#when the emperor mentioned wishing it had a brain I was so sad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sepublic · 4 years ago

Text

Analyzing Ordinary

I notice how she looks at me

But I pretend that I don’t see

It’s easier if I let the tension subside

We’ve got Luz being willfully ignorant of Amity’s longing looks, no doubt because she doesn’t want to get her hopes up, as if Amity would be interested in someone like HER, because Luz still has her issues of self-loathing, of inadequacy… And combined with how much she thinks the world of her friends, she probably sees all of them as being too good for her! Not to mention letting the tension subside could allude to the idea of Luz letting Amity confront her feelings at her own pace, not to mention any reservations about falling in love because she doesn’t want Amity to reciprocate and get in trouble with her parents for it…

I’ve seen it in the books I read

A magic that you cannot see

There’s no limitations

They wear it with pride

But the characters I read never act or look like me

I can’t depend on them to lead me through the right door

Luz has read about it in The Good Witch Azura, not just the idea of being in love, but no doubt a brave and defiant love against what others have to say, and against one’s self-doubts! But Luz not only doesn’t think of herself as being as cool or confident as Azura… But she also knows from firsthand experience that she can’t project her book’s fantasies onto real life, that it’s gotten her into trouble in the past and almost jeopardized relationships!

Luz is afraid that maybe she’s just projecting her books onto her relationship with Amity, imagining romance where there isn’t, and is thus setting herself up for disappointment and possibly making Amity uncomfortable… And even if she SHOULD follow the books’ advice this one time, is Luz good enough to be like Azura, when she knows that in the end she isn’t? Not to mention ‘door’ could be a reference to the portal back home, and Luz feels like if she gets caught up in fantasy and/or following romance as the Azura books guide her to, she won’t ever go back to her ‘rightful place’ in the human world!

And what’s the point of falling when I know I’m only stalling

Cause I have to go back home

Where I’m just one in the herd

Tripping over my words

Trying hard to go with the grain

Keeping the quirks in my brain

There’s the obvious allusion of Luz being resigned to the idea of going back to the human world, because as of now she hasn’t yet aired the idea of simply… staying behind in the Boiling Isles, because she feels beholden to her mother Camila, about whether or not she’d approve, not wanting to reject Camila –especially if Camila makes Luz choose- etc. Not to mention, there’s a pretty obvious reference to Luz being neurodivergent, but at the same time…

I feel this could ALSO apply to ideas of classism, and the Blight Parents’ elitist attitudes! How Luz is probably telling herself that she isn’t good enough for someone of such higher social standing as Amity, someone who was born above her, has worked harder and has ‘proper’ magic… Luz knows her ‘real family’ is either with Camila, or with Eda and the others; It’s not amongst the upper echelons of the Boiling Isles hierarchy, where Amity lives. Luz doesn’t see herself as fitting in with Amity, and she doesn’t want to jeopardize Amity’s life by having the girl fall in love with a ‘commoner’ like her… Especially since Amity is so much more talented, right?

Plus, Amity is aiming to join the Emperor’s Coven, while Luz is actively defying Belos and even fought and wounded him! What if they end up on opposite sides of this conflict, with opposing ideals and beliefs…? Luz doesn’t believe in the Coven System, so why fall for someone who’s going to help enforce it? Those are Amity’s beliefs, not her own… Luz has to stick up for what she knows and believes in, especially after what she and her friends have been through! Not that Amity can be personally blamed for choosing the Emperor’s Coven, but at the same time…

I’m on the brink of discovery I think

But what if I’m dreaming

That’s what it seems like

There’s Luz, discovering her own self-worth, that she’s a lovable person… Discovering actual romantic love with someone she knows, discovering what Amity truly feels like deep down… But on the other hand, maybe she’s just projecting again, or being too wishful? Maybe it’s just like Adegast’s illusions.

Cause this girl thinks I’m part of her world

And that new territory’s scary

If I turn a handle

Am I asking for a scandal?

Should I try to be ordinary?

‘World’ could refer to the Boiling Isles, but it could also refer to Amity’s life in general and her social circles, etc. How Amity thinks Luz really is worth it and good enough for her, risking what her parents have to say! And sometimes Luz isn’t sure if she belongs in either the human world OR the Demon Realm… The idea of being in a romantic relationship is new and unusual to Luz, as is the idea of exploring a crush that could be reciprocated, but also rejected!

Luz is also worried of the ‘scandal’ that will be caused, not just for the potential rift and embarrassment that will ensue if she’s wrong, but again, because she doesn’t want Amity to get in trouble with her parents for falling in love with a ‘lowly human’, a sentiment Luz may secretly, at least partially, agree with. So, should Luz try to be ‘ordinary’, stick with her own ‘level’ of people? Stop trying to project and fantasize and be realistic about the situation?

Not to mention, Amity aims to be a part of the Emperor’s Coven Luz is so against… What if when trying to be with Amity and be good enough for her, Luz gets wrapped up in the Coven System, and falls for its propaganda and elitist ideals? She doesn’t like the Emperor’s Coven and doesn’t want to join it to be with Amity… Can Luz still love Amity while still being so distinctly her own, separate person from everything else that the Blight girl is and aims to be?

And of course, handle… The ‘handle’ to a door, perhaps the portal leading to the demon realm? If Luz continues to stay in the Demon Realm, is she just asking for trouble? If she heads back to the human world, does she end up crushing Amity’s heart? And perhaps the ‘door’ isn’t referring to the portal, but simply the door to Amity’s own world in the Blight Manor.

mmBAAAAAAAAH!

Classic Luz noise.

I’ve always been a little odd

The only pea inside the pod

That’s not an expression I’m guessin’

Oh well

We have Luz not fitting in, not just back home, but also in the Boiling Isles as a human who can’t perform magic the conventional way, as an outsider to the Coven System, AND Luz also not being of the ‘upper caste’ that the Blights belong to. Only pea, only human, only child, etc. Luz is making up words and expressions, she’s always had a unique way of expressing herself, and if the current ways don’t do a sufficient job of capturing herself, then Luz will MAKE her own method of properly expressing who she is! Just as she found a way to do Magic without bile!

See that’s exactly what I mean!

I’m just as awkward as I seem!

Plus she makes me nervous

I hope she can’t tell

Again, Luz’s self-loathing is coming back into play, she’s good at hiding her own insecurities at times, but in the end, while she’s learned and grown so much… Sometimes, the trauma of years of isolation still comes back to bite her. Not to mention, Luz remembering that she doesn’t fit in with Amity’s ‘people’, getting mad at herself for not living up to a certain standard imposed by either society or herself for her friends… Etc. Then we have Luz being nervous about all of the other stuff I’ve mentioned beforehand, and she doesn’t want Amity to notice, not just because having your feelings known is mortifying, but she also needs to be the girl’s ‘fearless champion’!

Not to mention the allusions to Adventures in the Elements and how Luz acted then… Luz is nervous about messing up when she really DOES want another friend, romantic or otherwise! To Luz, she’s already messed up and hurt Amity’s feelings before, and after Amity gave her another chance when she didn’t have to, Luz doesn’t want to appear weak or make Amity doubt in her decision… She wants to validate Amity’s trust by being worthy of her love! Like, she knows the girl already had self-doubt issues already. This is the closest thing she has to a fresh start since the Abomination Incident and Luz wants it to be GOOD.

What is it she sees in this cluster clump of me

Or could it maybe be I’m going crazy?

Once more we have Luz defaulting back to seeing herself as a freak and not being good enough for Amity, especially after all of the times Luz has blamed herself for hurting Amity’s feelings! She doesn’t want to hurt Amity, and that’s even assuming Amity is actually interested in her at all to begin with!

And hey who am I kidding?

This isn’t some sweet beginning

Just a detour to the end!

Once more, we have Luz remembering she needs to go back to the human world/her place in society. None of this is permanent, she has other places she ‘belongs’ to, and it’s certainly not by Amity’s side, even if Amity is always welcome around her… This as far as Luz’s relationship with Amity will go, especially given what the Blight Parents have to say!

[Repeat]

Do I rewind? Induce amnesia?

Pretend I didn’t see her?

Succumb to stupid fear?

We’ve got the obvious callback to Little Miss Perfect, which really ties up how Luz and Amity are two sides of the same coin, but are ALSO struggling with the same issues with coming forward, because they don’t see themselves as good enough for the other, wonder what the other sees in them, if they’re just delusional and/or projecting, not to mention their different places in society and how they’ll both go towards different directions… And it’s silly, these girls are afraid of the same thing and it just goes to show that they really need to believe in themselves more! But it’s also sad, because again, self-loathing. Then we have ‘stupid fear’, which could be a callback to Grometheus, with Luz not facing the challenge of being frank to Camila about where she truly feels at home, ergo she decides to instead just go along with what Camila says, rather than face her fears!

Or just believe in my heart?

Why play a part?

Why follow the herd?

Why not trust in my words?

Don’t wanna go with the grain!

Why try to make myself plain!

I’m on the brink of rediscovery I think!

So what if I’m dreaming?

I like the scene that I’m in!

Finally, we have Luz practicing self-love and belief in herself! Why bother playing a part, in either the human world or the Coven System (especially since she already attacked Belos)?! She’s defying her previous doubts about where she ‘really’ belongs, because Luz belongs with those she loves and vice-versa, and no social class will stand in the way of that! And if Luz can trust in her words to cheer up and inspire others, if they can trust in what Luz has to say… Maybe she can finally take her own advice to heart for herself?

So why bother? Why bother trying to stick to her place in society, why not stand out and reach a hand to where Amity is, not just to be with her, but to ALSO be a powerful Witch in her own right! Luz is rediscovering who she is, her placement in this world, her relationship back home and with her mother, her feelings towards Amity and vice-versa, magic in general… There’s so much more to do and explore, why go back on that now? She’s always been a curious soul!

And so what if Luz is dreaming? Even if one needs to be wary of confusing dreams with reality, it’s important to still have SOME fantasies, that sometimes it’s not about being realistic or being pragmatic, or doing the ‘useful’ thing, it’s about pursuing who you want to be and being happy with it! That’s what Eda taught her, and we see how unhappy Willow was when trying to be in the Abomination Track with its ‘more opportunities’.

Not to mention, this line could also be in defiance to how the Reality Check summer camp and others before have accused Luz of being delusional, of no doubt being too much in her head and hyper-fixations… But what’s wrong with that, really? What’s wrong with being neurodivergent, and passionate into one’s interests? Luz likes the Boiling Isles, she likes her friendship with Amity, she likes who she is and she doesn’t care what others have to say! If she can defy Belos, she can defy the Blight Parents!

And this girl is a part of this world

The thought of being normal’s far more scary

I’ll be brave and I’ll be kind

I’ll make a choice and change my mind

I will mess up all the time

They’ll say I’m weird but I’ll be fine

I’ll be anything but ordinary!

Once more, Luz sees Amity is not just a part of the Boiling Isles, but a part of the found family she feels happy and accepted in! After seeing what conformity has done to others, after witnessing what it was like back home, the idea of losing all that is too much for Luz! Luz will be brave, not just for others but for herself, she’ll be her OWN fearless champion!

She’ll make a decision and change her mind on herself as a lowly person who isn’t worth it, as someone who needs to go back to the human world… Plus, Amity’s ‘world’ could also be her place with the Blight Parents and the Emperor’s Coven, which Luz KNOWS is toxic for her, and she’s seen what it does to others- So if she’s so against the system for this, why not go in and try to save Amity from it as well?

Amity being brainwashed like your typical EC witch is far scarier than any pain of rejection that Luz may have; She needs to do this for Amity, too! Being in subservience to her parents and/or Belos is NOT something Amity deserves, and as her fearless champion, Luz will protect Amity!

And Luz knows she’ll make mistakes. She knows she’ll ‘mess up’ in the sense that she’s neurodivergent, that she won’t be doing things the proper way for either world she’s a part of… That things will be messy, that she’ll do the ‘impractical’ thing and go by her emotions, instead of just being ‘smart’ and keeping her head down, and not defying the natural order or whatever.

She’ll make mistakes, and that’s okay, Luz isn’t a terrible person just because she isn’t perfect, that yes she HAS hurt Amity in the past, but that doesn’t mean she can’t make a change, especially not when she’s already done so much for Amity otherwise, especially not when even someone like Lilith can begin making amends! Not to mention, mistakes are an outlet for learning… Luz is learning not to be overly-critical of herself, as she was no doubt taught by a school system that punished her neurodivergence.

Luz knows that she’ll never be ‘perfect’, that even if she does improve herself, she’ll still screw up here or there in her relationships and whatnot… But if she can be forgiving of the mistakes of others, why not her own? Especially when others feel the same! And others may say she’s weird, but you know what? Considering others’ ideas of what conformity means, maybe that’s a good thing!

And Luz has always known that her rightful place wasn’t with ‘the herd’, but with her own weird, outcast group of weirdoes! It’s who she really is, and being weird is Luz embracing herself and her identity! Quite frankly… She’ll be anything but ordinary, because whatever she is, whatever the potential she has, and there’s SO MUCH of it…

It’s definitely not going to be the person she used to be, or who others wanted to be! And even if Amity doesn’t reciprocate her romantic feelings, well. Luz still learned to defy a ‘natural order’ in the end, as she always will! She’ll still be friends with Amity. And she’ll still be someone who can believe in herself, so why not? Why NOT give it a try?

#the owl house #owl house #lumity #the owl house ordinary #the owl house luz #luz noceda #the owl house amity #amity blight #little miss perfect #joriah kwame

234 notes · View notes

talas-starlight · 4 years ago

Text

Killing me softly - Sokka x reader

SUMMARY: Having only heard good things about Sokka, you always wanted to see how great he is for yourself. When you finally get the opportunity, you struggle to find him as funny as everyone said.

This is based off the song killing me softly by the fugees which you can listen to: here! or there is a version by zhavia: here!

I strongly suggest you listen to the song because I think the whole vibe you get from it will get you in the mindset for this (and hopefully distract you from how poorly this was executed AHAH)

WORD COUNT: 2.6k

WARNINGS: angsty vibes. tried to have a hopeful ending but idk if it worked lol. poor writing skills.

A/N: ahA I really couldn’t get this idea out of my head so here we are! most certainly did not do this concept/ song fic justice to the way I imagined it but lol this shit low key hurted my feelings but also tried to turn it around? Idk I think this is okay?

KEY: words in-between dividers = lyrics MY MASTERLIST: here!

I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style And so I came to see him, to listen for a while And there he was, this young boy, a stranger to my eyes

You knew nothing and everything about him all at the same time. Hakoda allowed you to join them as they recruited people across the nations to prepare for invasion day. In doing so, you unknowingly signed a non-verbal contract to hear all the stories and jokes about his son, Sokka. Of course, he spoke highly of his daughter, but there was an unrelenting sense of pride and joy that came with hearing about him.

“You’ll really enjoy speaking with him y/n. He can take any dull or sad moment and turn it into something that will make you laugh beyond your years. He’s been through so much, but he’s become the warrior I knew he was always destined to be.”

It was impossible not to want to meet him. You wanted to hear the stories in the flesh as he became the light in the darkness of this war.

Yet when he finally boarded the ship with his friends after Ba Sing Se, that’s all he became, a story. As a mechanic and strategist, your time was booked to the brim, building upon the plans Sokka created himself. Somehow, you managed to have interactions with Katara and Toph, even Momo, but being in the same room as Sokka? Impossible. You weren’t avoiding him by any means, and neither was he, it just seemed that even when confined to the space of a ship your duties dragged both of you into different directions…. Until now.

