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makeste · 3 years ago

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“but I thought about how I needed to say this”

a.k.a. yet another meta dissection of The Apology. I actually wrote most of this up on Friday night based on the original Japanese (@pikahlua has an excellent translation up here, and I also used @hanashimas’ translations as a reference as well), but I wanted to wait until the official release, though that turned out to be a mixed bag to say the least lol.

I would also recommend reading @pikahlua and @class1akids’ breakdowns of this scene (here and here, respectively), because they are excellent, and because if any scene deserves to have as many meta breakdowns written about it as possible, it’s this one.

anyway so here goes.

Caleb did a more accurate job with this than the fanscan, even if he did try his best to take us out of the seriousness of the moment by throwing in that swiss cheese line lol. anyway so there are two things I want to talk about here. the first is the line about Izuku not remembering, which I thought was a nice touch. of course he doesn’t remember what Kacchan said back then. he wasn’t exactly in the soundest emotional state after seeing one of the people he cares about most taking a near-fatal blow that was meant for him. I’d be shocked if he remembers anything about the aftermath (including the way he flew into a mindless rage afterwards) right up until the point when he entered the OFA Interstellar Party Void with Tomura. anyway, so I thought that was a nice callback.

and speaking of emotional states, the other thing I wanted to talk about is the part that Caleb got right which the fan scanlation didn’t. “but I had more to say.” in other words, “stop trying to win on your own” wasn’t just a one-liner; it was meant to be the beginning of a much longer speech. “there were other things that I needed to say.”

like, can we just stop and talk about that for a second. because basically what this means is that in that instant, when Kacchan pushed Deku out of the way and got impaled, his one and only thought was that he needed to apologize to Deku. his life was presumably flashing before his eyes, he had no idea if he was going to survive or not, and the only thing on his mind was how urgently he needed to make things right with his former childhood friend.

moving on!

so I have a confession to make, which is that I am relieved to see Katsuki describing this as the reason why he bullied Deku, as opposed to Horikoshi trying to retcon it into some sort of “secretly he was just trying to protect him and keep him out of harm’s way because he was worried” thing, which ngl would not have gelled very well with me. the thing is that I’m really not a fan of the whole “Kacchan Did Nothing Wrong” mentality that some fans seem to have. like, I have seen all sorts of convoluted attempts to find excuses for Katsuki’s shitty behavior, but in my view those attempts undermine what I love about his character in the first place. Katsuki is such a great character specifically because he is not perfect. his redemption arc is so compelling because he was such a giant asshole at the start. he was completely at fault, and he acknowledges this, and takes full responsibility for it. and that is fucking fantastic.

his arc is so great because it doesn’t rely on garnering sympathy by giving him a Tragic Past, or by trying to foist the blame for his behavior over on someone else. it’s an arc that acknowledges that redemption isn’t something you achieve by making people feel sorry for you; it’s something you have to earn by actively working to change and do better. and by forgoing the “misunderstood/tragic past” route, Horikoshi is making a statement that anyone can go down the wrong path, but that more importantly, anyone can also choose at any time to turn away from said path. there is only one requirement for doing so, and that is realizing that you’ve done wrong, and deciding that you want to change.

anyway, so in chapter 284 Kacchan of course had that whole speech about Deku not taking himself into account, and mentioned how that made him want to keep his distance. and a good chunk of fandom took this to mean that Katsuki’s bullying was actually a misguided response to Deku’s reckless tendencies -- sort of an “if I show him how weak and powerless he really is, I can get him to accept the reality that he’s quirkless, and that being a hero will just get him hurt or killed” type of thing. and I won’t lie, for a good while I was wondering myself if Horikoshi was really going to go down that route. and like I said, I am honestly relieved that he didn’t. not only for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph, but also because the message that would have sent -- that there are certain circumstances in which bullying can almost be excused because the bully had Good Intentions and was just trying to save the other person from themselves, and so it Wasn’t That Bad, Actually -- is all kinds of fucked up to say the least. so yeah, I’m glad we ended up steering well clear of that.

(ETA: this post was long enough already so I edited out the 3 additional paragraphs I originally wrote analyzing the dialogue from 284. but just to be clear, I’m not trying to imply that Kacchan worrying about Deku’s recklessness is a retconned thing that Horikoshi only threw into the story recently, because there are multiple instances throughout the story where he clearly is worried and in total denial of it. but I firmly believe those feelings are not what led to the bullying. they’re two separate things. Kacchan worrying about Deku is what prompts him to yell at him in chapter 1 when Deku comes to save him. but it’s not what incited him to burn his notebook and taunt him earlier in that same chapter. that action had a much meaner and more selfish motivation behind it, and I’m glad Horikoshi didn’t try to change it up last minute, because it wouldn’t have felt right.)

thankfully as of this chapter I think we can safely cross that out as a possibility, as we’re given the true explanation straight from Katsuki himself. and the truth is that he bullied Deku out of insecurity and jealousy and fear and intolerance. there was nothing noble about it. there were no good intentions concealed in his actions. there are no justifications given, no excuses offered, and no mitigating circumstances to be considered, other than the fact (which neither he nor Horikoshi bring up) that he was and is still a child, and that children make mistakes.

it’s an explanation that challenges many of fandom’s ideas on who is and isn’t eligible to be redeemed. there is no Ozai in Katsuki’s backstory. there’s no great tragedy that he spent a lifetime trying to rise above. the only villain in Katsuki’s story is Katsuki himself. the only darkness that he has to overcome is his own. and it’s challenging, because I think many people believe the only way someone can be redeemed for doing bad things is if bad things happen to them in return. but what Horikoshi is saying here is that that’s not the case. bad doesn’t erase bad. and the one and only way to truly earn redemption is by doing good.

and that’s what makes this such a phenomenal scene for me. by not shying away from Katsuki’s flaws and failings, and having him take full responsibility for them, Horikoshi keeps the apology from being self-serving, and underscores the true depth of Katsuki’s character development. the level of self-awareness he has here is something most people can only dream of. which is very fitting, as that’s perhaps the most important takeaway from his character arc -- that it’s only by acknowledging your own weaknesses and flaws that you can learn to overcome them and reach your full potential.

one last thing to point out here, which is that in the panel where Katsuki finally acknowledges his terrible treatment of Deku, Deku is not even visible. instead, Horikoshi drew the panel from a perspective that makes it appear that Katsuki is addressing this particular line not just to Deku, but to all of his classmates.

again, he shows him taking full responsibility and admitting his wrongdoings in front of the people whose opinions and approval he cares about most. and just to clarify in case there’s any confusion from Caleb’s translation, Kacchan’s wording makes it very clear that he wasn’t just “mean” to Deku, but that he full-on bullied him (he uses the same verb -- “ijimeru” (苛める) -- that he did back in chapter 284). there’s no attempt to downplay his actions here.

moving on now, this chapter also reaffirmed another thing about Deku and Kacchan’s relationship which I was glad to see revisited -- Kacchan’s unwavering belief in Deku’s ability. this is one of those paradoxical things about their relationship which I’ve always been fascinated by, but which is also kind of hard to explain, because I don’t want it to come off like I’m trying to put a positive spin on something which was unequivocally awful. like, please don’t think I’m trying to say that Katsuki’s bullying of Deku was in any way a good thing. but that being said, there’s also a strange irony at play here, which is that Katsuki’s jealousy and insecurity also betray the fact that even at his very worst, he never once underestimated Deku. he has always believed in Deku’s strength, even when that strength pissed him off and made him afraid and uneasy.

no one else -- not All Might, or even Deku’s own mom -- believed from the get-go that Deku could become a hero. but Katsuki never once counted him out, even when he was calling him a pebble in his shoe. he confesses here that even though he “tried to act superior by rejecting [Deku]”, in truth he was never able to shake the feeling that Deku was above him. long before he ever understood the concept of “win to save”, he knew instinctively that there was a strength in Deku’s heart that couldn’t be measured, and which had the potential to surpass even his own strength. and I’ve always felt that this was so important, because it’s the one aspect of their early relationship that hinted that on some level, however subconscious, Katsuki held the same type of faith in Deku that Deku always held in him. it was one of the few things that hinted at there being a possible path towards reconciliation one day. and it paved the way for the most important shift in their relationship to date, when Katsuki finally realized who Deku got his quirk from, and responded not with resentment or spite, but with acceptance.

moving on, I also really love the way we see them portrayed at the different stages of their childhood throughout this speech, and how it perfectly lines up with the dialogue. from small children (when Katsuki talks about his insecurities first manifesting), to middle schoolers (when he talks about the bullying), to high schoolers (when he talks about the past year and everything he’s learned at U.A.). Horikoshi really didn’t have to go that hard, but he did, and that’s why we love him.

and then we finally get to That Part.

where do I even start with this there are so many things omg.

the bow. this is the one and only time Katsuki has ever bowed to anyone of his own volition as far as I recall. and this absolutely is a bow, just to be clear, even though his form is straight-up garbage (very Kacchan-esque, with his feet and arms spaced apart because he’s still a punk after all). this is Kacchan showing more humility and respect than he’s ever shown to anyone else in his entire life.

regarding “Izuku”, I actually have mixed feelings about this to tell the truth. I think it was a good call here because it was incredibly effective in setting the tone and showing just how serious Kacchan is. however if he continues to use “Izuku” rather than “Deku” from here on out, that would give the impression in hindsight that all his past usage of “Deku” really was meant as an insult, which would undermine some of my favorite scenes. I would really like to believe that since DvK2 or thereabouts, Kacchan has (mostly) been using “Deku (affectionate)” rather than “Deku (useless loser)”, lol. but if he switches to the “nicer” name on a permanent basis following his apology, it implies that the previous nickname was indeed being used cruelly. and so honestly I hope this was just a one-time thing, because I do think that in Katsuki’s mind, the name “Deku” hasn’t been meant as a slight to him for a long time now.

“my truth/this is what I truly feel” -- the word Katsuki uses in Japanese is honne (本音), and if you’re familiar with the concept of honne/tatemae, that’s the same “honne” he’s talking about here. it means that he’s casting aside all of his walls and facades and expressing what he truly feels. and of course, one of the fascinating things about Katsuki’s character is that he’s the exact opposite of most people in that he chooses to put his meanness on full display to the public, and ironically it’s the kindest parts of himself which he tends to keep the most carefully guarded and hidden away. this also means that while his rage and anger are very often insincere and put on just for show, those relatively few occasions where he lets his humanity truly shine through are pretty much 100% genuine, as is the case with this one here.

and Deku’s face says it all when it comes to how powerful those moments can be as a result.

and this, right here, is why it wasn’t enough for Katsuki to atone solely through his actions, and why he needed to actually say the words as well. it’s not that the words are more important; obviously the actions are far and away the most important part, and carry far more meaning. but the reason why Katsuki needed to say the words as well is simply because Izuku needed to hear them. needed to, and deserved to, because this is one of the most important people in the world to him.

and so he deserves to know that the relationship isn’t just one-sided, and that he is just as important to Kacchan as Kacchan is to him. he deserves to know that Kacchan understands how horribly he treated him, and that he’s sorry for it. and he deserves to know that Kacchan, without any expectation of it changing their relationship -- meaning that he will continue to feel this way regardless of what Izuku says or does from here on out -- cares about him. now more than ever, with AFO out there doing everything in his power to make Izuku feel as alone as possible, this is something that he really, really needed to hear.

so this part has some interesting wordplay which neither Caleb’s translation nor the fan scanlation was really able to get across. basically, in the Japanese version, when Katsuki talks about “those ideals”, Horikoshi uses the kanji for “ideal”, but pronounces it as “All Might.” obviously the meaning of this isn’t too hard to decipher, as we all know how much both boys admire All Might. to them, he absolutely is synonymous with the Ideal. so this is a way of showing that respect they both have towards him, even as Katsuki goes on to point out the one fatal flaw that All Might was never able to overcome.

and speaking of interesting wording, as others have noted, at this point in his speech Katsuki switches from “temee” (which he was using earlier during the “your strengths and my weaknesses” part) to “omae” (“omae” being a less insulting word for “you”, though still very manly and tough-sounding), which is definitely a big deal. though fwiw this is not the first time he’s used “omae” for Deku (he switches to it briefly right after DvK2, when he tells Deku “you had the strongest guy lay the groundwork for you -- don’t lose”, and then later when they’re walking back to the dorms and he says he’ll learn and get stronger by watching everyone around him just like Deku did). it’s definitely a good choice on Horikoshi’s part though, as it makes this last part of the speech sound more earnest and sincere.

just a quick note, he does indeed use a plural pronoun here, as in “the obstacles that you can’t overcome, we will overcome.” but as @pikahlua pointed out, the “we” here is ambiguous -- it could either mean “we” as in class 1-A -- “we will overcome them for you” -- OR it could mean “we” as in all of them -- class 1-A and Deku. “we will overcome them together.” idk about you, but I know which one gets my vote.

anyway, and so this is the line that finally wins Deku over and allows him to let go of his fears, however briefly. what I love about this is Kacchan’s utter conviction. one thing that Caleb’s translation doesn’t quite get across is Kacchan’s use of the word morenaku -- “without exception” -- when he talks about how they’re going to save everyone and win. it echoes that same sentiment he showed back during the Joint Training arc -- that it’s not a perfect victory unless they save everyone. every last person. and he explicitly lists Deku among their number, just so there can be no doubt.

and Deku’s response to this (or at least his thoughts, since he’s not really able to get many words out) pretty much brings everything full circle here.

he acknowledges that everyone else has gotten ahead of him. which is especially meaningful given who he’s standing directly across from. because for most of the series, as we all well know, it’s been Kacchan who was woefully lagging behind Deku in the character growth department. but now Deku himself is acknowledging that not only has Kacchan finally caught up at last, but that he and the others have surpassed him. which is only temporary, I should add, as I have zero doubt that Deku will catch up again soon. but the fact remains that just as Deku’s rapid increase in strength and skill left Kacchan scrambling to keep up earlier in the series, Kacchan’s extraordinary character development has now left Deku in that same position. as All Might once put it, “when he’s starting at level one, and you’re already at level 50, it’s only natural that you’ll be growing at different rates.”

and what’s so wonderful about this though is that the two of them are finally approaching that point where they’ve both caught up to each other and are finally starting to level out. Deku is a full-on badass, and Kacchan is out here talk-no-jutsuing with the best of them. the two of them have been chasing and chasing after each other this entire time, and now they’re finally just about ready to meet in the middle at long last, with each of them fully embodying both of those two crucial aspects -- win, and save.

just about. because Deku still needs some help catching up. but seeing as help has already been offered -- and accepted -- I can’t imagine it will be very long now, and I can’t wait to see him finally overcoming those fears and doubts with his friends by his side. it’s going to be such a powerful moment.

and last but not least,

or, as I prefer,

you had one job, Caleb. flkjsdlk.

but at least this provides a good opportunity to note that unlike the “we’ll help you handle it” line earlier in the speech, here the phrasing is left up to interpretation, as he doesn’t use a pronoun. so it could be “we know”, or, as the fan scanlation put it, “I know.” or it could be both. regardless, it’s good stuff.

anyway, and so Deku passes out, and in the process Horikoshi gives us one last parting metaphor, just in case anyone still thinks Kacchan is all talk because they haven’t been paying attention for the past 322 chapters (more likely than you think). once again, Katsuki’s actions speak louder than his words (even his nice words) ever could: he is literally there to catch Deku when he falls.

so that’s it! my sincere thanks to anyone who actually read through all of my endless ramblings about this scene which I have been waiting for since day one. props to Horikoshi for taking on an impossibly difficult task, and pulling it off with all of the emotion and care and nuance that I’ve come to expect from his writing. imo he delivered on every single level with the exception of the aftermath, which I don’t consider to have actually happened yet. Deku’s part of this is definitely a “to be continued.” but yeah, as far as Kacchan’s part goes, 10/10. so fucking proud of this kid.

#bnha 322 #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha meta #bakugou meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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whimsicallyreading · 4 years ago

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Dark Roast, No Sugar

“Last night I woke the hell up. I realized I need you here, as desperate as that sounds, yeah.” - Jon Bellion

Masterlist

Chapter Nine-

Aelin showed up to the police department in a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt. She didn't even bother putting on the new-ish sneakers she owned, opting for the ones with holes because they didn't squeeze her feet. It wasn't the first impression she wanted to give, but you deserve a little forgiveness when making a whole-ass human.

Leaning over the dash of the car, she presses a friendly kiss to the side of Chaol's face. "Thanks for the ride, boys."

His cheeks redden, and Dorian leans as much of his body as he can into the front of the car, "No sugar for me?"

Aelin laughs and kisses his cheek good-naturedly. "Feel less left out now?"

"Much better," the corners of his happy smile dim, his blue eyes dart to the doors of the precinct. "Are you sure you don't want me to call you a lawyer, Aelin?"

Chaol nods his agreement beside him, his hands clenching the steering wheel despite the car being in park. "Do you want me to go inside with you?"

Aelin feels a bubble of warmth blossoming in her chest. Their worried faces and eagerness to help her- it was almost enough to warm an assassin's heart. "Don't worry. They just need me to clarify a few things in my statement. Nothing serious. Paperwork issues."

Dorian and Chaol had shown up right as she was walking out of the front door of The Stag. When they realized she was leaving and offered her a ride... Aelin couldn't say no. Not with how her feet were aching.

It took some more reassuring, but they finally agreed to let her leave their caring grasps.

Fenrys met her at the door with a smile, "Hey, Baby Mama. Looking beautiful."

Aelin is surprised to find she's genuinely happy to see him. She can't help the toothy grin he brings out in her. "I'm well. How are you this morning, Fen?"

Fenrys lights up at the nickname. "I bought us some donuts. We have a hard day of work ahead of us, and I figured we would deserve a treat in advance."

Donuts sounded phenomenal and vastly improved her outlook of the day.

He steers her through the PD, and several heads turn to stare as she passes. Aelin didn't particularly care. Whatever they thought they knew about her, they probably didn't.

When they finally reach Rowan's office, they find him slumped over a laptop at a desk piled high with neatly stacked papers. The room is minimalistic. Only necessary office items were visible—no personal effects, knickknacks, or pictures of any kind adorning the space.

Rowan himself is also in his usual state of neatness, minus the dirt she could see staining the underside of his nails. He must have been gardening this morning.

Aelin doesn't bother with greetings. She grabs a chair opposite him and sits down. The last few days, she'd been feeling more drained and quick to tire. At first, she attributed it to the baby getting larger and demanding more of her body's resources, but now Aelin started to think that she caught a bug galavanting through the night.

Fenrys set a blueberry donut and a cup of hot tea in front of her. Bless him. Aelin mumbles her thanks before stuffing her mouth.

Rowan shuts his laptop with a snap and replaces it with a yellow notepad. "Alright, Aelin. I need a name. Who do you think is doing this?"

"When is Aedion getting released?" She says around a mouthful of glazed blueberry.

Fenrys slumps into an office chair at a tinier desk in the corner of the room. "This afternoon."

"If all goes well at this meeting," Rowan tacks on the thinly veiled warning. "I need a name."

Aelin leans back in her seat and takes a deep breath. There was a strange heaviness in giving his name. As if speaking it would materialize him into existence in front of her. Her goal when she moved to Ornyth was to forget about him and push her old master as far from her mind as she physically could, but she supposed it was naive to think he wouldn't come looking for her.

This wasn't just for her, Aelin reminds herself. Aedion would benefit from this conversation.

"His name is Arobynn Hammel. He's thirty-five, red hair, grey eyes, and an utter asshole." Aelin lays the name of her childhood tormentor out on the table. A bad taste sours her mouth.

Rowan tosses the notepad to Fenrys, who relays what she said to the paper. He looks at her over his desk with an unreadable expression. "What is your relation to Mr. Hammel?"

"Why?" Aelin chuckles as if the stress is trying to escape her with each half-hearted chuckle. "Do you want to know if he's my baby daddy?"

"Yes," Rowan and Fenrys say simultaneously.

Aelin's smile falls, and she scowls at both of them. They didn't know better, but she still felt insulted.

"He isn't, but I suppose he probably would have liked to be. Make sure to underline that," she points at Fenry's pad of paper. "Arobynn raised me. I don't think he was legally a foster parent, but he is who I was given to in the shuffle after the occupation."

Rowan dips his chin. Green eyes focus on her intensely, as if he's trying to absorb and commit her every word to memory. "How old were you when they put you in his care?"

"Eight," Aelin breathes out, a sharp tingling of grief comes with that admission. "I lived with him from the time I was eight until I turned nineteen."

"Why do you suspect him of producing and distributing Synth?" Rowan asks the nail-in-the-coffin question, and Aelin has to bite back old instincts to lie and conceal this information. It makes her feel vulnerable to expose Arobynn.

Vulnerability isn't an emotion she handles well. After all, when you bare your neck to someone, it becomes within their power to cut their throat.

"I've seen where he makes it, and I oversaw some of his high-risk contracts and dealings with the distribution," Fenrys chokes beside her, but he smothers it with a cough. Even Rowan looks a little taken back, eyes narrowing.

"At what age did you start assisting with his-" he struggles to find the words. "-His business practices."

Aelin blinks, "Eight."

This time, neither of them covers their reactions. They both freeze in their seats, an air of disbelief hanging over them. Aelin feels a chill and tugs at the hem of her shirt, wishing the sleeves were longer.

"What?" Rowan is the first to break the tension.

"I was displaced in the occupation," Aelin begins the watered-down version of her sob story. "I was carted into Adarlan and placed in the care of Arobynn Hammel. Within a couple of months, he was already using me as a mule to get orders across Rifthold. He trained me in various skills to carry out larger jobs, along with a few other children."

"There were others?" Rowan looks saddened by that tidbit.

Mentally Aelin wants to laugh.

Of course, he would be upset at the prospect of other good children suffering from such a fate.`Ones who had the potential he thought she lacked.

If only he knew what bastards they all grew up to be, and she by far was not the worst of them.

Fenrys' eyes were gleaming with more pity than Aelin was comfortable with because, unlike Rowan, she knew it was directed towards her. Gratefully he didn't dig too deeply. Instead, Fenrys picked up the next question. "Can you name the others?"

Aelin bites her lip, leg fidgeting under the table. "Tern Fletcher, Archer Flynn, Adam Mulligan, Lysandra Ennar-" she swallows past the lump in her throat. "Samuel Cortland and myself."

"Lysandra was involved?" Rowan leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. He hasn't looked away, barely blinked, since the questioning began. Aelin feels naked as his eyes seemed to be raking in her every movement.

"Not-" she tries to think of how to phrase it in a way that respects her friend's privacy. "She wasn't involved in the same capacity I was."

"Are the others you know still working with Hammel?" Rowan asks, and Aelin gladly lets them move the conversation away from Lys. She wasn't comfortable digging into her friend's wounds when she wasn't around.

