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soulmate-game · 5 years ago

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It had been a trip to Metropolis. Why would Francois-Dupoint go to Gotham, a crime-ridden city crawling with danger and supervillains, vigilantes that toed the line of being bad influences, and a really high chance of lawsuit, when they could go to the city of Superman himself?

Exactly. No good reason.

At least, that was what they all thought. Marinette’s parents even volunteered to chaperone, deciding that they could survive shutting the bakery down for one week. Marinette had helped raise enough money for the trip that the school could compensate them a bit for their time, and their food, hotel, and plane were all paid for. It was supposed to be a great trip. One to remember. And yeah, Marinette would never forget that vacation.

Because she stood with the rest of her class, watching smoke and dust rise off of the pile of rubble that just dropped on top of her parents. The fight was over. Marinette couldn’t even remember who it was. But even with his son by his side, Superman and Superboy couldn’t save everyone. Nobody could. It was asking too much, to expect any one or two heroes to save everyone when an entire city was being attacked and buildings reduced to rubble.

But that wouldn’t soothe the sight of blood creeping out of the rocks.

That wouldn’t soothe the scrapes on Marinette’s knees when she dropped to the ground.

It wouldn’t smother the sound of her agonized cries.

It wouldn’t heal the burns and scrapes and bruises, the chipped fingernails and bleeding fingertips that Marinette gave herself as she tried desperately, sight blurry through tears, to lift each and every piece of still-hot concrete off, shove it to the side, in an attempt to unearth them. They could still be alive, right? Right?

The fact that she was shoveling what amounted to pebbles off of a hill of rubble argued with her. No. No, they weren’t.

It wasn’t until gentle, but unyieldingly strong hands clasped hers, making them still.

“You’re hurting yourself,” that soft, deep voice came from whoever owned the foreign hands, but she didn’t have the mental strength to look up and identify them. Instead, she resorted to kicking rubble away. The voice sighed. “Back up. I can help. Okay? Will you let me help?”

It had been so long, Marinette furrowed her eyebrows. When was the last time someone had actually asked her that question? When was the last time someone ever offered her help? Legitimate help, not just something superficial.

She couldn’t remember. How should she respond?

Marinette’s tongue darted out, wetting her dusty lips. Her deep breath came in with a disconcerting rattle. Somehow, she managed to nod. The foreign hands loosened slightly.

“Okay. Good—“

“I can’t stop,” Marinette finally managed to choke out. “I can’t— I need to—“

“I know,” the voice said again, endlessly patient. Endlessly understanding. “But you’re hurting yourself, so put these on first. Then you can keep digging.”

With his help—yes, him. She vaguely managed to pin down that the voice was male— she was able to slip on thick gloves. They were several sizes too big, probably belonged to one of the firefighters nearby, her mind numbly supplied. She didn’t care. As soon as they were on, she dropped down and began to dig again. The man who had offered to help did just that, moving just a foot or two away and lifting up impossibly large chunks of concrete before placing them down gently in an open area.

With his help, they were uncovered. They were carried away, under blankets, as best as they could be. Marinette saw none of it. Hands covered her eyes, younger than the voice-man’s hands but almost as strong. The only thing she saw was whatever was left once most of them was taken away. Later, she would thank him. But in the moment she was furious.

“I’m not a baby!” She growled at him, her voice lower and scratchier than usual because of all the smoke and dust clogging her throat. “I need to look at them! I need to remember!”

“Not like this,” the new voice said. When he removed his hands, Marinette saw Superboy. He was probably just about her age, but that offered little comfort for her. At least his eyes were understanding, calm, and empathetic. “You don’t need to see them like this. Remember them like they were, not how they ended,” the young hero advised gently, keeping a respectable distance between them now that he was no longer covering her eyes. He wasn’t even floating, staying on solid ground to stay closer to her eye level. “Today will be hard enough on your mind as it is. You don’t need to make this more painful than it is.”

Marinette could only bite her lip at that, her shoulders trembling. Is this what it took to have someone worry about her? To have people realize that she wasn’t superhuman, that she wasn’t infallible or mentally indestructible? Is this what it took, to finally have people try to help and care for her?

Because if it was, she would gladly deal with Lila Rossi and be held to far too high a standard for the rest of her life. She would rather suffer quietly for decades with that much more gentle pain than deal with this agony right now.

She finally let the tears fall, but they were mostly silent. Only hiccups and gasps for air added sound to her sobs. Superboy gently removed her hands from her arms before she could draw blood on herself, and when she lunged into the touch he drew her into the hug she clearly needed. When she pretty much collapsed into his hold, getting snot and tears over the symbol on his chest, he said nothing. He just held her and shared a glance over her shoulder with his father.

—*—*—*—*—*

Lois Lane was an investigative reporter. And when her husband and son asked her to make sure the girl they had sat with for hours after the latest attack on their city would be taken care of, she did not cut corners in her research. What she came up with was less than reassuring.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng. With her parents gone, she didn’t have much in the way of possible guardians. Her paternal grandfather was dead, just a few months earlier of old age. Her paternal grandmother Gina was consumed with wanderlust, not very responsible and not likely to be able to win custody. Even if she did, Lois doubted Marinette would do well in such an unstable, constantly moving lifestyle. Some people would, but Marinette was much like her son from what she gathered from her investigation. She would need stability before anything else. There was her Uncle from her mom’s side of the family, but he only spoke Mandarin so the language barrier was not promising either. The last thing Marinette needed was pressure to learn a new language. If she hyper focused on anything to deal with her grief, it should at least be something she chose on her own. Lastly there was her maternal grandmother, but she had gotten in an accident and passed away almost two years prior.

Luckily, Lois Lane was also a woman of extreme, if mostly secret, political power. She knew several billionaires with political sway, international superheroes, and politicians. Also, not that she would ever tell her husband, but she might have squared away some blackmail and favors that she might cash in with some folks in the legal system if it decided to fight her on her new personal mission.

Nobody got in the way of Lois Lane and lasted long.

But first, she ran her idea past her family. It wouldn’t do any good if they didn’t agree with her, after all. Luckily enough, her offer seemed to be exactly what they had hoped for. Apparently Marinette was the type that was easy to get attached to.

And that was how, after twelve hours of intense phone-call sessions and very, very many in depth discussions, arguments, debates, bargains, and subtle manipulation, Marinette Dupain-Cheng ended up in the temporary custody of the Kent family.

The process itself was extremely complicated and in normal circumstances would have taken anywhere from days to months to complete, but as mentioned before Lois Lane is a secret political superpower in and of herself.

Officially, Marinette’s grandmother Gina assumed custody. Unofficially, her grandmother had plans to enroll her in school abroad in, you guessed it, Metropolis, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the melancholy memories that Paris would supply her. In doing so, she contacted the Kent’s who were apparently old family friends and asked them to take her granddaughter in for the time being. She was oh so busy traveling the world, after all. And that’s no life for a teenager recovering from grief.

After two weeks to allow Marinette to go back to Paris for the funeral, pack up her things and say goodbye to her friends, she ended up on the Kents’ doorstep with her grandmother by her side. Any attempts to get more information out of the old woman were futile, she refused to say a word on why nobody had mentioned these “family friends” before.

(Lois figured out fairly quickly that Gina Dupain was not somebody to take lightly. The fact that Gina answered the phone thinking that Red Hood was calling was a giant tip off. Lois was pretty sure that Gina knew damn well who her son and husband were, but wasn’t saying anything about it. It really was a shame that she wasn’t exactly prime parenting material at the moment.)

Lois and Clark opened the door together, having been double and triple checking that everything was set up and ready for their new addition. Sure, Marinette wasn’t being adopted or even officially fostered by them, but they would still treat her like a Kent.

“Marinette, hi,” Clark greeted, smiling warmly down at the short girl. “I’m Clark, and this is my wife Lois. If you need absolutely anything, don’t be afraid to ask. Okay?”

The small girl nodded, her hair flopping behind her a bit. Normally she would have it held back in pigtails, but she just didn’t have the energy for that anymore. Maybe she would regain it one day. With that, Gina and Marinette said their goodbyes and she started her life with the Kents.

—*—*—*—*—*

It took a while. Luckily the trip to metropolis had already been in the early summer, so Marinette could be excused for the last few weeks of the school term and relax over summer before being forced back into society. Her grades at Francois-Dupoint were finalized, Marinette doing all the extra work during her two weeks in France for the funeral. She had been told it wasn’t necessary and that she could take her time with it but, as the Kents soon learned, Marinette hated being idle.

But even though Marinette was nowhere near healed, it only took a week for her to warm up to the youngest Kent. Jon was a very much welcome presence in her new life. Just about her age, he was always patient with her and never pried for information or asked about why she occasionally couldn’t bring herself to talk. Words just failed her sometimes, she couldn’t get her throat to work. Something would remind her of her parents, or that day, and she would just feel the dust in her throat again and the blisters on her palms and she just couldn’t say a word.

All three of the Kents helped her through these episodes as best as they could, but Jon always stayed close by so she could tug him into a hug when she was ready. As a very tactile person, she really appreciated that.

And somehow he and Clark, despite being very awkward and physically unsure of themselves on the surface, gave the best hugs.

But, even though Jon and Clark had resigned themselves to being slightly more on-guard about their identities than they usually would be at home, they hadn’t quite anticipated just how hard it would be to keep a secret identity. Not necessarily from Marinette, since the girl spent most of her time out in their backyard or in her room, or occasionally going out for short visits to the city with Jon. No, it was the other way around.

Because of course Marinette couldn’t just give up being Ladybug and the Grand Guardian. Fu wasn’t there to take over for her anymore, so she took it upon herself to watch over Paris twice as vigorously. Mostly through keeping an eye on news channels and texts with her friends, general media stuff. She didn’t want to tire Kaalki out.

And this was how, two months after Marinette started living with the Kents, she walked through a portal into her room and was met with Clark and Jon staring right at her. The elder Kent had his arms crossed, posture oddly confident for the man she had come to know, and one eyebrow raised. Jon looked like his smile was about to rip his face in half, and he was bouncing a bit on his heels. Even then, though, Marinette could pick out the slight worry in his blue eyes. In both of theirs.

She immediately jumped backwards and closed the portal. Trapping herself back in Paris.

And instantly crumpling down to moan in despair on top of a random Parisian rooftop.

She was sitting on the very top of the Eiffel Tower when Superman and Superboy found her, and it didn’t take much for her to guess that they had flown straight over from metropolis. Stupid super-speed flight. She drew her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees as they floated to her side of her patiently. She had long since separated Kaalki, and sat in just her Ladybug costume.

“I knew Lois could contact you guys, but this is a bit too quick even for you don’t you think?” Ladybug drawled monotonously, looking over at both of the heroes dryly. Now that she was mostly of sound mind and not in the middle of a traumatic situation, she was able to make connections she couldn’t before. She was able to actually observe their faces, whereas before she hadn’t really been in the right mind frame to really commit anything about them to memory. But now?

Ohhh, she knew those faces.

Marinette’s eyebrow twitched as she did a double-take, followed closely by a deep breath. Maybe the glasses and, for Jon, baseball cap, would be a good enough disguise for most people. Especially when combined with the frankly impressive body acting they both pulled off on an apparently daily basis, they felt like totally different people in and out of the suits even if they looked the same.

But Marinette was not a normal person. She was a designer, she had a very critical eye, and she had just spent the better part of the last two months living in the same house as these two. And now she realized that they severely toned down the body acting and general “disguise” of their civilian selves when they were at home rather than outside. She had shrugged it off as them simply relaxing at home and, while she was right, it wasn’t until this moment that she put everything together.

“No masks, seriously? Some day, someone with eyes as good as mine is gonna figure you guys out,” she told them blandly, earning shocked blinks followed quickly by soft grins.

“I would normally sit down next to you at this point, but you haven’t exactly left us any space,” Superman— Clark, Marinette reminded herself— joked lightly. Marinette looked down to the small tip of the Eiffel Tower and back up to him, pointedly raising both eyebrows. Jon giggled.

Rolling her eyes and fighting a smile, Ladybug stood up without any apparently care about her footing. Somehow, balance seemed to just come naturally to her. It was so different from the usual Marinette that Clark and Jon had seen literally walk into a wall on multiple occasions that they had to grin. Seems like she fit right in on their acts-clumsy-and-awkward-but-isn’t trope.

(No, they later realized, that was completely Marinette. Ladybug just brought out a different side of her, but the awkwardness was still there. Just better hidden.)

“I was kinda trying to stay somewhere that nobody else could join me on purpose. You know, I was a little busy catastrophizing about you guys wanting to get rid of me now.”

“What?!” Jon asked, horrified. “No way! Even if we were normal, we wouldn’t just toss you away because we found out you’re a hero. That just— do you honestly think we would do that?”

“No,” she admitted softly, crossing her arms and sighing as she looked down over Paris. Over her city. It was a bittersweet view nowadays. “No, but I always freak out over things like that pretty easily. I’ve had people leave me over less. Sometimes it’s hard to convince myself that anyone else will be different.”

“Marinette—“

“Ladybug, actually,” she corrected with a small smile. “Don’t wanna slip up here. You never know who’s listening.”

Clark blinked, needing a moment to let that sink in before forcing himself to continue. “Ladybug, then,” he paused to gently lay a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to meet his gaze. As always it was soft. Patient. Just like his voice had been that fateful day. And, oh, there were the memories. They had both been there, helped her, and they stuck with her. Even though it hadn’t been their fault, even though they could have easily stepped back and let her deal with own problems and who had her custody on her own, they didn’t. She would have blamed them if they did, who was she to expect heroes to care about her like she was their child? That would be horrendously selfish of her. They saved hundreds of people every week.

And yet here they were, treating her like family.

And there was the phantom dust, clogging her throat. Strangling her words. She opened and closed her mouth, but nothing came out. Clark understood, he always understood, and his grip just tightened slightly. It tethered her.

“Ladybug,” he repeated even more softly. “We are not going to toss you out. Not for something like this, not for anything. You’re family now. You might not have the Kent name, you might not be kryptonian, but you’re one of us. Lois understands. Heaven knows she’s put up with both of us long enough, one more hero in the family is probably not that surprising. I just hope that… that you knowing doesn’t—“

“I don’t blame you,” there we go, her voice finally decided to work again. It came out a little hoarse, so she cleared her throat and started again. “I don’t blame you. I never did. It’s stupid, blaming a hero for things that never would have happened if the villain hadn’t attacked in the first place,” she told them, ripping her gaze away from his to trace over Paris again. “Maybe it’s because I understand that not everyone can be saved. I get it. But I never blamed you. I was actually grateful from the very beginning. You helped me dig them out even though you very well could have just carried me to the sidelines and stopped me from digging at all. And you, Jon, you didn’t complain once when I pretty much tackled you in a hug. You both sat with me as the paramedics looked me over. You didn’t leave until you were sure I was back in my hotel and in good hands. You never got impatient with me. That’s more than I could have asked for,” suddenly her mask was wet, and she roughly swiped away the tears that had leaked from her eyes. “You guys being Superman and Superboy isn’t going to make me treat you differently. It’s… actually nice. Not having to hide anymore, I mean.”

Jon grinned and flew over, enveloping her in a tight hug. Ladybug only chuckled and returned it, never once faltering in her balance. “I know exactly what you mean!” He said happily, making Ladybug laugh even more. It quickly devolved into Jon having to compensate for Ladybug’s balance, since she was suddenly leaning all her weight on him as she laughed her little heart out and no longer seemed to care about her balance at all. Not that it mattered much, Jon was more than capable of keeping her safe at close range like this, but it was cute to see. And for Clark? It was really relieving to see the girl he had come to think of as a daughter laughing so genuinely for the first time. Not a chuckle, or a soft huff of amusement, a full blown belly laugh.

It was amazing.

“Come on. I think you have some explaining to do, if you are comfortable with it anyway. Do you want to fly back, or portal back?” He asked, tilting his head slightly. He wouldn’t force Marinette to use her powers, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about them. Marinette straightened up, easily regaining her balance on the pointed tip of the tower beneath her, and slipping on a pair of glasses that she pulled… out of her yo-yo?

Wait, why was a yo-yo on her hip her only weapon? Maybe Clark should look into the Paris situation a bit more in-depth. He was clearly missing a lot, and none of what he was seeing was necessarily filling him with joy and confidence. Maybe Marinette could help soothe his worries later, if she decided to explain her abilities to them.

One transformation and a portal later, and all three of them stepped back into Marinette’s room. And when the portal closed and Marinette let down all her transformations, she took a deep breath and looked around. At both men in the room with her. At her bed and all her belongings. At the way this space has become her own. It felt nice. Warm. Welcoming, familiar.

Home.

It felt like home.

And Marinette’s smile hadn’t been quite so wide since before that infamous Metropolis trip.

Part 2

Yes, Lois kept her last name when she married Clark. I just like alliteration, okay? Besides, my story my rules lol :P

#maribat #mlb x dc #ml x dc #platonic jonette #jon kent and marinette #Marinette joins the Kent family #Marinette Kent

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an-anaemic-pen · 3 years ago

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Dance of the Little Swan I.iii

Dance of the Harpy

Prelude || Overture

Summary: The Jötnar were thought to be long-since-gone within the mortal realm. Amidst all of her fakery, Mommy Fortuna holds Loki, trapped in birth from and far from what he once considered home, as well as another little treasure: a swan maiden.

(Yes, this is a crossover, but the Last Unicorn is fairly minimal plot-wise and it’s largely a Loki fic)

Relationships: F/M (Loki/Original Female Character, Molly Grue/Schmendrick)

Rating: M (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content)

Loki’s skin had returned to its usual color after a few days.

The little girl attracted much attention, and Mommy Fortuna was making quite a profit—not that Ceana even knew anything about how the hag handled her money. The only thing she knew was that Mommy Fortuna looked something brushing against happier than usual and Ruhk had asked for a raise.

They’d been carted across the land for about a week since she and Loki had last spoken.

One night, Ceana had woken up to find his crimson eyes watching her far too intently.

She had not slept as well since.

The carts were rattling down a dirt path between two of the larger towns. Out of nowhere, there was a loud screech.

Ceana’s gaze bolted upward. In the cloudy evening sky, she saw a silhouette; the most terrifying silhouette she could possibly imagine. Of course, she’d heard of the harpy in tales, but never imagined she’d come across one in real life.

She was circling the caravan like a hawk, her eye beedy.

By work of the witch’s magic, the cloak, pinned at the tip of her cage, fell down in one movement. Ceana was left in darkness. The cage rattled more as the horses grew uneasy.

Anticipation was pressing against her being. Her heart was pounding, and she sat frozen, barely able to breathe as she waited for the attack. Harpies had keen senses of smell, didn’t they? Could she smell Ceana beneath the covering?

It did not matter, Ceana knew, because the Jötunn would most certainly find her to be a perfect meal.

The harpy cried out, and adrenaline spiked her system.

Ceana squirmed around the prison, desperately reaching out in an attempt to grab the covering and see what was going on. She was able to lift it up enough to see the front of the caravan was—

Still?

It had halted, her cart stopping not long after. She heard another cry, a loud crash, and the splintering of wood. Ceana rushed to the other side of her prison, looking to the back of the caravan.

The giant creature had landed atop Loki’s cart, her sheer mass breaking the roof of his prison. She spread her wings, knocking the cart over as she lifted off. Ceana covered her cage, curling up in a ball and wrapping her arms around her head.

Smaller prey would surely not be as enticing as the horses, who were far more substantial than she. If she had the luck to escape the harpy alive, perhaps she could escape Loki without losing a limb, as well. Ceana hoped her luck could hold out for that long, especially after being so poor for the period of time she had been imprisoned.

It felt like the horse was attempting to break free of his holds. Ceana’s cage fell from its base, knocking her to the ground. She could feel her body bruising as she slammed against the metal.

The world outside her dark little haven was muffled havoc. She could hear grunts and garbled yells, they were Ruhk’s, she realized, as well as Mommy Fortuna calling out spells. A grotesque squelch entered her ears as the witch’s voice was rather abruptly cut off.

Chills ran along her entire body. Ceana felt faint.

“Awaken, swan.”

Ceana did not wish to. The world of sleep was quiet and warm, and she did not have to deal with the poking hands of those in the crowd. An icy palm touched her shoulder, and Ceana’s eyes flickered open. She lurched away from the freezing touch, banging her head against something hard.

“Stay still, lest you wish to die,” the voice was demanding, yet also surprisingly gentle.

After a few moments of awkward half-staring and much blinking, Ceana was able to get her eyes to focus. The clouds had cleared to reveal the sun. The blazing sunset framed him, the orange a sharp contrast to his blue skin.

Ceana was still inside her cage, and her cloak felt like it had been draped over her form. He has seen me, then.

She stared at him with wide eyes as he reached through the door of her cage, which looked to have been forced open since the lock was broken, and flinched when he touched her. He had not done so since the ship, and she expected his palm to be cold, but it felt… normal —if that was the correct phrase.

Ceana did something at least akin to relax when he next spoke. “You are hurt,” he said.

Ceana’s eyes followed his arm to where he was lifting her shin to inspect it. Only now did she notice the large scrape across her skin and realize how much it hurt. Her head panged and she carefully lifted her hand.

Her arm didn’t hurt outside the dull ache caused by a bruise, and she gingerly felt the pain on her head. Thankfully, it was just a bump; her mother had always called them goose-eggs. The memory made her smile softly—she missed her family.

Loki ripped off a large section of the cloak and Ceana yelped in surprise; he flinched at the volume of her voice. She immediately held the remaining cover closer against her.

“Must you scream when I am trying to help you?” He proceeded to grab her leg.

When Ceana attempted to kick him, he simply gripped her tighter. She struggled against him with all of her might—not that there was much. So, he grabbed her foot with his free hand, pinning her against the cold metal of the cage.

“Don’t eat me!” Ceana yelped and tried to scramble back. She had been hoping she would sound threatening, or at least defensive, but it came out as more of a plea.

He barked out a laugh. “Perhaps I won’t if you sit still.”

The ‘perhaps’ was all it took for her to be subdued. She hadn’t been eaten by the harpy, so perhaps her luck would hold out.

“Good.” He wrapped her lower leg in the scrap of cloth, tying it tightly enough that it wouldn’t come loose, but not so tightly that it was uncomfortable.

Then, he offered her his hand.

Ceana looked at it, half dumbfounded that she was still alive.

“Would you like me to leave you in the cage to starve?”

Ceana only had half her mind when she answered: “no.”

“No, Your Highness.”

She bit her lip. He had just helped her, as he said he would. “No, Your Highness.” She wrapped the cloak around her as best as she could before hesitantly taking his hand. Against his blue palm, her hands appeared even smaller and more delicate.

Loki hoisted her up, one hand holding hers while the other wrapped carefully around her waist. Ceana couldn’t tell whether it was to help support her and keep her body covered by the cloak, or to have an excuse to touch her. Perhaps it was both? She didn’t know much about mortal men, let alone Jötnar.

Once she was safely out of the cage, Loki released his grasp. Ceana noticed him avert his gaze and she took the chance to rearrange the cloth into a makeshift dress of sorts. She grabbed the covering of her cage, splayed out across the grass in a disheveled heap, and wrapped it around her shoulders as an extra layer.

Then, she heard a quiet sob.

It wasn’t coming from Loki, of course, but from the general direction he was standing in, relative to Ceana. She took a few steps towards the noise, limping slightly as she went.

“You’re welcome.”

She raised her hand dismissively. Ceana knew she’d probably pay for that later, but she felt a maternal urge rise from somewhere within—gods only knew where—and she needed to find what was causing that sound.

She heard Loki not-so-subtly mutter “ungrateful wretch,” but she ignored it.

Ceana attempted to hurry her pace, and her foot got caught in the cloak’s trailing hem. She tripped, tumbling to the ground most ungracefully. The grass swished as someone walked past her. Then, the sobbing grew louder.

By the time Ceana was able to gain her footing again, the Jötunn had wrangled a small being from a cart’s wreckage and was carrying the screaming thing over to her. She realized it was the little girl, who was currently trying desperately to free herself from the tight grasp of the Jötunn.

He shoved the child into her arms and Ceana attempted to comfort her. When the screeching thing wouldn’t relax in her arms, Ceana put her down on the ground. She only had a minimal amount of experience with human children—her younger sisters were in swan form until they fully matured.

“Hey, hey, hey.” She began to shush the child—Annie, she decided to call her—and gently put her hands on the little one’s shoulders. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Ceana glanced behind her. Loki was rummaging through the dead body that once belonged to Ruhk, his hands getting covered in blood as he sifted through the carnage.

Ceana opted to turn Annie around so the already-traumatized child would not see, shifting, so she was still in front of her. Then, she reached out, wiping away the tears streaming from Annie’s big blue eyes. Her hair was strawberry blonde, and she looked as she had before Mommy Fortuna had cast the illusion.