Finally having time to relax as you finished reviewing a draft for one segment of the invasion, you made your way mess hall in a desperate search to consume any food you could get your hands on. Walking in, Toph perked up at feeling your presence when entering the room. Considering you were always busy when working on something and she was not too chatty, you got along well with minimal conversations and comfortable silence.

You grab a bowl, filling it to the brim with fresh soup and sat at their table across from her. Feeling content as you feel the soups warm and wholesome scent fill your senses, you glance around to see who else is sitting at the table. Eyes zeroing in on Sokka’s frame at the other end of the table, your breath instantly hitches. Suddenly your face feels as warm as your soup, and you want to kick yourself for letting yourself be so affected just by your incredibly short glance at him. Shifting your focus back to your soup you make the painfully obvious decision to focus all of your attention towards it, only listening to their interactions around you. You reminded yourself that you didn’t truly know him, only what everyone else has told you. You knew better than to let yourself become a total fool for the Watertribe boy without having any proper interactions with him. Hence, you’d be lying if you said you weren’t at the edge of your seat in anticipation to see Sokka joke around and tell stories with your friends. After all, that is what you were told about from the moment you met his father.

Strumming my pain with his fingers (one time, one time) Singing my life with his words (two times, two times) Killing me softly with his song Killing me softly with his song Telling my whole life with his words Killing me softly with his song

The excitement quickly dissipated when he began to dive into this evenings’ jokes and anecdotes.

“Guys! You wouldn’t believe it!! I was exploring the ship after training today, and I found all of these Fire Nation scrolls about their art and folktales in one of the rooms, and let me tell you, it’s a load of shit!”

As everyone laughed, you momentarily stopped breathing. Your entire being began to fold into itself, terrified at the prospect of him taking all of the things you favoured about your childhood and rip them to pieces.

Katara attempted to see the light in his statement. “Come on Sokka it can’t be that bad! I mean even the Watertribe has some questionable stories, I remember even the one Gran Gran told was a bit-“

“No, Katara! This is by far soooo much suckier than those stories. Okay, so there’s this one about dragons right? What happens is that there’s this Dragon Emperor who becomes bound to a mortal’s body by a Dark Water Spirit. So obviously! I was expecting this super cool battle or revenge plot, but in the end, they turned it into this lame love story where the Dragon Emperor falls in love with a mortal who turns out to be the Dragon Empress!”

“Aw I think that’s sweet! I mean surely there would have been a battle with the Dark Water Spirit so it wouldn’t have been a total loss?”

“Ugh, Katara! You don’t get it! It's just… sooooo oogie! They shouldn’t have done that. It should have been a story about battle, and warriors! I mean come on, that’s all the Fire Nation is good for right? Destruction and battle. So why did they have to ruin that story like that with all of that lovey stuff?! It just seems like nothing good can ever come out of the Fire Nation.”

Taking another mouthful of the soup, you kept your face downward as everyone laughed at Sokka’s exclamation of hatred for the nation you grew up in. No one knew where you grew up there except Hakoda, and you liked it that way. In complete fairness to you, it wasn’t your entire identity since your mother was from the Earth Kingdom, and you only spent the first seven years of your life there. But that didn’t mean it hurt any less when he tore apart the only things you dearly loved as a child.

Toph sensing your discomfort as you didn’t join in their amusement, she swiftly diverted the conversation into a new direction. While you were grateful, the thought of being in his presence any longer made you want to cry. It clearly didn’t work either as he continued to joke around about the food and other small things he picked up about the nation throughout their journey. Silently finishing up, you didn’t say a word or even give a half-hearted smile as they all laughed. Placing your bowl in the sink, you headed straight to your room.

The actions made everyone at the table confused, yet no one spoke out about it. Afterall, no one really knew you personally, nor did they understand what caused you to cut your interaction with them so short. Sokka himself became particularly curious. Afterall just like you, he heard many great things about you from his father, admiring your kindness and work ethic from afar. So, to say he wasn’t hurt that you chose not to stay longer or even crack a genuine smile, would be a lie.

Making it to your room, you took out any piece of paper or a scroll you used for your plans and began to pour out your pain onto to pages until you passed out from exhaustion. Not caring what contents were on the other side, you allowed yourself to be unfiltered.

You knew Sokka didn’t mean any harm; everyone laughed. He became the light you oh so desired to witness for yourself. Deep down, you knew you would have laughed too if it weren’t for the fact that he took the few happy memories you had with your father and set it on fire. A fire that produced the light you wished to see… but it seemed it wasn’t in the right way you hoped for.

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on

You sighed as you finally finished fixing the pipes in the lower decks of the ship, once again tired and done with today’s work, you went to the mess hall for a late dinner.

“Hey Hakoda, I finished the plumbing problem so no one on the second floor should have any troubles now.”

“Thanks, y/n! You really are such a valuable person in this team. You’re always making sure everything is up and running.”

“Of course! What would you do without me? After all, let’s not forget how I spend my free time with your invasion plans.” You joked.

Turning your back to him to scoop some food onto your plate, he spoke up from behind you. “Oh right! That reminds me, I mentioned your ideas to Sokka earlier, and he seemed to really like them! But Sokka being Sokka, he got so excited over them and asked so many questions I didn’t even know how to respond. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know he’s probably at your desk analysing all of your scrolls right now. That kid never seems to be able to contain his excitement.”

“Yeah, that’s oka-“abruptly, you dropped your plate as your brain processed the information. If he was looking at your plans, then that meant……

Not even giving the Watertribe chief another glace or end to your response, you ran. Taking the fastest route to your room, everything in your mind and your surroundings became blurred, and you became hyper-focused on the fact that Sokka probably found what you wrote about him. Desperately trying not to cry as you bumped into people in the hallways, you couldn’t think of anything worse to happen in this very moment. The very idea of him knowing how you felt about him as well as how his words affected you made you want to scream. Maybe if you got there in time, he wouldn’t have read enough to understand your feelings fully. But when you bust through your door, it was too late. Sokka stood near your desk, with all the scrolls you ever wrote on scattered around the room. Some lay on your bed, the floor, across the desk, and even one in his hands.

“M- my dad said that you had a lot of perfect ideas for the invasion. B- but I- I found… I never thought…” His eyes never met yours as he continued to read the current scroll in his hands.

You slowly approached him, not caring as you walked over every word you wrote on the floor. “Sokka…” You silently begged him to stop reading, unsure of its contents.

He kept reading clearly in shock at the words before him, “why didn’t you s-say something?”

You sighed, somewhat unsure of how to approach the situation. “It’s not my place –“

He threw the scroll to the ground, finally looking up at you with bloodshot eyes as tears streamed down his face. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S NOT YOUR PLACE Y/N! It is your place! You had… no, you HAVE every right to say something! You sat there that night as I picked away at every single thing you ever loved, and you didn’t say a thing! Why would you let me do that to you!” Sobs wracked his body, falling to his knees in front of you. Torn apart on the inside about how much he hurt you. He never wanted this to happen, not just because of his small crush on you- that didn’t matter at this very moment. The very idea that he hurt someone who was so kind and selfless as a person, ruined him.

Beginning to feel immensely guilty for his current state, you knelt down to his level. Placing your hands to his wrists, you gently moved his hands away from his face. “Sokka… hey, Sokka look at me…”

As he looked at you, you struggled to keep your composure as tears began to fill your own eyes.

“It’s okay. What you said hurt, I don’t need to explain that for you to know it. Even though it felt like a small dig into who I am as a person and what I grew up to love, it’s true. What the Fire Nation did, what they are doing is awful, but I can’t speak up to defend them. I am in many ways apart of them. I grew up there, I celebrated their holidays, cooked and ate their food, and read their folktales. As much as I hate what the words ‘Fire Nation’ symbolises to the rest of the world, to you, it’s a part of who I am. No one can take that away from me, not even myself. Despite how much it hurt me, I can’t get mad at you or anyone because your feelings, and everything you said, is valid.” Moving his arms out of your grasp, he wrapped himself around you, holding you close to his chest.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to hear that, you’re amazing y/n. You deserve to be treated with the kindness and love you give to everyone on this ship. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m going to be better, I promise. I promise.” Overcome with emotion, the tears you tried so hard to hold back burst at his words.

Neither you nor Sokka bothered to move from your intertwined embrace on the floor of your room. You were both a sobbing, crying mess. The pain from both of you suffocated the air around you as you cling onto one another for forgiveness.

Forgiveness for being from the very place that caused him so much pain.

Forgiveness for being unable to embrace so much of who you are.

The pain was unrelenting as he weaved his fingers through your hair, shifting so your noses’ and foreheads against one another as he whispered words begging for forgiveness. Wishing, praying, to the Spirits he could take it all away. Sokka’s heart burns from the raging pain that has awoken inside of him. He doesn’t stop running his fingers through your hair almost as if he can stroke away the broken pieces inside of you, looking for new ones underneath so he can start again. Because despite his resentment for where you came from, he knows that to him, you are like a divine angel. You both have your own complex and conflicting backgrounds of life, but he has a desperate desire to care for you in a way he will never be able to explain.

You wanted to lie to him. Say it didn’t hurt, say you could forget. You could do it easily, but you wouldn’t. Knowing you both suffered enough, you didn’t want to do something that could potentially cause each other more pain. This was enough. As you both continued to cry, holding one another with his hands still in your hair, you leant back slightly, bringing a shaky, tender hand to his cheek.

Looking up into his eyes, it’s awfully evident how much pain swims in his beautiful shades of blue. Yet, there seems to be an unspoken understanding as you see a small glimmer behind all the tears. The light you have been yearning for. He sees it in your eyes too. Neither of you can change or take back what’s already been said, but in this very moment there’s hope. You know you can move forward and heal together.

“We’re going to be okay.”

A/N: hi friends!! I hope you liked this one 😊

TO THE TAGLIST: hi all! i was a bit torn on what to do here because i wasn’t sure if you all only wanted to be tagged in my zuko series or my other works as well?? so im so sorry if you didn’t want to be tagged in this so please just let me know if you’d only like to be on the list for the series, zuko, sokka or other characters in general :)

TAGLIST: @slythergirlimagines @mangoberry43 @eridanuswave @whiskeywinter89 @kaylove12 @simplyfandomish @khaleesi-of-assassins @callums-keith @ilovespideyyy @calciumcow @blackhood5sos @nnon-it-up

112 notes · View notes

sketch--booked · 4 years ago

Text

Who Said You Were A Ninja?

WHOO HOO take a depressing thing I wrote in 3 hours with no plan because I wanted to vent ghghghg

Post season 11 content right here, good ol’ Zane an his trauma If i miss a trigger just tell me I’ll add it to the warnings 👌

TW - Blood, Self-deprecating thoughts, Entirely sad, Traumatic memories, Torture?? I’ll put it in there just in c a s e?? It’s mentioned.

What words does he use to describe his emotions? Conflicted? Suppressed? A sense of comfort heavier than the actual weight he has to carry? Because all of those come so close and yet so far to what he feels. He knows he can explain it, just not with words.

He can put it into code, a language he understands better than anyone. He can see how anyone feels through code. But no one else can see how he feels through it.

Useless.

One of himself thinks.

A machine he might be, but was he not built to emulate life? He should know how to express these thoughts and yet he doesn’t. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe he doesn’t want to express himself. Maybe he wants to stay cooped up in his room and do nothing. But He spent so long doing nothing already. It’s too close for comfort. He’s too close to Him. That man--No, not a man-- That monster, worse than a monster, that he still felt lurking in his mind.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had the thought of putting Him away. Putting Him in a box so he wouldn’t have to remember the things He did. But he already tried that on a different monster.

He was built to be perfect, built to protect, and yet when he now finds himself in a position above another. He’s ready to strike. He’s ready to make them feel as cold as he always was. He never used to feel that. The old Zane could never consider harming another beyond bruises and scratches. So he finds himself between a rock and a hard place when he holds his shurikens above the neck of a petty thief, utter terror reflected in the nindroid’s cold steel glare. That fear. That’s what He’s after. That’s what the Emperor is after.

He and his friends had returned to the monastery that same day Zane had scared a man to near death. No one spoke to him. And he spoke not, to the silence.

Zane only retreated to his room, his solace, his peace. Making dinner was not his responsibility for the night, nor was it a necessity to eat, only a privilege. A privilege He did not have.

So he added to the number of times he took to his room to simply feel. After being brought back to Ninjago after decades in His realm--No, not His realm-- The Never realm, He’d politely requested to not be disturbed if he were to go to his room. Usually, privacy was only a fantasy. They all lived so closely together that simply knocking was unheard of. They quickly began to respect Zane’s wishes when Jay had once disturbed Zane after a, particularly draining mission. The Lightning menace could only describe the look his friend had given him as “A look from death itself”.

So here he was, holding his trembling legs in his arms as he curled up in a ball upon his bed.

Two conflicting, tugging sensations pulled at the controls of his brain. A sort of self-hatred, and an icier grip that he would only call a demon of the cold.

It was a justifiable act.

But he was so scared.

Then he won’t do it again.

But that’s not what a ninja does.

Who said you were a ninja?

Twisting. That’s the word he would use to describe his emotions. Maybe they weren’t emotions. They could be described as feelings but not emotions.

Sensations? Not the word either.

Days he’d spent in this loop. Surely his friends would notice soon. If he didn’t pull himself out of the hole he’d dug himself, he’d have a lot of questions without answers that he’d need to not-explain. Does that make sense?

No.

He spent most of his time thinking, looking through his code. He understands code. Human emotions don’t make sense. Sometimes he’d find memories in the incorrect file. Small moments he could easily forget about in their wrong box. He wouldn’t really forget. Perfect memory. That is until people try to change him.

Shivers, not from the temperature, but from recollection, shoot their way through him. Pain. So much pain. He’d been in pain before.

I caused pain too.

An anguished cry escaped him as he throws himself over to the edge of the bed, holding his front like he were about to be sick. He felt so sick. Why those thoughts? Don’t bring back those thoughts!

Too late...

Flash. And there’s a white and blue intensity greater than the sun that abuses his visuals.

Another flash. And a searing violent chill alludes him and makes him feel warm.

A third flash. And the white he found a strange comfort in, turns red. A figure below him.

And another. Cold dead eyes that could rival his own stare vacantly back at him.

It keeps coming. Zane The Emperor descends his throne in a manner equating to that of a predator to its prey.

A final flash. And in the stained red ice below the lifeless figure, he sees his own hideous reflection. He is the Ice Emperor.

Screaming now, he drags himself from His throne room, pulling his shattered mind from those memories. But who is he pulling from the depths? How can he be sure he is himself? How can he be sure he knows who he is when he’s awake if he can’t tell who he is when he’s alone in his sleep?

Torture. That’s another good word for this. It’s torture. But only half of him hurts. It’s the other half that’s doing it. He does this to himself. He knows. But he can’t bring himself to face that monster. He can’t find the willpower to face that demon, the one who plagues his thoughts with blood, with violence, with screams.

It’s the screams that make him feel like crying. He hates the screams, doesn’t he? He hates the fear and agony ripping and reaving at the faces and voices of those who stand before him.

Right?