"I suspect Mulligan, Flynn, and Fletcher. They were extremely loyal, and as of the last time I saw them, very active in the business." Aelin fondly remembers the beat down she laid on Archer before their parting words. He sold them out, and she hopes for his sake that they never run into each other again.

Fenrys looks up, "What about Samuel?"

"What?" Aelin flinches, the question taking her back.

"Samuel Cortland," Rowan reiterates. "You named him as one of the employees in Hammel's custody but implied he's no longer active in the business. Where is he then?" He leans forward, and Aelin wishes she could shrink back. "Would he be willing to speak with us?"

"Children." Her voice comes out as gruffer than she intends. "We were kids. Not employees. It wasn't a mutual agreement. None of us could consent to what became of us."

Aelin is surprised by the emotion that makes itself known. She swallows back the tears that want to fall and stuffs her trembling hands under her thighs. The implication any of them had a choice in serving Arobynn was disturbing and utterly wrong.

The taste of skin between her teeth, blood crusting under her nails, and being surrounded in pitch-black darkness consume her. Aelin suddenly feels more ill than she had this morning.

"Of course, Aelin." Fenrys placates. "That's understood. We just need to know where Samuel is. He could be very useful to the investigation."

"Dead," Aelin throws the word out like a dying fish on the table. "He died."

It hurt to say that. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes. Sam dying was worse than talking about Arobynn. A million times worse.

Aelin tries to swallow the lead rock in her throat. Arobynn didn't deserve to be known. His legacy was of blood, abuse, and control. It belonged in the sewer alongside his corpse.

Sam, on the other hand, deserved to be known. He abandoned by the system, forgotten by his family, and still chose kindness above all else. Sam's story deserved to be told, and it killed Aelin that it hurt her so much to share it.

"How did he die?" Fenrys prods delicately.

"What?" Aelin asks dumbly, heart accelerating in her chest.

"How did Samuel die? Any details you can give are beneficial. and you agreed to cooperate." Rowan reminds her sternly.

Mala save her, she couldn't go into detail about how she found him. She couldn't. Aelin feels blood rushing up to her head, and the room seems to sway.

"Sam. He liked to be called Sam-" Is all Aelin manages to choke out. "Excuse me."

Pushing herself from the desk, she shakily bolts for the office door. Their complaints are silenced as the glass shuts behind her. Outside, Aelin can feel the trembling beginning in her hands and spreading up her arms.

Sweat beads on her forehead in the oppressive heat of the building, but when she rubs her face, it feels damp and cold to the touch.

Aelin frantically strides down the hall, eyes darting around madly for a bathroom door. Nausea was creeping up her throat, and she really didn't want to throw up in someone's trashcan. She knew she was moving quickly, that someone might see her and become alarmed, but anxiety made everything feel like it was moving in slow motion.

A dainty hand grips her elbow and tugs in gently. "Follow me, dear. I can help you."

Aelin's head is swimming, and she allows the calming voice to steer her back in the other direction. When the person pushes open the bathroom door and Aelin sees the navy blue stalls, she rips her arm away and falls to her knees before the porcelain bowl.

Long, slender fingers pull her hair back from her face and rub her shoulders as Aelin loses her breakfast. "You are okay," the voice consoles—a hand massages up her spine and soothes the aches there.

Aelin's whole body is shuddering now. Her stomach rolls over itself, and the muscles of her diaphragm are quaking with exertion. She doubts she could get to her feet if she tried. A strand of drool hangs from her lips, and Aelin would be humiliated if her head wasn't still reeling.

Gouged eyes. Bent fingers. Blood on her lips.

A wad of paper towels appears and dabs at her cheeks, which Aelin hadn't even realized were wet with tears. She failed to notice that her body was shuddering under the intensity of the sobs coming from her. The woman continues to pat her cheeks and nose. Then to her mortification, it swipes at the spit hanging from her mouth.

Mala end me now, she mentally pleads.

Aelin looks up to find a woman with raven hair and onyx eyes looking at her sympathetically. "I'm sorry, dear. I don't mean to overstep. I've been where you are before. Please don't be embarrassed."

Opening her mouth, Aelin makes to apologize, but another crackling sob breaks from her chest instead.

She's just tired. Tired of being sad. Tired of feeling sick. Tired of being unable to even say his name without breaking down.

Arms wrap around Aelin's shoulders and tug her into an embrace. She allows her face to burrow into the woman's blazer as the grief racks through her body.

"Oh, sweety. It's going to be alright. I promise whatever is going on right now will work out." Fingers rake through Aelin's hair soothingly. It turns her to jello in the woman's arms. Her presence was just so motherly in a way that Aelin sorely misses.

She holds Aelin tight until she's calm enough to hold a plastic cup of water without dropping it. The woman helps her stand and wipes the mascara smudges off her cheeks with a damp towel. "There you go," she tosses the towel in the trash when she deems Aelin presentable. "Brand new, again."

"Thank you," Aelin breathes out at last. "I don't even know what to say."

"Say nothing," the woman waves her hand. "I've been pregnant before. Hormones. Nausea. It isn't an easy ride, dear. Besides, no one comes to a police station for a good reason." The woman pulls a stick of gum from a purse sitting on the sink and offers it to her. Aelin accepts it gratefully.

"Has anyone told you that stress isn't good for you?" Her kind eyes bore into Aelin worriedly. "You look very pale."

"I've been told. Many times." Aelin rubs her forehead, an ache already forming there. "I just don't have much of a choice."

"What's your name? I'm Maeve." She smiles and extends a hand for Aelin to shake.

Aelin takes the hand, happy that they aren't trembling so badly. "Aelin."

"Do you have any name ideas for the baby?" Maeve's eyes glance down towards the slight swell of her belly a little wistfully.

Names? Aelin periodically forgot that the human growing inside of her would pop into the world and require such a thing. It was a far-off event where she had plenty of time to accommodate for things in her head. In reality, she was halfway through her fourth month.

Time was ticking.

"No. I don't have any ideas yet." Aelin admits.

Maeve pats Aelin's shoulder kindly. "That's just fine. Ignore my curiosity. You have plenty of time if-" she emphasizes, "you take better care of yourself."

There is a knock on the door. "Aelin, are you alright?"

Rowan.

"Yes. I'll be back in a minute," Aelin says through the door.

She waits until his footsteps echo back down the hallway before she makes towards the exit. Eager to leave the bathroom and the memories of her awkward breakdown with it. "Thanks again. Really. I appreciate it."

Aelin truly meant it despite the utter humiliation she felt.

"Let me walk you back to Rowan's office?" Maeve asked. "It's easy to get turned around in this building."

They walked in a comfortable silence back to the office. Maeve's demeanor is so tranquil it surprises Aelin when the demure woman pushes the door open without knocking. "I have a delivery for you boys."

"Chief?" Rowan stands up, confused.

What? Aelin blinks and turns back to the woman, noting the black and whites and the metal badge on the breast of her blazer. The same blazer Aelin had just cried on.

Blood rushed to her face, and her brain curdles in her skull. Of course, it was the law of Orynth whose arms she just broke down in. Adarlan's Assassin reduced to a ball of hormones clinging to the chief detective of Terrasen like a baby clinging to its mother.

"Has she caused trouble?" Rowan's eyes glint with steel.

If you've done anything to degrade me to my boss, the deal is off.

"Not at all. We ran into each other in the bathroom and had a lovely chat," Maeve brushes an invisible piece of dust from Aelin's shoulder. "I will let the three of you get back to business. You are in excellent company."

Aelin's lip quirks. Just the opposite. She loves me. Congratulations, you are already reaping the benefits of my presence.

"Oh, and Fenrys?" Aelin looks at Fenrys, who is actively ignoring them. "The reports you promised are late. Have them to my desk by the end of the day, please."

"Will do, Chief." Fenrys' reply is dry and lacks his usual pep.

Aelin notes the worried glance Rowan throws him, but he swiftly covers it with an expressionless mask. "I will make sure he gets it done."

What was that? Aelin tries to pry an answer from Rowan, but he avoids her look.

When Maeve leaves, the tension eases from the men's shoulders.

"You are trouble," Rowan tosses at her without venom.

Aelin picks up the cup of tea she left at his desk, glad it's still warm. "Yes, but only the best kind."

"We haven't laid out a single plan for weaseling out Arobynn," Fenrys makes an irritated face at them. "If either of you could focus for ten minutes, we can do the rest of the questioning later, but we need to start throwing out ideas."

"Did Rowan piss in your tea in the last ten minutes I was gone?" Aelin shoots back, not appreciating his sudden attitude.

"Thirty," Rowan says. "You were gone for thirty minutes. That's why I came looking for you. Also, ruining beverages is your thing, not mine."

Damn, had she been gone that long? A glance at the clock confirms he was correct.

When she turns back to Rowan, there is almost something like worry in his eyes? That couldn't be right, Aelin rubs that aching side of her head again. She needed to stop reading so deeply into things.

"We can continue with questioning later," Rowan announces. "Fenrys is correct in saying we need to start making plans. You've given us enough to work with for now."

They sat back in their chairs, pulled out more notepads, red pens, and sticky notes. Together, Aelin helped them form a list of potential places Arobynn would be laying low. Hotels, rental homes, and vacant manors. He had a taste for luxury Aelin knew he wouldn't sacrifice for anonymity.

Test results were still running on the Synth. Technicians had let them know it showed highly abnormal properties compared to average street drugs, and they promised to send them an extensive report when they were through.

Rowan had hushed any potential news stories about The Stag shooting. He didn't want anyone who may know Celaena to catch wind and start snooping around. Aelin was his best lead, which afforded her a certain level of discretion he acknowledged.

They didn't know about the Bane patrolling her block at night, keeping their eyes on the streets for unusual activity.

The clock ticked, and the light beaming through the winders grew warmer as the afternoon trickled away. It was nearly five o'clock when Rowan declared then done for the day, and Aelin was utterly exhausted.

"Come on," Fenrys offered her a hand to help her stand. "I can drive you by the prison. Aedion should be getting checked out as we speak."

"Thank you," Aelin accepts the help. Her feet ached, and she felt entirely drained. It was good Fenrys was offering a ride, or she'd have to call Dorian to come and get her.

Together, the three of them made their way to the parking lot. Conversation between them was sparse but not unpleasant. They'd fallen into a rhythm at some point while working together. It helped break up some of the awkwardness between her and Rowan.

Aelin hustled a little bit when she spotted Fenry's luxury car. She wanted to claim the front seat before Rowan did. Her gut couldn't handle the stress of riding the back.

Her fingers barely grazed the polished handle when Fenrys started yelling.

Arms wrapped around her waist, and Aelin's face throbbed as it found itself slammed into the asphalt. A loud explosion rattled her ears, and chunks of debris went flying through the air. A thick foggy smoke started filling the air, and she immediately started choking on it.

A dense weight lifts off her back, and hands grab her shoulders, rolling her body to face the clouded sky instead of the ground. Rowan is in her personal space immediately. He's speaking to her, but no sound is penetrating the ringing in her ears.

His hands are running along her arms, the side of her face, checking for injury. Aelin tries to ask him if he's alright, but he doesn't seem able to hear her either.

Suddenly, Fenrys is there, and he's grabbing them both by the arms. They are moving away at a sprint. Fenrys is yelling, but the smoke is stinging her eyes, and even seeing is becoming hard.

There is another explosion, and Aelin can feel the tremors beneath the soles of her shoes as the three of them hit the ground once more.

People are pouring out of the precinct. Aelin spies Cheif Maeve at the front of them, ordering people out of the building. Red and blue lights reflect off the smoke, and she knows that ambulances must be on their way.

Rowan is lying beside her. She hadn't noticed the rips in the back of his suit jacket at first, but there were long gouges in the material, and smoke wafted off a couple of scorch marks. The fact he'd thrown himself over her body and shielded her from the explosion was only starting to register when something warm squeezed her hand.

Are you okay? Green eyes were scouring her body for wounds.

I'm fine, Aelin assures him. She's more concerned about the spots on the back of his suit growing wet as he bled.

"Someone blew up my car," Fenrys is gaping at the spot where his vintage ride used to be. All that remained was a roughed-up frame that was lit ablaze like a campfire.

"Gods," Aelin breathed out, the ringing in her ears dying down. "I almost died."

Rowan hadn't let go of her hand and made no move to do so as his eyes fixed on the burning car. "That was meant for us."

He didn't have to elaborate for Aelin to understand. Whoever had placed the bomb hadn't been targeting her, but Rowan and Fenrys. They arrived and left work together. The bomb wasn't there when they got to the precinct this morning, so someone must have placed it while they were inside.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Fenrys runs a dirty hand through his hair.

Sirens wailed as paramedics filed into the parking lot. Other detectives and officers were starting to approach them. Firefighters approached the car with extinguishers and began to tame the burning fire.

Aelin didn't have an answer. Just the sinking feeling that the game they'd entered into had more players than she'd thought.

Here is part one of the mass updates! Thank you SO much for reading. I’ve gotten so much feedback and love on this fic it’s been so wonderful 💚

I do have an ✨IMPORTANT QUESTION✨

Would you all prefer I have tag lists specific to certain fics or an overall tag list for ships? So one tag list for all of my rowaelin fics, one for all my quinlar fics, or would you like me to keep it as I have been? Please let me know! ✨

Tag list- Let me know if you would like to be added or removed. :D ( names in bold won’t tag)

@thisismylibrary

@highladywhitethrone

@bee55

@royalsqueeze

@rowaelin-cressworth

@booknerdproblems

@sjmships

@ladyfireheart-and-buzzard

@wordsxstars

@rowaelinismyotp

@courtofjurdan

@emmiesbook

@killian-me-slowly

@miserablemusings

@aelinchocolatelover

@booksbqueen

@flamingveritas

@tomtenadia

@fromthelibraryofemilyj

@loudphantomdragon

@in-love-with-caramel-macchiato

@superspiritfestival

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@nish247

@vasudharaghavan

@maybekindasortaace

@mariamuses

@frosted-crackers

@foughtconquered

@live-the-fangirl-life

@ghostlyrose2

#coffeeshopau #rowaelin #throne of glass #angst #aelin #fanfic #rowan whitethorn

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actuallybarb · 4 years ago

Text

The Aftermath ~ Part 7

Summary: y/n goes to therapy, is a confirmed hoodie stealer, and gets a pep talk from sam wilson and wanda maximoff

Pairing: peter parker x reader

Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, trauma, me attempting to write a therapy session

Word Count: 3850

A/N: so many things. 1) i’ve never been to therapy (even tho i desperately need it) so i’m solely basing that off of Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan. 2) i live for sleepy tropes and i hella indulged. 3) sorry not sorry

//////////

“Your projects are due next Monday. Have one partner email me who your group is working with, and no, Mr. Thompson, you can’t work with students from other periods. Class dismissed.”

“Want to work together?”

We had been going to class together for a month now, but it always seemed like Peter was surprised whenever he saw me sitting next to him. Maybe it wasn’t surprise...

“Yeah. When do you want to work on it?” I shoved my notes into my already disorderly backpack and slung it over my shoulders. It was starting to get colder in New York, but I was still wearing t-shirts and shorts (mostly because I could keep myself warm and also because I’m stubborn as hell).

“Thursday? Or do you want to start sooner than that?”

“No, I can do Thursday. Are you going to the compound this weekend?” It wasn’t more than a whisper, but I still checked who was around before asking. You can never be too careful.

“Yeah, May’s driving me up after school on Friday. Want a ride?”

I smiled. “That’d be nice.” People were slowly making their way out of the building to head home for the day, but I was heading to Manhattan.

“You going home?”

“No, I’m seeing my shrink. I’ll see you tomorrow, Peter.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, Y/N.” He turned right, I turned left, and I might have turned around and glanced back at him over my shoulder, just for a second.

But so did he.

/////////

Taylor’s office had a billion plants and as many windows in it. She always had a candle burning that smelled like clean laundry, and she liked to talk first whenever we met up. That’s why I liked her so much.

“Remember my crazy neighbor’s dog?” She was watering one of her plants when I walked in. “Guess who I accidentally ran over?”

“You ran over a dog?” I left my backpack by the door and grabbed my own watering can.

“No, not the dog. I ran over my neighbor while he was chasing after the dog.”

I laughed. “Like that’s much better.”

“Running over a dog is unforgivable, Y/N. A person is understandable.” We finished watering the plants then sat down at the huge floor-to-ceiling window that took up her back wall. Another reason I liked Taylor: I actually do stuff while I’m talking with her. It’s not like I’m sitting on a couch staring at her while I talk about my feelings, we’re on equal ground. The last couple visits I’ve worked on painting New York, but I haven’t made much progress because I’m a shit painter. “That’s not the point,” Taylor would say, “it’s all about going with it. Be a shit painter. Own it.” Yeah, we get along great.

“No more panic attacks since the first day.”

“Yeah? That’s great.” Unlike me, Taylor is a phenomenal painter. Her skyline had identifiable buildings. Mine had — I think one looks more like a tree than a building. (That’s one huge tree.) “Any nightmares?”

Oh. We’re going there today. “Just on bad days.”

“How often are the bad days?”

After the Blip and before Europe, my bad days went from every day to maybe once a week. Then Europe fucked me over. Now? I don’t know. “Whenever they feel like it.”

“C’mon, Y/N, you can do better than that.”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. “It’s not like it’s a cycle, like the moon or a period or our meetings. It’s sporadic, Taylor, and fucking exhausting.”

“Why? Why are the bad days so exhausting?”

I may or may not have angrily made a bird smash against a window in my painting. “Because I’m the only one who knows. Mom guesses, most of the time, but it’s like she’s still dancing around me. Dad sees it when he’s home, but he doesn’t know what to do. And—“ I almost said ‘and Peter.’ That would’ve been awkward. “And my friends make it better, but they’ve got their own shit to deal with, and I don’t want to dump any of my problems on them. And I know you’re going to say ‘Internalizing your pain is bad, Y/N,’ but it’s the only solution I can handle right now until I muster up the courage to actually talk to my mom again. I mean, last time I needed Jess by my side, how the hell am I going to handle it without her?”

“For starters, I’m proud of you for acknowledging the way to address the problem. And secondly, you don’t have to do it by yourself. I’ve actually been wanting to have another session with your parents, and now seems like as good of a time as any. Bring them around for your next session, and we’ll talk to them, together, about how you can get through bad days with their help. Okay?”

My lips quirked up, just a smidge. “Okay.”

“Now let’s talk about King T’Challa’s new suit, you can’t pretend you don’t have an opinion on it...”

///////

It was a bad day.

Which sucked, because it was also Thursday, and Peter was supposed to be over in half an hour to work on our project. And I was a mess.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Mom called from the living room. Her elementary school got out twenty minutes before Midtown, so she usually beat me home. “How was school?”

“It’s a bad day,” was all I said before I closed the door to my room. I didn’t slam it (not anymore) but I didn’t know anything else. I couldn’t tell if I wanted a nap, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to fly from rooftop to rooftop until I was too exhausted to come home; I didn’t know. Which sucked, because I’m the only one who could’ve told me the answer.

The was a light knock on my door. “Can I come in?” I didn’t respond, so Mom walked in. “Mind me asking why today was bad?” I still didn’t say anything, my face buried in my pillow. She sat at the edge of my bed, near my knees. “I can usually tell, you know.” It was a hushed voice that came out of her mouth - nothing like the loud and loving woman I’ve known almost my whole life. “You do a good job of trying to cover it up, but I can tell. Your shoulders are tenser than usual, and your eyebrows are crinkled together the second you step out of your room.” She sighed and put a hand on my back - her hands are always warm and usually smell like hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works because she refuses to use the government-issued ones at school. “You dad and I have no idea what you went through while we were gone. We have no idea what you went through in Europe. But we’re here for you now, Y/N. You carry this weight around with you, and I just — I want you to know that you have people to share it with. Maybe not the weight itself, but the pain it’s causing you.” She removed her hand and set both of them in her lap. “I don’t know how to make the bad days better, so I need you to tell me when you’re ready. I’m here for you, baby.” She leaned down and kissed my head, then stood up and started walking toward the door.

When her hand was on the knob, I finally spoke up. “Thank you.” It was barely a grumble, but she heard it.

The door closed quietly, and I finally decided what I wanted to do.

Cry. I cried. For at least twenty minutes. I cried because of my abilities, I cried because I lost Jess as a mom, I cried because I went to Europe, I cried because Quentin Beck was an asshole that fucked up my mental state for probably the rest of my life, I cried because I killed a lot of people, I cried because now I was friends with Peter but at what cost?

He showed up, eventually. I heard him knock on the front door as I blew my nose. Mom, bless her soul, kept him distracted until I came out of my room myself. It took me another twenty minutes to finally convince myself to leave my room, and at that point I was too exhausted to keep myself warm anymore, so the cold breeze blowing through New York hit me in full force. I slipped a hoodie on, grabbed my backpack, and took a deep breath before opening the door.

Peter was sitting at the counter while Mom washed the dishes from breakfast this morning. She was back to talking loud, and he was listening with a smile on his face. My door closed and his eyes immediately darted to me. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hey, Pete. Is it okay if we’re in the living room?”

Mom glanced between the two of us and tried to hide her little smile, but at least one of us caught it. “Yeah, of course. I’ll be in the office if you need anything.”

He must’ve noticed my bloodshot eyes; he couldn’t stop staring. “Is that my hoodie?”

Shit. Is it? I glanced down at the Midtown Tech logo and remembered getting drenched at the compound after the sprinklers unexpectedly came on. Then Peter gave me his hoodie. “Shit, yeah, it is.” I pulled on the sleeves to take it off, but he shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it, I have at least two more at home.” He pulled out his laptop and it was suddenly back to business. “Any ideas how we’re going to do this?”

We bounced ideas off of each other until we came to a rough draft, but it was getting later, and bad days always get worse at night.

“Shit, is it ten already?” Peter started gathering his things and stuffing them in his bag. “I told May I’d be home by ten, I hate being late.”

I pulled out my phone and sent May a quick text; we’ve had each other’s numbers since my first weekend at the compound. We lost track of time, he’s heading home now.

I figured. See you tomorrow :)

Peter stood up and started walking toward the door, and I followed him. I had spoken maybe twenty sentences the whole time (it’s a miracle we got this far in the project) but I couldn’t convince myself to say anything else before he left. And I wanted to. But I also wanted to cave in on myself — and we both know which option was winning that battle.

“Do you need a hug?” He basically had one foot out the door, but he turned around and asked me this.

“What?”

“Your heartbeat — it’s been off all day. And it still is right now, and — Do you need a hug?”

God, he was perfect. And I was so gone.