Ceana assumed that the old hag had gotten what she deserved.

“I know I’m not your mamma, but I can take care of you until we find her.” Ceana did not even know if the poor girl had a mother.

Annie seemed to begin to realize that Ceana was not going to hurt her, and ran into her arms, burying her face into Ceana’s chest.

She smiled softly, running her fingers through Annie’s tangled hair and picking out wood chips. The fact the girl had managed to survive with a just a few scrapes and bruises was a miracle, and Ceana found herself thanking the gods.

She glanced at Loki, who had moved on to another one of Mommy Fortuna’s henchmen.

Now that her racing heart was beginning to start the process of slowing down, Ceana realized that she felt… free. She had not felt that way since Mommy Fortuna had taken her feather.

Her sisters never told her about their hearts feeling confined after they were married. If she ever saw them again, she would have to ask them.

The feeling of freedom did not last long, however. She could hear Loki looting the bodies as Annie’s sobs quieted and the little one fell asleep. Annie was not at all heavy, but it felt like a moose had settled its weight upon her chest, and Ceana had to catch her breath for a moment.

She turned to the Jötunn. He was smiling.

He held up a woven garment of twigs which Ceana had used to make an armband; a small tail feather had been attached before she turned for the first time. Now, the feather was broken, snapped in two and barely hanging together where it was still held in one piece.

Loki walked up to her. When she tried to take her feather, he snatched it away. “For now, little swan, you are mine.”

Her sisters had told her marriage was a wonderful thing. It was part of the legend—as long as the swan maiden put her feather out, a good, loving man would find it and become her husband. She would be bound it him, but he would be good to her. It was a fair trade, Ceana had thought. A male counterpart of her kind did not exist, so it was necessary for the maidens to find husbands.

But her feather had not brought her a good husband—it had not brought her a husband at all, and now, she was bound to a Jötunn who claimed he was the God of Lies. The weight over her heart told Ceana that Loki would not be good in any way.

“Come, swan, we must leave.” It was practically a purr. He knew the power he now held, dangling it over her head like a piece of bait.

Ceana pulled Annie against her, picking the child up and cradling her as she stood. Loki, thankfully, helped her up, but Ceana tore her arm from his grasp. The little child did not stir.

“We must find a brook to clean your wound. While you were addling about hugging that thing, I found the food supply and packed as much as I can carry.”

“Am I not going to carry it, Your Highness?” Ceana wasn’t exactly sure as to where the snark had come from, or why she was asking in the first place.

“You are weak, and it would slow us down. Do you recognize this area?”

She did not want to answer him. So, she didn’t. The legend dictated that she could not leave him, but she did not have to obey his every command, either.

“Speak, unless you want me to make you my next meal.” He bared his teeth.

Her heart skipped a beat, and Ceana held onto Annie a little tighter. “No, I don’t know where we are.”

“Address me with my given title.”

“No, Your Highness.”

“The entire sentence.”

“Are you serious?”

“Do not question me, swan—”

“Your Highness, you are aware that I have a name, correct?”

He scoffed. “Of course, Ǣsbiǫrndóttir. I merely figured you would not wish to grow too… personal.” He cupped her face with his hand, his thumb running over her lower lip and sending icy relief to it. She could feel how swollen it was near the corner, most likely from accidentally biting herself while tumbling around in the cage.

It felt oddly intimate to have a hand cupping her cheek, so Ceana turned away. He lowered his hand, eyes glowering, and began to walk towards the sun.

Ceana decided to make the best out of a bad situation. “Do you plan on traveling all night? It would be best to remain here until the morning.”

The Jötunn looked at her, pondered, then spoke. “Very well. Find a place to put the child, then set up a camp while I will go collect wood. We leave at dawn.” Then, he walked away.

It was a small fire, but the Jötunn, no surprise, stayed far away. Annie was still sound asleep, curled up amidst one of the covers. Loki had been kind enough to drag all of the bodies into one of the largest coverings, wrapping them up so they were out of sight. He said he would set them alight once they left.

Ceana was unlucky to have seen the remains of the witch. She now stared at the fire, trying to burn the image of the blood and various gore-ish organs out of her memory.

“What do you know of this place?”

Ceana looked up but said nothing.

“It was not a request, swan.”

Her lips pursed and she sighed in annoyance. “Not much, Your Highness.”

“I require the actual information, not a rough amount.”

Her eyebrow cocked, and Ceana blinked. “The way these people talk tells me that we are in Scotland. I would say we are somewhere in the highlands.”

“Is there anything else?”

“I know a few tales that are common across the land, if you would like to hear them.”

He seemed genuinely interested. Ceana did not believe him. “What creatures do you know of?”

She thought of every story she had heard while in the colder months, when she migrated south to stay with warmer weather. “I’ve heard of the Loch Ness Monster, Kelpies, and Selkies many times, as well as the Sídhe and spirits known as Fuathan. More uncommonly, I’ve heard of the three Siths, and only a couple of tales of the unicorn and the Sluagh.”

“Tell me of these creatures.”

“The Loch Ness Monster is a serpent-like monster. Not much is known about her other than her location. Kelpies are water spirits that appear as horses, luring their victims to ride them, then taking them off into the waters to drown them. Selkies are similar to those like myself, except they are seals, rather than swans, and the Sídhe are little humans the size of my smallest finger with wings, known for their work of mischief. I believe Fuathan are spirits in general, as I have not heard them be specified.”

“What of the three Siths? Are they something akin to the Nornir?”

Annie stirred and Ceana placed her hand lightly on the girl’s upper arm, soothing her back to sleep. She shook her head when Annie relaxed again. “The siths are three phantoms, unrelated other than the fact they all hail from the highlands. I do not know what their individual names are, but they are malevolent spirits.”

“What do you know of the Unicorn?”

Ceana blinked and followed Loki as he got up from the makeshift cloak he had made from one of the coverings—which Ceana, of course, was tasked with carrying when he grew too hot—and threw a plank of wood on the fire. He hissed when a wayward ember landed on his leg. He flicked it away and stalked back to where he had originally been, settling down on his cloak.

“Unicorns are rare creatures. They can only be seen by other magical creatures and pure-of-heart virgins. They hold rejuvenating magic unlike any other, and even the smallest amount of dust from a crushed horn can cure any illness or curse.”

“And the Sluagh?”

Chills ran down her spine. She had only heard one tale of the Sluagh, from an estranged man at the coast on her first migration being able to turn human. She and her sisters were resting on a beach when she turned into a maiden, walking around and growing more adjusted to her arms and un-webbed toes.

She’d run into the man, who didn’t seem to notice that she was completely uncovered, and he had gripped her by the shoulders desperately. “Beware the Sluagh,” he’d said, “vicious, vicious things, the restless dead coming from the west. You won’t make it out alive—not a pretty thing like you. No, the strongest warriors barely escape their hunger.”

Ceana had taken his shaking hands in hers. “Hunger?”

He’d leaned in so close their noses brushed against each other. “Flesh,” he’d whispered. “Warm, soft, human flesh.” He’d collapsed after that.

Ceana had promptly called her sisters and her mother, who had come with them. She’d pronounced him dead, and they’d flown off after that.

Ceana had not seen any Sluagh. Or perhaps she had and just hadn’t realized it; the man hadn’t exactly told her what they looked like.

“They are vicious flesh-eaters, Your Highness. Only the strongest of warriors barely escape them.”

“Flesh-eaters?” He barked out a laugh. Ceana briefly wondered as to why a supposed god’s laugh was so harsh. “I suppose every land has their legends.”

“You do not believe they are real?”

Loki sighed and lay down on his back. He absent-mindedly played with the broken feather, still attached to her armband. As if on impulse, he ripped the feather from the twigs and threw the woven article into Ceana’s lap. “You may keep that part; I have no use for it.”

“You did not answer my question, Your Highness.”

She barely noticed his crimson irises flicker in her direction. “I am a prince of the Nine Realms, girl, I answer to none.”

She licked her lips, only then realizing how thirsty she was. It will have to wait. She didn’t want to leave Annie alone with the creature who might still eat both of them. Power in numbers. She settled down, wrapping her cloak around her body like a cocoon and closing her eyes. She tried to ignore the innate and unmistakable sense that she was being watched.

#fanfic #fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #loki (marvel)#loki #loki fic #loki fanfic #Loki Laufeyson #norse mythology #Dance of the Little Swan #Dance of the Little Swan I.iii #Dance of the Harpy #i accidentally deleted this #whoops

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years ago

Text

Guardian of creatures; AU! Queen x oc female x reader Chap. 3

*Author’s note*

Wow just two days of writing and here we go with the next chapter. Now here you as the reader finally learn the truth about the owners of the BEWITCHED nightclub, as well as it’s star employees. More of a background will happen in later chapters but for now I hope this will do for you all enjoying this series.

Warnings: Objects coming alive, some swearing, graphic mythology.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@kinole009x

@queen-paladin

@queensdivas

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@dancingcoolcat

@queendeakyy

@klausidiot

@geek-and-proud

____________________________________________________________

Chapter 3

Monsters are real!?

Hissing, deep roars, flashing lights, and something scaly. That was what was flashing through your mind like a film. You also remember hearing faint voices of Serafina and John talking to someone, but the last thing you could recall seeing was two eyes staring down at you.

The hypnotic, enticing yet warm yellow eyes staring down at you. You also remember feeling something smooth and scaly wrap around you before everything went black.

Finally you find the strength to open your eyes and you let out a loud, breathless gasp. The kind of gasp you make when you’ve been underwater for too long, the kind where you’re so desperate for air it didn’t matter whether a fly flew into your mouth or not.

The first thing you feel is a cool rag at the top of your head and you take in your surroundings. You’re in a large bedroom. The walls were a mix of purple and grey pattern wallpaper. One strip of the wall was a beautiful dark shade of purple, and the other was a grey with a floral design, then another strip of purple, and the pattern continued around the entire room.

The bed you were lying in was the softest thing you had ever felt. It was like sleeping on a cloud and the blankets were the softest of silk. Or was it Satin? Whatever it was, it was soft. Much better than any bedsheets you’ve ever slept on. After removing the damp cloth from your forehead you turn to see a beautifully hand-carved dresser.

Through the blackwood, you could see that engraved onto it were what appeared to be wolves. Wolves running alongside the entire dresser. You continued to look around to also see a large wooden wardrobe to your right and a small purple loveseat just at the foot of the bed.

Two Elegant candelabra lights were also on both sides of the room as well as one more right above you. Slowly you get out of the bed to feel the soft yet fuzzy texture of the carpet beneath your feet. The fuzzy points of it tickled your bare feet but one thing was screaming in your mind.

Where the hell were you?

Sneaking towards the door, you open it up to reveal a grand hallway. The wooden walls and low lighting gave it almost a haunting quality to it (and it didn’t help that it was still dark out).

Quietly as you could, you sneak down the hallway hoping to find a way out. As you walk, you can’t help but notice some of the pictures that hung along the walls.

In normal homes you’d see pictures of family members, paintings by famous artists or paintings of family members themselves. But this house—well one picture was of what appeared to be an evolution of some kind of human-serpent like creature.

Another picture was of the ocean but under the waters of the picture were terrifying creatures with sharp teeth, claws, webbed-like hands and tails like a fish. After what felt like forever of walking down this dimly lit hallway, you finally arrive at a grand staircase. A split staircase with one set of stairs (that you were in front of) and another set of stairs across from you joined together on a grand landing and then continuing downward to the main floor of the mansion.

The carpets were blood red and floral designed as well as some other intricate designed patterns that you had never seen before. You hold onto the railing as you quietly sneak down but of course the floor creaks beneath your foot.

You quickly take back your foot and quickly look around, your heart racing with anxiety. You then try your luck at a different part of the staircase and you thank God above that you didn’t hear a creak beneath your foot this time around. Cautiously you walk down the steps when you hear the strangest sound you had ever heard.

It sounded like a mixture of animals, it had the light cooing sound of a dove, but it had the deep resonance of an owl. You thought you also heard the purr of a cat mixed in there too. Slowly you turn your head around and you were frozen in fear to see the wooden shape of some sort of snake.

Half it’s body had lifted from the column that stood by the top of the staircase. It’s head tilted curiously at you as it’s wooden forked tongue occasionally came out. You and this wooden snake didn’t break eye contact with each other for even a split second, it’s unblinking eyes staring straight at you. You feared if you had blinked once, you’d be dead in an instant.

Suddenly all along it’s neck began to spike up into some sort of frizzled up wooden mane as it let out a demonic hiss/roar like sound. You yelp as you suddenly felt yourself falling backwards along the staircase.

The loud roar like hiss soon began to call up an alarm as the lights began to flicker on and off, the sound of an organ began playing but you saw no one was pounding on the keys and a few suits of armor started to come to life.

You let out a terrified scream as you scramble yourself up and tried to flee out the backway but you hear the sound of the locks clicking, telling you that it had locked itself up. Keeping you trapped inside. The suits of armor continue to come towards you so you now run to our left and you soon arrive at a very large den-like room.

Thinking fast, you shut the door and pull a chair towards it and lean it against the doorknob so that nothing could enter inside. As an extra measure, you ran towards a giant desk and hid underneath it trying to control your breathing.

“Oh my god, oh my god oh god oh god!” you whimper fearfully. Slowly you peek over the desk just to see if anything is trying to break down the door.

Unaware of a dark green tail that was slowly slithering towards you. Slowly feeling around your ankle you feel something cold wrap around your ankle. You look down and see a dark green snake tail wrapped around your leg. It then begins to tug at you hardly but you quickly grab onto the desk and try to hold on.

It’s a tug of war as you scream and beg for the tail to let you go. You kick at it with your free foot but it does little to deter the snake tail. Soon coming through a second door that you had no idea existed, John and Serafina are there.

Serafina grabs you while John shoots out a purple light from his hand down onto the snake tail which reals back and vanishes from sight. You scream up at Serafina as you try to escape from her grasp.

“(Y/n), sweetie it’s okay. It’s just us.” She tried to assure you. But you let out another terrified scream.

“Well that’s one way of saying thanks.” John said in a sarcastic tone.

“John behave!” she snapped at her husband. Wait, you then noticed that her low, southern accent wasn’t there. She sounded British. Was she faking the accent when you first met her? She turns back to you and says softly, “I know you’ve been through something traumatic but……”

“Traumatic!? TRAUMATIC!? You call that traumatic!?” you yell at her.

“It’s a lot to take in but please just let us……”

“What were those people!? Who are you!? Are you both gonna kill me?!”

“What no. No we’re not gonna kill you.”

“You guys are gonna kill me. You’re gonna chop me up into little pieces and serve me up in a pie!” you panicked.

“Sweetie no one’s gonna chop you up and bake you into a pie.” Serafina assured you.

“Then why did the house attack me!? Why am I here? Why—” suddenly your voice goes quiet. You can still feel yourself speaking but no voice is coming out of you. You panic once more and mime out a scream as you rake your hands through your hair.

“John Richard Deacon!” Serafina snarled. You stop screaming for a second to see John lower his hand as he said.

“Well how else were we gonna get them to stop overtalking you?”

“Uhh not with magic. And like civilized people with compassion and reassurance.” Magic? Did she really just say magic?

“Yeah like that was going so well just now.” John sassed as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“John I’m serious. Give them back their voice, and try to be empathetic about the situation. You were the exact same way when we were told of this.”

“That was a different story.”

“Not really.”

“Yes it was!”

“No it wasn’t.”

“Yes it was!” I tapped Serafina’s shoulder and she turned to me and sighed softly.

“Sorry love. We didn’t mean for things to go out the way they did but—we had to make sure the curse on you was fully gone. That’s why we brought you here. To our manor in Cold Spring.” Cold Spring?! You were in Cold Spring New York?!

You then feel a warmness coming back in your throat and that’s when John said to you.

“Try not to go screaming at the top of your lungs again. Otherwise your voice will be gone for a week.”

“John!” Serafina warned.

“Who are you guys?” you finally ask. The two young owners of the Jazz club looked at each other when John said.

“That’s—a long story.”

“At this point I don’t care. I want the truth!” you tell them.

“Come with us.” John said as he walked out of the room. Serafina held out her hand for you. Her red eyes giving you a sense of calmness and maternity. You give her your hand and she helps you stand up and walks you out of the study room.

You now stand before a grand library filled to the brim with books. Shelves so high you swear they touched the ceiling, you also notice that there is a giant globe at the center of the room, a few display tables with some pretty interesting and freaky stuff. Like one was a mummified hand or a golden statue of a cat.

As you walk through the library with curiosity that’s when Serafina asks you.

“What’s your knowledge of witches and wizards (Y/n)?”

“Not much. I mean I know about the Salem witch trials that happened a long time ago. But other than that……pointy black hats, broomsticks, and are said to be green skinned, old and ugly.” You say as you look at some of the books and items in the display cases.

“Well, I think they’re a little bit more than hats and broomsticks.” Serafina said as she sat down on one of the red velvet chairs.

“And they’re not ugly. That’s just a stereotypical characteristic.” John said as he came up and stood over Serafina’s chair.

“Well I don’t know. I’d classify your mother as one of the ugly bitches if I could.” Serafina teased.

“Can’t argue with that.” John chuckled.

“Wait.” You say as you turn to them. “Are you saying—you guys are witches?”

“The technical name for a male witch is a wizard. Or Warlock but that’s only reserved for the most powerful of wizards. But—yes. We are.” John replied.

“Does that frighten you?” Serafina asked.

“That depends. Are you both good or are you bad?”

“Well, it all depends on what you mean by ‘bad’. I’m nice but not that good.”

“You always degrade yourself love. You’re the best potions brewer I’ve ever met. You can name every single ingredient of every potion known to any wizard and witch. And you don’t even need a spell book. Not to mention your knowledge of magical creatures.” John said as he lowered his head towards Serafina’s and pressed against it lovingly.

“You’re one to talk Mr. Honor’s degree. You were the top wizard of our class in everything.” Serafina said as she gently poked John’s shoulder.

“A school? You mean to tell me there’s a school for wizard’s and witches?” you ask.

“Yes.” Serafina say breaking her eye contact with John to turn back to you. “There is only one school where wizards and witches go to become the best they can be—”

“But it was a long time ago when we went. I can barely recall it’s name.” John said as he turned his head away from Serafina.

There was a look in his eyes that read out—anger? Regret? You didn’t know but it you did know that it seemed John didn’t want to talk about it anymore. You see Serafina take John’s hand and stroke the back of it.

“Look, it’s been a long night for all of us. I think it’s best if we all go back to sleep, we’ll continue this discussion in the morning with the others.”

“You mean…….” Serafina placed her finger over her lips in a shushing motion.

“Come now dear, I’ll take you back to your room. John, you can go downstairs and apologize to you know who for the shock you gave.” She sat up from the chair and placed an arm around your shoulder to guide you out of the library.

“If I end up a ghost after talking to him, I’ll be coming for you first.” John told her.

“Please I know what you would do to me as a ghost.” Serafina called out back to him.

The two of you walk back up towards the room you were just at, every now and then you watched as Serafina ordered the suits of armor to go back into position, silence the piano, and shoo the wooden snake back against the column pillar.

“Do you and John always fight like that?”

“What married couple doesn’t? John and I can go at each other like dragons but through all our fights, we’ve never loved each other any less. Trust me when you’ve been with someone for over 1000 years you learn to compromise through your fights.”

“1000 years!?” you exclaim. “You’ve been married to John for a 1000 years?!”

“Technically we got married in 1465 so it’s only been 500 when we legally became husband and wife. However we were childhood sweethearts back in 1020. So we’ve just counted our relationship from when we first met.”

“So do witches and wizards age slower? Or are you guys immortal? Sorry if it sounds to personal. It’s just that you don’t look a day over 24.” She chuckled softly.

“Thank you dear. Well it goes both ways. You can form a spell to keep your immortal looks, but typically wizards and witches do age slower than muggles.”

“Muggles?”

“Oh that’s what we call humans back in England. Muggles, people who can’t do magic.” You nod.

Finally you arrive back to the bedroom and Serafina guides you back to the bed. As soon as you get into it, she tucks you in gently and adjusts your pillow.

“There we go. Comfy?” you nod. “As I said, we’ll explain everything in the morning. But for now rest is the most important thing you need right now. Goodnight (Y/n).”

“G’night.” You tell her. She then leaves the bedroom and with a snap of her fingers the lights go off and the door softly closes behind her.

Okay. So witches and wizards are real. The owners of the jazz club your boss wanted you to look into and expose are a witch and wizard. Just when you thought they only belong in storybooks, you find out witches exist and are real.

You could only imagine what else could exist in this world.

Morning came and you awoke to the smell of pancakes. You open your eyes and saw the sun’s rays coming through the windows in an elegant way, kinda like a hanging halo of light.

You get out of the bedroom and follow your nose till you stand before a grand kitchen. Inside you see the Blonde Siren sitting with Brian at a booth table. The blonde siren had basically every kind of breakfast meat there was on his plate. Bacon, sausages, ham, etc.

While Brian had some toast, two pancakes, and a tall glass of what looked like red wine. What really caught your attention though was the way the both of them were eating. Even a sip of the wine, Brian handled his breakfast with a high degree of grace and decorum (like those high aristocratic people), while the Blonde Siren was eating away at his food like a starving animal and—were those fangs in his mouth.

“Honestly Rog, must you eat like an animal?” asked Brian.

“Must you eat like you’ve got a pole shoved up your arse?” retorted Rog. Was that his real name? It sounded more like a nickname or something but what was it short for?

“Honestly I can’t see how you can devour animals like that. It’s quite sickening to watch at times.”

“You know what else is sickening? Listening to you complain while I’m trying to eat. Seriously Brian, you elves go on hunting parties, and yet you can’t stand the sight of me eating other animals? That’s very hypocritical of you.”

“I never once participated in a hunting party and you know it!” Brian exclaimed.

“I swear do you two ever stop arguing with each other. It’s like watching two children fight over a toy.” John said as he came through the back door entrance of the kitchen and headed back to the stove. He then turns his attention to you and says, “Ahh I see that my wife’s cooking has woken you up.”

When Brian and Rog look up, their eyes widened in shock as they look around trying to pretend their conversation didn’t happen.

“I was just…..I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Nonsense, come sit. Eat. Regain your strength, you need it. Also I would like to apologize for my behavior last night. I get a little testy when I’m woken up after a battle.”

“It’s okay John.”

“Now we have a selection for breakfast, do you prefer vegetarian or the regular breakfast selection?” you tell him what you prefer and he shows you the selection they have for your preferred breakfast.

After getting your breakfast made, you go towards the table where Brian and Rog sat and take a seat across from the two men. As you take the first bite of food Rog speaks up.

“How—much of that did you hear?” before you could answer that’s when John speaks up as he snapped his fingers and soon the plates began to clean themselves up.

“We told them Rog. Well the partial truth about what Serafina and I really are. So they know to an extent of what creatures really exist.”

“I see.” Brian said.

“Serafina said she wanted to talk about it with you guys as well. Are you guys wizards like John?”

“Thank Poseidon no. I don’t know what I’d do if I were one of those stuck up, pompous, egotistical……”

“Watch it stallion! You forget Serafina is a witch so insulting me means you’re insulting her.” John warned.

“Oh I would never put Serafina with the likes of you. She is something extra special.” Is he sure he’s not in love with Serafina. Cause the way he praises her is. You feel Brian touch your arm as he explains.

“Roger here comes from a Scandinavian race known as the Nokks.”

“Neck, Nokken, Nixy, Nix, there’s a shit ton of ways to spell our name.” Roger waved his hand nonchalantly. “Just depends on where you come from is where the pronunciations differ.”

“Anyways. His kind are nothing more than horny hound dogs that seduce women and lure children away with songs or beautiful music.” John sneered as he took a bite of a piece of toast that had cheese on it.

“I NEVER ONCE LURED A CHILD TO THEIR DEATH!! I could never stomach something like that.” Roger first snapped angrily before softly speaking with solemness.

“But you don’t deny the way you are with women.” Brian said more as a statement than a question.

“Is there anything wrong with that?” Roger asked as he turned to the curly haired man who held his wine glass in his hand with purpose (was that even possible?).

“You have always loved your beautiful women.”

“Beauty should always be praised and treasured, wouldn’t you agree Elf Lord?”

“Elf lord?” you ask. At that point Brian sighed heavily and set his glass down and said to Roger.

“Thank you for that.” Roger merely grinned cheekily at him. Brian then turns to you and pulls back some of his hair to reveal the pointed ears of an elf.

“Back during the middle ages, long before people started over populating the land with their cities and towns. Brian here was known as the High Elven lord of the West. Skilled fighter, wise ruler, protector of the forest, and Seer of the stars.”

