#who are most known for hating each other and being a warden and his prisoner | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mcyt-imagines-library · 3 years ago

Note

dsmp actor au pog?

Dream smp actor au pog?

Just a heads up: i'm not including everyone in this, it would get far cluttered and long (Also: characters appear in the order they appeared on the Dream SMP)

Individual Hcs:

c!Dream

He's a pretty well-known actor even before the SMP

He was praised heavily for his work in the action series "Manhunt"

The producers of the DSMP viewed him as the best choice for the then main character due to his versatile acting abilities and the fact that he does his own stunts

Throughout the filming, he had so much fun going from protagonist to antagonist and watching the fan's reactions to the descent

In meet and greets and the like, he always likes playing the bad guy and insists on having his prison arc scar prosthetics on during (absolutely loves when the younger kids roots for the villains and will take pictures with them if they ask)

On set, he's pretty serious about getting filming done, so he rarely makes jokes during filming (especially during the more serious parts of the show, when he isn't being filmed though, he openly jokes with the other cast members

He's just one of those "there's a difference between work and play" types of people

His favorite scene by far is Wilbur's revival scene, regularly its a cool idea, but he thinks that Will's acting paired with the special and after effects make the scene really come to life

c!George

Was mainly known for playing in cheesy romance movies before being a costar in "Manhunt", where he became friends with Dream, Sapnap, and Bad

Only took the role on the DSMP because they talked him into it

Quickly became a fan favorite though

While, towards the beginning of the show, he was able to appear regularly, he became more popular throughout the filming of each episode, working on side projects

The main producer of the show said that they should kill off his character or have him travel away forever so he could drop out of the show entirely to focus on the other things, but the rest of the actors/actresses vehemently opposed, so they kept him, instead, transitioning him to a tertiary character

The cast turned it into a little meme within the show, insisting that his character was 'sleeping through everything'

His favorite scene is definitely one of the ones from the beginning of the show where it felt like he was just hanging out with his friends

c!Sapnap

Also known for action movies "Manhunt" being the most popular, as well as being featured on comedy sketches

When he first became part of the DSMP crew, he was worried to come across as too eager or whatever else so he pulled this 'cool, nonchalant' thing until he became more comfortable around everyone

In fact, he's one of the people who fuck around and try to get people to fudge up their lines (hates when people do it to him though)

Pretty indifferent about attending cast interviews and will only go to them if his friends want him to (or if he's getting a bag for it)

Is the one who has continuously accidentally broken the most props (costumes and scene fixtures included)

His favorite scene was one of the first serious ones: the burning of Ponk's lemon tree, he likes it because the visuals were gorgeous to watch and it was also the catalyst for a lot of things

c!Awesamdude

Originally was known in small acting circles for his more harsh, authoritarian roles (think army generals and the like)

Brought onto the DSMP cast because, while looking for someone to play the role of the prison warden, they needed someone who really had the presence of an authority figure

During a tech rehearsal, he joked that he didn't want to be an intimidating character anymore, and instead, became a kind, lovable figure that helped Tommy in building his hotel (it was only a behind the scenes special but when the fans saw, they loved it and named him Sam Nook)

Because so many people love Sam Nook so much, they added him in a few times as a small side cameo

(Side note: Since the "Manhunt" producers were looking for an additional hunter for the next film, Dream mentioned that Sam would be a perfect fit and he almost immediately got the part)

His favorite scene is the dark, torture one with Ponk only because they were cracking up during it due to the other cast members making faces, jokes, and puns, trying to pull them away from the seriousness of the scene (it took nearly 15 takes)

c!Ponk

He was a lesser known actor before the DSMP, mostly playing secondary characters here and there

Was offered a spot on the show because he knows how to play a realistic and interesting character while not trying to be too overbearing and get more spot light (a lot of his fans wish he would have more screen time anyway though tbh)

He actually is missing an arm, so he's pretty alright with having a bad ass, metallic looking prosthetic one for the show

Genuinely enjoys fan meetups and getting pictures with the people who like both him and his character

His favorite scene is also the same one as Sam's

He thinks it's more funny though because he knows Sam personally and knows that he'd never actually harm anyone

c!BadBoyHalo

Even though he's pretty well versed in acting, he prefers to be an, at the most, secondary character because, even though he is an actor, he doesn't like all of the spot light to be on him (which is one of the reasons he did so well in "Manhunt")

During shootings, he breaks character so easily

When he's recording a scene, he likes striking up conversation with the set workers, asking them about their days and such

While he gets a bit overwhelmed at fan meets, he still enjoys going and tries to meet as many people as he can, taking pictures with them or signing autographs if they ask

He's lowkey one of the people that fans are a bit weary about because there's no fucking way that someone can be that wholesome and kind all the time

His favorite scene is definitely the Red Banquet

While it is a villain scene, the red tint to everything, the amazing special effects, the wonderful acting, and the fun bloopers really made it the most memorable filming experience, and fun on set, he's ever had, plus it's not often that everyone is in the same place at once like that

c!Tommy

He's a young actor who got his start off in comedy programs

He was in a few movies as background characters before he was offered a job to costar a comedy movie with A few highly famous actors (as a result, he was able to make connections)

Before long, he was invited to become a cast member on the DSMP

At first he found it incredibly easy, until the more serious scenes started appearing

He's always done lighthearted shows and movies, so it's hard to looked downtrodden and/or distressed during the L'/Manburg war and Exile Arcs

Almost always gets overexcited during cast interviews and nearly spoils something for the next few episodes (or next season even), he can't help it, he's just so excited

It's incredibly hard for him to choose a favorite scene, but it's either the mountain one where he, Tubbo, and Dream are scaling a mountain side while acting out the intense fight scene (he liked it so much because they were on an actual cliff side in harnesses to make it look more authentic), or the scenes with Pogtopia with the original cast

c!Tubbo

He was a starting out musician with limited acting knowledge before he had an audition for the DSMP

Because of that, he was a bit wobbly at first, but he got acting lessons and a lot of advice from the rest of the crew

Since he is a bit more withdrawn, he uses Tommy as a social crutch during personal interviews (Tommy doesn't mind a bit)

Whenever he's asked about his character, though, he loves to talk about how, as he becomes more corrupt, teetering on the edge of morality, the ram horns become more and more pronounced to draw parallels to Jschlatt's character (an idea he came up with, might he add)

His favorite scene, oddly enough, is the one where his and Tommy's characters are sitting at the bench, listening to music, it was just very calm moment when everything else was messy

c!Wilbur

Was originally only one of the script writers who only had a limited experience with acting, but after the original actor walked out, he took his place in the script readings and everyone unanimously decided that he would be the perfect replacement (better than the original, in fact)

Because it's his first acting gig, he hates when he messes up directions or and fudges lines, and apologizes immediately after they happen

Gets incredibly nervous during fan meetups and cast interviews (especially when it's a one on one kind of deal), but he does very well with interacting with them via social media

He does do a lot for his character though, like taking physical liberties like actually dying a streak in his hair so the makeup team doesn't have to worry about perfectly placing a clip on so it looks consistent with past episodes

His favorite scene is when it's revealed that his character put buttons all over the Pogtoia ravine not only because he could flex his acting skills, but also because he thinks that the prop team and set designers did beautifully (even if he did fall and scrape his legs on pretty much everything in and out of filming)

c!Jschlatt

Even the DSMP, he played a lot of villain roles in movies (either that or he was in comedy shows)

Because he knew what he was doing, as soon as he auditioned for his character's role, the casting directors immediately knew that he was the one for it

Thankfully though, he's a lot more chill than his character counterpart

While he's willing to sit still very morning and let the makeup artists put on his prosthetics for the episode shoots, he refuses to put them on for fan meet ups or cast interviews so he wears a shitty ram horn head band instead (he kinda thinks it's funny tbh)

During interviews, because he has a busy schedule that he likes to keep, he often comes off as a bit abrasive

Even though he wasn't in it, his favorite scene is actually his character's funeral

Nearly every part of that scene was improvised (including the part where Quackity's character eats Schlatt's character's heart) and he loves where everyone went with it, playing it straight at first before derailing it completely into dark humor centric jokes

c!Niki

Before the DSMP, she was acted in various different genres, she also did some model work (someone had to say it and that someone is me), though she does tell people that, before all else, her acting career goes before her modeling one

It's hard for her to get gigs where her character isn't just used as a pretty prop or a damsel in distress, so when she was offered a role for a character with some substance, she jumped at the chance

When she's filming, she behaves very seriously and tries her absolute best to not break character

As appreciation to the staff members who work behind the scenes, she'll sometimes make baked goods and like for them (they have to deal with the actors and actresses behaving like children half the time anyway, so it's a nice gesture)

Her favorite scene is the one where it's revealed that she's worked on a gigantic underground bunker, seeing the downwards spiral of her character to the point where she tries to kill Tommy is really interesting to her

She does also really like the Syndicate arc as a whole and loves when people recognize her as Nemesis

c!Quackity

While you wouldn't be able to tell from his character and the way he comes off as as a result, off set, he's actually incredibly chilled

He's more use to acting dark comedies and cheesy self aware dramas rather than genuine, serious stories

He was contacted to interview for the DSMP through Dream, and when he auditioned, the interviewers absolutely fell in love with his stage presence and he got the part fairly quickly

At first, he was a bit bored at the lack of action in the show, but as the season progressed and more was happening, he had more fun, especially as his character became more and more dark, transferring into an antagonist

He enjoys that he gets a chance to play the suave, manipulative villain role and also likes the rivalry that's building up between his and Wilbur's characters

His favorite scenes are the ones at Las Nevadas, particularly the one where both he and Wilbur's character are fighting over Tommy, he loves the drama of it all

c!Karl Jacobs

He's new to acting, being more interested in the behind the scenes things than being on stage

That being said, because his general extroverted nature, he does a great job at commanding the stage and expressing emotions on the screen

Because he's not too use to acting quite yet, he was incredibly nervous when he was first offered an audition for a specific part in the DSMP, but he ended up doing well and got the part

He loves just being on set and talking with everyone, it's a new experience so he thrives in every moment

His favorite scene is the silly little "Gogtopia" episode, it was a nice, lighthearted thing amidst a lot of angst (heads up: i hc gogtopia as the characters when they were kids building a fake little city, playing pretend, i like to think its where George became interested in being a ruler too)

c!Technoblade

He was originally considered for Sam's role, but they quickly decided that he could pull more of an aloof and chaotic character so they chose a different one, his current one, because it suited his acting style far better

The first time he had to get all of his prosthetic on, he was incredibly antsy, sitting in the chair for multiple hours, however since he and the makeup team have gotten more use to the process, it's not as uncomfortable and time consuming

While he appreciates how many people like his character, he very rarely attends fan meetups or interviews since they stress him out

This is a side note, but while he enjoys acting, he often takes long chunks of time from it so he can get a college degree (he recognizes that, realistically, because he's a famous actor, he won't get a regular job, but he wants the degree anyway)

His favorite scene is a tie between the "Welcome Home Theseus" scene because of the amazing props and the scene where his character kills everyone else's with the firework crossbows

c!Philza

He's been acting for the longest time and has an incredibly long list of accolades (especially for a wildly popular fantasy/adventure series that he stars in)

During the filmings, he's incredibly professional and very rarely cracks during scenes

When the cameras not on him though, he's actually quite silly and cheerful, happily conversing with whoever's around

He leans super hard into the dad vibes too

Will gladly help anyone with their likes, all while making cheesy dad jokes

Absolutely loves meeting fans and goes to any fan meet he's requested to go to

Originally the producers had planned scenes of Phil receiving letters from Wilbur and becoming concerned before he flew off to go check on him, but they decided to scrap that in favor of a surprise introduction for the end of the season

Because of that, that's probably his favorite scene

c!Ranboo

Their not really used to acting all that much, so when they their agent told them that people from the DSMP wanted to get in contact with them about a possible opportunity, they were pleasantly surprised

Since their actually an incredibly chilled out person, playing Ranboo was a bit of a challenge for them at first

Because their character is nervous by nature and thus hunches over a lot in the show, they has to see a chiropractor every other week since the extra stress they put on their back causes them some slight pain

They also had to do some extra training to get the nervous body language and speech patterns down right (they didn't have to, they just wanted to go the extra mile and really prove that they deserve their spot in the show)

Nobody told them that they had to prove themselves in any way, but because they gained popularity so quickly, they feel like they don't deserve it, so their mainly proving it to themself

Their favorite scenes are any of the enderwalk sequences because they think the additional after effects added make it look absolutely amazing (they also like the set design for the panic room)

Slimecicle

Before the DSMP, he was in a lot of comedy shows and campy self aware horror movies and he was able to carve out a little niche for himself (and a bit of a cult following)

He was suppose to be an expository one off character to help introduce Las Nevadas, but he became so popular that he became reoccurring

One of the only characters who doesn't have a set script, they give him a general outline and stage direction, but tell him to improvise with the weird, archaic bullshit his character says (that's why people love him afterall)

His favorite past time on set is trying to make people break during scenes, he's gotten every single cast member at least once as well as tech and makeup crew and he's extremely proud of himself for it

His favorite scene is the one where his character first meets Quackity in Las Nevadas

Michaelmcchill

He was an actor since his early teens, so he's quite the veteran on set

Because of that, he takes his job as an actor seriously, and dislikes when people joke around during their scenes

Behind the scenes though, he cracks jokes with the other actors and actresses and often goes the extra mile to make sure that the younger ones are comfortable

Loves going to fan meetups and gets incredibly excited whenever someone recognizes him from an earlier show

His favorite scene is the one where, in the strip club in Las Nevadas, one by one, Quackity takes him, Bad, and Puffy to the back to rob them

Puffy's lines, while improvised, made him crack up off set

Group Hcs:

While the title of show 'DSMP' stands for something different, it's been a running meme among the crew and fans alike that it stands for "Dream Sapnap M PGeorge"

Small injures and broken props are incredibly common on the film sets to the point where there's three trained medical professionals and a triples of each prop (people get to take the remaining ones home after shoots if they don't need to be used again)

Because Sapnap has broken so many props on accident, Dream made fliers with Sapnap's headshots on them with the words "don't let this menace touch the props" under it

Because of that, Tommy actually has a prop of each music disk and takes them with him during meet and greets, especially the ones where children will be present (Dream, in character, will try to take them before Tommy fends him off with the help of his allies)

Originally the producers were going to choose someone else to play Tubbo's character, but Tommy vetoed their decision and choose Tubbo because their chemistry was perfect (their characters were childhood friends and he clicked immediately with him, so in his eyes, he was the perfect choice)

The polyamourous relationship between Karl, Quackity, and Sapnap's characters weren't actually planned, they were originally jokingly flirting thinking that it wouldn't stay in the final cut, but after it did, they just rolled with it

That being said, they regularly flirt with each other off set and especially in public events for "fan service"

Also, as I'm sure you can guess, the whole flatty patty discourse between Schlatt and Quackity's characters were fully improvised as well

Because Phil was originally suppose to be an already established character before it was scrapped, no one but he and Wilbur knew he was going to be on set, so when he showed up to sink the sword into Wilbur's chest, everyone else's reactions were genuine (side note: the rest of the cast were told the original plan: that wilbur's character was going to blow himself up)

Speaking of Phil, because he's hard to make crack during a scene, a small group of the other actors (Tommy, Wilbur, Techno, and sometimes Tubbo) view it as their mission to make him break and they tally it on a board (Techno is winning since they've known each other the longest)

Phil, Tommy, Techno, and Wilbur actually have a decently popular podcast "Sleepy Bois Inc." where they goof off and talk about whatever that comes to their minds, they'll often invite guests on

Since Tommy is a young actor and Wilbur knows about the dark side to the industry, he keeps a close eye on him, going with him to new casting calls and auditions

One time, during Schlatt's character's villain arc, Quackity replaced his fake whiskey with real whiskey and he, even after he had to take a large swig of it, he continued on (his coughing was genuine that time, especially since he wasn't ready for it to burn his throat)

In Quackity's defense, he thought Schlatt would be surprised and spit it out on camera

The gift card thing was an actual event that happened, someone hid the card on one of the sets and the others raced to find it

There's also an ongoing reverse race among the cast over who takes the longest to get their costumes and prosthetics on, so far Ranboo is in the lead with Technoblade then Jschlatt and Puffy behind them (Schlatt wishes he wasn't so high up on the list)

#dream smp #dream smp headcannon #dream smp hcs #dream smp actor au #dsmp actor au #actor au #actor au hcs #actor au headcanons #too many characters to tag

221 notes · View notes

faeri-meadow · 3 years ago

Text

Keep calm (Awesamdude x reader)

Okay! Enjoy psycho Dream and protective Sam!

TW: Attempted murder via choking, heaving.

While in any other situation quiet was calming, at this moment it was thick and uncomfortable. I was making my way through Pandora’s vault, going through all of the processes the warden gave me. I felt weak due to the potions and the haste, but continued on, I had to. I saw the wall of lava and watched as the lava stopped flowing, I stepped onto the platform and followed it to the main cell holding one of the worst people I’ve ever known. I stepped off the platform and watched as the lava once again flowed, not looking at the prisoner until I could no longer see Sam. “Ah, Sam told me I was getting a visitor, but I would have never guessed it’d be you (Y/N).” I slowly turned around, hands held behind my back, “Hmm, I suppose it is slightly out of character for me, but I thought it was time.” I took this time to take in his appearance, him doing the same in return. His hair was long, some parts matted, and his uniform was utterly disgusting, having several spots of XD knows what. What caught my attention most was his mask, it was nearly destroyed, and yet still held a portion of that ugly smile. “So, Dream, how have you been?” he motioned around the room with a wide, psychotic grin, “Wonderful! I’ve got all the journals I could ever want and a clock! ” I nodded, walking around the room, taking in the dark scenery to the best of my ability, “Looks cozy.”

His grin only widened, showing his unnaturally long canines, “So! To what do I owe the pleasure of being in your presence (Y/N)? ” During my look around, he kept trying to walk closer to me, like a predator. “Did little Sammy talk you into seeing me? That would definitely be a surprise given the fact that whenever I’d ask for him to send a message to you, he would refuse. ” I looked at him with an unamused expression, “No, for your information I was genuinely curious as to how you’ve been. The warden has nothing to do with my visit. If you would prefer me to leave, however, I will gladly do so. “I turned around and started towards the lava wall, shouting for Sam to bring me back. I could hear the button to stop the lava be switched, but then there was a hand around my throat. “Oh no, no, no, I never said I wanted you to leave (Y/N), why don’t you stay a bit longer~” I clawed at his hand that tightened around my neck, the thought of just taking his last life crossed my mind, no, Tommy deserves his last life, not me. All I could do was watch as the lava sank slowly, waiting to see those green eyes on the other side. Before I could see them though a trident was thrown through the lava, piercing Dreams arm as well as nicking mine, the force driving us both into the back wall. The hand keeping me from breathing never left my neck, in fact, it got even tighter, “Release them.” I heard his voice before I saw his face, venom laced his tone. My heart pounded in my ears as my vision was fading, I could however make out my savior's form walking towards us, smoke leaking from his mask, green irises practically glowing against the blacks of his eyes. Then, everything, unfortunately went dark.

The next time I woke it was dark outside and I was in my house laying in my bed. I looked around to the best of my ability, the pain in my neck almost making the action impossible and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I sat up, albeit slowly, and lightly touched my neck, yanking my hand back when a wave of pain crashed over my body causing me to double over and heave. The door was thrown open and a hand was placed on my back rubbing it lightly, “You should lay back down, you’ve been through a lot (Y/N). “I tilted my head to see who was speaking, already having a good idea. Green irises stared at me as Sam helped me lie back down, his touch gentle. “Here, this should help your bruises and your arm.” He pulled out a bottle that held a pink fizzy liquid, a healing potion. I downed the potion quickly, waiting for the pain in my throat to fade away, I tried to utter a thank you, but I couldn’t speak. “It would be best if you didn’t speak until your bruises heal, it could cause trauma to your vocal cords. “He then let out a sigh and kneeled by the side of my bed, grabbing my hand and resting his forehead on my arm, “I’m sorry, I should have known he would do something. I should have been quicker. “I tightened my grip on his hand and slightly sat up motioning towards my neck, him being one step ahead of me pulled out a pen and journal from his inventory, handing it to me. It wasn’t your fault, I knew he would try something, I just didn’t want to risk taking his last life. I showed him the journal, giving him a warm smile, “It is though, he’s been asking for you, I can only assume to try and get to me. “I couldn’t help the confusion that laced my expression, practically begging him to continue, “I don’t think it is a secret that I care for you, especially after today's events. I think Dream saw right through my act, and while I hate the situation you had to be put into for me to finally admit this, I am happy that I told you. “

I let go of his hand and cupped his cheek, making him look at me. I pointed towards the mask that covered his face with my free hand and gave a silent request for him to take it off. He complied, unclipping the mask and letting it fall onto the bed, both of us just taking in the others features. His face itself was pale-ish, but it faded to a green on the edges, his ears pointed with the green covering the tips as well. There were freckles covering his face as well, different shades of green all standing out in the dark room. His eyes however are where my attention was caught once again, bright green irises sitting in dark black pools. I pulled his face close to mine and placed a kiss on his forehead, turning to write in the journal once more. When I tried to pull my hand away though, Sam held it in its place, rubbing his face into it. I released an airy laugh and wrote without the second hand, I tried to hide how I felt if I’m being honest, I didn’t think you wanted a relationship because of your job and those who may be after you, I didn’t want to be a burden. I once again showed him the journal, only for him to take it out of my hands when he was done reading. He held both sides of my face gently, my hand still cupping his, and leaned forward, “You are not a burden, never were, never will be. I know you are strong, I know what you are capable of. I don’t want you thinking that you have to hide anything to protect me.” Tears were gathering in my eyes as he held eye contact with me, when they fell, he was there to catch them and rub them away. He glanced down for a moment before coming to a conclusion and placing his lips onto mine. It was soft, as if he was worried he’d hurt me more, and yet it held all of the unspoken words that swirled around us both. When we parted, he placed his forehead onto mine, “We can protect each other, if you would like.” I opened my eyes and nodded, and then patted the spot next to me, allowing him to crawl under the covers. I slowly turned onto my side as Sam pulled me to his chest and started playing with his hair. We both let out content sighs at the peaceful atmosphere and started to doze off, “I love you (Y/N).” I cracked open my eyes and looked at him once more before giving him a peck on the lips and snuggling further into his chest. His chest rumbled as he let out a soft laugh, “I’ll take that as an ‘I love you too’.” I nodded to the best of my ability with my face being hidden in his shirt and we both fell asleep in each other's arms.

AN- Sorry it’s shorter than my other posts! I hope you enjoyed it!

#awesamedude x reader #c!awesamdude x reader #c!awesamdude #awesamdude #sam #sam x reader #dsmp

118 notes · View notes

appleflavoredkitkats · 4 years ago

Text

Who Are the Four Horsemen of the Dream SMP Apocalypse?

Art by: Viktor Vasnetsov

[TW’s: torture, death, murder, manipulation, alcohol, substance abuse, discussions about the end of the world, religion, starvation, violence, implied gambling, blood, alcoholism]

Word Count: 3.5k

INTRODUCTION

Hopefully I finish this before I feel too sleep-deprived, but I’ve been thinking about the presence of horsemen in Quackity’s “My Enemies” stream. These mysterious, hooded figures are quite odd to say the least, and their involvement with Las Nevadas still remains unknown. There has been a debate on whether there were three horsemen or four, and in my opinion, I believe that there are four horsemen present.

Why four? In the first scene, three horsemen arrive at the Dream SMP on a dark and stormy night. They seem to have come from the south, entering Eret’s castle from the back. As they stop to pull their Netherite swords out, air raid sirens are heard from the distance.

Similarly, in the last scene, Quackity is seen placing a book in Wilbur’s memorial before leaving, riding his skeleton horse, Ossium. The scene cuts from first person POV to third, and we see a hooded figure, presumably Quackity because of how both came from the same direction. Additionally, air raid sirens are also heard from a distance.

[MORE UNDER THE CUT!]

I theorize that these two scenes take place at the same time. The prequel scenes only began after we see the sequence of Quackity torturing Dream, and it ends after the flashbacks of Wilbur. We can synthesize that both these scenes are set at the same time, and that these horsemen are going to meet at a certain point on the prime path.

What may suggest that these four horsemen are supposed to be parallels to the biblical four horsemen?

Firstly, seeing the bits they do, Quackity and Schlatt do know a lot of biblical references. Schlatt has compared Tubbo to Jesus once, and Quackity has said many prayers as jokes in the Dream SMP. It’s just… easy to take inspiration from biblical symbols and references, and also, the four horsemen are just very popular figures in history, so you know, why not?

Also, this may also sound RIDICULOUS, but the fact that this stream establishes that Tommy got resurrected three days after he got killed is actually very reminiscent of, well, you guessed it, Jesus Christ. 72 hours is oddly specific, and I don’t think the cc’s made it that way for no reason. Tommy’s parallels to Jesus—which is a VERY funny phrase—could imply that the Dream SMP might draw more parallels to Christianity, and the four horsemen could be another one of these references.

Also, Quackity mentioned how in Las Nevadas, he made four casinos for him and the rest of El Rapids. So, we know four is a number we can associate with Las Nevadas, and there’s a chance Quackity gave these casinos to three other people. Four casinos, four horsemen.

