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warsofasoiaf · 3 years

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Writing Characters With Believable Military PTSD

I typically write these writing and worldbuilding essays from a dispassionate perspective, offering advice and context to prospective writers from as neutral a point of view as I can manage, with the goal being to present specific pieces of information and broader concepts that can hopefully improve writing and build creators’ confidence to bring their projects to fruition, whether that be writing, tabletop gaming, video game programming, or anything that suits their fancy. While writing this essay though, I struggled to maintain that perspective. Certainly, the importance of the topic to me was a factor, but ultimately, I saw impersonality just as a suboptimal presentation method for something so intensely personal. I do maintain some impartiality particularly in places where historical or academic context is called for, but in other respects I’ve opted for a different approach. Ultimately, this essay is a labor of love for me, love for those who suffer from military PTSD, love for those who love those who suffer from it, and love for writers who want to, in the way that they so choose, help those two other groups out. Thus, this is a different type of essay in certain segments than my usual fare; I hope the essay isn’t an unreadable chimera because of it.

This essay focuses on military-related PTSD. While there are some concepts that translate well into PTSD in the civilian sphere, there are unique elements that do not necessarily fit the mold in both directions, so for someone hoping to write a different form of PTSD, I would recommend finding other resources that could better suit your purposes. I also recommend using more than one source just in general, trauma is personal and so multiple sources can help provide a wide range of experiences to draw upon, which should hopefully improve any creative work.

And as a final introductory note, traumatic experiences are deeply personal. If you are using someone you know as a model for your writing, you owe it to that person to communicate exactly what you are doing and to ask their permission every step of the way. I consider it a request out of politeness to implore any author who uses someone else’s experiences to inform their writing in any capacity, but when it comes to the truly negative experiences in someone’s life, this rises higher from request to demand. You will ask someone before taking a negative experience from their own life and placing it into your creative works, and you will not hide anything about it from them. Receiving it is a great sign of trust. The opposite is a travesty, robbing someone of a piece of themselves and placing it upon display as a grotesque exhibit. And if that sounds ghoulish and macabre, it’s because it is, without hyperbole. Don’t do it.

Why Write PTSD?

What is the purpose of including PTSD in a creative work? There have been plenty of art therapy actions taken by those who suffer PTSD to create something from their condition, which can be as profound for those who do not have it as it is therapeutic for those that do, but why would someone include it in their creative works, and why is some no-name guy on the internet writing an essay offering tips as to how to do it better?

Certainly, one key element is that it’s real, and it happens. If art is to reflect upon reality, PTSD suffered by soldiers is one element of that, so art can reflect it, but what specifically about PTSD, as opposed to any other facet of existence? Author preference certainly plays a factor, but why would someone try to include something that is difficult to understand and difficult to portray? While everyone comes to their own reason, I think that a significant number of people are curious about what exactly goes on in the minds of someone suffering through PTSD, and creative works allow them a way to explore it, much the way fiction can explore scenarios and emotions that are either unlikely or unsafe to explore in reality. If that’s the case, then the purpose of this essay is rather simple, to make the PTSD examination more grounded in reality and thus a better reflection of it. But experiences are unique even if discernable patterns emerge, so in that sense, no essay created by an amateur writer with no psychological experience could be an authoritative take on reality, the nature of which would is far beyond the scope of this essay.

For my own part, I think that well-done creative works involving PTSD is meant to break down the isolation that it can cause in its wake. Veterans suffering may feel that they are alone, that their loved ones cannot understand them and the burden of trying to create that would simply push them away; better instead to have the imperfect bonds that they currently have than risk losing them entirely. For those who are on the outside looking in, isolation lurks there as well, a gulf that seems impossible to breach and possibly intrusive to even try. Creative works that depict PTSD can help create a sense that victims aren’t alone, that there are people that understand and can help without demeaning the sense of self-worth. Of course, another element would be to reduce the amount of poorly-done depictions of PTSD. Some creative works use PTSD as a backstory element, relegating a defining and important element of an individual’s life as an aside, or a minor problem that can be resolved with a good hug and a cry or a few nights with the right person. If a well-done creative work can help create a bridge and break down isolation, a poorly-done one can turn victims off, reinforcing the idea that no one understands and worse, no one cares. For others, it gives a completely altered sense of what PTSD is and what they could do to help, keeping them out, confusing them, or other counter-productive actions. In that sense, all the essay is to help build up those who are doing the heavy lifting. I’m not full of so much hubris as to think this is a profound piece of writing that will help others, but if creators are willing to try and do the hard work of building a bridge, I could at least try to help out and provide a wheelbarrow.

An Abbreviated Look At The Many Faces and Names of PTSD Throughout History

PTSD has been observed repeatedly throughout human history, even when it was poorly understood. This means that explorations of PTSD can be written in settings even if they did not have a distinctly modern understanding of neurology, trauma, or related matters. These historical contexts are also useful for worldbuilding a believable response in fictional settings and scenarios that don’t necessarily have a strict analogue in our own history. By providing this historical context, hopefully I can craft a broad-based sense of believable responses to characters with PTSD at a larger level.

In the time of Rome, it was understood by legionnaires that combat was a difficult endeavor, and so troops were typically on the front lines engaged in combat for short periods of time, to be rotated back for rest while others took their place. It was considered ideal, in these situations, to rotate troops that fought together back so that they could rest together. The immediate lesson is obvious, the Romans believed that it was vital for troops to take time to process what they had done and that was best served with quiet periods of rest not just to allow the adrenaline to dissipate (the "combat high"), but a chance for the mind to wrap itself around what the legionnaire had done. The Romans also recognized that camaraderie between fellow soldiers helped soldiers to cope, and this would be a running theme throughout history (and remains as such today). Soldiers were able to empathize with each other, and help each other through times of difficulty. This was not all sanguine, however, Roman legions depended on their strong formations, and a soldier that did not perform their duty could endanger the unit, and so shame in not fulfilling their duty was another means to keep soldiers in line. The idea of not letting down your fellow soldiers is a persistent refrain in coping with the traumas of war, and throughout history this idea has been used for both pleasant and unpleasant means of keeping soldiers in the fight.

In the Middle Ages, Geoffroi de Charny wrote extensively on the difficulties that knights could experience on the campaign trail in his Book of Chivalry. The book highlights the deprivation that knights suffered, from the bad food and poor sleep to the traumatic experience of combat to being away from family and friends to the loss of valued comrades to combat and infection; each of these is understood as a significant stressor that puts great strain on the mental health of soldiers up to today. De Charny recommended focusing on the knightly oaths of service, the needs of the mission of their liege, and the duty of the knight to serve as methods to help bolster the resolve of struggling knights. The book also mentions seeking counseling and guidance from priests or other confidants to help improve their mental health to see their mission through. This wasn’t universal, however. Some severely traumatized individuals were seen as simple cowards, and punished harshly for their perceived cowardice as antithetical to good virtue and to serve as an example.

World War I saw a sharp rise in the reported incidents of military-related PTSD and new understandings and misunderstandings. The rise in the number of soldiers caused a rise in cases of military PTSD, even though the term itself was not known at the time. Especially in the early phases of the war, many soldiers suffering from PTSD were thought to be malingering, pretending to have symptoms to avoid being sent to the front lines. The term “shell shock” was derived because it was believed that the concussive force of artillery bombardment caused brain damage as it rattled the skull or carbon monoxide fumes would damage the brain as they were inhaled, as a means to explain why soldiers could have physical responses such as slurred speech, lack of response to external stimuli, even nigh-on waking catatonia, despite not being hit by rifle rounds or shrapnel. This would later be replaced by the term “battle fatigue” when it became apparent that artillery bombardment was not a predicative indicator. Particularly as manpower shortages became more prevalent, PTSD-sufferers could be sent to firing squads as a means to cow other troops to not abandon their post. Other less fatal methods of shaming could occur, such as the designation “Lack of Moral Fibre,” an official brand of cowardice, as an attempt to shame the members into remembering their duty. As the war developed, and understanding grew, better methods of treatment were made, with rest and comfort provided to slight cases, strict troop rotations observed to rotate men to and from the front lines, and patients not being told that they were being evacuated for nervous breakdown to avoid cementing that idea in their mind. These lessons would continue into World War II, where the term “combat stress reaction” was adopted. While not always strenuously followed, regular rotations were adopted as standard policy. This was still not universal, plenty of units still relied upon bullying members into maintaining their post despite mental trauma.

The American military promotes a culture of competence and ability, particularly for the enlisted ranks, and that lends itself to the soldier viewing themselves in a starkly different fashion than a civilian. Often, a soldier sees the inability to cope with a traumatic experience as a personal failure stemming from the lack of mental fortitude. Owning up to such a lack of capability is tantamount to accepting that they are an inferior soldier, less capable than their fellows. This idea is commonly discussed, and should not be ignored, but it is far from the only reason. The military also possesses a strong culture of fraternity that obligates “Don’t be a fuckup,” is a powerful motivating force, and it leads plenty of members of the military to ignore traumatic experiences out of the perceived need not to put the burden on their squadmates. While most professional militaries stress that seeking mental health for trauma is not considered a sign of weakness, enlisted know that if they receive mental health counseling, it is entirely likely that someone will have to take their place in the meantime. That could potentially mean that another person, particularly in front-line units, are exposed to danger that they would otherwise not be exposed to, potentially exacerbating guilt if said person gets hurt or killed. This is even true in stateside units, plenty of soldiers don’t report for treatment because it would mean dumping work on their fellows, a negative aspect of unit fraternity. Plenty of veterans also simply never are screened for mental health treatment, and usually this lends to a mentality of “well, no one is asking, so I should be fine.” These taken together combine to a heartbreaking reality, oftentimes a modern veteran that seeks help for mental trauma has often coped silently for years, perhaps self-medicating with alcohol or off-label drug usage, and is typically very far along their own path comparatively. Others simply fall through the cracks, not being screened for mental disorders and so do not believe that anything is wrong; after all, if something was wrong, surely the doctors would notice it, right? The current schedule of deployments, which are duration-based and not mission-based, also make it hard for servicemembers to rationalize their experiences and equate them to the mission; there’s no sense of pairing suffering to objectives the way that de Charnay mentioned could help contextualize the deprivation and loss. These sorts of experiences make the soldier feel adrift, and their suffering pointless, which is discouraging on another level. It is one thing to suffer for a cause, it’s another not to know why, amplifying the feelings of powerlessness and furthering the isolation that they feel.

Pen to Page - The Characters and Their Responses

The presentation of PTSD within a character will depend largely on the point-of-view that the author creates. A character that suffers from PTSD depending on the presence of an internal or external point-of-view, will be vastly different experiences on page. Knowing this is essential, as this will determine how the story itself is presenting the disorder. Neither is necessarily more preferable than the other, and is largely a matter of the type of story being told and the personal preference of the author.

Internal perspectives will follow the character’s response from triggering event to immediate response. This allows the author to present a glimpse into what the character is experiencing. In these circumstances, remember that traumatic flashbacks are merely one of many experiences that an average sufferer of PTSD can endure. In a visual medium, flashbacks are time-effective methods to portray a character reliving portions of a traumatic experience, but other forms of media can have other tools. Traumatic flashbacks are not necessarily a direct reliving of an event from start to finish, individuals may instead feel sudden sharp pains of old injuries, be overwhelmed by still images of traumatic scenes or loud traumatic sounds. These can be linked to triggers that bring up the traumatic incident, such as a similar sight, sound, or smell. These moments of linkage are not necessarily experienced linearly or provide a clear sequence of events from start to finish (memory rarely is unless specifically prompted), and it may be to the author’s advantage to not portray them as such in order to communicate the difficulty in mental parsing that the character may be experiencing. Others might be more intrusive, such as violently deranged nightmares that prevent sleep. The author must try to strike a balance between portraying the experience realistically and portraying it logically that audience members can understand. The important thing about these memories is that they are intrusive, unwelcome, and quite stressful, so using techniques that jar the reader, such as the sudden intrusive image of a torn body, a burning vehicle, or another piece of the traumatic incident helps communicate the disorientation. Don't rely simply on shock therapy, it's not enough just to put viscera on the page. Once it is there, the next steps, how the character reacts, is crucial to a believable response.

When the character experiences something that triggers their PTSD, start to describe the stress response, begin rapidly shortening the sentences to simulate the synaptic activity, express the fight-flight-freeze response as the character reacts, using the tools of dramatic action to heighten tension and portraying the experience as something frightful and distinctly undesirable. The triggering incident brings back the fear, such as a pile of rubble on the side of the road being a potential IED location, or a loud firework recalling the initial moments of an enemy ambush. The trauma intrudes, and the character falls deep into the stress response, and now they react. How does this character react? By taking cover? By attacking the aggressor who so reminds them of the face of their enemy? Once the initial event starts, then the character continues to respond. Do they try to get to safety? Secure the area and eliminate the enemy? Eventually, the character likely recognizes their response is inappropriate. It wasn’t a gunshot, it was a car backfiring, the smell of copper isn’t the sight of a blown-apart comrade and the rank odor of blood, it’s just a jug of musty pennies. This fear will lead to control mechanisms where the victim realizes that their response is irrational. Frequently, the fear is still there, and it still struggles with control. This could heighten a feeling a powerlessness in the character as they try and fail to put the fear under control: "Yes, I know this isn’t real and there’s nothing to be afraid of, but I’m still shaking and I am still afraid!" It’s a horrifying logical track, a fear that the victim isn’t even in control of their thoughts - the one place that they should have control - and that they might always be this way. There’s no safety since even their thoughts aren’t safe. Despair might also follow, as the victim frantically asserts to regain control. Usually with time, the fear starts to lessen as the logical centers of the brain regain control, and the fear diminishes. Some times, the victim can't even really recall the exact crippling sense of fear when attempting to recall it, only that they were afraid and that it was deeply scary and awful, but the notion that it happened remains in their mind.

Control mechanisms are also important to developing a believable PTSD victim. Most sufferers dread the PTSD response and so actively avoid objects or situations that could potentially trigger. Someone who may have had to escape from a helicopter falling into the ocean may not like to be immersed in water. Someone who was hit by a hidden IED may swerve to avoid suspicious piles in the road. Someone buried under a collapsing ceiling may become claustrophobic. Thus, many characters with PTSD will be hypervigilant almost to the point of exhaustion, avoiding setting off the undesired response. This hypervigilance is mentally taxing; the character begins to become sluggish mentally as all their energy is squeezed out, leaving them struggling for even the simplest of rational thoughts. This mental fog can be translated onto the page in dramatic effect by adding paragraph length to even simple actions, bringing the reader along into the fog, laboriously seeing the character move to perform simple actions. Then, mix in a loss of a sense of purpose. They’re adrift, not exactly sure what they’re doing and barely aware of what’s happening, although they are thinking and functioning. In the character’s daily life, they are living their life using maximum effort to avoid triggering responses; this is another aspect of control that the character can use as an attempt to claw back some semblance of power in their own lives. Even control methods that aren’t necessarily healthy such as drinking themselves to pass out every night or abusing sleeping pills in an attempt to sleep due to their nightmares, are ways to attempt to regain a sense of normalcy and function. Don’t condescend to these characters and make them pathetic, that’s just another layer of cruelty, but showing the unhealthy coping mechanisms can demonstrate the difficulty that PTSD victims are feeling. Combined with an external perspective, the author can show the damage that these unhealthy actions are doing without casting the character as weak for not taking a different path.

External perspectives focus on the other characters and how they observe and react to the individual in question. Since the internal thought process of the character is not known, sudden reactions to an unknown trigger can be quite jarring for characters unaware, which can mirror real-life experiences that individuals can have with PTSD-sufferers. In these types of stories, the character’s reaction to the victim is paramount. PTSD in real life often evokes feelings of helplessness in loved ones when they simply cannot act to help, can evoke confusion, or anger and resentment. These reactions are powerful emotions with the ability to drive character work, and so external perspectives can be useful for telling a story about what it is like for loved ones who suffer in their own fashion. External perspectives can be used not just in describing triggering episodes, but in exploring how the character established coping mechanisms and how their loved ones react to them. Some mechanisms are distinctly unhealthy, such as alcohol or prescription drug abuse, complete withdrawal, or a refusal to drive vehicles, and these create stress and a feeling of helplessness in characters or can impel them to try and take action. Others can be healthy, and a moment of inspiration and joy for an external perspective could be sharing in that mechanism, demonstrating empathy and understanding which evokes strong pathos, and hopefully to friends of those who suffer from PTSD, a feeling that they too, are not alone.

As the character progresses, successes and failures can often be one of the most realistic and most important things to include within the work, since those consumers who have PTSD will see parts of themselves in the characters, which can build empathy and cut down on the feelings of isolation that many victims of PTSD feel. A character could, over the course of the story, begin weaning themselves off of their control mechanisms, have the feelings of panic subside as their logical sides more quickly assert control, replace unhealthy coping mechanisms with healthier ones, or other elements of character progression and growth. Contrarily, a character making progress could, after experiencing significant but unrelated stressors, backslide either into unhealthy coping mechanisms or be blindsided by another attack. This is a powerful fear for the victim, since it can cause them to think ‘all my progress, all my effort, and I am not free!’ This is often a great fear for PTSD users (people with depression often have the same feeling) that find methods of coping are no longer as effective, and the struggle is perceived as one that they’re ultimately doomed to failure. This feeling of inevitable failure can lead to self-harm and suicide as their avenue of success seems to burn to ash right as it was in their hands. More than one soldier suffering from PTSD has ended up concluding: “Fuck it, I can’t live like this,” as horrible as that is. Don’t be afraid to include setbacks and backsliding, those happen in reality, and can be one of the most isolating fears in their lives; if the goal of portraying PTSD accurately is to help remove that feeling of isolation, then content creators must not avoid these experiences. Success as well as failure are essential to PTSD in characters in stories, these elements moreso than any other, I believe, will transcend the medium and form a connection, fulfilling the objective we set out to include in the beginning paragraphs.

Coming Back to the Beginning

It might be counterintuitive at first glance to say “including military PTSD will probably mean it will be a long journey full of discouraging story beats that might make readers depressed,” because that’s definitely going to discourage some readers to do that. I don’t see it that way, though. The people that want to do it should go in knowing it’s going to be hard, and let that strengthen their resolve, and put the best creation they can forward. The opposite is also true. Not every prospective author has to want to include any number of difficult subjects in their works, and that’s perfectly fine. Content creators must be free to shape the craft that they so desire without the need to be obligated to tackle every difficult issue, and so no content creator should be thought of as lesser or inferior because they opt not to include it in their works. I think that’s honestly stronger than handling an important topic poorly, or even worse, frivolously. Neither should anyone think that a content creator not including PTSD in their works means that they don’t care about those who suffer from it or for those who care about them or who simply don’t care about the subject in general. That’s just a terrible way to treat someone, and in the end, this entire excursion was about the opposite

Ultimately, this essay is a chance not only to help improve creative works involving PTSD, but to reflect on the creative process. Those who still want to proceed, by all means, do so. Hopefully this essay will help you create something that can reach someone. If every piece of work that helps portray PTSD can reach someone somewhere and make things easier, even if ever so little, well then, that’s what it’s really all about.

Hoping everyone has a peaceful Memorial Day. Be good to each to other.

SLAL

#essays on writing and worldbuilding #ptsd

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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You know, you've written a lot of your thoughts/hcs/etc on how various characters would behave as yanderes and so on, but I've never seen you talk about yandere readers before and I feel like that's an interesting subject to consider? Especially for 3H - you have a treasure trove of damaged boys to attract obsessiveness from girls who are convinced they are the ONLY one for them and it's their duty to drive away competition/threats/anyone they want.

Okay it's time to be toxic. I’m not going to go for all the guys, just the ones who immediately came to mind.

Dimitri: I joke quite often that I would be yandere for Dimitri. It all started when I brought up killing the girl he danced with at the White Heron Ball and quite frankly it's only spiraled from there because doesn't the Savior King Dimitri deserve to be adored and worshipped? Doesn't he deserve someone who wants the best for him and only him? Doesn’t it only make sense for him to be with someone who understands his mental issues and is willing to offer him unconditional support and patience? Doesn't he need someone with unwavering loyalty who will do anything no matter what the cost for his sake? It'd be so easy too because he's super dependent, desperate for affection, and clueless so if you just nourish those traits and constantly downplay his discomfort/suspicion of you driving away anybody who you feel is a threat by saying that this is how relationships just are, that it's just because you love him so much, that you're just looking out for him, what's he gonna do? It's not like he'd have any solid basis for knowing how relationships are supposed to be. Besides if he gets too upset you can threaten to leave him just like his mother did, I'm sure that would work to get him back in your arms (where he belongs). Yeah, that’s a little fucked up but it would be so much worse for both of you in the long run if you were apart. Being too aggressive or overt about your obsession would definitely make Dimitri wise up so it'd be better to go with love bombing. This would be good because it really lets you prove your devotion to Dimitri and makes it easier for him to just laugh off and excuse your disturbingly possessive behavior. His friends would be potentially problematic, but they're not always around and Dimitri's private enough that he probably wouldn't volunteer information about you to them. If you told him that it made you very upset and uncomfortable when he was friendly with the girls from his class, he’d most likely stop for your sake. Bonus round, have his babies. What is he going to do, abandon the mother of his children? Dimitri?!? No way. Of course he wouldn’t do anything to risk breaking his family, but neither would you! After all, this is all because you know Dimitri better than anyone which means that only you can love him.

Sylvain: Sylvain being manipulative and cheating on you after you try and prove your love to him through conventional means causing you to snap and kill hurt the girls, throw his lies back in his face, and prove that you're the only girl for him by preying on his emotional trauma with women is really something to consider. Why try to resolve toxic situations with love, compassion, and open communication when you can use blood and abuse to keep him with you? Play the part, be snarky, witty, flirty, be super hot and cold to keep him intrigued, give him the best fuck he's ever had, really show him that you don't care about his Crest, you just want to love possess him. Maybe even do the whole "I don't care who you're with, we both know you belong to me" to really engage him in those super fun mind games. Make everyone else acknowledge that you're the perfect girl for him, get them all to vilify him for continuing to be such a womanizer and breaking your heart. But, like, why stop there? Encourage him to retaliate, to be mad at you. Tease him for being so disgusted and angry at you when all you want, all you've ever wanted, was for your hearts to beat as one and then later act confused because of course you wouldn’t make light of his feelings like that, that’s horrible. All you want, all you’ve ever wanted, was for him to acknowledge that your adoration for him is true. Really break him until he gives you the whole “I’ll let you chain me up so I never even look at another girl” schtick. This might seem awful, but so is he! Reform can be difficult and if he’s going to be happy, he has to be made to understand why his behavior was so bad and the consequences of it. Because it’s not like you’d act like this if you had any other choice, it’s not like you’d continue once the two of you were truly together, of course you wouldn’t treat him so cruelly once he vowed himself to you and only you. And, really, I think it’d be a lot easier once he understood that and you got to prove your love to him through raw, unadulterated affection. Spend every day adding onto the list of why you love your Sylvain.

Claude: Claude being more than aware of the ole' saying "don't stick your dick in crazy" and then doing it anyway because he has a proclivity for the fiery, forbidden, and oh-so temping call of danger would be the perfect set up for a very bad predicament. You’d have to play some mind games to really convince him that he’s the one seeking you out, he’s the one who’s got it bad, he’s the one who wants to have you. In other words, you’d have to give him a challenge. But, you know, if it’s a game, you’d have to play back because you’re doing this for him, because you love him, because you want him to realize that he loves you, too (Uno reverse Claude’s yandere behaviors, basically) so obviously you’d have to eliminate any obstacles and taking out anybody who could be a potential threat. Get him to open up about his dreams, his past, his feelings. As it goes with basically all of these affection-starved men, make him feel loved for who he is. You know, if you were really good, you could probably even get him to give up on everything else for your sake. I mean, I loathe the ending but he does that for Lysithea. Pull a Tangled on Claude and make him believe that you’re his new dream as he mostly certainly is yours.

Felix: Sweet Felix. So oblivious but so difficult. A man who would provide the ultimate and most dangerous yan rival of them all: the thrill of the fight. In a lot of ways, I think he’d be like Dimitri. Mostly just because he’s so dense when it comes to love of any kind. But he’s also not as emotionally desperate or dependent so you wouldn’t really be able to use that against him. The similarities come from Felix’s equal amount of inexperience with romance which opens up a lot of possibilities for you convincing him that certain behaviors are normal. You can even bring up how his cold emotional state (something I believe he’s insecure about) is what forces you to be so overbearing, how badly it hurts you. You don’t necessarily mean to be so cloying but you’re so afraid of losing someone else you love so much (another insecurity of his). After all, there is nobody in the entire world who is like him, Felix Hugo Fraldarius, (three for three with his insecurities) and how irreplaceable and precious he is to you. These examples are kind of “soft” when it comes to using his insecurities against him, but you could go further with them assuming you were sure that it wouldn’t drive him away. Not knowing and having to work on assumption would always be a pretty big reason to control yourself in how you went about manipulating him because Felix is stubborn and prideful and pushing him too far would only hurt the both of you. It’s actually kind of funny because as opposed to the traditional yan mindset, it would be in your best interest to get Felix to form relationship bonds with others (but definitely not any of the girls he’s so popular with) because that would be a bargaining chip when convincing him to stay with you.

Ferdinand von Aegir: Ferdinand is, honestly, so easy for this. Like, I feel as if I don’t even need to talk about the details. You show him some affection and he’s yours. Bury him in love and praise. Tell him that it makes you unhappy when he talks to other girls or prioritizes his work over you and then reward him with boundless warmth and devotion because of course he would bend over backwards to make you happy. He just wants to be needed and treasured, to love and be loved. He’s already got the poetry and the ring and of course he wouldn’t mind getting married right away it’s true love, why would you wait?

Yuri: Yuribird is the forbidden darling. You’d need to be running on 100% love because he’d sniff out and ditch you at even the smallest whiff of deliberate obsession. But you know what he wants? More-so than the other guys, in some ways. He wants to be known and loved for who he is. In the face of genuine affection, he doesn’t stand a chance. Still, you’d have to be measured about this stuff. If you were jealous and got rid of your rivals yourself, Yuri would be disgusted and leave you. And you can’t hide that sort of thing from him, either. You’d have to go all in on the manipulation but only in the most honest way possible, that’s the only way past his defenses. Get him to prioritize your feelings first so he feels guilty talking to people or acting in ways that upset you. Reward him for putting you above everyone else. Constantly remind him that you’re the only one who knows and understands him, who loves him for who he is. Get him so emotionally fucked that even if his big brain logic is telling him that you’re toxic and horrible, he can’t stand the thought of being without you. He’d give up crime, it’s not like he even particularly likes it. Set up the perfect life for him, something domestic and sweet and warm, something he’s never had worries he doesn’t deserve, something that keeps him away from others. The goddess only knows how much he deserves a happy dream for once, and you’re the only one who can understand and provide that for him.

#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #sylvain jose gautier #yuri leclerc #claude von riegan #felix hugo fraldarius #ferdinand von aegir #fe dimitri #fe sylvain #fe yuri #fe claude #fe felix #fe ferdinand #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #yandere #headcanons #yandere headcanons #quality content only on my blog

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pastelwitchling · 3 years

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Journey to the Past

read on ao3

This was meant to be part of my one-shot collection, it turned out to be too long, and now it’s a separate fic. If you enjoy reading even a little bit, please comment and share/reblog, it always makes the world of a difference ❤

Michael woke to find he’d fallen asleep at Alex’s bedside. Before anything, he sat up, checked to see if Alex’s eyes hadn’t fluttered, if he wasn’t finally waking from his coma, but his hand remained perfectly still in Michael’s, the heart monitor echoed steadily into the otherwise empty room and echoing off Max’s bedroom walls.

They would’ve taken him to the hospital, but since the attack that did this to him had been by his father’s rogue Project Shepherd agents, they couldn’t risk leaving him in a room that any enemy could access. At least here, Isobel and Michael could set up forcefields around the grounds. At least here, Max could strike anybody that came too close with lightning and they could blame it on the weather. At least here, Michael could cling to Alex and no one would bother him about it.

Michael wasn’t Alex’s boyfriend, he knew. Alex’s actual boyfriend – or his ex, that is, as of two weeks ago – was back in New York, unaware that the man he’d fallen so deeply and treacherously in love with had fallen victim to his father’s pissed off and ridiculously loyal minions.

Michael followed the bruises on Alex’s jaw and cheeks with his eyes, the cut on his lower lip, visible under the thick respirator. There was a stitched up gash in his forehead, and his knuckles on his right hand were scraped and bloody from the fight he’d given the attackers. He’d fended most of them off, before Michael had arrived to blow the rest of them into the walls and knock them out, but not before one of them had managed a stray shot in and got Alex in the stomach.