“I…..I thought elves like you know—worked up at the North Pole and were……and don’t take this the wrong way Brian but uhh…..I honestly thought you’d be shorter.” At this point Roger began to laugh hysterically as Brian pinched the bridge of his nose groaning.

“I don’t know where humans got that idea that elves were supposed to be as short as dwarves and worked far up North were hardly anyone can survive.”

“Oh man! That is probably the funniest thing I have ever heard! How come you never told us that’s what humans perceive you as?” Roger said through his laughter.

“Because I knew you would react this way!” Brian shouted.

“Oh Trident’s spear. You are never gonna live this down mate.” Brian groaned as he dropped his head to the table.

“Now, now Roger don’t tease him like that.” Serafina’s voice soon spoke up. You look up and coming from the back entrance was Serafina.

She walks up to John and the two of them share a kiss with each other and you see as John wraps his arms around her. You also couldn’t help but notice that in Serafina’s eyes she seemed—sad.

“How you’re awake, how did you sleep (Y/n) dear?” she asks you.

“Better. And the breakfast is delicious.”

“Thank you. John always prepares the best meals.” She said as she looked up at her husband who looked down at her and gave her a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Flattery will get you anywhere my love.” She rested her head against his collarbone when Roger spoke up.

“As lovey dovey as this is, it still makes me sick to my stomach seeing you to act like that in front of me.”

“Which is why we do it.” John sassed at him with a glare.

“Darling, behave yourself.” As they continue to argue, your mind then transitioned back to last night when you met Jarod. When you saw all those creatures with fangs, and then that one man.

The man with the long, crazed black hair, the yellow piercing of his eyes, and the scales all over his body.

“(Y/n)?” Brian’s soft voice calls out to you. You snap out of his and he asks you, “What’s on your mind dear one?”

“I—I was just thinking about…….what happened last night. With Jarod.”

“It’s my fault. I should’ve fought back! He never would’ve touched you had I just not been afraid to reveal my powers.” Serafina snapped at herself.

“My love you were in the right mindset. We all agreed to never show our true selves before the eyes of humanity.” John said as he held her closer to him. Roger whose eyes showed pure sympathy at Serafina now turned to you and you saw them shift into anger as he explained to you.

“Last night you had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting one of the fae Princes, Jarod. Son of Queen Titania of the Faeries.”

“Fairies?”

“No not fairies, faeries. There’s a HUGE difference.”

“What is the difference? Aren’t they all the same?”

“Not in the slightest.” Brian now took over saying. “See, you humans think of fairies as tiny, miniature versions of yourselves. That fly about with pixie dust trailing behind them, and in some cases mending and taking care of the earth?” you nod. “Well there’s not like they are in your books.”

“They are dark, evil creatures. In touch with all things beyond morale and humane.” John then spoke up.

“Faes can take the form of humans, far past the human standards of beauty, and lure humans to be their pets of sorts. Draining your life force or forcing you to bare their children till you’re nothing but a withering whisp of your former self.” Serafina stated grimly.

“And all you have to do in order to form that contract with a fae, is tell them your name.” Roger finished.

Oh shit! That means…….you had told Jarod your name. Does that mean he’ll be coming back for you? Or send in more faes to kidnap you?

“It’s alright though (Y/n). They won’t be coming back for you though.” Brian assured you.

“How do you know that? I told Jarod my name, how could I be so stupid!? I’ve put you all in danger! I could get you all killed!”

“No, no, no, no, no darling no. You are not a danger to us because you’ve been freed of the contract.” Serafina said to you as she came up and cupped your face in her hands.

“What? But he said that I had to tell them my name. And I did…..”

“You did do that yes, but the way to free a human from a faes control is if the fae that knows your name dies, the contract is no longer valid. Jarod is dead sweetie, and Titania isn’t stupid to try and come back for you.” she strokes you cheek assuringly.

“Was it……was it that man with the long black hair that killed him?”

“You saw him?” asked Brian.

“It was fuzzy. But—I remember seeing a flash of scales, and—hypnotic eyes staring straight down at me. And his voice—it was…..soft and warm. Like honey. Yet……”

“Struck the earth like an earthquake.” They all said together. Okay that was creepy that they all said it together in a chorus-like monotone.

“Yeah. Who was he?” they all went quiet. Serafina walks away from you and stands before a window looking outside.

“He is an ancient creature that has been around since the beginning of time itself.” She started off.

“A great race of creature, the like of which no one had ever seen before. A creature that can see the past, and the future.” John spoke ominously.

“His race is said to have been Gods themselves. No other creature would dare challenge the likes of his kind. Except one.” Brian said. You notice his eyes briefly flicker towards John before turning back to you. “Now he is the last of his kind.”

“The last of a supreme race of mythical creatures. All fear yet respect him. For he is law of the world, seer of all, and shaman of life.” Said Roger as he fingered the table, tracing an infinity symbol.

“Freddie Mercury, the last of the Nagas.” They all finally chorused out once again.

You feel a sudden cold chill in the air as that name was said. A shiver ran up your spine and your heart almost stopped. Just hearing that name made something in you feel—afraid, but at the same time comforted.

“What’s a—a Naga?” it sounded so foreign to you and even through all your love of fantasy genres of books, not one book ever spoke of a Naga before.

“They are a hybrid like creature. The first ever to roam the earth. Their upper bodies are human, whether man or woman, but their lower half is full on snake. The biggest Naga ever said to exist was over 60ft long from his human head to her snake tail.”

“They are gifted with all things magic, and cannot be effected by other magical creatures. Which is why the faes let us go when Freddie came to save our arses.” Roger said as he took a bite out of his food.

“But make no mistake. Nagas are neither good nor bad. They stand on a neutral ground, only observing the world around them. But it’s always wise to never, ever anger a Naga. Less you end up their next meal.” Serafina said.

“God knows we’ve all nearly been on Fred’s menu at least once since meeting him.” John said.

“I haven’t.” Brian said.

“Don’t go bragging Elfling.” Roger snapped.

“I’m over 4000 years old Roger!”

“Yes and I have been around since the oceans and seas formed. Which makes me older than you!”

“Enough! Both of you!” John snapped. You sit there in silence for a moment before John asks you. “You alright poppet?”

“Yeah I just…….”

“It is a lot to take in over breakfast.” Brian said. “We don’t expect you to accept it all right away.”

“Will I ever see Freddie?” you ask them.

“He’ll see you when he wants to see you. But now isn’t the right time.” Serafina tells you as she picks up the empty plates from the table and uses her magic to clean them up.

“When I do see him, he won’t……eat me. Will he?” you choke out.

“So long as you don’t give a reason to.” Roger said as he stood up and headed out of the kitchen.

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“We’ll tell you when the time comes. For now let’s just get you properly dressed. Brian, why don’t you take (Y/n) to your room and have a change of clothes ready for them.” Serafina said.

“Of course Serafina.” He stands up from the booth and comes over to you extending his hand. “Come with me dear one.” You look up at the Elf Lord and take his hand. He helps you out of the booth and escorts you up towards his room.

*3rd Person POV*

“I really hope we’re doing the right thing.” Serafina said softly as soon as the Elf Lord and human were out of range.

“It’s what has to be done my love.”

‘He’s right. I thought you of all people expected this Serafina?’ Freddie’s voice soon entered into their heads.

“That was before the faes came into play. Freddie must it be them?”

‘Yesssss. I have seen it with my own eyes. This is the human that will lead us to salvation. To our bright future.’

“It’s just……”

‘That’s why the next part of our plan will come to place; you and John will teach them everything you both know. Turn them into a magic wielder.’

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briarrosescurse · 4 years ago

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6, 11, 10, 14 for xiang and roza 👀 for the family ask game

coming right up ☆

6. Are any of their grandparents in the picture?

roza's grandparents are partially alive and still kicking - on the paternal side, both of them are still doing well, living in the land of pyroxene. they occasionally make sure to visit their granddaughter but their connection isn't as tightknit as you'd expect it to be... frankly, because of their disapproval of the von dorimé family in general due to... y'know. on the maternal side however, only roza's grandmother is still alive. she is in contrast very close to the family, despite not being a born von dorimé herself. her husband died, unfortunately, of the curse.

xiang's paternal grandparents have both passed due to illness (grandmother) and in war (grandfather) before xiang was even born - so he knows next to nothing about them. his maternal grandparents are both alive, living not too far from his family. they're rather independent people and can take care of themselves just well. whenever xiang and his older brother used to visit them as children, they'd be how you'd expect grandparents to act like - so their bond isn't shabby at all!

10. Do they have/want kids? How many?

roza absolutely wishes to have children in the future - at least two! she'd like for their kids to not grow up as an only child. she is very eager for that, but her excitement usually dies down quite quickly when she thinks back to her curse. after all, if she doesn't find a way to break it, they will inevitably carry the curse as well - and she'd hate to put them through the troubles that she herself went through. she is pretty much expected to have children too, so she can't reject the idea either. however, she wouldn't mind waiting for her wish, as long as it needs to take, if it means for them to be free of the burden that comes with her name.

xiang? him having kids? absolutely not. that is an extreme amount of responsibility, more specifically dedication and the thought of that alone just makes him want to turn around and leave. he definitely respects the heavy burdens that come with it, too. but also, he never planned to have kids. he never really wanted to either. if it happens, with a fling gone wrong? it'll take him a lot of thinking and reconsideration, but depending on how... let's say how well he knows that woman, then he might stick around. but the chances are not... high. not at all. so don't get your hopes up.

11. Which family member are they closest with?

while roza loves both of her parents quite deeply, she is closer with her father for sure. he is very fond of his daughter but also extremely overprotective of her. and she really loves her father, despite how intimidating and cold other people deem him to be. however, once roza entered nrc and had the chance to sort of... view her whole childhood from a new perspective, from a perspective from outside the things she has been told, their relationship grows rather strained, because she just doesn't approve of his choices anymore. it's a bit... difficult.

for xiang, it's 100% his mom. while he does like his brother (despite the occasional 'i'd sell you for a sandcorn' attitude), his mother has always stuck up for him and took care of him when he got injured. truthfully, he isn't fond of her passive nature, but he still cares very much for his mother and would hate to break her heart in any way.

14. Are there any non-blood relatives they consider family?

for roza, there aren't a lot of people she knows anyways, but... if it counts, then it would be the three caretakers/maids she grew up with and who partially raised her. in all technicalities, they are sort of... part of the von dorimé territory. either way, she considers these three definitely her family, as they have been there for her from the start, taking care of roza in a very motherly fashion. they also homeschooled her for the most part.

xiang isn't particularly close to his family anyways, but he finds the brothers of his older brother's fiancée pretty funny. they're cool guys to hang out with, even if their humor doesn't entirely align with xiang's. not to mention, they share similar interests in hobbies (aka training), so that's a big plus!

#twst oc #oc family questions #rozalina von dorimé #xiang yu #[my writing]

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ofweaslxy · 4 years ago

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There was something so comforting about being at the Burrow. This wasn’t the first time Harry had been at the Weasley home and it surely won’t be the last. But lying in the cot in the room he was sharing with his best friend, listening to the soft snores that he knew he wouldn’t have been able to sleep without because he was so used to hearing it by now, he realized how lucky Ron was to have a home like the Burrow and to have a family like the Weasleys.

He wasn’t sure what was keeping him up. He had had a long day of doing chores for Molly and he was tired, but his mind was racing. He was thinking of all the possibilities of the life he should have had. He was thinking of what his home would have looked like if his parents were still alive. Would Lily and James love him as much as Molly and Arthur loved Ron? Would they love him as much as Molly and Arthur already loved him? He could see how they looked at him. It wasn’t the same way the people that recognized him along the streets of Diagon Alley looked at him. It was one of understanding, caring, and it was unconditional. It was the look only a parent could give their child.

He couldn’t help but to wonder what he had done to deserve that kind of love, especially from people who had been complete strangers before they had met at King’s Cross his first year at Hogwarts. it confused him and put him on edge. He was always expecting to be told he was doing something wrong, that he was a burden or that he was in the way and only ever caused problems. Being able to feel the love of a mother and father, it gave him a sense of panic that it would all come crashing down around him and that this was all a dream. But despite his sense of dread that this could end at any moment, he soaked it in as much as possible when he could because he was old enough to realize that family, in fact, wasn’t just blood family. Family also meant people you chose to be family. The Weasley family chose him to be a part of his family. He tried his best to repay them back, even if it meant spending all day doing chores the Weasley children refused to do. It allowed him to feel like he wasn’t just bumming around and he was earning his keep.

Molly had told him that he didn’t need to, that he wasn’t here to work. It was summer break, after all. But she eventually stopped and allowed him to. Usually it was just cleaning the dirty dishes, which she had reminded him she could charm to clean themselves. He enjoyed the quiet, maternal presence that was Molly Weasley floating around in the kitchen, though, putting ingredients away from that night’s dinner as he cleaned the dishes. He enjoyed smelling her perfume and that night’s cooking on her whenever she would put a clean dish away in a cupboard right next to him. It was a comfort he never got from Petunia growing up and he relished in it. He often offered to do dishes in order to be closer to her. He hesitantly gravitated towards her as a mother and he found that the longer he stayed at the Burrow, the more he sought out the comforting presence of Molly Weasley.

He was on the verge of sleep when he realized Ron had woken up and he heard the sound of his footsteps walking across the room. He figured the redhead was going to the bathroom, which was unusual considering the man usually slept through the night. But he didn’t think much of it until minutes passed and Ron didn’t come back.

Curious as to what Ron could be doing, he sleepily swung his feet over the edge of his cot, stood up and walked quietly towards the door. He opened it and made his way down the many stairs that belonged to the Burrow, not expecting anyone to be up at this time of night. But when he made it down to the ground level, he noticed the light from the fire in the hearth playing along the floor in Molly and Arthur’s room. He tiptoed closer to the door and peaked quietly around the door frame. He wasn’t surprised to see Molly Weasley awake still. But he was surprised to see Ron lying next to her, on his side, his body resting against his mothers and his head buried in the crook of her shoulder. She had charmed her knitting needles to knit by themselves as Molly looked down at her son and spoke softly to him. He was barely holding onto consciousness, a soft smile on his face as she continued talking to him.

Molly’s attention turned towards the door frame when she saw the flash of dark black hair peek into the room and knew it was Harry she had heard walking down the stairs. “Is everything alright, love?” she called out softly. Harry didn’t think she had seen or heard him walking down the stairs and turned beet red. He made his way into the room and hesitated in the door frame, looking down at his feet, not wanting to make eye contact. He couldn’t help but to notice that there was a presence in the room that said he wasn’t in trouble. Had he been at the Dursley’s house, he would have been able to cut the air with a knife, but now, it was more the curiosity of what are you doing up still? But without hesitation, he walked in and crawled onto the other side of the bed from Ron. It wasn’t just the sleep deprivation that had made him do it, it was the months and years of having the entire wizarding world on his shoulders that made him do it. Molly scooted closer to Ron, which in turn made Ron scoot over closer to Arthur’s side of the bed so they could make room for Harry on the other side of her. With Ron’s arm lying across Molly’s body Harry mirrored Ron and rested his head in the crook of her shoulder and used her as a pillow. He held onto consciousness long enough to the knitting needles. Arthur was working a long day at work again. It was his way of keeping his mind off of the death of Fred, so Molly was often found in bed, sleeping or, on the rare occasion, knitting.

Harry was intrigued. He watched as the needles stitched the yarn around themselves and how quickly they were able to do it. He felt Molly's presence and the sound of the knitting needles pushing him closer to sleep. Molly looked over at Harry, not sure where this was coming from. While he had never deliberately pulled away from her affectionate touch or told her he was uncomfortable with it, it was evident he didn’t get a lot of it from the Dursleys. She could tell he was confused by it and didn’t know what to do with it. Or, like during the triwizard tournament, he was so starved of that motherly affection that he held on tightly. He held on so tightly she wasn’t sure he would ever let go. Molly pulled the comforter up so Harry was encompassed in it. Molly rarely ever had children cuddling with her anymore. Ginny, being the only girl, stopped cuddling with her sooner than her brothers. She didn’t want them to think she was too girly for wanting cuddles.

“Couldn’t sleep without Ron snoring too loudly?” she asked as she smoothed the material against his body. He let out a soft sigh of comfort. “He gets that from Arthur.” Molly had a way of making him comfortable. He couldn’t help but to laugh.

“Mhm,” the nineteen-year-old breathed in agreement.

“I’m the same way. I have a hard time sleeping without Arthur snoring,” Molly replied. It was why she was up so late, knitting. It had been a rough few months since the Battle of Hogwarts. A majority of the Weasley family, and that included Harry, didn’t get out of bed for a long time after. The Weasleys mourning Fred and Harry the unknown of what will happen now that he finally finished what Dumbledore had set out for him to finish, on top of mourning the deaths of so many. Feeling Molly wrap the comforter around him, allowing him to rest his head in the pit of her shoulder, it allowed a warmth to wash over him that he had never experienced before. The only other time he had ever experienced anyone affectionately touch him as much as Molly did was when he dated Ginny (they weren’t officially back together yet, but they were unofficially officially together again). He was so starved of basic human contact that it still struck him how it made him feel afterwards. He felt true happiness.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked, once more reiterating the question she had asked earlier. He took a deep breath in, smelling the perfume he now associated with Molly and the Burrow, and let it out, letting all of the worry of being kicked out of the Burrow leave his body with the breath of air. Molly could feel his body relax and smiled when she noticed his eyes start to droop. He rubbed his eyes softly.

“Yeah,” he hummed softly. She rubbed his back, allowing him to fall asleep quickly. The last thought he recalled thinking before both him and Molly fell asleep was this is what home feels like.

#hpedit #harrypotteredit #molly weasley #molly weasley imagine #ron weasley #ron weasley imagine #harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter fanfiction #writing.

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raccoon-wizard · 4 years ago

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Two and Half Assholes

An entire one person (shout out to @jumpfiend) expressed their wish for me to write an angry essay about the long dead show Two and Half Men (2003-2015) and all the problems it has. Allow me to start by saying that I am by no means a professional critic and I have never really written an in-depth review of anything. But I have a lot of feelings that I need to get out about this shitshow, otherwise my head is gonna explode next time my father insists on watching it.

Just a warning, this is a very long post.

What is Two and Half Men about?

If I tried to write my own summary here, I would probably end up tearing it to shreds already. Instead, I’m going to borrow the annotation from IMDB.com: “A hedonistic jingle writer's free-wheeling life comes to an abrupt halt when his brother and 10-year-old nephew move into his beachfront house.”

That doesn’t really say much, does it now. Luckily, the same site also provides us with a wide range of plot (hahahah “plot”) summaries written by users. This one tells us a little more: “The Harper brothers Charlie and Alan are almost opposites but form a great team. They have little in common except their dislike for their mundane, maternally cold and domineering mother, Evelyn. Alan, a compulsively neat chiropractor and control-freak, is thrown out by his manipulative wife Judith who nevertheless gets him to pay for everything and do most jobs in the house. Charlie is a freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon. Charlie "temporarily" allows Alan and his son Jake, a food-obsessed, lazy kid who shuttles between his parents, to move in with them after Alan's separation/divorce. The sitcom revolves around their conflicting lifestyles, raising Jake (who has the efficient, caring dad while having a ball with his fun-loving sugar uncle who teaches him boyish things), and bantering with Evelyn and various other friends and family. Other fairly regular characters include Charlie's cleaning lady Berta and his rich, self-confessed stalker neighbor Rose who often sneaks in to spy on Charlie.”

Now that’s much better. It gives us quite a decent picture of the show’s ensemble. At least for the starter episodes, this is pretty much what it is. But as the show progresses, we see that the characters have a little bit more depth to them. But not that much.

Let’s start with Charlie Harper, the “freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon” portrayed by Charlie Sheen. (Is that man still a thing?) I think we can get a lot by taking apart this brief description of him. Freelance jingle composer pretty much means that he has a grand piano in his house and we can occasionally see him playing it while trying to put together words for a commercial for some random product. And that’s it. He has a few other musician friends who are just as big of assholes as he is, but we’ll get to that later. Other than that, we don’t really see him working at all. I think there is one episode about him writing kids’ songs because his girlfriend’s kid likes them. And one about him getting an award?? I don’t know man. The second part of that statement is a much more prominent “personality” trait of Charlie’s. In nearly every episode, we see him “dating” (meaning shagging and then dumping) another woman. I have mentioned in my initial post that this show is misogynistic. Don’t worry, I will also get into that later. For now I’m going to say that Charlie treats all these women absolutely disgustingly and we’re supposed to laugh at that. On the rare occasions we see him in a long term relationship (which happens twice I think? I’m not sure now), we get the stereotypical ball and chain bullshit. The woman takes all his freedom and tries to make him better. While I hate that trope with burning passion, I have to admit that in this case, she does have a solid point. Charlie is a pathetic excuse of a man who has to count on his good looks (questionable) and his riches. By the way, where did he even get them? Does composing jingles really make that much money? Is he that good of a gambler? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen another episode addressing the fact that the answer to both of these questions is no. Where the hell did this luxurious beach-house come from??? So many questions about a show that deserves so little.

Surprisingly, Charlie is the better one out of the two brothers. At the start, we really do feel sorry for Alan. His wife (who is a HORRIBLE person by the way) kicks him out and manipulates him into still paying for everything and doing many things for her around the house. Who wouldn’t feel bad for someone like this? He moves in with Charlie “for the time being”. Soon, we realise that he is not leaving the house anytime soon. He becomes a disgusting leech, a truly pathetic excuse of a man. And he doesn’t even bother hiding it. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to feel sorry for him or laugh at him, but either case doesn’t really work if you spend at least ten seconds thinking about it. How are we supposed to sympathise with a man that lives off of others and barely lifts a finger to change it? The worst part is, the show presents it as something completely normal. We don’t really see Alan’s actions turning against him, do we? Most of the time, whatever shit he does, works just fine for him.

Another prominent character is Alan’s son, Jake, who grows up throughout the series. A fat little boy, not exactly bright. A spoiled brat (if it’s the fault of Alan or Judith is questionable) that has everything handed to him, as Charlie points out in one episode. It’s another bad personality trait that we’re supposed to find funny. And at first, we kind of do. But once again, as the show progresses, it gets worse. Jake becomes the oldest kid in his class because he fails so many times. He only gets to start middle school because “he’s too big for the desks in his class now”. A bit of a watered down Dudley Dursley now that I think about it. It feels that the older Jake gets, the dumber he is. He eventually joins the military because he is too daft to realise. (If I remember correctly, that was done only so Jake’s actor could leave the show because he pretty much realised how bad it was.)

The main reason why I hate this show so much, however, is its way of handling female characters. There’s a few prominent ones - the aforementioned Judith, Alan’s ex wife, a cold hearted manipulative bitch, that also follows the trope of “I’m breaking up with you because I’m a lesbian” for a while, but then it’s never addressed again, not even once. Then we have Alan and Charlie’s mother, Evelyn, also a cold hearted bitch lacking any motherly instincts whatsoever that the men blame for how they turned out. Honestly, I can kind of see it. There’s Rose, Charlie’s neighbour whom he had slept with once and who’s been obsessed with him ever since, following him pretty much wherever he goes and inappropriately visiting him, usually in order to chase any woman that gets close to him away. We have Berta, Charlie’s housekeeper that I would like to believe is there to show the differences between different classes, as she has a large family to take care of, fending of her daughters’ admirers and dealing with drug and alcohol issues. But at this point we all know she’s only there so we can laugh at her struggles and the witty remarks she likes to make.

A special category of women in this show are the lovers and girlfriends. All of them end up either leaving the men for someone better (good for them tbh), or getting left by them. But remember, we’re supposed to always be siding with the men. The women are there for us to laugh at and hate. Rose the stalker? The only reason Charlie never gets rid of her is so we can laugh as she appears unexpected on his balcony over and over again. Are her apparent mental health issues ever addressed? Maybe once, but as a joke. You know, the classic ha ha ha ha look an insane person that’s hilarious. Judith the ex wife and her flock of weird friends (that Charlie converts)? Look, evil wives hating men, ha ha ha ha. Better run away from there, men, or they’ll eat you alive! Ha ha ha ha. Judith wanting support from friends and claiming she deserves to be happy is played off as something we scoff at. Chelsea, Charlie’s girlfriend and fiancée? The ball and chain thing, similarly to Judith, but not nearly as manipulative - this one we can see really means well and wants to help Charlie, but he’s a Man™ and cannot handle that, despite claiming to love her very dearly. Lindsay, Alan’s on again, off again girlfriend? Oof. Where to even start with that one. As most of the characters (save for maybe Judith), she starts off decent, despite her inexplicable desire for Alan. (Seriously though what in the world is up with that.) Also, now that I mentioned Alan’s weird sex appeal (not to me but to the female characters of the show, ew), what the hell was up with Judith wanting to suddenly fuck him again and HIM ENDING UP BEING THE FATHER OF HER DAUGHTER???? Was that the point when the writers just said “you know what, fuck this” or?

