#at the end of the day everyone can learn proper coding i promise | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Note

LXC offhandedly says something about his relationship with NHS that would be totally innocent from *anyone* else, but sounds scandalously filthy coming from *him*. Bonus points if it's around LWJ and/or WWX and they are floored. Double bonus points if he did it on purpose for revenge over having to listen to *them* all the time. - 🦇

Petty - ao3

The first time was an accident.

No, that wasn’t right. More accurately, the first time was entirely Wei Wuxian’s fault.

(Lan Xichen sometimes thought, not very kindly, that many things were, more than Lan Wangji would necessarily admit to. He had not yet settled with himself if those were his actual thoughts or if it was merely bitterness about everything that had happened and in which Wei Wuxian had played chief role, but that was one of the things he was working on, for himself.

After all those years of being deceived, it was important for him to get to know his own mind, his own thoughts, and to be sure about them.)

“It’s good to see you out and about,” Wei Wuxian said warmly to him when they met again, as if Lan Xichen had only been confined at home with a brief illness rather than in strict seclusion for over a year.

Lan Xichen thought, perhaps, that Wei Wuxian was attempting to translate for Lan Wangji, standing beside him, practically radiating welcome and hopefulness and other such things that Lan Xichen honestly wasn’t equipped to deal with at the moment and had been purposefully ignoring. If so, it was not a very accurate translation, and unnecessary – no one knew his brother better than him.

Certainly not his brother’s long-dead lost love, who hadn’t even known.

“Indeed,” he said, not smiling, and Wei Wuxian’s own smile faded a little, as Lan Wangji’s own hope already had. “Nie Huaisang will be coming to visit me, and I plan to host him at the hanshi.”

That might also have been at Lan Wangji’s request, although only obliquely, if at all – even when he had appeared at his weakest, his most fallible and pathetic, Nie Huaisang had always been as stubborn as an ox (as stubborn as his brother), and no one could make him do anything he didn’t want to do. This included running his own sect, no matter how much they had tried, and it also included actually listening to the people he’d just begged to solve problems for him. Lan Xichen could remember all the countless times Nie Huaisang had sobbed on his shoulder, and Jin Guangyao’s, too, until they’d given him advice, at which point he would thank them effusively and merrily go along and do whatever he felt like doing regardless. He was very good at getting his own way in the end.

As subsequent events had shown.

Lan Xichen could tell from the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face that he didn’t understand why Lan Xichen would choose to break his seclusion to host Nie Huaisang of all people, especially when he had declined all similar efforts by Lan Wangji, but he wasn’t especially inclined to explain.

If he even could.

How to explain that contemplation had shown that he had been the one to fail Nie Huaisang and not the other way around? Long before they’d ever sworn brotherhood, he had promised Nie Mingjue to watch over Nie Huaisang and aid him whole-heartedly in all his endeavors. Nie Mingjue had always worried, first and foremost, that Nie Huaisang not be lonely, knowing that his brother, born with a weak body, had long struggled with finding his place in his martially-inclined sect – everything else was secondary in Nie Mingjue’s mind, even Nie Huaisang’s personal safety. He’d always said that Nie Huaisang was a proper Nie in that fashion, that he would devote every part of him to the things he loved no matter if it meant death, and there was nothing anyone could do about it; all he’d ever wanted, instead, was for Nie Huaisang not to be alone as he did so.

Lan Xichen had sworn to be there for him.

He hadn’t been.

He’d sworn to stand beside Nie Mingjue, too, promised it in his heart and in the eyes of all the world, and he’d even meant it when he’d done so. And then, despite it all, he’d spent nearly half his life supporting and shielding his murderer – he’d broken so many promises. To the Nie, to himself. The only thing Lan Xichen could do to atone for those failures was to try to do better: to learn from what he’d done, to teach himself what he’d lacked, to make up for his deficiencies. To live up to what little remained of those promises.

And so, if Nie Huaisang wanted to see him, he would see him, even if he had seen no one else.

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand that.

Couldn’t, maybe.

Wei Wuxian was his brother-in-law, he made Lan Wangji happy, and Lan Xichen was grateful for that. He was even grateful, in a painful, agonizing sort of way, for Wei Wuxian’s help in revealing the truth about Jin Guangyao and his dark deeds. But Wei Wuxian forgot pain as soon as it happened and believed everyone else ought to be the same: they were together now, so never mind about all those years Lan Wangji spent alone and in mourning; Jin Guangyao had been a murderer, so never mind about all the good things he’d done or the good times they’d shared; Lan Xichen was out of seclusion, so clearly he’d gotten over everything that had happened.

At least for Lan Xichen, pain did not work that way.

“Well, that’s nice,” Wei Wuxian said after a while, when the silence had gone from merely familiar to actively awkward and Lan Wangji was staring at the ground, his hopes dashed to bits, even though that had not been Lan Xichen’s intent. He loved his brother very much, but he couldn’t heal himself fast enough to assuage Lan Wangji’s guilt at winning his happiness at the expense of Lan Xichen’s pain, nor did he intend to try. “I didn’t know he was coming.”

Lan Xichen did not point out that he was Sect Leader, not Lan Wangji, and that his word was final regarding who did and did not have the right to enter the Cloud Recesses at any time. It would be petty.

He was trying not to be petty. It was very hard.

“I hope to spend some quality time together with him,” Lan Xichen finally said, some meaningless filler designed to let them get out of the current conversational impasse, and was bewildered when Wei Wuxian, possibly inspired by the high tension of the moment, burst out in raucous laughter, reaching out to elbow Lan Wangji in the side.

“I bet you will,” he said, his tone almost jeering. “Quality time, yeah? Just the two of you together in the hanshi and everything.”

It wasn’t until Lan Wangji’s ears reddened slightly that Lan Xichen comprehended what Wei Wuxian was implying. That he had left a year’s seclusion because, what, he wanted to hop into bed with Nie Huaisang?

The mere notion was so puerile that it could barely be considered as rising to the level of a joke, the implication not only crude but actively cruel and disdainful of all the work Lan Xichen had done to put himself back together over the past year, and Lan Xichen had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to respond.

He glanced at Lan Wangji, wondering if his brother would say something – apologize, maybe – but he was clearly unable or unwilling to help. Finally, he shook his head and walked away.

That was the first time.

The second time – and many of the other times thereafter – were not accidental at all.

Talking with Nie Huaisang had been wretchedly painful but cleansing, necessary, just as his silent and extended contemplation in seclusion had been. They had not wholly forgiven each other for everything that had happened, whether the harms they had knowingly or unknowingly inflicted or for the agonies they had each suffered, but they were on a path to get there together – each one of them agreeing to learn from what had happened, to try to extend trust to each other, real trust, so that neither of them had to continue on their lonely roads alone.

It might be nearly two decades late, but Lan Xichen was determined to make good on his promise to Nie Mingjue, and Nie Huaisang equally determined in his own way to live up to what his brother would have wanted now that it was an option.

One unexpected aspect of this, interestingly, was how the clash between their values – Lan sect rules, Nie sect principles – gave rise to any number of very interesting analytical conversations. Nie Huaisang was a poor scholar for rules that required rote memorization to learn, but he understood his sect’s moral code down to his bones, well enough to be able to fashion himself a path within it. When pressed for his thoughts on any given subject, his arguments were well-fashioned, logical, and difficult to refute.

Lan Xichen had not enjoyed himself so much in years.

Even in the days when he had wholly believed in Jin Guangyao, his former friend was simply too facile to have a proper back-and-forth with: he would always yield, or seem to, or else dance around the main subject until they were on another on which they could agree; he had always prioritized good feeling over intellecutal growth. He’d never understood what enjoyment could be gotten out of standing your ground on some theoretical or philosophical issue.

At any rate, one of the points Nie Huaisang had won, curiously enough, was in regards to the subject of pettiness: bad in large doses, but acceptable in small, in his view. He compared it to venting frustrations or to understanding and indulging oneself in the positive sense – if you’re a petty person, he said matter-of-factly, you can try to improve yourself, but you’re not going accept yourself unless you just admit it. If that’s the sort of person you were, you wouldn’t get anywhere constantly resisting the urge to fight things out in petty, stupid ways.

Sometimes you just wanted to get into it over something stupid because otherwise you’d get into it over something important, and that was, in Nie Huaisang’s view, not a bad thing: if someone got in your face, get back in theirs.

Lan Xichen was, in many ways, a petty person.

“So, how is Nie Huaisang doing?” Wei Wuxian asked when lunch was not entirely over. Etiquette dictated that Lan Xichen had to respond, and family rules that he knew Wei Wuxian knew made clear it was impermissible to talk over meals: the only acceptable solution, therefore, was for him to consider his half-eaten meal as already complete, respond, and wait until dinner to fill up. And all because Wei Wuxian simply couldn’t wait another half-ke to blurt out his question, because he was too free and unrestrained to honor the rules of the family he had married into just because he personally didn’t think they were important. “Where is he, anyway? I would’ve thought he’d be here with us.”

Lan Xichen put down his bowl with just a little extra more force than he should, enough to make it clink against the table, and Lan Wangji’s eyes tightened a little at the unusual display of irritation.

“He’s still in bed,” Lan Xichen said mildly. “I’m afraid I rather wore him out last night.”

Wei Wuxian choked, misunderstanding, just as Lan Xichen had intended him to.

They’d gotten onto an interesting subject of conversation and had ended up talking most of the previous day’s afternoon and evening, as it happened, and Nie Huaisang was still a sect leader, with important business to attend to; Lan Xichen was fairly sure that after he had retired at the usual time for his sect, Nie Huaisang had worked until nearly dawn. Anyway, Nie Huaisang wasn’t much for set meal-times, not even by Wei Wuxian’s lax standards; he’d shared an early breakfast with Lan Xichen before going to sleep.

“Perhaps you can speak with him later, if you need him,” Lan Xichen said, folding his hands in front of him. “I will pass along your regards when I return to the hanshi. Which I should do now, in fact: I have some correspondence I need to attend to.”

Lan Xichen wondered if Wei Wuxian even noticed that his words signified Lan Xichen’s graceful removal of the work of sect correspondence from Lan Wangji, returning it into his own hands. Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji had managed sect business between them during Lan Xichen’s seclusion, and both had recognized that even though he had emerged from that seclusion he was still very much in the midst of his recovery and neither had tried to push him back into the role of Sect Leader. His announcement that he needed to attend to correspondence indicated that he was shouldering that burden once more – moreover, it was, by Lan sect standards, a rather vicious snub to make the announcement of the transition a public one, however subtle the wording, especially when he did not similarly make any sort of announcement regarding the work his uncle was managing on his behalf.

Petty.

Unnecessarily petty, really – it wasn’t Lan Wangji’s fault that he’d married a man who couldn’t even after all this time comprehend that sometimes you valued something because someone else did, even if you yourself didn’t care for or understand it.

It was, however, his fault in not putting a stop to Wei Wuxian’s rudeness.

It wasn’t actually hard for a grown man to at least try to respect a rule as basic as do not speak during meals, or for that matter the one about not making tremendous noise late at night when you knew everyone else was sleeping. Having previously been in seclusion, Lan Xichen wasn’t aware of how bad it had gotten, with disciples rearranging their living quarters further and further away from any place Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian might be found breaking the rules against excessive promiscuity – and really, Lan Wangji should know better. No one was asking that he refrain from being in love, even extravagantly so, but they did live in a community, and he ought to have basic respect for others, even if it meant occasionally saying no to his beloved long-lost and miraculously reunited lover.

Lan Xichen knew how hard it was for him to say no, of course; he suffered from the same generosity of spirit as his brother. But hadn’t everything that had happened a year ago shown the folly of always saying yes?

“Ah, Wei-xiong,” Lan Xichen said a few days later when they crossed paths in the middle of the day. “Are you on your way to the apothecary? Could I ask you to pick up a few items for me?”

Wei Wuxian shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, presumably still aching from the bout of early afternoon delight that he and Lan Wangji had been indulging in over by the cold spring – which was meant to be a place for cultivation for all, not a private garden in which the young master of the sect could frolic like one of his pet rabbits. It would have to be cleaned before anyone else could use it, and Lan Wangji was undoubtedly back there giving those orders now, his forehead ribbon no doubt askew from having been utilized in private activity before being hastily replaced.

“Certainly, Xichen-xiong,” he said. “What do you need?”

“Some ointments of the sort used for stretching and to ease pain,” Lan Xichen said. “Huaisang has been complaining of soreness and stiffness as of late.”

He had, of course – among his misfortunes, Nie Huaisang had been born with something of a crooked spine, and his lower back would sporadically spasm, causing him great pain. Not that that was what Wei Wuxian was thinking of, of course.

“I’ve tried using my hands on him,” Lan Xichen added, allowing himself to sound regretful – which he was, as he hated to see Nie Huaisang suffering. “But he says it’s not enough, given the, ah, magnitude of the issue. I want to get him some relief and make sure he’s comfortable…I’m sure you understand.”

He was sure Wei Wuxian did not.

“Uh, sure,” Wei Wuxian said, barely bothering to hide the fact that he was giggling under his breath. “I’ll grab some for you, no problem…you should really ask Nie Huaisang to give you some, uh, books. To provide you with some guidance.”

“He’s provided several,” Lan Xichen said peaceably. Nie Huaisang was extremely fussy; naturally he would ensure that Lan Xichen was well supplied in guides on massage before allowing him to tend to him. “But thank you for the suggestion.”

Wei Wuxian nodded and saluted briefly, clearly ready to move on.

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said, as if only just remembering. “And tell Wangji that he doesn’t need to come to the meeting this evening – I know the two of you have better things to do with your time than having him listen to interminable reports on agriculture.”

Wei Wuxian actually smiled at that, as if the quarterly agricultural reports from the farms that fed the entire Cloud Recesses weren’t one of the most critical duties for Lan clan members to attend to and one that Lan Wangji had been assisting with since the age of twelve.

That task accomplished, Lan Xichen returned to the hanshi, where Nie Huaisang was scowling over the initial reports that had come in from the furthest farms in writing – he’d already offered to supplement any harvest shortfalls with the excess from Qinghe’s own extremely productive fields, but any shortage in one area could lead to shortages in others; no one wanted another famine among the common people the way there had been during the Sunshot Campaign and the hard years thereafter.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked doubtfully when Lan Xichen mentioned that he’d excused Lan Wangji from attending that evening and would therefore be doubly reliant on Nie Huaisang’s recollection of the meeting afterwards. “Lan Wangji may think you’re punishing him for marrying Wei Wuxian, which you’re not.”

“I’m not,” Lan Xichen agreed, because he wasn’t. If anything, he’d encouraged them to get together, and no matter the cost to himself, he was happy that Lan Wangji had achieved his heart’s desire after wanting it for such a long time.

“He may also interpret it as you punishing him for failing to control his spouse.”

“I don’t want him to control his spouse,” Lan Xichen said. “I want him to have some self-respect. Wangji has always greatly respected the rules of our sect and, until now, has always thought carefully before choosing to break them, accepting the consequences for doing so no matter how harsh. If I believed that Wangji truly disagreed with the rules, I would be willing to engage with him on the subject in good faith, but that isn’t what’s happening. He still believes in the rules.”

“He just doesn’t have the balls to tell Wei Wuxian that he wants him to stop stamping all over them?”

Lan Xichen huffed lightly. “I wouldn’t have put it that way.”

“But it’s what you think,” Nie Huaisang concluded.

“It is,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re going to spend the rest of their lives together – is Wangji planning on letting Wei Wuxian to win every argument without fail, no matter the cost to himself? Is he even planning on informing with him what the cost of his actions is? To always give and never take is not an equal relationship.”

“And your increased sensitivity on the subject of keeping secrets from your loved ones for, purportedly, their own good is completely beside the point, I assume?”

“The fact that I’m sensitive doesn’t make me wrong,” Lan Xichen said. “If Wangji is keeping secrets from Wei Wuxian, if he’s unwilling to rely on him or share his troubles with him, if he intends to one-sidedly sacrifice everything for him without even consulting with him as to whether he would be willing to accept such a sacrifice, then what they have isn’t a marriage.”

There was a house filled with purple gentians in the Cloud Recesses that stood as the eternal reminder of what that sort of marriage looked like, a terrible sacrifice that eventually became as much of a shackle on the recipient as it had been on the giver. Lan Xichen wouldn’t allow Lan Wangji to make that mistake.

And as for Wei Wuxian...if he truly oved Lan Wangji, he wouldn’t want it, either.

Lan Xichen certainly hadn’t.

Nie Huaisang sighed gustily. “All right, fine, fine. You know me, I’m always in favor of people standing up for what they think is the right thing even when it’s hard –” This was an almost grotesque understatement, but the friendship they were forging now was in some large parts based on the gallows humor emerging from their shared traumas. “– so I will reluctantly endorse your actions and, even more reluctantly, attend your meeting with you to take notes for later.”

“I appreciate your help. And your endorsement, of course.”

“Nie Huaisang has gotten much better at playing the xiao,” Lan Xichen remarked to Wei Wuxian on the day he removed Lan Wangji from the teaching roster and disqualified him from accompanying the juniors in night-hunts. “He’s a very – hands-on learner.”

Wei Wuxian snorted.

“I’ve been demonstrating the proper technique for him. Breath control is paramount, naturally, but of course you also have to know what to do with your tongue…”

Wei Wuxian was full on sniggering. “Oh, I bet,” he said salaciously. “I’m sure you’re a very hands-on teacher, eh, Xichen-xiong?”

“I want him to excel,” Lan Xichen agreed. “And that means plenty of practice…oh, I’m sorry, Wei-xiong. I shouldn’t have interrupted you – you were running somewhere?”

Right in the middle of the main pathways, no less, where the quick footfalls and sudden movement had startled countless people into very nearly raising an alarm before they realized there wasn’t anything to worry about. There were too many of them that remembered the war.

They had taken comfort in the enforced tranquility of the Cloud Recesses, before.

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” Wei Wuxian said breezily. “Just had an idea and wanted to get back to my workshop as quickly as possible, that’s all.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen said. “I won’t stand in your way, then.”

He actually was teaching Nie Huaisang how to play the xiao, at his request – he’d made some comparisons to it while debating a matter of ethics, and Nie Huaisang was determined to learn just enough to argue back in kind.

Lan Xichen didn’t have any illusions that Nie Huaisang would stick with it any more than he’d stuck with any other type of cultivation – he’d first tried teaching him musical cultivation when he was a child without any success at all, and Jin Guangyao’s example had definitely not endeared Nie Huaisang to the concept – but it was rather nice to discuss music without necessarily focusing on the backdrop of cultivation within it.

Accordingly, he continued the metaphor with Wei Wuxian for several days running. He talked about how energetic a student Nie Huaisang was –“He’s wearing me out,” he said, shaking his head. “Draining me dry…” – and mentioned that they were having an interesting time going back and forth on the subject of fingering, despite Nie Huaisang’s claims that his weak fingers weren’t nearly as suited for quick, assured movement as Lan Xichen’s.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Lan Xichen had said, even as Wei Wuxian had nearly cried from laughter. “His fingers are very flexible, and I get a great deal of enjoyment from his enthusiasm. Skill comes later.”

“Definitely something you have to work on together,” Wei Wuxian said enthusiastically. “It gets better as you go, doesn’t it?”

In the past few days, he had brought alcohol into public places, rather than leaving it in the jingshi where the breach would be a minor one, and tried to encourage the juniors to share it with him, although they’d refused; he’d even tried to bully them into doing so using his superior age and the respect they’d owed him until Lan Xichen had intervened with ‘urgent’ tasks for the juniors instead.

He had loudly speculated regarding one sect elder’s marital affairs after the man had refused to speak with him following a disagreement, breaking both the rules against malicious gossip and those against disrespecting the older generation all at once. He had gone hunting and fishing right outside the boundary line of the Cloud Recesses in clear sight of the disciples, including several who were attempting to practice cultivation based on compassion for all creatures; several others were pulled from their usual tasks to go purify the ground according to their customs, including a careful check of their wells to ensure that the blood and viscera had not seeped into the groundwater that ran so high and near to the surface.

In return, Lan Xichen relieved Lan Wangji of his requirement to go patrolling – “You’re married now, after all,” he’d said to Wei Wuxian, as if it wasn’t a duty shared by adult every sect member, “I’m sure you want the benefit of his company at night. Isn’t that right?” – and revoked his access to the restricted areas of the sect, including the discipline hall of which he had had sole charge since before the age of fifteen. He asked his uncle to resume the full schedule of teaching, including the classes which had previously been shifted in part over to Lan Wangji – his uncle agreed, understanding his motives, although he looked sick to his stomach with anxiety the way he always did when Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji were fighting – and had publicly chided one of the juniors for “bothering” Lan Wangji with questions regarding his cultivation.

“Aren’t you so old already?” he scolded gently, a smile fixed on his face and his eyes firmly on the junior instead of his brother standing beside him. “You can’t go running to Wangji with every little issue that comes to mind. Reflect on yourself, and take pains not to be a burden to others.”

The junior appeared very nearly on the verge of tears, and he was not the only one. He, at least, understood the significance of Lan Xichen issuing the reprimand in public – if the junior in question had truly been pestering Lan Wangji with too many questions, it would have been a tremendous rebuke to him personally; as he had not, and everyone knew he had not, it was a clear order from the sect leader that no one was to bring any questions to Lan Wangji.

“Brother,” Lan Wangji said, his voice low and hurt.

“I know you must be tired, recently,” Lan Xichen said, looking back at him with a steady, unflinching gaze. “I understand that you and your husband have been taking long walks at night.”

Through residential areas, no less, and Lan Wangji knew better. Perhaps their sect was too strict with the rules about waking and resting, strict enough that the other sects laughed at them over it, but the rules were in place for a reason. Even if Lan Wangji himself was feeling restless enough to wander at night, there were places he could go that were designated specifically for that – gardens, mountain paths, what have you – where their wanderings would not bother others who had already gone to sleep.

Lan Wangji hesitated, his shoulders rising to his ears, but he dropped his gaze to the ground and nodded, conceding the point.

He knew better.

He knew better, he cared about doing better, and he let Wei Wuxian walk all over him anyway.

“It must be difficult to go walking at zi hour and wake at mao,” Lan Xichen said. “Perhaps waking at si hour would suit you better.”

Lan Wangji looked stricken. After over thirty years of waking at the appropriate time, he would have to be suffering from true bone-deep exhaustion for him not to rise at mao hour per their rules; Lan Xichen’s suggestion, if he enforced it, would do nothing but restrict him from leaving the jingshi until that later time.

Confinement was not a punishment Lan Xichen inflicted lightly on anyone, least of all his brother. His brother, who had suffered just as much from what had happened to their mother as he had.

“Perhaps you can use the additional time to talk to your spouse,” Lan Xichen said.

Tell him that you don’t like how he ignores all our rules like he’s trying to make a contest out of it, he meant. Tell him that you wince every time he puts his foot in it, every time he offends someone he didn’t have to, every time he disrespects our ancestors and all but spits on everything they cared about. Tell him that you’ll compromise on some rules, the ones that are genuinely hard for him, but that you want him to follow others out of respect for the fact that they mean something to you.

He would do it for you, Wangji. He loves you. You don’t always have to be the one to sacrifice.

Just tell him.

Lan Wangji’s lips pressed together.

Another refusal. It wasn’t that Lan Xichen didn’t know how stubborn his brother could be, especially in matters relating to Wei Wuxian, and he didn’t really want to match wills against him – he never really had, not in all their life. He loved his little brother so very much, and so Lan Xichen always been the one to yield, the one to give in, the one to make up the difference between them. The one to encourage him, the one to look the other way: whatever Lan Wangji had needed or even wanted, Lan Xichen had sought to give him.

Even the dreadful punishment with the discipline whip had been something Lan Xichen had sought to avert, and would have, if only Lan Wangji had not so self-destructively insisted upon it.

He had allowed it to proceed only because he thought that the physical pain would give Lan Wangji some measure of relief from the enormous emotional pain he was suffering from.

But now – this wasn’t just a temporary physical pain that Lan Wangji was trying to choose.

This was the rest of his life.

Lan Xichen was not going to back down over this.

“Si hour it is, then,” he said with a sigh. Nor would he revoke the instruction he had implicitly given to the juniors that Lan Wangji was no longer an acceptable advisor, unable to guide them in the Lan sect rules that he was constantly defying by proxy. “It’s for the best, I suppose. It’ll help habituate you.”

Lan Wangji looked up sharply.

Lan Xichen met his gaze head on. His brother, he reflected, was for once the one underestimating his stubbornness.

“I understand,” he said, his words very slow and very deliberate and very carefully chosen, “that rising at si hour is customary in the Lotus Pier, if a little late. That’s where Wei Wuxian picked up his habits, was it not?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes were wide as if he couldn’t believe Lan Xichen was saying what he was saying.

Perhaps he had become infected by Wei Wuxian’s obliviousness and needed things to be said flat out.

Very well.

“The Cloud Recesses is the home of the Lan,” Lan Xichen said. “Our lives are here, guided by our rules that are laid out on the Wall of Discipline for all to see. It is the life we have all chosen, freely and without coercion – but I know it is not the life for everyone.”

“Brother!” Lan Wangji exclaimed, and he actually looked viscerally upset, the expression clear enough on his face that even Wei Wuxian ought to be able to tell what he was feeling.

“You don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to, Wangji,” Lan Xichen continued, inexorable. He, like most of his sect, disliked this sort of straightforwardness, but he was Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother and Nie Huaisang’s brother by proxy; he knew how to wield his words with the brutality of a saber as well as the grace of a sword or the gentle lilt of the xiao. “But I will not allow you to continue making a mockery of them. Not here.”

Lan Wangji looked as if he’d been stabbed.

No – Lan Xichen had seen his brother get stabbed. He had taken that better than this.