All I needed all day was a goddamn hug, and now he’s offering one, and tears started brimming in my eyes before I could even nod yes. He was so warm, and his voice flitted around in his chest, and I would’ve felt bad about getting tears on his shirt, except I didn’t care anymore. All I cared about was how the weight on my shoulders lifted when Peter Parker’s arms were wrapped around them.

“Are you going to be okay?” he mumbled in my hair. I only nodded again. “Okay.” He slowly loosened his grip, but not before he left a quick kiss on my head. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Another nod. “See you tomorrow.”

///////

Peter was going crazy. Since we hadn’t found any footage that could clear Spider-Man’s name without incriminating Peter he wasn’t allowed out as his alter-ego. And he was literally climbing the walls of the compound.

I was blowing gusts of air at him, trying to knock him down from the ceiling. We had officially finished our project only twenty minutes before, so I pulled up the EDITH footage from London, trying to think of how to clear Spider-Man’s name.

And then it hit me.

“Oh my god.” I ran to the computer and started typing away furiously. “I think I figured it out.”

He came back to the ground. “Figured what out?”

“We can just use the audio file from the video. Then your face doesn’t have to be in it at all.”

I found the file and played it over the speakers.

“EDITH! Turn off the drones.”

“Should I execute all cancellation protocols?”

“Yes, execute them all.”

It was perfect. Exactly what we needed.

“Peter.” I turned to him with a huge smile on my face. “This can save Spider-Man.”

“This can save Spider-Man,” he repeated. “Shit, Y/N, you just saved Spider-Man.” He wrapped his arms around me tightly and lifted me in the air, his laugh ringing in my ear. “I can still be Spider-Man!”

I laughed along with him. He set me down after a minute, but we were still standing unbelievably close together. One minuscule step forward and my lips would be on his. His heart beat jumped, and so did mine, but he didn’t pull away. Neither of us pulled away.

His tilted his head and kissed my cheek (which I still freaked out over) and then took a step back.

“We have to call Pepper and tell her.”

“Yeah, yeah.” FRIDAY started the call and Pepper was over the moon.

“We’ll get a press conference set up for tomorrow, and I’ll work on a statement. Peter,” this was the sternest I had ever heard her - even more serious than when she was talking to Morgan, “I know this is all good news, but you have to wait to be Spider-Man still. All of this press has to die down first before you can go out in the open again, okay?”

“Yes, Mrs. Potts.”

“Okay. I’ll see you two bright and early tomorrow.”

She hung up and Peter hugged me again. This one was way more subdued than the last one. “Thank you, Y/N,” he mumbled into my neck.

“You’re welcome, Pete.”

//////////

The press conference went well, according to Rhodey. “I think most of them were relieved to know Spider-Man’s not actually a murderer.” Everyone was dying to have Spider-Man come out and answer questions, but Pepper insisted no questions were being taken at that time, or ever.

MJ called Peter after the press conference was released to the public, and they talked for what felt like forever. The second he got the call I went to the training room: to distract myself or actually train, well, it doesn’t matter because both were done.

A simulation droid was about to “kill” me, but red magic tore it apart at the last second.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Are you okay?”

I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because Peter’s been talking on the phone for the same time you’ve been in here.” Wanda gave me a knowing look. You forget that she can read minds because she’s not invasive about it, but she’s always there, holding the information to either back you up or tear you down.

I sighed. “He’s talking to MJ. And I know there’s a high possibility that they’ll get back together but a part of me is hoping they won’t.”

“So you can be with him instead.” I gave a small nod. “Don’t give up yet, Y/N. I see the way he looks at you. You might have more of a chance than you think.”

“She’s right, kid.”

I jumped in surprise. “How long have you been listening?”

Sam smiled from the observation deck of the training room. “Long enough. Boys are stupid, they need all the help they can get.”

“I’ve given him plenty of help already. Literally.”

“Haha, very funny.” He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. If it doesn’t work out with MJ, shoot your shot. I have a feeling you won’t be disappointed.” He winked before leaving, and Wanda followed suit.

I rolled my eyes before telling FRIDAY to pick another random simulation. “Make it a good one.” And, boy, did she. It was the hardest one yet, and all of my concentration was going into it. I was so focused I didn’t even notice Peter walk in until after I had won.

“Damn.”

I turned quickly to see him standing near the door, his hands in his pockets. “Hey. How’d it go?”

“It was okay. She saw the news.”

“But…”

“But it’s not happening. I-“ he looked down at the ground, “I can’t trust her. Not when she lost trust in me. And I- I think I’m interested in someone else.”

I nodded along. I tried to keep my heart as normal as possible but it was beating too hard from my adrenaline to be controllable; I’m almost positive Peter heard it jump at the news. “That’s understandable. Who’s the, uh, the someone else?” God, please be me.

Peter’s lips twitched up to a small smile. “You’ll find out eventually.” He stepped further into the room and relaxed a bit. “Want to do a round together?”

I wanted to. I really wanted to. But I was exhausted, and I think I pulled a muscle, and I could already feel bruises forming where I ungracefully fell on my side. So I just shook my head. “Some other time.”

My room had a bathroom attached to it, and that’s where I spent the next half hour, standing under the blazing hot water coming from the shower. Once I convinced myself to actually get out and change into pajamas, I grabbed my laptop and climbed into bed. I was going home tomorrow, I deserved a few hours of shuteye.

Then someone knocked on my door and ruined the whole ambiance.

“Oh, you’re - I was just - I’ll just go.”

“No, Peter, what’s up?”

He was standing there, hair damp from the shower, black t-shirt and flannel pajama pants on, looking hot as ever. “I was going to ask if you wanted to watch a movie, but you’re already in bed, so never mind.” He turned to walk away, and I almost let him because I was on-my-ass exhausted, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, not when he looked like that (soft, but also hot as fuck).

“Come on.” He turned, and I opened the door wider. “I was about to watch Gilmore Girls, but we can watch a movie if you want.” I pulled back the covers and left plenty of room for Peter to sit beside me.

“We can watch Gilmore Girls, I don’t mind.”

The second I pressed ‘play’ on the third episode was the second my eyes could barely stay open any longer. I tried so hard to watch Jess win Rory back, but sleep caught up with me and I let it win. I used Peter’s shoulder as a pillow and decided sleep was a battle I didn’t mind losing.

////////

I woke up to my alarm, but as quickly as my eyes opened, Peter’s arm pulled me closer to him. I was too tired to feel embarrassed or excited about the fact that Peter Parker was in my bed with an arm wrapped around me. All I wanted to was to turn off my alarm and go back to bed, but my dad was picking me and Peter up in two hours and I wanted to bully Sam into making me pancakes again.

“Let go, Peter,” I ended up mumbling, “I have to turn the alarm off.” He moved his arm off and I sat up and grabbed my phone. “I’m getting breakfast.”

It must’ve been my lucky day, because Sam and Bucky were in the kitchen. “‘Morning, sunshine. Sleep okay?” I looked at Sam with a hard glare, and he laughed. Of course he knew Peter was with me, FRIDAY knows everything.

I sat next to Bucky and thought of fluffy pancakes to ward off my burning hatred for Captain America. “Sam, how much do you love me?”

“Depends on what you’re willing to give me in exchange for the pancakes.”

Of course he already knew my move. Typical.

“I’ll delete half of the embarrassing footage of you saved in FRIDAY’s hard-drive.”

Sam looked at Bucky suddenly, extremely confused. “I thought that was done months ago.”

He just shrugged and drank his coffee. “Must not’ve gone deep enough. Good thing Y/N is here to catch it.”

Sam glanced between the two of us and sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll make you some stupid pancakes.”

I smiled, then Bucky slipped me ten dollars under the counter and whispered, “Save me the footage.” I winked back.

“Can I have some too?” Peter, soft as hell, came into the kitchen and sat beside me. (His knee was brushing up against mine.)

“Only if you have something to offer.” Sam liked us, I know he did (that’s part of the embarrassing footage FRIDAY has saved) but he was usually a dick to us - anyone who wasn’t Bucky (and even then) - in the morning. It was always playful banter, but we knew not to step too far before eleven o’clock.

“I promise not to test out my new long-lasting webs on anything you own.”

“Deal.”

The pancakes were delicious (“hell yeah they were, I don’t mess around with pancakes”) but my dad was at the compound before we knew it, and it was time to face reality again.

“I saw the press conference,” Dad said when we sat down in the back, “and everything was very convincing. Congrats on getting to be Spider-Man again, Peter.”

He beamed. “Thanks, Mr. Y/L/N. Anything exciting happen at the hospital recently?”

They talked medical, while I sat back and listened to the engine. It covered up their hearts, but that didn’t matter, because both would’ve sent me right back to sleep. And it did.

We pulled up to Peter’s complex an hour and a half later. There were still plenty of daylight hours left, but we both left more homework to today than we would like to admit and neither of our parental figures would be pleased with that.

“See you tomorrow,” he said with a smile.

I smiled back, genuinely, (I was giving those out way more often now) and waved. “Bye.” Dad and I drove back and walked up to the apartment bumping shoulders. Our schedules didn’t line up very often because he was needed in the ER a lot of the time, but we always had a sort of silent understanding. He unlocked the door and let me in first, but when my eyes landed on the kitchen table, I stopped mid-step.

Blood. Everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, on Mom’s floral couch she claimed “added personality” to the living room. No one else was in the apartment, I could tell, but then it just raised more questions:

Who’s blood is everywhere?

Where the hell is Mom?

tags: @eridanuswave @vampirestrawberries

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker series #peter parker oneshot #marvel #marvel comics #reader insert #peter parker x mj #ned leeds #michelle jones #flash thompson #spiderman far from home #mcu #spiderman #avengers

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vmficrecs · 4 years ago

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Every school has an obligatory psychotic jackass. He’s ours.

It has been one year since The Incident. In celebration of this beautiful, snarky, dynamic, passionate, beloved, smug, asshole, essential, etc., etc., character I have complied a lengthy (but by no means exhaustive) collection of some of my personal favorite fics focusing on Logan, or on his relationships, or fics that i just think do something neat in terms of Logan/his journey/his character. ❤️

Previously on vmficrecs:

dark_roast, “Fish Out of Water,” Mature, Post Season 1 AU

Logan opts to leave Neptune, and spend summer vacation with his grandparents.

Notes: This AU is essential reading if you love Logan. His characterization is nearly perfect, and the premise of the fic is endlessly engaging and smart.

wily_one24, “Sleep, Perchance...,” Mature, Pre-series AU

Logan thaws towards Veronica and sets out to save her.

Notes: I want to eat this fic. If you’ve never read it, read it-- it will linger endlessly inside of your brain in the best way possible. So many of the things Logan does or says in this fic exist in a very tangible and palpable manner for me, it’s that good. I think about it constantly.

ghostcat, “What We Have in Common,” Teen, Post Season 3 AU

Weevil Navarro, his incredibly poor choice of a research paper prepping locale and the close talking, finger waving jackass that interrupts and effectively hijacks his night. Set in 2010, three years after The Bitch is Back.

ghostcat, “A Trace of Meaning,” Teen, Pre-series

13 year-old Logan Echolls and 14 year-old Veronica Mars wait at the Kane Estate for their held-up sleepover hosts to show up.

theohara, “Rich Dirt,” Mature, Pre-series AU

And Logan wouldn’t let you have anything. He’d danced over to you and smirked in your face and twirled your plastic cup right out of your hand and cooed that just because your Daddy wasn’t sheriff anymore didn’t give you license to break the law, and he’d acted all shocked with his hand over his mouth and he’d laughed like breaking glass and nanced off with your drink.

anjou, “Into the Blue,” Mature, Post Season 1

It’s almost summer, and Logan is sinking into the blue.

flyingcarpet, “Mexicali Blues,” Mature, Post Season 3 AU

When he reaches the water he doesn’t hesitate, just keeps walking until he can duck his head under and start to swim away from shore, letting the salt and the waves wash away the residue that Neptune’s left on his skin.

absolutelyiris, “Truth for a Dream,” Teen, Future Fic (Pre-movie)

Fleet Week 2012. A reformed bad boy turned sailor and a former party girl turned career woman meet in a bar…

Notes: A LOGAN AND PARKER FRIENDSHIP FIC!!! pure fucking delight

absolutelyiris, “Come Around,” Mature, Future AU

A woman travels the world over in search of what she needs and returns home to find it.

Notes: I will talk about this fic until the day that I day, and then I will still talk about it. One of my absolute favorites. Pure gold Logan/Keith dynamic. I would 10/10 die for Razia. and, of course, the l/v is so damn good

TheLastGoodGolfish, “The Phenomenal Pixie, #1,” Teen, AU

Veronica is a masked avenger who stalks the streets of Neptune. Logan is the intrepid reporter who’s on the story.

Notes: PERFECT. PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT. also-- “That’s ridiculous. My favorite person is a sorority girl.” in my head, rent free, and i am forever indebted.

bryrosea, “Waste of Breath / A Quartz Contentment,” Mature, Post Season 2 to TDTL

Part one: Logan Echolls, the nine years, and the Navy. Part two: Veronica Mars, the nine years, and a new normal.

Notes: I am recommending specifically “Waste of Breath” for my boy, although Veronica’s piece is excellent as well.

always_winter, “Written Out,” Teen, Season 2 AU

Duncan has some residual guilt and Logan wants to be left out of the story.

always_winter, “White Combs and Sweet Honey,” Mature, Season 1

Even when Aaron is trying to be a good father, there’s still a lot he’s doing wrong.

Notes: This fic is so tender to me!!! A beautiful Logan and Aaron piece.

sadiekate, “Grand Canyon,” PG-13, Season 1 to Future AU

Three friends reminisce several years in the future, snarkily and pointlessly.

sinaddict, “Necrosis,” Explicit, Season 2 AU

Death in bits and pieces, denial as a religion… Or ‘normal’ in Neptune.

sowell, “Surviving the Wreck,” Explicit, Season 3 AU

Nothing’s ever simple with Veronica Mars. Weevil’s day at sea gets a little complicated.

Notes: THIS FUCKING FIC!!!! i love everything about it and especially at this moment in time, the part where logan gives weevil a blow job but weevil notes that somehow, in spite of this, logan retains the upper hand. this fic is world class and i am grateful everyday for it

theohara, “Broken Toys,” NC-17, Pre series AU

One glance across a street saves Lilly Kane’s life. It changes everything; it changes nothing.

Notes: This is the most heartbreaking Veronica Mars’ fanfic ever. I have such a deep love for it. It takes Lilly’s character and Logan/Veronica’s relationship to places I don’t ever think they would go and yet it works in this and it works so damn well. a truly devastating and beautiful au

fluffernutter8, “The Ninety Nine Percent,” Teen, Post Season 3 AU

Junior year of college, Logan gets some news that proves that no matter how hard he tries, life is just going to keep throwing him curve-balls. Post season 3, non movie canon compliant.

youcallitwinter, “gravity is gonna keep you tied down to this city,” Teen, Post Season 3 to TDTL

[your life in extended parenthesis] the lone neon nights and the ache of the ocean, and the fire that was starting to spark. From the love to the lightning and the lack of it.

Notes: please don't fall out of love with me, okay? don’t you dare give up on me. I DIE EVERY FUCKING TIME youcallitwinter is a force with all of her writings, but this one.......my god every single bit about it is fucking flawless

petpluto, “Of Scars & Consequences,” Teen, Post-series AU

Almost a decade in the future, Logan's still a little messed up. And Veronica's still a little closed off. They make it work.

julietbravo, “one brutal thing after another,” Teen, Pre-series to Season 1

These rich boys think they can get away with anything, don’t they.

querulousgawks, “there should be stars for great wars like ours,” Teen, AU

It’s gotta be some Alliance mind game, a holdover, the Operative’s last trick: Logan’s old secrets manifesting everywhere around them. Where are you, how are you doing this, he wants to scream, but he doesn’t know which ghost he’d be railing at.

SilverLining2k6, “Sometimes (You Can’t Make It On Your Own),” Teen, Season 1 AU

Silly Duncan stopped taking his meds. Now, one dead Fitzpatrick later, Logan and Veronica need to get him out of town. Too bad they hate each other.

SilverLining2k6, “Control,” Teen, Pre-series AU

Don’t you mess with a little girl’s dreams. ‘Cause she’s liable to grow up mean. Pre-series. Oneshot. - A twisted little tale of hate and revenge.

Notes: CONTROL!!!!! I love Control so much, it’s one of the first fics I ever read for the fandom and one of the finest. The Logan that exists in this is sooo good and his relationship with Veronica is deeply flawed & wonderful. M is in the process of writing a remix to Control (more in-depth emotion) and I for one am foaming at the fucking mouth every day about it.

nevertothethird, “Reunions,” Teen, Post Series AU

Sometimes it just takes a little longer to get things right. Two high school reunions and a birthday party should do the trick.

youcallitwinter, “you give love a bad name,” Teen, Season 2 AU

“Hey, did you guys know there was a sensitive poet-type hiding behind this hard exoskeleton of expensive alcohol and bitter cynicism?” In which Logan Echolls is, well, Logan Echolls.

scandalpants, “Something to Remember,” Mature, Post Series AU

Facing a separation, Logan and Veronica spend their last night together exchanging gifts.

Notes: I am always in a goddamn state about this fic. Logan jacking off in front of Veronica at her request? Yes, thank you please. thank you so much

leurocrystal, “Take Your Time,” Teen, Post Season 2

Keith doesn’t know how to look at or touch his daughter for the first time in his life.

petpluto, “We Are Nowhere, And It’s Now,” Mature, Series AU

“You know there is another way of looking at this, Logan. If you’d still been together, you might be dead too." Logan and Lilly both die on October 3rd. But for Veronica, it’s not like they’re gone. And she still works to solve their murders.

absolutelyiris, “Delay,” Teen, Post TTDL

Logan reflects on his first Christmas with Veronica after a ten year separation, as well as how his life has changed with her absence.

New to vmficrecs:

Christmas in Arkham Author: dark_roast Pairing: Logan Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort, A Really Good Hug Setting: Season 2 Spoilers: 2.09, “My Mother, the Fiend” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 10128 Status: Complete Summary: Sequel to Fish Out of Water. Logan spends christmas with his grandparents. Notes: This is, full stop, my favorite Veronica Mars fanfiction ever. I am so protective of this fic that part of me doesn’t even want to give it a formal place on the blog, which is ridiculous because I’m sure plenty of people have already read it and obviously it’s so good that I want people to read it but....this belongs to me, somehow, like I feel like it’s mine that’s how much I love it. ANYWAY possessiveness aside-- Every word, every sentence, every punctuation mark in this fic is perfect, devastating insight into Logan’s character. Absolutely beautiful and wonderful and every other good thing.

The Teeth by the Shoulder Author: ghostcat Pairing: Fab Four, Logan/Lilly, Veronica/Duncan Rating: Teen Genre: Friendship, Angst Setting: Pre-series Spoilers: 1.01, “Pilot” Chapters: 3 Word Count: 17273 Status: Complete Summary: Two couples, two friendships. The Fab Four in three Octobers. Notes: WE’VE NEVER FUCKING RECOMMENDED THE TEETH BY THE SHOULDER BEFORE?????? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE OH MY GOD jesus this is one of the greatest fanfictions ever written. three pre-series explorations into the fab four friendship and it is impossibly good. i am especially in love with the logan/lilly in this fic (the first chapter!!!!) and as always special care is given to exploring the logan + veronica dynamic. the third chapter will break your fucking heart so bad in the best way

Seven Times Logan Echolls Went to Jail Author: sowell Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Veronica/Piz Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, Romance, Logan Echolls is a Little Shit Setting: (Post) Season 3 AU Spoilers: 3.12, “There’s Got to Be a Morning After Pill” and 3.16, “Un-American Graffiti” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 6701 Status: Complete Summary: Who thinks Logan behind bars is sexy? I do, I do! // Logan goes to jail and calls Veronica to bail him out. Again and again and again and again. Notes: WE HAVEN’T DONE THIS BEFORE EITHER???? oh my god!! I remember finding this one a few months before the movie came out and i would just lay in bed in the dark and re-read it endlessly. and then i left it alone for a few years and when i went back to it holy shit it undid me all over again. perfect logan and veronica relationship. p e r f e c t!!! i firmly believe this is exactly what shape their relationship would’ve taken if veronica hadn’t cut and run

Love is Just a Four-letter Word Author: bigboobedcanuck Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Keith, Weevil Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort Setting: Future AU Spoilers: 1.12, “Clash of the Tritons” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1753 Status: Complete Summary: Set a few years down the road from high school. Logan hits rock bottom. Keith and Veronica help him back up. Notes: Lynn’s body turns up and it is fucking DEVASTATING. A short piece that’s told from Keith’s POV (anyone who knows me knows how much of a sucker I am for Keith + Logan interaction) and holy hell Logan is so good in it and I think about it all the fucking time

Serendipity Author: TheLastGoodGoldfish Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Veronica/Piz, Carrie, Gia, Stu Cobbler, Ensemble Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Detective-ing Setting: Post Season 3 Spoilers: 3.20, “The Bitch is Back” and The Movie Chapters: 4 (out of a planned 6, fingers crossed!!!) Word Count: 59763 Status: Complete Summary: During her sophomore year at Hearst, Veronica takes on your run-of-the-mill blackmail case: the clients hate her, the evidence is impossible to destroy, and her ex turns out to be a bit of a distraction, but Veronica is a sucker for a damsel-in-distress. Even if the damsel is an intoxicated, pissed off Carrie Bishop. Notes: I AM HIGH PITCHED SCREAMING. Transplanting the movie plot to this timeframe works tremendously and TLGG’s execution is fucking perfect. Carrie is a powerhouse in this fic and god, Logan is such a honey it in which is why it is being recc’d for him. Him practically letting Carrie move in with him and doing his damnedest to protect Carrie and Gia (much to Veronica’s chagrin) is so, so important to me and I love him so much.

The Phenomenal Pixie - Interlude #1 - “Bugs” Author: TheLastGoodGoldfish Pairing: Logan/Veronica, OC’s Genre: Humor, Fluff, Logan and Veronica Are Smarter Than You Setting: AU (Season 3) Spoilers: uhhh n/a Chapters: 1 Word Count: 5072 Status: Complete Summary: Dating a superhero poses a unique set of challenges. Notes: Tiny sequel to The Phenomenal Pixie which you absolutely must read first (and is recommended above) because it’s a fucking delight. Logan is incredible in this fic and I would die for him, like always. The part where Steve can sense Logan is thinking about punching him in the face-- a million chefs kisses.

The Medusa Jewel Author: TheLastGoodGoldfish Pairing: Logan/Veronica Genre: Established Relationship Bliss, Fluff Setting: MKAT Spoilers: MKAT Chapters: 1 Word Count: 5336 Status: Complete Summary: Logan and Veronica's new neighbor is a writer. Notes: is my TLGG obsession shining through? good because it fucking should be. The Logan/Veronica in this relationship is so sweet and perfect and is 100% my reality and i would like to bathe in this fic and live in it forever as is my right.

