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emwritesstuff · 3 years ago

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as the world caves in | ch. 9 | bucky barnes x reader

synopsis: You are a ghost story. A former Air Force pilot who had her plane shot down by Germany in 1945, but here you were in 2023, alive and frozen in your 25-year-old body.

You haven’t seen Bucky since the 1940’s, before his fall, before you went on a suicide mission only to come back alive. You aren’t sure reliving those memories – and being a living memory of everything the man has lost – is the best for him.

But you and Bucky won’t be apart for long.

This will loosely follow the plot of TFATWS - so spoilers ahead, specially regarding episode six (finale). Thread carefully!

masterlist | AO3

notes: thank you everyone for your patience with this chapter. I'm dropping this lil shortie so we can get the story moving. Let's go! (warnings: lil' fluff, lil' angst) (word count: 3K) nine: records

Bucky knocked on your door a few weeks later.

It was late, and you were snug in your pajamas, winding down after a long day. With your identity no longer a secret, the government was in the midst of transferring you to something more… hands-on, and definitely less diplomatic, you were assuming; so much for retirement, but you figured 30 years of it had been more time than you could’ve anticipated.

You almost didn’t hear the soft rapping on wood over Vera Lynn’s mellow singing.

When you finally opened it, you found him standing there, wearing tired eyes and a dark coat. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late, but I started walking and I—"

“When I said you’re welcome anytime, Bucky Barnes, I meant any time.”

A tiny fraction of a smile was offered your way, and you grasped it tight against your heart at the same time you do his hand, pulling him inside.

His fingers lingered on yours, but before you could start thinking about it he pulled away, taking a seat at the edge of your couch. “I finished it. The book.”

Bucky answered your question before you could ask it. “I just came from there. The last one– the last name.”

“Well. Are you alright?” You sat next to him, your knee knocking against his, and his gaze went from the floor, to the spot where your legs touched, and then to you. He knitted his eyebrows, seeming a little incredulous you were even asking.

“I will be.” His hands intertwined on the space between his knees, and you placed a hand ton his shoulder, getting him to look at you again.

“Yes, you will. Do you want to talk about it?”

One corner of Bucky’s lip raised up, and he shook his head. “Is that Vera Lynn?”

You smiled, turning to look at your record player as if Vera herself was sitting next to it. “It is. Takes me back, I guess.”

“It’s all we’d listen to at the front.”

Nodding, you wondered for a second if Bucky remembered dancing to We’ll Meet Again the night before he was shipped off. Even if you weren’t the only girl he had danced with then, you still asked yourself if that memory was burned on his mind as it was on yours.

We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. A short-term promise, made back then by hopeful lovers, friends, family members; you had no idea that those lyrics would prove themselves so literal when you and Bucky mouthed them at each other in the middle of a dancefloor.

You let out a breathy chuckle, standing up and beckoning him to where you kept the rest of your vinyl. “Come on. Vera’s starting to feel a little too nostalgic to me.”

Your record collection was pretty extensive, ranging from things of the good ol’ days from the special editions that were still being released nowadays. Bucky joined you on the floor, and together you started to make your way through decades eternized in discs.

“Marvin Gaye.”

You look up from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, finding Bucky making a face at the album he was holding. “It’s really good. Do you want to—”

“No. No more Marvin Gaye.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “You don’t like him?”

“I like Marvin Gaye! Jesus. Marvin is good—Marvin’s jus’ fine,” Bucky rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger, and you finally understood.

“Sam’s been preaching you the word of R&B to you too, huh?”

You giggled at the tired look he gave you and silently took Trouble Man out of his hands, stuffing it back with the rest of the 1970’s.

Years ago, Bucky would be delighted to dive headfirst in the new – your trips to countless science fairs and expositions were enough proof of that – but looking at him now, knowing him as you were starting to once again, you figured that just a dip of the toes was more than enough.

You pulled Frank Sinatra from the 1950’s section.

“I know Sinatra.”

“Do you now?”

You put the record on your player, and Vera Lynn’s longing gave way to Sinatra’s swagger and jazz.

“Do you?” Bucky teased, frowning at the most recent items in your collection. As soon as Frank’s voice filled the silence, he nodded. “Yeah, that’s nice.”

“I do know him! Or did. Met ‘im in 1962.” You plopped next to Bucky, who was shaking his head. “What?”

“Show off.”

“No, just been around. Met people on the way. And, you asked.” Your smirk grew into a grin as Bucky mouthed your words back at you. Then his face fell for a second, and your amusement was quickly replaced by worry. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I guess – I guess I just missed a lot.” The same way one of the corners of his lips tug on his cheek again in his attempt of a smile, melancholy tugs at your heartstrings. “I missed out on everything. And I missed out on you.”

Bucky’s head was low as he spoke and you could see the tremble of his hands, even though he clutched one of your records tightly. Nina Simone, 1960’s.

“M’not going anywhere, you know.”

“You still lived an entire lifetime—”

“I did, yes, thank you for constantly reminding me that I’m over 100 years old.” You shook your head at him, sighing softly when he chuckled.

You couldn’t blame him, for clinging to every bit of past he’d missed while he was in HYDRA’s clutches – you knew that was inevitable, but you wished that such sorrow wasn’t so related to you.

“What are you doin’?” He asked as you summoned a small stool from the side of your shelf and stepped on it.

“I want to show you somethin’.” The thing you were looking for was stored at the very top: a heavy, brown leather suitcase that almost made you lose your balance when you pulled it from the spot it had been sitting in for—honestly, years, many of them.

The contents of the suitcase rattled as you climbed down and sat next to Bucky again. Sinatra still playing, telling his lover I've got you under my skin, I've got you, deep in the heart of me;

You almost laughed from the truth and irony of it.

I'd tried so, not to give in

I said to myself this affair never will go so well

You unlocked the suitcase, revealing the gathered memories inside. Pictures, movie tickets, theater playbooks, receipts, trinkets. All souvenirs of the 80 something years of your life Bucky hadn’t been there to see.

Not organized in the slightest, the keepsakes of your life were tossed together and out of order just as in your memory: photographs of you in uniform, and sometimes in party dresses; of when you bought your house; of the few times you had pets. Posing next to famous people and other important ones whose names weren’t as well known by the world.

As you and Bucky went through each of them, you added a story or an explanation, sometimes both, to fill him in on the details of your life events. He laughed at some, frowned at a lot, stared at you intently for all of them.

“Is this Berlin?”

You hummed, nodding. “1989. That party was great.”

“Party?” Bucky knitted his eyebrows in surprise.

“The city was unified, the wall was being taken down, and everyone was celebrating. I’ve never seen that many bottles of vodka in one place.” You laughed, taking a good look at yourself in the picture.

The 80’s were definitely not your best decade, looks wise. You had tried a perm the year before, and the poodle look was only then starting to dial down. The beginnings of a bruise were starting to creep on your left eye, from the mission you had completed just a few hours before.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk.”

Bucky’s surprise intensified, his eyes wide. “We can’t get drunk.”

“Yes we can.”

“No, no we can’t.”

“We can, in fact. It’s all a matter of quantity and, well, speed.” You giggled as Bucky’s mouth gaped more.

“And the hangover?”

“Horrible. Like getting shot on the forehead. Comes quickly, too.”

He grimaced, and with one last look – certainly to register your peculiar appearance on his mind – gently put the picture back inside the suitcase. A stack of papers seemed to call out to him and he picked it up, releasing them from the band that held them together carefully.

Postcards of the places you’ve been: a small note to James Barnes and Steve Rogers on the back of each one.

Bucky’s voice faltered. He let out an anguished little sound, probably something that was supposed to be an Oh, or a What, but had no strength to crawl up his throat.

You brought your knees to your chest as you waited for him.

“You—you wrote to us?”

“I did. You can keep those, they’re addressed to you.”

After all this time, you could barely remember the words you wrote in those postcards; all you knew was that some had longer messages, others a simple Wish you were here.

“After we met in Baltimore, I thought that— that you’d have moved on from us.”

From me.

As if that was possible.

“Well, I stopped writing by 2003, give or take. But really,” You sighed. “It’s hard to forget someone when you’ve always been expecting them to come back to you.”

Bucky flipped the postcard from Rome, read the writing and smiled wistfully at it. “And, I did.”

“You did. And staying away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but—”

“But you’re annoyingly stubborn.” His jaw tightened, then relaxed when he smirked. “I mean, I get it – If the roles were reversed, I’d leave you rebuild your life without me like a self-sacrificing idiot too.”

Alright. That was fair.

Shaking your head, you watched as he slipped the postcards in his pocket, an amused expression on his face.

“That was… a big mistake. Something a self-sacrificing idiot would do,” You screwed your eyes shut in shame, opening them when Bucky chuckled. “but now, I’m right here. And so are you.”

His stubble scratched the soft skin of your palm when you reached for him, and you continued. “We’re a little out of place in this century, that much is true, but if I’m being honest… I’m getting tired of yearning for the past, Buck.”

Good old times – sometimes really good, sometimes bad, every one of them old – tucked away in your heart like your records were tucked in neatly in their shelf, organized by year. As you went through the decades, your enhanced body eternizing you like marble, your heart seemingly stayed at that army camp overseas. Or maybe Sergeant Bucky Barnes had taken it with him, only for them to be frozen together, leaving you with an empty hole in your chest.

You lived your life longing for that missing piece, the one with blue eyes and the dashing smile and the skilled feet.

The one that in many other stories was the one that got away, the one who now believed he was somebody else, but had brought your heart back with him all the same.

The very heart that nearly leapt out of your chest when Bucky rested his forehead against yours.

You’ve never been this close – there isn’t an ounce of past in the gesture. His eyes being tightly closed kept him from seeing the surprise on your eyes and then how they fell to his lips for a millisecond. Then, those lips brushed against yours in a featherlike touch.

I would sacrifice anything, come what might

For the sake of having you near

He pried himself off you when you exhaled, as if your very breath had electrocuted him.

“M’sorry. I—I didn’t—” He said as you stared at the back of his neck, and the shock gives way to disappointment.

I didn’t mean to. Or maybe: I didn’t want to.

“That’s—it’s okay.” You clapped your hands on your knees, still feeling the prickle of his facial hair on them, and got up to change the music.

There was no doubt Bucky was touch starved, and that he probably craved the closeness that comes with a lover. He sought that for a fleeting second in Sam’s sister, and now in you. No point in dwelling on what it might have meant.

Right?

Looking at Bucky, his expression was overcast, furrowed eyebrows as he watched you from his spot on the floor. You offered him a gentle smile, and the crease on his forehead eased up slightly.

Right.

Don't you know little fool, you never can win

The record player made a scratching sound as you replaced Frank Sinatra with your go-to jazz compilation. Instrumental.

No lyrics.

There was one thing you’ve always been good at, regarding the infatuation with Bucky Barnes that has taken over your heart for almost a century now: locking the feelings away and stepping into the shoes of the best friend.

Besides, you’ve said it yourself: no more yearning for the past. Hopefully you and Bucky would be able to do that soon enough.

At that moment, however, you needed to feel the burn of whiskey down your throat and pretend it’ll heal the calcinating rejection spreading through your chest.

The guilt you found in Bucky’s eyes as he watched you sweep around your hardwood floors made you pour a glass for him.

He took it gratefully, frowning when you bottomed the whole thing up.

“There’s a lot in here.” He tapped the edge of the suitcase, skillfully steering the conversation in the direction of the more palatable, calm territory it was in before.

The sight of your autobiographical collection made you smile.

“An entire lifetime,” You said, fishing your dog tags from the bottom. “I suppose that’s where it started. Or at least, where thisstarted.”

Bucky took them reverentially, running his thumb over the imprint of your name and numbers.

He reached for his neck, producing from under his Henley the same type of metal chain he was holding in his hands. The fact that he still wore his like that sent a sharp blow to your lungs, almost knocking the air out of you.

His face softened, a smile so beautiful spreading across his lips, so much that your chest clenched in protest because it was simply not fair, how he still had you entirely.

He deposited both of your dog tags in your hands, and that’s when you saw it, and remembered it.

“Won’t we get in trouble for this?”

“Do you care?”

“Well…No.” You sighed, already resigned. And a little excited.

Bucky knew you well: it had been too long of being a good little soldier when all you were used to was the rush of being a hellion.

“And that is why, sugar, that I’m doing this with you, and not with Steve.”

The words made your heart soar, but you were sure to recapture it before it could fly away too high, still too attached to the sensation of the take-off to clip its wings.

You liked flying.

“And because Steve hasn’t been successful in his enlisting efforts. Yet.”

Bucky looked at you from behind his eyebrows, a reprimand hiding in his eyes, but he decided to shove his uniform hat on your head instead. You grumbled, calling him a jerk under your breath.

It was the night before Bucky was drafted to England. He looked handsome in his uniform, a shining, polished star, brighter than the sun even under the dim streetlight you two stood under.

After bringing his and Steve’s dates home (yours was lost to another boxing match along the way – not that you were crying about that) Bucky had decided he was going to stay up all night, because, in his words, he could sleep when the war was over. Or, more realistically, in the ship on the way to England.

So there you two were, illuminated by street lamps and moonlight, visiting the façades and front windows of your favorite places in Brooklyn like drifters in the night.

Bucky still concentrated on his task, his shoulder hunched slightly to block your sight.

“Let me see! Bucky!”

“ ’Sposed to be a surprise! I’m almost done.”

You huffed, crossing your arms. “It’s not like I haven’t seen ‘em before.”

“You gotta be more patient. Here.”

He dropped your dog tags on your hand. You displayed the small steel plates on your palm, scanning your eyes over the two. One of them, of course, had your name, number, blood type, next of kin – an aunt you’ve never met – and address.

The other had Bucky’s.

James B Barnes. 32557038.

He slipped his own chain over his head, the plate with your name clinking against his.

You brought the tips of your fingers to your lips, feeling a smile begin to form onto them.

“I forgot we did this. I haven’t looked at these in so long.”

You had stopped wearing your dog tags the day the war had ended – Bucky was gone then, Steve too, and the weight of his dog tags slamming against your chest was too much to bear – your heart was already heavy with its own engraving of their memories.

“Steve had a lecture prepared when he gave mine back.” Bucky chuckled when you looked up at him, incredulous.

You shook your head, half exasperated and half amused. “Good grief, Steve.”

“Y’know how he is. Was,” He trailed, lips twitching as they formed a thin line.

You reached for him, your hand hovering in the space between you for a second before Bucky took it, lacing your fingers. Scooting closer, you let your cheek rest on his shoulder.

“He’d be glad we’re reunited.” You said, raising your head to peek at him and the newfound upwards curl of his lip. “And mortified we’re still bickering.”

Bucky smiled and squeezed your hand. “Old people. Old habits.”

Laughter bubbled out of your chest, and you realized a few things.

In that moment, it didn’t matter – the heartache, the unrequited side of your love. It was just a fact, a fact of life, of your life, that you a lot of the times loved him as more than your best friend. You loved him. And that was the core of it, the most important fact.

And you knew he loved you – you had each other – in this big, ever-changing, modern world, you had Bucky and Bucky had you.

You sat in comfortable, familiar silence until your eyelids grew heavy and you felt yourself drifting in and out of consciousness.

“You dozin’ on me, sugar?”

“It’s been a long day.” You said with your eyes still closed, feeling him chuckle beside you.

“Tell me about it. I can go—”

“You know damn well you should stay.” You patted his arm and hoisted yourself up from the floor. “I’ll get the pull-up ready for you.”

As you sauntered towards the office, ignoring his pleads and protests that he’s got it, he doesn’t need sheets or anything, you put your dog tags back on.

They jingled lightly against your heart.

Maybe you didn’t have to leave all of the past behind to start building something good and new, after all.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes imagine

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essayofthoughts · 3 years ago

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📕

Put “📓” or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about.

From what I see of CR fandom there's ... well frankly, not a lot of thoughts about Cassandra de Rolo, which is a shame because she's fascinating, but there seem to be a few specific trends for her. Some people want to give her a chance to be awesome and adventure on her own, which fine, I kind of get but also I think after the five years she had she'd want to unwind and relax and be safe more than a lot of things. Even when dealing with anger and all (with Percy's help, given some of the Wrap Up comments) I don't think that's necessarily the route she'd go. The other trends I see for her are often specifically romantic - and there's two trends I see there. People who ship her with Kynan, due to some of the Wrap Up comments from Matt, and people who ship her with Kaylie for... I don't know what reason. Some combo of Lesbians and, from what I could tell "it'd piss off Percy and that'd be funny" which I don't necessarily believe and certainly do not find encouraging ship motivation.

Sufficeth to say, I do not find either of these particularly compelling.

I've written a small fic about Cass before (here) and one day I'd like to write something that builds on it. Specifically, I want to explore how she might interact with Desmond.

No, not the mapmaker, that's Tyriok.

No, not the person they saved outside of Westruun from the orcs.

No. No. No.

The carriageboy Percy maimed.

Yeah. Him.

See, there's a few things I think that have the potential to make that interesting. Firstly, we're told Desmond is around 18 - which is to say, older than Kynan, around the same age as Cass, and likely around the same age Percy was when the Briarwoods attacked.

(Percy's last words to Desmond before knocking him out, "I want you spend the rest of your life making up for what you allowed to happen", suddenly take on a whole load of other meaning when you consider that, imo.)

He's a Whitestone native, he's not an inherently bad person. Percy attempts to apologise once they return, but gets repeatedly spoken over because he pauses, presumably trying to find the right words to apologise ("I'm sorry I maimed you, I was not entirely myself and may have been under the influence of a demon but that's no excuse and I do not know that I can ever make amends to you for the wrong I have done you" is not an apology that's likely to fall easily from anyone's lips, let us be honest here). He does ultimately try to ensure Desmond gets a position of work - which he may otherwise struggle to find, given his maimed hand, and again, which it is only fair Percy attempt to rectify given his responsibility.

But ah, this is all Desmond and Percy, let me move on to Desmond and Cassandra.

They're of an age. They also both lived through the Briarwoods occupation in pretty close proximity to the Briarwoods - Cassandra as their prisoner and Desmond first as the carriageboy of one of their new nobles and then as their carriageboy. They've seen both the Briarwoods capability for kindness, for protective anger, and for their cruelty and brutality - including towards them. They murdered Cassandra's family; when she helped Percy escape they were shot at and she was shot down under their orders. They abandoned Desmond when Vox Machina attacked; on realising he was their prisoner they sent two invisible stalkers to kill him.

They also were twistedly parental to Cassandra and saved Desmond from Tylieri's treatment. These two undoubtedly have complicated, messy and often unclear thoughts and emotions regarding the Briarwoods. Desmond was offered a job as a courier between Whitestone and Emon but after Musician's Nostalgia he's never heard from again. He may have been killed during the Conclave's attack, if he was still in Emon - or he may have been sent off already. The wiki assumes he lives; we don't know for certain. But I like the idea he lives and I like this specific idea, so I run with the assumption he survived and either made his way to Whitestone or was part of the refugees VM evacuated to Whitestone.

And I like the idea that he ends up in service to Cass, basically as her manservant and personal assistant. Percy wants to see Desmond employed. Cassandra is being left in charge of Whitestone and all the things Percy, in his particular messy way, is not good at dealing with, which is to say the aftermath of so much of what he does.

So Cassandra, partially perhaps as a pointed comment, keeping Desmond as her personal servant - so Percy cannot forget what he has done and what he has left her to deal with.

I do not think Desmond would ever think particularly kindly of Percy. I do not blame him. No matter how much I love Percy as a character and think him well constructed and find him fascinating to explore - I would not blame Desmond in the least for being bitter and angry regarding the man who maimed him, never apologised, ensured he was given employment and just left the handling of that to his deeply traumatised younger sister.

There are many legitimate reasons to criticise Percy and Desmond, in this circumstance even more than canon, would have every cause to see those.

But I also think he'd have a lot of reasons to empathise with and understand Cassandra. I think their understanding of the complexity of their personal relationships with the Briarwoods would make them less judgemental of one another's difficult decisions during the occupation; their understanding of the pressures of the occupation and the grief Whitestone and the families within it bear for what happened - they lived in and amongst it as Percy did not.

I think they could connect on an interesting and deep way.

I also think neither is particularly prone to trusting, given everything. I think they'd take a damn long time to admit their trust for each other let alone anything else. If I wrote it, it would be a painfully slow burn.

But... I like to imagine it. I like to think up how they'd slowly be drawn closer just by working together and seeing each other every day and understanding one another's quirks. I like to think about the steady, quiet peace they build because neither has much care for sudden loud noises or explosive anger. For how their understanding of one another builds reassurance; for how that means they stand firm for each other in tentative friendship and empathetic loyalty. I like to think about the way they act towards each other, starting as the formal standard of ruling Lady and personal manservant and how that shifts as they use that to shield one another from things they know they dislike; Desmond given leave when Percy comes to speak to Cassandra, Desmond interrupting with some small important distraction when Cassandra gets caught in panic or anxiety or a memory. Quietly, persistently, helping each other, and it seeming only as work.

But it's too persistent for just work. It's too consistent for work.

But of course - they cannot just admit it. They have little reason to trust, for all they very clearly trust each other within their set dynamic.