What is the purpose of the four horsemen in the Dream SMP? When the air raid sirens went off, we can think of these four horsemen as the bringer of chaos or danger into the Dream SMP, very reminiscent of the purpose of the original four horsemen in Christianity. We can also connect it to the end of the world, as these four only appear when the world begins to end. This can imply that these four, who are most likely allies of Quackity in Las Nevadas, are somewhat connected to how the Dream SMP will end.

Now, who is who? Admittedly, it is difficult to find a definitive answer on which member represents what horseman, so I’ll try my best considering all the possibilities for each. I’ll add my own ranks on how probable I think they are, but I have to specify that these are subjective- I am not a beacon of truth, y’all.

So let’s get started.

Firstly, I want to discuss who might NOT be a horseman to narrow it down a bit:

Any minors might not be involved. In Sam’s face reveal stream, aka the first stream mentioning Las Nevadas, Quackity and Sam agree they don’t want Tubbo and Tommy to participate in underage gambling. Don’t know if this applies to Ranboo and Fundy (since he might be canonically a child? Who knows), so they get more of a pass, but the clingy duo might not.

The Syndicate. I’d like to think that the Syndicate, as well as Dream, are Quackity’s main foils of the server. As they are the richest and also the most skilled in PVP, Quackity stands no chance against them even with his sharp tongue. As these people are foils against Quackity, and also probably hate his guts, Quackity might not hire them at Las Nevadas. I theorize he’d probably use Dream as a watchdog against the Syndicate, but that’s a theory for another time.

Additional point about Dream: he’s in prison.

Anyone from Kinoko Kingdom because it’s clear Quackity severed all ties with them.

The Eggpire is half-half. They can possibly join, but also can’t, Quackity can manipulate them into joining only for their inevitable demise, or Quackity wouldn’t wanna associate with them after the explosion incident. They’ll at least get a few passes in some categories, but again, not entirely sure.

CONQUEST

Also known as Plague, Pestilence, and in some occasions, both Jesus Christ and the Antichrist, Conquest is shown to be riding on a white horse, donning a victor’s crown and a bow. There are many interpretations of Conquest, especially with their ambiguous morality. Some people can perceive them as bad, representing the origin of many wars. Some people claim that they represent pestilence and plague as their arrows are slathered with the infections they want to spread. In some cases, they can also be interpreted as good, as their description is heavily reminiscent of Jesus Christ himself. Others would rebut that there is also a possibility that they might be a fake replica of Jesus created by Satan, thus making them the antichrist.

Sam (8/10)

Sam is my first choice when it comes to Conquest because, firstly, he fits the appearance. He is one of the only people in the Dream SMP who dons a crown, and they also possess a bow which they frequently use. I’d say that Sam as Conquest matches with his ambitions as a member of the Badlands, Pestilence or Plague match with his possible crimson infection, and Antichrist matches with his inability to keep Tommy, the possible Jesus figure on the SMP, alive or safe.

My only issue is: would Sam be one of the three who arrived at the Dream SMP in the beginning? Sam is very strict with his job as warden, so it is unlikely that he would be seen far from it.

Any of the Eggpire (7/10)

As Conquest is heavily depicted with pestilence or plague, any of the Eggpire may fit under this category. As their goal as the Eggpire is meant to conquer the Dream SMP, this also matches with the goal of Conquest. Additionally, one of the Egg’s weaknesses is Church Prime, something heavily resembling Christianity, so if the Egg is its opposite, we can view the Egg as somewhat of an antichrist.

I say Punz, Bad, Ponk, and Hannah have a higher chance of being Conquest, while Ant is a solid ‘maybe’. Punz could’ve been the one who blew up the Egg, Bad can be easily persuaded by Quackity, Ponk is one of the only capitalists of the server that may participate in Las Nevadas, and Hannah’s character heavily fits the theme of pestilence when it comes to nature. Additionally, I like to believe that Conquest was the horseman on the skeleton horse (that isn’t Quackity’s), especially since they were holding a dandelion in one shot, something that could be attributed to “pestilence” because a dandelion is a weed. This may imply that Hannah could be part, but because they haven’t interacted much beforehand, we wouldn’t be sure. More insight on Punz: he once mentioned he upholds his duties as mercenary more than he might love the Egg, so there’s a chance Quackity bribed him to join Las Nevadas.

The main con to this is that: why would the Eggpire willingly join Quackity, or why would the Egg allow them to join Quackity? I can see that Quackity might break their brainwashed states because he has a good way with words, but people like Bad, Ant, and Punz have stated that they’ve been fully controlled by the Egg. Also, Quackity makes it clear he wants to eradicate his enemies, so he might not want any members of the Eggpire to join Las Nevadas… unless there’s a traitor?

Schlatt, Mexican Dream, or Wilbur (6/10)

Heavily connected with winning if you take Manberg, Mexican L’Manberg, or L’Manberg into mind.

Wilbur also has a memorable crossbow, but I don’t know if that counts as a bow.

Any dead characters have a high chance of joining Las Nevadas because of its possible connections to death and the revival system of the SMP.

Other possibilities with short explanations and low but possible odds:

Eret: Has a crown, his betrayal can be seen as a “win”, has Tommy’s bow from the duel. Can be seen as an antichrist figure.

Jack: As he is against Tommy, he can be seen as an antichrist figure. Might be working with Las Nevadas because of his deal with Quackity.

Ranboo: He’s a minor, but he also has a crown and a bow so, maybe? He’s not much of a conqueror or winner, though.

Connor: Didn’t really conquer much, didn’t really win much, he’s just here because of Schlatt, honestly.

WAR

War is depicted to be holding a raised sword as they ride atop a red horse. After conquest, war is expected to follow, and War is tasked to break any type of peace on earth. He is tasked to kill, or make humans kill each other. The prominence of red symbolizes bloodshed or immense anger, something very present in war. Multiple depictions of War show him with his sword raised upwards, signifying the start of a battle.

Schlatt (9/10)

The man’s literally torn the Dream SMP apart (/lh). This man is always keen on fulfilling his goals, and if it means he’ll have to fulfill them in the most twisted of ways, he will do it. Him winning the Election brought immense conflict in the Dream SMP, and many people were torn apart on which side was the right or wrong side. One of Schlatt’s prominent colors besides blue would be red, as it is the color of his tie and the color of his ghost form’s horns. Red could represent the bloodshed of those who died during the Manberg-Pogtopia conflict, or red can signify the anger Schlatt had for his own cabinet.

Schlatt was also gifted a sword by Dream called “Shclatt”. The sword only holds heavy significance because of how Fundy treasured it like an heirloom.

Wilbur (8/10)

Another good possibility too as Ghostbur was recently seen to admire red a lot more than blue in one of Tommy’s streams. We can also view the creation of L’Manberg as a place that broke the peace in the Dream SMP as they didn’t really NEED to create L’Manberg and declare war, yet, he did. Red can also resemble his anger for what has been done to L’Manberg- everything is pretty self-explanatory, honestly.

My only qualm with Wilbur being one of the horsemen is how we can’t really… tell if he’s in the Dream SMP? He seems to be very clear on the fact that he does NOT want to return, so he might not even be there when the four horsemen became a thing.

Any of the Eggpire (7/10)

Honestly? Same reasoning as the first explanation for the Eggpire. This also applies for why they might not be one of the horsemen.

Do I even need to explain the red part, or do we just all understand that red is literally their brand.

The Eggpire practically breaks peace in the server and is keen on taking control of the entirety of the Dream SMP. The Egg is shown to be ruthless towards anyone, and will even let some of its followers kill people if needed.

I see Bad as someone who might qualify for this position more because he initiates a lot of the activity in the Eggpire. Same goes for Ant, Punz, and Ponk, but they don’t really take initiative most of the time.

Jack Manifold (4/10)

The only reason I kind of added him here was that he wanted to kill Tommy, but Jack isn’t entirely selfish or peace-breaking. I do think he might play a role in Las Nevadas, especially since if Quackity has access to the nukes, only Jack and Ranboo might be the only two who helped him gain access.

Jack is also… very angry at Tommy. Rightfully so, because he basically surrounded a good portion of his life trying to kill Tommy only for him to realize that that might not be his purpose in life. He blames Tommy for a lot of the loss in the server, so he has a lot of anger, but he has no one to vent it all out to.

Other possibilities with short explanations and low but possible odds:

Eret: Did the first betrayal, but that’s about it. He’s also participated in several wars against others who disagreed with him being the king.

Ranboo: Participated in wars, but is a peacemaker so, y’know.

Fundy: While he does possess Schlatt’s sword, he isn’t much of an initiator of wars as much as he is merely a follower. He has shown that he is quite angry at those who have used him, but the anger has dissipated lately into some sort of sadness/denial.

Connor: He’s mournful that Schlatt, a close friend, has died, but he isn’t really one to be angry. He tried living far away to make his own independent nation, but it didn’t impact much of the story. He also one possessed “Ghostbur’s Stabbing Knife”, which could represent the sword.

FAMINE

Famine is seen to be holding a scale (presumably for food) as they ride atop a horse. Famine is also denoted to be the only one speaking, saying “A quart of wheat for a denarius! And three quarts of barley for a denarius! But don’t ruin the oil and the wine!”. This statement basically means that we have to pay a full day’s worth of earnings for a bit of wheat and barley but oil and the wine, something not considered human necessities, can have the same prices. This shows an unfairness when it comes to acquiring basic human necessities. This is especially damaging to the poor as Famine’s statement can possibly make the poor poorer, while the rich remain the same. It is implied that the wider the gap between the poor and the rich, the closer we are to the end of the world.

Fundy (9/10)

This may be a long answer because I am biased towards Fundy, but Niki once stated that Manberg was in some sort of a famine because of the destruction of farms. Because of this, certain citizens have resorted into eating spider eyes from the EXP farm, but it was notable that she was practically calling out Fundy, someone who literally advertised spider eyes to any person he talked to in the Dream SMP.

Fundy is also hinted to be heavily connected to these hooded figures somehow. In his dream, he was chased by one until he slept in a black bed, the color of Famine.

Additionally, in his dream, he held baked potatoes (food) which could be related…? He’s also a libra so… scales…?

He is also a notorious prankster in the Dream SMP and will bargain for anything as long as he profits from it. He’s not the richest by any means, but he loves doing pranks that involve stealing belongings from other people.

Schlatt (8/10)

Similar reason to Fundy as he was the president of Manberg responsible for these famines. Additional note for this is that he also taxed Niki, one of their only food sources in Manberg.

Schlatt also likes to joke around about being rich, earning money, or being a businessman often, especially with the entire Schlatt coin joke. Connected to Famine’s trait of making the rich richer, possibly?

Famine’s statement can also apply here as it is implied that if humanity doesn’t possess the basic of necessities, they might at least have wine which won’t provide any solutions to humanity’s starvation at all, but it will distract you from your starvation by making you heavily drunk until you finally die. This is very reminiscent of how Schlatt died.

Sam (6/10)

Sam is one of the richest people on the server, matching Famine’s want to keep the rich rich. Only problem here is that Sam is at least very generous and provides a lot of people with resources when needed.

Sam could possibly be connected to Famine because of how he treats Dream in prison. In an attempt to torture Dream, he starves him, cutting his food supply.

Same problem remains with Sam not being able to join whatever the hell the four horsemen are because of his duties as warden.

Any of the Syndicate (1/10)

Only giving an exception here because the Syndicate is exceptionally rich and is more selfish about it than others. Low chances, but Ranboo… might? But it’s still a bit iffy for me. Niki might as well because of her connections to the Manbergian famine, but still on the fence with this one too.

DEATH

Death is often depicted riding a pale horse, but some variations have called the horse light green. Death does not don a weapon themselves, but they are always accompanied by Hades. Hades in Christianity is the place or state of the departed spirits, meaning Death has contact with those who have died. Sometimes, Death is depicted with a scythe similar to the Grim Reaper, but some say Death has no weapon at all as Death themself is the weapon. Death is not only meant to collect souls and end lives, but they can also represent the end of an era of humanity.

Quackity (10/10)

I would say Quackity can fit any other category, but I am so sure that Quackity is death because of how death and toying with death seems to be one of Quackity’s main themes in the Dream SMP. Quackity, once hesitant about killing others, has been shown to now impulsively want to kill others: first with Techno, then Ranboo, then Dream.

Quackity will also most likely acquire information about revival on the Dream SMP, so he is in close proximity with Hades, or in the Dream SMP, the Void. This also heavily ties in with the idea that he will make others gamble away their canon lives only for him to resurrect or return their canon lives if they ever successfully gamble it back.

Quackity is also known to be very powerless in terms of PVP and battle, but you know what he succeeds in? His own words. He is his own weapon that can get him whatever he wants as long as the person he’s up against is in a vulnerable position.

He is also confirmed to be one to have a skeleton horse, and some depictions of Death’s horse show that it is very corpse-like.

A bloody scythe can also be seen in Quackity’s first lore teaser, and that can be attributed to Death.

Other possibilities with short explanations and low but possible odds:

Schlatt: First owned the revival book but he literally does not know its contents. Fits the “they are their own weapon” trait.

Dream: The only exception I can give. But again, he is literally in prison…?

Wilbur & Mexican Dream: Only putting these two here because they have experienced death. These two fit the “they are their own weapon” category too.

Connor: Wants to revive Schlatt, but that’s it.

CONCLUSION

Honestly, my first conclusion for the four horsemen were Sam/Conquest, Schlatt/War, Fundy/Famine, and Quackity/Death, but I only see Quackity as Death to be something that is HIGHLY possible. For Conquest, I shift between Sam and one of the Eggpire, for War, I shift between Wilbur and Schlatt, and for Famine, I shift between Fundy and Schlatt. Again, no definitive answer, but I’d love to hear your own thoughts on this.

I am very tired, but also remember to reblog if you do enjoy this! Again, would love to hear your own insights, and would appreciate any type of discussion! :D

#dream smp #dream smp analysis #mcyt #quackity #fundy #wilbur soot #jschlatt #connoreatspants #badboyhalo #long post

148 notes · View notes

stellocchia · 4 years ago

Text

Sooo, remember this: Platonic Soulmates AU? Yeah... I actually wrote something for Bee Duo based on it because I was feeling like it.

It’s pretty short and kinda different from my usual writing style, but it was fun!

Dissonant Melody

Tubbo and Ranboo have the perfect life. They have their big mansion, multiple houses, a son, more riches than anyone else on the server, and, most importantly, they have each other. They’re both seventeen and they already found their soulmate. Not only that, but they are both alive and their bond is as strong as can be with emotions flowing freely through it.

They’re lucky, they know they are.

They’re lucky, luckier than most, so they can never say otherwise.

They’re lucky, but why doesn’t it feel like it?

Why has the mansion stayed empty since it got built? Why are they still living so far apart, pretending that the distance will hide their distress from the other?

Tubbo lost a nuke a while ago. Tubbo lost his best friend not long before that. Tubbo lost so much and yet he hasn’t said a word. He doesn’t need to, of course, because he’s fine. He is perfectly fine and if his laboured breaths and tachycardia when he wakes up in the middle of the night were anything out of the ordinary he’s sure that Ranboo would tell him.

Ranboo hasn’t felt in control in a while. He’s not sure how often he actually sleeps compared to how often the… other him simply takes control. His experiments are supposed to be working. They are supposed to give him answers to give him control. They aren’t. But he can’t bother his family with his burden. He can’t look at his husband and child and admit to being nothing but a monster. He knows they would hate him, and they should hate him, really! He just can’t bring himself to be the one to spill his dirty little secret.

Tubbo and Ranboo are seventeen and they already figured out what soulmates aren’t supposed to be. Soulmates aren’t supposed to be the person you share your burdens with. They aren’t supposed to be the person you’re honest with. They aren’t who you go to, to open up about your past. They aren’t there to give you acceptance, they shouldn’t be. They aren’t there to confide in.

Tubbo and Ranboo also know what soulmates are supposed to be. They are the person who’s going to keep you company when you need some silly escapade to distract you from the real world. They are the person who knows you are lying when you say that you’re fine and will lie right back to you. They are the person you smile at and laugh with. They are the person that will let you be a kid around them and not expect something different, something more. They are the person who can perceive your feelings, but who’ll never call attention to them.

Maybe it isn’t perfect, but is it even meant to be?

Because the truth is that they’re young, both of them, and sometimes all they need is someone who’ll let them be.

So maybe it is perfect in their own imperfect way.

And maybe Tommy was talking out of his ass when he mentioned that they might need a “balance”, a suggestion from his therapist apparently.

Because Tubbo is happy. He may not have been home for a while, too busy with his newest project, but he knows that Michael will be there when he gets back and Ranboo is just one call away, ready to aid him when he feels like building another sandstone dick on the roof of the prison. And the outpost is not yet another way to run away from his problem. It’s not another manifestation of denial, it isn’t. And Tubbo sometimes really wishes that Tommy never learned all that fancy terminology, because now it doesn’t feel like they’re on the same level anymore. And Tubbo is fine with that, even if now he feels stupid when trying to talk to him. He didn’t need a friend to open up to anyway.

And it’s fine that Ranboo seems to get his best friend better than he does nowadays. And it’s fine that Tommy goes to him first when he needs something. It’s fine that they are close to each other and that they seem open with each other. It’s fine because it’s not what Tubbo needs and it’s not what he knows how to give. It’s fine, but sometimes Tubbo wishes that he could say it wasn’t.

Ranboo is happy as well of course. He is living with the men who destroyed the first home he’s ever known, but he moved past that. He doesn’t hold grudges really. It’s not useful, it only leads you to choose sides and he won’t, he can’t. If he does then it’ll be much harder to justify to himself why choosing his friends in the past was never worth it. Why fighting by their side for what was important to them was wrong. Why Tubbo’s resigned face, while Ranboo was letting his home blow up, shouldn’t haunt him.

But he was right, thankfully, so he is happy. And Dream is locked up where he can’t hurt anyone anymore, and there are only two deaths that disprove that. And Ranboo may not be in control of his actions or his mind, but he will be, once he figures out how to deal with his problems. And if he doesn’t well… he is sure that there must be a way to convince Sam to lock him up in Pandora’s Vault. He might not even have to convince him once the Warden finds out what type of monster he truly is. Before that though he’s gonna help Tubbo with his surveillance post.

This new project seems to have given a new rhythm to the both of them, a new purpose.

They aren’t working on it together per se. That would require a level of communication that neither of them is capable of. But they are still cooperating nonetheless.

This is the closest they’ve been in a while and neither of them really knows what to do with it. And that’s not right, they’re soulmates and they’ve been close for a long time now! So why is it that they feel more like strangers?

They see each other sometimes, on their way to and from the outpost and it’s like meeting and estranged family member more than their husband. It’s all polite greetings and embarrassed shuffling of their feet. One of them will ask the other what’s going on in their life, the answer is always kept vague.

Both of them can feel how much the other wants the conversation to end every time, but they still persevere because they shouldn’t want that.

It takes a few weeks for the awkwardness to shift into resentment.

It takes a few weeks before Ranboo comments on how distant and cold Tubbo has been. On how he feels like they aren’t close anymore. It takes mere seconds, after that, for Tubbo to yell about how Ranboo can’t speak when he’s still living with the man who murdered him.

Words they never meant to utter out loud fly freely then.

Suddenly it becomes apparent how little they knew of each other. Did they ever even know the other at all? Were any of the good moments real?

Is Tubbo really the uncaring, distant pushover that brought his country to ruin that Ranboo claims him to be?

Is Ranboo truly the self-absorbed, spineless traitor that Tubbo thinks he is?

They’re both panting by the end. Exhaustedly looking at the ground.

That was what they needed supposedly, that’s what everyone said. A “balance” between sharing their burdens and granting the other the lightheartedness of youth. But it was too little too late I’m afraid.

There was nothing there anymore. That bond that seemed so perfect and strong came undone in less then an hour. Bitterness was left where that tentative sense of belonging used to be.

After all they were strangers now, it was well past the time for sharing.

#dream smp au #platonic soulmates au #tubbo #ranboo #bee duo #my writing/fanfic thingy?#welp #so maybe I like this trope specifically because of how angsty you can make it...#I swear there are some soulmate pairings in my au that aren't utterly depressing!#they're just not the ones I write about

71 notes · View notes

doctorslippery · 4 years ago

Link

Shea Longshanks – A human drug lord who has taken control of a wing of the prison and requires rent from others in his wing. He has a group of henchmen and acts as if he is a guard/warden.

Malcer Holden – A well-dressed half-elf necromancer who will not state why he is here. In return for information, he requires spoons, which he provides to his army of undead in hopes of digging his way out.

Zenbis Axor – A yellow dragonborn who will not speak to anyone she encounters. She possesses immense magical power but chooses to spend her days solitarily in her cell. Nobody knows the story behind her.

Durgar Steely – This dwarf holds an infinitely refilling beer glass and nobody in the prison has ever seen him sober. He is very friendly and can just about speak and walk normally.

Naroxius – The source of annoyance for much of the prison, Naroxius always manages to find a way to vandalize the prison. He has made clear that he will stop at nothing to escape, however all that he has managed to do is anger other inmates and staff. His current cell now consists of a wooden slab in the corner, after he fireballed his previous one

Argus Shatterhorn – A goliath and zealous follower of a crazed war god. He’s seemingly possesses an infinite trove of energy and vitality, laughing and preaching loudly despite being literally skewered to a wall in his cell. Nothing can shut him up short of magical silence, which he doesn’t seem to notice.

The Witch of Cretchreaver – A very polite sounding woman behind a foot of concrete and a metal door. She requests that you open the tiny hole so that she can get a look at you. She’s a medusa with her eyes pressed against the other side.

Slobfoot the Eloquent – An educated, well spoke goblin who tried to incite a political revolution. He gives a very deep, loquacious philosophical speech to the party.

Thaddeus Null – A blue dragonborn and self-proclaimed God. He doesn’t seem arrogant beside that, just comfortable and quiet. His followers are magically capable, morally bankrupt people who are trying to break him out as they speak.

The Rat – A wood elf who ratted out his bandit gangmates. Can’t be trusted, would sell their own brother for half a smoke. Nonetheless, they keep their eyes and ears open and know a lot about what’s happening in the prison.

Randy Shackleford- human, assailed a government agent with sand and authorities now cannot find his name on any records.

The Smuggler – A male gnome. He is the prison supplier who can find almost anything and smuggle it in the prison in exchange for the prison’s currency (smokes, food, etc.)

Daloriz – A blind vampire who overcame his sunlight sensitivity. He has blindsense, and his power is to the point where he can overwhelm most enemies. When spoken to, he is polite and mentions he has seen the future and knows he must wait here for the right time. Why is this vampire in prison? What is he waiting for? Who is coming? Up to the DM to decide.

Takaar ‘Two shields’ Alzurini – small time dwarf mob boss locked up for extortion and racketeering. He has boys on the outside planning to break him out.

Voracious Veronica – A cannibalistic human who is soft spoken. She claims she was a knight who resorted to ‘the worst sin of all’ when her position was under siege for months. Her skin is pale, her eyes are dull, and her gaze sends shivers up your spine. You’re almost certain she’s lying.

Gregor Brutalous – An imposing half-giant with jet black braided hair, dressed in clean formal clothing. He was a psychotic and incredibly powerful warlord, but years after his arrest insists he is trying to atone for his actions. He can easily escape (or so he claims) but refuses to leave as penance.

Marros Tarmikos – A merchant who was caught up in a bar fight with some religious fanatics. He knows a few secrets about the prison and seems to be a law-abiding citizen for the most part.

Gorgeous Gnurl – An orc pit fighter that lost his champion title to *insert NPC* and in a violent rage murders him and his entire team right there in front of the entire crowd.

Mordekai – Leader of a gang of wererats, he used his rats or ‘little friends’ to spy on people, and to blackmail them, or to sell their secrets to the highest buyer.

Torun Sacanti – This ex-palace guard was thrown in prison after he gave his friend a tour of the duke’s apartments. When asked why he is in prison, he will do whatever he can to distract the party from the question.

Tharon Ash – A Tiefling man who was kidnapped for a part in an infernal ritual but was arrested along with the cult when city guards caught them all. He will do anything short of murder to prove his innocence or escape.

Resh – This culinary master in orcish cuisine can barely speak a few sentences in common. Employed in the kitchen, he is known to sometimes get rowdy and confiscate the fingers of anyone who looks at him the wrong way.

Myrca Faro – Quiet and keeps to herself. She seems capable in many skills, decent in a fight, but is distant, mumbling to herself often, though what she’s saying can’t be heard. She was caught with her crew, but one of them testified against her. She doesn’t seem keen on reuniting since she doesn’t know who.

The Painted Claw – A charismatic rakshasa who enjoys gaining followers and leading them into a suicide pact. He is sending souls back to his master in the nine hells and he has been captured for now…

Habstrek the Painter – A former cart driver turned serial killer, she’s not getting out any time soon; she was captured during a time referred to in the local lore as ‘the summer of art’, in which she killed and drained the bodies of over twenty prison guards’ family members, apparently out of revenge for their extrajudicial killing of her apparently innocent husband, Algnir Half-Tusk. She’s fed via a wand charged with Create Food and Drink, as her cell door is welded shut. Guards hate her above almost all other prisoners, knowing she’d gladly turn her targets into further ‘paintings’.