So if he hates the fear and agony he instills in people, then why does he think back to the petty thief he chased, he mentally and physically scarred, the thief he watched wriggle under his grip as he pressed the blade of the shuriken harder into his neck, as that same red from his memories trickle down and puddle under him.

And smile?

You’re not a ninja.

You’re a tyrant.

#ninjago #ninjago zane #ninjago ice emperor #blood #self depricating #trauma #implied torture #tw #god i don't know how to tag #hghgh just yell at me if i missed something #it's too early for brain to work but i'll get on it #angst #zangst

49 notes · View notes

choco-glow · 4 years ago

Text

Mirjahaal

Quiet statistics in red, cold, unfeeling, and climbing, ticked upwards as the clock steadily counted away the minutes, the hours spent sitting here watching the destruction on the holos before her. Senya Tirall, once Knight-Captain of Zakuul, took a long drink of the tihaar in her hand, and swallowed both the burn of the alcohol and the tears she’d been shedding all day, lost in her grief as she watched Vaylin’s path of destruction reach a crescendo. Arcann had, thankfully, left her alone after his first check in when she’d woken up from the burst of power that had rattled the whole galaxy…as had several others.

Hylo had brought her something to eat, at least, and Senya had thanked her blindly, tears hot on her cheeks, and it was Gault who’d brought her the tihaar, quietly and without judgement, much to her relief…but the next person to enter her small room was a surprise, even to Senya. She studied the redhead before her, feeling both unkempt and yet, uncaring at the sight of Mandalore, her helmet on her hip, while Senya was dressed down in an old tunic and her leggings, long hair unwound in soft waves and hanging heavy over one shoulder. Waves Vaylin inherited…oh my daughter…

“…I see where Gault got the good stuff then; I’ll forgive him for stealing it off me this one time.” Senya flushed at that, anger and shame curling in her gut, but Shae simply raised a hand, shaking her head. For all that the woman was a decade older than her, and half a head shorter, she certainly had the presence of a Commander, even more than she herself had. With that, Senya quieted, settling back unsteadily on her small sofa…and Shae set her helmet down, popping off her armor piece by piece until she was down to her soft leatheris gear underneath. The redhead, her blue eyes crinkled with a faint frown, settled on the other end of the sofa and with a flick of the remote, turned off Holonet.

“Mandalore, wait—”

“Shae.” Senya paused, her fear and anger washed away in sudden confusion, and Shae smiled. “Call me Shae. Mandalore is for the battlefield; my name is for my friends.” Senya blinked, feeling a flush touch her cheeks again…but this time for a different reason. Friends…? She could count the number of friends she’d had on one hand, especially now. Usually, it was simply Lana, and occasionally Theron made friendly overtures…but she knew she was too old for their company, and frankly, there was an Alliance to run. But…Shae didn’t make these gestures without reason, the sober, logical part of her brain reminded her, and Senya swallowed the lump in her throat.

“…Shae…why…please, turn it back on.”

“So you can drink yourself to death watching the galaxy burn? Go insane staring at those numbers? No.” Shae shifted, and handed her a flask; Senya took it, but paused, and Shae chuckled. “Go ahead, that’s safe to drink. It’s known as a kolto-banger or koltoshot, we use ‘em to sober up every time. They aren’t the greatest tasting, but they’re easy on the body and you’ll feel better for it. Not to mention it staves off hangovers better’n anything else we’ve tried.”

“…Well, I suppose the Clans would know what works best.” Shae grinned at that, and Senya swallowed the liquid down, grimacing at both the taste and the texture.

“Like fish slime and toothpaste, ain’t it?”

“Ugh, worse, somehow…but you’re right, I feel better…and the aftertaste isn’t nearly as bad.”

“No, it’s something somesuch to do with the stomach acid and other crap I never bothered to learn about; Oggurobb could tell you, but who’d wanna listen that long? Drink some water too with it, you’ll feel better.” Senya obeyed, grateful suddenly for Shae calling the shots; that no-nonsense voice was…calming in a way that Senya hadn’t appreciated much until now. Shae’s smile was softer now, but she seemed to settle into the sofa more, clearly here for the long-haul, and with the Holonet staying off…Senya sighed a little.

“…You want me to talk about this, don’t you…”

“As one mother to another…yes. I do. I can’t stop you from beating yourself up about the past, no, but I can listen to you work through it. I’ve…made my fair sure of mistakes. I’ve buried two children of my body, dozens more of my soul.”

“…you went through all that alone?” Senya knew she sounded horrified, heartbroken for the Mandalorian, and Shae shook her head, smile growing both fond and sad at the same time.

“Aaray…or'trikar…Pain, grief, they have a way of fading with both time and healing, though the scars never fully disappear. But I had friends, I had Clan, and that was…that helped. Clan Ordo helped me bury my daughters…Clan Fett helped me remember them. Mandalore spoke with me for days on end, guiding me through the morass with a care that so many never would have known in him. And when the night is darkest, I sing the songs of my children and my people, I play the drum, I remember. And then I rest, for the morning to come.” She paused, her voice trailing off…and Senya watched her turn to meet her own eyes again, Shae’s as full of pain as her own heart.

“How in the name of your gods have you been able to endure this alone, Senya?” She froze like a thranta in fear…and felt her already cracked façade shatter into a million pieces. A sob tore through her throat as the tears burst the dam once more, and Shae was across the cushions in a heartbeat, cradling Senya to her chest and wrapping strong arms about her, hoarse voice soft with a kindness that Senya could only distantly hear. “Oh mesh’la, you haven’t…you haven’t…cry it out…”

Shae held her without complaint for what felt like days, weeks, years…Losing Thexan, losing Valkorion, losing Vaylin so many times…losing her Knights, the children she knew she would lose but loving them all the same…losing Arcann, and working so hard to bring him back. She’d welcomed her death then, hoped, perhaps, that it might finally end…But she’d lived. She’d lived and endured, bolstered by the Commander’s kind heart and Oggurobb’s technological wonders…Senya sobbed all of this out, her calm shell utterly crushed into dust beneath her as Shae let her babble and wail, murmuring soft things in both Mando’a and Basic, and a dozen other languages that Senya only half-knew.

And yet…it was exactly what she’d needed.

Finally, finally, the sobs began to abate, the tears drying up because she was frightfully thirsty, her nose a red and snotty mess…and Shae, ever the calm soul, offered her a glass of water, and a handkerchief to blow her nose with. There was no judgement in those eyes, only gentle understanding, and despite her instincts…Senya leaned into the Mandalorian without a second thought, closing her eyes for a long moment to ease the burning. A warm blanket, soft, a gift from the Commander when the woman had learned that Senya had come to Odessen with nothing but the armor on her back, was draped around her, and Senya breathed in the scent of the detergent, grateful that whoever was cleaning things kept it a nice, soft scent.

“…thank you…” Her voice was barely a whisper, and Shae only tucked her closer, somehow wrapping around her for all that Senya was the taller, larger woman.

“Ba'gedet'ye. I hoped you’d have that while I was still here…I hoped that my visit would help a little. Arcann was worried about you anyway, but I’d intended to stop by and see you.” Senya felt her lips curve up, just a little, and she turned to look up at Shae, her eyes still red and sore, but faintly amused now as Shae shot her a crooked grin.

“…This wouldn’t have anything to do with my admission up in the cantina that night that I wish I’d married Torch rather than the Emperor…”

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. I…frankly, Senya, you’re one of the few friends I’ve had in years that aren’t Clan…and Clan can be complicated. You…aren’t. You’re strong, so strong that it boggles my mind that you’ve endured so much with absolutely nothing more than steel resolve and the will to fight. And I grieve with you, because losing a child to death is terrible…but losing one to madness, that is true hell. I’m grateful that my adi, my daughters, they had quick deaths at the hands of their opponents; they didn’t suffer.

“Vaylin…I’m not in the least bit Force sensitive, and I can feel the pain and rage boiling off that kid. And I will do all I can to put an end to this…but I don’t want to lose you to it too. I…don’t want to lose you at all, Senya.” Shae paused at that, easing away, looking…well, worried, and Senya felt her cheeks flush again in a whole different feeling…one that she remembered all too well. But unlike Valkorion…Shae wouldn’t leave her like that. Wouldn’t just…fall quiet one day and ignore her pleas. Would not forget her... Senya gazed down at her hands, at how steady they were…and studied her heart too, closing her eyes and stilling her senses, searching both the Force and her own soul for the answer…

And on swift wings, it came.

“You won’t lose me.” She murmured, and Shae glanced back, eyes wide…and Senya took a chance, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to her cheek. “I…would like to try cin vhetin, if you’ll have me.” The look on Shae’s face was all the answer she needed, and they met in a kiss as soft as the one before, joy sparking between them as they wrapped around one another again.

“Welcome home, riduur…welcome home…now it’s time for mirjahaal, healing…No rush, no fuss, we take all the time we need. HK’ll shoot anyone who interrupts us.” Shae murmured, and Senya felt a smile tug at her lips, a chuckle sounding as the redhead laid back on the sofa, letting her snuggle into her love’s chest. She’d been aloft so long, an albatross lost among the stars…with Shae, she had found her nest…and with the Commander, a new purpose…and then she froze.

“…Arcann…”

“Kid’s fine, told me not to break your heart or he’d break my face. Sweet kid, glad you brought him back.” She blinked, and burst into weak laughter, and Shae joined her, the two of them curling back together as they chortled. “In all honesty, he’s fine with this.”

“Remind me to figure out a way to thank him?”

“Anything for you, riduur.”

#swtor #Shae/Senya #Start of the momacule #lesbian space moms #shae vizla #senya tirall #arcann #gault #Hylo #HK-55 #Vaylin #Thexan #Valkorion #loss and grief #healing

9 notes · View notes

wonderlandleighleigh · 4 years ago

Text

85 Thoughts while watching Return of the Jedi

1. THE HELMETS ARE DUMB

2. I still love the idea that Stormtroopers fucking loved Vader, and all of the commanders were terrified of him.

3. Vader helmet so shiny.

4. Back on Tatooine. It always comes back to Tatooine, doesn’t it?

5. 3P0 was so hoping that the door wouldn’t open. He just wanted to go home.

6. Everyone in Jabba’s palace looks really...gross. I guess that fits, right? Jabba’s palace is super gross, so.

7. I never understood as a child the slavery - and the sex slavery - aspect of Jabba’s palace. Only as an adult have I fully understood just how fucked up this is.

8. Remember kids, Luke has NO IDEA that Anakin was a Hutt slave as a child. Is there any canon stuff where he finds out about that? I’d be interested.

9. Han’s carbonite face is so fucking dumb.

10. Man droid torture is no joke. If that’s what they do to droids, think about what they do to people...

11. Oh god, the musical number. Like I thought it was funny when I saw it for the first time when they did the re-releases, but also, it’s this weird dissonance between that and Oola’s death.

12. Jabba is so much creepier here than in New Hope.

13. I love all the disguises and subterfuge in the opening storyline. And I love that they took the time to deal with Jabba and the bounty on Han’s head. It’s a nice break from the Galactic War.

14. I remember watching this for the first time, and when Leia pulls the helmet off and is like “Someone who loves you” I was like OMG! And my shipper heart grew ten times as large.

15. Han is so...moist. Here. Blugh.

16. Ugh. God. Poor Leia. They do a good job of illustrating just how fucking terrible Jabba is, but...god dammit.

17. Han and Chewie reunion! <3 <3 <3

18. Luke Skywalker - Jedi Knight. Somewhere Mace Windu is looking at all of Luke’s attachments and impulsive behaviors and dry heaving.

19. THE BIKINI IS GROSS! The only thing good about it is that Leia will eventually strangle Jabba to death while wearing it. Otherwise? Ugh.

20. Luke Skywalker. Jedi Knight. Fashion icon.

21. I always felt bad for the Rancor’s master. He loved his Rancor. And the Rancor was just as much a slave as any of the people in Jabba’s palace. It was probably only fed when there was a person Jabba wanted to kill so it would be as vicious as possible.

22. This trio is so bad-ass.

23. Luke knows what the Sarlacc is.

24. BANTHA HERD!

25. Ugh. The Dune Sea is really fake-looking here.

26. R2 as waiter makes me so happy. It’s so ridiculous.

27. “Convenient.”

28. Anakin Skywalker would be so fucking proud of his daughter strangling Jabba the Hutt to death. It’s everything he ever wanted to do to fucking slavemasters on Tatooine.

29. “Boba Fett. Boba Fett. WHERE?!”

30. Per Dettiot: Luke went to Obi-Wan’s old hut on Tatooine and found the handbook to make his lighsaber, as well as some kyber crystals. What else he was up to between Empire and Jedi, I’m not sure.

31. Knee. High. Chanel. Boots.

32. The sheer utter chaos and destruction would make Anakin Skywalker kvell*.

33. I don’t know if Yoda considers Luke his friend. More like just another snot-nosed apprentice who will eventually disappoint him.

34. Leave us alone, Palpatine. What a fucking pruny piece of shit.

35. Yoda’s death is so bitter-sweet for me. I love Yoda. But he made so many mistakes in his life that he never really owned up to. I suppose he felt that his exile was his penance. But I don’t know if I agree. He could have come out of hiding to aid the Rebellion.

36. Also, he was planning to die without coming clean to Luke about Vader. And that is some horse shit.

37. “Suffer your father’s fate.” At least he’s admitting that Anakin wasn’t solely to blame. That there was manipulation there.

38. “I can’t go on alone.” Go find Ahsoka and Ezra! You’re not alone!!

39. The fact that Obi-Wan truly believed that that Anakin had died and Vader took his place.

40. Yoda and Obi-Wan never moved on from their trauma. They keep reliving their trauma and so they cannot move forward, and so they keep making the same mistakes over and over. Asking Luke to kill Vader is proof of that.

41. And it really shows that Obi-Wan, even after his attachments to Satine and Akakin and Ahsoka - does not understand family. Luke saying “I can’t kill my father,” and Obi-Wan being like “Whelp. There’s no other way so the Emperor wins.”

42. There being no mention of Luke and Leia’s mother ANYWHERE except for the one moment later on, drives me CRAZY. Obi-Wan could have told Luke about Padme then.

43. I love that Han and Leia can sit next to each other in a meeting and not have to have arms wrapped around each other. Just being next to each other is enough.

44. GENERAL SOLO! Leia’s face. “Excuse you, how did you suddenly get hotter?”

45. The painted backgrounds are so beautiful.

46. Poncho game is strong in this movie.

47. FLY CASUAL is such a stupid line. I love it.

48. Skywalker twin exasperation is the best. Padme would be proud.

49. Leia just going for it is so so good.

50. I know Ewoks catch a lot of shit for...well..being Ewoks. But I love them. They’re adorable! And they have no qualms about eating humans!

51. “My Son.” I think this is the first time Vader has referred to Luke as his son to someone who isn’t Luke, instead of the “Son of Skywalker.”

52. Watch as we realize that Leia has been holding the one brain cell this entire time, and Han, Luke and Chewie get totally clueless.

53. PROPER.

54. I love Ewok tree houses.

55. Remember kids. They were planning to eat Han, Luke and Chewie.

56. Where the hell did that dress even come from that Leia is wearing??? They just had that lying around?

57. I guess they ate the last woman who wore it.

58. I love that 3P0 in New Hope, claims he’s not much of a storyteller, and then in the Jedi like is like a master storyteller lol.