Max had done his best to heal him, but the bullets had been laced with yellow pollen. Jesse Manes’ last attempt to kill his youngest son, apparently, had followed him out the grave.

Michael shut his eyes against the thought, and instinctively gripped Alex’s hand tighter. He didn’t want to think about Project Shepherd and what they’d intended. They’d failed, and that was all that mattered. His grip turned painful on Alex’s hand. They’d failed.

A knock came at the door, but Michael did not look away from Alex’s face. He heard Max’s voice from the end of the room ask, “How’re you holding up?”

“Why isn’t he awake yet?” Michael demanded. “You said he’d be awake by now.”

“No,” Max sighed, and closed the door behind him. “I said Kyle hoped he’d be awake by now.”

“It’s been two days.”

“We’re doing everything we can –”

“Well, it’s not enough!” Michael snapped, and the room collapsed back into silence.

“He’ll wake up,” Max promised him. “He will. Just give him some time.”

“I need him,” Michael whispered.

“I know –”

“No,” he growled. “I need him.” He rubbed his face roughly with one hand. “Where’s Is?”

“Outside,” he said. “Why?” When Michael didn’t answer, Max’s shoulders slumped and his frown deepened. “Michael, no.”

“I know we said there were risks –”

“Risks?” he scoffed. “I already told you it’s too dangerous to go digging through Alex’s head! Isobel told you it’s dangerous!”

Michael stood. “Valenti said his brain waves are normal, he’s just asleep. If I can find the part of him that doesn’t want to wake up, then – then I get him back.”

“Or you guys screw something up,” Max argued, “and change something that can’t be changed back.”

Michael clenched his jaw. “He won’t wake up, not like this, and I can’t just sit here and wait.”

“Michael,” Max tried, purposely calming his voice in that way when he knew Michael was seconds away from blowing up and wanted to ease him back down. “Listen to me. I know you’re worried about him, but if you go into his mind, you could make things worse.”

Michael swallowed. Max was right, he knew Max was right. But he remembered Kyle’s voice when he’d hoped Alex would wake up soon. He had been too quiet, his eyes downcast like he was praying and didn’t want the others to know it was that bad.

He had no idea that when it came to Alex, Michael paid attention. Only when it came to Alex.

“If I do nothing,” he said, “Alex stays asleep.” His fingers curled to fists at his sides at the thought. He looked back at Alex, the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed softly. His unmoving fingers and closed eyes.

Michael sniffed, and decided, “If Alex doesn’t wake up by tomorrow morning, I’m going in to wake him up myself.”

They waited until the next morning, then noon. Michael had been ready to start at dawn, but Kyle had seemed anxious, and Max argued for “Just a couple more hours, Michael, he’s the doctor here!”

Michael had argued that Alex didn’t need a human doctor, and Kyle had argued that Alex was human, so who else was going to treat him?

Michael forgot that sometimes; that Alex wasn’t actually an alien like him, that he didn’t have any superpowers like the others did. He’d just always seemed so strong and intelligent that it slipped Michael’s mind. But Alex was human, and more fragile than Michael allowed himself to believe. He’d been too careless, too willing to ask for Alex’s help fixing this or fixing that without ever considering what he might’ve been doing to him. What it might cost.

Maybe that was why Michael was so eager to go into Alex’s mind already and wake him up. It was time for him to save Alex for a change.

“Just for the record,” Isobel said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You deal with brains all the time,” Michael argued.

“Not like Kyle,” she insisted. “And not memories. It’s like . . . time travelling! If you touch something in the past, you could change the future forever!” She swallowed. “And Alex is . . . he’s too important.”

She didn’t need to say the words for Michael to know what she was thinking. He’s too important to you, she seemed to be telling Michael. If I hurt him, it’ll break you, and I could never forgive myself for that.

Michael took her hand. “You’re gonna do great,” he said resolutely. “If anyone can do this, you can.”

Her brows pinched, unconvinced, but Michael didn’t have any more time for doubt or hesitation. Alex hadn’t woken up in too long, and his nerves were fraying with every passing second.

“Do it,” he said.

Isobel glanced hesitantly at Kyle. Kyle looked to Alex, as if weighing the damage that they could do, but even he must’ve known that Alex being asleep for this long was abnormal, because he looked to Isobel and nodded, clearly unhappy about it.

“Be careful,” Max warned. “For your sakes, and his.”

Isobel’s hand on Michael’s tightened, and she shut her eyes. Michael kept his gaze on Alex for as long as he could. Then he felt a sudden chill shoot throughout his entire body from his hand, and he inhaled sharply. One second he was looking at Alex’s sleeping figure, and the next, the world around him turned to smoke, and he found himself standing in the desert on a bright, sunny day.

He was still holding Isobel’s hand, but nothing looked familiar. There was just desert and gray-steel buildings built high with tall glass windows, clustered like boulders in the sea.

In the distance, he could see uniformed soldiers, marching in formation. Men and women training, sergeants barking orders, laughter from friends somewhere hidden. Where were they?

“What the hell?” he muttered, looking around. He didn’t recognize the area at all.

Isobel shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Where’s Alex?”

Michael turned and found they were inches from a doorway that opened to a large, steel room. There was a raised platform at the very opposite end, and several soldiers fighting, sparring, exercising – but Michael couldn’t see any of them.

Isobel gasped. “Michael,” she pointed. “Isn’t that Alex?”

Michael had already spotted him. He was on the platform, fighting another young man. But even before Isobel and Michael approached him, Michael knew this was a much younger Alex. He looked barely eighteen, his hair having lost its spike and was cut short, he was throwing punches and kicks in a way that seemed very unnatural for the man who hardly had to raise a finger to induce fear. And he was losing. Badly.

“I don’t think anybody can see us,” Isobel murmured, looking around at the other soldiers as they passed. “Or hear us.”

Michael’s eyes were on Alex. His heart was hammering, beating painfully against his ribs with every beating Alex took, every time his body fell to the floor. His opponent delivered a roundhouse kick that had Alex on his face again, and Michael snapped. He held a hand up to blast the other fighter back, but his powers wouldn’t work.

“Are you crazy?!” Isobel hissed, slapping his arm. “You can’t change anything, remember?”

“Literally,” Michael spat, hoping Alex’s opponent could feel his glares. “My telekinesis isn’t working.”

Isobel looked around before her eyes focused on another soldier who was doing pushups. Her brows furrowed for barely half a second, then she winced and put a hand to her temple.

Michael tugged on her hand. “Are you okay?”

“It’s taking all of my power for us to just be here,” she sighed. “My other powers won’t work either.” She frowned. “What’s he doing?”

Michael followed her gaze, and saw that Alex, beaten and bloody, was slowly pushing himself to his feet with trembling arms.

“His face is covered in blood,” Isobel shook her head. “He needs to stay down!”

Michael guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Alex so resolved to stay on his feet. His hair was plastered to his temples with blood and sweat, his breaths were quick and short, like his chest ached, but his shoulders were straight and his eyes were filled with a fiery anger. Alex was looking at his opponent like he was every other person who’d ever beat him down and ordered him to stay there. He was screaming, without any words at all, that he wouldn’t.

It didn’t seem to matter to the opponent as he threw hit after hit, hurting Alex again and again, making Michael flinch and burn with rage every time.

When the fight was over, the other soldiers jeering and eager to start their own training match next, Alex’s opponent crouched down beside him and whispered, loud enough for Michael and Isobel to hear, as though they were in Alex’s place themselves –

“Nobody cares who your daddy and brothers are, Manes,” the opponent sneered with disgust. “Your kind will never survive here.”

Michael clenched his jaw. He felt Alex’s anger, his frustration, his grief. He’d often wondered what happened to Alex after he’d enlisted, how a soldier trained and what that did to them, whether it was hurting Alex the same way.

No one offered Alex a hand, no one knew what to make of this lesser Manes. Michael wanted to kill them all for hurting him, for pushing him down. Alex, on the other hand, seemed to see things differently.

With all the charge of that emo kid from high school, Alex groaned and pushed himself to his feet. He spat the blood in his mouth out, and wiped his forearm against his nose. His eyes were dry, his expression unreadable, but that same anger stayed.

More than a few soldiers looked surprised and even impressed, but Alex, already walking away, didn’t notice.

The scene changed.

Before Michael could blink, they were outside again. A cursory look around told them they were behind the building this time, where rocks and stray blades of grass grew out. Alex was sitting against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. In the distance, soldiers marched on, but nobody seemed to see Alex as he cried.

He hadn’t wanted anyone to see him.

Michael glanced at Isobel, and saw her eyes were wide and sympathetic. Alex wiped the tears away faster than they could fall. He sniffled, and pulled a picture out of his pocket, hiding it between his eyes and knees, a secret for no one else.

“I’m sorry,” Alex sniffled again, and wiped his cheek on his shoulder. “I’m trying not to. I’m getting better at it. Not that I think you’d be disappointed that I cried, I just . . . don’t want to cry in front of anybody else. Never again.”

Michael and Isobel each went to a different side of Alex to see whose picture he was talking to, all the while Michael trying not to scrunch up with the uncomfortable thought that Alex had taken enough comfort in someone else that he would sneak a photo of them into base, even back then.

When he saw the picture, he froze. Isobel breathed, “Oh my god . . .,” and Michael had to kneel down next to Alex. It was a picture of them – him and Alex – similar to the picture he had in his airstream. Except this one was taken at a different angle, and they were smiling at each other, taken in the exact moment Alex had noticed Michael watching him play guitar, and the two had laughed, giddy at being so close together and knowing what they knew about their feelings for one another.

Michael tried to breathe, but a lump lodged itself in his throat. Alex had kept a picture of them with him when he’d first gone to the base, and he pulled it out whenever he needed strength and comfort. All this time, he’d thought Alex hadn’t thought twice about him . . .

“I’m scared, Guerin,” Alex confessed to the picture, his grip on the edges tightening. “I don’t – I don’t know what to do. I’m not strong enough to be here. I don’t want to be here.” His lower lip trembled. “But that’s why you started to pull away, right? I was too weak to protect you . . .”

“No,” Michael breathed, shaking his head. “No, please, don’t say that, please.”

“That’s why Alex enlisted?” Isobel said. “Because his dad hit you?”

“It was after Rosa,” Michael croaked, eyes on Alex. “Everything changed, and I . . . I could never tell him what happened. But he – he thought . . . I didn’t know he thought . . .”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Alex cried, hiding his face with one hand. “I’m trying not to cry, I swear I’m trying. I just miss you so much, Guerin. You’re the only person that’s ever felt like home to me, and now I’m here, and I’m more lost than ever.” He exhaled shakily. “All I wanted was a goodbye. I keep thinking about the way I left. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Isobel’s own eyes were glassy. “Michael?”

“I didn’t want to,” he whispered in response to her silent question. “I didn’t want to say goodbye. It felt like I would never see him again if I did.” He clenched his jaw. He tried to press his forehead to Alex’s temple, to inhale his scent, but he couldn’t feel Alex at all. He could only watch him suffer.

“The last thing I ever said to him before he left was –” he scowled at the bile in his throat “—that I’d be better off if he left. I was just angry, and – and hurt!” he tried. “I didn’t mean it!”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said firmly, pulling her eyes off Alex. “It’s in the past, Michael. That’s what all of this stuff is. Memories. You know Alex now, you know what he thinks of you. He loves you.”

Michael shook his head. “That’s not what hurts, Is.”

“Then what does?”

“It’s that he loved me this much even back then.”

“Private Manes,” a voice sounded, and Alex gasped just quickly enough for Michael to catch it before he was on his feet, straight as a board.

Michael looked up and found none other than Sergeant Ramos, Alex’s mysterious leader who’d come to Roswell a mere few weeks ago. The man Alex had looked up to and smiled around and trusted. The man who seemed more Alex’s father than Jesse Manes had ever been.

Sergeant Ramos, looking about twelve years younger, raised a brow at Alex’s right hand which was subtly pushing the photo back into its hiding place in his pocket.

He tilted his head at Alex. “You’re the new kid, right? Jesse’s youngest. Alec?”

“Alex Manes, sir,” Alex said loudly, coherently. Like a soldier.

“Alex,” he nodded. “You miss your friend, Alex?”

Alex faltered. “Sir?”

“Your friend,” he nudged his chin at Alex’s pocket. “In the picture.” His eyes were meaningful when he said, “You must’ve been very close.”

Alex swallowed. It was no use trying to hide the panic in his eyes. He’d just come back from his father’s house, he was too used to being afraid. He hadn’t spent a decade learning to hide that fear.

“Is he the reason you’re here?”

Alex raised his chin. “I’m here to be stronger, sir!”

Ramos smiled, like he knew something Alex didn’t. “You seemed plenty strong to me up on that platform, Private.”

Alex frowned. “I was . . . losing, sir.”

“No,” he shook his head. “No, you were getting back up. No matter what he hit you with.”

Alex clenched his jaw. “I don’t like bullies, sir.”

“Did a bully hurt your friend there?” he asked. “Is that why you’re here?”

Alex said nothing, and Michael could see the questions in the furrow of his brow. What would happen to him if a sergeant discovered he was gay? Would he report him to Jesse?

Ramos sighed and looked around. “If you don’t know why you’re here,” he said, “you won’t last long, I can guarantee you that. You know where you are?”

Alex blinked, confused. “The – the US Air Force Base?”

“Are you asking me?”

He straightened. “The US Air Force Base, sir!”

“You ever been in a plane?” he asked. “Ever seen what we see up there?”

Alex hesitated, then shook his head. He quickly caught himself and said, “No, sir!”

Ramos hummed, then patted Alex’s shoulder once, hard enough to make Alex stumble. “All right, follow me! I’m about to show you the few good things about being out in this godforsaken desert.”

Alex followed as he was supposed to, though doubt never left his face. He seemed convinced that there was nothing good about being out here.

Michael and Isobel exchanged a glance before they quickly followed. Michael stayed close to Alex and reached for his hand several times, until they passed right through each other and Alex hardly seemed aware of him.

They went into a hangar with several smaller planes inside, and Alex tensed just for a moment at the sight of them all before he realized Ramos was leading him to a little aircraft at the far right of the room.

“Stay with me, Guerin,” Alex suddenly whispered, his eyes wide and betraying some fear. Michael looked to him, surprised, but realized that Alex was just talking to himself. His hand covered his pocket where his picture of him and Michael was, and with a deep, shaking sigh, he followed Ramos to the plane.

When Alex got close enough, Ramos tossed him a helmet. “Hop in, kid!”

Alex swallowed. He looked like he wanted to stutter an excuse not to, but he gripped his pocket tightly and nodded once, putting on the helmet.

“Oh my god,” Isobel said with a smirk tugging at her lips as realization dawned. “You’re like his good luck charm.”

Michael swallowed, though he definitely didn’t want to smile. When did it stop? When did Alex realize that he wasn’t good luck at all? When had he stopped needing him?

Before Michael and Isobel could say anything else, they both ended up in the backseat of the little aircraft, Ramos and Alex in the front, the plane on a wide stretch of road. Michael didn’t know if this aircraft had initially fit two people in the back, but it was like the memory warped and changed for them to be able to follow.

“We’re tied to Alex,” Isobel told him. Despite the roar of the engine, they heard each other, and the other two passengers, perfectly. “We’ll keep getting tugged along with him.”

Alex gripped the edge of his seat tightly as the plane took off into the air. Michael could hear his gasp, his eyes wanting to close but unwilling to do it in front of his sergeant. They rose high to the clouds, Alex’s knuckles white. Michael wanted more than anything to reach for him, to hold and comfort him, but this Alex was on his own. He’d never had Michael there as Michael had had Max and Isobel. It was just him, alone, with nothing but a picture to comfort him.

“Better hold onto somethin’,” Ramos laughed and pulled up high above the clouds.

What they saw knocked the breath out of their lungs. High above a bed of white, the sun shined brightly, turning the sky around it to gold and pink and purple and blue. It looked like the color of their spaceship surrounding them.

The sunlight hit Alex’s wide eyes, and Michael watched him breathing quickly, emotions turning from fear to shock to grief to wonder to amazement to grief and shock again. He could’ve done anything in that moment. He could’ve cried, could’ve screamed. Instead he smiled, a surprised burst of laughter escaping his lips.

He held up his hands and yelled, “WOOOOOOO!” and Ramous laughed harder. Isobel couldn’t help but laugh along, and Michael couldn’t look away from Alex. The bright sunlight had turned his tear-filled eyes to crystal green, and if Ramos noticed his crying, he didn’t say anything. Alex just laughed and ran his hands through his hair, marveling at the sight before him, as if he’d never expected that such a beautiful treasure could be right over his head this whole time.

After they’d come back down, Ramos handed Alex his half of a ham and cheese sandwich. “Every year,” he told him, “I look at new recruits, try to decide if there are any worth keeping an eye out for. This year, that’s you.”

Alex blinked. “Why me?”

“Because a soldier who can start a battle is a dime a dozen,” he said simply. “I need the kind of person who can win them. I think I can make you captain in record’s time.” He raised a brow, and finished his sandwich in one bite. “Would that be something you would want?”

Alex’s eyes widened. “That would outrank my dad – er – Sergeant Manes.”

“Yes,” Sergeant Ramos said slowly, as though he’d just figured out the bully’s name. “It would. He would have to answer to you.”

Alex’s cheeks were red, but his expression fierce and hopeful. “You can really make me captain, sir?”

“If it’s what you want,” he said. “If it’s the kind of person you want to be. But you ‘aint gonna get it getting beaten down the way you do.”

“I’m – I’m trying –”

“Trying is for excuses,” he said. “‘Round here, you do. If you want to outrank your old man, there’s only one way to do it, Manes. I can train you, but the work’s gotta come from you. What do you think?” He tilted his head. “How far are you willing to go to be the stronger one?”

The look on Alex’s face said it all. He would become whatever he had to, do whatever needed doing. He had enemies, and he wanted them to burn.

The picture changed. It was like walking through a film, memories too blurred and passing now for Michael and Isobel to cling to.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked Isobel, and she shook her head.

“Alex doesn’t clearly remember any of this stuff,” she said, “so we can’t see it any better than he can.”

They saw Alex get older, training harder, running faster, shooting better than anybody else around him. They saw him rise in ranks quickly, uniformed men pinning medals to his chest, congratulating him. Alex laughing with a team of his own, men with muscles larger than Michael’s head, following him like he was their hero.

The memory then stopped, and Michael and Isobel found themselves in a hospital hallway.

Isobel shivered and clung to Michael’s arm. “What is this?” she asked. “Where are we?”

Michael looked around, and pointed at a familiar man pacing along the wall, his thumb pressed to his lower lip.

“Gregory?” Isobel blinked. “What’s he doing here?”

A doctor stepped out, and Gregory was on him in an instant. “How is he?” he demanded at once.

The doctor sighed. It sounded sad. Gregory’s face fell, anguish overtaking his expression. “We did all we could,” he said, “but we couldn’t save the leg.”

Isobel gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “No,” she breathed. “I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to see this.”

Michael couldn’t hear anything else she said. He was watching Alex who was sitting up in bed, staring numbly at the ceiling. Michael went inside and stood at Alex’s bedside. He did not look at the sheets and what they revealed.

“Private,” he whispered, leaning in as close as he could without touching Alex. “Can you hear me?”

Alex said nothing. He didn’t look down or move. The circles around his eyes were dark. He slowly reached over to the tray beside his bed where a few of his belongings sat in an opened plastic bag, and took something out. It was a picture, his picture of him and Michael, tattered around the edges and stained with specs of blood on the back. He hugged it against his chest as a tear wordlessly rolled down his cheek, though he remained expressionless.

“Alex,” Gregory came in. He looked over Alex’s missing right leg, and swallowed thickly. “Hey,” he brushed his hair back from his face. Alex was either half-asleep or still filled with anesthetic. “Hey, can you hear me?”

Michael knew Alex could, that he remembered this moment perfectly, or he and Isobel would never have been able to see it.

Alex’s lips tugged up in half a sad smile, his brows furrowed as another tear fell down the bridge of his nose. “He’ll think I’m broken now. He’s so beautiful, he’d . . . he’d never love me like this.”

Michael stepped back, feeling like he’d been shot. Alex had kept the picture. Alex had thought Michael wouldn’t love him without his leg. Even now, after all these years, he’d kept the photo of them together. Even now, Michael was still his comfort.

The scene changed.

“I’m getting dizzy,” Isobel groaned. “Where are we now? It looks like Alex’s house, doesn’t it?”

It did. It was night, and they were right in Alex’s driveway, the trees lit with fairy lights, and there sat Michael, or a previous version of Michael, on the bed of his truck.

Michael’s heart fell into his stomach. “No,” he breathed. He remembered this.

“Whoa,” Isobel looked between Michael and Memory Michael. “It’s like Inception.”

“No, please, no,” Michael whispered as Alex pulled up. He stepped out and saw Michael shaking his head.

“What?” he asked in that cute way Michael had never admitted to.

“Pick another memory,” Michael told Isobel. “Any other memory!”

“I can’t control where we go!” Isobel said. “Why? What happens here, Michael?”

Michael pressed the bottoms of his palms into his eyes as Alex’s plea to help him find out more about his mom sounds in his ears. Then Michael’s own cruel words, “I like Maria, okay?”

Isobel’s hand tightened on Michael’s. “Oh.”

Michael was about to say something, though he didn’t know what, when the image before them blurred. It didn’t go away, it just faded to darkness.

“What’s happening?” Michael asked Isobel.

Isobel’s brows were furrowed. “It’s Alex,” she said. “He – he stopped paying attention.”

Michael swallowed thickly as the colors ran around him. Then he and Isobel were in Alex’s living room as Alex came in. It was right after Michael had left his house.

Alex sat down on the couch, staring off into the distance. He pulled off his cap, and his arm fell limp to his side. Slowly, Alex let his head fall back against the wall, and he stared at the ceiling, the same numb expression on his face as when he’d woken up to losing his leg. Any pretense of being fine or indifferent to Michael’s confession was gone.

Alex sniffled, then straightened. His eyes were dry. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out that same picture of him and Michael. He stared at it for a long time, but he didn’t say anything.

“He kept it,” Isobel breathed. “All this time, he’s loved you so much.”

“I didn’t –” Michael croaked, shaking his head. “I didn’t know.”

He’d thought Alex didn’t care who he was with. Then he thought to the way Alex’s eyes had fallen time and time again; in his driveway, his backyard, outside Michael’s airstream over and over and over again. Never surprised, just afraid that his suspicions had been right. That he was too broken for Michael to love anymore.

Alex lied down with a deep sigh that sounded frighteningly like resignation, his hand with the picture hanging off the couch. Slowly, his jaw clenched, Alex let the picture flutter out of his fingers and to the floor. He turned over to his other side and closed his eyes. He didn’t pick the picture up again.

“Alex . . .” Michael whispered, but before he could try reaching for Alex, the picture changed again, and he and Isobel were standing next to Alex in front of a short building. Kids played outside and elders swept their front porch.

Isobel leaned her weight against Michael. He put an arm around her waist. “Whoa, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathed, “yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I don’t think I can keep this up much longer, Michael. We have to find the broken part here, fast.”

Michael looked Alex over. “I think we’re getting there. Wasn’t this what he was wearing the day he was ambushed?”

Isobel straightened, eyes narrowed. She gasped. “Kyle told me Alex had gone to visit his mom that morning! He called on his way to the bunker, and –”

“That’s where they got him,” Michael growled, his hands turned to fists at the thought. “We’re close.”

As if hearing the urgency in their voices, a woman opened the door to greet Alex. She had Alex’s dark eyes, dark hair, and kind smile.

“My baby,” Alex’s mother pulled him in for a hug. Alex hugged her back just as tightly.

“Hey, mom,” he said. He sounded exhausted.

His mother quickly noticed and her smile faltered. She cupped his cheek. “Okay, baby, come in. Come on. I’ll make you some tea.”

That was how they found themselves minutes later, seated in a small but comfy living room with plush floral couches, Michael and Isobel on each side of Alex as he and his mother nursed hot cups of tea.

“What’s going on?” Alex’s mother said. “Why do you look like that?”

Alex scoffed halfheartedly, “Are you saying I look bad?”

She brushed his hair back from his eyes. “My son is the handsomest in the world.” She brought her hand to his chin and lifted his head. “So why is he so upset?”

“I’m not upset, mom,” he said, smiling weakly. “I’m just . . . so tired.” His smile fell away and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a sip of his tea and set the mug down. He rubbed his hands together. “When you called last night, I told you everything was fine. I lied, mom.”

She nodded, like this didn’t surprise her in the slightest. “I know.” She tilted her head, and softly asked, “Is it your breakup? I thought you were okay with that.”

“I was,” Alex shook his head, eyes shut. “I – I am, but I . . .” He sighed and pulled something out of his pocket. He huffed a miserable chuckle. “I tried to burn it. I couldn’t.”

She took the picture from him, and Isobel gasped softly. It was the same one Alex had had of him and Michael for all of these years. He’d never gotten rid of it. Michael had never stopped being a comfort to him. Until, apparently, now.

Realization dawned on Alex’s mother’s face. “This boy. What was his name again?”

Alex rubbed his face. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters anymore. Forrest and I broke up, and he still won’t tell me anything.”

She frowned. “I thought you said you loved each other?”

Alex nodded. “I used to believe that.” He sighed shakily. “Not anymore.” He chuckled sadly, and covered his face with his hands. “I’m so tired, mom. I’m so tired of – of excuses and being afraid and – and being brave just to find out that it makes no difference. It’s not enough. I’m not enough.”

“Alex,” Alex’s mother looked horrified at her son’s words. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to,” Alex confessed in a whisper. “He showed me. He told Maria he loved her.”

Isobel’s eyes were wide. “Michael, you what?” she demanded. “Why would you lie like that?”

“I was scared,” he said, his eyes on Alex. “I wanted to hold onto something easy.”

But he didn’t know this was what he’d been doing to Alex. That he was hurting him this badly, all to date someone he’d never actually wanted to date. Michael looked at the dark circles around Alex’s eyes, his hollow cheeks, his tousled hair, and wondered how long it had been since Alex had eaten or slept.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Alex said. “I’d always hoped that . . . that we’d end up together. But it’s not something he wants anymore. If he ever wanted it at all.” His eyes shut tight. “I can’t keep clinging to bread crumbs, mom, I don’t want to.”

His mom looked concerned, but she took Alex’s hands in both of hers and said steadily, “Alex, what’re you trying to say? You can tell me.”

Alex exhaled shakily, and lifted his gaze to his mother’s. “Mom, I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve thought about it since he and Maria first started . . .” he clenched his jaw and looked away, like just the thought of Michael and Maria together pained him. Finally, he said, “I’m leaving Roswell.”

“No,” Michael breathed.

“And I’m not coming back this time.”

“NO!” Michael stood. “Alex, you can’t leave!”

“Michael,” Isobel tried. “He can’t hear you.”

“Alex can’t leave me,” he shook his head. “He can’t.”

“I can’t see him anymore,” Alex said. “I can’t pretend he still loves me. It hurts too much.”

Despite Isobel’s protests, Michael leaned over Alex and grabbed his arms. He kept going through him.

“Alex, look at me!” he demanded. “I’m right here, look at me!”

Alex flinched just as Michael’s hands collided with his arms, grabbing onto him. He could feel Alex, and Alex could feel him.

Alex looked startled, his mother’s voice was gone. Everyone’s voices were gone but Michael’s, Isobel’s, and Alex’s. The world around them was turning to black as Alex searched the air in front of him, as if looking for the source of the sound.

“He can hear me,” Michael muttered, eyes wide. “He can – he can hear me!”

Alex’s eyes fell onto Michael’s, and his brows furrowed. “Guerin?”

“This is it,” Isobel stood. “This is the faulty memory! The part where Alex’s brain is screwed up and is keeping him asleep!”

“Isobel?” Alex blinked. He tried to stand with Michael clinging to him. Michael was afraid that if he let go of this memory, Alex would disappear from him for good. “What’re you guys doing here, what is all this?”

They were standing in darkness. Nothingness upon nothingness.

“You were attacked,” Isobel told him, “by Project Shepherd agents.”

“You’ve been in a coma for three days,” Michael said. “We couldn’t get you to wake up, we had to come into your mind, try to wake you from here.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Alex shook his head. “Attacked? Coma? None of this makes any sense!”

“Remember!” Michael demanded. “Remember! This is just a memory, the real you knows what happened! Remember, Alex!”

Alex looked shocked, doubtful, disbelieving. Then something in his expression slotted together. “I was – I was at the bunker . . . the door was open . . . it all happened so fast.” He blinked, and gasped. “A gunshot. Someone – someone shot me.” He frantically patted down his stomach, looking for the wound, but he wouldn’t find it in a memory. He looked back to Isobel, then Michael. “You’re telling the truth.”