This story, if I ever wrote it, would unfold slowly, small thing weighing upon small thing until the pressure is insurmountable and impossible to ignore.

It's not my usual style, that kind of steady slow pacing. But one day, I'd like to try it.

#samdaharu #percy de rolo #cassandra de rolo #desmond otham #critical role #ask games #ask #fic things #writing things

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flowerwrites06 · 4 years ago

Text

mint ocean — myg

Plot: Yoongi clashes with a lyricist.

Pairing(s): Music Major!Yoongi x Lyricist!OC (Name: Kiku)

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Word Count: 3k+

Genre: College | Fluff/Angst

Tags & Warnings: coarse language, sexual references.

Authors Note: i didn’t realize people would like this little oneshot so much but here you go!

“Another party?” Yoongi scorned, throwing his head back as he sat on the chair trying to rest his eyes from the books in front of him. How Namjoon managed to organize so many fucking parties in a year almost terrified the mint-haired male. “Didn’t you just have one like yesterday? With the jelly shots and shit.”

“Yoongi, that was a month ago.” Namjoon corrected, fixing his pink tresses while looking at the mirror. “I think it’s nice to have gatherings…you know to consolidate relationships.”

He scoffed obnoxiously. “You just want to fuck that singer with her little plaid skirt still on.”

The younger male immediately glared at his roommate. “Don’t talk about Minnie like that. She’s a nice girl, alright?”

Despite the light smirk on his face, Yoongi took a step back from his commenting. He didn’t know too much about the girl truly but from what he saw she was extremely beautiful to say the least and had a kind smile. He never really talked to her one on one. “So what’re you trying this time?”

“I’m not trying anything, it’s just doing a bit of socializing.” He shrugged.

Yoongi gagged mockingly at the ‘s’ word. His pink haired counterpart definitely proved to have more social skills in his one pinky finger than he did in his whole body. Which was something he both envied and took pride in. Knowing people was always beneficial clearly since Namjoon got a lot of opportunities from it but interacting with far too many people meant being worried about too many useless feelings. “I’m only coming for the shots.” He mumbled, tapping his pen against the open notebook scribbled with a few bits from yesterday’s lecture.

Namjoon chuckled. “You say that but I still manage to see a pretty someone sneaking out of your room in the morning.”

He pointed at the man with his pen. “It’s ‘cause of the shots.”

“Sure.” He grinned knowing the mint-haired male despite his demeanor did like a little bit of attention when it came to him.

“A party?” Kiku peered through the glass, whispering in the serene silence of the library while skimming through a few sources for her next essay. Blue tresses falling over her face despite the loose restraint of her long ponytail.

Minnie nodded sitting on the other side with her laptop open on her right and her notebook adorned with the neatest writing. “Namjoon said it was a small gathering so no need to worry about too much noise and all that.”

“You know what he’s trying to do, don’t you?” She leaned in so she could raise her voice a little but not have it echo throughout the entire room.

“Not this again.” She lowered her head, doodling a little on the corner of her page with her brunette waves framing her face.

“Please tell me you’re being careful.” Kiku searched the others’ expression. Namjoons’ intentions were a little blurry since she found him to be a decent student at least in the music classes and various music projects they shared. But anyone could be great at school work and terrible at treating women. It made her extremely suspicious especially since his attempts always involved a party with booze.

“Of course I’m being careful.” Minnie muttered, tapping her pen against the table. “There’s nothing wrong with going to a party.”

“A lot of college girls would disagree.” Bitterness laced in her tone as she scribbled a few words on the corner of her notebook maybe hoping to add some of them in the new song.

“Namjoon isn’t like that. He fights about stuff like that, you should hear the kind of music he makes.” Minnie defended.

Kiku sighed. “Speaking of music…how did they like the song?”

“They loved it as usual.” Though the girl did not sound enthusiastic in the slightest. “How long do you expect to keep your identity secret from everyone else? What if someone finds out before you can come out?”

“Then they find out.” She shrugged. “Everyone loves you and your voice. Let them think it’s some mystery producer that no one knows about.”

Their conversation got shorter and shorter about this whole situation. Minnie would try to convince her to show her real self to the public instead being under an alias. Kiku simply suggested that she preferred not being bothered about her songs. Writing songs without the credit allowed her to be more personal.

“Will you at least come to the party with me then?” Her expression grew a little desperate. Okay she did really like Namjoon. The two had been conversing and trying to spend time with each other for a couple of months now. “It’ll be better if you were there so nothing bad happened.” Namjoon would never let anything bad happen but it was more to reassure Kiku.

After a moment of thought, the blue haired girl spoke. “Fine. An hour.”

Regret seeped into Kiku’s body quicker than she expected when they walked into the loud and slightly crowded house. Minnie held onto her hand tightly to ensure no one got lost as they slid through following Namjoon to a circle of couches. Sweaty bodies all around them, Kiku wished she had not just opted for a fitted crop top and some baggy pants.

“You can sit here.” The pink haired male smiled patting the space next to him.

Kiku suppressed the urge to roll her eyes as she sat on the other side of Minnie, eyes struggling to meet the gazes of all the people in the group. Two girls were sat around a mint-haired male while two other boys sat on the floor in front of the coffee table centering them. If it weren’t for the loud music and people making babies in the kitchen then this would have resembled a quiet game night.

“Minnie, you know Yoongi.” Namjoon spoke softly gesturing towards the mint-haired male who gave the two a small smirk. “I made him listen to your songs, he loves it.”

She giggled nervously while Kiku merely smiled. “Thank you.”

“You write really well seriously.” Yoongi commented, eyes flickering over to the full head of grey-ish blue sitting quietly next to her friend. “What’s your source?”

“Honestly my producer writes most of the lyrics.” Minnie kept her voice pretty gentle despite the booming of the beats. She accidentally glanced over at Kiku when talking about her producer. “She’s the talented one.”

“Well you’re the one who’s singing it. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of random words on paper, isn’t it? A page from a diary instead of a real song.”

Namjoons’ smile disappeared hearing his friends’ comment and attempting to give him a warning look but Yoongi did not see him.

“Lyrics are still important though.” Minnie explained softly, not really wanting to see Kiku’s reaction anymore.

“Yeah they are.” Namjoon continued knowing Yoongi thought the same thing.

“Of course…when added. By itself, it’s nothing.”

“They can’t just be ‘nothing’” Minnie still smiled and it made Namjoon even more angry at his friend.

He knew Yoongi despised these parties and made it a mission to show how bad they can get but in front of the girl he liked?

“He’s right.” Kiku spoke up this time, all of their eyes flickered over to her now.

Minnie’s brows furrowed silently trying to tell her not to bring herself down in that manner. So many people found it easy to diss on her lyrical ability because she never actually showed herself to them. So they both had to quietly sit there and tolerate the incessant commenting until headaches ensued.

“Lyrics are nothing but random words without the song.” Kiku continued with a neutral expression. “Just like rappers are nothing but drug using whores that talk fast.” She smiled at the man whose smirk slowly disappeared. “Or MIDI producers are nothing but fingers tapping on a fake keyboard.”

Her comment injected silence amongst the group including a proper glare from Yoongi. One of the girls muttered something about Kiku being extremely rude while Minnie did not know what to feel. “I’m gonna go get a drink.”

Barely ten minutes into the party, Kiku already regretted being there and even trying to converse with someone who had the personality of a grain of sand. What kind of a music student talks about lyrics like that? Who the fuck did he think he was? Lyrics took so much time and energy. She could not even count the amount of times she cried or got angry whenever she wrote them.

“I need to go check on her.” Minnie muttered to Namjoon gently. “Sorry.” She touched his arm lightly hoping he understood why she had to prioritize Kiku tonight. Aside from literally helping her in her career, she always tried to keep her safe no matter what.

Namjoon stammered as the wonderful girl walked away from him to check on her friend. An immediate glare now shot to Yoongi.

“What?” The mint-haired male winced. “She said things too.”

“Because you were acting like an idiot with Minnie.”

“I’m not the one who’s desperate to impress her.” Yoongi shrugged.

“That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be rude. You’re my best friend, I wanted you to like her too.”

The older male sighed as one of the girls leaned in to tell him it was okay but he knew it wasn’t. If Yoongi—god forbid—ever wanted to be with someone seriously then Namjoon’s approval would be top priority. The two went through so much together and there was no reason to dedicate themselves to someone if the other didn’t like them. Namjoon must have really liked Minnie for him to be so adamant on Yoongi liking her too.

Slithering through the heated crowd, Kiku finally stumbled towards the drink table where she poured herself a glass of vodka and some cranberry juice. She hated how one simple conversation still lingered in her mind like a disease. Hopefully a few chugs of the funny tasting juice burned through most of the memory.

“Hey…” A slurred voice lingered on her left followed by a trail of alcohol stench breath infecting the air in her personal space. “What’re you sitting here so lonely for?” The snap back man hummed sneaking closer so his shoulder almost pressed against hers.

Kiku immediately moved away with a roll of her eyes as she attempted to walk back to the circle of couches. But something held her arm back. “Don’t touch me.” She yanked away from his grip, briskly walking towards the couches now until she saw Minnie walk straight towards her.

“I thought you left.” Minnie smiled a little, moving the pair over next to the stairs where there was less of a crowd. “Look don’t worry about what Yoongi said, okay?”

“I’m not worried about him.” She shook her head, feeling like her words were a lie. “People have said worse. I honestly expected worse, he’s kinda soft isn’t he?”

“Hey! I was fucking talking to you.” The same slurring man stumbled towards the pair again, standing uncomfortably close to Kiku. “Do you know who I fucking am?”

“Someone who desperately needs a mint and better social skills.” Kiku snapped in a gently vicious demeanor which of course only angered the stinking beast. He grabbed her by her arms again this time enough to cause pain before trying to slam her against the side of the stairs.

Before Minnie could jump in, the attacker was pushed off of her and dropped onto the ground with a thud causing a deafening silence amongst the crowd including the music.

Standing in front of Kiku—at least from where she could see–leather jacket and a head of mint hair, back facing her.

“You know the rules, Kwan.” Yoongi spoke calmly though his body radiated even more frustration than normal. The party was irritating enough but a few frat guys seemed to think it was a breeding ground for assault. “Play nice or get out.”

Kiku rubbed her sore arm absentmindedly as she watched the drunkard struggle back on his feet while all eyes were on him in judgement. Namjoon already stood by Minnie’s side keeping a close gaze on Kwan.

“Just having a bit of fun, Min. No harm.” Kwans’ reddened eyes flickered over to Kiku who only glared back at him.

“I feel bad for everyone who had the misfortune of fucking you if you thought that was fun.” Yoongi smirked. “You had your drinks, get out.” He nodded to the exit.

Kwan looked around at all the faces staring right at him knowing it would be embarrassing to be chased out in this manner but even more so if he just stood here. So he simply chose the first option and walked away.

Once the beast was gone, everyone quite easily faded back into their normal atmosphere of dancing and drinking while Yoongi turned to face Kiku.

“Good rule.” Kiku muttered, folding her arms over her chest.

“Kwan just invites himself sometimes.” He glanced over at the entrance to check if he was out yet before facing the girl again. The question lingered at the tip of his tongue for a while before he spoke. “You okay?”

She nodded though her arms still had a dull ache.

“You think you should stay here for the night?” Namjoon suggested glancing over at Minnie.

Kiku slowly held onto Minnie’s hand. “No, that’s fine.”

“Ku, it’s okay.” She muttered, patting the back of her hand.

“Sorry that didn’t sound right.” He scratched his head, chuckling nervously.

“What my awkward friend is trying to say is Kwan might still wait outside after the party’s done so you can stay here till morning. We’ll sleep on the couch and you can take our rooms.” He gestured upstairs. “Gonna take all night to clean this shit up anyway.” He glared at the clear mess of booze and a few bras on the floor.

The more cautious side of her screamed to the top about a possible trap which may lead to extra problems then just going back to their dorms. But not a lot of frat boys would place literal protection rules in their house during parties. Hell they would be just as drunk and intense as that Kwan idiot. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea staying. Besides Kiku brought her work in her bag just in case the party got boring anyway.

Still keeping a firm grasp on Minnie’s hand, she nodded. “Okay.”

The party settled down after a few hours and all was left were the remnants of a whole lot of bad decisions. Kiku even spotted a used condom laying around on the hallways as they were led to the two bedrooms.

“Fucking hell…” Namjoon hissed looking inside his room making Minnie giggle a little.

“I told you to lock your room.” Yoongi spoke as he unlocked the door and led Kiku inside his private room.

A little untidy which was not surprising. His study table littered with papers either readings from his units or just scribbles that were hard to decipher. Bed somewhat unmade and his closet overflowing with unfolded clothes.

Yeah it was a mess. But Kiku couldn’t really judge him, it was heavy assignment season and her side of the dorm looked exactly like this too. Pushing off her shoes she placed it neatly next to the door. Padding over to the bed she sat down quietly while Yoongi grabbed whatever he needed so he didn’t have to disturb the girl.

“If you get hungry, there’s—water in the mini fridge.” He smiled nervously as he looked inside the little bar.

“Good to know.” She couldn’t help but mimic the smile.

“You can—use a T-shirt or something if you want for sleeping. Use the ones on the rack.” He gestured over to the closet. There was a subtle awkwardness behind him that Kiku could not understand considering how he acted in the party tonight. Did he never have guests in his bedroom before? Or maybe at this point he would be doing something else with the guest by now instead of acquainting them to the area.

Either way Kiku felt kind of safe with this new side of his behavior. “Thanks.”

Yoongi hummed in acknowledgement before padding out of the room, cursing a little under his breath at the mess made.

The whole night spent out with Kiku working more on her essay and then proceeded to jot down some ideas for Minnie’s songs. She tried to label them properly so she didn’t mix up the school work from the paid work. Sleeping in someone’s else bed proved to be more difficult than she expected despite putting on a comfortable black T-shirt that was offered to her kindly.

The surface of the bed was now just as littered as his study table but it allowed Kiku to concentrate a bit better.

Rummaging and vacuuming echoed throughout the whole frat house which would have been distracting if Kiku did not feel bad for the boys having to clean all that mess by themselves. They did organize the party but the aftermath still was not deserving of anyone.

Fixing her glasses back up on her nose bridge, the door opened behind her with a messy haired and clearly annoyed looking Yoongi walking through.

“Sleep well?” He asked.

“Didn’t really sleep.” Kiku smiled nervously. “You could’ve just slept here, you know.”

“Would you have been able to resist my charms?” The cheekiness seemed to seep in a lot more when he was in an inconvenient position.

“It would have been incredibly difficult but I could power through.” She stretched a fake grin before looking back at her work.

Yoongis’ eyes flickered over at some bold words written ‘For Minnie’ with a pending title next to it. Brows furrowed and head tilted, he looked closer at the words on the page. “Is that a—is that a song?”

Her heart jumped quickly looking at the page and trying to grab it but Yoongi beat her to it. Kiku practically flew off the bed, following the mint-haired male to try get the lyrics back. “This is invasion of privacy.”

“You’re in my bedroom.” He retorted, still reading the words intently. “And all you did was study…well—study and write a whole ass song, do you do this often?”

The blue haired girl averted her gaze in annoyance. “Yes, I write a couple of her songs.”

“A couple?” Yoongi raised a brow. “Funny, the last time I checked the credit for all her songs there were only two producers. Minnie and someone called Chrys.” His bottom lips jutted out skimming through the song again. “I just thought it was a fancy way to make Chris interesting but I’m guessing it’s short for Chrysanthemum. As in…Kiku.” He smirked handing the paper over to her now.

“You feel real smart, don’t you?” Kiku took her paper back and stuffed it back into her files before tidying everything else up.

“Not that smart. I’m surprised people don’t talk about you more.” He shrugged, fluffing up his hair a little.

“Well it’s like you said…” Kiku sighed. “Lyrics are nothing but words on a page, right? Why would people talk about me at all?” She smiled sadly, keeping her gaze on her things rather than the mint-haired male. This partnership and her own decision went on successfully for a long time without the girl feeling like she was being exploited or taken advantage of. Why was it that saying all of this to Yoongi out loud made the whole thing sound so wrong now?

Yoongi let out a deep sigh as his words replayed back in his head. “I didn’t actually mean to say that.” He muttered a little shyly. “I was…” Wow he sounded so stupid already. “I was just trying to be an asshole.”

“It worked.” Kiku unzipped her bag before facing him again. “But you made up for it too so it’s okay.”

He nodded before rubbing his face out of exhaustion. “Your lyrics are really good though. I’m not surprised you’re the only producer Minnie trusts.”

“Are you just being nice now?”

“No that’s too fucking tiring.” Yoongi chuckled and she couldn’t help letting one out as well.

“Thank you…again.” Kiku played with her fingers. “Did you need some help with the cleaning?”

“Namjoon owes me a few hours of cleaning, he decided to abandon me for a while to f—uh entertain Minnie.” He gestured towards the door.

Kiku raised her brows not being able to control the small smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “So are you here to entertain me now?” She teased.

“No, no no—oh…” Yoongi cleared his throat.

“Don’t freak out, I won’t pounce on you or anything.” Kiku giggled lightly. “Besides seeing the girls who were stuck to you at the party you and I wouldn’t work.”

“And why’s that?” Eyes unintentionally flickered up and down her body. It only took him now to see his T-shirt hugging her curvy body, plump boobs and luscious curves poking out even in the slimming color.

“One too many assholes spoil the soup.” She pretended not to see that wild gaze running down her form.

“On the contrary, it makes it more tasteful.” He smirked. “You know…spicy.”

“Spicy…” Kiku chuckled. “Sure.” She turned on her heel to check on Minnie, fully aware that Yoongis’ wild eyes would follow down.

You’re a respectful man, Yoongi. Put your eyes away. It didn’t really help when that beautiful ass swayed as she walked and her gorgeous waves bouncing a little. Fuck he wanted some of that soup.

#yoongi #thebtswritersclub #yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #yoongi fanfiction #college au #bts college au #yoongi college au

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fics-for-my-heart · 4 years ago

Text

Newbie (s.s)

Summary: Starting a new school with the ability to see that someone is supernatural takes a crazy turn

Word count:4069

Warning: talk of people dying, typical teen wolf stuff

A/N: I was going to put this all in one part but I think it’s going to be too long. So here’s part one. I might make it a series? There’s not too much romance in this but I definitely plan to make it happen soon. Let me know what you think. Also I’ve been watching Buffy which was why it was included in this.

Part Two

Masterlist

Starting a new school always sucked. But, starting a new school with the knowledge of the supernatural you had seemed to make it worse. Plus, your ability to see when someone was supernatural made things a bit awkward. Each supernatural gave off their own color, like an aura, and that’s what you could see. There was a good amount of supernaturals in your old town, but as you walked the streets of Beacon Hills you realized there were so many more.

“Have a good day sweetie.” Your mom said as you shut the car door. “Don’t let your sight get in your way. Make some friends.”

“I’ll try. Love you.”

“Love you! I’ll be at the shop if you need me.” Then she was gone, leaving you to watch everyone running around to get to friends or to class.

After checking in at the front office, the secretary, Mrs. Elle, took you to your first class. “Mrs. Hopkins is a wonderful English teacher. If you need any help throughout the day come see me.” She knocked on the door, then opened it to a room full of people, the teacher was at the board. A beautiful purple glow surrounded her.

Fairy.

“Mrs. Hopkins, this is Y/N Y/L/N. She just transferred here.”

Mrs. Hopkins gave a bright smile, walking over to shake your hand. “Lovely to meet you. We are just starting on The Great Gatsby. There’s only a few seats left but you can pick wherever you want.” She handed you a copy of the book, then spoke to Mrs. Elle.

When you looked up at the room, only a handful of people were looking at you, others were texting or reading. Your eyes scanned the seats, spotting one before the color around the boy beside it caught your eye.

Your brows furrowed. Since coming here you’d seen many colors you hadn’t categorized yet. But this one was different. It was deep purple, with black and red, and even some blues and greens. Normally there was one color, just different shades. Never this many.

The boy cocked his head to the side and you jumped a bit, realizing you’d been staring. With your head low, you made your way to the seat, feeling his eyes on you the entire time. To distract yourself, you plotted your classes on the little map, and when the bell rang you booked it out of the room.

The rest of the day was as good as any first day. Lots of stuff to catch up on, lots of new colors to try and match with a supernatural. But the boy from English took up most of your mind. Why did he have so many colors?

Your mind was racing as the school day drew to a close. The sun on your face felt so nice, and the calm breeze helped slow everything down. It gave you a moment of peace as you scanned the lot for your moms car. Then you saw him. He was at a table with two baby blues, a teal, and a scarlet. They looked like they were in deep conversation.

There was this weird pull in your gut, and before you could stop yourself you were walking toward them.

“It’s only taking their skin. Why?” The older looking baby blue said, he looked stressed. They all did.

The scarlet was running her fingers down a book, biting her lip.

The teal shrugged. “Maybe it just likes to eat the skin?”

Little baby blue just stared at her like she was nuts before big baby blue spoke up. “If it did we wouldn’t be finding discarded skin near the freshly skinned bodies.”

Your heart stopped. No. There’s no way.

“None of them look eaten, and the skin only has a line down their back. It doesn’t make sense. Stiles, has your dad said anything?”

