground. 

You dropped the flag and raced over to him, grabbing his arms and putting them on your shoulders to help him balance. 

“This is Mantis calling Eagle 1,” you said, barely audible over the celebration. “We did it. I repeat, we did it.”

Fred looked up, face covered in scratches and bruises, but you guessed you didn’t look much better. “As much as I like the name Eagle 1, I think you should go back to calling me Freddie.”

You laughed, leaning your head into his chest. “Roger that Freddie.”

He removed his hands from you shoulders and moved them to your waist, spinning you around in the air before pulling you into a bone crushing hug. “We fucking did it! Suck it Diggory!”

“Suck it Diggory!” you repeated.

A chorus of ‘suck it Diggory’s reined across the grounds, Slytherins and Gryffindors alike chanting it repeatedly. 

Fred finally lowered you to the ground and rested his forehead against yours. “Go out with me,” he said. “On a date. Go out with me.”

“What, jumping off roofs and out of trees and running for your life through a dark forest doesn’t count as a date already?”

He laughed and closed his eyes, relishing this moment and thinking about how much had happened in just a few hours. “Fine, a second date then. Will you go out with me on a second date?”

You brought your hands up to his mess of hair, twisting a lock in your finger and sending shivers up and down his spine. “Only if you promise that it’ll be even more exciting than the first. Think you can top this?”

“Oh, love, you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Try me,” you replied, pulling his head down to yours and sealing your lips together in a kiss. 

All of your friends as well as Fred’s just stared in awe, wondering what the hell happened that suddenly you two were snogging in front of everyone. You’d explain everything in due time, what was the rush? And you’d have to make sure to thank Cedric Diggory for locking the two of you up together. How it had changed everything.

Tag List:

@famdomhideout @amourtentiaa

​​

[sunfloo-wers]

Okay, hopping on here because this. Is. Perfection. Absolute perfection. And I’ve seen it around a few times and I’ve sewn it into my heart and it’s been burned into the very inner mechanisms of my brain. Basically, YESSSSSS THISSSSS

So, I’m talking about it more :D

Ravio:

Ravio with the triforce of wisdom makes a ton of sense. Not only via process of elimination (it doesn’t really make sense for him to have power or courage, even if the Lorulian Triforce works different to the Hylian one, ergo he’s got to have wisdom), but also it just makes sense. He was the one to see through Yuga’s plan, and “warn the hero”. This role usually goes in some part to a Zelda aka a holder of the triforce of wisdom. This alone makes me think that Ravi would be the wise one in Lorule, but there is more.

Throughout the game and in general albw fannon, Ravio is described as a “coward”. At face value, this is a reference to his “not-link” or “opposite of the hero/triforce of courage” or “broken triforce = opposite of the hylian stuff”. But, it could also be showcasing how he most certainly doesn’t have the triforce of courage. And if there’s anything we Ravio supporters can agree on, it’s that “coward” is not the right word for him. No, he’s not the hero jumping into battle with only his wit. But he’s also the catalyst, he’s the one who left his home to go find the hero. While I shouldn’t say that the best word for that is courage, it’s most definitely not cowardice. The word I would say is wisdom.

Hilda:

Hilda, though the clear “Zelda” of Lorule, does not seem to hold the wisdom of her counterpart. What she does have, is power. And, her plotline is suspiciously similar to “Gannon gets a wee bit mad with power”. She is the queen, and undoubtedly has power in her own right, but also the plot with Yuga tells a similar story. She’s not evil but she did put her people above Hyrule’s. This tells less of a wisdom, and more of a Queen who’s land has been though so much that she is willing to do whatever it takes to helps them again, whatever it takes to get the power to fix her broken land.

Gannon had the triforce of power because he was a king with too much of it, and was greedy enough to want more. Hilda had the triforce of power because she is a queen with less than what her people need, and is on a quest to fulfill that need.

To rephrase this, her entire plot is about power, not wisdom. She and Yuga try to steal Hyrule’s triforce so Lorule can have one after theirs was broken due to civil war. She was betrayed by Yuga because he was planning on betraying her and using the trifofce for his own gain rather than for the people. One could argue that this is a “see through the lies and keep a steady head” (also that’s literally what Ravio was doing) but I would say that it’s a “Power in the right hands can be good, but in the wrong ones can be deadly”.

Yuga:

This lineup lands with Yuga having the triforce of courage. This was not mentioned in the original posts, but I still feel the want to talk about it. Yuga, being Lorule’s main villain, fills the “Gannon role”, but he does not have power. Yes, he was looking for the triforce to ascend to godhood (I think), which one could argue has to do with power, but his actions speak far more towards courage.

He had the gall to work behind the queen’s back. He had the, perhaps stupid, courage to betray his entire country. And it worked. He had everyone convinced, no body but one little bunny, one little “coward” who wouldn’t do a thing, even had a thought of him being evil. He held all the cards.

But you know what made it happen? The courage to take that first step. The little thought of “what if?”. That is the courage, not the power, or the wisdom, that is courage. That is stupid bravery in the face of fear and low chances. That is going for the win despite all the cards being in staked against you. Going for that stab in the chest, or the arrow in the skull.

Also! The brutally Beautiful mirror image between him and Link? One person with courage who works for the good of the people, who uses their bravery to help those in need. And one who uses it for their own gain. They are, what the other could have been, had things be a little different.

And at the end of the day, that is an integral part of albw, the mirror images. It was presented between different people though.

Link and Ravio, the adventurer and the merchant, the “courageous” and the “coward”

Zelda and Hilda, the princess and the queen, the “wise” and the “fooled”

Gannon and Yuga, the prince of darkness and the soon to be god, the “powered” and the “hungry”

But what if it was different? What if it was something with a little more spice?

Link and Yuga, the fighter for the people and the fighter for the one, the “hero” and the “villain”, the courage.

Zelda and Ravio, they who sees what’s coming and they who sees through the guise, the “prophet” and the “catalyst”, the wisdom.

Gannon and Hilda, the demon king and the decrepit’s queen, the “loather” and the “lover”, the power.

triforce of wisdom ravio… triforce of power hilda… does anyone get my vision… what if the person filling your divinely sanctioned role in another universe wasn’t you. what if they were a funhouse mirror. You’re an echo of an echo and they should be a reflection of you. What if they were their own person.

[platonicteenwolf]

Second Chance At First Line

(S1E2) Part II

Teen Wolf x Reader Series Rewrite

A/N: I am absolutely KILLING IT with these updates. Expect a lot more coming up. Also I don't think I'm going to continue making three separate parts for pronouns whenever a part doesn't use any pronouns for the reader.

Any Pronouns

Next Part / Masterlist

Warnings: mentions of a dead body

“What do you mean you can’t play the game tomorrow night?” Coach asks as Scott follows him into his office.

“I mean I can’t play the game tomorrow night.”

“You mean you can’t wait to play the game tomorrow night?”

“No, I can’t play the game tomorrow night.”

“I’m not following.”

Scott sighs looking around the office. “I’m-- having some personal issues.”

“Like what? Is it a girl?”

“No.”

“Is it a guy? You know our goalie Danny is gay.”

“Yeah, I know, Coach. But that’s not it.”

“You don’t think Danny’s a good-looking guy?” Coach cuts off, looking shocked.