“You have to fight it, Alex,” Isobel urged. She leaned forward on her knees and huffed, like just breathing was getting tiresome for her. “You have to want to wake up.”

“Want to wake up?”

“Yeah,” Michael cupped his jaw. “Come on, baby. Wake up for me,” he breathed. “I miss you, please wake up for me.”

Alex searched his face, then said, “No.”

Michael faltered. “N-No?”

“No,” Alex tried pulling his arms out of Michael’s grasp, but Michael held on. “Guerin, I don’t want to.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to? Alex, this is your life we’re talking about –”

“My life?” he laughed. It sounded so sad. “What life, Guerin? The one where the man I love won’t say two nice words to me? The one where my friends don’t think twice about what their decisions might do to me? Where my own brother tried to kill me because I got in his way?”

Alex shook his head. “No, Guerin. No. I’ve been tired for a long time, and I want to rest now.”

Michael gripped his arms harder. “You think I don’t know the real you?” he demanded. “You think I don’t know that you’ve had hope for us even when I didn’t? You think I don’t know that no matter what you say, you’ll believe in us whether you want to or not? We’re cosmic, Alex, this won’t kill us, and you know it won’t. If you don’t wake up, I’ll just come after you again, you know I will.”

Isobel stared, shocked. “Michael . . .”

His grip on Alex turned painfully tight. “I’ve never trusted anything, Alex. I’m not like you, I can’t see the good even when everything just feels bad. But I trust you. If you don’t wake up, I’ll die.” He shrugged, a sad smile tugging at his lips as a tear rolled down his cheek. “And you won’t let me. I believe that.”

His grip loosened.

“What’re you doing?” Alex said, though he seemed to already know the answer.

“I’m trusting you to come back to me,” Michael said, his whole body trembling. “Because you always do.”

“Michael,” Isobel warned, “if you let him go now, we might lose him for good.”

Michael smirked, and a tear fell down Alex’s face. “I’m not letting you go,” Michael told Alex. “I can’t.”

“Guerin,” Alex tried, but Michael was already straightening, bracing himself.

“You’ll come back,” he said, sure of this more than anything else.

Without another word, he let go of Alex, and a sudden wind hit his face. Then he blinked, and he was back in Max’s bedroom. He and Isobel both broke apart and fell to the ground.

“Oh my god,” Kyle gasped somewhere in the distance and helped Isobel up while Max came to Michael’s side.

“You guys have been frozen for hours!” he said, pulling Michael to his feet. “What happened?”

“Michael had Alex,” Isobel said, and looked to her brother. “Why?” she demanded. “Michael, after what he told us –”

“What?” Kyle said, looking between them. “Told you what?”

Michael lumbered out of Max’s hold and took his place at Alex’s bedside again, taking his hand in his. “Come on, Alex,” he begged in a whisper. “Come on. Come back to me.”

“He said . . . he said . . .”

“It doesn’t matter!” Michael snapped, and Isobel fell silent. “He’ll wake up. He will. Come on, baby,” he murmured into Alex’s hand. “Come on.”

The minutes ticked by in silence, like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did.

“Michael,” Isobel said quietly. “He’s not going to wake up.”

“Yes, he will,” Michael said at once, his grip on Alex’s hand bruising. “He will.”

“Just give him a minute,” he heard Kyle say. He must’ve been clinging to that hope just as desperately as Michael was.

“Come on,” he pleaded. “Come on, Alex. Stay with me.”

A moment. Two. Michael’s eyes burned, and his hands started to tremble. Then he felt it; he felt Alex’s fingers move in his.

He gasped, and waited. Alex moved again.

Kyle pointed at one of the monitors. “Brain activity’s increasing!” he all but yelled. “Alex?”

They looked to Alex, waiting, waiting, waiting. Then Alex’s eyes fluttered open, and a sob escaped Michael’s lips before he pressed them to Alex’s fingers, kissing each one. Kyle gently pulled off the respirator, and he and Michael both helped a confused Alex sit up.

Alex’s brows were furrowed as he took in the room. When he spoke, his voice was dry and hoarse. “I had the weirdest dream.”

Isobel collapsed into tearful giggles, and Max, relieved, patted Alex’s shoulder twice. Kyle ruffled his hair, and Michael moved to sit next to him, hugging him tightly and keeping him close.

“Don’t ever do that to us again, Manes,” Kyle warned him with a trembling smile.

“Do what?” Alex asked. “I don’t remember anything – ow!” He lifted up his short sleeve to reveal red nail marks. Michael’s nail marks from when he’d been gripping him a little too tightly, terrified of losing him.

Alex met Michael’s gaze with furrowed brows, realization quickly dawning. Michael pressed their foreheads together and took a second to breathe Alex in before he closed the distance between them, taking Alex’s lips in his own.

He tilted his head, deepening the kiss, and then Alex broke away, panting, though they kept their foreheads together.

“Get off him,” Kyle slapped Michael’s shoulder. “He still needs a minute to breathe.”

“No,” Michael said simply, resting his head on Alex’s shoulder and nuzzling his neck, feeling as much of him as he could.

“Oh!” Isobel started. “Alex, what ever happened to that photograph?”

Michael tensed.

“What photograph?” Max asked.

“Alex,” she said, “had this picture of him and Michael when they were seventeen. We saw it in all of his memories.”

“Isobel,” Michael warned through grit teeth. He expected the same out of Alex, to see him embarrassed or shy, but Alex simply blinked like he’d forgotten about the picture.

“That?” he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small photograph.

Michael hugged his waist with one hand and took the photo with the other. “I have one just like this.”

Alex laughed. “Yeah?”

“I’ll show it to you,” he promised into his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Alex sighed. “I think it might be time for a new one.” He smiled at Michael like he adored him. No, more than adored him. The thought made Michael’s heart flutter and made him cling tighter.

Michael kissed Alex’s neck, then his shoulder. “Good. ‘Cause I have a few ideas.”

“Um,” Isobel said testily as Max and Kyle looked away with red faces. “Y’all know we’re still here, right?”

#alex manes #michael guerin #malex #malex fic #malex fanfic #malex fanfiction #roswell new mexico #roswell nm #tw homophobia #tw implied suicide #malex angst #malex fluff #tyler blackburn #michael vlamis

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casmybelovedass · 4 years

Text

The Destiel Folder: Season 10

[Season 4; Season 5; Season 6; Season 7; Season 8; Season 9]

Episode 1:

Cas is slowly dying, practically naked, in a bed, and the first thing he says when talking about Dean is "I miss him" (6:35), with a soft smile. "Why would he just disappear?"

... I'm sorry but If Cas Were A Woman, this would look like a scene from a movie or something, where the wife talks to a friend over the phone about her missing husband. JUST SAYING

Crowley: "The girl seemed nice. Slightly damaged. I could see the old you falling for that." (9:29) uhm... who else is "nice and slightly" damaged? I don't know... CASTIEL??!!!

So... these two men (actors Todd Mann and Brad Mann) we see with the DemonGang, are real life twins (9:14).

At (27:18), Crowley states him and Dean did "extroardinary things to triplets" ... and, well, the only twins with a possible other sibling we see are... them

And this is not the first time we hear about Dean doing "things to triplets" with a buddy of his (15x07)... and the first time he was NOT a demon... so, there's that. And triplets don't necessarily mean "all females"

Cas, while talking about the good things that come with choices, mentions "hope, love, dreams" (39:06), and Hannah points out that "those are human things". Human things...

Cas is talking about his own personal experiences with creating chaos, so those are the things he felt after rebelling for... Dean... WOW. ICWAW, it would totally be read it as a reference to Dean. A romantic one. Fight me

Episode 2:

Cas is dying, just got back from a fight that left him wounded, doesn't have enough power to heal himself, is on a mission to restore Heaven, and once again he chooses to go save Dean (9:35), and the way rage builds in his eyes when learning Dean has become a demon. Look at this shit

I might be crazy, but this feels like a touching metaphor to me:

"I think you don't know what you want. Tell me, Dean. What are you? A demon? [...] Maybe you're human. [...] Why don't you do us all a great, big favor... and pick a bloody side!" (22:22)

METAPHOR

Episode 3:

We are reminded that, even tho in terrible conditions, on the verge of death, Cas is willing to risk it all to save Dean, and is devastated by the thought of Dean not making it (4:47 - 5:17)

This is so funny to me, I'm sorry, but Cas is so visibly uncomfortable with Hannah touching him, it's hilarious (15:58)

"I've been around humans for long enough to see how easily distractions occur. Emotions, feelings... They're dangerous temptations." (22:32) like rebelling against your own kind, destroying your home, falling... all for a human?

"I'm trying to keep our priorities clear." Moments earlier, Cas listed "Getting to Dean" (22:17) before anything else. In fact, Hannah says "I am very clear of my priorities... and yours." = Dean (23:00)

Cas is not sure whether the cure will kill Dean or not, and in any case, he wraps his arms around him, and softly says "It's over... Dean it's over." (35:40) as if hushing him to sleep, in what could have been their last moments together... wow. Think about this ICWAW

"Well, I can see his point. Only humans can feel real joy, but... also such profound pain. This is easier." (36:17) Look at the way Sam is looking at Cas looking at Dean

BITCH OKAY!!

SAM KNOWS

POSSIBILE future Empty reference "real joy"

Cas already stated he misses being human, but knows how fragile they are in both body and spirit:

Castiel really wants to be with Dean. For real. But maybe he thinks (see season 9) him being an angel is an obstacle to their feelings.

Only by being human he can truly be happy (MMMMMMHH SEASON 15), but isn't sure he could handle the pain that comes with it. A possible rejection, the thought of Dean dying, him leaving Dean... MMMMHHHHH

"You look terrible." [...] "Well, you, on the other hand, you... *checks out Cas* Looking good." (39:09) full homo right there. Also parallel with Ketch in 13x18 ("You don't look good." "Yeah, well, you're not my type, either.")

The way they are looking at each other here... man.

Cas is so happy to have Dean back, and Dean looks hurt about Cas leaving so soon.

"So... so, you're back?" "At least temporarily." (39:27) bitch, you know that's not what he ment.

In all of this, Cas is trying to make Dean feel better about the whole situation (DAT SMILE 40:18), and Dean replies with "I'm glad you're back, man.", basically no-homoing himself...

Cas starts walking out of the room, but stops and turns back [insert concerned husband here] (40:27), and Dean has that hopeful look in his eyes, like Cas is going to stay, and the hurtful look comes back as soon as Cas is gone

Episode 4:

"On your knees!" "Wow, I'm awfully flattered-" (34:33) SASSY BI DEAN IS THE DEAN WE DESERVE

Episode 5:

Fucking kill me NOW!!! Dean's reaction to Destiel is PRICELESS!! And even before he learns what that is, he just looks at the girls playing him and Cas and... freezes for a moment (13:18) And the eyebrow raise thingy at (13:34)... what's going on in your brain, Dean?

I'd like to point out that the Italian translation for "You can't spell 'subtext' without S-E-X" is, for once, AMAZING:

"It's just that... their bond is so strong it has subtext of a... sexual nature."

THANK YOU ITALIAN DUB! JUST THIS ONCE, THANK YOU! (13:43)

Also at (9:44) Dean immediately reacts to the implication of Wincest subtext, shutting it down and telling the girls to take a step back, but with Destiel he is like... alright

... this is so fucking cute, (25:54) Dean adjusts the girl playing Cas' tie so that it's messed up like the real Cas'. ADORABLE

SAM SHIPS IT (13:57) and is teasing the SHIT out of Dean, who reacts like someone being teased about their crush. Just saying (14:08 - 14:52) [AND THIS HAPPENS IN FRONT OF A PINK-BLUE WALL]

"I know I have expressed some differences of opinion regarding this version of Supernatural." (26:44) ... oookay meta? *turns to "Cas"* "And I want you to put as much sub into that text as you possibly can." ... oKAY?!

Episode 7:

Cas being extremely uncomfortable with women is too fucking funny to me (5:03 - 12:51)

Episode 9:

(15:13) Alright, so, this is a date... what now? Anyway, nice bi flannel, Dean. And the little sweet smiles you two are giving each other? So fucking precious (16:01)

"I ain't exactly a role model." "That's not true." (16:07) how Dean looks at Cas right after that? BABIES!

"How are you, Dean?" "Fine." "*I-call-bullshit look*" "I'm great!" "No, you're not." (16:18) #MARRIED

As Cas is choke-holding a guy, Dean, clearly amused (almost proudly), says "I'd do what he says." (22:17) Like that time with Raphael in 5x03, Dean likes it when Cas gets rough

Episode 10:

Shut the fuck up and marry each other already so you can finally actually BE the old married couple™️ you ALREADY ARE (22:17)

This is the "My husband is so FUCKING STUPID" look (22:30)

"I was hoping you might reach out to her." "... Me? I'm probably the last person she'd want to hear from." [...] "All I know... is she won't talk to me." (23:03) #MARRIED, PARENTS, PERIODT

Shut the fuck up. Cas is the dad trying to figure out technology (23:36) "I'll text you her number. I like texting. Emotions!" DAD

Cas worries about Dean like a wife would with an alcoholic husband

Of all the things Dean could be MAD about at Metateon... the first thing he can think of is him stealing Cas' grace (31:33) (okay, maybe he is going in chronological order but STILL)

Episode 11:

[I AM SO SO SO SORRY BUT DEAN USED THE ALIAS "PRESLEY" (18:55) I AM NOT OKAY]

Episode 14:

Have this deleted scene: Castiel and Crowley bitching over Dean, and Crowley calling Dean Cas' boyfriend

This is some hell of a goodbye-eye-love-making scene (26:57)

Cain compares himself to Dean... and CAS TO HIS WIFE COLLETTE [PARALLELS]

"You're living my life in reverse [...]

First you'd kill Crowley. You'd get it done, no remorse. (Cain had been killing his descendants, for whom he didn't care much)

And then you'd kill the angel, Castiel. Now, that one... that, I suspect, would hurt something awful. [And than Sam is Able, bla bla...]"

AM I WRONG?! YOU'RE GONNA LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT I'M WRONG??!!!

Dean gives the First Blade to Cas... oKAY (37:10)

Worried brother-in-laws (41:27)

Episode 16:

This is such a good source of hidden meanings scene! Dean starts his "confession" as a scam. Everything he says at first is to attract the spirit.

He starts talking about seeing lots of women, not being able to control himself, and being sick of it. Then the real confession begins...

Dean feels he's going to die soon, and fears not death itself, but what he would be missing from his life.

"There's things... people, feelings that I... I would experience differently than I had before. Or even for the first time." (25:28) and the priest believes Dean is talking about love.

Well... "people, feelings"... who could he be referring to? Does Dean want love all of a sudden? People he wants to experience for the first time... uhmmmm... Is Dean opening up to his attraction to MEN??!! Or one angel in particular?

ICWAW we would guess Dean was talking about Cas

"Who mixes their blood and bones into paint? No woman has ever done that for me." (39:19) UHM- Dean, what about

6x20 "He has bled, died bla bla bla for us",

7x21 "I'm always happy to bleed for the Winchesters" or

9x22 "You just gave up an entire army for one guy"

ICWAW we would ALL roll our eyes at this statement and scream CAS

THE GUY BLED, LOST HIS HOME, REBELLED, DIED FOR YOU!! HE REBUILT YOU PIECE BY PIECE FROM HELL- SAVED YOU DOZENS OF TIMES!!!

Episode 17:

About saving Dean from the Mark: "We won't- (free Metatron)" "Yes, you will... because you're desperate." (9:44) Hannah knows. Let's remark that

"All I'm getting from you is... colours." (14:26) bitch he is a walking 🌈PRIDE FLAG🏳️‍🌈

Notice how, when we get a Sam-Cas centred episode, we don't get the same interactions with Dean-Cas? Why this?

Dean is always ready to call Cas a "brother", but the only one true bromance here is Sam and Cas'. There are no longing stares, no weird sexual filled dialogue nor tension, NO LONGING STARES

Facts, my people. Facts

Episode 18:

"You killed my friend." "Oh, pff, Dean is fine, mostly. Can't you get past that?" "Never." (12:39)

Charlie being excited about meeting Dean's famous boyfriend is WHOLESOME (37:34)

To have Cas back, 100%, safe and sound, is a win for Dean (38:58) and the face Cas makes after Dean hits him with another no-homo "It's good to have you back, pal." is "UHH not this again". Charlie already ships it

Episode 20:

A #MARRIED couple and their daughter. NO ARGUMENTS VALID (7:06)

Look at how they enter the motel (16:22)

OH MY GOOOOOD!!! #PARENTS coming back home from shopping!! THE HAND ON THE SHOULDER!!! Also

"Happy birthday. I got it at the Hot Topical" DAD

Dean: "Imma head back over there." Cas: "I'm coming with you." Claire: "I'm coming with you too." (17:24) #FAMILY

A fucking family comedy about a dad confronting the daughter's boyfriend and the other dad scolding him:

"What did you do to him?" "I didn't lay a hand on him!" "Dean, that isn't exactly true." "... Well, I didn't kill the guy." (17:14)

Surprisingly enough, this is not the first nor last time Dean acts like a dad to a lost child (AND TWO OF THESE TIMES THE KID IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO CAS) (21:54)

Episode 22:

C: "Claire, you are not going out there. [...] It's too dangerous. I can't let anything happen to you." D: "Claire, you're not going." C: "You're not either, Dean." D: "What?" (19:29)

#FAMILY DON'T TALK TO ME!

"No fighting. [...] Both of you." AAAAAA

This doesn't fucking matter, but Dean just said "... for the ladies. Or the fellas. I don't judge." (36:23)

Cas' speech to Dean... wow. "So if there's even a small chance that we can save you... I won't let you walk out of this room." (39:20)

I hate this scene. (40:11)

Dean is overwhelmed by Charlie's death, Sam and Cas' betrayal, the Mark changing him and all the other shit.

The Mark is taking over, and Dean can't (and won't) help it. Cas knows it. He doesn't want to hurt Dean. He is not even resisting. Doesn't put up a fight.

And just like Colette with Cain, Castiel only asks Dean one thing: "Stop." (40:38) [9x11]

Parallel to 8x07:

The only thing that stops Cas from killing Dean, is him begging, clutching onto his sleeve.

"Dean... please..." (41:08) Cas pleading Dean, clutching to his arm, makes him resist the urge to kill him.

Episode 23:

You can find gifs and the script of some deleted (destiel) scenes in this post by @charlie-minion

As the Mark eats Dean... he starts feeling guilt for the people he hurt... first on the list: Cas (14:54)

(This gif is not mine)

Well... what a season.

[Season 11>>]

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mochikeiji · 4 years

Text

[Sir. S] Tendou Satori

Pairing: Tendou Satori x Reader

Genre: Kinda Abusive, Mafia!(+ Joker&Harley relationship)

GIF is not mine!

a/n: really love the idea how twisted and crazy Tendou could be “ψ(｀∇´)ψ so why not?

Was it because of the toxic waste that made you insane? Was it because of the excruciating abuse you have gone through to think this monster loves you? What was to be blamed. When you desired this ever since you got hypnotized by his own lies.

"Such an angel."

His fingers would trace your hair locks slowly, you would grin at everything he would do to you. Even if it was suppose to make you cry in pain.

"My angel."

His hand would curl on top of your head, gripping, and pulling on the roots of your hair. He'd force your head up to meet with his face, you'd be giggling like a mad woman, wanting nothing more than to have his bloodstained lips against yours. Wanting his abnormally sharp teeth bite your lower lips, your tongue. It wasn't a surprise that soon you'd become addicted to the metallic scent and taste of eachothers blood. Not when you seem to have a crack on your brain that will forever be damaged in complete sanity.

No one dared to mess with him. If there was, they have his consent. Guys like Ushijima, the guy who he admired, and followed in his footsteps. Except he was more dangerous, and menacing than the rest of the members in Shiratorizawa. Some say he's been like that since he was shut a child. Always enjoying people who get hurt. Even the way he sings his song, the meaning behind was much more deadly according to Semi. Having to experience killing someone with him as he sang that song.

And then there was you.

His Queen.

No woman was as broken in the head as you were. You were more terrifying than your boyfriend was. Ushijima pitied you deep inside, but he didn't utter a question on how the used to be sweet, and loving classmate of theirs grew up to be the only woman in Tokyo to be the deadliest. Kiyoko couldn't match your abilities, your risks. You were the embodiment of ride or die. The perfect match for Tendou.

And no one messes with his Queen. Until now.

"You know you're fucked."

They hated your face. Hated how you taunted them with your smiles. They hated the way you didn't show any cooperation despite having multiple death threats, and your skin being cut deeply with a knife as you were cuffed on a chair.

"Sugawara, quiet her down."

He was kneeling beside you, cringing at the sound of your laughter getting louder as the knife neared your arm.

"Come on, pumpkin. Do it!"

Able to atleast lift the chair a little, you jolted your own arm up, letting the knife stab in before he could even try. You bit your lip at the sight of your blood oozing out of your skin. Sugawara felt a sweat slide from his forehead witnessing your reactions.

"Scary."

"She's more messed up than he was indeed."

You can hear the two rival members talk with eachother. You were excited to hear that Ushijima found some new rivals to play with, but didn't expect them to capture one of Shiratorizawa's defense. Which was you. But that didn't mean you weren't anticipating the next scene to be unfold soon enough.

"You are soooo screwed once Sir S comes here."

"Sir S?"

"What the hell—"

Laughing loudly with your head thrown behind. Weren't they warned? Didn't they just have two of their members, the orange and blue hatred male spy on your territory one time?

Weren't they aware of the death threat they've played upon themselves?

"So gullible. You two are adorable, birdies."

Giggling, the two shared a look at eachother before nodding. Daichi fishes his phone out of his pocket, dialing Hinata's number. Leaving Sugawara to interrogate you on who the person you were talking about. All details must be taken seriously if they wanted to get out of this alive.

"Are you talking about Ushijima?"

"What? Big Wakachan? Hell no. I'm talking about my sweeeeeet victory boy!"

Sighing dreamily. This always happens at the sheer mention of Tendou, you'd find yourself wetting your own panties or gushing over your man. It was like he's God, and you're a follower. He's the vodka you're willing to get drunk, and never get tired of drinking.

"You're so stupid to think you've captured Shiratorizawa's greatest defense!"

"GET OUT OF THERE, DAICHI! IT WAS A MISTAKE! WE DIDN'T KNOW—" Hinata's voice was booming against his phone, Sugawara can feel himself shaking a little. He never yelled like that. He's never heard his members feel so scared before. His wide eyes find your features, almost looking like a bloodlust creature.

"When you haven't even captured their monster yet~"

"SUGA—"

The roof above your heads came crashing down. A big hole can be seen as if someone had landed in front of you. The two males coughed the dust away, waiting for the smoke to clear out to get a better look a what has came. It was a matter of seconds before that happened, Daichi had managed to pull Sugawara to his side. Otherwise he would've been crushed by the weight of the concrete, and that person.

"Ara ara, lookie what I found."

For other people, they would be frozen as they stood on thin ice whenever they hear his voice. But for you, you were giggling in excitement, hands balling into a fist. You couldn't wait to be freed.

"I see you've got yourself in a tight situation, (Y/n)."

You tried to look innocent for him. In a way, it was working. He just grins behind him. "What kind of foreplay is this? You didn't tell me you were slutting around, and oh—"

Pretending to be surprised, he raises his hands in defense, looking baffled at Daichi and Sugawara crouching on the floor boards.

"And two?" he gasps exasperatingly, "Why, angel, I am offended. You didn't invite me to your threesome party." The tension was building up. Daichi couldn't think straight of a plan to escape when Tendou had this strange are editing from him. If he makes a moves, he can almost feel his body being pierced into a big hole by a knife or a gun.

"No no no! It's not what it seems Sir! They captured me! They think I'm a monster. See, they even scarred me."

Trying to push the chair slightly into the light, Tendou can make out the slashes of the knife, and the fresh wound on your arm. His eyes darkened before facing the two males again.

"Oh? So I see you've had your fun with my Queen. That must've been very enjoyable, don't you think, Daichi chan?"

No one answers.

Daichi remembers the last thing Hinata had yelled at him before everything went into a mess, "Don't ever get close to him! Just get out of there!" and the last being,

"Once he starts singing, make a run for it! He's got a machete!"

"Hey, (Y/n). Let's sing our little friends a song, hm? The tension is killing me."

Oh this was the part you were waiting for. It was even more fun to be singing a song, and watch him slowly grab the weapon behind this back. Secretly you had managed to uncuffed yourself earlier before this was about to happen. You could've escaped, but.

You weren't going to miss out another one of Tendou's play dates.

"Baki baki—"

"DAICHI!"

"I KNOW!"

Immediately, they draw their guns out, firing aimlessly around you and Tendou. Yelling out a curse, you covered yourself by the table as Tendou ran on the other side. Clearing a path, the two Karasuno members sprinted out. Not daring to look back at the room. Outside was Asahi, Tanaka and Nishinoya, waiting for them in their vehicle on guard.

Meanwhile back in the war looking room, Tendou got out of his hiding spot, and went over to you. Hissing at the stinging that was now kicking in all over your scarred limbs, he kneels down and examines you. Tracing has fingers softly on your arms with sadness in his eyes.

"Oh, my poor angel." cooing, he places a small kiss on each scar. Shivering at his addicting affections, you let out a whimper. "You must've been so scared, huh? Letting some scoundrels take you, and hurt you." his face was getting closer to yours, when his forehead was leaned against yours, the hand that was cradling your scarred arm suddenly grips onto your fresh wound. Biting your tongue from the pain, and holding back your tears.

"Only I am the person you are allowed to be scared." You can see his knuckles turn white. He was seething in rage, possessiveness.

"And only I—" biting on your lips, giving you one of his mouth sucking kiss. One where you have to push yourself away in order to breathe, "Only I can do this to you."

Instead of screaming when his nails found their way on your scar and digging them in. You giggled madly, tears falling from you eyes in which you call them your happy tears. Because he was here, Tendou was here. He came to save you.

And it was out of love.

It was out of love, you think.

"Yes, Sir S."

No sane person could handle what you were going through. To those who once did, has died gruesomely before. But you, oh you were a treat for Tendou. Being a sick freak he was, he was still being loved by a freakier person. And hearing you submit yourself to him, just drives him even more mad as the building was being set on fire, with both of your sinister laughter echoing.

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etherealwaifgoddess · 4 years

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One In A Million - Chpt.1

Summary: Project Traveler is ready for its first test subject and you volunteer for the position, unwilling to risk any of the other brilliant minds who have been working on the project from the beginning.

Word Count: 1.6k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Who’s ready to get this started!? I’ve been sitting on this fic a while now and I finally feel like it’s ready to be out in the world. I’m so excited to share it with you all. Hope you enjoy! XOXO - Ash

Chapter One

“Send me.” you offer, causing the room full of scientists and PhD’s to turn and stare at you. “I mean it.” you continue, “You guys need someone you can trust who knows the science behind this if it goes wrong. The only one who will miss me is my cactus.”

Chelton, the head of SHIELD’s Traveler project, looks at you thoughtfully. You’re young, still working towards your PhD after completing your masters a few years ago. It’s hard for him to believe you have nothing tying you to the world, but thinking back he can’t remember you ever talking about family or friends or anything personal. He assumed you were just taciturn by nature but he realizes now it was more than that. “You realize this is test number one?” he asks you, “We’re pretty sure it’s ready to go but if we’re wrong....”

You waive him off, “I know, I know. Death, dismemberment, permanent brain damage, yada, yada, yada. I’ve watched you guys work on this for two years now, it’s as ready as it’s ever gonna be. And someone needs to be the guinea pig, so it might as well be me. I’m still learning, if you lose me there’s still enough brains to keep things going and try again. If we lose one of you the project could end permanently.” You know it’s calloused but you made up your mind as soon as you had seen them putting the finishing touches on the transporter a week ago.

“Don’t discredit yourself, Y/N.” Chelton admonishes, “You're a valued member of this team. I want you to take the weekend and really think about this. Make preparations if you’re still serious after thinking it over. When you come in on Monday if you’ve changed your mind, no one will think any less of you.”

You give him a soft smile, knowing you need to assuage his concern, “Okay, thanks Chelton. I’ll think about it. Now, who’s ready to get out of here?” You pick up your files, ready to pack up for the day. It’s been a long week and you’re suddenly eager to get home, this will be your last weekend in the twenty-first century for a while.

Your apartment is a small studio over top a corner shop and it’s just big enough that you’re not constantly bumping into your furniture. Definitely an upgrade from the shoe box you lived in at college with two roommates. When you had moved to the city to work on the project recreating Tony Stark’s time machine it felt like a luxury just to have a place of your own. You water the little cactus who sits on the window sill in your living room, and settle in with your laptop to pay a few bills online. If things go as planned and you come back, it will be important to still have a roof over your head.