The boy from English, Stiles, spoke up. “Not really. He said they seemed to have some type of film on them. Like they had been preserved in something.”

“Skincrawler.” You whispered, your heart pounding in your ears.

“Y/N?” Stiles asked. They were all looking at you as your eyes widened.

“I..uh.” You cleared your throat and tried to steady your breath. “Do they have a stab mark at the base of their neck.” They nodded and you were suddenly light headed.

“Shit,” Stiles jumped up, gently pushing you into his seat. “Guys this is Y/N. She’s in my English class.”

“What did you call this thing?” Scarlet asked. They were all still looking at you like you were crazy.

“A skincrawler.” You rubbed your face. “They kill someone and wear their skin.”

“Fuck.” Little baby blue whispered.

You shook your head. “You’re all safe. They don’t go after other supernaturals.” That earned you an even weirder set of looks. “You two are werewolves.” You nodded at the baby blues. “You’re part werewolf, part something else.” You nodded to teal. “And I’m not sure what you two are.” You said to scarlet and Stiles.

None of them spoke for a minute. Then big baby blue extended his hand. “I’m Scott McCall.” His eyes were red, such a contrast to his coloring.

“You’re an alpha.” You shook his hand and he cocked a brow. “I can see your true eyes.”

His hand slipped from yours, replaced with little baby blue, Liam, then teal, Malia. Scarlets name was Lydia. Then Stiles shook your hand, his grip was firm, and he held it while he spoke. “How did you know what they are?”

“Each supernatural has its own aura, my family is what they call True Seers. I can see the auras around you, and your true eyes. I’m the first in almost a decade so I’m pretty much learning on my own. Which is why I’m not able to identify yours.” You glanced at Stiles, Lydia, and Malia.

“I’m a Banshee.” Lydia gave you a soft smile then looked back to the book.

“Werecoyote.” Malia supplied with a shrug. “Both my parents tried to kill me so don’t ask.”

You looked up at Stiles but he shook his head. “Just your average human here. Which doesn’t seem like a good thing with these skin guys walking around.”

It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t a supernatural, but there were more pressing things to address.

“Are these like the skinwalkers? Because I’ve seen them and I don’t think they would do this.” Scott questioned, turning to look at you.

You shook your head. “No. Walkers are non threatening. The crawlers, as you can tell, aren’t. And they are hard to locate. When they stab the person, not only does it kill them, but it seems to transfer all their memories. So even though it’s still the monster inside. It looks and has the same mannerisms as the person it killed.”

“How do we stop it?” Malia asked, she looked ready for a fight.

A shudder ran down your body at the memory of when you last saw this creature. “It’s not easy. First you have to know how many there are. They are stronger packs. Then you have to find out where they are staying. But even harder you have to find out who they are wearing.”

Scott rubbed his face, everyone was looking at him, waiting for his directions. “We need Derick and Argent. Maybe Parish too.”

“I’ll go to the library and see if I can find anything out.” Lydia said, having no luck with the current book. “Where are we meeting?”

“The loft, at seven.” Scott turned to you. “Would you come? You seem to know more about them than we do. We could use your help.”

You glanced around at them. A group of friends who were closer than close. Had clearly been through a lot. “Yeah. Yeah. Just give me the address.”

“I can pick you up.” Stiles said quickly, stumbling over his words when everyone turned to him. “I mean. It’s kinda hard to get to that first time. It would be easier for someone to give you a ride.” His ears turned pink as Lydia and Malia shared a look. Scott was trying to hold his grin. But Liam was flat out laughing at him.

Before you could respond a horn honked, followed by your mom calling your name. “Here.” You tore a piece of paper and quickly wrote your address and number down. “Just let me know when you get there.”

As you walked away you could hear the low voices talking at once followed by Stiles. “You guys suck I’m going home.”

—

You shared everything with your mom on the way home. Even though she wasn’t a true seer, everyone in her family got trained in case it appeared later in life.

“So this true alpha has a mixed pack?” She asked, dropping the box of books on the table.

“Yes. There’s definitely a lot of stuff they have been through. I could feel how strong their connection was.” You started thumbing through the first book, your mom following suit with her own.

“And this Stiles boy, he said he wasn’t supernatural?”

“Yeah. I can’t even begin to explain the way the colors were around him. It was like someone spilled a bunch of paint. Very chaotic.” You closed the book, having no luck. “I don’t think the book is in here. I think it’s with Buffy.”

Your mother examined the books, then nodded. “I think so. I’ll give her a call. But you should probably go get it tonight if she has it.”

“Can I take the car?” You asked, slightly excited about getting to go see someone who was pretty much your Aunt but you get to drive.

Your mom nodded. But before you could say anything your phone vibrated

Maybe Stiles: Y/N? It’s Stiles. I’m outside. I think.

You: Okay, I'll be out in a sec.

"Stiles is here." You told your mom as you slipped into your jacket. "Just have Buffy text me if she has the box." You gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Love you."

She opened another book. "I will. I'll also keep looking and see if I can find anything. I know there was something in one of the books last time, I just have to remember which one. And I love you too. Be safe."

You slipped your bad over your shoulder and headed out where a blue jeep was waiting. Stiles was in the front seat tapping his fingers and singing to whatever was playing. He was wearing a maroon lacrosse hoodie and his hair looked more disheveled than it did at school. His tapping stopped when you opened the door and Should I Stay or Should I Go was playing. His voice died off as he looked at you standing in the door.

"The Clash? Good choice." You said as the song came to an end, and a new one began. "Oh, and Fleetwood Mac?"

Stiles shrugged, taking your bag for you as you climbed in. "Can never go wrong with some classic rock."

"That is very true. I think I might like you a bit now Stiles." His colors were dimmer than they had been at school, which was normal, the sun always made them brighter. They were much less distracting this way too. "So, is there anything I should know before we get to this mystery loft?"

"There's a lot you should know. But the drive isn't long enough for everything, so I'll give you the rundown." He pulled the jeep from the curb and started talking.

He told you who Derek, Argent, and Parrish were and how Scott and Liam turned. But that was about as much as he could get in before pulling into the parking lot of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. So many questions were running through your mind as you looked up at the building. "Funny, a werewolf living in a warehouse."

Stiles laughed, then nodded to the door. "I swear the loft is so much better inside."

He was right. When he pulled open the huge metal door it revealed a beautiful open space full of natural light and people. Four you had already met, three you had names for but not faces.

Scott was quick to introduce you to the other three. Derek was obviously a werewolf with his baby blue coloring that matched his eyes. Jordan Parrish was the first human hellhound you've met, and his color was exactly like fire.

Argent was the only one without a color. "A True Seer?" He asked, shaking your hand. "I've only met one other person with that ability. Welcome to Beacon. Scott said you knew something about these things?"

"We fought a group of them when I lived in Sunnydale. I know we had some literature on them, my mom is looking through our books, but I think I think they might have gotten left at my Aunt's house. Once I know though I’m heading there to get them.”

Argent nodded, then pointed to the map. “We have a rough pattern. And based on the bodies I think we might be dealing with just one.”

“What do you know about the people who have been killed?” You asked, noting the four red circles on the map that seemed to form a shape.

“Not a lot.” Parrish spoke up, opening a file. “All different ages. Different builds. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern here. But we are still searching through their backgrounds. So far the only possibility is they knew each other or went to the local church.”

You nodded. “They liked to go after people who knew each other. How often are bodies turning up?”

“Every two weeks or so. The last one was the day before yesterday.” Stiles answered, your phone buzzed.

Buffy: The books are here. Fill me in on what’s happening.

You: I’m coming to you. Be there soon.

“My Aunt has the books. Is it okay if I take a picture of this? I think I can get some extra help.” You asked nodding to the map.

"Yeah. The more help we can get the better." Argent said, stepping back as you angled your phone for a picture.

"Is there anyone missing from the school?" Derek asked, looking at the others.

Lydia shrugged. "Not sure yet. There were a few people out today, but they could have just been normal reasons. I'm keeping an eye on everything."

"We couldn't get a scent from the body." Malia added, giving a shudder. "I think I might have nightmares for weeks."

“I didn’t see anyone there with the color for them. It’s kind of a deep grey color. Even when they switch skins the color is still there.” You looked at Stiles, his brows were pinched and he was working his thumb with his teeth as he looked at the map. "Hey," you whispered as the others discussed the body. "Could you drive me home. Buffy has the books so I need to get to Sunnydale."

His brown eyes met yours, the concentration making him look adorable. "Huh? Oh, yeah." He looked up at the others. "Guys, I'm going to take Y/N home so she can go get the books."

After some quick goodbyes the two of you made your way back to the jeep.

"If you want, I can take you there?" Stiles said, his hand was rubbing at the back of his neck.

You stopped and looked at him. "To Sunnydale?"

"Yeah. It's late, and well, I'd feel safer away from here." He shrugged. "Plus it's late."

"You said that." You laughed. "If you want to drive me that's alright."

"Awesome." He jumped in the jeep, waited for you to get in and buckled, then looked over at you. "So, how do I get to Sunnydale?"

------

"Okay, wait. Like, a full, legit deadpool?" The two of you were almost there, and Stiles had started filling you in on everything they had experienced.

"Yes. That's how we found out that Parrish was supernatural. He was on the list. Peter, is the one who put the list out. He used another banshee to set it all up."

"So, if I ever meet Peter can I punch him?" Even though you'd just met this group you felt oddly protective of them.

"He is kinda neutral right now, but honestly, go for it." He winked at you. "So is there anything I should know before we get there?"

"Well, yes. Buffy isn't really my aunt, but she feels like one. She's the slayer. Spike might be there, he's a vampire. Willow, she's like my other aunt, she's a witch." Excitement started building as you saw the sign for the exit.

He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly. "Vampire?"

"He won't try anything. He knows I can take him, but also he's fairly harmless."

Stiles rubbed his lips. "Vampire."

"Yes. Turn left up here." You said. He followed your directions, eventually pulling in front of the house you spent much of your childhood. "You okay?"

"Uh. Yeah. I'm still processing I think."

You placed your hand on his arm. "I promise you it'll be fine. But if you want, you can stay in the car."

He shook his head, removing the keys. "Lets go."

All the lights were on as you made your way to the house, Spike was standing in the open door.

"Hello, Little Bit." His British accent was familiar and a sudden wave of homesickness hit you.

You ignored it though, rolling our eyes. "Shut it you loof. The skin crawlers are back, we don't have time for your shit."

He placed a hand on his chest. "Your words wound, missy." His eyes traveled behind you. "Who's the bloke?"

"Spike, Stiles. Stiles, Spike.” You pointed at Spike. "Be nice." You grabbed Stiles' hand and led him into the house, avoiding Spike's attempt to ruffle your hair. The others were already waiting in the dining room.

You quickly introduced Stiles to everyone. Then jumped right into what you knew.

“I went by the crypt.” Spike said after you’d told them the last of the information. “It didn’t look like anything escaped. Place is still rubble.”

“Wait.” Stiles leaned his elbows on the table. “How exactly did you guys kill these things last time?”

“Blew them up.” Willow shrugged, flipping through a book.

Stiles fell back into his chair and looked at you. “Blew them up?”

“Buf has army connections so we were able to… acquire some top grade stuff.” You told him. You could tell he was trying to process all of this, he was really cute.

“Argent might have some connections.” He nodded as if he was coming up with a plan.

You let him be and flipped open a book, your heart immediately stopping. Before saying anything you looked back at one of the pictures you had taken.

“Shit. Shit shit shit.” You dragged your finger down the page as you read. “This is bad.” Everyone was looking at you as you pointed to the diagram in the book. “A resurrection ritual.”

“Bloody hell.” Spike said, jumping from his chair, heading straight to the little bar table.

Willow paled, pulling the book to her and muttered something under her breath.

“Uh. That doesn’t seem like a good thing.” Stiles said.

You turned to him, your heart was pounding. “The skincrawler is doing a resurrection ritual. Basically it’s trying to bring something back from the dead. Probably the ones we killed.”

“Okay that sounds really bad.”

“It says here it has to make five sacrifices around a power source.” Willow said. “But it’s not doing it over the Hellmouth so what’s in Beacon Hills?” She looked over at Stiles. You opened the picture of the map, examining it closer, trying to find the pattern.

“The Nemeton.” He whispered, struggling to get his phone out of his pocket. After pressing around there was the trill of a call.

“Stiles? It’s late.” Argents' gruff voice filled the room.

“I know I know. Listen. I need you to go to that map. I need you to go to it and tell me what’s in the middle of those points.”

“A star!” You shouted. “They need five points. There are four on here. If you trace a star you can find the next dump site and the middle.”

There was rustling on the phone, then, “Shit.”

“It’s The Nemeton isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s The Nemeton.” There was some more noise from the other side of the phone. “I’ve got a rough guess where the next dump site will be. I’ll tell the others.”

“So The Nemeton is a real thing?” Willow asked, amazement all over her face.

You raised your hand. “Excuse me, what is that?”

“Short version? A supernatural ritual site created by Druids. It’s what makes Beacon Hills a beacon for the supernatural.”

“I thought they were a myth.” Willows eyes were dazed as she zoned out.

“So you’re telling me I moved from the demon hotspot Hellmouth to the literal beacon for the supernatural? Unbelievable.”

"It's very real. Sometime I'll tell you the story of how it awoke and got so much power. But right now we need to get back." He looked incredibly worried.

"It's late." Buffy said, she and Spike had been talking in the corner quietly. "You guys should stay here and sleep for a few hours before driving back."

Spike nodded. "I agree, Little Bit. There's still a few days till you should really worry. Sleep a bit and head out at sunrise."

As he spoke, you could feel the exhaustion suddenly weighing on your body. "He's right. Let the others scope out some stuff while we catch some shut eye."

"Your room is still made up. Go sleep and I'll make you guys breakfast in the morning."

You nodded, and silently led Stiles up the steps. He’d been quiet, worry was all over his face. He sat down in the desk chair, lip between his teeth.

“They will be okay.” You said softly, moving the pillows off the bed.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. We defeated them once, we can do it again. Really Argent is the only one to worry about there, he’s not a supernatural. Plus they are very time oriented. They stick to the same schedule when it comes to changing.”

After a moment he spoke again. “Uh. Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”

There wasn’t much space in the small room so you shook your head. “You can sleep in the bed. You’re driving so better rest is safer.”

The two of you were quiet as you took turns in the bathroom, then getting situated in the bed.

“Ya know,” you said after a few minutes in the dark. “If you had told me that on my first day of another new school I’d meet more supernaturals, find out the skincrawlers are back, and share a bed with a guy I just met that morning. I’d think you were crazy.”

“I’ve learned to just ride out the crazy. Trust me, it’s easier to do that than to try and fight it.” His head turned toward you, voice just above a whisper. “Why did you seem so freaked about the skincrawlers?”

You were suddenly very thankful for the dark. “They got one of my best friends. It was how we found out about them actually. She went missing for a day or so and when she came back she had this Grey color around her that hadn’t been there before. And her eyes seemed empty. Like everything about her was still her. But her eyes.” A shudder ran through you. “It used the knowledge from her to taunt us, me. Things got ugly. The boom.” You wiped the tear off your cheek, turning to see his silhouette in the dark. “If it’s just one, and we get it before it completes the ritual, it’ll be fine.”

“I’m...I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“It’s fine. I have faith in us. With the information we take back, it’ll help. Let’s get some sleep though.” Even though you said it, you stayed awake long after Stiles' breath evened out. Images of your last run in with these nasty things running through your mind. There was no peaceful sleep.

#stiles stilinski #teen wolf stiles #stiles fanfiction #teen wolf #dylan obrien #dylan o'brien

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twilightprince101 · 4 years ago

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It’s been a while since I’ve drawn, much less created a new OC! But recently I’ve succumbed to Bugsnax brainrot, so introducing Brandy Brittleshoot!

Brandy is a freelance writer and editor, working on several different projects at once before coming to Snaktooth Island. Alongside decently good hearing he has an intense curiosity for the world, often experimenting with different Snakified limbs to get inspiration for his latest story! (Just be prepared if you ask them about it, you’ll be stuck there ‘till nightfall).

I also filled out an interview prompt of him under the cut from @cosmicheartz , so check that out if you’re interested and feel free to shoot any asks about them! I’d love to talk a bit more about my newest character!

Who are you?

I’m Brandy Brittleshoot, I’m a freelance writer! Editing articles, typing out scripts, writing for dating sims, I’ve done a lot!

( How long have you been writing for? )

How long? Hehe, honestly I can’t even remember. One of my earliest memories was me writing an alternate ending to a book that had a crummy finale. I was so upset and whined so loud at a last minute plot twist that my dad sat me down in front of a notebook with a pencil so he could focus on his work. Though, I don’t think he expected me to actually write something decent! Never underestimate the power of an upset fan!!

( Anything in particular you’re writing now? )

Oh a handful of things! I have like, a million story ideas sitting on the backburn, but right now? I’m outlining a story idea I got for my latest novel! The details are a little hazy right now, but it’s all about an island of shapeshifters who can change into whatever they want. But of course, in a world like that there’d be lots of chaos if there were just like, a bunch of dragons flying around everywhere (who wouldn’t want to be a dragon) so there’s the government trying to limit it somewhat and there’s this one girl who-! Oh, grump! Sorry, um, still working on that.

Why come to Snacktooth island?

Oh Lizbert’s to thank for that! A while back I helped with putting out her story about Grumplantis! She saw a bit of the work I was doing at the time and, for some reason, decided I should help her out! Still have no idea why she chose me to help edit especially considering I was writing Grumpus Croft fan fiction at the time, but to think I’d get to help publish official findings about a lost civilization!!! I didn’t even care about the money, just the thought of working together with an explorer like that is just-!

( *Ahem…* But, what about Snacktooth? )

Oh right, that! Well, long story short she thought the work I did was good and invited me to come along as a way to say thanks since she didn’t exactly have the funds to pay for my work. Obviously I couldn’t pass up an opportunity that big, getting firsthand experience with an actual adventurer! So I dropped what I was doing, packed up and came right along with her!

Thoughts on bugsnax?

Duuude, okay. So imagine me, a writer who absolutely loves fantasy, lands on this island and finds out that fantasy actually exists! And is edible!!! I get to know what fantasy tastes like!!! This whole island is walking through one big fantasy novel and I have gotten nothing but inspiration since I’ve gotten here, it’s amazing!

( What does fantasy taste like? )

Okay, it’s like--actually, hang on, it would be faster if I just read this excerpt I wrote down a bit ago instead of trying to explain. *ahem.* ‘Upon the first bite of the plump and crispy Bunger, a dazzling fireworks show of flavor cascades into my mouth and paints a nova onto my taste buds. Each crunch a new explosion, a new flavor, a new color streaming across the sky’s canvas and dazzling me like a nova-’ oop, put nova twice there… ‘-Dazzling me like a child’s first glimpse at the night sky’s expanse! A symphony of crackles for me to experience alone, and by the time the last stream of light fizzled out, I’m ready to light the fuse for an encore.’ And that was just for the Bungers!

Why did you leave town?

Hoooh boy okay, bit of a loaded question there… After Lizbert and Batternugget vanished I tried to keep calm and keep doing what I was doing, wait for them to get back. But as the Bugsnax ran out and people got hungry, it was a bit hard to keep doing that… especially with all the noise...

( You’re referring to the fight? )

More or less yeah. I could hear pretty much everything from inside my cabin: Everyone ganging up against Cromdo, Chandlo calming down Snorpy from a panic attack, Filbo doing his best to keep everything together (can’t blame the guy for trying). Good hearing is both a blessing and a curse I guess… but the worst no doubt was Wiggle.

( What was up with Wiggle? )

Well, I do like her music, don’t get me wrong. But since coming to the island I can’t exactly handle being in the same room with her. She tried getting me to write her some song lyrics for exposure, kept peeking at my writing notes to steal my ideas, and worst of all, she stress yodels. And around the time the two vanished, she certainly had a lot of time to practice. I already couldn’t handle the fighting, but her singing was the last straw, so I slipped out in the middle of the night before I had to hear another note. Erm... you don't think she'll sue me for defamation if you put this in your story, will she?

Any info on Lizbert?

Duuude, Lizbert is no doubt the coolest person I know--probably ever! It’s like she jumped right out of an action movie and I could actually talk with her! She was really nice, telling me about a lot of her previous adventures in her free time and supporting me when I was going through writer’s block. Of course, she wasn’t around too much when she was out hunting snax, but Doctor Batternugget was around!

( Did you and Doctor B.N. get along? )

Yeah Miss Nugget was really nice! She was usually quiet when Lizbert wasn’t around, but after keeping her company one day and helping her sort supplies we got to talk a lot. She even volunteered to read some of my story drafts in her downtime--without me asking first too!! Plus, she also was a good resource to go to when I was writing about… more graphic details regarding Grumpus anatomy. I know a lot of people say that they might not come back, but I know they’re out there somewhere I know it! I mean come on, an adventurous explorer and her nurse girlfriend? That just SCREAMS main character plot armor! Plus, it would seriously suck if I finally find people eager to read my work on their own, then they just vanish from my life altogether… Please be okay Miss Batternugget…

Tape’s almost dry Brandy, gotta wrap this up soon!