Exasperated, Scott tries to continue; “No, Danny’s good looking. But I like girls. And that’s not it anyway--”

“Is it drugs? Are you doing meth? My brother was hooked on meth. You should have seen what it did to his teeth, all rotted and cracked. It was disgusting. He was a mess.”

Genuinely concerned, Scott asks, “What happened to him?”

“He got veneers. They look perfect now. Is, is that what this is about? Are you afraid of getting hurt McCall?”

“No. I’m just having some issues dealing with... aggression.”

“Well, here’s the good news, that’s exactly why you play lacrosse. Problem solved.”

“Coach. I can’t play the game.”

“Listen, McCall. Part of playing first line is taking on the responsibility of being the first line in the game. If you can’t shoulder that responsibility then you’re back on the bench until you’re ready.”

“If I don’t play the game, you’re taking me off first line?”

"McCall,” Coach says pointedly, “Play the game.”

-----

Stepping back into the corridor and into the rush of students, Scott jumps when his phone RINGS in his pocket. He takes it out to read a text message from his Mom:

Got the night off! Coming to see you play! So excited!!

Scott breathes a sigh of frustration. His phone BUZZES again with a second text from his Mom:

What does LMFAO mean?

He’s about to type back when he notices someone coming down the corridor to find him; Allison Argent. As she walks through the crowd, every teenage male eye seeming to follow her. But her perfect smile is reserved for Scott.

Nodding to his phone Allison asks, “Hey, you busy?”

“No. It’s just my Mom. She’s nothing. I mean it’s nothing. I’m never busy. For you.”

“I like the sound of that... I have to run to French class but I wanted you to know I’m coming to see you play tomorrow.”

“You are?”

“And we’re all going out afterwards. You, me, Lydia, Jackson. It’s going to be great. And bring Stiles too. Save me a seat at lunch, I’ve gotta go.”

Scott barely has a chance to nod as she hurries off. But just before she disappears into the rush of students, she smiles at him again. With a quick wave, she’s gone.

Scott slumps against the lockers muttering to himself, “I am so screwed.”

-----

Down the adjacent hall, Allison stops at her locker, quickly spins the combo, grabs her French book and suddenly stops when she notices something strange inside. Slowly, she pulls an item out, one that shouldn’t be there... her jacket from the party.

As she eases the locker shut, she notices how very alone she is in the corridor. She gazes down one end of the hall and then the other. Not a soul. Not a sound. Until--

The second bell rings, startling her. Breathing a short laugh at herself, she hurries off to class.

-----

At the chalkboard with other students solving algebra problems, Lydia whispers to Scott.

“Why is there a rumor going around that you’re not playing tomorrow?”

“Because I’m sort of... not.”

“I think you sort of are. Especially when you brutally injure my boyfriend by ramming into him.”

“He brutally injured himself ramming into me.”

The math teacher steps past, eyeing their work on the board.

“Jackson’s going to play Saturday, but he’s not going to be at peak. I prefer my boyfriend at peak performance.”

“Okay...” Scott responds, wondering if she’s still talking about lacrosse.

“See, I date the captain of a winning lacrosse team. If they start off the season losing, I date the captain of a losing lacrosse team. I don’t date losers. You understand how that works?”

“Losing one game isn’t going to kill anyone. In fact, it might save someone,” he argues back.

Lydia looks at him. Doesn’t get it. Doesn’t care. “Fine. Don’t play. We’ll probably win anyway. We’ll go out after like we’re planning. I’ll introduce Allison to all the other hot players on the team. And while she gets the attention she deserves, Scott McCall can stay home surfing the net for porn. "

She finishes her math problem, wipes the chalk off her hands and saunters back to her desk. Scott returns his attention to his own equation on the board.

The math teacher walks up behind him chastising, “Mr. McCall, you’re not even close to solving your problem.”

“Tell me about it,” Scott quips back.

-----

As Stiles and I turn the corner to the hall our next class is located, I see someone familiar talking to the vice principle.

“Wait-- is that Noah?” Grabbing the back of Stiles’s collar I drag him back behind the wall to hide us from view. Peeking around the corner, there Sheriff Stilinski standing in the middle of the hall having a seemingly serious conversation to the vice principle.

“I can’t hear them, what are they saying?” Stiles whines.

“I don’t know I don’t have super hearing.”

And as if a lightbulb went off in his head, Stiles bolts off looking for someone who does in fact have super hearing as I continue to keep an eye on the targets.

Hearing stomping footsteps behind me I turn around seeing an out of breath Stiles, Scott in tow.

“Come here, come here, tell me what they’re saying,” I ask Scott as the boys follow my gaze down the hall. I can see Scott focus, attempting to tune in the voices.

“...animal attacks... just don’t want the kids out... 9:30pm... institute the curfew....”

With a look of annoyance Scott turns back towards us.

“A curfew. Because of the body.”

Great.

“Unbelievable!” Stiles starts to complains, “Seriously unbelievable. My Dad’s out looking for a rabid animal while the jerkoff who actually killed the girl is just hanging out doing whatever he wants.”

Interjecting, I add, “Well, we can’t exactly tell him what’s going on with Derek. He’d want to do something about it.”

“Well, I’m gonna do something about it.”

“Like what?” Scott asks.

“Like find the other half of the body.”

And with that Stiles walks to his next class. Waving a bye to Scott I go catch up to him.

-----

Scott stops when he spots Allison shaking hands with an extremely good-looking lacrosse player. Lydia wears a big smile while introducing them while staring right at Scott.

Allison turns to see him approaching as Lydia and the lacrosse player slip away.

“So, Lydia’s introducing you to everyone?” Scott questions.

“Yeah, she’s been so unbelievably nice. Usually, the popular girls are totally evil when I move to a new place. But she’s making it really easy for me.”

“I wonder why.”

“Maybe she gets how much being the New Girl can suck.”

He’s about to reply when he notices with alarm that she’s carrying the jacket from party that Derek had.

"Where did you get that?”

“My jacket? It was in my locker. I think Lydia brought it back from the party. She has my combination--”

“Did she say she brought it back? Did someone give her the jacket?” Scott is starting to get more urgent; how did Derek get into her locker? Was he still here? Is Derek going to hurt Allison?

“Like who?"

“Like Derek."

“Your friend?”

“He’s not my friend. How much did you talk to him when he drove you home?”

“Not much at all.”

“What did you say?"

Allison can tell he’s getting more and more aggressive; cautiously she replies, "Sorry, but I have to get to my next class. Can we talk later?”

“Allison--”

“I really have to go.”

She hurries off, leaving Scott ruminating on the jacket. But then he turns, moving with focus, faster and faster--

-----

On his bike and pedaling at top speed, Scott charges down the road. Finally, he whips onto a driveway leading to the rundown Hale house.

“Derek!”

He lets his bike clatter to the ground, school bag with it. In a flash he’s on the porch, looking in each window.

“Derek!”

Still no response. Scott slips around the side of the house and to the back. Then something catches his attention-- At the edge of the woods, he sees FRESH DIRT covering the ground. As if something had been dug up. Or buried.