59. And here, we get the only mention of Padme. And it wasn’t even Padme. It was a handmaiden. I will forever be salty that Padme isn’t mentioned at all because George didn’t think of her until the prequels. Argh.

60. Luke’s unwavering belief in Anakin is so amazing. The sequels did that part of his character so dirty. This version of Luke would never have tried to kill his nephew.

61. “It is too late for me.” God dammit, Anakin. The thing is that if he goes with Luke, he is admitting that everything he has done for the last twenty years is all for nothing, and he just fucking can’t do it. So much denial .So much pain. Fuck you, Vaderkin.

62. EWOK ON A SPEEDER

63. REX! A REX SIGHTING! YES!

64. Y’all remember that Ewok movie with the blonde child? “Star cruiser crash!!”

65. Padme would be so proud of Luke’s fashion.

66. Wedge got promoted! Yay!

67. I love the old Hollywood trick of shadowing the Emperor’s face except for his eyes.

68. I just. I love that the Empire is defeated by fucking teddy bears. I know a lot of people hate it, but it’s just- it feels so karmic. They’ve done such terrible things. And to be taken down by these fuzzy, little bastards. *chef’s kiss*

69. Palpatine hitting in that nerve that Luke has about his attachments. About his hope. Oof.

70. The entire Vader fight is just him trying not to see how much like Padme Luke is. That’s gotta hurt.

71. Bro. Vader. You do not want to try shit with Leia. Like. No. Fuck’s sake. Don’t try it. She’ll have all of you arrested and then executed.

72. Yes Luke. Thow away that lightsaber. Show that wrinky fuck who’s boss.

73. I love that Anakin gets to make the right choice here. He does what he didn’t do with Mace. He finally realizes all the lies...all the manipulation...that he can make things different. And he does. And it rightfully costs him his life.

74. Vader couldn’t survive. Vader would have been tried for his crimes and either executed or jailed for the rest of his life. The same thing happened to Ben Solo in the sequels. He had to die. Otherwise he’d have to have a real-world ending: Prison or execution.

75. I feel so sad that Anakin became this fucking horror show of a person. It didn’t have to be this way. Fuck.

76. “Tell your sister...you were right.”

77. Oh Han no. No no no.

78. No Han.

79. HAN.

80. Han’s face when he finds out Luke is Leia’s brother is hilarious.

81. I wish that Rex and Ahsoka had been there when Luke burned Anakin’s body. I feel like they needed to, for their own closure. And Luke would have felt like he had people who understood. Who loved and knew Anakin before all of this.

82. AND NOW WE PARTY!

83. Let’s eat Stormtrooper!

84. I am SO MAD that all of this will be undone by the sequel trilogy. Ugh.

85. I want them to refilm Hayden now that he’s just about the age Anakin would have been when he died as a Force ghost. I feel like that would be really nice.

*Kvell - Yiddish - to be bursting with pride

#Thinking about Star Wars #RoTJ

69 notes · View notes

gveret-fic · 4 years ago

Text

Alright HtN final thoughts

Similarly to the last book, I’m overstimulated to all hell and back. Gideon is my favorite protagonist of all time, no question. The sheer endorphin rush I get reading her cracking jokes and being insufferable is just bonkers. I started this book with 2 spoilers, without which I might never have even started this book: 1) there was Gideon content in HtN, and 2) there was multiple Gideons content in HtN. On the first point, I’m more than satisfied; I’m currently buzzing with how ecstatic that was as a reading experience. On the second, Gideon 1.0 was a boring lump of dude lmao, the only interesting thing about him was his bodyswap poly relationship with Better Gideon’s mom, which, wow. What a 10,000 year old soap opera. So that was disappointing, but you know what, one Gideon is really enough.

The vast majority of this book was a miserable slog and it genuinely hurt to read to the point where I don’t know that I can recommend this experience to anyone who isn’t already a huge fan. Yeah, the payoff was massive and I was played like a perfect little fiddle, but I don’t approve of the tune. I think Muir could’ve cut out a good third of the book and at the very least 50% of the relentless torture she put Harrow through and it would have still been effective. I still have a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t have a problem with difficult or hurtful stories and I’m not trying to invoke any moralistic outrage here, but that wasn’t what I expected or frankly could have prepared for coming out of the (drastically tonally different) first book and I do believe it was excessive. It was blow after blow after blow to an isolated, terrified, pointedly disabled protagonist with no single moment of relief, comfort or connection until the fucking reveal and I don’t want it, thanks.

Okay that’s enough about that. Now the rest of it.

I really tried to care about the new characters, but no dice. God had his moments, but we haven’t really seen him do too much interesting shit. Ianthe was fucking excellent, though I really really didn’t want her to be. The rest were dead boring, I’m sorry. The blasphemous makeouts were their only redeeming moment. When we finally got some Palamedes and Cam, I could have cried. Wish we could have spent more time with them, but I have high hopes for the next book. Ortus, surprisingly, was awesome! I wish him a happy afterlife with his poetic legendary husband. Also he did nothing wrong and all that nonsense about finally fighting for what’s important yada yada was pure military propaganda, let the man write lengthy poetry about his ghost boyfriend in peace. Dulcinea was a fucking badass! So happy she got a chance to shine, and to say ‘nyah!’ Abigail was also fantastic. Well that whole section of the book had me swimming in endorphins so maybe it isn’t saying much, but I fucking loved them, I fucking loved how much Harrow cared about them, Harrow, who had been an emotionally depleted husk throughout most of the book, now showing the most heartrending vulnerability and care for this little found ghost family and practically rotating through them one by one to apologize in the most terrible, gutpunching way, and finally being told not everything in the whole fucking world is her goddamn fault. This is the only reason I was able to accept no Gideon reunion, not even a single word between them. I’ve been yearning for hundreds of pages for Harrow to find human connection and care, and I’m so happy these are the people she found it with.

Gideon. I’m like tearing up right now just thinking about this. After the endless tedium, suffering, emotional disconnect to the point where characters dying horribly seemed insignificant against the backdrop of unrelenting despair, to have that vibrant, wonderful, dumbass motherfucking voice back---it was beyond cathartic. I reread every single line multiple times and I still don’t think I’ve wrung em fully dry. It was amazing. The personality dripping off the page, the immediate chemistry with any character living or dead or dull as rock, the blatant, beautiful disrespect for the sombre self importance of the whole preceding narrative. It was my favorite character crashing into one of my least favorite books, and making it awesome. I think a lot of people try to write a Gideon, and most of the time the result is completely unbearable, and I’d posit there’s 2 reasons for this: 1) they tragically, mistakenly make their Gideon a man, and 2) they just aren’t funny. Of course an unfunny Gideon would be unbearable. Of course a funny but emotionally vacant Gideon would be dull. But this Gideon is a fucking delight with a real heartfelt gooshy selfless vulnerable yearning center, and every line I got to spend with her was a rush.

Harrow and Gideon. Oof. I’ve been going back and forth on whether I shipped them, whether I even could, whether it was the intention at all. But like, come on. This is clearly a love story. It’s a love story from start to finish, and it’s cool that it got me to doubt that so sincerely when it’s just this level of ride and die, jump into hell, carve out your brain, share a body and preserve its modesty against your every instinct and not even make any jokes about it, universe crossing, death defying, soul melding level of mushy ass romance. Harrow fucking kept Gideon’s shitty sunglasses wrapped in a love note. She did find&replace on her whole personality. She kissed Ianthe. I remember the first time I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, where almost every other episode would begin with a lil fairytail backstory recap telling you about the little girl who saw a prince and was so enamored she decided to become a prince too. And you believe that narrative, because why wouldn’t you? It’s a stylized repetitive fairytale at the start of a show. Why would it lie? And then you find out, at the very end, that it wasn’t the cool manly prince who precipitated all of this, but baby Utena witnessing another young girl in pain, and deciding then and there that she was going to grow up and help her. And she does, even if she can’t remember why.

This was that level of paradigm shift for me. Harrow and her pile of letters and rules and her obsession and her nauseating work ethic, what was she doing?? Saving the world? Fixing a broken timeline? Trying to unlock unlimited power, bring back the corpse in the locked tomb, serve her god and emperor? Nope! She was just trying to keep her big beautiful dumbass girlfriend a little bit alive.

Yeah. It’s a fucking love story.

Random thoughts: I liked Harrow’s grudge against food and the word ‘pommel’. I liked the diminishing ages Mercy inflicted upon her. I liked the first/second person shenanigans, tho really, there’s no way that was Gideon’s voice, first of all, there was way too much anatomical knowledge there. (Gideon’s secretly a time traveling bone doctor, calling it now). I liked the fanfic AUs, and very sad we didn’t get a fake dating one or like a nice “there was only one bed”. Not gonna mention soulmate AUs cuz that’s just canon.

That was a ride. Coulda done without some parts of it, but don’t regret it one bit. Let’s see what kinda nonsense the next one brings!

#Harrow the Ninth spoilers #Harrow the Ninth #the locked tomb

38 notes · View notes

heathsbitch · 4 years ago

Text

Treat You Better ➳ PEAKY BLINDERS

xix. BUSINESS

Ivy's eyes opened to bright sunlight bursting through her window. She shifted in her bed, something was different. Yes, she was in Tommo's house but that wasn't it. The girl scanned the room looking for something. Finn was gone. Her heart dropped but she was glad. She was upset that he had gone but at least she didn't have to speak to him, not after what happened last night. "I think I love you, Ivy." The words rattled around the girl's brain and she couldn't get rid of them. Something caught Ivy's eye. A small piece of paper rested on her bedside table that hadn't been there last night. The girl sat up and picked up the note to read it. In a slanted scrawl it read:

'Thank you for taking care of me last night. I'm sorry if I was acting a bit weird, it was just the Tokyo. - Finn'

A lot of the words were spelt wrong but Ivy smiled at the note. The intention was there. A strange sadness washed over her when she had read the words, 'It was just the Tokyo'. The girl shook her head, trying to be rid of the unusual misery that had come over her. She cast her thoughts aside and got dressed.

Ivy made her way down the grand staircase of Tom and Grace's house and to the dining room. Upon entering the room, she noticed that everyone was down there, waiting for her. Tommo and Grace were talking. John held a cigar in one hand and Esme in the other. Arthur and Linda were talking whilst she showed him the Bible. Polly was reading a newspaper while Ada tried to talk politics with her and Michael and Finn were sat opposite each other doing nothing. When she walked into the room, most people's heads snapped towards her. "Don't worry, Ivy. You're not late at all." Michael sarcastically spat. "It's not her fault. I asked Finn to wake her up but he refused." Tom stood up for the girl. Ivy scanned the table for spare seats. The only ones free were one beside Michael and one beside Finn. She chose the lesser of the two evils and sat next to Finn. When she sat down, she noticed the boy tense up and his hands that had been resting on the table were clenched together. The boy's hair was messy and his eyes drooped but he still managed to make the girl's heart flutter. Especially after what he had said last night. "Morning." Ivy said to her friend, trying to loosen up the tense air between them. "Morning." He grumbled, his voice hoarse. The servants started to bring in breakfast and everybody prepared themselves by putting any books or newspapers away. As Ivy ate, she noticed somebody staring at her from across the table. Their gaze was intense and icy.

Michael.

The girl looked straight at him and raised an eyebrow. "I guess the happy couple aren't so happy anymore." Michael mouthed. Ivy placed her fork on the table and raised her middle finger at the man. She was not in the mood for his teasing. Everybody continued to eat their breakfast as usual and Ivy blocked Michael out as much as she possibly could. When the servants had cleaned everyone's plates up, Tom stood from his chair. "There is some business that needs to be dealt with. I'm busy so John, Arthur, Finn and Ivy will take care of it. You have a meeting with the Changrettas in Charlie's yard at midday. It's to do with Lizzie so be careful with what you say."

Ivy wondered who the Changrettas were and what they had to do with Lizzie. She thought the name sounded familiar but she couldn't find out why. People began to leave the table and Arthur called John and the teens over to discuss the business. "Alright you lot, like Tommy said, you've got to be careful with what you say. These Changrettas are nasty Italian bastards and they're not happy with us. You two," The man turned to Finn and Ivy. "Keep your distance from them, especially you, Ivy."

"Why me?" The girl asked curiously. "'Cause if they see something they like, they will take it." A look of disgust passed over Ivy's face. "Wait, wait, wait. What does an Italian family have to do with Lizzie?" Ivy overcame her disgust and asked the Shelbys."She dates one of the wops. Remember?" John told the girl and patted her shoulder. "Ohh." She said, finally realising where she'd heard the name before. "Are there any more questions before we leave?" Nobody responded to Arthur's question so they all followed him out to the car so they could head back to Small Heath.

Ivy and Finn stood at the entrance to Charlie's yard, checking the Italians that were about to meet with John and Arthur. The first man walked over to the pair. He was fairly young with dark eyes and a chiseled jaw. Finn tensed at the way he was eyeing up Ivy. The girl went to start searching the man but Finn held her back. "I'll do them." He offered. Ivy was confused at his proposition, she hadn't noticed the intense gaze the Italian man had cast upon her. "All of them?" She questioned and Finn nodded. Ivy nodded, not wanting to talk to Finn for too long. She observed the men to make sure they weren't hiding any tricks up their sleeves. There were three men in total, two younger ones and an older man.

During the search of the second man, Isaiah emerged from the other side of the bridge. He walked straight over to speak to Ivy because Finn was busy. "Sorry I'm late. I was with Bella," He told the girl. Her eyebrow perked up at the mention of the girl's name. "No, we didn't before you ask. She said I was too high but she might treat me later." Isaiah nudged Ivy's arm and smiles played on both of their lips. A cough sounded from Finn, signifying that they were ready. The trio led the Changrettas into Charlie's yard to where Arthur and John were waiting.

A small table complete with a tablecloth and pot of tea were waiting for the group, a few chairs dotted around the table. It was insulting, really, but these were the Peaky Blinders so it was to be expected. The Italian men had looks of disgust plastered across their faces at the sight of all the horse manure scattered across the floor. "You asked for a meeting out in the open, fresh air and the fine aroma of shit. 'Neutral ground' you said." Arthur announced to the men.

The trio of teenagers stood off to the side, stern looks on all of their faces. "This is hardly neutral ground." The older Changretta, Vincente, said. "Well, it's what you've got," Arthur told them as he took a seat next to John. "So, por favor, sit down."

A smirk was plastered across John's face as he tried to contain his laughter. "Where is Thomas?" Vincente asked, refusing to sit down. "He got called away." John informed the Changrettas. "He said he'd be here." The man replied instantly, his accent getting seemingly thicker as he spoke."Yeah, he is busy." Arthur added. John began to speak again, anger slowly starting to flow through him again. "And I just told you he got called away. What do you want?" He was lent back in his chair with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The Changretta man got closer to the Shelby brothers and Ivy noticed Isaiah and Finn's hands get closer to their guns. "There has been a peace between the Peaky Blinders and the Changretta family for two years now-"

"Do you want some tea or not?" John interrupted the man. "Here, Finn, pour the Italians some English tea. Go on." The boy was reluctant at first but poured the tea into a small china cup. Ivy scoffed at John and he smirked as a response. "We don't want fucking tea!" Vincente spat, shocking everyone with his sudden outburst of anger. Arthur and John exchanged glances, they were up to something and Ivy wanted to know what. Finn slammed the tea cup back onto the table and walked back to his friends. "We want an explanation." Arthur stood up and reached for the cup of tea that Finn had poured. "Well, I'll have some tea." John spoke up again, "Explanation for what?"