Some additional things the men on the show did to women:

Infidelity. Aka “ha ha ha many women want man what a lucky bastard he gets to fuck many women ha ha ha oh no he’s been caught ha ha ha funny”.

Infidelity with their friends/family members. I’m pretty sure this happened multiple times. One of the male protagonists gets a girlfriend. Girlfriend has an attractive daughter. Man sleeps with daughter. Girlfriend is mad. Man claims that it is actually a compliment to her because the daughter is just a younger version of her. Man gets upset when girlfriend disagrees. Poor man, girlfriend mean :(((

Another thing I would like to point out is the show’s dumbass approach to sexuality and gender. It’s the age old, straight men bullshit that lesbians = hot, gay men = ew. We see that throughout the whole thing a bunch of times. Alan ends up marrying Walden (whom I will talk about as well) so they can scam an adoption agency. That’s just wrong, man. That’s awful. And regarding gender, the way this shitshow handles trans people is disgusting. I can currently only think of one instance of this, but I have a feeling it happened multiple times, but with Charlie and Alan. They meet a woman, flirt, sleep together, all fun and games. But for some god forsaken reason, after all is done, the woman decides to be like “yeah by the way I used to be a dude” and?? Why?? First of, why would any trans person want to tell anyone their deadname and other things after successfully transitioning? I’m a cis woman, but this really makes no sense to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but if you’ve spent years trying to pass as whatever gender you identify with, transitioned, you wouldn’t exactly go around sleeping with people and afterwards telling them about it, would you? And second of all, the entire reason why these characters appear are so we can be like “eww he slept with someone who used to have a penis eww” and laugh as they have a small crisis because of it. Just. Why?? I am aware that this is a thing other shows do/have done as well, but it really bothers me. And even when the guy decides to roll with it, all we get are those jokes that the woman is “more manly” than him. I remember vividly Alan hooking up with a trans lady and briefly dating her, only so we can see her pick a fight with a man, pay for their food and shit and Alan being flustered because he feels like less of a man. Again, please correct me if I’m wrong since my knowledge of gender is limited, but I’m about 97 % sure this is not how it works.

One would have thought that most of this would end after Charlie’s death. His place is taken by Walden Schmidt, portrayed by the angel that is Ashton Kutcher, a “billionaire internet entrepreneur who has recently been divorced and is now suicidal” (wiki). Before I dig in to how it actually got worse, let’s talk about Walden for a while. He really is a nice change. Walden is a genuinely good character, we see him working super hard and treating women well and just being great. I actually like him. The problem the show has when it comes to him is treating his suicidal-ness as just another little joke. Ha ha ha man wants to die man weak. Funny. But as we get over this part (rather quickly tbh), things involving Walden get actually good (besides the part where he sleeps with Alan’s mother). We do see some annoyingly familiar divorce related things, but in contrast to Alan, we see Walden actually get back on his own two feet.

Alan will forever be my biggest issue with this show. I don’t know if he gets worse or if it’s just the contrast with Walden that makes it seem that way, but he becomes a bigger and bigger parasite, exploiting Walden’s kindness, becoming a lover to his, at that point, former girlfriend Lindsay and somehow exploiting her current boyfriend? He just goes haywire is what I’m trying to say.

I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist. We see it every day, the rich playboys, the pathetic incels. They are everywhere and we totally should talk about them. But not like this. We shouldn’t feel like we should sympathise with them, we shouldn’t hate those that try to criticise them, or those who want to get rid of them. We shouldn’t laugh when they hurt people around them. Men shouldn’t want to relate to them. Characters like this should be presented as something we should avoid becoming.

“What’s your problem? It’s just something I watch to unwind,” my father scoffs at me as I complain about yet another evening we all have to spend listening to the nonsense Two and Half Men brings us. Yea, maybe for you. Maybe you know better than to treat people around you, especially women, like they’re just something you can play around with and then throw into the sewers. Maybe you give everyone equal respect. (No he doesn’t, by the way.) But you know, with the way this TV channel plays this show over and over and over and over again (five episodes a day, every day, and the second they get to the end, they just start over), there’s probably a number of young people who don’t realise how wrong it is and take what’s said there as something to live by. Maybe they’ll think that it’s okay to use people to their advantage. Maybe they’ll think like a rich entitled middle aged straight white man. That’s my problem. Even though the show ended five years ago, it still lives on our televisions and it still gives us wrong examples on how to live our lives. That’s why I hate the show. Not just the awful writing and “plot” holes. It’s the way it treats people and presents it as something that’s totally fine.

#tv #television #tv shows #comedy #sitcom #two and half men #jon cryer #ashton kutcher #charlie sheen #sexism #misogyny

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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years ago

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14x02 watching notes

I appear to be fully booked for the whole weekend through to Tuesday so this may be the only thing I post about the episode until then, hope you all are having as much fun as Cas will at the party he’s apparently gonna throw to prove he’s cooler than all the other angels.

*readjusts my beanbag chair from Professional Sloucher to Serious Typing Mode* It's 5:13am and I've been awake 45 minutes watching this thing download and paused the new Adventure Zone episode for this... Mittens assures me it's well-recieved, so I'll go ahead and assume we burned enough sage to ward off the worst of whatever happens to their episodes...

Or, of course, Speight is directing.

So, expectations are pretty nebulous, because at this point in the story I really don't have demands, hopes or fears, except maybe that Buckleming don't handle or if they do, don't maul having Dean back. I DO miss Dean. It's very possible if he showed up in this episode everyone loves it because Dean-o is back.

I've never voluntarily called him Dean-o before. I think Gabriel's influence over the season is contagious.

Speaking of which... *hits play*

Are we getting a recap of Christian Keyes getting smushed because he, also, is alive? (er, the vessel, I mean) It would balance out Nick a great deal but it's also almost too much to ask I feel

14x01 recap: good, no sign of wirework. 14x02 recap: bad, everyone is levitating.

Also hilarious - no recap whatsoever of the past episode, because we have entered the Buckleming AU. Which is either Speight's shade or Buckleming's hubris that they don't need no canon to tell them what to do.

Nice. Creepy. Good start, sir. 10/10 would immediately go over and try and play that cursed piano despite my fear I would die instantly.

asdhdjsfkdsf the detail that Mikey took his hat off and a dramatic shot of it sitting there with the same reverent detail as the other spooky things from the rest of the intro shots

Interestingly the vampire that Mikey is bleeding is presented in much the same way as Lucifer was in 13x21, left to just stand there and dribble essence from the neck which making small choking noises. This is either stuck pig imagery, or the suggestion from unknown powers that be directing this to suggest that the entire Lucifer concept is being bled dry by wringing Nick out of it too.

This isn't going to end well.

While he's doing that, I would like to ask if that's a smidge of his own grace, or if he went and found Metatron's or something.

It also is very reminiscent of Lucifer creating demons - experimenting and playing to create the worst of the worst. Alastair and Lilith had white eyes and Lilith could do some sort of evil smite. The first demon, and the only one we've ever seen do that. Fandom long headcanoned that Lucifer used his own grace to make her, and it makes sense in a weird way that as he gets more corrupt, so do his creations - from pure white-eyed demons to murky yellow eyes to red and pitch black. Also: get more stupid. Azazel is the best and smartest, and each YED we met, if we assume they're in age order... Asmodeus is so dumb as a pile of rocks that you have to assume Lucifer realised that whatever he did to perfect the recipe in Azazel was tapering off and the good good stuff was over, so no more YEDs before you find out what Asmodeus's little sibling would have been like. His next known canonical attempt to make a demon isn't using his own grace, but using the Mark of Cain to corrupt, er, Cain.

Mikey is falling into this exact same nonsense from the opposite direction of his brother, AU or otherwise - humans are bad, corrupt evil things are better because they're less complicated and as an angel, humans give me a headache. Michael seems at least to have believed that there were good people - if he could just flipping find them - and that if he smote all the sinners maybe some good people would be left. It's coming at the same conclusion from opposite problems - he has earnestly sought out the best in humanity and then ended up scouring even the worst like Kip and those killers he mentioned, and finally settled on monsters, Eve's corruptions of humanity into bloodthirsty creatures motivated only by hunger. And now he's playing with them and using his own power to corrupt them further.

PS: Eve is going to be SO PISSED

That IS a very effective way to smite a vampire.

He's very clean and efficient and while he's "getting his hands dirty" in the metaphorical sense, there's a very careful remove in the actions we see on screen, of him standing watching very impartially.

He also sounds a shade more Dean-ish in that quip, and let's just go ahead and assume that the quip unlocked Dean a lil, or else that being in this vessel so long is beginning to wear on Michael - the influence goes both ways, and it's like seeing Captain Holt from B99 crack and quip, except this is the lawful evil version.

Plus, the flippy flippy and all... He's getting comfortable. I bet Michael might have been able to do SOME cool flip with a knife but trust me, you're possessing the second most blade flippy guy on this planet, second only to his husband, so that's a full perk of being in the Michael Sword and nothing else.

No one has asked Cas how he feels about AU Bobby, which is weird because he and Bobby were BFFs back in the day.

Trust me, it happened off screen. Sometimes Cas flapped up smelling like whiskey and cigarette smoke and Dean would be like dammit did you just come from poker night with Bobby and I wasn't invited?

(True behind the scenes details from season 5)

AUBobby wants a beach vacation as much as Dean does, though. Well, he wants to hunt by the sea.

Okay I never knew "veracity" could be used as a synonym for "voracity" but google assures me that people are literally just really lazy about it because I THOUGHT AUBobby meant voracity, but he SAID veracity, and I was like, why is he saying angels aren't known for telling the truth??? and then my other part of my brain that is more sensible but works slower caught up with the context... This language is stupid. I apologise to second language speakers for that line. It was said "veracity" but it means "voracity" because we are a garbage culture, as english speakers as a whole.

So yeah, angels aren't known for their partying, no offence, party!Cas.

This is now 2x between here and 13x20 that Cas has been directly accused of not partying, plus how he went to a party in 13x22 even if he stood stock still the entire time, so I have to assume that the rise of party!Cas is gaining narrative and symbolic momentum and we WILL see him kicking back by the end of the season.

"None taken, I tend to agree with you." TEND, as in, other angels are stuffy assholes who never party, but I, party!Cas, have stood with my arms by my side and a stoic expression, all through your welcome to paradise!earth party, so *I* am in fact, cool.

He misses those poker nights. Ellen and Jo taught him well.

AUBobby has a perhaps Jim Beaver-honed response to "it's Dean" when worrying about what's up with it. Or, of course, as much as he may have come to like the guy since the AU rescue, this was still a lil test of why they had to be concerned, leaving it to him as the one guy in the room who is still getting to know him, to say what is unspoken by everyone else.

Sam then prompts Cas to give us some clunky exposition on why he can't come, because Michael will sense him.

Buckleming, you literally are the ones who say Cas down in a chair and had him tattooed to ward him against angels. That was your thing. You did that. You.

It may be a sign of improvement that Cas is being left behind with specific explanations for why, but it's still hard to read Misha's expression as between Cas Is Sad He Can't Go Near Dean, which is crazy he's not putting up a fight and going anyway, and I Have To Say This Line To Explain It And They Don't Teach You How To Say Bad Exposition In Drama School.

"Yeah sorry"

This deserved at least 2 more lines of contention and scowling, or, of course, Sam proposing this to Cas on the spot, or Cas himself regretfully announcing that he had to do it to give them the best chance in a self-sacrificing way, then rationalising it with having to stay behind to babysit.

Cas just said Jack wasn't an infant. He's a year old. He's barely even a toddler yet. You really read that many parenting books and don't know that?

Okay yeah. Anyway lumping Nick and Jack together as charges to watch - a suggestion somehow that they're a joint burden? It demeans Jack to Nick's place, in the context. Cas hasn't actually had a great deal of on-screen parenting to Jack except like 2 nice moments basically bookending the entire time they've both been alive on the show in 13x06 and 14x01, and I'm going to have to chalk this up to a lil anxiety about bonding with the sulky teen Jack that it's something Cas now feels apprehension about. He's the father who's rarely home and clocked in the least time nurturing Jack directly, while Mary has a wild lead and Sam and Dean both also a good chunk of it, with Sam pulling weeks ahead of Dean, of course.

A sense of Dad Who Is Always At Work Forced To Bond With Child While Mom(s) Are Gone, to use some heteronormative tropes, feels like it's at play. The dad who is always away on business trips is forced to spend time at home over Christmas with the kid while the other parents are on a wild vacation to Florida... What fun scrappy bonding experiences do they get up to?! :D

Of all the tropes flying around, to stick to heteronormativity, Cas has always been "the father" to Jack while others around him waver between maternal roles or not. But even in the very start, he "completed" the parental "set" with Kelly.

Is that enough airquotes to be clear I support non-traditional family structures? :P

But it puts Cas also in a place of having some of these toxic masculinty types of fatherhood, of being away for work all the time and not putting in the work for the kid or being too eager to fight and sacrifice himself than to be there. Hard as he works to protect them all, his connection IS that of the guardian angel who watches over, the one sworn to protect, who most often talks about his bond to Jack under that obligation and that promise to Kelly, the sense of a duty to protect Jack, but very little in the way Sam especially fell hard on the side of "nurture" in the nature vs nurture debate and put in all the emotional labour associated with the mother in traditional parenting structures.

(This was good for Sam to do considering Dean had done it for him, and because Dean did it for him - being both mother and father - he's largely exempt and can dip in and out of how he parents Jack with impunity, given he had his moment about this in 12x22, days before Jack was born, and was therefore freed from character arcs grappling with it in the same way)

Cas is like "Nick is a MESS" same, buddy.

"He was housing, he deserves a shot at rebuilding his life" Sam is talking about himself here, which is weird because Nick was the topic of discussion a moment ago

I feel weird that Sam is admonishing Cas here, because Cas has not lain on the floor and thrown a tantrum about not going to save Dean, as ungrateful as he is being about babysitting Nick... it's making a weird conflict between Cas and Sam which is now veering into a philosophical argument about Nick, which makes me feel that if this is not just weird Buckleming dialogue issues where they find it hard not to write things as a conflict, Sam and Cas haven't had the rosy bro bonding time together while Dean is gone that it seemed, or that, like with Sam snapping at Mary about her optimism, Sam's in a Mode about this where he's on his last rag with everyone secretly because of lack of sleep. And Chief!Sam may also be struggling with being an authority figure among his own family, as every single one of them "outranks" him in age, parenthood, experience or scowliness, and Sam once described himself as "the least of all of you" meaning Bobby and Cas specifically of the people who in this room he'll find himself naturally deferring to. Sam's leadership is natural among the AU peeps but perhaps a struggle that with his family, he's still the leader, but there's no Dean to have the final word, and that in itself is an awful reminder, when he finds himself being the last word on a subject without Dean's input.

I have to assume this is like 5am and AUBobby showed up early to work to see Mary and the rest of the AU peeps aren't around yet

Cas then throws in the line about how all he can see is the supreme agent of evil, which is fuckin hilarious that it was Sam's trauma yesterday and we know angels are much more likely to relate to the glowy blob possessing a face, and anyway most of Cas's worst Lucifer trauma came from being POSSESSED by him, seeing him wearing Sam's face, or being beat up by Vince fucking Vincente. You only really ever saw Lucifer as Nick in 12x23 and the last few episodes of season 13, bar like one encounter back in 5x10. That is a very very recent association.

Unless, of course, he's still MIGHTILY PISSED that Lucifer killed off 2/3rds of his poker game and that's where his "supreme evil" trauma comes from.

Let's go with that.

Do you think Eugenie forgot that Lucifer was an hallucination in season 7, and also that Cas was dead during that?

(don't @ me about him seeing hallucifer in 7x17, he said in 7x21 that he stopped seeing hallucifer pretty quickly and I'm going with Edlund canon when in doubt :P)

"You talking about my dad again"

Jack. Hon. You have absolutely no relation whatsoever to Nick, except via whatever family line ties him extremely vaguely to Sam as a similar vessel of Lucifer. I don't even know how to describe where that puts him on your fucked up family tree, but trust me, you don't need to worry. Biologically, you are the son of an ex-president of the united states.

But yeah, snarky!teen Jack is here in full force. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with the baby's angsty melodrama years :'D

Do you think

and I ask this hypothetically while full of dread that I am right

do you think Eugenie has forgotten that Jack is not Nick's biological son

Jack getting the good good framing of standing with his back to the war room, trapped in the library, as he's grounded. This central framing demands the eye to seek out wings, but in this case they're kinda furled behind him, if you see them as the dark shadows of the room beyond.

Of course the war room/library symbolism is always a thing, that action is the former, home the the latter, so this is clever to show Jack's desire, but also that he is stuck, and we see the bar patterned lights on the floor in the war room which are used as prison imagery. Jack's effectively locked out of the war room with a baby gate.

"Let's move," Sam says, with a virile pump of his gun, leaving Cas and Jack to feel impotent at home.

Sam does not get the dick imagery often enough

Blargh Nick again. Hello fuckface. Listen, I just wanna say before we get into this scene, that I've almost universally seen Mark P eyerolled at but said "at least he's a really good actor so the scenes were really good even if he sucks as a person and we hate Lucifer". I do not agree. I think he's a ham who over-acts and it was annoying as Lucifer but by this point expected and had at least transitioned slowly, but seeing Nick do the whole routine of standing up from bed, and then blowing on his stab wound and wincing and fanning it? That whole thing was just... too much for me. Nick should have been still and quiet and sad, but as soon as he started doing that it harked back to Lucifer in 13x13 when he was cold and hungry and over-acting rubbing his poor empty tum tum and rubbing his freezing arms. What made Mark P so good in season 5 was that Lucifer had a slow, cold and STILL menace to him, that while he might have gestured widely and been violent, especially in his dramatic scenes he was still and menacing. That's all gone by now and he acted Lucifer as a clown, and fair enough as an acting choice I guess when this isn't my favourite character or actor, but now it's salt in the wound that Nick was supposed to come across sad and vulnerable, and instead of bestowing some gravitas on him and taking us back to the start and actually TRYING, Mark P fell into clowning as if he thinks doing these funny things is what his fans who are apparently out there want to see, and my stretched to breaking point lie I repeated to myself about "oh he's a good actor at least" shattered because he was just playing the fool again, over-acting as if to gain cheap sympathy points, when his stillness and sadness and NOT overacting was literally the only way to have pulled Nick off without it being annoying.

This is a cake and eat it, well Lucifer is dead but I'm still here, and now I will act almost exactly the same, kind of dealio and I'm pissed and not standing by that self-comforting lie any more because every single step of the Lucifer journey so far since 11 we've placated ourselves with various phrases and concepts to make it okay to do all this but keeping Nick around is where the story breaks and so too does my patience for forgiving it.

*Cas employs his Anti Nick Shoulders* I deeply approve of these shoulders

Could they not give Nick, like, a sudoku book or something? He is just sitting here wallowing in having been Lucifer.

Omg Cas is getting to use this to actually talk about himself. I'm actually liking this. Cas self-reflection is a wonderful thing. Everyone can relate to Nick, even if they hate it. Every single person will file in here and talk about themselves to Nick at some point or another.

Nick's like "why am I heeere" and Mr Giant Teddy Bear is like "I know right?"

Wait is Nick's son called Teddy? That was unfortunate mind-melding with BL I just did. *shiver*

Also hilarious: a chosen flashback to Nick holding a teddybear beside the crib and I swear to all that is holy that Speight is deliberately implying after reading the line "Teddy" that Nick said yes to Lucifer on behalf of his wife Sarah and this bear.

I can SEE his face making a note here about what flashback to cut to.

His sparkling eyes are reflecting off this screen so much I'm getting glare from it.

*Mark P cries a lot* There are a few little leaps in this conversation to get to the point too quickly but overall this wasn't a bad scene... Perhaps because Cas carried it enough with his sinscerity that Nick wailing was at least balanced and the directing matched the intensity of it all. Speight really is good at making things work and this was pretty brutal which means that the overacting is compensated for, and Cas inserted enough genuine emotion from an empathetic character.

It's all hovering unspoken about family where Nick does it for his wife, even if he regrets it now and feels like he has become a monster and is wracked with a guilt Cas can heavily relate to as it drove his season 12 early actions intensely, and his child. Cas also did it for family, and they give this definition of family where it could be anyone beloved in the family, so that platonic overlap is there between Cas and Nick's motivations. But implicit is that Nick's wife was the one that made him say yes, and Cas stands over Nick in much the way that Lucifer stood over him in 5x01 when appearing as Sarah. Cas is/was the wife in the scenario in a weird way to Dean, for whom he chose to be possessed to save from Amara, aka the monster that had come into the house and would kill his beloved ones in their beds.

Promo scene! Aw AUBobby and his rusty FBI skills.

The coroner talking about a spree killer harks to Dean's issues balancing being a serial killer with a saviour, as I talked about pre-episode with the themes connected to Dean being possessed by Michael, and channelling all the worst of him. In this case, the torture AND the wantonly killing vampires

God damn Mary's red suit is awesome though.

"neck wounds" I thought Mikey healed those? I guess I can see residual scarring on this body so maybe healing vampires isn't as neat as healing people, because corruption...

"Why is an archangel hunting vampires in the first place" HAVE YOU MET DEAN? This is how he blows off steam when he gets a HANGNAIL. You think being possessed by Mikey will stop him?

"Huh" Sam says. "huh," I say, because they actually did some Smart Detective Work to come to that conclusion and perhaps this is just because BL needed the next lead but we've never actually seen them ask this specific question about people coming to identify mystery bodies to find the next lead ever. And perhaps because even if it happens off screen it's a dead end in all their other cases, but this was still something BL wrote that put a clever concept in Sam's head, and I am at the bottom of the barrel with them when I'm complimenting them for not making the characters act like complete idiots.

The other thing is, this cuts out an entire scene of them in a motel opening a laptop and googling surveillance footage, and I don't know if they have been banned from writing the everyone sits around and googles the monster scenes, at least since they made Crowley pop in and google a photo of the president in 12x08, and then Dabb openly mocked them for it in 12x23, but it's a pacing GODSEND to have the characters act intelligent and ask questions that solve problems instead of relying on the magical answer box to tell them where to go next.

See again: low low low expectations. Whether it's Speight clean up work or they've been told off, this is great stuff, and files off a lot of the edges that make their episodes wearing on a cosmic, soul level, that between the weird content, they're also just clunky and poorly paced.

Cas n Jack sceeeene.

It's Jack's desk! I'm so happy!!

I asked hypothetically the other day on a promo pic and I'm so happy to see Jack has his own lil desk in the library. He looks like a kid doing his homework

my heart is swelling

with all the table meta - it's another thing where they've changed stuff around to give Jack a space, a place he calls his own in this large weird Bunker. That table had to be dragged from one of the side offices or store rooms and set up for him because it's never b een there before, but now Jack has an alcove of the library he calls his own and he can sit there and do his research... And the alcoves give a sense of an enclosed room space, something comforting and like... library womb like.

The Bunker has adopted him :')

It's so weird seeing a character in this show who habitually doesn't wear a ton of layers around the Bunker - he's been in a t-shirt with nothing over it in both episodes, grey. He's young, open, honest, but hasn't found his way yet, hasn't got a tribal colour scheme. No plaid, and has only worn beige and blue in neutral Cas colours, his main father figure in a sort of aspirational sense, even if Cas is the dad who's always out on work and not there to raise his son.

Jack's identified as human in 13x23 but in a way he is a homunculous - the concept of what was originally believed to be how babies formed in a sort of medieval/rennaisance time (perhaps still is by BL) that the sperm was a tiny weeny complete person and they just got put in the womb with no other input from mommy and grew there. There's definitely a weird shade of homunculous implications in how Jack's parenthood is talked of, and of course he was then born as a fully formed man, which is a sort of transliteration of this nonsense belief, but the concept that he practically was a small adult Jack and then a big adult Jack and at no point an actual baby. Even in the womb in 12x17 we saw him turn and stare at the camera, betraying a sort of primal intelligence, the idea of a bored god waiting in the womb to be born, learning and acting from within.

And only now is he sort of set up to stop being a baby and start being a man when it comes to handling adult intellectual stuff and he's not learning from scratch but is treated like he has a more solid baseline for the world around him these days. He's learned enough to join society, but not enough to have carved his place yet. It's a very strange cusp of growth, and perhaps a good metaphor for being a teenager, in a way: that you realise you have been very stupid up to this point but now you are very smart and ready to be an adult (except, unfortunately, adult peoples will look back at this unformed humonculous version of themselves with the greasy hair and poorly understood radical political opinions and whatever, and be like, WOW, I was an idiot.)