But before he can approach, a sound stops him in his tracks... a heartbeat. At first, it’s a tiny rhythm in the distance. But then it rapidly gets louder, stronger. Scott starts to back away, moving for the front of the house again and for his bike when Derek steps out of the woods. No sudden appearance, no theatrics. He just calmly walks out of the shadows while Scott tries to stand strong.

“Stay away from her. She doesn’t know anything.”

“What if she does?”

Derek keeps coming, backing Scott away from the house.

“You think your little buddy Stiles can Google werewolves and now you’ve got all the answers?”

Reaching down to Scott’s school bag, Derek picks up the lacrosse stick, playfully turning it over in his hands.

“You don’t get it yet, but I’m looking out for you. Think about what could happen. You’re on the

field. The aggression takes over. And you shift in front of everyone. Allison, your mother, your friends...”

Derek’s hand comes up and his claws are out. Scott flinches back, both in fear and surprise at his display of mastery over his abilities.

“And when they see you--”

He rakes his claws over the net.

“Everything, falls, apart.”

The slashed threads flutter away from the head of the lacrosse stick, the net now in tatters. Derek tosses the ruined stick. Scott catches it. When he looks up, he’s alone, Derek having vanished yet again.

-----

Bursting through the front door of the McCall’s home, Stiles sprints up the stairs towards Scott’s bedroom. Chuckling to myself I close the door behind me and head the same way. “Hey Ms. McCall!” I shout

“Hey sweetie!”

As Stiles bursts through Scott’s door and into his room I can already hear him shouting about the news. Scott called me with an update on the body, said there was some evidence at Derek’s and we needed to get over there as soon as we could.

I greet Scott with a wave as I follow Stiles into the room. At his desk, Scott works on something, concentrating on it with exact focus

“I found something at Derek Hale’s,” he starts

Still full of energy, Stiles shouts, “Are you kidding? What?”

“Something’s buried there. I smelled blood.”

Interjecting, I ask, "You think it’s from the body?”

“That’s what I need you guys to help me find out. And when we do, we’re going to help your dad nail Derek for the murder. And then we're figure out how I can play lacrosse without changing.”

Scott stands, revealing what he’s been working on so intently: his lacrosse stick. Now perfectly re-laced, he spins it in his hands with a look of pride.

“Because I’m not missing out on that game”

-----

The doors of Beacon Hills Hospital slide open. Stiles, Scott, and I casually walk past the front desk trying not to be conspicuous in front of waiting patients, nurses and orderlies. Stiles nods to a set of double doors and a sign pointing to the morgue; exactly what we need. While Scott and I quickly push through the doors, Stiles heads to the waiting area to keep an eye out.

As Scott and I step inside the almost pitch-black freezer room, he lights the display on his phone using it to search the labels on the drawer.

“Why’d you leave the lights off, this place is mega creepy!” I whisper to him. “Who decides to leave the lights off when they’re around a bunch of dead bodies?”

“Would you keep it down? You’re gonna get us caught!” Scott says as he finally located the body.

JANE DOE – partial. Police Evidence, Do Not Tamper.

We both take a breath as Scott yanks open the display.

-----

Standing outside in the corridor, Stiles looks to the waiting area and does a double take. Lydia Martin sits in one of the chairs. It’s a moment of opportunity he simply cannot pass up. Leaving his post, he tentatively approaches her.

“Hey, Lydia. You probably don’t remember me, but I sit behind you in Biology. And I know you’re dating Jackson and all that, but I always thought we had a kind of connection. Unspoken, of course. But I sort of think it would be cool to get to know you. Sort of.”

“Hold on. Give me a second.”

Stiles looks at her, quite confused. But then she pulls out a Bluetooth headset that was covered by her hair.

“I didn’t get any of what you just said. Is it worth repeating?”

“Uh... No. Sorry.”

As she gives an irritated sigh, Stiles takes a seat far away from her, head falling into his hand.

-----

Scott covers his mouth while gazing down at the lower half of the body. He slowly pulls the drawer open to where the sheet finally flattens out just above the severed hip. The smell coming from the body is absolutely putrid and I can tell his face is getting greener by the second.

“Don’t throw up on the body,” I joke.

Removing his hand from his mouth, Scott sends me a lighthearted glare and then pulls the sheet up to reveal the decayed and rotted feet. Then, unable to stand anymore, the sight or the smell, he covers up the body and slides the drawer shut. We’ve found all we need.

-----

Back in the waiting room, Jackson comes around the corner to find Lydia. He walks up to her while massaging his shoulder.

“Did he do it?”

Nodding, Jackson replies, “He said it’s not a good habit to get into but one cortisone shot won’t kill me.”

“You should get one right before the game too.” He gives her a concerned look. “What? The pros do it all the time. You want to be a little high school amateur?” Teasingly, she continues, “Or do you want to go pro?”

She pulls him into a kiss that’s all tongue. As they walk off, Stiles watches with a jealous gaze from behind the pages of a hospital pamphlet.

-----

Walking back to the waiting room with Scott, I see Stiles holding up a pamphlet titled: All About Your Menstrual Cycle. Inconspicuous. Scott yanks it out of his hands, surprising him.

“The scent was the same.”

“You’re sure?”

Scott nods and starts off with the two of us following.

“So he did bury the other half of the body on his property,” Stiles confirms.

“Which means we have proof he killed the girl.”

“Then I say we use it.”

After watching the boys go back and forth I interject,

“Scott, are you doing this because you want to stop Derek? Or because you want to play the game Saturday and he said you couldn’t?”

“There were bite marks on the legs. Bite marks. And if he knows about Allison now...”

“Okay. Then we’re going to need a shovel.”

We slam through the exit door and out into the night.

-----

Derek’s black Dodge Challenger roars out from the long driveway leading to the dilapidated house. In its wake, Stile’s Jeep slowly pulls forward.

Now carrying a shovel and pick, Scott and Stiles head for the house while I hold the flashlight. But Scott pauses, glancing around.

“Something’s different,” Scott says while glancing around.

“Different how?”

But Scott shakes his head. He looks back to the road, listening for any sounds.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Unnerved now as well, Stiles and I follow him around the house to the edge of the woods. Waving him over, Scott kicks at the dirt on the ground. It’s loose, gravelly. They start digging. Piles of dirt landing on the grass nearby while I keep watch. They work fast, Scott pulling up his sleeves as sweat starts to drip down his forehead while the two start bickering.

“This is taking too long,” Scott complains.

“Just keep going,” Stiles replies.

“What if he comes back?”

“Then we get the hell out of here."

“What if he catches us?”

“I have a plan for that.”

Now sitting down next to the hole they’ve dug, I interlude,

“Ah yes, Stiles Stilinski with the genius plans.”

“Oh shut up Y/N”

“Well, what’s the plan then,”

“I run one way, you both run another. Whoever he catches first? Too bad.”

Scoffing, Scott says, “I hate that plan.’

They dig faster, harder. Muscles burning, Scott keeps throwing nervous glances to the driveway.

“Stop, stop, stop!” Stiles shouts.

Dropping the shovel, Stiles clambers down into the hole. He feels around and finds a dark FABRIC in the dirt. Both of them now digging with their hands they finally uncover a black drawstring bag tied in tight knots. Stiles digs at the knot with his fingers.

“Hurry,” Scott urges.

“I’m trying. Did he have to tie the thing in nine hundred knots?"

“I’ll do it.”