"The Little Venice Restaurant on Forge Street was burnt down-" John interrupted the man again, Vincente's anger was rising in his chest like a burning flame, waiting to come bursting out of his throat. "No. No. Couldn't have been us, we was at a wedding."

"You burnt it down to stop my son being at that same wedding." The Italian spat back almost immediately. "He wasn't missed." Arthur muttered under his breath as he sipped his tea. Chuckles circled the group, everyone except for the Italian trio was laughing. "You are such big boys now. But once you borrowed clothes from us to look like men." The Changretta man told the brothers. "How's the tea, Arthur?" John asked his brother, clearly bored from Vincente's speech. The eldest Shelby threw the tea onto the floor, "It's cold." The man shrugged and John giggled under his breath again. Vincente Changretta took a deep sigh before he spoke again. "Please tell Tommy that we pay him whatever he asks us to pay. We stay out of the city and off the tracks," The man took another few steps, getting closer to the brothers. "But you tell him from me that my son will walk with any woman in this city. Any woman he chooses. Even if that woman works for the emperor, Thomas Shelby. My son is in love-"

John snorted, interrupting the man for the third time during their meeting. 'He's a little asshole' Ivy thought to herself, smirking and shaking her head at the same time. "Sorry. Do excuse me. Carry on." John rubbed his face, trying to stop himself from chuckling. There was a long pause as Vincente tried to contain his anger. "And if he wishes, he will walk with the woman he loves." John rubbed his nose and sniffed, "Okay." He agreed to the Italian's proposition. "You know," John reached for the tea pot and poured some more tea into the cup. "It would be hard for your son to walk anywhere with a bullet in each knee, wouldn't it?" He kept digging a hole, trying to anger the man even more than he had already done. He sipped his tea silently.

"Too much." Mr Changretta warned. Ivy didn't find the man even remotely intimidating and found John's insulting taunts quite hilarious. It was probably down to the fact that Vincente let John's taunts go straight to his head and he had obvious reactions to them.

"You said too much, my friend. Sabini says, 'Suck and swallow'. But no. Too much. I spit." The Italian spat on the floor when he had finished speaking. Ivy looked at her friends, they each shared the same look of confusion. "Bit of a strange analogy." The girl told her friends. The Italians started to leave the yard but one stayed behind. The creepy one with the chiseled jaw picked up one of the wooden chairs and smashed it against the ground repeatedly, shattering it into many pieces. Arthur sighed at his actions, annoyed that he broke a chair. "Fucking hell," He muttered. "Isaiah," Arthur called the teen over to him. "Put two extra men on our pubs in Nechells." Isaiah nodded, agreeing to his actions. "What are you talking about, Arthur? We're not scared of the Eyeties anymore." An annoyed and confused John questioned. "Don't tell Tommy about the chair and clean this fucking shit up." Arthur stood up as he barked his orders at the group. "We're not scared of fucking wops!" John shouted back as his brother walked away. Finn moved to start cleaning up the chair as John slumped back in his chair. "For fuck's sake." He muttered under his breath. He took a deep sigh before standing up and walking up to Ivy. "Ivy, I need your help with something." She looked up at the man, "What do you need?" The Shelby only smirked.

John and Ivy had to stop off at the betting shop for a few minutes so John could speak to Polly. He told the girl that his aunt wanted them to apologise and move on. He said that they weren't going to listen. They didn't want to seem soft. The pair walked down the sullen streets of Birmingham, heading for the tailor shop where they would find their target, Angel Changretta. They stopped outside of the door and John turned to Ivy. "If you're not okay with this then you can stay out here."

"No, no. John, it's fine. Anything I can do to help you." The man threw his arm over the girl's shoulder. "That's my girl." He shook her around a little bit before they walked into the shop. They sneaked in and hid behind a clothes rail. Ivy heard footsteps coming from the staircase. She tapped John's shoulder, signifying that their target was there. He gestured for the girl to go in front of him so she could make the first move. "Just there, sir. There." The tailor told the Italian. Ivy stood up, the clothes rail was luckily taller than her. The suits started to move on the rack, Ivy's heart thumped against her chest. She couldn't afford to mess up. The clothes parted fully, revealing Ivy stood there.

She smiled and greeted the man, "Hey." She thrust her fist forward and it connected with the man's nose. He groaned and stumbled backwards. The other Italian that was there went for Ivy. She dodged him and pushed the man towards John. Angel Changretta had fully recovered and was trying to hit Ivy. She dodged every blow, finally going for one of her own. The girl swung her leg at the man, kicking him into the wall behind him. She held the man against the stairs and repeatedly punched him in the face, blood pouring from his nose. To make sure that he was no longer a threat, she grabbed his shoulders and bashed his head against the banister of the stairs. "Fucking hell, Vee." John said from behind her. The Italian that went for him was on the floor unconscious. "Shit. I didn't mean to... I didn't..." The girl started to freak out. "S'alright." John pulled her into a hug, careful not to get blood on her clothes and she did the same.

The girl screamed, somebody had pulled her to the ground. Her head hit the floor and she looked up to find Angel Changretta over her, his fist about to connect with her jaw. Suddenly, he was pulled back. The girl scooted back to sit against the wall, pain shooting through her skull. She saw John over the man, his hat in his hand. "Are you going to kill me?" The man whimpered. "Get fucking up," John wrestled with the man, eventually pushing him against the floor. "Stay away from Lizzie!" He shouted. John pressed his cap into the man's eyes, screams coming from him. Blood squirted out of the wound in the man's eyes. "By order of the Peaky fucking Blinders!" John finished with the man and stood up. He came over to Ivy. "Are you alright?" John helped the girl up and held her face in his hands. "Yeah." Her voice came out as barely a whisper. The man took one last look over her and led her up the stairs of the tailor shop and back to the car. "You should get some sleep." The girl agreed and closed her eyes, trying to forget the blood on her hands.

Ivy woke to John shaking her small frame. "Tommy said he wants you in today," The girl's eyes fluttered open and she noticed that they were outside the betting shop. She went to climb out of the car but John stopped her. "Wash your hands in the kitchen before you go in." Ivy looked at her hands, blood still covered them. "Okay, thank you." John rubbed her shoulder before she got out. The girl was glad to find out that the door was unlocked. She rushed into the house and straight into the kitchen so she could wash her hands. The girl furiously washed her hands, trying to be as quick as possible. Unbeknownst to the girl, Thomas was standing at the entrance to the betting shop, watching her. She turned around and noticed the man there. She jumped and clutched her heart. "Shit, Tommo. How long have you been there for?" He walked towards the girl and grabbed her hands. "John took you to the Changrettas then?" She nodded, not wanting to say anything more to the Shelby man. He didn't ask anymore questions, which she was grateful for, and he left to go to his office. She let out a deep sigh and finished washing her hands. Ivy was glad to be back at work, though. The girl had a couple of days off because of Tommo's wedding but she was back to stay, at least for a while.

That day was also a Friday, meaning that she was going to stay with her father later that night so she had to try and rush through the majority of her work so she wasn't behind. She was also excited to work in her new office. She had been moved to a slightly nicer room. Unfortunately, it was opposite Michael's but she did her best to ignore the man. Ivy walked to her office, but on her way she heard a noise that instantly perked her ears up. A female giggle. She paused in her place, about to walk into her office. Slowly, she turned around to look at Michael's door. More giggles came from his room. 'He's with the whore. Isn't he?' Ivy asked herself. Since he was being annoying at breakfast, she thought that she would return the favour. The girl walked into her office and grabbed some papers that were already finished and stopped back outside Michael's door. She could see shadows moving around inside and different sounds were coming from the interior, rather than giggles. Ivy was familiar with the sound. It was Michael moaning.

'Perfect' She said to herself, a cynical smirk plastered across her face. Ivy knocked but she didn't wait for a reply. As she walked in, she heard desperate scrambling. The girl decided to play dumb. "I've got some papers for you, Boss." She knew that she would piss him off if she called him that. His face was flushed and clothes were scruffy. "T-thank you, Ivy. You can go now."

He tried to rush her out of the room. She walked closer to the desk and slammed her work on the desk. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your new friend?" Ivy asked and tilted her head, her hands placed firmly on the desk. Michael's face dropped, annoyed that Ivy had realised that somebody else was in the room. He pushed his chair backwards but not before zipping his trousers up. He cleared his throat before speaking, "Charlotte, this is Ivy. Ivy, this is Charlotte." A girl with brown hair sheepishly stood up from under the desk, her cheeks a bright shade of crimson. She recognised the girl as the crack whore from Tom's wedding. "It's so nice to meet you properly!" Ivy beamed and stuck her hand out for Charlotte to shake. Charlotte looked lost, she didn't know what to do. She glanced at her hands and they were slick with a mysterious substance. Ivy knew full well what it was. The Solomons grabbed the girl's hand and shook it firmly. Michael's face was one of anger and confusion. When the girls pulled away, there was a string of the mysterious substance. Ivy didn't look at it but she knew it was there. "Well, sir, I'll be in my office should you need me."

The girl went to leave but stopped at the door because Michael called out to her. "I'll be having words with you later." He warned. "Yes, Boss." Luckily, Charlotte had her back to Ivy. The Solomons finally looked at her hand then showed it to Michael. She winked and licked the substance off of her hand then left the room, closing the door behind her. "Prick." She muttered as she walked into her own office, cleaning the rest of her hand. Her work was interrupted fairly soon after she sat down, though. Thomas burst into the room, demanding that she come with him. They walked towards the kitchen. Ivy saw Finn coming out of it after something Arthur had said. "Finn, you can stay." Tom told him as him and Ivy walked in. The boy smirked and went back into the room.

"Tommo, this is a family meeting. I shouldn't be here." Ivy spoke up after realising the other people in the room. "Stay. This involves you." Tom told her and she stayed still, curious at what he was going to say. The girl noticed from the corner of her eye that Finn was staring at her. The smirk had fallen off of his face and he looked sad. His eyes were puffy, probably from crying. Ivy's heart dropped. Things were still awkward between them but she hated seeing her friends upset. "Sit down, John. You too, Ivy," Thomas ordered. Both of them followed his instruction. Tom took a long pause before speaking again "You two cut Angel Changretta,"

Nausea filled Ivy, if she had known that she was going against Tom's orders, she probably wouldn't have gone along with it.

"Even though Arthur told you to apologise. Polly told you to compromise. You chose not to listen to Mr Apologise or Mrs Compromise. Ivy I can understand that you were just following orders but show more initiative next time, eh?" The girl kept her eyes trained on the ground, too ashamed to make eye contact. She was already regretting what she did, regardless of whether she went against Tommo. "Now I've got an Italian walking around my backyard saying he's going to kill my brother and Alfie Solomons' daughter. So what do we do, eh? Should we apologise or do we compromise?" Ivy thought that the adult should answer since her word counts for very little. John let out a long breath but didn't respond. Silence filled the room. "Oh, it was just something John said as a joke." Arthur tried to defend the pair but kept his voice low. "Yeah but he's your brother as well, Arthur and Ivy is pretty much your sister." Thomas kept his own voice low. "Yeah," Arthur simply responded. "I know I didn't want to start a war over something John said without meaning it." Tommo grunted and spoke again. "So, should he apologise in Italian or in English?" The question confused both Ivy and John, they both looked at each other, eyebrows furrowed."Or should we ask them which fucking language they prefer? I'm not clear." Polly put her hand on Arthur's arm and took a chance to speak. "You said while this business was going on in London, you wanted peace at home."

"And the only way to guarantee peace is by making the prospect of war seem hopeless. If you apologise once, you do it again and again and again. Like taking bricks out of the wall of your fucking house. Do you want to bring the house down, Arthur?" Silence filled the room yet again. Arthur let out a low grunt. "If you're soft on rebellion, it'll grow." Thomas continued. Arthur stood up from his chair. "Bloody 'soft on rebellion'." He repeated. "You did the right thing. Ivy and John. Now we go on the offensive. We take two of the Changretta pubs, and we take them tonight. That's it. Ivy, I'm taking you to your father. I don't want you anywhere near this." Ivy was shocked at Tom's words. He had just seemed so mad that they attacked Angel Changretta and then he was completely fine with it. 'He's more unpredictable than my father.' Ivy told herself.

"Oh! Right. For Christ's sake, why?" Polly shouted at her nephew. "Eh?" Thomas had walked away but stopped in his tracks. "Why?" Polly repeated. Tom marched back over to the group. "Why? Because we fucking can. Because we fucking can and if we can, we do. And if we lift our heel off their necks now, they'll just come at us! Remember these are the bastards that wanted Danny Whizz-Bang dead," The group was silent once more as they waited for Tom to speak again. "You're getting soft, brother. Soft and weak. Save the Bible for Sundays, eh? Finn, I need you to take Ivy to her father's, get to Hockley and then home. It's been a long day." The boy walked out of the door without a word, Ivy and Tommo followed behind. Tom turned around to give one final order. "You take the Wrexham, you take the Five Bells. You get them signed over to us in the morning. You make sure the coppers stay away. Don't use the fucking phones, alright? There's someone listening." The trio climbed into the car that was parked outside the betting den. Finn and Tom were in the front and Ivy was in the back. "Ivy, if you're father's mad that you're late, just tell him you were doing business with me." Tommo told her as they began their journey to Camden Town. "Okay." The girl squeaked out.

The journey was quick and quiet. Thomas definitely felt the tension between the two teens but didn't say anything about it. When they stopped at Alfie's house, Ivy got out silently. She didn't say a word to either Tom or Finn. She wasn't in the mood to see her father but she had to go. The girl timidly raised her hand to knock on the door to her Father's house. She took a quick glance at her small wrist watch to see that it was almost seven o'clock in the evening. She was almost eight hours late. The inside of the house was dark, only the silhouette of her father could be seen. "You're late." He grumbled. "I'm sorry, dad. Tommo and I were finishing up some business and-"

"Business? Business with Tommy fucking Shelby! Get in," He dragged the girl into the house by the collar of her shirt. Alfie pushed his daughter into what she assumed was the living room. There was one lonesome lamp in the corner. Shadows crept up the walls like demons searching for prey. Shards of glass lay scattered across the floor. 'What happened here? Had he been drinking?' Ivy asked herself but she was too scared to speak, too scared to move."Do you know how worried I was? You drove me out of my fucking mind! He could have got you killed, he could have..." His words trailed off as he noticed the splatters of blood that rested on his daughter's skirt. "What's this? Did he do this?"

"Dad, I-" Ivy tried to speak but her father was louder. "Fucking gypsy bastard. I told you he couldn't keep you safe. You are staying with me, yeah?. I'm not letting you go back to that Brummie scum ever again." The man got closer to the girl and spat his words in her face. His hands were back on the collar of her shirt and Ivy almost struggled to breath, the fear stealing all of the oxygen out of her lungs. "Dad, I-" She tried to speak again but her father cut her off. Instead of using his words, he used his hand. Alfie slapped Ivy, his hand came sharply across the girl's cheek. She let out a large squeal and dropped to the floor, clutching her face. "What have I fucking told you?" He pulled the girl's hair then threw her back to the ground. Ivy was too scared to look back at her father so she just stared at the floor, small whimpers lept from her mouth. "Get to bed. Go!" He shouted. She jumped onto her feet and sprinted to her room. The girl was tempted to make a break for the door but she knew that this time her father would chase after her and catch her. Ivy ran up the stairs and to her room. She slammed the door and collapsed on her bed. Sobs racked her body. The girl had never wanted to be back in Birmingham so much. She wanted the Shelbys back, wanted their protection, their warmth back. But most of all, she wanted Finn back. Cries and whines shook the girl's body, hot tears streamed down her face. In that moment she realised something.