Your evenings are quiet with none of your friends living in the city. You email a few of them to let them know you’ll be away on a work trip and that you miss them. The picture of your parents sitting on the bookshelf makes your heart ache for a moment. You wonder if they would be proud of you if they were still alive. They’ve been gone for a decade now but it doesn’t do much to dull the pain of their loss.

Your stomach rumbles, reminding you that you haven’t eaten since breakfast. Normally you’d just scrounge up something from your cupboards, whatever you had leftover from earlier in the week. But a sense of fatalism hits and you realize that if you don’t make it back in one piece on Monday it doesn’t really matter if you blow a day’s worth of pay on a five star restaurant or not. And you have been dying to go to Peter Luger Steak House since you moved to Brooklyn. You put on your nicest looking dress, dark blue silk that accents your curves without making you look lumpy, and throw on a little make up for the hell of it. This might be your last weekend alive and you’re going to make the most of it.

xxXxx

Monday comes far too quickly and you’re a little ashamed to admit you’re not feeling your best. You’ve decided it’s easier to accept the idea that you’re not walking away from the test run so that you’re not devastated if and when something goes awry. You spent the entire weekend doing all the things you usually put off for more practical endeavors. The queue on your Hulu and Netflix accounts are clear and you’ve eaten a lifetime of fancy foods. You also learned what good, twenty year old scotch tastes like and it was worth every cent. You probably didn’t need to finish off the whole bottle over the course of three days though.

You drop your bag into your bottom desk drawer and hand Chelton an envelope when he comes over to greet you. “This is everything,” you tell him, “Passwords, account information, a list of people to contact. If things go sideways I know I can trust you to take care of things for me.”

The older man accepts the envelope but pulls you in for a brisk, uncharacteristic hug. “I’m so proud of you.” he says roughly.

“Oh come on, pull it together old man.” you tease, “I’ll be back in all of a minute if we’ve done our jobs right.”

“That’s right, and you’ll have some wild stories for us I’m sure.”

You join the rest of the research group, letting them know test number one for project Traveler is a go. The room erupts into happy chaos, everyone working at their stations getting the machine up and running. You run through the processes, double checking it for full functionality, and for the first time you start to feel genuine excitement that you might actually be about to go back in time.

Harris, one of the other original scientists on the project, gives you a run down for a second time, as if you didn’t assist with creating the protocols yourself. “You will have three jump points back to our time once you get there. One month, six months, one year. If for whatever reason you can’t get back on the first jump you still have two more shots to find your way back to us. You have to set up these three devices in the basement of the Strategic Scientific Reserve headquarters when you arrive to keep the link open for the jump points. You cannot lose this brooch or you’ll have nothing to pull you through. When you get there write down the exact time and date so you can ensure you’re at the jump points in time, it’ll be down to the second so be sure you do that first thing.”

“I know. I’ll be just fine.” you assure him while straightening out the neckline of your smart looking dove grey suit. The team had rustled up a vintage suit for you so that you didn’t stick out like a sore thumb when you got back to 1940. You fasten the antique looking brooch to the breast of it, knowing you’ll need to carry it on you always to ensure you have a way back. The team had decided against wristbands due to how obvious they would be in another time period and had settled on a tie tack or a brooch depending if it were a man or woman going back.

Harris nodded but carried on, “When you get there ask for Agent Wilson right away. Show him this card and he’ll get you access to one of the SSR aliases and bank accounts. You’ll be set up for as long as you need to be there. But remember, if you make any drastic changes to the past you’ll be forming a split in realities and creating a new timeline. We don’t know what kind of effects that could have. You need to stay under the radar and keep your head down.”

“Will do. It’ll be okay. I’ll be back in a minute, maybe six if I’m having a good time. You just worry about where you’re taking us all for dinner to celebrate tonight.”

Harris nods and lets you past him to take your place on the transporter. It’s been five years of tireless work for most of the people in the room trying to recreate and improve upon the machine Tony Stark and Bruce Banner used to send the Avengers back for the infinity stones. You learned so much in the past two years since you joined them. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and you are so grateful to have been given it.

“Okay guys, this is it. Nobody better eat my yogurt in the fridge before I get back.” you say with a wry smile, getting into position in the middle of the machine.

A few of the guys chuckle while they begin flipping switches on the control panel, readying the transporter.

Chelton returns your smile despite deep worry lines creasing at the side of his eyes, “We’ll see you in a minute.” he says and then he presses the final set of command keys.

You don’t close your eyes, not willing to miss a moment if they’re your last. Everyone’s faces are broadcasting varying mixes of fear, excitement, and hope as you look around your team. It starts out slow, a faint tingling of the hairs on your arms. Like you had rubbed a balloon along them and static electricity had built up. The tingling increases until your whole body is thrumming with a buzzing energy and then the world goes white.

#One In A Million #steve rogers #bucky barnes #reader insert #stucky #stucky x reader #steve rogers x bucky barnes x reader #time travel #SHIELD agent reader #1940s setting #stucky fanfic #marvel #marvel fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfiction #fluff and smut and a pinch of angst

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lilytakeharryandgo · 4 years

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STOP ROMANTICISING SEVERUS SNAPE - A MANIFESTO

“Albus Severus Potter, you were named after two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a great strategist, the other one was a racist, hateful, bitter, scary bastard. Voldemort must have damaged some brain cells when killing the Horcrux inside of me.”

Now that I have Snape fans raging and screaming for blood, here’s my show of evidence:

If the boring, same argument brought up by Marauders stans is Snape being a Death Eater, I know it’s basic, but it’s basic for a reason: it’s true. Supporting Voldemort doesn’t mean you support his ideas? I’m sorry, what did he support? The Dark Lord’s contouring skills? It is a truth universally acknowledged that joining a group of racists and following them in perpetrating crimes does make you a racist and a criminal.

JK Rowling herself said that Death Eaters are an analogy to Nazis, Marauders stans are not making this up. Are you questioning what JK ROWLING said? Because you know, she is JK ROWLING.

We know it was Snivellus that created the Levicorpus. He must have used it against the Marauders in order for them to learn it. And let’s just remember that “Snape’s worst memory” takes place after the Shrieking Shack’s incident, when dear, lovely Severus tried to unmask Remus so that he could be expelled for being a Werewolf. He went down to the Whomping Willow of his own free will, no one forced him, and he supposedly knew what was happening there: he risked his own life only to get Remus expelled. Yes, it was Sirius who thought it would have been funny to lure him to the Shrieking Shack where Lupin was due for his transformation, and that was wrong. However, why did he do that? Because Snape was constantly spying on them. Was it wrong? Definitely, no one is trying to get Sirius out of this one. Still, James saved Snape in time. Did James do that just because he wanted to protect Remus? Most likely: James gave them all a family and he loved his friends and would have done everything for them, and he did. But also, he wouldn’t have let an “innocent” (if we want to call him that) die. So James saved Snape’s life, which dear Half Blood Price seemed deeply ungrateful for later, and yet, Snape constantly tried to get the Marauders expelled from Hogwarts time and time again while using Dark Magic and creating his own dark spells (see the irony?). Stop saying that the Marauders’ actions pushed him to become a Death Eater. As if “Snape never missed an opportunity to curse James” was a lie. As if Snape wasn’t on his way to being a buddying Death Eater by his 5th year. As if Snape hadn’t came up with a curse that slices your body open by his 6th year. As if the Marauders had nothing to do but ruthlessly bully Snape all day and all night, when they actually are described as the brightest as some of the brightest students of their year despite being engaged in loads of other things like the creation of the Marauders Map, becoming Animagus, dealing with Remus’ monthly transformations (because those demonic guys didn’t leave him alone and didn’t report him to get him expelled as someone else was willing to do), James and Remus being responsible enough to be Head Boy and Prefect. Oh, and training for a war and joining the Order once they graduated. Minor things, right? Things they were busy doing in their personal lives such as surviving, living and being happy? Nah, that never happened, their entire life consisted of bullying innocent, poor service teenagers, that was their goal. Snape experienced one side of the Marauders (and we read that from his own pov, so it’s a little biased too): that is not a deciding factor of whether or not they (and especially James) are good people. He was so fascinated with the Dark Arts, even after Lily’s death and hence his presumed redemption, that Dumbledore did not appoint him as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Snape’s apologetics make it sound like the Marauders made Snape’s life hell every minute of everyday and he was the poor victim who was not capable of standing up to himself against those horrible demonic creatures, but he was the one inventing the Sectumsempra and using it against James, against George. Only a truly tormented person could have invented such a bloody spell.

So now let’s talk about Remus. Remus, a hero who fought against Voldemort and joined an anti-terrorist resistance organisation when he was just 18 years old, who fought alongside Frank and Alice Longbottom in the Order, is about to start his first class with the third years. Neville is there, of course, Remus knows his parents’ fate, how they were tortured into madness, and probably guessed that Neville’s biggest fear would be similar to what he guessed Harry’s would be. He’s probably planning on stepping in before Bellatrix Lestrange shows up, but then it’s not her, it’s Snape. Snape who insults him in front of his class, Snape who tries to shame him. Can you imagine how he must have felt? Yes, they bullied him, but his best friend James grew up, and what did he get in return? Death. Instead, Snape hasn’t gotten over himself a little and most importantly he does not realise that being a teacher also means being responsible for those children. Snape never changes: he is the same petty, angry, bitter child that he had been in school, except now he’s bullying children half his age instead of yelling racial slurs at his classmates. While Snape is one of his students’ greatest fear, Remus starts off the year by letting his pupils confront their biggest fears. Remus truly, deeply cared about his students, and wait… what did Snape do? He got him fired! But even most achingly than that, just imagine… it’s 1993, Remus is coming back after a rough full moon. He’s feeling down, he’s weak, both physically and emotionally, he’s one more time without his friends by his side, one more time alone as he was before the Marauders became Animaguses to be alongside him to support him during the roughest times (horrible people, isn’t it?). So Remus is coming back to his class of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and his best friend’s son is writing an essay on how to kill him. But Snape didn’t stop there, no, he told the whole Wizarding World that a man who had struggled to keep his condition secret all his life was a Werewolf. He had to withdraw from his position as a professor because of that, and straight after that the Ministry issued a law against Werewolves which made it impossible for Remus to have a job. So, to sum it up, not only he exposed him as a Werewolf, he also condemned him to live in poverty and be persecuted for that reason. Also, quoting, when Remus was trying to explain things in PoA he attacked him and said “I’ll drag the Werewolf, perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too.” James and Sirius were the kind of persons, the kind of friends and brothers, who risked their own life every month for one of his best friends. Think about this: they found out about Remus’ situation when they were just boys in their first years of school, and they didn’t leave him, they decided to help him embarking in something much bigger than themselves. Whereas dear lovely 33 year old Necrophilus told everyone about Remus’ secret and basically had him fired. Sounds angelic, why haven’t I thought about doing something like that before? That would most certainly secure me a spot in heaven!

Do we want to talk about an abusive person? Well, Snape was not just abusive as a person, he abused and took advantage of his position as a teacher (and Head of House too, to reward extra points from the other Houses) to bully his own students (even after his presumed “redemption”). He told Neville he would have given his failed potion to his toad, Trevor, so that the fatal effects of the potion would teach him a lesson. He bullied Neville to the point that he was literally his greatest fear - Neville’s parents were tortured to the point of insanity by Bellatrix, yet Snape was his greatest fear. He also condoned and took part in bullying when Draco cursed Hermione’s teeth to grow. He said he didn’t see any difference, then watched as she ran off crying. From the very start he starts bullying Harry: he perfectly knew he was raised by muggles, he knew how Petunia was and still went on to ask questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer. And after calling Neville and idiot for a mistake that anyone could have made he took points from Gryffindor because Harry didn’t tell him how to do it right - great teaching strategy, let’s nominate him for Most Valuable Teacher. Harry had nothing to do with what went on during Snape’s school years, but he physically resembled James and he was his son, so let’s bully him from the very first second! And honestly, asking an 11 years old Muggle-raised kid the difference between monskshood and wolfsbane in front of everyone on the first day? There is no difference! They are colloquial terms for the same plant. He just wanted the intellectual upper hand over a goddamn little kid. But he didn’t stop there: that resentful git always tried to blame Harry for something even without proof (as most of the time), and he physically abused Harry because he was angry (“Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard onto the dungeon floor.”). He knew how important it was for Harry to learn Occlumency and he stopped giving him classes and later ignored when Lupin asked him to start them again even when he knew how poorly Harry’s progressed. And he was cruel: he knew Harry was sad about Sirius’ death, and gave him a detention in which he was going to see his and his father’s names multiple times while copying out old detention records. Yes, Harry’s deeds should have called for expulsion, as McGonagall states, but Snape chose something more painful than that. Not only he punished Harry (don’t get me wrong, he almost killed Draco, he deserved detention if not expulsion), but he chose to inflict him more pain and at the same time tried to ruin the memory of Harry’s father figures. Ordinarily, copying out old detention records wouldn’t be worse than writing lines, but Snape vindictively tailored that detention to inflict pain. In addition to this, he could have been an awesome teacher if he wasn’t a disgusting waste of a human being. He knew from his teen years that the instructions that the textbooks were giving were not as goos as they could be so he improved the potions and recorded his own methods at 16. Harry himself states what an amazing teacher “the Prince” is. If Snape were not such a horrible person, he could have either written the entire textbooks himself, or taught his students his own alternate methods. Instead he spent his time bullying children. He could have been great and become everything a Slytherin should have been

Snape also saw his friends perform Dark Magic on Mary Macdonald and when confronted by Lily, literally didn’t see any problem with it and compared it with the Marauders’ pranks.

He called Lily, his supposed best friend, a Mudblood. Then he tried to get away with it by saying he didn’t mean it and that she (and only she) was different from the other Muggleborns. And Lily tried, she tried to tell him he was not on the right path, she tried, and she got called a racial slur from the person she trusted the most at the time. And, for the extremist Snape apologetics in the back, who even hate Lily (how can they hate on Lily I don’t know, but apparently these people exist too): Lily Evans did not owe anyone anything. She had the right to cut ties with her friends for any reason she pleased, whatever that’s because she was sick of them or because they were hanging out with a group of terrorists wannabe. She did not owe anyone her love, loyalty or energy. She tried to be Snape’s friend despite his other group of friends (“but Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them”), but there’s canon evidence that Snape chose his Death Eaters friends over Lily’s friendship and safety. It was her choice to cut ties with him after what he and his friends had done (and the racial slur of course, truly a touch of class), and it’s not like he was a good friend to begin with: he called all other Muggleborns “Mudblood” and was canon friends with the people who wanted Lily and other Muggleborns killed, and he even still wanted to be a Death Eater while being her friend. Like, wait here while I go out and slaughter your people, Lils! And if Snape stans are still arguing that he was suffering because he got dumped, that’s another no: he did not get dumped, she just didn’t have romantic feelings for him but was trying so hard to be his friend and he was just a whiny baby about it. Is that a crime? No, it isn’t. Is not getting over it and taking it out on countless kids who weren’t even born instead a crime? Yes, it is.

Also, from the get-go we see him drop a tree branch on Petunia. That shows that he didn’t see a problem in hurting the people Lily loved (seen later in a larger proportion, that’s his tag line). Lily loved her sister, but Petunia was an obstacle between her and Snape, hence, Snape hurt her. And no, that was not accidental underage magic, just as Lily performs magic on the flower, Snape uses magic to cause a tree branch to fall on Petunia. Even as a child he had no qualms about hurting someone Lily loved, this really serves to underscore the idea that Snape, with his so called love for Lily, was not invested in her happiness or wellbeing because he didn’t care about the people she loved. As a child he didn’t care about hurting her sister and at 20 he didn’t care about the imminent deaths of her husband and son. If he truly loved and cared for her, he would have wanted to see her happy. Not even considering how crushed she would have been if her husband and only child were dead, and she was left alone and pregnant in the middle of a war.

Okay so now let’s talk about James. Yes, James was a spoiled brat, and Lily hated him for that, then guess what? He matured, he started protecting the weaker ones and joined the Order along with Sirius, Remus and Lily to fight for a better world. He didn’t hold it against her nor did he sulk for days, he grew up and matured because he was a well adjusted human, unlike some. James Potter was many things other than an “arrogant bullying toerag” (hey, also, well done for trying to destroy a 15-year-old orphan’s memory of his heroic father): he was a friend who risked his life every month for Remus’s safety and comfort. A brother who took Sirius in and was “the best friend he ever had.” An adored friend of half-giant Hagrid, in an age when all “half-breeds” were looked upon with suspicion during the war. An all time “favourite student” of Minerva McGonagall, so much that she waited all day at his son’s future home and wept at his death. A savior of his enemies even when they were trying to expose his friends’ secrets. An activist protecting the right of existence for Muggles, Muggleborns and hybrids right out of school. A soldier who faced Voldemort three times and lived to tell about it. A caring father who went into hiding to protect his son. A loving husband who sacrificed his life for his family. A faded trace of magic still trying to guide his son when the man that killed him returned to life. A young man that inspired so much loyalty in his friends that Remus Lupin, who so feared the idea of harming people because of his condition, was 100% willing to abandon those morals to avenge his death, and would have done so, had Harry not reminded him and Sirius that James would not have wanted them to murder anyone for him. A Patronus helping Harry through his darkest moments until the very end. James had a friend facing bigotry and he became an illegal animagus to help make that friend’s life better. Snape had a friend facing bigotry and he joined up with the bigots. No one is trying to pretend that James was an angel, but he got better and better until his last breath. And again, that spoiled brat and the love of his life joined the resistance and were martyrs. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus all died for Harry. Are you trying to blame James and Lily for sacrificing their own lives to save their infant son? What terrible parents they were! Their sacrifice was an act of love and wait… actually ended up saving the Wizarding World. The only thing James and Snape had in common was that they would have both sacrificed James’s life in order to save Lily’s. James was the hero, he was the one who faced Voldemort without his wand (pretty dumb thing but he was a Gryffindor, hence no surprise) in order to give his wife and son more time to flee. When he opened that door on Halloween, he thought he was sacrificing his life so that they could live. He literally died wandless perfectly knowing he wouldn’t survive, but facing death for those he loved, hoping he would be able to stall enough time so they could escape. He was never more dedicated in anything in his short life than he was to the loves of his life: he died for Lily and Harry, and would have happily died for Sirius, Remus and Peter. And this is absolutely canon, of course it is: we might not have some explicit description of him but all we know comes from the lives he touched, how they talked / not talked about him, the pain they felt - the seven books are a testament of James and Lily’s love. James Potter was the kind of person that would have been happy to die for love, he would have taken pride in that. How do we know that? Are we making this up? No, we are not: all we have are the words of people who knew him, from his best friends to McGonagall, and who remembered him as a hero. This, albeit indirectly, speaks volume about the kind of person he was. He might have been obnoxious and arrogant as a teenager, but at 21 he died a hero - wandless, alone, betrayed, hopeless, but also bravely and out of love - and nothing can change either of those. Yes, he bullied Snape (let’s be clear here even though I highly doubt Snape did not retaliate) and that is a disgusting attitude. But how can you forgive a 31 year old man for bullying his kids and not a 15 year old boy who bullied one of his definitely not innocent classmates? Who matured and who later died, at the young age of 21, for his wife and son? How can you hate James Potter when as soon as he graduated, he was ready to fight a war against the most powerful wizard of his age? Yes, he had a big head and I am fairly certain he did actually strut - and let’s just take a moment to remember why Harry doesn’t know anything about him… oh, right, Snape went to Voldemort and told him about the prophecy - but he was a caring person, who stood up to what he thought and stood up for his friends and his family. The spoilt boy Snape’s apologetics hate, who grew up to be a great man, who died fighting and protecting, not some emo with a crush and an ego the size of the Great Lake! Wait, I hear somebody trying to bring up the “we have no real evidence of him becoming a better person” thing. Let me get this straight: James was mentioned to have jinxed other students, not to have bullied them. He did not pick out targets, it was implied to be done at random as it is explicitly stated that he jinxed random people in the corridors. Fred and George pranked other students in the same way, and they would have often have more disastrous effects, but no one calls them bullies. We know that on one known occasion attacks Snape with Sirius at his side and almost pantsed him with a spell of Snape’s own invention. James and Snape had a rivalry, and it was two-sided. It wasn’t James relentlessly hexing poor, innocent Snape, so if you still want to call James Potter a bully, okay, do it, he was a bully bullying a bully. The evidence speaks for itself: he was Head Boy in 7th year (hence I don’t think Dumbledore despised him that much), he was unapologetically a blood traitor, he dated Lily Evans (who hated him for how he was and would have never fallen in love with such a brat, so it’s pretty evident he did actually change), he joined the Order of the Phoenix (an anti-terrorist organisation, at the peak of the war, as a teenager, whereas someone else joins a racist dark cult), he died protecting his wife and child! And if we really, really want to bring the ‘evidence’ thing up… well, we have no evidence he bullied Snape, except for one little incident - I’m fairly certain he did, but let’s play it literally now. And since we are there, we may not have been blessed with more about the Marauders, but Sirius and Remus both tell Harry Lily changed his mind about James because he became a better person, why don’t Snape stans consider that an evidence pro James but “Snape’s worst memory” is their pro Snape pamphlet? That chapter showed us an incident where both Sirius and James were assholes but everyone that was there supported it but Lily. All the other Students supported it because of what the fandom conveniently forgets that Snape loved Dark Arts, disparagingly called Lily a Muggle twice, tried to expose Remus and run around with a group of Death Eater wannabes tormenting Muggleborns all through his school years (he literally says that torturing Mary Macdonald was funny - “That was nothing, it was a laugh, that’s all”), to the point where Lily’s friends and herself questioned their friendship: “none of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. I’ve made excuses for you for years.” And eventually, when questioned by Lily if he wanted to join Voldemort, he couldn’t find any way to lie to her: “you and your precious little Death Eater friends— you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You Know Who can you?”. He literally didn’t find anything wrong with Voldemort’s political position (only the fact that he wanted to kill his obsession, he only had that so called change of heart when it personally affected him as his beloved Dark Lord wanted to kill the object of his lust). So yes, he did join the Death Eaters because he wanted to and was everything he’d always desired. Does this make him a bad person? HELL YES.

And wait, can somebody remind me why the Potters were forced to hide? Wow, it must have been because Snivellus dearest spilled the tea to his master. So basically it went like this: “Hey Dark Lord! Our adorable group of racists kills Mudbloods for fun, but there’s this filthy Muggle born I fancy, can you please kill her husband and baby so that I can have her?” How the hell could he think Lily could have ever forgiven him? He was totally fine with Dumbledore saving Lily but not her husband and infant son (see how deeply he cared about Lily’s happiness?) and only cared for him being the rebound. James and Harry were totally expendable but hey, bravest man ever known!

So yes, he protected Harry (in his very own and questionable way, he did), but I’m sorry, that’s not enough. However, before someone says “in the end he cared about Harry” let me say a big, important fact: NAH HE DIDN’T. And not only he didn’t, but he also openly states that: in the Deathly Hallows chapter with the Pensieve, Snape describes Harry as selfish, self-important and arrogant - does it matter than all the other teachers like him and see none of those things? Of course not. And he’s not talking about sassy 4th-6th year Harry (who I really thank for that “there's no need to call me "sir" Professor” gem): Snape is tasing about an 11 year old who was picked on his whole life, who never had a family of his own and who lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He’s a child, an orphan (now tell me what’s that heroic about tormenting an orphan). However, Snape had decided that Harry must be bad news from the start, so he reasonably spends six years making his life as difficult as possible. That’s a great way to honour Lily’s memory, right? Do Snape stans remember what their hero answered when Dumbledore asked if he had grown to care for the boy, after all? He literally shouted “for him?” before casting a Patronus (a little over obsessive too). He felt he owed it to Lily to make sure Harry survives, and for Merlin’s sake, he did! He went to Voldemort and basically condemned the Potters. I’m not saying he is THE reason why they died, that honour goes to the lurid latrine rat, but he is one of them. Protecting Harry was the least he could do. Switching allegiances doesn’t cancel the awful actions before Lily’s death, as much as taking advantage of his position can’t be justified by his loyalty to Dumbledore. And most importantly, he cannot be redeemed by his stalkerish obsession for Lily (or by the creepy ‘look at me I want to die looking into your mother’s eyes,’ ew). All he did was made out of selfishness, even in his quest to redeem himself. Snape had a chance to honour Lily's memory, and disregarded it every single day. He claimed to regret his past, yet his cruelty to Harry was persistent and immature. Plus, loving someone doesn’t redeem terrible deeds. He aligned himself with a terrorist organisation who murdered for sport entirely of his own volition, endorsed the torture of Muggleborns, but of course, what a hero! I will never understand how people continue to use Snape’s obsession with Lily and ‘protecting’ Harry thing as an excuse for all the pain and terror that he inflicted upon small children. Does that mean you’ll excuse a father who continuously hit and emotionally abused his child and made their life a living hell if his excuse was “well I was still protecting them they had their dead mother’s eyes”? This is SICK.

And if you can still argue that “he had a terrible childhood,” that is inarguable, however, it just cannot justify him. Remus was bitten when he was 4, he had no friends until he was 11, lived in constant fear that he was going to be outed as a Werewolf, was forced to turn into a monster every month, lost everyone he loved and lived in poverty for 14 years and still managed to be a decent person. Luna watched her mother die, was picked on by almost everyone, was treated as a freak and only had one friend until she was 14 and still managed to be a decent person. Ginny was literally possessed by Voldemort himself for almost a year, guess what? Decent person too. Neville was constantly told how worthless he was, lived knowing his parents were tortured to insanity and was bullied and belittled by everyone. Decent person? Yes, right again. And do we want to talk about THE lonely kid who was abused his entire life? Sirius was raised and abused by blood supremacists, was disowned by his family, framed for murder (of his best friends, for Merlin’s sake!) and literally lost almost everyone he loved and still managed to be a decent person. He couldn't help the way he was? The environment around him conditioned him to be that way? If I remember correctly, Harry was raised by neglectful relatives, wore ill-fitting clothes, felt inadequate among his peers… Harry is proof that a terrible childhood doesn’t excuse despicable behaviour.

So, Snape hated Neville because he could have been the Chosen One instead of Harry (but it’s definitely on him for going to Voldemort and condemning the Potters), he hated Harry because he was James’s copy and he hated Hermione because she was a Mudblood and brilliant as Lily was. Makes sense, again, and again, it stresses how much of a beautiful person and teacher he was, don’t you think so? Also, had Voldemort picked Neville to kill instead of Harry, Snape would still be a Death Eater. It’s not like he thought being part of a group of supremacists and terrorists was wrong. It wasn’t until something directly affected him that he turned his back to his master - so brave, right? Snape may have done some good for the Wizarding World when he joined the Order, but while he was alive, he was horrible. He wasn't fighting the good fight because he couldn't possibly imagine a world where Voldemort was in charge (honestly, he couldn't have cared less), he was doing it to spare Lily’s life and get her for himself. James and Lily fought for the light because they believed in the light. Snape fought against the dark because the dark had offended him. Had Voldemort gone after the Longbottoms instead, Snape would have lived and died as the most loyal Death Eater in history.

Wait, I hear a “there’s no evidence that Snape voluntarily murdered anyone in his entire life” over there! He joined a group whose aim was genocide and was actually one of the few members which were part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he didn’t get there by throwing kisses and rose petals around. It is explicitly said that not all Death Eaters actually bore the mark. Only selected wizards can be part of Voldemort’s circle, and not only Snape was part of that circle during the First Wizarding War, but it is also heavily implied that he passed messages from Voldemort more than once. Plus, he was also able to speak directly to Voldemort and even ask him to spare Lily’s life. Voldemort actually told Lily to move over three times before killing her, and he didn’t do that because he had such a kind heart and wanted to spare a Muggleborn’s life, he did that because Snape begged him. And maybe we haven’t read the same books, but it’s not like Voldemort strolled along Diagon Alley offering favours to random people. In addition to this, Snape did most certainly kill someone since Dumbledore compares Draco’s soul to his, meaning he has done remorseless acts of great evil before, hence his soul was already damaged, unlike Draco’s. So please, stop saying Snape was somehow influenced into joining the Death Eaters and never committed any crime: he fully believed in what they pledged and actually longed about being one of them for years (according to Lily). No one manipulated him into joining said group nor into perpetrating crimes. And no one manipulated him into being a horrible person even after he “switched sides.” He’s the one who willingly decides to be a terrorist, he’s the one who willingly decides to abuse children half his age, and he’s the one having the nerve to be awful to Harry when he’s the reason why Harry doesn’t have any parents.

And he was so childish and cruel! He threw a tantrum after discovered he was getting an Order of Merlin and wasn’t going to see Remus and Sirius in jail (even though he knew they were innocent).