Both of them claw at the drawstring, almost frantically trying to get the knot to come undone. And then finally it loosens. The black bag flutters open to reveal the body inside--

Except it’s not a dead girl. It’s the body of a wolf. Stiles and Scott both holler, jumping back.

Poking the carcass with a stick, Stiles asks, “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a wolf.”

“I can see that. I thought you said you smelled blood? As in human blood?”

“I told you something was different.”

Scott pulls back the edge of the bag to get a better look. The remains of the wolf peer through, a tangle of legs and blood-crusted fur.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

Still looking around nervously, Scott urges, “We gotta get out of here.”

While the boys talked, I had gotten up to look around the area. Suddenly I notice a purple flower in the ground. It sticks out of the dirt as if it had only recently been planted there.

“Wait,” I call to them.

Looking up, Stiles sees what I’m looking at.

“Do you see that flower?”

“What about it,” Scott wonders.

“I think it’s wolfsbane.”

“Wolfsbane?”

I look back towards the duo as Scott has a confused look on his face.

“Haven’t you ever seen The Wolf Man? Lon Chaney Jr.? Claude Rains? The original classic werewolf movie?” Stiles questions as Scott shakes his head. “You are so unprepared for this.”

"Aconitum napellus, or Wolfsbane, is a common known weapon against werewolves. It's toxins can cause your heartrate to slow to a fatal amount," I explain.

Kneeling next to the flower, I gently feel around the stem. Pulling it up, it’s revealed that the flower has sprouted out of what appears to be a very thin but strong twine interlaced from its stem and root.

Jumping out of the hole, Scott and Stiles take several cautious steps back as I continue unearthing the purple-flowered rope. Soil falling around my shoes, I walks in circles around the grave.

As I continue, the Wolfsbane rope leads back to the grave in an almost perfect spiral. Finally, at about ten yards out, I finally reach the end of the rope. With a pile gathered into my arms, I turn back to the boys who are staring back at the grave.

At barely a whisper, Scott says, “Look...”

The rope slips out of my hands, falling at my feet as my eyes widen. The wolf is no longer a wolf. It’s the upper half of the girl.

-----

Tag List: @linkpk88 @mochminnie @im-a-stranger-thing @that-winged-rat @avengersgirl1221 @everybirdfellsilent

[vivianweasley]

Just Another Bad Guy (Fred Weasley X Malfoy!Reader)

Summary: You are Draco Malfoy’s twin sister so everyone just assumed that you guys are the same. Not Fred, he knows who you are and loves you for it. But your romance was cut short after you were forced to become a death eater. Could the two of you find your way back to each other after all of this is over?

Pairing: Fred Weasley X Fem!Malfoy!Reader

Warnings: angst to fluff, war, post-war traumas, poor writing

Word count: 4.1K

A/N: I finished this a long time ago but got scared to post it for some reasons. Hope you guys would like it :)

Please do NOT repost my work or translate it on another site without permission! Thank You! Reblogs and comments are always welcome<3

To be honest, no one really knew what kind of person (Y/F/N) Malfoy is. But she’s the twin sister of the infamous Draco Malfoy, so everyone just assumed that they are the same: pure blood and proud pricks.

Including Fred Weasley, or at least before today’s incident.

He was hiding around the corner, watching the trip wire and paint hanging on the ceiling. He was waiting for Draco Malfoy’s twin sister to trip over and cause the green paint to fall on her. The color of her snotty little house would suit her.

But that didn’t happen. He just watched her walk over the trip wire and nothing happened.

After everyone was gone, he quickly ran to check what exactly happened to his prank that he has so meticulously designed. But the next thing he knew, he was covered in green paint.

He heard someone laughing and turned around to see Y/F/N Malfoy standing there.

“What are you looking for Weasley?”

“How did you...”

“Just a freezing charm and an hot-air charm used at the right time and right place.” Some of the green paint got into Fred’s eyes, but he was certain he could see a mischievous smirk on her lips. She bent over a little, as if trying to make sure he could see exactly who used his prank back on him, “I expected better from you, Weasley.”

And then the game was on.

You two started a pranking war while everything seemed to stay normal on the surface. Sometimes Fred would win, but most of the times his pranks would just backfire on him.

Then you two started to actually hangout, like sneaking out at night to prank Mr. Filch or to hangout in the secret passages. But no one knew about this. Maybe not even George.

Fred realized that you were nothing like what he imagined. Under your cold and proud look, there was something mischievous and wild in your heart, but you hid it so well.

Then the Yule ball came around. Fred knew there was something more than friendship between you two and obviously he has dreamed about taking you to the dance. But things were never so easy between you two.

He ended up taking Angelina to the dance. They went as friends. It was basically a group thing. And you went with a Slytherin boy in your year.

But both of you thought it would be a waste if the rest of the night was just like this. You exchanged looks while dancing with your Yule ball dates and snuck out on cue.

You met up at your usual hangout place, the astronomy tower.

He smiled, offering his hand, “Y/N Malfoy, may I have this dance?”

“You may, Weasley.” You smiled, taking his hand.

He pulled you closer to him and started dancing. There was no music, but you were humming a melody you loved.

The cold winter wind brought you closer and closer. Your humming was even better than music in Fred’s ears. Everything felt just right.

And you kissed, under the starry night.

No words were needed. You could tell how each other felt through the passionate kiss you shared.

------

But you were still a Malfoy after all.

Fred swore he felt like his heart was ripped apart when he learned that you became a death eater, just like your family. He snuck into the school for he wanted to see you again before the big war hit.

“I know you don’t want to do this, Y/N. You don’t have to do this! You can run away, just run away from all of this! Please!” He pulled you into a deserted hallway and tried to scream some sense out of you.

But your expression was cold, your family’s signature distant and proud look that you put on all the time, “Who do you think you are, telling me what to do?” Your voice was even colder, “You’re just another stupid Weasley.” 

There it was, you said it, the words that was going to haunt Fred for years. Even though he absolutely denied it.

And the war hit. You were on opposite sides. It was brutal. Screaming, blood, and corpses everywhere.

Fred fought with all his strength. After successfully taking out three death eaters, he saw the wall behind him falling onto him. It was too close and too late to run or cast any spell. He closed his eyes. Could this be the end?

But nothing happened. Someone casted protego shielding him from the falling wall, giving him enough time to escape. He looked around, but no one was there.

Knowing that he now owed his life to someone, he fought even harder, until Voldemort finally met his end.

From that day on, Fred never saw you again. He would still think about you of course, but he would soon try to think about something or someone else when those horrible words that you said hit him again.

He knew that you became a writer and published your memoir when people’s hate for former death eaters faded out a little. He has read your book secretly on his lunch breaks in Flourish and Blotts. The book was simply stating what happened and it wasn’t too emotional overall. But just stating the simple facts was enough to let the readers know that the Malfoy twins were not as evil as they thought they were.

All you grew up with was ideas like “pure bloods are the superiors” and “we must follow the Dark Lord”. You never had any choices and even if you had, it was a simple choice: you do what you’re told to do or you’ll get your family killed. And deep down, Fred always knew that. He sometimes would wonder could it be possible that you said those words because you knew the two of you won’t ever have a chance of a happy ending? Could it be possible that you said those words to protect him?