'I love Finn.'

xx. THE TURNING POINT

MASTERLIST

#finn shelby #harry kirton #michael gray #finn cole #smut #fluff #angst #peaky blinders #tommy shelby #alfie solomons #treat you better

22 notes · View notes

anakinskywalkher · 5 years ago

Text

Palpatine raises the twins and accidentally activates Anakin’s dadmodus - An alternative Star Wars plot.

@jasontoddiefor: Palpatine raises the twins & angst w/ Vader not knowing who the two are @dlegohargreeves: im gonna fuck shit up

written together on WhatsApp while listen to crack music.

------

(Barbara) Palpatine has long before he declared himself emperor abandoned the ways of the Sith. He uses them to create utmost loyalty to himself but he will not abide to the rules of his predecessor, one Palpatine would’ve defeated had he been around at that time. People, be they sith, jedi, or other are all moldable to whatever he wants them to be.

He tricks Padme with sugar and soothed spun words, manipulates Anakin with spice and presses on his rage ("the jedi forbid you from loving your mother thats why you couldnt save her. i would never") -- Palpatine is aware of the long game, but he has eternity. He’s a god, no one will be able to withstand him.

What Anakin never realised was that he wasnt the actual chosen one, Palpatine had seen in his vision that Anakin's children were in fact the chosen ones, and so when confronted with the soft boy he molded him into this shell to avoid his vision from happening,.... and yet these damnable children are still born. Palpatine is terrified that he wasn’t the only one with the true vision and firmly believes that owning the twins would be the least risky choice. (like he owned anakin, who long ago posed a risk)

He hunts them down, -- while anakin/Vader is completely crippled by his mental breakdown about "murdering" Padme and his child. Palpatine smiles and lets him wallow, for what Vader doesnt know is that Palpatine the God poisoned padme once he found out about her pregnancy.

Palpatine finds them, born hours ago and already pulsing brightly with the power of the force. Obi-Wan puts up a fight but Palpatine strikes him. He gloats to Obi-wan, brags about killing Padme, about manipulating Anakin (”I have taken everything from you, and now I will take your life) and takes the children. He leaves Obi-wan to bleed out by his stomach wound a faraway galaxy (Palpatine reasons that Obiwan deserves it for this is how he left Vader to die. )

And so Palpatine at the rise of his galactic empire ends up with a crippled sith boy (not a man no matter what anakin thought), and with two babies who are most powerful force users in history. (now were shifting to meta instead of story telling lmao)

Palpatine has a god complex, he doesnt actually believe he would ever die, such petty thing is only for the unfortunate. even if his body would succumb to age, his mind through the force would rule forever -- he is unstoppable. To rule however even a godlike emperor needs tools, and while Vader is to be his guarddog the twins he believe can be shaped and molded into his personal hands, amplify his reach across galaxies.

So to mold them into his tools, Palpatine believes in starving them for love, only ever receiving ounces of recognition and pride. always craving his acknowledgment -- and it works, the twins once old enough to have actual brains (according to palpatine) he removes their wetnurses and gives them teachers, makes their training cruel and harsh and make them compete for his gaze. And it works till a certain extent, but Palpatine’s god-complex makes him blind to things he deems unneccessary, And thus he misses how the mourning of Vader for his family, turns him into a guilt-ridden man who believes giving these children some form of attention and care as penance for his own misgivings. And thus without meaning to Vader gives the children the love Palpatine tries to deny them (accidentally shifting their loyalty on the long run)

Elias: Vader hates the kids at first, with them reminding him of everything he lost and could have had, but at the end of the day, after some aggressive introspection, he gets that they’re just kids and probably starts projecting a lot the longer he’s exposed to them -- Vader, guilty, sneaks them candy and gives them stuff that’s kinda useless (like books that are not about politics or war or economics and and and) and he doesn’t think it’s much but the two would kill a man for him and probably have done so. ((Palpatine tries to break apart the codependent twins, forcing them apart for weeks, but the Force, unlike anything is a tool in hands of desperate children with a bond so strong it connected their mind)) This is not healthy, Vader thought, recalling decade old lessons from the Jedi. The twins rarely spoke, never mind both at the same time. They’re asked for their opinions, echoes of the Emperor’s wishes, and only one of them replies. They always moved at the same time, terrifying weapons of perfect synchrony, constantly aware of the other’s presence. They were living at least half in each other’s mind, even when the Emperor depraved them of contact for weeks. They were clingy afterwards, holding each other’s hands and wrists until they bruised, but Vader knew their minds were never separated. Luke slammed their teacher’s (victim’s) head to the ground as Leia kicked away his feet. They didn’t need any call signs, or training in coordination, one moved and the other followed. During battles, the twins�� dependence was a huge advantage. “Again,” Vader called out and the two of them fell back into the first Kata, the bleeding teacher still lying on the ground.

Barbara: However once the twins are older they need to learn through missions, so Vader has to take them along for missions (once Palpatine believes they wont connect with Vader) - it starts normal but Vader slowly starts to make the missions longer, gives the kids downtime, lets them free and just engages small talk with them, he can’t face himself if he doesn't let them be actual children. But the twins are suspicious believing theres a catch but Leia, the master mind realises that theres none and so they accept reluctantly, and slowly but surely they learn how to be children under Vader’s tutelage. It takes time and dulling a sharpened blade, but the moment, that first time when the twins laugh and seem actually happy, its that moment that Vader decides, he has to become Anakin again, because these children are his second chance - And so he starts planning.

(insert a bit of crack:

Elias: Firmus: Lord Vader, are we to expect you and the Operatives back tomorrow? Vader: we haven’t finished the mission yet -Leia and Luke like 12 or so, in the background yelling in excitement bc idk they got a game, neither are in uniform- Firmus: Of course )

Barbara: Anakin: "i made sand castles when I was young" Leia: “that structure seems awfully unstable for a house”

But ever since Vader mentions the sand castle, the usually more mature one Leia clings to the idea and while he wishes he could show her, but his suit and wounds cant handle the sand. And when he explains Luke goes " well lets get u a proper suit then" and vader goes " im a moron" (leia in the back: yes duh) So Anakin looks into the treatment he’s still receiving to see if he can make it so that his breathing machine could withstand the sand and realises that Palpatine is actually keeping his body weak, he has no need of the breathing machine because its that actual machine thats poisoning his lungs. So of course Vader does a lowrisk experiment and turns off the machine and he can actually breath fresh air in 12 years (the rage controlling Anakin is one different than those before, for it is ice in his veins instead of fire. And it makes him tactical instead of foolish for once). Soon after that Vader catches some rebel transmission and finds out that Obi-wan is alive and looking for the twins and its that moment that Anakin 'kills' Vader, believing that Obi-wan can save the twins in a way he can't.

Anakin takes the kids to fight the rebels on Palpatines order but he seizes the chance and instead he shows them his face without the mask (lets ignore the idea that hed be bald bc i hate the uglification of ani) and Leia goes: You look an awful lot like luke Anakin who hasnt actually seen his own image for 12 years, realises that luke is a spitting image of himself as a child, and leia who is glaring at him, he realises, is a carbon copy of Padme. BUT anakin thinks hes projecting and doesnt follow up with it.

Instead he asks them (and for leia this will always be the most important part), he asks them if they wish to stay with Palpatine and do his bidding or to dissapear with him -- and well the choice is easy right, Luke&Leia don’t actually like Palpatine, because despite everything, the force made them sensitive and they feel so much (the despair of the people, the sadness of Vader, the greed of Palpatine)

So they leave for Tattooine, the one place where Palpatine would never look because he never found out that Anakin realised his suit was a boobytrap. The wanted pictures of the twins (both bald shaven and in uniform) nor the one of Anakin (known as Vader, with the helmet) soon dont match the long haired white dress wearing twins and the blond haired bronzed man.

and so Anakin and the twins go into hiding, but guess whose on Tatooine? Thats right -- ObiWan

#starwars #star wars #Star Wars fic #sw fanfic #Star Wars fix it #lmao im on crack yall #jasontoddiefor #fanfic #writing #my writing #sw:dadmodus

70 notes · View notes

5ammi90 · 4 years ago

Text

Spoilers ahead....

Rewatching series 1 of Doctor Who and can I just say I absolutely love Harriet Jones.

I completely forgot that the Doctor invited Mickey.

When you really pay attention you notice how many times they mention Bad Wolf.

I hate Adam, he’s a smug bastard who thinks he knows everything. I’m so glad he got dumped.

Father’s Day makes me so sad, I really feel for Rose. Honestly if looks could kill Rose would have dropped dead in an instant. I am almost in tears when Rose hugs her dad after he figures out who she is. I think this is the only time we see Chris without the leather jacket. I love the image of the tardis fading in, especially the gold shimmer effect. Dang it Rose he told you to not touch the baby, you had one job. It sucks because her dad would have stayed alive except Rose touched the baby and has doomed everyone. Oh Jackie, I give up on you. Oh wait it was Pete’s fault he gave her the baby. Bye tardis. Well I’m sad now, bye Pete wish we got you instead of the parallel world Pete. My heart hurts 😭😭😭.

Are you my mummy? It still freaks me out but yay Jack.

I love Boom Town when the three of them and Mickey get to have a nice lunch and tell stories and jokes. Then the end them repeating she’s an egg, for some reason it kills me. Bye Mickey well until the next episode.

Yay back to Satellite 5. Awww Linda with a y, she’s so cute. The weakest link scares me, the Anne-droid is super creepy. After seeing Jack in the RAF Coat him wearing stuff from top shop makes me laugh. Jack bouncing around in a tennis outfit kills me. Also I love how quickly he gets out and the fact that he was prepared with the laser gun. Doctor is like woo death, let’s do this. Dang it Doc you fixed something just for something else to mess it up. Like when you get rid of Harriet which allowed Harold to slip in. I love Jack so much, I wish we got to keep him as a companion. I feel like The Doctor gives himself to much credit, this outcome could have happened any way. Something else could have gotten rid of the news channels and replaced it with the games. So close but yet so far. Uh oh, look out for the oncoming storm, also Jack losing his mind even though they haven’t know each other that long. Jailbreak jailbreak. Run for your lives he has a gun, you are doomed. I swear series one was peak comedy, also I didn’t realise Jack had a tardis key. I feel bad for The Doctor because every time he thinks he’s gotten rid of the daleks they just come back like cockroaches. Also I love that The Doctor just straight up thought Jack had killed Lynda. Poor controller, her last few minutes were spent planning on how to destroy the daleks. Wow even Jack knows about the time war, I never noticed that before. Just him saying no sends shivers down my spine. I love Chris’ rants, his facial expressions and the tone of his voice is just perfect. Don’t get me wrong David has some good ranting moments but Chris has it down pat. I honestly wish we had him for more than one series but the bbc clearly couldn’t see the potential and didn’t care how he was treated. Yay for some reason the daleks have been religious. Chinwagging, I love that word. How on earth did the emperor actually surive, these daleks are insane. Chris actually portrays a man whose just been through a war very well, like you can believe that he’s lost everything just through facial expressions. These daleks can and will cut a bitch. When it’s the daleks he’s thrown right back to the war especially Chris’ Doctor because for him it just happened. It’s still an open wound for him. Jealous Rose is funny because we are about to have daleks coming at us from every angle this is not the time to be jealous. Also Jack is brilliant. He’s got more brains than he’s given credit for. Bye Jack can’t wait to see you in series three. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I wish he became a full time companion. Bye Rose, don’t do anything stupid. Hey look Mickey, haven’t seen him in ages. I’d rather destroy the humans on earth than let any daleks escape, especially considering that colonies are already out there. I get really sad when Lynda is found because she was so cute and awkward. I love how The Doctor thinks the message of bad wolf is meant for him when really it’s there for Rose. Great idea Rose open the tardis and release the light that turned someone into an egg. The Anne-droid would have been useful if there were multiple droids and if it didn’t waste time saying it’s catchphrase. I mean it took out three of those things at once. Tardis isn’t gonna help you if you kick it. Is it bad that I was happy Rodrick died, does that make me a terrible person. I love Rose at this point were she’s tell Jackie about Pete because she’s in pain and because she’s hurting her mum but she has to because she knows Jackie won’t listen otherwise. Even though he might not see her for months Mickey still tries to help her no matter what. I mean even at this point he might never see her again. No Lynda 😢. I can’t believe they forgot about the giant window. The ending of this episode is one of my favourites because The Doctor finally has someone who understands what it’s like for him everyday but he has to lose that or Rose will die. As well as him having to basically kill him to save her. Also Rose is a BAMF right now. I’m still sour about Jack being left. I will never get over it. David is so cute.

This turned into a seriously long post. I apologise. I’m done I swear. Will rewatch series two some point next week.

4 notes · View notes

satonthelotuspier · 5 years ago

Text

❄️ Untamed Winter Fest 2019 ❄️

Day 30 - Wish - 1.4k

The form this fic takes is mostly exerpts from correspondence between WWX/JC. I think the idea was probably better than the execution in the end but this is the concept I wanted to go with for Wish.

This does take place in the same verse as from Day 13 and Day 29 but you don’t need to have read either, Day 13 involves the cave mentioned in this fic and both include the discussions that set this up, in summary.

Disclaimer: I’ve never given myself this level of sad from writing before - maybe my poor execution didn’t get it across very well but if you want to avoid sads I’d probably give it a miss just in case.

The letter was waiting for Wei Wuxian when he returned to the Jingshi that evening. He knew it’s origin due to the familiar lotus seal. He took the letter and a jar of Emperor’s Smile which Lan Wangji had left out for him and walked out on to the veranda to read it.

The aggressive, bold script was definitely Jiang Cheng’s, but he read the content several times, at first convinced he’d misunderstood. The letter was neither addressed nor signed, but it didn’t need to be.

Jiang Cheng to Wei Wuxian

I wish my brother knew that I listened while we were trapped in the cave. That I heard him and deep down I wanted that too.

I wish he knew how much this grief had consumed me and eaten me up from the inside until there was nothing else left for years.

Someone said to me recently that now all accounts are settled its time to look to the future and let go of the past.

I wish I knew if that was possible, but I want it to be.

I wish my brother knew that I will try, that I want to make the things I said in that cave no longer true.

Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure how he felt and found himself pacing, trying to digest both what Jiang Cheng was and also wasn’t saying.

And really he felt a flare of pride at him, because wasn’t he adapting the best he could to the circumstances to make the best chance of making himself understood?

It was incredibly insightful of him.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t comfortable talking about his emotions; he never had been and his mouth and temper often ran away with themselves. This was without a doubt the best way for him to calmly and logically approach this kind of discussion. You had to consider what words were put into a letter, meaning it was thought out. If you were angry you had time to calm down and think better of what you’d written, whereas words couldn’t be unsaid. And it was so much easier to say some things when you didn’t have to verbalise them in the presence of the other person, especially when you weren’t actually writing to that person, but instead to some nebulous, unnamed entity.

And most importantly it was cathartic.