Elgin Powell – charged with a dozen counts of kidnapping, he was a local mob boss’ favorite enforcer – with no bodies ever discovered, the families of his victims were denied even the peace of knowing that they were able to be contacted via necromancy. Reportedly, he kept his charges in a deep mine and they are, one and all, still alive, just shielded from scrying and blood legacy magic. Knows more about kidnappings than anyone local is likely to have ever considered.

Jimmy ‘Lumberjack’ Jackson – Woodcutter turned assassin. He was brutal, honest, and captured by the palace guards when they asked him to start signing his work; reportedly, he’s still working from inside of the prison, except his rates are infinitely more affordable. His signature weapon remains undiscovered – which is a neat trick, considering that it’s a massive war axe.

Anna – Kept in a dark room and bound with magic sigils, Anna is a deeply motivated, highly disturbed wandering killer, captured after a five-year hunt by professional adventurers; her modus operandi was to disguise herself as an orphan human child, infiltrate colonial outposts, and then systematically destroy food, water, and medical supplies, forcing the pioneers into madness, murder, and cannibalism. Rumors say that she’s responsible for the failure of two nation-states’ failure to expand their territories. She’s boasted she’d gladly take one another job, if freed.

Rankle the Bookkeeper – A master of puppeteering and palace intrigue, he went from entertainer to information broker in under a year; his spies consist of handmade puppets, each one capable of recording sights and sounds, he extorted vast amounts of funding from select projects and missions, lining his own pocket freely until he was captured under what many consider unusual circumstances. Some say that he did so to protect himself from the palace paladins and clergy, all of whom are above harming prisoners.

Coins and Pouch – Master forgers and loan sharks, these two brothers are a regular feature in the prison yard, dealing out loans with reasonable interest rates and obtaining rarities for other prisoners; it’s said that on the day they were brought into the prison, they presented a set of keys to a well-appointed cottage to the chief guard as a token of their appreciation. Ever since, they’re under protection and weekly payments continue to provide them with many creature comforts. Every year, on the anniversary of their incarceration, the guard that treats them the best receives a key to another cottage.

Aldac – Former adventurer, expedition guide, reformed arsonist, and now a leader of a prison yard ‘exercise group’, this monk is a dangerous person; some say that she’s building an army, others that it’s a cult, and nobody wants to test her in a straight fight since she crippled her last opponent in under ten seconds. Anything that requires focus and determination, she’s happy to offer her thoughts on, free of charge – provided that she’s shown proper respect first. Her sentence is for a triple life duration – tough luck for her, as her species is a long-lived one.

Thack – A monstrous human, he was a warlord by age fifteen, a respected bandit king at twenty, and captured during his attempt to seize the capital itself, turned over by his own command structure in exchange for lenient sentencing for war crimes. Passionate, charismatic, and mysteriously possessing a keen ear for music, he’s an example of what can happen to a Bard if they decide to turn war itself into a performance art. He’s making money through the writing of strategic, tactical and logistic guidebooks, periodically singing for the lost days of his misspent youth. He turns twenty-three in a month.

Rejoice-Cried-The-Kraken – Still living her best life, RJCTK is a priestess first, bandit second, and a model prisoner third, choosing to ignore her history of piracy and looting in exchange for running a small group of like-minded believers in the church she’s built in her cell; she served as a first officer on the flagship of a vast pirate fleet, choosing who lived and who was sacrificed to her deity, often by slow drowning or something that officials referred to as ‘hook dancing’. She makes a few extra coins giving nautical theme tattoos for fellow prisoners, each one a work of art worthy of a church’s stained-glass windows.

Prisoner #644 – Captured at the frontier, whatever it is, it’s only eaten six times in ten years, each time it was an unwary guard who strayed too close to the sealed cage covered in a thick burlap sheet. It hums at night, an eerie, unsettling event taking place only just before the onset of riots, uprisings, and acts of revenge on a wide scale inside of the prison. Recently, guards have reported that it has started to sing softly. Each of the Dead prisoners killed in the previous ten years are named, one by one, and it chuckled wetly when younger guards approach it.

Kishi the Kid – A 16-year-old changeling who attempted to steal the Crown Jewels. He’s stuck in solitary after using the persona of a guard to start a riot, and is well known for the many he’s started in the few months he’s been here

Cold Turquoise – The former cult leader of a Dragonborn pirate fleet. Will only talk in Draconian, and will give advice on how to operate a ship at a cost…

Henri Schum – Halfling Mafia-don. Used his resources and cutthroat approach to fund a smuggling operation on rare animals for collectors. Has 2 fingers missing on his left hand and has his ‘buddies’ rough up any new people who mention them.

Zarakos – Super beefy winged Tiefling. Brought in for attempting to rob a local bank and fly off with the loot, not accounting for the wizards that can cast Fly. Wings are always tied for obvious reasons. Not very smart, but very loyal. If you free his wings, he will follow you and your group until the end. Will carry and fly anyone that needs it

Kimnuan Shadestalker – Black kitsune assassin. She and her bard troupe would spread rumors about people so others would order hits on them. Specifically in for burning down a village after getting caught by the local authorities. If she can get access to her hands, she can summon a lute and cast spells to become invisible/incorporeal.

Binks Falkhorn- A scribe for 2 generations of very powerful wizards. Has not shown any criminal intent but is ordered to be imprisoned in solitary indefinitely after the wizard went mad and went on a killing spree, showing horrible power. His scribe is the last shred of evidence of the wizard’s work. It would be too dangerous to let the scribe roam free, but it would be foolish to kill him in case his knowledge became useful

Sparkler- A nine-year-old bronze half dragon who just wants to go home to her older brother. She was framed for a crime that she in no way could have committed. She is kept in a dark cell and is the favorite to be abused by the head guard. No knows her actual name because she rarely talks to anyone even when she is allowed.

Xnyxyh Halfheart – Channeling Chronurgy wizard without his spell book. He looks human and is locked up for various crimes. He will help anyone who can get him his spell book. However, if he gets it, he will finish becoming a lich. He does not care for anyone but himself.

Thornbull – an experimental warforged, who committed too many war crimes.

Thragg Jadewolf – half-orc spy. He looks like an ugly human. He is in prison for high treason. He infiltrated border settlements and opened the gates at night, sabotaged the defenses, etc., so the neighboring orc kingdom could conquer the settlements easily.

The masked man – this human wears a cursed mask, which he cannot take off. His crime: He is the elder brother of the current king.

The Wyrd Sisters – Three halfling sisters each identical except for different colored eyes, the Wyrd Sisters are prohibited from accessing the kitchen and mess halls, kept in solitary confinement from each other, and fed separately. This is due to their innate toxicity, their blood, saliva, and sweat producing an extremely toxic poison which when ingested, causes a terrifying and agonizing death in even small doses. They were arrested after their entire village was found rotting the next morning after drinking from the tainted well which they had poisoned. Rumors persist that their natural lethality came from a tradeoff with a powerful Demon.

Semaj Ironscreamer – An elderly Half-Orc Druid who has spent half his life in this cell. He was jailed after being involved in multiple eco-terrorist attacks on mining towns that had been dumping their industrial waste into the nearby rivers. Seen as a kindly grandfather figure by the other inmates and even some of the guards, Semaj is often the peacekeeper between those he can hear from his cell and dispenses wisdom to those who ask. Given the nature of his magic, Semaj is kept in an underground cell with no window and any visitors he receives will be checked for wooden objects and plant matter.

Azar – A former acolyte of the church who used his talents as a thief to steal back religious artifacts from wealthy aristocrats. Until one day he was set up by the Queen dowager to make it look like he was trying to assassinate her with the same knife she had killed her husband with. Is actually completely innocent of this particular crime, but with the weight of the crown bearing down on him his trial was anything but fair.

Vulmon Longroot – A 900-year-old High Elven Bard who was the very first prisoner ever put into this place. His crime? 800 years ago, he had been caught having an affair with all 11 princesses of the area and is actually the reason every member of the royal family has any access to magic.

Tybo the Mad Monk – An incredibly dangerous and violent martial artist who was known to wear the ears of his enemies that he killed in battle like a necklace. After a failed assassination attempt by one of his party members caused Tybo to go mad and kill his party, the Human Monk returned to his roots raiding ships along the coast before he was eventually captured and placed in prison.

Irving – he was just an ordinary peasant… until adventurers showed up in his life and destroyed it. After that he has dedicated his life to destroying them.

Dean Fisher – human. Scum landlord to good upstanding goblins. forgot to bribe a local official.

Greta Howitzer- A human horizon walker ranger who was once a famed demon hunter. But while hunting members of the cult of Baphomet, she lost her mind in Baphomet’s lair. She has the madness ‘The world is my hunting ground. Others are my prey.’ She now views all humanoids as demons and will go to any length to hunt them down. She was imprisoned after spending her money building a massive maze, kidnapping people, and hunting them down in the maze.

Dominic Halfcastle – Halfling, originally in jail for tax evasion, now known for being transferred due to the murder and consumption of multiple sentients, claims the ability to kill sentients with his mind, has displayed no actual psionic or magical power

Vestlev the Mad – War criminal of the highest order, he has been moved to a normal prison as a temporary holding place until a proper area is found. He looks old and disheveled but is a mastermind when it comes to the magical arts of evocation. From his cell can be heard incoherent babbling, but do not be fooled, he has escaped before.

Minkus the Feebleminded – Everyone knows it’s a mistake that he’s in the prison. He’s a real sweetheart if a bit soft in the head. Sometimes his cell glows at night though. Oh, and don’t let him tell you about his nightmares if he says you were in one…

Sir Jim Haggins – A true gentleman at heart, he wears his ragged suit proudly. He’s perfectly polite in every way. He doesn’t look kindly on the poor however, oh no. He detests the poor. So much so that his hunting lodge was full to the brim with human trophies when the authorities finally tracked down ‘the Slum-spree Killer’

Thiggund – This hairy brute is referred to by the only word he heads ever been known to utter. When the villagers of a small farming community found him by the road, surrounded by the brutalized remains of a merchant and his horses, Thiggund was arrested on the spot.

Unburned Barty – A slight man with an unassuming smile. He survived being burned at the stake without a single scar. He was moved into isolation after his cellmates kept killing themselves

Billy Pumpernickel – A gnome who is well known and loved in the prison, but actually committed a horrible crime. Everyone just goes with it, and other than the one horrible unforgivable thing, he’s just a pretty nice dude. Like ‘Hey, there’s Billy. Yeah, he mutilated a few kids, but only once. Nice guy.’ (Edit: This would just be hilarious when the players try to come to terms on how to treat him)

The Time Master – Real name, age, sex, & race unknown. (S)he exists 5 minutes in the future. The cell was locked, and an empty plate appeared with a note. The note had an explanation and instructions. ‘Please place a full plate inside the cell each time an empty plate is discovered. Failure to do so will create a paradox and subsequently release the prisoner.’

Elwe – An elf who walks through the corridors of the prison as if he was someone free, talks to the guards and other prisoners as they were friends. Says he is in prison due to stealing, is actually hiding from the king, who wants to kill him since he killed his father

Ozob – An old looking human with hair only on sides and a fire potion (Molotov) where his nose would be. Always angry. Whenever someone looks wrong at him, he says: you are so annoying I might sneeze.

Walks-Winding-Paths – A tabaxi shadow monk, she is kept in a fully lighted cell at all times, wearing glowing enchanted clothing. She is only fed by guards under a faerie fire spell, as otherwise they would cast a shadow which she could teleport into to escape. She will attempt to convince a party member to give her a cloak, bowl, or other object to block the light with.

Garth the Radiant – A paladin of the fallen angel Zariel. His guards are ordered to hit him every time they see him meditating or praying, as that would let him regain the spells, she grants him and summon his enchanted mace, Purity, to destroy his cell. If the party can bring him his weapon, or even give him ten minutes of peace, he will consider himself honor-bound to grant them a favor upon request. If their aims align with his, he might even fight alongside them.

Nibbles – Literally just a warlock cat.

Iydis Tyger-Eye – Former Guld Leader, she is high level Fighter and also a Were-Tiger. Killed the heads of other Were families, in an attempt to seize power and take control of the protection of the city, and its criminal underworld.

Rollins – Air School Elemental Wizard. Believes in Anarchy and Equality of all races. In jail for starting a revolution and killing the Queen.

Herman – Normal human who built Mythic Bracers of Shatter that are only attuned to him. Had used the Bracers to gain access and rob several small vaults. Then he was caught by an adventurer after going for heist to rob a merchant banker when he refused to harm others to escape with the goods. He refuses to teach/sell the knowledge of how to make the Bracers as he doesn’t want others to use it to harm someone.

Roscoe Tealeaf – A well-dressed halfling who smells of saffron. He brokers deals between prison factions. It’s no secret that he is trying to escape. He claims he was framed by a noble, or maybe arrested breaking into the noble’s vault. He’ll tell anyone who asks that the noble has a dangerous artifact. Roscoe is a lore bard that specializes in counter spell silence and general magic user shutdowns.

John ‘Musical Manipulator’ Green – Half-elf, in jail for making a whole court dance for hours on end to prove a philosophical point that the upper class will just do as they say to hold up appearances and are so comfortable in their wealth, they can watch it be taken away and redistributed.

Colin Green – human. John’s half-brother who supported him and helped with a second set up hands to pull off music. Tuomas Yurke – elf. the voice and magic behind all of this. Started to talk to John about these thoughts and with a few others began to flesh them out into a more concrete thought and into a sound. Loved by the low class, anticipated and loved by the upper class even though it is all a misunderstanding. The three of them are located at different corners and different levels of the prison so the music can’t come together and convince guards to open up cages. Mail comes from them from all over. 2 members of their group are still at large.

Vaelh’noo – Githyanki sorceress who once commanded a powerful fleet in the astral sea before she was captured in a botched raid. Her secret is that she allowed herself to be captured to escape the wrath of the lich queen, whom she plots to overthrow from the safety of her cell.

Quikiliar – A doppleganger (Rogue). Thrown into prison for impersonating a person of high authority, they’re known for frequently making their way into guard chambers by pretending to be one. They can get access to a lot of things if you ask for it, but almost always ask for some odd favor or trinket, usually personal, like a lock of hair or an image of someone loved.

Locke – Once a guard themselves, this warforged fighter was sent to jail after attacking someone due to a misinterpretation of their actions. Unfortunately, this was also another guard with good standing with the warden, who had them put in. They serve their time willingly but can be interrogated or otherwise convinced to disclose explicit info about the prison and its guard shifts and similar.

Breeze – An air genasi artificer, she was thrown into jail after selling several infused items for high prices and then the infusing a different item. Since then, she’s gotten in good favor with guards and other inmates by enchanting some magic items and plans to use these favors and connections to escape at some point.

Zaurok – A Goliath Barbarian, although he acts calm and meditates. Known for the rare outbursts, during which he flies into a rage after being provoked or possibly from being disturbed while meditating. The several escape attempts that’ve happened are from him simply breaking the jail bars. Since then, he’s been relocated to a cell made out of adamantine.

Slicer – Kenku cleric. Devoted to a god of trickery, they gained their name after a particular… Prank, on part of their god. Around the jail will often prank the various inmates but is also known to make distracting sounds at the guards at night. Likely to be able to convince with shiny objects to prank someone or create a distraction.

Color-of-Blood – An insane Tabaxi woman incarcerated for eviscerating several people. Can often be found singing quietly to herself songs usually about ‘meal preparation’. Is usually docile and doesn’t react to being talked to unless threatened which she may attack while loudly singing ’50 ways to skin a human.’

Reginald Mark – A mild mannered human male incarcerated for a chain of serial killings. He claims he’s possessed by a banshee, but no one believes him. His speech has a feminine undertone and his skin is cold to the touch. Those who threaten him are usually found in the morning choked to death with a horrifying look on their face.

Tee’vah – Tiefling rogue who doesn’t seem too upset to be there. If approached he will happily show off a copy of his wanted poster, listing crimes from arson to murder. Secretly a doppelgänger who is honestly just trying to provide for his family and have some fun. Can break out any time he wants.

The Dread Pirate Azuzula, Roger, and Primten – A Tiefling, an earth genasi, and an air genasi. Azuzula seems useless but the other two are competent sorcerers. Despite this they follow her words to the letter. In for piracy. Azuzula can’t spell and keeps ranting about her ship the Doom Squid. Will challenge people to fights.

Taryon Sandstone – A half-elf paladin who used to be a slave fighting in gladiator pits. After gaining his freedom, he vowed to fight for the freedom of other and became a powerful hero. After the tragic loss of a close friend, he went on an overzealous crusade against slavers, killing them and their family as well as anyone who had in any way helped them (ship captains, harbor employees, food/clothes/rope vendors, blacksmith, etc.)

Tilby Valenois – A gnome mage of sorts who has committed zero crimes besides somehow breaking into a maximum-security prison and… staying there? The security guards have tried to get him to leave numerous times but usually get charmed or subdued out of it magically. Nobody knows why the gnome wishes to be there, but he hasn’t been messing with the order of things much.

Adelai – A rather amicable young woman. Nobody knows for sure what she’s in for, but general consensus is that it involved a basilisk head and the water supply to a small town

Vass – A large orc man that was used as a phylactery for a lich. Vass has been hearing whispers of the lich in his mind and is slowly being possessed. He has started doing horrible things under the influence of the lich. Performing Magic’s that he has no right to know.

Endeer – A being that inflicts his victims with horrible nightmares in each of these nightmares a horrifying creature appears to the dreamer and offers them the opportunity to “Loose yourself from the chains of your labored slumber�� if the dreamer accepts, they never sleep again as their mind descends in to horrible madness

Cultists of the Basilisk – These cultists are attempting to create the creature they worship a terrible all-knowing basilisk they know that they will be successful and that the basilisk will destroy anyone who knew about him and didn’t help create him so they only share their beliefs with those they deem helpful or worthy of death

Arnold Long – A half orc/elf, he looks like a giant of a human and seems pleasant to be around in a group of people. While it appears, he is a big stupid sweet teddy bear of a person, his record is full of brutal killings that may or may not have happened. The last killings were not too long ago after a prison gang isolated Arnold in the showers and bribed a guard to not interfere. Long story short, the gang WAS major player in the prison, now all of its muscle IS dead, and the guard went missing. Arnold is to be handled with care and kindness.

The ‘Statue of The Maiden’ – It looks like a statue of a naked elven woman that was bought by a merchant (deceased) from an artist (deceased) who sold it to a noble (deceased) for a gift to his wife (deceased) and children (deceased). All that is known is the statue moves when not observed and will eat and clean itself. It leaves flirtatious messages for the guards it likes and death threats to the guards it hates. The artist swore on their deathbed it was a mistake for them to create it but, this is the only place it has been stored where it does not kill thought it has maimed a few people who fail to respect it. Attempts to remove, destroy, or study it has been ‘unfruitful and unwise’.

Inspector Brundt – A beardless dwarf imprisoned for the crimes of tax evasion, swindling, theft, and gross debt. He knows how to get things and bribes the guards to get luxuries and messages through the prison walls.

Tur the Kobold – He seems stupid and harmless. Everyone assumes he’s just a patsy who took the fall for a bigger criminal. Occasionally, though, he lets something slip that only someone high-level in a criminal organization would know.

Axe Hands – A warforged barbarian who found great success as a military shock trooper, but also was involved in an incident where he dismembered a commanding officer. Sees prison as an ‘extended furlough” and is convinced he’ll be let out when the next war starts.

Clara – A human paladin. Recruited into the military, she was driven mad by the trauma of war and turned oathbreaker. Jailed for the same incident as Axe Hands, having used her healing abilities to keep their victim from bleeding out after being dismembered. Lives to see people suffer but remembers enough of her pre-oathbreaker life to maintain a kind, innocent facade when it suits her.

Harald Silverfinger – An elf wizard who sees humans the same way a scientist sees a bucket full of white rats; testing fodder. They’re close enough to elves to be useful for experimentation, but short-lived enough that killing them really isn’t a big deal. It’s rumored that the local guild is secretly helping him continue his work, using his fellow prisoners as test fodder.

Verdos – A dwarven female cleric. Believes she was morally just in murdering the children of a local village. Full of righteous anger. Judges everybody according to her own warped and insane moral code. Can often barely be understood. In maximum security for obvious reasons. Can offer a range of cleric services at prison prices.

Tabitha Binks – A Tabaxi Rogue. An orphan growing up on the coast, she quickly fell in with the Revelry pirates. Tabitha learned to use her claws as lockpicks and may teach other Tabaxi how to as well. She was caught at sea after ambushing a wealthy fur trader.

James the Changeling – A male changeling known for impersonating the guides and has so far escaped every prison he’s been in. He’s a new inmate already planning his escape.

??? – the cell appears empty, save for a stool. Could be they’re just using it for storage. But, then why does that stool make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up?

Ood – A very old, frail and nearly paralyzed Illithid who sits still in solitary confinement, his blind eyes wide open, and only blinks or changes his position once or twice per year. Said to have messed something up when attempting to become an Alhoon. Nobody knows why he’s there, but he occasionally sends nearly unintelligible telepathic riddles to the other prisoners. Rumor has it he has invaded the minds of everyone in the prison and lives vicariously through their dreams at night.

107 notes · View notes

foxzcomics · 4 years ago

Text

DSMP Sanders Sides AU?

This is an AU me and my friend came up with (they don’t have a tumblr, if they do get one I’ll tag them), this is very much a Work in progress (W.I.P), but we’ve had some fun with it. The basic premise is that every member of the SMP has their own sides. It’s a known fact, so it’s not weird to see someone talking to themself. People can’t see each other's sides, you can only see your own, (Tommy can’t see Ranboo’s sides, but Ranboo can see his own sides) (I hope that makes sense) I won’t go too in depth in this post, just a basic overview of what me and my friend came up with. We haven’t done all the characters in the SMP, these are all the ones we’ve done so far.

The characters we have done and their sides are under the cut.

Starting off with Tommy sides, we have: Tommy has two Chaos sides, Disk Innit, and Patriot Innit. Disk Innit embodies mostly harmless fun, mainly when Tommy started the drug van with Wilbur, the cartel, and silly money making schemes that tend to involve drug dealers. Disk Innit doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he just wants to annoy them or make them laugh. Patriot Innit is a different story. He causes problems on purpose, and likes to cause others issues. Patriot Innit is the one who gets into the wars and conflicts, and even starts them. However, he is very loyal, and will fight for what he cares for till the very end. Loud Innit is the embodiment of just how much Tommy screams and yells, and other such things. He embodies the need for attention, for people to see Tommy and acknowledge him. He hates being ignored, and people disagreeing with him. He’s known to buddy up with both chaos sides a lot. Clingy Innit is well, Tommy’s clingy side. He’s a very shy side, and doesn’t fully interact as much. He’s the one who calls others clingy, and when people call him out for being clingy, Clingy Innit will back off fast (mostly replaced with a chaos side or Loud Innit). Clingy Innit hates the idea of losing those he cares for, and has strong opinions about everyone. They buddy up with Loud Innit sometimes when they’re feeling brave, which isn’t often. Finally, we have Exile Innit. This is the side that deals with most of Tommy’s trauma. He’s the fight or flight, the one who eats the gapples when he feels the slightest bit of danger, the panic from an unexpected noise. He’s the opposite of Loud Innit, preferring to slink away and keep safe rather than be seen or heard in fear of being hurt again. He rarely works with the other sides, preferring to stay secluded.

Then we have Awesamdude. His sides are: Dad, the one who cares a lot about any of the children on the server, mostly Tommy. He worries about Tommy constantly, and is very protective over him and the other children. He is stubborn and refuses to give up on those he cares for. Warden, the one who runs the prison. He’s strict, uncaring, and his top priority is the prison and making sure Dream doesn’t escape. He does care about the others, but they're not his top priority. Warden doesn’t get along with the other sides, he wants to, but he puts his job first. So he’ll listen to the other sides when he can, as long as it doesn’t hinder his work. He and Dad have a rocky relationship, Dad thinks he could care more, Warden thinks Dad cares too much about the others. Then he has Valentine. Valentine cares deeply for Ponk, and wants to save him from the egg, and to spend as much time as he can with Ponk. Valentine and Dad get along, but Valentine and Warden have a horrible relationship, and have even gotten into physical fights with each other. Sam has a hard time with his sides, as they never seem to get along, and it makes things much harder than it has to be.