Oh my god are BL really going to keep writing Good Cas Lines this episode? This stuff where Cas schools Jack gently and lovingly with knowledge Jack has been up all night reading then Cas is like yeah this is stuff angels know from angel sunday school but I'll be kind about it and validate what you just read... Like, the lesson is the act of the research, more than the knowledge. It's up to Jack not to feel stupid that he did all that work and Cas was like, yeah. I knew that. I'm an angel.

OH MY GOD Cas is actually having the chat I wanted with Jack about how he felt when he lost his grace

*shoves a fistful of popcorn in my mouth*

Jack all hurr blurr you don't understand I want to go run to my room and slam the door because I'm a teen and I have just discovered human tragedy and angst, NO ONE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER HAS SUFFERED AS I HAVE

and Cas is like, *ruffles his hair* it's okay little buddy, I too was a homunculous in season 9, which Lizzy has a weird deja vu feeling she wrote about but would not for the life of her know where to find that because it was probably buried in watching notes

"what did you have left?" "well I had Sam and Dean... but I had something else"

me: *clutches chest, gasps, hangs on tenterhooks*

Cas: "I had myself"

me: FLAILS WILDLY

Sorry, this isn't very meta, I've just written so much on the nature of grace and of Cas, and whether he has a soul or not still, but he is very much talking about the time when as a human he had a soul and was "himself" without his grace, and though he felt the loss of his POWER he didn't feel a loss of his CORE SELF, of who he is (which is an ongoing question they're all answering about themselves, with Jack Homunculous Winchester as the main example to channel the others through). It's really important to me that Cas has this core self, this certainty of who he is beyond his duty, his grace, everything that is forced on him by Heaven, but that this part of him who he may or may not know is his soul is there and filled with, well... Cas's nougat centre. Because Cas has been playing THAT game far longer than Jack has :P

"The basic me. As Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles"

Dean is reaching through Cas to mock him for us when we don't have him in the room to directly accuse Cas of having a harp, and I love that Cas loves Dean so much that he lets Dean drag him for having bells and whistles (which Cas will take literally) even though he's not here.

That's true love.

They share what is possibly the grossest smile ever and I am going to weep to see all this fondness for each other and for Dean being expressed. Like, ugh, families loving each other and being all wholesome and sweet. What is this garbage.

"You know, Sam and Dean... they weren't born with their expertise" yeah because they're not fuckin homunculi

Cas is basically equating Jack to going back to the start that they had, a do-over on his life, that he lived his first year as a magical all-powerful baby, but in a weird way, losing his grace makes him more settled, gives him a chance to understand himself without his power and learn that he still has a core self, a soul with all the good stuff in it, and to begin again and learn things the slow way, but a way in which he will grow more naturally and take the lessons that are needed to form the real edges to a character that turn into maturity.

"They've been at it since they were children"

and so have you. filed under: ow.

Literally no one on TFW had a normal safe happy childhood free of monsters metaphorical or otherwise.

Anyway Cas then reminds Jack that he has to do things slow to be as good as Sam n Dean, and moves on to it's important not who you were in your past - because this fuckin one and a bit year old already has a gritty past - but who you are and what you will do with the FUTURE. And Cas still wholeheartedly believes in Jack because of Jack once showing him a vision of the future that they might have - the happy ending, world without monsters, all that jazz that Dabb era is eyeing up hopefully.

Oooh Mikey's going to a partyyy.

That fuckin ring on his little finger. It's coded especially in media that he's either in a cult or gay. It's such a weird lil detail for Mikey to have added to the ensemble that I almost wonder if he smited a guy to borrow it wholecloth and took every detail. Though he's a fucking fashionista so maybe he can't resist adding a detail like this.

After all he wore dirty war-torn clothes for years in the AU, but even then had a sense of grandeur about it, an over-dramatic flair with the long coat that said that he dressed well, even for the scenario, and different, standing out from the rest of his minions.

Now he's here on paradise!earth, with all the tailors you could ask for, so he's going to dress like the lord of this planet it's begging for, in all the finery you can drape his fine sword in.

Sword does not approve of bowtie.

DEAAAN! HEY! I'VE MISSED YOU ILY

"GET OUT"

"I don't think so"

WOW, RUDE. There's rules about this, buddy!

"You can't!"

"oh but I can, because, see, I own you." It IS Michael who punches the mirror... I was certain it would be Dean, but it's Michael lashing out at his angry reflection, shattering the image of Dean. What a metaphor. In the Mark of Cain arc sometimes Dean looked at himself in shattered mirrors but it was a passive shattering. This is a statement from Michael that he can see Dean and he's shattering his entire self, refusing his right of consent - in a BL episode it's ironically hilarious so long as nothing else dub con happens, that this is the actually seriously applied good use of consent stuff. And Michael talking about owning Dean - it's that presumptiveness about others' consent that was Dean's biggest downfall in putting Gadreel in Sam, the cosmic karma lashing back out at Dean that he can't punt Michael out like Sam heroically punted Gadreel out, because Michael OWNS him. Dean is historically, cosmically, always for eons before his birth, been "the Michael Sword" - a true vessel with this guy's name inscribed on the hilt, and Michael has calmly taken full possession of his ultimate weapon, because well, why not.

UGH and then Michael takes control again by way of talking into the mirror and his reflection behaving normally because he's wrangled it back into control. A+ DIRECTION, SIR.

(Also because it's not Dean - maybe it's not so much a meta detail but the expectation might be that Dean would lash out at Michael BECAUSE he's angry and lashes out and smashes mirrors so many times, but he has no control to even move an arm to lash out... He's utterly trapped, just like Cas was tied to that chair.)

I love seeing Cas storming confidently around the Bunker running stuff while the others are out, being the one who is looking over Jack, taking the calls about their findings, and now dealing with Nick wandering in to angst some more. This is Cas at home and although it's still weird the AU peeps are ALL taking a day off coming into work after seeing how embedded they were in the hub, it's wonderful to see Cas here and without the AU peeps it is more cozy in the sense of being more like the home they privately kept.

Nick comes in like I WANT TO SOLVE MY COLD CASE THIS IS MY RANDOM DISTRACTION FROM THE PLOT

but then Cas puts his hand on his shoulder and he flicks back to Lucifer in an instant, trying to dissolve Cas in a panic from being touched. Cas is understandably completely and utterly freaked out.

And for all our talk of Rowena and Sam and their trauma from Lucifer, of course Cas has had a lot too even though I'm kinda eye-rolly about him talking about Nick as the face of all evil, of course this episode has been about his Lucifer trauma so far. It's really interesting to see Cas rattled by something because he is so solid most of the time - last episode he exuded "fuck you" from every pore for every moment except briefly when Jack was dragged into the room. But Nick has him on edge and now there's some Buckleming fuckery afoot with ongoing vessel issues, we're seeing the very strange visual of a Cas who is legit freaked out.

Anyway I really like how smooth this was, even with camera changes. Speight is really wringing excellence out of them, and the script, weirdly, and maybe because it's Nick so Eugenie is focused, is actually contemplative and full of interesting emotional conversations, which they often seem to blow off whatever the brief. Even with the dialogue hindrances, the real meaning and depth is being plumbed by the scenes as a whole.

So yeah, here is where I have to grudgingly say MarkP can play evil kinda well but also considering, again, FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN CAPITALIST PARTY? This is his calling, and he is a caracture of the man who plays the devil.

And this is something rather scary and sinister about what's going on with him which genuinely is played with some of that season 5 gravitas, which is super weird to see because I have got so used to him being a clown, even in his previous episode.

I have to say, due to that, I give Speight a lot of credit because he's really, really good at his job.

"What went through your head just now?" I ask that a lot, and thanks for the reaction gif, Eugenie.

I need very little prompting to assume you are writing Nick and Brad is writing the rest.

Nick is a fine line of guilty and confused, and hiding his intent, either because he doesn't know, or he DOES. It's good. Credit where credit's due.

"Some of his influence still within you" it's CRUEL to give that line to misha.

Kinda meta that there's a cockles joke from an old JIB or something about "influence" as jizz and 13x21 and all the jokes about Gabriel's grace.

But we're getting to a 9x11 parallel in the structure of the episode, but Cas is left behind with Nick rather than Sam, and Sam gets to be out there looking for his brother... And of course Dean within Michael experiences a shattering greater than the Mark of Cain did to him...

"Lucifer may have inflicted more damage on your psyche" yeah no shit we were warning you he would have the Hallucifers

Cas does the most terrified slow shoulder touch ever - there's a real right shoulder wrong shoulder thing going on. Last episode he clasped Jack on the correct (left) shoulder, and this time he tries to touch Nick on the right and nearly gets smote, and then this touch is on the same, as he discerns what's wrong with Nick, and I get a mirror of 11x11 where Lucifer did the wrong shoulder touch to Dean, and have him the only inkling something was up with Cas, that Dean shrugged off because, ow.

Anyway white man has angst. Nick has the Hallucifers and he has to find out who killed his family. He's got like his entire own TV show premise of nonsense going on here and it's going to be crammed in between everything else.

Bet you anything real monsters did it

"And then what

Dude's got nothing to live for

we're so over these murdered wife revenge arcs

The old flipperoo of it being terrifying for a monster when 3 scary hunters bust in weapons drawn. The vampire has a terrible apartment and she didn't even get a new car - it's like she went from one crappy life to the next and the only thing that changed was she was now a miserable vampire. I'm sympathetic to her for now :')

Oh look how surprising, this side of the story is being 2x03 still - aside from AUBobby snarking that vampires "never do" anything wrong, in the position of one who never learned a grey area because lower Winchester exposure, the vamps are feeding on animal blood, and mourning the loss of their nest. This is another Lenore. Of course we started the episode with them in the morgue finding vampire teeth on seemingly human victims, as in 2x03, and the killer is the deadliest hunter in the universe - the heavily Gordon themed side of Dean which has been symbolised by vampires the whole time from Lenore to Benny...

OH this is the girl from the cold open. So I assume she's going to explain how she got away. We have to assume the cold open was several days ago - long enough for her to lie low, Michael to ditch all the vamps, AND for them to be discovered again and moved to the morgue and then for this branch of TFW to come out here. Which explains that Michael must have already moved on and be ready for his party in the present day, which is a stretch of time enough to form his next plan.

"I-if you let me go!" yeah AUBobby lunges at her when he assumes the conversation is over, because he never dealt with this before, but looks over to Sam now, and then Mary does.

We cut away before we find out if Sam decided her fate, so that current silence on the subject may be left ominous or may explain a lot about Sam when we find out whether he had her killed and has turned ruthless, or is still soft Sammy who dealt with Lenore and knows how it goes.

Mikey, what are you up to?

He's tapping Dean's charm but with a hint more of Jensen's whiskey smoothness in his voice than Dean's coarseness, so this is legally defined as assault.

This is horrifying. GIVE IT BACK.

I'm calling the police. Michael has made off with Dean's entire seduction routine to trap this monster, and I am horrified.

Weirder still hearing him just casually called Michael. Brrrr.

Ooh she's a werewolf. Somehow I hadn't managed to work that out in the glimpse in the promo and thought she was a new monster type.

I guess Mikey is shopping around.

Wow she really has prominent teeth. I wonder if that's a sexy trait in werewolves.

He takes a drink as he menaces towards her - he's still got that calm drifting through kinda attitude that Michael had even in the AU when he was Christian Keyes, and he's starting to have fun, which is really really bad.

I don't think Michael has ever had fun in his life.

He's like the perfect little kid who does well in all his studies then sneaks off and drowns the family cat in the back of the garden as an outlet.

"Now. Summon your master."

Is this the elusive Werewolf Alpha who survived even season 6 because the show just Could Not Figure Out What To Do With Werewolves until season 9

Nick has an ENDLESS series of white shirts to indicate he's a sweet innocent dude now

because, you know we have a hard time dealing with that

Nick is ranting like a privileged white man

I mean his family is dead, I just struggle with Nick for obvious reasons

and as soon as his mannerisms cross a line, he loses me again

He's kinda weird with Cas as well because he knows Cas, kinda, and he has to be 100% on board with all the nonsense, so he's just A Bloke dropped in this life now but casually chatting to an angel. it's weird. "You know what a cold case is, Castiel?" liike, he knows Cas doesn't always know stuff but he is also just going off on one.

I think poor Cas has decided since the Nickifer moment that he needs to spend more time actively watching over Nick, and once more is trapped with a ranting annoying man

this is his curse.

"But you're not dead. You have a second chance."

"you don't understand"

Ah, teenagers, such a problem :P

but seriously, this is hilariously the third converastion this episode Cas has been in where he directly relates to the very specific weird metaphysical problem that Nick or Jack is going through because there's literally NOTHING that Cas hasn't already been through. He might yet make an excellent therapist just because of how many weird torments he's endured.

Cas speaking with fondness of Jimmy :') Such a feeling of Jimmy being a good man who went to Heaven, and for Cas, raised as an angel like this, being in Heaven with your soulmate is the ultimate happy ending for good devout people - in 4x20 when he's still in Claire he tells Jimmy he served well and will go to Heaven like it's a reward, and despite everything he still seems to default to that, especially for the comfort of knowing this about Jimmy of all people, because of how directly responsible Cas is for destroying their lives, and knowing that at least they got this is a WONDERFUL coping mechanism for angels to tell themselves it's all okay, when they get the correct vessel with the proper permissions and they're a good and pious person who prayed for it etc etc.

Cas and Lucifer remain the only angels we've ever seen actually court their vessel properly, although it's implied Anael did similar. Most others have hopped right in without securing full and informed consent. Er, not that Lucifer does, but at least he has full and informed bullshit trickery, which, um. Is a thing?

Nick how DARE you call Cas a "stone cold bodysnatcher" who's no better than Lucifer. Jimmy is gone and Cas has had this vessel remade for him like six times since then. It's the Jimmy Model Vessel mk.VI, as sculpted by God or the Empty.

*sobs about Cas saying what happened to Jimmy was his greatest regret*

SUCH GOOD CAS STUFF this episode

The alpha werewolf is a white guy in a suit, surprisingly.

Michael, also a white guy in a suit, sits opposite him, and they're pretentious about their cognac.

"She thinks you're a god" that's the second time that's happened. He kinda liked it when it was applied directly to him but not an accusation of BEING Chuck, just that that's how he comes across.

Oh good he's just the leader of the pack, not the Alpha.

Still wanna know who that is

His sales pitch is about their purity in wanting to kill to eat to live once again. I find it hard to believe a werewolf with snooty opinions about alcohol who wears a suit like that doesn't have some human sins, but it seems that Michael is judging them by their monstrousness first, and waving aside their other habits in favour of the big picture of how they live their lives.

"Fully tested" you fucking liar

He's talking around the truth... It's fascinating watching him threading the line of judging people for sinners without falling into that himself.

I do wonder how he knows about wine unless his previous vessel did... or he's taking from Dean's pop culture and deadpan bullshitting it. Sorry, I'm still stuck on that detail. Character stuff always entertains me so much more than plot :P

"Believe me, it's an absurd dream" He's passively observed at least like 3 attempts to enslave the human race for food just in the last few years. He knows.

Mikey, you can't go around promising that, they know it doesn't work. Dick Roman couldn't pull it off, and you don't have his business acumen.

"Why be the huntED when you can be the huntER"

ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN AAAAAH turning over EVERYTHING he works for

UUUUGH

Okay, Jack's wandered off and found his grandparents without a single warning and I am WOUNDED.

They seriously need to put more warning in for these things because ow ow ow ow ow

Oh my gooood he's named after Kelly's daaad

Look at these nice grandparents

"So you were like her intern" oh ne the intern jokes of last summer have come around and stabbed me

I repent

Oh NO nerdy little Kelly

this is awful

where is this episode coming from? I can't believe someone's managed to wrangle Buckleming into doing good stuff with everything so this is actually emotionally well-told

this is probably their best episode yet and i'm half an hour in

"We have a grandson!"

This is emotionally mauling me like an angry bear

"Jack kind of looks like her!"

*Jack attempts to speak from a lump the size of a planet in his throat*

*Lizzy types from within the bear's mouth, as it tries to stuff my down ITS throat*

NOUGAT GOT HIS HUG

Sam spared the vampire girl!!! YAY

She's called Lydia. You assholes literally used that name before for the Amazon Dean hooked up with

I can't believe Michael took the time to change his suit. He has a suit for business and a suit for meetings.

"the hunters" Oh that's cold. Dean, can you hear how he dismisses your FAMILY?

Oh nooo he metatroned her. This was a traaaaaaap and she was bait

Aww Lydia :(

He smites like Lucifer killed demons with his mind

it's so scary

How can Cas be mad at Jack I just nearly cried at a Buckleming episode

anyway he and Jack are having the equivalent I am your dad and I set curfew, vs I am a grown up I can go out when I want argument for his teen son he's unfortunately not engaged with much.

"the only real family I have left"

Cas gets SO PISSED

I AM YOUR DAD, SON

But he pushes it down and asks if it helped because Cas is good and nice and loves Jack

Once Jack reveals that he looked like the weirdly photoshopped Kelly on a horse (oof) Cas gets mauled by the same Feels Bear and relents completely because he's legally not allowed to cry but he wants to

"I suppose there are worse ways to be human than to be kind," he says as speight exploits the fuck out of the bunker set, having them sit either side of the door between war and home, tables in the centre, them on the pillars flanking it. It's a wonderful image. I'd go into it more but I suddenly think I have no time at all

"So they're going to kill him," lil Hamlet of Nougat says all firmly, re: Michael

Cas switches gears from "this precious child" to "uuuh" immediately

"And if he doesn't leave?"

I can see Cas being that meme where everything is an action blur around his face to express deep horror as Jack keeps prodding worst case murdering Dean scenarios

Listen, when this little ball of damp feathers you call your son is joining in with the entire universe challenging you if you have the guts to see Dean killed for the greater good, you have a problem that EVERYONE can see

"Dean doesn't matter!"

*shock lines intensify*

"You're all so focused on trying to save Dean"

Yeah, he does the same for all of you.

This is the pier conversation from 11x14, but 1000x more intense.

Cas is like "?????????????? HOW DARE?"

Cas can not comprehend a world where Dean dies, but our lil Shakespearean hero is determined that it has to happen because he WILL kill Michael, it's been put on his shoulders and he WILL DO IT DAMMIT.

(later)

Cas did not have this in the parenting books

"Do you think he'd want it any other way?"

"no but i love him"

I can not BELIEVE Jack got a flounce off stage left and Cas is the one left shook

damn, kids are hard

Nick has also wandered off to meet some relatives.

Cas is the worst at keeping his chickens in the coop

what was he doing

lying on Dean's bed sniffing the pillow

Oh dear, but it's the neighbour who as this conversation goes on I'm starting to assume was the one who killed his family.

Is he gonna go all Lucifer on this guy?

Uhoh, bulletproof werewolves

man I am gonna miss my bus if anything else happens

Mary saves AUBobby <3

Hi Deanchael, come to torment this poor family

You know you coulda brought Cas because he knew you were here the whole time anyway

DEAN! HI!

That was a really cool move Dean.

"Sammy"

"It's me"

Unless it's NOT

"He just left"

"why"

"i don't know. I don't know!"

me too bud

Hey look Nick killed the guy with a hammer

What a surprise

Welp now I have to take my 3rd choice for bus to yoga but I finished and now I will be gone all weekend byeee love you yell about this later <3

#14x02 #season 14 spoilers #my stuff

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shardclan · 6 years ago

Text

A Moment in the Summerlands

High noon rises and finds Analemma in silence. Noon Point stands empty, the merchants warned away, and the residents taking shelter in their homes. The eternal scent of steaming milk from the Happy Harpy Creamery, the one constant through even the darkest depths of winter, is absent.

Rebis stares down at the figure of Malu, sedated and physically restrained to the infirmary bed. Dust is at he side. She has left him only infrequently since bringing him there. Both share the same grim expression. Both are awaiting the inevitable.

"Enamor," Lavi had explained. "The single most basic skill in the entirety of light magic. A brief skill of captivation, something to make your enemy forget to speak their spell. It goes ignored a lot. But here we are, with an astral who has effectively taken it to the outer limits. To enthrallment."

Even Ashlesha had been too afraid to stay. His words blurted and near-panicked, were still fresh in Rebis' mind:

"I brought us here as soon as I realized Titi-tet was here, because Lavi loves you, and I promised I'd be better and I'd care more and think about these things, but I have thought about it and in this case warning you and then leaving and locking the door behind us is best thing for everyone. I'm sorry I can't find it, it's--disseminating itself in the light, to me it feels like Titi-tet is everywhere, and it's too dangerous for me to stay here because she WILL come to you. It's her nature, she has be observed, she has to be worshiped, and if I end up enthralled I'm liable to erase everything you have built here for fun and you have maybe two people in the entire territory who could even begin to stop me, so please, please forgive me and let me take Lavi back to Horizon's Landing. Let us LEAVE."

Rebis didn't see Ashlesha very often, but his behavior was quite different. When they met, he had been unaffected and only interested in Invigilavi. To think he would beg her to allow him anything still weighs on her. Something is...amiss with him. But maybe that is only because he is human.

Malu opens his eyes. He looks around, and does not see the astral that has enthralled him. He shivers, and struggles, and soon begins to cry. His sobs are a rough and unfamiliar croak.

Dust presses a cool hand to his forehead and offers soothing but unheeded whispers. Titi-tet took his will, but they already know that can be returned.

The same is not certain for his voice.

In the main office of the Tahalil Infirmary, Alala watches gravely as her mother flips back to the first page of a report from Noon Point's practice for third time. The symptoms. The names. The proposal written with complete impartiality at the bottom.

Haematica taps her pragmatically short nails with increasing disquiet atop her desk. The report is stirring memories old and rancid as bad wine. With lethal sharpness, she recalls the small practice she had with Tungsten on the edge of the Starwood Spa. She recalls the sharp rise in disassociative episodes before it all went wrong.

She hadn't been able to figure out what it meant, or why it was happening at the time. She had even disclosed that information to Dantalion. But none of them had been able to figure out the source. None of them had been able to stop Opal, or even identify him as the source of the problem, until their homes were in ruin.

She looks up into Alala's eyes. They both know Haematica had her first children to give the clan more plaguelings in a time when she was the only one who knew what it meant to survive. But she has never shared the stories of what the Exodus was like for her.

She cannot articulate the gravity of carrying Copernicus' mother out of the badlands on her back because the bogsneak didn't want to be cremated. Of thanking Carnelian for letting her give up on Ismene to focus on those with better chances. Of working through the night until her fingers were raw and gnarled and still having to watch Tawny set fire to the bodies of three imperials while they all held their breath and prayed that an emperor wouldn't be born.

The last thing Haematica wants is for the past to repeat itself for Alala. She places their family's seal on the letter and rolls it back up, and again she meets her daughter's eyes.

"Alala." Her voice comes out quietly, but with a maternal edge that makes the younger skydancer sit just a bit straighter. "You're also anxious."

"So are you, mother." Alala gives a weak smile. "But I think you are worried about your children, and I am worried about mine."

Haematica frowns. Alala and Rubedo's nests have an unfortunate tendency to precede ill happenings, and this time they have one lone egg to protect. She stands and fiercely embraces her daughter, mother to mother, before pressing the scroll into her hands.

"I would like it if you and Rubedo would take the egg and go stay with Asura for awhile. Maybe take Eshe, she hasn't spent much time in Feldspar."

"I think that's a good idea...for Rubedo, Eshe, and our egg." Alala peers down at the scroll in her hands. Though it is only parchment, it weighs the world. "As the Tribune of Health, I can't leave. Not now."

Haematica nods. "I know. Whenever you need me, blood of my heart, I'm here. Go. You have a lot to do if you're going to quarantine House Perihelion."

Camellia stands alone under the arcade that connects the Foursong Nursery to House Perihelion. Shrouded in layers of black silk and chiffon, with a single golden egg cradled in her arms, she stands out among the marble like the shadow of death in paradise.

When Haematica asked her to retrieve the egg holding their next grandchild, she did not ask why. They were old, dear friends, and Camellia trusted there must have been a reason.

She can feel this reason in the air around her. House Perihelion does not outwardly look different. Glamours wandering through idyllic scenery without any sense of rush or bustle is normal. House Perihelion has no businesses; it is all residences and gardens and skylights into public halls where river waters had been diverted into bubbling streams and mirror-still meditation pools.

But she feels eyes on her. Innumerable irregular clicks of bitten nails and the vibrations of jittery legs resonate in her horns.

Generous spots her and walks to her with friendly, animated haste. "Camellia~!" he sings. "My necro-chic darling, it's been too long!"

While they are familiar, even friendly in the right atmospheres, he has never been one to be touchy with her. Yet he throws his arms around her as though they are the best of friends.