Oh thanks for the interview! First one I’ve ever gotten, certainly a learning experience! (Maybe I could make a story entirely using interviews, that could be cool). I’m just sorry for talking your ear off. Hey, I know you’re kind of a solo worker from watching you run around, but if you’d like I can try and help with editing this story when you head back to the mainland. Free of charge too, I know you guys at GNN aren’t exactly treated the best. Not to mention it would look really good on both our resumes if we collaborated for this kinda story!

#bugsnax #wiggle wigglebottom #brandy brittleshoot #elizabert megafig #eggabell batternugget #my writing #my writings #my oc #my ocs #twi talks #((god it's been so long since I made a new OC since Twi #Bugsnax has really helped me out in getting the creativity flowing again #also I must make this clear:#B U N G E R))

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quentinblack · 4 years ago

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Your 5 biggest gripes with the HP movies

Okay so some of these might be controversial, but here are my five biggest gripes with the Harry Potter movies:

1. They don't handle the Weasley family very well at all for the most part. Ron is dumbed down and often comic relief, with some scenes downright character bashing. I actually think that movie Ron's portrayal is part of the reason why Ron-bashing become such a mainstream HP fandom thing. Ginny is handled terribly, in terms of book to movie, out of every character in the entire series she is possibly the one who gets the worst treatment. I don't really think it was Bonnie Wright's fault per se, more just bad writing or limited screen-time. Charlie doesn't feature in the movies at all and is completely cut other than the odd reference and a small picture in the newspaper. Bill was completely cut too, until JK Rowling wrote Deathly Hallows and they pretty much couldn't not include him, given his wedding and Shell Cottage were two events/bits of the book that rendered it near impossible not to cast him. Percy's entire redemption arc was completely cut from the story. I feel like Fred's death could've hit a lot harder if they'd had the Percy redemption arc, with us even seeing Fred's death actually happen as well.

2. I don't think they handled the Lupin/Tonks plot-line in the last few movies very well at all. They both have extremely limited screen-time and their relationship is kind of glossed over and doesn't have much time to breathe. We never even meet Andromeda or Ted Tonks and they completely cut out Lupin and Harry's fall-out, which was one of the better scenes from Deathly Hallows. It ultimately kind of means that when they die unless you're a hardcore book reader it's sort of a "oh right, yeah, those background characters were a thing" moment to casual film watchers, instead of the devastating moment it should have been. Teddy is then completely cut from the Epilogue, not really sure why as he was cast, although I'm guessing they just thought given how little mention they'd given to the Tonks/Lupin plot nobody would even know or care who he was anyway. 3. Peter Pettigrew doesn't even die. The only logical conclusion I can come up with is that Peter choking himself to death would have meant the rating went up a notch, which obviously they don't want, but how hard was it to give him an on screen death? Doesn't the chandelier fall down or something in the next scene when they're upstairs in the Manor? Just have the chandelier fall and crush him to death (without the audience seeing any gore or whatever) and you've at least killed him off. Or the metal hand makes his wand back-fire and kill him? I don't know, emiting him from having an on-screen death was completely bizarre. 4. This is a controversial one and I do actually prefer Alan Rickman's portrayal of Snape in the Movies than book Snape, but I think that's part of the problem. The movies play up Snape as a much more sympathetic/"nicer" character than he is in the books, which again, I feel is part of the reason why Snape being such a liked character in the fandom kind of came from. There's a few things here and there which the movies add in to make Snape a nicer character, one of the main things that springs to mind is when he forms a protective barrier around Harry, Ron and Hermione against Werewolf Lupin, but I think the bigger problem is what the movies choose to leave out. They leave out his angry megalomaniac rant at the end of POA when Sirius escapes which is really very nasty. They leave out some other nasty things he does, but I think also in some movies they try and portray his bullying of the students as kind of comic relief, having Ron agree with him bullying Hermione for being smart etc. Another big omission is they completely leave out the bit in his memories where Dumbledore asks him why he doesn't ask Voldemort to spare Lily and just kill Harry, and Snape says he says, after which Dumbledore says he disgusts him. This moment is a pretty big omission and again, paints Snape in a nicer tone than the character actually is. I only really noticed this on a recent re-read of the series and there were many moments where I sort of remembered how much of an ass-hole book Snape actually is. 5. Voldemort/Bellatrix death scenes. For some reason they had the stylistic choice of making Voldemort evaporate and Bellatrix sort of smash into lots of little pieces. I've got no idea why they wasted so much CGI money on these two deaths, when both of them laying on the ground dead is much cheaper to film and would have humanised both of the characters a lot more. Sometimes less is far far more, and their deaths was one of these times.

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honkster · 4 years ago

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Okay so I did miss a few things

Mainly stuff that either I didn’t think were important enough to address or I just didn’t think of.

Let’s get to it.

1. Techno betraying Tommy.

2. Ghosty bois coming back.

3. Tommy and Quackity as ab*se survivors.

<_><_><_>

I try to be as un-biased as I can whenever I say “From a writing perspective”, I kind of disassociate and look at the story how I would write it if I had to. You know, purely analysing the characters without the attachment I feel for them as a viewer.

But I don’t have to do that to say that Techno is not going to betray Tommy.

I get the angst – oh do I get the angst. I’m a fan of angst, I used to write only it for a while.

But Dream. You know how much Techno cares about Dream?

He’d rather read his donations than not risk Dream’s wrath at avoiding the admittance of Tommy in his house.

Techno has shown that he cares more for Tommy than he fears Dream (Fear is probably the wrong word here. Neutrality as he bides his time until he can strike – much more Blade. Because no matter what, Dream is just a temporary ally to Techno, much like what he started to view Pogtopia as.) He is shielding Tommy from him, he is reluctantly reminded the he owes Dream a favor, he dismisses his role as Lycomedes in this myth that’s so accurate to the story. Not even once in the streams Tommy and Techno did together (and the subsequent Techno or Tommy solo streams) did it seem that Techno was even considering a Tommy and Dream meetup. Yes, the favor is looking to be another Chekhov's gun, much like the TNT under L’manburg, but whoever said it means that Techno will succumb to Dream?

When did we decide that Dream cashing in his favor with Techno doesn’t mean that the pig will take that chance to betray Dream?

When did we decide that Dream cashing in his favor with Techno means that Dream trusts Techno unconditionally and won’t try to betray Techno?

Dream and Techno are in a unique stalemate currently. Techno can’t harm Dream, not when he has creative mode, and for Dream Techno is far more useful as an ally. That favor that Dream is holding over his head? That is the one-up he has on Techno. Until, perhaps, Techno pulls a Spirit and decides that Dream doesn’t control him…

Is this better anxiety than angsting over Techno potentially turning Tommy in? :)

(Bonus: I’m pretty sure that Techno and Tommy are even when talking about betrayals. Tommy established a new government in front of Techno, Techno blew the government up. Techno isn’t going to betray Tommy because he’s still salty. Tommy was slightly petty when he huddled under Techno’s house, but he seems to have gotten over that and now it’s just sibling banter.

They betrayed each other and then were angry at each for it. They’re even, stop the angst.)

<_><_><_>

Another thing I keep seeing despite everything…

The Ghosty bois returning.

Schlatt through possession, Wilbur through some method Philza may find months after the moment he first wrote it in a book.

My answer is… What’s the point?

Okay, you bring back Schlatt. What’s he gonna do, re-establish Manburg?

As if.

So he possessed Quackity/Tubbo. Again, what’s he gonna do? L’manburg is not the same thing that it was before, when Schlatt and Wilbur first found their power. It’s not a place where words mean more than weapons, where no armor is worn yet wars are won. Since L’manburg’s pacifist dictators have died/been changed to more violent ways, L’manburg has adapted to the landscape of the server and become just like every other faction – fighting wars with weapons.

So again, what would happen if Schlatt returned, in one form or another? The moment someone realizes what happened, he gets taken down. No one likes Schlatt, no one is on his side, everyone would stab him in his weak heart and twist the blade to “just make sure” he is truly dead. No one will rally behind him, he will have no power. You don’t gotta worry about that ghosty boi.

Wilbur? Well, if we dive into meta and what the cc himself has said, it’s going to take more than just a totem of undying to bring him back. And from a writing perspective, Ghostbur needs to come to terms with himself. Him just forgetting the things that he did, the people he harmed and just being wholesome – that’s not the end of his arc. It’s not even the middle. Ghostbur has a long way to go to be at peace with himself and stop haunting the server, to move on to the afterlife.

Him being brought back to life, to return to what he tried to forget, and then most definitely being killed again, quickly or after he’s able to do more damage, returning to his Ghostbur form… Well, that can do two things.

1. It could, possibly help him come to terms with Alivebur’s actions, being so suddenly dropped into his life again and forced to confront the trauma of it all. It could, possibly, maybe, slightly start him on the path to being at peace again.

2. It resets his progress so far.

I know which option is more interesting, more… character-developing.

Sadly, that one is the less likely option.

More trauma doesn’t help deal with previous trauma. Things would have to go a very specific way for Ghostbur being brought back to life to be actually helpful to him. Ghostbur isn’t an amnesiac, not in the way where his memories were just given a soft reset and his only job is to find things that would help him unlock them again. He’s a ghost, no one can fully understand how he works and what he needs, and how he may act if he is brought back to life after being dead for so long.

Not even another ghost.

Who’s to say that Schlatt, if he ever appeared in-character, in ghost form, isn’t just as confused as Ghostbur? Who’s to say he isn’t “traumatized enough” for selective memory? Who’s to say that Schlatt hasn’t moved on like Ghostbur hasn’t been able to?

Wilbur’s not gonna come back soon, if at all. His arc, coming to terms with making L’manburg the way it is now, has relevance to the current events happening (especially since L’manburg’s death seems to be inching closer and closer, and Ghostbur seems to be only related to it, out of all the things in the server.) but it has very little plot-changing importance. Who’s going to listen to the ghost of the man that made this mess happen in the first place? Definitely not the people making similar mistakes to him!

<_><_><_>

Oh I don’t like talking about ab*se. I’ve had enough of Dream and his manipulation of Tommy, it’s why I hated the bastard so much.

But this? Quackity and Tommy having the same mixed feelings towards their manipulator, a deep hatred and also a deep attachment, resulting in just a lot of confusion whenever the bad guy in question is brought up?

Yeah I got nothing.

Mainly because Tommy and Quackity haven’t interacted in that way just yet. Most people, in-character, don’t realize what Quackity went through (that’s a problem for a lot of the characters though, how their trauma is almost invisible, but very loud in terms of their actions.) or at least don’t realize that Quackity wants Schlatt back. Cause no one wants Schlatt back – what are you, crazy?

It is definitely an interesting parallel. How both of them were manipulated, then suddenly left the manipulator, how both of them were introduced to different ways of coping. Tommy with Techno, someone who cares about him and is determined to get revenge on their behalf, someone who is just sensitive enough to realize that you shouldn’t do certain things when talking to the traumatized person. Quackity with The Butcher Army and El Rapids, being given an outlet for his anger and confusion, a way to hide the pain he feels and focus on something entirely else, something he can actually understand and not question endlessly as he slowly goes insane. A way to do good, to try and do good things for other people, or at least fight the bad ones, even though you are utterly baffled at what is going on inside you.

...I’ve been dancing around this for a long time but uh… From experience, both of those ways are valid.

Listen, listen. Facing your trauma, going on the tough path of healing from it and coming out a different person, one not affected by whatever was done to you – that’s good. That is a good recipe for moving on to bigger and better things, this should be the path taken.

But (not) realizing your trauma, and instead deciding to flourish in spite of your manipulator, becoming stronger than them or even fighting them (or whoever you blame for your trauma) head on and WINNNING, purely out of spite and anger that you were actually that weak or that you didn’t notice what they were doing to you, remembering the things that you thought were normal and now being horrified at what your life was like…

The whole SMP needs therapy. They all need to have a sit-down, and a talk, and come to certain conclusions about themselves and whoever wronged them, and repeat that for a few days (weeks, months maybe). They all need to learn healthy ways to cope.

But this is the Curse. The Author’s Curse.

Therapy is boring.

Yes, we love these characters. Because we love them, we would much rather see them healthy and well-adjusted, and ending the cycle of ab*se.

...But the SMP isn’t peaceful enough for that.

More from the writing perspective – the foundation of the server right now is violence. Endless, gruesome violence, it has become the number one way to deal with whatever is plaguing you. Talking has worked once (The Pet War (?) ending), but even then it was after extreme violence. And this will continue, because any other way of dealing with things has just become… irrelevant. Some people can only speak one language, and it’s not one that is healthy.

So not only do all of the people on the server need to be shouted at for being so violent, bullied into considering more peaceful options for things, but also the people who cannot or will not change their mind, because they have become delusional with their power and only believe in that singular language, must be eliminated.

It all comes back to Dream. It all comes back to more violence. The Curse cannot be broken.

But… It can be, if used properly, a way to at least eliminate most of the evil in the server.

You’d need a whole guidebook for that though.

And the problem wouldn’t be fixed.

That server reset’s gonna be a huge part of the lore!

<_><_><_>

And I know I may be coming off as aggressive here like “Oh stop making up headcanons that will never happen” but that’s not my intention because if I truly took that standpoint I would be incredibly hypocritical. I thought Techno was going to be this battle-hardened warrior, able to detach himself from everything in this world to focus on war – mans turns out to be the most secretly caring person in the server. I sometimes dismiss characters that turn out to be actually really powerful (Ranboo, for one. BBH and Puffy for three.), I’m wrong on a lot of things.

So honestly, if you have an AU for Ghostinnit or Ghostbo (Toast) or Dadschlatt or Dream redemption arc, or just irl AU, Harry Potter AU, Starinnit – fucking amazing. You play out your canon-divergent dreams you funky little writers/artists. I’ll stay over-analyzing stuff over here, don’t mind me! Your ideas are super cool, and you can bully me for not having any hcs and never thinking of an AU of my own. /gen

#dream smp #dream smp analysis #dream smp theory #honkmeta #dream smp meta #gotta start using those tags #and as always #tell me im wrong on something!#debate!#i put this stuff out here to be ridiculed dont worry about hurting my feelings im too smol to bully you /lh

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elenajohansenreads · 3 years ago

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Books I Read in 2021

#83 - Shadowmarch, by Tad Williams

Mount TBR: 69/100

Beat the Backlist Bingo: Cover features your favorite color prominently

Rating: 1/5 stars

Well, that was a slog.

So I have a history with this piece of intellectual property. I was introduced to Williams as an author in college (1998) because several of the friends I made my first year were big fantasy nerds--no surprise there--and I was perfectly ready to move on from my high-school-era love of less sophisticated fantasy authors. I borrowed The Dragonbone Chair from one of those friends and off I went.

So in 2001 when news about Williams writing an online serial went around, and I saw the $15 price tag...well, I was a perpetually almost-broke college student still, and sure I spent money on books, but that was a high gateway, because a) I didn't own my own computer yet, I was borrowing friends' or using the computer lab to write papers and such; and b) sure, a chunky fantasy novel might be $7 or $8 in paperback, but it was portable, easy to reread whenever, and nobody had tablets or smartphones or e-readers yet, so an online serial publication was definitely not portable. Even fifteen dollars seemed like too much for the inconvenience of a book I could only read sitting at a computer, and couldn't read all of at once.

I was genuinely angry about this shift away from the paradigm, and much like Williams vowing this serial was online only and would never be published traditionally (which I distinctly remember but don't actually have a source for) I too vowed that I would never read it.

I held out much longer than he did, if my memory of that claim is even true. But I'm wishing now that I hadn't bothered.

This is bad. Not even close to the level of quality I expect from Williams, based on the earlier Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, as well as War of the Flowers--which was weird but I enjoyed it--and the Otherland series, which was even weirder and not always good, but yeah, I still enjoyed that too, for the most part.

Who am I supposed to care about in this book? I'm no stranger to multiple protagonists, but there are simply too many here, meaning none of them get the development time they would need to be interesting. I'm trying to wean myself from the complaint that protagonists need to be "likable," because a character can be a jerk and still be interesting, but few of these protagonists are particularly likable either!

1. Barrick is a whiny jerk who folds under pressure and abdicates responsibility to his sister, and then makes a spectacularly bad decision for no reason other than to set up some tension at the end, and his future arc. If it's because he's "mad," bad plot reason, and if it's because he's affected by the more general shadow-madness, well, I guess he could be vulnerable to it like anyone else, but that's pretty flimsy too. 2. Briony is a fairly standard "if only I weren't a woman, people would take me seriously" princess who doesn't fold as much under pressure but is dealt a really raw deal. I'll give her credit, she does legitimately try her best to rule her lands, but she's also kind of a whiny jerk like her brother, too. 3. Quinnitan is...pointless. Sure, I see how the end of her arc in this book echoes those of the Eddon twins, but there is no direct connection between her plot and anyone else's. And I mean that literally, if there's anything that ties her story to any other single part of the book, I simply do not see it, it's buried in lore or foreshadowing that was lost on me amid the sheer weight of nearly 800 pages of plodding narrative. I read all of her scenes constantly wondering why I should care, and the fact that her arc is a very basic harem plot, "I don't want to be a token wife but really what choice do I have?" sort of thing, doesn't help, because on its own it's incredibly unoriginal. 4. Chert is marginally likable, because he's arguably got the most defined personality and most personal growth in the book, as a person of a "little" race who is distinctly not human--I get a mix of gnome and dwarf, with a faint whiff of Podling from The Dark Crystal--and who deals with an unexpected foundling by taking him into his family and trying to make it work, even when that foundling is really a big blank space in the story who still manages to get into trouble. 5. Captain Vansen gets points from me for being the guardsman deep in unrequited love, which is a trope I would absolutely eat up with a spoon. The problem is, the object of that love is a protagonist I don't care for (Briony,) leading me to question what the eff he's thinking that he can even admire her from a distance, let alone be in infatuation/love. And his plot arc is mostly "something goes wrong that's not really has fault but everyone blames him anyway." Which got dull.

Chert and Vansen are most of the reason this book gets a second star*, honestly. Chert's scenes with the Rooftoppers are generally pretty excellent, even if they're mostly tied to a plot arc that I don't care for.

The other thing that's getting me about this is that it feels like a deliberately grim-dark retread of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. You've got a castle that's the seat of current government but used to belong to the enemy--the enemy that no one is sure even exists anymore, that lives in a land far enough away to feel distant but also somehow close enough to be threatening, once people believe in them again. That castle is perched upon magically important ruins/caverns, and that enemy has forms of magic/communication that affect humans and can cause or appear symptomatic of madness. There's a race of small likable people who aren't quite dwarves or any other "standard" fantasy race, but are still somehow cute/appealing. There's a crippled prince who's not really well-liked. One of the primary female protagonists is a young woman who laments the limitations of her womanhood under the patriarchal feudal system of the world.

And to someone who's never read either of these series, that list of similarities could mostly read like fairly common fantasy tropes, and I forgive anyone who reads this review and thinks that. But I've read MSaT probably ten times all the way through in the twenty-plus years since I was introduced to it, and I feel like I've just been handed the same story again, with a thick coat of gray paint slathered on it and a few details changed--and those changes are basically always for the worse. No one in this story can be said to be a direct equivalent to Simon, who gets a very clear hero's journey, but if I'm supposed to slot Barrick in as a Simon/Josua mashup (that crippled prince problem) then it takes the entire book to get Barrick out of his comfort zone and on his journey, where Simon got booted from the castle at the end of the first act of the first book.

And that gets at the underlying problem that is at least partially fueling all other problems--this book is clearly just the first act of the larger story, and yes i know! that is what first books do! but this also doesn't have a lot of forward motion on its own, and it doesn't resolve anything aside from the mystery of a single murder at that happens near the beginning. Seriously, all other plot threads get kicked down the road with the "and now they're exiles" theme that the ending has assigned to most of the protagonists. Chert doesn't suffer that fate, but the ending of his story line--also the end of the book itself--is the foundling reasserting that he doesn't know who he is, which is not new information. We've literally not known who he is the whole time, except that we do find out who his mother is, but don't find out how he was taken or why he apparently hasn't aged as much as he should have or what the Qar intended by sending him back "home." The identity of his mother is basically the least important question surrounding him.

I truly feel like I just read a 750-page prologue, and that is not a good feeling.

*Yeah, I told myself this was a two-star book, but by the time I wrote the whole review, it's not and I can't pretend I still believe that. This is a one-star book. This is so bad I don't want to go on with the series, even though it almost has to get better, now that most of our protagonists are out on their journeys. And because it could hardly get worse, right? But this already took up so much of my time (I had to take a week-long break in the middle to binge some romances, as a relief from all this grimdark toil) and even though I've managed to collect secondhand copies of the rest of the series, and they've been sitting on my shelves for a few years waiting for me to invest my energy into them...I'm giving up. Not worth it.

#booklr #book review #tad williams #shadowmarch #book photography #my photos #my reading challenges #mount tbr 2021 #beat the backlist 2021

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clansayeed · 4 years ago

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Hey Jack! I wanted to know what your thoughts are on Rheya. Was she really a villain to you? Were her motives justifiable? Was she a good villain? Did you think she deserved to have a redemption arc in chapter 16? What could have been written to make her have a better character story? Any thoughts at all about Rheya!