And one thing that definitely caught Fred’s attention was the title of your book, “Just Another Bad Guy”. The wording looked awfully familiar to him, making him wonder could be possible that you also couldn’t forget those cruel words you said to him, calling him “just another stupid Weasley”?

But he also found that you have never mentioned anything about the Weasleys in your book. Was it because you were sorry for what you have said? Or was it because that his family was too embarrassing for you to even mention?

It had been 8 years after the war now. Today, the old Hogwarts classmates decided to meet up again. It was nice seeing so many familiar faces, but Fred knew that there was just one person, who he might never see again.

The dinner party went well. People were catching up and remembering the good old days at Hogwarts. Everyone seemed to be doing well, having a steady job and even starting a family now.

Then people started talking about your book. Fred was suddenly on guard, as if he was ready to argue with or even fight anybody who was going to talk shit about you. But then he realized, what role was he playing in this whole situation anyway?

To Fred’s surprise, people were actually taking nicely about you. He was feeling almost gratified that people actually took the time to read your work. It was beautifully written after all.

“I always knew she wasn’t so bad,” said Luna, “I saw her protecting a student during the battle. Who was it though?”

Luna’s dreamy voice hit Fred hard like a bludger that he dropped his fork. 

The noise caught Luna’s attention and suddenly made her faded memory resurface, “I remembered! It was Fred! She saved Fred!”

Everyone was staring at Fred now. He laughed awkwardly and replied, “Guess Malfoy isn’t just another bad guy then.”

And Fred remained rather quiet for the rest of the night. He was quiet enough for everyone who knew Fred Weasley to be worried about him, but luckily, people probably just thought that he was shocked that a Malfoy saved his life.

But George knew, even though Fred has never told him. He knew all about his twin’s little adventures with you back in school. He knew about Fred’s worries after knowing that the Malfoy’s are death eaters. He knew his brother would secretly read your book. And he knew that you were on Fred’s mind, even after all these years.

------

After the war, you went back to Hogwarts to finish your last year of school. But besides going to classes, you would just hide in your dorm and you would even eat in the Slytherin kitchen instead of going to the Great Hall to avoid seeing anyone.

You couldn’t face the students who lost their families and friends during the war. Whenever they were looking at you, it felt like they were asking you to pay. And you just couldn’t face the Weasleys. After what you’ve done and said, how could you? Those words kept replaying in your head and you already lost counts on how many nights you’ve lost sleep on that matter. 

After you’ve finally finished your seven years of education, you moved to a quiet countryside. You decided that instead of trying to forget, you should learn how to face and live with those memories and that’s why you started to write them down. At first, you could only write some harmless stories from the first or second year at Hogwarts. Then when you got used to pouring your heart out through writing, you started to write about memories about the war. 

But some memories you just couldn’t manage to write down, even though they were haunting you everyday. That was the memories about Fred Weasley. So you decided to not write about the Weasleys at all, pretending like you’ve never met any of them. If you never met him, then there won’t be losing him, right?

You knew that Fred was the only one who could let you be yourself, who could light that fire within you. But now you’ve lost him, you’ve lost that fire, and you’ve lost yourself. 

Fortunately, with the help of time, you were getting better. Especially when Scorpius was born, you felt like you suddenly saw a sense of vitality and liveliness in your life. You wanted to teach him how to love this world, even though you were still learning. You wanted to go on so many adventures with him, even though you were still not brave enough to step out yet.

You also finally decided to organize and publish your memoir. You were still nervous, but you thought you were finally ready to try. 

And this was already 7 years after the war. 

------

It has been 13 years after the war now. For some reasons, Fred was the only one in the family that hasn’t got married yet. He was still working in the Weasleys’ Wizards Wheezes. Their little joke shop has already became the most popular joke shop in the entire European wizarding world with many branch stores. But Fred’s favorite was still the original one located at No.93 Diagon Alley.

It was a lovely Saturday afternoon today, so Fred decided to give himself a break and popped into the Leaky Cauldron.

But as soon as he stepped inside, the sight of a woman with platinum hair at the counter captured his attention. He knew too well who that was.

You turned around a little and Fred saw your face. You were still beautiful, he thought. But the pride and sharpness on your face, which he both loved and hated so much, ceased to exist.

Before Fred could even process his action, he approached you, “What are you looking for, Malfoy?” That was the first words you have ever said to him and he was really surprised that he still remembered that after all these years.

You were startled when you realized it was Fred, but you soon regained your calm. “Weasley,” you nodded at him, “I’m just...waiting for someone.”

He nodded, taking the seat next to you, “So how’s it going?”

“Not much,” you said lightly, “but you must've been busy, with the business going so well.”

“So you’ve been paying attention to me?” he smirked. 

“I don’t have to Fred, the huge figure of you in front of the joke shop is basically screaming for attention every time I stepped into Diagon Alley.” you laughed. Fred’s heart fluttered when he heard you calling his name. It has been too long, but it felt just like the first time.

“Look what I’ve found!” a little boy was screaming and running towards you. Fred couldn’t help but noticed the boy’s platinum hair and grey eyes that matched yours. The boy showed you the fake wand in his hand and you gently combed his hair with your fingers.

“Is that your boy?” Fred asked, feeling unreasonably nervous somehow. So many years have gone by, you were 31 now for Merlin’s sake. Why would he be surprised if you have already got married and had a son.

“Oh no, this is Scorpius, Draco’s son. I’m just here to pick him up for Draco. He’s busy today.”

Scorpius clearly has noticed the man who was talking to his aunt. Suddenly, he looked at Fred surprised with his eyes wide opened and shouted, “You’re the tall, red-headed man that auntie always talks about!”

Now it was Fred’s turn to look surprised. Then he smirked, “So you have talked about me? A lot?”

“Oh please, you’re not the only ‘tall, red-headed man’ in the world alright?” you laughed awkwardly.

“So it must be just another stupid Weasley, ay?” he asked, making use of those once haunting words.

“Yea that’s right! Weasley! Fred Weasley! That’s his name!” Suddenly Scorpius shouted, finally remembered what he was trying to remember this whole time, “You’re the owner of that joke shop! Are you coming up with new products, Mr. Weasley? Can I please take a look at them?”

Fred raised his eyebrows and looked at you without even needing to state his question.

“Oh Merlin, Draco must be waiting for us. We have to go now! Come on Scorpius!” Your cheeks were flushed and you tried to drag poor Scorpius with you as you ran for the exit.

But you heard Fred saying, “I’ve missed you Y/N. It might sound pathetic I know, but I think about you everyday. Merlin, everyday for the past decade! To this point, I’m pretty convinced that you’ve put a spell on me when you left.” 

You thought you could only hear him saying that in your wildest dreams. You turned around, tears were forming in your eyes. Fred was pretty sure that was the first time he has ever saw you cry.

“I’ve missed you too.”

(Part 2) Just Another Weasley

Join my tag list!

[maxwell-grant]

On Lord Hawthorne

A lot of what makes Lavender Jack special to me is the way it’s so masterfully able to create engaging, modern material out of it’s influences, and it’s creation of a genuinely timeless pulp icon that I think should serve as the ideal baseline for any and all creators who want to create stories based on pulp characters, old and new alike, in the future. 