Drowning Together Author: bryrosea Pairing: Logan/Veronica Genre: Romance, Hurt/Comfort Setting: Season 3 Spoilers: 3.07, “Of Vice and Men” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 897 Status: Complete Summary: AU of the confrontation scene from 3x07: Of Vice and Men (Logan and Veronica both need a hug) Notes: Absolute wonderful insight and even some reconciliation into a canonical season three fight. Logan calming down while Veronica falls apart as they hug is so important to me.

Interrupt Us Author: bryrosea Pairing: Logan/Veronica Genre: Romance, Hijinks, They Want To Fuck So Bad Setting: Post TDTL Spoilers: through TDTL Chapters: 1 Word Count: 17223 Status: Complete Summary: Logan Echolls is home from deployment. Time to cue the sweeping movie montage, right? Notes: Logan and Veronica try to have sex everywhere and it is my life force. The car scene when they get pulled over and Logan instinctively hiding under Veronica’s desk....god i love everyone in this bar

Ready to Go Author: Amberina Pairing: Logan/Duncan; Veronica Genre: Friendship, Romance, Angst Setting: Post Season 1 Spoilers: not obvious but 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 6346 Status: Complete Summary: "Let's leave. Let's go. What's left in Neptune for us anyway?" (AKA Duncan, Logan and Veronica have wacky adventures on the road! Also angst.) Notes: Logan getting hissy and storming off from the car while Duncan and Veronica just watch him and then calling a taxi once he’s out of their sight is PEAK logan. I love boyfriends, even if they’re angst-ing in this, and they big time are.

Nashville On My Mind Author: hjcallipygian Pairing: Logan, Veronica, Duncan Genre: Friendship, Hijinks Setting: Post Season 1 AU Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1659 Status: Complete Summary: Every year, they take a road trip together. This year, it's to Nashville, Tennessee. Notes: i just spent forty minutes trying to find this fic to the point where i was genuinely concerned i had hallucinated it. it’s so fucking good. a sequel/prequel of sorts to grand canyon by sadiekate (recc’d in the previously section). logan is a mess and by god do i love him

Six Times Logan Echolls Got Wet Author: bryrosea, CarolineShea, ghostcat, kmd0107, marshmallowtasha, SilverLining2k6 Pairing: Logan/Veronica Rating: Teen Genre: Romance, Friendship, Hijinks Setting: Everywhere Spoilers: All series to MKAT Chapters: 6 Word Count: 11568 Status: Complete Summary: aka: The Wet Henley ChroniclesSix stories in which we probably give Logan Echolls pneumonia, inspired by the movie's infamous wet henley. Set variously across the series and post-MKAT. Notes: each chapter is written by a different author, they’re all good but bryrosea’s chapter and silvery’s chapter are my favorites. set during the summer between season 1 & 2 and post season three respectively they do such a great job dealing with the fractious and tumultuous nature of Logan/Veronica’s relationship at the time and i love it so much

A Little Dysfunctionality Goes A Long Way Author: fluffernutter8 Pairing: Logan/Veronica Rating: Teen Genre: ANGST with a side of fucking ANGST, happy ending but jesus Setting: Post Season 3 AU Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 2878 Status: Complete Summary: Despite their history, Logan and Veronica might be somewhere on the brink of normal. A few years post season 3. Notes: i just read this for the first time 07/13/20 at 9:08pm because when i asked shelby for her favorite logan fics she included this one. i am fucking dead now and-- there’s nothing else to say about it. i’m just fucking dead. for YEARS i have said that nobody with the username fluffernutter8 should be able to write shit this goddamn emotional and yet, time and time again, i find myself here fuckign wrecked and furious about it

these are just ghosts that broke my heart before i met you Author: theviolonist Pairing: Logan, Veronica, Carrie, Dick Rating: Teen Genre: Introspection, Angst, I Love Logan Setting: Pre Movie & Movie Spoilers: Movie Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1326 Status: Complete Summary: In the army they say, don't think of the target as a person, otherwise you won't have the guts to pull the trigger. Notes: fuck, you guys. this one is so beautiful. an exploration into logan’s grief and him trying to move on and it cuts like a damn knife because he can never really do it but fuck he wants to so bad and [lucas scott voice] that’s gotta mean something, right? truly so so wonderful

Fugue Author: vaeran Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Logan/Lilly, Dick Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, hopeful ending Setting: Post Season 1 Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 4137 Status: Complete Summary: It's something he refuses to let go because it defines who he is and what he has become. Notes: deviates from the PCHer confrontation on the bridge, which means logan takes a little longer to come around to reconciliation with veronica. it’s perfect and i particularly love the logan/lilly in this, he’s hurt but still so impossibly and eternally in love with her

One Flew Over the Echolls Nest Author: Wynn Pairing: Logan/Veronica, Duncan Rating: Teen Genre: Angst, Friendship Setting: Post Season 1 AU Spoilers: 1.22, “Leave it to Beaver” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1507 Status: Complete Summary: Open wide and see what's inside. A bridge and a bed and Veronica. Logan finds himself in a mental institution after the events of "Leave it to Beaver." Veronica, Duncan, and Logan's psychiatrist attempt to help. Notes: so sad and so good!!! the part where Logan’s psychiatrist asks him when the last time he was happy was fucking wrecks me everytime!!

Free at last Author: querulousgawks Pairing: Logan, Weevil, Aaron Rating: Teen Genre: Frenemies, They Are Boyfriends Setting: Season 2 Spoilers: 2.09, “My Mother, the Fiend” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1242 Status: Complete Summary: Logan and Weevil and fire go a long way back. A flashback scene interrupts their Season 2 meeting in the Neptune Grand. Notes: I LOVE EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THIS SO GOD DAMN MUCH

The Right Shade of Red Author: ghostcat Pairing: Trina, Logan, Aaron Rating: Teen Genre: ANGST Setting: Pre-series Spoilers: 1.15, “Ruskie Business” Chapters: 1 Word Count: 883 Status: Complete Summary: Trina finds her jerky little brother hiding in her closet and does the unexpected thing. (Or, A time Logan trusted Trina) Notes: If you want 883 words to be able to make you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck this is the fic for you! I love the Echolls family dynamics so much, and this one is excellent.

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flyingupward · 3 years ago

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critical role - vox machina chapter 6 - fall of the chroma conclave

all sentences taken from episodes 70-84 of the first campaign of critical role. feel free to change pronouns, phrasing etc. to fit your needs!

“Call me child one more goddam time!”

“You unleashed the mad dog you bitch! This is your fucking fault!”

“You’re gonna die. Even if I have to die doing it.”

“This is really awkward and I’m going to walk the fuck out of here.”

“It’s not my fault no one notices I’m around!”

“And if all goes well, which it never does… “

“I’m not gonna tell anyone that you made this plan until it’s done because this is stupid as shit.”

“I love you. I’m going to clock you in the head if you try and wipe my memory.”

“We probably will all be dead tomorrow, but it’s a really cool idea.”

“I’m the dummy. Why are you such a dummy?”

“What the fuck do we have in this world except for moments with each other?”

“I would like to think we’re all better than we think we are.”

“My mouth hurts so much right now.”

“Go! Stop being uncomfortable in front of me!”

“I feel like you might be a bad or good influence on me. I’m not sure, but I like it.”

“Life is failing the Bechdel test so hard right now.”

“One of our employees punched me in the face.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve had one of our depressing chats.”

“Most of our friends are dead. Let’s be fair.”

“This is going great! We haven’t even done anything wrong yet!”

“Yeah, it’s a montage waiting to happen!”

“We’re so stupid. This is going to be fun.”

“Be careful. Don’t start any wars.”

“There are no good ideas anymore.”

“You’re an idiot and I’m very proud of you. Don’t do that again.”

“This is such a phenomenally interesting disaster.”

“You keep saying that number like I know what it means.”

“Just assume that I’m going to assume everything is terrible every time I see you for the next two months.”

“I think we should decide this the way we always do: Talk about it for a long, long time.”

“I have had destiny pushed upon me since birth. What do you believe?”

“We’re going to hell! Where do you think we’re going?”

“If anyone asks about the plan, the plan is chaos.”

“You know us. We don’t have a plan, really.”

“Isn’t that the secret to adulthood is that we’re all winging it?”

“I’m regretting so many things right now! Not you!”

"I shouldn’t avoid my family, it leads to dragons."

“So you prayed at him? Good job.”

“I’m going to get my insults in while I’m still breathing.”

“Come on in, it’ll be fun. Let’s all die together.”

“Oh look, someone left a metaphor on the ground.”

“Welcome back. We’re still fucked, by the way.”

“We’re not all dead. We just can’t die anymore.”

“We failed, hard. That doesn’t mean it was wrong to try.”

“Well, congratulations. You’re a person like the rest of us.”

“You know, you’re getting weirder.”

“I like this family. I’d like to keep it.”

“When the most basic forms of life eschew existing on a substance, that’s when you have to drink it.”

“You are my family. I’ll try not to let you down.”

“Look at you. Don’t you look like royalty.”

“For the record, this is a terrible idea and we have no plan. I’m just putting it out there.”

“I’m with you. This is a terrible plan and we’re going to die.”

“You smell like a sad man. Okay, let’s go.”

“It reminds me of my early days as an adventurer and I’d forgotten just how ridiculous we were.”

“The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.”

“Well done not passing out this time! Good for you!”

“You act as though the laws of the anthill affect the foot that crushes it.”

“Congratulations. We can play laser tag now.”

“We don’t do anything with dignity.”

“Aw, it’s so cute to think either of us are going to heaven.”

“Don’t look down. You’re a bloody mess.”

"You taught me to laugh. And I don't wanna see what life is like without that."

“To the unyielding unfairness of the universe.”

“You are my heart, you are me, you are my other half. You are welcome with me always.”

“I just punched a badass.”

“This is me forcing a smile. There’s pain under here. That’s why it looks like that.”

“We saved the world, but we are still a bunch of assholes.”

“I could watch your moral panic all day. It’s so delightful.”

“We know you’re an angel, but we know that you also have a little bit of piss and vinegar in you.”

#MEME | incoming #for those of you who are new yes you are more than encouraged to send me these #this one ended up shorter than the others #idk if its just cause there were so many battles or everything was just so fast or what but

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iffeelscouldkill · 4 years ago

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say what we wanna do, make it all come true (chapter 1)

A/N: It is! My fic for the Fiction Podcast Big Bang @podcastbigbang! I am a bit terrified to be posting this after working on it for so long! Also this is in the running for the Longest TSCOSI Fic I’ve Written So Far (not sure if it’s the longest because I don’t remember where my wordcount is up to for Adjusting, but like... it’s long, guys). This is Chapter 1 of 3, and the remaining chapters will be posted weekly!

You can read this on AO3 where the formatting is honestly much better, but here it is on Tumblr anyway. Also, please check out the FANTASTIC artwork made for this fic by the wonderful @bluereadingdolphin and @demonic-kitkats, who are my artists for this fic and their artwork is so good, you guys, I’m in love and they did such a phenomenal job with the honestly pretty vague info they got from me 😂

bluereadingdolphin’s piece

demonic-kitkat’s piece (from Chapter 2!)

Please give them all the love!

Content warnings: There is a relatively brief physical altercation described in this chapter, but it isn’t graphic or bloody.

Also, I play a little fast and loose with POV in this; the first section is told from Sana’s perspective, the rest from Arkady’s.

---

“Hello and welcome back to Radio Indie, Folk and Techno, also known as RIFT, where we play all the bands that matter outside of the mainstream! I’m Piper Tanaka, and I’m your co-host for this programme! I’m joined as usual by the lovely Kestrel Colvin, with Reina Sakamachi in the booth! Now – where were we?”

“You were introducing our guests for this next section,” Kestrel replied in a slightly despairing tone.

“Right! Indie fans, I am joined today by two members of the fabulous up-and-coming indie band Rumor! With me in the studio are frontwoman and lead guitarist Sana Tripathi—”

“Hey! It’s a pleasure to be here.”

“—and bad girl bassist Arkady Patel.”

“Bad girl?” Arkady repeated, sounding halfway between taken aback and annoyed. Kestrel just shook her head.

“Ignore her. She’s got a thing for a certain… aesthetic.”

Next to Arkady, Sana was doing an incredibly poor job of hiding her laughter. “It’s the combat boots,” she whispered to Arkady.

“These are practical,” Arkady told her in a tone that suggested they’d had this conversation a few times. Sana said nothing, but straightened back up with a smirk.

“Sana — or should I call you ‘Captain’?” Piper began playfully. Sana grimaced.

“In hindsight, it was a poor choice to share that nickname in an interview.”

“You know, I think it suits you,” said Piper. “There’s something commanding about your aura. Sana, you and the band — which I understand you and Arkady originally started as a duo a few years ago—”

“That’s right,” Sana confirmed.

“You’ve always had a dedicated and loyal following, even from your early days — and we’re proud to have been playing your music here on this station for almost as long — but I think it’s fair to say the past few months have seen that rocket to a whole new level,” Piper said. “You got signed to a record label belonging to the mysterious but notoriously discerning Red Gregor, are working on your second album, and played a major gig at the CUI stadium just a few weeks ago. And we are definitely going to talk later about what went down at that gig, which is already the stuff of online legend — but first I want to backtrack a little, because I think the moment that everything started happening for you was when you added a new member to your band. In the middle of a gig, if the rumours are true. Can you tell us how that happened?”

Sana and Arkady exchanged a sidelong glance, and Arkady gave Sana a tiny nod. Sana took a deep breath, and began to tell the story.

---

“Jeeter, for the last time, put the keytar away,” Arkady said irritably as she and Sana entered the draughty, abandoned warehouse that the band was using as their current rehearsal space. The acoustics were pretty weird, probably due to all the broken windows, but it was otherwise hard to beat a free place to rehearse — especially a free place with no asshole neighbours who would yell at them to turn it down and threaten to call the cops.

Admittedly, it was in kind of a rough area, but Arkady had only needed to knock someone unconscious with her bass once.

In retaliation, Brian played another bright riff on his beloved instrument, accompanied by some jazzy keyboard chords from Krejjh. The two had been jamming together before Arkady and Sana arrived. “Dude, c’mon, can’t you hear how good this sounds?” Brian wheedled. “How many other indie bands do you know that have a keytar?”

“None. For good reason,” Arkady said, unzipping her case and slinging her bass around her neck. Sana, unpacking the sound equipment, smiled in fond amusement at their well-worn argument.

“It would give us such a great edge! Totally unique. And Krejjh and I have so many ideas that would sound great with both instruments—”

“Okay, Jeeter,” Arkady interrupted him, twiddling one of her tuning pegs. “You can play the keytar. Just as soon as you find us someone else who can play the drums.” She stooped to plug her bass into the portable amplifier that Sana had just unpacked. “Or are you planning to grow an extra pair of hands so you can play both at once?”

“Oooh! No, I should have an extra pair of hands!” Krejjh immediately (and predictably) enthused. “Then I’d sound four times as awesome! Four hands, all rockin’ out!”

“I think you mean ‘twice as awesome’,” Sana told them, as Brian reluctantly put away his keytar and picked up his neglected drumsticks.

“With me, twice the hands equals four times the awesome,” Krejjh replied with irrefutable logic. Brian laughed and held up a hand.

“Dude, high five.”

Sana waited for the two of them to finish their congratulatory high-five before she called the band to order. “Okay, guys — remember that we’re only a few days out from our gig at the IGR Corp function, so we need to have our crowd-pleasers up to standard.”

Arkady immediately wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, corporates. Why are we taking money from them again?”

“Because we need to pay for rent and food,” Sana said, bluntly. “And they’re giving us a lot for it. I know none of us love playing corporate gigs—”

“Understatement.”

“—but we are living a hand to mouth existence at this point, and if I can guarantee our survival as a band by relieving some corporates of their excess funds, then I’m going to do just that,” Sana continued. She waited a beat, and then added, “Also, we’re gonna let them get really drunk and then start playing our best anti-capitalist anthems, and see how long it takes for them to notice.”

Arkady broke into a shit-eating grin. “That’s more like it.” Krejjh cheered, and Brian did a little run-down on his drumkit, hitting each of the drums in turn.

“All right, let’s start with ‘Fear for the Storm’? One, two, three, four…” Sana started strumming the intro on her guitar, joined after a few beats by Krejjh’s melody on the keyboard.

“So long, can’t dodge the dawn, red light shines on and on and on and on and on…”

---

Arkady had been on edge ever since the band set foot in the agonisingly hipster office complex — excuse me, ‘headquarters’ — belonging to IGR Corp.

It wasn’t just the fact that these guys were extremely corporate corporates, or that the whole place radiated an almost aggressively minimalist aesthetic, or that the walls were covered in bullshit, chipper slogans that were all fancy ways of saying, ‘Work should be your existence – if isn’t, you’re dead to us’ — although those things sure as hell didn’t help, reminding her of the absolute worst parts of every soul-sucking corporate job she’d worked before Sana mercifully re-entered her life and suggested they form a band.

No, there was just this weird vibe, like everyone was super on edge and trying to hide it — the higher-ups were stone-faced, muttering into earpieces or barking orders at underlings, who scurried, terrified, to carry out their wishes. And everyone else, from the tech types in plain white T-shirts and jeans to the smartly-dressed sales reps in suits, looked like they were there on pain of death. Wasn’t this supposed to be a party?

The atmosphere didn’t go unnoticed by the other band members. “Kind of a weird feel to this place,” Jeeter remarked as he unpacked his drumkit on the raised platform at the front of the ‘rec center’ where they would be performing. Normally, setting up was a noisy, clumsy affair, with the band elbowing each other, tripping over wires, and getting in each other’s way in the tiny space they were afforded in bars and nightclubs. Here, the platform that would be their makeshift stage was huge and extremely visible — but everyone was completely ignoring them. There was also very little background noise for a room packed with people, and the band found themselves speaking in hushed murmurs, almost tiptoeing around. “You’d think there would be a bit more… chatter?”

“Maybe the alcohol just isn’t flowing yet,” Sana speculated, but she sounded uneasy as she looked out over the tense crowd. Even Krejjh, with their signature hot pink, heart-shaped sunglasses perched on top of their dyed-lavender hair, dressed in a clashing, flamboyant jumble of clothes and accessories, seemed subdued.

Arkady plugged in her bass with a burst of static, and deliberately played a loud riff. Brian startled and dropped his drumstick, but not a single member of the sea of blandly-dressed IGR Corp employees flinched.

Weird.

The sound equipment was all set up, sound check performed and instruments tuned by half past, but the set wasn’t due to start until o’clock. Normally, Arkady would be making a beeline for the bar, but she didn’t really feel like rubbing shoulders with any of these weird drones. She found herself reflexively checking the exits, mentally charting their fastest route out of there in case something really fucked up started going down. Sana half-jokingly called it paranoia; Arkady called it long, hard experience.

It was on one of her scans of the room that she noticed the woman with the septum piercing. Arkady chalked it up to professional interest — as a kid, she’d picked up some extra money working as an assistant in a tattoo and piercing shop, The Landing. She’d first met Sana there when the other woman came in on several occasions to have work done on an amazingly intricate floral sleeve tattoo — her own design. Later, Sana had led a campaign to save The Landing from being shut down over a bunch of bullshit health code violations so that the billionaire Cresswin family — who owned the property — could sell it off to a shitty corporation.

The campaign hadn’t worked, and there was now a high rise office block where Arkady’s home from home had once stood. But Arkady had never forgotten Sana.

Anyway, it was definitely the woman’s piercing and not anything else about her appearance that caught Arkady’s attention first. But then she noticed that there was something off about her body language and the way she was moving — something that Arkady recognised. She wasn’t scurrying about in a panic or affecting bored disinterest; her eyes were flickering around the room, carefully monitoring the comings and goings of the other employees while seeming not to do so. There were little devices studded around the room that Arkady had clocked as security cameras the moment they entered (it was the kind of thing she made a habit of noticing), and she saw the woman glancing up at them.

She was dressed like an employee – white blouse, dark rinse blue jeans – so why was she acting like she was casing the joint? Of course, Arkady reasoned, the outfit could easily have been chosen to blend in. It didn’t necessarily mean she worked there.

“Seen something interesting, ‘Kady?” Sana asked playfully. Arkady didn’t startle, but it was a near thing; she’d been so focused on watching this woman.

Unfortunately, Sana saw where she’d been looking. “You know, we’ve still got close to half an hour before we start our first set,” she said. “You can go and mingle.”

“I’m not here to socialise,” Arkady said witheringly. “Least of all with corporate drones.” She tore her eyes away from the woman to meet Sana’s amused look.

“I’m just saying, you seemed pretty absorbed there…” Sana said, and Arkady rolled her eyes, determined not to respond to her best friend’s teasing. She glanced back at the spot where the woman had been standing and found it empty.

A second later, Arkady had found her again, weaving through the crowd with her head ducked down. She was taking an odd route across the room that Arkady realised must have been calculated to avoid the security cameras. Occasionally she disappeared, behind people or objects (like a huge, obviously fake ficus plant), but it wasn’t hard for Arkady to spot her again. Clearly there was some kind of purpose to what she was doing, but the woman wasn’t a professional.

There was an elevator against the far wall, and as Arkady watched, the doors opened and a small group of people in suits – latecomers to the party – walked out of it. The woman mingled with them briefly, and then disappeared inside the elevator. The doors closed.

Well, that had been a way to kill five minutes, but now Arkady was stuck with nothing to do again. Krejjh and Jeeter had pulled out a pack of cards, and were playing one of their weird games on top of Krejjh’s keyboard. Arkady turned to Sana, about to make another comment about how much this place creeped her out, when she caught sight of the other person moving across the room.

Judging by the expensive suit, they were a higher-up, and were taking none of the precautions the woman had when making their way across the room, which suggested that they were confident about being allowed to do whatever it was they were doing. And to Arkady, it looked an awful lot like they were following the woman she’d seen. Based on the way the suit jacket fell, she’d also bet even money that they were armed.

Sure enough, the suit called the elevator, and disappeared into it a second later. Arkady swore under her breath.

It was none of her goddamn business whether a person she didn’t even know might be in danger, Arkady told herself. She was here to play music, not to get in the middle of whatever might be going down at this godawful corporation. Which again, was none of her business anyway.

Her resolve lasted all of ten seconds.

“I’m going to get a drink,” she told Sana, and placed her bass onto its stand.

“Oooh! Bring me a cocktail – no, a mocktail!” Krejjh said. Sana just looked at her quizzically.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Arkady nodded briefly. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and jumped down off the platform.

She wasn’t under any illusions that Sana wouldn’t notice where she was going, and just hoped that her best friend would trust her to be back in time for the set. She slipped through the crowd, following the same path that the woman had taken to avoid the watchful eyes of the security cameras.