There we go: HE KNEW SIRIUS WAS INNOCENT (don’t try to deny it, he was part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he perfectly knew Sirius was not the one selling the Potters to Voldemort)! Did this matter for him? Of course not! And was Snape cruel and abusive to Harry because he blamed himself for Lily’s death and Harry was a constant reminder of his guilt? Yes, he was. But you know who else blamed himself for the Potters’ deaths and also was constantly reminded of them by Harry, and yet, did not abuse him because of his guilt? That’s right, Sirius. Sirius whose death was indirectly caused by Snape who kept making fun of him for being locked in Grimmauld Place. Sirius who had no problems breaking out of Azkaban, all he had to do was turn into a dog and leave. He could have left anytime he wanted to over those twelve years but he didn’t. You know why? Because he thought he deserved to be there. It was his fault his friends were dead. Everyone could blame him all they wanted with false accusations and it didn’t matter, since to him, changing Peter to the Secret Keeper, he was guilty for his friends’ death and deserved to be in Azkaban. He only broke out when he knew Harry was in danger after seeing that filthy rat on the newspaper. And when he broke into Hogwarts? Do people remember those lines: Hermione said “It’s very lucky he picked tonight, you know,” to which Ron responded “I reckon he’s lost track of time, being on the run. Didn’t realise it was Halloween.” Please, of course he realised it was Halloween, he perfectly knew that. He went after Peter on the anniversary of James and Lily’s death to revenge them and to save his godson. Sirius might have strut as much as James during his teens but again, he turned out to be a decent person.

And think about Harry, a 17-year-old grown up in an abused “family” (and still managed to be a decent person too): he has no memories of his parents, the only thing remained is a photograph. A photograph of a happy little family, showing James and Lily in love with the fruit of their love. Snape found it and ripped off and stole the half with Lily smiling so he could pretend her happiness and love were directed at him and not at her husband and son (yes, people, that disgusting moment actually existed, and it was so creepy Yates couldn’t put it in the movies). He stole Lily’s picture and Lily’s last words from Sirius, a friend she loved, the Potters’ best man, James’ brother. How nasty. What can I say, at least he waited until after Sirius’ death to go to Grimmauld Place and raid his bedroom?

Lovely Snivellus, such a cupcake, also laughed and mocked Tonks when her Patronus changed when she fell in love with Remus (let’s also remember that Tonks’s one was not the same as Remus’s, as stated by Rowling, before Snape stans can accuse me of applying double standards: Remus’s Patronus was a regular wolf, and okay Harry is oblivious at times, but he would have recognised a regular wolf) despite the fact that his own changed to match Lily’s - let’s just remember that THIS is obsessive behaviour, whilst James and Lily’s Patroni represent them being soulmates. Snape’s Patronus does not honour Lily, stop considering this the greatest romantic moment of all times, it does not show virtue nor morality, it’s just the representation of his creepy fascination with necrophilia. It’s disgusting, not noble. His so called love for Lily is creepy. She found happiness with another man, yet Snape was possessive, manipulative, and inarguably obsessive. And let’s remember that J.K. Rowling said that “he thought Lily would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater”… was he really her best friend or was he just completely blinded by his attraction to the dark side? This is not a redemptive love, this is problematic, toxic, abusive, emotionally-stunted, obsessive.

This is because there was never a love triangle and that’s why there is simply NO Team Snape! Not winning at the genetic lottery doesn’t justify being such an awful person! Also, THIS is why the tag line should be changed from “always” to “Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll hold him off!” or to “until the very end” because a father’s eternal love for his son is much more important than a racist’s obsession of a dead woman (dead because he contributed to her death, to be precise). His always and doe patrons can’t get him out of this one. Eventually, let’s remember J.K. Rowling’s dedication in Deathly Hallows: “[…] to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.” Not “always” nor creepy moaning, just the pure words of a hero, of a loving father who died protecting the ones he loved most.

Now, I don’t get why we should celebrate Snivellus as the hero of Slytherin and an example of the “not all Slytherins are evil” when Regulus Black died in a cave, drowned by reanimated corpses to bring about the downfall of Voldemort, and Narcissa Black straight up lied to Voldemort because she’s first and foremost a mother, ruthless in doing whatever it took to save her beloved son. Regulus and Narcissa were brave: despite their flaws they knew what mattered the most and they were two big key factor in Harry’s survival and Voldemort’s demise. Sure, Snape was among the three that deceived the Dark Lord, but whilst Regulus did it because he realised what was right and what wasn’t, and Narcissa did it because of love, putting her family first (plus, she wasn’t even a Death Eater, and this tells a lot about her, as her loyalties solely lie with her family), Snape did it because resentfulness. Sure, Regulus joined the Dark Eaters of his own free will and Narcissa did what she did only after having her family threatened, but since one of Snape stans’ major point in his defence is his family being abused, let’s take their family into consideration too. The Blacks were pureblood supremacist, they grew up within that establishment and yes, some members of the family rejected those arguable ‘values’ but not everyone has the courage to do that (also, every Black family member is indisputably a badass, don’t get me started on that). On the contrary, Snape was a half-blood, and still, ended up hating muggleborns - yes, don’t try to say he didn’t, he joined the Death Eaters because he believed in Voldemort’s cause. He disparages mud bloods, he joins in on their massacre as a Death Eater after having idolised them for years in school before actually joining them. Read this again: he idolised a group of pureblood supremacist, he actively helps orchestrate genocide against the muggleborns. And what is his Freudian excuse? He believed that, in so far as Halfblood, he had to ‘prove’ that he was magical and capable enough (does this remind you of somebody else who hated muggles albeit being a half-blood and eradicates his whole Muggle family?), you can see that in how he strived to highlight his maternal Prince lineage in his stupid nickname. And no, now don’t try to blame the Marauders’ behaviour for this: Severus Snape, the man you glorify, hated muggleborns and went out of his way to commit genocide against them. So, in the end, if you still deny that, despite it being clear in the books, you are being dishonest. If, on the contrary, you fully realise it and still glamorise Snape despite how horrible of a person he was, well Snape stans, you have sunk to a new low. I’m not trying to justify anyone who supported said supremacist beliefs, but at least Regulus and Narcissa were born and bred within one of the Sacred 28, those beliefs were instilled in them from the very beginning, Snape reached them all on his own (well done for embracing your nazi self Snivellus). Regulus turned his back on Voldemort as soon as he realised how wrong he had been: at age 18, he literally sacrificed himself to try and stop his master. Narcissa, on the other hand, never sworn loyalty to Voldemort: she was a pureblood elitist, yes, she was guided by pride, but she was also calm, rational and restrained where her sister was crazed and her husband was reckless. So… Regulus faced death in the hope that when when the time had come, Voldemort would have met his match and would have been mortal once more, and Cissy only wanted best for her family and did everything she could to protect her son. She perfectly knew that Voldemort could have easily killed her in a second, but she wanted to find Draco, kept a straight face as the strong woman she was and fooled the Dark Lord. And why did Snape deceive Voldemort? Oh, right, he told him the prophecy that eventually led to the killing of the woman he was obsessed with (and no, again, he did not care at all about her husband and baby), this, of course after asking him to spare her life so that he could have had her (so this is, once again, classic Snivellus holding grudges). Regulus and Narcissa are pretty much the epitome of Slytherin, and still, let’s celebrate Snape! As a Slytherin myself, I am utterly disgusted by Snape’s behaviour. He could have been an amazing teacher, he had the talent to be one of the greatest Potions masters ever, and he willingly chose to throw it away in favour of being awful for the sake of bullying his own pupils. If we have to pick characters who proved that not all Slytherins are evil, let’s look at Regulus, let’s look at Narcissa, let’s look at Slughorn and Andromeda. Slughorn fought against Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts and refused to become a Death Eater, Andromeda married a Muggleborn. And guess what? None of them bullied children for 15 years.

Then, for the “I sometimes think we Sort too soon” thing… no, just no. Before you can start yelling at me, I am not, I repeat, I am absolutely not saying this because I endorse the whole Gryffindor being saints thing. I am a Slytherin, and a proud one. I just don’t agree that Snape was brave. Is being a resentful, childish and abusive man being brave? Wow, I’ll have to refresh my vocabulary! It is not brave to bully your pupils for years because you lost your loved one, it is not brave to refuse to accept a woman loves somebody else and moves on, it is not brave to keep a childhood grudge against that someone because they ‘stole’ the so called love of your life, it is not brave to try to destroy an orphan’s image of their heroic father. Snape was burned Lily had chosen James over him, so burned that, fuelled by jealousy and envy (and by his pretty questionable ideals too, because it’s too convenient to forget he is 100% a Death Eater and hence a supporter of Voldemort’s lovely view for the Wizarding World), he struck out and ended up getting Lily killed. I don’t consider playing the martyr by “teaching” (if we really want to call that teaching instead of child abuse) and being an occasional spy being brave. I call it feeling guilty, I call it ‘I deserve to suffer for hurting Lily but I still choose to bully her own son instead of honouring her,’ I call it ‘I keep on tormenting an orphan because I hated his father and he looks too much like him, plus, he has his mother’s eyes so I’m constantly remembered of 1) Lily choosing James over me and 2) Lily dying because of me telling my beloved Dark Lord the prophecy.’ Any protection Snape offered Harry, he did it because of his penance, not because protecting him (and hence stopping Voldemort) was the right choice. Wow, how brave of him. I don’t think Snape could have been a Gryffindor at all, and I hated how David Yates (again, very conveniently for his martyr business) placed the Gryffindor scarf hanging up in the background in Snape’s death scene as a nod to his supposed bravery. Like, really?! Even if you really want to call him brave, he’s still an awful person who shouldn’t have been allowed to teach because of how abusive he was, an awful person who was a member and supporter of a supremacist, racist and violent sect, an awful person who caused the death of innocent people - and I could go on and on. You can’t let a few good deeds outweigh all the bad! It’s not like some potion or Imperius Curse made him join the Death Eaters, spill the tea about the prophecy and terrorise those children. He willingly chooses to do that because he was an awful person until the very end. And still, Snape apologists be like “the conclusion of his arc is that abusing your position of power over children is forgivable if you stalked one of their parents when you were a teen.” Again, sick.

Snape’s portrayal in the movies is entirely fan-service throughout the whole series of films, but especially in DH part 2: they never showed Sirius arriving at the Potters the night Lily and James died, they never showed the moment his whole world collapsed when he saw the corpses of his best friends, the moment he blamed himself for what had happened. No, we got an entirely made-up (and creepy) scene of Snape getting there, holding Lily’s body and crying when that never happened! We also never got a scene with Sirius and Remus evidently struggling to hold it together while they tell Harry about James, how he changed and how Lily fell in love with him. Their pain would have shown how much James had an impact on their lives, for the better, but of course, we only got a partial rendition of Snape’s worst memory, with careful cuts of course, they couldn’t say he didn’t find anything wrong with the torture of Muggleborns, right?

You can like Snape, sure, he’s a flawed character with an interesting past, but he’s not a hero, stop portraying him as such instead of what he really was: an abusive, creepy, racist man. You are allowed to like villains (who doesn’t?) but stop praising him! You don’t have to justify his actions because you like him: he was awful, recognise it.

Do we (still) need to talk about double standards? Well, there we go: people hate Lavender Brown and Cho Chang. Fair enough, pretty annoying girls if you want to hear me, but why do they get hate? They get hate for how they handle their feelings: Lavender gets hate for how she handles her unrequited romantic feelings, and Cho gets hate for crying and grieving over the death of her boyfriend. Does this sound like a thread to you? With the sole difference that they get more hate than Snape and this is disturbing and honestly just sick. He is a terrorist, he literally moans the entire series and abuses and terrorises children because he couldn’t have Lily but hey, misunderstood hero!

Stop romanticising Snape: the only reason why people love him is Alan Rickman, and all of this hatred is just a pathetic way of trying to cover up that James grew up while Snape didn’t. How can people glorify and stand up for a man who canonically is a vindictive bully? To be honest, I’m genuinely concerned for people who over romanticise such a man. Correct me if I’m wrong: do you see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do basically the same stuff to Harry as Snape? How is Necrophilus any different? I will never regard him as a hero for as long as I am alive, however, the movies conveniently cut those parts where Snivellus was the half princey of baddies, right? Also, I really wish Sirius could have found out about this lovely nickname Snape gave himself as a teenager, that alone would have cured his depression, post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, this is a real tragedy.

Severus Snape did not die for love. He died because Voldemort thought hew was the true Elder Wand owner. I repeat: he did not die for love. Period.

He raised a wand to McGonagall!

Avada

Kedavra

#jamespotter #marauders #lilypotter #severussnape #snivellus #hp #hogwarts #harry potter #jily

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wickednerdery · 4 years

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Title: The Guest Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: The Night Manager Pairing/character: Jonathan Pine/OC Rating: Teen Summary: “Is there any way that I can help?” Notes: This is something that’s been bouncing in my brain for, like, almost a year (on-and-off)…still not sure I have more than snapshots, but it finally came out onto paper just now lol!

Masterlist - Previous Chapter

He waits until Qi leaves to chat up a local, May’s preoccupied by friends, to ask. “Were you able to help your friend?” Pine keeps it vague, curious, in hopes Kay will open up.

“Yes, I did.”

“How was Canada?”

Kay finally looks over, smiles. “Qi gave me up, did she?”

His smiles, looks to May to ensure she’s still focused on friends. “She mentioned you crossing the border, I assumed she meant Canadian.”

“I guess she did then. but, yes, it was lovely.”

“Kay.” Her brows arch, but she stays silent, so he carries on. “What sort of favors are you doing for your guests? These...friends of yours, what are they into?”

“As I said before, Mr Ashland, that’s not your concern.” She is serious, formal, closing him off with a look. She moves to stand. “And I’d appreciate you not mentioning my guests to others. Even if others should ask you.”

“I’ve no intention of that.”

“Good.” She takes a breath, go to collect what trash is left. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

“Please, I just...” He stands and she stays, standing, waiting. “May I help?”

“I don’t know you well enough for that.”

“And you don’t trust me.”

“Qi says you were nothing but kind and helpful with both her and May, don’t think I’m not grateful. I am.” Kay goes to the trash, he follows. “But this isn’t just about me, my business, or even my family. This is...” She sighs, turns. “Other people trust me to help them, protect them, and I’m not willing to risk that even if I do feel you’re a genuinely good guy.”

“I understand.”

Kay wants to question, because the words are what anyone might say in reply, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t because she senses it’s the truth. That he understands beyond caring for guests as a hotelier.

***

"Tell Jonathan about that time our whole family got chased off the beach by the flock of seagulls.” Qi laughs, turns to the man. “The birds, not the terrible haircut.”

Pine gives a small, close-lipped, chuckle. He finds himself grateful Qi’s stuck around as she forever invites him to their midday family meals, allows him to enjoy time with the ladies without feeling as if he’s intruding.

Kay laughs, shakes her head, but proceeds. “I was around ten, Qi you were...five, six maybe? Anyway we snuck a giant sack of sunflower seeds to the beach and this one...” she points to Qi “...decides it’s a good idea to just grab the bottom of the bag and shake.” Her laugh grows as Qi starts to lose it, as May starts to giggle between fries. “It went everywhere, all over our blankets, in all our bags, in our hair and clothes and those birds...they must’ve come from five states over, I swear, there were so many.”

May complains she’s never been told this story before - it’s so funny, why wasn’t she told it earlier?! - as the adults all laugh. Jonathan’s the first to pull himself together, though even he continues to chuckle now and again. “I hope none of you were hurt, nothing damaged.”

“My mother’s designer purse was pooped on,” Qi offers with a laugh.

“And I had to write lines until bedtime once we got back home.” Kay smiles out. “Which, really, wasn’t too bad.” Her mobile goes off in her bag and she excuses herself to answer, walking beyond the pool gate for privacy.

Jonathan stands, clears his and the others’ spots, all the while working to listen in the best he can.

“...Bit last minute...it’s just...she has?...I can...” Kay sighs with more worry than stress. “Ten...Nine-thirty then...of course...bye.” When she returns it’s with a smile, as if nothing’s changed. “You know...” She smiles to May, then her cousin. “It’s been so much fun having you here, Qi, you should stay a bit longer.”

May perks up. “Yeah!”

“Sure.” That Qi doesn’t say more is confirmation enough something is up.

“And...I need an extra hour for lunch, cover for me?”

Qi nods.

“Is there any way that I can help?” Jonathan offers, hoping she might reveal something, anything, about the sudden activity the phone call’s brought about.

“No, thank you though,” Kay dismisses with a smile. She gives a last thank you and goodbye to all before heading back through the hotel, already on the phone once again.

As Pine returns to the table he catches sight of Kay’s magazine still on the table with something stuck within its pages. He snatches it up as Qi promises May, once her mother comes back, she’ll join the girl in the pool. “I’ll be off then,” he turns from them. “I promised a friend I’d call.”

“Oh, sure, leave me here with all these guests. Just be sure to tell Prince Harry that Qi Haung loves him!” Qi teases, sticking out her tongue, and laughing before May calls her attention back.

I genuinely think Pine can’t help himself in this...He likes Kay, but his instinct is to distrust, to do whatever necessary in order to uncover a secret, and that’s still what drives him above anything else. Now that may change, hopefully it will, but right now Jonathan doesn’t just want, he needs, to know what Kay’s up to.

Gifs found on Google, adjusted by me!)

Tagging Who Might Care: @lady-crowned-with-stars @holykryptonitekitten @ultrarebelheart @chibiyanai @beccaliciooouuusss @michellearel1 @sweetfictionalworld @lukeevansandjdmobession @lokilvrr @rizzo87 @alexakeyloveloki @wintertink @moonfaery @annievvv7 @creedslove @wadeyouwitch @cassadius @tarithenurse @kellatron55 @coppercorn-and-cauldron @iwasbusybeingdead @kavery12 @green-valkyrie @dangertoozmanykids101 @toozmanykids @theangelsfightwithdevils @poetic-fiasco

#jonathan pine #the night manager #pine x oc #fanfiction #OC: Kay #OC: May #OC: Qi #my writing #not my gif #the guest

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navegandoaciegas · 4 years

Text

the love you deserve III

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (fem!reader)

Word Count: 2k

Summary: “He’s Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s best friend. He was the guy at the Triskelion, they say he’s the one who killed JFK.”

It can’t be real. Your Jaime visits and plays with lonely, sickly kids in hospitals because he remembers what it was like growing up with his asthmatic, diabetic friend Steve. Whoever this Bucky guy is, he’s not your Jaime, your Jaime could never harm a fly. Your Jaime is good, he’s compassionate. Surely your friend must be wrong.

Warnings: hurt!bucky, hurt!reader, angst, fluff, lying, cheating, drug use, alcohol consumption, language that Steve Rogers wouldn’t approve of.

A/N: AU where Civil War and Thanos never happen, Tony forgives Bucky and he retires. I’m not a native speaker, so forgive me for any mistakes :)

This is part 3, please like and reblog and let me know what you think of it :) feedback is always appreciated!

Part 1 Part 2

Las Vegas, Nevada

You cheated on James, and that’s a fact. Would you have done it if you weren’t so intoxicated? Is it relevant?

You could take responsibility for your choice. You could admit to yourself and to him that it wasn’t a drug induced mistake, that it was the stupid decision you took in the spur of the moment because you were hurting badly and you wanted to punish him for the pain he put you through.

You could tell him that you got to the club with the intention of doing something stupid, that you put yourself in the condition to sleep with a random guy whose face you can’t recall and who fucked you even if you were gnawing for teeth uncontrollably, your mouth was likely foaming and your pupils were blown to hell.

Did the substances flowing in your veins give him consent, or did you? Are they to blame, or are you?

On another note, the one that comes out when rage surges in you, can you even cheat on a man who isn’t who he says he is? Is it cheating if he betrayed you first?

You’ve never been more conflicted in your life.

The anger you felt is still raging inside of you. You close your eyes and think of all the lies he fed you, of all the little ways he in which he deceived you.

You don’t know what’s worse: letting the searing hot flames of anger destroy you or wallow in guilt and regret?

In approximately 4 hours you’ll be landing in New York where you know James is going to pick you up, most likely with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolate.

You could never mention sleeping with a random man after finding out his true identity and continue your life in peaceful, ignorant bliss.

You could confess to cheating and blame it on his deception and your altered state.

You could omit the cheating incident and jump straight to the part where you yell at him for failing to mention who he really is.

You have 2233 miles to figure it out.

New York

You’re being exceptionally quiet today, and that’s a first.

Bucky was expecting you to start rambling about how hangovers hit you harder than they used to before, how you’re getting old because nowadays you feel your head pounding and your stomach churning all day after a night out. He was willing to bet that the first thing you’d do as soon as you landed would be to complain about Vegas’ blazing heat and the outrageous price of bottled water in airports, like you always do when you come back from travelling.

Instead you’re silent, because you have a headache you said, and you’re being less affectionate than usual.

He furrows his brows when you skip on hugging him and go straight for the car, but he doesn’t let himself think too much about it. You’ve probably just drunk too much, which combined with Nevada’s scorching sun is a recipe for disaster, so he stays quiet and drives you to your apartment. His important announcement is going to have to wait.

His quaint, cramped apartment is tranquil except for the tapping of the rain on the window sills.

He was coming back from a session with his therapist when he got caught in the rain, and because he’d been riding on his Harley he’s now dripping wet and in desperate need to get cleaned up.

He decides he’s going to take a bubble bath with those little balls of foamy soap you bought him; you’ve told him that these ‘bath bombs’ are very relaxing when you want a ‘self care’ night.

He heads to the bathroom and turns on the water as he takes off his wet sweater and jeans.

He normally avoids staring too much at his reflection, but today he does.

He has a few scars scattered around his chest and stomach, but they don’t compare to the angry and permanently flared, marred flesh around his left arm. If he looks closely he can still see the marks where he scratched and pulled the the skin in an attempt to rid himself on the prosthetic.

His therapist is a nice man in his 50s who doesn’t ever make him feel judged. He’s been trying to get him to accept his metal arm as a part of himself instead of a disjointed appendage that has done more damage than it could ever do good.

He mentioned something about associating positive things to his arm, or something like that. It can be watering a plant, petting his cat, caressing your hair, holding your hand.

Anything to trick his brain into thinking his arm can do good too.

Sometimes it works, other times the only thing he can see himself holding is Maria Stark’s throat as he chokes her to death.

He’s been trying hard, but he knows he won’t make his peace with the prosthetic if he doesn’t come clear to you.

He talked about you today. The doctor suggested it’s time for you to know who he is.

He agrees. Steve agrees. Sam has been threatening to call you for months. Natasha doesn’t need to vocalize her threats: one look with those green eyes and she manages to be scarier that the metal chair.

He’s going to tell you before Jade’s wedding, he’s resolved. Can’t risk anyone recognizing him and causing a scene if you don’t hear it from him first.

To be honest, he’s terrified.

He’s been doing a lot of reflecting since you’ve been gone, and the more time goes by, the more he feels like a lying scumbag.

At first, he was scared he’d lose you because of the Asset. He was scared you’d have a mental breakdown if you knew what kind of monster he is, and you’d leave him. You’re so beautiful, good, smart, you deserve so much better than he could ever be.

In his selfishness he couldn't bear to never hold you again.

But as time goes on he’s realizing that if he doesn’t speak up soon, he will be losing you because of his deception.

He knows now you would accept him regardless of his past, his crimes, his murders, his nightmares; you already accept all his little quirks, his constant need for reassurance and affection, his unusual ineptitude with technology, his elusiveness.

He knows that what’s left of his life he wants to spend it with you. He doesn’t need a wizard in a sentient cape to know that in all the universes out there, he loves you in every last one of them, that he’d fall off that train a thousand times over if it meant he could one day be with you.

You love him and he loves you, he’s never been more sure of anything.

Anything except how angry you’re going to be when you find out he’s lied to you all along. He can only hope you’ll find it in yourself to forgive him.

Your roommates aren’t home when you get there, and Bucky is glad about it. He needs to have you all to himself for the evening.

“Hey, I’m going to take a shower, you choose the movie, ‘kay?” you say, and you stand on your toes to peck his lips softly. He smiles like the lovesick fool he is and opens up your phone to try and order a pizza for you both.

After multiple attempts at calling the place and using the website with no success, he sets on asking you for help. You’re in the bathroom but the water is not running yet.

The door is ajar, and he almost knocks and comes in when he freezes. The smile he had on his stupid face falls and the pounding in his chest is probably loud enough that you can feel it too, even if you don’t have super soldier hearing.

Through the crack of the door he can see you’re naked, with your back facing him and your hair pulled up.

Normally he would blush and close his eyes or turn around to respect your modesty, but now there’s nothing he can do except stare at you with wobbling lips and watering eyes.

Your whole body is littered with love marks, trails of red, angry scratches and deep purple bruises on your lower back, hips and arms.

He wants to think it’s not what it looks like, although it's pretty obvious. He wishes he could unsee what’s in front of him, plain as day: the unmistakable proof that you did what he never thought you would do.

He backs away from the door silently and settles on the couch, calming himself down from the panic attack he feels coming. He’s crying silently, tugging his hair painfully. He doesn’t want you to see him cry. He doesn’t want to look like a pathetic mess in front of you.

His heart hurts so much it’s hard to breathe.

The water is still running when he finally manages to gain control over himself.

His mind is swimming with questions and accusations. What did you do, exactly, and why did you do it. Why did you feel the need to be intimate with someone else. Is it because he won’t be intimate to you? He’s sure you’re better than that, this can’t be about not being able to resist your urges, can it? Or maybe it is, and it’s his fault for forcing a sexless relationship on you?

You’re always so honest with him. Sam says it’s a good sign that you always give him your phone for whatever reason he needs it for and you never worry about it, he says it means you have nothing to hide from him. You’ve never shown any sign that your feelings towards him had changed, and he’s been trained to look for the smallest of changes in people.

Who is he? Did he mean something to you, or was it just some meaningless sex? Were you sober? How much did you drink?

He can’t believe you would cheat on him.

He’s still beating himself up about it when he hears the bathroom door open, and you come out wearing one of his oversized hoodie and a pair of leggings. You smile at him, and he tries to smile back despite the pain when you join him on the couch and snuggle in his arms.

The world is collapsing on him and yet all he can do is hold you close and cradle you in his arms. He nuzzles your hair, inhaling the distinct smell of coconut and peaches to ground him himself.

He can’t lose you.

You had 2233 miles to figure it out.

You didn’t.

You smile when you see him on the couch. You snuggle in his arms and relax in the comforting scent of the detergent he uses, the one that reminds him of his Ma.

You feel his steady heartbeat and instantly calm down.

You can’t lose him.

If he thinks you don’t need to know, then he doesn’t either.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky imagine #bucky fanfic #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #james barnes x reader #james barnes x you #james barnes x y/n #marvel fanfiction #sebastian stan x reader

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myaekingheart · 4 years

Text

You’ve Got Kudos

Written for Day 1 of the Kakashi Lounge Discord Server's September Event. Prompts: Fanfic Writer!Kakashi | Social Disaster | Modern AU | Roommates/Neighbors

[Read on AO3] Pairing: Kakashi x Rei (OC) Rating: Teen and Up @the-kakashi-lounge-blog

Kakashi has a dirty little secret and it's in the form of an AO3 account. No one is allowed to know that he writes Icha Icha fanfiction--especially not his library tech neighbor Rei. (Standalone companion piece to The Scarecrow and the Bell, Modern/College AU)

Kakashi kicked off his shoes at the front door and slumped into his favorite chair. Tutoring wasn’t necessarily his favorite thing in the world but it looked good on resumes and put a little extra cash in his pockets, so he supposed he could tolerate it for a little while longer. If only his students hadn’t been quite so insufferable, that is.

If anything, tutoring reminded Kakashi how much he hated underclassmen. His three protegees were all naïve freshman whose energy stores had yet to drain. Naruto was enthusiastic but slow on the uptake and it was hard to get him to properly focus. Sakura had potential but she was far too engrossed in her Instagram rivalry with fellow student Ino Yamanaka to make any real progress. And Sasuke was constantly brooding, there not by choice but rather because his professor threatened to flunk him if he didn’t seek outside help.

Perhaps it would’ve been smarter to book them each separate appointments but with the way everyone’s schedules worked out, it was easier to just create one big study group. It was more efficient that way, anyway. Kakashi much preferred to kill three birds with one stone than chip away at his sanity little by little. And so every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, Kakashi trudged to the library to pore over used textbooks and incomprehensible scribbles in an attempt to explain simple concepts to brains that could not understand. This was fine. He didn’t need a social life anyway.

Kakashi rubbed his tired eyes and checked the time. It was 5:30pm. He had no idea what he was going to do for dinner, nor did he really care. Sighing, he reached for his laptop and went straight to his email. At the very top of his inbox was a notification from Archive of Our Own: Comment on Icha Icha Bloodline. Kakashi’s heart jolted. In the solace of his apartment, this was his one saving grace: fanfiction.