FOREWARNING: Anon... I accidentally wrote you a 2500 word essay. I shit you not this thing is 2,528 words long. So... I don’t know whether to say you’re welcome or I’m sorry. Just letting you know in advance.

ADD-ON POST-POSTING: I’m fully aware this is an app game. A three book series written with sexying vampires in mind. Where the medium is limited both size and content-wise, where you can’t go into much detail because they can only have so many panels in a chapter, etc. Still thinking what I think though. And if you get paid to create content professionally the least you can do for your own paycheck is go back and double-check your work.

Actually this ask came at a good time since I have to work on some character motivations for her for my series... and I always break down the in-canon versions before working on my own. So anon, let’s talk... are you a mind reader?

Kidding! mostly

So. Rheya.

I actually just finished my first replay of book 2 and at the moment I’ve only ever played book 3 the once. I played it as it was releasing so there were some memory gaps in some places and needed-refreshers in others. But on a whole I have similar thoughts about Rheya as I do Xenocrates, and you can find those thoughts here.

Overall she was a solid setup, good design and potential, and PB pretty much wasted her execution.

I wanna start with a genuine question to the fandom since I’ve never actually been able to ask this... but y’all like... totally saw the Bloodkeeper being related to her coming, right? Like I was so convinced of it that when it was revealed in some big dramatic point at the end I was like “yeah... they told us this...?” and it turns out they fuckin didn’t??? Like I could not understand the people who were like super into her sprite like yes she looks good but here I was thinking she was our ancestor from the get-go so I was... confused to say the least.

Not gonna lie when they started pushing in snippets of Rheya’s past trauma in book 2 (things like her yelling “you know what they did to me/took from me” which is paraphrased but you know what I mean) I really hoped they weren’t gonna do what they did. So of course they did it.

But I wish they��d like... just given her the kid. Just give her Iola and leave the weird suddenly random husband out of it. At this point we know Gaius has an unhealthy idolatry for her, we know Xenocrates adored her in his own way in his youth... but we know fuckall about Demetrius up to and including his existence until literally book 3. Sloppy, IMO. They took something not being mentioned and used it to put in a plot device when the omission should have been strategical.

TBH I thought the whole “you know what they did to me” was gonna get hella dark RE: Rheya and King Kaelisus’ obsession with her. That’s as far as I’ll go there.

But you have a Priestess, a known Priestess, who was definitely faithful enough not to stray even when she thought she was walking to her own death. It’s pretty easy to assume (as I did ngl) that she would be completely devoted to Phampira, including romantically/sexually. It would have been a good setup to explain why she never gave Gaius the goods if anything.

And there’s nothing wrong with having said Priestess have her own family while still being devoted. I just wish PB would have used some fucking forethought and hinted at that earlier on than they did. Because they didn’t hint. They dropped this random fisherman-something husband on us and told us she cared enough about his opinion to make him part of her advisory board but not... to like... mention him in any of her conversations in any of the flashbacks... including those in which he would have been alive.

On that note the whole timeline there is really messy, they obviously threw him and Iola in later on after some things were established/couldn’t be taken back. I’ve studied this shit extensively and it’s really muddled exactly how long Rheya ruled, when shit went down with her family, how much time had passed when Xenocrates staked her, etc.

I would have loved for Iola’s father not to have been there. Give me a strong woman, a strong single mother, who would burn the world for the loss of her daughter. Doesn’t matter who did the deed, Iola was hers and the Sons/Order took that from her and the world would have to pay the price.

If I had been given that I would end all of my complaints right here. I would, genuinely. Because then her descent into madness, her paranoia, her megalomania would all have been explained. And they still technically are but -- maybe it’s just me -- there’s something about her having to factor in Demetrius that just... takes me out of it. IDK.

I didn’t mind the guy... though him being a talking tree of doom was a little much for me... though by that point I had accepted the plot was off the goddamn rails and just kept nodding and going with it. But his presence made the story okay when his absence could have made the story impactful and powerful and emotional. That’s just my thoughts. Which you asked for. You did this.

No takesies-backsies.

Was she a villain? Hells to the yes.

It’s a classic case of obtaining ultimate power and abusing it; of crossing the line between justice and vengeance. Not that she wasn’t justified in her freak-out over the death of her family. But everything after up to and including her fatal feeding schedule was totally unnecessary. For a villain, yes necessary.

For a vampire goddess who could have easily used Gaius’ influence over the vampires of the modern world to form a cult following around herself with an open dialogue about her big ass appetite and probably would have ended up with swaths of willing adorers ready to lend their blood to her cause thus eliminating the need for secrecy and subsequent feeling of betrayal...

You tell me.

I feel like she was definitely more than a little hyped up though. Not even going into my whole-ass issue with the entire Unchained plot and thus the first like 4-5 chapters of book 3, she was hyped up in myth and kind of a let down in person. She could FLY. Walk in the SUN. Heal the DYING. She’s vampire JESUS.

*ADDED IN LATER: She took out THE ENTIRE ORDER OF THE DAWN, WHO HAVE RAVAGED THE VAMPIRE POPULATION FOR LITERALLY 3000 YEARS since they were around in her time after all IN LIKE A THREE-MOVE COMBO BREAK. ALL THIS SHIT THEY HYPED WITH THE ORDER and their entire ERADICATION isn’t even an ON-SCREEN THING. Unless you pay.

Dude if they had kept Xenocrates and the Order and used the two of them against each other; the Order’s long-standing influence on the modern world versus the new world Rheya wanted to create with the human populations not knowing the history behind their hatred, where like the first half of the book is Rheya and MC and gang taking out the Order and Xenocrates only to find out in the middle point that she’s been doing it for selfish reasons and they were on the wrong team the whole time and THEN Rheya becomes the big bad... I would have enjoyed the shit out of that.

Anyway. “She’s vampire JESUS...” and her big evil plan is to... suck face on national television? IDK. It didn’t play the mood right for me. I can see from a writer’s perspective how they kind of played out all of their options and went with a quick and easy solution... but it didn’t work for me. That’s a no from me dawg.

Do I think she deserved a redemption arc? I don’t think anybody deserved a god damn redemption arc, unless they are done with extreme care and attention to detail before/during/after said arc they go horribly, and overall tend to be the plot device pick of lazy writers.

And I take nothing back. No like I think I might have gone into how much I fucking hated Gaius’ “reDEmPtiON aRc” before or at least I have somewhere and to someone. Probably Sofia... no most definitely Sofia. But anyway. They spend TWO GOD DAMN BOOKS hyping Gaius as this ultimately irredeemable bad guy.

OMG I was literally playing the book 2 finale and got a quote hold on... HERE. Adrian literally says about Gaius in 2.16 “It’s like there’s no humanity left.” And that’s just one actual example of the tons of times they make him out to be devoted to Rheya of his own volition, the ultimate example of the line between believing in something and being blinded to everything by it, etc. Like a huge chunk of Kamilah’s and Adrian’s arcs RE: Gaius are about how he was definitely a monster, he turns the people around him into monsters, and while they have worked their asses off to be good and right their wrongs he has not, will not, and would not ever do such a thing.

Then suddenly he’s brainwashed, tried to turn Rheya down and was made into a loony toon because of it, and everything he made MC’s loved ones do that they blamed themselves for but needed to blame him for is suddenly Rheya’s fault and now we should blame her for.

Mmmmmkay sweetie. I’m good, thanks.

But really -- that was the last straw for me when it came to both Gaius and Rheya. There’s a difference between giving the villain something they see as a just cause (ex. Rheya avenging her family) and giving the villain a cop-out that absolves them of guilt (ex. Gaius and... everything about him). Like yes I know MC didn’t have to forgive him, I know Kamilah didn’t really forgive him, but it’s pretty fuckin obvious from how it was put out into the world story that the writers were trying to lean you towards blaming Rheya and letting Gaius off the hook.

I mean... making him save Lula for real when Rheya saved her for fake earlier on in the book, using Lula as a stand-in metaphor for her own child daughter that she finds out she was the cause of her death for, etc? That symbolism is so transparent I could put it in the asset database.

And I’ll only briefly touch on this since I could write a whole other essay on the matter RE: PB and their fucking constant repetition of this, but “let’s give both bad guys similar moral quandaries but suddenly reveal it was a consent issue and the woman is wholly to blame and now gets the man’s crimes piled on with her own” is super common in fiction and hella. fucking. sexist.

But that isn’t to say all of this is necessarily bad.

When done right, everything I’ve complained about above can be a part of a really good story. What “done right” means is different for everyone, everyone has a different example and different thoughts on it. These are mine. I think the better term would be done well. It was not done WELL.

But given things like PB’s weird obsession with redeeming the attractive (apparently) bad guy, PB’s history with narrowing a woman down to one trait or part of her (ex. Rheya’s power corruption centered around her role as a wife and mother and not... a super all powerful vampire goddess...), their obvious lack of attention to detail and overall lack of vision when it comes to the big picture* and more, I personally don’t think they knew what the fuck they wanted by book 3 and were already well into transitioning into whatever adultery-obsessed lingerie shenanery they’re fixated on now; so much so that it’s almost a disservice to the writing done in earlier book 1 and a decent chunk of book 2 when calling it a whole series.

*I keep bringing this up only because it means I can back up stuff like this with real examples of theirs: these guys did not write the plot of this series as a cohesive story. I get that, as a writer writing a big series myself I get the fuck out of that. But you have to solidify some things early on in the development process in order to avoid writing yourself into a hole or, like with this, having to result in trope-y plot devices that work in theory but on paper don’t give the story the full-circle fulfillment it deserves.

Their timelines are out of whack, they contradict themselves in quite a few places, constantly wishy-washy their own lore, and definitely didn’t go back and double check if they’d said something already... and that’s not including where they focused on the details of one unimportant thing and left another more important thing to just be “and this is the way it is moving on.”

I literally have no way/idea how to summarize any of this bullshittery going on in this ask. Did I like Rheya? The character personality, design, and overall idea as this big ass badass power/hungry goddess demanding fealty was pretty cool. Did I like Rheya when they narrowed her story down to her grief over her family (which, again, is valid, but just seemed really disjointed and rushed when compared to everything else they had given about her/shown of her by the beginning of book 3)? Not... as much.

I think they wanted her to seem like she could be redeemed. I mean FFS in the “big battle” she literally just stands there and lets you do the thing. 3000 years imprisoned and however many centuries before that spent taking the power that she was denied all because some bad dudes in masks killed the mortal husband and daughter you would have eventually lost to old age anyway...? And she just stands there???

Even knowing she was really behind Iola’s death they could have stuck with the “madness consumed” plotline and had her be like well... what’s done is done back to taking over now thank you.

But sometimes a bad guy just has to be a bad guy. Rourke from ES, mister capitalism -- can’t remember them trying to redeem him. If they had I don’t think I would have liked it so much. Who else... UGH. Thomas in NB. Crazy zombie man wants all monsters dead because one killed his family (can we stop using dead families for grief porn please and thanks...) another example of a useless villain. Hence why I removed him from my NB rewrite don’t even get me going...

What’s his face in TCATF! Luther! You join up with him and he still tries to kill you in the end! Now that was fucking classic. Hex, who suddenly is forgiven for the literal enslavement of a race of people and the thoughtless murder of a civilization that didn’t agree with her.. and all because she was ‘like a mother’ to the kid genius? Not so much.

I could go on and on and go search out tons of examples but in the end the one thing you can say PB does well is that they stay consistent in their ideas of redemption, of who deserves it and who isn’t, and just how far they’re willing to stretch the fucking story to forgive a character if 1. the sprite is hot or 2. the sprite had a little sprite family somewhere in there.

legit just talk to me about bb/nb

#; ask jack #diving in depth: bloodbound #rheya apostolous #re: bloodbound #bloodbound #consent tw #;; like just a brief sentence about it but wanted to tag accordingly #;; also fair warning this is LONG AS FUCK ANON #;; and in many places real damn preachy #;; so I'm sorry in advance and in no way expect my thoughts and opinions to be the only ones #;; and know much of my thoughts are colored by my experiences and others have their own valid thoughts and opinions #;; which should be a given but I just wanted to put it in writing just in case #;; you know how it be #Anonymous

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undead-notunreasonable · 4 years ago

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So I remember you mentioned that you were bullied at school? So was I and I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. What is it that happened to you then? Just curious- dw if you don’t wanna say

This is gonna be long... I’m pretty open with what happened to me when I was at school! So, I guess I was dealt the worst hand: ginger, skinny, Deaf. The problem is growing up, I always had a group of friends & would lose them, and honestly that happened to me recently, so I thought it was because of me when in reality it’s because people don’t get that if you’re deaf, your needs & worldview are SO much more different to that of an abled person & abled bodied people just don’t get it.

Primary school: I was part of the ‘popular’ crowd for quite some time & I never felt any different & I thought these group of girls were going to be my best friends forever. As we go older, things started to change, I was being included less & not being invited to much. Parents would tell their kids to not hang around the disabled kid. Literal grown adults. They even would constantly ask my Mum if she was feeding me or if I was ill because I was so small. My poor Mum. One time I stayed round a friends house for a sleepover & bare in mind we’re little kids we’re like 7? I had a teddy bear that I wouldn’t go ANYWHERE without so of course I brought it to the party. One girl spat her gum into my hair. Another hid my hearing aids. Another hid my teddy bear. They didn’t get in trouble but the Mum whose home it was, told me that I hid it & was playing up. Following morning, it was hot as hell so we had a water fight before our parents came to pick us up, but I couldn’t join it because I couldn’t get my hearing aids wet. Though, I did aim the running hose that everyone was using at one of the girls & she burst into tears, I stopped but the others continued. The Mum yet again blamed me. She told my Mum & my Mum was like “No, she wouldn’t have done that if someone said to stop. And she wouldn’t have put gum in her hair, hidden her bear, or hid her hearing aids.” Eventually they got older & they just outed me. Until I met another new girl who was SO tall & people were mean to her about her height, so I became her friend, and we became great friends! Until another new girl came in who was my friend but she didn’t like me much even though I didn’t do anything wrong. She convinced the tall one to abandon me just as we moved onto secondary school. Secondary school: We had like an introductory week at this school where we met all the other kids so we could at least know someone to hang out with. I was lucky, there was a girl I attended gymnastics with & so I spent the day with her but this one teacher put me with another girl who is a little person & the reason she kept putting me & her together was because “Well you both look similar & you’re disabled, so you’ll get on great.” which is SO fucking wrong. We tried to get on with each other but we just didn’t gel. We exchanged hi’s every so often but we later drifted. I managed to get back with the girl from gymnastics but she wasn’t in my class. I didn’t mind, I was looking forward to studying at a big school & I had friends in another class so it’s fine. Eventually the tall girl from primary & I became friends because the girl she went off with kicked her out of their friendship group & we stayed friends for 7 years. But, this was when Harry Potter movies were slowly coming towards their end (I think they’d released their 4th movie?) and so.. of course... being ginger... meant all the boys started calling me Weasley & Ginger Nut. One boy, used to pass me notes & honestly, I didn’t think it was bullying because I thought I’d actually made a friend in class because I get on well with guys, so I would pass insults back. It only later became bullying when that guy told his friends what he’d call me, they’d start throwing stuff at me when the teacher wasn’t looking. I tried to report it but the teacher didn’t care, told me to ignore it. Boys kept harassing me & so I took it to the vice principal. It happened SO often, literally every day for MONTHS no matter how many letters of apologies or detentions etc, that one day I went to her again for help & she just went “Holly, I’m too busy, deal with it yourself.” A new drama teacher came in and she saw that our class was pretty wild and she couldn’t figure out who was causing it. She asked me to take note in classes of everyone who got listed on detention boards & bring it back to her. Deaf people take things LITERALLY and so I LITERALLY wrote down their names as their names went on board. People started to notice & started cornering me & yelling in my face asking me why I was writing their names down. The teacher at the time in that building caught wind of it & asked me calmly why I was doing it. “Mrs Edwards asked me to.” was all I could stay & then later the Drama teacher explained that she meant mentally take note & that she was so sorry for any harm she’d caused. But this didn’t make me a popular person at all. Valentines were always filled with fake ones & pranks. People fake asking me out, even a friend gave me a card that was meant to be from my crush but it was made up. What didn’t help was that I was a big fan of the Twilight movies. Someone spread a rumour near prom that I was the head of Prom committee & that I was making it Twilight themed & this spread like wildfire. People would yell at me on the way to classes & spit at me “No one’s gonna fucking go to Prom if it’s TWILIGHT fucking themed!! You piece of fucking shit!!!” and I’d get messaged on my Facebook & MSM all night about how I’ve ruined everyones prom. I’d yell “Look at the fucking planners list that’s literally everywhere. I’m not even on it. I’m not even going.” and I really didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay in, in my pyjamas because I was so upset. One bully even cornered me before science class & got into my face, just screaming “You fucking ginger emo cunt! No one will ever fucking love you because you’re ginger & deaf!” and tried to shut us all out. I was in a rage & I managed to push open the door enough to kick him so hard in the shin & keep kicking. He never said a bad word to me again. But all my friends were going to prom & I wanted to go with them. So, I did. (And I wowed everyone there, all the bullies couldn’t believe it was me. I had my hair in a curled low bun, smoky eyeshadow, a black velvet bodiced dress, red jewelled choker round my throat, red silk skirt & arrived in an vintage car. It was vampy, it was gothy, but I looked good for the time. I even kissed my crush that night!) but a year down the line & all my girl friends said they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore because I just didn’t do anything. I was a tomboy, I wasn’t into shopping & getting nails done or clubbing. But they started doing things without me & stopped inviting me, stopped even considering me, so I plucked up the courage to ask why, they said I didn’t do anything, I said “Yeah, not the girly stuff but I would’ve loved to have gone to the movies & gone for dinner with you” and my best friend of 7 years said “I never even liked you anyway.” So I had no friends once more. College: I wasn’t so much bullied in college, other than you had you popular people & your dorky people but the friends I’d made of friends invited me to house parties & eventually down the years (what...5?) I found out between that time that they’d had a group chat on Whatsapp that I wasn’t a part of because it was a sex bet group. They would plot & wager who would convince me into bed first because I was the hot friend. I’m.. not hot. I’m okay. But still. They’d had a big bet on me. I found out & I was livid. I yelled at them & they told me I was being childish about it. So I broke away. I kept a few that I knew weren’t on the chat close. I introduced an old school friend to them & well... he was dating four of them, sleeping with them, then telling them he had to be somewhere else but was sleeping with someone else of the quartet. This all got out & EVERYONE fell apart. I felt so guilty because I’d introduced him but someone assured it wasn’t my fault. Adulthood: Then this year, I lost them all because I yelled at one guy who kept treating me like SHIT & I’d told him to back off. Everyone yelled at me, called me childish, and took his side. People who love calling out toxic & abusive behaviour, telling each other to not talk to someone because of this or that. That’s childish. He and I are working things about but it’ll never be the same. The only friend I had left really upset me when we both discussed about going to this little holiday hut I’d found & I got all excited. She knew I’d fallen out with my group of friends so I said “I don’t have anyone I can invite that can join us” and then she said “I know a few from uni who can come” and then booked it but... didn’t book it for me at all. She said “I can’t wait to go next year with my best friends, it’s gonna be so nice to spend a weekend with them” so I broke things off with her. Like, I found the place, we agreed to go together, we got excited, and then... you just dropped me. So all in all, yeah I’ve been bullied. I don’t have any physical friends anymore, I just have internet friends & I suppose I’m not built for people. I have a few internet friends though, so I’m not entirely alone. But I don’t date for the same reasons, also because of what that one bully said & all the fake Valentines. I’m sorry what happened to you is playing on your mind but honestly, it’s really for the best for you to try & move forward, yes, the memories will be there, but its YOU who decides how you go about your life, how YOU look after yourself, not the past. You are who you are, and you’re wonderful, I’m sure. Except if you’re a terf or a racist but that’s something else.

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mimi-cee-hq · 5 years ago

Text

It’s Blue - Kuroo x Reader

[Masterlist]

I guess this is my contribution to all of the Kuroo writing out there with this cute match-up oneshot. lol.

Request from @jessie4098:

hi, I’m jessie, could I please have a matchup? I have long dirty blonde hair, that I constantly braid, I’m pale with freckles on my nose. I’m not that tall, I’m only 5'2" but that doesn’t stope me from playing volleyball. I’m a libero for my volleyball teams, I play for three teams, and just for fun I play beach volleyball with friends. I do well in school, and I volunteer a lot I am the grandma of the friend group, i know many weird home remedies, I love hard candy, I give good advice, I can sew, cook, I love books, and I’m always cold. I love both old music and new music. I have pretty bad insomnia, when I can’t sleep I will practice volleyball till ungodly hours. I’m a hard worker, and stubborn. I can make friends with anyone. I’m caring and loyal to my friends. I love affection and playing with peoples hair. Im a bubbly girl, who loves volleyball.Thank you!

Summary:

During Kuroo’s first year, a petite libero volunteers to cook at the training camp. She didn’t expect to leave with a crush on him. Kuroo noticed her feelings but is hesitant to accept them because of something blue during his childhood.