He dashed back into the Jingshi and put a brush, ink and paper out onto the desk and began to write in his own rushed, careless hand.

Wei Wuxian to Jiang Cheng

I wish my brother knew how happy I was that I had the opportunity to speak person to person with him in the cave, even though what we discussed wasn’t easy for either of us.

I wish he knew that talking through the hard, hurtful things is an important first step to being able to let them go, so even though what we discussed was mostly at odds, they were things that needed to be said.

I wish there was a magic that could erase the past, or dull it’s effects. I would have never ever hurt him or any of my family on purpose.

I wish I could have protected them all; I promised Madam Yu so faithfully, yet still failed in everything but one thing; saving his cultivation.

I wish I knew whether being honest from the start with my brother would have made any kind of difference to the outcome.

Jiang Cheng to Wei Wuxian

I wish my brother knew it wasn’t his responsibility to look after us, he was as much a child as the rest of us. There were schemes within schemes none of us could have guessed at and we were all equally pawns.

I’ve often thought of how much I regretted being so easily manipulated into leaving his side after the Sunshot Campaign. I wish he knew that.

I was so young and naive, easily lead and too concerned over what others thought of me. I wish I’d told them all to fuck off as was my first instinct.

But what they did, the whispers in the ear, was insidious and easily overlooked by an inexperienced boy struggling to build up a destroyed sect from the ashes of Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian to Jiang Cheng

I wish my brother understood that I didn’t blame him for being easily manipulated, the forces at work were masters of the underhand and fooled the entire cultivation world for years.

I would never deny it still hurt though.

It was lonely and scary to be the only thing standing between those innocent people and destruction.

I wish I hadn’t tried to interact with the world at all; if I’d just stayed on the Burial Mounds and given no-one a target to aim at I wonder if everyone would still be alive. I failed the Wen’s as completely as I failed my own family

If there was one thing that that I would struggle to forgive my brother for it would be abandoning his principles to cold hard revenge, taken on innocent people. I wish he knew that and I wish he knew that I will never understand that.

Jiang Cheng to Wei Wuxian

I wish my brother understood what was happening in the cultivation world at that point and what kind of compelling lies were being spread.

I wish you understood you’d have been that target no matter what.

It was easy to look back after the second siege of the Burial Mounds, after the Guanyin Temple and see the lies for what they were.

In the time since Yunping I’ve had time to consider the issue of our golden core. I wish you’d never given it to me. I would have rather died then than allow you to do that for me. I wish the Wen’s had killed me sooner and you’d been given no chance.

I’d rip it out now and give it you back if the only person in the world who was capable of transferring it wasn’t gone.

How fucking dare you make that kind of decision for me, Wei Wuxian? I wish you knew how much I hated you for that, when the world thinks I should have been on my knees thanking you.

I would have rather died. I was ready to when I drew the Wen guards away from you on the street in Yiling. Why didn’t they just cut me down there? I knew that it would be death when they caught me. I fucking wish it had been, why did you have to save that empty broken husk I became? I didn’t want to be saved.

The correspondence had become more emotionally charged over time which was to be expected; both the letters Wei Wuxian had sent and received occasionally had traces of tear stains on them, but this latest showed Jiang Cheng had lost all ability to separate his emotions from the subject and he’d fallen into addressing Wei Wuxian directly instead of that imaginary third correspondent which had kept them both relatively safe.

It was probably the reason Jiang Cheng’s final revelation; the secret he’d held close to his heart for twenty years had finally come to the fore, because he’d let his emotions write the letter and not his brain.

And the truth, finally told, broke Wei Wuxian’s heart in two. He had thought there couldn’t be anything left in this world that was able to hurt him; he had been so wrong.

He wept long into the night, folded in Lan Wangji’s comforting embrace. For the first time it didn’t help, because all he could think about was that no one had been there to hold his brother when his world had collapsed around him.

Despite Wen Ning’s best intentions he’d been told about “their” golden core in anger and whether he’d deserved it or not it would have ripped him apart as viscerally as his own disclosure had to Wei Wuxian; yet there would have been no comforting arms or soft words to ease Jiang Cheng’s pain.

He knew himself what it was to be lonely and scared and bearing a huge weight of indebtedness to someone you knew you could never possibly pay back.

It was a long time before he could bear the thought of picking up a brush again to reply.

#untamed winter fest #day 30 #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #mdzs fanfic #mdzs fic #mdzs #the untamed #angst #feelings #shay's stuff

50 notes · View notes

intyalote · 4 years ago

Text

Nirvana in Fire Fic Recs

While I don’t think I could ever make a finite list of my favorite fics, these are the ones that I recommend the most. I’ve included a variety of ships/gen, limited myself to ten fics with no repeating authors, and tried to include fics of different styles, though naturally the list still reflects my own preferences a bit.

In order of increasing word count, because why not:

silk scroll, twelve inches by 孢子梨 (4k, mcs/jingyan), translated by presume/justjoy - Or, the new emperor receives an old friend, and one last letter.

This is honestly one of the best fics I’ve ever read. Both the original and the translation are beautifully written and very atmospheric. The poem interspersed throughout is so emotionally powerful and fitting for Jingyan and Xiao Shu. Perfectly crafted in every way, a masterclass in short-form writing.

Ripples by jusrecht (5k, mcs/lin shu) - Mei Changsu was a pale, delicate-looking scholar with a gentle smile and a smooth, mellow voice, the kind that stirred the worst of Lin Shu’s scorn. (time travel AU)

A wonderful character study of Mei Changsu - selfcest serves to illustrate how he is both the same and different from Lin Shu, and in what ways he has improved (or not). The relationship between these two is wonderful - Changsu’s initial scorn turning to literal yearning for his past, and Lin Shu being enamored by the person his prodigal intelligence cannot outmatch (of course not, it’s himself but more developed).

apples in the trees by lastwingedthing (6k, gong yu/nihuang) - After Mei Changsu's death, Gong Yu stays in the south with General Mu.

Women supporting each other! The scene in the drama where Nihuang is briefly jealous of Gong Yu is one of my least favorite, and I’m very glad we now have this fic to patch over it - MCS is not omniscient, especially when it comes to love.

winter (if you must leave) by winchilsea (6k, mcs/lin chen) - Lin Chen and Mei Changsu talk about love without ever using the word. A series of scenes at Meiling.

So very sad. Includes description of just how much Lin Chen gave up to help Changsu for all those years, the pointlessness of war, love and lack of it. Perfectly encapsulates the awful destructiveness of Lin Chen and MCS’s relationship.

Amidst the Rain by Eswet (10k, pre-mcs/prince yu), translated by HanguangMoon - The advisor, to whom, it could be said, a bleeding heart was handed with a plea for help, could give no assistance.

The prelude to an incredible redemption arc for Jinghuan. Goes with great detail into how much Prince Yu is affected by his Hua heritage being revealed, but instead of rebelling he goes to Sir Su one last time for advice. I’ve always had a soft spot for Prince Yu - he’s such a fascinating villain, power-hungry yet also deeply loyal to those he cares for, and this fic explores both the good and bad sides of him. For those who read Russian I highly recommend the second part of this series as well.

Still Here (With All I Hold Dear) by marvelist/Ardent (11k, past mcs/jingyan) - Jingyan misses Xiao Shu in all the ways that matter but he cannot fall apart. Surprisingly enough, Lin Chen can relate to that.

Jingyan and Lin Chen becoming friends and healing together post-canon is everything I live for. They’re so different from each other - the duty-bound emperor and the carefree young master who roams the jianghu - but they also have so much in common! This one truly shines in characterization (Lin Chen needing Jingyan to prove himself, then immediately conning him into relaxing; Tingsheng being a perfect son; Gao-gonggong subtly caring for Jingyan; and of course Fei Liu, his snacks, and his love for Su-gege).

A Measure of Forgiveness by aboxthecolourofheartache (23k, gen) - Two post-canon fics loosely linked, focused on grief and mourning and catharsis. Largely a character study for Lin Chen, because the author is hopeless.

Catharsis for Lin Chen and Fei Liu. Featuring crying at Consort Jing, Lin Chen reluctantly liking Jingyan, Fei Liu and flower analogies, and general grief and mourning all around. The first fic also has some wonderful moments that confront Changsu’s sacrificial mindset.

The Bodhisattva of Jinling by kimboo_york (33k, mcs/lin chen) - "This is not what he expected out of the wheel of reincarnation, and he’s very miffed at all the very many spiritual texts he has read that suggested something better. Or, at least, different."...or, the one where Mei Changsu ends up in his very own Groundhog's Day Year.

MCS gets broken and then remade. Builds up to the big reveal so, so well. The development of his relationship with Lin Chen is also amazing - it absolutely would take him multiple lifetimes to let go of his focus on the Chiyan case and allow himself to fall in love. For all his brains, MCS is very blind during canon, but this gives him an opportunity to look further.

Borne on the Winds of Heaven by Ione (65k, gen) - The dying King of Southern Chu has one wish, to meet the son he has never seen. He and Princess Nian want Xiao Jingrui to turn his back on dangerous Da Liang, and make his home there. Sore in spirit, Jingrui isn't thinking about the future. All he lives for are his letters from Yan Yujin. Until shocking news arrives, and everything changes . . .

Fix-it with a focus on the younger generation. Jingrui is wonderful as always, and provides some nice commentary to end-of-canon events from someone who isn’t completely enamored of MCS and sees past his masks. The ending is also wonderful and has one of my favorite lines in Jingyan’s narration, and it challenges the military mindset that most of our canon characters have (I mean really, out of the five countries could none of them have been stopped by any method other than KILL THEM ALL TO ASSERT DOMINANCE??).

the mist that cloaks the river, the clouds that hide the stars by Sovin (177k, gen) - Yan Yujin has mostly evaded the worst consequences of the Chiyan case, despite her standing betrothal to Lin Shu. So warned, she precariously balances freedom and evading attention, and stays quite far away from politics for a number of reasons. Politics don't seem quite so keen to stay away from her.

If I had to pick one “must-read” from this list, it would be this one. It’s 177k, literally the longest English NIF fic on ao3, but I’m still not sure how the author managed to fit so much in there. Reading along as Yujin comes into her own while getting to see her refreshing take on events felt like a privilege, and I am so very glad this fic exists. And I haven’t even mentioned its wonderful take on a sort-of-fix-it, Yujin’s mature and deep friendship with Mei Changsu, or how Yujin’s gender changes the relationships she has with her father, her mentors, and Prince Yu in fascinating ways. There are too many fantastic elements to go into here, just read it!

#nifweek #nirvana in fire #nif #lang ya bang #琅琊榜 #nif fic #nirvana in fire fic #ficrec #lyb

5 notes · View notes

jiraiiko · 6 years ago

Text

CHAPTER 4 - Mirror, mirror on the wall... Who will be the one to take the fall?

Rhyming or words have never been my forte. But who remembers the mirror song of Disney's cartoon movie Mulan? It is one of my favorite pieces of all disney songs. Not only is the story set in China where my roots are but it also describes the struggle that has ... not to be dramatic but yes, also to be dramatic - traumatized me for life.

[TRIGGER WARNING, very depressing content ahead]

Like I have already mentioned quite a few times, I grew up as a very quiet little child. It's funny because my Chinese name literally translates into "quiet advisor of the emperor". It sounds less silly in Chinese, believe me. I always viewed my name as something like a curse because I was just as timid and silent as it suggested. It wasn't tragic at first. Parents like it if their kids are quiet. Especially Asian parents. They love quiet and obedient children who have no demands. I fullfilled all the criteria of being a model child. I was quite intelligent too and got good grades at school. I was good at arts, could play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" (well, the first part of the three) at the age 13 (or I was told that's pretty good) without ever having gone to piano school but only through my mum's help - well, rather strict teaching - and rarely met up with friends since all I was supposed to care about was studying anyways. Why would a child need friends in the first place, right?

So yes. I have always been obedient. I have learned througout the years that that is what my parents wanted of me. Dont cause trouble and do as you're told and everything will be good. Your life will be good. Listen to your parents because we know best. This mindset was hammered into my brain and I never really questioned it. Because it made my parents happy. And I wanted them to be happy. I wanted them to be proud of me, to praise me. I wanted to feel loved.

Yesterday all that fell apart. And I dont even have the energy to type it all out. It just makes me incredibly sad. All I know now is, that I cannot rely on my parents for help. At least when it comes to my happiness. My true happiness. Because it just doesnt matter. But you know what? Even if it doesnt matter to you.

I'm still gay.

And I always will be. That's just how it is. I told you I was hurting. That I am slowly dying inside. But that doesnt matter. It never did. All that i am supposed to do is just stay silent and obedient. Just do as I am told. You know I am hurting but it doesnt matter. Because it would be worse if you had to suffer. As long as you dont have to feel the pain, as long as I put on a smile and pretend everything is okay while all of this pain is suffocating me from inside every single day as i am gasping for air and clawing at my skin in poor attempts to distract myself from this invisible pain and the hurting...BUT. As long as I dont speak of it. As long as I suffer silently. It will be okay. I will be okay. I will be okay someday.

My parents are so lucky I am not that mentally weak despite my depression. I am still sane and not stupid enough to inflict severe damage on myself. Sure, I will scratch and claw at my skin. But only so much as it doesnt become obvious. And sure, I will still have suicidal thoughts, but I would never actively carry them out because I dont support suicide and dying actively. My approach is more passive. I will slowly rot away. So slowly that you wont even notice. I am slowly and surely awaiting the day I will be set free. I am just tired. So very much tired.

And all that because it's suuuuch an awful and unforgivable thing to love women. All that because I love you so much that I couldnt bear to see you suffer and instead cry to myself when nobody sees. Ah, i wanna vomit my guts out... I am so disgusted with myself.

At this point i dont even know whether i want to care anymore. This will be my life from now on. I am giving up. You, dear reader, might get angry at me for giving up like this. But my faith in life has been shattered. I can already feel how my living drive is fading away. I just wish my body would physically give out as much as my mental state does. Then I would finally come closer the salvation. Closer to death. I am sorry for being so depressing. But that's just how i feel right now. After all these years i fought to be strong. I tried so hard. And now i am tired of life. Tired of trying. So tired.

Just like Mulan sang in her song. I will never be the perfect daughter you wished for. In fact, when I look in the mirror I dont even recognize that person emptily blinking back at me. I dont know if that person is even still a person or alive. That person in the mirror is just sad. Just so sad...

#mpcost #lgbtq #coming out #gay #lesbian #queer #asian #chinese #girl #depressing #just very depressing #story #biography

1 note · View note

doctormctiddy · 7 years ago

Text

behind a facade. - fan apprentice/julian.

WHO’S READY FOR SOME ANGST ON THIS FINE SUNDAY EVE???

inspired by this post!

check out my fan apprentice here and my writing here!

Gloria had never been in love before.

Romantically, anyway. Platonically, she'd been in love numerous times, but many of these feelings were confused with romantic love, and while it did create a realization that the people she thought she loved only loved her as a friend, it still hurt like hell.

But she never stopped craving it.

Night after night she would lay in her bed at the shop, wishing, dreaming for someone to hold her close, to kiss her good morning (or to just kiss her, really), for someone to care for her more than a friend would.