He admittedly felt a little ridiculous about the whole thing. What college guy not only wrote fanfiction, but for romance novels at that? He knew exactly how his taste in literature appeared. So few people truly understood the nuance and artistry of the Icha Icha books, writing it off as just cheap porn. Those books, however, gave Kakashi exactly the reprieve he needed. Within their pages, he could disappear from the stress of everyday life to instead revel in the throes of a dramatic fictional romance. His love for this series knew no bounds. His heart ached to share it with someone but if college had taught Kakahsi anything, it was that people never really change and are more than willing to judge you the minute you express any personal interests. High School: The Sequel, if you will. And so Kakashi had come to learn that there were only ever two places where he was safe to unapologetically indulge in his favorite series: within the comfort of his own home and on the internet.

Fanfiction was never his original intention. Rather, it was the end result of a long string of unfortunate circumstances. The latest book had ended with the heroine caught between two very tempting suitors, a cliffhanger of epic proportions which left Kakashi itching for a resolution. A few months after publication, the author, Jiraiya, passed away, taking his secrets for the series’ finale with him.

Kakashi had tried so hard not to think about it but the lack of closure ate away at him. He needed a valuable outlet through which to ramble, a way to confide in someone as invested in the series as he was. For a moment, he had considered joining a book club but all of his attempts failed. The only clubs that ever focused on books like these were run by sexually frustrated middle-aged women who sneered at the mere thought of letting a man into their circle. On recommendation from a friend, he turned to the campus library community for help but was met with nothing short of disaster, which thus introduced the second point of contention: Rei.

The library check-in desk was notoriously run by volunteers, most of which were majoring in library science themselves. One such volunteer was Rei Natsuki, a junior with fiery hair and a chronic resting bitch face. It wasn’t that Kakashi didn’t like her, necessarily. Actually, every time he saw her he got this horrifying fuzzy feeling in the pit of his stomach that insisted he was about to throw up. He felt as if her eyes were on him constantly, studying his every move. This fact only furthered his gratitude for lumping together all of his tutoring appointments. The less time he spent in the library, the less often he would have to see her.

Not that she was necessarily easy to avoid. Just his luck, she lived three doors down from him in the same off-campus apartment complex. At least if he timed things just right, he could avoid running into her in the hallway. Their mutual existence was like a very carefully choreographed dance on perilous terrain. They were constantly at risk of colliding with one another, a harrowing and horrifying fate.

Their first encounter was in the fall of his freshman year when he snuck into the erotic fiction section searching for the Icha Icha books. As he skimmed the titles, he felt a pair of mossy eyes burning holes into his back like a cryptid whose domain has been intruded upon. When Kakashi turned around, he caught her peering around the edge of the bookshelf. Her expression was one of harsh focus and concern. “Looking for something?” she asked. For someone so small—she was roughly a foot shorter than he was—she was certainly terrifying.

Kakashi’s face turned beet red, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “No, not particularly!” he exclaimed. “Just looking around!”

“Hrmph” Rei huffed, unconvinced. “Well, if you need anything, I’ll be right over there” she pointed to the help desk at the front of the library. An older woman, one of the librarians, winked at her across the room and Rei’s face turned bright red. Without another word, she scurried off back to her station, grumbling under her breath. Once gone, Kakashi sighed and leaned back against the shelf. All of the books directly behind him tumbled to the ground with a loud thud. Rei immediately whipped around to glare at him but by then, he had already dove into the nearest study room. Frustrated, Rei stomped over to assess the damage and begin reorganizing the shelves. Kakashi apologized to the group he interrupted before booking it out of the building. It was in that moment that he officially decided: from that point onward, Icha Icha would remain his dirty little secret. Literally.

And thus came along the internet. At least there, hiding behind his computer screen, he could retain some sense of anonymity. He could disguise himself with a pen name much like wearing a mask. No one needed to know who he was. He pored over various forums, reading but never interacting. As refreshing as it was to find a sense of community amid other Icha Icha fans, his joy quickly faded when he realized one fatal flaw: no one knew what they were talking about. They all misinterpreted the characters, the relationships, the actions the heroine took to get to this point. Perhaps Jiraiya’s novels were too nuanced. Perhaps there was no hope for him after all. It was then, deep into a Reddit thread, that it dawned on him: the horrifying promise of writing fanfiction.

At first, Kakashi refused. He would not stoop so low. The harder he resisted, however, the more appealing the idea slowly became. At least in this way, he could help people to better understand these stories in a way that he was familiar with. Not that he was an avid writer himself but he hoped he was familiar enough with the conventions of fiction to understand how it was done. As if running on autopilot, he ventured to Archive of Our Own and created an account under the pseud “CopyNin.”

His fanfiction, Icha Icha Bloodline, introduced dramatic new themes and conflicts to the story he loved, expanding on the love triangle with a depth and sincerity that he hoped would make Jiraiya proud. It hadn’t gotten many hits yet, but that just made every kudos and comment feel that much heavier. As his cursor hovered over his inbox now, he almost questioned whether he even wanted to know. Every shared thought had the capacity to make or break his motivation. But if he didn’t look, he wouldn’t be able to contain himself. He needed to know. He pulled up the latest comment and his heart leapt into his throat. It was from LittleBell.

LittleBell was, for lack of a better word, iconic amid the Icha Icha fandom. They were one of the first writers Kakashi had encountered when he first considered fanfiction as a possibility. Their name appeared in dozens of forum posts, attached to both praise and criticism alike. By the time Kakashi looked into them himself, they had already written 100,000 words worth of fic with the longest piece nearing 100 chapters. It was clear why they were so popular. The cadence of their sentences, their detailed characterization, and their dynamic plot points all made Kakashi’s heart sing. He could only hope to one day be as great a writer as they were.

Kakashi had lurked through fifteen chapters before, in a fit of sleep-drunken gumption, he had decided to leave LittleBell a comment. It was short and sweet and afterward, Kakashi groaned into his pillow second-guessing every sentence, but he awoke to an encouraging response that firmly cemented the allure of writing a fic himself. And now here he was, faced with a comment from them on his own work. How could he ever prepare himself for something so huge? He instinctually expected scathing criticism. Your characterization sucks. You’re writing them all too flat. Her suitors would never say XYZ or do ABC. Have you even read the books? This is trash. Kakashi’s hands shook as he tried to shove those negative thoughts out of his mind. LittleBell had been so kind before so, realistically, why would their response be any different? Kakashi scratched the back of his head, knowing that the longer he waited, the more maddening this was going to become. Without another moment’s hesitation, he forced himself to view the comment.

This was so great! I love the way you write these characters—I can tell you have a really deep understanding of the heroine, especially. It’s so refreshing to read a fic that not only retains the romance of the originals but also emphasizes it in a way that’s super meaningful rather than cheesy. My favorite part was the scene where she’s fixing his watch. “It’s really an exquisite watch. Such a shame that it’s stopped working.” “I guess that just means that we’ll have to stay in this moment forever” “What will everyone else say? They’ll get tired of waiting.” “Let them wait. I’m always late to everything anyway. What’s another eternity?” My heart! You can really tell just how much he loves her, and it makes that love triangle all the more tense and heartbreaking! You’re really just doing an incredible job with this and I can’t wait to read more!”

Kakashi’s cheeks burned as he buried his face in his hands. It was all he could do to hide the grin on his face. Not that anyone was there to tease him for it. Pakkun was fast asleep on the couch and likely wouldn’t have cared anyway. Alone in his apartment, Kakashi was exploding. To think that someone so talented and renowned within the fandom not only noticed his work but enjoyed it was mind-blowing. This was a high he would surely be riding for the rest of the week, if not the rest of the semester. Nothing could be better than this.

Once the debilitating excitement wore down a bit, Kakashi was then stuck with the battle of writing a response. He knew there were some in the community who considered responding a controversial topic—something about trying to increase your comment count—but Kakashi enjoyed replying to every single person who took the time to say something nice. And this was certainly something very nice. How could he possibly put into words his overwhelming gratitude? He had no clue. Kakashi stewed over the prospect for a solid ten minutes before his growling stomach urged him to hurry up. He had completely forgotten he was hungry but now his body was not going to let him forget. He considered stepping away and replying later, after he had time to chew it over, but then quickly shoved away the thought. He couldn’t afford to put this on the backburner at the risk of forgetting about it entirely. No, he needed to do this now.

Kakashi typed, paused, considered, then backspaced and typed again. When he was finally at least mildly pleased with his response, he sucked in a deep breath and pressed Comment.

Huffing in relief, Kakashi stretched out and leaned his head back against his chair. All that was left to do now was wait. Would they even respond back? He didn’t know. Sometimes a comment began a whole conversation, other times it was a singular instance like a comet in the night sky.

But for now, he was going to try not to dwell on it. He received LittleBell’s praise, and if they were to respond back then so be it. It was all up to fate now. Kakashi slipped on his shoes, shoved his phone, wallet, and keys into his pocket, and headed out. As he locked his apartment, he heard without listening as a door down the hall creaked open. The sound reached his ears but his brain did not register what it was until it was too late. Turning around, he abruptly bumped into her.

A gasp fell from Rei’s lips as she collided with Kakashi’s chest. Her half-open backpack swung on her shoulder, spilling its contents onto the floor. “S-sorry about that!” he croaked, clearing his throat. Kakashi’s hands shook as he leaned down to help gather her belongings, all the while fearing her wrath. Among the used textbooks and stuffed notebooks was a green paperback with a big prohibition sign on the cover. The little bell charm attached to Rei’s keychain jingled and automatically Kakashi was punched in the gut with a realization of Pavlovian proportions. Little Bell.

“I-I’m sorry…what was that…?” Rei stammered and suddenly Kakashi realized he had, in fact, spoken aloud. Her voice, in response, was so much quieter than he had ever thought she was capable of—filled with the striking fear of being vulnerably and intrinsically known. Unmasked.

Kakashi’s eyes widened as he shuffled to gather as many of her books as he could manage. “I-I didn’t know you liked the Icha Icha books” he murmured. He could hardly make eye contact as he handed her back her things.

“Yeah…” she said, slowly accepting them, “They’re, uh…they’re my favorite.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Kakashi chuckled nervously and replied, “Mine, too.”

She wasn’t sure what it was about him but in that moment, a sickening feeling filled her chest, a nauseating suspicion that she couldn’t shake. There was really only way to confirm whether or not those suspicions were correct. At the risk of looking like an idiot, she cleared her throat then and said, “You know, that’s a really exquisite watch.” Kakashi froze, his eyes gently skating down to his wrist. He wasn’t wearing a watch. His heart pounded in his chest. Rei bit her lip, dropped her eyes to the floor. “It’s, uh, it’s a shame it’s stopped working.”

Kakashi’s mind was reeling. None of this felt real. Suddenly Rei was a completely different person to him now. He saw her not as the terrifying, impatient, and indirect girl from the library but the extremely talented, encouraging, yet perhaps unfortunately shy writer that he had spent so much time idolizing. If only he had known of the bond they secretly shared over the past few months. He could hardly fight the grin on his face as he murmured back, “Then I guess we’ll just have to stay in this moment forever.”

Rei’s cheeks burned as she hugged her books to her chest. She could feel the laughter rising up in the back of her throat—this was so ridiculous, and yet at the same time this was everything she had ever wanted. If only Kakashi had truly known how much she had suppressed over the years, since they first met in the library. The way the old librarian encouraged her to speak to him when she caught him perusing her favorite books. The way she’d hide out in her apartment whenever he left for class, watching from the window too scared to approach. The way she channeled all of her unrequited love and inner turmoil into the very story she now knew he idolized. She felt so strange and vulnerable but also for the first time truly seen. It was the most bizarre and lovely sensation.

She had no idea how long they actually stood there in the hallway like that, reveling in this newfound connection, but all too soon reality suddenly hit her. “D-do you have somewhere you’re supposed to be? I don’t want you to be late!” she exclaimed.

Kakashi, however, still entranced, shook his head and replied, “Let them wait. I’m always late to everything anyway.” Rei brushed the long bangs back out of her face, completely incapable of stifling her laughter. Kakashi joined her—the breadth of his smile, the bravado of his voice, the way his eyes squinted when he laughed, all were enough to make her weak in the knees. “Are you hungry?” he then asked. “I was just about to get something to eat. You should come with me.”

Sliding her books back into her backpack, Rei smiled and replied, “I would love that.” Swinging her bag back over her shoulder, she walked alongside him down the hallway. Their fingers itched to interlock, their hearts pounding out of their chests. He opened the door for her and together they stepped out into the autumn air. Nothing else mattered. In that moment, all that existed was them: CopyNin and LittleBell.

#kakashi hatake #rei natsuki #the scarecrow and the bell #naruto #naruto oc #fanfiction #one shot #modern au #kakashi lounge blog #server event

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webcricket · 5 years

Text

Winter’s Eye

Pairing: AU!CastielXReader Word Count: 1803 (Ch. II) Summary: Season 13 canon tells you how AU!Castiel’s story ends, this is how it begins. The deranged and damaged iteration of Castiel we met in the apocalypse universe - an obedient soldier to Michael’s cause barely in control of his vessel’s frayed and erratically firing nerves whose inherent kindness toward humankind appeared entirely obliterated - wasn’t always an unfeeling angelic weapon of interrogation. Once, he sympathized with the plight of humans; one, he loved. A/N: Multi-chapter origin and love story. No happy ending here, folks; just a bittersweet illustration of an angel’s devotion and the sacrificial ends he pursues to protect the object of his affection. New chapters post on Mondays.

Series Masterlist

II.

Illumined by a flickering glow, frost curtains the corners of the cabin’s paned windows as sheets of snow continue to envelope the world without. A fire crackles in the wood stove; the cast iron door yawns to reveal a burning bedlam of deep orange and silvery embers forfeiting their fervor of warmth to temper the chill from the single room.

The fury of light silhouettes two figures stationed directly before it; the one, insensate with cold and settled on an overstuffed leather chair, houses a soul lately saved, the other, operating on righteous instinct, a being in a body borrowed.

The latter leans in constant worried motion over his unconscious ward. He loosens the layers of damp clothing, consigning a coat no longer equipped in its damp state to insulate to the floor beside already discarded boots; the melt of caked-snow clinging to the laces and heels coalesces into a shimmering pool on the broad pine planks.

Still dissatisfied by the sluggish return of consciousness, he rubs and rearranges the lax limbs repeatedly to restore circulation. His unrelenting efforts find rapid reward in a spasm of shuttered eyelid and the initiation of a bodily shiver suggesting the brain of the afflicted has thawed enough to rejoin the struggle for survival.

Tapping a finger to the rewarmed temple, his irises refract an internally rising radiance of blue; the otherwise unseen glory gifted him by heaven hurries to confirm the signs of recovery. Evidently pacified with the direction of progress given the small sigh of relief passing his lips, he ceases fussing to slide the chair in closer proximity to the blaze; stoking and feeding the fire, he steps back, content for the moment to watch the unfolding symptoms of revival.

The breath of both flame and rekindling life further thicken the frosty condensation on the window’s glass from within as he waits.

Castiel’s concerned blues occasion, after some minutes observing the sameness of your state, to lift from you in order to sweep over the shadow-obscured stacked log walls; in them and, too, a roof sound enough to keep out the blasting wind, he notes something of greater consequence than he felt hereto before when tarrying there - something consoling; a something verging on comfort.

The only variable altered is that of his not being alone – an amendment to his exile he finds not at all unpleasant; and one which - as regards comfort at least - watery sheen of blues dipping again to you, he wonders whether you will feel equal easement in upon waking.

In the firelight your features flush as blood steadily surges to sooth ice-nipped skin; he is struck once again by the delicacy of peace predominant in your expression despite the subtleties of pain weathering pale pink lips and stamping a sallowness into the hollows beneath your lowered lashes. The natural advantage of beauty he appreciates as affecting your particular aspect, much like those wonders of his Father’s creation once resplendent in a now desolated world for which he held the highest esteem allowed an angelic creature supposedly steeped in inherent apathy, appears no less diminished given what you must have endured before stumbling into these woods.

A series of restless moans murmuring on your lips, you squirm in shallow slumber in search of some unknown solace which seems to elude you.

Trance broken, giving you space, instinctively he shifts backward and stills to stone. He hasn’t yet considered what he’ll say – hasn’t fully fathomed how to handle the consequence of confusion sure to follow fast upon your rousing, nor how to allay the fear certain to be aroused in the requisite explanations offered of how you came to be here and what he is.

A compassionate heart guided by an innate sense for what is right, and the selfish potential - in the soldierly sense, of course, of once more having order and purpose to the passage of time - for the immediate improvement of his own dejected condition to be provided by your company, fix him to the spot.

A moment passes; then another. You do not wake.

A spark of cinder bursts forth, bounces, and sputters in the drips of wet gathered round your socked feet; his notice veers from you to follow the extinguishing complaints of the slag until it is no more than a fleck of gray ash and a withering of smoke.

“Hi.” Your throat, raw from long exposure to cold air, cracks out the faintest of greetings.

Blues flick to meet your blearily blinking gaze. Caught off guard, he states the obvious. “You’re awake.”

“No, I’m Y/N.” Woozy, weak, and uncertain of where you are or who he is, you default to wit such that you might start by assembling the strewn vestiges of it now returning to you.

His gaze narrows; after a second of deeply furrowed contemplation of your curious response to his observation, the crease of his brow eases in realization of the verbal play. “Ah, I’m Castiel.”

Stranger with a strange name, you think, and, a stranger accent.

Straightening from a slouch to obtain a better vantage on your whereabouts, half-expecting some indication to present itself you’ve been transported to Europe, you chance a cursory glance at the surroundings; your best guess: You’ve simply been deposited in a hunting cabin replete with a requisite decapitated White-tailed deer – a vacantly staring specimen sans four legs and anything else below the neck - mounted on a plaque to one wall. Despite the deer’s dead stare, it’s better than the last place you remember being which is riverside freezing to death under the similarly impassive survey of an oak.

In your periphery, a well-aimed lurch of two, maybe two and half feet from the cozy confines of the chair, your eyes glint on a brass fire poker laid against the stove. You have no idea who this guy is; not that you aren’t grateful, but you’re keeping your options open.

“Castiel,” you repeat, regard roaming over his distinctly regimental attire and the squared stance ingrained by association as that of a soldier standing at attention. “I think I owe you a thank you.”

Dropping his gaze in a gallant gesture of humility suggesting saving you was a mere trifle, he bows his head.

The civility of his manner instantly eases your wariness. In its place, you feel the overwhelming urge to fill the silence and elucidate how you came to be in the predicament of wanting rescue. “Damned stupid to dare that river crossing in a storm. I could hear the ice cracking, but I also heard a squad of angels coming in close behind me. Not much of a choice, you know?”

His eyes rise to yours – you discern the tranquility of their color markedly disturbed by the mention of angels. This reaction fortifies your impression of him as friend, not foe. Slightly relaxing caution, you lean forward to fold your palms together before stove.

The strong line of his jaw sets, stalling in choice of just the right words to answer to your story without creating alarm. Coughing to clear the gravel from the lower register of his voice, he calmly utters them a second or two before you become aware of the delay. “There are no angels on that side of the river.” In review, it occurs to him it would’ve been wiser not to stress any one part of the statement above another.

“Oh.” You swallow the syllable; embarrassment blossoms on your cheeks as the enormity of the damned stupid sinks in and the reality of the damned lucky surfaces.

You duck your chin and redirect, hoping perhaps along with his knowledge of where angels aren’t, he also knows something of the refugee encampment you were looking for. “Are you with the resistance?”

The disquiet unsettling his blues and agitating the minute musculature of his jawline wends down his spine to work inflexible mischief into his shoulders. He’s glad you failed to latch onto the ill-spoken that, less glad the interview persists in being directed upon himself.

Unpracticed talking to people – skills of conversing rusty as a result of many months of isolation – he grapples inwardly to determine how to change the subject; outwardly, he clasps his hands behind his back to preserve composure.

Evading causing you discomfiture by further delay in speaking, he replies, “In a manner of speaking.”

Although superficially affirmative, the awkward avoidance of an explicatory answer should excite your alertness; it doesn’t. The strangely alluring accent he’s in possession of implies he’s a visitor from foreign lands; wherever he’s from, perhaps the resistance is called something entirely different, like, for example, the opposition.

The cohesive framework of international news, or news of any shape beyond word of mouth and unfounded rumor (which, strictly speaking, is not so different from when international news stood strong), ceased to exist the day angels dive-bombed the planet. Whomever he’s with, his answer signifies a sympathetic attachment to the resistance, and that’s good enough for you.

“You’re military then?” you ask, utterly naïve in your progress toward the horrifying truth.

“Yes.”

If angels prayed, he’d pray - for your sake - you end your inquiry there. You were willing to risk hypothermia or worse to escape angels you only imagined were trailing you; there’s no guessing what you’ll do when you discover yourself occupying a room with one.

Short of hastily vacating the cabin without any clear rationalization of why he is running out into a squall, he’s at a total loss as to how to stop you; he ignores the gust of wind just then temptingly rattling the door.

Surrendering to the security represented in his confirmed status as a soldier – whereby, in so far as you understand, a soldier universally being a shield to defend against wrong, thus makes him worthy of your confidence – and suddenly aware of a recommenced shivering as the strength of the fire wanes, you stretch your fingers toward a blanket draped out of reach on a footstool.

Casually – fatally, to your carelessly formed faith in his goodness given the little you know - you prod further. “So … what army?”

He stoops to retrieve the blanket for you and encounters, in a separation of only inches, your unsuspecting and thankful look as you offer him a diminutive but delightful smile in exchange for the chivalrously proffered fringed edge of fabric.

You peer expectantly into his blues, ready to learn which leg of European power has crossed the sea to help stand humanity’s ground here in the states; peering back at you, veracity gleams brightly beneath a widened ledge of lashes begging pardon for what he is about to say.

Your rapt attention diverts to his lips moving in articulation of an answer that steals your breath and stops your heart.

“God’s army.”

Next Chapter: III

#castiel x you #au!castiel x reader #castiel x reader #spn x reader #reader x castiel #au!castiel #you x castiel #castielxreader #castielxyou #castiel fanfic #spn fanfic #castiel reader insert #castiel imagine #castiel fanfiction #castiel #cricket writes cas

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dgcatanisiri · 4 years

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So... I have had THOUGHTS swirling in my head, and, well, I need to word vomit some. This gets LONG. I apologize for the lack of a cut, but nowhere really seemed fitting during my writing.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s going around - an article about fandom hating on women. A very long, very researched article. And I absolutely do not dispute that core premise. I am not going to dismiss the work that the writer put into it. I am not standing here saying to dismiss it at all. And, hell, I DO feel a little uncomfortable, writing this massive response to it, being a man writing something that is directly responding to a female experience. Just... My brain would not let me focus unless I wrote this all down, and wrote out my feelings on the matter to a conclusion.

When I first saw it the other day, it sparked a rant of my own, because something about it didn’t sit right. Its focus is on how this hatred of women has gone after those who ship a certain ship, one I avoid calling by name for a very specific reason. That reason being I legit fear being bombarded by people who search the tags for that ship getting a ping of me commenting about it negatively and lashing out at me.

Now, I am not saying that I discount the article writer’s experience or research. Far from it. This is, much as I am loathe to use the term, something I am willing to say that, within the fandom, develops an element of “both sides” to it, where an incident with one side (those in favor of the ship) leads the other (those against it) to respond on the defensive, and back and forth and back and forth, intensifying in each volley, because one random stranger attacked another random stranger and made them hostile to a third random stranger saying things similar to the first, and so on down the chain. It’s like the game of Telephone, just played with tactical nukes.

But, the thing for me in that rant, is that there is a very blatant MISSING of the element of racism that fueled that ship that will not be named, of there being a significant element of the fandom around that ship transplanting the characteristics and even history of the character played by the black man onto the character played by the white man. Like, talk about sock puppet accounts fanning flames and all, but I’ve SEEN fics for this pairing that vilifies the black man and props up the white man. I have SEEN the massive metas that try to explain how the white man kidnapping this woman involved a bridal carry that expresses his true love for this woman he’s just met, interpreting and reinterpreting and pouring over the screentime they have, and only a fraction of it being spent on what seemed like, in the first appearance of these characters. I have SEEN the ignoring and transferring of character backstories repeatedly. Like... Those are a lot of work for it to be mostly the work of sock puppet accounts - A Tweet is easy. A 15000 word fanfic takes time and effort. A meta dive that rivals the length of this post takes time and effort.

That’s been MY experience in seeing this ship. That’s why I’m being non-specific, because I’ve SEEN the hostility come in and I am taking the steps that I can to avoid that coming in to my inbox. And even when it’s not hostility... I’ve gone and explored the tag for the female character in this pairing. On those occasions, frequently content solely for her is drowned out by the content for the pairing, or about her influence on him. His tag does not have the same issue - there, it’s probably around half shipping content, half individual character content. What I see is that she is neglected by those who claim to see her as part of the pairing they love, and he gets glorified.

That’s the sexism that I see. That’s where I see the hatred of women happening. On the part of those who claim to love this pairing, but that really seems to just mean that they love him and want to make her stand in emotionally for everything they want to give him. That those who are against the pairing, at the least, want to see that character in particular, her unique characterization and dynamics, in a relationship with someone who is going to treat her with compassion, consideration, and respect.

And, of course, there’s the issue of the fact that this pairing EXPLODED in popularity, while her relationship with another character, with a black man, was from pretty much day one minimized and reduced and ignored, and the damage reflected into the on-screen portrayal so that they never really had any character rebound from the imposed separation in the middle of this content, while strengthening the reduction of this female character to the white guy’s sexy lamp.

It’s not that I’m opposed to women in fandom or that I see something inherently wrong with whoever ships this pairing. It is that I have seen the blatant and thinly veiled racism implicit in the ways that these people go about shipping it, dismissing and denouncing the canon portrayal of an interracial relationship, to the point that when even the (notoriously tumultuous) production came back to write the stories that followed up on their initial appearance, that black man and his relationship with this white woman was downplayed and rendered “less important” to her connection and relationship with the white man - the white man who, in that first appearance, had kidnapped and tortured her, greatly wounded her friend, and killed her mentor.

Like, I’m just saying, I do not see how one goes from that point to everlasting true love, but I CAN see how that leads to a deep abiding hatred. And yet, you know, nearly 16000 fics for it on AO3, while only about 10% of the other pairing. So, hey, I guess I’M wrong.

This is, again, to say nothing of the reductionary way many portrayals of this ship approach the female half - she loses her characterization in their portrayals to become a stand-in for the (predominantly) female writer/reader, whose love redeems the bad boy from the darkness in his soul. Her contribution, as a singular, unique character vanishes so that she becomes his reward for turning around, and she cheers him on, supporting him while never upstaging him.

It’s the Twilight phenomenon all over again. And I say that as a fact statement, not a value judgement, that this is the kind of thing that we saw within the reactions to Twilight, a vocal segment dismissed it entirely, and we saw a relationship be romanticized when you could actually use it as a bullet-point list of abusive behavior (I say this because it has been - there are plenty of articles using those characters as such).

I mean, I can easily see this whole thing basically as being “well, the Twilight readers are now adults, let’s throw them a bone and “grow up” the characters for them” on some level. And... Actually, this is going to get off topic, let’s stick a pin in this and come back.

So, look, if this ship is your jam, fine, okay? I’m not making any individual value statements on the subject. You do you. I’m not shaming that act in and of itself, even if, as I’ve made very clear, it is very much NOT my thing. Likewise, I won’t discount that it was investors and shareholders, a notoriously conservative group, who got cold feet and basically wanted to excise the “risk” of an interracial relationship, as opposed to trying to “appease the fans” or something like that.

Like, I know I’m not immune to propaganda. I know I don’t look too deep when a random post crosses my dashboard and talks about this group of people behaving badly - because I’ve seen fandoms and productions be racist. I’m not trying to start a round of victimization Olympics here, but in this case, this is discussing an issue that is wrapped up in BOTH sexism and racism. And on the one hand, that certainly makes it all the easier for bad faith actors to kick up dust and turn people against one another.

BUT...

As important as it is to bring up these issues on their own, you CANNOT. DISENTANGLE. THEM. FROM. EACH OTHER. Like, there are patterns to fandom. You see this repeat itself in every fandom. Fandom at large latches on to a pairing, and shoves most others to the margins. And frequently, when the media in question centers on a character of color, THEY are shoved aside in order to prop up a pairing of white characters. Major canon characters who are not white become secondary - or tertiary - characters in terms of their fandom’s creative output. This happens frequently enough that to try and say “well, maybe the character is just not appealing to the fandom” is actively ignoring the issue.

And this often takes the form of shoving aside healthy relationships and solid, established friendships in the name of pairing up antagonistic characters, declaring the antagonism to be “sexual tension,” that the characters dislike each other not because... y’know, they dislike each other, but because they’re repressing a deep-seated desire to fuck, and THEN they’ll miraculously starting being nice to one another.