Badboyhalo’s sides are: Wholesomeboyhalo, a kind hearted and sweet demon. He just wants to make sure everything is kid friendly and doesn’t like conflict that much. He cares deeply for his friends as well. Wholesomeboyhalo represents just the overall vibe that BBH wants to keep around himself, where people are happy and don’t make crude or mean jokes. He’s happy most of the time, and a joy to be around. Annoyedboyhalo is the side for whenever BBH gets annoyed about anything. He’s quick to call people out and not afraid to yell. He and Wholesomeboyhalo are friends, as annoyedboyhalo wants to keep wholesome happy, and mostly shows up whenever someone curses or is crude. He’s also very petty, and almost constantly stressed out. He needs sleep. LANGUAGEboyhalo wasn’t originally a side. He was kind of the fusion of Wholesome and Annoyed, and with it being common for them to work at the same time when yelling at anyone who makes an adult joke or says any curse words, LANGUAGE just, ended up popping into existence to fill the role. LANGUAGEboyhalo shows up whenever someone curses or says anything suggestive. He gets along with Wholesomeboyhalo and Annoyedboyhalo, though he doesn’t like Tommy. Piningboyhalo came around when they met Skeppy, mainly because of how Skeppy and Bad’s lives are intertwined. He cares deeply for Skeppy and is very protective as well. He’s also been nicknamed ‘clingyboyhalo’ and ‘jealousboyhalo’, and has given up on fighting the nicknames. He’s willing to do anything to keep Skeppy safe. Anything. Dadboyhalo is a combination of when Wholesome and LANGUAGE have influence. He isn’t an actual side, but is distinct enough to have the nickname. Typically ‘shows up’ when Sapnap is around. T̹̅-̱͍̠̼̎͐̈̈́_̧̤̟́̿̚ ̧̧͈̥̬̏̈͊̐͘5̣̪̰̇̿͞!̭͛ ͔͖̺̳̓̅̿͡ ̛̹͇͒̍͟_̳̣̝̩͙̈́͆̒̑̒

We also have Skeppy’s: Clingy is very attached to all of Skeppy’s friends, and willing to fight for them to the death. He’s the one who is connected to BBH’s life, and the one who gets jealous over things. He doesn’t like even the idea of losing the people he cares for. Chaos, also known as Chaos in Control, or Let’s Cause Problems on Purpose, is Skeppy’s chaotic side. He likes to crack jokes, make pranks, and in general be absolutely feral. He and clingy sometimes butt heads, as his antics get’s Bad angry, and that makes Clingy sad. Flirt is an interesting side. Flirt only flirts with BBH, which is odd, because there are no sides that have only one purpose. Flirt likes to hang out with Chaos, when they team up it typically ends in an angry BBH, but Flirt seems to get distant after that. Skeppy and the others don’t really like to talk with flirt often. No one asks about the side. _͚̦͕̑́͂7̪̼́̎͑ͅ-̡̨̗̥̔̓̓͡ ͔̤̼͊̀̉̓͢3͈̺͓̞̇͐͐̾g̡̘̏͆͒ͅ_̨̹̼̙̓̈́̄̎

#tommyinnit #dsmp #dream smp #tommy innit #badboyhalo #dsmp bbh #dsmp tommy #dsmp au #au #sanders sides au #dsmp x sanders sides au #awesamdude #smp sam #smp skeppy #skeppy #op doesn't know how to tag #if I need to add triggers tell me #this was fun to come up with #sometimes to avoid the world you come up with AUs with your friends

59 notes · View notes

gottawriteanegoortwo · 4 years ago

Text

Yanois - Second Impressions Can Bring Misfortune

Read Part One here, or check it out on AO3!

Though their first meeting could have gone better, Illinois might be a little fond of the mystery prisoner. Let’s just hope his famous luck doesn’t run out…

Warning: There is an instance of deadnaming under the read-more. It’s accidental, but be mindful if that might cause a little upset. (I promise this doesn’t end on a bad note)

Word Count: 2,448 (sorry, it’s four hand-written pages)

After his encounter with the brash prisoner, Illinois found he couldn’t get the other man out of his head. It was hardly an attraction (no, shut up! It wasn’t!), but he accepted that there was a level of interest in the unknown. Perhaps it was the prisoner’s standoffish attitude, or how he seemed utterly disinterested yet keenly focused. He didn’t heckle during the lecture, so he wasn’t there for the sole purpose of causing trouble.

But the question that plagued Illinois was painfully simple: what was the prisoner’s name? He hated how badly he wanted to know. Ah, the curse of the archaeologist - insatiable curiosity! With no starting point, Illinois took inspiration from his work and fetched his laptop to start the research.

Most prisoners were from Texas, but not all. The stranger’s accent suggested he was potentially from New York, so Illinois decided to sieve through articles that made reference to a transferral to a Texan prison first. His abundance of good luck meant that it only took an hour to find a result that was most fitting. The article was several years old and discussed the outcome of a rather tragic case. The information was put to the back of his mind - Warden Murderslaughter always said to never talk about an inmate’s crime unless they bring it up first - as Illinois instead took the important information. The photograph used of the criminal was old, but it matched. Which meant… He had a name! All he had to do was wait until the next time he was set to visit Happy Trails Penitentiary.

As luck would have it, he merely had to wait a week. When he wasn’t travelling as part of archaeological trips, Illinois would volunteer two Saturdays a month to teach the inmates. Unlike his history lectures, these consisted of smaller groups of prisoners undertaking a short course on several points in history; which would be rounded off with each prisoner completing a short research project on something that interested them in the course. All he needed was to put his possessions in the room he used for classes, and then he would be free to find the right prisoner if he arrived earlier than usual. The inmates followed a set schedule with minor variations depending on when their work shifts were. He had been volunteering long enough to know when one of the crossover periods would take place. It would be easy to find him!

The rec yard was fruitless, as was the library. But it was upon leaving the chow hall that Illinois spotted the man of the hour. He seemed in a hurry as the prisoner dashed toward the hall.

“Ah! Can I have a moment?” Illinois called out. The tattooed man screeched to a halt, bemused once he realised who wanted his attention. Unfortunately, no one else was around, so it had to be him.

“Sure. Fine. What?” His eyes didn’t stay on Illinois, but instead darted to the clock.

“I know this is likely a bad time, but I’d like a chance to talk. We got off on the wrong foot last time.” Even Illinois knew it didn’t go well. “Are you free after your shift?”

“U-uh…. Yeah?” Thrown by the turn of events, it appeared the bold prisoner was willing to cooperate. “I know I’d never hear the end of it if my friends heard I refused. They’s is always singing youse’s praises. ‘Sides, second chances is always a good thing, right?” He looked as though he was about to say something else, but decided against it. Regardless, Illinois was elated.

“Excellent! In that case, I’ll be in the classroom just opposite the library until seven this evening. Call by when you’re free. Even if there’s a class going on, sit in on it anyway.” The prisoner nodded and hurried past once he knew he was dismissed. Before the other disappeared into the chow hall, Illinois belatedly realised he should be more polite about this. He guessed the other might be swallowing his pride in accepting the invitation to chat, given their first meeting. The least he could do was show some manners.

“Thank you! I look forward to chatting, █████!”

Whatever progress had been made was instantly thrown aside. The prisoner froze in the doorway. Though his back was to Illinois, the archaeologist could see that the other was rigid. It wasn’t a reaction Illinois associated with hearing one’s own name…. Unless it was a name they didn’t use anymore.

“O-oh my God, I’m so sorry, I had no -” For once, Illinois found himself stammering in a frantic attempt to get an apology out. It was to no avail, as a fistful of his shirt had been grabbed and he was slammed against the wall.

“I don’t know what sorta shit game youse is playing,” the prisoner hissed, “But if youse is gonna act like youse is better than me by being such a sly bitch…. I really wanna beat the shit outta youse, but I don’t wanna get in trouble.”

“Yancy! That’s enough!” The prisoner - Yancy? - dropped Illinois without hesitation and didn’t struggle when two guards rushed over and restrained him. “Bring him into th’ chow hall to calm down. I’ll speak to him in a sec. As fer you…” Yancy was led away by the guards, and it was hard to ignore how withdrawn he seemed compared to minutes earlier. With heavy guilt, Illinois pulled his attention away to finally acknowledge Warden Murderslaughter, who had been the one to stop the disaster in its tracks. His lips were pursed and his arms crossed as he shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Illinois. Out of all our volunteers, I thought you would’ve known our most important rule better than anyone else: don’t provoke th’ inmates with topics that are touchy fer ‘em.”

“But I didn’t know -” Illinois’ head turned toward the chow hall’s entrance. “I only wanted to get to know him. I didn’t mean to…”

“Who told you that name?”

“No one?” He looked back at the Warden with confusion. “I read it in an article covering the trial online.” The Warden pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh.

“Son… You could’ve saved yourself a whole lotta bother if you’d thought to ask someone here, even over the phone. It isn’t like you to mess up like this.” He put an arm around Illinois’ shoulder and began guiding him toward the staff breakroom. “The name you used is correct, if you go by legal documents or the press, but it’s not the name he goes by. Everyone calls him ‘Yancy’. See, his birth name has links to pretty painful memories that I don’t think he’ll ever recover from, and he’s been striving to prove he’s a better person as ‘Yancy’. So to turn ‘round and use th’ wrong name is like a slap to the face and a surefire way for him to hate you. Now, I know you had good intentions and it was an honest mistake, but you need to be more careful. Next time you see him, give him a good, proper apology. Just know he’s probably gonna be frosty toward ya. I’ll go talk to him and check if he’s okay, let him know you didn't mean to use the wrong name.” The Warden threw a glance over his shoulder with a hint of a smile. “Yancy’s a good kid, despite how he acts sometimes. He’s been through some rough times, but his heart’s stayed in the right place. If he can have a friend outside the prison… I think it’ll do him some good. Now, get yourrself a coffee before you start classes.”

Illinois blinked, genuinely surprised to realise they had arrived. Murderslaughter gave him a hearty slap on the back of the shoulder (Illinois had learned long ago the art of hiding the wince from the strength of such actions) before making his way back to the chow hall.

---

In the chow hall, Yancy was a mess. He sat far away from anyone else who might have been there. A cup of water had been given to him, but it was used more as a stress ball rather than a drink. He didn’t know what to think. How could someone act like they wanted to be a friend, then turn around in the same breath and say something that implied the complete opposite? Why remind him of what he did long ago? The cup was put aside so he could slump across the table with a defeated groan. █████… Was that all he was ever going to be to the outside world? Would the attempts he has made to be a better person forever go unnoticed under the large, looming shadow of his crimes? Then again, prisoners like him were locked away to be forgotten about by the world.

His form tensed the moment he spotted the Warden sitting opposite him. This was it - he was going to be scolded and sent to Solitary, and probably lose other privileges on top of that. How dare Yancy lay a finger on the visitor everyone worshipped!!

But it was nothing like that. Murderslaughter checked if he was okay. They sat in silence for a few moments so Yancy could try and collect himself without anyone else approaching. Then, the Warden praised him for not completely lashing out, but then took time to explain Illinois’ side of things.

“- He’s not like the reporters or anyone else who comes to ‘visit’ you. He was a moron who didn’t ask th’ staff for your name. It seems like he wants to try an’ be friends…. But it’s fine if ya don’t wanna see him today. An’ if you’d rather go lie down instead of working, that’s fine too.

“N-no… I’d rather work. Don’t really wanna be left alone with my thoughts just yet.”

Yancy spent the rest of the morning washing dishes. The work wasn’t ‘busy’ enough to keep his mind distracted, but it was labour-intensive and he could work out his frustration on the crockery. By the time he finished his shift and lunch, he returned to his cell with an idea - he needed to get rid of the White Jaguar model. It had to be the source of the blame.

But just like a blasted boomerang, the clay figure kept returning to him in ridiculous manners throughout the afternoon. Yancy dropped it in the trash on the way outside, only to be tapped on the shoulder by another prisoner who thought it was dropped by mistake. Trying to gift it to anyone in the Gang had them refuse - Bam-Bam had initially accepted, but changed his mind when he held the tiny model and handed it back to Yancy with the excuse that it ‘belonged’ to him. He then hid it in the long grass in the rec yard. When no one immediately found it, he went to the bathroom, returned to his cell… And was greeted with the terrifying sight of the White Jaguar sitting on his pillow, staring at him. Overcome with frustration, he decided to simply break it. He threw it at the wall with all his might. Instead of smashing, it ricocheted off the wall and toppled his radio that had been on his bed, before landing neatly on the pillow. Yancy picked it up, he swore there was a look of smugness on the Jaguar’s face, which reminded him of… Wait.

He could simply return it to Illinois and ask him never to speak to Yancy again. It would solve two problems at once.

---

“Come in!” Illinois’ voice was upbeat as he tidied the classroom after a day of workshops. The guilt from earlier had been put aside in favour of professionalism. He did have a reputation to uphold, after all. However, that professionalism immediately slipped the moment he saw who entered.

“Yancy!” The name was blurted out with relief more than pleasantry. Whatever Illinois had been putting into his briefcase was unceremoniously dumped as he gave Yancy his full attention. “Before you say anything…. I want to apologise for this morning. I made the mistake of not checking with the staff what name you prefer to go by. It was careless of me. I know I upset you, and I am truly sorry. You don’t need to forgive me, as I know it’s something that hurt you… But I just want you to know I didn’t mean to use that name, and I’ll never use it again, Yancy.”

Yancy was dumbfounded. No one who deliberately used that name apologised. They never cared that it made him uncomfortable and upset. Emotions stung him for the second time that day, but polar opposites to the anger that had nearly consumed him in the morning.

“I-I, uh… Thanks. For apologising, I mean. Takes balls to admit youse was wrong ‘bout something. But it means a lot that, y’know, youse said sorry. So… If it’s okay with youse, we can consider it forgiven and forgotten.” Yancy looked ill at ease, but Illinois couldn’t blame him. It would be better to find a new topic to talk about before Yancy decided to swiftly dismiss himself. At that moment, Yancy adjusted his stance, drawing Illinois’ attention to his hand.

“Is that the White Jaguar model I gave you?”

Yancy blinked and looked at his hand like he didn’t know it had existed until that very moment. He opened his mouth, only to snap it shut with a quick shake of his head. When he did speak again, there was the faintest hint of a smile.

“Yeah, uh… Had a few people asking ‘bout it, but I don’t remember shit from that talk so… Is it too late to join one of these class things you is doing?” Yancy mentally slapped himself for doing the opposite of what he had intended, but it wasn’t met with a cocky reaction. Instead, Illinois’ face lit up like the Fourth of July and invited Yancy to the desk so they could check if there was a class that would fit neatly into Yancy’s schedule. There was a hint of awkwardness between them, but Illinois was optimistic that this could be the start of a better chapter for them.

However, he did get a little ahead of himself and winked at Yancy just before the prisoner left. Yancy rolled his eyes, but the dismissive look had a trace of amusement in it as he left. Once the door closed, Illinois found himself staring at it for several long moments.

Okay… Maybe there was a bit of an attraction toward Yancy after all.

#yanois #deadname tw #illinois ahwm #ahwm yancy #yancy x illinois #writersofmark #cocky adventurer (Illinois)#dramatic prisoner (Yancy)#(I... Think I'm getting a little better at writing Illinois?)

24 notes · View notes

lassluna · 4 years ago

Text

CS January Joy Day 31: A Happy Ending (well, that depends on where you stop the story)

Emma Swan was a criminal. A thief. A forger sentenced to four years for bond forgery. Killian Jones was the agent sent to catch her. And catch her he did, but after an escape attempt, an exploded PO Box and a deal an unusual partnership is formed, one that will give them both all that they ever wanted or lead to mutual destruction. White Collar AU

Ao3 FFN

AN:I am very thankful to @csjanuaryjoy for finally getting me to write this. It's been a wild year and hopefully this next one will bring a bit more joy. Thank you @teamhook and @ultraluckycatnd for beta reading for me.

“How did it start?”

It started like most stories if she’s being honest, which she rarely is.

It started with a stolen car, stolen watches, so much stealing, so much theft, so many lies that she had forgotten where Emma, the lost orphan girl, ended and where ‘The Swan’, grifter, forger, liar, thief began. Her reputation grew, as did her steady collection of wealth.

It started with a boy and a girl, lost and alone and unwanted in the world and turned into some wannabe Bonnie and Clyde duo who just wanted to be seen, to be heard, and to take back what the world took for them.

They lied, cheated, and stole for the sake of it. And they were good at it. There’s something about being alone and unwanted that just made it easier to pretend. Sometimes a lawyer, other times a high profile gambler rubbing elbows with mobsters and politicians alike. One time she pretended to be Leila Lucas, princess of a far off land in order to get close to some crown jewels. They pretended that these lives, these rich, luxurious important lives were theirs. They pretended that they deserved these things because they could take them.

And take them they did. The car, the watches, the bonds, the jewels, the paintings, they took them all.

Emma loved the paintings, the art, the beauty. She loved looking at things that gave people feelings. It made her feel a little less alone.

Neal loved the money, the thrill, the ways the world bent to their will, the way it rushed through their veins.

It started with young love. It started good, and they were happy.

“How did it end?”

It ended like most stories, or at least it seemed like that to him.

He was a simple FBI agent, chasing her, tracking her, trying to prove to the world the crimes she commited. Part of him always thought that was what she’d wanted. She wanted her crimes to be seen, noticed. She wanted to be known, not disappear into the shadows.

He understood that, he was trying to prove himself too. Killian was a good FBI agent with a shitty childhood and an even worse family history. But he wanted to be great. He wanted to escape the shadows and prove that he was better than those who came before.

He just wanted to do his job. He wanted to catch her. He wanted to catch 'The Swan'. He spent years hunting her. He was supposed to be just one more FBI agent who tried to catch a break and then went on to the easier, flasher cases.

But not Killian. He had no intention of giving up. Because The Swan was special. She was as elusive as they come, never staying in one place too long, always running, running, running.

There were two of them he knew, but it was always her. She was the one planning things out, making the big moves, making the forgeries, being seen. Never him. He knew that once they got her, his crime spree would end. She was the one that they had proof for. She was the brains and the brawns behind their every operation.

But the problem was that as the years went by, as he got closer to catching her, he learned a lot about Swan. He learned how she likes her hot chocolate: with cinnamon. He learned she also had a shitty childhood; an orphan at birth, bounced around to one foster home after another. He learned she hated violence. Her jobs were smart and with little to no chance of anyone ever getting hurt.

And she got to know him too, if the gifts and the birthday cards proved anything. ‘Know thy enemy’ as they say. But no one ever said to send your enemy flirty postcards, uber eat deliveries of your favorite take out places on stake outs, or gifts to your younger sister on her birthday.

He doesn’t remember when it happened, but they had an appreciation for each other.

Smart, his little sister said once when he was home for a few days before he had to go back out to chase her. You always liked smart.

It ended like most stories, a betrayal and a trap. He knew it was a trap and let her fall right into it. Neal Cassidy, her partner in crime traded away ‘The Swan’ like she was nothing. Honor among thieves seemed to have skipped him in that lesson.

The look on her face when she was caught, trapped, was painful to him. Her eyes were green fury as the truth became obvious to her. Her eyes looked at Neal who was leaving out the back, and then on him.

"It's about time we met properly," he told her as the uniform officer arrested her. “Agent Jones of the New York FBI White Collar division.” She didn't respond to him. He never expected her to.

It ended with a defeated bird who flew too close to the sun.

“Then what happened?”

Then began nearly four years later with Killian Jones, being pulled away from his current case for a jailbreak. ‘The Swan’ had escaped 3 weeks short of her 4 year sentence. It had been years since he even heard her name. Her capture had been his shining moment, it had made his career.

Her escape had been flawless. Her long hair, chopped off, a guard uniform ordered with the warden’s own credit card.

She was in the wind with no hope of being found.

“Road blocks, wanted posters, people posted at the train stations and airports,” the marshals told him, but Killian knew her, knew Emma.

They wouldn’t catch her with the traditional methods.

She didn’t escape for the traditional reasons.

She had been a model prisoner, kept her head down and out of trouble, so why leave now? It had taken months of planning. So he went back, when did she start planning her escape? When did things change?

She got visits from him, from Neal. The vile excuse of a man who got her caught in the first place. He knew better than to judge someone for going back to familiar patterns. Especially trapped in prison.

But his visits stopped nearly a month ago. The man went from visiting weekly with a smile and a magazine to nothing.

So Killian looked at that tape, the final visit from the conman who got away with it. He wasn't surprised by what he saw. His last visit was final. He had all the body language of it. A pained smile, looking shifty and nervous. Emma had stood, slamming her fist on the glass; he'd seen tears on her cheeks when the guards dragged her back, back towards her cell. She’d screamed and pleaded.

But Neal left anyway.

“Ariel,” he said to the younger agent. She was a bright new recruit, his favorite of the probies. “Get me anything you have on Neal Cassidy and all his known aliases.” Ariel was very good at finding exactly what he needed in moments like this. A cold blooded shark in a sea of misinformation.

They find her in an empty apartment, cradling a dreamcatcher in her hand. She looks the same as the last time he’d seen her. Heartbroken. They were in Neal's apartment. The one he rented a few weeks after her trial.

(Killian remembered seeing him there, full of sorries and excuses. Word on the street was that no one wanted to work with him after that. Honor among thieves was apparently much more important than the man thought.)

“How many are here?” she asks as he enters. Her back towards a pillar in the middle of the room.

“Between the FBI, the Marshals, NYPD...everyone,” he chuckled. He’d told them they hadn’t needed to corner off the streets like this. Emma had never been violent. “They’re going to give you another four years for this, you know that right?”

Emma laughed a humorless laugh. “I was two days late,” she admits, obviously not caring one bit about what he said.

“And that’s all he left you?”

“It means goodbye,” Emma admitted. He gave her a small smile, knowing nothing he can say will help. “I can’t believe they dragged you here for this after all this time.” He wasn’t that surprised. Catching her the first time had been his defining moment; if he failed the second time, they could write it off as a fluke.

“It’s been a long time, Swan.” She smirked at the name. “But can’t blame them. I was the only one who caught you, none of the others even got close.” She looked at him quizzically.

He was dusty, fresh from an exploded PO box that his latest case--nicknamed The Dutchman-- had left specifically for him. There were strange threads left on his clothing that none of the Harvard grad FBI agents could tell him anything about. It was something that had agitated him greatly before he’d been pulled here, to find her.

“This guy’s good,” he told her, watching her look him over. “Maybe even better than you. I’ve been hunting him for a few months now and-” She moved quickly, standing and plucking one of the threads off his jacket blazer. It shined strangely as it caught the light. Killian could hear the marshals, or maybe S.W.A.T. pounding through the doors a few floors beneath them.

“What’s it worth if I can tell you what this is?” she asked, handing it to him.

“What-”

“I can tell you what these are right now in exchange,” she said quickly. He could practically see the thoughts and plans race in her mind. Time was running out. “In exchange for a meeting,” she concluded.

“A meeting?” he asked.

“A meeting in one week. Deal?” she asked. They were coming. Killian nodded. Despite his misgivings, it was only a meeting.

“That’s the new security fiber to the Canadian $100 bill,” she said, just in time for the other agents to drag her away. Her smile is bright and mischievous as she refuses to break their gaze until the last possible moment. “I’ll see you in a week!”

“And I was right. It was. According to Agent Jones, it nearly created an international incident.”

“Did you catch him?”

“We did.”

It hadn’t been easy, not for Emma now wearing an ankle monitor to keep her in check--a fact that made her insides squirm at the thought of being tethered-- where anything going bad meant she had to go back to prison with no hope of finding Neal.

It made her heart race in that familiar way of when she was a child and got placed. When one wrong move meant they'd send her back.

“He did a good job disappearing,” Ruby told her in the shadows of Granny’s guest house. Because her friend knew that her first priority was finding Neal.

(She’d run into the old woman at a thrift store looking for some new clothes to wear after seeing the seedy motel Killian had tried to put her in.

She’d met a kindred spirit in the older woman, a thief after her own heart so to speak. Emma would never forget the look on Killian’s face when he saw her new view. He’d turned to the older woman, “You know she has a criminal record right?” he’d asked her.

Granny had taken it in stride, leaning forward with a smirk. “So did my wife.” she said with a wink.)

"Keep looking, Ruby. I need to find him," she told her friend, her oldest friend. She’d been her partner in crime once, when working with Neal had come with extra stress and baggage. With Ruby things were simpler, easier. Ruby was in the information business. She knew what was being run and where. She knew all the local fences, all the local forgers. If Neal was in the city, Ruby would be able to find him.

Ruby nodded, but she looked worried. She glanced at the anklet in apprehension. Then back at her. All the tell tale signs that Ruby wanted to say something but worried for her reaction.

“You know you don’t need him right?” she blurted out. “You’re so much better than him Emma, more talent for this stuff in your pinky then he has in his whole body. He was nothing without you and everyone knew it,” she said, practically bristling with every word. “He betrayed you, why go through so much to find him?” Emma felt her fists clench, along with anger, fury, loss.

Neal Cassidy was a loaded question where she didn’t have an answer.

But she pushed it down. She pushed it down deep. A smile appeared on her face. There was so much. So much she didn’t know, so much no one knew.

Emma couldn’t risk it.

“It’s complicated Ruby,” she said finally. “But in the meantime, what do you know about The Dutchman?”

It had been difficult, Emma had noticed a particular signature in some forged Canadian bond. It was one that Emma recognized. Lilly Prescott. She was a well known forger that was very good at staying well under the radar. The FBI had never even heard of her which was a testament to her ability.

Emma had tried to work with her once. Her work was good and her planning was even better. But the woman couldn’t help but take things that didn’t belong to her, couldn’t help but press Emma’s buttons in all the worse ways.

It had taken seeing her tongue down Neal’s throat to learn two things: that they couldn’t work together and that it was time to grow up.

And grow up she did when they walked into a church Lilly had been restoring. The little wench had leered at her and Killian. “Emma Swan,” she’d said with a cheeky grin when she caught them comparing her work with that of the signature. “I don’t exactly feel comfortable having a known art thief around my work.”