AO3 Link if you want to read there

I removed a part of what Jessie wrote in her request because it’ll actually spoil the story for everyone else. I’ll add it at the end. I also changed a tiny detail and didn’t hit every single thing listed for plot reasons.

Match-up stories taglist: @nagichi-deku, @nxlx96

It’s Blue - Kuroo x Reader

Words: 2,697

“You should be our manager, Y/n,” laughed Kai as he watched the brown-eyed girl chop onions with Nanako.

“What? Are you kidding me?” replied Y/n to her classmate. “I wouldn’t be able to play volleyball then.”

Y/n and Nanako were both on the girl’s volleyball team. Nanako was their third year setter and captain of their team. She only came with Y/n because she had forced her to. Y/n told Nanako that she needed to learn how to cook, especially if she wanted to survive after graduating high school. So Y/n volunteered to help with the boy’s training camp during Golden week to teach her.

That wasn’t the only reason she had offered to help cook. The girl’s team didn’t get their own camp because their coach always visited family out of town during Golden week. But Y/n loved volleyball a little too much, so she told the boys’ coach that she’d help with the food if she could sneak in some practice during their training camp.

“Seriously,” said Nanako, “this girl works too hard.”

“How else would I get better?” asked Y/n.

“You already receive our serves and spikes really well,” commented Nanako. “Well, I guess we don’t have a lot of strong spikers in the first place.”

“By the way, Y/n,” noted Kai. “How are you not crying right now?”

Nanako had been tearing up and sniffing the entire time from chopping onions. Y/n, on the other hand, seemed fine. “Oh, that’s because…,” she started to say. “I just have a secret remedy for that,” she said with a grin.

“Pfft,” Nanako laughed. “There you go with your home remedies again, Grandma.”

“This one actually isn’t a home remedy,” she replied. “But it’s a secret.”

“Grandma?” asked Kai. “But you’re in the same year as me.” Nanako laughed at Kai’s comment. She explained that even though she was the captain of the team, Y/n would ‘mother’ her enough that she would call her mom. But the other first years thought of Nanako as the mom of the team. As a result, Y/n got the name grandma instead.

Kuroo and Yaku entered the kitchen to mix some more of their sports drink. But when Kuroo noticed Y/n, he stopped walking and stared at her. “Do I know you?” Kuroo asked Y/n.

“Seriously?” asked Yaku with a laugh. “Already using pick up lines? That one’s a lame one.”

“No?” replied Y/n. She wasn’t sure why Kuroo was looking into her eyes so intently. “I don’t think I know you.”

Kuroo sighed, rubbed his hair and walked away with his sports drink. When Yaku joined him, Y/n heard Kuroo telling him to remember to eat his veggies. She laughed at their dynamic as she continued to teach Nanako how to cook.

Y/n later learned that Kuroo was the only one on the team who knew how to do a jump serve. She was impressed that he was able to do one even though he was only a first year like herself. None of the girls on her team could do one either. So when the boys had free practice, she took the opportunity to pull him aside and ask him to practise with her.

“Are you sure?” asked Kuroo. “Yaku is the only one who can receive my serve well right now.”

“Yes!” she said eagerly. “We might go against other teams with strong serves so I need to get better.”

During that week, she asked him to practise with her every chance she got. Kuroo would scold her for overworking herself. She’d retort that he’d been practising a lot more than she had been because she would have to go and cook. But one night, Kuroo saw her up late, practising her receives by herself. He snatched the ball from her and held it above her head.

“You’re only allowed to have the ball back if you’re able to take it from me,” Kuroo sneered at her. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to because she was only 5 feet and 2 inches tall.

Y/n, getting frustrated, couldn’t think of a witty comeback. Then, she gave him a smirk, “It’s not like your receives are any good anyway.”

“Ha?”

“Why is the one who’s bad at receives preventing the one who good at receives from practising?” she giggled.

“Why, you…”

The two of them laughed as they continued to bicker with each other. When they settled down, she did end up encouraging him to practise his receives more. “I know that attacks look a lot cooler in volleyball, but even the small and seemingly unimportant parts of a body are actually really important,” she told him. “It’s like how we never notice how much we use our fingers during the day. But once we get a paper cut, it’s like it affects the rest of the body.” She smiled and continued, “It’s like a team. When one member of the team isn’t doing well, the whole team is affected. The opponents are always looking for holes to pick at.”

“Ugh…,” complained Kuroo. “I guess that means I have to practise receiving more.” The two of them sat inside the gym against the wall. “Kenma was telling me otherwise because I’m tall and a middle blocker. He said that magic users in RPG games need to put their skill points in intelligence. So similarly, I should be focusing my skills on blocks and quick attacks. That’s why we practised our time difference attack a lot.” He smiled at the memory of practising with him. “But I guess you’re right too.”

“Who knows,” she said with a giggle, “Practising your receives might come in handy one day.”

He smirked at her, “You’re pretty smart.” He rubbed the dirty blonde hair on her head as he got up from the gym floor. “Here’s my jacket,” he said as he gave it to her. “You look cold.”

She was surprised he had noticed that. But then again, it was rare for her to not be cold, even though it was the beginning of May. She blushed as he scolded for her to go to sleep. With the rub in her hair, the jacket, and even the scolding, it was hard to not interpret these actions as being affectionate. She got a bit frustrated with herself because she had just met him earlier that week. She already knew that she was starting to have a crush on him.

*****

After Golden week, the two of them continued to be close friends. Although they were in different classes, they would greet each other and chat whenever they saw each other in the hallway. She was in Kai’s class and Kuroo and Yaku would come and meet up with him before practise. One day, as Kai wrapped up his notes, Kuroo and Yaku sat down as they waited for him.

“I still don’t understand why you like dogs,” mentioned Yaku.

“I don’t have to like cats just because I go to ‘Neko’-ma,” answered Kuroo. But he froze when he started to feel someone playing with his hair.

“How does your hair even get like this?” asked Y/n. “It just sticks up without any product at all!”

Kuroo started to feel a blush form on his cheeks. With a sigh, Kuroo asked her in a serious tone, “Y/n, can you stop playing with my hair?”

Y/n quickly pulled her hands away and apologized. When her teammate called her to go to practise, she left the classroom, leaving Kuroo, Yaku and Kai behind.

“Is she on the volleyball team?” asked Yaku.

“Yeah, she’s the libero,” replied Kai.

“Really?” Yaku said, suddenly more curious about her.

“Oy! You’re not allowed to be interested in her!” said Kuroo.

“What? Why not?”

“B- Because she has long hair,” replied Kuroo. When the two of them looked unconvinced, he added, “Didn’t you think that other girl was cute anyway?”

Yaku and Kai laughed at his pathetic attempt to cover up his crush on her. “You obviously like her,” commented Kai. “And it looks like she likes you too. What’s holding you back?”

Kuroo sighed. “I don’t like her okay?”

“What? Are you not over your first love or something?” Yaku asked sarcastically.

For a moment, Kuroo didn’t reply. He got up and told them, “Let’s just go to practice.” As they walked to the gym, Kai asked Yaku if he had tried to talk to the girl in his class yet. Yaku got flustered at the thought of talking to her. Kuroo strolled beside them, trying to remember something from his childhood days. “I’m pretty sure it was blue,” he thought to himself as he sighed.

*****

Several summers ago, Kuroo’s dad was preparing food that they had brought to the beach. So Kuroo was sitting at the picnic table near the barbeque grill his dad was using. Looking around, he saw a group of people playing beach volleyball. Before he realized it, he had wandered away from his dad and stood beside the court to watch.

A volleyball rolled over to him. “Mikasa?” he thought to himself as he read the brand name of the ball.

A young girl with a long braid ran over to him, presumably to retrieve the ball. But as she approached him, he looked away, trying not to make eye contact with her. He still wasn’t very comfortable around other people.

But she still tried to look at his face and told him that she had seen him watching them. “Did you want to join?” she asked with a smile. When he didn’t answer, she said, “You don’t have to be shy. Even though we’re both just kids, my parents will make sure we get an opportunity to hit the ball.”

Kuroo finally looked up and saw her face. His mouth was open as he stared into her eyes. “Y- You look like my dog!” he exclaimed.

She burst out in laughter. “What?” she said. She wasn’t expecting that to be his first impression of her. “Is that a good thing?”

After that day, Kuroo kept asking his parents to go to the beach. He had fun playing volleyball with her family. They made him feel welcome even though he wasn’t very good at volleyball. Her dad even pulled him aside from the game and took the time to teach him the basics. “Place your feet shoulder length apart. Bend your knees,” he instructed. “Put your arms in front. Turn them slightly out to make a flat surface with your forearms.”

But those days had to end when Kuroo told them that he was moving to Tokyo. “What? You’re moving?” she said with tears in her eyes.

“Yeah,” he responded. “That’s where my grandparents are.”

She gave him one last hug before he had to leave. But she clung on him tightly and didn’t want to let go. Kuroo blushed at her gesture. He didn’t have many friends but she made it easy.

He was thankful that he met Kenma after he moved. Without him, he wouldn’t have tried volleyball again and would have stuck to watching volleyball videos instead. Kuroo wondered if he would be able to see her again if he kept playing volleyball. He thought that it shouldn’t be too hard to find her if their paths crossed again. After all, she had a very distinctive trait.

*****

Kuroo arrived at school one day to see Y/n being scolded by the principal. “You’re not allowed to wear sunglasses in school,” he told her. After she bowed to him in apology, she turned to walk down the hall. Kuroo found it odd that she was covering her right eye with her hand. He chuckled when she almost walked into a wall.

“You know you don’t get any depth perception when you walk around like that,” he teased her.

“Oh! Hi, Kuroo,” she said as she smiled at him. But her right hand didn’t move from her face.

“Are you seriously going to walk around like that all day?” he asked.

“Well, I can try, can’t I?” she replied with a giggle. But when Kuroo saw that she was going to hurt herself if she did, he attempted to pry her hand off her face. She was relentless though.

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“Gah! Stop it Kuroo!”

He stopped - only because she had used both of her hands to push him away. Y/n stood a few feet from him and glared at him as she caught her breath.

Kuroo’s eyes grew wide as he stared at her. “It’s blue,” Kuroo commented to himself. Y/n quickly covered her eye again. “It’s blue,” he repeated in disbelief.

Kuroo took a step back until his back hit the wall and stared at her. He then started to laugh at himself at how ridiculous the situation was if he had understood it correctly.

“Has your right eye always been blue?” he asked, trying to process everything.

“Yeah,” she simply replied.

“I’m guessing you’ve been wearing colored contacts to cover your heterochromia iridium?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because someone made fun of me,” she said. “Having different colored eyes isn’t exactly common.”

Kuroo vigorously rubbed his hair out of frustration. “So you mean if it wasn’t for some jerk, I would have asked you out a while ago?” he muttered to himself.

“Huh?”

“What?”

It took Kuroo a moment to realize that he just admitted to liking Y/n out loud. He started to panic and think of an explanation, but Y/n quickly latched on to what he had just said.

“Wait, what?! What do you mean?” she exclaimed as she freaked out. “Explain right now!” she demanded.

“Explain what?!” he yelled back. “That you’re my first love and that I’ve been looking for you for who knows how long?!”

Y/n was speechless. Kuroo knew she had a crush on him. But he had been so hung up over his childhood crush that it prevented him from allowing himself to fully like her back.

“I was worried that I only started liking you because you reminded me of my first love,” he explained. “But I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore.” He then smiled at her, knowing that they had some catching up to do.

It took Y/n a while to fully process what had just happened. She didn’t remember Kuroo initially, but as he explained, she started to remember bits and pieces. Kuroo told her not to worry about it. She just left a big impression on him. She blushed in response. She never knew that what she thought were just small gestures of kindness would make a big impact on someone’s life.

But it wasn’t until Kuroo told their story to Kai and Yaku how big of a difference it really was.

“So wait a minute. She has long, braided hair…”

“She has a Mikasa beach volleyball…”

“Your dog also has different colored eyes…”

“And the two of you met at a beach during the summer”

“…”

Kuroo tried not to show his embarrassment, but they had totally seen right through him.

“That’s 4 out of the 7 things you like,” Kai chuckled at him.

“And I thought that you kept choosing what I didn’t like just to spite me,” Yaku laughed.

“Oh! But, he started playing volleyball because of her, so wouldn’t that be 5 out of 8?”

“What are they talking about?” asked Y/n.

“Nothing,” he said, as he quickly pushed her away from them.

“Hey Y/n! Do you like eating sweet curry?”

“Fish?”

“Japanese cuisine?”

“Shut up!”

*****

Extras

Y/n didn’t cry while chopping onions because she was wearing contacts. I don’t know if this actually works in real life, but just pretend it does for this story.

Kuroo is still concerned about his bedhead but doesn’t mind as much because she likes playing with his hair.

Their teams call them grandma and grandpa. :D It’s not surprising because Yaku called Kuroo an old man in first year and Kuroo considers everyone younger than him as youth or kids.

Coach Nekomata returns from retirement around their second or third year and is pleasantly surprised that the players are still good receivers even when he wasn’t around. It’s all thanks to her and Kuroo. (I haven’t read the manga. Just going by the wiki.)

Her advice about a team being like a body gave Kuroo the inspiration for his mantra - much to Kenma’s dismay.

@jessie4098‘s full request:

(½) hi, I’m jessie, could I please have a matchup? I have long dirty blonde hair, that I constantly braid, I’m pale with freckles on my nose. I have one blue eye and one brown eye, I usually wear sunglasses, I used to get made fun of because of my eyes. I’m not that tall, I’m only 5’2” but that doesn’t stope me from playing volleyball. I’m a libero for my volleyball teams, I play for three teams, and just for fun I play beach volleyball with friends. I do well in school, and I volunteer a lot

(2/2) I am the grandma of the friend group, i know many weird home remedies, I love hard candy, I give good advice, I can sew, cook, I love books, and I’m always cold. I love both old music and new music. I have pretty bad insomnia, when I can’t sleep I will practice volleyball till ungodly hours. I’m a hard worker, and stubborn. I can make friends with anyone. I’m caring and loyal to my friends. I love affection and playing with peoples hair. Im a bubbly girl, who loves volleyball.Thank you!

I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please like, reblog or send me a message. :) Let me know if you want to be tagged for the next match-up (whenever I actually do that.) Check out my other stories too. :)

[Masterlist]

136 notes · View notes

mischiefandspirits · 4 years ago

Text

Doppelgänger (7/?)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Public Enemies, Part 2}

“Okay, listen up!” Dash’s voice said and Danny followed it to a science lab. He peeked inside to see a bunch of students and school faculty watching as Dash continued, “Is everybody clear with the plan?”

“Yes, yes, it should all go down tomorrow after the town meeting,” Paulina said.

“Meeting?” Danny transformed then stepped in. “What town meeting?”

The group all turned to him with frowns.

Suddenly the door slammed behind him and he turned to see Kwan glaring at him.

“I’ve seen this one hanging around the girl. They’re dating.”

“Girl? Dating?”

Dash grabbed him, then Dash was falling to the ground and a white ghost was holding him.

“Walker!” Danny said without thinking.

“Oh, you know me?” the warden asked, leaning closer with a smirk. “You might just be the most useful one yet.”

“Useful?” Danny looked over the ghost’s shoulder and blanched as he saw the horde smirking at him with glowing eyes. “Oh no, you do not want to overshadow me, trust me. The last guy who did that did not enjoy it anywhere near as much as he thought he would.”

“We’ll see about that,” Walker said and dove into him before he could react.

A presence, pushing, pressing, trying to force him out. Out. OUT! GET OUT!

Danny snapped back into reality to find himself kneeling on the ground. He looked up and was relieved to see it was Walker sitting in front of him instead of himself. “Ha! Poindexter is better at possession than you!”

“How?” the warden growled, looking up.

“Dude, my family’s been ghost hunters for centuries. You think we haven’t built up an immunity to possession?” he lied.

Although, he supposed it might not be a lie. They didn’t know for sure why possession didn’t work right on Danny since neither Sam nor Tucker had been overshadowed before. His dad had managed to throw off Vlad for a short time though so maybe there was something in the Fenton genes.

Oh well, something to consider another time. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Danny ducked under Kwan’s grab and rushed out the door. He heard the overshadowed people take chase and let a little ghost strength and speed slip through. He glanced over his shoulder and grabbed a pistol out of the fold when he was sure no one was looking. Kwan had said girl, so they thought Sam was Doppelgänger. The longer they thought that, the longer the trio could use it to their advantage.

Danny hissed as something slammed him into the lockers.

Though, if it came down to giving up the ghost or dying, Danny’d transform.

He shot Lancer with the gun, knocking him out the window. He flinched as he took off running again, hoping his teacher couldn’t feel that.

“Gotta get away long enough to disappear.”

Ishiyama and Paulina dropped down in front of him and he fired on instinct. Paulina dodged, but the principal went flying.

“You can't get away from me!” the popular girl growled and Danny was hit by both her fist and the irony.

“Wow. I waited all of puberty for a girl to say that to me and now it's a complete bummer,” he groaned, rolling away from her grab and rubbing his jaw.

She snarled and made another grab, only for a blast of pink to throw her back.

Suddenly a hand was pulling Danny to his feet and dragging him down the hall. “Let’s go, before more of them come.”

Danny’s eyes widened as he realized Valerie had just come to his rescue. Where was this helpful attitude when you were trying to blow me out of the sky last week?

“Watch out!” Danny jerked them to a stop just in time to miss a grab from his history teacher, who flew past them and out a window as a result.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Thank you. I don’t think I would have lasted this long on my own,” he shot back as they both fired on the science teacher. “Nice gear, looks familiar,” he added as he saw the gun she was holding.

It was exactly the same as his, but with pink detailing.

“Nice aim. I didn’t think you were into this stuff,” she said as they ran down the stairs.

Danny shrugged and ducked a grab from Dash. “I’m not obsessed like my parents, but you can’t exactly live with them without knowing at least a little about how to fight a ghost.”

The two made it out of the school and Valerie summoned her board. “Get on. I can take you to your house.”

“Thanks, Valerie.” He climbed on and knelt down so he could watch their back.

The board jolted. “What? Who’s Valerie.”

Oops. “I-I just meant…” He glanced up and sighed. “You do realize you don’t change your voice at all in the suit, right?”

She cursed and dove around a cheerleader Danny didn’t recognize.

“It’s fine, I won’t tell anyone. I mean, Sam and Tucker already know, but they won’t tell anyone either. Promise.”

“Thanks.”

“You wouldn’t mind telling me where you got all this stuff, would you? Some of it looks like Fenton tech,” Danny said, shooting Dash out of the sky.

“It’s not stolen.”

“Didn’t say it was. My parents do sell their stuff. I just didn’t think anyone in town bought it before today.”

“I have a benefactor. They’re worried about the ghosts.”

“I mean entirely no offense given the circumstances, but they thought a teenager was the person for the job?”

“I didn’t ask, for obvious reasons.”

“That’s fair.”

“What were you doing in the school anyways? I thought everyone had evacuated.”

“I did too. That’s why I thought it was safe to go grab something I’d forgotten in my locker.”

“Clearly you were wrong.”

“Clearly,” Danny snorted and used a lull in attacks to pull out his phone. He texted Jazz, telling her to turn on the ghost shield. “The ghosts were using the school as a gathering point. Apparently they’re planning to do something at a town meeting tomorrow. I overheard them plotting, hence the trying to kill me thing.”

“Noted. I bet that ghost kid is part of this.”

“You mean Doppelgänger?”

“Doppelgänger?”

“White hair, green skin, androgynous?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, that’s Doppelgänger. They’re the one the ghosts are after. Not sure how they think trashing the town and overshadowing half the school is supposed to help.”

“Why are they looking for him?”

“Them. Androgynous, remember.” The trio had decided to just use gender-neutral pronouns for all their sakes. “And no clue.”

Valerie turned a corner, then slowed down at the sight of the shield.

“It’s fine, it will only stop ghosts.”

She nodded and flew through.

Once they landed, Danny turned to her with a smile. “Thanks again.”

He couldn’t see her face through the mask, but he could hear a smile in her voice. “No problem. Try to be more careful.”

“You too. And hey, if you need any help with your gear, just ask. I know my way around quite a bit of it thanks to my parents.” It’d also give him and his partners an idea of her arsenal.

“I might take you up on that. You’re… not so bad, Fenton.”

He smirked. “You’re not so bad yourself, Gray.”

She shook her head with a laugh. “You could use some work on your form. If-if you want, we can train together sometime. I have a black belt, so I could teach you a few things. I mean, unless you think your girlfriend would object. I don’t want to cause trouble.”

Danny groaned. “Sam and I are queerplatonic. Same with Tucker. No romance involved.”

“Oh, cool.”

Danny blinked. Did she sound… happier?

“So, training?”

“Uh, sure.” It would make Jazz stop bugging him about spending more time away from his partners. And he’d get to see what Valerie was capable of while learning new fighting techniques. “I mean, yeah, that sounds great. Thanks, Valerie.”

They swapped phone numbers and agreed to meet up Sunday afternoon as long as the ghosts didn’t cause a problem.

“Why did you want the ghost shield on?” Jazz asked when he came in.

“Ghosts were chasing me.”

“You okay?” Jazz said, looking him over.

