#after this so that my communications system doesn’t look like a nightmare. I have an extremely clown car circus set up rn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darthkruge · 3 years

Note

hello lovely!! i’ve been getting back into star wars lately and i’ve been loving your fics!! and i was wondering if i could make a request?? sort of like,, anakin but he doesn’t turn to the dark side type thing?? like he maybe confesses he’s scared to lose you and you help him through it?? maybe obi wan helps out?? honestly you can take it however you want :)) ty ty

anakin skywalker x reader || rewritten

summary || a rots fix it fic where i take many liberties and give anakin a support system + everyone gets better communication and we think about how it would perhaps end differently

warnings || hella canon divergence, angst w/ a happy ending, some violence (non graphic and not super described)

words || 5.1k (i am legit shocked)

a/n || hello and thank you!! i’m so glad you’ve been loving my fics! this fic was honestly super challenging for me and it ended up being the longest thing i’ve ever written. i made some big changes and lots of smaller ones, but each one was fully intentional. i really, really hope y’all like it <3

main masterlist || anakin masterlist

gif credit

-----

Anakin awoke with a start, chest heaving and covered in sweat. He was gripping the blankets as he tried to ground himself, frantically looking around as if to discern between reality and the horrid dreamscape his mind created. He whipped his head to the side, visibly relaxing as he saw you staring up at him, a confused look on your face.

You were no stranger to Anakin’s nightmares but this one seemed unlike any he’d ever had. You slept curled into him and, thus, his jolt caused one of your own. Unsure if he wanted your touch just yet, you reached out to him with the Force. Panic, loss, grief, fear, terror, insecurity. You looked into his eyes, watching as they slowly cleared and he registered your presence. He blinked quickly, trying to clear the tears from his vision and gave you a slight nod.

Reaching a tentative hand to his shoulder, you suppressed a gasp as you felt him shudder beneath you. You quietly whispered his name and placed a finger under his jaw, guiding his face to yours. You nodded back at him and opened your arms in silent invitation. He crawled into your embrace as you pulled him impossibly close to you, situating yourself against the headboard so you could better wrap yourself around his shaking body. Choked sobs erupted from his lips, each one tearing a hole in your heart. As he finally let himself cry with his face buried into your neck, you held him. By the Maker, you held him.

He didn’t want to speak just yet and you understood. You’ve always extended the same respect back to him as he gives to you. Tucked into you, Anakin’s fingers squeezed into your flesh, as if trying to remind himself you were solid. You placed a few kisses into his soft hair and onto his forehead, hands running up and down his arms and back. You physically pressed reminders of your love into his skin for hours and, somewhere in the midst of your embrace, he let himself fall into a state of limbo. Unawake, unasleep, umoving, yet feeling everything you had to offer.

----

When morning came, you reached out once again. The emotions from last night were still evident, just not as strong. Simultaneously, you allowed a small smile to come to you as you felt something new. Warmth, comfort, love. You ran your fingers through Anakin’s hair to pull him to consciousness, needing to see his eyes. Stars, his eyes. While they were absolutely gorgeous, they also always gave him away. You once told him that. “Only for you, my love.” He’d replied.

“Hi.” He croaked out, meeting your gaze. Your eyes fluttered closed for a second as you took a deep breath in relief. His eyes were clear. You didn’t know how long the shadows would be banished for, but as long as they weren’t constant, you had hope.

“Hi, baby.” You whispered, allowing yourself to give him another forehead kiss, made easy by your position that you’d somehow remained in throughout the night. You looked at him expectantly and knew he knew what you were asking.

“You… you died,” Anakin started. His eyes were already filling with tears. “It wasn’t clear. There was so much blood. And you kept begging me to help you. You screamed and screamed and screamed and you were in agony and…”

You took his hand in yours, squeezing his fingers in encouragement to go on.

“I never- I never came for you.” He spit the words out as if they were venomous and shook his head. You could hear the self-hatred in his words, the way he couldn’t grasp the concept of hurting you, ever, and yet how seriously he took this.

“Hey, hey. Stop, my love.” You said, hoping to pull him out of his spiral. “You would never harm me, Anakin. You would come for me, you always have. That was a horrible dream and I’m so sorry you had to experience it. But it was just a dream, Anakin. It’s not real.”