“Allegedly,” Emma corrected her. She’d never been caught for her art theft. A point of pride if she’s being honest. Just a few forged bonds.

She says glancing at Killian. “Who’s your friend.”

“Just a friend,” Killian assured Lilly as they shook hands.

“Emma doesn’t have any friends,” Lilly pointed out. “Unless you count Neal of course. But with friends like that, who needs enemies?” she laughed.

The name turned in her stomach, like something good that turned rotten, like a vice grip on her that she still couldn’t shake.

Not until she found him.

“Of course,” Killian agreed, glancing her way. I know she’s trying to get under your skin, his gaze told her as she pushed her walls firmer in place. If Killian could see that this woman could affect her, it worried her what else he could see.

“You wouldn’t know anything about a thief known as The Dutchman would you?” Emma asked innocently. Because if there was one thing Emma knew, it was that Lilly hated being outdone. “I hear his work is second only to...oh you know.” She smirked at her. “Allegedly of course.”

“Of course,” Lilly said, an edge to her words. It’s all Emma needed to hear. Because she knows she did it. That’s what she tells Killian after they’re asked to leave the church.

“I know she did it Killian.” his hand on her arm halted her pacing. “Did you see the look on her face?”

He did, she knew he did. “I believe you Swan, but we need proof,” Killian insisted. “That’s how this works.”

Proof came with Emma breaking into Lily’s warehouse and Killian coming and arresting them both. She’d cut her anklet after all, seizing all Lily’s things that were in plain sight.

It turned out reading all those law books in prison counted for something.

“And then your partnership was born.”

And it was good, if Killian was honest, it was better than he ever expected when Emma had proposed this deal. She showed up every day for work. She often showed up in ridiculously expensive suits with a fedora on her head. He’d groaned when he first saw it, earning an elbow in his side and a “You just don’t understand fashion.”

(Trouble, like the woman who occasionally gave Emma tips about the criminals they were hunting, the woman who introduced herself rather reluctantly as a Missy Wolfe when Killian had showed up unannounced, who looked him over with a predatory glare and called him a ‘suit’.

“She doesn’t trust cops.” Emma had explained later. “She’s harmless, I promise.”

But she sure did know how to drink all Killian’s beer that’s for sure.)

Every day they would use her knowledge of the criminal underworld to find white collar criminals. After several weeks, they had a 92% closure rate and an even higher recovery rate.

But there was still this thing hanging above them. Between them. A secret they both knew about but refused to talk about.

And his name was Neal Cassidy.

Killian could tell she was looking for him no matter how many times he told her not to. Neal was her weakness, the one thing that caused the normally level headed woman to lose her bloody mind. This was a good thing for her. Emma Swan would rot behind bars and this way at least she was doing good.

Emma Swan liked doing good. He could tell, even when she refused to admit it.

She brought him his picture one day while they’re on their way to speak to a witness, the picture was from an atm in Tallahassee. “Please.” She begged. “I need to find him, to see him. Come with me please, send an agent, the marshals, send me in full shackles and prison oranges I don’t care.”

He had never seen her so desperate, not when he caught her, not when she asked him for this...arrangement. “Swan...what we have here...it’s good. It’s a second chance for you, why risk it for him? He put you here. Why risk it all for him?”

She didn’t respond, hands tightened into fists as she looked down. Killian swore he saw something in her expression something that would explain how this intelligent woman being so infatuated with-

“You’re right.” She says, her voice level. Eyes hard like steel. “There is no reason for me to be chasing Neal Cassidy.” She hissed the words.

Killian doesn’t have her super power, but he knows there’s more to the story than she’s letting on. “If there’s something you’re not telling me-” But she shook her head.

“You said it’s not happening, and what does it matter what I want.” She says shifting on her feet, shifting the anklet like she always does when she feels particularly trapped. “I’m just your CI. A convict without a choice in any of this.”

He stops her right there. “Swan, when have I ever treated you like you don’t have a choice in this? If you don’t like what we ask of you, if you think it’s too riky all you have to do is say the word and-”

“-And I go to prison.” She snapped. “I go back there and rot.” Her temper was flaring and Killian stepped back, fearing getting burned.

“When have I ever threatened you with that?” He asked sincerely. “When have I ever told you that unless you go undercover with this mobster, or that corporate trader that you’d be shipped back?” He says.

Emma doesn’t respond, head dipping slightly. “What about the other agents? That’s what they said would happen.” She admitted in a small voice. “And really, the jobs we do, they’re fine. I don’t feel endangered.” She assured him simply.

“Emma, I swear to you, your safety and happiness is just as important as these jobs. You are not just a criminal.” He says sternly. He steps closer to her, wanting her to look at him and hear him. Seeing her cowed and unnerved unsettled him. “Try something new darling, it’s called trust.”

“Trust doesn’t exactly come easy to me.” Emma admitted. “There’s really no way I can get to Tallahassee?” She asked once more.

Killian sighed.

The moment they finished the job, he sent a message to Ariel.

“Get me anything you can on Neal Cassidy’s recent activity and do it discreetly.” He says.

“Why?” She asked. It was why he valued the younger agent as much as he does, she knows when to put her head down and do as he asks, but she also knows when to press him for details.

“Emma’s not going to stop pursuing Neal.” He told her. “I want to know what she finds out, finding Neal ourselves is the best way to know what she’s up to.”

She handed him a file on the man the next morning, a file Killian took back home with him at the end of the night. He couldn’t risk Emma catching him snooping on her ex. He felt silly hiding it, but the thought of her knowing he was doing so filled him with dread.

“Maybe you should tell her you’re jealous.” Belle informed him as she came home from class, seeing him consumed with the file at their kitchen table. His little sister always seemed to come home from her classes at just the right moment to see him when he’s consumed with a case.

“I’m not jealous Belle.” He says quickly, closing the file. “I’m being thorough.”

He is. There was something there, his gut feels it. There’s something about this man that Emma was hiding from him.

“After all the cat and mouse you’ve done with her, I bet she’d tell you if you asked.” Belle informs him. But Killian disagreed, he knows she won't be truthful with him if he asked. It’ll be an evasive answer framed to have him pointed in the opposite direction. It was how she worked while on the run. This is the only way.

“How do you know?” Killian asked. “You’ve never even met her.” He reminded her.

“And who’s fault is that?”

“Then the Diamond heist.”

“Then the Diamond heist”

It had happened quickly. A diamond heist that had been done with such perfection Emma was generally impressed. They had video surveillance in the vault and nowhere else. It was as if they just vanished, and considering that New York had extensive video surveillance it was impressive.

It was a job she would do once upon a time. Just the kind of take that was exciting enough to catch her attention. But that was in the past.

Emma was determined to keep her head down when it came to jobs. She had a bigger problem on her hands. Someone had Neal, or at least was putting pressure on him. He’d signaled her from an ATM camera in Tallahassee.

Their plan had always been Tallahassee, a city in the middle of Florida of all places. No one would expect anyone who had stolen millions of dollars of artifacts to retire there of all places. It was perfect. They were going to have the life they always wanted growing up.

(It just so happened that Emma had told him that’s where she had her stash at.

A lie. A trap. Bait he had fallen for now after all this time. Never once did he leave his apartment in New York, only now did that stone come loose. It had to mean something.)

But not everyone knew that Emma was done with that life. Not even her most trusted confidant --and partner in more than one crime--Ruby believed her.

“Of course I didn’t do it.” She’d hissed into the phone when the brunette asked her excitedly. “But do you know who did?”

“None of my contacts know anything, sorry Em. I’ll keep an ear out.” She answered. Emma can hear the sounds of birds on the other end. She knew better than to ask. “That’s why I thought it was you.”

It wasn’t long after that that the forged diamond is shown to have a small swan etched into it. One that matched the ones she left in her forged bonds. It became very clear very fast that she was being framed.

“Killian, you need to know I didn’t do this.” She insisted, backing away from them in the parking lot after having been confronted. “You have to believe me.” Her eyes looked for him. She needed to know he believed her.

It didn’t matter who else did, just him. Because if Killian didn’t have her back then who would?

“Killian?” She asked when he didn't meet her gaze. He did eventually. He looked saddened. “You know I was set up right?”

Killian didn’t respond. It made her furious. It reminded her of the real situation here. She was just the criminal and he was just her handler. Any semblance of a partnership was just a figment of her imagination.

“Swan...” He said softly. “If what you’re saying is true, I swear to you I will get to the bottom of it.” I believe you. “But until then...Emma Swan you are under arrest...”

Back to prison. Back to the cell. Back to being helpless while Neal is off with-

She couldn’t go back. Not yet. Not when someone was trying to frame her. The same person who was holding Neal, she was sure of it.

So Emma did what she did best. She ran.

She ran and ran and ran. She’d spent every day on her walks to the office coming up with escape routes through a city she knows too well. The agents depend too much on the anklet to catch her.

The tracker is tamper proof but no one ever said it was foolproof. All it takes is a sharp knife and a toss over the edge of one of the many footbridges in Manhattan for it to be a useless blinking distraction.

Every bone in her body tells her to run as fast and as far as she can. It wouldn’t take much to get out of the city, some cash from one of Ruby’s stashes and a visit to some supplies for a new ID. All she would have to do is say the word and Ruby would run with her. She was good like that, always ready to get into all sorts of trouble for her.

But if she did, if she ran then she would be as good as guilty of this crime. She would never get a chance to prove her innocence. She would never get her chance to find Neal.

She had to find Neal.

I believe you. Killian had tried to tell her that. Maybe it was time to try that thing called trust...

It’s how she meets Belle because while Killian is off coordinating with the Marshals, she’s drinking tea with the sweet brunette she had sent an 18th birthday gift to a few years back.

Killian Jones’s little sister was as fierce as her brother. Belle asked her if she’d done the crime she’d been accused of.

No.

And she had leveled her with a steel glare. “Then Killian will prove it.” She’d said with such certainty, such conviction that she understood a bit about Killian’s stubbornness. It was genetic. “You just need to trust him.”

Emma did. Emma really did, more than she trusted anyone. He was honest, a good man. He was fierce keeping her out of the line of danger when at all possible and he cared for her. Moments like this reminded Emma of why everything had gone so wrong.

I’m tired of running.

“I’m going to call him.” Belle says, not a question. “If you don’t think you can, if you really think Killian won’t have your back after everything, you have until then to leave.” Emma doesn’t move. Not when Belle is talking to Killian about her classes, about having found a stray bird in their patio. (Code for her she assumes)

That’s when she sees the blinking in the cable box and she knows. She knows that this is all a lot bigger than the two of them.

Killian was positively furious when he arrived, all red faced and fuming. “Bloody hell Swan!” Killian hisses when he storms in. “Why did you come here?” Emma didn’t know, not really. Just an instinct and her instinct was telling her to come here. That he would know what to do. “If you were going to run, why come here?! You involved my sister!”

Emma swallows back her words, fear taking a hold in her chest.

“Killian. Give her a chance.” Belle said, taking a place inbetween. “Just listen.” He did.

“I’ve been tracking Neal.” Emma admitted. “Someone...someone has him.“ she takes out the photo she’d shown him. The whole photo, she had been too afraid to show it to him earlier, the hand on his arm, the shine of something pressed against his ribs. Something that looked very similar to a revolver. “They want something I stole but I can’t-I don’t know what it is. I had a friend of mine poke around and I think I got too close.” She explains. “Because they framed me. It has to be connected, Killian.”

There was no other explanation, stirring this fight or flight instinct in her bones. But she has to hold firm, she has to trust in Killian. Because here she was, all her cards on the table.

“Maybe, but this is not how to do things.” He says sternly. “Running isn’t going to get you anywhere but caught or-” Killian swallows back his words. “That marshal really has it in for you Swan.”

(The marshall in question was one Walshe Greene, appearing the moment they returned to the office wanting to speak to her about the fact that some of her anklet’s tracking data had gotten corrupted.

Data that just so happened to coincide with the robbery. He’d been dickish and entitled, coming into her space when she didn’t crumble under his thinly veiled threats.

Threats she didn’t tell Killian about.)

She pointed over to his deconstructed cable box. “Not just me.” She hissed his way. A bug was in his house, in his home. The home he shared with his sister. “Both of us.”

She sees his barely concealed furry, the shock and fear on Belle’s face. “Whatever is coming, it’s coming for both of us.”

“She was cleared of that.”

“She was. Then you seemed to find her rather quickly, despite telling Marshal Greene that he would catch her with wanted posters and roadblocks.”

“I have exceptional luck.”

Things shifted from there. Instead of working this case on one end and Emma from another, Killian felt her walls fracture ever so slightly, and perhaps the guard he put up around her also came down ever so slightly. Perhaps too much.

(Once they found one bug in his home, Belle was insistent that someone come over and deep clean their place of any form of listening devices. It wasn’t long after the case got wrapped up that Emma called over an ‘exterminator’.

“Missy Wolfe.” She introduced herself to Belle, a smirk on her face. “But you sweetie can call me Red.” Belle had raised an eyebrow at her.

“When Emma mentioned she knew someone, I expected you to be...”

“Less gorgeous?” She’d said with a grin. “And when our mutual friend had said the suit had a cute sister I definitely imagined someone like you.” A surge of protectiveness surged within him at the way that Red was looking at his sister.

“I think you’re here to do a job” He reminded her.

“I am quite a skilled multitasker.” )

She showed him her lead to whoever was after them. A message in the video surveillance, of their breakup and Neal messaging her in morse code by tapping at his side. Dream It meant the dream catcher which led her to a meeting in Grand Central Terminal at the end of the week.

Killian had been there when he called her. Seen her panicked face when she heard his voice. “Give him what he wants.” Neal had said.

“What is it he wants?” She’d asked.

“Give him everything. It’s the only way I can come home, the only way for us to be together.” He said. Killian could feel her heart break when she said the words.

“I can’t Neal. It’s the only leverage I have.” She looked up and Emma ran. She ran because she saw him. She saw her lover that she can’t reach, can’t catch, can’t have. Killian makes him out for a moment but he’s gone. He’s gone by the time they get to where he was, a roof of a building looking down at them.

Emma collapsed in a sob and he was barely in time to catch her. Barely in time for him to hold her. She cried into his chest, something rare and primal and aching.

“I just want him back.” she sobbed and his heart ached for her. He understood the feeling of losing someone you love, of not being able to be with them. He holds her, hand running through her hair, her blonde locks that are growing in from the cut she’d done months before. His head finds a place on the top of her head as he tries his best to comfort her.

Emma came back to herself after a moment, pulling away, rubbing her sadness from her face as easily as putting on a mask.

“We are late for a case aren’t we?”

They are. But there’s something about the vulnerability of Emma in that moment that conflicted with the flirty beautiful woman in front of him that distressed him. Perhaps it’s the ease that her walls come back up.

Or maybe, they aren’t walls, maybe it’s a loosely fitted cork, because their next case involves a kidnapped child and a pair of parents so obsessed with the reading of their dead aunt’s will to even know when the little girl had been taken.

Questions like if the will had been forged, or if the inheritance was filled with counterfeits had become meaningless without the child. A fact that exploded out of Emma at the father who was planning on leaving the country with ‘his’ inheritance before the FBI could interfere. The man had crumbled before her blunt display of emotions, her fury and her grief.

“She deserves better than to be just another pawn in whatever game the two of you are playing.” She hissed. “It’s not about money, take it for someone who’s had a hell of a lot. There’s more to life than numbers on a check and if anything happens to that kid you’re going to learn that the hard way too.”

He understood. He understood then, and he understood later.

“Case hit home for you didn’t it?” He asked afterwards over a beer once the child was reunited with parents that may have learned a thing about family from Emma. An old bookie of the husband had tried to pressure him into complying.

“Little kids are cute, what can I say.” She said evasively while taking the offered beer. That was another sign Emma was still hurting, she hated beer. “She deserves better.” That she did. “You did too.” He smirks, knowing that she knew him better than most. Yet he wondered exactly how much she did know.

“And how much exactly do you know about my childhood?”

“I know that you loved your father, you idolized him. You had his knack for numbers.” She said. “I know he used you as a diversion when the feds came in and busted down your door. He left you and your mom with nothing.” She swallowed and he could see her picking her words carefully. That meant she knew more than most. “I know you learned that he had at least two other families, an elder brother in DC. and a younger sister in Georgia who appeared at your door when you had just lost your mom. You took her in no questions asked.” Killian remembers the day he met his elder brother. The man had been older and took one look at him and wanted nothing to do with him. Killian was just another reminder of what Brennan Jones had done. He also remembers the day several years later when a teenaged Belle had knocked on his door. He took one look at her and remembered what Brennan had done, but he swore to accept her no matter how much the reminder hurt.

“So you know quite a bit, Swan.” He responded. “I also know a bit myself.” He countered.

“Of course you do.” She laughed, “I bet you even know my shoe size.”

“8.5 or sometimes 9 if the shoe runs small.” He said with a smirk. “You left a pair in that hotel in Rio.” A pair of bright red pumps that matched a bright red dress. “Why do you care so much?” Or maybe it’s the beer talking, talking too much if he’s honest. “Neal betrayed you, he left you, why do you care so much about saving him?”

The laughter dies from her face, something heavy takes its place. “Seeing my position a little too similar to your own?” She deflected. “Someone who got left behind just like you?”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you deserve so much better Swan.”

“What exactly do I deserve Agent Jones.” She said, leaning forward. “I’m a criminal.” That she is. But he doesn’t think about that when he leans forward and cups her cheek. He doesn’t think about that when he brushes strands of blonde hair out of her face, nor when he smiles and-

"Has Agent Jones ever behaved unprofessionally?"

Killian Jones was the embodiment of professional.

He had to be, with a family history like his. Even Emma’s heard of it through her underground contacts. She’s heard of the legendary Brennan Jones who masterminded a theft like no other, millions of dollars gone in a blink of an eye.

She’d heard through the office gossip about him. About how no one trusted him when he was recruited right out of college, his superiors always made things difficult. Never trusting that he wasn’t just like his father.

Killian Jones was the embodiment of professional, that’s what made Emma enjoy the chase so much. Because she knew it was a true battle of wits, not like the muscle head marshals. Killian was smart and honorable. If he was going to catch her, it would be done the right way.He was just like her.

But the way he looks at her sometimes is so not professional in all of the best ways.

Sometimes he looks fuming, mostly when she’s pushed the limits a bit too far, gets in over her head, and just makes it out by the skin of her teeth. But always looks relieved when she makes it out.

Sometimes he looks like she holds the sun and the moon because she’s figured out some con or trick someone pulls. It always comes with a “You’re brilliant Swan.” when no one else is listening. She always shoots back a knowing smirk, tucks a loose strand of blonde behind her ear and replies with “I know.” It always makes him roll his eyes but his expression never wavers.

And that one time, after a particularly draining case, after that little girl with parents who didn’t give a damn about her had been rescued and she thought...she thought he was going to kiss her and...

And Emma may have to admit to herself that she wanted him to.

But with Neal, and the FBI frowning upon CI handler relationships, not that a kiss meant a relationship...God Emma was confused. They hadn’t kissed and perhaps she had misread the situation completely. Because he’d practically scrambled away when it happened.

He’d ran out the door with some made up excuse on his lips, a deep blush on his face.

Maybe it was all in her head, maybe she was the one being unprofessional. But she can’t help the way he makes her feel more than her past, more than what she can do.

With Neal it had always felt like it was them against the world.

With Killian she thinks maybe they can just exist in the world, maye make it a little better in the process.

What makes it worse was a conversation she hears between Ariel and Killian days after their almost kiss. Days after she spends a night dreaming of what could be.

Emma hadn’t meant to be eavesdropping, but she had a lead on their new case and was heading into his open office when she heard them talking in tense low voices.

“What was your talk with Neal like?” The younger agent asked him. It makes her stop in her tracks, makes her heartbeat wildly.

He shot Ariel a glare and told her to keep her voice down. But he hadn’t refuted her claim.

He doesn’t tell her about it later when she finds a more convenient time to talk to her about the case.

“Why wouldn’t he tell me?” Emma asked Ruby later in her apartment over a tall glass of wine. Because she desperately needs the alcohol to calm down her racing thoughts.

“Emma...Does it ever occur to you that maybe...maybe Killian is involved?” She contemplated, sitting across from Emma with her own equally tall glass of wine.

“Involved?”

“Killian is in the prime position if you think about it.” She muses. “You under his thumb, maybe Neal in his back pocket. Maybe it was him all along.” Emma shook her head because no. It couldn’t be.

Killian Jones was the embodiment of professional.

“Then why is he keeping his meeting with Neal a secret when you’ve been upfront with him? After all, his own father is a master of crime, maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”

“So she trusted you?”

“Yes.”

Emma Swan does trust him.

Killian remembered that case they had a few months back, Emma had gone and broken into a shady hospital without backup or a warrant. The case had involved Granny’s granddaughter not getting a kidney and she’d gone rouge.

Something he warned her against a half dozen times by this point.

She’d broken in and gotten caught and drugged up to the gills. Killian had had to get in and break her out without anyone realizing. He’d even stolen the security tapes.

“I trust you Killian...out of everyone in my life, Neal, Ruby...you are the only one I truly trust.”

Emma did trust him. She trusted him with her free smile when she was feeling particularly excited out on a job. She trusted him with her fury when things were hard and she felt truly trapped by their arrangement. She trusted him with her tears when she thought about Neal. She didn’t often say much but he just knows.

He knows her.

Emma trusted him to know her and Killian knew it’s not something freely given.

But then out of nowhere that guarded expression on her face returns. Any move he made seems to be met with passive aggressive responses and half truths. She had her barely contained fury back beneath her eyes.

It reminded him of a young agent who was furious when he learned that all the older agents were laughing behind his back. When he learned that they would never take him seriously because he was damaged. He was a joke.

Emma Swan was no joke.

It unsettled him, he can’t figure out what changed.

Or perhaps he was reading too much into her responses, after all, he was keeping a rather large secret from her. Because despite not wanting to hurt her, not wanting to break her trust, he feared this new information would be too much for her. Too much temptation.

Because there was nothing more tempting to Emma than information about Neal Cassidy.

It had taken some favors and a considerable amount of FBI weight throwing to secure the meeting, but he’d had it. Killian had had a meeting with Neal Cassidy.

He knew what they wanted from Emma.

(“A music box, she stole it in Germany just before...about a year before you caught her. They won’t let me go...they won’t let us be together without it.” He’d assured him.

“How do we know any of this is real?” He asked him. “How do we know this isn’t some game to get in her head?”

Neal gave him a disbelieving smirk. “I guess you don’t know. But considering you don’t know the whole story, I have to say that I have the advantage.”

“I find that whenever the supposed hostage talks about having the advantage they are rarely telling the truth.” He replies firmly.

“Ask Emma about the job we ran in October. If she tells you the truth then you’ll know exactly why Emma has to hand over the music box”)

He knew what they wanted from Emma, but he wasn’t sure if telling her would be smart. He honestly wasn’t sure if she could handle it.

That is, until in the middle of a job, a sting operation Emma had snapped. She’d nearly turned him in, her eyes had turned steely and she hissed that she knew.

“I know you have Neal, that this whole thing is a game, a trap, a trick.” she seethed. It had completely caught him off guard.

“What?!” He’d demanded, but the mark was listening, hell all his agents were listening. They couldn’t do this here. “If you have ever trusted me, you’ll give me a chance to explain myself otherwise get back to the case.” He’d said sharply. He met her steely glare with her own and nodded once.

I trust you.

She’d proven it later that day when their mark had locked in an airlock and they only had one canister of air. She’d shoved it into his grasp. “I trust you.” She’d whispered out loud this time. Please don’t play me for a fool.

He hadn’t, of course. They’d found their way out and sitting there in front of a multimillion dollar mansion swarmed with agents and bundled in shock blankets, he’d told her.

“I met Neal.” He admitted her. Her eyes are wide, but she’s not surprised. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you could handle it.” But he was wrong, so wrong.

“You had no right to keep that from me.” She replied sharply. “But I understand why you did.” her expression softened. “I know how I must look to you: a love sick fool chasing after a man who hurt me. Risking everything for him...”She trailed off before fixing him a firm gaze. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me what he wanted. A music box.”

“A music box.” Emma repeated. She laughed at her words. Laughed like he’d told her the most ridiculous joke in the world. “Then let’s go get the music box.”

“And where was the music box?”

“Under our noses the whole time.”

“Bloody hell Swan!” He’d cursed. “How?”

It had been one of her most daring moves. She’s not sure why she decided to do it, but after she thought of it...the idea was just too intoxicating. It was a challenge, a dare and perfect. So perfect.

Getting the music box had been difficult, a job that didn’t really interest Neal. It was a little too flashy without enough reward. Thankfully a fence of hers had been able to take his place on the job.

(A fact that Neal was not happy about.)

Graham had been good, and it had gone off nearly flawlessly. She’d given him a cut of the profit she would make when she sold the music box--and a slap for a stolen kiss that Neal still doesn’t know about--except she never did get around to selling the damn thing.

She’d meant to, really. But this was right in the beginning of Agent Jones pursuit of her and she’d thought he was cute and enjoyed teasing him with her gifts.

So Emma had set to work. A good forger can make something worthless look real, but only a great forger could make a priceless artifact seem like a fake knock off.