"Big smile dear," he whispers urgently. "Something isn't right and I don't think we're safe."

Camellia immediately responds with her most winning smile and throws one arm around him. "You know how it is Generous, I am always at the spans and you are always at the spa. Do you have a moment to walk with me? I'm on a granny errand."

"Granny?" He looks to the egg, and for a moment his eyes light with genuine joy, before he remembers the situation they are in. "O-oh. Oh dear. Uhm, yes--yes, of course! Let's catch up!"

Generous keeps a protective hold of her shoulders the whole way out. It isn't until they are well beyond the borders that he and Camellia relax and begin to exchange information.

Titi-tet sits in the lap of luxury.

The game of hide and seek is over, and the residents of House Perihelion have all had their time to see her--living wonder that she is. She doesn't really know all their names yet, and it doesn't really matter. She doesn't need to know any of them when Pistis knows all of them. Pistis knows the good ones, and the bad ones, which ones will help most with getting Malu back, and which ones Titi should avoid being seen by.

Titi would have loved to have the guardian named Prophecy. She was old, she knew cool magic, and could have definitely been of use. But Pistis warned that Prophecy was perhaps too accomplished at light magic. She would know if Titi was bending light, and would probably not be easy to make a friend of. On the other hand, Titi would never ever have bothered with Dalma beyond her personal fancy. He was just some boring tundra man, not a special or interesting thing about him by appearances. But apparently he was the Queen's Historian.

"A queen..." Titi murmurs with growing indignance. She kicks over a bowl of fruit. "Hmph, I can be a better queen than some dumb fae... What's an Arcanite even doing running a light clan?"

"She's lightborn," Miscedence clarifies simply. "She is called 'Rebis the Rose-Eyed' because she was poisoned with Arcane magic in a magical mishap. Rebis is many things, but she cannot be called a particularly healthy or hardy queen."

"How's she manage to stay alive? Arcane energy is so gross!"

"A crown of white celestine," Stellaria answers. "It keeps her from getting too sick by siphoning the Arcane energy from her body. It's fine for her, but white celestine is lethal to Arcanites."

"I want that!" Titi-tet said, practically bouncing on her paws. "Can I have it?"

Verbena smiles, and pats Titi's head. "I'm sure we can get Ranti to make you one."

"No! She'll make one that's not as nice because I'm not a princess; I want the queen's crown!"

Verbena, Stellaria and Miscidence look at each other, but they chave nothing to offer. They look to Dalma, who looks to Laleh and Primsy, and they both turn their gaze to Moyo.

"I am not my sister," he reminds with a smile. "But the little diamond deserves a diamond in turn. It is simple, who can retrieve the queen's crown? Surely, the Tribunes must have this access?"

Miscidence quickly shakes his head. "If we touched the crown while it rested on Rebis' head, Bestealcian would take our hands before we could take a step."

"But I want it!" Titi insists. "Phi can't you just magic it off or something?"

"My magic doesn't do that..."

"Well it's quite simple then," Pistis chimes. "If Titi wants the crown, all we have to do is take Titi to see the Tahalil knight. When we explain to her that Titi would like Rebis' crown, I'm sure she'll be able to make it work."

Titi shines brighter than ever. She throws herself into Pistis’ arms, showering her with affection, completely unaware of the envious gazes of her other friends.

If asked, Titi would probably not even remember Malu’s name.

#Flight Rising #Zodiac Goetia #In which House Perihelion is Fucked #And Titi has made the grave mistake of ensnaring two of Caress' favorite people

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bellaciaobitch · 6 years ago

Photo

ESCAPAR

Summary: AU | Raquel decides to stay with Sergio instead of visiting Angel in the hospital, afraid she will get arrested in the process. So she ends up escaping with the gang and has to learn how to live as a fugitive. [AO3] [spirit]

Chapter 8 - Nonna

They spent other fifteen days in Switzerland until Sergio finished all the business and made sure they were completely safe out of the country. Raquel wanted to go early, bargained as much as she could, even suggested they’d go with her annoying bodyguard stuck with them, but in the end, she was left with count the days in front of the TV in the living room, watching as the world would continue to spin.

Madrid remained in the same chaos. Protests exploded everywhere, and although the people with Dalí masks in the streets hailed the bravery and audacity of the thieves as superheroes, they only seemed to instigate the police even more, who were constantly making search operations as a witch hunt. Raquel heard her name repeatedly in the mouths of several reporters, some defending her and others doubting her innocence as the last hostage of the heist. Sergio’s face appeared several times as well, and Raquel watched the video of herself kick in his arms at the port of Madrid on repeat until she couldn’t stand it anymore and turned off the TV.

Maybe that's why she decided to carry the concealed black pistol with her on the trip, even if she had promised no guns. Feeling it full with ammunition in the holster under her skirt brought a twisted feeling of security, and Raquel concluded that no one is entirely safe when hiding from the police. She didn’t show it, but she was electric, fully on alert. Her police senses were constantly on since they left the apartment and took a clandestine plane that would take them to Italy.

Sergio's hands was also sweaty on the wheel of the gray BMW, indicating his nervousness, but for a completely different reason: the encounter between Raquel and his grandmother. He drove slowly, almost below the speed limit of the deserted road, and feeling stupid for letting something as silly as Raquel meeting what was left of his family make him so apprehensive.

It's not that he didn’t trust Raquel with this information: his confidence skills improved a lot after they talked about what happened on the port. It was Nonna he did not trust. The old lady was very sweet, affectionate and protective, but could be a hell on earth if you mess with her family. And his relationship with Raquel was new and still complicated, full of mood swings and unfilled gaps. Sergio did not want to scare her or let her down when everything seemed to get better.

"Hey," Raquel whispered softly resting her hand on his leg. "I know you're worried. I need to admit I'm also not completely relaxed about this, but it's going to be ok!" "Yes, of course it will," he said and forced a smile. "I just... I never introduced anyone to my grandmother, I'm not used to… dealing with that kind of situation." Raquel laughed sweetly and came closer to give him a soft kiss on his cheek. "I can’t believe you’re more nervous because I’m meeting your grandma than with the fact that we’re fugitives?"

"Well, you are not a fugitive, you are my hostage. But yes, there is also that," Sergio laughed along adjusting the glasses on his nose, then turned the wheel around with a curve of the road. "The truth is, I didn’t have as many relationships in my life like you did. None, to be specific. And I’m used to be prepare for everything but this is still unknown territory to me" "Well, no one is fully prepared to meet their in-laws. And our troubled relationship doesn’t make things any easier” she smiled sweetly and turned her gaze to the road, now adorned with a breathtaking green landscape view. "Think of it as a simple dinner with special people. What’s the worst that could happen?”

***

Raquel took Sergio's hand in silence, shortly after he pressed the bell of the house where his grandmother lived. The residence was the typical sweet fairytale house, directly coming out of a romcom set in Italy: it was on top of a low hill and far from any kind of civilization. The entrance path was framed by white wooden fence keeping a beautiful garden of red roses and the smell of fresh apple pie being cooked escaped through the half-open windows.

During the whole trip, the inspector didn’t think much about how she would be introduced, but a second before the door opened, Raquel felt scared of a rejection. She was surely far from being the princess any mother had dreamed of for her son, and for the first time she felt dislocated with her independent, strong and rebellious aesthetics. But the insecurity soon gave way to a larger feeling that filled her heart when she saw Sergio's eyes watering as he faced the small lady with white puffy hair who opened the door, looking suspicious.

"Hello Nonna," he said, and his voice was shaky. Nonna frowned her wrinkled eyes at Raquel first and then directed her eyes to hiim, opened them wide in surprise. "Sergio?" She called and a smile came to her lips. "Is that you?" "It's me" Sergio now cried and laughed at the same time and Raquel only let go of his squeezing hand when the professor hugged his grandmother.

It was such an important and delicate moment that Raquel’s heart grew three times in size when she saw him so happy. He was in the arms of the woman who raised him without asking for anything in return, who loved him as his son, and included him in the family even without any obligation to do so. Raquel thought of all the love her own mother felt for her, and how this love doubled in size and crosses through her body, involuntarily, when Paula was born, as if very thin imaginary lines connected all three women forever right there in the maternity hospital. The inspector smiled, seeing nonna hold Sergio's face the same way that Maribi used to do with her and saw the power of a mother's love washing over him.

"I thought you were in jail! Or worse, dead! So many things happened, the TV does not stop talking about you. Your brother …” Nonna started but stopped when Sergio nodded positively, closing his eyes.

As if the mentioning of Berlin was a trigger, Nonna suddenly felt Raquel’s presence by his side, shifting the weight of her body under her uncomfortable feet. She gave her a glare that went quickly from sadness to rage and soon to disgust and Raquel could not bear to stare back. She looked at her feet instead and played with her watchband hoping that awkward moment would be over soon.

"Nonna" Sergio cleared his throat and readjusted his posture "I assume you already know Raquel Murillo" "Sergio, my dear, I'm very happy that you came to visit me, I missed you so much! But I will not accept cops inside my house," she said firmly, almost outraged, resting her hands on her hips. "They're killers using guns and badges and they've destroyed our family, you know that."

"Grandma, listen to me, Raquel’s is different. We…" "Sergio, it's okay" Raquel interrupted softly "She has every right to ..." "No, she needs to know! She needs to know, Raquel, you said it yourself that she is a part of my story and I want to be able to share it with you too." Sergio put an awkward arm around Raquel's back, resting a cold hand on her waist, and stared at his grandma shocked gaze with his chin up.

"I love her, Nonna. I didn’t predict it, I didn’t plan it and maybe it was a mistake, but it happened. You've always taught me that we have to take responsibility for our mistakes so I'm doing it now. Raquel was the best mistake I've made so far and if she can’t hen I will not either."

Nonna was silent for a long time, alternating the look of judgment between her grandson and Raquel while the inspector stared at him in shock as well. Then the elderly straightened her posture and looked uncomfortable in the doorway, wiping her hands on the apron that covered the flanel dress.

"I thought your brother was the only stubborn rebel in this family, Sergio, but I assume you both got this behavior from your father…” she said at last, pursing her lips in frustration. Then she just turned around entering the house again “Alright. Take your shoes off before coming in, I just cleaned up. The lasagna will be ready soon.”

***

"It was delicious" Raquel dared to praise after a particularly quiet dinner. Sergio told his grandmother all the details of the robbery that didn’t pass on the TV, and she listened to it quietly, casting curious glances at them. She was a very suspicious lady, Raquel concluded, a typical Italian grandmother who, despite her age, had a talent for cooking and would protect her family tooth and nail if necessary.

"Thank you so much for the dinner, Mrs…?" she trailed off, glancing to Sergio and realizing that she had not remembered to ask his grandmother’s real name.

"Uhm ... Nonna doesn’t reveal her name to anyone" he whispered, adjusting his glasses and Raquel frowned. "Her husband was one of the leaders of the Italian resistance during the second world war. They had to adopt codenames so the Fascist government wouldn’t find them.”

Raquel studied the little old lady, eating another bite of lasagna, and thought of all that she had suffered in her life to keep her family alive and together. She had to bury not only her husband, but her children and one of her grandsons, and has to live alone isolated all those years where memories haunted her. Suddenly the house looked less like fairytales and more like a melancholic and painful place. The inspector looked around, at the countless family portraits resting on shelves of the wooden dining room, and couldn’t even imagine the whole story behind them.

"It must have been unbearably difficult," Raquel suggested.

“Well, it was Nonna who taught me Bella Ciao when I was little. During the robbery I tried to teach the lyrics to the gang as a motivation..." Sergio added, trying to shift the mood and Nonna opened the first smile of the evening. “I’m not quite sure if they got the message of the song, though”

“I’m not surprised if they didn't. You only know the true meaning of war if you are in one” Nonna looked wisely, and Raquel noticed a few similarities with Sergio in the way she talked. “But I’m proud of you, for honoring it”

"You are a very strong woman, Nonna, it’s quite admirable.” the inspector smiled, searching for the right words as if she was stepping in eggs “And, about earlier, I understood your reaction, you were completely entitled to it. But, if I must say, I don’t think I want to be a member of the police force anymore”

Nonna stopped with her fork halfway through her mouth and Sergio immediately looked at Raquel with a confused expression. She simply ignored him and continued.

"After what happened during the heist, I found out that I don’t agree with some principles of being an inspector, especially regarding the national security service of Spain..." she looked at her empty plate and felt nauseous when she remembering all the many occasions she felt humiliated by Colonel Prieto, by her ex-husband, or by any other man that believed to be better than her was just because was born with the XY chromosomes. "They believe everything is in black and white. But some things are... in shades of gray"

When Raquel finally met the professor's gaze, she saw a whole universe in his eyes and vaguely remembered that Nonna stared at them from the other side of the table. He smiled and she softened, making her giggle as they touched their hands under the table like two teenagers in love.

"Well... I think we're done here." Nonna interrupted, resting the cutlery on the empty plate. "Honey, can you please wash the dishes? I want to have a private conversation with the inspector"

Raquel inhaled slowly and Sergio nodded in silence. He picked up the dirty dishes and exchanged a brief worried glance with her before retiring to the kitchen. Nonna got out of her chair, with some difficulty due to age, as soon as he was out of sight.

"You know I don’t usually look for news of what is happening in Spain, I only see what they say in the local newspaper here.” she said, circling the table slowly and Raquel didn’t know if she should get up to help her. "But I mean the whole world when I say that the newspapers have a lot to say about you, young lady"

"I know," she said, feeling defeated and ashamed somehow.

"For a long time, I agreed and disagreed with much of what the journalists said. I thought you only wanted the harm of my grandson. But today, I saw the way he looks at you and how you look at him, and I realized that it does not matter what I think.” Nonna opened the cupboard behind Raquel where she supposed there would be plates and cutlery but instead she found books and records.

“I mean, I just an old lonely lady, who am I to judge?” “You are very special to him, ma’m” Raquel smiled and got up to make room for the old woman to rummage inside the cupboard.

"When I was younger, I fell madly in love with a beautiful, intelligent, brave man who lived two houses after mine. We dated in secret for a long time because he was from a much poorer family than mine and it was outrageous if we were even seen together.” Nonna seemed to speak on her own, but Raquel partially identified herself with the story and wondered how much the newspapers had revealed about her relationship with Sergio.

“And when the war hit us, they called me crazy for giving up everything I had to escape with a revolutionary, futureless delinquent" Raquel watched the lady pull out a small green wooden box from the highest shelf and close the cupboard. She set the box on the dining table and opened it, containing: two cigars, some wrapped papers, two silver rings, and a necklace that caught Raquel's attention.

"When we ran away, Salvatore gave me this necklace as a gift," she said, pulling out the jewelry with shaking hands, and Raquel could see the pendant. It looked like a small cage meticulously carved in silver that nestled a light pink pearl inside.

"Salva..." she murmured to herself, raising her eyebrows as she understood Sergio's tribute to his grandfather. But Nonna couldn’t know that.

"Yes, well we never had codenames for each other. He was always my Salvatore" she smiled, spinning the pendant around her wrinkled fingers. "You see, every pearl when inside an oyster’s shell, has a different color shade. And people say that every color has it’s meaning, as a lucky charm. This one means love and I want you to have it."

Raquel's eyes widened, completely baffled. "No, no, no, it's a family treasure! I can’t..."

"Of course you can." Nonna grabbed her hand and put the necklace inside the palm before closing the inspector's fingers around it. "I may not agree with Sergio's choice, but it’s the one he did. Can’t come back from it now. And I support it, as long as he is happy... "

The lady released her hand and Raquel studied the jewelry more closely. It didn’t look very refined but it was beautiful. The loose pearl inside the silver arrangement gleamed in the light as if it was made with stardust and she felt she could break it with any more abrupt movement.

"Just don’t ruin everything, will you, dear?" Nonna asked, patting her on the shoulder and she felt she was about to cry. Raquel wanted to thank the elder for the gesture but when she looked up again, something caught her attention and the smile on her lips faded, being replaced by panting breathing and racing heartbeat.

Through the window behind Nonna, at the end of the night-drenched landscape, a red-and-blue siren glowed on the horizon.

#la casa de papel #money heist #raquel murillo #raquel y el profesor #raquel x profesor #raquel x sergio #raquel x professor #sergio marquina #iwritestuff #escapar

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roxannepolice · 6 years ago

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I think the Benlo dumbass yea/nay comes down to a couple things. First is that it's pretty apparent that he's the actual 'mystery box' JJ and co intended for this franchise (seriously, the way it's currently set up his plotline is the only one left beyond just general evil smashing). Second is the time smash of the trilogy means we're basically watching his worst weekend ever, he starts of reasonably competent at the beginning at it goes downhill from there (cont)

so team good guy can make it out alive (and not gonna lie, STs habit of literally gutshotting its villains so the heros can make it out rather than actually have them do something heroic against a villain not kneecapped is starting to piss me off the more I think on it, this gos for the FO in general too). Third thing is fandom trends. A lot of fandom (not just reylo, bendemption) has a very big investment in him being a Big Emotional Brute. Kylux fandom basically settled on Smart but Uptight/Emotive but Dumb (with flashes of animal/force intuition) pretty early and that’s a go to migratory fandom favorite. It also plays into the Reylo as power fantasy thing. Basically there’s a large undercurrent in shippers for him that Kylo a Big Emotional Dumbass so Rey/Hux/Insert Reader need to take control and assert power over him in some way. For antis its Kylo is a Big Emotional Dumbass so he needs to be put down. Point is a very large portion of fandom gets their jollys from it and so there’s no real push to challenge or question it. Third is that (and I think you may have touched on this before) the narrative contradicts itself. The text says that Kylo and Rey equals, the symbolism says this, very large chunks of extra materials say this, the gave Snoke a monologue for fucks sake.But the actual contents of the story don’t, like at all. Rey is superior in every way, morally, physically, force powers, and yes, actually capable of being stable on her own. And that’d be fine if the narrative didn’t insist on telling me they’re equals and that Rey has darkness in her, really, please believe us yes she never acts on it or does anything questionable ever but it’s there we swear. If they are equals as the text insist then yes, Kylo is presumptively good at something an should be able to get at least some of his shit together on his own either to be a credible antagonist or start on the path to redemption by his own. If he isn’t as the actual content of the story says so far, then yeah hes either gonna mope like a bunch of people want or just continue to be a nonthreat. As far as redemptionist goes, I honestly think it’s ‘he’s too dumb, so he can live.

I think you hit a jackpot here, anon - it’s not simply about Kylo Ben, renperor or no renperor, it’s more about the movies being appearently unable to make up their mind whether FO in general and he in particular are the most terrifying threat the galaxy has ever faced, self-conscious evil incarnate, or a bunch of very naughty children with very dangerous toys - and more importantly, how the narrative is going to deal with them in the end, by executing them all like political mad dogs or letting them have their ice cream the moment they promise to behave, like no-longer-naughty children (add to this that for many idiots the outcome will serve as the ultimate advice on the symbolised real world threats). Disney-LF basically took angels and demons, made the former as cool and invincible as the Gauls and latter as laughable and incompetent as the Romans in Asterix - and then packaged it all in Apocalypse Now (Jr.) depictions of violence, at least when used by the bad guys.

I guess it’s meant to fit into the theoretical approach to of the way media should - because they sure as hell don’t - present real word political threats. In a situation when fear becomes maybe not the most dangerous but arguably the most widespread weapon, fear is the exact thing villains should be denied. However, the problems are that a) it results in a bad drama in a text which should be about good drama first and foremost dammit and b) there’s a difference between fearlessness and arrogance - and the sequels appear to be gravitating towards the latter. Take the Crait showdown and imagine that it really was only about saving resistance, for example. What you get is Luke being too morally pristine and above everything to even bother to show himself up in person only taking advantage of his stupid incompetent nephew’s cowardly trauma that he was perfectly right to inflict to let the heavenly army of angels get rescued by immaculate Dea ex machina Rey and escape. Honestly, if that really is the story we’re getting then I understand why some people were upset by the way Luke died - he might have as well disappeared up his own ass.

On the other hand I kinda agree that if renperor will get an individual redemption - which again, I find highly unlikely and poor storytelling - then it can be only thanks to his incompetence. Maybe that’s his sort of fourth wall redemption - kids have been revelling in the dark side for over thirty years, maybe it’s time to take away the glamour. In a way, renperor’s miserable incompetent but survived downfall could be a fourth wall Rocky Sullivan redemption.

Educational as that would be, that still puts the audience in position of spectators on a 3R-jedi auto da fe and I did not expect a spanish inquisition.

TBH, the main reason why I can’t see much sense in making renperor completely incompetent is that I can only see two ways to rationalize (because as far explaining is concerned, I’d allow the possibility that D-LF have no idea what they’re doing) why the sequels are serving a shakeaspearan family drama with a Dostoyevski-esque victimized villain on the one hand and a pseuo-politicized popcultural jerk off orgy on the other. One is that all of drama, romance and dark romanticism must be presented as rejectable elements of decadent classist culture so that the new men and women of United Soviet States of Galaxy Far Far Away know which unhealthy coping mechanisms are right and which wrong.

And the other is that the sequels are essentially kid-friendly full blown happy end East of Eden as told from Aron’s perspective - with Cal being prelabelled as the bad child on account of being like his mother just as Ben was prelabelled as the bad child on account of being like his maternal grandfather. This is why it’s so gut wrenchingly annoying for me to watch Luke teary eyed praise Rey and Leia look with pride at Poe during Crait - they both give me very strong Adam Trask feels, with Aron not even being his son, to put salt on the wound (ba-dum tss). On the other hand that’s also why I can’t agree with the Poe as Gaston or resistance is just as evil as fo take - it’s not as simple as being good on the surface and bad on the inside. Aron’s life is morally superior to Cal’s - the problem is that his goodness is… conditional, putting it mildly, while Cal’s need to be loved and ability to love back is limited mainly by his pain and resentment. Returning to renperor’s competence, East of Eden’s storyline makes me believe him wanting to do something right and actually succeeding, or at least apparently, temporarily succeeding, to do so is the plot twist that would drive the narrative in the most interesting place - this would essentially be Cal being successfull at his business. On the one hand it brings out Aron’s (reistance’s) uglier side - morally superior to his brother as he is, he doesn’t really deal well with that superiority getting undermined - and on the other assures Abra (Rey, though I believe she’ll be more stubbornly reverted than to ease into this easily) that Cal is in fact a good person. But most importantly, the moment Adam rejects his “evil” son’s “sacrifice” showing it to be inherently immoral, it’s the ultimate rock bottom for Cal, precisely because he was hopeful and had reasons to believe he’s finally doing something right. This is what I imagine overthrown and finding out his rule wasn’t as rosy as he wanted to think renperor would feel like - what in Darth Plagueis’s name does his great-grandpa want from him, what is that destiny that everone has been forcing him into his entire life until he finaly snapped and decided to create it on his own? The decisive difference, though, would be that while Cal still had a deeper pit of villainy to forcefully push himself into, Kylo Ben won’t really have much more to accomplish in that direction anymore.

I will be really, really surprised if epix doesn’t show us uncontrolled darker side of Rey and will kick like a spoiled brat insisting it’s because good storytelling is another thing to be rejected in USSGFFA well maybe not online but I sure as hell will think so. If that’s the case, then the dramatic axis of the sequels is essentially between balance (Rey) and imbalance (Kylo Ben), which renders exemplary death of the latter more dramatically justified than redemption - but also makes the entire trilogy impossibly empty because, with all the apparent outwardly factors being against Rey and in favour of Ben, it would essentially say that some people simply are good and others simply are evil - which isn’t what Star Wars have been telling us in the least.

#asks #reylo #renperor #episode ix speculation #villain discourse #redemption discourse #bendemption #kylo ren #ben solo #star wars and classic cinema

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hushedmoonlight-blog · 7 years ago

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LFC • Balmung | Saran Qestir

the basics ––––

NAME: Saran Qestir

AGE: 25

RACE: Au Ra, Xaela

GENDER: Female

SEXUALITY: Heterosexual

MARITAL STATUS: Single

SERVER: Balmung

physical appearance ––––

HAIR: Strawberry blonde

EYES: White

HEIGHT: 4′9″

BUILD: Very muscular, pear-shaped figure

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Freckles across her cheeks and nose. She has a tattoo below her breasts, though it’s not often on display (it's not entirely private, however)

COMMON ACCESSORIES: Despite her love of jewels, she doesn’t carry any on her person on a regular basis.

personal ––––

PROFESSION: Shopkeep and treasure hunter.