As I make my way through Season 2 and eagerly await Season 3 I’d like to take the time to talk a little about the often overlooked half of the villain duo of Season 1, Lord Hawthorne, and what I think is interesting about him. Out of the many ways pulp heroes have been reimagined into villains over the decades, Lord Hawthorne stands out to me as easily one of the best ones, as a thoughtful take on the Tarzan character.

Spoilers before the cut

The first thing everyone immediately picks about Lord Hawthorne is that he’s Tarzan, with hardly any ifs or buts about it. He’s Tarzan, and we quickly learn that he’s the villain, part of a villain duo with Lady Hawthorne, the real mastermind and kingpin in pearls behind the story’s events. Having Tarzan as the villain n a story that draws from pulp and Edwardian fiction is already an interesting start, as three of the most popular molds from which are pulp heroes are based on, three of the most popular characters as icons, are Tarzan, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Sherlock Holmes, all three of which exist in some capacity in the world of Lavender Jack. The Gentleman Villain, The Great Detective, and The Wild Man.

Lavender Jack, as I’ve mentioned, is based on the Pimpernel, as well as other figures such as Spring-Heeled Jack and Bertie Wooster. Jack draws from icons that largely predate the pulp heroes because, in Schkade’s own reasoning, if you’re going to try and create an authentic pulp hero, it only makes sense to use as a base the characters that largely inspired them, and clearly that worked out very well. Jack is a Pimpernel remodeled and recontextualized into modern sensibilities, into an era of superheroes and webcomics.

In the Great Detective’s case, we have the figure of Madame Theresa Ferrier, who is called into the story by the Mayor to try and solve the mystery of Lavender Jack’s identity. Schkade describes Ferrier as a character that pulls from elements of detectives like Hercule Poirot and C.Auguste Dupin as well as Sherlock Holmes, in particular Jeremy Brett’s later year performances. As he describes:

In the series’ final years, Brett was getting older, sicker, hindered by bipolar medications that sapped his energy and caused him to gain weight, and he used it. His Holmes became a fading, melancholic shadow of his younger self, but with the spark of his brilliance showing through when it counted. I always found that so compelling

Ferrier is repeteadly described in-universe as “The Great Detective”, and she is both the oldest as well as the most brilliant character in the comic. Despite her age, despite her physical complications, and the tragedy that surrounds her love life, she is nonetheless incredibly skilled, strong and resourceful, able to unmask Jack and survive a confrontation with Lord Hawthorne and even nearly beat him. Ferrier draws from the Great Detectives of old, but this is a character that could never be mistaken for any of them. She’s not specifically based on any of them because, as Schkade puts it: “I wanted her to be someone I’d never get to draw in a leading role in most of my work-for-hire jobs”. 

Her role in the comic ends up being one of mentorship to Jack, and despite her age being emphasized as well as the idea of her belonging to an older generation of great heroes that now gives way to the younger and hot-blooded Jack as well as Ferrier’s new partner in Honoria Crabb, Ferrier is very much another great example of where the old meets the new in Lavender Jack. Pulling from the great old archetypes but very much recognizable as her own thing. 

Thing is, when it comes to Lord Hawthorne, we don’t really get that, because Lord Hawthorne isn’t really combining the idea of Tarzan with a splash of something new and outstanding and modern. He really is just Tarzan, and not a terribly layered character at that, for much of the story he’s largely just a voiceless bulldozer who exists to do the dirty work of Lady Hawthorne no matter how dirty. This isn’t at all a criticism, because I think Hawthorne being just Tarzan, with little to no bells and whistles and twists on it, is central to what makes him work not just as a great physical threat Jack must overcome (in a similar way to Bane as both a monstrous powerhouse and also having a strong connection to a powerful pulp hero), but also someone whose tragedy comes to light as we finally learn more about him. The fact that he is monosyllabic and largely devoid of any personal interests or life outside of being muscle for Lady Hawthorne is something deliberate, as outlined in a speech given by another character in Chapter 39

Her world's been changing for years, now. She's taking her place in a wider game. A more nuanced game. And you're still...Why, you're only good for one thing, aren't you? Well, maybe two, you old hound, you.

I know why you spend vast stretches of the year off in that jungle. It's not for sport, it's not to keep your edge...it's because when there's no need to fight, no struggle to win, no enemy...there's just...you.

And you know there's not really anything to you, underneath all those scars and muscles.

No dreams, no warmth, no depth. Nothing to love.

So you stay away...and that way, you can come when she calls you. You can sweep back to Gallery and show up all filthy and draw her into your powerful, savage embrace....and maintain your novelty.

All of this so you'll never have to endure a silent sunday afternoon where there's nothing to do, any no one to kill, and your lady simply...doesn't...need you.

You do know this word, don't you, Hawthorne, old fellow? "Novelty?"

And how does he respond?

Not with a denial, but an affirmation that this is ultimately all personhood amounts to, in his worldview. Just one more thing to be conquered and then used as a club to batter others with. 

The very act of a character questioning their own worth and depth of personality usually tends to be a telling sign that they, in fact, have those things even if they are out of touch with them, but Hawthorne doesn’t particularly rebuff anything Van Lund’s saying. He just reaffirms his title as Lord while threatening him with violence, because violence is all he knows. 

As we later learn, Lord Hawthorne isn’t, in fact, the real Lord Hawthorne, but instead he and his wife usurped the title from the real one as they escaped from the jungle, where he was only known as “the wild man”. A man who’s been forced his entire life to live in a kill-or-be-killed world, to live as an animal in constant conflict with humans, was then captured and then brutally tortured every day for over a month, and then found for the first time someone who treated him with something resembling affection, someone who ultimately turned him into a tool for her evil designs, and he readily accepts this because he has no life, no identity, outside of her. He doesn’t even know his own name.

In fact, for all we know, he might as well be John Clayton himself, except he was born in a world where being Tarzan is not the greatest thing ever and there was no Jane or ape mother to guide his malleable heart into something resembling good, and there was only Sarah to mold him into an instrument of murder at his lowest point.

I argue that Tarzan is a character that’s all about freedom and vitality, as a heroic take on an archetype that’s long been the missing link between superheroes and monsters, where the dual nature of mankind between person and ape acts not as a disorder or source of conflict but instead as the ultimate power fantasy in a character who gets the best of both with none of the downsides. Lord Hawthorne isn’t necessarily a return to form, because there is no dual nature to him. There is no gentleman, no Lord Greystoke descendant of nobility, romantic hero and great adventurer and leader of men and whatnot. There is only the ape, and what little façade has been grafted onto him by his master so he can pass off as a person, only long enough until he takes his shirt off and starts murdering people for her. While we get long extended close-ups of the icy cruelty in Lady Hawthorne’s eyes, there is none for Lord Hawthorne, because he is not cruel, he is an animal. He’s not a fighter, he’s a survivor. He lives to kill and serve the person who tells him who or what to kill. 

Lord Hawthorne is what happens when you strip the Tarzan legend of the romanticism of fiction and you look at it for what it would likely result in: the tragic story of a child forced to grow in the jungle, where the concept of personhood and human decency are utterly meaningless and there is only survival, where his existence is at odds with the worlds of man and animal alike, and what happens when that sort of being receives a first contact with something resembling decency and love. Even if said first contact wasn’t with someone as evil as Lady Hawthorne, there was little chance Lord Hawthorne’s life was ever going to be anything other than just an extension of his life in the jungle, or end in anything other than tragedy, and ultimately even the characters start to pity the wild man.