So that’s what she did. No one ever knew, they didn’t even suspect it.

“My sister!” Killian exclaims again. “What did I tell you about involving her?” Emma shrugs.

“To be fair I had already long sent it to her by the time you gave me that warning.” She told him simply, picking up the item. “I assume it came back clean when you sent it to the lab?” It was smaller than she remembered, a fake gloss painted on to mask it’s trace components.

“They traced it to a manufacturer in China and Belle liked how it sounded. Bloody hell, what would we have done if she had tossed it like I wanted to do?” She’d found a similar looking one and stole the packaging. Emma shrugged.

“I didn’t exactly anticipate for some rogue agent to kidnap Neal for this thing. I didn’t even steal it for anything other than morbid curiosity.” She admitted. “Now that we have it, when can we get the meeting?” She asks.

Killian sighs. “I’ve put word out, hopefully Neal will contact me and we can set a time.”

“Or.” Emma adds. “We can contact the person pulling the strings behind this, behind everything.” She snaps.

“We don’t know for sure.” Killian says with a calming gesture.

“You really think Walshe has nothing to do with this?” Emma snaps. “After coming into town just in time to frame me for the diamond heist?”

Killian doesn’t respond. Emma takes the music box tightly in her hands. “This has to end. It has to end now.”

“Swan-” But she steps out of his grip. “We need to do this the right way, catch him red handed, not just hand him what he wants, when will it end?”

Oh it’ll end. The stakes were too high for Emma not to see to it that this cat and mouse game end now.

Plans circulated in her head, how to get out with the music box, how to make the exchange before Killian could talk her into a more by the book plan. Sometimes things couldn’t go by the book. Sometimes the ugly gritty way was the only way.

Killian’s phone rang loudly at his side. He picks it up, giving Emma a look. We’ll figure this out, you just need to trust me.

But something on the other end was clearly very wrong. His eyes narrowed and she could see something darker and fiercer just below the surface. “Stay there Belle.”

He could hear the younger girl talking quickly on the phone, Killian’s hand clenched. She was clearly very upset.“I’ll be right there. Do not say a single word until I get there.” He glanced at her. “We need to go now. Belle’s just been arrested.”

“She was arrested because the Marshalls believed a phone call she received from an unfamiliar number was our father.”

“Was it?”

“Just a spam caller”

The marshalls had wanted him out of the way, and they got it. It hadn’t taken much. They had Belle in handcuffs, her eyes were red as her classmates looked on, Walshe’s grip on her was rough and his words had been rude and vial and then he’d had the balls to mention Emma. So he’d swung and decked Walshe Green in the face.

It felt good. But it ended with him in cuffs besides Belle. He’d watched a wide eyed Emma leave with Ariel, considering her handler was about to be put on suspension he was glad she wasn’t being taken into custody next. She’d been strangely silent through the whole ordeal.

Emma had tried to deescalate the situation at first, but a comment Walshe had made left her frozen. Emma Swan never froze up.

“You never know, a parent’s greatest desire is to see their kid, wouldn’t you agree Emma?”

It wasn’t until afterwards. After he was back home missing his badge and gun, he realized two things.

The Music box was gone.

This had never been about Neal.

“When we were originally tackling The Swan, Emma took a year gap where we couldn’t find a single hint of a job she was running. The working theory was that she was waiting for the heat of her last job to die down.”

“And now?”

“Now I realize that she went underground for a different reason.”

They met at the drop point.

Emma felt bad for having Ruby steal the music box from Killian’s house, but it was the only way. No one was supposed to know about him. No one was ever supposed to connect her to the little boy that was born in New York Hospital in October of that year.

They were supposed to disappear and start a new life together, Tallahassee.

Neal and her called it Tallahassee. It was the end game plan, retire and move to Florida or some island in the tropics. But Neal had never wanted to go clean, so Emma took her son and ran.

So Neal set a trap for her. She set a trap so she couldn’t disappear with their kid.

“When you get out.” He said, holding one of his toys, one of her son’s toys “We can be a family. It was only four years.”

Emma had hated him for four years, for robbing her of that time together, of wanting to be a father and changing his mind and then changing his mind again.

It wasn’t until now, until Neal was faced with losing their kid, of him being abducted and held above their heads that he truly cared. Maybe, maybe it’s not too late for them.

They met at the drop point, except there was no Neal, only Walshe. But she doesn't let that shake her resolve.

“Where is he?” She demanded.

“Neal is around.” Walshe said cryptically. “I hear you have my box.” She didn’t deny it.

“I’m not talking about Neal.” She said. “You’re not getting a damn thing unless I can see my son.” The man smirked wider than he had any reason to.

“Don’t trust me?”

Emma didn’t dignify his words with a response. He gave a large sigh and opened his car door. There in the backseat, passed out in his car seat is Henry. She hadn’t seen him since he was an infant, but she knew. It was her son. Her four year old little boy looked positively exhausted but in good health. It made her gasp in relief, tears gathering in her eyes.

He’s gotten so big.

“Where’s my music box?”

She gave it to him without a moment’s hesitation. Her only focus was pulling that boy into her arms and never letting go. She was never letting him go again. “Neal said to give you these.” Walshe added after the box is placed securely in his car. It was an envelope. She takes it with the hand not around the boy.

Papers...She realized a whole new identity and not just for her. Neal, Emma and Henry Nolan. A normal happy little family. It was good, extensive.

A happy ending after all. Four years ago this is all she’d ever wanted.

“There’s a jet waiting for you, it’ll take you wherever you want. The three of you can disappear.” Walshe explained.

“Why?” Emma asks. “Why go through all of this? Kidnapping my son, using him to get to Neal to get to me? Just for that.” Because it wasn’t worth that much, not enough for all this.

“Because my employer wants it.” Walshe said cryptically. But he doesn’t elaborate, he doesn’t need to. It says all she needs to know.

There’s someone behind the curtain.

“You better get going. Neal is waiting for you.” The address was written in the envelope, so she settled Henry in his car seat in her car and then she headed out.

But not before she sent Belle the most expensive collection of sketch books and paints money can buy, art school wasn’t cheap and she had talent. Real talent.

Not before she called Granny and thanked her for everything.

Not before she called Ruby and told her about Henry. The papers...

(“I don’t know why you didn’t trust me to tell me the truth Emma.” She’d said. “But for what it’s worth I’m glad you are finally getting the life that you want. But you know what I always say-”

“A happy ending.” Emma breathed. “Is all about where you stop the story.”

She could feel Ruby’s grin through the phone. “From the moment we met, I knew your story was going to be exciting, but my question is, is this where you want to stop the story?” )

But Emma didn’t have time to contemplate her words. She needed to go. They had to get out, they needed to run. This is what she always wanted.

She was 50 feet from the plane when she heard her name being called out in the terminal.

“Swan!” It makes her stop in her tracks. She can’t help but feel her chest tighten at the sound of her name. She turned to see him. His suit is rumpled, tie missing. He looks like he ran all the way here. “Swan wait.” She did. She had to.

“You can’t stop me Killian.” She said. “You can’t.”

He nodded. “I know, all of this was sanctioned. It’s all an op as far as anyone can tell.” He agreed. “Legally I can’t interfere.”

Legally.

“Why are you here Killian?” Sha asked.

“I’m here to remind you of what you’re walking away from if you get on that plane. I know what you want Swan, I’ve always known. You want to be a part of something. You are here.” She bit her lip, he was smiling at her, something delicate and desperate. He wanted her to stay so badly.

“Neal once said that we run. We run until when we run from something we just miss it.” She recalled.

“You don’t need to run anymore Emma. You can stay. You and your son. You can stay.” He promised. “You don’t have to look over your shoulder anymore.”

“Why are you here Killian?” She asked again. Because it can’t be for her. It didn’t make sense. She’s a criminal, a convict, a fraud. She didn’t deserve for him to look at her like that.

“Because you sent Belle art supplies. You called Ruby and Granny. You said goodbye to everyone except for me.” He reminded her “Why?”

Why hadn’t she?

“Because...” she trailed off. “You’re the only person who could change my mind.”

He smiled at her, close enough to cup her cheek. “Did I?” She doesn't speak. She can’t. She leans in and kisses him. Something she never dared to want. Never dared to even consider.

It was better than she ever imagined. It was something that she would surely miss if she got on that plane.

But is it enough? Is it enough to turn away from a definite happy ending? Or is she walking away from it? “Killian...

Emma didn’t get a chance to contemplate the issue further.

Because when she looks back at the plane, at Neal’s face in the window of the plane, before she has a chance the plane explodes.

“And you know the rest.” Killian says. “They immediately took Emma into custody. Investigators descended on the terminal, Walshe went underground and you’re here to determine if my actions warrant you taking my badge.”

The investigators glare at him, clearly not believing some of what he’s saying. But they’ve been glaring at him since he stepped into the room. It was probably a side effect of having just interviewed Emma.

But it doesn’t matter what they believe. All that matters is what they choose to do. They can choose to give him back his badge and gun and let him do his job. Or they won’t.

“Do you believe Ms.Swan set the bomb that killed Mr. Cassidy?”

He looks them dead in the eye. “No.” He says pointedly. “She would never do that.” Not just because she was supposed to be on that plane, not just because her son was supposed to be on that plane but because Emma wasn’t a killer.

They don’t ask him any more questions.

He walks out the door with his badge, his gun and a warning. But there’s time to worry about that later. Right now all Killian wants to do is see her. He wants to see if she’s there. If she had left before he was done or if she was waiting for him.

And she is. She’s leaning against his door of his car a smile on her face and a-

“Another hat Swan?” He asks. Emma smirks, removing the hat and placing it on his head.

“I think it looks pretty good.” Emma says with a smirk and a subtle bite of her lip. “What do you think?” Now it’s Killian’s turn to smirk. She looks brilliant with that hat, so he places it back on her blonde head of hair. It does little to distract from the brand new tracker on her ankle, but he appreciated the attempt. Its slimmer chases less according to the memo Emma had emailed him..

“How’s Henry?” He asks. It had been a few weeks since she met the boy, since he’d caught him and his mother from the explosive blast of the plane that killed his father.

“Adjusting.” She says, her grin fading.

Emma wasn’t allowed to keep him, social workers didn’t feel comfortable given that she was a current convict with an unusual situation. Thankfully Ariel was a registered foster parent with a spare bedroom. Henry had immediately taken a shine to Ariel and her husband and their current foster, a six year old girl named Melody.

It wasn’t perfect, but Emma could see him as often as she wanted while she applied to earn back rights she never should have lost.

“What now?” Emma asks. Her hand drifts to his. Her hands are softer than he’d thought. He leans in close, not too close but closer than he should. Closer than a handler should be with his charge. But he was close enough to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She’s smiling.

“Now? We have another case.” He tells her.

“And later?” She adds. “What do you plan to do about Walshe, and Neal and-”

“I don’t know.” He says honestly. “But whatever we do, know that we’ll figure it out together.”

#cs january joy #csjj 2021 #Captain Swan #once upon a time #White Collar AU

35 notes · View notes

somedayonbroadway · 4 years ago

Note

Oooo Im interested in your Star Wars newsies AU

Ooooooookay so this is gonna be interesting. I will be basing this particular AU off of the original trilogy (the best one by far. Nothing will ever beat it) though if you’d like to see the prequels or any other Star Wars movie done, or a different Star Wars story that I start making up on the spot, just let me know!

This is also going to be very similar to the storyline of each and every character. So I’m only going to do the three main characters, but if you’d like to hear about more, just let me know!

Star Wars AU

Characters

Racetrack Higgins — Luke Skywalker

Katherine Plumber — Leia Organa

Jack Kelly — Han Solo

Crutchie Morris — Chewbacca

Warden Snyder — Emperor Palpatine

Joseph Pulitzer — Darth Vader

Medda Larkin — Obi Wan Kenobi

Todd Kloppman — Yoda

Spot Conlon — Lando Calrission

Obadiah Wiesel — Jabba The Hutt

Racetrack Higgins

Anthony Higgins lived his life as a farmer on Tatooine.

He lives on this hot, desert planet with his aunt and uncle, who constantly try to convince him that everything he’d ever need is right there on Tatooine.

Anthony does not believe them.

Growing up fascinated by any kind of ship he can get his grip on, he acquires the nickname “Racer” from his friends and is named an excellent pilot. He wants to explore the galaxy, but on the insistence of his uncle is forced to stay at the farm on account of the dangers that would come if he left.

Everyone was terrified of the Empire.

Race wanted to make a difference.

Growing up, Race had always been told that his parents had been good people. His father had died as a pilot during the clone wars and his mother had died getting him to safety.

Race never had a reason not to believe them.

He lives a relatively normal life on the farm on Tatooine, though he longs for so much more.

When Race was born, he was secretly given to his aunt and uncle by a woman he believed to be named Medda Larkin who lives in the desert land away.

This woman looks out for him, against his uncle's wishes, though, upon asking him why the old man has such a quarrel with Medda, only to be left without an answer.

Frustrated by his friends following their dreams and leaving the desert planet, Race finds himself staring into the sunset daily, wishing he could fly past it.

And one day, he gets his chance.

After inspecting new droids his uncle purchases, he finds a message of a beautiful girl begging for help from a Medactrine Larkin (I don’t know. It felt right).

Wandering off, Race goes to investigate, asking Medda Larkin if she was related to this mysterious person after being attacked by Sandpeople who knock him out and nearly kill him.

With the droids, M7-TN and BK-03, Race discovers that Medda is Medactrine and was once a Jedi Knight, one that fought side by side with Race’s father, whom she trained in the ways of The Force.

Though he at first declines Medda’s offer to travel with her to help the woman in the message, a Princess Katherine Plumber, after he tries to return to his farm, he finds it destroyed, the bodies of his aunt and uncle carelessly laid in front of the door to his home.

So he goes.

This embarks Racer on the path to him truly becoming The Chosen One.

Upon running from the people who murdered his family, Medda informs him that they have to secure travel off of the planet

That’s when Race meets Jack Kelly.

Race and Jack weren’t immediately best friends, but Jack wanted to protect him. Race was never entirely sure of why.

The Force is strong with Race, even though he never knew it.

Medda begins to train him in the ways of the force.

Race is forced to watch his mentor get struck down right in front of him and while he’d only known the truth for a few days about Medactrine’s true identity, he felt as though he owed his life to her.

Because she saved him countless times over and he didn’t even know.

Racer joins the rebellion after Medda dies, hearing her voice in his head, clear as day, telling him to run.

He is the pilot that blows up the Death Star whilst the majority of all others who tried died around him in their TIE Fighters.

Medda is guiding him the whole time. He uses The Force.

Race has the piloting skills of his father.

Race travels to a galaxy that many believe to be deserted to be trained by another Jedi Master by the name of Klopp.

He trains for a long time, becoming an unofficial Padawan and learning the ways of the Jedi who are nearly extinct.

He nearly gets killed by a yeti

He gets his hand cut off by the very man the whole galaxy fears.

He is told one day that he is the galaxy’s last hope

Jack Kelly

Jack grew up an orphan

When he was young, his parents were killed by the Empire and he was kidnapped by a local gang and made a part of it, a slave to it.

He grew up in a life of crime. He’d never asked for it.

After escaping that gang, leaving someone he loved dearly behind, Kelly, he runs off and joins the Imperial Navy as a flight cadet, naming himself Jack Kelly in honor of the girl who helped him escape.

After years of service, Jack wants a way out, a way to get away from this life only to be tricked and thrown into a monster’s den by con men who are infiltrating the navy in search of a lot of money.

It is in this monster’s den that he meets a creature with fangs, horns and golden skin with one leg. His name is Charbeddon. Jack calls him Crutchie.

Eventually, after escaping the navy and teaming up with the group of cons and thieves, Jack ends up doing the Kessel run in twelve parsecs in a ship that he nearly won in a game of cards, The Millennium Falcon.

He makes it clear that he’s an excellent pilot. Well, as long as he has his lucky dice with him. They were the first thing he ever stole.

After being betrayed by the small gang, Jack finds that he’s better of when it’s just him and Crutchie

Though he goes back to win the Millennium Falcon off of the man who cheated him at cards, one Mr. Spot Conlon, who is forced to put his money where his mouth is when Jack wins and claims his ship as his own.

After this, Jack and Crutchie leave for a small planet called Tatooine to find a crime lord that had been mentioned to him once who is putting together a big job

Long story short, Jack ends up owing this crime lord a big debt, ending up with a price on his head that sends just about every bounty hunter in the system out looking for him.

Jack meets Race and immediately knows that he wants to protect the kid, though he does not truly understand why at first

Jack Kelly is named the best smuggler in the galaxy at a very young age.

After escaping Tatooine after promising the crime lord he would pay him back within the month, Jack finds himself on a journey that changed him for good.

He saves a Princess, expecting a reward.

He didn’t expect to fall in love

Though he is hesitant to join the rebellion at first, his overwhelming urge to protect Racer like no one protected him growing up takes over and he flies after the kid right before the Death Star is blown up, saving him from being shot down.

Jack and the Princess, Katherine, get off to a rocky start until they finally admit they have feelings for each other

Jack is eventually captured, along with Katherine and their droids, by the empire

Jack is tortured for information; the location of Anthony Higgins, though during the first session of the shock torture, he isn’t even asked any questions.

Eventually, Jack is told he will be the test subject for a trap they were setting for Race. Jack had no hope of escape.

As he’s being led to the trap, Katherine admits that she loves him to which Jack can only respond that he knows

He’s frozen in Carbonite and shipped away to the crime lord that put the price on his head, being fixed as a permanent decoration in old Weasels hide out.

Katherine Plumber

After being given up by her mother, Katherine is adopted by a Senator the Queen of Alderaan

She grows up in a political setting, learning day in and day out about the Galactic Empire.

She vows to be a part of taking it down

She is the reason that Racer joins the rebellion in the first place.

After her ship gets infiltrated, the young princess finds a droid and records a desperate massage for someone her father spoke of often and trusted above anyone else. She asks Madactrine Larkin for help. She’s their only hope.

Katherine had a team of people find a weakness in the Death Star, something they could use to destroy it. She sends the plans with the droid BK-03

And then Katherine is captured by Darth Vader, the man most feared in the galaxy.

Even as she is defiant and strong in her ways, when the evil man aims a planet killer at her home, she caves and reveals what she’d done only for her home planet to be blown up anyway

She is then held prisoner, believing she will be executed soon

Until she’s rescued by a kind boy and a much too devilishly handsome young man who drives her crazy.

Katherine is much more than just a Princess. She’s a senator and eventually, a general

She’s a natural born leader.

Just like her mothers, biological and adoptive

Katherine finds herself often being treated like a damsel in distress, when in reality, she’s tough enough to handle herself.

After she’s captured once again by the Empire and the man she thought he hated but turned out to love was turned into a statue and sold away, she is the one who goes out to save him

Maybe they both get captured immediately, but at least she got that far

She is made a new slave for Weasel even as a newly blind Jack is trying to beg Weasel to leave her alone, that he’d pay him back in full and even more but he is taken away and finds Crutchie waiting for him in the dungeon.

Katherine is forced to wear demeaning clothing and held by a chain around her neck like Weasel's new pet.

Even after Race tries to save them, he gets captured as well. He is fed to the monster they have underneath them only to kill the thing and be taken prisoner like Jack and Katherine has to watch the whole thing.

She is forced to watch while the only friends she has are taken out on Tatooine to be eaten alive by a giant man eating plant

This is where Race gets the upper hand and Katherine is given the opportunity to finally kill Weasel and escape with Jack and Race.

She is very sneaky and very quick and even when Jack tries to protect her, she ends up saving his skin just as much

Katherine Plumber is strong with the force, though she believes Race, her brother, must be the Jedi of the family

She finds out all on her own, through accidental Force Searching that Darth Vader was the Jedi Knight Joseph Pulitzer, who was also her father as well as Race’s.

Katherine is honestly a badass.

Let me know if you guys want to see any scenes from this one!

For more Mood Boards and AUs, click here!

24 notes · View notes

braincoins · 4 years ago

Text

for DA Shallura

I’ve been doing a series of posts about basic Dragon Age canon for my DA fic series, Dragon Age: Schism. HOWEVER, my Dragon Age AU for Shallura has slightly different background (it takes place before DA:O, and thus before any of DA:S) and I include headcanons and whatnot for DA:S in those info posts.

So I thought I’d make One post with all the info that @tybalt-tisk or anyone else could need to make sense of what’s going on in that fic specifically. Some of this will be copy-pasted from what I’ve already done for DA:S because c’mon why write it twice? But everything here should give the necessary bgd for that fic. If you want/need to ask me other questions, feel free!

With credit, as always, to @yslanam who started this by first suggesting a DA AU for Shallura. And if you make it to the end, there’s pretty Mitz art! (Or you could skip to it, I know, but... be good, hm?)

Our story takes place in the country of Ferelden on the continent Thedas. Ferelden is basically Fantasy England (though not an island and not shaped that way), and is about the same size and climate (though it’s south of the equator, not north of it).

Shiro was born Takashi Shirogane in a small village where everyone knew everyone else and he liked it there. Loved it there, really. He signed on to be in his bann’s (the noble who ruled the land and its village) army, as did another young man from his town (whose name Shiro rarely speaks now). They served honorably and well and fell in love.

And then they were called to battle. Shiro survived: plus a scar and some new white hair, but minus his right arm, which was too badly injured and had to be amputated. Shiro’s lover didn’t make it, though. Shiro was discharged with pay and a small bonus, but that money would run out eventually. He’s not sure what to do with himself, and he overhears people talking about what a shame it is, such a young man now destined to just wither away because, well, he’s basically worthless now. Can’t work a farm, can’t fight in wars. It hits him hard. He wants to prove himself worthy of... of something, anything, just to prove them wrong.

That’s what brings him to the Grey Wardens.

Allura is a city elf. Elves are second-class citizens - at best - amongst humans, and the city elves live in ghettos called “alienages.” Her father was the Elder of the Highever (a city in Ferelden) Alienage: the man in charge, basically. That didn’t mean Allura behaved though; even as a child, she would rant about how elves were people just like humans and they deserved better treatment. This didn’t win her a lot of friends; most city elves learn quick that yelling about the truth just draws a whole lot of unwelcome - and often armed - attention.

But then it was discovered that Allura had magic, and she was taken off to the Tower of the Circle of Magi to be trained... and supervised. If there’s anything worse than being an elf in Ferelden, it’s being a mage. Mages, if they aren’t careful, can basically be possessed by demons and then they kill a bunch of people and it’s a bad scene. Therefore most people fear mages, and the Chantry - the main religious organization on the continent and damn near the only one in Ferelden - has created Templars to watch over the mages of the Circle.

The Templars are also known as “mage-hunters” because that’s one of their main duties: running down mages who try to flee their gilded cage. They also kill any mage suspected of being demon-possessed. And they’re posted all throughout the Tower, watching... always watching...

Allura liked learning magic but hated that this is how it’s done. She’s just been moved from one cage to another, and she wasn’t silent about that either. Things came to a head after she became an official mage; she saw a Templar about to force himself on a fellow mage, who was terrified of the man. She got angry and killed the man, straight out. She should have been killed, made Tranquil (basically magical lobotomy) or sent to Aeonar, the mage prison, but Duncan, the Warden-Commander, was there visiting and recruited her away, instead.

That’s what brings her to the Grey Wardens.

And that’s where she meets Shiro.

So, really now, what is a Grey Warden? Well, that depends on who you ask. To most people outside the order, the Grey Wardens are a glorious order of noble heroes! And why is that? Well, they’re immune to the darkspawn taint (which usually kills people) and so they can safely slay darkspawn! They’re also the only ones who can stop Blights!! …though this last bit of information is often forgotten, given that Blights happen once every few centuries.

If you ask me, the Grey Wardens are the biggest dick move in Thedas, which is actually part of why I love them. Here’s all the downsides to joining this “glorious order”:

First of all, the Right of Conscription. Ferelden has it; not sure if other nations in Thedas do? Anyway, it means that Grey Wardens can recruit anyone at any time. In practice, they have to be careful how they wield this tool (especially in Ferelden), but the RoC has been used to save people from hangings or other deadly fates… on the condition that they become a Warden Recruit. So… didn’t want to be Warden Recruit? TOO BAD, YOU ARE NOW. And no, you don’t get a say in the RoC. (Allura was RoC’d, to keep the commander of the Templars from killing her.)

Second of all, there’s the Joining. It turns out that, in order to become a Grey Warden, you have to drink darkspawn blood. And a bunch of other stuff in there, but really now, DRINKING DARKSPAWN BLOOD. You might recognize this as a stupidly dangerous thing to do, given that darkspawn blood KILLS THINGS. But your options are drink it or die, because the Grey Wardens present at the Joining will kill you if you try to back out after learning about this. If you drink from the Joining chalice, you also might die, but your name will be remembered as a Grey Warden at least? Even though you’re dead. And hey, if you live, you… become “immune” to the darkspawn taint, which is to say you’re already fucking tainted so it’s not like it can get worse. Want to know why the Grey Wardens don’t tell people they’re gonna make them drink darkspawn blood? Well, if they did that, people wouldn’t want to join, and we need Grey Wardens.