“Fine. I need to call Sam and Tucker.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ghost kid!”

The trio froze and turned as Valerie flew towards them. Sam and Tucker got into defensive positions, but Danny tugged them back. “What do you want? You here to blame us too?”

“For once, no. I know the mayor’s overshadowed. I ran into a pack of overshadowed people last night saving someone so I was looking for the signs. I also found out they’re here for you. So spill. What’d you do to tick them all off?”

Danny scrunched down slightly as his partners went through his memories of the night before. He hadn’t actually told them about his meetup with Valerie.

We’re talking about this later. “Their leader, Walker, runs a jail in the Ghost Zone.”

“Are you a fugitive?” Her hand twitched towards her gun.

“Only because anything and everything is illegal in Walker’s book. The zone’s laws only apply lair to lair from what we’ve been told. Walker just likes to enforce his own laws on the entirety of the zone because all he cares about is locking people up. He’s a menace. We were locked up for duplicating. That’s pretty much our thing! And we were in someone’s private lair. He literally wrote a rule against duplication into his book right in front of us as we were being arrested for it! He didn’t have any right to lock us up! So yeah, we broke out. Now he’s turning the town against us as punishment or something.”

She looked between them.

“Look,” they said as Danny floated closer, hands up in a sign of goodwill. “You don’t have to believe us, but will you at least help us free the people they’ve overshadowed and get them back to the zone.”

“Fine. I’ll agree to a truce, for now.” She crossed her arms and looked them over again. “You know, the talking together thing is really creepy.”

They shrugged. “We can’t help it. We’ve tried.”

“Do you have to be split up?”

“We’re stronger this way, and there’s a lot of ghosts. Three’s better than one.”

“That’s true. So what’s your plan?”

“We can get the ghosts out of people by pulling them out or using a low energy blast.”

“You want to fire on random people and hope they’re overshadowed,” she deadpanned.

The three shared a look. “She’s got a point. It’s faster that way though and a blast like that wouldn’t hurt anyone. We’re trying to convince them we’re here to help. We don’t think they’d see it that way if we’re attacking people.” They turned back to Valerie. “We can get the ghosts out by pulling them out of people.”

She pointed between them. “Did you just have a fight with yourself?”

“Ever hear of talking aloud to work through a problem?” Danny elbowed Sam. “Can your suit detect people who are overshadowed? Human bodies block our ghost sense.”

“I don’t know. I can try when we get to the town hall.”

“Alright, so we’ll work on getting the ghosts out, and then you can knock them down. Agreed?”

“Fine. Just know, as soon as this is over I’m knocking you down too.”

They nodded and the four shot towards the town hall.

Danny grabbed Valerie and phased her through the ceiling so they could hover over the crowd invisibly.

“Order! Order!” the mayor was yelling and everyone quieted down. “All in favor of declaring martial law, and allowing the completely competent Jack Fenton to mobilize a massive ghost hunt, please say-”

“We… might be too young to vote, but we’re casting one anyway!” they said as Sam turned visible.

The crowd panicked.

“You people have to listen to us. We’re on your side.”

“You're not fooling anybody, ghost kid! You are going down!” Danny’s dad yelled, brandishing the still tangled fisher. “As soon as I untangle this thing!”

“I’ve got the mayor on my scanner, but I’m having problems scanning the crowd,” Valerie said.

“The Fentons?”

“No, they’re clean.”

“That’s bad.”

“Why?”

“Maddie Fenton’s a good shot.”

Sam dropped to the ground as Danny’s mom fired at her. A moment later the ghost girl was dragged through the floor.

The three followed to see the horde from before all standing over Sam, with the mayor leading the charge.

“Walker! I should've guessed you'd end up in the guy that makes the rules!”

“Shouldn't you be running?”

Sam looked up as Danny, Tucker, and Valerie turned visible. “Shouldn't you?”

Danny passed Valerie his thermos then the trio launched themselves at the ghosts. Knocking them free with punches and blasts while Valerie vacuumed them up.

Then Danny’s mom was there.

“I’ve got her,” Valerie said, tossing Tucker the thermos and intercepting the woman before she could blast one of the trio.

“Ghost!” she said, pointing the bazooka at her.

“Human,” Valerie countered, removing her glove to show her human skin. “A hunter, like you. Name’s… Red Huntress. The ghost kid’s working for me, for now. The mayor and a few others are overshadowed.”

“Ghosts can’t be trusted,” Maddie argued.

“I don’t trust them, but I’m willing to use them until we can solve the invasion.”

The woman hummed and looked to where the trio were freeing their classmates. “I don’t like it, but I see your point. You’re certain the mayor’s overshadowed?”

“Saw it for myself. He’s the leader and he’s got a grudge against Doppelgänger. The ghost kid. That’s why he was trying to get you and your husband to lead the charge against them specifically.”

Maddie nodded. “I don’t have anything on me to deal with possession.”

“Neither do I. That’s why I’m using them.”

Maddie considered her arsenal. “I’ll be back.”

She ran upstairs and grabbed Fenton Zapper. She was about to run back down when the mayor appeared, hauling the ghost kid with him.

“Let us go!”

“Not a chance.” He forced the kid’s arm around his shoulders then threw the front doors open. As Maddie ran closer, she heard him quietly say, “I’m making sure your prison is the town where you live.”

She aimed.

“Help. He-”

She fired and a large white ghost was knocked out of the mayor.

The ghost kid caught the mayor and lowered him to the ground carefully.

“You okay, Mayor Montez?” she asked as she ran up to their side.

“What happened?” he said, looking around.

“You were overshadowed by him,” she said, gesturing to the angry ghost floating in front of the town hall. She glanced at the ghost kid, who held up his -- her? -- hands and smiled awkwardly. “We’re just… going to go fight Walker now if that’s okay Mrs. Fenton.”

She glared at… them and turned to the white ghost, drawing the bazooka and firing.

“Or you can do that. That works too,” they said as the ghost disappeared into the mini-portal.

She turned back to find the ghost kid gone.

“Mrs. Fenton! Mrs. Fenton!” some reporters rushed up to her, waving cameras and microphones. “What just happened? Was the ghost kid really kidnapping the mayor?”

“Mayor Montez was possessed -- or overshadowed -- by a ghost attempting to frame the ghost kid for reasons we don’t yet know.”

She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Red Huntress leading out a group of people.

“They’re all free, but the ghost kid took off while my back was turned,” she said, voice annoyed.

Maddie nodded and turned back to the reporters. “It seems we were wrong to think the ghost kid was leading the invasion, but they're still dangerous and we don’t know why they are here.”

“He saved me!” one of the teens shouted, flipping her hair over her shoulder and beaming as the cameras turned to her. “He’s totally a hero!”

“Yeah, she was awesome!” a blonde teen in a letterman’s jacket said as an Asian teen nodded along behind him. “You should have seen her blasting the ghosts out of us!

"It was like something out of a superhero movie! Awesome!”

Maddie tried to interject, but a few more teens joined in and the reporters turned all their focus on interviewing the victims.

“This won’t end well,” Red Huntress huffed and jumped into the air so a hoverboard could form underneath her. “It was cool working with you, Mrs. Fenton.”

“You as well.”

Valerie only made it out of sight of the town hall before she was stopped. Her hand settled on her pistol, but didn’t draw it. “You’re an idiot for sticking around.”

The ghost kid shrugged and rubbed their neck. “We just wanted to thank you for giving us a chance. And to apologize for what happened with your dad. We really are sorry we couldn’t stop Cujo before he reached the lab.”

“I thought the dog wasn’t yours.”

“He isn’t, technically, but someone has to keep him out of trouble and clearly no one else is going to do it so we kind of took him in after what happened to your dad. He’s actually really sweet when he’s not upset about being put down and losing his favorite toy.”

“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “Look, this was a one-time thing, understand. I just needed your help. I still don’t trust you.”

“We’ll just have to change your mind then.” They gave her a salute then disappeared.

She could have followed them with a scanner, but she let them get away. This time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam and Tucker were scowling when Danny met back up with them in Sam’s room. Head ducked, he landed and transformed. “So…”

“What were you thinking?” the two said.

“You know what I was thinking,” he sighed, dropping into a bat-shaped bean bag chair.

“She’s trying to kill us,” Sam growled.

“Exactly. If we can get her to realize we’re not the bad guys then that’s one less person after us.”

“It’s dangerous, dude,” Tucker said.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Sam crossed her arms and stood over him. “Just remember you’re not the only one at risk here.”

“I know.” He stood up and hugged her. “Like I said, I’ll be careful.”

#danny phantom #valerie gray #public enemies #sam manson #tucker foley #Doppelgänger au

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nataliedanovelist · 5 years ago

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GF - Worth It

My half of an art-trade with @calista-222. I hope you like it! They were cool with pretty much anything but then suggested a Stan O’ War fic and I just had to go for it! I love seeing how the Kings of the Sea are doing out on their dream boat!