HOBBIES: Having deep conversations over wine into the wee hours of the morning, sparring,

LANGUAGES: Eorzean, Hingan

RESIDENCE: Quicksand

BIRTHPLACE: Azim Steppe

PATRON DEITY: She follows the doctrine of Azim and Nhaama, though sometimes substitutes with Menphina (moon symbolism) in Eorzea

FEARS: Never leaving her mark

relationships –––-

SPOUSE: None

CHILDREN: Cota, 2 years (officially adopted by her parents and raised as her sibling; Saran has had no maternal attachment to the child)

PARENTS: Mother and Father, both alive and on the Steppe

SIBLINGS: Caalun, 20 years

OTHER RELATIVES: The extended family of the Qestir tribe

PETS: None

traits ––––

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded / open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / unempathetic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

additional information ––––

SMOKING HABIT: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

GAMBLING: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

possible hooks ––––

Azim Steppe / Xaela • While Saran will be very hesitant to actually speak in front of another Xaela, that doesn’t mean that they can’t still interact! Also, I do have some character development ideas for her later down the line which include her formally renouncing her tribe. I would really like for her to develop some close connections/friendships with people who are very much involved in tribal culture so that there’s a real sense of dread when I do eventually decide to have her become tribe-less. Maybe their friendship will suffer as a result of her decision, maybe it will disintegrate entirely, maybe they will be supportive of her choice and stay in contact — who knows!

Criminals / Unsavory Backgrounds / Mercenaries / Information Brokers • Saran is very much willing to associate with all of the aforementioned “ne’er-do-wells” even though she’s the type of person who barely skirts the edges of legality herself. She would definitely have hired information brokers to look into the pasts of her business associates and maybe try and dig up some blackmail should the situation prove necessary. She’d also certainly hire mercenaries to go on treasure hunts with her and her troupe, especially when she’s on a solo / unsanctioned expedition that she doesn’t want the rest to know about. She likes to keep her fingers in a lot of pots so anyone who can help out with doing any “dirty work” that she wouldn’t want traced back to her is of great value. That doesn’t mean it can’t be all business and no pleasure!

Party People • This can be combined with either of the two above, but Saran is very social and she likes kicking back with drinks and conversation. She’s what you would call a tease: she’ll flirt, but rarely does she make good on her “intrigue.” She’s very sensual and doesn’t shy away from the topic of sex (she’s more playful about it though, like in a strip poker sort of way) but she’s not all that interested in having sex with many people. Not that she’ll get preach-y and claim that sex should only happen when there’s love — she’s the last person who will judge another’s sexual exploits — as Xaela culture isn’t too keen on the whole idea of “chastity.”

Fighters • Saran likes to spar and shoot the shit with other (physical) combatants she respects. She tends to purposely go easy though, as her full strength unleashed on an unsuspecting foe is quite intimidating (I have a personal theory that the Au Ra, particularly the Xaela, are the result of heavy genetic research by the Allagans into an ideal ‘super soldier,” so while Saran may be small and our physical universe dictates that someone of her size shouldn’t be able to knock a, say, male Roegadyn off his feet, fantasy rules and an extensive history of genetic tailoring make it possible). She’s not into fighting for money or fame oddly, since she’s all about the money everywhere else, but she’s keen to keep her skills sharp.

Highborn Folk • Saran is definitely not above trying to cozy up to those who are already noble and wealthy. She knows the best step up is a good connection, and she’ll quickly try to befriend anyone whom she sees as advantageous to know.

what I’m looking for ––––

Friends. Even though Saran’s alignment is of an evil nature, she’s not the typical sadist nor the maniacal overlord hungering for power (well, she does hunger for power, but she does have standards). In fact, she’s quite bubbly and pleasant to speak to — so long as you don’t pose some sort of threat. She’s a swindler with sweet words: just don’t expect her to stand loyally by your side if it’s more profitable to watch you fall.

Enemies/Rivals. Easily the simplest and most straight-forward section for Saran, though probably won’t be as common as the girl covers her more sinister sides quite well. She’s not immune to missteps, however, and that leads me to the next point —

Antagonist. Want something unsavory to befall your character, and think Saran will fit the bill for some character development? I’m quite open for Saran to play the “bad guy” or the “corrupter” in another character’s story line, with potential consequences to be hashed out.

Romance (?). When it comes to love and sex, Saran’s bark is far worse than her bite. She’s highly flirtatious and naturally sensual, but the number of times she’s genuinely in pursuit and not just trying to make someone like her is ... exceedingly rare. I’m very much in favor of one-sided plots (again, as above, I’d love to use Saran to cause some angst and drama) but for reciprocated romance, I’m not really looking for the moment.

oocly, I am ––––

Extremely chatty

No, seriously, please don’t be shy to add me on discord (Hana#6053) for plotting or just talking about the game / real life / etc.

I also am fairly active and retweet a lot of art on twitter (@gorgxn)

I live for long DM conversations regarding character headcanons and possible plots

Prone to making Too Many Alts™

Not afraid of IC conflict. Neither one of our characters will be 100% correct 100% of the time and arguments / break ups / fall outs may happen regardless of how OOC interaction goes.

From the EU (CET)! As a result, I generally prefer Tumblr or Discord rp but I’m also very willing to rp in-game! I’m just less experienced with it.

#ffxiv rp #balmung #balmung rp #!signal boost #!long post #[ decided to make one for saran to have 'em for all my girls c: ]

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yoongiandchiminie · 7 years ago

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CONTRARY. {MAFIA & SOULMATE AU} PART 1

Series: When you’re born, you can’t see a color until you meet the eyes of your Soulmate for the first time. Bangtan is known as one of the most infamous gangs around. This series will focus on the lighter side of things, their soulmates- Well, maybe they’re lighter. Maybe.

Genre: Angst, Mafia!AU, Soulmate!AU, Angst, Kind of Fluffy?, Lowkey Smut

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Warnings: Swearing, mature themes, strong language, sexual themes

Word count: 5,906

Summary: There was no such things as Soulmates in Jungkook’s eyes until he met his own and came face to face with you. Could the Golden Boy of Bangtan have been wrong?

Jeon Jungkook didn’t care too much about most things even if he excelled in them. His only care in the world a good amount of the time was about his gang, Bangtan. Other than that it was mostly when he would get laid next. The parade of random girls to come out of his home was almost a fun game for the other members to count as their faces would disappear forever.

Your skin was smoother than the last girl he had been with. It didn't click in his head at first that he could now see the color green, but as he watched your eyes bore in his as he was eating you out it went off all at once. You didn't dare say a word, he was making you moan too much to do so. He wasn't sure you realized you could see brown now since the room was dark and with his inability to give a fuck, he didn't say anything on the matter.

As soon as the sex had ended however, he realized you did know. His eyes had begun wondering your room for the color green to study it and he slowly learned things about you. There were medals covering the walls and pictures of friends and family littering them as well. He could infer your life was cookie cutter cute just by looking and as he pulled you against his chest, he heard your small voice speak. “It was Jungkook, right? That’s what the guy yelled before I pulled you out of the bar and we ran here.”

“Yep.” he was still a bit out of breath. For some reason you not addressing the obvious was making him uneasy as ever. He’d seen you talking to Yugyeom from another gang, GOT7 and he always loved to get what the other wanted. He thought of it as a game despite the other's dismay. “That’s me. Jungkook.”

“Jungkook.” you repeated, your voice airey and cute. He could feel his heart almost flutter every time you spoke. “Kookie. Does anyone call you that?”

He chuckled and ran his fingers through your hair, “Yeah, yeah. My friends do to tease me. It sounds nice from you though.” He wasn’t quite sure why he was playing along at this point. Jungkook had this whole thing about Soulmates. He didn’t truly believe in them. He watched his parents suffer and fight for years despite being them and when they got divorced, he vowed he would have nothing to do with it.

Yet here he was, watching your figure disappearing into the grey blankets that maybe you’d mistaken as brown in the store. “Hey, put your number in my phone.” Suddenly in his hands was a nice phone with a pink case. Your screensaver was you smiling with a bunch of friends at the beach. The more he learned about you, the more sick to his stomach he felt as it churned around inside of him. However, it wasn’t enough to change his ways.

He punched his number in and carefully handed your phone back to you. His gut told him it was the right thing to do, but his brain instantly kicked in. The moment you were asleep soundly, he unlocked your phone with the code he’d watched you put in earlier and deleted his number. Then he left. Jeon Jungkook had no time for soulmates with the amount of affairs he had for himself and along with the Bangtan ones.

At a young age Jungkook was taught not to believe in any of this shit. Colors are colors and love is love. Two separate entities tied together by some fuck who decided it’d be funny to mess with people. The only love he felt (As much as he hated to admit it) was for the rest of the members of Bangtan. His mother was god knows where and his father called him once a month from whatever hell hole he was in, so Bangtan was it for him.

He arrived home at the crack of dawn and was quickly in the fridge. It was mediocrely stocked at the moment and the Maknae of the house had been swiftly avoiding going food shopping for the past few months. He just held it off long enough that someone got sick of it and eventually went. Normally it was Hoseok’s girl who did it and Jungkook had come to see her as a maternal figure. Their relationship made him want to believe in love, but the only thing he felt for that girl last night was heat. He disregarded any form of a spark as something minor even if the passion was alive in the night.

Jungkook wasn’t too good at cooking and it didn’t seem as if anyone was home that he could guilt into making him breakfast. He settled for some Lucky Charms that were going stale at this point, but he didn’t care too much. There was a moment where he almost ate the baby puffs that lined an entire cabinet, but opted out. He’d get in a lot of trouble if he tried to take his youngest in the house title back in that way.

He ended up eating more than he probably should've, but the guilt didn’t eat him alive. He figured that he should probably replace everything he ate, but he knew he wouldn’t. Time had almost slipped away as he didn’t even hear the footsteps of someone waking up to greet him. It was Namjoon, the leader of Bangtan. He greeted the younger with a corny smile which quickly turned into confusion at the fine cuisine that laid in front of Jungkook.

“How lazy are you?” he snickered and took the seat across from him, “You reek like alcohol and I suggest you shower before anyone else gets up.” Jungkook shrugged and continued to stuff his face, almost devouring the entire box of cereal. “When did you walk in?”

“Like an hour or two ago.” he responded after swallowing a spoonful of marshmallow, “Yo, the weirdest thing happened to me last night.” Namjoon twirled his hand for the other to continue. “I met my soulmate or somethin’. You know green’s a really boring color? I thought it’d be cooler.”

The leader of Bangtan choked on thin air. “And then why are you here?” The two made eye contact for a moment. While Namjoon was shocked, Jungkook’s face read disgust. “Oh, your dumb little fuckin’ thing. Dude, c’mon. Just cause your parents lied to you doesn’t mean it’s the end of Soulmate’s for you as you know it.”

“Lied? You think so?” Namjoon nodded. “I don’t give a fuck. I like my lifestyle. No strings attached.”

“Call your Dad and think your shit through, JK. Don’t break this girl’s heart because of your shitty shit. Don’t make her a straggler when you’re completely able to be there for her. She’s healthy and stuff, so give her a chance. I bet when you fucked it was awesome.” He laughed at the last part and left the room.

This little speech should have sent Jungkook into his thoughts, but instead he was focused on the smell that he’d just realized was around him. He made a sour face and cleaned off the bowl, putting it on the side of the sink instead of the dish washer. He heard people moving through the large home and basically sprinted to the bathroom so he wouldn’t have to take their shit about him smelling all day.

Upon entry to the bathroom, he locked the door and pulled a towel out of the cabinet. He placed his phone on the charger that he conveniently left in there and started running the water so it would be hot enough for him to get in. Jungkook was so intent on being annoying in any way that he could that he connected his music to the speakers that lined the walls. It was almost 9 am now so most of the people in the house should’ve been up by then.

His clothes basically peeled off of him but before he could step inside, a thought lingered in his mind about his talk with RM. “Call your dad.” Kept playing through his mind and he simply wondered how Namjoon could know more about his family than he himself. So, he shot his Dad a text asking if they could meet up for lunch today. He hadn’t seen him in a few months, but this definitely wouldn’t be too shady.

Bangtan had been around for about ten years now and Jungkook was 23. He kept in contact with his family to an extent, but he kept them at odds. He never really forgave his mother for leaving or his father for being distant, but somewhere in his deep heart he cared a bit. His childhood home was always toxic and he hated being there.

His father drank a lot and from the tabs Jungkook had been keeping, he was sober now. It’d been a couple of weeks for him and he felt a bit of pride about his father’s state. As much as he had tried to be a good Dad when he was younger, he found home in his friends. He was the youngest of the group and had become friends with them during elementary school.

Jungkook was a popular kid, but everyone has their bullies. One day a bunch of older boys had seen his father piss drunk in the middle of the day and recognized him as Kook’s dad. They were picking on him when his Dad didn’t get him from school and he instead had to walk home alone. Jimin was taking the same route home from school and even though he was shy, he helped the even shyer boy out.

Then after the two got their asses kicked, they became friends. Jimin had been Taehyung’s best friend and Yoongi was Taehyung’s mentor in some school thing from years ago. Hoseok and Namjoon were Yoongi’s two best friends and Jin was best friends with Joon. The seven of them being close just fell into place and the intense family bond they had shone through in any situation. They followed each other aimlessly and thus, Bangtan was created as well.

During his loud shower, Jungkook’s phone buzzed a multitude of times. He ended his shower early because the slight buzzing he could hear through his music was annoying him to no extent. He always managed to get ticked off by the simplest things and as of late his tolerance for such things was depleting

He patted himself off and wrapped the white towel around his waist. He had some fear of getting any kind of water on his electronics even though he was extremely dumb about them. He constantly had drinks around his super computer in his room and speakers lying around the pool and his phone was always in places it probably shouldn’t be.

His father had texted him a multitude of times, extremely excited about Jungkook reaching out. Kook just rolled his eyes at the emojis and exclamation marks, but a little part of him was happy that his father was getting better and actually cared. The little part of him that wasn’t concerned about the meeting he had tonight for new weapons with Big Bang.

They’d agreed to meet up at a restaurant near his father for lunch in about an hour and a half which meant Jungkook had to leave soon. The new place he was living was a lot further from the Bangtan Base and he knew he didn’t want to be late. He needed to know why his leader knew more than him. Allegedly.

Jungkook was a simple guy when he wasn’t trying to pick up girls. The basic white shirt and black jeans combo was what he normally went for. Today he paired it with a double pierced hat and sunglasses to mask his tired eyes. He’d slept a bit with you the night earlier, but it wasn’t enough for him.

The bed was emptier than it had been a few hours ago and upon waking up you sighed at the sight. You figured he was too good to be true. Jungkook. Your soulmate had been lying next to you hours ago and now he was gone without a goodbye. He seemed distraught upon the awakening, but you couldn’t exactly depict why. It picked at your brain as you got ready for work, but you decided not to let it bother you.

After coming to that conclusion, you continued to let it piss you off. What the fuck could you have possibly done wrong to make him erase himself? Literally fucking nothing. The night was pretty magical in your eyes and the sex was amazing, if anything. The sparks that protruded around the room as you moaned his name into the night had you excited about the future, but now it was nothing.

It simply played through your mind as you showered to get ready for work and you just got consecutively angrier. Meeting your soulmate was always something you had looked forward to in your life. Everyone around you was happy and in a relationship basically and you were constantly teased for your lack there of. Most people had found their soulmate before their twenties and here you were at 23, alone.

So, you did the next best option. You slept around a lot but vowed to stop once you found him. Now, you weren’t too sure about that. Once you got out of the shower you even discovered that he had removed his number from his phone and you couldn’t help but to feel like pang of pain hit again.

Before you left for work, you checked your mailbox with the usual bills downstairs. Except, there was a note inside of the box. It was a handwritten note on a napkin that had the logo of the bar you’d stayed at the night before on it. “I’m here for you next time.” it was written with semi nice handwriting and sighed, “Yugyeom” with a heart and a phone number next to it.

The thought that he had followed you and Jungkook back to your place didn’t even cross your mind as you texted him “Haha, the note was cute.” It was still fairly early so you didn’t exactly expect a reply, but as you got into your car to drive to the office building you worked in, your phone vibrated. “Says you.” It read and you could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

Last night, you’d spoken to the two boys together for a while before heading to the bathroom. When you’ returned, Yugyeom was gone and Jungkook was just the right amount of hot to take you home. You weren’t quite sure why you hadn’t made eye contact before that intimate moment, but you wished you had so you weren’t completely asleep when he left. The thought that he may not have even slept with you crossed your mind as well, so you were happy it didn’t happen back at the bar. The sex was probably some of the best you’d ever had.

Jungkook found himself sitting at the restaurant alone about twenty minutes after his father and himself had decided to meet. He decided to take the time alone to talk to all of the female staff that seemed to be making eyes at him. He knew he was attractive and so did the rest of the world.

He sat twirling a fork in one hand and his other was draped over a chair as he just made eye contact with everyone to pass by his table. Almost each woman stopped and asked if he needed anything, but they made sure to check if he was waiting for a date or not. He laughed off the notion and simply winked, telling them he was fine each time.

His father walked in right on queue at the half hour mark when Jungkook was debating walking out. He apologized profusely for the wait and blamed it on the traffic. He offered to pay for the meal to make up for it, but his son shrugged off the notion and said he could take care of it. After all, when you’re in one of the best gangs around loads of money tends to be one of the perks.

“So, what is it you want to speak about?” They had held small talk, but when the food had arrived his father cut right to the chase. He may have made some poor choices in the past, but he wasn’t slow in this sense. He knew his son. Well, he used to.

Jungkook was somewhat taken back by the direct approach and simply couldn’t decide which question to ask first. On one hand he could be blunt and ask why he could have possibly lied and on the other he could beat around the bush and ask why he was speaking to Namjoon. There was no question to which he would choose.

“Did you lie to me? Is mother not your soulmate?”

His father’s face sunk at the accusation and he immediately put his fork down to make eye contact with his son. “No, she isn’t.” Jungkook’s face fell. As much as he was forced to hate the idea of soulmates, he hated liars even more. “We were going to tell you the truth but then that bitch-” he caught himself as his son’s face changed at the mention of his mother. “She left and I just wanted you to hate her. I wanted you to fucking hate her, but I didn’t mean to make you hate love. I was so trapped in my own shit I didn’t consider you. I apologize.”

“Then why the fuck are you talking to Namjoon about this and not me?” he snapped and slammed his hands on the table, breaking the vase of flowers that sat between them. His force caused all of the things on the table to jump and move.

“Kookie calm down-” his father tried to console his son as his face heated up, but they both knew he was past the breaking point.

“Don’t fucking call me that!” he was screaming now and the low keyness he held before was completely out the window. He threw the money for their meals onto the table and stormed out, his father at his heels. “You don’t get the right to after ruining a portion of my life! I forgave you for my childhood and lack of! This is something that I so sinfully threw out the fucking window and now I hurt the girl that I’m suppose to-” his voice broke as he neared his car and his emotions flooded through his entire being. “The girl I’m supposed to love! You didn’t get your happy ending and you just ruined mine.”

He unlocked his car and slammed the door, but his father stood right outside. “She died, Jeon Jungkook! My soulmate died and so did your mothers! Stragglers sometimes find a haven in each other, but this didn’t work and you can’t blame us for not working!”

The enraged man slightly rolled down the window as he back out of his spot and briefly held eye contact with the other. “Don’t speak to anyone in my life or I’ll ruin yours. I’ll destroy it more than you already have.”

Then he was gone.

He drove for hours before stopping. It was forced since he his car gas light was on. He recognized the area around him that he went to in his haze and it was near you. The apartment you two had been in together hours ago and the apartment he left you in. Instead of going to a gas station he pulled into a spot in front of the building and his long limbs walked him to the locked door to wait for your green eyes.

There was a chance you could be inside and there was a chance you would just run right by him, but even the small bit that he could apologize mattered. He didn’t want to end up like his father; A liar who couldn’t atone for his sins until he was approached. He didn’t want to be like his mother; A woman who just left the son she’d given raised for the past years.

Jeon Jungkook wanted to become his own person and that meant fixing his attitude. He’d blown off the weapons trade and turned off his phone to do so. If Bangtan wanted to find him, they’d be in his face within moments. They knew he was lost in his thoughts and had to find his way out alone.

It wasn’t until your green eyes were focused on another's red hair as you approached the door. He store up with half lidded eyes as he watched you walk towards your apartment with none other than Kim Yugyeom. There was nothing happening between the two of you other than laughter, but Jungkook thought he knew better. No. He knew that fuck from GOT7 better than you ever would.

This was all apart of his game. All the other wanted was what Jungkook himself had, but you weren’t willing to give it to him. You didn't know anything of their rivalry and just wanted a friend to spend your day with. Your plan was to watch some movies, while Bangtan’s finest knew about the other intentions in the red heads mind.

“Are you fucking joking?” Jungkook took long strides over and shocked you, causing you to jump behind your newly found friend.

“You vanished.” your eyes began to well with tears from the sheer emotion that your soulmate was displaying. You weren’t scared or anything, but you could just feel how hurt he was. How something was wrong.

“Well, I’m here to apologize.” his voice was sincere as he attempted to dodge around the taller to make the ever fated eye contact with you.

“And how do we know that for sure?” Yugyeom was testy and easily ready to take matters into his own hands to get what he wanted. GOT7 and Bangtan were currently on good terms, but Jungkook was ready to blow it all to make it up to her. Whoever she was, she was his soulmate and he wanted to learn more.

Jungkook met your saturated eyes and you could almost pass out from the intensity being lit in the area. Between you and him and between the two men you were with. “She knows.” Jungkook’s voice was strong, but you could feel the vulnerability within it and nodded. Yugyeom scoffed and his friendly facade faded back into his fuckboy one.

“Yeah, whatever.” he waved the pair of soulmates off and strode away with no other words. The lack of confrontation was unheard of, but there was probably some ulterior motive. Most likely Jaebum ordered him not to start unnecessary shit. Again.

“Why are you so upset?” you asked, quite unsure of why you were doing so. Yes, Yugyeom had made you feel better about the situation in a way. He’d told you that Jungkook was just some lonely boy from the rich side of town who always got what he wanted. It wasn’t necessarily true but it made you feel better about being ditched. Your question was followed by a brief mumble to yourself saying, “Why do I even care…?”

Jungkook ignored your latter comment and took the kind opportunity to walk over to you and wrap his arm around your waist. Some little thing inside you couldn’t find the anger you’d previously held to push him away and instead let the two of you into your building. “We can talk when we get upstairs.” he stated and held the door open for the two of you to walk through.

The walk upstairs was silent, but you could just feel the raw emotion emitted from his entire being. His touch was directly emulating the feeling towards your kind soul and you couldn’t help but want to make him feel better. Being someone’s soulmate was a big deal in your eyes and if he was willing to get passed what he’d done, you’d consider it as well.

A dark thought of if he did this right away, what was he capable down the road loomed in the back of your thoughts. The only thing scaring it away was the sheer desire to be loved by someone who was fully capable to do so. Who was destined to love you.

His eyes watched your every motion as you unlocked the door and quickly shed your shoes and coat to become more comfortable. He repeated your actions, already feeling at home. You made your way over to the couch and both took a seat. You attempted to create a space in the middle, but he wasn't having it. He'd wasted all this time already that he couldn't waste anymore.

There was a long sigh before he began to speak and anxiety rode high within it. “My parents-” he sighed again and began to tap his fingers along his own thigh. “I’m sorry for leaving you without a word.”

“And deleting your number.” you butt in, attempting to ease the tension with a light tone. “How’d you get into my phone anyways?”

“And deleting my number. The last part- is another time. I’ll tell you later.” you opened your mouth to speak again but as he sighed you decided to hold your tongue. “I grew up my entire life thinking that this whole soulmate thing was a waste of my time. It was nothing personal to you and as I talk, I want you to slowly understand that you did nothing wrong last night. You were perfect.”

A light pink blush tinted your cheeks and you stood up, facing away from him. You glanced at him for a moment as you walked over to the kitchen behind the couch. “If it’s going to be a long story, we may as well have food and drinks. I’m starving and I can hear your stomach through your tears.”

“I haven��t cried.” he was quick to fend himself some from casual playing around. He just shot a smooth smile towards you and cleared his throat to continue. “My parents had gone on and on about how they were soulmates, but today I found out they lied to me. That’s the only way I can put this, truthfully. I don’t have much of a conscious left on me anymore and that’s mainly due to my line of work but you were just fresh on my mind in a way. It wasn’t like your naked body under mine was stuck in my thoughts or the way my name sounded from your pretty pink li-”

He shut off his thoughts about last night upon noticing embarrassed look your face gave and cleared his throat again as you stepped over with a bowl of doritos and soda. “Anyways, I didn't want you to be upset. The image of you waking up alone this morning played through my head and god damn I wish I would have known sooner so maybe I could have been there.”