“I will write to Sect Leader Jiang by the end of the week,” Lan Xichen said, and clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from trembling. Tell him before then. Please. “Between the two of us, I’m certain that we can find somewhere to suit both you and your husband, so that you may live as free and unrestrained as you wish.”

He did Lan Wangji the honor of not looking back as he walked away.

He knew his brother wouldn’t want him to see the tears.

It was, if anything, a pleasant surprise when Wei Wuxian burst into Lan Xichen’s home less than a day later. Lan Xichen had thought it would take at least three.

“What is wrong with you?” Wei Wuxian shouted, slamming his hands down on the table in front of Lan Xichen. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is it me? If it’s me you have a problem with, say it to my face directly!”

Lan Xichen finished swallowing the tea he’d just sipped. “Not everything is about you,” he said, feeling tired. “This is about Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes were red-rimmed as if he, too, had been crying.

“You’re not seriously planning on kicking him out of the Cloud Recesses because I broke a few of your rules, are you?” he asked, biting off each word individually. “He’s your brother. He’s a perfect Lan – he ran your sect for a year!”

“Our sect,” Lan Xichen corrected. “Wangji will always have a place here, as will you.”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why is he convinced that you want him to go?”

Lan Xichen sighed.

“I’m sure his knees hurt,” he said.

“…what?”

“His knees,” Lan Xichen said. “From all the kneeling he’s been doing.”

Wei Wuxian looked truly bewildered now. “Are you – making a sex joke?” he said. “Now?”

“No, though I’m unsurprised you took it as one,” Lan Xichen said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m referring to all the kneeling in penance that my brother has been doing to atone for all the rules he has been breaking on your behalf. You wouldn’t have noticed it, as I assume he’s been deliberately hiding it from you.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him. “He’s been kneeling?”

“Wangji cares very deeply about our sect’s traditions,” Lan Xichen said. “He would never have been made the head of the discipline hall if he didn’t. He knows them backwards and forwards, better than anyone except for my uncle and the sect elders that specialize in it. They’re important to him.”

“But –”

“He keeps track of every rule you instigate him into breaking,” Lan Xichen said flatly. “Every single one, large and small, major or minor, and he tries to do his best to pay for what he’s done because he’d rather kneel all night without getting any sleep, rather hurt his hand copying out rules, rather endure a beating or two if it means he doesn’t have to tell you to stop.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth was slightly agape.

“Do you remember the story I told you about our parents? I shared that story with you for a reason, because I wanted you to better understand Wangji. We all carry the scars our parents left on us, and he’s no different. He’s so afraid of imprisoning you the way our father did our mother that he has decided to follow in our father’s footsteps by sacrificing everything for you.”

“I don’t – I don’t want him to sacrifice anything for me!”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said simply. “That’s why I said that this wasn’t about you. Yes, now that you live here, you should follow our rules, or at least respect them – and respect means respect, not playing around to see how many loopholes you can find in them. Do you think we don’t know about them? That no one in the history of our sect has ever figured out that ‘do not take life within the premises’ could be subverted by taking a life directly outside of it?”

Wei Wuxian was silent.

“We follow the rules because we want to,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re the rules our ancestors put together and handed down. They are meaningful to us, even when they are awkward or seem pointless. Even when other people laugh at us or belittle us or act like we’re stupid for choosing to behave the way we do.”

Wei Wuxian winced.

“Your conduct would be a problem if you were a guest,” Lan Xichen continued. “But you are not a guest. You are Wangji’s husband, my brother-in-law. You are family. If you do not wish to obey the rules, you do not have to, and you will still be welcome here. But Wangji wants to obey the rules – it is only that he fears losing you more.”

“How long have you been having this argument?” Wei Wuxian asked, because he wasn’t actually stupid, merely oblivious.

“I started taking away his responsibilities on the third day following my exit from seclusion,” Lan Xichen said. “I have steadily escalated it with every rule you have incited him into breaking with you since. And still, he refused to speak with you.”

Wei Wuxian’s hands were clenched into fists. He looked down at them.

“I know how much you love my brother,” Lan Xichen said. “If he had told you that it mattered to him, you would have found a way to reach a compromise with him – of that I have no doubt. But if it wasn’t the rules, it would be something else; some other thing that he would choose to sacrifice, another situation where he would choose to endure agony over having a mildly uncomfortable conversation with you. That was why I couldn’t just reach out to you directly. It had to be him; he had to be the one to tell you.”

“I understand,” Wei Wuxian said. “I don’t…I’d rather find it out over this than have him throw away his life instead of telling me I was being stupid.”

Lan Xichen nodded. That had been his fear as well, and the reason that one of his first moves had been to restrict Lan Wangji from going out on night-hunts.

“I’ll talk to him,” Wei Wuxian said, and scrubbed his face. His eyes had started tearing up again. “I’ll – I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him understand that it’s not – he can’t just do that! He didn’t even ask me if I wanted him to give all of that up for me; he knew I wouldn’t want him to, that’s why he didn’t ask, and he just went ahead and did it anyway. He didn’t tell me that he was suffering, that you were taking away his responsibilities! He didn’t say a single word, and I just blithely carried on thinking everything was fucking all right and all the while he was suffering, and – and he – he…oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

Lan Xichen blinked.

“I did the exact same fucking thing to Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian exploded. He leapt to his feet. “I’m such a fucking idiot! Lan Zhan and me, we’re both – we’re really well matched, aren’t we?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll talk to Lan Zhan,” he said again, and he looked grimly determined the way he had in the war, the same expression shining through even with a new face. “Don’t worry, Xichen-xiong. I’ll make him understand.”

He turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

Lan Xichen watched him go, thinking to himself that he might have inadvertently done something good for Wei Wuxian as well through all of this. And perhaps it would help Lan Wangji’s own crisis to see Wei Wuxian going through the same – because Lan Wangji’s crisis had already taken place.

He could have lied to Wei Wuxian’s face over why they were leaving. He could have chosen not to tell him that Lan Xichen was forcing him out, cutting him off; he could have kept it secret, hidden, could have come up with some story or just left it all unsaid. If he was truly determined to never let any of his pain onto Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, he could have done that.

He’d chosen to come clean instead.

Maybe now they’d be able to move forward as equals, as partners.

(And, if they were really lucky, maybe finally reaching agreement to stop breaking all the rules all the time would mean that they’d stop having sex on every possible available surface and keep it to the jingshi and a few gardens. No one else needed to see that. Really.)

“I see that Wangji-xiong and Wei-xiong are now even more disgustingly in love than ever before,” Nie Huaisang said. “And that Wei-xiong seems to have finally gotten over his obsession with defying authority through violating each and every one of the Lan sect rules. I was only away at the Unclean Realm for three days, you know.”

“I work fast,” Lan Xichen said with a smile.

Lan Wangji had come to him, eyes red, and put his head in Lan Xichen’s lap the way he used to as a child, and they’d talked. For hours, they’d talked, in the slow and halting way they had – where each word was carefully considered, each emotion analyzed, and only a quarter of conversation was said out loud – and at the end of it, they were both completely wrecked, but stronger for it.

They’d talked about their parents, which they had never verbalized before; they talked about Jin Guangyao, and Nie Mingjue, and Wei Wuxian, both past and present. They talked about their ruined expectations, their hopes, their guilt; they talked about the rules that bound them both, the ones that served them as both strength and weakness, the foundation on which they relied in their times of doubt. They talked about love, and fear, and anger.

They’d promised to never to need to have to have this conversation ever again, and they were both very determined to keep that promise.

Lan Qiren had agreed to work with Wei Wuxian regarding which rules could be bent and which ones ought not be – finally giving him the full version of education he’d missed out on when he’d been returned home too early by Jiang Fengmian all those years before, because copying rules didn’t mean understanding them – and Lan Xichen had returned to Lan Wangji all the responsibilities and privileges he’d taken away from him, much to the relief of all the juniors that had been suffering through their fight.

(Lan Wangji confided in Lan Xichen that he was relieved that Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi had been away on a long visit to Lanling Jin throughout the entire debacle, and Lan Xichen wholeheartedly agreed.)

“That you do,” Nie Huaisang said. “Did being straightforward help?”

“More than expected,” Lan Xichen conceded. That had been one of the things he and Nie Huaisang had been discussing these past few weeks, the merits of straightforwardness against obliqueness, and they’d both argued both sides of the issue, given their personal experiences. “I will grant you that it served its purpose well in this situation.”

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, and put his chin into his hands. “Now tell me, what’s this I hear about you and me being the subject of a series of apparently godawful sex jokes?”

Lan Xichen froze.

Nie Huaisang grinned.

“It was…a metaphor?” Lan Xichen tried. “A means of communicating with Wei Wuxian while not acknowledging the ongoing situation, and a message about paying attention to underlying meaning.”

“Try again,” Nie Huaisang said gleefully. “You could’ve done that without invoking my name.”

“Who else could I invoke? I spend all my time with you!”

All the time he wasn’t being Sect Leader, that was. If there was one good thing that had come out of this entire debacle beyond his heart-to-heart with Lan Wangji, it was that Lan Xichen had been so anxious over Lan Wangji that he had forgotten his own fears about resuming his position, and now that he was back, it didn’t seem as scary as it had when he’d been alone in his room in seclusion.

Nie Huaisang did not appear especially moved by this eminently logical argument. He put his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes, saying in an affected, almost operatic voice, “And all this time I never knew you felt like that, Xichen-gege –”

Lan Xichen choked.

“To think that all of this time that we spent cloistered together, pure as virgins, we could have been doing all sorts of things – using my, what was the term used, ample assets –”

Lan Xichen wondered if it would be possible for the ground to swallow him up at this very second. Failing that, a sect emergency would do.

Possibly an invasion?

“– and this, of course, refers to my extremely large…stock of picture books.”

“Huaisang…”

Nie Huaisang laughed at his face and settled down across from him. “I’m not ready to court or be courted,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No,” Lan Xichen said. “I’m not either, I don’t think.”

He was starting to think that he might be one day, though. That there would be a day – a distant day, far in the future, just barely coming into view – where his days would be more all right than not, where he could make decisions and be confident that he was making them for himself and not to cover up some mess of trauma.

And maybe, when that day arrived for him, it would also arrive for Nie Huaisang, who was himself digging himself back out of the deep pit he had made in his soul seeking his lonely vengeance.

“Still,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Since Wei-xiong and Lan Wangji are on their way here right now to join us, and given that I’m already crushing your hopes and dreams…”

Lan Xichen foresaw a great deal of mockery in his future, and he was almost looking forward to it.

“…do you want to pretend to be making out on the table that they’ll have to drink tea off until they catch us and plead for mercy?”

Well.

Lan Xichen did always say that he was petty.

#mdzs #lan xichen #lan wangji #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #mostly Lan brothers focused #background wangxian and xisang #my fic #my fics #petty #lan sect civil war #Anonymous #not as silly a fic as you might expect from the prompt

340 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

Text

YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET

I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.

And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.

Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.

I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.

Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.

I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.

Notes

Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.

The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.

But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.

I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.

If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.

Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.

In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.

I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.

But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.

The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.

Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.

World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.

But this seems an odd idea.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.

202 notes · View notes

softboywriting · 4 years ago

Text

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back | Nathan Bateman | Ex Machina

Summary: You and Nathan hit it off at a tech expo. One thing leads to another and the two of you pull a stunt, claiming you’re married. Things get out of hand, and you end up going to stay with Nathan at his home to avoid people trying to harass you about Nathan’s work. The time you spend together will allow for a real relationship to bloom. [Swearing] [Fake Marriage Trope] [Soft!Nathan] [F!ReaderxNathan]

Word Count: 3.3k

|Masterlist In Bio|

One day you realize Kyoko is missing. You're not sure when she stopped appearing, in fact you can't remember the last time you actually saw her. Last week? No. A month ago? Wait,have you been here that long? Time seems to have lapsed here in the facility with Nathan. You worried about this when you arrived. Or maybe when you took the job. Was it really a job? Everything is a little fuzzy in terms of what you are. An assistant one might think, a housekeeper perhaps? No. You took the job as Nathan Bateman's wife. Yes. Job....well...sort of. Let’s go back to the beginning shall we?

Three months ago you met Nathan at the biggest tech expo in Las Vegas. You weren't exactly there for the inventions and hottest tech on the market. You were a handler, an escort of sorts for the creators and investors from companies attending. Your job was simple. Make things as smooth as possible while the people with disgusting amounts of money make big decisions. It was a great gig. It paid incredibly well for being temporary. But Nathan didn't think it suited you.

The second he laid eyes on you it was all over. You had been nervous for days after learning you were assigned to Nathan Bateman for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the expo. The Nathan Bateman, creator of Blue Book and the AI Project. You may not be a tech genius or even understand most of the things on display at the expo, but you would have to be living under a rock not to know who this man is and what he has done. He is illusive, handsome, sought after by many people the world over. Nathan is the definition of a sugar daddy if you ever did see one. Notoriously single, generous with his money, beyond genius intellect. He is the whole package.

One thing lead to another after you met Nathan at the expo and before you knew it he had your collar bones a mess with hickies and you were dressed in his sweater to attempt to cover them up. It hadn’t taken long before he was all over you, hands in your hair, on your butt, lips on your neck. You and Nathan had just sparked the moment you got close and you let that fire burn as hot as it could.

Of course all things in life have consequences, good or bad, and as you were leaving the rest area for creators, where the little hands on session had gone down, some press junkie saw you together. Photos were taken. Nathan had not been seen with anyone privately in years. He was never seen with a woman, let alone a woman wearing his sweater and looking a proper mess. It was a scandal to be had.

By the end of Friday Nathan was introducing you as his wife, a plan he had come up with on the fly. He had even procured a huge diamond ring for you too. Somehow you were playing along with all of this. Nathan offered to pay you, just for the appearance because it would be good for the company that he was seen as a man like any other, nothing more needed to come of your relations. It was fine. You were getting paid more than you could hope to make in your lifetime and getting to hang out with Nathan Bateman who you actually clicked with and liked to be around. Win win. You had it made. In less than 24 hours you were to be done with all of this and have cash in pocket to do whatever you wanted with.

Until.

A week after you had your crazy weekend with Nathan you were being followed. People kept showing up at your part time job in the travel agency downtown. They asked questions about Nathan, about his work. You didn't know anything. You were half tempted to tell everyone it was fake, that he never even properly kissed you, but Nathan paid you to be quiet, to play along. You signed his NDA. After a man followed you home from work and watched your apartment for two days, that's when you decided to reach out to Nathan. You could call the police and have the man removed, but there would just be others. This wasn’t a matter for the police, it was a matter for Nathan to handle.

Reaching a man like Nathan wasn't easy. He had left you a business card. A number that went to Blue Book human resources. It wasn't a way of contacting him directly, but it was. On the card was scribbled a word. "REQUIEM" You called the number and listened to the prompts. None reached an operator or customer service line. It seemed that no matter what you did it sent you to an automated system. Eventually you got so annoyed you just said the word requiem as if it were a prompt. Sure enough the phone started ringing, connecting to a line.

"Hello?"

"Nathan?"

"How did you get this number?"

"You gave it to me. At the expo." You tell him that it's you and he sighs heavily in relief. "I need your help."

"My help? With what?"

"I'm being harassed because of the expo." Your voice trembles and you realize how much of a toll this is taking on you. "People have followed me to my home."

"Fuck. Can you get to an airport first thing in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Perfect, give me your email. I'll send you everything you need to get away. Pack your bags for a few months. I'll bring you to my facility as a guest until this blows over or we decide what to do next. It's the least I could do."

And that's how you ended up in his home in the middle of nowhere Alaska for the last month and a half. Your whole world uprooted because you decided that a few hundred thousand dollars was worth playing fake wife to the country's richest and most sought after man for two nights. It was so stupid at hindesight, but here you are actually the happiest you've ever been and connecting with Nathan on a deeper level than you thought possible. The two of you just understand each other, it's as if you're two sides to one coin.

______________________

"So, where is Kyoko?"

Nathan looks over from his desk, peering at you over his glasses. You're leaning against the door frame in a nightgown you know he likes. "She's in storage."

"Why?"

"Because I decommissioned her." He turns his attention back to the computer and begins typing.

You step in and he lets out a little warning hum. You know better than to bother him while he's toiling away on code. Being here for this long has been a learning experience with his reclusiveness, but also a lesson on reading his moods. He's not irritated, yet. "Why did you do that?"

"Kitten, you are distracting me."

Kitten. The nickname he picked out day one. Who gives a guest a nickname?

"I'm curious."

"I'm working. You know the rules."

You lean against the desk and he flicks his gaze to you for a moment as your nightgown rides up your thighs. His rules were simple. Don’t bother him while he works, no kissing, no sex. Really you thought the rules were ridiculous. You were meant to be a guest, hiding while the world forgets about your fake relationship. But things don’t go as planned do they? The two of you have been pushing the boundaries of entering a relationship, though it has never been discussed.

"We haven't talked in days."

Nathan sighs irritably. "I am on to something that could be the greatest breakthrough in AI history." He pushes his chair back and pats his lap. "Come sit."

You do as told and plop down onto his lap.

"Now, if I promise to go to bed in two hours will you stop asking questions?" He runs a hand up your back, fingertips dancing against your skin delicately and making you shiver.

"That's a long time. It's already late."

"My patience is wearing thin."

"Alright deal."

"Good girl." He swats your butt gently and you slide off his lap. "Go make that bed nice and warm for me."

You take one last look back and he's already returned to typing. "One more thing."

"Nope. Get out."

"But-"

"Out, Kitten."

"Nathan, come on."

He stops typing and even in the dim light you can tell he is tense and irritated. This is the time to stop pushing his rules. "Go, or I won't be nice."

You cross the room quickly to kiss his cheek and then hurry from the room. You know he is probably going to do something to get back at you for disrupting him amid a coding session. But that's fine. You like seeing him break his own rules just for you.

__________________

Nathan comes to bed some time late in the night. You just recently began sleeping in his room, it’s what really started to blur the lines of what you were to each other. He had invited you to sleep with him after you found that your brain seemed to wander when you were alone in your cold windowless room in the inner workings of the complex and sleep never came easy. Nathan's room is upstairs, with a view out to the forest should you wish to set the windows to day mode. His bed is huge, elevated on a platform, covered in blankets and plush pillows. One may think Nathan's bed would be neat and clean like the rest of the house but no. It's like a nest of comfort, a bog of pillows that you could get lost in.

"Hey, I can tell you're awake."

"Just woke up."

"Everything is okay, you can sleep."

You arch back against him, butt pressed into his legs. "I still wanna know about Kyoko."

"Don't worry about it."

You yawn and he wraps arm arm around your chest. "It's weird. You said she was fine."

"Hush." He kisses your ear. "Sleep."

You fall silent, stewing in your thoughts. What purpose could he have for decommissioning Kyoko? She seemed fine. He said she had been working for years seamlessly. It just didn't make sense.

_____________________

Morning comes and the bed is empty. Nothing new. You wonder what it would be like to wake up to a sleepy eyed Nathan. Bet he'd look so cute. He's so hot without his glasses on. Well, he is hot with them on too but there is just something different about it you can’t describe.

"You wanna go for a walk?"

You look to the doorway and Nathan has his cargo pants and a jacket on. "I'm not awake yet."

"Suit yourself sweetheart. Call if you need me."

"Yep."

You throw your arm over your face. Your dream is coming back to you. It makes you shiver. You had been riding Nathan, hips rolling down into him desperately, his cock filling you so full. God you couldn't wait to do everything with him, if you ever do. You haven't even kissed yet. Even at the expo, he kept his mouth away froms yours, letting his lips travel elsewhere.

Nathan made his rules very clear at the expo and again when you arrived at the facility. No sex. No kissing. You suppose it has to do with attachments for him. You're just supposed to be staying with him until everything settles down around your fake marriage stunt. It's not supposed to be a real thing, but like you mentioned, everything has become blurry and unclear around your relationship with each other. Of course you both know that you have feelings for each other. Head kisses, throat, shoulder and back kisses are now allowed. Bed sharing is allowed. Cuddling. Snuggling. Talking and sharing memories is allowed. You think it's a matter of time before one of you fucks up and throws caution to the wind. What kind of host shares their bed with their guest? What are you doing here?

You crawl out of bed and grab some sweatpants on the floor along with a hoodie. If you hurry you can catch up with Nathan on the trail. Assuming he took the trail.

The air is crisp, a typical fall morning for Alaska. It's beautiful, so clean, so easy to breathe. Nothing like back home. You jog along the trail that leads away from the back porch and sure enough you find Nathan walking with his hands in his pockets.

"Hey! Wait up!"

Nathan turns and stops, smiling softly at you. "Thought you were too tired."

"I changed my mind."

"Uh huh." He plucks at your hoodie. "This is mine."

"Yeah I just grabbed something in a hurry." You stuff your hands in the front pocket.

He runs a hand through your hair, fingertips lingering along the ends. "I like it on you."

"Thanks? It's just a hoodie."

Nathan pulls his gloves from his pocket and passes them to you. "Take these. I don't need you to lose a finger to the cold."

"You won't make me a cool robot one if I do?"

He pulls the gloves back teasingly. "Mmm, on second thought let's see if I can actually do that."

"No!" You giggle and he allows you to take them.

The two of you walk along in silence just enjoying the outdoors and everything it has to offer. Eventually you end up at the bottom of a waterfall. It's loud, beautiful, almost icy when you touch the water at the edge where it pools.

"Do you want to know why I decommissioned Kyoko?" His sudden choice of topic startles you but it’s nothing new. He was always jumping on subjects randomly.

"Yes."

"Because of you."

"What?" You turn away from the water and walk to where he's leaning against a tree. "What did I do?"

"You took her place."

"What? She was your housekeeper and like an assistant or whatever. I'm neither, I'm just a house guest aren't I?"

“Just a house guest...” Nathan chuckles. "Kyoko was everything for me while I was here alone. A friend, a helper, my lover."

Your eyebrows shoot up. "She could fuck?"

"Of course she could fuck." He waves his hand dismissively. "When I say you took her place I mean in my life. I felt that she was unfair to you, that once you moved into my bed she didn't belong anymore. Kyoko is a great distraction but she isn't human, she doesn't think for herself, or feel for me. She doesn't connect like you and I do. It felt wrong to have her keep me company when you are here."

"But when I leave you'll bring her back out."

"No." He purses his lips and looks down. "Actually I wanted to ask you about that."

"Leaving? Have I overstayed my welcome?"

"Quite the opposite actually."

"The opposite? I haven't stayed long enough?"

Nathan pulls his hands from his pockets and gestures for you to come closer. You do as he asks and he cradles your face. "If you're interested, I'd like to actually start a relationship with you."

"Does that mean we can stop dancing around the edges of whatever this is between us? Because I don't think house guests normally sleep in their host's bed, or wear his clothes, or get neck kisses and give shoulder massages."

He smiles and licks his lips. "I wanted to see how far we could go until one of us broke down and drew a line."

"Nathan, I think we probably would have started showering together next if you hadn't said something by now." You laugh softly. "But yeah, I wanna see where this goes."

"So you'll stay with me a little longer?"

"As long as you'll have me."

"Don't say that." He puts his hands on your hips. "I might keep you forever. Might make you my wife for real."

"I'm not doing much for the rest of my life, so why not?"

Nathan laughs and it makes your heart swell. He rarely does so, it's such a treat to hear. "Never thought I'd meet someone I connect with so completely. Really I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone."

"Why not?"

"I'm not exactly social as you can tell by my living situation. But also I didn't think I deserved someone. Like I deserved to be alone, and be the way I am because I was gifted with such talent. I sort of accepted that it was a trade off for my intellect."

You lay your hand on his chest and his heart is pounding. "No one deserves to be alone. No one."

He smiles weakly. "When you called that day, saying you needed help because of the stunt we pulled, I knew it was you. I knew you were my chance at love in this life. There was no way I was going to let you slip through my fingers a second time."

"Second time?"

"I didn't want to leave you at the expo. I wanted to bring you home with me, I wanted to show you everything. But I knew I pushed it already with the wife stunt, and I knew you had a life and I couldn't be so selfish as to take you away from everything while chasing a high I got."

You smile softly and kiss his cheek. "I probably would have gone with you. That was the best weekend of my life and I didn't want it to end."

"I'm glad you let me play with you in that rest area and we got caught. If we hadn't I don't think we would be here right now."

"Don't make it sound so dirty."

"It was a little dirty." He kisses your cheek. "Hot too. You were so ready to just let me do whatever."

"Nathan!" You giggle and he presses his lips to yours. The sensation takes your breath away.

He cradles your face and slides a hand into your hair. He licks into your mouth and you let out a soft whimper. You grip his jacket and he turns you around so your back is against the tree. "Thought this would go a little differently."

"Yeah? How so?"

He presses another kiss to your lips. "Thought we'd be in the house, maybe curled up by the fire or in bed."

"Nathan Bateman a romantic? I'm shocked."

"I live to shock people." He chuckles. "I shocked my investors and my agent with our little marriage announcement."

"You didn't tell anyone it was fake? Not even your agent?"

"Not yet." He grins. "I like to make him sweat a little."

"You're mean."

"Sometimes."

"Well now we've established that this is happening, why don't we head back to the house? Are you free today?"

Nathan takes your hand in his and steps away from the tree. "I'm free every day."

"No you're not."

"I'm free every day you want me from now on." He threads your fingers together. "I promise."

"That's a big promise to make."

"I'll keep it." He brings your hand up and kisses it. "I'm a man of my word, you know that."

"Yes you are."

"Come on, I'm tired of waiting." He pulls you along the path and you walk quickly to keep his pace. "The last month and half have been torture."

You get ahead of him and pull your hand out of his. He raises an eyebrow. He knows what you're thinking. He knows you're going to run for the house and make him chase you.

"Don't you do it."

"Too late." You take off and he follows in hot pursuit. "You gotta catch me if you wanna keep me!"