Supposing you survive the Joining, there’s the shortened lifespan (10-30 years depending on your sources) and the nightmares (that maybe you can learn to tune out). Again, they don’t tell you this until afterwards. Why? Because then people might not want to become Grey Wardens… yadda yadda. (Shiro might not speak Adam’s name anymore but he sure does yell it some nights, jolting out of a night terror and back to reality.)

Oh, and forget about having kids! It’s very difficult if not impossible to have children as a Grey Warden! (Not like they let mages have kids in the Circle. And Shiro’d been in love with a man, so he was okay with not having biological children anyway.)

At some point, even if you were able to tune the nightmares out, they’ll come back and there’ll be nothing you can do about it. That’s the first sign of The Calling. Because it turns out that the Joining is really just turning you into a ghoul, except very, very slowly. You’re getting close to Ghoul-dom now. Most Grey Wardens choose to die in battle against the darkspawn rather than waiting to be turned. It’s tradition.

And if there’s a Blight going on? Oh, well, it turns out that the only way to kill an Archdemon is to sacrifice a Grey Warden. Why didn’t they tell you? DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK NOW?!

The motto of the Grey Wardens is “In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.”

So what I’m saying is that Grey Wardens are SUPER TRAGIC BADASSES. They also wind up pretty cut off from their former lives, so the Wardens become their family. So, basically, SUPER TRAGIC BADASS FOUND FAMILY.

Shiro and Allura get close because it turns out they work well together as a fighting pair: he as a warrior, she as a mage. Even with only one arm, Shiro can at least protect Allura as she takes shit out. They’re quickly a unit, just the two of them, always sent out together. It’s no wonder it starts to blossom into love.

But Allura sees that Shiro wants to do more than just protect and shield bash, so she starts trying to figure out how to make him a prosthetic: one worthy of a Grey Warden. One... worthy of him.

There are different schools of magic: Creation is the healing branch, and it seems natural to try to work with that some, but in the end, Allura has to also dip into a forbidden school: Blood Magic. Blood Magic has the reputation of being evil because you’re using people’s blood - people’s life forces - to power your spells. After growing up in the Tower, she’s understandably nervous about using it.

But she talks about it with Shiro, and although he might otherwise be scared of Blood Magic, she tells him she doesn’t need a lot of it, it won’t kill him, and... well, it’s her. He trusts her. And she works hard to be worthy of that trust, she goes over this spell she’s created several times. It should work to attach the arm - made of silverite, a very powerful and durable metal - to him so he can use it.

She just forgot about the darkspawn taint coursing through him. His blood is not normal. And there are some... side effects from messing with it.

I do recommend reading this post (it’s kinda 1/2 meta, 1/2 fic) but if you don’t want to, the short version is that Shiro has trouble controlling his arm at first and so he pushes Allura away because he’s afraid of hurting her. She takes that as a well-deserved rebuke because she did this to him.

Eventually they scream it all out at each other: he loves her, he was afraid for her, she feels guilty and is so afraid he’ll leave her, etc. They settle down and start working together on figuring out how Shiro can better control this thing. At the beginning of this fic, he’s gotten the hang of it now.

I’ll put up pictures of their uniforms when I can, and other than that, you should be good to go! I know this was long, sorry. Here, have some pretty @mitzoco art:

#DA Shallura #Dragon Age 101 for Shallura fans

10 notes · View notes

k7l4d4 · 4 years ago

Text

Blood for Blood: An Owl House Story Chapter 1 Part 5

Here’s part 5! Everybody clap your hands!!

Thunder and lightning crashed, illuminating the ominous visage of the building known only as The Conformatorium. Just the name made Luz want to retch.

Luz turned to Eda, a flat stare on her face. “You lied.” She should’ve known this was gonna happen. It was so obvious! The ominous name, the implied danger, it was all there! Eh, she would’ve done it anyway.

“You said this would be a fun place, and you lied.” Ordinarily the bark of laughter she got from Eda would’ve served to annoy her, but right now? All Luz could think about was the thrill, the rush of the heist. “Alright, so what’s the game plan?”

She drew back both arms and stretched them out, idly taking notice of the nearby bounty poster of Eda and- WOW that’s a lot of zeroes. Hmmm.... no, bad Luz, no contemplating turning in the nice witch lady for the reward money and breaking her out later. It never works.

“Well, kid.” Eda began, deftly snatching the poster off the wall and smugly stashing it in her nest of hair. She twirled her staff, generating a glowing platform before them. “You and King are gonna use this platform here to get to the top of the Conformatorium and make your way to the vault. I’m gonna go and cause a distraction so the two of you don’t get caught.”

Luz nodded, it was a good plan, if a little basic, but Eda definitely had the look of experience that said she had done this sort of thing before. The huffs and grunts behind her, and Eda’s muffled laughter, caused Luz to turn her head, taking in the frankly, adorable sight of King struggling to lift himself on to the platform.

With a snort, Luz flipped on her hood, best not to let anyone peg on to her being human right now, and smoothly lifted herself and King onto the platform.

With a flick of the wrist and a cheery salute, Eda sent them on their way. As the window that would serve as their entry point drew nearer, Luz tucked King under one arm, ignoring his protests of course, and prepped herself to jump.

As the platform reached its apex, predictably just out of reach of the window, to Luz’s deadpan, Luz sprung into action. With an expert flip, and a self-reminder to thank Mami for insisting on Parkour lessons, Luz leapt through the window and stuck a three-point landing on the other side.

King blinked, struggling momentarily forgotten. “Huh. Gotta say, you got some good moves human.” What else could he say? King of Demons or not, he knew skill when he saw it, and this human girl had it in spades. He wondered where she learned though.

With a cheeky grin, Luz headed deeper into the prison. As she analyzed the environment around her, she never knew when she might need to know the layout of this place after all, Luz’s attention was drawn by a shout to the side.

“Hey, Cat Lady?” Did this vampire looking chick call her a- oh, wait, her hood. Right. “How’d you get out of your cell?”

Eh, fair question, and she probably had a little time before Eda got a big enough ruckus going anyway. Even if King moved on ahead, it wasn’t like his tiny legs could carry him very far.

“Oh, I’m not a cat.” Luz replied, lightly tugging on her hood to show. She then made a move to take a closer look at the cells. “I’m not a prisoner either. I gotta ask, what did you guys even do to end up in a lovely place like this?” She made sure to inject enough sarcasm into her voice so that it didn’t go unnoticed, and by the smirks she got, the prisoners got it too.

The vampire-looking one let out a huff of bitter amusement, the kind you here from someone who’s so used to the crap life throws at them that they start to find it funny.

“We didn’t fit in.”

Whoa, back up. Her shock, and most likely anger must’ve shown on her face, ‘cause the prisoner elaborated.

“Heh, you must be pretty new around here if you don’t know things work in Bonesburough. Me? I got locked up for writing fanfiction about food falling in love with each other.” There was no mistaking the bitter sadness in her voice, and on a side note, Luz was very interested in reading her work, but now wasn’t the time.

The multi-eyed prisoner spoke up next, “I’m here because I like to eat my own eyes.” He liked to wha- oh, he literally popped out his eyes, swallowed them, and they grew back. Huh, a little creepy, but harmless, apparently. A muffled yelling could be heard coming form the last cell, which turning to revealed a small white creature that seemed to be all head.

The fanfic prisoner piped up, dry amusement in her voice, “Yeah, she’s big on conspiracy theories, and really hates the government. She got so loud the guards rigged up a gag connected to her cell; it only opens when it’s time to eat, or the cell opens.” Now that? That was just cruelty.

“Yeah, none of those things are actual, you know, crimes, right?” The solemn nods she got cemented it. No way was she leaving these guys here. When you ran outside the law, you always accepted the risk that you would end up behind bars.

These guys? They did NOTHING that would justify keeping them here, and there was no way Luz Noceda would stand for it either! With a grunt of anger, Luz rushed for the nearby switch to the cells, panting and yanking at it, silently cursing herself for neglecting her muscle training lately. Before she could make any headway, an ominous thumping started coming her way.

Luz quickly ducked into the nearest cell, shooting a grateful glance at the Fanfic Writer as she lightly pushed Luz further into the shadows to hide her. As the hulking, massive figure of what could only be Warden Wrath himself stepped into view, Luz felt a surge of blistering rage at the person responsible for these guys being stuck here.

“I can hear you.” Jeez, even his voice sounded sadistic. What did this guy do, gargle hot lava for effect every morning?

“What are you fools whispering about? Ah... the Owl Lady.” Her murmured, catching sight of one of Eda’s posters on the ground, crushing it in his grasp.

“She escaped me before, but she won’t this time.” Oh boy, this guy had it out for Eda specifically, meaning this whole thing was starting to feel a little trap-like. At the muffled shouts of the gagged Conspiracy Prisoner got louder, Wrath calmly stepped over to the switch for the cells. Luz didn’t like where this was heading.

Her fears were proven right as, upon being released, both from the cell and the gag, Tiny Nose instantly rushed Wrath and started feebly pelting his leg. In response, Wrath calmly bent down, and crushed Tiny Nose in his grip.

As her stomach churned at the sadistic act, Luz idly noted his control to be able to leverage just enough force to hurt Tiny Nose without killing her.

“Let this be a lesson to you, there is no place in society if you can’t fit in.” And there was that blistering rage again. Hi Rage! Yeah, this guy had just upgraded himself from threat to someone who she was going to have to hurt. Sorry Eda, but there was no way Luz was leaving without giving this freak a lasting reminder of herself.

“Go on kid.” With the warden gone, the prisoners finally found their voices again. “Enjoy freedom for us.” With a sad smile, the Writer Prisoner insistently sent Luz on her way, adding yet another reason to put the hurt on Wrath before she was done.

Sending one last sad glance back herself, Luz made her way over to a slightly worried King up ahead. She wasn’t having fun anymore. She just wanted to get this over with.

I was gonna make this the last part of chapter 1, but decided to split it into six instead. Everybody clap your hands!!

#the owl house #owl house au #luz noceda #king the owl house #eda clawthorne #Blood for Blood AU

4 notes · View notes

degenerate-perturbation · 5 years ago

Link

Chapters: 11/26(?) Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Dragon Age: Awakening Ensemble Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

She didn’t ask, Loriel would tell herself, after. She never asked.

But that was later, much later. For a long time, everything was fine.

After the bloody clearing, Loriel fell into her work the way one might fall down the stairs—not all at once, but once the process had begun, it became almost impossible to stop.

It was almost like being back in Kinloch. She spent all day surrounded by stone, studying magic. Only now it was on her own terms, something she was doing because she wanted to. Her freedom looked an awful lot like her prison, but it didn’t matter what it looked like. What mattered was what it was.

And of course she still had Yvanne.

Most days she woke later than she liked, with the whole morning having slipped away from her. The guilt of having done that was enough to rattle her out of any desire for breakfast, so she would go without. She would spend the day at her work, following one idea and then another. It went intolerably slow. Sometimes she couldn’t tell if an experiment had failed because her idea was bad, or because she’d done something wrong. It was just so hard to do this alone. But asking Yvanne to help was unthinkable (though she had promised, hadn’t she? She had promised to help.)

And when she could no longer stand going back and forth with herself about whether her ideas or her methods were bad, she would go back to her bedchambers. Yvanne would be there, along with a dinner in any possible condition between ‘slightly cooled’ and ‘stone cold and beginning to curdle.’ They would talk, or rather, Yvanne would talk. Loriel would nod along and eat her congealing meal, hardly tasting it. Her mind would be on the project she’d abandoned downstairs, churning with ideas for new ways to try it, if maybe she should return to an earlier form, if maybe she was struggling fruitlessly and Avernus had figured it out decades ago and it would have been faster simply to ask him.

Yvanne would finish telling her about her day, and ask her about hers, and Loriel would shrug and report that it had been pretty uneventful, really. Just work. And they’d maybe break out an aged bottle of red, and go to bed, and have sex, and afterwards Loriel would lie awake and think of blight and blood and spirit, and eventually, often when the dawn rays were already beginning to break over the horizon, she would sleep.

And then it would begin again. And again. And again.

—

Her library grew, as she requisitioned books from distant libraries, or else copied treatises herself. Her quantity of notes multiplied precipitously, until she could no longer easily keep track of them herself—and it wasn’t as though she could hire an assistant. Nobody else could understand her shorthand, anyway.

Letters from Avernus weren’t frequent, but always illuminating. Rarest of all were cryptic scrawls coming from the Architect. These generally raised more questions than they answered. She wondered if he wrote them himself, or if Utha or Seranni scribed for him. Perhaps Velanna would recognize her sister’s handwriting if she saw it—but Loriel never showed her. The thought of going out and talking to people, of being seen by them, turned her stomach.

She still had the opaque black crystal the Architect had delivered to her with Velanna. It had seemed so exciting at first, like it was surely the answer to everything. But the longer she tried to puzzle out its secrets the less she understood it. The rare times she had contact with the Architect, he was less than helpful. He kept assuming that she knew all sorts of things that she didn’t. When she asked in writing, his response WOULD explain the parts she already thought were obvious. Useless. Avernus, being nearly two centuries old, was bad enough, but the Architect was not old but ancient, and his humanity was further behind him.

She left the crystal on her desk, until looking at it made her sick with anger at herself. Then she shoved it in a drawer where she couldn’t see it anymore.

Probably she would have made more progress if she kept things better organized, but she’d never needed to be particularly organized before, and now she had no idea how to do it. Nobody had ever taught it to her. Every time it occurred to her that today would be the day she put things in order, it only took a minute of looking around at the mess for her to despair and give up.

It was pathetic. It wasn’t as though she’d never done original magical research before, but the Calling was another beast altogether. There were so many moving parts, and the more she learned the more confused she got. She needed a break, but a break simply wasn’t possible.

Because the clock was ticking. Every day she didn’t understand the Calling was another day that the unthinkable might happen. That one of them might begin to hear the song.

Alistair had said thirty years, but that had been at most thirty years. And even if the average was twenty, twenty-five, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be as few as five, for some people. Was it written down somewhere, how long each Warden lasted before the Calling claimed them? Where would she find such a document, if it was?

Yvanne still had awful darkspawn dreams. Did that mean she was more vulnerable to the Blight than other Wardens? Did that mean the Calling would come to her sooner? Did sooner mean twenty years rather than thirty—or as few as five? How much time did they have?

What made one person vulnerable to the Blight, and another one hardy to it? What made one person survive the Joining, and another one perish? What made one person’s blood different from another’s?

Or was it in the blood at all? Maybe it was something else. Some quality of the spirit, the same thing that made some children mages and spared others, perhaps. What made spirits different? Maybe Justice would have known, but Justice was gone. Justice was gone because of her. She and Yvanne pretended like it was because of Anders, but really it was because of her. Anders was gone because of her, too. What a farce. What a ridiculous, ugly farce. It was a wonder Yvanne didn’t hate her. It was all such a wonder, the fact that they still loved each other, such a wonder. It made her exhausted.

But what else was she going to do, with the time left to her? This was all she was good at.

Death’s child could do this one thing. She couldn’t do everything that was asked of her, not even most things. But maybe she could do this. Just this one thing. Just this one.

—

The thing about their arguments was that they really weren’t all that frequent. Most of the time they got along fine. Most of the time they lay down together, and rose up together, and kissed each other fondly. And it was not the most exciting of all possible lives, but wasn’t that what they’d fought for? Most days, when she was with Yvanne, Loriel could half-believe herself happy.

The problem was that it was always the same argument.

Yvanne would drink too much, and Loriel wouldn’t say anything, because it wasn’t her place. Yvanne would always do exactly what Yvanne wanted, and all attempts to prevent her would be ultimately fruitless. It still put Loriel on edge. So every time Yvanne brought it up—she only did it when she was drunk—Loriel was already on edge, so who could fault her for reacting the way she did?

“We could leave all this behind,” Yvanne would say. It was what she always said, as though wheedling would do it, as though she could wear her down. And usually Loriel would demure and conciliate. She’d always been so good at it.

But today she lost her temper. “That is not an option,” she snapped. “I’m not like you. I don’t give up on things.”

As soon as she said it she held her breath, waiting to see Yvanne draw back in hurt and offense. But instead she just rolled her eyes.

“That’s not even true,” Yvanne said. “You’ve given up on lots of things. You’ve given up on almost everything.”

Loriel stiffened. “Just what, exactly, have I given up on?”

Yvanne made a broad, flicking gesture around the room. “What haven’t you given up on?” She started counting off on her fingers. “The rest of the world. This Keep. Everyone we ever knew.”

Her mind went instantly to Anders. You gave up on him, too, she thought poisonously. Faster than I did. But Yvanne wasn’t done.

“You know you keep accusing me of running away,” she said sardonically. “But notice how I’m still here. I stayed. I never ran, I always stayed with you. It was always, only, ever, you.”

You wanted to run, though, Loriel thought. You wanted to.

“All I ever wanted was a home in the world, with you,” Yvanne said. She’d said it before. Many times. “But you’re not with me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Loriel said, exasperated. It was a lie. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“You have, though.”

No more than you have, she thought. It was almost as though Yvanne didn’t see her at all, when she looked at her. What did she see?

“All I ever wanted was to be with you,” Yvanne repeated distantly. “There wasn’t room for anything else.”

But I am with you! She had to say it out loud, but her throat was so tight. She had to say it. She had to. If she could just— “But I am with you,” she echoed. “I’m here. I’m not gone.”

“Not yet.” Yvanne put her hands over her face. “Maker, I’m so afraid. All the time I’m afraid.”

A cold pit of ice dropped into Loriel’s stomach. This was not a standard part of The Argument. “Afraid. You’re afraid of me.” Was it so shocking? Everyone else was afraid of her. She had made herself frightening. She had done it on purpose.

Yvanne’s head snapped up. “ Of you? You bloody idiot—I’m afraid for you! I’m afraid I’m going to walk in on you in a pool of your own blood and won’t be able to bring you back. I’ve researched so many advanced healing spells, just in case, but it might not end up mattering. You can’t bring back the dead.”

“I’m not going to die,” Loriel scoffed. “Not any time soon, anyway.”

“You can’t know that.”

As many as thirty? As few as five?

“I know it as much as anyone can know anything,” she retorted. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not taking any undue risks.”

“Now that’s rich!” Yvanne said scornfully. “That might be the boldest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Now that got under Loriel’s skin. What right did she have to say that? And to say it as though it was self-evident. As though Loriel were simply being obstinate in not acknowledging it. As though it were anyone’s business but her own what she did with her own life and her own body.

“You don’t own me,” she said, too harshly. “I own me.”

“Wasn’t saying I did,” Yvanne muttered.

“No, I rather think you were,” Loriel said icily. “It isn’t what you said, but it is what you meant.”

Yvanne huffed, threw her hands up slightly. “Excuse me for suggesting that people with lives as tangled up together as ours might owe each other something!”

Then maybe they shouldn’t have gotten so tangled.

“And I owe you what, exactly?” she said instead. “To do with myself as you will, simply because you don’t trust me?”

Yvanne took a long time to respond. Then, quietly, “I don’t often ask you for things. But I’m asking you for this. Please.”

Loriel wanted to ask her what in the Maker-forsaken void she was talking about. Did Yvanne think Loriel would be any different outside the comfortable confines of Vigil’s Keep? Did she think the poison was in the flagstones?

For a brief moment she considered it. Abandoning her work, come what may. The Calling would take them some day, and she would never know which day—only that when it took one of them, it would take them both.

She thought about the great wide worlds, its endless sky, its infinite varieties. It choked her with its vastness. Who would she be out there?

“No,” she said eventually. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

“Right,” Yvanne muttered, in the tone that meant the argument was over. It was the answer she’d been expecting. “Course you can’t.”

Loriel shrugged helplessly. She couldn’t. She was sorry, she was. But she really, really couldn’t.

—

Her newest idea was to test everything on rats. Surely it would have better results than trying to recreate the Blight in a glass vial. The Wardens had a vial of Archdemon blood, which had to be added dropwise to darkspawn blood, along with a dozen other things, to function in the Joining. She could infect the rats, and study them, try to cure them. She would regret their deaths, but it would all be worth it in the end.

A part of her knew she didn’t understand the Blight well enough to even bother with the rats. But she was so tired of failing. After all, Avernus had most of his success with live subjects.

Catching the rats was the hard part, requiring an elaborate series of paralysis glyphs and sense crystals. Then there was the matter of keeping them contained, fed, and watered. She spent weeks figuring out some way to manage the rats, all the time her mind wandering, such that the work of a few hours stretched into a full week.

In the end it didn’t matter. All the rats she infected with Blight died right away, and she didn’t know why. Had she miscalculated the dose? Were rats fundamentally different from people, in some way? But animals could be blighted, so that couldn’t be the case. Could one of the lower animals be made into a broodmother? Could rat-darkspawn be created?

The thought of trying to get more rats to try and find out was more than she could bear. She sat splayed in her chair, wondering if perhaps she could find a breeding pair and have them produce offspring for her, but in order to make that work she would need to figure out some kind of accelerated growth spell. It was surely doable, in theory, but it would involve creation magic, a field she knew nearly nothing about.

(Yvanne knew about creation magic. Yvanne had promised to help her with this, once. She had promised.)

So she abandoned the idea entirely, and returned to glass vials. Months of effort, wasted.

She sat back in her chair, closed her eyes. Tired. So tired.

You don’t have to do this, Yvanne had said. I’m doing this for you, Loriel had said. So many times she had said that.

And it was true. It was! She was doing this for her, for the both of them. For all the Wardens. For all the people of Thedas. Because she was the Hero of Ferelden, and a piss-poor one at that, and she owed this to them. And to her Wardens. And to Yvanne, and to herself.

It was true. Wasn’t it? It was. It was! She was doing this for her. For everyone, but really just for the two of them. Who gave a damn about anyone else? The world had turned its back on them, over and over. Loriel had struggled so hard to save them, and were they grateful? They weren’t. Was it so wrong to want to do something for the one she loved?

(If Yvanne really loved her she would have been grateful. If she really loved her she would have supported her. If she really loved her she would have been able to see—)

—

That year had been a late winter followed by an early summer, and Loriel nearly missed the whole spring.

Months later (who knew how many). The same argument.

Yvanne had said: How do you think I feel?

How you feel, Loriel thought scornfully. “How you feel!” she said, not nearly as scornfully. “It’s always about you, somehow. Always about Yvanne and what Yvanne wants and how I can give it to her, that’s always been the story. Maybe if you really loved me—”

She broke off. That wasn’t fair. It wasn't fair and it wasn't true. Yvanne loved her. Loriel loved her back. That much was true. That was the one eternal constant of the universe.

It wasn’t fair and it wasn't true, and when Loriel could think straight she remembered it. But she was so tired, so exhausted that the world bent and twisted before her eyes and she couldn't tell truth from darkspawn blood.

She pinched the bridge of her nose . “I’m...I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight. I didn’t mean that.”

Yvanne seemed to soften. More than anything Loriel ached for comfort. Not even magic. A touch would do. She was reminded of the time at Redcliffe, when she had first done blood magic, and all she had wanted was reassurance that everything could be alright. Yvanne hadn’t given it then.

“You’re right. You aren’t thinking straight,” she said, not giving it now. “So let me know when you are.”

Usually at this point Loriel would storm off in a huff to go work, and in a few hours she would come back and everything would be forgiven. Because that was what love was about, wasn’t it? It was about pain. It was about forgiveness despite the pain. It was about the choice to love and forgive and forget the pain. But this time it was Yvanne who managed to storm away first, except she didn’t storm. She walked calmly and closed the door quietly, not in anger, but resignation. Loriel was left alone in their chambers, the last place where they still shared a life.

(Maybe if you really loved me—)

No, that wasn’t true, Yvanne loved her. ( But she couldn’t see her anymore .)

Loriel needed to sit down, but there were so many articles of clothing on the nearest chair that she sat on the bed (their well-used bed, that had so delighted her when this had all begun) instead. And even sitting took too much energy, so she lay back. Maybe she could sleep for a while. Just a little while, so she could think straight.

But sleep didn’t come. Her racing thoughts were wide awake, and hungry, and had no pity for her.

She had always been afraid that she wasn’t good enough for beautiful, vivacious, lovely Yvanne. That one of these days Yvanne was going to figure it out and leave her. For a long time she’d been holding her breath, waiting for the blow.

But maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it wasn’t that she wasn’t good enough for Yvanne. Maybe it was that she was just all wrong for her ( wrong wrong wrong, it slithered through her mind like crawling worms in the dirt), maybe they only fit together at all because they’d grown together like the intertwining roots of trees. She thought of vines twisted together so tightly they had fused ( parasites, living off each other, sucking the life out of each other, unable to survive any other way)

Now they’d traded the Circle for the Wardens. And love born of terror, perpetuated in bondage, what was that worth?

What did they have in common, anyway? Their whole lives. Their magic. What else?

She stared into the darkness, wishing she knew some spell to end all thought.

(What else? What else? What else?)

—

It wasn’t about the blood. It was about the sacrifice.

In that sense, to call it blood magic was a misnomer.

You can’t get something for nothing. This was the oldest rule in the book, from back before there were books, before writing, before language. It was as simple as anything, and it was as true of entropy magic as of blood magic.

Loriel knew all about entropy. The rule of entropy was this: you can’t get something for nothing.