Like, this is NOT an isolated thing, you can look beyond the scope of this particular fandom and this pairing and see the pattern repeat itself across media. It is still the outlier when the main fandom pairing is an interracial M/F pairing.

It’s not isolated. But it’s magnified given the massive size of this fandom in particular. This is a generational fandom, where parents - even grandparents - are sharing it with their children. And those biases we as an audience have reinforce themselves on subconscious levels, we don’t even acknowledge these things until we finally have it pointed out to us - and then we see it everywhere, because we have been blind to it, but it is all over our media, our fiction, baked into the very tropes we are using to assemble our stories.

Pull out that pin, we’re back. When something engages with multiple generations, when this is something you can look back on as a fond memory you shared with prior generations, with people you love, you will become protective of that thing. So when someone comes along and says “hey, [thing] has issues with [whatever],” a gut reaction is to get defensive, coil protectively around it.

I mean, tell a millennial you don’t like The Lion King (original animated version, I mean), and you’re liable to get crucified. And it traces its lineage to (at a minimum) Shakespeare and probably further. So if, for example, you want to criticize it for, say, only have three female characters of note, none of whom actually interact, in opposition to the nearly three times as many male characters of note, you need to approach the subject with some delicacy (okay, maybe not the most fitting example, since this was part of the reason that the Broadway version made Rafiki a woman, so the issue Is Known, but it does get the point across, okay?).

And it’s the same when it comes to a subject like this particular fandom and media that isn’t just something many get hooked on in their childhood, but is also something that may be among the fond and cherished memories of family figures, some who may have passed on. To say “that thing you love is flawed” becomes a personal attack, not just on you for loving it, but also that beloved family member who brought it into your life.

And absolutely, this is not a rational reaction. It’s pure emotion. But we are emotional beings, and we need to acknowledge that emotions will make us respond and often respond quickly and respond poorly.

Here’s where I think the bigger issue lies if what you want to talk about is how fandom hates women - rather than look at it in the lens of “this ship is called abusive and racist,” go in the direction of “why is THIS ship the one that seems to resonate?”

Because this is the kind of ship that fandom, as a monolithic entity, often gravitates to - the dynamic that says that being enemies will inevitable lead to being lovers.

Once again, I do not want to shame anyone for enjoying this dynamic. Lord knows my search history has instances of them. BUT... We don’t really know how to approach the dynamic. It is frequently reduced to “well, we made out, so now I’m gonna become the snarky asshole friend no one likes and we’ll bone.”

Like in general, writing redemption arcs seems to be a hard thing for media, but it really seems to only work when the active narrative endpoint does not end in a major romance - when a romance becomes a major narrative element in said redemption arc, it frequently reduces the subject to “[character] was bad, now they’re in love, so they’re good!” No further work needs to be done.

And so when you have a character who is in need of redemption, it is a problem to just toss them at another character and have them make kissy faces. But that’s what you can sum up much of the concept of enemies to lovers in this fashion. The work isn’t done to show the earning of redemption, just declaring it attained because of another character’s love.

And I’m being intentionally non-specific with gender, because I do have a prominent example of this happening in a female/female fanon relationship in mind, which I am also avoiding mentioning in the name of discretion. So this isn’t solely a M/F phenomenon. This is a media thing, this is an “our understanding and approach to these dynamics and portrayals in media seems flawed and needs examination” thing.

I mentioned Twilight above, and how that features a relationship that is used as an example of domestic abuse. Now, look, we can go back and forth about interpretation, the thing to acknowledge about it is that there are a great many who walked away from these books, their movie adaptations, and saw this particular interpretation. While you can probably take any relationship in any media and spin it in such a way, I think there is something to be said for the ensuing argument: When this is exposed to young people who are beginning to seek out romantic relationships, if their example for what love is, what love looks like, has a basis that, based solely on interpreting the text alone, the actions and words of the characters involved, the narrative text, the exploration of their thoughts, is unhealthy, is something that doesn’t need to have a word or action changed to be legitimately cited by experts within domestic abuse counseling as the warning signs... What does that say about our perceptions of what love even is?

And this isn’t getting back into the element of racism, either. Because we could go in that direction, where the black characters in fandom see this selective reinterpreting of their characters, turning what are gentle, caring, loving men into scary figures who loom ominously when they feel threatened, which starts to seem like all the time. There are a set of stock characterizations for black characters, for really any minority character, and the fandom will make them exhibit them in their interpretations, even if it does not fit anything established on screen.

There are a lot of threads that tie into the problems within this fandom and in the approach to this ship in particular. I feel like just pulling at one of them is doing so at the expense of the others, ones that run as deep if not deeper. And it seems like a disservice, both to the complexity of the issue and to anyone impacted by these matters, to only do that deep dive on the one. And, if you are not capable of doing it alone, which, I understand, this is a tall order, then I think it also is important to acknowledge this and actively seek out the alternate views and perspectives that aren’t just total opposition to you (meaning the references to the groups that sprung up in alt-right forums and such), but also those who are going to say “okay, maybe you’re right about x, but your statement on y are missing a lot of context you do not have from your position,” and seek the necessary education.

While I can appreciate the time and effort put into this article and the points it wants to make, it IS wrapped up in elements that run far deeper than any single ship, and just really seems to ignore the intersectional element of fandom at large, how fandom’s problem run deeper than just hating women. To talk about how fandom hates women, you are also needing to open the door to how fandom hates black people, hates people of color.

There is a hierarchy to this, and at best, you are missing a lot when you only focus on the top layer of the issue, rather than even acknowledging the deeper dive that inevitably comes from this. Like, it’s bad for a white woman, dealing with sexism. It’s worse for black women, dealing with sexism AND racism. It is something of a position of privilege to only examine the sexism in fandom, without exploring or acknowledging the racism.

Fandom’s hatred of women IS real. I am in no way disputing that. But I do not think that this is the best example to that point, because it becomes all too easy to dismiss the valid complaints and concerns with the trolls and bots and sock puppets found in the process that deserve legitimate consideration - this is one of the things I have been over when I have (oh god, I’m about to break the self-imposed rule and directly reference the media and characters in specific...) been over the problems I have with The Last Jedi. It’s not that I dislike Rose or Holdo, but I feel like they came into the narrative to teach Finn and Poe (both men of color) lessons that either comes at the expense of the previous’s movies arc for Finn or the previous movie’s characterization for Poe. It is not the characters themselves, it is the utilization within the narrative, using these women to impose a lesson on these characters. That, as I said above, Rey is reduced to a sexy lamp, there to try and bring back to the light a character she has no reason to ever even care about.

That was my experience with The Last Jedi - I had honest issues with the film that weren’t “women? In my Star Wars? Unpossible!” But the surrounding discourse CONSTANTLY felt so toxic to anyone who disagreed with the idea that it had been a win, that it was a bold new direction for the series, and that anyone who disagreed MUST be a sexist/racist/whatever who couldn’t take a changing face to the franchise.

Hell, that may even be why I got this ultimate feeling of defensiveness, both in my opinion of TLJ and the ship in question (yeah, that one I’m still not acknowledging), because what I saw was a lot of really prominent voices not seeing the issues I did, and making it come across like the people who disagreed with them HAD TO BE the ones who were mad on the basis of characters like Rose and Holdo existing, or complaining about Leia’s Force use, or things like that. But... THOSE things weren’t my issues. But I couldn’t talk about those issues on any platform where there was regular engagement on the subject, considering the amount of explanation I would have to do.

Probably also explains some of my inherent response of trying to figure out how I feel about this article, too, come to think of it...

That was how things were after TLJ, and that’s when a lot of this push and pushback really started to gain traction as far as I can see. And maybe we could go and blame this on *ahem* bigger issues that were happening in 2017/2018 that proceeded to exacerbate matters. Like, we’re still in the midst of cleaning up the worst of all of what went on because of the time we live in, since things are still getting messier while we deal with prior fallout.

So... I honestly don’t know how to sum this up as a TL;DR. It was kind of a process for me to get to this point, and I don’t even know if I really have a conclusion. The best way I can go about summarizing is that I do not disagree with the article’s core idea. But I do not agree with its focus, while I understand that a portion of it, if nothing else, justifies why it is the focus. We are dealing with a very complex and complicated web of issues on this, and while I understand focusing on a single thread of that web, it feels like doing so also fails to acknowledge the various connected threads that wrap around that singular thread, in particular the racial elements, which, considering the profile image included, I do not believe this article was written by someone who is inherently aware of these aspects (while I’m also aware that, as a white person myself, I only have so much room to talk). This is all a very long way for me to go about saying “fandom has a lot of issues.”

#dg rants #long post #like seriously if you made it through all that in one sitting go get yourself a cookie or something

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spirit-of-the-void · 5 years

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Ebony and Ivory (V x Reader Fanfic) Chapter 15

Author’s notes: Sorry this chapter was late! I’m a mess of a person with a messy life and zero excuses.

Chapter 15

The sky was forgiving that day, at least for a little while.

Within an hour or so of walking, the sun was up and shining. It was cooler for a day in June, but it was perfect for the walking you needed to do with the poet. Something about the light glinting off his hair made you feel weak in the knees, but your steps didn’t falter. Focused, you reminded yourself. Focus first, fun later when the job was done. You had no idea what this so-called Devil Sword looked like or where it could possibly be, but V seemed to know where he was going. Eyes ever forward, driven once again once you departed from the broken town. It was hard to describe where you were now, especially with the absolutely convoluted landscape. It felt like you were walking through a valley, but upon further inspection you could tell it was just the earth rising and following with the damage done. This was the base of the tree, where all the roots were.

And there were a lot of them. Roots extended above, weaving through the dirt and stone. Christ, this place was a mess. Barely any buildings, most structures torn apart by the demon tree and flung in various directions. Everything seemed lifeless, grey. Even more so once the clouds came back, casting a discolored feeling all over the dead plants and stony ground beneath your feet. Despite the pallor of the world around, you were keeping yourself in high spirits. Walking alongside the poet and keeping up conversation with him, making sure to keep an eye on his condition. You had eaten breakfast with him, summoning some minor food for everyone including meat for the familiars. All in all, you were prepared for anything and everything.

Another day of travel and fighting, it would seem.

You didn’t mind, per se. But this area was full of baddies you weren’t particularly fond of. You passed graveyards, fighting the typical rough and tumble variety demons with the usual ease you had with V. You were getting your momentum back energy wise, testing your limits a bit more with each hour to see what could stick. No Void walking yet, but soon. You could feel that. Along this path you tried to keep your eyes out for shrines of any sort, since it was areas like these that would hide them. But you found none, and that made you sigh. This felt similar to when a parent was mad at you, that you were sure of. You couldn’t quite decide whether you saw the Deity as a father or not, or a mother for that matter. But you doubted it mattered.

At some point V stopped at a cliff side, staring out at a different piece of land in the distance. He held out his arm, Griffon summoning on it before launching out over the crevice. Scouting ahead, it would seem. You could barely make out a building with a broken dome ceiling, what looked to be demons around it moving sporadically. Were they...dancing? Sure looked like it, in their own creepy, demonic way. You crouched down by the cliff, warily eyeing the abyss below with a frown. You hoped that once the tree righted itself the earth would settle accordingly and become full of life again. The Qliphoth seemed to kill anything within a certain radius, which made you fear for innocent creatures and animals caught in the crossfire. Would it kill them as well? You hadn’t seen a single squirrel or anything since arriving in this area, not even a stray cat. Mind you, human death was still just as awful and important. It just all seemed...wrong.

In the meantime, Griffon came soaring back. He looked a bit huffy and confused, shaking out his feathers with a concerned trill as he landed back on the poet’s arm.

“What’s good, bird?” You asked, standing up and stretching a bit.

He let out a low squawk, eyeing you and the poet with concern and hesitation in his gaze.

V let out a light hum, furthering prompting the demonic bird as he added to your question in that smooth purr, “Did you find it?”

It. The Devil Sword Sparda, surely.

“Uhhh well,” Griffon said in a hesitant tone, flapping his wings a bit and sending a couple feathers dropping down, “I don’t know what I found, but...I think I saw demons dancing...?” The way he trailed off made the reply sound like a question despite him being the only one who saw the spectacle up close.

That made V smile, his expression bemused and slightly satisfied with this answer, “Well, then I guess we keep going,” He lifted his cane, catching the base of it firmly in his hand as he continued, "The Devil Sword Sparda is nearby.”

Could he sense the sword’s presence? You weren’t getting anything. Sensing demonic energy at its root wasn’t something you could do. Danger and hidden enemies? That you could definitely get a read on due to the Foresight. For whatever reason, when it came to the Devil Sword it got...nothing. Like there was interference, static. It made you wonder what kind of creature Sparda was, and what kind of power this sword had. According to V, Dante was able to wield it, but he sounded hesitant about himself. Griffon mentioned as you walked something about being “strong in mind and body”, which he was convinced V was not. Why was that? V seemed pretty strong willed to you at least, but there was always this sense of guilt and tiredness to him as well. He still moved forward, still seemed set on the task.

Regardless.

You walked alongside the poet, spinning one of Griffon’s blue feathers in your fingers as you did so.

“I can’t get a read on that sword at all,” You said to him, tone a little wistful, “Who was this person anyway? The one the sword is named for.”

V let out a low hum at your question, giving his cane a spin and eyes staring forward, “Sparda, the demon lord,” His tone was a smooth purr, but there was a far-away look in his eyes, “He was a powerful creature. Rumored to be closer to a God in terms of power than a demon.”

You let out a little huff, a bit of clarity reaching you, “Might be why I can’t sense it. Some God power and Deity powers don’t mesh with others.” You knew your Deity was notorious for not playing well with others. He wasn’t viewed as an official god in any capacity, a creature that existed on neither end of the spectrum. It unsettled a lot of higher ups, not to mention the Void was a place no one understood. They would not interact, that was for certain.

V let out a low hum, side-eyeing you with a quirk of his lovely mouth, “Perhaps. Although, you are no demon. And I can just barely sense it.”

You nodded, giving him a light smile as you both continued forward. You were hoping to at least see the sword, though you still felt a little uneasy considering everyone’s warnings about it. You tried to shake that feeling, trudging into the new area and making sure to focus on your surroundings a bit more.

The landscape just became more and more warped as you went along, slabs of stone and rock dotting the path like it was nothing. You and the poet had to stop and fight something big and ugly along the way, watching it knock a stone bridge and coming to a sliding halt. It had looked like a monster wrapped in chains, and upon braking the chains two huge, tongue-like appendages had come out of its mouth. Well, that wasn't the strangest thing you had ever seen, right? It had been an annoying fight, one that had lasted longer than you liked. Too much jumping around, too much dodging. The thing was fast and you didn’t want to risk anyone getting slammed with its tongues. But your group managed, and V killed it with his usual flourish as he hoped off its back.

“Guys,” You sighed, rotating one shoulder and stretching the next instant, “I’ve decided this area is not fun.”

Griffon let out a loud snort, flying around and landing on your shoulders in his usual way, “This area? You said that about the last few.”

“Now you’re catching on,” You smirked, patting Griffon on the side of the beak, “Use that big brain, Griffon. Seeing a pattern yet?”

“Hardy har. Shucks, one would think you hate fighting demons!” Griffon rolled his strange eyes, tone heavy with sarcasm.

V chuckled lightly at your banter, tapping his silver cane on the ground as his jade gaze met yours. He looked a bit tired, but he told you along the way not to expend the energy to help him unless absolutely necessary. You wanted to respect that, but it made you nervous.

“I’d have to agree,” He hummed, a slight breeze making his hair wave around his face, “The demons in this area are less than satisfactory.”

You walked up to him, brushing some dust off his shoulders with a light sigh.

“We’re at the bottom of the tree, so it makes sense,” You shrugged, eyes tilting up to gaze at the ugly monstrosity filling the sky, “It’s going to be even worse in there, so we had better be prepared.”

V nodded once in agreement. One of his hands lifted to stroke your face, thumb sliding over your cheekbone. The action made you flush a bit.

“And what of you, Sparrow?” He murmured, looking at you from under his long lashes, “How are you feeling after such...vigorous activities?” Did he mean the sex at night, or the demons? The mystery alone was scandalous and sexy

That made you smile ruefully, taking his hand and giving it a light kiss. You thought you heard Griffon fake a gag, but you ignored him. He could tease all he wanted now, that cat was out of the bag. So why should you hesitate to do anything you wanted? Shadow didn’t seem to mind your actions, sitting at your feet with their bright red eyes looking between you and V. Sometimes you were glad that Shadow was a silent familiar, you couldn’t imagine taking the banter from both sides. Griffon was your friend and you loved him, but he was just enough for you to put up with. As for nightmare? You didn’t talk to the creature enough to form an opinion on him. Which was a shame, you liked seeing Nightmare fight in battle.

Shaking your wandering thoughts, you looked back at V.

“I’m doing better,” You replied, holding his slender fingers between your own, “Each time we fight my resistance grows. My power is like a muscle I have to stretch, so the more I stretch it the more I can take.”

That made him look curious, his eyes drifting over your form.

“Are you able to do more than we’ve seen?” He asked, “More of the incident with the black crystal.”

You winced at mention of that, but nodded, “In theory, if I trained enough I could do that without summoning my Deity, and without straining myself.”

It was the truth, because you remembered times where you could. Hell, one of your missions after learning the way your power worked, you became an absolute power house. The longer the mission, the better you got. The Deity definitely laid things out like that, making it so that you had a higher rate of success the longer it took. You didn’t know how you felt about that, but something about having that much power had always left a strange feeling of unease inside you. Like you were too connected with the Void. It left a disconnect in your body, like instead of a person you were a vessel for something...bigger. You never liked the feeling, and generally let that sensation die for a month or so to not get swallowed up. In retrospect...you wondered if that’s what the Deity went through to become so in tune with the Void?

Some mysteries couldn’t be answered by mere theorizing.

“I’m going to assume it comes with downsides,” V said with a low grunt, eyeing you with a wary gaze. Yeah, he still wasn’t over the incident from before, that was for sure, “And I expect you will inform me of them.”

You smiled brightly, but inside you were practically screaming. If only he knew that your power was one hundred percent downsides all the time. Oh yes, there was a turmoil inside you now, face luckily not betraying the raging knowledge that you were withholding things from him, which was bad after agreeing not to. If he knew that every time you flared the energy it was painful, borderline excruciating, he would never let you use it again. You were used to the pain, so you weren’t going to stop using it. It took god damn years to cultivate the energy of the Void, and the sacrifices for it were more than worth it in regards to keeping people safe. Pain was such a strange thing to you, something you just dealt with and normalized. Never talking about it, chin up and eyes forward. Minus when facing those punishments from deals made with the Deity, because that...was on another level.

Regardless.

“Don’t worry, building up power is safer for me than staying weak,” You replied to him, even knowing your previous doubts, “Less chances of exertion.”

He gave a light nod, leaning forward to press a light kiss to yours. Your heart immediately set off in a frenzy, cheeks flushed and warm. Being able to kiss each other when you wanted felt so nice, natural. Like you two were just a romantic couple on a stroll for the day. Unfortunately, you had an audience, one who was perched on you as a matter of fact. Griffon made another disgusted sound, hopping off your shoulders to put some distance between himself and the public display of affection. But you were sure he chuckled a little too, mischief in his tone as he swept around and eyed the two of you. Did he look pleased? You were almost positive there was satisfaction in his avian features.

V sighed at his reaction, pulling back with a rueful expression on his face. He stared at you for a moment, making you blink as you tried to get a read on his gaze. What...was that emotion? It flickered by so fast, but the poet was turning before you had a chance to ask him. You paused, mouth opening a bit as he started forward again, cane in hand. Driven once more. But you had seen something there in his gaze, something that made you uneasy. It...had looked like pain, something agonizing. Akin to realization, but not quite that either, closer to desperation. It made your heart pound, a worried sensation settling over you, one that you couldn’t push away. There couldn’t be something wrong, the Foresight would have warned you. It was calm, giving no indication of things heading down the wrong path. It was how it should be.

Right?

You swallowed the sensation and followed after him. Maybe you were just anxious, seeing things that weren’t there. After all, V grasped your hand as soon as you caught up. No hesitation, his hand so warm and skin smooth. You looked at him from the corner of your eye, but he wore that neutral, bemused smile again. He was so hard to read, his handsome face full of secrets that you didn’t understand. Things he would hopefully share as you went along. You tried to shake the feeling, the nagging part of your brain that had read something that wasn’t there. You were there with him, that was what mattered. He still replied when you spoke, discussing things along the way and filling you in on all that you had missed. The gaps in Nero’s story.

You were curious about Dante, the infamous demon hunter everyone was so fixated on. Griffon and V were debating on if he had survived or not—he was apparently a half-demon himself. Absolutely wild. If Urizen had killed him, no one was really sure what they should do, but V seemed convinced Nero was the answer. He brought up the boy several times, referring to him as exactly that. “The boy”, like he was somehow older and wiser. It confused you, especially since V seemed pretty young himself. It made you kind of feel bad for looking at Nero as a kid too, there was just something young and boyish about him. The part of you that liked taking care of people worried about the guy, especially since he grew up without parents or family. Everyone needed somebody, right?

“You really think Nero will be able to kill Urizen?” You asked, hoping into what looked to be a broken series of catacombs. It made you wince, mind flashing back to the sewers at the sight of the dank, dreary walls, “I don’t doubt him, but that’s a lot of danger to put one guy through.”

“Nero should be able to wield the Devil Sword,” V replied, jade eyes dark in the new area as he stared forward, “He was always my insurance policy, the one to rely on when Dante failed. I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to do so, but Urizen is...far worse than we imagined.”

His response made you sigh, nose scrunching up as you passed skulls built into the walls.

“I get that,” You hummed in reply, but you still didn’t know how to feel about it, “Just remember his safety comes first. Everyone’s safety comes first, including yours.”

“And yours.” Griffon and V quipped at the same time, exchanging a glance with each other. Wow. That had to be the first time you had seen them that in sync, which was hilarious in your opinion. Their concern was appreciated, and you had to admit to yourself that you would always put their safety before your own, no matter what. Not that you’d ever say that out loud. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, yeah? You chuckled, giving V’s hand a firm squeeze and entwining your fingers as you banished the misbehaving thought.

“I appreciate the support, boys,” You smiled, eyes bright and cheerful now as V’s gaze met yours, “I’ll make sure to focus on my safety.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, right? At least you hoped so.

V let out a pleased sound, leaning down to press his lips to your silken hair. His breath was warm, brushing over you as he kissed the top of your head. Christ, you felt like you could faint when he did things like that, on the brink of swooning. Somehow this made you flush more than the lewd things, your cheeks warm and heart fluttering like a caged bird. A sparrow, if you wanted to get super specific. You sighed in contentment, bringing his fingers to your lips as you kissed them again. How you wished the two of you could find somewhere safe and warm to just...rest. No worries, no demons to fight. A day where you could wake up in a bed, and lie there till noon. Domestic things, ones you used to take for granted.

Griffon gagged again at your actions, swooping by and saying loudly, “Get a room, lovebirds. You’re killing me with this kissy, touchy shit. I fear for my virgin eyes.”

“Virgin eyes?” You and V chorused together in disbelieving tones, you turning to raise a brow at the loud-mouthed bird.

Griffon landed on a nearby piece of rubble, huffing lightly as he narrowed his golden eyes on you.

“You’re missing the point here,” He said in a haughty tone, raising his demonic beak in the air as he continued, “You and Shakespeare can’t keep your hands off each other. What will the humans think?”

Humans—he had to be referring to Nero, Nico, and Lady.

You crossed your arms, hearing V let out a low, deep sigh as he gave you a long-suffering look. You shared the sentiment, but in a way the bird had a point. You and V weren’t on your best behavior, that was for sure. Emotions were high and heady, unable to be ignored. The idea of Nico and the others seeing V kissing you and holding your hand...well, you had no idea what they would think, or what they would say. Maybe that the apocalypse was neither the time nor place for romance? They would be right if that was the case, but Nero was a guy in love. You hoped he would at least partially understand, and you had fuzzy memories of Nico saying V needed to get laid. And Lady threatening to kill him if he hurt you. To be honest, those details were a bit sketchy considering the alcohol.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it,” V replied before you could, passing by the bird with a light tilt of his mouth, “Do you intend to sit there all day? We do have a sword to find.”

Griffon rolled his eyes, flapping his wings and soaring ahead as he grumbled, “Calm your tits, Shakespeare. I’m not the one stopping to smooch every five minutes.”

You smiled brightly, walking alongside V and Shadow as you called to him, “I can kiss and walk.”

“Can you suck cock and walk too?” Griffon’s voice echoed back, tone heavily sarcastic, “Then I’d be really impressed.”

“Is that a challenge?” You clasped your hands behind your back, smiling mischievously when V cleared his throat. He was looking a little hot around the collar at the topic. He was so easy to make flustered, which was incredibly adorable. It was too dark to tell, but you were sure there was color in those cheeks of his. Teasing him was so fun, though you were certain you wouldn’t be sucking his dick in these catacombs—you refused to do anything sexual in such a disgusting place. There were dead bodies and skulls everywhere, so it wasn’t really your ideal place for romance. In fact, you couldn’t wait to leave.

“Live in mystery,” V said simply, a bit of a warning in his tone as his jade eyes glanced at you. Though you could tell he was fighting amusement. Those full lips of his were having a hard time holding that displeased look even as he added, “We have ground to cover.”

You blew him a kiss, skipping forward and pinching his butt as you passed by. It made him jolt a bit, a surprised grunt escaping him and face flushing a lot more noticeably now.

“Yes sir.” You purred at him, turning back to give him a sweet smile. Something about calling him “sir" felt very scandalous, and he wasn’t oblivious to that. His eyes narrowed at you, a bit of hunger in his gaze as he eyed you in the dark. Was he gripping that cane tighter? Looked like it.

Still, you all pressed forward. The journey through the catacombs? Less than stellar, that was for sure. It was crawling with demons, as was all things around the Qliphoth tree. This area brought forth a new demon type, one that quite frankly set your teeth on edge. Spectral creatures with giant scissors, lunging with attacks that could easily cut you in half, which wasn’t ideal in the slightest. How did these demons come up with their attacks and weapons of choice? Despite the danger, attacking like they did was highly impractical. You managed to wrap your tendrils around the scissors when they lunged, snapping them closed and leaving them defenseless. It was up to V and the others to pummel them into submission and eventual death. Even so, traveling through took much longer than expected when you had to stop and fight every few minutes.

“Hey V?” You asked in between the fighting, letting out a low huff as the Void energy settled inside, “Can I ask you a few things?”

He was in the process of putting his book away as you spoke, a hint of surprise in those jade eyes as he met your gaze.

“...Certainly, Sparrow.” He murmured after some pause, gripping the head of his cane and leaning his weight on it. He seemed a bit tired, but he hadn’t said anything to you yet.

Frustrating, but you kept walking with him.

V seemed to want to keep up the momentum, but he seemed oddly...torn. Contradictory. Driven one second then stopping the next to hold your hand, resting on a piece of rubble and talking in that low voice of his. You talked about his home town that you were, technically, still walking through. He seemed a lot less reluctant to open up today, which made you feel warmer already. You were devastated to find out how young he was when his mother died—just eight years old. Too young to go through something that traumatic. He wouldn’t tell you all that had happened, you could tell he was omitting things. That was fine, he wasn’t required to tell you all he had been through. That was his choice to make. Through it all you listened and watched his face, still holding his hand and squeezing it when he paused, unable to find his words.

“What happened...when your mother died? Where did you go?” You asked him softly, pulling your legs up and crossing them. Griffon landed on your shoulders as you did so, Shadow putting their head between your legs and V’s. The bird was listening quietly, but he didn’t seem surprised, like he knew of this story and all it entailed. How long had V been with the three familiars? It would have made you feel better if you knew V had the trio looking out for him as a child, it was at least something. Still, growing up without parents was just...unfair. Where was V’s father, and who was he? That was the one detail V left out, he seemed pretty focused on his mother over all. You could tell that he felt guilty about her death, it was plain on his face. But his father...where was he?

“I...” V let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair, “I did what I had to survive. I learned. I trained.”

He kept it very vague. You could understand why.

You nodded along with his words, watching Shadow’s tail sway back and forth, “Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose,” A sad smile graced your lips, eyes darting up to meet his, “What was your mother’s name?”

V let out a low hum, gripping the head of his cane with his free hand and tracing lines on your palm with the other, “...Eva. Her name was Eva,” He closed his eyes in thought, a soft huff leaving him as he added, “She would have loved you. That, I’m sure of. “

That made your heart pound, like you were held in high regard.

“What was she like?” You asked, trying to hide how good his compliment felt. You wanted to know who this woman was, a person who gave birth to someone so important to you.