His arm encircles your waist the moment you reach the porch and he tumbles you both down onto the sun warmed smooth wood. He rolls you under him and pins you by your arms. "You're mine now."

"I guess I am." You smile big and he captures your lips with his once more. “I wouldn’t be anyone else's.”

End .

-----------

Header by delicate-venus

Thank you for reading! Please reblog if you read or enjoyed and support content creators like myself - A

*****Note: none of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted works.*****

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman fic #nathan bateman x reader #Ex Machina #ex machina fic #ex machina fanfic #ex machina fanfiction #Oscar Isaac #oscar isaac character #oscar isaac characters #oscar isaac fic

129 notes · View notes

blissful-independence · 4 years ago

Text

Code Lyoko: REvision

I just finished binge watching Code Lyoko on Netflix recently to relive my childhood & forgot how cool of a show it was! While it is an awesome story, some things couldn't stop bugging me that didn't line up. So I revised in a short format the entire series in a way that follows a proper timeline plus what I would've added for the show. I hope y'all like it!

Word Count: 3.3k

Characters

Lyoko Warriors

Jeremie Belpois

Date of birth: 22 February

Age:

Season 1-2: 13-14

Season 3-4: 14-15

Height: 163 cm/ 5’4

Birthplace: Ville de Clichy, France

Family:

Daphne Belpois- Mom

Michel Belpois- Dad

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Yumi Ishiyama

Date of birth: 27 October

Age:

Season 1-2: 14-15

Season 3-4: 15-16

Height: 165/ 5’5

Birthplace: Kyoto, Kansai, Japan

Family:

Hiroki Ishiyama-Brother

Akiko Ishiyama-Mother

Takeho Ishiyama-Father

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 1-2: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Season 3-4: 2nd year (FR)/10th grade (US)/Year 11(UK)

Ulrich Stern

Date of birth: 13 January

Age:

Season 1-2: 13-14

Season 3-4: 14-15

Height: 173 cm/ 5’8

Birthplace: Berlin, Germany

Family

Christoph Stern- Estranged father

Emilia Stern-Estranged mother

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Odd Della Robbia:

Date of birth: 1st April

Age:

Season 1-2: 13-14

Season 3-4: 14-15

Height: 160 cm/ 5’4

Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Family:

Adele Della Robbia-1st oldest sister

Pauline Della Robbia-2nd oldest sister

Elizabeth Della Robbia-3rd oldest sister

Marie Della Robbia-4th oldest sister

Louise Della Robbia- 5th oldest sister

Mary Elizabeth Della Robbia- Mother

David Della Robbia- Father

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Aelita Schaeffer/Hopper/Stones

Date of birth: 25 September

Age:

Season 1-2: 12-13

Season 3-4: 13-14

Height: 160 cm/ 5’2

Birthplace: Zurich, Switzerland

Family:

Franz Hopper-Father

Anthea Schaeffer-mother

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade(US)/Year 9(UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

William Dunbar

Date of birth: 11 December

Age:

Season 2: 14-15

Season 3-4: 15-16

Height: 175 cm/5’9

Birthplace: Edinburgh, Scotland

Family:

Thomas Dunbar-Father

Fiona Dunbar-mother

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 2: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade(US)/Year 10(UK)

Season 3-4: 2nd year (FR)/10th grade (US)/Year 11(UK)

Kadic Academy Students

Elisabeth (Sissi) Delmas

Date of birth:17 May

Age:

Season 1-2: 13-14

Season 3-4: 14-15

Height: 163 cm/ 5’4

Birthplace: Paris, France

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Patrick Belpois

Date of birth: 22 August

Age:

Season 4: 14-15

Height: 168 cm/ 5’6

Birthplace: Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Viktoria Klein

Date of birth: 14 February

Age:

Season 1-2: 13-14

Height: 163 cm/ 5’4

Birthplace: Munich, Bavaria, Germany

School: Kadic Academy

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Nicholas Poliakoff

Date of birth: 8 July

Age:

Season 1-2: 13-14

Season 3-4: 14-15

Height: 173 cm/ 5’8

Birthplace: Saint Petersburg, Russia

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Herb Pichon

Date of birth: 20 November

Age:

Season 1-2: 12-13

Season 3-4: 13-14

Height: 163 cm/ 5’4

Birthplace: Paris, France

Grade:

Season 1-2: 4th year (FR)/8th grade (US)/Year 9 (UK)

Season 3-4: 3rd year (FR)/9th grade (US)/Year 10 (UK)

Season 1

1x01: X.A.N.A Awakens Part 1 & 2

Similar to the original episode in the 3rd season

Jeremie meets Ulrich because of a biology project in Ms. Hertz’s class.

Odd gets introduced as the new overseas student by Jim.

Odd is partnered with Jeremie and Ulrich due to there already being an even number of students.

Yumi’s first year as a student at Kadic is explained when she meets Ulrich at the Pencak Silat class taught by Jim.

This is the explanation for why she doesn’t have friends & why people confuse her for Chinese.

Parallel to the episode, Ulrich and Odd discover the supercomputer and ‘Maya’ when helping Jeremie with his robots suddenly attacking him.

Odd eagerly volunteers to be virtualized first to Lyoko to meet ‘Maya’ following Ulrich when Odd is in trouble.

The boys agree to help ‘Maya’ and try to turn off the supercomputer the following day.

Odd notices Ulrich staring at Yumi while on campus, pushing him to talk to her even if he doesn’t know what happened in martial arts class.

Ulrich apologizes to Yumi for being standoff-ish & wants to continue practicing together.

Sissi gets jealous and follows them around, causing her to get caught in a XANA trap.

This is how she sees the supercomputer leading to the first return to the past.

The group promises to keep everything between them and help Aelita.

Keynotes for S1 storyline

The main goal is to bring back Aelita from Loyko.

Jeremie learns how Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi can feel phantom pains after being devirtualized on Lyoko.

Ulrich learns Yumi moved from Japan just the year prior.

Yumi introduces the boys to her parents and little brother since she has a good relationship with Mr. & Mrs. Ishiyama.

The boys learn how Hiroki is an intelligent kid while mischievous, something Odd takes note of when they hang out.

Due to both their somewhat poor communication skills, Ulrich and Yumi dance around the fact they both like each other.

Ulrich does end up having a girlfriend in S1, a blonde German girl named Viktoria.

Yumi represses her feeling once seeing Ulrich happy with someone.

Sissi and Yumi get into a fight when Sissi threatens Ulrich with exposing his journal to everyone.

A page having details of Ulrich’s feelings about both Viktoria and Yumi.

Jeremie struggles with the balance of Lyoko and the real world, forgetting about his parents to the point they drive to Kadic for a wellness check.

Odd develops a secret crush on Aelita as time gets closer to materializing her.

The warriors learn about Ulrich’s estranged relationship with his family when Kadic hosts a Family Day. Ulrich is the only one from the group to not have a family member visit.

Mr. & Mrs. Ishiyama has sympathy towards Ulrich and wants to know what goes on with him in his schooling like a parent, even advising on how to help his grades.

Two of Odd’s sisters, Adele and Pauline, come for Family Day.

Sissi doesn’t leave Ulrich alone until it makes Victoria dump Ulrich towards the end of the season.

Yumi is a shoulder for Ulrich to lean on.

When Aelita is finally materialized and done safely with her ability to attend school in S2, Yumi can see Odd’s crush but promises to keep it between them.

Season 2

2x01

On Aelita’s first day enrolled in Kadic Academy for the spring semester, she is linked to Ulrich’s cousin instead of Odd’s.

As everyone comes back from winter vacation, Ulrich notices a new student in Yumi’s class named William.

Hearing from Odd through the grapevine of William, Ulrich isn’t a fan right away especially seeing how close William appears when speaking to Yumi.

Ulrich tries to not be jealous but can’t help it as Yumi seems to be enjoying herself when speaking to William.

Viktoria talks to Ulrich again to catch up, making Yumi internally jump to conclusions.

While in class, Odd asks Aelita to join him to take Kiwi out during lunch.

This confuses Ulrich & (especially) Jeremie, but Aelita agrees to have a breath of fresh air.

During lunch, Yumi introduces William to Ulrich and Jeremie but asks where Odd and Aelita are.

William jokes about Odd and Aelita being a secret couple.

Jeremie doesn’t find this funny and storms to the library.

Ulrich takes this as William being a rude person, a green light to being vocal on his dislike towards him, then follows Jeremie to the library.

Yumi doesn’t appreciate Ulrich’s attitude, following William for lunch.

Aelita and Odd come across an abandoned house called “The Hermitage” and enter the forest.

Aelita feels intense deja vu, suddenly having unknown flashbacks in the building.

Odd finds the place creepy, especially when discovering what looks like a little girl’s room.

Xana. Return to the past. Yumi and Ulrich reunite on a bench during the lunch period.

Yumi tells Ulrich about Odd’s crush on Aelita

Ulrich is surprised but also should’ve seen it coming after thinking

She understands Ulrich’s coldness towards William after the comment.

Ulrich says he’ll be better at biting his tongue and won’t tell Jeremie about Odd’s crush.

Aelita is back in the forest alone, standing in front of The Hermitage.

Keynotes for S2 storyline

Aelita is determined to discover her connection to The Hermitage with or without Jeremie’s help.

Aelita has been rewarded a scholarship to attend Kadic Academy.

William’s backstory of hot-headed comes more to light, specifically with Ulrich in physical activities.

Ulrich tries his best to not let William get the best of him, knowing it will blow up in his face if he does.

Yumi struggles with feeling homesick & out of place from being far away from Japan.

Sissi tries to mess with Yumi’s head about Ulrich and Aelita’s about Jeremie.

Viktoria tries to be friends with Yumi but can’t due to Sissi’s words.

Odd learns to become more mature to better himself after events blow in his face with Aelita.

Aelita is trying her best to be oblivious to Odd’s feelings as she has never been in this situation.

Odd actually does give something to Aelita for Valentine’s Day

Ulrich gives Yumi a necklace

Yumi helps give Aelita as much advice as possible, knowing she is also in the same boat since William came to Kadic.

Ulrich gives Odd advice to back off Aelita because he knows how much Jeremie likes her.

Jeremie finds all of Aelita’s personal information on Franz Hopper’s CDs.

When Odd tries to move on from Aelita, he ends up making regressing back to immaturity with girls as a ‘casanova.’

Xana takes control of the ‘return to the past’ program, causing the gang not to use it in S2.

Jeremie teaches Ulrich how to use the supercomputer first in simple terms for basic things.

Ulrich’s father surprises Ulrich and meets his friends, showing a strong dislike for Yumi, which causes a stronger refit between the two.

Odd tells Jeremie his feelings for Aelita after her almost dying on Lyoko.

There is ambiguity on what Jeremie does with this information.

When it is the end of the year & time for everyone to go home, Aelita stays with Yumi for the over month-long summer break.

Viktoria tells Ulrich she isn’t coming back to Kadic after this year. She also tells Ulrich to go for it with Yumi.

Ulrich decides to spend most of the break with Jeremie in France instead of going back to Germany.

Season 3

3x01

The Warriors come back to Kadic from their summer break, where luckily, Xana hasn’t done anything to harm Earth. A note Aelita takes as Xana, knowing they were apart without a trace.

The Warrior’s all meet in the courtyard as they wait for their new class schedules.

During the break, Jeremie reprogrammed the Return To The Past and added new programs to the supercomputer.

A new additive is Odd, gaining unlimited laser arrows and flexibility similar to a cat.

Jeremie asks Odd if they could speak in private, going to a bench away from the others.

The two talk about their mutual crush on Aelita and promise to not let it get between them as friends.

Jeremie asks if Odd really likes Aelita and is surprised to hear an honest, genuine response from him for once.

While everyone is waiting under the arches, William comes up at Yumi, eager to catch up after the break.

Ulrich remains distant to William after the constant back and forth, which William has no problem with.

Yumi can see the discomfort from Ulrich and excuses the two of them to another part of the campus.

Sissi catches Ulrich & Yumi holding hands ‘demands’ an explanation but doesn’t actually get one.

After returning back from the core of Lyoko, the talk about adding a fifth member is first brought up.

Keynotes for S3 storyline

Outfit changes for everyone to start the new school year.

Yumi changes her from black all around to a pink skirt, black tights, and a thin long sleeve skull top.

Aelita’s outfit is an updated version of what she was wearing when virtualized on Lyoko. A purple heart baby T-shirt with black shorts and pink tights plus lace-up boots.

Odd is lowkey with his acts of kindness to Aelita.

Ulrich’s mother, Emilia, comes to visit, where she catches Ulrich and Yumi together under a tree. Emilia doesn’t like Yumi right away.

Emilia and Ulrich argue about their distance as if it was only Ulrich who caused it.

Ulrich states how he’s the kid and shouldn’t be reaching out all the time to his parents.

Jeremie and Aelita show Yumi and Odd how to use the supercomputer after a mission where Jeremie cannot use it.

William is initiated as a Lyoko Warrior in the middle of the season.

Yumi is highly vocal against it the whole time because she doesn’t trust him.

Odd and Ulrich help train William to be a better fighter but notice his cocky attitude never changing even after a few Lyoko trips.

Aelita gains the power of foreshadowing instead of Odd getting it back.

Yumi is honest about her feelings to Ulrich after he doesn’t return at all from a mission.

He gets frozen in Xana’s dome.

They finally get together.

Ulrich teaches Hiroki and Johnny how to approach girls respectfully.

Aelita and Jeremie have growing tension from Jeremie’s repetitive stubborn overprotectiveness.

Odd and Aelita grow closer as they expand their creative passion for music.

Jeremie becomes jealous of Odd and Aelita spending time together only to make it worse with Aelita.

William takes Yumi and Ulrich’s new relationship way too hard. He becomes irresponsible when on Lyoko resulting in him getting caught by the Scyphozoa.

Aelita blames herself for William as she hazily saw the mission leading in that direction.

Season 4

4x01

Following Lyoko getting destroyed by Xana, the warriors are on high alert of anything on Earth.

Aelita is the one to find what Franz Hopper sent to the supercomputer to help reprogram Lyoko.

Jeremie and Aelita set up Sector Five and the forest sector first before other parts of Lyoko.

Jeremie improves Yumi’s telepathic ability and gives everyone super sprint instead of only Ulrich. (Aelita with flying)

When on Lyoko to find William, they see he can mimic what Jeremie programmed, such as

His version of flying like Aelita

Getting an over bike like Ulrich

Throw his sword like Yumi’s fans

William devirtualizes all of the warriors

The Warriors think of a plan to handle William the next day.

Yumi and Hiroki get into an argument about Yumi’s diary getting lost.

Hiroki stole it to give gossip for Milly but had it fallen out of his backpack.

Ulrich tries to help find it, knowing his situation with Sissi last year.

Hiroki gets caught in a Xana trap that smacks him unconscious, causing Yumi to panic for her brother.

Yumi stays on Earth with her parents while the others go to Lyoko to deactivate the tower.

After the return to the past, Jeremie begins looking for a temporary solution for William’s absence.

Yumi, Ulrich, and Hiroki go out for ice cream as all is forgiven.

Yumi tells Ulrich she’ll one day show him what she wrote before they got together.

Ulrich promises to do the same.

Keynotes for S4 storyline

The William Clone is programmed to have adaptive sensors, making him somewhat normal to the unknown person.

Odd’s parents and older sister Marie come visit Odd to watch his short film.

Marie gives Odd advice for his love triangle dilemma.

When it is time for the week of Christmas break, the Warriors find a way to spend the holiday with Yumi to be all together.

Ulrich and Yumi almost break up from a misunderstanding by Xana disguising themselves as each other.

Xana-Ulrich creates an argument with Yumi while Xana-Yumi kisses another classmate.

Odd mischievously submits Aelita’s mix CD for the Subdigitals audition when she cannot make it.

Aelita is grateful to Odd when she is picked as a finalist.

Odd gets kicked out of the group for showing the new exchange student Brynja the factory.

Once back into the group (called on by Jeremie), Aelita and Odd get into an argument that lasts longer than any Yumi and Ulrich fight.

Jeremie is the mediator for Aelita and Odd, telling the two to be honest with each other.

Odd tells Aelita he likes her finally, and Aelita says she doesn’t know her feelings. Jeremie tells her it’s okay if she likes Odd back.

Aelita needs time to think, and the boys give her as much space as she needs.

Jeremie’s cousin Patrick enrolls at Kadic permanently, allowing the two to grow closer as family.

Patrick helps Jeremie come out of his shell a little bit, and in return, Jeremie tells Patrick about Lyoko.

Patrick promises to keep it a secret and thinks Lyoko is insane when sent to be part of ‘Return To The Past’.

William comes back a little bit before the last episode.

Yumi and William have a conversation where he apologizes for his actions on Lyoko and reacting horribly to her and Ulrich’s relationship.

William does a whole apology tour with the Warriors about his carelessness that led to getting trapped by Xana.

Odd and Ulrich are verbal about their distrust for William, especially to his face.

As Aelita finishes destroying Xana and comes back to Earth, Odd is the one to catch her as she cries for the loss of her father.

Series Finale

With Xana now destroyed thanks to the power of Franz Hopper’s sacrifice, the warriors must now turn off the supercomputer as there is no real purpose anymore. To Yumi’s surprise, the rest of the warriors are hesitant to turn it off. Yumi gets upset when everyone but her vote to not turn off the supercomputer and is quite confused by it.

Yumi distances herself from the rest of the group, not wanting to hear what their excuses are.

In an irritated voice due to Yumi being stubborn, Ulrich says he likes being a hero who feels unstoppable. He doesn’t get that feeling on Earth where he struggles in school with parents who are hardly present in his life.

Yumi says encouraging words about how Ulrich is a great person on Earth who cares for his friends and others.

Jeremi tells Patrick and Aelita how he is scared of turning back into a loner after shutting Lyoko off.

Patrick tells Jeremie he shouldn’t worry about that because the Warriors are all really close.

Aelita says they have a bond that can’t be broken even if they all live in different countries.

While in gym class, Aelita asks Odd why he didn’t want the supercomputer to be shut off.

Odd doesn’t want to turn it off then begin to miss it, but he knows it is for the best.

William tells Jeremie they need to shut the computer down after everything that’s happened bad to him.

Yumi apologizes for her stubbornness and hears out everyone's reasoning for not wanting to say goodbye to Lyoko yet.

Aelita talks to Odd about what they could be like in the future.

They never fully say out loud what happens, and there are no hard feelings from Jeremie.

One last hiccup from Sissi resulted in the last return to the past by Jeremie and Patrick. Aelita and Odd are sitting together on one bench while Yumi and Ulrich are under a tree.

#code lyoko #code lyoko evolution #fanfic #fanfiction #cartoon network #netflix #revision #writing #ao3

15 notes · View notes

precuredaily · 4 years ago

Text

Precure Day 206

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 08 - “Syrup and the Mysterious Letter" Date watched: 7 April 2021 Original air date: 23 March 2008 Screenshots Transformation Gallery Project info and master list of posts

this is not important

How do you follow up that epic trip to the Palmier Kingdom? With some shenanigans and a mystery. Let's take a look.

The Plot

Syrup has a nightmare that he's trapped in a dark room, with only one doorway to the outside that's closing and a hand is keeping him from getting out. He screams that he doesn't want to be alone. He screams aloud in his sleep as well, and then the bell of the clock tower strikes six o'clock and then Syrup and Mailpo both dart awake. A startled Mailpo then spouts out a letter for the Precures. Meanwhile, Scorp surveys the city from on high and notes that the clock tower is a part of the collection. He decides to capture it to keep some clout within Eternal after his failures in retrieving the Rose Pact.

Later that day, at school, the girls are hanging out at Otaka's restaurant. Nozomi, Urara, and even Rin are wolfing down hotcakes (etymology note: depending on the region, hotcakes may be different from pancakes) when Syrup walks up to deliver the letter. They open it and discover, rather than a written note, it contains a piece of a flier, a flower shoot, and a piece of hotcake.

They are all perplexed by the contents. Rin identifies the shoot as coming from a tokeiso (lit. clock grass, known as a blue passion flower in English), and Nozomi takes this to mean that someone wants them to go to Rin's flower shop and eat hotcakes. Instead, they all gather at Natts House after school and continue to pore over their clues. Komachi notices the items each have a V-shaped imprint on them and thinks it might be a code, but none of the v-words they come up with make sense. Suddenly Nozomi, in her own Nozomi way, identifies that the piece of paper smells like crepes and she leads them to the new crepe shop that just opened up, called Clock Tower Crepes. They grab a flier and wouldn't you know, it matches their piece. At this point Karen notices a theme, between the clock tower restaurant and clock grass flower, so they suspect the mysterious messenger is telling them about the clock tower. A bird flies by as Syrup comments that he hasn't seen anyone here, and then Scorp shows up and informs the sextet that the clock tower's bell is in the collection, so he's taking the whole thing for Eternal and he turns a nearby fire hydrant into a giant Hoshiina.

and I do mean giant

The girls transform but this time, the Hoshiina isn't really interested in them. It's mostly focused on tackling the clock tower and it only swats the Precures away as they try to attack it. At the same time, a bird attacks Scorp, who similarly flicks it away, and the girls notice a bird's nest high in the tower, threatened by falling rubble and just outright falling. Mint surmises that the bird sent the letter as a request to protect their nest. Scorp mocks the girls for protecting the tower for some birds and they retort that his idea of what's valuable doesn't matter. Then Scorp turns his attention to Syrup, telling him to come back and work for Eternal again, marking the first time this is mentioned. However, Dream butts in and says that he can come to the Cure Rose Garden with the Precures and be much happier than going with Scorp, and he obviously sides with them. After rescuing the bird nest, she hands it to Syrup and then performs Shooting Star on the Hoshiina, destroying it.

Afterwards, in a beautifully lit twilight scene, the girls place a protective cage around the nest, and comment on how unexpected it was that the bird sent the letter. Komachi, Karen, Rin, and Urara are still unsure how the piece of hotcake fit in, though, and Nozomi thinks for a minute before concluding that "hotcake" has "tokei" (clock) in it, the same as the other two clues. Rin is spectacularly unamused.

As the girls admire their work and note how happy the birds seem, Syrup decides to open up to them a little bit. While leaning over the railing, looking out into the sunset, he admits that he sometimes has nightmares about being alone in the darkness, trapped and unable to escape. Nozomi tells him to send her a letter whenever that happens and no matter where, when, or what, she'll come into his dream to rescue him. Despite his protests she insists she'll respond earnestly to his feelings. At that moment, Mailpo unleashes a torrent of letters from Milk, some of which come open to reveal their contents, and the girls notice a picture of Milk watering a glowing blue sprout. They decide to all deliver the letters to Coco and Nuts together and the episode closes on a still frame of everyone rushing along with arms full of letters.

The Analysis

Stuff like this is why I love Nozomi as a character. She's goofy and isn't quite on the same page as the other girls, but she's trying her hardest to solve the mystery, and her unique experiences and knowledge help them find the answer. She wants to help the birds and protect the clock tower from Eternal, but she also doesn't miss a beat emotionally supporting Syrup when he opens up about his troubles. It's not her strongest showing, it's not quite the Nozomi we get during major plot episodes, but she's earnest and heartfelt and I like that. And that's a good description of this episode overall: it's not as strong as a major plot episode but it's earnest and heartfelt. It is on the upper end of middle-of-the-road, and that's fine. The only thread of character development here is Syrup opening up to the Nozomi a bit, which is a plot largely ignored until after the fight. The rest is mostly filler and doesn't contribute to the ongoing plots and mysteries surrounding Syrup's past, his connection to Eternal, the hunt for the Four Monarchs, Coco and Nuts developing as kings, the Blue Rose, or the Cure Rose Garden.

Looking at the here and now though, this episode is satisfying, well-paced, and has lots of gags. Nozomi repeatedly acts the fool, causing the other girls to react a lot.

She's very gung-ho about finding the sender and addressing their problem, and the other girls have to struggle to keep up with her. Coco and Nuts talk to Syrup about this as well, admitting that Nozomi is the type to act first and think later, but that aspect of her has saved them in the past and they're indebted to her enthusiasm. I talk about Nozomi being central to this and in hindsight she is, but when watching the episode it feels more balanced. I guess it's the illusion of words vs actions. Everyone talks a lot but Nozomi is the one that figures out two of the three clues, and the one who takes the lead in defending the birds once they recognize them. She's the one that suggests Syrup should stay at Natts House and the one that encourages Syrup at the end. Rin contributes information about the flower, Komachi and Karen speculate about the imprinted symbol, and Urara...... doesn't really have anything meaningful to add now that I think about it, other than some exasperated faces (see above).

As I said though, there's some good gags along the way. My favorite is them mistaking the impression left by the bird's beak as a "V" and trying to figure out words that start with "V" that it might represent.

(if you’re not familiar, b and v are phonetically similar to begin with and basically blend together in Japanese, hence this mistake)

There was also a funny gag at the start with Rin acting so shocked that Nozomi and Urara were eating hotcakes after lunch..... only for the camera to show her eating them as well. Komachi and Karen’s reactions were priceless. And the first half of the episode has much of this jollity, it’s pretty upbeat. The second half is more serious, as they deal with the threat against the clock tower and the birds’ nest, but it doesn’t get weighty until the end.