That was why it was impossible to draw her own blood, store it, restore herself, and use it later. Blood stored in a vial, divorced from the pain and loss it had caused, had no power. The blood itself was inert. It was the pain that mattered.

She had to suffer. It had to be this way. It could never have been any other way.

Life was pain. It wasn’t all pain. But it was pain, sure enough. And pain was life, for only living things could suffer. For every sting of the blade, she knew herself to be alive. Here she was in the depths of the underground, nearer to the deep roads (the darkspawn) than to the sunlight, but while she hurt she lived.

Yvanne didn’t understand that. Yvanne was a healer. She didn’t understand the necessity of pain. She never had.

But you can’t get something for nothing. That was the rule. (Loriel knew all about rules. She had always been so good at following the rules. So, so good, and what had it gotten her?)

Her current project involved attempts to refine blight from blood—her own, a darkspawn’s, and an archdemon’s. Each Warden-Commander was entrusted with a vial of Archdemon blood, a single drop of which was used in the Joining cup. Loriel had it here, a measly quantity of it. It ought to have been refilled when Urthemiel had fallen, but nobody had been there to tell her to take its blood. She hadn’t known she was supposed to do that, and now here she was wasting the small quantity she had away on her useless experiments. (But that could be a good thing, that could mean that when she used it all up there would be no more Wardens and if there were no Wardens that meant there was no Warden-Commander and if there was no need for a Warden-Commander then Loriel could—go where? Do what?)

She wanted to understand what made Warden’s blood different from darkspawn blood, and what made both of them different from archdemon’s blood. She had for days now been heating, distilling, refluxing, heating again, countless hours spent staring at glassware full of the murky stuff, ( half-wondering what it would feel like to take the vials and smash them on the table and feel the shards of glass in her skin ), because surely it couldn’t be a matter of mere concentration. Darkspawn were not Wardens with more Blight inside them. And Archdemons were something different entirely.

Why were all the archdemons dragons? What did dragons have to do with Blight? But no, not dragons—old gods. But why were the old gods in the form of dragons? The Chantry would say that they were false gods of no significance, but even if that were true, why would beings clearly much more powerful than mere animals take those forms? Urthemiel had been the god of beauty; the Architect had been his high priest. Loriel had slain Urthemiel. She had driven a sword—

( she barely knew how to use it, it should have been Yvanne, it should have been her, none of this was meant for her, that was why she was down here in the dark, because she had taken what rightfully ought to have been somebody else’s, because she had transgressed, and now she was being rightfully punished )

—through its skull. She remembered how its bones had cracked. It had already been most of the way to dead by the time she finished it off. She’d hardly contributed to its killing at all.

(she’d picked up the sword, nearly as long as she was tall, because she happened to be nearby, it had just happened, she hadn’t meant to—)

Did the Architect know that? Did he know she had slain his god? Did he still regard the archdemon to be his god? It was no more corrupted than he was. (Would that be Loriel’s fate? Was that the fate of every Warden, to someday become the monsters they fought? What was the difference between them and the monsters, anyway? That wasn’t so bad. She’d been a monster all her life, what would be the difference?)

The bright blade bit into her scarred skin. The veins there were weakening. She would have to pick a new place to cut, soon. Her blood ran hot and warm down her skin. Loriel incanted. Nothing happened.

(What was the Architect’s name? What had he looked like? Who had he been when he had been a man?)

She changed the words of the incantation, then the pronunciation. She changed how she held her fingers. She cast again and again. Nothing happened.

(He deserved it though, that’s what he got, for breaking the rules. Rule-breakers had to be punished, that was the rule. That’s what he, what she deserved. That’s what she deserved, for expecting something for nothing.)

Her blood clotted and the flow stopped. It still hurt, but was that enough? No, it wasn’t, she could tell. The pain was necessary but not sufficient. She needed to bleed to cast spells like this, or else they’d always fail, and she’d have no one but herself to blame.

The knife bit into her flesh again.

(Yvanne didn’t understand, of course she didn’t, how could she?)

She didn’t feel the knife slip from her numb fingers, and though she felt herself slipping, felt herself fall, by the time she hit the floor she had already slipped into something like sleep—but not peace.

She dreamt herself in the Black City, wandering its winding streets and high towers. She knew only that she was desperately searching for something—someone?—that she couldn’t find. When she looked down at her hands they were claws, the bulging veins there black with the same Blight that ran through the gutters and oozed down the walls. It flooded the streets and rose higher and higher, up to her hips and shoulders, in her mouth and her eyes and over her head, and all was black.

—

Loriel woke slowly. First she became aware of her body and the bed it was lying in. At first she didn’t notice anything unusual, and then she did—the absence of pain. Nothing ached or throbbed or stung. She felt better than she’d felt in many months. She was suffused with the vague sense that whatever dreadful thing had been happening, it was over now, if it had ever even happened. Perhaps it had only been a terrible dream.

For a while she let herself float peacefully in the dim twilight of half-sleep, aware enough to relish the glorious lack-of-pain. But finally she had no choice but to open her eyes, and remember everything.

Yvanne sat sleeping in the wooden chair besides the bed. Her cheek pressed against her shoulder, her chin on her chest. It looked singularly uncomfortable. Loriel wondered why she’d sat there instead of getting into bed with her. She reached out and touched her gently on the elbow.

Yvanne started, her eyes flying open, then relaxing. There were dark circles under her eyes, and they were red-rimmed; she’d been crying, but had stopped some hours ago, presumably when she’d fallen asleep.

“You’re awake,” she managed, “That’s good.”

Loriel coughed hoarsely. Her throat was dry. “How long was I…?”

Yvanne glanced out the window. It was dark, with no trace of either daybreak or sunset. The candles were all extinguished, and all that illuminated the room was a trio of Fade-wisps fluttering around Yvanne’s head like a halo, casting her in an eerie greenish light. “I don’t know. Most of a full day, I think.”

A glass of water stood on the bedside table. Loriel drained it, leaning on her elbow. She opened her mouth to ask what happened, and then closed it. Some of her memory was trickling back, as though after a hard night of drinking. You bloody idiot, I’m afraid for you! I’m afraid I’m going to walk in on you in a pool of your own blood and won’t be able—

Instead she lay back. She knew better than to insult her by apologizing. The fact that she was even thinking of apologizing annoyed her. I’m the one that almost died, and somehow I need to comfort her ?

Eventually Yvanne said, “How do you feel?”

Loriel thought about it. “Good, actually,” she said. “Better than I’ve been. Much better.” Whatever exact combination of healing spells and potions Yvanne had administered, it had really done the trick. She felt like she could think clearly for the first time in...she didn’t even know how long. She was herself again.

She had the sudden traitorous thought—all along Yvanne could have helped her like this, and for whatever reason, she hadn’t.

“That’s good.”

What a funny path life took. Only a handful of years ago their positions had been reversed, and it had been Loriel sitting and fretting at the bedside, feeling helpless and afraid. She didn’t feel helpless or afraid now. She just felt tired—clear-eyed, but so tired.

“Thank you.”

At that Yvanne couldn’t take it anymore. She drew a rattled half-sob of a breath, and suppressed a hiccup. “‘ Thank you’? What was I supposed to do, leave you there?”

It occurred to Loriel how exhausted Yvanne looked. Not just tired, but...older. It could have been only the flickering Fade-light, but—some of the lines on her face looked new. Were they really new, or had Loriel just not been paying attention? Would she have turned to her, years down the road, and been surprised to see an aged face looking back at her?

All at once the guilt crashed over her, so intense it made her nauseous.

It would have been easier if she’d loved her any less.

Did you love me for me , she thought, or because there was no one else? And that thought hurt.

Then she thought, did I love you for you? And that thought hurt much worse.

“Loriel, I…” Yvanne swallowed, staring at her laced fingers between her knees. “Loriel, I can’t do this anymore. Something has to change.”

You’re right, Loriel thought, deciding. It does.

She struggled into a sitting position, and then realized it wasn’t much of a struggle. She was only stiff from sleeping so long. She scooted out of bed and found herself shivering in only a billowing nightgown. She didn’t have to look long for her robe; Yvanne had put it in the top drawer of the northmost chest of drawers. Her feet were cold on the stone floor, but she could live with that.

She went to her desk, rummaged for parchment and ink and quill. It was really more Yvanne’s desk these days, and she kept it in order. She stood as she wrote; the document would not need to be long. It only required her signature, and her seal.

“Do you know where my signet ring is?” Loriel asked.

“Upper right drawer,” Yvanne said automatically. She hadn’t spoken or moved, had only watched Loriel move about the room with uncertain eyes.

She found the ring. “Thank you.” Sealing wax lay in the same container, dark burgundy stuff; blue was more fitting for the Warden-Commander, but red would do. She dripped the wax onto the bottom of the document and pressed her ring into it, leaving an impression of the double-headed griffon symbol of the Wardens. The ink had had time to dry while she’d fumbled with the wax.

She read over what she wrote, once, twice, thrice, just to make sure. But her mind was clear, and short of letting it sit overnight—not an option—she was sure she’d covered all her legal bases.

Yvanne finally rose. “Loriel?” she said hesitantly. “What is that?”

Loriel rolled up the parchment and handed it to her before she had a chance to lose her nerve.

“It is a legal document, signed and sealed by the lawfully appointed Warden-Commander of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, Arlessa of Amaranthine, and Lady of Soldier’s Peak,” said Loriel. “It states that Warden-Lieutenant Yvanne Amell is abroad on official Grey Warden business of highest priority, and that any attempts to impede her free movements will be met with swift reprisal by the Grey Wardens of Ferelden and the Ferelden Crown. And there’s some more legal jargon at the bottom if you want to review that.” She raised her chin. “I can’t promise it will keep you safe from anything out there, far from it, but it should make public life as a mage on her own a much easier prospect.”

I can’t do this anymore, Yvanne had said. It was her favorite gambit. It meant— I’m doing as I’ve decided. Do whatever you want, but my course is set. Most times in their life it had been a bluff—until Amaranthine.

Well, no more.

“I don’t...what?” Yvanne looked at the parchment, then at her. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Loriel said tiredly. “You don’t understand. And you never will.”

She knew it for the truth as she said it. For the nearly twenty years that they had known each other, for all the things they shared, for all that they had walked within each other's very souls, Yvanne would never understand. What did Yvanne know about darkness, about decay? Yvanne grew gardens and built castles in the sky, content to pretend that the world ( their bodies (them)) weren’t falling apart. Yvanne would never understand Loriel, and Loriel—it had become now blindingly obvious—would never understand Yvanne.

Loriel would never understand Yvanne, and she was tired of trying.

For an endless, awful moment they stood suspended in time. Yvanne stared at the parchment, the wheels in her head turning and creaking as it dawned on her, the full significance of what Loriel meant. In that long moment, it dawned on Loriel, too, the magnitude of it. She was standing on a shore, beholding a massive wave rising up to swallow all that she knew, and it had not crashed down on her head yet, but it would, any second now, it would.

“Are you telling me to go?” Yvanne said. Just to make sure. Just in case she’d misunderstood.

Ask me to come with you, Loriel thought then, desperately, as though that was going to save them. If she only asked, Loriel’s resolve would break, and she would have said yes. She would have followed her to the ends of the earth, if only because the prospect of living without her had now become terrifyingly real.

But Yvanne didn’t ask.

She didn’t ask, Loriel would tell herself later. She never asked.

Loriel would remember for the rest of her life the sight of Yvanne clutching the parchment and tearing out of the room. Loriel didn’t know why she would go after this—only that it would be far away, and that she was unlikely to ever see her again. Because she understood as well as Loriel did, what this meant for them—that the farce was finally over, the soap-bubble of their shared dreams well and truly popped. As it had always been destined to be.

For Loriel’s basic nature was that of entropy, and that meant she understood the nature of all things was to, eventually, cease. Every mechanism must someday wind down, and every life must eventually extinguish, and every love must eventually fizzle. You could run and run and run, but entropy would always get you in the end. Loriel had tried denying it, had tried cheating it, but it was no good.

Because you couldn’t get something for nothing. That was what Yvanne couldn’t seem to understand.

And that was why it had to be this way. That was why it had to end.

#dragon age #dragon femslash #amell #surana #dragon age: awakening #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

5 notes · View notes

wherethingscomebackx · 6 years ago

Text

Top 25 Larry Fics of 2018

It’s here you guys!!!

I did this list for 2016 and this list for 2017 and you guys have been so lovely!

I read a lot of fic and the majority of it is larry. I like making lists and I like larry so I thought I’d do some minimal research of the top 25 larry fics published/completed in 2018 in order of least to most kudos (with links). All of these fics are top notch so you should all check them out!

25.) knock knock, i love you by @thelovejandles

“Well,” Louis says, searching for something to relieve this tension. “I think if a bloke gets kicked out of his stats exam for a knock knock joke, he deserves to hear the punchline, yeah?”

“Oh!” Harry says, beaming. “I forgot where we left off, what was it again?” He looks overjoyed to be exchanging a shit joke.

“Ah, you said knock knock, then I said who’s there, and then you said Noah,” Louis supplies helpfully. He hates that he's actually curious about the rest of the joke. “So, Noah who?”

“Oh,” says Harry, in a much different tone, dragging out the syllable. He looks bashful now. Louis cannot keep up with this boy, it's going to kill him. “Right, well.” He shuffles his feet. Fuck, what kind of knock knock joke gets a boy nervous? “Noah a good place we could get something to eat?”

[Harry and Louis get kicked out of a statistics exam for passing a knock knock joke note, and subsequently fall in love. Harry's a virgin, there's a cat, a hot cocoa date, a lot of sex, even more knock knock jokes, and everything is lovely and happy.]

24.) Let Me Be Your Star by @chloehl10

Harry Styles has always been a singer, but he’s never had much confidence in himself. When his idol is brought on as the new judge on The X-Factor, he figures, what the hell? He’d get to sing and meet his idol. What could go wrong?

Louis Tomlinson has always wanted to mentor young musicians. When he’s asked to be a judge on The X-Factor, it’s a dream come true, everything he ever wanted. What he didn’t expect was to meet a curly-headed stranger that would turn his life upside down

23.) The Compulsion to Find Love by @toomanylarrytears

The most prestigious English third-level institution, Candling University, accepts omega students for the first time and Louis Tomlinson applies with bright eyes and brighter ambitions. There he encounters personal obstacles, traditional mindsets and a beautiful boy who inverts every prejudice Louis has ever known.

22.) Pursuit by DirtyLarryStylinson

Some people may deceive you by acting pleasant and friendly to begin with, but their demeanour can sometimes take a sinister turn when obsession kicks in.

Louis Tomlinson is seventeen years old and carefree. He has close friends and family, a stable education and a pretty good life overall, so what could go wrong?

Well, a lot. Especially when you've attracted the interest of Harry Styles, who hides a staggeringly frightening secret.

21.) ROUGE by lourryalrightee

Submissive Louis Tomlinson is a misjudged criminal who is accused of beating his own Dominant until unconciousness. But the truth is not like that. In fact, Louis has been a victim of severe abuse by his Dom, he only fought back to defend his own life. One could imagine how many times the Dom has raped the Sub, how many scars from canes and whips are there to litter across his body, how many times his flesh has been split open, how many nightmares he has endured that leaves him lose all hope in life.

Sent to the BDSM prison for "behavioural correction", Louis meets the warden there, Dominant Harry Styles. Dominant above all Dominants, Harry is cold and harsh on the outside, but secretly a lonely man in the inside.

Louis supposes he could find his solace here in prison, a time for his scars to heal, both physical and mental ones. But what if Harry starts befriending the Sub, seeing through all the false accusations? What if Harry wants to seek justice? Does Louis even want his name cleared anyways? But the most important question is,

Will Harry be able to give Louis the love he deserves?

If only Louis could tell him the truth.

20.) Now In A Minute by @avocadolouie

13 feels like yesterday for many people, but for Louis it actually was.

More than anything in the world, Louis Tomlinson dreams of growing up. Simply skipping over all of the awkward, embarrassing years of teenage existence and getting on with life. Real life.

So when thirteen-year-old Louis wakes up in the body of his thirty-year-old self, he expected everything in his adult life to be picture perfect. And maybe it is. He has it all…or so it seems.

Except his favorite person and lifelong best mate, Harry Styles, is totally missing from the equation and Louis doesn’t understand why. He has a lot of catching up to do and as adult life turns out to be more than what he bargained for, Louis can’t help wondering why a life that seemed so perfect, feels so empty.

Or the 13 going on 30 au that should have been done years ago.

19.) Wild Love by purpledaisy

“Good,” Julia says, clearly pleased to have them both uncomfortable and unable to look at each other. “Now, I only have one more question before you can go. What are you planning to do when this experiment ruins your friendship?”

“We said we’d stay friends no matter what,” Harry says smoothly, his chin lifting in defense.

“That was our one thing going into it,” Louis agrees. “Stay friends no matter what.”

Julia raises a perfectly manicured brow, “That’s all fine and good. But I hope you realize your emotions aren’t going to realize this is an experiment in the end. If one of you falls for the other and finds out those feelings are not reciprocated, you’re not going to be able to laugh it off as a social experiment. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this, I’m just hoping you’ve considered all of the possible outcomes.”

- AU: Two best friends try to date each other for forty days. It's supposed to be fun until emotions make it complicated.

18.) Take Our Bodies Higher by @littlelouishiccups

Harry wasn’t often caught off guard at his job anymore. He called different men Sir, Master, or Daddy for work almost every week, but he’d never been told he was a good boy in a voice quite like that.

In which Harry is a phone sex operator and Louis dials a wrong number.

17.) You Got That Somethin’ by @styleandsin

“How are you? Having a good time? Got a couple of beers in? What are those?” Louis hears him ask in quick succession, the loudness of the microphone making him jump even though the screams around him have yet to cease.

“It’s vodka,” Louis says, slightly unsure.

“Vodka! Oh, straight?” Harry asks, louder this time and with a growing smile.

Phoebe and Daisy have turned around to face him, huge smiles on their faces.

Fuck, this man is really going to be the death of Louis. He can physically feel his brain struggling to make his body cooperate and answer the question. He is so gay.

“No, gay!” He shouts, immediately getting an elbow to the side by his sister.

Or, the one where Louis attends a Harry Styles concert and makes an absolute fool of himself.

16.) The Road Less Travelled By by @freetheankles

Louis was a lumberjack happy to be living his life alone in what could qualify as Middle Of Nowhere, Canada.

Every morning, he went out into the woods, cut his logs, then came home at dusk to a scalding hot shower and a good book by the fireplace. Rinse and Repeat. He had a good life, quiet and peaceful; simple. Not a secluded one as Niall annoyingly claimed.

Louis certainly didn't need some chatty trespasser dropping into his life, his forest, his home. Invading his space, his circle of friends, touching his stuff, asking questions about his husband. His late husband.

A trespasser who wasn’t supposed to crawl under his skin, occupy his thoughts, and steal his heart from where Louis had locked it safely away, only to put it right back on Louis’ sleeve — where it once laid.

No, Louis definitely didn’t need Harry.

15.) Dirty secret by iilarryii

"Dad, you can't go!" Louis yells to his father as he watches him pull out his sword.

"Louis, you know that I have to. It's the pack leaders orders," Dan says calmly. "I need you to promise me that you'll take care of the family if I die."

"So what? You'll just give up?"

"Of course not. I am just willing to die for my family's safety."

"So am I."

The Zoely pack is attacked by rogue alphas and the pack leader orders all alphas over the age of eighteen to protect their pack. Dan Deakin is one of the strongest alphas in the pack, but there is one problem. He has a wife and six kids to feed and look after. Louis is the oldest child and the one who wants to protect their family.

Or a Mulan AU where Louis is an omega who takes his father's place in the war.

14.) Breathe Me by eternalxrry

Omega Louis thinks he's worthless, after being told thousands of times a day, he finally starts to believe the bullies. But no one is there to protect him, until Harry and his pack move to Louis' hometown. Will Harry protect Louis? Or is it all too good to be true.

13.) The Second Hand Unwinds by @fullonlarrie

Louis Tomlinson is one of the first members of NASA's top secret Chrono Exploration Program. When things go wrong and he's sent further back in time than planned, he has no other option than to show up on his ex-boyfriend's doorstep.

12.) won’t you wear my watermark by @bottomlinsons

The new Earl of Harrisson is a young man, an impulsive romantic, forced to shoulder too much responsibility far too soon. He is also Louis’ soulmate, but there’s nothing to be done about that. At least, as far as Louis is concerned.

The Earl, it seems, will take some convincing.

(A slow burn Regency AU featuring secrets, seduction and, our favourite, soulmarks.)

11.) That’s How I Know by @allwaswell16

Louis Tomlinson has just landed his dream job, coaching soccer at Augustus University. When he moves into a new house near campus, he meets his very fit new neighbor, English professor Harry Styles. Although their first meeting leads to an instant mutual dislike, the more Harry gets to know Louis, the more he likes what he sees.

Or the one where Harry’s African grey parrot spills his dirty secrets to his very hot neighbor.

10.) I Didn’t Fall For You (You Fucking Tripped Me) by @allwaswell16

These days Louis tends to steer clear of dating alphas. He’s dated too many knotheads in his time, and he’s ready to just focus on school and his friends and his pet monitor lizard, of course.

Too bad the alpha next door won’t take a hint and stop using the worst pick up lines of all time on him. He’s really got to stop laughing with him--and talking to him and walking to class with him and letting him bring him coffee and tea and gifts for his lizard and watching Netflix together and...

9.) Have Faith In Me by stylinsoncity

As the son of Anne Styles, millionaire owner of one of the world's most luxurious fashion labels, Harry has spent his last seventeen years living in carefree extravagance. And now he's grown tired of it, along with the pressure from his mum to follow in her footsteps and the constant care given to him by her past assistants.

When his mum's newest assistant, Louis, moves into the guesthouse, Harry determines to be treated differently. To be treated like an adult. Except Louis is not at all what Harry was expecting...

This is a story about growing up, growing in love and having the faith to make it last.

8.) falling into you by stylinsoncity

In the grand scheme of adolescence and boyhood, Harry was still working himself out, so far with little luck. But four things he could say for certain: 1) he'd been at the top of his class all through primary and secondary school, 2) he was the shittiest alpha to ever walk the earth, 3) Liam Payne never let him forget it, and 4) he’d been in love with this boy, Louis Tomlinson, ever since he was fifteen years old.

7.) Blue Ice by @larriegal

"Don't ever try to get near me! I don't wanna see you." Harry had slurred in his face looking him in the eye.

"I-I don't understand..." Louis managed to say his voice low, pushing a little from the wall holding his left arm with his right hand.

"What don't you understand? I. DON'T. WANT. YOU!" Harry said again pointing at him, while making his way to the living room, Louis following him in horror.

"Why are you being like this?" Louis managed to get out, though he felt like being ripped to pieces.

"You really thought I love you?! You must be really fucking stupid! Who could even love you?"

•

An AU where Louis finds himself in a marriage he didn't bargain for.

6.) If Anyone Knew by @marastarfar

Harry’s a young alpha who’s strangely gentle. Louis’ an omega who’s strangely protective. Being the only ones in the band who aren’t betas they automatically empathise with each other and decide that it’s their job to look after each other.

Or Harry and Louis through the early One Direction years in an a/b/o universe.

5.) Worth Dying For by whoknows

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. In the center of the table, a set of three glossy photos stares up at him, mocking him.

“A security detail is non-negotiable, Louis, you know this,” his mum reminds him, tapping the middle photo with two fingers.

Louis doesn’t look back down at the pictures, gesturing towards them wildly, over-dramatically. “This is not a security detail!” he protests. “This is a lanky college student. In what world do you hire someone like this kid to protect me?”

4.) Fucking Animals by @pointerbrotherblog

“Just, off the record,” she says, voice lower, eyes sharper, crook of her mouth quirking up a little, “don’t you ever miss it? A good knot? You must.”

Louis blinks and then swallows, thickly. “No,” he exclaims, offended that she’d even ask, “I love my husband. And anyway, how could I miss something I’ve never had?”

---

Louis is the frontman of an equal rights-movement, author of a book about beta-omega marriage and the struggles of being born and boxed into a personality you don't necessarily feel you fit. The notion that an omega must want to be with an alpha or else he or she's just settling for less, is bullshit.

But, fucking hell.

3.) the impossible now by stylinsoncity

A wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

2.) Where You Lay by @ham-palpert

When Louis's upcoming heat threatens his success at his new dream job, he asks the best (and only) person he can think of to help him through it: his best mates' best mate, Harry Styles. Harry reluctantly accepts, and together the two navigate a strange friends with benefits relationship that quickly turns complicated.

1.) For As Long As I Can Remember (It’s Been December) by @greenfeelings

After recovering from a severe accident that causes Harry to lose his memory of three years, he moves to London to start his life over as a star chef. Little does he know that when he falls in love with Louis at first sight, it’s not the first time they meet.

Featuring an unintentional game of hot and cold, Harry chasing memories that won’t come back, Louis burying himself in work to try and forget what he can’t forget, Liam being torn between two of his best friends, Zayn as a moral compass and Niall saving the day with good music and brutal honesty.

#larry stylinson #larry #larry fic rec #one direction #harry styles #louis tomlinson #1d #larry is real #larry fic #larry fanfiction #fic rec #fanfiction

315 notes · View notes