If any of you are interested in an art-trade, hit me up! More information can be found here!

~~~~~~~~~~

Stan opened his eyes, but it took him a minute or two to truly wake up, and then a few more minutes to figure out what woke him. His back was sore, but that wasn’t what pulled him from his slumber. There was no disturbing light or sounds. No storm that rocked the boat and no sense of incoming danger.

An echo of voices. It wasn’t fair to call it a nightmare, because there was no “plot” and no real fear, just a lurching feeling that something was wrong, a deja vu feeling from the end of summer.

“It’s me! Grunkle Stan, it’s me!”

“It’s all gone.”

“I KNOW my grunkle is in there somewhere!”

“Stan has no idea, but he did it. He saved the world. He saved me.”

“We saved the world, but what’s the point?”

“... you’re our hero, Stanley.”

Stan sighed to himself. Many other voices had plagued his sleep, but those stuck out. He can still remember what he was thinking and feeling that day. First, confusion. Just mild confusion with no real panic. Then a bizarre what-did-I-walk-into feeling, like he was invading something private. When the stranger in the suit hugged him he automatically felt compelled to do something, but he had no idea what and no one was asking him to do anything. That wasn’t true; they were begging him to remember. But remember what? Did he forget something important, like an item at the grocery store, or a task he had to accomplish? It didn’t seem likely, all he really knew was his own name, and that was only because everyone around him called him that. Then when they were in the house he finally felt comfortable, the first real feeling like he belonged, and then right before Waddles jumped on him he had a strong sense of regret, but for what?

It was no wonder that by the end of the day he was exhausted and fell asleep with his family clinging onto that old armchair. Forget fighting an unholy demon, that rollercoaster of emotions was enough to knock anyone out cold for days.

Stan, now fully recovered and with all of his memories (all of the important ones, anyways), still occasionally had to live with the consequences of his actions, like unpeaceful night of sleep and the sickening feeling that his family’s suffering was partly his fault. Sure, Sixer made a deal with the triangle in the first place, and yes Mabel traded the rift away, and yeah okay Stan only agreed to it because he believe it was the only way (and because it was just too easy), but the fact that he caused those kids and his brother so much pain really stinks.

Oh well. What was it that Ma used to say? No use crying over spilt milk? Hm, milk. Stan threw off his covers and decided to get up and have a midnight snack. He popped his back and then glanced up at the bunk bed above him, then shook his head when he found the bed empty; Ford was elsewhere on the Stan O’ War II. Stan slipped on his slippers and pulled on his robe before leaving the small bedroom for the main area on the boat, the living room, dining room, and kitchen all in one small, confined space.

Sure enough, sitting at the dining table with books and journals before him was his nerdy twin brother, with an empty cup of joe by his side. Most of the light came from the moon outside, leaking in through a window, and a bright lantern on the table. Ford looked up at him and gave him a concerned look. “Everything alright, Stanley?”

The old conman shook his head. “Yeah, just gettin’ a midnight snack.” He opened the fridge and grabbed the carton of milk, checking to make sure it was still fine to use before fishing out the pot to heat it up. “Want some warm milk?”

“Thank you, but no thank you. I’m in the middle of a good train of thought and I would rather not disturb it with drowsiness that would lead to sleep.”

“Geez, Poindexter, you do know that humans need sleep to, I dunno, not end up dead, right?”

Ford chuckled and wrote something down in his journal. “Yes, I know. I swear, once I finish this I’ll go to bed.”

Stan just smiled and whisked the milk in the pot. “Fine, whatever. But if I have to pull your sorry butt outta the Arctic ocean again, you’re gonna…” The younger twin was interrupted by a distant cellphone ringing, a cheerful tune. He hurried back to the bedroom with his brother closely behind him. It sounded like Mabel was calling and she might need help. Just in time, Stan picked up his phone from the nightstand and answered it, putting it on speaker so Ford could listen. “Mabel, pumpkin?”

“Hi, Grunkle Stan!” Her cheerful voice rang.

Stan could breathe a little easier. He and Ford heard from those kids at least three times a day via text messages, e-mails, and phone calls, but usually their calls weren’t at three in the morning. “Hey there, sweetie. Whatcha up to?”

“Nothing, just missed my favorite old guys in the whole world.” Mabel said, and it sounded like she was being honest. No nightmares and she needed counselling, no bad boys giving her grief, no girls making fun of her. She truly was calling just to call.

“We missed you too, pumpkin.”

“Hello there, Mabel.” Ford called as they walked back to the main room to make sure the milk wouldn’t burn. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah! Waddles got to come to school today! My art classes needed a good muse and I volunteered Waddles! He got to roll around in front of the whole class and just be cute while he painted and sketched or whatever everyone felt like doing, and he loved it! Our teacher even gave him potatoes! He had so much fun!”

“Course that fat, naked jerk would love all that extra attention.” Stan sneered as he whisked some honey into the milk. “How’s your folks liking him?”

“Dad loves him! Says he makes the perfect football-buddy! Mom was unsure about him at first, but now he follows her around and she likes him enough. Kinda like someone else I know who claims to hate him but actually really really loved him.”

“No idea what you’re talking about. How are your parents?”

“They’re fine. Busy. Dad’s working on this new TV show about a boy with magical powers and alien stepmoms, and Mom’s really busy at the hospital. It’s mostly been Dip-Dip and I and Waddles here.”

“Mabel!” A voice interrupted her from afar. “Do you know what time it is?!”

“It’s only seven, Dipper, relax.”

“That means it’s three in the morning for them!”

Mabel gasped as she realized her mistake. “I thought you said eight hours back, not forward! I’m sorry, guys!” She said to her great-uncles. “I’m sorry I woke you up!” She was worried that she had scared them or had bothered them from a goodnight’s sleep.

“Nah, we were awake, sweetie, don’t worry about it.” Stan reassured her. “Don’t you ever apologize for calling, okay? I’m always happy to hear from you, no matter what time of day.”

“Well, okay. If you're sure.”

“We’re sure, my dear.” Ford added. “Is your brother there?”

“Yeah! Hold on… DIPPIN’ SAUCE!” It sounded like Mabel was running towards him and soon her end of the line was on speaker, too.

“Hey guys, sorry, I told Mabel…”

“Dipper, get off her back.” Stan chuckled. “It’s like I told her, I don’t want any of you little gremlins to ever say sorry for calling, okay?”

Dipper was grateful that his uncles couldn’t see his reddening face. “Okay. So… uh, how was Galway?”

“Oh, it was beautiful!” Ford answered; he took the phone from Stan so he could work on the milk safely and he sat at the table. “You kids would have found it breathtaking! The architecture of the town was gorgeous…”

“The Galway Girls were prettier.” Stan added in.

Ford chuckled. “Yes, apparently Stan managed to charm a handful of ladies there, one inn-keeper in particular took a fancy to him.”

“Took a fancy, what year is it, ya nerd, 1886?”

The kids laughed at the other end. “Did you find any selkies or mermaids?” Mabel asked; ever since Ford told her about selkies she had her heart set on seeing one.

“No, not yet.” Ford said. “But I promise that when we meet one we will let you know.”

“Do you honestly think selkies are real?” Dipper asked. “I mean they’re not like sirens or any other species that has been discovered; it’s a species entirely dependent on magic.”

“Magic is nothing more than science we can’t explain, Dipper. I’m sure that there is, at least, a possibility of selkies existing. Now, a bit off topic perhaps, but tell us about the robotic club. You said you’re working on a recreation of an old robot from an 80s movie?”

Dipper and Mabel happily chatted about their day while their uncles listened. Stan, a few minutes later was leaning against the counter with a mug of warm milk in his hands. He sipped his beverage as he watched Ford listen attentively, the phone on the table, the picture of Mabel and Dipper lighting up the tiny screen. Despite everything, Stan smiled contently, knowing that if he had to do it all over again he would.

#GF #gravity falls #ford pines #stan pines #mabel pines #dipper pines #fanfiction #gift #calista-222 #art trade #hit me up if ya wanna do one

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calliecat93 · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Favorite Female Characters

Happy International Women’s Day everyone! For many years now, there have been a lot of strides made in women’s rights. It’s still far, FAR from perfect, but we’ve still made many strides and fiction is no exception. So I thought, in celebration of today, I’d talk about some of my favorite female characters of all time. I had a LOT of options and narrowing it down was tough, but I think I made a pretty good list. So let's get on with it~

10. Kimberly Hart/The Pink Ranger (Power Rangers)

I don’t talk about Power Rangers a lot on here, but let me tell you all. Kimberly is one of the first female superheroes I ever saw, and I love her so much. She begins as a one-dimensional valley girl type, though still a good-hearted person. She’s the token girly-girl while Trini was more of the token tomboy. But Kimberly over time developed form being the least willing to be a Ranger, to devoting herself full-heartedly to her duties. She could kick just as much ass as her fellow rangers, and look pretty while she did so.

Kim was a fantastic character, especially in a boy-aimed tokusatsu adaptation. There have been many other great Pink Rangers since her time. Heck my actual favorite Pink Ranger of all time is Jen from Time Force. But the reason Kim is on here and not here? Kim is the one who started it all. She and Trini defined kickass female Rangers and none of the ones we have now would have existed without the original ladies. And as much as I also liked Trini.. well... I think that Kim is the clear stand-out among most female rangers, especially since she lasted so long. I was so sad when she left and especially how Zeo screwed her character over with that stupid Dear John letter to Tommy as well as how the 2017 movie wrote her because it just made her incredibly unsympathetic and unlikeable. But she left one Hell of a legacy and I love her.

9. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)

Despite my feelings about the author in recent years, Harry Potter is still a series I grew up on and love. Albeit I’m one of the few who got into the films more than the books, but still. The one thing that got me into the series? Hermione. She begins as a bit of a snooty know-it-all, always rubbing her knowledge int he faces of others and coming off as kind of a brat. But we soon see that she really doesn't know how to make friends and is a serious student and good person. Once Harry and Ron befriend her, we see how much of a brave, loyal, and determined girl she is, using her brains and talent in academics to get all the info they need. They would have died multiple times without this girl.

Hermione is someone we grow up with and kind of the representative of young girls. We watch her as she struggles with her status as a Muggle-born witch, how her pursuit of knowledge can overwhelm her, and of course what happens when she realizes her feelings for Ron. I... am not a huge fan of the pairing for many reasons, but her frustration and struggle feel very real. She makes mistakes, some more called out than others, but she does genuinely strive to do good And through it all, she is loyal to Harry and to the fight against Voldemort, growing to be proud of who she is and of her heritage as a ‘mudblood’. Even n the final book, where she’s forced to erase her parents memories to protect them, Ron abandoning her and Harry, and getting tortured by Bellatrix, none of it stops her from fighting for what she believes in.

Looking back now, Hermione has her problems both in the books and the films. Some of Ron's better moments got lost because the writer favored her which I can see whyt hat annoyed many people (I’m not one of them, but still), and the whole House Elf plot in the book has some... not great implications. But it doesn't stop Hermione from being a strong female character who is intelligent, brave, and Emma Watson’s strong performance really helped bring her to life. She ain’t perfect, but I still grew up watching her and I will always be grateful for that fact.

8. April O’Neil (TMNT 2012)

Screw the people who hated on her, April is awesome!

Really April in any incarnation of the Turtles is awesome. 2k3, Rise, the films. heck despite her being kidnapped every episode, even OT April was determined as Hell and you wouldn’t get in her way! But since I’m only picking one here, I gotta go with her 2k12 self. Her 2k3 self is also a close contender, but this was the version I spent the most time watching and for any of you who have follow me long enough knows, I spent a LOOOOT of time defending her from ship haters.

Looking back now, yeah there are some problems. Her limited screentime in S1, some of the Kraang stuff got rushed/crammed in, her missing mom story went nowhere, her being Donnie’s love interest. there’s plenty of problems. But those are more story issues than actual character issues. The last one especially si more an issue with Donnie’s character than April since she herself was NEVER defined by the ‘love interest’ card. She never existed for that purpose, and it shows especially by the end.

April began as a helpless, but very determined girl hoping to save her father after their abduction in which only she got saved. She spends most of her time getting intel for the Turtles while undergoing training from Splinter. She slowly, but gradually, grows into a capable kunoichi who can hold her own and gradually becomes an equal to her reptilian companions. She’s friendly, takes shit from no one, and she is probably the biggest Determinator in the entire series where ven when utterly helpless, she will STILL be defiant until the bitter end. he goes through Hell, and every single time she finds a way to pull herself together and forge on.

Despite how I fell off the series by the end, I was very happy with where April ended. From a girl just wanting her life back, to accepting her reality and making it her own. She trains herself in both ninjutsu and her new psychic abilities and becomes a kunoichi in her own right with them. She was even able to hold her own against Shredder! This girl became a badass and while there are issues here and there, I think she by far had some of the best development in the series. She remains my favorite character in 2012, y favorite April, and she has more than earned her spot on this list.

7. Avatar Korra (The Legend of Korra)

Another character who got unnecessary hate! Oh wait, that happens to every female character ever. Silly me!

Korra is what made LoK so great to me. She is a bull-headed, somewhat arrogant girl who has devoted her entire life to being the Avatar. She is the anti-Aang, so much so that she is terrible at Air Bending. But she’s also a very determined girl and went to Republic City to make Tenzin train her. Over the course of the series, we see how despite her arrogance, she is a good person who is truly devoted to her duty and genuinely wants to protect everyone. But she’s faced with her own vulnerabilities and flaws as a person as she has to learn to allow others to help/guide her and learn from her mistakes. And HO BOY does she make MANY mistakes.

Over four seasons, we watch Korra grow. She’s faced with the fact that she is vulnerable in S1 and while she doesn't fully overcome it, she does so enough to face Amon despite knowing what’ll happen to her. In S2, she faces the worse of herself but in doign so, truly improves herself and puts things right while letting go of most of her arrogance. S3 has her a much more well-rounded person trying to do what’s right, but it ended in her torture, poisoning, and she is just broken by the end. S4 has her slow recovery both physically and mentally and the road is long, hard, and just painful. But by the end, she accepts what happened and is able to find the balance to restore her power, return to her duties, and save the world from utter calamity.

I related so uch to Korra, moreso than I did Aang. She got a lot fo hate for her attitude and... well, not being Aang. But she grew so much and I loved how much of a badass and fully layered character she was. Yeah, she wasn’t Aang, that was a good thing. I loved her form the beginning, and I loved her even more by the end. She’s a great example of a female protagonist and shows that yes, a female action heroine CAN work. The Avatar franchise has many outstanding female characters (Katara, Toph, Suki, Azula, Asami, Jinora, Kuvira) but to me, Korra beats them all and I love her.

6. Wonder Woman

Well I couldn’t leave off the most well-known female superhero of all time now, could I?

Wondy is awesome. I first saw her on Superfriends back when Cartoon Network reran it. While it is a super campy show, Wondy was a true hero who stood equal to her male companions and was just as capable of saving the day as them. She was pretty much the only main female, so of course she was the one I was drawn to and I loved seeing her in action. But she could fall into the Damsel in Distress role cause... well, girl and lie I said, Superfriends is super campy. But I took what I could get int hose days!

Fortunately, Wondy has had much better media rep since... and in fact before with the Lynda Carter series. I hadn’t seent hat when I was a kid and while it’s cheesy, Wondy was still a badass there who easily held her own. Her Justice League DCAU self was when I really fell in love with her. Kind, beautiful, righteous, and an utter powerhouse. Seriously, I think she kicked more ass than anyone in both the original and Unlimited series. She has two animated DC films, which are both pretty dang good. Bloody, but good!

But of course, we have the Gal Gadot film. This was the film that arguably has saved the DC Cinematic Universe, and for good reason. While I’m not a big fan of Wondy being a demigod, she still showed why he’s so good. She’s a true hero wanting to do good, and in a setting like World War One, that is hard to find. She’s caring, devoted, strong, and is just a shining example of a true hero. She inspires hope in a cinematic universe that thrived off of grittiness, and Thank God we have her. I can only hope that the sequel holds the same quality, but nothing will take this away.

Wonder Woman is awesome. They screw her up sometimes, both ina nd out of comics. But there is no doubt that she earned her spot as a beloved feminist icon, as well as her spot here on this list.

#5. Kim Possible

You do not know how obsessed with this show I used to be. It is probably my all-time favorite Disney animated series of all time. Why? Because of it’s clever writing, fun humor, great action, and of course it’s characters. Kim especially.

She is the girl who can do anything, and she lives up to that claim. She’s a cheerleader by day, crime fighter by night, and she handles those worlds flawlessly... for the most part. She’s tough, smart, and a badass who uses her cheerleading skills to aid in her crime-fighting. She faces mad scientists, monsters, and everything in between and she ALWAYS comes out on top.

She’s now flawless, mind you. She’s bossy, smug, and can over-react when she faces things that she can’t do such as cooking or.. really anything normal/standard teen problems. She’s especially bad at maintaining dates. But whenever she faces a problem, she finds a way tog et through it whether it be with help from Ron, or finding her own way in solving it. She doesn't cry or mope about things like... well, the live-action film has her do. No, she gets up and finds solutions while still saving the day in the process. That is what makes her great, she’s a character before she’s a girl. Hence why she is a great female protagonist

Kim is someone I strived to be like when I got that age... with varying success. But hey, it just proves that Kim Possible can indeed do anything. Call her, beep her if you wanna reach her, and she’ll be there. just like how she’s here for this spot.

4. Ruby Rose (RWBY)

MY DAUGHTER!

When I first got into RWBY, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the first character I fell in love with? Little Red here! I adore this girl to pieces. She gets a lot of flack form some for being ‘flat’ and ‘underdeveloped’ and I don’t have time to go into every reason why that’s not true. You can read this for some examples of why shes awesome. But let me summarize the gist of it as best as I can.

Ruby is a teenaged girl striving to be a Huntress like her mother, wanting to do good in the world like the heroes in her storybooks. Over time, as he overcomes her own flaws and the burdens of leadership, she learns how colossal of a task doing good truly is in a world that is harsh and cruel. She loses friends, her school gets broken apart, and the world seems to become more and more divided. And she’s right int he middle of it. So what does she do?

She gets up and continues on.

She decides to fight because she wants to help. She wants to make the world a better place because that is what a Huntress is supposed to do. She puts aside her own feelings in hopes that she can help do something. Even as she is pulled more and more into the true realities of her world, she stands firm and continues on. And when everyone else seems broken and on the verge of quitting? She grabs the reigns and pushes everyone forward herself.

Ruby may be a somewhat standard protagonist, but her determination and quirkiness help her stand out. She’s goofy, naive, and a socially awkward klutz. But she’s still a good-hearted person who always tries and in a world full fo monsters that thrive on despair, this is a very admirable trait. She’s gone from a girl afraid of being viewed as special, to taking the lead int he war against Salem all because it is her duty as a Huntress to protect everyone. She inspires those around her and also inspires me. She’s what got me to stay with this show, and I have yet to regret it.

RWBY has MANY great female characters. Weiss, Blake, Yang, Maria, Nora, Penny, Winter, and many others. But Ruby was always going to be my first pick. What can I say? I adore this girl~

3. Blossom (The Powerpuff Girls)

The Powerpuff girls was, and remains, my favorite cartoon of all time It was funny, action-packed, great characters, and great animation. I adore all three of the girls. Bubbles is cute but certianly no pushover, and Buttercup can be a jerk but she kicks a LOT of ass. But the one who I always loved the most was the commander and leader of the group, Blossom.

Blossom is the most mature of the girls, being very intelligent for her age. She’s smart, confident, and a natural leader. She’s also rather bossy, full of herself, and can be obnoxious at times with her egg-headed nature. From what I can tell, she was the leat liked... which sucks for me. I loved Blossom because of how smart she was and because of how good of a leader she was. Sure she had the occasional slip, but she was usually fairly reasonable, strategic, and always tried to look after her sisters and break up their spats.

I still remember the episode that made me love her. It was Princess’ introductory episode. In it, Blossom tried her best to be as reasonable with her as she could, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt since she was new and probably didn’t know how to make friends. It especially makes since if you’ve seen the movie and know how much the girls themselves struggled. But once it became clear that Princess really was a despicable little brat and she pounded her sisters, Blossom was pissed but still calm unlike the other two. Due to this, she easily thrashed Princess, destroyed her power suit, and gave her the mother of all The Reason You Suck speeches, telling her what being a hero truly means and how she’s nothing but a spoiled brat. It remains of my favorite PPG moments ever and after how much Blossom tried to give her a chance, it was very deserved.

Sadly, Blossom hasn’t gotten the best rep in other incarnations. Her PPGZ self while fine... wasn’t Blossom. Like... at all. And the less said about the 2016 series the better. Still, I remember how much I looked up to the original Blossom and enjoyed seeing her kick butt every Friday. I even still have one of my old dolls that I cherish to this day. Allt he Powerpuffs are great, and I will love them forever.

2. Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon)

Speaking of childhood heroines!

Ah Sailor Moon, We’ve had a long history, you and I. The first show I ever kept up with. The first fandom I ever got into. The first anime I ever got into. nd of course, the first heroine I ever truly loved.

Usagi (well... Serena when I was a kid, as the 90′s) is someone I still hold close to my heart. She is a klutz, crybaby, and far from an ideal heroine. She can be rather immature and at times selfish, preferring to sleep or eat sweets than worry about her Sailor Senshi duties. But as he grows, we see that through it all, she is a pure, caring young girl. I think the manga/Crystal anime did a MUCH better job at portraying that side to her, though the 90′s anime presented her more heroic side as well. They just sometimes forgot that he was past being a crybaby...

Usagi loves everyone. Her lover Mamoru, her fellow Senshi, just everyone. She doesn’t like fighting, but she will if she has to. She goes from crying in the middle of fights to being able to face God-like entities with just a magic crystal. Despite not having wanted to be a Senshi to begin with, she accepts her destiny and tries to save everyone, even her enemies. It just shows how despite her flaws as a person, she is a true hero who can always be relied on.

Sailor Moon did a lot when it came out. it helped revolutionize the Magical Girl genre, helped give anime a standing in America, and showed how femininity is not a weakness. There’s many other great female characters (Ami, Rei, Makoto, Minako) and all are their own character. But Usagi has always been the one I loved most and so she claims the Number Two spot.

Honorable Mentions

Sakura Kinomoto (Cardcaptor Sakura) Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Twilight Sparkle (MLP:FIM) Agent Carolina and Kaikaina Grif (Red vs Blue) Lois Lane (Superman: The Animated Series) Hawkgirl/Shayera Hal (Justice League/Unlimited) Gosalyn Mallard (Darkwing Duck) Webby Vanderquack (Ducktales 2017) Rapunzel (Tangled franchise) Anna (Frozen) Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Tiana, Moana (Disney Princess) Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire) Meg (Hercules) Esmerelda (The Hunchbakc of Notre Dame) Jane (Return to Neverland Princess Elena (Elena of Avalor) Hikaru Shidou, Umi Ryuuzaki, and Fuu Hohouji (Magic Knights Rayearth) Nami (One Piece) Misty (Pokemon) Winry Rockbell (FMA) Ran Mouri (Detective Conan) Kagome Higurashi and Sango (Inuyasha) Pretty much all the Pretty Cures Nancy Drew Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) Ms. Frizzle (The Magic School Bus) Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley (Scooby-Doo) Calico ‘Callie’ Briggs and Felina Feral (SWAT Kats)

And I’m sure there’s more, but we’re gonna be here all day if I keep going. So let's go ahead and get to Number One. Which tbh... this was a no-brainer.

1. Mulan

Yeah, this probably shocks no one. I’ve talked about Mulan like... a billion times by now. But there was no other option for me.

Mulan is my favorite movie of all time, and the title character is my favorite character of all time. She’s a young woman who wants to bring her family honor, but struggles to do so in the ways she’s expected. She goes to war in her father’s place to save his life, and she struggles even more. She’s someone who doubts and is ashamed of herself, but over time she decides that she’s done hating her refection and tries to prove her worth. She not only becomes a better soldier and earns the respect of everyone around her, but even after she’s unmasked, she goes on to save all of freakin’ China! The whole country, including the freakin’ Emperor, bows before her because of this. You do not get more respect than that.

I’ve only grown to love and relate more to this story as I’ve grown older. I’ve learned to not define myself by society expectations, but just as who I am. Mulan struggles with expectations, family, warn, and most of all her own insecurities. She wants to see something worthwhile when she looks into the mirror, but she always just feels shame. But by the end, she puts it aside and becomes the best version of herself. She returns home with more than enough to honor her family... and her father tosses it aside to hug her. He’s just grateful to have her home, the greatest girl and honor. She’s someone who we watch grow and her journey hold sup even today. Argubaly even moreso.

Mulan was a film that changed me. Shaped my beliefs and values into what they are now. Even today, I see it as a flawless movie, and Mulan a flawless heroine. he’s a perfect example of a female protagonist, or heck just a protagonist in general. I love her and because of how much she shaped my five-year-old self into who I am now, se is my favorite female character of all time.

And that’s that! Well that was fun! Thank you all for reading and to all thw women out there, whether you were born as one or made the choice to identify as such. Whether you love men, women, or whoever. Whether you care about love or not. I hope you all have a lovely day and stay true to who you are. Happy International Women’s Day everyone~!

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one-of-us-must-be-crazy · 5 years ago

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👀 spare a WIP for a weary traveller

This isn’t going to happen for a LONG TIME but spoilers, eventually in Lucky Star, Christopher gets a little more human, and finds a hobby that he rather likes.

“You’re reading one of his?”

“What?” Ripley bent the mass market completely in half, setting it upside down on the coffee table. Samuels winced.

“That author,” he specified.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve read the whole series so far,”

“I didn’t think high-fantasy interested you much.”

“Not usually, but I’m over the shoot-outs, military lit, and what generally passes for fantasy anymore. Retro science fiction only goes so far too,” she shrugged. “But I kind of like this guy, he’s got a…I don’t know, his perspective is weird. I like it. Except that thing in this one, where they brought in the wyvren hatchery, the way they move…Reminds me too much of shit.”

“I like what he did with them though; dragons are far too beloved of a feature to demonize at this point, especially by a newer voice.”

“You read them?” Amanda perked up.

“…Technically.”

“What did you think?”

“I want to know what you thought—“

“Nope, you first.”

“I think they could have been better,” he began. “Too many instances where you can tell the author is merely reciting a scene instead of creating one. I think several conversations between the knights and their lords are taken from his own experiences,” there’s more he could pick apart, so much more, but Amanda looks crestfallen as it is, and he’s a little confused by it.

“Yeah but I don’t think he was wearing armor, or talking about a surge of monsters in real life.”

“Well, you never know,” he said with a slight grin.

“What do you mean?”

“You know that I’ve met many, many people through the company. I could have possibly seen him one day,”

“There’s no fucking way that you’ve met McClaren,” Amanda crossed her arms.

“Why not?”

“He lives in Scotland, for one; two, he’s probably ancient, so what would he be doing in the HR office of Weyland-Yutani, on Luna?”

“I don’t know, but I am familiar with him.”

“You’re lying,” she didn’t bother biting back her smile—she never bothered to around him.

“I’m not lying, and I’ll prove it to you,” she didn’t ask him to elaborate further, and he vanished for a short moment to his office, returning with a hardcover of the second novel.

“So you own a hardcover?”

“Open it,” he said, handing it to her. Amanda raised her eyebrow at him, flicking through the pages, before falling back on something strange on the title page that she missed in her copy of the book.

“holy shit. He signed it for you? The guy never does signings!”

“How do you know he doesn’t?”

“I looked him up once...read a lot about him. I thought you’d like the series, and I was going to try to find a boxed set of it for a gift for you, and see if I could get it signed. But then I found out that a) he doesn’t fucking sign anything ever, b) no one knows what he even looks like, and c) there’s another book left."

“There’s at least one, but knowing him he’ll probably drag it out for another two. He isn’t exactly...aware of human time and space.”

“Wait...Are you still in contact at all?”

“Yes but you can’t talk to him. I’m afraid to lose you to him,”

“Shut up,”

“I am though; he’s no older than I am. And is…apparently, your type.”

“I have at least three types.”

“He’s…much like me.”

“Then I’d rather keep you, not the updated-famous-writer-you. But I just want to ask him-- I’m mad about the alchemist—how could she not know what she was doing? If the king was using her work to help breed the wyverns, she had to know something, she couldn’t be that blind.”

“Perhaps she thought her work would help someone she loved.”

“That’s a whole other thing, that weird statue-hexed-to-life thing by some fuck up of hers? It doesn’t have a soul or a thought of it’s own and it’s...It’s creepy. She never even questioned it. And as far as her research for the wyvren hatchery—how would she think that the king gave a fuck about her science project sex toy—“

“That is awfully cruel, she really thinks that given enough power he might be able to live outside of her study, to be a person.”

“She fucked him though. Without knowing that he can’t say no to her. It was skeevy.”

“We were sleeping together nearly a month before you realized that—at the time—I couldn’t tell you no—“

“Again different story—“

“—is it? And why do you like the character so much if everything she does bothers you that much?”

“…She’s on her own. She came from nothing and now works under the king, not at the big castle of course, but still.”

“I don’t think she thought she was helping the king’s project; or that he was trying to breed monsters in the first place. Her father died in a dead-end battle for him, but…it happens all the time. Accidents. Mishaps. She doesn’t know—“ “Wait, did her dad die at one of the dens?! Oh my god it’s too long until the next one. And shit, if--” Amanda stops herself. Samuels isn’t going to call the guy up just becuase she wants spoilers, but--, well. Actually, that’s the exact kind of thing that Samuels would do.

“She does find out; and her ‘sex toy’ finds the record of her father’s death.”

“How do you—do you have an advanced copy?” he leaves the room again, and she half expects another treasure, an early release with a note in the front, maybe? Instead, he returns with the notebook she had bought him for Christmas.

“I’m…getting to the point where it’s beyond something that I can…bend out of my own experiences. I don’t want to lean too heavily on folklore but for now it’s the best I can do to avoid just copying out Beowulf.”

“…….You wrote a fanfiction?”

“Amanda, I wrote the whole series.” His partner is silent, and he’s wondering if she hasn’t already guessed it in the past, but she’s clearly in shock. “The author’s first two initials are ‘C. S.’ and that didn’t—“

“I thought it was a Narnia reference!”

“How didn’t you figure out you’re a main character—“

“……I’m the creepy alchemist?! And--she’s like…minor royalty. And pretty.”

“I think you are,” there’s a moment when it clicks in, the secondary character, her hair color, her attitude, her lover, her missing parent, her drive, her lover’s tender affection towards—and it clicked. And other scenes clicked too.

“You wrote and published a sex scene about us?”

“….I’m sorry? It was a fade-to-black though, nothing happened on the page. In the moment it felt like that’s...where they wanted to go.”

“When were you going to tell me about this? Not--not the alchemist but all of it, how did you even keep this a secret???”

“I started…writing memories. Then I could change them. Slightly, and eventually I could reset them entirely and even add and take things and…I figured out how to make things up. As for how I kept it a secret, well, I don’t require a fraction of the rest that you do, and while I do enjoy relaxing with you, I like feeling as if I’m accomplishing something.”

“Look at you figuring out how to be creative,” she did look proud of him, and she was, even if it would take a while to fully comprehend it.

“I’d appreciate it...if no one else found out.”

“People love you—“

“They love a thing that I made.”

“And you by extension—“

“I’d lose my royalties, copyrights, and probably my waking job too if I was exposed on a large scale.”

“You’re being dramatic—royalties?”

“…I…I’ve been saving them.”

“For what? I mean you make a decent check at the meteo center, and the flat’s paid off so what—“

“If you ever want to try--the genetics laboratory on Titan.. We’ll need tickets, lodging for multiple months. Supplies. Medical—it’s…not—don’t think that you have to make your mind up if you aren’t ready--only if you did I thought having the funds ready would...”

“I’m the one that brought it up, but I think…Another day we’ll talk about it but—spoil it for me,” she changed the subject. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”

“You can read it.”

“…You did’t write another sex scene did you?”

“….Yes but not for publication. There’s one that I was going to include but—it was too tasteless, it didn’t suit the rest of the story, and I thought it unnecessary. They arrive back at the main group the following afternoon, walking closer, touching more. Readers will know something happened.”

“But you did write it.”

“…I did. I also wrote another six hundred pages of plot and character development aside from it.”

“I want to read it,”

“Read the actual story first—please I don’t know what I’m doing with it, and it’s overdue to the editor—“

“I’m sure it’s perfect—“ she remembers the dedications at the opening of each book perfection’s closest being, love of my eternity. “The dedications… I’m…I’m the woman they’re all for. All those thank you’s and acknowledgements and—“

“There’s no one else,” he means it in honesty and love. Of course there’s no one else. So few friends and so few confidants. If there were more, she’d still be the one they’re dedicated to, but as it stands, there is quite literally no one else.

“Could you read it to me? The whole thing. I want to hear it, if it’s so important to you.”

“That’s a lot of –“

“Just a little! Each night a chapter or two. I want to hear it from you, how it was meant to be heard.”

AAAAAND that’s all you get. This is a stand alone bit inside of my “bad AU ideas” file that often ends up getting chopped up for later chapters of LS. This is likely to happen but the thing with Titan isn’t (a genetics lab, the sense being that they’d eventually have a kid/science project of their own). Maybe a one-shot becuase Samuels fretting over an infant is ridiculously cute but it’s not gonna fit the final version of them in Lucky Star.

#sunnyhomes

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