Syrup is still kind of an enigma up to this point. All we really know is that he's a delivery boy who wants to visit the Cure Rose Garden, and he's got a strained relationship with most of the other fairies. He mostly keeps to himself, considering Mailpo as his only friend, and just floats between spaces delivering letters and putting up kind of a stand-offish front to keep people away. However, his nightmare sheds a lot of insight on his situation. This time we learn that he's haunted by dreams of being trapped alone in the darkness. He's younger in his dreams, which is a visualization of vulnerability. The force restraining him is a claw, and based on what we learn later about his time working for Eternal, this dream could be a representation of that period, compounded with his ongoing sense of loneliness and his lack of belonging. Even the fact that he sleeps in the clock tower is because he doesn't have a proper home and he doesn't trust other people enough to provide him one. However, he's been getting to know the girls over the last several episodes, seeing what drives them and what kind of people they are, and he's beginning to feel like he can trust them, so he opens up about some of his fears to Nozomi at the end. She understands that he's afraid and alone, and promises she'll rescue him in his dreams if he asks her to, because she cares. The practicality of this doesn't matter, Syrup is her friend and she'll protect him, that's all there is to it in her mind.

Minor note, the significance of two out of three of the clues actually gets lost in translation. The common thread is that they all have “tokei” in the name, which means “clock”. The clock tower is pretty self-explanatory. The plant called “tokeiso” in Japanese is called a blue luster in English, losing the descriptivism of its Japanese name that describes its clock hand-shaped sprouts (Google it, it’s very pretty). Lastly, although the Japanese word for the pastry they’re eating is “hottoke-ki”, derived from hotcakes, and there is technically a difference between pancakes and hotcakes (and flatcakes and flapjacks) English speakers are most familiar with the term “pancakes” and that’s what the subtitles translate it as.

Lastly I want to remark on the art. This is a good art episode... mostly. Scenes of the Hoshiina notwithstanding, because for some reason they really dropped the ball on that. The art isn’t amazing or anything, but they play with proportions for comedy in a way that makes it fun, cute, and endearing.

look at this goof

I’ve commented before on reused music I think, well in this episode I picked up on a villain cue from way back in FWPC. It’s by no means a bad thing, but I primarily associate reused music with the period from Fresh through Smile, and now I’ve noticed some in the Star Twinkle-Tropical-Rouge period. It’s nice to demonstrate to myself that this has been happening all along and isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to on part of the series.

Full disclosure: when I first watched GoGo back in 2013 or 2014, I skipped this episode (and the next one) by accident, due to a naming bug.

disclaimer: those are not the files I’m using now, these are. Only the best.

Due to the way people came and went from this project, the filenames changed a lot, so by a quirk episodes 8-9 happened to be alphabetized between episode 40 and 41. I had my player set to auto-play the next episode and I was working on a project at the time and not giving the binge my full attention, so after episode 7, the next file in the folder was 10. I bring this up to theorize that skipping these two episodes initially may have influenced my opinion on their relevance. I jumped straight from the Palmier Kingdom to Milky Rose's introduction and didn't wind up watching the episodes that bridged this gap until well after the fact. I may never know what impact this had on my overall response, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but as I view these two episodes as kind of filler or padding to get to Milky Rose, it’s a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I only dismiss them because I experienced it without them first.

I know this review is all over the place, so to summarize my thoughts, it’s a solid episode with some genuine moments, but overall it feels like padding or filler, since I know what’s coming in a few episodes. That isn’t a bad thing but it doesn’t do much for the characters or their relationships with each other, except for Syrup as he’s new around here. Coco and Nuts, surprisingly, are barely in this episode. It is not bad, but it’s not one of the better episodes the show has to offer. And that’s fine.

Next time on Precure Daily, there’s another mystery to solve, and this time Komachi goes full detective to find the cake caper. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 2 Kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 Go Go!#YPC5GG08 #PCD206

20 notes · View notes

bellarkx · 5 years ago

Text

Hello i wrote an ending that we actually deserved with bellamy closure. This is my first time writing fic for this ship so hope i did them justice. Enjoy 🤍

When Clarke arrives at Sanctum, she’s greeted only by Picasso. She rummages through the palace, the farmhouse, looking for any signs of human life. She knows she won’t find any— there was never any person who even came close to committing as many atrocities as Clarke has. And to those who come close, well, they’re already dead.

She finally gives up and goes back to the throne room. She slumps against the wall, sinking to the floor with Picasso at her side. Her eyes follow the ground to the spot she was last time she was on the planet, and a pang aches in her chest.

The blood is gone. She’s assuming they took him to Nakara. She heard that the planet was a graveyard— Gabriel had mentioned it in passing.

“Picasso, stay. I’ll be right back,” she scratches the dog behind the ears and puts on the helmet. She takes a deep breath and punches in the code for the ice planet.

*****

Nothing much has changed since she last left Nakara. The cold air bites at her cheeks immediately when she takes her helmet off, but it doesn’t bother her. She won’t be long.

“Bellamy, if you’re somewhere on this planet, if you can hear me…” she starts, feeling a lump unwillingly form at the back of her throat. “You were right about transcendence… You just wanted peace— I’m glad everyone got that, and I hope you did, too.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, letting her tears fall into the fresh snow. “I killed you. I killed you and you didn’t deserve that. You saved me from death— brought me back to life— and that’s how I repaid you. I understand why I failed the test. But you— you would have passed it. I know you would have.”

“I don’t deserve forgiveness. I know that. Even if you can somehow hear me, I want you to know I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m just here to say I’m sorry. I’m paying the price for it now, aren’t I? The only human left in the universe,” she laughs bitterly. “There’s part of me that wishes we ran away when you asked me to. Maybe we would have been incinerated by Praimfaiya, but I know we would’ve been happy. We could’ve been so happy, Bell,” her lip quivers as she shakes her head. “But I don’t regret anything. I wouldn’t have met Madi.”

“You know, I don’t think I ever told you just how much I loved you. Finn knew, Lexa knew… But you? God, Bell. I loved you so much. And you never knew. That’s one of my biggest mistakes— never letting you just how much I loved you.”

She’s unsure if she’s shivering due to the cold, or if it’s just her body responding to the raw emotions pulsing through her blood. She kneels to the ground, letting her fingers brush the snow.

The last of her tears fall as she takes one deep breath.

“In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again.”

—

Picasso’s gold fur disappears down the ravine, out of sight from Clarke. Earth is green and lush again, free to breathe without the threat of human corruption.

“Picasso, come!”

She follows the brief flashes of gold through the forest until it clears, revealing the shoreline of a vast lake. The air is clean, water is clear, and she can even hear the singing of birds in the distance.

Then, she sees them.

Her friends.

Her heart jumps.

The first to hug her is Raven, then Murphy. One by one, she embraces them, tears threatening her eyes.

“But you transcended,” Clarke says in disbelief, tears threatening her eyes.

“They told us transcendence is a choice, Clarke,” Raven says, holding her hands firmly. “And we chose to live.”

She gives her a shaky smile before they finally envelop her in a group hug, and, god, she’s so relieved that she isn’t alone. Not again.

But even though she feels the love from her friends, it’s bittersweet. There’s no hope for humanity. Life is supposed to be more than survival, but she can’t help but wonder if that’s true when every person she’s ever loved is no longer in her reach. For the first time, she’s not sure what to live for. Her friends share different bonds to each other than she ever had. Different types of connections. Familial, romantic. There’s a piece of her missing without Bellamy, without Madi. All that was left of her family— gone, because of her.

“I know you never felt like we were family, but we are now,” Murphy whispers low in her ear. She doesn’t know how he knows exactly what she’s thinking, but she accepts it. “We’re all we’ve got to live for now, Clarke. Humanity be damned.”

She lets out a weak laugh, ignoring the ache in her chest. “Thanks, cockroach.”

Her friends release her from the hug, a mess of limbs untangling in her periphery, except for Octavia, who lingers by her side.

“Madi’s not in pain anymore. She wanted to stay… She likes the peace,” Octavia reassures her, rubbing her back lovingly. “She was the key to transcendence and she made her choice. She wanted me to tell you that she loves you, Clarke.”

Clarke nods, devastated, but she understands. “Thank you— for everything, Octavia.”

“You know, I didn’t see Bellamy there,” Octavia says, eyes dropping to the ground. “He was right about everything. It doesn’t seem fair that he never got to transcend,” her tone is wistful, somber. “I just hope that he’s proud of me, wherever he is.”

Clarke hugs her again, this time longer, feeling the weight of her friend’s words fall on her shoulders. She makes a mental note to take Octavia to Nakara to say a proper goodbye just like she had. Then, they can make a proper memorial.

She can accept Madi’s choice, knowing that she’s happy, but she never gave Bellamy the opportunity, and that’s something she has to live with forever. She knows one day she’s going to have to stop the guilt from consuming her, but she has the rest of her life to learn.

When they part, she sees a speck in the distance coming towards them from the horizon. Her first instinct is to draw her gun, but she doesn’t have one.

Instead, she squints her eyes and looks on, until finally the object comes into focus, and suddenly, her knees buckle, voice caught in her throat.

Disbelief.

“Bellamy?”

Her legs carry her forward until finally she sees him— all of him, clean shaven, curls wild atop his head, pretty freckles like stars on his skin, brown eyes warm and beautiful. This doesn’t feel real.

“Clarke.”

In his arms, she heaves a sob, trying to catch her breath like her lungs are fighting for air. He tightens his hold on her, letting her cry into the crook of his neck. She has so many questions, but for now, she decides at this moment that she wants to stay in his embrace forever, even if he isn’t real.

“You’re not real, are you?” she sobs, burying her face into his skin.

For what feels like forever, he just holds her, gently rocking her against his body. He breaks apart eventually, wiping her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Look at me, Clarke.”

The warmth in his eyes confuses her. She wants to confess everything— everything she said on Nakara, every damn thing she radio’d him for six years. Like time is running out.

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” he whispers.

“I don’t understand, Bellamy,” she shakes her head, “I don’t deserve forgiveness, especially from you.”

“I have every right in the world to be mad at you,” he admits. “But I choose forgiveness. I choose you, Clarke.”

This time, she musters a smile of relief, tears streaming down her cheeks as she throws her arms around his neck.

She inhales his smell, and her heart aches. She can’t remember the last time she felt this happy, and she's desperate to cling onto this feeling for as long as she can. “Please let this be real. I love you, Bell, I can’t let you go again.”

His lips meet her temple, and his voice, deep and full of trust, promises her one thing.

“I’m not going anywhere. Can’t get rid of me that easily, not this time.”

She can feel the quirk of his smile press against her skin, and for the first time in a long time, she starts to feel like everything’s going to be alright.

Behind them, Octavia’s voice breaks up their reunion, and Clarke’s heart soars because that means Bellamy really is real.

Finally, there is peace.

“Welcome home.”

#DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED #the 100 spoilers #bellarke #bellarke fanfiction #bellamy blake #clarke griffin

72 notes · View notes

twilightknight17 · 4 years ago

Text

We’re at the end of the road, folks.

And god damn, I feel so validated by my Sojiro characterization. Wow. Thanks for basically making me canon for ten more seconds, Atlus. XDDD

So when last we left our intrepid heroes, they were laying at the bottom of the Jail of the Abyss, because Ichinose is an asshole. So we had to fight our way back up, carrying Sophia’s unconscious body. Which wasn’t that bad; the Jail isn’t very big. We left Sophia at the door to keep her safe, and then charged back into the hall of the Ark to hack Ichinose’s exploding crystal box thing.

Ichinose doesn’t understand why we came back.

So, yeah. I guess like... bizarro-world Maruki? Maruki wanted to alleviate suffering by granting everyone’s wishes. EMMA’s going to make it so that people can’t wish for anything.

After a kick-ass hacking battle set to the new version of Rivers in the Desert, Ichinose yells at us about our right to judge. Why should humanity keep this painful world, just because WE’RE strong? Just because we’ve never screwed up or suffered?

Which, clearly she has no idea who the fuck she’s talking to.

We’ve worked too hard to listen to that kind of bullshit.

Ichinose proclaims that “humans don’t need hearts” and charges up the laser crystal to blast us again, and Sophia steps in to block the attack. She’s still fighting Ichinose’s control even though Ichinose insists that she’s just a faulty prototype.

Apparently Ichinose created Sophia in the first place because she spent a lifetime being called a heartless doll, so she made an AI to help her learn about the heart.

I think you’re the problem, but not for the reasons everyone else is saying.

But she got angry when Sophia started asking questions of her own and basically tossed her aside, until EMMA found her and dropped her into the Shibuya Jail.

And Sophia, unlike her creator, has learned and grown, and is tired of being given orders. She’s ready to make her own choices.

That is certainly a persona.

I gotta admit, they got me. I was wondering why Sophia didn’t have her arcana yet, but for some reason, I also wasn’t expecting her to get a proper persona. I’m now wondering about the implications of someone being able to code an AI capable of developing a soul that can summon a persona. There’s a zero percent chance that Ichinose had any access to plumes of dusk, which are the reason that Aigis and Labrys gained enough consciousness to have personas. So Sophia is legitimately a miracle piece of technology.

Pandora is an interesting choice, but I dunno if I can articulate that beyond a surface-level, “Oh, because she’s Hope, and Hope was still in the box.”

I swear to god, every major villain in this game is trying to be Goro Akechi. For the last goddamn time, we don’t kill people. Get up, Ichinose. We’re leaving.

Ryuji literally grabs her by the arm and drags her out, because she’s trying to stay behind. Which just confirms for me that if Goro hadn’t put up that bulkhead door, we’d have dragged his stupid ass out of the Ship, too. XD

Back to the real world, and Tokyo is blacking out, and the Tower is losing its shit.

The metaverse is fusing with reality, the Tower is becoming the Tree of Knowledge, and hell yes we are climbing this tower after all!

Morgana points out that this is the same thing that happened last year, and Zenkichi freaks out a little bit.

You’re lucky you moved to Kyoto, sir. You missed quite a bit.

I love these kids, though. They’ve got so much black humor about this whole god thing.

The metaverse encroaching on reality means that everyone has to cram into the bus in their thief gear. Zenkichi, please. Your hat. Sir.

I love climbing this tower. I’ve been here, too! Also they have butter. XD

I was expecting the Mementos version of the lower observation deck, and instead I got some weird amalgam between Mementos and Azathoth’s boss chamber.

We had to fight Metatron as the guardian of the last elevator, which is another parallel to Yaldabaoth’s archangels. And then it’s up to what I guess used to be the high observation deck to fight the big box.

EMMA insists that all humanity wants is to let it give them all the answers, and it throws them into some sort of alternate fog world full of the voices of the public.

The Thieves are all separated, trapped in the fog. Each of them has to find their way out, and they realize that the fog of the Desires is protecting EMMA. EMMA knows exactly how calling cards work, so they won’t work on her. Instead, the Thieves decide that they need to send the calling card to the public, so that they’ll become aware of their desires again and the desires will crystalize.

...oh come on, Atlus. We’re right in the endgame.

One last hacker battle to break into EMMA’s server room in the tower, and Futaba and Ichinose manage to hack EMMA itself to deliver a calling card to everyone at once.

Love you, Zenkichi. We’ve taken out two gods already. We’re good.

Confronting the Ark again reveals a bunch of freaky tentacle arms grabbing the desires, and then the box turns into some sort of massive figure that looks sort of like Yaldabaoth, except less robot and more seraphim. It literally names itself the Demiurge, so I feel like EMMA may be drawing something from the lingering dregs of Yald’s influence? It’s cool.

Clearly no one told you what happened to the last false god that thought it knew what was best for humanity. ;) “Hope binds humanity to misery” is bullshit.

After a... not very difficult first phase, the Demiurge reveals its true form, and we split into three teams to take out its support orbs (modeled after the sephirot) and the main body.

I really liked the setup for the last boss. The teams were the first instance where it was really apparent that the whole team was fighting together. Each of the three battles was happening concurrently, and destroying the orbs has a concrete effect on the main fight. I wish we’d gotten to do things like this more often, especially during the Shadow Thieves fight.

That said, the main body was actually the easiest part of the fight? All the attacks were really telegraphed, and not particularly hard to avoid. Except for the spear jab.

But it finished off with a full-team all-out attack, and that was awesome.

The desires began to return to their owners, and we get to bask in a job well done once again.

Upon returning to the real world, it’s the next morning. Sophia’s happy that she got to be a hero, Zenkichi’s heading off to properly arrest Owada, and the rest of us need to head home, because we were supposed to be home last night. Zenkichi can’t figure out why we consider him a phantom thief, since he “only joined [us] to use [us]”. Which is silly. The Phantom Thieves are built on the bonds of friendship and stalking! It’s too late, Zenkichi. You and Akane have been adopted.

I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get to tell Akane the truth. That would have been great.

Atlus personally reaches out and pats me on the head, because Sojiro has the absolute perfect reaction to his kids coming home after a nationwide manhunt for them.

I feel so valid making him serve Lavenza coffee and be completely nonplussed about a guy marrying Death. I love him. We’re so lucky to have Sojiro. XDDDD

The next day, the kids have a celebration party for their victory, and learn that Akira is going home the next day. This kid needs to catch a break. He can’t even have a few days to relax with his friends. X’‘‘D

Everyone goes to see off Akira, though we detour to Shibuya to meet Ichinose. A news report shows that Owada was successfully arrested, and apparently Ichinose tried to turn herself in to the police, and they didn’t believe a word of it.

This is just highlighting my issues with Maruki. Even if he doesn’t think he did anything wrong to society as a whole, he never apologizes to them for what he put them through. Especially Akira. Ichinose turns around and helps them stop the final boss, and her last scene is her apologizing to the Thieves and trying to make amends for her actions. Maruki’s last scene is... “If things get bad, you can start over like me! Now we’re even!” We are not.

Sophia leaves to help Ichinose learn about the heart, Akira promises to come back for winter break, the Phantom Thieves go their separate ways once again, and the credits roll.

I’m gonna leave my final impressions in a different post, because this one is long enough already. So... look forward to that?

#Li plays P5Scramble #one more post incoming

11 notes · View notes

kkeidawrites · 5 years ago

Text

Gone (Filler)

Side Quest a little scene that I have been trying to write for a while but, here it is! This is taken place during their travels.

This will be a two part series so be on the look out for that second chapter!

¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥

The foursome had settled for camp, and Esmé was reading one of her spell books she had in her bag. She promised the others that she could make dinner while they sorted out the little supplies they did have.

One hand was outstretched in front of her as the spoon in the pot magically stirred. Trevor had caught a couple of rabbits and that was what was going to be their dinner tonight, rabbit stew. It was better than nothing and Trevor had ran out of jerky so what other choice did they have?

The sound of snow crunched by her and Esmé looked up to see Alucard approaching her. She turned up her nose and went back to reading her book as the dhampir sat down next to her.

She was annoyed with him, earlier, he had a made a comment that sat with her the wrong way.

Earlier that day...

Sypha had managed to find a covered wagon and horses and the foursome made their way out of Gresit, Trevor steering the reigns.

Sypha sat next to him while Esmé and Alucard rode in the wagon. Sypha and Trevor were having their own conversations and Esmé felt envious of them. They talked so casually to one another and Esmé didn’t know whether to join in their conversation or try and make conversation with the quiet golden, haired man.

She blamed it on herself really, she has been alone for so long after father became ill, her only focus on taking care of him and hasn’t had real human contact with anyone in a while. It was foreign to her to have small talk with someone else.

Thinking that staying quiet was a better choice, Esmé pulled one of her smaller spell books from inside her cloak and flipped to a particular page where she was learning a new spell to make her own clothing with fabric. It was a difficult spell and most of the words were unfamiliar to her.

Esmé frowned in thought as she tried to decipher one word. If she could figure out what that word said she would be able to finish the spell.

“May I ask something?” She heard his husky voice say and Esmé looked up with a raised eyebrow. Alucard had shifted his body to have one leg bent to his chest while the other hanged off the side of the wagon.

“Why need so many spell books? Surely, they weigh you down?” Alucard asked. Esmé responded without a beat as her eyes returned to her book.

“Same reason you need a sword in battle. It weighs you down but, you need it to fight in battle, yes?Well,” Esmé flipped the page and continued her lament.

“I need my books to get through not only my battles but, my life.” Esmé told him.

Alucard wasn’t expecting that answer and he took this opportunity to look at what she was reading. It was written in Latin and another language he didn’t recognize. After being taught every language in the world, the ones he saw in her book was like reading gibberish. There were even numbers in it too.

“It’s called Moüit, if you are so curious.” Esmé’s voice reverted his eyes to her as she was still reading her book.

“I have never heard of such a language.” Alucard mused as Esmé looked up at him once more.

“It’s not a language, it’s more of a code deciphered in letters. My Father taught me.” Esmé caresses the rim of the book.

“Your father was able to make spells encoding numbers and letters?” Sypha asked this time and Esmé looked at her nodding.

“Yes, when I was small, we lived in Genoa. There was a war going on and my father was apart of the army. It was where he was able to use his speaker magic and actually enhance it using strange letters and numbers to send coordinates or instructions to different platoons.” Esmé said proudly.

“Incredible!” Sypha gushed clapping happily.

“You must teach me how he does it!” Sypha cheesed and Esmé gave an awkward smile in return.

“He sounds like a great soldier.” Trevor chimed in.

Esmé smiled at the praise and agreed that he truly was a great soldier.

“Yes. He was,” Esmé closed the book with a soft shut and put it back into her cloak.

“Was?” Sypha asks.

“Before the illness struck him, he would always be training. He had these large muscles that he swore my mother swoon off of and I would hang off of them as if they were tree branches.” Esmé smiled at the fond memories.

“We think it came from his time as a soldier that may have caused his illness. It has got so bad that it has rendered him bedridden and he can’t sit up without proper help. I was heading to a port so that I can find a way back to Jova but, I was ambushed by those night creatures.” Esmé grimaced.

Alucard watched the woman closely and then turned his head back to the forest line they passed by.

“Now, it is my turn to ensure that Moüit will be taught to the next generation and it will continue the legacy of my father.” Esmé said.

The next few hours became unsettling silence as everyone were left to their own thoughts. Esmé still couldn’t figure out how these three will be able to defeat Dracula. If anything it made Esmé want to know if they were even capable of doing so. Especially Alucard. He would have to kill his own father for a world that didn’t accept even him.

Her eyes glanced at the back of the dhampir and Esmé sighed, leaning back against the wagon in thought.

“Off to sleep again, are we?” She heard Alucard ask and Esmé looked up at him. His head was turned over his shoulder to look at her.

“No?” Esmé said confused by the random question.

“Oh, well good. We won’t have to endure your snoring again.” Alucard said.

Esmé sat up to move in a more comfortable position where her tender wound wouldn’t be bothered.

“I don’t snore.” She mutters as Alucard raised an eyebrow at her.

“It’s more of a boar like noise, almost a pig dare I say. A snore no doubt.” Alucard mused.

Esmé rolls her eyes and leans back again against the wagon again.

“Like you’re one to talk about someone’s sleeping habits.” She says with a scoff.

“Oh? Enlighten me.”

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but every time I wake up your golden hair is in my mouth. Not a strand, a whole loc is in my mouth! I almost chocked yesterday because of your hair.” Esmé said folding her arms.

“At least I don’t sleep wildly,” Alucard retorted his eyes filled with annoyance now.

“I wake up and I see that you have your foot by my mouth. Never have I seen a more uncouth woman like you.” Alucard says.

Esmé laughs mirthlessly and looks at him in shock.

“Uncouth?! You should be in a dress and wearing bows to ensure that people know you can play both a woman and man!” Esmé shot back and Trevor barked in laughter.

Alucard’s eyebrow twitched and Esmé turned away again.

“Oh, God!” Trevor laughs as Sypha put a hand over her face.

“That joke will never not be funny!” He chortles.

Alucard returns to looking out at the tree line and scoffs.

“I can pull off the look of a woman, unlike you.” Alucard says and immediately regretted his words and Esmé’s eyes darkened.

“Alucard!” Sypha scolded.

“Stop the wagon.” Esmé said icily.

Using her foot, Esmé kicks his back and Alucard falls out of the wagon, face first. Once the wagon stopped, Esmé got out of the wagon and began walking to the front of it.

“Esmé! Esmé wait!” Sypha jumped down from the seat of the wagon and followed after the woman.

Alucard got up from the ground with a sigh and patted his pants of the dirt that was coated there.

Trevor’s laugh made the dhampir look to his left as the surviving Belmont made his way over to him.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Trevor says still laughing.

“Takes one to know one.” Alucard retorts.

End of part 1

1 // 2 //

#black reader #black!reader #castlevania!alucard x reader #castlevania #castlevania x reader #fanfiction #my writing #alucard #netflix castlevania #black oc #adrian tepes #adrian tepes x reader #side quest #filler pt. 1

34 notes · View notes

mastrmiscellaneous · 4 years ago

Text

Capture the Flag

Summary: Clara, Justin, and Lucille play Capture the Flag, and a secret is revealed.

Word Count: 7898

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Peters siblings had only been in Camp for a week. Well, five days, but their friend Clara Ostá, an unclaimed girl the same age as Justin, kept saying a week so they eventually just went with it. They had learnt a lot in that time, about themselves, about their new friend, and about the world they lived in.

Justin had picked up Archery extremely quickly, shooting a full twelve arrow round and earning a full mark of 120, all bullseye hits. He had tried to learn how to use a sword, and though he was light on his feet, and was strong and accurate, it just felt unnatural. Especially when he watched Clara. She was basically a master already, easily taking on the best of the best in camp, even when they were much older than her. He had also started training one on one with Chiron, learning how to control his Plague Bearer powers. At first, he thought his powers were awesome, and he felt they made him feel incredibly powerful. However, he had quickly learnt that the exact opposite was true. His cabinmates were openly fearful of him, acting obviously careful around him and hesitating before asking him to participate in anything with them. That was certainly not the best feeling for the boy, but at least he had Clara and Lucille, they did not fear him. Although, his powers were getting stronger, and he was quick in learning how to control and direct them. Justin just kept to himself and practiced his favourite activities in camp.