You tucked your knees into your chest and leaned against the opposite arm of the couch from him as he inched closer to rest his hand on your knee. “So you just want me to forget about it?” you held back the automatic intention of wanting to roll your eyes and instead just made eye contact with his glimmering ones. “Jungkook-”

“I love the way you say my name.” he interrupted and leaned above your legs towards your face to ensure that he could study the color within your orbs. “I loved the feeling that ran through my body just now. An overwhelming feeling of- love. I think it’s love. I don’t get too much of it outside of my ga- my friends. It’s a little foreign in this sense, but I felt it. I know you did too.”

Words weren’t really able to be formed in this moment and instead you held the eye contact that sparked your entire reason to speak to him. The feelings ran rampant in between the two of you and it was almost predictable that within the same moment you’d both lean in for a smooth kiss. You dropped the guard you had up (and your legs) and embraced the man who was hovering above you, lips connected with your own.

The kiss from a view was nothing special, but for the two of you there was a connection. He was trying to be genuine and make up for what he had done and it was apparent to you that anything to do with intimacy was his way of showing it. His lips were chapped and a bit rough, but it didn’t bother you in the slightest sense. You let your body relax as he completely moved over you, legs on both sides.

The kiss stayed sweet until he pulled away and began to place smaller ones down your body. The memories of last night flashed within both of your minds as he trailed his lips down your face and neck, stopping around the slight amount of cleavage that was exposed. Before anything else happened, he stopped and moved off of you.

Jungkook thought there would be more of a shock factor from the sudden break, but as little as you two knew, you were slightly in sync. He took his seat back on the couch and moved your body onto his to keep the skin on skin alive in his own mind.

“Why do you-” you sighed and he laughed, thinking of the many he’d just partaken in. “What is your job that you’re so cold?” you took the brief silence to move off of his lap and next to him again, much to his dismay.

“My job?” he let out a small chuckle and his eyes darted to his shoes that were kicking the carpeted floor. “What’s your job?”

“I work in an office in a tiny cubicle in the city. It’s nothing special, but it’s never what I thought I would amount to.” he turned his face towards yours and cocked his head to the left side as a question as to why. “I was an athlete when I was younger, you see. I was a freestyle swimmer, but I hurt my shoulder and was told I was no longer able to continue. At that point I was 19 and my life felt over. All my friends had careers and were with somebody- so I gave up on a career and took this job, hoping my Prince Charming would whisk me away.”

Your body language had changed as you spoke, now more droopy and closed in. As much as the past was the past, it still affected your present. It clouded your thoughts on the dark days and was a constant reminder that you were in a rut currently. As happy as your were with your beach days and nights out, you were alone. Hopefully that was over.

“Well, I’m no Prince Charming.” he slung his long arm around your tight shoulders and raked you closer to his body. “But I can try as hard as I can to give you some kind of happy ending. There’s a lot of things that I- I have going on in my life and within a day of knowing you I’ve blown it off. My job is an all of the time job, but because of that you can quit. You don’t have to work as long as I’m alive.”

You’d found yourself rested on his chest and your fingers were dancing across the fabric covering it. His breathing slowed as you looked up at him again after his words with a shocked face. “What do you mean? Jungkook, what do you do?”

He could feel his normal attitude shifting with just the tone of her voice and he knew as much as he was previously against it, he could see himself throwing so much away from her. She was the opposite of everything the Golden Boy had built himself up to be. She was pure and kind, but broken. He could sense she would drop anything for someone he cared about and he wanted to aspire to be like that. Instead, he was dangerous and everything she wished she could be.

“I’m in Bangtan.” with those three words, the scars she’d noticed last night made sense. The fresh ones and the ones that were faded all made sense. As you spoke of such dangerous matters, you position didn’t shift and instead you found yourself further inclined to be close with this man.

“Yugyeom too?”

“He’s in a different gang- Are you okay with hearing this? I’ve had friends whose girls have freaked the fuck out at the mention of the mafia and you're just asking questions?” a chuckle slipped through his mouth and he kissed the top of your head. “God I wish I wasn’t so fucked up last night, I’ve lost some precious time with you.”

“Am I going to be safe?”

You felt his grip on you tighten and he just nodded. You knew from the slight breeze moving your hair without even looking. “I’ll make sure of it- but I want you to come home with me tonight. Everyone’s going to be mad at me, but I want to show them the gorgeous girl I ditched them for.”

“So I’m your scapegoat?” you couldn’t help but to laugh in the moment and he joined in as well.

“Ah, it’s partly that, but I don’t know what Yugyeom is going to do with the information you may have slipped tonight. He knows you’re my soulmate?” you nodded. “And where you work?” A predictable nod. “Then you’re definitely coming over tonight. As much as I like to pride myself on being the best in Bangtan- I’m definitely not the brains.”

“You’re the muscle pig.” you whispered, but he laughed at the words that breezed by his ears. You stood up and left him on the couch to go and pack a bag. There was something strange about the way you were acting. It was so unlike you to jump along into a foreign land you’d only heard about for a brief moment.

Before this, your whole life was built on paying it safe. You were good at swimming? Keep going. That got fucked up? Take the safe route and work in an office until someone comes along to make you their little housewife waiting at home. While that certainly wasn’t this situation, you found yourself playing into it as if you’d prepared your entire life for this moment here.

There were no calculations you found yourself acting upon and no regulations you had to follow. You most certainly hadn’t tried it, but this could be true love. The act of following so blindly. All you could feel was the danger lurking ahead, but you weren’t afraid. You weren’t alone this time.

“Y/N.” he spoke your name as the door to your bedroom was almost shut with you on the other side. “I’ll be right here when you get back. I promise.”

Author's Note: Hey everyone! Now you get you know all about Jungkook too! Kind of. I hope you enjoyed this and I wanna say a big thank you for reading and following this series if you have been. I’ve been having some trouble writing it, but I’m enjoying it none the less. Please let me know what you think whether it be messaging me or replying to this! I’d love to know your thoughts and answer any questions.

Have an amazing day & expect more soon.

Hoseok’s installment!

Taehyung’s installment!

Yoongi’s installment!

Jimin’s installment!

Jin’s installment!

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animalsoffarmsanctuary · 7 years ago

Photo

Meet a Few of Farm Sanctuary’s Most Memorable Animal Moms

Many parts of the food animal industry involve mothers and their babies, and like most human mothers, farm animals want nothing more than to protect their tiny bundles of joy.

Bertha and daughter Robin just hours after Bertha was finally able to nurse her daughter. She arrived pregnant and suffering from mastitis, but as soon as she healed, she took over the feeding of her child.

Sadly, in these industries we allow the opposite to happen. We deny mothers this experience, tearing moms and babies apart, and dividing families on a daily basis, when seeing these animals as products. We forget that, just like us, they are beings who cherish being a mom.

Liz and Cashew — read all about this amazing pair. They are still together, although Cashew is a bit larger than mom now.

So for the next few days, I am going to write about some of the strongest, toughest, and most selfless mothers I have ever met during my time at Farm Sanctuary — and there have been many — and also about those who long so much for this bond they were denied that they will cling to any semblance of it. Today I’ll focus on the cows.

This incredible photo by Connie Pugh shows a newborn Nutmeg with his amazing mother Betsy. Betsy, like some of the mothers we will talk about below, allowed her sister’s calf to nurse from her when Honey (the sister) got mastitis and could not care for her baby. Both babies, now bigger than Betsy, still nurse when they are nervous.

In both the beef and dairy industries, cows — herd animals who are highly family-oriented — are prevented from living out their lives with their children, especially their sons. From dairy cows whose children are removed immediately to cows raised for beef who lose their children after establishing a bond over a period that’s often a year or longer, the ability to live a lifetime knowing your children is just not there.

A proud Oleander with her beautiful son Pappas.

I will start with one of my first experiences with a cow from the dairy industry and the desire she had to have a family, a child. (It is a bit of a tearjerker, but the others should make up for it.)

Phoebe

When I first came to Farm Sanctuary, I met a beautiful Holstein cow named Phoebe. She had been rescued, along with 23 other cows, from a starvation case at a dairy in Schaghticoke, NY. She did not arrive with a calf, but clearly had had many in the past. By the time I came to the sanctuary, Phoebe was getting older, and she had arrived already suffering from horrible arthritis, so she was moved, my first year here, into the sheep barn.

Phoebe when she first arrived at Farm Sanctuary.

And her new adoptive baby was not a baby at all, in fact, but an elderly and quite fragile old sheep. David sheep was no longer able to live in our main sheep flock, and so, along with six other elderly sheep, he was moved into an area with a few older cows.

Phoebe in the snow behind the sheep barn where she lived during her golden years.

Unlike just a regular friendship, it was clear that Phoebe thought of David as a calf — her calf. She did all the maternal things we see with mother cows, including grooming him constantly (which he loved), going insane when he was out of her sight for even a minute, and making sure that we kept our distance (which made treating him difficult). He required daily medications, and we had to move him to the adjoining pen to provide any kind of treatment to him because Phoebe would not have it.

Phoebe in front of the sheep barn — before meeting David.

She knocked us over and herded him away, kicked at us if we attempted to follow her to get to David, and when he was finally penned, she would repeatedly smash the gate until we were done — spitting and mooing the entire time. Once he was out, she herded him away and blocked him from our view and would continue to groom him until he was soaking wet.

With only film cameras (as opposed to digital) at the time and no way to find the photos I was looking for, this is the only shot I’ve been able to locate of David with Phoebe — he is behind her to the left.

And on the day that David passed, which we had been expecting, she still refused to let him go. When we came to remove his body she ran after us, bellowing and crying. We repeatedly put him down so she could see that he was gone, but she tried desperately to wake him up — licking his face over and over. Finally, when we thought she understood, we tried again. This continued multiple times, but we could not leave his body there, so we took him and buried him.

Her biggest human fan was then-intern Sheila Hyslop. Sheila spent many hours with Phoebe after the loss of her friend David.

For days, she walked up and down the fence line — mooing at the other sheep, desperate to find this one boy who she thought was her son. And for weeks after that, she was depressed. She never bonded again with another sheep or a calf, but lived out her life with the other elderly cows from her rescue. The two are now both gone, buried side by side under an apple tree — they both loved apples.

Alone and always searching for her lost love — Phoebe broke everyone’s heart as she grieved. We hope they are together now.

Tess

Tess, Bertha, and Hazel arrived with a group of 25 pregnant cows — all getting ready to give birth and happy to be together.

Going back to 2005, a certain cow mother named Tess taught me a very valuable lesson. Tess had been rescued from a beef production farm and had had baby after baby taken from her when they turned 14 months old — especially the boys. Tess loved me, but clearly that love was not as unconditional as the love she had for her baby, who was born at the sanctuary.

Note the broken camera lens — I would not at least try to get a photo even after the smashing.

The morning her son Christopher arrived, I ran up and grabbed my camera and headed out to the barn to capture the beautiful new birth. Moments after I had Christopher in focus, however, I also had a black eye and a broken camera. Lesson learned, mom — lesson learned.

Tess and son Christopher photographed by a professional. They were such an amazing team, and he became her whole world.

Animals like Tess, who have baby after baby in the industry, are used to being roughly handled while babies are neutered, sometimes branded, vaccinated, and eventually taken from them — when, as we know at sanctuary, they will remain with their children for their entire lives if allowed to. Tess decided not to risk it. Tess and Christopher were adopted into a private home where they will only be separated when one passes — the way it should be.

Tess, Christopher, and buddy Robin — one big happy herd.

Luna and Oleander

In 2012, we rescued a large number of sheep, chickens, a goat, and a small herd of cattle from a backyard butcher. The cattle were all very thin upon arrival, but one female, Luna, was the skinniest of all. We quickly found out why she was when we discovered that she was nursing not only her own baby, Orchid, but also Octavia, the calf of another mother (Belinda) who had no milk and was pregnant again.

When Luna arrived, she was down a great deal of the time due to emaciation and weakness.

Although Luna was clearly weak and exhausted, she still kept two babies alive and in good condition and showed us just how amazing a mother she was. Luna and her two daughters are currently living at VINE Sanctuary in Vermont and have a whole new larger family as well.

Pattrice Jones welcoming this strong, brave mother to her forever home at VINE.

From that same rescue came another story involving Belinda. Both Belinda and another cow, Oleander, were pregnant when they arrived. Belinda was clearly very sick when she arrived and had not been able to take care of her daughter. We found that giving birth a second time was even harder on her than the first, and she was rushed to the Cornell University Hospital for Animals, where she spent months recovering (read her story here).

Luna and the two girls at VINE. Photo credit: VINE sanctuary.

This left her son, Elijah, alone and very sad. Enter Oleander. This beautiful, frightened mother gave birth to a son around the same time: Pappas. She and her baby were very healthy; she had no issues during the birthing process, and was a very loving and protective mother to her son.

The crew: Draven, Belinda, Orchid, and Oleander.

With Elijah alone and no other calves for him to hang with, we decided to try them together and see if the calves would at least bond, and we could continue to bottle-feed Elijah. Not only did the calves bond, but Oleander decided that she could take on Elijah as her own and allowed him to nurse — and like Luna, she protected this baby as if he was her own biological son.

Meeting his new brother — Elijah finally finds not only a sibling, but a mother and a family.

Oleander takes on her new adoptive son, Elijah!

This family of three are all grown up and living in New Jersey at Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue, and like all moms and babies who are able, they remain together as a tight-knit family.

Now members of a huge herd, babies Elijah and Pappas are much bigger than mom, but will always be together.

So on this upcoming Mother’s Day, think about all the mothers who cannot keep the precious babies that they love, and make a choice to not be a part of that. Their bonds are no less real, no less strong than the bonds we have with our own children — and so we wish a happy Mother’s Day not only to those mothers we are so blessed to know and live with at sanctuary — so lucky to meet — but to every mother. And we wish for a future where that love and bond is recognized and cherished.

Liz with biological son Cashew and adoptive son Jerome.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Read about these other amazing bovine mothers from previous Animals of Farm Sanctuary posts: 🐮 Cheryl and Pecan 🐮 Liz, Cashew, and Jerome 🐮 Kirsty and Surprise

#cows #animals #animal rights #animal rescue #mother's day

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taeminuet · 7 years ago

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Asphodel (13/?)

Title: Asphodel Fandom: SHINee (ft. EXO and f(x) members) Pairings: JongTae, OnKai Chapter Wordcount: ~2k Chapter Rating: PG-13

Previous Chapters

Collab with @eorumverba; the next chapter can be found on their blog next Friday~

Edit: I am truly so sorry that this is so late in the day. I scheduled this last night for “tomorrow at 2pm” without checking the time. Apparently it was after midnight and it kicked the post to Saturday. I truly apologize;;

Jonghyun is honestly extremely glad that Luna doesn’t hate them.They’re not entirely sure what response they expected from a mom catching them curled up under a blanket with her son, clearly about to kiss him, but they hadn’t entirely been sure it would be this. But Luna is smiling, voice mostly teasing, and Jonghyun smiles back in response.

“Yes, ma’am,” they say, because they at least know how to be polite, and it makes Luna smile more. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Taemin looks embarrassed, but Jonghyun is glad. At least Taemin is calmer now, and embarrassed is a big improvement over panicking. “Mom,” he says, all but burying his face in Jonghyun’s shoulder to hide. Not that Jonghyun minds.

Luna only laughs at him though, not mocking, but in that gentle maternal way. “Are you staying for dinner then, Jonghyun?” she asks.

“Uhm,” Jonghyun starts, and looks to Taemin for an answer. If Taemin wants them there, they’ll stay. If not, well, that’s more Taemin’s decision than theirs.

But Taemin only nods quickly against their shoulder, whispers out a muffled sentence that Jonghyun is pretty sure is, “please stay.”

Jonghyun can’t refuse that. “If it’s alright with you, ma’am.”

“Of course,” Luna says. “I wouldn’t have invited you if it wasn’t. I think Jongin is staying too. Staying the night, actually. His parents have something to do and your dad figured you’d enjoy the company, Taemin.”

“Oh,” Taemin says, and then mumbles, “Yeah, sure, fine.”

It’s evidently not the reaction Luna was hoping for. She pauses for a moment, considering, and then adds, almost like an offering to Taemin, “You’re welcome to stay too, Jonghyun. If it’s alright with your parents.”

Taemin perks up a little, but Jonghyun freezes. It’s been awhile since something like this came up, and they’re actually put off kilter for a moment. “I can call them and ask,” they lie. They’re pretty sure that even if they could call their mom, it would mostly just seem like some kind of super messed-up prank. “But I’m sure it’s fine. I’d like to.”

“Good,” Luna says, with some sense of finality. “Go ahead and call so they don’t worry, alright. Taemin, sweetheart, can you come help me in the kitchen?”

“I…” Taemin starts, clearly reluctant, but Luna’s soft smile gives no room for argument, and he nods. He peels himself away from Jonghyun’s side and follows his mother. And Jonghyun, with nothing really to do, ducks into the side hall to pretend to call their parents.

In the kitchen, he hears Luna talking to Taemin, voice kept soft, and while they can’t see her expressions or actions, her voice is soft as she murmurs, “Taemin, you know you can come to me or your father with anything.”

“I know, mom,” Taemin says, but his voice is doubtful at best. Jonghyun doesn’t know how Luna replies, but it’s either nonverbal or too quiet to hear, and a moment later, Taemin says, “I’m… it’s okay, mom. Really.”

Jonghyun feels bad listening in now. They feel even worse with the knowledge that Taemin is lying, that he definitely wasn’t okay this afternoon. Wasn’t okay yesterday when he’d come home hurt and nobody had even noticed.

But it’s… it’s really not their place. They can be there for Taemin, but that’s about all they can do right now. So they step away, far enough not to be eavesdropping on the conversation, and wait just long enough not to be suspicious before knocking on the doorframe of the kitchen and pushing inside.

Taemin is leaning up against the counter where they kissed only yesterday, and when Jonghyun enters the room, he looks up and meets Jonghyun’s eyes for a moment before ducking his head shyly, lifting a hand in a motion somewhere between hiding a smile and touching his own lips.

Jonghyun wants to kiss him again, but Luna is right there, and they’re pretty sure it wouldn’t exactly be appropriate, so instead they just move in to be next to him, squeezing Taemin’s hand gently in their own. “I can stay.”

“Wonderful,” Luna says. “Would you two like to help cook then?”

Which is how Jonghyun ends up standing at the counter, helping to chop vegetables (apparently one of the only jobs that Taemin is allowed in the kitchen after a few incidents) while Taemin not-so-subtly steals pieces of food before they’re done. It’s strangely nice in a domestic sort of way. More so than Jonghyun ever remembers his own home feeling.

And then Jinki appears in the kitchen with Jongin trailing after him like a particularly affectionate puppy, and Jonghyun all but feels his heart sink.

It probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone else, but he remembers Kibum and Gwiboon’s commentary, remembers the laugh in Gwiboon’s voice as she commented on Jinki and Jongin’s relationship. And there’s a faint bruised patch on Jongin’s skin, just inside the collar of his shirt like it’s meant to be hidden, the kind of bruise that Jonghyun knows is left by someone’s mouth.

Luna turns around to smile at them both, flicking off the burner. “Good timing,” she says, too sweetly. “How did the lesson go?”

“Very good,” Jinki says, and very pointedly doesn’t reach out for Jongin he way he so easily has the last few times Jonghyun has seen them. It would be normal except for the break in character, the way Jongin pulls tight to himself even as he flushes under Jinki’s praise of, “Jongin’s wonderful. He learns so fast.”

“That’s wonderful, Jongin,” Luna says, and it’s not hard to see that her words don’t have anywhere near the same effect, though he nods politely, murmuring thanks.

“And who is this?” Jinki asks, looking at Jonghyun.

“Jonghyun,” Jonghyun answers, and forgets for a long minute to even try to apply the same politeness that they automatically had for Luna. “Sir.”

“Oh,” Jinki says, and smiles so brightly that Jonghyun is actually a little taken aback. “It’s nice to meet you. Taemin’s told me good things. You live nearby?”

“Yeah. Pretty close,” Jonghyun says, shifting a little nervously.

Jongin narrows his eyes a little, cocking his head in confusion. “I don’t--” he starts, looking intently at Jonghyun.

“Jonghyun’s staying for dinner, darling,” Luna says absently, accidentally cutting him off. “Would you mind setting the table for five?”

Jonghyun relaxes. They really, really don’t need to deal with that line of questioning right now.

“Of course, dear,” Jinki says, and his eyes flicker to Jongin for a moment, “Jongin, would you like to help?”

And Jongin still looks a little suspicious, but he also hangs off of Jinki’s every word, and after a moment he turns to Jinki, chirpy and eager to please. “Yes, sir.”

He follows Jinki out of the room, and Jonghyun waits for another moment before turning back. Taemin is watching Jongin and Jinki go, some sort of sadness in his face, and Jonghyun doesn’t know what it is, but they take a moment to pull him aside when Luna begins to follow with food.

“Tae?” they ask. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Taemin says, and it’s got a hint of bitter amusement. But it clears up after a moment, and he steps closer to Jonghyun. “Nothing. Really nothing. You’re here. It’s okay.”

Jonghyun pauses, just for a second, and then pulls Taemin in, leaning up onto their toes so that they’re almost tall enough to properly envelop Taemin in a hug. “Yeah,” they say. “I’m here.”

Taemin slumps a little in their arms, seeming to fold himself in until he’s smaller, more secure. “Thank you,” he says, quietly.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

Taemin hums noncommittally. After a minute, he pulls back and gestures halfheartedly towards the dining room. “We should go eat.”

He doesn’t sound terribly excited about the prospect. But he takes Jonghyun hand and pulls them with him into the other room where his parents and Jongin are already sitting, Luna at the end of the table with Jinki and Jongin on one side of it and spaces for Taemin and Jonghyun on the other. Taemin slips into the seat next to his mother, and Jonghyun follows suit, taking the seat next to him.

“Jonghyun,” Luna says, almost the moment they sit down, waiting only long enough for them to start eating. “We’ve heard a lot about you from Taemin. You don’t go to school with him and Jongin, do you?”

“Ah, no. I, uh… I’m out of high school,” they say, smiling awkwardly. Had been for a few years actually. With no actual diploma to speak of. Not that it mattered. Hard to get a job when they were officially dead. And eternally bound to their old bedroom.

“I don’t remember seeing you around school,” Jongin says suddenly, half startling Jonghyun.

“It’s not a small school,” Jonghyun says. “And I kept to myself, mostly.”

Jongin gives him a look, but it’s hardly a second before he drops his eyes and starts picking at his food. Next to him, Jinki smiles genially. “What do you do now then, Jonghyun?” he asks, eating with one hand, the other is beneath the table somewhere, and Jonghyun feels a lurch of unplaceable discomfort in their stomach. “Are you going to college? Working?”

“I’m taking some time,” they say, smiling weakly. So much for half truths. “Figuring out what I want to do for the rest of my… life.”

“And have you figured anything out?” Luna says, and she makes it sound curious, not accusatory. She’s not blaming him for not having his life figured out. Jonghyun would take that to heart if they were still actually alive.

Jonghyun shrugs. “I like music,” they say, as much of a non-answer as possible, and also one that seems like it’ll suit this family perfectly. It’s not a lie, either. They’d played a lot of guitar before. They kind of stopped a little after their death but before their mom managed to sell the house. The sounds of it used to make her cry.

“Oh, you said you write lyrics,” Taemin says suddenly, as if remembering a conversation, and then he pauses, a bite of food halfway to his mouth and looks curiously between Jonghyun and Luna, brow furrowing.

“That’s impressive,” Jinki says, and smiles disarmingly. Or it would be disarming if Jongin didn’t look quite so much like a puppy whose owner was giving attention to someone else. God. If Gwiboon is right, these two aren’t subtle at all. “I’d like to hear sometime. If you’re willing to show. I have a bit of an ear for music.”

“Maybe sometime, yeah,” Jonghyun said, glancing at Taemin. He’s stopped eating, frowning at his plate as if lost in thought, and Jonghyun reaches out, touching his forearm gently, almost casually. Taemin doesn’t pull away, but he does startle, looking at Jonghyun for a moment with something questioning and concerned in his eyes.

“Can we be excused, mom?” Taemin asks the moment everyone is done eating.

Luna looks worried for a moment, but Jinki only nods. After a minute, Jongin shifts restlessly. “I--” he says, and clears his throat as if he doesn’t quite trust his voice. “I think I’m done too. Thank you for dinner.”

“Would you like to help me clear up then, Jongin?” Jinki asks, and Jongin nods, standing to follow, his body angled slightly away from them as he help gather plates and follows Jinki towards the kitchen.

Taemin catches Jonghyun by the arm and tugs gently, leaving only enough time for Jonghyun to say, “Thank you so much, ma’am,” before they’re pulled away.

#SHINee fic #SHINee fanfiction #Jongtae #Onkai #asphodel #my writing #the awkward dinner scene lmao #edit: i am truly So. Sorry.

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