Jack: All that power and stamina and fighting acumen, but yet all you seem to get to use it for is...this. Another laborious climb to another locked-room murder.

Ferrier: You've long passed the point where human lives hold any meaning. You are detached from our species, a...a stranger, loose among us. I thought the sight of you would stir distain in me, or even fear...but as I look at you now...I feel for you only the strangest sort of pity.

What I like most about Lord Hawthorne as a take on Tarzan is that, far too often, we see intended “deconstructions” or reinterpretations of the classic pulp heroes, or even superheroes, that largely just make them villainous by extrapolating the worst possible interpretations of the character’s traits or real-life circumstances around them to villainize them, or outright invent faults and problems that weren’t there in the source material, usually to put one character over the other. The entirety of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is built on this, as is a lot of Superman parodies built on getting the most graphically shocking results possible. 

I'll admit it’s somewhat hypocritical of me to criticize this entirely, because it’s an impulse that I sadly admit I myself have fallen into in my own writings on characters not my own, as anyone who’s ever talked with me about Doc Savage, a character I do not like and cannot bring myself to like, can testify. I get why this happens, even if I understand why it’s shitty. Ultimately, the best “deconstructions” or reinterpretations will always come from people who are best familiar with the material they are using and know exactly the best ways to twist it, like with Mark Waid’s Irredeemable, an Evil Superman comic written by a huge Superman fan who knows exactly the absolute worst ways a Superman character can go sour, and was leagues ahead of works like The Boys and Brightburn who largely just take the “easy” pot shots. 

With Lord Hawthorne, we get a character who’s an evil take on Tarzan, but whose evilness isn’t made from exaggerating or adding faults to the source material character, which could very easily be done. I never got the sense that the author hates Tarzan and wants everyone to hate Tarzan and is willingly to sacrifice immersion just to get across how much he hates Tarzan (again, something LOEG does way too often), in fact it really doesn’t matter how the author feels about Tarzan, because those feelings are irrevelant to what’s on the page. 

Instead, Lord Hawthorne is an evil take on Tarzan whose characterization is largely based on just looking at the source material, the character’s origins, and extrapolating the circumstances in which that could go sour. What would a “wild man” forced to grow up and fight for survival every day in the jungle look like, what would that person look like when making it’s first contact with human affection, how could that person be twisted and manipulated into becoming a villain, what’s even left to that person outside of violent action scenes. How little it would take to twist a childhood hero into a brute that murders old women in their hospital beds, just by tweaking a few details about the context surrounding him. 

He is not a caricature of Tarzan, he’s not a parody, he is just Tarzan, but no longer the power fantasy. No longer the center of fantastical adventures. No longer getting the best of both worlds, but instead having to contend with the worst of them. Ultimately only finding some dignity in death, with his nemesis expressing hope that, maybe somewhere else, he’s going to have better luck than what this world afforded him.

[mc-critical]

Would you agree that it’s almost impossible for motherhood in the harem to not be toxic to some degree? Especially so in mother-daughter relationships, but still prominent in mother-son relationships as well. (Also I’m not making this observation about harem motherhood to say that harem fatherhood is a lesser evil or non-toxic. If anything it’s even more toxic and damaging..especially given that it was such a norm for fathers to kill their children and feel completely justified in doing so, but that’s a discussion for another day.) I’ve observed this in almost every mother in the series. With Hafsa and her daughters (remember Sah at Mihrimah’s wedding talking about how her mother forced her and all of her sister’s to marry, and based on what it sounded like, at an extremely young age against their will), with Halime and Dilruba (Halime was geniunely okay with the possibility that Dilruba might die after Kösem kidnapped her if it meant sparing Mustafa’s life), with Hürrem and Mihrimah (forcing her to marry Rüstem at 17 years of age and using manipulation for years to keep her daughter in an unhappy marriage). The list goes on and these are just a few examples but I can’t not see a pattern here. Even with their princes there was the constant forcing a love-interest for upon their sons (Mahidevran I believe forced Fatma on Mustafa if I remember correctly? My memory is spotty there so tell me if I’m wrong) or eliminating their sons love interests in often brutal ways if it was self-serving (Hürrem killing Beyezeid’s harem to cover up Huricihan’s murder.) I almost believe there is no way for motherhood/fatherhood to be completely healthy in an enviornment like the harem especially given the examples.

Yes, I definetly agree with you on this one. It's truly almost impossible for mothers to not be toxic in some way in the environment that is the harem, because so much of it is dedicated on perpetuating such toxic behavior in both the dynastic and non-dynastic sultanas.

The first and foremost thing a woman who has just entered in the harem has to think about is how to survive, how to lend in a more comfortable position. And the first step in doing that is going to a halvet and bearing a child from the sultan. But that's not so easy, since she both has to make a solid impression and fight so many rivals on the way. The harem encourages competitiveness, putting people against each other for a single goal and the ambition to climb yourself as high in the hierarchy as you can, all of which leads to constant stress, paranoia and opportunism. As we see with so many characters and their arcs throughout the series, the longer you get to be in the harem, the longer you adapt to the system (which is a central theme of the franchise for a reason), the longer you endure, you just get used to it and at many aspects, absorb it. It's only natural at this point this would transfer to the children of the mothers, as well, because they are not only children, they are, as sad and unfortunate as it is, the keys to both full survival and success in the harem that can turn into tools for their mothers to mould when it's necessary. Because these mothers perfectly acknowledge that they aren't alone. When you bear a child, you do get to have a sense of comfort, but that comfort is only temporary and by the realization that there are other mothers with other children that will turn into deadly rivals for your own child, it slowly transitions into the next phase of the game of life in the harem: the fight for the throne where you have to fight harder than ever, actually. The most difficult part of it all seems to be just beginning and you have to use your best virtues as a player in the harem to win the war the system put you into. And a healthy relationship with your children, as we know it, sadly isn't a part of that.