Lucille was having an amazing time in camp now she had settled in with her new siblings. Her first night in the Hephaestus cabin was rough, being without a familiar face, and the noises of all the machines in the room scared her, but she was comforted by her eldest sibling, Beckendorf, who explained the intricacies of their cabin, and stayed awake by her side until she fell asleep. Lucille liked Beckendorf, he was kind and smart, he helped her in the forge, teaching her how to create machines and weapons, as well as assisting her with organising materials specifically for her. Since most of the tools and drawers were colour coded, and Lucille is unfortunately red-green colour-blind, the special organisation was greatly needed. She loved making things, and she was incredible at it.

Clara was enjoying having some closer friends at camp. She had to admit, she struggled making friends. Over the year she had stayed in camp, she had greatly struggled to get close to people, struggling with adapting to the English language when talking to other demigods, and just generally being awkward around people. She had never been good with people, being home schooled by her uncle back in Greece until she was seven, when her and her mother moved to the USA, where once again she struggled to make friends. She was not used to other kids, and she could not speak English at the time. Once she got to camp, it was much easier to talk to people, Chiron and Mr D being a great platform to have a proper conversation. They had some good alone time together, as she had private lessons with Chiron, Just like Justin.

English was a confusing concept for Clara. She struggled with understanding certain idioms, like the difference between a work week and full week. Her mother had never used those idioms, and her dyslexia made learning English quite the struggle for her, so certain things are much harder for her to wrap her head around than others.

One thing Clara could get her head around though was the concept of her favourite activity in Camp Half Blood: Capture the Flag!

Friday finally came, and Clara bounded out of the Hermes cabin and right over to Justin, who was tiredly emerging from the Apollo cabin, rubbing his eyes to get used to the bright summer morning.

“Kaliméra, Justin!” She half shouted as she jumped to a stop in front of her friend, smiling wide. Evidently, Justin was not used to this level of excitement, somehow, as he fell back in surprise, a very unmanly squeak escaping from his throat as he tripped over the bottom step.

“I’m gonna assume that means good morning.” Justin chuckled as he quickly got back up to his feet, with the help of an apologetic Clara. “What’s got you so happy?”

“You are really going to need to learn Greek at some point.” Clara elbowed Justin in his side, making him squirm. “But not right now! It’s capture the flag night!”

“It’s what now?”

“Michael hasn’t told you?!” Clara was utterly disgusted. How dare he not tell Justin about something so extremely important! Justin shook his head, and she went into a tirade of explaining the game to Justin as they walked to the mess hall for breakfast. Justin seemed quite confused at the whole thing, silently deciding he would ask his cabin mates (he’s still uncomfortable calling them his siblings) at breakfast. He was struggling to follow along with Clara’s explanation, as she kept going on unrelated tangents, and he was pretty sure she was speaking an odd mix of Greek and English, so definitely hard to follow. Eventually they got to the mess hall and parted ways, sitting at their own tables, Justin first heading over to the Hephaestus table to greet Lucille good morning.

-----------------

After Breakfast, Lucille came bounding over to Justin and Clara, who were standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the mess hall. Justin was asking more clear questions about the game tonight, now he fully understood what was happening. Lucille half tackled his brother into a strong hug. Despite the fact that the pair had only been at camp for a week, and that she was only 8 years old, she had grown much stronger from her lessons in the forge. The girl excitedly expressed her interest in the game tonight. The concept was fascinating to her, a mix of the classic game she plays in Phys Ed at school and the battles she heard of in history class. The excitement was overwhelming.

However, Justin’s excitement was depleting at the thought of his baby sister participating in a game as brutal as this, as it was described to him. He promised his mother he would protect her, but apparently he was way in over his head about that. Clara was not help, she just shrugged, explaining everyone took part, it was no big deal. Justin respectfully disagreed on that point.

The boy wanted clarity, so he marched along to the forge with the girls at his heals, with the clear aim of talking to the head of the Hephaestus cabin. He barged into the dark room, cluttered room, bumping into a girl around his age and quickly apologising. Lucille ran off to the end of the room to an oddly neat workbench, the tools organised by type, size, and fit, labelled with symbols that match a chart on the wall. The symbols and chart were clearly not written by Lucille, her handwriting was incredibly messy, and this person’s was quite neat and easy to read. As her companions marched over to her bench, she started fiddling with a device she had been working on, a matt bronze mess of metal and wires, vaguely shaped like the body of a bull, the size of a game controller.

“Lucille, where’s Beckendorf?” Justin asked his sister, but she was already deep in concentration.

“I’m right here.” Sounded the cheerful yet deep voice of the large, eldest child of Hephaestus. Justin turned to face him, relaxing at the comforting smile the cabin leader wore. “You got one hell of a sister here, Peters. She’s an amazing inventor, wonderful with tools! And her ability with magic, wow! Impressive for someone so young!”

The young man’s smile was so sincere, he was certainly incredibly proud of his little sister. He ruffled the girl’s hair, snapping her out of her trance, and she beamed up at him. Justin straightened up and puffed his chest out, making Clara chuckle. She muttered something about him being defensive over his sister. Justin just stood on her foot in retaliation. To be fair to her, his confidence tactic was useless in this case, as he was barely eyeline with the blacksmith’s shoulders.

“I know, Lucy has always been great with tools. You should see her in the shop back home! She’s better at the repairs than mom!” Justin bragged about his sister, making her beam and wiggle happily in her seat.

“I don’t doubt that.” Beckendorf said, glancing between the three with a warm, calculating smile. “What can I do for you?”

Justin suddenly remembered why he was in the forge in the first place.

“Yes! Right...” Justin gathered his thoughts and straightened back up. “I wanted to talk about Capture the Flag...”

“Worried she’ll be caught up in too much action?” Beckendorf crossed his arms and leant back on a cluttered workbench, shifting some miscellaneous tools. Justin nodded, pulling on the hem of his camp shirt. Beckendorf continued, “Understandable. The game can get pretty... intense... however! The Hephaestus cabin tends not to do too much face to face fighting. We make the tools for our team, make traps, that sort of thing.”

“She’ll be out of danger?”

“I’ll make sure of that. She’ll stay by my side. Not just because you’re asking, but because it’s her first game and she’s pretty young, I would also prefer she stays out of the action. For now, at least.”

He said that last part with a wink at Lucille and a smirk. He ruffled her hair once again, and wordlessly passed her a tool, a long and thin thing that looked like a screwdriver that buzzed like it flowed with electricity, which Lucille apparently needed because she immediately continued with her work.

“Well... that seems good then.” Justin immediately felt awkward. It was clear the Hephaestus cabin was very different to the Apollo cabin. These people clearly cared for each other, and protected each other. The Apollo kids, however? Ever since Justin had been told about his status as the Plague Bearer, his cabin mates seemed uncomfortable around him. Like they didn’t want to get close to him. “I can live with that.”

“Great! I’m glad you and Lucy are ok with that. I wouldn’t want to make either of you uncomfortable. You’re her brother too, I respect your opinion.” Gods, how is he this great?

The two talked for another couple minutes, as Clara moved to Lucille’s workbench and talked to her about what she was making. Lucille explained that Beckendorf was teaching her the basics of metalwork and electrics, so she can develop her pre-existing skills with tools and apply it to things like making weapons and armour, devices, anything her gigantic mind could think of. The young inventor clearly had no qualms about bragging, as she presented her draw of already finished products, some magical, some not.

“Beckendorf said I’m special! I can do magic stuff good, and really quick! Even he can’t do what I can!”

This kid has a lot going for her, as long as this level of support and ego was retained.

After a while, Justin and Clara left the two creators to their devices, Beckendorf saying he wanted Lucille to help him with some cool traps for the game tonight. That, and Clara was insisting on taking Justin around and helping him prepare for the game, insisting he was not ready enough. Justin was a little offended by that at first, but as soon as she pointed out he had only been there a few days, and even though he has a good power set, and a near perfect aim with a bow, his practice was minimal and head definitely not prepared for a battle, even a fake one.

Therefore, Clara took him to the arena, which was mostly empty. According to Clara, classes here would not be starting for another two hours, so they had time to tune Justin’s instincts. Now, since Justin did not have ADHD, he did not have the upper hand on a fast-paced battlefield like she did. It was clear Clara had spent years in camp, away from a proper school, because she did not see her Dyslexia and ADHD as something that was annoying or difficult, but as her greatest strength. Well, that, and her intellect. When on the battle field, Clara had the ego of Narcissus, and honestly? She deserved it. She had brought Justin to the arena to train with other weapons, explaining variety was always a strength. It will always improve something, be it your strength, agility, accuracy, or just improve your ability to take in your surroundings. Clara said that was the most important one. If you can take in your surroundings quickly, a plan can be formed just as quick, which is always important when your life is in danger of monsters.

First, Clara sowed Justin how to use a sword. She pulled her camp necklace from under her shirt. It was the same as everyone else’s necklaces, a simple leather chord with a single white clay bead with a golden fleece hanging from a pine tree daintily painted on, a smaller clay bead, more crudely made and only possessed by a couple people at camp, painted a dark blue with a silver bow. There were two other things on her necklace, personal belongings Clara was yet to explain to anyone. One object Justin recognised as a rune, a dark stone oval with chipped, rounded edges, and carved and painted silver in the centre was a symbol; a deep curved line at the top, with a circle in the curve, and a straight line in the middle under the circle, with two lines horizontal under the circle and curve in the middle of the rune, and finally a diagonal line at the end of the vertical line on the left side of the rune. The final object on the necklace was a celestial bronze bar, about an inch long. This is what Clara reached for, pulling it from it’s connector to the chord and spinning in through her fingers. A celestial bronze sword grew with a slash of orange light. It was a simple weapon, about 50cm long, one solid peace of metal, with a leaf shaped blade and a simple trapezoid shaped guard, and a rounded pommel. On the guard was a familiar shaped carving, the same owl design that was painted atop the door of the Athena cabin. It was truly a beautiful weapon.

Clara twirled the sword around as she wandered over to a wrack of weapons, carefully picking out another sword; a simple celestial bronze sword with a black leather grip, about a metre in length. She gestured for Justin to follow her to the centre of the arena and she handed him the second sword.

“So, I know you’ve been focusing on archery and controlling your powers, but having a variety of skills really helps. It means you can at least defend yourself when in a pinch.” She got into a ready position and gestured for him to copy. “Now, I just want you to defend yourself, don’t think about attacking me.”

“Wait, wha-”

Justin could not finish his sentence because Clara had already slashed out with her sword, which he parried clumsily. She may have the shorter weapon, but she sure knew how to use it. She moved with ease, flowing like a dance, but as quick as tornado’s wind. Justin tried to defend himself and get away from her. He jumped over abandoned chariots, stood behind weapon stores, climbed up and down the steps and seats of the arena, and rolled on the floor to avoid her expert attacks. His breath was quick, and heart racing. Justin felt hyper aware about his surroundings, taking in all obstacles and the slightest movements made by Clara, be it her eyes moving or a shift in footing. He felt aware, and felt alive.

Clara tripped Justin and he rolled over, landing on one knee. She slashed her sword down in a diagonal line, and Justin let his instincts take over. He slashed his sword in the opposite direction with all the force he could muster. The swords collided, bronze on bronze, sparks flying and forcing Clara’s hand backwards, making her stumble back a step. Justin leapt to his feet and held the point of his sword under her chin.

Both of them were breathing long, tired breaths. Clara smiled at Justin, proud of her student. Justin chuckled and dropped his sword away from her chin, pointing it at the floor.

“So,” Clara spun the sword and it shrank back to the one inch bar that she reattached to her necklace charm. “How do you feel?”

Justin thought for a second, still smiling. “Alive... Energised. That’s the most aware I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Good. Now, in a real battle, you should try and fight back, but this exercise develops consciousness. Being aware of your surroundings. What a true warrior needs to survive.”

“I can tell! That was,” Justin made a vague, excited gesture. “wow! How di you know all this stuff?”

Justin regretted asking that question as soon as the last word left his lips. Her proud, excited expression shifted quickly. She looked down at her feet, letting her long, dark hair fall in front of her face, and she fiddled with the rune on her necklace.

“My mama taught me...” Clara took Justin’s sword and wandered off to put it back on the wrack. Then, she walked over to the stands and sat down, slumped over and leaning her elbows on her thighs. Justin sat beside her and checked to see if she was ok. She instead explained what was wrong.

“I haven’t seen my mamá for a year know. We had some problems… Mamá is very similar to a demigod. Attracts monsters, has fought a lot. She has a duty to Olympus she will not rest on. She has a pretty rough past, too, so living with her is… hard. She has her issues. that, along with moving across the world to a place I didn’t speak the language, and my powers and increasingly growing monster attacks, it just got tense at home. One day, I got a letter from my father, telling me to come here. I felt bad at home, so I left.”

Clara sighed, her shoulders sagged, and she took in a long, shaky breath. She sat up straight, brushed her hair out of her face, and attempted to be subtle as she wiped tears away from her eyes and released her breath.

“She used to train with me. She’s the one who taught me how to fight, how to use a sword. Everything I know about the ancient world, the gods, monsters, I learnt from her. I just miss her is all…”

Justin could only sit there and listen. This was something he had never anticipated. Sure, he knew a good deal of the demigods here in camp either had no mortal parent or family, or just simply did not have a good relationship with their family. He expected Clara to be the same. Just, he did not expect this exact situation.

“She knows I’m safe. I’ve called her a couple times since coming here. Not often though.”

She sniffed and shifted in her seat, hugging her legs and resting her head on her knees. Justin had no idea of what to do. Emotions were not something he was good with. He could write them into a song, but comforting someone who wasn’t Lucille? It’s a stretch. He needed to learn how to do that. So he asked a question instead.

“You said she’s similar to a demigod. What’s that mean?”

Clara inhaled sharply, as if she had forgotten she said that and revealed something she shouldn’t have. She laughed awkwardly and looked at Justin, panicking to think of an excuse.

“Well, you know- you know how your mom can see through the mist? it’s basically like that!” Clara laughed awkwardly, voice higher pitched, and her accent flaring up strong.

“My mom is far from a demigod.” Justin said monotonously. “Impressive, sure. She also fought Mormo, but I would not compare her to a demigod. What’s really going on?”

Clara gulped deep, and sighed, once again fiddling with her necklace. She mumbled to herself in Greek. Justin caught the odd word, it sounded like she was cursing herself out because of her slip up. Finally, she looks at him again and explained.

“It’s complicated. you know I come from Athens, moved here when I was seven. My family is an ancient one, dating back in the record for a little under three thousand years. When the Romans started invading Greece, the gods feared for the safety of their secrets, and Lady Athena proposed a plan. Grant a family of mortals clear sight, give them her blessing, and a job to protect the secrets of Olympus, items of importance to the gods, titans, heroes, and monsters. Kinda like a librarian with access to weapons. That is what my mamá is. A Guardian of Athens, Kidemonás, champion of Athena. The job brought a lot of… issues for mamá. I am one too.”

All Justin could do was hum a sound that vaguely sounded like ‘woah’. That was certainly not something he expected. Clara panicked and continued.

“It’s supposed to be a secret. No one, not even demigods, know about the Guardians, or the Chambers we guard. it is too dangerous. you can not tell anyone about this! I should not even told you!”

“Ok!” Justin blurted out. “Ok, I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I swear on the Styx I won’t share this secret.”

Clara’s blue eyes went wide. she was shocked he would go to that length, as to swear on the Styx for her. It’s extreme, he could get hurt if her told. Suddenly, she launched at him and engulfed her in a tight hug, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.

“Thank you…”

“No problem. anything to make you feel safe.”

----------------

Soon enough, after Clara and Justin had continued their training for another two hours, fine tuning Justin’s instincts and physical abilities, practicing his war archery and quick shooting, lunch was going to be served and classes start up in the arena soon. So, the two friends excited the arena and went to their cabins to change their shirts and have a clean to rid themselves of sweat before eating. They finished up a little early and went to the forge to watch Lucille work.

They reached the forge and got a few non-serious glares from the children of Hephaestus. Justin was incredibly confused by this, but Clara explained it was because this week the Hephaestus Cabin was on the Red team for Capture the Flag, whilst the Hermes and Apollo Cabins were on the Blue team. They’re just playing around with a friendly rivalry.

Lucille was very eager to show off her work of the day. She and Beckendorf had made a crude wind-up bronze bull. The metal was awkward and scuffed, and the movements were very robotic, but it was incredible work for an eight-year-old. The four demigods got to talking, telling Justin and Lucille about the team system, each cabin’s general rolls in the game, and Beckendorf giving a purposefully vague description of what they were planning for the night. All Justin and Clara knew was they had some interesting toys to play with this evening.

It was not long before the horn announcing lunch sounded throughout the camp. They made their way to the mess hall, and Justin spent his lunch watching his friend and sister. Clara seemed pretty comfortable at the Hermes table. She knew a lot of people, she talked and laughed with them, though the sadness in her eyes left behind from the conversation about her mother never truly left. Lucille was incredibly happy with her table. She laughed and bounced in her seat, eagerly talking about whatever was on her mind with her siblings, and they all engaged well with her. He loved that she was happy.

Although Justin was happy for the girls in his life, he was also incredibly jealous. His cabin mates were not the most fun to be with. At least, they were with him. His power, his curse, scared them. As it should, Justin had been learning to control his power with Chiron, and the centaur had said he was incredibly powerful, more powerful than any Plague Bearer he had seen through the centuries. Justin did not mind his power, he thought it was pretty cool, as long as he can control it. The only thing he didn’t like was the fear and stigma from most people it brought.

After a long, quiet lunch, Justin met back up with Clara and Lucille for a quick chat before Lucille was swept away back to the forge to make devices for the game. Justin explained to Clara he would love to continue training, but he has a private lesson with Chiron now, but he offered to let her watch so she wasn’t alone. She accepted, and tagged along, Chiron in his full centaur glory leading the pair to a large opening in the woods, far from anyone else, the sounds of the camp distant and quiet.

Chiron was particularly sharp today, warning Justin that even though he has learnt quickly the past few days, he needed to make sure to control himself else he could seriously hurt someone. Chiron was pleased Clara had tagged along, asking if she would be ok with sparing with Justin so he could learn to keep his cool under attack. Clara agreed, removing her sword from its hidden form on her necklace, and Chiron handed Justin the bow he had been using and a quiver filled with celestial bronze arrows. They spared for a while, Chiron giving orders, telling Justin how to relax his muscles and mind whilst also keeping his guard up when being attacked. After an hour, Chiron stopped the fight and beckoned Clara to come close, and he bent down to whisper in her ear. Clara looked shocked at first, but smirked when she made eye contact with her friend.

“If you insist.” She said. The tone of her voice mixed with her accent made him shudder.

“Justin, we will be turning up the heat now. Clare will be using a… special power of hers to make the fight more intense.” Chiron nodded at the pair to get into sparing position. “Remember, stay relaxed, think clearly, keep your breath steady. Now, go.”

Justin nocked an arrow, and started to freak out when he looked up at Clara. Her normally icy blue eyes were now a silvery storm grey, a faint silvery blue glow encased her body, a little brighter around her right shoulder. she had a stormy, terrifying look to her. The contrast between her dark skin, the pale aura surrounding her, and the grey eyes was startling. Her playful smirk had disappeared, replaced by a tight straight lip, her eyebrows furrowed tight and her eyes in a fixed steel glare. It looked unnatural, her eyes usually darted about, taking in her surroundings, but the fixed eye contact she held now was unmoving. Her grip on her sword was so tight her knuckles paled, her muscles tensed. She charged.

Her speed was unmatched, and ferocity insane, and it was nothing like how she fought that morning. She was incredible then, but this? This was outstanding, terrifying, pure ability and skill. Justin struggled to keep up with her, his need to take an arrow from his quiver, nock it, pull back, aim, and loose was just too much to do when she was so quick and strong. His emotions and stress were flaring up, and Chiron could see it. He yelled to the boy to remain calm, keep steady, he can fight it, but Justin struggled to believe that. He was so new to this, and Clara was just too good. His stress was getting stronger and strong until finally…

He ran out of arrows.

Justin panicked, and instinct took over. He turned to Clara and caught her charging. He reached out and flexed his fingers. Clara stopped. Choked.

Justin had put her into a major coughing fit. A minor affliction, but enough to stop her surge. The glow of her power flickered and dimmed, eventually disappearing altogether, her eyes turning back to their normal ice blue. She dropped her sword, keeling over coughing, barely able to catch her breath between fits. Justin panicked, relaxing his hand and repeatedly muttering a sentence Chiron told him to repeat in times like this.

“Don’t hurt them, let them go.”

Clara finally stopped coughing, gasping for breath and dropping to her knees, panting heavily. Chiron trotted over to her and knelt down, placing a hand on her back and giving her a water bottle Justin could not figure out where he was keeping. She attempted to catch her breath, and sipped the water bottle for a couple minutes, and Justin just stood there, panicking. He really did not mean to hurt his friend, and he really hoped she would not hate him after this.

He almost jumped to the ground in front of her once he regained his composure. He worriedly checked on her and asked questions, making sure she was ok and knew he did not mean it. After a couple minutes, Clara regained her composure and smiled at Justin.

“Dude, that was awesome.”

“What?” Justin said, shocked.

“I knew Plague Bearers were powerful, but wow! That was rough! you can do better? So cool.”

Justin stared at her blankly for a moment and burst out laughing. “You are so weird.”

Clara shrugged and giggled to herself, “Yeah, but you like it!”

The pair laughed for a moment, ignoring the strange, confused stares Chiron was shooting them. Clara lightly coughed between laughs, but overall was recovering pretty well. Chiron dismissed the pair and told them to relax and regain themselves before Capture the Flag.

-------------------

Justin and Clara sat at a table in the middle of the horseshoe of cabins, a bit of a distance from the basketball court. They talked lightly as they regained their strength, Justin consistently apologising and making sure she was ok, which was met with a lot of eye rolling and insistence that she is ok. She’s a fighter, she’ll be fine. They remained like this until finally Justin gave in to his urge and finally asked what that power was.

Clara chuckled and reminded Justin of the conversation they had that morning about the Guardians of Athens, then went on to remind him Athena offered to bless the mortals set to protect the Chambers. That power was part of the blessing. It enhances her senses and abilities. Clara explained that it felt like time slowed down, so she could take in details of the battle field and react quicker. She explained that the blessing resided in a mark on her skin, a pale birth mark on the back of her right shoulder in the shape of an Athenian coin. A pale circle, with the same owl shape that was carved into her sword, above the owl to the right was an olive branch, and beside it on the edge of the circle the letters AOE on the left side. When she activated her blessing, it would glow a blueish silver, the blessing changed her eye colour to that of Athena herself, and the aura encased her body. She had learnt how to control it vaguely when she was with her mother, but Chiron and Mr D had given her private lessons on her family’s position and the powers she held. Well, her Guardianship was the main focus of her lessons, she was also taught how to control her other powers, the ones she inherited from her unknown father. She refused to tell Justin about them. He let it go.

-------------------

The games were finally beginning. Dinner was shorter than usual, the excited demigods eager to fight each other in the woods at night whilst also attempting to locate, steal, and escape with a long piece of red or blue cloth.

On the blue team, they had the Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Demeter cabins. Justin was pleased her was on Clara’s team, she could explain things to him better than anyone in his cabin, at least. On the red team was the Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, and Dionysus cabins.

Before the two teams separated and marched off to the woods, shouting war cries and praying for glory, everyone was given armour and weapons. Justin realised he would never get used to metal armour. He struggled with the straps on the shoulders, Clara having to fix it for him, so it did not hang off his body. She also adjusted the straps on his sides, muttering to herself that he had a lot to learn. Her armour was perfect, tight yet moveable, no hanging straps and just enough space between her body and armour to fit two fingers in. Absolutely perfect. Justin could not help but admire Clara’s perfection in this. She had clearly been doing this for a long time, everything came so easy to her. Though Justin could chalk this up to her connection with Athena (as he understood it, her whole thing was cleverness and being good in battle, so Justin guessed it would pass down to her kids, and by extension a Guardian like Clara), Justin chose to believe that she was just that good. She looked amazing too, her armour fit her perfectly, and not just because she knew how to wear it. In her usual clothes, like her camp shirts or the sweaters she wore, he could not really notice anything about her, except perhaps her toned bronze arms, that he definitely didn’t stare at, no way! However, in the armour, he could see her figure, as her armour fit perfectly around her. Her armour was clearly made for her, as she had a fortified shoulder guard on her left, and it was flexible around her body, partially leather, partially metal. Obviously, she still had a lot of developing to do, but she was already beautiful. Anyone could tell that she was going to be an absolute looker, mistakable for a daughter of Aphrodite, when she was older. It fit around her toned body nicely. She quickly tightened her armguards and pulled out her camp necklace before looking at Justin properly.

In short, the boy was a mess. Clara had to hold in a bit of laughter looking at him. his skinny, untrained form struggled to fit into any armour properly. This size fit the best, but still not great, as Justin was rather tall for his age, so the armour made for his height also provided room for some muscle, and the size down didn’t reach low enough to cover his whole torso, so there was no hope in finding anything perfect until he toned up a bit. Luckily, since he is an archer, he was allowed to wear mostly leather armour, so it didn’t look as bad as it would if it were metal. Especially when he put his quiver over his shoulder, that fit much better and tightened his leather vest. As she stepped back to look at her work, She did notice his awkward smile, and his drumming fingers on the riser of his bow, and acknowledged that behind the cluelessness and idiocy was a skilled and intelligent and cute guy. Not cute as in she liked him! cute like he’s a lost puppy. yes, that.

Lucille, on the other hand, was a hilarious sight to behold. They clear did not have armour small enough for her, so she remained helmetless, and her too-big chest plate hung off her body, Justin wondered how she would be quiet and sneaky with the amount it shifted when she moved, and she was moving a lot. Her excitement was showing incredibly, she bounced on her feet and had her gloved hands balled into fists, shaking them in front of her chest, her toothy smile beaming in the evening light. She stood beside Beckendorf, who had a sack slung over his shoulder, his other hand on her shoulder and talking to Clarisse, the Red Team’s leader as the head councillor of the Ares Cabin.