This worked right up until she entered the elevator, where sure enough, a security camera was embedded into the top corner. How had this woman planned to avoid getting caught?

Arkady pulled out her smartphone, and began to quickly and expertly worm her way into the closed network that IGR Corp was using for its security systems. After just a few moments, she’d managed to identify the IP address that the lift camera was using, and wow, whoever had set up this system was either incredibly lazy or was trying to lay out a welcome mat for hackers. They hadn’t bothered to change the default access password.

Arkady wound back the last few minutes of recorded video, and watched as the woman with the septum piercing pressed the button for the top floor. Arkady did the same, and as the elevator moved upwards, she introduced a glitch that would cause the security camera to loop footage of an empty elevator instead of showing who was actually inside. Then she worked to edit out the archive footage of the woman riding up in the elevator, and of herself getting in.

If it turned out that there was nothing weird going on here after all, well, she’d had some fun exploiting the corporates’ shitty security system.

But Arkady was pretty sure there was something weird going on.

The elevator came to a silent stop, and Arkady silently thanked the deities she didn’t really believe in for the fact that this place was too hipster to have an elevator that made a noise when it arrived at the right floor. The doors slid open, and Arkady immediately spotted another security camera on exiting the elevator. God, these corporates were paranoid. But apparently not paranoid enough to pay their security person to do their job properly.

Annoyingly, the security cameras for this floor seemed to be on a separate network, and Arkady started another hack as she crept down the corridor, straining her ears for the sounds of a confrontation. Further down, she saw an office door swinging open, as if someone had gone through it in a hurry. Arkady approached it, being careful to stay out of sight of the doorway. Closer to, she could hear a voice coming from inside – the suit’s, if she had to guess.

“…sure CEO Golding-Frederick will be very interested to hear just what you’re doing in her office, Ms. Liu.”

“Seiders, I can explain,” the woman – Liu – replied, her voice high with tension. “Project ADVANCE – it’s not what we’ve been told. The company is using it to-”

“What the company may or may not be doing with Project ADVANCE is not your concern,” Seiders said smoothly, over her, “and is a long way above your pay grade. But I’d be very interested to learn where you got your information from.”

“Do you know what’s going on at this company?” Liu demanded, outraged. “And that’s – you have no problems with what they’re doing?”

The closed network for the top floor of the building was much less of a pushover than the elevator, and Arkady kept half of her attention on the conversation inside the room as she worked to find a flaw in the system. Finally, she made it in, and began trying different password combinations for the camera in the hallway.

“It’s not my job to ask questions, Ms. Liu,” Seiders had been saying. “Neither is it yours. And if you value your job – not to mention the safety and security of your loved ones – you’ll step away from that computer, and go back downstairs to the party.”

“Are you threatening me? Are you threatening my family?” Liu demanded. “No, I’m not going to stay silent about this. Someone has to take a stand against what this company is doing. And if anything happens to me, that’ll only raise more questions.”

“We’re very good at making those questions go away,” said Seiders, and Arkady heard Liu suck in a breath. She moved so that she could see inside the room and shit, that was a gun. Arkady rapidly began calculating her angle of attack. “Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to Connors from Engineering?”

“That’s not – you can’t just make a person disappear,” Liu said, desperately. “I – I have insurance! Documents that I’ve sent to a friend of mine. If I don’t check in with them in two hours, they’re going to send them to a journalist contact, and it’ll be all over the press in the morning.”

Arkady could hear the lie in her voice so clearly, and she knew Seiders could, too. “If you had enough evidence to be worth a damn, you wouldn’t have broken into this office,” they replied. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Step away from the-”

Arkady slammed into the room, deliberately making as much noise as she could to draw Seiders’ attention. She took two, three steps towards them and grabbed their gun hand, forcing it down and towards the floor. She managed to hook one arm around their throat, pulling back and applying pressure. Seiders choked, struggling and jerking against Arkady’s grip. With the hand that was holding their gun hand, Arkady twisted and pulled their fingers open, causing the weapon to drop to the floor.

“Liu, grab the gun!” Arkady ordered. She saw the other woman yank something out of the computer that looked like a flash drive, stowing it inside her blouse. She dove for the gun at the same time that Seiders managed to thrust an elbow back, driving it into Arkady’s midsection.

All the air left Arkady’s lungs and as she struggled to draw a breath in, Seiders took advantage of her loosened grip to twist free. They grappled with Liu for the gun, but Liu succeeded in kicking it away, where it spun underneath a nearby cabinet. Then Arkady was on Seiders again, jumping onto their back and choking them.

She heard the sound of running footsteps, and someone else burst into the room. Arkady didn’t get a chance to see who it was before Seiders slammed their head back, knocking into Arkady’s and making bright white lights explode across her vision. She dropped to the floor and staggered, trying to clear her head.

She heard an oof and a thud, and blinked rapidly, sure that she would open her eyes to see Seiders bearing down on Liu – or worse, standing over her unconscious body.

Instead, she was greeted with the sight of Seiders crumpling like a sack of potatoes as Sana flexed her fist, having delivered a powerful uppercut that knocked them out cold.

Silence reigned for a few seconds, broken only by Liu’s sharp, panicked breaths. Rubbing her head, Arkady said, “Hey, Sana.”

“The next time you decide to go off on a rescue mission,” Sana said, wryly, “you could at least tell me where you’re going.” She frowned as she took in Arkady’s dishevelled state. “Is your head all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Arkady. She was more concerned with Liu, who looked like she might be on the verge of a panic attack. “Hey, uh, it’s okay. We took care of them.”

“Who-” Liu managed, taking deep breaths in and out, clearly trying to steady her breathing. “Who are you?”

Sana smiled at her, warm and reassuring. “My name is Sana Tripathi, and this is Arkady Patel. We’re-”

There was a noise that sounded not unlike a herd of elephants storming down the corridor, and Arkady closed her eyes. She had a bad feeling she knew what was about to happen. Sure enough, in the next second Krejjh and Jeeter clattered through the door in all their clashing multicoloured glory: Jeeter in his signature loud paid shirt and those stupid khakis, and Krejjh with their… everything. Most of the clattering was coming from Krejjh’s many bangles.

“Cap’n Tripathi!” Krejjh said. “We’re here to assist you with – oh my god, are they dead?” They stared at the unconscious form of Seiders on the floor.

“They’re not dead, they’re just unconscious,” Arkady said, irritated. “Did you two really take off without anyone to watch the equipment?”

Sana turned back to Liu like nothing had happened. “We’re the band,” she finished succinctly. “I’m the guitarist and lead singer, Arkady here plays the bass, and Krejjh and Brian are our keyboardist and drummer.” She indicated each of them in turn. Jeeter waved, and Krejjh saluted for some reason. “And who are you?”

Liu blinked at her. “You… you just saved my life, and you don’t even know who I am?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“For one thing, because you’d probably be dead if we hadn’t,” Arkady said. “You’re welcome for that, by the way.” She pulled out the phone to finish the hack on the security cameras that she’d started before she entered the room.

“I – no, I know that. I’m not ungrateful,” Liu said, sounding a little stung. “I’m just a little… in shock. My name is Violet Liu,” she added to Sana. “I, uh, work in IGR Corp’s neuroresearch division.”

“Good to meet you, Violet Liu,” Sana said, sounding like they were old friends catching up at the bar instead of total strangers talking to each other over an unconscious body. “’Kady, are you erasing the security footage?”

Arkady nodded.

“Good; Brian and I will carry our friend here,” Sana indicated Seiders with her foot, “into the hallway. I think I noticed a closet there we can hide them in.”

“Uh… are you guys really the band?” Liu asked, as Sana and Jeeter – who was much stronger than he looked – bent down to pick up Seiders. “You seem very…” She struggled to find the right words. “…good at this.”

“We have some unorthodox skillsets,” Sana said, beaming and dimpling at her. “We don’t normally make a habit of rescuing people in the middle of a gig, but Arkady has a soft spot for damsels in distress.”

Arkady fumbled her phone, and nearly dropped it. “Sana,” she hissed, mortified. Sana, who was already partway out of the door, winked and disappeared into the hallway.

After a moment, Arkady realised that she and Liu were the only ones in the room, Krejjh evidently having decided to go along and supervise, or something. She refocused her attention on the hack she was carrying out; she’d managed to hack the hallway security camera, and was erasing the footage from that, but she still needed to do the one in the office.

“Uh…” Liu awkwardly broke the silence. “Is there anything that you need me to…”

“Is anyone likely to be monitoring the security cameras in real-time?” Arkady asked her. The question came out sounding a little harsher than she’d intended, but it was hard to be diplomatic when she was focused on trying to break into a security system. Also, it was a little annoying that Liu apparently hadn’t thought about security cameras beyond the ones on the ground floor.

“N-no, the system is all automated,” Liu replied. Well, that was something, at least. “I, uh, I do have a virus that I was planning to use on the security system that would corrupt the footage. I just needed to find an access point.”

Fine, so there had been a plan of sorts. “This is quicker,” Arkady told her. “And the way I’m doing it, it won’t be so obvious that someone has tampered with the footage.”

“Thank you for that,” Liu said, quietly. “And thank you for – I mean, you don’t even know me, but you came up here to help me. Why?”

Arkady shrugged, keeping her shoulders hunched and avoiding Liu’s gaze. “You looked like you were in trouble,” she said shortly. And that was the office camera done. Arkady resisted the urge to change the password to something rude, and withdrew from the network. “And I don’t like corporations. What were you trying to do, blow the whistle on them or something?”

“Um, I-”

Before she could explain, Sana poked her head back into the room. “Arkady, are you done? Because I don’t think we should be hanging around up here.”

“I’m done,” Arkady said with a nod, pocketing her phone. The two of them joined Sana, Krejjh and Jeeter in the hallway.

“We need a plan to get Violet back downstairs and out of the building without her being seen,” Sana said quickly. “’Kady, do you think you two can make it out in fifteen minutes?”

Arkady huffed. “I can hack the security cams, but I can’t actually make us invisible,” she pointed out. “People are gonna notice us. If we waited until you guys started the set, then we might have a better chance, while everyone’s attention is on the band.”

“Listen – it’s not that I don’t really appreciate the help,” Liu cut in. Her face was set, like she was preparing to go to the gallows. “But none of this needs to be your problem. It’s my mess, and I can get myself out of it. You guys should go and start your set.”

“Oh, pshaw!” said Krejjh. “We’re not just gonna leave you to the bears!”

Jeeter smiled. “To the wolves,” he corrected Krejjh.

“Are y’sure? Because bears can be pretty terrifying.”

“We’re not about to abandon you now,” Sana said to Liu, gently. “Between the five of us, I’m sure we can figure out a pretty good plan.”

“Can’t we just pretend to be loading something into the truck?” Jeeter suggested. “And Violet can help us? We could give her a band jacket – make her look like she’s with us-”

“It’s too bad you don’t play!” Krejjh said to Violet. “We could add you into the set. The ultimate entourage!”

“Uh…” Violet said (at the same time as Arkady said, “Camouflage.”) “I mean, I do play something? But you guys already have a drummer.”

“Wait, you’re a drummer?” Jeeter said delightedly, as Krejjh straightened up so fast that Arkady thought they’d pull a muscle. Even Sana looked interested. “Are you good?”

“Have you ever played with a band before?” added Sana.

Liu smiled and shrugged awkwardly. “Well, drums aren’t really a solo instrument, so yeah. I used to jam with some friends in high school, and played some underground rock concerts in college. I was never really with a band – we just sort of used to form collectives based on who was around and wanted to play. It was fun, though.”

She’d avoided answering the question about how good she was, Arkady noticed, which probably meant she was good and was being modest about it. Goddamn it.

“So if, hypothetically speaking,” Sana said, “you joined a set without having rehearsed any of the music beforehand, would you be able to figure out a drum part?”

“Okay, hold on,” said Arkady, before Violet could respond. “Don’t you think IGR Corp is going to notice that one of their employees has just… joined the band?”

“We’ll swear up and down that it isn’t her,” Jeeter said. “And even if someone figures it out, what are they gonna do about it in front of everyone?”

“But wait, what about you?” Liu asked Jeeter. “Wouldn’t I be putting you out of a role in the band?”

“Nah,” Jeeter said happily. “I brought my keytar!”

“Oh my god,” Arkady groaned. She could tell when she was fighting a losing battle, but it didn’t stop her from making one last, token protest. “This is going to sound really goddamn weird.”

Sana grinned at her. “Well, you wanted to annoy some corporates,” she pointed out. “What better way to do it?”

---

The problem was, the new line-up didn’t sound weird at all.

It sounded good.

Liu, hastily disguised with an old band jacket and a spare pare of Krejjh’s sunglasses, fitted in with their set like she’d been rehearsing with them for weeks – months even. They did a quick sound check, Jeeter looking far too delighted as he amped up his keytar. Sana gave her usual cheerful introduction into the microphone, introducing the band as Renegade, the name they adopted for corporate gigs (Arkady was even more glad of it now, since it would make them harder to track down later). After a lukewarm reception from the assembled employees (none of whom seemed to notice, or care, that the band had grown an extra member), they launched into their first number, a reimagined cover of ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor’.

It started off with Sana singing alone, before Krejjh joined in, their voices singing in close harmony, and then Arkady and finally Jeeter, the harmonies becoming increasingly layered as they went. The addition of the keytar made the song sound futuristic, almost the kind of thing you could imagine crews of space explorers singing together as they made their way into the unknown.

Liu picked up the beat easily, and as the song unfolded Arkady suddenly realised she could hear a fifth strand to the harmony, weaving in and out of the other voices, soft but distinctive: Liu was singing.

They moved on from the conventional crowd-pleasing openers to a more eclectic mix of songs, including some punk and anarchist numbers. Each time, Arkady was sure that the choice was going to throw Liu off, but she adapted smoothly to each one, altering her style to fit the vibe of the song. In one of the louder, heavier songs she even threw in an impromptu drum solo that had Krejjh whooping at the keyboard and Sana laughing as she riffed on her guitar.

Sana threw Arkady a look as the song ended, and there was a light in her eyes that Arkady knew far, far too well. It was the same light that Arkady had seen when Sana tracked her down at her latest deadbeat job and persuaded her to quit and start playing music with her; the same light that she’d had when they met Brian and Krejjh a year later and Sana had decided to turn their duo into a band.

Sana wanted Liu to join Rumor. And Arkady couldn’t even think of a good argument against it, apart from the fact that they barely knew anything about the woman other than that she could play the drums. And that she was a corporate, which Arkady thought was important not to lose sight of, even if Liu wasn’t on the greatest terms with her employer any more.

Speaking of which. Arkady was on high alert throughout the whole set, constantly scanning the crowd for signs of trouble, anyone who might be looking too closely at Liu or showed signs of moving towards the elevator. As they’d been setting up, Liu had told them that Seiders was middle management: someone who outranked her, but not someone who held a position of particular influence within the company or had the ear of the CEO. Someone who had ambitions above their station. It didn’t mean no-one would notice them missing, of course; but it meant that they might be someone who, for instance, would go after a rogue employee without notifying their superior, hoping to reap all of the credit.

The band moved into their final number, ‘Landers Never Stand Down’ – one of Sana and Arkady’s early compositions, whose lyrics Sana had written as a tribute to The Landing, and her and Arkady’s shared history. Normally, Arkady would object to wasting it on a corporate audience, but tonight, it felt like the right kind of ‘fuck you’.

“Landers never stand down,

Landers never bow,

Landers never stand down,

We don’t know how…”

They wound up the song in their usual fashion, repeating the chorus and getting fiercer and more defiant with each repetition, before ending in a final blaze of guitar chords.

“Thank you, everyone, you’ve been a wonder to perform for!” Sana said into the microphone as the chords faded away. She said the same thing at the end of every gig, but it had never felt more like a colossal understatement. “We’ve been Renegade, and we hope you have a great night!”

There was a small scattering of applause. Sana beamed out into the audience again, and then turned away from the microphone, sliding the power to ‘off’. “Well, that was-”

“Attention, all IGR Corp employees,” came a voice over the loudspeaker system. Sana froze, and Liu, who’d been leaning over to say something to Krejjh, paled visibly. “Please stay where you are. We will be carrying out a routine attendance check. Please do not exit the building.”

“Attendance check?” Arkady repeated.

“It’s a standard employee procedure,” Liu explained. “To make sure everyone’s… accounted for at corporate functions. Supposedly they’re optional, but it looks really bad if you’re not there and you don’t have a reason.”

“Do we think there’s a chance this is linked to…” Sana gestured towards the elevator. Liu shrugged helplessly.

“It could be, but even if it’s not, they’re gonna discover that Seiders is missing pretty quickly. And that I’m… unaccounted for.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jeeter, reassuringly. “We’ll figure out a way to get you out before that happens.”

“Dashing escapes are our speciality!” Krejjh contributed. This was true; the band hadn’t always played at the most above-the-board venues, and there’d been more than a few times they’d needed to get the hell out of Dodge before things got ugly. Well, uglier.

Sana nodded. “For now, just keep packing down, like nothing’s wrong,” she said.

As Krejjh packed down their keyboard and Jeeter helped Liu to disassemble the drumkit, Arkady said to Sana, “I’ll go with Liu, and we can sneak out a back entrance-”

Sana shook her head. “It’ll be more suspicious if we’re not seen leaving as a group.”

“We’ll just say we’re going to the bathroom,” Arkady said. “We’re allowed to do that, aren’t we?”

Sana started to reply, but then stopped, squinting at something on the other side of the room. Arkady tried to follow her gaze, but couldn’t see what she was looking at. “What is it?”

“I thought I saw…” Sana shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s try the front way first, and if they won’t let us leave, we’ll get creative.”

Unsurprisingly, when they carried the first load of equipment over to the rec room entrance, two stoic-looking IGR employees blocked their path, bouncer-style. Arkady eyed one of them, pretty sure she could take her in a one-to-one fight.

“Sorry, we can’t let you leave while an attendance check is ongoing,” said the employee, with a bland detachment. “Company policy.”

“It should only take about an hour,” the other added. “You can enjoy the free refreshments while you wait.”

An hour? Even if they hadn’t had a very pressing reason to get the hell out of there, Arkady would have been looking for the nearest fire escape to break out of. They were just supposed to cool their heels at IGR headquarters for an hour?

“Can we not at least load our equipment into the van in the meantime?” Sana asked reasonably. “This is a very heavy amplifier…” She made a show of struggling with the amp she’d been lifting with ease a few seconds ago, and Arkady suppressed a snort.

One of the corporates had opened their mouth, looking like they were about to object, when a friendly voice spoke from behind them. “Is there a problem here?”

They all turned to look at the person who’d spoken, and Arkady carefully masked her surprise: the tall, dark-skinned man dressed in an expensive-looking suit jacket, T-shirt and jeans combination was none other than Red Gregor, a close friend of Campbell’s. They’d met him once or twice, but what was he doing here?

“Who are you?” asked Corporate One, audibly unimpressed.

“Theodore Gregor; I’m the band’s executive producer,” Gregor introduced himself smoothly, handing Corporate Two a business card. Their eyes widened at whatever was written on it. “My clients have another engagement to get to tonight, so you can understand why it’s very important they be allowed to leave promptly. Additionally, their contract stipulates that they’re only obliged to perform for your company until-” he made a show of checking a gold watch, “-nine-thirty P.M., after which time we’ll need to bill you for every additional half-hour. Will your supervisors be signing off on the additional expenses?”

Corporates One and Two were visibly thrown by the torrent of information. Krejjh made a noise that was hastily stifled, while Arkady did her best to look bored and important.

“I… no, let me just contact my superior to get you the all-clear,” said Corporate One, reluctantly. “Johnson will help you to load your equipment into your…” She eyed the band’s battered van, visibly out of place in the parking lot full of sleek cars. “…vehicle.”

“Great!” Sana said brightly, handing the amplifier to Corporate Two, who took it and staggered slightly. As Corporate One spoke into a walkie-talkie, Sana and Red Gregor strode quickly ahead, the rest of the band trailing behind. Arkady lengthened her steps to catch up with them so that she could hear their quiet exchange.

“…doing here? Did Campbell send you?” Sana was asking Red Gregor.

“In a manner of speaking,” Red Gregor said. “He talks about you so much, I wanted to come and hear what all the fuss was about. Love the new line-up – you guys sound completely different to when I last heard you play.”

“It’s kind of a new thing,” Sana admitted. “New as of… today. I can fill you in, it’s just a long story.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Red Gregor said, and Arkady remembered that she’d liked him, the couple of times that they’d met. She could see why he and Campbell were good friends. “But let’s focus on getting you out of here. I’m guessing you need an exit?”

“And fast,” Sana agreed.

“Well, fast’s your speciality,” Red Gregor said with a grin. Sana smiled back at him, and Arkady wondered if Red was basing this off stories from Campbell, or if he and Sana knew each other better than Arkady had realised. It was a strange thought to have in the middle of everything.

Sana unlocked the van and slid open the back door. While Krejjh, Jeeter and Liu loaded their items into the trunk, overseen by Corporate Two, Red Gregor pretended to help Arkady and Sana with their instruments.

“So what now?” Arkady asked Sana. “I think I can probably take Johnson.”

“Arkady, you’ve already been in one fight today,” Sana said, disapproving.

“What’s your point?”

“I have a more bloodless suggestion,” Red Gregor said. “You’ve got a few pieces of equipment left in the venue, right? I’ll go back inside with Johnson to ‘collect’ them, say we’re going to check their supervisor has given you the go-ahead, and you guys make a break for it. I’ll bring the equipment in my car and meet you at the dive bar, half a mile down the road.”

“Are you sure you’ll be able to get away? What happens when they realise we’re gone?” Sana asked.

“I’ll come up with something,” Red Gregor assured her. “Just focus on getting yourselves out of here.”

He walked over to Johnson, who was slightly bemusedly watching Jeeter and Liu (who were clearly stalling for time) rearrange pieces of the drumkit in the trunk, and took him by the arm, steering him back towards the building and talking rapidly all the while.

“As soon as they’re out of sight, everyone needs to get in the van quickly,” Sana instructed. “And hang onto something. Okay? Now!”

Krejjh slammed the trunk of the van shut and everyone piled into the back without a word of protest. Arkady jumped into the front as Sana slid into the driver’s seat, reversing out of the parking space like a shot and executing an alarming hairpin turn to get them onto the road. Liu cried out in alarm, not used to Sana’s driving, and Arkady hung grimly onto the handle on the inside of her door.

“Everyone okay back there?” Sana asked, peering into the rearview mirror.

Arkady looked back to see Jeeter and Krejjh scrambling to put on their seatbelts, each of them having thrown an arm over Liu to keep her in place. “Oops, sorry, I forgot we don’t have a seatbelt for the middle!” Sana said cheerfully as they thudded over a speedbump. Liu closed her eyes. “There’s normally only four of us.”