Asra, in all his flighty glory, was in the same boat. He just didn't realize he was in love with her until it was too late. By then, her memories were partially gone. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Gloria was ignorant of his feelings, however. She was ignorant of a lot of things. Like, for example, how one night after Asra had left, the strange, tall man in a bird mask, who had broken into her shop, would be the one she’d give her heart to fully.

It was a bizarre concept.

Even after Nadia had taken her to the palace to hunt down the murderer of her husband- who happened to be the same man who’d broken into her shop- Gloria found out she couldn't stop thinking about him. Doctor Julian Devorak. Sometimes she’d mumble his name while scouring through his old desk in Nadia’s library, repeating it over and over like some kind of mantra.

Was this love, she asked herself, or an infatuation with the mysterious unknown?

Julian was not like any man she’d met before, surely. This was confirmed after she’d ran into him, in an attempt to flee the palace after her- no, Asra’s- emperor card was stolen. He’d been a gentleman, buying her a drink, just talking with her about things she’d found in his desk. It may have even been her imagination, but she thought that he was flirting with her at one point.

“Ahh. Gloria, what a lovely name. A musical name. Gloria.”

His comment about musicality made sense, considering that was the type of magic she specialized in. Regardless, it made her heart skip and her cheeks flush pink.

“Julian’s a pretty lovely name too,” she’d responded, “a name that commands attention, like an emperor of old.”

She’d watched his face tinge pink too, bringing the stein of his drink to his lips. “... I suppose so. Thank you.”

Even after recovering her emperor card, she remained at the palace, though on occasion she’d sneak out to meet up with Julian. He was a warm beacon of light to her, something she could rely on… even if there was a possibility that he did murder the late Count Lucio.

At one point, she stopped caring.

Namely, this point was when he kissed her.

He’d found her hurting herself, as she so often did out of self hatred, and he said… he said he loved her. Whether or not it was true, she never wanted to forget it; she didn't want it to be false. She loved him too, or at least she thought she did. As mentioned, it was hard for her to distinguish romantic feelings from platonic feelings due to her lack of experience.

Every time they’d kissed after that, every time he’d held her closely, even the time he’d saved her from the vampire eel’s bite, she could only question, “What if he turns out like everyone else? What if he only likes me platonically? What if he leaves? What if Nadia catches us?” Repeated questions flooded her brain, anxieties she couldn't shake off no matter what she tried. All she could do was pray that this lasted, that he wouldn't leave her alone.

Then he told her something that she still ached to think about.

His face had been inches from hers, their foreheads pressed together, and he’d pecked her lips. “Gloria… do you love me?”

“Of course!” She’d responded a bit too loudly, then flushed at the realization of it being said that way. Julian chuckles.

“I'm glad.” And after a breath, he spoke again, “I… I thought I was in love once. You know.” She did know; he’d told her this before. “I must admit, when we first started this off, I was afraid we’d turn out the same way, but… but…” His gaze is soft, and she melts internally. “Something about you is different. However, I need to know.” He leans closer to her, voice barely above a whisper. “I want to give you my everything, if you’ll let me. Will you?”

Without hesitation, she answers, “I will. As long as I can do the same.”

She couldn’t forget the elation in his uncovered eye, the tears that started brimming there, the kiss he’d given her that was so joyful and in love that it left her heart full and her lips tingling.

“Thank you, my dearest magician. Thank you so, so much.”

There were other things she didn't want to forget. The way his smile lit up the room. The way his lips felt against her. How warm he felt when he was holding her. His chortling laugh that sounded so much like the raven that was always with him. The way her name sounded when he said it. How he trembled when she kissed him, his hands on her waist, a silent plea of more, please, don't let me go.

“We should run away,” she said to him once, and he’d laughed, tracing a long finger down her cheek.

“The fugitive doctor and his lovely magician.” There's a gentle sparkle in his stormy grey eye as he says, “You know, Gloria Devorak has a nice ring to it.”

“Someday, maybe.”

“Someday indeed.”

All these thought swirled in Gloria’s head, blotting out the noise of the crowd’s jeers, of Nadia’s rehearsed speech, as she watched her love walk up to the gallows. The executioner ripped the bag off of his head, and she almost cried out when his messy ginger hair fell over his bruised face. She wanted to save him. She needed him.

But she couldn't.

Watch this. That dark voice of her self loathing hissed to her. This is what you deserve. This is all your fault. You can't be happy. You can't save him.

From across the sea of people, Julian’s eye meet hers. His smile is sad as she gazes at him, her throat clogging up from held back tears.

You’ll stay with me, won't you? He seemed to say, and she sniffed.

Always. I’ll be with you til the end, my perfect love.

The rope dropped, and she shattered behind the facade of Vesuvia’s champion.

#//DABS OUTTA HERE BEFORE YA'LL KILL ME//#dont worry i have fluff following this so dont kill me yet #the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana fanfic #my writing #julian devorak #fan apprentice #ace apprentice #gloria/julian #ace ♠ reads the cards

42 notes · View notes

wee-chlo · 7 years ago

Text

Temples In the Dark

Got very sad about how Gilmore was not even mentioned in the finale and I wrote a thing. A 2000 word thing. Behold, the first fanfiction I’ve written in approximately 3 years.

They don’t tell Shaun immediately and he never quite forgives them for that.

Just based on pure logistics, he gets it. He runs full sprint back to Emon the day after, and the day after they’ve already run full sprint into Pandemonium for reasons he doesn’t learn for a while. He needs to make sure everyone’s okay, his staff, Sherri, let them know he’s fine.

About a month later, Keyleth walks in.

It’s a pleasant surprise. Not something he was expecting, that’s for sure. Not that he doesn’t love Keyleth but bare minimum he expected Vax to be with her.

She looks a thousand years older, solemn and sad, and the weight of what’s rest on her shoulders hits him like a ton of bricks.

“Hey, Shaun,” she says almost too softly for him to hear, and with a smile almost hurts to look at. He smiles back and can practically feel how thin and weak it is on his face, feels the sting in his eyes as he says, “Maybe we go in the back?” She nods. She follows.

She sits on a couch next to him and tells him everything, from when they went through the Siphon to now. He doesn’t want to interrupt, can’t bring himself to, so he listens and feels the tears stream down his face in silence. Just like hers. At least at first.

It’s the snowdrops that break them both. They cling to each other, their love for this fearless fool of a man a mutual scaffolding, at least at this moment. He doesn’t know how long it’s been when Sherri comes in with tea and a soft promise to watch the front, but he loves her for it.

After the tears of grief pass, and that takes a while, they sip lukewarm tea and talk about Vax. It’s nice, if a little jagged, more than a little painful. But Shaun figures Vax would want this. To be remembered with laughter, for Keyleth to smile and Shaun to smile with her.

There was this one time…

And then he…

I don’t know what he thought would…

The moon is up when she leaves, kissing him on the cheek and thanking him, promising to visit.

In her defense, she does. Just not very often.

The others come too. With apologies and stories and cheerful reminders of talk of franchises. Pike’s on the council in Vasselheim, Percy’s talking about technological fairs in Whitestone, Westruun’s recovered, but Shaun just wants to stay here for now.

They all promise to come back.

In their defense, they do. Just not very often.

New adventurers come in. Not all of them remind him of Vox Machina but some do. He sponsors a new group, and whenever they come back, their cleric groans about how the bard will not shut up about Gilmore’s Glorious Goods.

“We’re paid to advertise, Karen!” The bard protests, making Shaun laugh.

“They were drow.”

They’re young and vibrant, and sometimes they remind him so vividly of Vox Machina before the vampires and dragons and gods that it makes Shaun’s heart hurt.

Sometimes, when he does his evening walk after the store closes, he’ll take the long way around and go past the cemetery. It’s a little maudlin, to be fair, but sometimes he just can’t help it. The temple to the Raven Queen is there. Sometimes he walks past. And sometimes he goes in.

He never yells the way he wants to. Sometimes he wishes he could. At Vox Machina, at Vax, at the Raven Queen. He wishes he could be selfish, or foolish, or just a little irrational. But they’ve lost just as much as he has. They’ve lost more, really. Vax was a friend, not a brother, not a lover.

He sits quietly in the Raven Queen’s temple. It’s usually nighttime by the time he gets there, and most people go there at dusk, so he’s got the place to himself most nights. There’s candles, torches, a raven carved into the far wall. Keyleth told him what she looked like: dark and tall, a stark white mask with no emotion. It makes his heart pound just to think of it.

What would happen, he wonders, if he just. Said what he wanted to say? What could She do really?

He wonders if Keyleth feels like this. Or Vex. Like they could raze the Shadowfell, send it sprawling into oblivion, and it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy.

When he really thinks about, really stops and claws his way to the center, it’s the waste of it that’s truly galling. The waste of a young life, the waste of an incredible man who could have been a husband, a father, an uncle, a leader. A thousand lives lost because of this goddess and Her deals, a million souls that could have been, heroes all, without doubt; sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, on and on, ended before they could even begin because Vax and Keyleth were stopped before they could really start.

“You’re a real bitch, you know that?” His voice is soft in the half-light, the tone almost experimental. No lightning strikes, no ravens descend from the shadows to rip out his eyes. And it feels good, almost. It feels right. So he continues.

“They said you took him right after Keyleth’s speech. Was that some kind of a joke? What is he to you anyway? Something to add to a collection?” He swallows past the lump in his throat and manages to choke out, “He was my friend.”

The words echo before he continues.

“What did he ever do for you that wasn’t helpful? What did we do that displeased you, you thankless wretch?”

He finds himself standing almost without realizing it, walking down the center aisle to stand before the Raven Queen’s sigil. His voice bounces around the empty hall, and there are shapes in the shadows, with beady eyes that look down at him, glittering in the firelight.

“You and your deals. What, it wasn’t enough? Defeating the Chroma Conclave, personally slaying the Cinder King, that didn’t earn him a moment of fatherhood? Saving the Emperor of Tal’Dorei from a demonic incursion wasn’t enough to let him see his sister’s children? Sealing Vecna wasn’t enough to let him live with Keyleth with the time he had?”

“Is this the act of a wise goddess? A just one?” The tears sting before they start to run down his face. He doesn’t know if his voice cracks from grief or rage as he snarls, “To hell with your deals. To hell with you.”

The tears are still on his face as he strides out, his heart pounding in his chest. He half expects something to happen, something, but nothing does. No lightning bolts, no furious ravens… Just stars above him, the horizon a dull blood red in the distance, the air cool with the promise of autumn.

He scrubs at his face with his sleeve like a child and feels a bit better. Not much, but better.

A soft caw startles him.

A raven sits on the tree next to him, almost completely hidden in the dusk. It stares at him silently, watching, waiting perhaps.

“What?” Shaun snaps. “Are you going to tell on me?” The raven simply stares. Shaun stares back for a moment, defiant, before he feels the tears start to sting at his eyes again and he has to look away.

“They didn’t even tell me.” His voice breaks and he has to sit down, stumbling over to a stone bench outside the temple. “I thought I was their friend and they didn’t even tell me. He didn’t…”

The raven cawed again. Shaun closed his eyes.

“Keyleth said he didn’t even give them a chance to try and bring him back before he made a deal. But I wonder if he knew. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe She just… took advantage.” He’d never know. Not even Keyleth knew, but the bitterness in her voice told him she had her doubts, her theories. He had his as well. They made him want to spit.

“They should have told me.”

It hurts worse than it probably should. He was close with Vax for certain, trusted them all, cared enough about each of them to fight beside them against the Cinder King himself, but… But had they really ever been more than business friends, really? The thought made him uneasy. He’d trusted them with so much, but how much did they trust with him that they wouldn’t have if he’d just been Gilmore the Eccentric Shop Owner?

It’s a gloomy, awkward thought, the idea that you have far fewer friends than you truly do.

The raven caws again, jolting him out of his thoughts. Just as well. The gash of red in the west have cooled to a deep violet, and the streetlights, made from glowing crystals, have begun to shine with increasing brightness.

Again, he wipes away the evidence of tears with his sleeve, takes some deep breaths. He’ll cry later, most likely. At home. Perhaps into a cup of tea, or a pillow, or just as he walks through the door. It’s been a bad few weeks. As if the nightmares aren’t bad enough. First only the Cinder King, now the Whispered One features prominently, along with small, female bodies gouged by dagger and pierced by arrow. Sad, solemn Cassandra who deserved peace. Kaylie, Scanlan’s firebrand, who he had met only briefly when she’d come to Whitestone to help bring him back and then take him away.

Gods, but isn’t it bad enough?

He looks up and sees the raven still there, still watching him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s not your fault you’re associated with Her. I really have nothing against ravens in particular.”

The raven flaps its wings briefly and in some deranged sort of way, Shaun’s brain interprets it as a shrug.

“Do you know Vax?” Shaun asks. The raven does not so much as twitch in reply. Just stares. Which is a mite disconcerting but Shaun powers on.

“If you do, pass along a message, would you?” At this, the raven tilts it’s head just slightly. “Let him know I’m not going to forget him. And that he deserved better. He and Keyleth both.” His breath hitches as he continues, “I’m going to remember him the way he was. Just… just a massive idiot.” A laugh that’s half a sob escapes him, and then another, and another, until there’s no laughter at all anymore. “A singularly deranged individual!” The raven simply watches as he collects himself again.

“I’m sorry,” Shaun repeats. “I’m not myself lately.” He peers at the raven again, or at least where he thinks the raven is. Even with the assistance from the torches outside the temple and the streetlights, it’s getting rather hard to see it. Like it’s made of shadow. “As is made obvious by my continued conversation with woodland creatures-“

“Uh, milord?” Shaun nearly jumps out of his skin, looking up to find an older man, dirty and threadbare, staring at him. “Sorry, milord. Don’t mean to startle you. Was just gonna tell you that the cemetery gate’s closin’ soon.”

“Ah, er, thank you.” Shaun stands and brushes imaginary dirt from his coat to avoid the man’s wary gaze.

“Pardon me, milord, but… was you talkin’ to that bird there?” Shaun feels his face heat up. Lie.

“No, no, just, uh. Talking to myself.” Internally, he winces. That’s not better.

“To… yerself?” The man looks, impossibly, even more concerned.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” Shaun says, disengaging and hurrying down the path before the man can say anything more. The raven caws uproariously, a cacophony of sound and movement as it beats its wings and flies into the air. One might interpret it as a wild bird being startled by sudden sound and movement, but Shaun gets the distinct and frankly offensive impression that he is being laughed at.

The walk home is uneventful. The streets are well-lit and quiet, and by the time he gets back, Sherri has already locked up the storefront and gone home. His apartment behind the store is dark and empty, and it’s never felt darker and lonelier. Shaun resolves to remedy this. He can hardly have the room to be offended at a goddess for a wasted life when he’s half-wasting his own moping in the dark. He wants company. He wants love.

The bard from the adventuring group he sponsors now... Varis. Elven man, blond haired and blue eyed and frankly rather adorable. Every time Shaun so much as glances at him, the poor man gets flustered. Sherri swears that once, he nearly dropped an entire box of healing potions the group had bought after Shaun winked at him. She’d thought it funny.

Something to think about.

But that is for later, the next time that group comes in, and that could be weeks. Right now, he feels tired, just so damn tired. He barely manages to shuck off his clothing before collapsing into bed.

That night, he dreams of black wings against blue skies, the joy of flight and reunion… And a red-haired druid standing beneath a black and gold tree, a raven perched lightly on her shoulder.

#critical role #cr spoilers #shaun gilmore

31 notes · View notes