Finally, the two teams set off, dividing and heading off to their chosen base. The blue team headed to the North Woods, finally stopping about 50 yards away from the beech. The cabin leaders split off and gave out tasks. The Athena cabin was to split in half, team A moving along the forest line across the beech, and team B loop around the other end, towards Zeus’ Fist. That was apparently the most likely place for the Ares cabin to put their flag. The Apollo and Hermes Cabins were to combine and work together, splitting into groups of two, one from each cabin, and those groups would be split in half, team 1 being defence, and team 2 being sent straight ahead as a diversion attack. Finally, the Demeter cabin were to stay with the flag, using their plant manipulation to protect the prize.

Justin and Clara teamed up, and were sent away to the middle of the forest, adjacent to Zeus’ Fist and across the river. The two plant themselves hidden in a relatively thick section of the woods, sitting back-to-back, looking into two different clearings. They sat in silence for a while, listening and watching for movement, ready to battle despite the fact the game hadn’t officially been called to start yet. They still had a couple minutes for that. but they could never be careful, especially if someone else decided this was a good spot to hide. Finally, they heard the horn sound in the distance. The game begins.

Clara and Justin listened out for any sound coming close, Justin had an arrow knocked in preparation, a knife strapped to his side in case he needed a close combat weapon. Clara had drawn her heirloom sword, holding it close to her chest in hopes of hiding it in the bushes. Not soon after the horn blasted, the pair heard footsteps nearby their hiding spot. Well, Clara heard them and infirmed Justin. Her battle senses where a lot stronger than his. Whether that was a Guardian thing or something she inherited from her father, she wouldn’t know. Clara glared into the near distance, waiting for any sign of movement, Justin followed her gaze and readied his bow. He had a pretty good shot from where he was.

A positive: Clara was right, someone was indeed coming towards them.

A negative: ‘someone’ actually meant seven people. a small group compared to the entirety of the Red team, and Justin had never been too good at math, but he was pretty sure seven was more than two.

the team consisted of three Ares kids and two Hephaestus kids. Five strong and skilled demigods against one amazing swordsman and a novice archer. Sounds like a fair fight.

Clara quietly pulled out an arrow from Justin’s quiver, and pulled out a ball of strong from the gods only know where. she tied the end to underneath the flights of the arrow and looked at the path the Red Team demigods were walking on. She muttered to Justin,

“Shoot that log there.”

Justin complied, silently shooting at the log with the arrow she had modified. The team of five jumped a little at the sudden sound.

“What was that?”

“Who’s there?!”

“Come on guys, it was probably just a squirrel or something. it’s gone now, and do you see anyone? let’s just get this flag.”

And at that, the five walked in the direction of Justin’s arrow. Just when the five were two feet away, Clara pulled tight on the string, and the front two kids tripped, faceplanting the dirt. the other three readied their weapons and the tripped two attempted to get up, but Justin acted fast, quickly knocking and arrow and shooting at them, the arrow digging into the sleave of the first guy’s tshirt, pinning him to the ground. The other one got to his feet, but was only in a crouched position by the time Justin had knocked another arrow and loosed, catching his baggy shorts, and knocking him down. The other three locked onto the bush Justin and Clara were hiding in, and Clara took her chance. She charged, brandishing her sword, and attacked the three. Now, for any normal fighter, this would be a terrible decision. A suicide mission, in fact. But Clara is no normal fighter. once the three had realised what happened, Clara had tripped one, who rolled back onto their front and jumped back to their feet, but she had moved on to the next, quickly disarming him, then onto the third, who put up a good fight. The second guy, an Ares kid, picked his sword back up and charged, but Justin leapt out of the bush with an arrow knocked and quickly loosed, the arrow reaching its mark in the blade of the sword, pushing his arm to the side so he didn’t hit Clara. He charged to the guy Clara tripped, a Hephaestus kid, and kicked his back, pulling an arrow out of his quiver and stabbing it into the ground through his loose tshirt. The last Ares kid fighting Clara was putting up one hell of a fight, the two experienced warriors matching each other’s energy perfectly. That was, until the Ares kid tripped Clara. She rolled to the side, avoiding the blad that was stabbed into the ground, and when she landed on her feet, she smirked. Her ice blue eyes glowed a stormy grey, and her shoulder lit up under her fortified armour, the light quickly encasing her whole body.

Her Blessing of Athena.

The Ares kid looked panicked; he had clearly seen this before. Though his unearned confidence quickly returned, and he attacked, slashing his sword down on Clara, who parried with so much force, the kid was knocked backwards. Clara leapt to her feet, swinging her sword around to build momentum and beating down at the guy, who could only stumble backwards and block as many attacks as he could. Clara was far too fast and far stronger than this guy, and it showed. Far sooner than the Ares kid wanted, Clara disarmed him. Shooting his word into the trunk of a tree, she tripped him, slashed at his chest plate, knocking him with more force into the floor, and winding him horribly. Soon, the whole team was pinned to the ground, winded, or just given up. Clara laughed a little, looking down at her work, and acknowledging the arrows pinning people.

“We make a good team!” Clara said cockily, her eyes returning to normal, and her glow fading.

“Yeah. yeah, we do.” Justin said, a light blush filling his cheeks.

“Come on, let’s go find more groups.”

At that, the two ran away in the same direction, back towards their team’s flag, in a quest to find more people to fight. Justin was starting to see why Clara loved this so much. It was incredibly invigorating.

--------------

Clara and Justin truly were an amazing team. The managed to take down two more groups soon after their initial fight, using Clara’s blessing, her strange, mysterious powers inherited from her unknown father, and Justin’s insane accuracy and a limited version of his new powers. Somehow, Justin managed to control himself enough to just give his opponents a bit of vertigo, enough to make it easy to knock them down with a slight push, and they would not be getting up for a little while. The two were energised, ready for anything, and perfectly in sync. The two dashed off after their second battle and stopped in a small clearing to catch their breath.

“You’re doing good, Peters!” Clara panted smiling wide, her eyes now permanently grey her energy rises. “Improved a lot, you’re gonna be an amazing warrior after more training!”

“Thanks.” Justin said through deep breath and a wide smile. “You’re pretty awesome yourself.”

The two smiled softly at each other, but that smile dropped immediately when they both felt a metal clamp around their legs. The initial contact hit Justin’s left leg, and a split second after wrapping around his right. The opposite happened for Clara. The two saw a celestial bronze wire shoot up from the ankle clamps and attach to a branch on a tree, then shooting the two upwards and stopping quickly, leaving them hanging from the branch.

“What the-”

The two heard a familiar little giggle, and a more booming chuckle they recognised.

“You two walked right into our trap!” Beckendorf walked out of the shadows with a bouncing Lucille at his side.

“Lucy??” Justin exclaimed, slightly laughing along with his sister, impressed at her work.

“Caught you!” She exclaimed, pulling her tongue out at her big brother.

“Yeah, you did.” Justin Smiled at Lucille, then looked to Beckendorf, who had his arms crossed and looking between the girl and their captives, clearly proud. “Did you make these?”

“I helped! It was super cool!”

“She did really well.” Beckendorf said. “She’s an amazing worker.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Hey!” Clara exclaimed, a little annoyed but mostly joking around with them. “Can you let us down?”

“Go on Lucy, what do we do if we let them down?” Beckendorf patted her shoulder and she looked up at him, reminding herself of the script she had been given. She stopped fighting and puffed her little chest out, trying to put on a serious face, but she was still so happy for succeeding, her serious face breaking into a smile.

“Only if you…” she paused for a moment, to think. “Surrender! and be our prisoner!”

“Oh, that’s the deal, huh?” Clara smiled. “Are you up for a compromise?”

“Depends on what it is.” Beckendorf shrugged.

“Let us go, you run off, we wait a minute before also making a move.”

“No deal. Looks like you’re gonna be swinging there for a while!” He said in a sing-song manner.

“Then what do you propose?”

“We let you go, but you betray your team and join us.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”

Justin attempted to gulp; Clara was really screwing with their chance to escape. But just before Beckendorf could respond, three Red Team soldiers ran past holding the Blue flag.

“Looks like you’re going to be hanging there for a bit.” Beckendorf smiled cockily and chuckled. He turned to Lucille, “Hey Lucille, guard these two for me?”

Lucille nodded enthusiastically, and Beckendorf ran off shouting back to Lucille to remember how to release them.

“You do know how to release us, right?” Justin said, unsure.

Lucille just sat down, staring at her brother and friend, and needed, taking out a small remote and waving it in the air. “Just have to press one button… umm… I think this one?”

“Lucille!!”

#percy jackson oc #justin peters #clara osta #lucille peters #charles beckendorf #the abandoned trio

3 notes · View notes

aceandnancy · 5 years ago

Text

FALL DRABBLEFEST 2020 NOW OPEN!!!

THE GUIDELINES

The objective of the Drabblefest is to publish as much fanfiction as possible for a fandom that desperately needs it!

Find a prompt you like on the list and just write something. There are only two requirements: it has to be at least drabble length (but it can be as long as you want!) and the main pairing has to be Ace/Nancy.

Anyone can participate at any skill level. Even if you have never written a fic before or if it’s been years…give it a try.

You can use as many prompts as you want. You can also combine prompts. There is no limit to the amount of prompts you can use and more than one person can use the same prompts. Make sure you mention the prompt in your author notes.

Please tag your fics #nacedrabblefest so that they can be reblogged.

If you cross-post to Archive of Our Own, please tag your fics as part of the 2020 Ace/Nancy Fall Drabblefest. You can also add a link back to the blog if you want. It may encourage more participation.

Comments? Questions? Comment below or hit the askbox.

GOOD LUCK!!! HAPPY WRITING!!

DRABBLEFEST DATES:

SEPTEMBER 29th- NOVEMBER 15th

THE PROMPTS ARE LISTED BELOW THE CUT---------------

Detailed Scenarios:

Nancy is secretly pining for Ace while he's dating somebody else.

Ace buys Nancy a first edition copy of “All The President’s Men”.

Nancy knows about Ace's whereabouts before Bess without even thinking.

Ryan gives Nancy unsolicited advice about not running from love even if you're scared...forcing her to confront her denial over her feelings for Ace.

Nick is concerned for Ace regarding his growing relationship with Nancy; he doesn't want Ace getting hurt because of Nancy's trust issues...but Ace knows what he "signed up for" and is okay with it.

Gilmore Girls-ish AU: Ryan raises Nancy in Horseshoe Bay cut off from his family and runs the ice cream parlor him and Lucy loved. Nancy and Ace grow up as best friends.

Nancy and Ace go undercover as newlyweds.

Nancy asks Ace for help with solving a case for Carson.

Nancy is annoyed/jealous when a new waitress at The Claw flirts with Ace...but doesn't want to admit it.

Nancy Drew's News starts posting anonymous gossip involving The Drew Crew leading to some interesting revelations.

When Ace is arrested for hacking, Nancy moves hell and earth to clear his name.

Nancy and Ace's PDA disgusts George and delights Bess.

The Drew Crew spends the day at the beach and Nancy low-key thirsts for Ace's body.

Ace and Nancy get trapped in an elevator forcing them to confront their feelings for each other.

Nancy goes speed dating with Bess, but all she can think about is Ace.

Bess cons George into helping her get Ace and Nancy together.

Laura returns at the moment Ace and Nancy's UST hits a boiling point.

Laura is getting married and wants the Drew Crew to attend her wedding.

George notices that both Ace and Nancy are very tired at work and comments on it.

Ace offers to give Nancy a massage when her neck won't stop hurting.

Nancy and Ace laugh over an inside joke and George thinks it's super weird.

Ace and Nancy dance.

Ace and Nancy have a secret relationship ala Monica and Chandler.

When their young daughter asks the moment they fell in love with each other, Ace and Nancy realize it's the same moment.

Ace gets a haircut.

Ace tells Nancy the story of how and why he was arrested for hacking.

Nancy and Ace stumble into a case on their honeymoon.

Ace realizes he's in love with Nancy, but decides to keep it to himself.

Carson witnesses a "moment" between Nancy and Ace and attempts to subtlety ask her about it.

The Drew Crew gives Lucy a proper burial.

Nancy goes over to Ace's place instead of Owen's on the night she discovers her true identity.

Nancy hates Halloween, but Ace loves it.

When a person dresses up as Dead Lucy at The Claw's Halloween party, Ace comforts a distressed Nancy (and also throws that person out).

Bess, George, and Nancy have an old fashioned sleepover for Bess's birthday. When Nancy gets a text from Ace, the girls tease her about her smile...but it turns into a serious conversation about her true feelings.

Nancy meets Ace's brother.

Ace and Nancy share their first kiss in the rain.

Ace and Nancy's first time is in an unusual setting.

Ace and Nancy have a stupid fight that leads to a super hot make-up.

Nancy talks to Ace about her recent traumas. He encourages her to make up with Carson.

Carson and Ace talk about Nancy. He thinks they're good for each other.

Ace and Nancy Facetime before bed.

Ace and Nancy go on a road trip that links to his past.

Ace and Nancy exchange earrings as a sign of their commitment to each other.

Nancy thinks Ace's hacking is a major turn-on.

When the girls are busy, Ace and Nick must solve their own supernatural case.

Ace and Nancy discover their fake elopement (for a case) was real! Comedy ensues.

When Nancy's fansite openly ships them, Nancy and Ace rethink their relationship.

Truth Serum is slipped into The Drew Crew's drinks.

Ace and Nancy share a moment before she's forced to flee town with Ryan.

Ace takes Nancy to an escape room for their first date.

Nancy sees Ace's scar from the crash.

After yet another near death experience, Ace and Nancy realize they can't keep ignoring their feelings and finally do something about it.

When the rest of the Drew Crew is out of town, Ace and Nancy must run The Claw together for the entire weekend with hilarious results.

George figures out Ace and Nancy's code word for sex.

After a fight involving Algaeca-related tension, the group fractures. Nancy flees to the Bluffs. Aces goes after her.

An anonymous love letter is found at The Claw and everyone thinks it's from a different person. Chaos ensues! Revelations come to light! Based on the classic episode of Full House [4x11: "Secret Admirer"].

Nancy's ex-high school friends comes back into the picture. Ace poses as her boyfriend to help her deal with them.

Ace watches Nancy as she falls asleep.

Nancy asks Ace out on a date.

Ace and Nancy's first date goes horribly wrong, but ends incredibly right.

Nancy learns Ace’s real name.

A jealous Nancy tries to win a date with Ace at The Claw’s charity auction.

Ace and Nancy confide in Bess separately about their feelings for each other but make her promise not to interfere.

Nancy and Ace accidentally wear matching costumes to The Claw’s Halloween party.

Nancy and Ace have matching soulmarks.

Nancy and Ace become friends long before working at The Claw.

To get a vital piece of evidence or scope out suspects/locations for a case, Ace & Nancy have to pose as a couple, or even if not, someone makes reference to them as such.

An evil spirit (possibly the Algaeca or something) infiltrates Horseshoe Bay & is able to take the form of its residents, namely Nancy (or Ace). It takes the other person to figure out it’s not them, & how to get the real person back.

A situation occurs where Ace has to protect Nancy from the Hudsons [physically and/or Nancy and Ace team up].

Nancy and Ace get high together (safely).

Dialogue Snippets:

“I don’t believe in regret.”

“Mmmmm...don’t leave this bed.”

“Kiss me and don’t stop.”

"I don't want to fight this anymore."

“I know I said I just wanted to be friends, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m not scared anymore. I want us.”

"Ace is the best. We all need an Ace in our life."

"I don't want to leave."

“You’re my inspiration Nancy.”

“So, you’re the famous Nancy Drew! All my son does is talk about you. I’m his mom.”

“I trust you more than anyone else in my entire life, Ace.”

“I never thought I’d love someone this much.”

“I want you to be my partner.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“I’m worried about you Nancy. The Hudsons are dangerous.”

“I had a dream where we were together and it just felt so right.”

“Do you want to go back to my place?”

“Stay the night.”

“I wasn’t ready for us before...but I’m ready now.”

“Do YOU know what missing frames are?”

“Stay.”

#ace x nancy #nancy x ace #nace #nancy drew cw #nacedrabblefest #nancy drew #fanfiction

35 notes · View notes

echodrops · 5 years ago

Text

Home and a Half Pidge Headcanons

An ask I got yesterday reminded me that I never posted the HaaH headcanons for Pidge like I promised, so here they are! (I’ll answer the actual ask as soon as I can with some new material instead of headcanons I already had written... oops...)

Anyway, without further ado, some headcanons for Pidge related to my fic Home and a Half!

Pidge:

- Grew up in the picture of the nuclear family: mom, dad, two kids, dog, nice upper-middle-class house in a quiet neighborhood, dinner on the table at 7:30pm on the dot… Of all the paladins, Pidge had the most stable and “average” childhood… at least on paper.

- In reality, there is not a single person in the Holt family who isn’t eccentric as fuck. Grandma Holt? May or may not still be an active intelligence agent for MI6. The dog? Woofs in Morse code. Auntie Ariana? Has actually seen the Jersey Devil. Colleen Holt? Has killed a man. If you ask Pidge, she’ll say that her upbringing was perfectly normal and she’ll genuinely mean it, but this is a consequence Pidge having no idea what “normal” even means.

Rest under the read more to save your dash:

- Not actually a girly-girl when she was young. Although they’re eight years apart and thus unlikely to be mistaken for one another, very early on Pidge got frustrated by how similar she and Matt look, and she definitely did not want to wear his tacky hand-me-down clothes, so she pitched a royal fit and insisted on wearing dresses and hairbands so that her family would have to buy Pidge all her own things. (They probably would have bought them anyway if she’d just asked calmly, but Pidge was three at the time, and they were all very impressed by her grasp of cause and effect.)

- Of course, when Matt disappeared on the ill-fated Kerberos trip, those tacky hand-me-downs ended up being some of the most important items in Pidge’s life. Even outside of infiltrating Garrison, wearing Matt’s old clothes was one of the few comforts Pidge would allow herself—when she cut her hair and put on his baggy shirts, for a second, looking in a mirror, she could almost convince herself he was still there—

- Pidge has no intention of changing the way she dresses or styles her appearance until she’s reunited with Matt and her father. After that? Well, they may not be the coolest looking things ever, but Matt does have a point that baggy t-shirts are very comfy…

- And okay, because I’m sure everyone expected this headcanon first: Pidge and gender is a surprisingly uncomplicated subject. Side note before I go further: I’m sure everyone has their own headcanons for this and none of what I say here should be taken as rejecting or invalidating any other fan’s views on Pidge. The only thing invalid in the Voltron fandom is canon. Anyway, I personally like to imagine that Pidge is very ambivalent on gender. There is so much else going on—the war, Sam and Matt being missing, freaking giant robot space cats—that sitting down and sorting out the question of “Do I identify as male, female, nonbinary, or anything else?” is just really, really low on Pidge’s to do list. Pidge thinks of Pidge as “Pidge” and even that’s rare because Pidge doesn’t sit around thinking about herself or what other people think of her.

- In fact, what strangers think is, in general, extremely low on Pidge’s radar. Although she used to be more self-conscious due to bullying from both classmates and her teachers, the combination of her parents’ consistent support and Matt’s… extreme tactics (“I’m telling you Pigeon, nanobots in their lunches will solve all your problems.” “That’s illegal, Matt.” “Nothing is illegal until you get caught.”) Pidge (mostly) overcame the phase of being affected by other people’s opinions. Who cares what strangers think? Absolutely none of them will ever be even close to as smart and talented as her family anyway. (My IQ is three times yours, your argument about my gender is literally invalid.)

- By the way, I’m using “her” simply because that’s what I’m used to seeing in the fandom and to keep the fic and headcanons consistent, but in the functional world of HaaH, Pidge answers to any pronouns and doesn’t have a preference for any set in particular over others. In fact, Pidge is used to going by different sets of pronouns coming from different people, and might be “he” to one person, “she” to another, and “they” to yet someone else. Pidge is just… Pidge.

- Again, with the war and Voltron and missing family and literally everything else going on--and the fact Pidge is far more practical than all of the rest of her fellow Team Voltron members combined--she isn’t wasting time and energy doing something as troublesome as falling in love with an alien. (“Keith, can’t your melodrama wait until after we win the war?” “My drama waits for no man.” “Then please explain how you and Lance manage to engage in synchronized dumb-fuckery at least three times a week.”) Eventually, after life has settled down and Pidge has had some time to think about it, she’ll realize that the reason she somehow managed to avoid any romantic entanglements in space isn’t because she’s just much more mature than her teammates (although this might be true)—it’s that she’s just not really interested in romantic engagements with anybody, period.

- Pidge’s one true love is discovery; she feels far more passionate about knowledge and learning new things, encountering new puzzles, and grasping new concepts than she does about anything else. In between all her creations and codes and experiments and observations, it just doesn’t feel like there’s room—or that there needs to be room—for a romantic relationship with a real person.

- Pidge will make room for friends though, if and when they insist on worming their ways into her life. She tends to be a fairly private person who has never really had a large friend group (back on Earth, before Garrison, there wasn’t anyone but Matt and her parents who really understood her, and she didn’t have much in common to discuss with children her own age), but once someone earns Pidge’s trust, she does open up and form close bonds and she will give her all to help and be there for her few, but close, friends.

- Meeting Hunk at Garrison was a huge revelation. Up to that point in Pidge’s life she had never really met any young person outside her own family with a soaring genius-level IQ that was a match for her own. Although she and Hunk bicker frequently because their approaches to science are extremely different, she’s still over-the-moon to have someone who doesn’t stare at her like she’s talking gibberish whenever she goes off on one of her tangents.

- If you ask Pidge, she will violently swear up and down that Lance never and in. no. way. reminds her of Matt, fills in for Matt in the lame-older-brother role, or helps her miss her brother just a little bit less. That did not happen, never had a chance of happening, what are you even talking about—

- But if you ask about Shiro, she will be flat-out honest and admit she totally thinks of him as Space Dad. It’s not her fault. Shiro literally hero worships Sam Holt (still to this day!!) and may or may not have taken on more of his mentor’s mannerisms in order to fill the leadership role for Team Voltron. Sometimes Shiro will say or do something and Pidge will be absolutely dumb-struck because he got that from my dad is an actual thing she has to deal with.

- “Pidge” is actually a derivative of “Pigeon.” Everyone in the Holt family has a bird-based code name. Mr. Holt is Eagle Two.

- People often get the impression that Pidge is scatterbrained because she can talk about ten different things at once and pounces on leaps in her own logic that other people just can’t follow, but her thoughts and speech are very organized. It’s not her fault you couldn’t understand her system of organization if you tried.

- Put Pidge on the spot on a subject she doesn’t know, though, and watch the awkward jump right out. (“Oh, you meant the pop band Galileo, not the person. You know, that’s really an easy mistake to make. You can hardly blame me when you stop to consider all the similarities between modern chord progression and the trajectory of supermassive objects like—”)

- And if it’s not awkward, it’s defensive. Pidge may be hyper-intelligent, but she’s still very, very young, and it’s hard not to get snappish when challenged by people whose opinions she really does care about. She has a far quicker temper than Matt (who is a “revenge is a dish best served cold” champion), a trait she shares with their mother. Colleen, in turn, blames it on her having been born in New Jersey. Pidge has flipped so many tables on the Castleship that Coran and Lance eventually went around and bolted them all down.

- Do not even so much as hint that Sam and Matt Holt might be dead instead of just missing in space. Keith is still scared after his last attempt at reasoning with Pidge about her family’s fate.

- Has a bad hoarding habit. Back on Earth she had her parents there to insist she clean her room at least once a week, but in space, things are getting a bit crazy. The Castleship closets and cabinets can hyper-condense their contents and she’s STILL running out of room for all the neat doodads and parts and scientific wonders she finds on their adventures across the galaxy. Is definitely in the “Look, there’s still a mostly clear path to the door; it’s fineee” category. It’s not like she finds it hard to let things go once she’s gotten attached to them or anything. Nope. Definitely not.

- Pidge’s mess is absolutely of the “everything has a proper place” type though. Move anything with her name on it and you will feel her wrath.

- As the only one of the Earth paladins to have technology on her when they were unexpectedly swept off to war, everyone on the ship relies on Pidge’s laptop for their monthly dose of Earth nostalgia. Good thing for them Pidge and Matt’s pirating skills put Pirate Bay to shame, and she’s got basically every Earth movie from 1980 to the present. She even has every episode of the timeless classic F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (Keith hates that show with a burning passion that even he cannot explain.)

- Speaking of technology Pidge had on Earth—every single person in the Holt family is (and has been for decades) aware of the existence of aliens. Pidge’s family tree has been involved in communications, radio wave technology, and interpreting space observations since those fields were first invented. When Earth first identified patterns of waves that obviously corresponded to alien communications going on outside Earth’s galaxy, Pidge’s great- great- grandfather was there. When world governments covered up the discovery, he was the loudest voice of dissent. Since then, the Holt family has been deeply involved in military and space operations across several countries, operating from within an oppressive system they fundamentally disagree with, using their positions of authority to monitor the Milky Way and beyond, keeping tabs on what the aliens might be saying—and what messages Earth might be inadvertently sending back.

- Of course this is top secret work—secret even from the Garrison and government where the Holts were employed. Other kids learn how to play piano and soccer; Pidge and Matt learned how to hack virtually impenetrable military databases and hide their data behind uncrackable ciphers instead.

- But the Kerberos Mission was supposed to be safe. They’d all monitored the chatter so closely—there hadn’t been anything hostile anywhere even near Earth’s galaxy, no sign at all of any technologically advanced race like the Galra in years and nothing about one little Earth mission that would disturb any other intergalactic travelers anyway… Why would they...