There is this one exact aspect of the toxicity of some mothers you referred to here that comes more due to the exertion of the "mother knows best" attitude. No matter how many allies and supporters their one prince, in example, has, the mother is the one who would always vouch for him and would never turn his back on him, if only they're their ticket to more piece or that they've truly come to love him as they should. The system demands of the mother to raise the prince the best way she knows how and gain as much political advantage as she can, that including all these infamous political marriages. The mothers have to at least give their children sound advice of all things and that's what they also become used to, more or less. And them having these obligations, in a way, to their children, along with having gone through what they have in the harem, all make them believe that their children don't know better. They're the ones that have gone through this and have to stay strong and act pragmatically, not these children that have yet to find out what is going on. And even when they grow older, there is this decent possibility they won't realize the stakes of the game. MCK Bayezid is the most notorious example, with him living a fairly comfy life under Kösem's care when it comes to this that only vanished after Gülbahar came to the castle and he became the favourized heir of the throne and yet, Gülbahar still had to constantly remind him for so long that "he's the center of the fire" and that "they're in a war". MC Mustafa often refused to make pragmatic decisions that would've basically spared his life. Hürrem literally tells Cihangir that he shouldn't meddle in these things, because she knows better and thinks he can't tell the difference from right and wrong. So the mothers usually consider themselves forced to make the hard decisions instead of them, trying to keep all aspects of their life in check. That's why they meddle so much in their love lives, as well, along with their personal opinion and bias for the women they chose to be with, of course. Mahidevran and Valide wanted to marry Mustafa and Aybige for both reasons - Mahidevran both doesn't like Efsun and found the upper hand in a marriage with Aybige. {though it is important to note that Mahidevran specifically monitors Mustafa's love life because of the fear of the possibility of the next Hürrem, too, whose arrival and tradition breaking in the castle are still very deep wounds for her. She got over that eventually with Rumeysa and Mihrunnisa, but it was there and it was really showing at first. She sent Fatma to a halvet in E50 with the intent to distract Efsun away from Mustafa, but when Efsun was already dead, Mahidevran was strictly against all her attempts to sabotage the other concubine Mahidevran was sending and win Mustafa over and even decided to not send her to Manisa exclusively for that, disguising it with that she currently needs her in the castle.} I'm taking about the princes, but it obviously applies to the daughters, too, of course, especially Mihrimah, who also had a long way to go until she figured out what is the game all about and even then that only worked when it was connected to the protection of the family and Hürrem knew it. And while the daughters are perceived to have "less value" than the princes, bound to become sultans, as seen with Halime's relationship with Dilruba, they still play a significant part in the game and help the princes gain yet more security and the mothers influence the matters much more through the vezier or pasha the daughter has married. And it's as important to find the proper candidate, which is why Hürrem was against Taşlicalı and she broke her promise to marry Mihrimah to the person she loved. Leave it to the mothers to make the opportunistic choices that their grown-up children sometimes won't be able to make.

The fight for survival also triggers severe amount of protectiveness that plays a part in the toxicity of the mothers. They always have to keep an eye on the children, because there is the possibility of someone trying to attack them or someone else to try taking advantage of them, which is why, as well as attempting to dictate their actions, they always want to track every single move the sons and/or daughters make in order to dictate their actions. There is this prominent fear of backstabbing, betrayal and murder attempts that just can't let these mothers think or act otherwise.

It's tricky because even though some of them get so engrained into this it becomes a personality trait of theirs or apply personal gained bias when they embrace their toxic motherhood traits, they try their best to maintain cordial relations with their children and show them their genuine affection. There are so many profound mother-son and mother-daughter relationships that are either incredibly interesting on their own, either have so many human interactions with their sons or daughters, in spite of the circumstances. And in the case of, say, Halime and Mustafa, but almost all these relationships qualify, the huge amount of such interactions creates a very fine line between the tender affection and the toxicity the system causes them to show, which is why maybe it could be missed to an extent, but the narrative still does its best to make it obvious enough. It's so sad and chilling that the life in the harem just won't let healthy dynamics in general and if one starts to think for a second that the children may be an exception because they are the closest link to their mothers and the ones most likely to reveal their humanity, it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. The system leaves nothing and no one untouched.

It becomes even tougher when, knowing the law of Fatih, a mother has to choose between her princes in the inevitable scenario where only they are the only heirs of the throne left. There every possible ounce of a healthy dynamic leaves much faster than usual, because the mothers have to realize sooner or later that they do actually have to make a choice. They love them all with the bottom of their hearts, but there is only one more fit to rule. And there is never a guarantee that the "chosen" or the only surviving prince will never dare to think about executing the law. That choice seems ludicrous, because how would a mother choose from her own children? This conflict is icredibly exploited through Hürrem in S04. She undergoes a subtle arc that has her deal with this precise moral dilemma. It tore apart her belief that the fight would be over after Mustafa's death and all her flaws in terms of Selim and Bayezid's parenting came back to her, with her seeing the problems and inevitable power struggle between them in their fullest power. She couldn't bring things back now, for their conflict had already gone too far. So she goes through fairly lengthy denial of the choice at hand and tries her best to search for a peaceful solution, for both of them to be able to "coexist", but she eventually realizes that this wouldn't be possible and when she did, it was way. too. late. And Hürrem had her preferred candidate for the throne regardless, so when you face that struggle as a mother, it's impossible for your relationship with your children to not be toxic in a way. And I know many mothers out there would relate with Hürrem's internal conflict when it came to this, because no matter how much they've adapted to the circumstances, these are their children, aren't they? The children of their own blood they cared for their whole life up to that moment! How damaging would that be for a mother? Kösem as a mother faced an even more extreme display of this, because she had too many princes and a son on the throne; she not only had to choose between them, she had to eliminate them as a desparate, but apparently necessary measure - she had presumably won, but then she came to realize that her son couldn't rule the country and didn't listen to any advice. As I've said before, her whole S02 arc was her coming to terms that she had to eventually eliminate him, for he stands against not only the country, but her as a representation of said country. She infamously sealed the pact to kill Ibrahim also because he apparently wasn't fit for the country. That tore her apart, but she did it anyway. In her time period, I dare say it's even harder to not have some kind of toxicity present in the mother's relationship with her children, because of its more dynamic rhythm and the ways of ruling in it where women, which are naturally mothers, too, are at the peak of their power and are way more likely to do stuff for its sake alone than in Süleiman's time. So we could argue that it's not only impossible for mothers not to show toxicity in the harem, but that toxicity increased as the franchise progressed, cementing the core contrast between MC and MCK: power for the sake of personal motives vs. power for the sake of power. That obviously has to impact the mothers, for they truly are the main players in this whole game.

I can't lie that it's more probable for the dynastic sultanas (that are not daughters of the sultan) to not show toxicity to their children, since they don't really have that survival fight in front of them and they have to build their families, live in a castle with them and that's about it, but then another problem arises - they have grown in the harem, they have grown with this toxicity. They have been taught this their whole life. They and their children can't exactly have healthy relationships, because the established hierarchy in the harem and the positions of these mothers are stopping them. They are gonna live with the mindset that the son is more important than the daughter (we have Hatice wanting her first baby to be a son) and even if the child is a girl, they would be constantly reminded of their social standing, that they have the blood of the dynasty. Yes, this is way less toxic, but could still bring problems and can't be healthy in a literal sense. Not to mention that ambition within a member of the dynasty isn't a concept to be discarded - Şah Sultan is the perfect example of this, with her wanting to marry Esmahan to Bali Bey, not just because her daughter is okay with this, but also because that marriage would be useful to her goals. Esmahan being the one who proposed it in the first place (as far as I recall?) and her wanting to put it in motion a lot, was only sheer luck.

Motherhoods in the harem are indeed fascinating, but toxic in one way or another. There is a clear pattern in all these relationships that is bound to show itself at some point and the fight for survival may cause mothers to put their own needs above the ones of their children's. And that kept going on and on for the longest time. There's so much humanity in these relationships, but a considerable amount of toxicity, too, that I blame mostly on this gross system.

[Fatherhood in the harem is truly even more toxic, destructive and even dangerous in many areas. Most fathers we've seen in the franchise are sultans and the sultans are notorious with their relenting paranoia of betrayal that manages to go over their own heads. I can go on and on how the same paranoia screwed every single sign of a healthy dynamic between a father and a son especially, rendering it totally nonexistent in a while, but that's truly a post for another day.]