“It’s not far to where we’re going, right, Captain?” asked Jeeter.

“Just a half mile down the road,” said Sana. “Red Gregor’s going to meet us there with the rest of the equipment, as soon as he can get away.”

“What was he doing at the gig? Did Campbell tell him where we were?”

“I think so. He said that he wanted to come and hear us play,” Arkady said, watching buildings blur past on either side of them. “I guess it was lucky he did.”

“We would’ve figured something out,” Krejjh said confidently.

“Uh, who’s Campbell?” Liu asked, cautiously opening her eyes again.

“He’s our… manager? Kinda?” Krejjh replied. “He doesn’t tell us what to do or anything, but he has a lot of contacts, so he gets us most of our gigs.”

“Contacts in the music industry? Or contacts in like… events venues, bars and clubs?”

“Yes,” Krejjh said helpfully.

“He just has a lot of contacts,” Jeeter said with a smile. Arkady smirked at Liu’s look of consternation.

“Tonight’s gig did not come through Campbell,” said Sana, spotting the dive bar Red Gregor had specified and indicating to turn off the road. “We got it through an agency, Fowleys. I guess that’ll teach us not to go outside Campbell’s network.”

“Hey, it worked out!” Krejjh said. “We got a new drummer out of the deal.”

“Well, for tonight, at least,” Sana said, now reversing into a parking space. “I gotta say, Violet, the way you fitted in with our sound? That was amazing. Our set sounded better than I could’ve imagined.”

Liu blushed. “They were great songs,” she demurred, as the van came to a stop.

“Too bad it was wasted on IGR Corp,” Arkady remarked, undoing her seat belt as they all climbed out of the van.

They got a table in the corner of the dive bar, which was pretty full and made it easy to blend in. As Sana went to get them all drinks, Krejjh and Jeeter started up some kind of nonsensical word game. Arkady and Liu glanced at each other occasionally, but otherwise sat in awkward silence.

Finally, Arkady asked something that had been on her mind since she intervened in the confrontation between Liu and Seiders, though it had taken a back seat to more pressing concerns. “What was it you were trying to get from that computer, anyway?”

“Sorry?” Liu asked, looking away from Krejjh and Jeeter, where she’d been listening in on the game with a slightly baffled expression.

“In the CEO’s office,” Arkady clarified. “I saw you take a flash drive out of the computer. What were you trying to get?”

“Oh,” Liu said, drawing out the little drive from inside her blouse. “Yeah, I was… trying to copy some files onto it. I’m not sure how much I got, though – I had to pull it out before the transfer was complete, and I think they’re encrypted.”

“What kind of files are they?” Arkady asked, thinking that she could probably break the encryption in an afternoon. Maybe less.

Liu hesitated, and Arkady narrowed her eyes. “You’re not still trying to protect your company, are you? In case you don’t remember-”

“No, no,” Liu said quickly. “I just – I’m not sure if it would be safe to tell you. Safe for you,” she added. “Right now, you have plausible deniability if anyone questions you. You genuinely don’t know what’s on this flash drive. So maybe it would be better to keep it that way.”

Arkady was a little bit pacified by that, but still – “Considering I’ve already aided and abetted you, I think that ship has sailed,” she pointed out. “No-one is going to believe I did it without having any idea what you were up to. Which I’m fine with,” she added, as a guilt-stricken look crossed Liu’s face. “I made a choice to help you, and so did the others. But I may as well know what the stakes are.”

“Yeah, that’s… fair,” admitted Liu. Next to her, Krejjh was doing a fairly poor job of pretending not to listen in. “They’re blueprints. My company – the company – has been developing… do you know what IGR Corp does? What kind of a company it is?”

“Some kind of a tech company?” Arkady said. She vaguely remembered Sana saying something about that when they got the gig. She hadn’t really been paying attention to the details.

Liu nodded. “Smart technology – specifically, smart home technology. We produce – I mean, they produce things like smart security systems, smart doorbells, systems that can detect when someone has a medical emergency. Systems that are designed to help keep people safe.”

Arkady had to work to keep from grimacing. She wasn’t sure that being monitored by a computer 24/7 fitted everyone’s definition of ‘safety’, but maybe Liu had never had cause to doubt that the people with power had her best interests at heart. Lucky her.

“But then,” Liu went on, her voice bitter, “I found out that the latest product we were developing – the one that was supposed to make everyone’s lives so much easier, so much better – is being created as a surveillance device. To eavesdrop on people and send their data back to the company. And I know that a lot of smart devices have audio capabilities, but – this was hardwired in. Impossible to disable. And this weird, secretive new division of the company has been set up to process the data.”

“What are they gonna do with it?” Arkady asked.

“Who knows,” Liu said. “They could be collecting it for the government, but – I think it’s more likely they’re just planning to sell it on to the highest bidder.”

Arkady’s eyes narrowed, and she wished that Sana had brought the drinks already so that she’d have something to down.

“You know,” Liu said, her voice suddenly much softer. “I, uh. I still haven’t thanked you properly for, uh, well-”

“O-kay!” came Sana’s voice, loudly, as she finally arrived at their table carrying a small tray laden with glasses. “Sorry for the delay, guys, there was a heck of a crowd up at the bar. Also, the bartender was really interested in talking to me while he pulled these drinks.” She made a wry expression, her dimple deepening in one cheek. “Cheer up, ‘Kady, I’ve got your favourite-” She slid a pint glass of raspberry ale in front of Arkady.

“Thanks,” Arkady mumbled, not looking at Liu.

Red Gregor arrived not long after, having apparently evaded IGR Corp by pretending that he was going outside to look for the band, and then driving off with the equipment before anyone realised what was happening. Sana passed him a drink from the tray; no-one asked how she already knew his preferred drink order.

“So look,” said Arkady, after they’d done some small talk and toasted to a successful getaway (Sana’s idea, of course). “Not that we didn’t appreciate the save earlier – you had pretty good timing – but why’d you go to all the trouble of coming to an IGR Corp function just to hear us play? How did you even get in?”

“I know a lot of people,” Red Gregor said mysteriously, with a fluid shrug. “As for why I came – you probably don’t know this, but I’ve been getting into the music biz lately.”

Arkady tried to remember what ‘biz’ Red Gregor had been in before, and couldn’t. He was one of those people who seemed to do a bit of everything.

“That’s awesome!” said Krejjh, looking delighted. “Are you going to start a band? Or manage one?”

Red Gregor smiled. “Actually, neither. I’m starting a record label,” he said. “And I want to sign you guys to it.”

Liu choked on her drink; Jeeter said, “Wow, really?” and even Sana looked taken aback. Clearly this hadn’t been the answer she was expecting.

“Us?” she said, as if Gregor could have meant anyone else. “As in…” She gestured around the table, including Liu.

Red Gregor nodded. “Look, your new sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard from a band before,” he said. “Campbell has always spoken highly of you guys, and I really liked your originals the last time I heard you perform. But with this new line-up? I think you could become really big. If that’s something that you want, of course.”

Sana sat back in her chair, looking thoughtful, while Krejjh looked practically ready to vibrate out of theirs with excitement. “That would be a pretty big step for us,” she said. “Not that we wouldn’t love – more exposure, better opportunities-”

“Gigs in legal venues?” put in Jeeter.

“More above-the-board performances,” agreed Sana. “But we’ve only played once with this new line-up. We don’t know for sure if we can replicate that – and I mean, we’d be asking Violet to just drop everything and join us full-time-”

Red Gregor held up his hands. “Like I said, it’s completely up to you,” he said. “I’m not here to pressure you into something you’re not ready for. But don’t underestimate yourselves. I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t have faith in you guys.”

Sana looked around the table, taking in the mixture of expressions, ranging from Krejjh’s eagerness to Liu’s uncertainty to Arkady’s… Arkady didn’t know what her face was doing. “We’ll have to put it to a vote,” she said, predictably. “And if any of you need more time to think this over-”

“I’m in!” Krejjh said instantly. “We rocked tonight! I want to keep on rocking that hard. And we should totally record an album.”

Jeeter smiled fondly. “I’m on board with anything that will let me keep playing the keytar,” he admitted. “And I thought we sounded pretty awesome, as well.”

Sana looked at Liu. “Violet, you’re the one who this would be the biggest change for,” she said. “The rest of us are already playing in a band full-time. Well, with the odd side gig,” she added, because yeah, they did not yet make enough money from performing to cover the bills. “You barely know us, and you’re not under any obligation to stick around – or to switch careers.”

Liu gave a slightly broken laugh. “Well, I don’t really think I can go back to my old one,” she said. “That option evaporated as soon as one of my colleagues pulled a gun on me. Not… sure I’ve really had time to process that yet.”

Sana nodded. “If it’s too soon-”

“But no amount of processing is going to make my situation any different,” Liu went on. “I could try to get another job in my field, but… IGR Corp is a pretty well-known company. Word’s going to get around that I’m untrustworthy, especially if they put it about that I tried to steal corporate secrets.”

“They can’t do that,” Sana said immediately. “I used to do some union work; whistleblowing is a protected activity, and it’s against the law for them to blacklist you – to make it more difficult for you to obtain future employment.”

Liu smiled slightly. “I don’t think IGR Corp are too concerned with breaking the law,” she pointed out. “I appreciate it, but… this isn’t my first experience with a hostile work environment.”

Okay, so maybe Arkady should take back her earlier thought about Liu never having had cause to distrust the people in power.

“Besides, I haven’t even blown the whistle on them yet – I’m not sure if the information I have is worth anything,” Liu said, a little grimly. “And anyway… I think it’s time for a clean slate. So, if you’ll have me… I’m in.”

Which just left Arkady. She could see how pleased Sana was that Liu was willing to join the band full-time, even though she was trying to hide it. Krejjh and Jeeter, too, were excited – and not just at the prospect of getting better gigs and earning more money (though that was a very appealing prospect).

The fact was, Red Gregor was right – they’d sounded like a completely new band during their performance. Arkady had always liked their stuff (of course she did; she’d even co-written some of it) but the new sound gave it a flair she hadn’t even realised it had been missing. As much as she couldn’t help thinking of the dozens of ways this could go wrong, she wanted them to keep sounding like that. She wanted to see what else they could do.

“‘Kady?” asked Sana.

Arkady took a deep breath. “Sure. Let’s do this.”

#TSCOSI #Podcast Big Bang 2021 #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #Vikady #Arkady Patel #Violet Liu #Brian Jeeter #Krejjh #Red Gregor #who turned into a surprisingly key character for this fic which is fun #I'm kind of inventing his personality from wholecloth but I like him #the background Sana/Campbell/Red Gregor sort of came out of nowhere and I just went with it #love me some OT3 vibes!

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morwensteelsheen · 3 years ago

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I’m starting grad school this autumn and honestly I’m getting nervous. Like yes I am v excited about the whole prospect overall and I do miss being a student but am intimidated by 3 hr long seminars and thesis writing and massive amounts of reading… everyone keeps saying it’s gonna be very different from undergrad so okay, but how specifically? Is it the large amounts of reading? I already had insane amounts of reading (humanities degree hurrah) especially in my last two years but could you expound on your own experience and how you take notes/read quickly/summarize or just how to deal with first time grad students?

Oh, yeah for sure! A necessary disclaimer here is that I'm at a certain poncy English institution that is noted for being very bad at communicating with its students and very bad at treating its postgrad students like human beings, so a lot of these strategies I've picked up will be overkill for anyone who has the good sense to go somewhere not profoundly evil lol.

So I'll just preface this by saying that I am a very poor student in terms of doing what you're supposed to. I'm very bad at taking notes, I never learned how to do it properly, and I really, really struggle with reading dense literature. That said, I'm probably (hopefully?) going to get through this dumb degree just fine. Also — my programme is a research MPhil, not taught, so it's a teensy bit more airy-fairy in terms of structure. I had two classes in Michaelmas term, both were once a week for two hours each; two in Lent, one was two hours weekly, the other two hours biweekly; and no classes at all in Easter. I also have no exam component, I was/am assessed entirely on three essays (accounting for 30% of my overall mark) and my dissertation (the remaining 70%), which is, I think, a little different to how some other programmes are. I think even some of the other MPhils here are more strenuous than that, like Econ and Soc Hist is like 100% dissertation? Anyways, not super important, but knowing what you're getting marked on is important. I dedicated considerably less time than I did in undergrad to perfecting my coursework essays because they just don't hold as much weight now. The difference between a 68 and a 70 just wasn't worth the fuss for me, which helped keep me sane-ish.

The best advice anyone ever gave me was that, whereas an undergrad degree can kind of take over your life without it becoming a problem, you need to treat grad school like a job. That's not because it's more 'serious' or whatever, but because if you don't set a really strict schedule and keep to it, you'll burn yourself out and generally make your life miserable. Before I went back on my ADD meds at the end of Michaelmas term, I sat myself down at my desk and worked from 11sh to 1800ish every day. Now that I'm medicated, I do like 9:30-10ish to 1800-1900 (except for now that I'm crunching on my diss, where, because of my piss-poor time management skills I'm stuck doing, like, 9:30-22:30-23:00). If you do M-F 9-5, you'll be getting through an enormous amount of work and leaving yourself loads of time to still be a human being on the edges. That'll be the difference between becoming a postgrad zombie and a person who did postgrad. I am a postgrad zombie. You do not want to be like me.

The 'work' element of your days can really vary. It's not like I was actually consistently reading for all that time — my brain would have literally melted right out of my ears — but it was about setting the routine and the expectation of dedicating a certain, consistent and routinized period of time for focusing on the degree work every day. My attention span, even when I'm medicated, is garbage, so I would usually read for two or three hours, then either work on the more practical elements of essay planning, answer emails, or plot out the early stages of my research.

In the first term/semester/whatever, lots of people who are planning on going right into a PhD take the time to set up their applications and proposals. I fully intended on doing a PhD right after the MPhil, but the funding as an international student trying to deal with the pandemic proved super problematic, and I realised that the toll it was taking on my mental health was just so not worth it, so I've chosen to postpone a few years. You'll feel a big ol' amount of pressure to go into a PhD during your first time. Unless you're super committed to doing it, just try and tune it out as much as you can. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a year (or two, or three, or ten) out, especially given the insane conditions we're all operating under right now.

I'll be honest with you, I was a phenomenally lazy undergrad. It was only by the grace of god and being a hard-headed Marxist that I managed to pull out a first at the eleventh hour. So the difference between UG and PG has been quite stark for me. I've actually had to do the reading this year, not just because they're more specialised and relevant to my research or whatever, but because, unlike in UG, the people in the programme are here because they're genuinely interested (and not because it's an economic necessity) and they don't want to waste their time listening to people who haven't done the reading.

I am also a really bad reader. Maybe it's partially the ADD + dyslexia, but mostly it's because I just haven't practiced it and never put in the requisite effort to learn how to do it properly. My two big pointers here are learning how to skim, and learning how to prioritise your reading.

This OpenU primer on skimming is a bit condescending in its simplicity, but it gets the point across well. You're going to want to skim oh, say, 90% of the reading you're assigned. This is not me encouraging you to be lazy, it's me being honest. Not every word of every published article or book is worth reading. The vast majority of them aren't. That doesn't mean the things that those texts are arguing for aren't worth reading, it just means that every stupid rhetorical flourish included by bored academics hoping for job security and/or funding and/or awards isn't worth your precious and scarce time. Make sure you get the main thrust of each text, make sure you pull out and note down one or two case studies and move right the hell on. There will be some authors whose writing will be excellent, and who you will want to read all of. Everything else gets skimmed.

Prioritisation is the other big thing. You're going to have shitty weeks, you're probably going to have lots of them. First off, you're going to need to forgive yourself for those now — everybody has them, yes, even the people who graduated with distinctions and go on to get lovely £100,000 AHRC scholarships. Acknowledge that there will be horrible weeks, accept it now, and then strategise for how to get ahead of them. My personal strategy is to plan out what I'm trying to get out of each course I take, and then focus only on the readings that relate to that topic.

I took a course in Lent term that dealt with race and empire in Britain between 1607 and 1900; I'm a researcher of the Scottish far left from 1968-present, so the overlap wasn't significant. But I decided from the very first day of the course that I was there to get a better grasp about the racial theories of capitalism and the role of racial othering in Britain's subjugation of Ireland. Those things are helpful to me because white supremacist capitalism comes up hourly in my work on the far left, and because the relationship of the Scottish far left to Ireland is extremely important to its self definition. On weeks when I couldn't handle anything else, I just read the texts related to that. And it was fine, I did fine, I got my stupid 2:1 on the final essay, and I came out of it not too burnt out to work on my dissertation.

Here is where I encourage you to learn from my mistakes: get yourself a decent group of people who you can have in depth conversations about the material with. I was an asshole who decided I didn't need to do that with any posh C*mbr*dge twats, and I have now condemned myself to babbling incomprehensible nonsense at my partner because I don't have anyone on my course to work through my ideas with. These degrees are best experienced when they're experienced socially. In recent years (accelerated by the pandemic, ofc), universities have de-emphasised the social component of postgrad work, largely to do with stupid, long-winded stuff related to postgrad union organising etc. It's a real shame because postgrads end up feeling quite socially isolated, and because they're not having these fun and challenging conversations, their work actually suffers in the long term. This is, and I cannot stress this enough, the biggest departure from undergrad. Even the 'weak links' or whatever judgemental nonsense are there because they want to be. That is going to be your biggest asset. Talk, talk, talk. Listen, listen, listen. Offer to proofread people's papers so you get a sense of how people are thinking about things, what sort of style they're writing in, what sources they're referring to. Be a sponge and a copycat (but don't get done for plagiarism, copy like this.) Also: ask questions that seem dumb. For each of your classes, ask your tutors/lecturers who they think the most important names in their discipline are. It sounds silly, but it's really helpful to know the intellectual landscape you're dealing with, and it means you know whose work you can go running to if you get lost or tangled up during essay or dissertation writing!

You should also be really honest about everything — another piece of advice that I didn't follow and am now suffering for. The people on your courses and in your cohort are there for the same reasons as you, have more or less the same qualifications as you, and are probably going to have a lot of the same questions and insecurities as you. If you hear an unfamiliar term being used in a seminar, just speak up and ask about it, because there're going to be loads of other people wondering too. But you should also cultivate quite a transparent relationship with your supervisor. I was really cagey and guarded with mine because my hella imposter syndrome told me she was gonna throw my ass out of the programme if I admitted to my problems. Turns out no, she wouldn't, and that actually she's been a super good advocate for me. If you feel your motivation slipping or if you feel like you're facing challenges you could do with a little extra support on, go right to your supervisor. Not only is that what they're there to do, they've also done this exact experience before and are going to be way more sympathetic and aware of the realities of it than, say, the uni counselling service or whatever.

Yeah so I gotta circle back to the notes thing... I really do not take notes. It's my worst habit. Here's an example of the notes I took for my most recent meeting with my supervisor (revising a chapter draft).

No sane person would ever look at these and think this is a system worth replicating lol. But the reason they work for me is because I also record (with permission) absolutely everything. My mobile is like 90% audio recordings of meetings and seminars lol. So these notes aren't 'good' notes, but they're effective for recalling major points in the audio recording so I can listen to what was said when I need to.

Sorry none of this is remotely organised because it's like 2330 here and my brain is so soft and mushy. I'm literally just writing things as I remember them.

Right, so: theory is a big thing. Lots of people cheap out on this and it's to their own detriment. You say you're doing humanities, and tbh, most of the theory involved on the humanities side of the bridge is interdisciplinary anyways, so I'm just gonna give you some recommendations. The big thing is to read these things and try to apply them to what you're writing about. This sounds so fucking condescending but getting, like, one or two good theoretical frameworks in your papers will actually put you leaps and bounds beyond the students around you and really improve your research when the time comes. Also: don't read any of these recommendations without first watching, like an intro youtube video or listening to a podcast. The purists will tell you that's the wrong way to do it, but I am a lazy person and lazy people always find the efficient ways to do things, so I will tell the purists to go right to hell.

Check out these impenetrable motherfuckers (just one or two will take your work from great to excellent, so don't feel obliged to dig into them all):

Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (I'm not just pushing my politics, but also, I totally am) — don't fucking read Capital unless you're committed to it. Oh my god don't put yourself through that unless you really have to. Try, like, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon for the fun quotes, and Engels on the family.

Frantz Fanon — Wretched of the Earth. Black Skin White Masks also good, slightly more impossible to read

Benedict Anderson — Imagined Communities. It's about nationalism, but you will be surprised at how applicable it is to... so many other topics

Judith Butler — she really sucks to read. I love her. But she sucks to read. If you do manage to read her though, your profs will love you because like 90% of the people who say they've read her are lying

Bourdieu — Distinction is good for a lot of things, but especially for introducing the idea of social and cultural capital. There's basically no humanities sub-discipline that can't run for miles on that alone.

Crenshaw — the genesis of intersectionality. But, like, actually read her, not the ingrates who came after her and defanged intersectionality into, like, rainbow bombs dropped over Gaza.

The other thing is that you should read for fun. My programme director was absolutely insistent that we all continue to read for pleasure while we did this degree, not just because it's good for destressing, but because keeping your cultural horizons open actually makes your writing better and more interesting. I literally read LOTR for the first time in, like February, and the difference in my writing and thinking from before and after is tangible, because not only did it give me something fun to think about when I was getting stressy, but it also opened up lots of fun avenues for thought that weren't there before. I read LOTR and wanted to find out more about English Catholics in WWI, and lo and behold something I read about it totally changed how I did my dissertation work. Or, like, a girl on my course who read the Odyssey over Christmas Break and then started asking loads of questions about the role of narrative creation in the archival material she was using. It was seriously such a good edict from our director.

Also, oh my god, if you do nothing else, please take this bit seriously: forgive yourself for the bad days. The pressure in postgrad is fucking unreal. Nobody, nobody is operating at 100% 100% of the time. If you aim for 60% for 80% of the time and only actually achieve 40% for 60% of the time, you will still be doing really fucking well. Don't beat yourself up unnecessarily. Don't make yourself feel bad because you're not churning out publishable material every single day. Some days you just need to lie on the couch, order takeout, and watch 12 hours of Jeopardy or whatever, and I promise you that that is a good and worthwhile thing to do. You don't learn and grow without rest, so forgive yourself for the moments and days of unplanned rest, and forgive yourself for when you don't score as highly as you want to, and forgive yourself when you say stupid things in class or don't do all of (or any of) the class reading.

Uhhhh I think I'm starting to lose the plot a bit now. Honestly, just ping me whatever questions you have and I'm happy to answer them. There's a chance I'll be slower to respond over the next few days because my dissertation is due in a week (holy fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but I will definitely respond. And honestly, no question is too dumb lol. I wish I'd been able to ask someone about things like what citation management software is best or how to set up a desk for maximum efficiency or whatever, but I was a scaredy-cat about it and didn't. So yeah, ask away and I will totally answer.