- Pidge is surprisingly athletic for a self-professed nerd. With youthful energy to burn and a family to save, Pidge took to Allura and Coran’s intense Altean training like a duck to water, and while she’s not quite Shiro or Keith when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, she can definitely holds up better than Hunk or Lance.

- Favorite color is actually yellow, and if Green wasn’t totally The Coolest™ lion, she’d be sort of salty about Hunk getting the Yellow Lion instead.

- Absolutely capable of cursing up a blue storm, and hasn’t been friends with Hunk quite long enough yet to remember to censor herself around him all the time like Lance does with his “Holy crow!”s. She’s trying, dammit!

- Big on pets. Gets attached to pet-shaped creatures (whether living or robotic) very easily. 110% kept the space caterpillars, who live happily free-roaming the piles of space junk in her bedroom. The space caterpillars and the space mice do not get along, however, as the space mice do not take well to having their status as the favored fuzzy team mascot squad threatened. In their micro-Cold War, which is occurring without any of the ship’s humanoid occupants being aware, the space caterpillars are currently winning.

- The caterpillars’ names are Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton.

- Remember that one post about Lance drawing angry brows on the space caterpillar and siccing it on Keith? I very much accept that as canon. Pidge was Not Happy™ when she found out what Lance had done and she is NOT letting anyone else near her caterpillars again any time soon. Is very, very careful not to let Niresh see the space caterpillars so that they don’t end up stolen right from under her nose.

- Speaking of the kids, Pidge is super awkward with them and skedaddles at the first sign of tears. Next to Allura, there is probably not any member of the team worse suited to babysitting duty. That said, as someone who has lost members of her family in the war, Pidge is probably the member of the team who most directly understands Dulsara’s anger and the children’s loss. That doesn’t mean she’s really ready to let herself sympathize with the Galra though, at least not until she finds her own family first.

- Pulls all the most bullshit moves in Monsters and Mana. Whenever the team reminiscences on the truly legendary moments from their campaigns, somehow Pidge is the star in all of them.

And that’s all I’ve got for now!

#pidge #Voltron #Pidge headcanons #voltron headcanon #HaaHVLD #Home and a Half #voltron fanfic

58 notes · View notes

chartedrights · 5 years ago

Text

Golden Age AU Masterpost

For everyone lacking context, the Golden Age AU is just me riffing on every piece of comic book media I’ve ever consumed. Here are some single-paragraph rundowns I’ve made to keep track of things as I start to write!

The Board of Directors is analogous to the Justice League- they’re pretty much entirely people with superpowers (with the exception of Carol, at first), they’re very prestigious, and they come together to ward off larger threats like the impressive super powered task force they are. Or they used to. Membership’s sort of dropped, and people with powers are getting harder to find and recruit, and the big headliner who ran it left it in the hands of some nurse, which is like. So not sexy.

PEIP is PEIP- they fit right in where they were. In the shadows, in the dark, fighting the threats that the “special people” won’t, protecting people on a lower level than “oh god, the apocalypse,” because apparently the superheroes aren’t concerned with espionage or alien meteors anymore. The pricks. Mostly run by people without superpowers- as far as they know- and deeply concerned with keeping heroes responsible for their own actions. They would be oversight, if they were allowed to be.

CCRP Technical is an interesting place. Charlotte and Ted work there, for Sam, though neither of them is quite sure what it actually does. Paul was recruited in hopes he’d grow into upper management, but he didn’t have the ambition for it. Bill has been there for a decade or two now, ever since he started attending those meetings with Becky and Mrs. Davidson. Melissa... Melissa is their rising star. Mr. Davidson isn’t sure what they found in her, but he’s glad to see her succeed! Good for her! Four for you Melissa, you go Melissa!

Hatchetfield.... is Hatchetfield. It’s small, it’s insular, it’s full of gossip and weirdness and people with eccentric ideas of morality. It might be easier to admit that superheroes and supervillains exist, but let nobody say that the citizens of Hatchetfield ever took the easy road. They will walk uphill, in the snow, denying the supernatural both ways.

Paul is a real sweetheart. He’s autistic, he’s quiet, he likes his routine and the simple pleasures in life... and he just happens to be unkillable and he maybe possibly sort of has the ability to fly. He could be an excellent addition to either team, but he refuses to be a proper superhero, making him Hatchetfield’s most obvious target. Which in turn means that he often ends up acting like a proper superhero against his own will. He thinks Emma is perfectly lovely and still hasn’t noticed her committing crimes.

Emma is Hidgens’ Lab Assistant, which is code for “committing crimes for college credit,” and she does a lot of the footwork for him. Being a henchman definitely tops food service, lets put it that way. She also gets to follow in the family business- a long line of Perkins supervillains ended when Jane broke free and became a real hero for Tom’s sake. She always wanted to be a good person, but Emma is not as opposed to violence. She also cannot wait for Hidgens to level Hatchetfield, which is made complicated by the fact that she likes Paul rather a lot, and he likes Hatchetfield.

Hidgens is a supervillain. He never leaves his house, orchestrates incidents of immense damage to the civic infrastructure, and refuses to acknowledge that just maybe putting children into the path of radioactive chemicals is not a valid scientific experiment. He’s not necessarily a bad person, it’s just that his morals refute even the idea of black and white. More like blue and red. Orange and green. He is of the opinion that world peace can only be achieved by world domination, and therefore has begun a track to world domination. He and Sam have a blood feud of indeterminate origin.

Becky Barnes, low-level healer and walking anesthetic, somehow ended up in charge of the Board of Directors. The last leader disappeared three days after handing off control, and Becky is still looking for them. Becky is very conspicuously not looking for her ex-husband, however. It makes some people suspicious, and nobody more than Sam, who is Stanley’s most obnoxious cousin. Apparently, ruining Becky’s life runs in the family. Despite these troubling events, Becky does her best to keep the city standing and the world turning- she and Bill manage what they can, Carol and PEIP manage what they can’t. She’s still in a precarious place, however, and she’s looking for help.

Frank Pricely supplies everyone with gadgets. Hero and villain alike, everyone pays. Not always the same price, but everyone pays. He’s a neutral party, and he acts the part, but everybody likes to debate his loyalties. There’s no such thing as truly neutral, right? Everyone has their price- even him. It’s just a matter of what that price is.

Lex is his cashier, which means that she learned early on in her career in retail that the panic button is not half as good a first resort as the paralysis darts Frank keeps in the cash drawer. She has the ability to manifest objects, as long as she knows where they are. She needs a concrete location to pull them away from, which means that she snoops in every house she visits, checks the staff rooms of every store she enters. She can, on command, find you just about anything you need. For a price. She’s learning a lot lately, though, and what she learns about her powers might put her at risk.

Bill is one of the few members of the Board of Directors still standing. He and Becky get coffee all the time, and commiserate about the lack of help in Hatchetfield. He has telepathy, and certain illusionary abilities, which come in especially handy when he’s talking people down or trying to sneak hostages out of hostage situations. A gentle, well-intentioned man, Bill is not outwardly very intimidating, but he’s strong. Much stronger than most people would like to think. Becky keeps trying to hand off leadership to him, and he gently hands it back every time- he’s got other problems to deal with right now.

Formerly married to the infamous Perkins family heiress, Tom tries to live a nice, quiet life. He used to be a hero- and a damn good one- but Jane defected for him, and then died for it, and he carries more guilt than he probably should. Tom never thought of himself as special, really, and he still doesn’t. He can warp matter- twist it into shape, turn it from one thing to another, and he’s a fine craftsman when he wants to be. But it’s a dangerous thing to have on hand when you’re angry or frightened, and Tom still has an awful case of PTSD hanging around his neck. He’s doing his best to wrangle with it, but he’s going to need some help.

Ethan is just a teenager. Really, he promises. He absolutely swears. Nothing special about him! He’s just real intuitive! He and Lex have been looking into that whole “experimentation” thing they did at CCRP back when they were babies and it wasn’t even interesting! He’s just a mechanic, honestly. He’s a straight C student! He hasn’t even joined the cult off the coast on that houseboat!! He’s a good kid. No reason to be concerned at all.

Ted is also Hidgens’ henchman, but definitely the lower-ranked of the two. He applied hoping he’d make some friends, but thus far all he’s managed to do is fall in love with Charlotte, who is Sam’s henchman. It’s not going badly for him, but it’s not going well, either. He and Paul still work together. Every time Hidgens asks, Ted is like “Paul? Nah. He’s totally normal.”

Gary is a mob lawyer. He used to work for Emma’s family, but now he works for Sherman and Linda. They’re technically competition, and if they ever find out that he’s playing both sides he’ll absolutely die, but in the meantime he is racking up that cash. He is so rich. He is capable of great evil, and occasionally does terrible things, but overall he’s an affable guy. He and Charlotte had an unfortunate tryst once that ended with her tying him to the Welcome to Hatchetfield sign with his own scarf, but he still pines for her. She’s the one that got away. And continues to get away. cops hate her: local woman refuses to go to jail.

MacNamara still works for PEIP, which is only slightly a different job, on account of there being very public superheroes in this world. He and Xander have been married for ten years, but they are both under the (mistaken) impression that it wasn’t a real marriage because it was done undercover. He thinks about that and is very sad about it sometimes. But they’re partners, and that’s good enough that he can be content with it. For now. He has the ability to intensify or nullify other people’s superpowers, and he does his best to keep it quiet. He thinks there’s something noble about living without superpowers, and vaguely wishes that he and Chad’s roles were swapped- until he remembers that Chad has one (1) brain cell to his name.

Xander has the ability to speak to computers. It’s not flashy, at first glance. It doesn’t have the pizzazz of Paul’s gifts or the subtle mind fuckery of John and Bill’s. But he can know whatever he wants, can hear anything, tap any phone call, look through any webcam. He doesn’t, because he’s not a fucking creep, but he can. PEIP was lucky to find him before CCRP- and so was everyone else in the world. Xander’s not flashy in general- he keeps a lot to himself. He and John have been partners for a long time, and they still haven’t said they love each other. He still hasn’t told John that he’s a member of the Board. He still hasn’t told John that he and Paul are in the same book club.

Schaffer doesn’t need powers. You think she needs powers? Her power is that she breathes and death turns away. PEIP was built by good people like Schaffer, people with principles and strong hearts and ice cold spines of steel. Normal, human people, unremarkable except that they chose to be better. She’s fourth-generation PEIP, born and raised to believe in the service they do, the protection they provide. Some of the more bitter agents will say that Schaffer benefitted from nepotism. They will never say this in front of her, because deep down they know she did not and they know that she will prove it by kicking their asses. She and Carol used to date, but the strain of crossing enemy lines in what was, essentially, a Cold War between PEIP and the Board got to them both. Schaffer is the person Hidgens called after he got struck by lightning.

Charlotte is Sam’s henchman and quietly in the running for longest con ever pulled. One day she is going to off him and take his place as the leading supervillain in Hatchetfield, but that day is not today. She likes Ted, but Sam keeps telling her to kill him, so their relationship amounts to “the inherent eroticism of trying to murder each other”. Nobody is entirely certain how she does what she does, but she’s very, very good at her job. Emma looks up to her just a little. She had a therapist once. He tried to sleep with her. She no longer has a therapist. She does have a very lovely goldfish, however.

Mr. Davidson is MacNamara’s twin brother and Hidgens’ ex. His wife is a genuine bona fide Batman-level hero in a bigger city, so he occasionally gets kidnapped or tortured. Hidgens still writes him bitter and mildly threatening love ballads that he genuinely treasures and sends very heartfelt thank you notes for. His life is so messy. There’s so much drama. He’s also completely powerless and cheerful about it. (Re: the Working Boys.... he’s Chad. Chad MacNamara Davidson.)

Alice is developing absolutely no superpowers and she’s really really annoyed about it. She used to take this out on Lex, as teenagers will, but after Lex dropped out she began to regret that. Too little and much too late, but regret is regret. She keeps trying to mend that bridge, but it’s not working. Unfortunately for her, she’s still been seen with Lex and Ethan, and that’s enough. Imminent danger perceives no difference between friend and foe. Alice is full of a very different kind of potential, however, and sooner or later all that bottled-up anger and stress will lash out.

Deb, on the other hand, is an intern at the Board of Directors’ headquarters, which is now St. Damien’s given that Becky is in charge. Interns for heroes are much less common than henchmen working for villains, but Deb has a keen interest in coordination and overseeing operations. Bill hates having her on comms for missions, but she’s just... so good at her job. She can brew a pot of Red Bull twice-steeped coffee, arrange a date with Alice, avoid an international incident, redirect PEIP and talk Bill through defusing a bomb in the same ten-minute stretch. Lesbians can do anything. This is a fact. They are the backbone of our society.

Hot Chocolate Boy is full of secrets. And hot chocolate.

And speaking of St. Damien’s, do you recall poor Bridgette, who lost her eyesight in a horrible accident? I’m not saying Hatchetfield is going to have it’s very own Matt Murdock expy, but I am saying that. She’s blind, she’s Catholic, and she’s coming for your kneecaps.

Linda is a very low-level villain who operates out of her husband’s office and sics her Boating Club on people. Gerald should technically be a threat, given that it’s the Monroe family prerogative to slaughter rising heroes with an alacrity that distinguished them from all the other families in Hatchetfield. He is not. He’s barely even a henchman. Linda got all the bloodlust between the two of them, and she is out for blood from the start. Though initially quickly defeated, she grows in seriousness over the course of time and ends up a formidable threat with a weighty grudge against Becky and Lex. She’s not much in a physical fight, Linda, but she is deeply, deeply vindictive, and she’s willing to make any deals she has to to bring Becky down. Any deals. With anyone. Anything.

Sherman Young is a mob boss, and you know it. He’s a real creep and he’s got some sick hobbies, even for a man in his line of work, but somehow the 80s jacket and the comb-over mullet make it all worse. He’s the richest man in town, and that’s saying something, but if Linda has a say in things he won’t be for long. The Youngs, the Monroes, and the Perkins have been at war since the founding of the town, and Sherman is cutting down his competition. He might have even arranged for Jane’s accident to happen, but nobody is sure. Nobody living, anyway.

Sam is a villain. He’s not super or anything. He’s just a villain. He’s top-tier Joker-level normie, but he still goes toe-to-toe with all kinds of heroes. Notable for being pretty much exactly the same as his show counterpart in regards to his proclivity for threats and violence. He once told Paul to “talk to his fucking gun” only to find that Paul is, despite all outward appearances, fucking immortal. He is still very embarrassed about it. He’s up and coming in the Hatchetfield Villain circuit, but he’s definitely a threat. To who? Who can say. Somebody, somewhere.

Papa Ed is a PEIP informant, and he has the ability to speak to animals. He’s raising Peanuts to be a very small, very enthusiastic little squirrel spy.

Man in a Hurry is a former speedster who lost his powers and compensates for it by Being In A Hurry at all times.

Homeless Man is a CCRP agent. He specializes in camouflage and compassion. He doesn’t remember what came before, but he knows something did, and finding out what it was is all he has left to hope for.

Howard Goodman does not have superpowers, but he’s got gumption. Okay, I lied. He doesn’t have gumption. But he’s a very nice man.

#black friday #starkid #tgwdlm #Golden Age AU #masterpost #long post #[finger guns] love these idiots #this is SO LONG #and i tried not to spoil everything #there’s some stuff i’m keeping in store bc :)) i can

70 notes · View notes

writers-blogck · 5 years ago

Text

BNHA Imagines - MAIN 01

Meeting for the First Time

Izuku Midoriya:

How you met Izuku for the first time was not the first time you had seen him. He had never seen you before the day you stood in front of the entire class though. He had never seen you before but you had already memorized his face by then. Pictures of him and his classmates filled the screen when your brother would talk to you about your mission. The clip of the boy fighting the sludge monster would play over and over, his brave act immortalized in codes of ones and zeroes.

Study his movements, your brother would say, learn what you can. Your older brother was none other than Shigaraki, the self-proclaimed leader of the League of Villains. Shigaraki would make you watch those videos because he thought you would grow to hate him. You would never admit it but the videos did the opposite. He was such a hero, bravery running through his veins like blood. Dreams filled your mind of him saving you from the League and taking you far away. You weren't made to be a villain, you hated to see the fear in people's faces before you used your quirk on them. Your older brother raised you to use your quirks on others your entire life. Like your brother, your five fingertips must be touching the person for it to work but you didn't disintegrate them. Instead, you rummaged through their brain and made them forget memories. On the rare occasion when you used your quirk at full power, you could manipulate memories instead of simply making the person forget. It wouldn't be as bad if that was it but your quirk came with a drawback. Any memories that you erased were instead placed in your mind. You had memories of a father who you had to take away the memories of his precious baby girl. You often erased memories so people forgot they ever saw the Leauge, giving you the memories of the torture they had endured. Your mind was filled with more memories of others than it was of your own. As you stood at the front of class 1-A, your eyes couldn't help but drift to the green eyes you had only ever seen through a screen. The smile that he gave you made your heartbreak. He didn't know why you were here. He didn't know you were a spy for Shigaraki. If he did, he wouldn't be smiling at you like that. You wanted his smile to be real but you knew it would be gone if he knew the real you. He would only ever come to know this fake presented to him.

Bakugo Katsuki:

When the first assessment was done, you were not excited. You had been placed in U.A. by recommendation from Ms.Joke and you were sure she had pulled some strings to get you in 1-A. She knew how powerful your quirk actually was and how you could become a great pro-hero with some training. The issue was that your quirk didn't help with any test given to you. Your basic skills and dexterity allowed you to do well for someone who didn't wasn't using their quirk. You burned with shame at the mutterings of the boy who had gotten third, Bakugo Katsuki. "She didn't even use her quirk at all," He spoke to the red-haired boy who you hadn't learned the name of yet, "How did she even make it into 1-A, to begin with? I bet her parents paid for her way in, she didn't make it through the exams. She couldn't have." Anger bubbled within you, hands clenched by your side. How dare he say that? It wasn't true that you hadn't used your quirk during the tests but that meant nothing. He should just keep his dumb spikey hair out of everyone's business. Why did he think he had the right to judge everyone? You had heard him talking bad about Deku earlier and now he was messing with you? Deku may not stand up for himself but you sure as hell wouldn't let yourself be walked over. Your eyes met with Aizawa's, a look was shared between the two of you. Ms.Joke had informed him about you and your quirk, which may be why he was going easy on you with the chiding during the assessment. He understood that all of these tests weren't made for a quirk like yours. The man looked over at Bakugo before looking back at you, giving you a slight nod. That was enough for you to march up to the boy who turned his fiery gaze on you. "You really should just shut up about other people," You growled out, not flinching at the sneer on his lips. "And why should I? I'm the best so I'm allowed to judge sidekicks and extras like you." "The best? Well, I don't think the best would have gotten third." The class slowly went silent as the tension built up between the two of you, but Aizawa stayed back. The boy took a threatening step towards you, standing up taller to try to tower over you. Yet you didn't move as you kept your gaze locked on his. You weren't going to back down from this, you had to make your point obvious. "You better watch your mouth." "Or what? Gonna blow me up with those sweaty hands of yours?" The growl that came out of him signaled that you may not have done the best thing, but you weren't going to back down. You would just prove that he was right if you did. When your gaze didn't waver, he brought his hand up with a smug grin. This would surely make you realize how weak you were. A few loud explosions popped by your face though it wasn't close enough to hit. He wanted to scare you but you had other plans. Your hand shot up and grabbed your wrist tightly. A burning pain shot down your arm as the explosions hit your skin but you didn't flinch. Pain had been a part of your life ever since you were born. It would be hard for it not to due to your quirk. With a simple use of your quirk, the boy backed away with a groan of pain. The hand that had done the exploding shot to grasp his other hand in pain. When his red eyes met yours again, you flexed your uninjured hand with a triumphant smirk. "Wound transfer, it isn't just for healing you know."

Todoroki Shouto:

Neither of you remembered the first time the two of you met. You both believed that you had never seen each other before the first time in class 1-A, but Aizawa knew the truth. He could remember in the past when he had to take you to one of his meetings. He tried to keep you out of the hero's world but when your parents both died and left you with your uncle, he had no chose at some moments. He wasn't going to leave you alone. This meeting just so happened to be where Endeavor had brought his youngest son, Shouto, as well. The little boy was polite, too polite. Aizawa could tell Endeavor didn't raise the boy correctly. When Aizawa chided the man, he was left with a threat to Endeavor that if he ever dared to try anything with you, he would be left a puddle of goo. Out of the two of you, you were the most outgoing and confident one. Your parents had raised you to try to be the best and you planned on trying your best in everything that you did. This included making friends. Your chubby hand held onto Todoroki's as you led him to the playground while the adults kept talking. You had been here a lot but it was obvious even to your tiny brain that it wasn't normal for Todoroki. The two of you played together, mainly consisting of you dragging Shouto to do something and teaching him about it. Even when you scraped your knee, you just got back up and went to playing. Such a simple action and yet he would hold onto it for years to come. You got hurt but that didn't make you stop. You kept going despite the pain. He would remember it subconsciously for the rest of his life. When both of you were thoroughly tired, you hunkered down behind the rock climbing wall in the shade. Two children, so different yet so close for just that day. Shouto in proper clothes with the timidness of a mouse next to you in your dirty clothes who wanted to be friends with any stranger you saw. The two of you would end up being raised very differently and when you reached high school, the two of you would both be completely different from the kids that were on that playground that day. "Do you think I can be a hero? Mommy doesn't like my fireside. She says it is too much like my dad," Shouto spoke quietly as he looked up at the blue sky. "Anyone can be a hero! You will make a super cool hero!" Ten years later, you would meet again and both be on the way to fulfilling that promise.

Kirishima Ejiro:

Your mother called you special and unique but you just thought you were broken. All the students at your school pushed you around with your quirks, knowing that you couldn't do anything to them. You were one of the rare quirkless people. A kid who would amount to nothing in their life. Why would someone hire you when someone with a quirk could do it so much better? On the worst days, they would tell you that you weren't worth living. Most of the time it didn't bother you but there were the few days where it hit hard. "Maybe you could be professional bait!" One of the boys said, shoving you roughly. All you did was keep walking, ignoring all of the tauntings that they tossed in your direction. It wasn't like you hadn't heard them all before. They may be mean but they weren't the sharpest in the toolshed. Not very creative either but man, did they know how to use their quirks. Holding your notebook closer to your chest, you sped up your pace. All you needed to do was get home and then you would be safe from all of this. You tried to focus on the steps you were taking and just getting home but those thoughts were quickly shattered when the tallest boy grabbed you by your forearm. He roughly spun you around to face him, fire in his eyes. "You should look at someone when they are talking to you." The hold on your upper arm began to vibrate, the boy threatening to use his quirk on you. It wouldn't be the first time. His quirk allowed him to speed up his movements and he had learned that if he did it while holding someone's arm, the victim would receive a rather harsh rug burn. It hurt like hell but you couldn't do anything to fight back or your father would get angry. He was the police chief and said that any fight you got into, whether defensive or not, would look bad on his part. As you opened your mouth to speak, the boy instead was shoved away. A red-headed boy had marched over while you were lost in your thoughts, eyes narrowed and fists raised. What caught your eyes the most was his uniform. It was the unmistakable outfit of the U.A., this boy was training to be a hero! It seemed like your bullies had noticed the uniform as well due to the steps that they took back. You couldn't help but let your heart swell with the tall boy in front of you. This was the first time anyone had stepped in. "Hey, it isn't a very manly thing to mess with a girl!" He said with a raised voice, giving you the first glance of his sharp teeth. With a grumble and mumbling, the boys simply shot you a dirty look before walking off. That had been the first time they left you alone without there being injuries on your body. You thought they weren't scared of anything but they scurried off when the red-head scolded them. You wanted to thank him but the words got stuck in your throat when he turned to face you for the first time. His head was ridiculously spiked up, shooting up as if trying to touch the sky. His eyes were the same color of his hair, red with hints of brown. You knew it had to be rare for the same color of his hair to be his eyes. Perhaps he dyed his hair...Yet your eyes couldn't leave his face. His grin put the sun to shame and his eyes sparkled with happiness that you didn't even know existed. Time stood still just like a movie. You could almost hear the romantic music starting as the camera began to zoom in. Your fantasies were interrupted when he began to speak. "Want me to walk you home?" This boy was going to be the death of you.

Kaminari Denki:

No one ever believed you when you told them what your quirk was. It didn't show up physically like many other quirks but you still managed to get into 1-A. Even when your quirk was in use, some people still wouldn't notice it until you explained it to them. You didn't blame them, luck never seemed like it could be a quirk. How could it be when it wasn't even an action? It was fate that decided that kind of stuff. A quirk couldn't change the actions of others, yet, yours did. How it happened, you weren't sure but you knew it was there. In your life, you had been in many unlucky situations before. A car speeding past a red light, a man trying to push you onto the train's tracks, and dropping a pot of boiling water had all happened to you. Your quirk had saved you each time; the car missed you by an inch, your bag's straps stuck on one of the poles which kept you from falling, and the pot landed perfectly so none of the water spilled out. At first, you thought you were just a lucky person but when you went to the doctor's, they informed you that it was due to your quirk. It was a rare strand of quirk, one that had a single user before generation. You knew it was that rarity that got you into class 1-A. Everything and everyone around you seemed so much stronger and deserved more than you. You hadn't even wanted to be here, the idea of being a hero didn't interest you. Yet, everyone had told you how selfish you were being if you didn't pursue a career as a hero. A waste of a quirk. That was the only reason you were here, so they would stop telling you that. Maybe you would learn to either accept it or perhaps even want to be a hero as time passed. But for now, you would simply be getting by. This was school, that was it. You were walking into the lunchroom, a few minutes late due to Aizawa needing to ask you a few questions. You had not expected a fight to break out just as you were walking in. It was too hard to hear what they were yelling about but it soon devolved into physical violence, the main two attacking each other but the students around them were getting pulled into it as they were shoved around. One girl was shoved back, the tray she had her food on flying into the air. Instinctively, you pulled your hands up to cover your face. The food was thrown in your direction and many of the other students around you copied your actions. Two hands gripped your shoulders and shoved you back just a few steps, though they kept their hold on you to keep you from falling. Your eyes fluttered open to be greeted with the most bright blonde hair you had ever seen. Slowly, your eyes moved down to see the dopiest grin but quickly your attention was drawn to the rice that was covering the boy. "Man, this isn't how I thought today would go," A laugh flipped past his lips as casually as if there wasn't anything strange about this situation, "But at least I got to help a cute girl!"