“Kind...thoughtful. A good mother.” He said simply, though you could see his face was hiding something. It made you blink, eyes going soft as you tried to decipher his emotions a bit. No luck this time, there was no cracking that poker face. He seemed attached to his mother, you could tell that much, so why did that sentence sound so...hesitant? Like he was unsure, or lonely sounding?

“She sounds like a good person,” You murmured, rubbing the toe of your boot into the ground when you stretched out your legs, “Though I have to ask, where is your father? Or did he pass away too?”

V’s mouth tilted in a small smirk, a faraway look in his eyes as he scoffed, “Something like that.”

You opened your mouth to question what he meant when the catacombs shook a bit, some rubble settling nearby. It made V grunt, pulling himself to his feet and gripping his cane. You immediately did the same, shaking off some dust and staring at him with concern. The way his tone sounded when he said that little quip was strange, and you couldn’t understand what he meant. Something like that. Maybe his father was absent, or maybe he didn’t know the guy at all? Both were pretty awful things to deal with, but there was something else there was well in his gaze. A... wistfulness. Regret. Reverence. It didn’t look like he was entirely without knowledge, like there was a joke in that comment you were missing. There was history here, something that you weren’t a part of.

But V didn’t seem in the mood to elaborate anymore. He gestured with his cane to you, starting forward again and leisurely brushing a bit of dust of his shoulder. You stifled a sigh, hurriedly following after and just tucking the question away for later. Quick as he opened up, closed just as quick. You told yourself that there was no need to push things, especially when opening up seemed hard for him to do already. Taking things easy, letting it come slow. The connection between you two was still a tender thing, but it still felt strong and steady. You doubted V let just anyone in or close, so that alone made you grateful to get those small bits of info. So, you bit your tongue, letting out a low huff and watching his back shift and move as he walked. There was always more time to talk, right? You weren’t going anywhere even when the god damn tree was gone. There were so many things to learn, so much to discover about each other.

Griffon seemed to sense your exasperation, letting out a light trill in your ear as he shook off some of your hair.

“Don’t mind Shakespeare, he’s a closed book,” He hissed lightly, just loud enough for you to hear, “Mommy dearest is a touchy subject. Shocked he even said anything.”

You sighed a bit, wrapping your fingers around his talons and squeezing a bit.

“Don’t worry, I’m patient,” You told him quietly, eyeing the poet with some fondness, “Besides, we’ve got plenty of time to figure things out.”

Griffon went quiet at that, which was pretty uncharacteristic of him. You blinked, that little anxious voice in the back of your head screaming to life in an instant. Something wasn’t right. But that didn’t make any sense, at least you hoped? Your Foresight was calm, swirling inside and not hinting at anything bad. But...something wasn’t adding up in your head. You stared at the bird from the Corner of your eye, but he still said nothing. There was something in his gaze—a meaningful stare, a nervous one. Like he wanted to tell you something, but couldn’t. And that only added to the foreboding feeling. There was no way the Deity wouldn’t inform you if something was wrong, that you were sure of. So, you tried to chalk it up to anxiety, maybe miscommunication? But you would be observant as always, on your toes and ready for anything.

There was still so much to do, and so much to focus on. Your group made it out of the catacombs within the hour, the earth still just as broken and desolate as you remembered it. Yikes, that tree looked even uglier the closer you got to it. Broken, shattered buildings were everywhere, the Qliphoth roots woven through out. Your Foresight was already warning you of demons in this area, and you could see some in the distance even as it swirled inside. That dome building was coming ever closer, giant, menacing thorn brambles plowing through it and meeting at a bundle of red, bulbous buds. Another thing to be destroyed. These demons were new too, gangling creatures with misshapen bodies and bulbous eyes attached to limbs. You winced at the sight of them, your Foresight curling into a burning ball in your chest and spider-webbing out in heavy pain. Yikes, those didn’t look fun.

V put his cane out to stop everyone, eyeing the creatures with a slightly bemused look as they continued their little dance. You saw his jade gaze traveling upwards, and followed with it. There, sticking out of the building.

Your eyes widened at what had to be the Devil Sword Sparda. A massive blade, woven with what looked to be demonic flesh with a long hilt. It was curved, glinting menacingly even in the grey light of the clouds. There was no mistaking that. It had “Devil Sword” written all over it, and it explained why the demons were acting sporadically. Dancing under the blade, like they were worshiping it. V’s words of Sparda being closer to a god seemed a lot more solid now, since these creatures certainly seemed to think so. You tried to get a feel for the energy of the blade, eyeing it with curiosity and wariness. The Void power swirled a bit when you did, definitely not liking your actions.

You couldn’t help but wonder if your Deity ever met Sparda? The man definitely liked meeting other higher beings, seeing how they reacted to him. But you doubted you could ever ask for that kind of information.

“Is that the sword?” You asked V for confirmation, crouching down behind a piece of debris while he leaned against the wall, “It definitely looks like a devil sword.”

“Sure fucking is,” Griffon hissed before V could open his mouth, eyes alight with interest as he eyed the hefty blade, “I’ll be damned. Flung all the way down the Qliphoth to here, landing nice and neat.”

V let out a low hum of agreement, gripping his cane tighter as he pushed off from the wall. You immediately blinked at his confident gait forward, ignoring all the danger with those eyes set on the prize. God damn it, not again. When he went into focused mode, there was no stopping him. You just hoped this time things wouldn’t turn out like the horseman incident; your heart definitely couldn’t take it. So, you stood as well, rushing to catch up with him and summoning the power of the Void. It burned in your lungs, releasing a cold cloud of icy breath into the air as your tendrils snuck into the ground around the creatures. You at least wanted to be somewhat tactical, if no one else was.

“You’re lucky you’re a pretty boy,” You muttered under your breath to V as he hopped up some rubble, eyeing the creatures with a bemused stare, “Because this reckless shit you do would usually earn you a spanking.”

That made his mouth quirk into a grin, the poet in good spirits now as he tilted that tantalizing gaze onto you, “Now now, Sparrow. Don’t make promises you won’t keep.”

That made you pop a brow up, steps faltering a bit as you stared at him, “Did you just admit a kink to me?”

“Guess you’ll have to find out,” He chuckled mischievously, “Let’s take that as motivation to not die, shall we?”

You were simply flabbergasted, blinking at him with a mixture of surprise and intrigue on your face. What could you even say to that?

Griffon flew by you, letting out an annoyed groan. You forgot he was there for a moment, but he most certainly heard that whole exchange. He threw you a disgusted look your way, rolling his eyes back into skull as he whooshed by you.

“Can you two can the flirting for five minutes so we can get the god damn sword?” He hissed, approaching the demons with Shadow prowling behind him.

You hated to say it. But Griffon was, once again, correct.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136193/chapters/43584827

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Tagged: @silentwhispofhope @nightshadow4713 @slightlylunatic @just-call-me-no-name @efiicitia @raven-huntress

#devil may cry v #devil may cry #dmc v #dmc5 #dmcv #V dmc #V x reader #v x self insert #fanfic #chapter 15 #Ebony and Ivory #Ebony and Ivory chapter 15

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neverwatchedonepiece · 6 years

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561-562: "A Massive Confused Fight! The Straw Hats vs. The New Fish Man Pirates!" and "Luffy Loses the Fight?! Hordy's Long Awaited Revenge!"

Show me on the doll where the humans hurt you, Hordy!

Oh, that cliffhanger.

That infuriating and awesome cliffhanger.

The plot’s getting juicy now. Hordy Jones has a secret identity! I’m guessing this is what you guys were referring to in the replies. The flashback Toei added of Hordy witnessing a kidnapping probably clashes with this big reveal that’s about to go down.

I really wanted to steam ahead and watch 563 but this is the best time to make some predictions, since I’ll probably get answers right away. At least, I’ll get some about Hordy. I have a feeling I’ll have to wait longer to find out what the deal is about Noah. Still won’t stop me making crackpot theories!

But before the main event...

Back at the Plaza

Ahhh... this is the Sanji I like to see. The guy who is proficient in all forms of roasting. You’ve got to admit, he gets some good lines. “You damned steamed bun bastard!” Who taught you to roast like that, Sanji? Do all chefs aspire to achieve Gordon Ramsey levels of withering put downs?

I suppose that’s what you get if you take Nami down with an accidental wind blast.

Well, that’s what you get from Sanji. What you get from Nami is repeatedly struck by lightning with her Black Ball trick. But it’s not a trick! She is not a magician. Definitely not. Her techniques are based on science. (Yet another reason to like Nami right there!)

Of course, Zeo, being the brains of the outfit noticed Nami is Sanji’s weak link. He teamed up with Ikaros (the squid guy) to ambush her. Zeo used his camoflage to grip Nami’s feet. When Ikaros came screaming up with a spear, she couldn’t move. She called for help.

Brook was closest. He stepped between Nami and the spear and took the hit.

There was an instant pantsu moment. This confused Ikaros. Whose side was this guy on? Oh, well. Best not worry. Get down to stabbing. Ikaros jabbed Brook several times with his desiccating spear. Incredibly, Ikaros wondered why his spear didn’t work on an Obvious Skeleton. (Maybe he should have taken some of those classes Otohime was running back in the day).

“I’m pretty dried up already,” Brook explained (if the skeletal features weren’t a big enough clue). “No, really, it’s a long story. About fifty years ago---”

Brook was so ready to tell his entire story to this random Fishman goon who wanted to kill him. Then Iron Franky stomped over and lamped Ikaros in the face. xD

Bemused, Brook looked around the battlefield. A fodder goon coughed politely. “Um, you should maybe watch your feet.”

He’d freaking stepped on Zeo’s face!

The best part? Zeo spun it as a TOTALLY DELIBERATE MOVE. “Ahaha, skeleton! How did you like taking a headbutt to the bottom of your foot? The pain should be with you momentarily.”

Brook, who was probably deeply confused by this point, reverted to politeness. “I’m sorry I stepped on your face!”

Honestly, Brook is hilarious. That whole scene was golden.

Honourable mention must also go to Usopp and Chopper’s teamwork against Daruma (I remembered his name!) and the Big Guy. Their battle experience really showed here. Usopp remembered fighting Mr 4 in Alabasta (the mole one who could dig). Together, they schemed to connect all the tunnels Daruma chewed out. Once Chopper was done, Usopp fired a massive bomb down the connected network and blew that little ratbag into the sky.

That was a good moment. I’ve always liked Usopp’s clever, tactical way of fighting.

Unfortunately, now they’re on the ropes, Hordy’s Head Goons reached for their Roids. I guess the tables will turn on the Strawhats for a while. You know, because a ship of apocalyptic scale falling on top of the island isn’t tense enough. xD

I’m Free.. Free Fallin’

After Hordy put Decken out of commission, Shirahoshi’s brothers finally realised that... hey, maybe swimming directly above the island wasn’t such a good idea. Not quite sure how they found out Hordy had speared Decken. I assume it happened on the deck and they saw the deed done.

Hordy gloated, as per. “Fishman Island will fall and I’ll make sure all your friends die, Strawhat!” Of course, what he should have been doing was watching everyone else. While he gloated, the brothers got the message to Shirahoshi. She swam off to the side. Hordy knew he’d screwed up, so he pursued her. Luffy tried to grab him, but his Devil Fruit powers weakened in water.

What Hordy also should have been doing was ensuring Decken was dead.

I’m still not convinced Decken is down. I’d actually like him to contribue to Hordy’s downfall. Not because I want to see him redeemed, or anything. Just because it would be more humiliating to Hordy.

At Least He’s Found Another Focus?

The good news, at least, is that Decken touched Hordy Jones with his left hand. Shirahoshi is still marked by his right hand. I hate admitting this but Decken could still do something to help save Fishman Island (or at least amend his own psychotic screw up).

“I’ll hunt you down to the ends of hell. I’ll drive you down physically and mentally. My axe! Hit Hordy!”

Unfortunately, said axe was too heavy. He couldn’t lift it and blacked out.

Useful. Thanks, Decken, you eternal screw-up.

Of course, Noah immediately began to fall. And what I did notice, even before I watched 562, was that Hordy laughed and yelled, “I WIN!!” Like, mate, you are about to destroy Fishman Island. What the hell are you about? He seemed more interested in himself and his own victories than in his vision of the future of Fishman Island.

There was some interesting comparisons to be made between the princes too. Mamboshi and Ryuboshi, upon realising Decken was down and the Noah would fall, said, “Fishman Island is finished!” They were ready to give up. But not Fukaboshi. “We have to stop this somehow! We must save Fishman Island and the Noah’s purpose that has been protected for hundreds of years. We must save the kingdom at any cost!”

Honestly, if there was an election, my vote would go to Fukaboshi. Or Shirahoshi. They’re both brave, determined and will fight to the bitter end.

The Neptune flashback was interesting. He told his sons about Noah. Apparently, centuries ago, a promise was made to a great man. The Noah was kept on the seafloor until “the appointed day comes”. The ship has not yet served its purpose. Neptune didn’t even know who they managed to make that ship. But it cannot be damaged until that day comes.

First: who is they? Ancient Fishmen, I’m guessing. Second: the great man. I wonder if it’s Joy Boy who was referred to in the poneglyph Robin found? Third: a promise was made to this great man. The poneglyph Robin found was an apology, wasn’t it? Maybe the ship was made as reparation. Forth: the purpose of the ship. What is it? (I still think it’s mass transportation.)

At any rate, Noah is Superrrr Important to Fishmen. Neptune made his sons promise to spare Noah. Luffy, however, isn’t willing to take that risk.

Hordy goaded Luffy. “Were you fooling yourself, Strawhat, when you said you’d protect your crew?”

“I’ll do it!” Luffy yelled. “I’ll break that ship into pieces before it hits!”

Fukaboshi did not like this plan. No, he said. Noah has a long history. Luffy didn’t understand. How could they save the island? Decken, Fukaboshi said. If they woke him up, he could alter Noah’s course. But what if Decken was dead? There was no time! As if to emphasise this, Hordy swam in for an attack. Luffy tanked a bite from his razor sharp jaws. (I actually liked that Luffy’s hardening haki wasn’t strong enough to defend against it. That means there’s something to improve on in future and Luffy isn’t all-powerful just yet!)

Fukaboshi told Luffy to wait. Little did I know, he had hatched a pretty clever plan.

+1 Fukaboshi for Fishman President

When he said he would save Fishman Island and Noah at any cost, he really meant it. He was willing to sacrifice himself to hand Luffy the opportunity to defeat Hordy Jones.

He’d contacted the Air Tank control (I love that that exists) and arranged for them to shoot a massive air bubble at Noah. Of course, it wouldn’t stop Noah falling. It would merely slow it’s progress (ah, the old classic slow fall to earth to give the good guys time to fight back). The exciting downside? They only have one shot, as a bubble that big will take all the air they have in reserve.

While buying time, Fukaboshi engaged Hordy Jones directly. He also asked the questions I wanted to ask, which was nice.

“Hordy, mate, you are making no sense! First, you wanted vengeance against humans for Fishmen, now you’re trying to take those fellow Fishmen’s lives along with the island. You even abandoned the ones you grew up with in Fishman District. Or is your hatred for humans so deep it made you lose your mind? What happened to you?” he yelled. “What did humans do to you?”

Hordy’s mouth stretched in a slow, creepy smile. He said something underwater (all I heard was “blort, blort”) then he stabbed Fukaboshi and tossed him aside like an old glove. Luffy coudn’t take that lying down. He snapped Hordy’s steel fin and punched him in the face. (Nice.)

Of course, Hordy’s pride is like a soft, squidgy little bunny rabbit. Fragile and easily startled. To remedy this, he necked another fistful of Fish Roids. At this point, I’m wondering if the Roids will destroy him before anything else. Is he not dangerously close to overdosing?

The DDM Fukaboshi had given Luffy rang. Air Tank control was ready. Fukaboshi, struggling but alive, also called him. “About Hordy Jones,” he croaked. “I found out who he really is.”

My jaw dropped. I actually WTF’d out loud. Then I grinned because, honestly, that is an excellent cliffhanger. I also have no idea who Hordy Jones really is. Is he an ex-slave of St Myosgard? Is he a descendant of a past royal family who is raging about something? Did he read the poneglyph and despise Joyboy for some reason? Did Joyboy do something to his family?

I honestly don’t know where to begin here. You guys reading the manga at the time must have had a great time coming up with theories. :D

This guy should be in politics. His spin is so tremendous it could knock the Earth out of orbit.

#one piece #neverwatchedonepiece #nwop #never watched one piece #fishman island #monkey d. luffy #hordy jones #fukaboshi #princess shirahoshi #captain vander decken #sanji #nami #usopp #tony tony chopper #franky #roronoa zoro #brook

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gumnut-logic · 5 years

Text

Gentle Rain (Part Three)

Title: Gentle Rain

Warm Rain Series

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Author: Gumnut

20-21 Jan 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Sometimes it is so gentle, you don’t realise it is happening.

Word count: 2522

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, OC, spoilers for Warm Rain up to this point in the timeline.

Timeline: Six months after ‘The Proposal’, almost a sequel.

Author’s note: This is for @scribbles97 . Thank you to all my wonderful readers and supporters who continue to help me create more and more stories. I’m having the time of my life, you guys are wonderful :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

“Doctor Harris..uh...”

His face had shuttered the moment he realised he wasn’t alone and she oddly missed the openness he had displayed while speaking with his brother. He had very expressive eyes and they had said so much about the relationship between the two men.

Her voice was quiet. “I apologise for intruding on your privacy, Mr Tracy.” She swallowed. “Please make sure you continue to follow the diet your doctor has supplied you with. Your body needs the nutrients.” She should obviously back out of what was turning out to be an embarrassing situation for the both of them. She hardly knew this man or his brother, and she had just witnessed a very private conversation. Kayo had been willing to allow her to contact him to check on his recovery. She doubted she would approve of such an invasion of privacy.

“Scott.” He was sitting up a little straighter. “Call me Scott.”

She blinked. “Em.”

And another odd silence descended.

He was hard to read. Before, when Virgil had been in the room, his eyes had said everything. From anger to frustration to fondness. The men had argued, but there had been depth to that argument. They had understood each other perfectly. The darker haired brother so obviously sincere when he offered Scott whatever he could provide and the layers of meaning in Scott’s apology spoke of a long history of such arguments..

Now, the man may as well have been Vulcan. Every movement of his face was considered, every wrinkle precisely aimed. The smile was gone, and in its stead lay a controlled calm.

This wasn’t Scott Tracy. This was the Commander of International Rescue.

Well, she could handle that.

“I just wanted to check on your progress. Make sure you hadn’t undone any of my hard work.”

“Well, be reassured, Doctor, I’m back in one piece and well on the way to recovery.”

Her title rather than her name. He was formalising, attempting to push her away from things she should never have seen. She should respect that.

She should.

“How long ago was Virgil injured?”

That shook him. “Why do you ask?”

“He’s favouring his right side.”

His eyes widened, his concern directing immediately to his brother. “Six months.”

“Severity?”

“Severe.” Reluctant to reveal details, of course. Didn’t matter, she could make a good guess just by observing the man.

“How many ribs broken?”

Those blue eyes narrowed. “Almost all down his right side.”

She winced internally. Bloody hell. “Has he had any follow up recently?”

“He should have. I’ll speak to him.”

With that expression on his face, she had no doubt he would. She may find herself apologising to Virgil in the near future. “Make sure he gets checked out. The ribs could still be vulnerable to strain depending on the original injury.” Hell, the man had been shifting brickwork while strapped into a metal skeleton. She would check him out herself if she got the chance.

“Thank you.” And his eyes were suddenly open to her. “For everything. I have no doubt, I could have died in that hole if you hadn’t been there.”

She smiled just slightly at him. “I was just returning the favour.”

He frowned. “Have you been rescued before?”

She had to admit the question took her off guard and she was forced to look away for just a second. “Uh, no, no I haven’t. I was referring to the world at large. We all owe you and your brothers more than we can ever repay.”

It was his turn to look away and, to her surprise, he even flushed a little. “Someone needs to do it.”

“Yes, but you stepped up.”

“It was our father’s project.”

Yes, everyone knew about the great Jeff Tracy. “But it is you and your brothers who are on the front line.”

“As I said, someone has to do it.” He took in a breath and tilted his head. “Enough about me, you obviously know a great deal already, yet I know very little about you.”

Well, she guessed she had asked for that. “What would you like to know?”

He shrugged. “Where are you from?”

“I’m Australian. Grew up south of here, in Margaret River. You?”

“Kansas. And various other places.” He raised an eyebrow. “Occupation?”

“Doctor, but you knew that. Speciality, orthopaedic surgery.” And she saw the light bulb click above his head. “And yes, that is why I noticed your brother’s injury.” She smiled. “And you?”

“Pilot.” She saw it in his eyes. “And rescue operative, with a little Air Force on the side.”

“You make it sound like fast food.”

To her surprise, he grinned. “Oh, it’s fast alright.”

“I gather you like things that go fast?”

“The faster the better.”

“Uh-huh. Is a Lachie Dart fast enough for you?”

“An L-Dart? Oh, I got my hands on one of those back in training. Smart little craft.” He frowned. “You flown?”

She snorted. “Uh, no, my Dad was in the Australian Air Force. He was the Leader of a squadron of L-Darts. Loved them and let us know repeatedly. Made for a plane filled childhood.”

“I can relate to that. Though on top of the planes came space.” She saw his mind drift back, his expression kind of sad.

“So you come by it honestly?”

“Oh, yes.” The sadness was hovering, but he appeared to shake himself. “What about you? Brothers? Sisters?”

She hesitated. “No, just me.” She didn’t want to go there and definitely not with this man.

His frown returned. “No one at all?” The concept appeared completely foreign to him.

“Oh, I have an uncle in the States, but I haven’t seen him for years.” She shrugged. “I have myself and my friends. I’m happy.”

“That is good to hear.” He suddenly frowned. “Why are you still in the hospital?” And he was obviously trying to think back. “What exactly were your injuries?”

Off screen she clenched a fist. “There were a few complications, but I’m fine.” She was fine, really.

He stared at her as if trying to pry the information from her expression. She held her ground. She did not want to face his pity or his horror at what had happened to her. It had been her choice, not his.

It was obvious he knew she wasn’t telling him something. “If there is anything I can do, let me know.” He paused, his eyes intensely blue. “I owe you one.”

There was no answer to that. The man was a billionaire, but she wouldn’t ask him for anything. Except...

“Okay, I’ll ask you for one thing.”

His eyes widened as if he hadn’t expected her to take him up on it so readily. “What?”

“You get bored here, you ping me.”

His eyes narrowed.

She sighed. Being a celebrity must suck big time. “I’m not looking for your secrets. I’m not going to sell you out to the press. Get Kayo to check me out, I promise. You can have my credit card to hold for ransom, if you like. I just want to make sure you are okay. And besides, you’re not the only bored person in this hospital. I can only read so much, and the holoreception here is clunky.”

Those blue eyes looked away for a moment considering. They flashed back at her. “Agreed.”

She smiled just a little. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you.” A pause. “And I hope you get well soon.” Still suspicious.

“I’m planning on it.” She had the irrational urge to reach out and touch his face. “Now rest, Scott.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Doctor.”

“It’s Em. Or I will start calling you Commander.”

“Yes, Em.”

She smirked. “Now you’re talking. Rest. I’ll speak to you soon.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I have no doubt that the moment you wake up next, boredom will set in immediately.”

“You don’t know me that well.”

“I don’t have to. You are predictable.”

“What?”

She laughed. “Go and rest. I’ve got a nurse nagging me. Speak to you soon.” The expression on his face was worth the risk of never speaking to him again as she cut the signal. The blank screen left an empty space.

She looked up at Kayo. “Thank you so much for allowing this.”

A hand landed gently on her upper arm. “Not a problem.” She appeared thoughtful. “Now tell me more about Virgil favouring his right side.”

-o-o-o-

Virgil threw himself into the elevator and leant against the wall. It took him a moment to realise that, yes, he had to press a button to make the machinery move. A sigh and he hit the residential level button with a thump.

Mountain rescues were unnerving. This hadn’t been the first one since his accident, but it had been at a similar height with similar land features, and he had spent the entire mission expecting the mountain to fall on him.

He screwed his eyes shut and let his head drop back against the metal wall as the elevator rose. He was aching again. Everything had healed, but it continued to remind him that yes, he had ripped his side open and done some serious damage and no, he wasn’t completely one hundred percent and probably never would be again.

He hated it. It cramped his style.

The car slid to a smooth stop and the engineer in the back of his mind admired Brains’ design as he always did.

The doors slid open to reveal Kayo standing with her hands on her hips. She was still wearing that summer dress he so adored. The material hugged her figure in just the right places, soft and feminine. God, she was so beautiful.

And she was frowning.

Uh oh.

“What have I done?” His tired mind tried to flip back through recent events, landed in snow and got stuck. “No, actually, don’t tell me yet. I need a shower first.” He pushed himself off the wall and held back a groan.

“How long has it been hurting?”

He froze. “What?”

“Your injury.”

He let his shoulders sag. “Never stopped.” A sigh. “It’s fine. I can handle it.” He forced himself to straighten and moved to step past her.

Her hand on his chest stopped him, her left hand reaching up to cup his cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Despite himself, he leant into her touch. “It’s nothing, love, I promise. A little ache is all.”

The hand on his chest slipped under the right side of his rib cage and pressed.

He flinched away with an indrawn breath.

Damn.

“Tell me that again, Virgil.”

He closed his eyes. “Okay, perhaps I over did it in Perth.”

“Uh huh.”

“What was I supposed to do. You were under a building. Scott was under a building. I-“ He stopped. “Can I have my shower now?”

She stood up on her toes and kissed him fully on his lips, her arms going around his neck and drawing him in close. He went willingly. “You can, but I’m coming with you.”

He hummed approval, kissing the corner of her mouth, her cheekbone and her mouth yet again.

“But don’t get your hopes up. I’m planning to examine exactly what you’ve done to yourself and then you’re going to sleep.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Perhaps he could persuade her otherwise. But another twinge from his side had him sagging again. Who was he kidding?

Her hand brushed his cheek again. “C’mon, love.” She took his hand and led him to their rooms. She stood over him as he shed his uniform, and ran the shower to the perfect temperature. She frowned as her eyes caught sight of his rib cage, but she didn’t say anything further, simply pushing him gently towards the spray.

She left him there and honestly he was grateful, closing his eyes and letting the warmth soak into him. Soap and a clean, shampoo in his hair, the warmth seeping into his bones, his tired muscles. He let himself lean against the tiles and closed his eyes. Take the moment.

Snow rained around him and he flinched.

Damn.

He shoved his face in the spray, rubbed his eyes and turned off the water.

Kay was standing with his towel.

God, she knew how to be silent.

Cotton was wrapped around him and she dried him off, gently against his injured side.

The injury was still a road map of red lines and smudges all down his ribcage. The scar tissue pulled and was thick in places where he had re-injured the road rash from years before. His skin had not been forgiving with the second injury. It puckered and it pained, but he had grown used to it, figuring that it was the price he had to pay for surviving.

Her fingers traced over the lines, passing over numb spots where the nerves had been destroyed only to tingle where they were still active. He shivered.

She lifted his arm up and examined the lines on its underside. Seeing it all in the stark bathroom light impressed him as to how much of a mess he had made of himself and the unsightliness of the result. Her green eyes were intense as she stared at his scars. A sudden sense of shame washed over him.

But Kay was sensitive to his mood and looked up at him, frowning. “What?”

“Nothing.”

The frown deepened.

So he leant down and kissed it away. “I’m okay.”

Her hand landed on his left shoulder and gently pushed him back upright. “No, you are not. Why didn’t you tell me?” And there was the crux of the matter, he hadn’t shared important information with her.

“I didn’t think it was important.”

Okay, wrong thing to say. “My god, Virgil, in what possible way could your health not be important?”

“I didn’t think it was anything worth worrying about.”

She turned her back on him, flinging her hands into the air. “Oh, for the love of-“ She cut herself off, her shoulders stilling for a moment. He suddenly both wished he could see her face, and was glad he could not.

When she did turn around her expression was once again calm. “I will arrange for you to see a specialist in the morning. Tonight, you will go to bed and rest. No rescues.” She held up her hand as he opened his mouth. “God damn it, Virgil, if I have to wake up Scott to make it an order, I’m going to let him rain hell down on you for not telling him about this, too. Then you can feel guilty for stressing him out while he is injured.”

He shut his mouth.

So much for not important.

And then she was drawing him into a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair. “I’m sorry.” The words fell out of his mouth, even though he knew her response.

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it again.” Her voice was muffled up against his chest, her breath warm on his skin. He closed his eyes.

-o-o-o-

End Part Three

Part Four

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #virgil tracy #scott tracy #virgil/kayo #kayo kyrano #original character #warm rain

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