#asks

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florafey · 5 years ago

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Thoughts While Reading Crescent City - Part 2

Part one here

Spoilers under the cut

- Something definitely went down that night Bryce and Danika got in a twist with those shifters and crashed their motorcycle

- That something that went down probably has a lottttt to do with the resolution of this book but I can’t for the life of me figure out how

- Aw Hunt’s ordering her food and she isn’t HAVING IT

- Ah shit a ‘slposion

- Bryce really tired to protect Juniper from the explosion even though Juniper is immortal and Bryce isn’t. This woman is amazing

- I bet a million trillion dollars that Briggs has nothing to do with any of this. I know all signs are pointing to him but that just seems too easy

- AAAAAAAAAND Hunt’s moving in with her. CHA-CHING BABEYYYYYYY

- Nobody hates the Autumn King more than Ruhn does and it’s hysterical. I’m living for the almost blatant disrespect with which Ruhn speaks to him

- It’s been four seconds and they’re already acting domestic Sarah SARAH what have you done to me

- Fury better make an appearance before the book is over

- Syrinx and Hunt? Pals. I’m calling it

- Okayokayokay I know Bryce has a whole thing with “don’t go all alpha-hole on me” and all that but it was extremely amusing to see her explain that to Hunt and have be like ??? the fuck are you talking about?? and then just shut her down with “I think you may be the alpha-hole here” like Bryce I love you but you needed that

- And then Hunt just picks up from that and starts telling her what to do AHAHAHAHHAH hypocrite

- I’d rather eat my own vomit than meet Sandriel but I just know we’re going to

- “What’s the deal with you two?”

“We beat the shit out of each other at a party. Danaan’s still sore about it.”

uh yeah I’d be sore about it too, bitch lmaoooo

- Bryce, Hunt, Ruhn, and Lehabah should start their own CSI show. Or Criminal Minds. Or one of those crime shows cause I can’t tell a difference right now

- Group buddy cops except between the four of them, only Bryce and Lehabah get along

- Hunt has an email I’m cryingggg

- Bryce probably fucked that Oracle up, that’s why she won’t go back

- Hunt collectively referring to Bryce and Ruhn as ‘assholes’ is a bold move but he’s right and he should say it

- ah these photos are gonna be a thing, huh? Good. Give it to me

- FUCK ITS SANDRIEL

- atta boy Hunt don’t fucking kneel to her

- Sandriel can catch these hands on any holy day and that’s a fact

- ewwww Micah come ON

- Wow Bryce really is a Bad Bitch. Doing all that in front of Sandriel?? Telling Micah fucking Domitus ‘not interested”????? Queen

- Okay now I don’t like Micah. He’s fucking Hunt up and he knows it.

- That oracle made me nervous but it went better than I had expected

- Fuck, see, I knew Briggs didn’t have anything to do with it

- I really don’t want Danika to have anything to do with this. It would ruin Bryce and I’m not interested in reading about that

- As we get to know Hunt better, he’s refreshingly human. And he needs a friend just as much as Bryce does. And while both of them are often assholes to each other, they’re also really really good friends when the need to be

- ^^^that’s called growth

- AHHHHHHHHHH the gun range scene????? AMAZING POWERFUL ICONIC on both their parts wowowowowowowowwwwwwwwwwww heheheh they’re such a power couple

- So......hmmm.....okay so Shahar seems to.....not have been that great of a person? Is anyone getting those vibes? idk

- Hunt and Bryce are so normal and I love it. Like sharing worst hookup stories and casually/not so casually asking about current relationships

- Didn’t I say fuck Sabine? Yeah, I knew I was on to something with that

- Ruhn and this medwitch? Could be interesting. I get strange vibes from her, though

- Oh these two will be the death of me. Now we’re changing contact names in each other’s phones?? Okay high-schoolers

- I LIKE VIKTORIA

- Can I just say that both Bryce and Hunt are doing a phenomenal job at trying to overcome/work through their respective trauma? And they’re learning the best ways to help each other, too

- Hunt seriously made Bryce crawl into a sewer how rude

- I had heard tell of the Jelly Jubilee scene before reading this book. I have now read it and can say that yes, it is as iconic and hysterical as everyone is making it seem. Wow. I’m going to read it eight more times

- Tharion Ketos is amazing and that’s a fact from God

- ‘Legs’???? ‘Legs’?????? Bryce, if Hunt had called you that you would have smacked him in the mouth

- Oh jeez Bryce lmao chill out you’re at work

- ew I hated the whole scene at the werewolf teritory

- I’m also....unnerved at how the wolves hate Bryce because she hooked up with someone before she ever went on a date with Connor but she was “already his” like ???? guys that doesn’t add up let’s do the math again

- If Sabine does not shut the FUCK UP about her GOTDAMN SWORD I’m gonna seduce Tharion into drowning her and eating her

- So we can drown Amelie too, did you hear that, Tharion? Good

- Micah is now acting shady. Destroying the kristallos before they could search it for an antidote or evidence? That’s called shady

- A HUG WOW

- FUCK YOU SABINE YOU FUCKING INTERRUPTED THE HUG SESSION

- oop

- Danika ????? Stole ???? Stole the ????? oh alright

- Hunt is again antagonizing Ruhn. This will never get old

- So you know that prophecy about Danika’s sword that talks about one the sword and the knife are joined something about the people coming together? I can’t really remember what it says but I read a theory that proposes that knife as Azriel’s knife from ACTOAR and I’m.....really about that....that would be something else

- we’re summoning another demon ???

- ohhhhhhh the Prince of the Chasm you say ???? I LIKE THIS ONE

- oh shit and Bryce knows him ???? From the past ??? Wild

- lmao look how stressed Hunt is over Aidas

- Aidas had three pages but I’m in love. And he’s a demon so that’s fuuuuuun

- awww look at Bryce trying to make an apology meal there’s def a similarity between this and the soup scene between Feyre and Rhys

- Is....is Hunt going to be her Anchor??

- “You said home earlier. At the bar. I know you’re supposed to live in the barracks or whatever Micah insists on, but if we somehow solve this case...that room is yours if you want it.” tears. actual tears. write this on my tombstone, please for the love of god

- Oh my god Bryce really got scared when he didn’t come home...I’m really gonna start crying again what the hell

- Alright, a tsunami of tears have just been ripped from me. The whole scene when she found him in the shower and washed him and dressed him and put him to bed ???? When he PUT HIS HEAD ON HER LAP ??????? jeeeeesus I’m soft, so so soft

- This is the greatest work of writing I’ve ever held in my hands

- “A child laying his head on his mother’s lap. A friend looking for any sort of reassuring contact to remind him that he was a living being. A good person, no matter what they made him do.” sarah, oh sarah how you’ve ruined me

- So I know we all ship Bryce and Hunt but can we really talk about their friendship? Like the....the pure trust they’ve formed ?? Take that scene above for instance. There’s nothing at all sexual about Bryce washing Hunt in the shower when he was in shock and couldn’t do it himself. Sarah mentions how nervous Bryce is because Hunt is naked but there isn’t anything to that that isn’t normal. And Hunt is comfortable enough with her that he puts his head in her lap and again, nothing sexual. Sarah compares him to a child needing his mother and a friend needing reassurance, but nothing more. There’s something to that, something that wouldn’t be there if the connection was also romantic or sexual. Okay I’ll stop now

If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate you. Thank you for joining me on this extremely wild and slightly out of control ride. Part 3 will be up shortly.

#crescent city #bryce quinlan #hunt alathar #bryce and hunt #sarah j maas

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indiavolojones · 5 years ago

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anon your MIND…

YE━(｡･`ω´･｡)ゞ ━S!!

Idk if you meant this as a request but I did it!!! I hope you like this incredibly spur of the moment, university wicked au lmfaoaoooo

5kish words, gen, asmo/solomon

“I can’t concentrate on coursework or go to bed if you’ve got someone moaning in your bed every other night.”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Asmo sniffs, and Solomon very quickly finds the situation slipping through his fingers. All of his phenomenally constructed arguments for why Asmo should be a respectful roommate have disintegrated in the face of Asmo’s pure obstinance. “Besides, where would I take my partners if not to my room?”

“Their rooms. A car. A bathroom. A dark alcove somewhere. I don’t care--anywhere else but here.”

Pls keep in mind a bunch of small notes:

-I haven’t seen Wicked, only listened to the soundtrack! I don’t remember what happened to make them room together/much of the plot hahaha. This is less of a wicked au and more a magical college au, whoooo~ -I made up so much shit for this. I was pulling lore outta my ass like nobody’s business -Everyone is human! -I skipped around a lot, so if there’s something that doesn’t make sense pls ask and I’ll clarify hahaha, I wanted to keep this short!! (is,.... 5k short...)

“We're all supposedly the best of the best, and yet none of us could stop a burst pipe," Solomon bemoans the status of their old dormitory.

“In our defense, it happened in the middle of the night and we had no idea what was going on?" Simeon offers, tilting his head with a sympathetic smile.

"But midway through the semester!" Solomon won't admit that the loss of one of his few friends being constantly at his side is more daunting than he thought it would be. Simeon is a phenomenal roommate, and understands Solomon better than anyone.

With the unfortunate mad dash to get all the affected students into new, undamaged rooms, the two of them are being split up, and now Solomon will have to get used to another, likely annoying roommate.

"I never realized you were this dependent on me." Simeon teases, and Solomon glares at him. Simeon swirls himself around in Solomon’s desk chair while Solomon walks by, cardboard box in his arms. Just to annoy him, his foot shoots out to stop Simeon mid-spin, and Simeon huffs, looking up at him.

“Didn’t you say you were going to help?” Solomon asks.

Simeon laughs.

“You asked me to come help move boxes? I thought it was for sure because of you freaking out at getting a new roommate.” Solomon’s lips quirk downwards, and turns his head away with a scoff as he brings the box to the corner of his new dorm. Simeon props an elbow up on Solomon’s desk and watches the other.

“What could you possibly do to help with that?” Solomon asks, palm pressing to the box and releasing the sealing spell on it. “Do you have a solution for this?”

He gestures at the other half of the (thankfully) large room.

Instead of the traditional bunk bed and lower desk set like on Solomon's side of the room, the other half of the room consists of a large wardrobe as additional closet space, an extravagant vanity filled with beauty products, and a nest. A massive nest of pillows, sheets, and blankets—describing it feels ridiculous, but to look on its glory is surprisingly enticing. It does look… very comfortable.

“I think it looks rather nice,” Simeon examines the fairy lights strung up around the walls near the bed. The edges of his roommate's influence barely encroach onto what Solomon would consider to be his side, but as he’s the one imposing on this person’s space halfway into the year… he’ll bite his tongue.

Realistically, there’s no reason for RAD to have shared dorm rooms--the school is prestigious enough that each student could probably get their own living suite… but the chancellor of their particular location is the direct son of the president. He’s a bit eccentric, and enthusiastically vocal about the benefits of shared dorms as integral to the relationships they develop with their peers.

(There are things Solomon’s heard of him too: how he’s the youngest person in his role, how despite the accusations of nepotism he’s completely taken the magical community by storm in his unconventional approach to education.

An interesting man that Solomon would enjoy meeting face to face, rather than admire on a podium, even if he is quite handsome.)

Simeon purses his lips, before snapping his fingers, “A privacy screen?”

Solomon rolls his eyes hard enough that they feel like falling out of his sockets.

“I don’t know why you’re so up in arms about this. I’m sure your roommate will be fine,” Simeon says then, gentle--Solomon looks at the opposite side of the room and has his doubts. “It’ll be good for you to try making more than three friends, you know.”

Taking the books out of the box and lining them up on the shelves of the book case, Solomon tosses a glance back at Simeon.

Simeon isn’t wrong.

Solomon could be the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but it means absolutely nothing if he can’t effectively operate in the modern magical community. Maybe if he was born several hundred years earlier he could have swept up the world in the sheer magnitude of his power, but nowadays, politics infect everything. Solomon can’t patent a spell to wipe his ass without a sponsor, and no one wants to sponsor the intense kid with a bad attitude.

His ability to cast magic without any kind of aide or incantation launched him into the spotlight at an early age. Solomon has always been aware of what other people thought of him. When empty praise didn’t ingratiate his sycophants to him, it just as easily turned to criticism; kids are cruel, after all. As a result, Solomon has always struggled connecting with others.

By the time he realized he would have to work on his people skills to get anywhere, he was halfway through high school with a bad reputation, no friends, and no open doors.

(Funnily enough, it was around the same time that he met Simeon that he realized he needed to be less of an asshole if he was to ever get anywhere in life.

Simeon has been integral in teaching Solomon "how to person", as he puts it.)

“Who’s your new roommate, anyway?” Simeon asks when Solomon doesn’t respond to his comment. “I don’t think you said their name.”

"Did I not?” Solomon hums, “It’s someone named Mephistopheles.”

“Mephistopheles?” Simeon parrots, head tilting to the side, “Didn’t he get expelled?”

As Solomon opens his mouth to question Simeon, the door handle jiggles as someone unlocks it.

It swings open unceremoniously, followed by the quiet moans and shuffling of clothes as two people stumble inside the threshold. Simeon and Solomon can only watch in stunned silence as the taller, curly haired man presses a shorter woman against the wall, his face fully obscured in the curve of her neck as he lavishes it in open mouthed kisses.

Her eyelids flutter, he must be doing a great job--but the second she makes eye contact with Solomon, she shrieks.

“Asmo, Asmo wait--” The girl bats at his chest, her face bright red, “There’s people here!” Asmo pulls his face away from her skin to look at the room, a gorgeous smile on his face as he notices the others does not falter in the slightest.

“Oh, you’re Solomon!” Asmo smiles, before looking at Simeon, “And you’re Simeon. Lovely to meet you both.” Solomon looks at Simeon for some kind of hint as to what the fuck he should do here, but Simeon also seems at a loss. Before either of them can say anything, Asmo slides a hand up the girl’s side to cup her cheek, speaking to them even as he stares deep into her eyes.

“Now, would the two of you kindly get out?”

The rest of living with Asmo is pretty much a continued repeat of their first meeting. Multiple times a week, sometimes once or twice in a day. Solomon has no fucking clue how someone like Asmo gets any schoolwork done, or hell, when the other gets sleep?

Regardless, it’s two weeks of Asmo getting laid and Solomon not getting proper amounts of sleep, and he’s sick of it.

“There need to be,” Solomon grimaces, swirling around in his desk chair but faltering as Asmo emerges from the bathroom, toweling his hair and jeans hanging low on his hips, “...ground rules.”

Asmo tilts his head, “Rules?” He says the words like it’s a foreign language, new and clunky in his pretty mouth. Solomon wants to sock him.

“You can’t keep bringing partners back here,” Solomon says. Asmo goes back to toweling his perfect fucking hair.

“And why is that?”

“I can’t concentrate on coursework or go to bed if you’ve got someone moaning in your bed every other night.”

“Their rooms. A dark alcove somewhere. A car. A bathroom. I don’t care--anywhere else but here.”

Asmo ponders this for a moment, before he shrugs his shoulders as he walks across the room to his drawers by the window, “Nope. I don’t think that’s considerate for them.” He digs through to presumably find a shirt, and Solomon bites the bullet.

“You’re on academic probation, aren’t you?” Solomon says, and Asmo freezes with his back turned to Solomon, tension evident in the line of his shoulders. When he turns around, his expression is colder than anything Solomon’s ever seen directed at him. In his brother Levi’s words, there it is: the infamous Bitch Smile.

“I didn’t know you cared about gossip,” Asmo looks like a dragon picking his teeth with human bones as he sits against the window sill.

The afternoon light drifting in through the sheer curtains casts him in an ethereal glow, and Solomon bites back his unnecessary request for Asmo to move out of such flattering lighting so he can negotiate with him properly.

“I don’t, which is how I know it’s true.”

“And? What? You’re going to try and blackmail me with this information?” Asmo sneers, but even crippling distaste is an attractive look for the other.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Solomon scoffs, “I’m offering to tutor you.”

Asmo blinks at that.

“I won’t tell anyone. You know my grades. Half of our required classes are together, so it’s not like it would put me under any more stress than not sleeping. And I’m not unreasonable,” Solomon says, “If you must bring people over, just let me know in advance and I’ll go to a coffee shop or the library. I do need to sleep, so I want them out by nine or ten at the latest.”

Asmo doesn’t immediately say no like Solomon thought he would, so things are already going much better than he expected. However, it still does not prepare him for Asmo’s response.

“Fine. Is that all you want?” He asks, and Solomon pointedly ignores the double entendre.

“I want one of the shelves in the bathroom cabinet,” Solomon blurts, because Asmo has too many beauty products and there’s no space for him in the current set up. Asmo’s brow rises, even as his mouth twist into a wry, surprised smile.

“Maybe.”

“I can work with maybe,” Solomon smiles in return, standing and extending his hand out for a shake. “It’s a deal, then?”

Asmo stares at the hand, his expression unreadable, before something seems to break. He pushes off the window sill and in a few short strides, huffing with laughter, “What’s with the handshake? So formal.”

Solomon doesn’t rise to the bait even if there is a light dusting of pink on his cheeks. This is the first time they’ve touched, he realizes as his magic hums as Asmo’s hand is warm and steady in his own.

“It’s a deal.” Asmo says, and there’s a hint of interest in his eyes as he seems to see Solomon in a new light.

Solomon doesn’t mean to overhear it. He spends so much time in RAD’s library that it’s essentially his second home.

“How’s your shady roommate?” He hears a voice say, and it’s familiar enough to jarr Solomon from his thoughts.

A tinkling laugh, and Solomon blinks in realization. Asmo? Solomon tries to not eavesdrop, tries so hard to not let his interest wander from the potion formula in front of him, because it really has been giving him trouble...

“He’s not bad. Too stiff. Looks great when he comes out of the shower,” Asmo purrs. Solomon feels the bright pink blush rise to his cheeks. They’re talking openly about this in a library, of all places. RAD’s library is unreasonably huge, though--even on a busy weekday, one could be several aisles away from another human being in this space.

They’re both taking the same potions class, so it’s not too far off the mark that they’d both be in the same area looking for reading materials. Solomon should really just leave before he hears anything else that makes his ears burn.

“I don’t trust him.” Asmo’s brother, Satan, says. Of course. Solomon grinds his teeth. Asmo hmms.

“He definitely has a weird powerful vibe about him. I don’t blame you. His face just looks like he’s up to something,” Solomon swallows the spike of hurt that hits at Asmo’s words, even if he’s heard them before. Two months since he started tutoring Asmo. Three months since he moved in. Their cohabitation isn’t domestic, but it is at least civil. “I’ve seen him sleep but I don’t believe it, you know? I’ve never seen him do anything for fun. He’s so pent up and proper that I’m not sure how he does it.”

“He doesn’t.” Satan tsks, “You’ve heard about what happened, right?” Solomon feels his blood run cold.

That was different. It was an accident. He was a child. He was weak then. Solomon would never do anything like that on purpose again. Surely, surely Asmo wouldn’t--

“Of course! It figures though, all the super powerful kids are fucked in the head. But other than that, he’s not bad.”

But he’s not bad. But he’s not bad. As if Solomon would ever settle for not bad after such an callous description of his person. Fury, the kind that makes his magic churn under his skin at a rolling boil, rises in him: at Satan, at Asmo, at himself for.. For what? Believing that Asmo may actually have been different? That they could have been friends?

“What was that?” Satan asks, likely sensing the swirl of Solomon’s magic.

Cursing inwardly, he wrangles his wild emotions under control through years of practice. He will not prove them right. Solomon closes his textbook. His chair screeches against the floor as he stands, Satan and Asmo crossing out of the aisle into the open study area where Solomon has been seated, completely unhidden.

“Were you eavesdropping?” Satan accuses, his bright green eyes sharp and disdainful.

Years and years of diligently studying. Never losing his temper. His single minded determination to better himself has erected a wall that others look on in contempt. Do not prove them right about you, Solomon tells himself, nails digging into his palms hard enough to leave red crescent marks. Do not let the rumors be true.

He cannot look at Asmo, so instead, he smiles at Satan.

“No,” Solomon laughs, and the politeness in it is so fake that it hurts, “I was studying for the same test that Asmo is studying for. Voices carry quite well in a library.”

Satan glances at Asmo, but Solomon still cannot look at him. Tossing his book haphazardly into his bag, he throws it over his shoulder.

“I’ll leave the two of you to it, then.”

“Solomon, hey, wait!” Solomon is not running away, but he has a very brisk pace and does not feel bad when Asmo has to job to catch up with him. “Listen, about what I said--”

Solomon stops sharply enough that Asmo almost runs into him, but Solomon uses his magic to help steady Asmo. It isn’t to be helpful, it’s to stop Asmo from getting close enough to touch him, as if that will protect him from all of these hurt, churning emotions. He exhales through his nose.

“Since you’re actually taking the time to go to the library… I don’t think you need my help anymore.” Solomon forces himself to look at Asmo, steeling himself against whatever petulant expression is probably on the other’s face.

“Right?”

Asmo’s face is not petulant in the slightest. He seems… upset? Solomon feels the beast snarl inside him, a lick of rage at the downtrodden expression on the other’s face. He gets caught shit talking him openly and then has the gall to look hurt when he gets his free tutoring cut off? Asmo’s family is disgustingly rich and well connected. Let him lose his pride and ask them for help.

Solomon will last the year. He and Simeon will room together next year. Asmodeus will not be what breaks him.

Asmo falters at the intensity of Solomon’s gaze, the severity of his words.

“... Right.” Asmo says, and Solomon lets his feet carry him away before either of them say anything else.

- - -

After a week of tense, peaceful avoidance, Satan dropping into the seat opposite him at the campus coffee shop is the last thing Solomon expects.

“I apologize for my conduct the other day.”

Solomon blinks at him.

What is Satan doing here? Irritation immediately blossoms in his chest--he may not be furious anymore, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see Satan, nor had he expected to.

After cancelling their tutoring sessions, he’s made it a point to spend as little time in their (when had it become their room? It was always Asmo’s room at first) room as possible. Sure, it means spending garbage amounts of money on overpriced coffee and shitty wi-fi when the library gets too stuffy, but at least he can breathe.

None of that explains why Satan is here. Apologizing to him. Surely it must be some kind of a trap? A childish prank? Really? Would Asmo stoop so low? He doesn’t know either of these brothers enough to truly say. It’s best for him to be polite for now, until he can figure out Satan’s true motiv--

“You realize that a lot of people don’t trust you because there’s a moment on your face where you look like you’re actively plotting, and then you say some polite nonsense,” Satan says, and Solomon’s brain stops like a record screeching.