Tenya Iida:

You and Iida had known each other for as long as you had lived. Your parents worked with his and since you both were born only months apart, the two of you often played together in the daycare set up at the building. Since most of the other heroes didn't have any children, it wasn't rare for it to simply be the two of you to be the only kids in that daycare. But neither of you cared since you always had each other. This type of mindset only continued until you reached the teenage years. Somehow both of you made it into U.A., as well as both being in 1-A. It seemed like a miracle! The two of you were walking next to each other on the first day, each with very different reactions. Iida was rather anxious and overthinking everything like he always did while you had a simple smile on your face. Your personalities were complete opposites. He thought plans over too much while you simply jumped into things without having a plan. You both kept each other balanced perfectly. "Iida, just calm down. We already are in the top class rank, everything should be easy, breezy, and beautiful from here on out." You spoke as you walked, hands clasped behind your back. "That most definitely isn't the truth. Because we are in the top class, we need to try our hardest to be the best. We will be up against all of those others who did just as well as us. We need to make sure that we keep up with them. If we fall behind, people will look down on us." You couldn't help but roll your eyes at his words. Yet, you kept your mouth shut, you knew how he could get. Your mind just simply didn't work as his did, you learned to try your best to understand and relate to his words. "Well, we can work that hard together. We got here for a reason which means we are good enough to be here. We will be just as good when we are in class." You shoved his side gently, a kind smile on your face. The boy simply shook his head at your words, going off on another tangent. This was normal and you wouldn't want it any other way. His mind may move as fast as his legs but that was just how he was. He accepted how you were, which meant it was only fair for you to accept him as well.

Tokoyami Fumikage:

The first time you saw Tokoyami was at the Sport's Festival. His power was amazing! It was nothing like you had seen before and your mind swarmed with questions. His quirk was so different. It wasn't a power, it was more like another person! Would your own quirk work on it? Or would it work with just the boy himself? These questions pushed you to find him after his match. Sure, he lost but that didn't mean anything. Everyone but one person was going to lose so in your mind, he should just be proud that he made it so far! When you found him, he was alone in one of the hallways with his head in his hands. He didn't look upset, no, that wasn't it. It looked more like he had a headache or something. Perhaps that was why he was here instead of back up in the bleachers. Either way, it didn't matter to you. While you didn't want to bother him if he wasn't feeling good, you knew that this was your one chance. Being in General Studies meant you didn't see the people of 1-A that much. "Excuse me," You spoke softly which caused him to look up, red eyes slightly narrowed as he took in your appearance, "I'm sorry if I bothered you. I just wanted to congratulate you! You were so cool! I've never seen a quirk like yours! It is no surprise that you're in class 1-A!" It took the boy a second to take everything in. The two of you must have looked strange next to each other due to him having a rather dark aesthetic while you were much more like Uraraka with your choice of fashion. You preferred lighter colors or just colors in general. You felt like you were bored or sad when you just wore black or white. You always tried to have some color in your outfits. "Thank you..." His voice was deep and quiet, though that wasn't shocking. It fit his appearance so well. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions...If you'd like, we can go up and watch the rest of the festival together!" Your smile made his heart skip, both in how uncomfortable he was and how flustered he was. He wasn't used to people like you speaking to him. Normally people left him alone, saying he looked too intimidating to approach. He had planned to say no when Dark Shadow grumbled in his head. Of course, Dark Shadow didn't want to be near you. Perhaps that was why he ended up agreeing with your offer and following you back up to the bleachers. He had no idea that he would actually enjoy being around you. His dark heart seemed to crack a bit, allowing just enough light in for him to be able to deal with being around you.

Uraraka Ochaco:

The first time you met, your attention wasn't on her. The trio had been walking down the sidewalk when someone in a middle school uniform seemed to just appear out of nowhere. One moment there was no one in front of them and then a blur of a person appeared. Deku and Uraraka seemed to be taken aback but Iida stayed in his spot. His sharp eyebrows narrowed as he stared at the newcomer. If Uraraka had to guess, this person could only be a year or two under the rest of the group. Most likely a year, perhaps with some change. The girl was brought out of her thoughts as the person began to speak almost as fast as they seemed to appear. "Tenya! How was your first day? Mine was good but I know it must be nothing when compared to yours. I mean, you are attending U.A! I can't believe it, well I can, but I still am super excited! I knew you would make it, you're really smart. Though sometimes you can be too strict and follow the rules too much...Anyway, how was your day? I want to know it all! Oh, who are these people?" "(Y/N)..." Iida grumbled softly under his breath, obviously annoyed by your actions. He had gotten used to his "We're his friends...We met him today," Deku offered as Iida seemed to collect himself. Who was this person? How did they know Iida? It shouldn't be hard to figure it out, yet Deku Uraraka's minds were spinning with the greeting. "Friends?! Oh, that's awesome! I was really worried he wouldn't make friends just because he can be so strict and serious all the time. He really is cool once you get passed all his guidelines and boring rants. He's my big brother, by the way. I'm (Y/N), youngest of the Iida family. I tend to be kept out of most of the press stuff so I wouldn't be surprised if you never heard of me. Our eldest brother is the one most people know about." "Strangely though, as the youngest, they seem to have the most extreme strand of our quirk." Iida explained, letting out a breath before looking back over to you, "Have you eaten yet? Since you got off school?" The two were confused by his words. Since you had gotten off school? Almost all of the schools in the area only got off less than ten minutes ago. If he had said all day or since lunch, that would make more sense. Instead, he specified since leaving school. Uraraka's eyes scanned you, taking in your rather thin yet toned appearance. Did you have an illness? Anorexic? She would hate to assume and end up offending either you or Iida. She never wanted to unintentionally hurt someone. "No...I was just planning on waiting until I got back home." The duo watched as Iida rummaged in his school bag for a few moments before finding the object of his desire. A granola bar? Iida must be the overprotective type if he was that worried about getting you something to eat. Uraraka didn't understand why you couldn't wait until you got home to eat. She did that a lot and even then, she skipped some meals due to money issues. She knew personally people can go a while without eating. Still, Iida handed you the bar which you gratefully began to unwrap. "Is she alright?" Deku asked softly, hoping the words only were heard by Iida. "Yes, now she is. As I stated, they seem to have gotten an almost overabundance of whatever gene gives us our speed. They don't have the same leg formations as myself or my brother, instead, it seems that their engine, if you would like to use that word, resides somewhere inside of them. They are unable to stop moving without being in discomfort. Due to this, they lose a lot of energy and need to be refueling most of the day. Think of a Hummingbird and their wings. Any bird works. They need to eat more." For the first time, Uraraka noticed that even as you were standing, your right leg was bouncing up and down at an extreme speed. "Come now, let's get home. I'll see you two tomorrow." With a curt nod, Iida nudged you in the direction of home. Your eyes quickly went from him back to his friends, waving happily before turning back around and beginning a new conversation with your brother. The two left behind were still dazed from the strange encounter but both shared one thought. They would like to meet you again. It didn't hurt that you were pretty cute too.

Mina Ashido:

Living with one of the top heroes wasn't as hard as some people would believe. Being related to one was an entirely different story. It wasn't hard to deduce who your brother was with the white wings extending from your back. You wished it wasn't so obvious. It was annoying how often you were stopped on the streets for someone to end up just asking who your brother was. No matter what you did, you lived in Hawks shadow. Sure you were younger but it would be nice for someone to try to get to know you for you and not just to get close to your brother. So many teen girls had tried that. Luckily, you learned how to sniff them out after the first two times. What no one ever acknowledged was that you were an up and coming hero yourself. Even though you were still a teenager yourself going to highschool, you had made a name for yourself as a hero named Angel. The name hadn't been your idea, the media named the mysterious vigilante that without knowing who they were. Unlike your brother, your wings were able to retract into your back; the only hint they had been there in the first place was the two long scars on your shoulder blades. This allowed you to go to school as (Y/N) during the day and fight crime as Angel at night. Walking back to the apartment you shared with your brother, your wings sagged. It had been a tough fight tonight and your left-wing had gotten torn up pretty badly. Nothing time and bandages wouldn't fix. Hawks wouldn't be home since he was on patrol tonight so you would be able to deal with the wounds without interruption. You kept on a tight schedule, only allowing yourself to go out at night when you knew Hawks wouldn't be home to notice you missing. "Oh my God! It's the Angel!" Your wings instinctively puffed out causing a sharp and hot pain to shoot down to the tips of your fingers. Hands gripping the two daggers you used, you turned to see who had just noticed you. Another villain? It didn't sound like it but one could never be sure these days. You had heard of a villain named Toga who looked like nothing more than a cute young girl. Looks deceived and you had learned that early on. "What do you want?" You growled out, attempting to sound in power. You wanted villains to fear you but with the body of a teenager, it was hard. Instead of some street thug or villain, a girl with pink skin stood under a street light. Her eyes stood out to you with dots of yellow in a black sea. She definitely wouldn't be able to hide with an alter ego when she looked like that. Your eyes took in her uniform, a U.A. one. One to the school Hawks had made you apply to just a few weeks ago. He got a strong interest in your attendance, even giving a recommendation. He didn't care when the school year started so why now? You were beginning to wonder if you weren't keeping your night escapades as secret as you thought. "Whoa, whoa! Sorry, I don't mean any harm or anything! I just was taken aback to see you, I mean, you seem like a myth with how the papers are telling the story." Her voice hinted to no violence, allowing you to sheath your weapons once again. Your wings pulled back and while one was able to return inside of you, the other was limp and extended. "Are you hurt?" She asked softly, taking a few steps to get a closer look at you. With your mask on, you knew she wouldn't be able to know who you were and yet you couldn't help but flinch ever so slightly. She must have noticed this because she stopped when there was just a few feet in between the two of you, not coming any closer. "Let me walk you home at least. I promise I won't tell anyone, hero's promise. Well, a hero in training at least." When you looked back at that moment, you knew the only reason you agreed was due to the flutter her smile brought to your stomach.

Tsuyu Asui:

How had Tsuyu gotten herself into this predicament? She was back in her dorm room with what looked like a squirrel person. They had a large bushy tail and cute ears but it wasn't only in the look that they resembled squirrels. When she had seen them initially, she had witnessed them climbing trees and jumping from branch to branch without any issues. The girl had meant to go for a simple walk through the forest, that was all it was supposed to be. It was not supposed to end with her taking in some feral person because some villains were messing with them. She could have just helped and left it at that. Yet, with those eyes, she couldn't seem to leave them there. Something seemed wrong with them like they weren't used to how the world worked. "So, can you speak Japanese? Or anything really?" Tsuyu asked, catching their attention from the ribbon they had been toying with. All she got back was a vacant stare and a tilt of the head. Of course, they couldn't speak or write, this just had to be even harder. What was she going to do? She couldn't just hide an entire person in her room forever. Yet, what were the other options? She couldn't just take them back to the forest, it was dangerous. That man could be out there still. "Great..." She set her head in her hands, trying to keep the stress from getting to her too much. "Great!" They repeated with a large smile. Tsuyu knew they didn't understand the language but at least it seemed like there would be the promise of teaching them it. Tsuyu had never been good at teaching but this couldn't be that hard, right? She just had to get some baby books to start with. They could go from there about other stuff. Maybe they knew more than they could let on. "Oh...." She groaned as she leaned back, "I wonder how long until Aizawa figures out what I did."

Jiro Kyoka:

The first day of school, stressful as always. You hated trying to find your way around a new school and it was only increased when that school was U.A.! Upperclassmen were so much more threatening then they had been in any of your past school experience. They all were training to be heroes in one way or another. It was intimidating and a bit flustering at the same time. One boy had phased out of his clothes when he went through a wall halfway to talk to someone on the other side. You had no expected to see someone naked on your first day! Lunch always was the worst. During class, you were placed in a seat and didn't have to pick anything. Luckily you had made friends with a boy in your class, 1-B. No one seemed to be that trustful of him due to his quirk which they labeled as dangerous and villainous. Shinso walked with you "So, where are we going to sit?" His voice brought you out of your thoughts, the loud chattering on the cafeteria coming back to your ears. You nodded and began to walk, knowing the boy was following behind you. He was letting you pick...Why did he have to let you pick?! Your eyes scanned the large crowds, not sure where to sit. How could so many people go to one school and eat all at one time? This seemed to be a bad plan in case of an emergency. Some of your classmates were sitting together but you noticed there were no seats left. There were a few tables with one spot left but you didn't want to separate from your purple friend. He was the only person you had talked to. If you lost him, then you truly would know no one that you sat with. Your hands tightened on your tray as panic set in. You hated having to choose...Just as your chest began to feel like it was being tightened in a vice, a voice like an angel rang out. "Hey, need a place to sit?" It was a girl with short purple hair, darker than Shinso's. It bordered almost on black but next to the bird boy she was sitting by, it was easier to see the difference. It took you no less than three seconds to thank her and sit down. Shinso simply sat down next to you with that tired look on his face. You were surrounded by what you would call goth kids but you wouldn't ask for anything else. This was a miracle in your eyes, even if you didn't seem to fit into the group's aesthetic.

150 notes · View notes

rileywrites · 5 years ago

Note

If you’re still doing prompts, this is from your prompt list in the random section — nos. 4 or 14, or from the fluff section, no. 12, in yet another of my reluctantly shipped ships, the Book of Nile. *sigh* (I have fulfilled the requirement of the manifesto) 😆

I wanted to give you options just in case someone already asked for any one of these!

Or, if you want, you could go for my original prompt, which would be: Nile has now learned Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, perfected her Arabic, etc. When Booker returns to the fold, Nile asks him to teach her French, (which Andy, Joe, and Nicky always said would be his job when he came back) but he basically gives her the “Ask your mother” “Ask your father” treatment, passing the responsibility like a hot potato between the other members of the Guard. After some time has passed, Nile catches him quietly singing songs in his old dialect of French, and oddly, only when the two of them are alone in a room. Since his old dialect has basically died out, she can’t exactly google translate. But she begins to suspect something’s up when Quynh stops dead in her tracks after she walks in on Booker singing something while making breakfast, as Nile sits at the table, enjoying everything, which leads to Quynh disappearing, and quiet laughter coming from the bedrooms. After a confrontation, he admits he didn’t want to teach her French, at least not for a while, because he wanted to have the ability to tell her how he feels about her through singing ancient French love songs, without her knowing, promising himself he’d teach her his language, when or if the day ever came that he could tell her in words.

I’m so sorry it’s a bit long, but this just popped in my head, and I know you’ll do wonders with this, if you decide to do it. No hard feelings at all if you don’t!

Thank you so much, you’re an amazing writer, you capture the voices of the TOG characters so well — I always smile when I see your name pop up with a new BoN story on AO3!

Thank you for this wonderful prompt, darling! I have absolutely run with it. I will write the snippet prompts eventually, but this one grabbed me by the throat.

Read on Ao3 Here.

...

After fifteen years with the Guard, Nile has a pretty good handle on just about any language you could think of.

Nile can give a eulogy in Spanish, ask for directions in Pashto, negotiate a weapons deal in Russian, woo a honeypot target in Italian, con a businessman in Greek, and navigate trade in Arabic. She can read, write, and speak Ancient Greek (circa Nicky and Joe's era) and is passable in several dead languages from the Steppe and Southern Asia. She's decent at Mandarin, getting pretty fucking good at Vietnamese, and doing her damnedest to learn Hindi. (It's a struggle.)

The one language she hasn't picked up yet is French.

It isn't for lack of trying. Her grasp at French is enough to not get her killed, but most of her practice has been with Quebecois or the dialects spoken in Morocco. Basically, if she spoke French in France, they would laugh at her, and her comprehension isn't great

"When Booker comes back, he'll teach you," Andy promises. "He has the most modern French between the five of us. It will do you better to learn from him."

"That doesn't do me any good in the interim," Nile points out.

"He'll be back any day now," Andy says. "Trust me, he'll crack soon."

...

Nile gets to their most recent safehouse late after a long night of schmoozing. She hates long cons, hates that some of humanity's evil can only be taken down with espionage and not brute force.

Her feet are killing her. These sky high boots make her ass look amazing, but her leg muscles regret every life choice she's ever made.

The TV is on, even though Joe and Nicky are supposed to be on recon. With Andy and Quyhn in Istanbul following a lead (to keep a grouchy Andy off of desk duty for a weekend), Nile's senses are on high alert.

She enters carefully, gun drawn.

"Don't shoot," Booker says, hands up. He smiles slightly. "I would have messaged, but I don't have your latest code."

"I still have the Nokia you gave me," Nile points out. "Andy could have told you that."

"Maybe I wanted to surprise you."

"You definitely have too much of a death wish for someone who can't die."

Booker doesn't have a comeback for that. Nile holsters her gun.

"Hug me, you sneaky bastard. It's been literal years."

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He crosses the room in two strides and steps into her waiting arms.

When they collide, it knocks the wind out of Nile's lungs. Breathing is irrelevant anyway, when she's in Booker's arms.

"I missed you, asshole," Nile says into his shoulder, probably getting makeup on his dumb denim shirt.

"I missed you too. I'm sorry that I did not visit sooner." Booker rubs one massive hand over her back. "Your feet probably hurt. I should let you get changed."

"One more minute."

Later, when Nile has had time to change into an oversized t-shirt and Nike shorts, her wig back on its mannequin head, Nile sits down with her feet in Booker's lap and grills him for information.

"I got sober about five years ago." Booker rubs her feet without hesitation, well-trained from centuries with Andy. "I haven't had a drop since."

Nile nudges his chest with the foot he isn't massaging.

"I'm proud of you. It can't have been easy."

"It wasn't." Booker bats her foot away. "It was worth it, though. You deserve a better teammate - you all do. Besides, I don't need to spend the rest of my immortality intoxicated. Six thousand years is a long time to be drunk."

"So what have you been doing since?"

"I spent a lot of time Journaling, processing my emotions. I worked in several literacy programs across the world, staying long enough to help but not too long." Booker shrugs. "Safer that way, I guess."

"Did you bring me pictures?"

"Of course. I have no clue how you keep finding film for Polaroid knockoffs though. It's twenty-thirty-five."

"I have my ways." Nile makes grabby hands in his direction. "Pictures. Please tell me there's pictures of you holding cute children you're teaching to read."

"Of course there is." Booker finds the envelope in his bag, careful not to dislodge her.

The tiny gesture is so fucking heartwarming it hurts.

"I have training in literacy coaching in English and French, so I've worked just about everywhere."

The photos are fucking adorable. Nile flips through them with glee, enjoying the tiny humans and huge Booker sharing textbooks and screens. One little girl in particular pops up in several.

"That's Adelaide," Booker says when Nile holds one up. "I stayed in Port Au Prince for almost a solid year, because I couldn't bear being another to abandon them. When she was adopted by a family in the church, I decided it was time for me to come home myself."

"That reminds me. You're back, which means I finally get to learn proper French."

Booker hesitates.

"Come on, Book, I know you have the qualifications." Nile retrieves her feet so she can kneel by his side on the couch. "You promised. Andy promised. No one else will teach me."

"Nicky hates French," Booker points out.

"I know, and everyone else is too stubborn. They all want you to teach me." Nile fidgets with his rolled-up sleeve. "I want you to teach me."

One good bat of her eyelashes later, and Booker finally agrees.

"Fine, fine, I will teach you French."

"Yes!"

"Eventually. For now, you need rest. Andy will insist on a stupidly early call tomorrow."

...

Six months later, and Booker hasn't said three words to Nile in French. He uses it on jobs, with Joe and Andy, when he talks to himself, but not with her.

They end up in Calais for three days, longer than expected, and Nile bugs him to go out with her.

"Come on, you can teach me in the field. I can practice." Nile pokes him in the arm. "You can laugh at my shitty attempts to use your language, and then you can correct me. Fun and educational!"

"I have too much to do, Nile. I have to make sure this program runs properly, or else we can't get on that plane." Booker waves her off. "Go read something. We have more books than sense here."

"That's not hard, when you're dumb." It's petty, infantile, but it gets Booker to smile and that's enough. "Fine. Don't think it's the end of this, though. You promised to teach me."

"I know, ma cherie, and I will. But for now, entertain yourself."

Nile grumbles. "I am forty-one years old. Don't act like I'm a child."

"I know you aren't a child. However, you are being a brat, so shoo."

"Asshole."

Nile pokes through the books in Booker's latest pile and fishes out something newer and trashy. Brainless. It'll do.

(And if she gets him to throw couch pillows at her by doing dramatic readings of the worst bits, all the better.)

...

Booker has been back in the fold for almost a year.

"Booker, you promised."

A year, and Nile is still just as shit with French - except for the curse words. She knows a whole stable of curse words now.

"Ask Andy."

Nile huffs. "I've been asking Andy for almost sixteen years, Booker. She says you'd be the best one to teach me."

"I don't know about that," Booker says, frowning.

"You're the French one."

"They've spoken French since it was invented."

Nile sighs. "Forget it. I'm going for a run."

She slides her ancient Nokia into her armband and pulls on her sneakers. A run will clear her head.

He doesn't say anything when she leaves. Nile tries not to take it personally.

They're in Istanbul, following up on the lead Andy and Quyhn have been chasing down. They're going to the Hippodrome in the morning, but for now, Nile has the evening to herself.

Why does this whole French thing piss her off so much?

(Nile isn't an idiot. She knows why.)

Maybe she'd be less irritated if he hadn't started singing recently.

It's nothing too obvious, just little snippets of old-sounding songs in a version of French that is either impossible for her to spell, too old for Google Translate, or both.

Nile turns a corner, mentally marking her distance as her feet hit the pavement.

Maybe she wouldn't care as much if Booker sang when the others were around, but he doesn't. It's just when it's the two of them.

Booker is asleep in the armchair by the time Nile gets back. She pokes and prods at him until he's awake enough to shuffle back to the bedroom.

"We've got a long day tomorrow." Nile shakes him gently. "Don't fall asleep in your boots."

"M'good," Booker says, then mumbles something incomprehensible in French.

"Goodnight, Booker."

"Bonne nuit, ma cherie," Booker says.

Nile can figure that much out.

...

The next morning, Nile wakes to singing and the smell of breakfast. She pulls on a hoodie and shuffles out of her room, scarf still on because fuck it.

"G'morning," she says, muffled by a yawn. "Coffee?"

Booker pours her a cup as she sits at the table. Before she's done with the coffee, an omelet appears before her.

"You are the fucking best." Nile digs in, content to enjoy the moment.

Good food, good company, and surprisingly good singing.

Nile is halfway through her omelet, Booker still be-bopping around the kitchen singing, when Quyhn and Andy get in from their morning run.

Both freeze in the doorway before Booker can notice, but Nile watches their minds race.

"Good morning," Nile says.

Quyhn whispers something in Andy's ear, and they walk quickly back to their bedroom.

Booker seems to realize they're there about the moment quiet giggling comes down the halls.

Nile didn't realize Andy could do anything other than chuckle gruffly these days.

Booker blushes bright red and his eyes go wide.

"Booker, your breakfast," Nile points out before it can burn.

"Fuck." Booker rescues his omelet. "I should go talk to them."

Nile stands, hemming him into the kitchen.

"Why are they giggling, Book?"

Booker refuses to make eye contact, but Nile doesn't back down.

She's been a mercenary for a decade and a half. She's faced down gangsters and serial killers and oligarchs. She can handle pinning Booker down with a glare.

"They, ah..." Booker rubs the back of his neck. "They speak French?"

"I know they speak French. Why were they giggling?"

Booker finally makes eye contact.

"They're love songs, Nile. I've been... I've been singing sappy shit from my youth, because I knew you wouldn't understand."

"That's why you wouldn't teach me."

It isn't a question, but Booker nods anyway.

"I was scared," he finally admits. "Scared for you to know."

Nile wants to say something meaningful. Wants to sweep him off his feet, wants to kiss him stupid, wants everything in the world.

Instead, she steps back.

"We have a job to do. Tonight, if you want to, if you're ready, I want you to translate your songs for me. Then we can talk, yeah?"

"I-" Booker nods. "Yeah. Yeah, that works for me."

She turns on her heel to go get ready for the day, leaving Booker in the kitchen staring after her, baffled.

...

Later, blood and mud spattered and healing from a sizeable fall from a horse, Nile limps into her bedroom. She manages to get most of her layers off and into a basket to see if they can be salvaged, but her ribs are still healing so bending too much is out of the question.

Getting her bra off is an Olympic event.

Booker doesn't knock until after she's showered.

"Come in."

"I brought you... well, the translations." Booker holds out a new-feeling leather journal. "I wrote down all the ones I could think of. You can read them, and I'll just-"

"Sit," Nile says before he can escape. "Please, stay."

Nile reads, connecting words to tunes he's been singing for weeks.

They're sappy, fond, romantic, saucy. Nile enjoys peeking up at Booker to see him blush almost as much as the love confession she's holding in her hands.

When she reaches the end of the lyrics, Nile crosses the tiny bedroom and looks Booker in the eyes.

"Booker?"

"Yes?"

"Are you ready to teach me French?"

Booker nods, blushing. "If you would like, ma cherie."

Nile finally kisses him. "I would like that very much."

#rileywrites #asked and answered #prompts #Anonymous #RileyWrites Fanfiction #my work #the old guard #tog fanfiction

11 notes · View notes