“Is this really an apology.” Solomon says, drily. Satan shrugs his shoulders.

“That was an observation. This is the apology.” Satan clears his throat, looking Solomon straight in the eyes. “It was unbecoming of me to speak of you like that in public. I should know better, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s what you thought,” Solomon says, because it’s true. It’s what they all think, and for a good chunk of his life, Solomon rarely tried to make them think differently.

“It was ignorant.” Satan’s bright green eyes stare into his own, and Solomon senses no dishonesty in his words. When Solomon speaks, he finds that he actually might believe them.

“Apology accepted.” Now leave me alone.

Satan narrows his eyes, “Really?” Solomon resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, really.”

“Will you speak to my brother again, then?”

“It’s a little presumptuous of you to ask for my forgiveness and a favor in the same breath.”

“Asmo flunked the last test,” Satan says, in lieu of a proper answer, “He’s in a world of shit at the moment.”

“Why doesn’t he try flirting with the professor?” Solomon scoffs.

Satan props his chin up on his hand with a lopsided smile that’s far more relaxed than he’s ever seen from the fourth brother, “That’s the thing, he hasn’t. Lucifer chewed him out about it and he took it with his tail between his legs rather than kick up a fit about it too.” Solomon’s quick mind lets him skip over the next lines of whatever shitty banter they’ve got to reach Satan’s point.

“You want me to tutor him again.” Solomon asks in disbelief, despite himself. Satan snorts and leans back.

“Nothing so pedantic as that,” Satan waves the notion away, “Just stop avoiding him at every turn, and hear what he has to say. If you’re still mad at him after that, then that’s perfectly reasonable too, considering my brother is one of the biggest assholes to ever exist. He’s unbearably dramatic when he gets into fights with his friends.”

“... Friends?”

Satan stares at him like he’s grown another head, “Obviously.”

Solomon laughs so hard, he’s sure that he’s confirmed all of Satan’s weird opinions of him.

“Solomon?” Asmo breathes his name, hand lingering on the doorknob as he enters the room to see Solomon sitting in his desk chair.

“Satan talked to me,” Solomon says, reveling in the stunned look on Asmo’s face, before crossing his arms, ”He apologized for what he said. And then he asked me to at least hear you out because you’re sulking.” Asmo pouts at Satan’s words, and Solomon quirks his brow.

“Is he wrong?”

In response to this, Asmo’s face looks pained, lips pressing together as he glances to the side. He’s like a petulant child, Solomon thinks, even if he’s somehow still amused by the other’s expression.

When Asmo looks at Solomon, and he throws his hands up in the air, “I shouldn’t have said it. There, are you happy?”

“Not really,” Solomon admits, “I understand why your brother might think that of me, but to hear it from someone that I’m helping out...” He adds a little bit of a softer, sadder tone to his voice to make Asmo writhe, and ha, does it work.

Asmo groans, ruffling his hands through his hair, “Alright, I’m a dick! Are you happy? I’m a gossipy bitch and I say things I shouldn’t. You helped me out and I.. took advantage of it. I’m sorry!” Asmo’s arms cross, and he looks so genuinely uncomfortable that Solomon wants to laugh.

“You’re terrible at this. I was confused as to why Satan might say I can still be mad at you after you say your piece but.. I get it. You’re even worse than he is at it, dare I say.”

“You haven’t met our eldest brother,” Asmo sniffs, before continuing, “Besides, words and emotions are hard, bodies are easier,” Asmo shrugs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“You sound like a bad high school drama,” Solomon scoffs, rolling over Asmo’s affronted gasp, “In any case, I heard you flunked the last test we shared. Maybe if you spent less time flirting with the TA in that class, you could retain the information on the board.” Solomon brings his knuckles to his chin, holding his elbow in his other palm.

“It can’t be helped. If we can get you set up with some extra credit there and you ace the next few exams that should keep your grade above water.” Solomon runs the numbers in his head, but Asmo is waving his hands in the air.

“Wait, wait, waaaait! You’re forgiving me?”

“I’m considering it. You have to make it up to me somehow, but as for the tutoring.. we’re too close to exams for me to want to deal with another roommate if you get yourself suspended. I don’t have blackmail material on anyone else, unfortunately.” Solomon’s kidding about the blackmail, but Asmo deserves a little ribbing after that awful apology.

Although Asmo doesn’t seem offended by the joke. No, it actually seems to be... the opposite? As he speaks, Asmo’s looking at him with a blinding smile.

“Are you listening to me?” Solomon frowns, knocked off balance by Asmo’s expression, “Because if you aren’t, I swear i’m going to--”

A flurry of motion, Asmo crosses the space of their room quicker than Solomon’s ever seen him.

Asmo’s hand cups his face, the other lands on his hip; Solomon has very little time to think, because Asmo’s gorgeous face is in centimeters away from his own. The scent of Asmo’s perfume fills his senses, rendering him stunned--Asmo glances down at his parted lips, and then back up at Solomon’s eyes.

Asmo kisses him, and Solomon’s magic blows out the fuses in their entire building.

In the chaos of their plunge into darkness, Solomon’s hands shooting out to shove Asmo back accidentally activates his magic, and Asmo stumbles a few paces further before falling to the ground.

“Ah,” Asmo yelps, at the same time Solomon rises from his seat, “What the hell, Asmo?”

They’re not in total darkness, thanks to the dim light from the streetlamps outside, but it still takes Solomon’s eyes a few seconds to adjust. Asmo’s vague form is still seated on the floor, propped up on his elbows.

“What was that?” He demands, still haunted by the firm press of Asmo’s lips against his. Asmo shifts to get up, and Solomon’s arm immediately reaches out to offer his assistance. Asmo huffs at the motion, but takes his hand anyway.

“I thought I could make it up to you this way.”

“By offering to, what, make out with me?” Solomon says, disbelief mounting. Asmo shrugs his shoulders, one hand trailing up Solomon’s hip.

“Sure, we could do that. We could do whatever you want,” and now that Solomon’s eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting, he can see the coy smile playing at Asmo’s lips, “I see how you look at me, how could you not? Besides, you’re quite handsome yourself…” Asmo purrs, his free hand reaching up to graze against Solomon’s blushing cheeks.

For a moment, Solomon hesitates--Asmo is gorgeous. Even if Solomon were deaf to the campus’ adoration of him, he would have to be blind as well to not realize that just by existing near Asmo. There’s always a mix of challenging and inviting in his eyes, an ease that shows itself in all of his movements. Asmo exudes a level of sensual energy that is a powerful skill in its own right, and Solomon is a healthy young adult…

But Solomon has no desire to fall into Asmo’s bed like another one of his hundreds of admirers, clamoring to get into the other’s bed space. He has more important things in mind.

“That’s not what I meant by making it up to me!” Solomon is very proud of his voice not cracking as he pushes Asmo’s hand away, and the coquettish expression is quickly replaced by Asmo’s pout.

“Well, how else am I supposed to show you how truly repentant I am!” He whines at his failed seduction.

“I can’t even begin to explain how screwed up that is, Asmo.” Solomon groans, running his hand through his hair, “You could have offered me another shelf in the bathroom cabinet or more sink space and I would have considered it a start.”

Asmo blinks, tilting his head to the side, “... Really? That’s all you want?” He seems stunned that someone would turn down his body.

“Now that I know you were going to offer your body, half of the sink sounds too fucking small, doesn’t it?” Solomon retorts, and Asmo laughs.

A loud knock startles both of them out of their conversation, and he hears the muffled voice of their RA from the other side.

“Are you alright in there? There’s been a power outage -- will you be alright casting magelight, or do you need flashlights?”

Solomon, in desperate need of a reprieve from Asmo’s… Asmo-ness… goes to open the door as the RA speaks. After a quick exchange of assuring the doting senior in their pajamas, Solomon shuts the door with a sigh. When he turns around, Asmo is seated in his desk chair with a soft pink magelight floating idly nearby. Asmo seems to be deep in thought, and Solomon approaches him with slight hesitation.

As soon as Solomon gets closer, Asmo’s gaze snaps up to look at him so suddenly that Solomon almost balks.

“I know what I can do for you,” Asmo says, his eyes twinkling with mischief and utter glee. The pink light casts an almost eerie, and somehow still enticing shadow on the other’s face.

Solomon isn’t too proud to admit he’s terrified by whatever Asmo is about to offer.

“... So you didn’t sleep with him?” Simeon asks, and Solomon chokes on his tea.

“What! Of course not!” He coughs through his instantaneous response, pounding his fist on his chest. “He said… oh hell, I can’t say this, it’s ridiculous.” Solomon covers his face with his hands, an unbidden blush rising to his cheeks.

“He said he was going to make me popular,” Solomon groans, a little quieter in volume. Simeon is silent for a long enough time that Solomon takes his face out of his hands to look at him questioningly, but Simeon’s got one hand over his mouth as he shakes in stifled amusement.

“Wh--” At Solomon’s confused expression, Simeon is unable to contain himself any longer, bursting into a loud fit of laughter. Simeon throws his arms around Solomon in a crushing hug, even as Solomon tries to shove his way out of it.

“Oh, this is going to be great.”

I feel like this would definitely be considered #crack or #ooc slightly because it’s always hard to translate personalities that are defined by specific experiences (such as being alive for thousands of years) into any AU, but especially ones where they’re only 19/20 year olds lmaaoo

Facets of their personalities I tried to keep: Solomon’s ambition/the fact that people think he’s so shifty, and Asmo’s sexual bravado/blatant insecurities of his person. Who knows if that comes off here, but hey, I had fun lkajflaks

As always, ty for reading!!! I appreciate your kind words and responses on my stuff ;w;

#ch: asmo #ch: solomon #pr: asmo/solomon #obey me fic #obey me asmodeus #obey me solomon #writing #ch: simeon #is here #and so is #ch: satan

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jbuffyangel · 5 years ago

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The Good and the Bad: Arrow 8x09 Review (Green Arrow & the Canaries)

Arrow did another backdoor pilot for the spin-off even though 7x16 felt like one,

but it’s clear from this episode things have been… retooled.

Not always for the better. I liked Green Arrow and The Canaries more than I disliked it, but I’m an easy sell. If Olicity’s progeny are available via my television then I’m watching. Period. End of discussion.

There’s good content for the writers to mine, but there’s definitely some kinks to work out.

Doing things a little different with this review. Yes, I can change.

It didn’t feel like a fully fleshed out episode and I have a feeling we’ll be repeating this pilot in some form if Green Arrow and The Canaries is greenlit, so for now we’ll just hit the highlights – the good and the bad.

Let’s dig in…

What I Loved

This is the first episode immediately after Crisis, so we don’t entirely know how the present day is impacted, but the future certainly is bright. Mia and William have grown up in an almost paradise. Star City is the safest city in the country. There’s been no crime for almost twenty years and it’s all thanks to the city’s hero – Oliver Queen.

Source: feilcityqueen

It’s nice to see Oliver being honored years later by the ungrateful twats of Star City. They are slightly less ungrateful in my eyes. However, it’s even more wonderful to see that Oliver’s children grew up safe, protected, and maybe even a little pampered. It’s everything he wanted for them.

The big stick with this carrot of course is Oliver not being able to raise William and Mia.

Mia Smoak is the princess we were promised and she is ready to ascend the throne. I loved everything about her character.

Source: kathmcnamara

The alternate timeline/universe (?) has softened Mia. There’s no anger. No dark and twisty past. No hatred of vigilantes. No resentment over lies and betrayals.

Mia knows her father was a hero, but she hasn’t grown up hiding out in a cabin with Felicity. Instead she grew up with William in the Queen Mansion (where she currently resides). On the surface, Mia’s life has been pretty friggin perfect, even if she’s a little adrift. That said, the Grand Canyon sized hole in her life is that her dad is gone.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Mia blissfully wakes

Source: kathmcnamara

and is proposed to by… JJ DIGGLE!

Source: kathmcnamara

We have a scantily clad naked Diggle boy and he’s already dropping down on one knee. This show is my crack.

This also means JJ Diggle isn’t evil! Plot twist!! Dun dun DUNNN!!!

Source: kathmcnamara

Mia says yes after a brief hesitation and the DIGGLE BROTHER LOVE TRIANGLE HAS COMMENCED. I know I’m the only person who wants this love triangle, but I don’t care.

JJ is the “good” brother and Connor isn’t “evil” but he seems like a colossal screw up with questionable facial hair.

But also maybe I like the facial hair?

It’s clear he has an adversarial relationship with Mia, but so many romances have been born from loathing. Enemies to lovers is a classic trope. I’m all in.

Of course, we’re supposed to expect Connor in Mia’s bed since the Season 7 flash forwards more than hinted at a brewing romance between the two,

but instead it is JJ. A plot twist the Olicity fandom called ages ago.

John Jr. is new and improved though. There isn’t much to dislike about this version of him. He’s kind, sweet, sexy, attentive and pulling out expensive jewelry in the first five minutes. What’s not to love? There’s a smol and tol aesthetic happening too. Everyone knows that’s my shipping jam.

Things immediately get rocky though (pun intended). First, JJ gives Mia the Queen family engagement ring.

Source: arrowdaily

Mia makes a point of saying it was her mother’s which gives me the feels.

I never had the same issues with Moira’s engagement ring others did, but even I can recognize there’s some bad juju in it

Next, Mia gets her memories back (more on THAT later) and officially remembers her fiancé was a psychopathic killer who ran one of her friends through with the pointy end of a sword. It’s a little difficult to kiss JJ after that visual.

Things don’t get much easier after Mia accuses JJ of being the mastermind behind Bianca Bertinelli’s kidnapping. (Yes, she’s Helena’s daughter). He’s not the kidnapper. All his secrecy revolves around the honeymoon JJ is planning. It does lead to a truly hilarious moment between the two characters.

JJ: Jumping to conclusions is I’m cheating on you not that I’m a kidnapper. For the record, I’m neither.

It’s a heavy moment, but I died. It’s going to be a little hard to pick out cake now.

The scene itself is heartbreaking. Charlie and Kat acted their asses off in it too. JJ thinks Mia doesn’t want to marry him. She hesitated before accepting his proposal (Yes, he noticed that Mia. So did I). JJ believes Mia is commitment phobic. It’s not wildly unlike how Oliver’s story began. Thank God there’s no cheating with siblings though.

Mia is merely struggling with the idea that her fiancé was a cold blooded killer in another world. She just needs some time to… adjust. She’s also a little commitment phobic. After stopping the real bad guys, Mia reassures JJ, but she doesn’t tell him the truth about who she is.

Mia: I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else."

I see your not-so-subtle wink at SmoakNHawke writers. I AM SO HERE FOR THIS.

The truly awesome moment with JJ’s character is when he gets his memories back too. I was not expecting this and was genuinely surprised. Charlie Barnett is a PHENOMENAL actor. He played that scene perfectly.

Giving JJ his memories back is a stroke of genius because now he's a more complicated villain (I hope). He gets to struggle with his love for Mia and his loony tune desire to take over the city.

Katherine McNamara also does a fantastic job of blending the two versions of Mia after she gets her memories back.

Source: supercanaries

She’s reeling from the suffering and loss, but Mia is still our bad ass princess who takes no crap.

Source: oh-my-hades

She is still every bit the hero Oliver and Felicity raised her to be.

Source: feilcityqueen

She’s just a little more pragmatic. Her communication skills are much improved. One of the best moments of the episode is when she gets to show up L*urel with her “new” experience.

Source: supercanaries

Mia telling L*urel where to stick it was a long time coming. We had to wait twenty five minutes for it to happen, but it was GLORIOUS when it did.

Source: arrowversedaily

William is a perfect cupcake, excited to be Mia’s man of honor, but bummed his boyfriend cheated on him. We hate Kevin.

Source: arrowdaily

He encourages Mia to join Smoak Tech, but she’s not sold on joining Mama’s company. William running Felicity’s company fills me with a deep and abiding joy.

William Clayton-Harris-Smoak-Queen is perfection from start to finish.

Source: oliverxfelicity

The chemistry between Ben and Kat is so natural. William’s good natured teasing about their “family heirloom” exuded warmth and love.

Source: feilcityqueen

I adore how comfortable the two characters are now. Erasing William and Mia’s separation is the best thing to come out of Oliver’s Crisis retcon.

ZOE IS ALIVE because I said she would be and I like to get my way.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Din*h owns a bar (Thea’s old club) and lives in the apartment upstairs (Thea and Olicity’s old loft).

Source: canarynetwork

She woke up in the future after Oliver’s funeral and discovered she doesn’t exist in 2040. I’m only mildly curious about this. The bigger shock is Din*h is tolerable. She’s compassionate towards Mia and often serves as the peace maker between her and L*urel. She feels like an older and wiser Din*h Dr*ke. More like Season 5 Din*h, but not so angry.

Also, hello that voice? She can be like Lorne on Angel and randomly break out into show tunes. Juliana did a beautiful job.

E2 Oliver cheated on L*urel with Sara too. There is no universe where L*urel & Oliver end up together. Nobody hates L*uriver more than these writers.

What I Hated

L*urel. I hated everything about L*urel.

At first, I thought I was being too sensitive, but after a certain point it was clear she is just an asshole. L*urel being unbearable in Arrow pilots is a tradition apparently.

It starts with how Mia gets her memories back. There were some spoilers out on this, but I wasn’t entirely sure how it would play out onscreen and yeah… total dick move.

Source: supercanaries

L*urel destroys Mia’s life by forcing unbelievably painful memories on her without discussing it with her first. And for what? So, Mia can help L*urel find her kidnapped friend.

Even the newspaper article L*urel drops about the Green Arrow failing the city doesn’t excuse the way she gave Mia her memories back. I understand she is trying to convince Mia to be a superhero, but I feel a more effective approach would have been to sit down, grab a cup of coffee, offer the pros and cons of getting her memories back and then let MIA DECIDE.

Source: supercanaries

L*urel didn’t need to grab her from behind at her graduation/engagement party. It had the uncomfortable vibe of mind rape and no amount of “girl power” makes that okay.

Oh hey - if J'onn J'onzz from Superg*rl is going around and zapping people’s minds without clearing it with them first -

What was with L*urel insulting Mia every two seconds? UGH. Where is that damn bird baton?

There’s a fine line between snark and nasty. L*urel was just nasty.

L*urel decides Mia is a lazy, self absorbed, idiot because she’s not immediately jumping at the chance to be the Green Arrow. She literally blew this kid’s life apart, gives her no time to process, and immediately begins insulting her because she’s not following all of L*urel’s commands.

On what planet does L*urel have any authority over Mia's life?

They have a warm and fuzzy heart to heart about choosing to be a hero to smooth over L*urel’s wildly unpleasant personality, but it’s ludicrous. L*urel didn’t even rate a goodbye from Oliver. I find her suddenly being an expert on what Oliver would want for his daughter pretty tough to swallow.

This conversation should’ve been with William. PERIOD.

Source: oliverxfelicity

It’s insane L*urel is judging anyone about anything because SHE IS A MURDERER. But sure, being a socialite is the real crime. Thank goodness L*urel is here to stop all the shopping.

The show was desperate glaze over Bl*ck Sir*n’s history with bizarre explanations.

L*urel: I wasted a lot of time pretending to be something I wasn’t because it was easier.”

So, Bl*ck Sir*n was pretending to be a murderer because it was easier?

That’s not a thing. You don’t pretend to a murderer. You just are one.

Bl*ck Sir*n wasn’t like Oliver Queen. She killed good and innocent people. We’re just supposed to accept she was always a good person simply because she says so? Sorry sweetheart, the evidence does not exist. I would send your ass to prison for a good 25 to life, but the network didn’t ask for my opinion about your participation in the new show. THEY SHOULD HAVE.

Then there’s the way they casually avoid things Bl*ck Sir*n has done.

Din*h: I can let go of the people I lost and mistakes that I made.

Din*h lost her boyfriend because L*urel murdered him. They ate French fries and drank milkshakes in a ten second scene and now we’re supposed to believe they’re best friends. Umm… no. If you want to make this friendship believable don’t pretend their history doesn’t exist. Most of your viewing audience is coming from Arrow. We remember that L*urel killed Dinah’s boyfriend.

L*urel: D you’re up. You ready?

Din*h: Never not.

Ugh. Cringe. Arrow was effortlessly bad ass because Stephen Amell made Oliver Queen look effortlessly bad ass.

The action was show, not tell, and that includes the dialogue. There is no making L*urel and Din*h cool, so just-

And POSE. It’s like mannequins in a Macy’s window. YIKES.

Source: canarynetwork

They force this “Ra Ra Girl Power” nonsense with clunky lines and empty camaraderie while at the same time; L*urel eviscerates Mia’s life choices by insulting her all hour. If you want to bolster “female relationships” on this network then start with the women treating each other with respect.

There was a criminal lack of William, Zoe and Connor. TERRIBLE DECISION.

Hopefully, this changes dramatically if the show goes to series. This is what I meant by “retooled.” It is clear two different concepts are being slapped together. The one we saw in 7x16 and whatever KC pitched to the network. The biggest flaw in this backdoor pilot is how disjointed it feels.

It’s like there are two shows. Mia has her life with William, Zoe, JJ and Connor and the other show is Din*h and L*urel. It’s similar to Oliver and L*urel/Tommy/Thea versus Diggle/Felicity in the beginning of Arrow, but it feels really unnecessary to make that mistake again. I do not feel Green Arrow and The Canaries is Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz’s vision for what they wanted the spin-off to be and it is GLARINGLY obvious.

No mention of Felicity or Diggle. Yes, I understand why. We have to watch the Arrow series finale to find out what happens to our beloved characters. Mia and William never mentioning Felicity and JJ and Connor never mentioning Diggle & Lyla is WEIRD. Particularly since it was Mia’s graduation and her engagement party with JJ.

Stray Thoughts

I vote for this to be Mia’s next tattoo. Source: amunetblack

Well… that’s new information Din*h. Source: shawgroves

Why is L*urel calling Din*h “D?” When did that start?

Rene is running for a third term. Do we need to be concerned about a utilitarianism regime happening?

I will never believe Din*h can do “Felicity stuff.” Where the hell is William?

“Oh frack you.” FINALLY.

The adversarial relationship between Mia and L*urel is a wise choice given how KC and Katherine McNamara interact online with each other. Or don’t as the case may be.

What is happening with L*urel's boots? Are there bombs attached to them or something?

The lipsticks on L*urel and Din*h are not good. There's a lot of eye makeup happening too. Let's tone it down makeup department.

This is my face whenever I see L*urel too. Source: supercanaries

You killed her fiancée L*urel. Pay your fucking tab.

Female Big Bad. Could be awesome. Just have to wait and see.

I'm really glad William and Mia are rich again. I missed billionaire money. It's fun.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 8x09 gifs credited.

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