He pulled away from you as if he couldn’t stand to feel your gentle touch. “No, no, no! It-” His words were cut off by his uneven breathing, his pulse racing as he relived the nightmare. “It felt like the ones I had about my mother. It felt… prophetic. I’m scared, Y/N, I can’t lose you.”

You walked over to him, placing your hands on his cheeks and rubbing your thumbs over his cheekbones, hoping to calm him. “You won’t. It takes a lot to kill me, you know? Especially when I have you by my side.”

Anakin nodded but you could tell he was unconvinced.

“How about you talk to Obi-Wan about the dreams? He’s always helped you before.” You suggested.

While normally this would be unthinkable, as it would expose your relationship, Anakin felt himself pulled toward the choice. Inwardly, he admitted that he could definitely use a friend right now. And Obi-Wan had always stood by him. Somehow, he just knew that now would be no different.

------

Obi-Wan easily swung the door open with the Force before Anakin even had a chance to knock. He knew his former Padawan’s force signature like the back of his hand and had sensed his distress for days. Unbeknownst to Anakin, Obi-Wan had canceled his missions due to this, wanting to stay close for when Anakin eventually came to him for guidance.

Obi-Wan looked up from his paperwork as he realized Anakin refused to come closer. Huddled behind the door frame, a conflicted and fearful look on his face, Obi-Wan was struck by how similar Anakin looked to the little boy he’d found on Tatooine all those years ago. Many nights, young Anakin would come into Obi-Wan’s room, plagued with nightmares. Just as before, Obi-Wan never turned him away.

“Something’s troubling you.”

Anakin sighed, taking a tentative step forward. “You know Master L/N?”

Obi-Wan smiled knowingly, having a sense of where this is going. “Yes, of course. A brilliant strategist, much like yourself.”

“I…. I’m involved with them, Master.”

“Involved?” Obi-Wan replied, with a quirked eyebrow.

“Please don’t punish Y/N for this, I know the Council frowns upon relationships. If you need to report it, I understand. But just report me, say they had nothing to do with it. But before you do anything please, Master, listen to what I must tell you. I wouldn’t unless it was absolutely necessary.” Anakin pleaded.

“Anakin, I know.”

“Yeah, I mean it truly is necessary-”

Obi-Wan placed a comforting hand on the younger Jedi’s shoulder. “You misunderstand. I mean, I know.”

Anakin’s eyes widened with realization before confusion filtered into his gaze. “But we were so careful!”

“Not as much as you would think,” Obi-Wan said with a slight laugh.

“And you’re not upset?”

He sighed. “Being honest, I was a bit at first. Anakin, you know the rules and you can be so reckless at times! But how could I fault you for your own humanity? And I knew who you were when I met you. I was always aware of your compassion, your capacity for emotions.” Anakin nodded and smiled, but the faraway look in his eye never wavered.

Clearing his voice, Obi-Wan continued. “Are you alright, Anakin?”

“No.” The strength of the word shocked them both and caused Anakin to take a moment to compose himself. “They’re dying.”

Panic flashed through Obi-Wan’s expression. “They’re what? What happened? Was it a mission? Do the medics know? Is-”

“- No, nothing… nothing yet. But it will.” While Obi-Wan didn’t exactly understand, he could tell through Anakin’s tone that his former Padawan believed this with his entire soul.

“I’ve been having more nightmares.” Anakin said.

“Like the ones with your mother?”

Anakin nodded, his gaze muddled as his mind wove through every possibility on how to save you. Coming up with none, he looked up quickly, the lost confusion clear.

“It’s going to be alright, Anakin. We’re going to do this together.” Obi-Wan offered, trying to comfort his friend. When Anakin nodded this time, his expression had more hope in it. Obi-Wan returned the gesture, tipping his head as Anakin walked out. Before Anakin reached the door, Obi-Wan called his name.

“Talk to me if you feel troubled. About anything, my friend. And just know… it’s okay to feel afraid. And you’re no less a Jedi because you love them. At least, not in my eyes.” For the first time since he’d walked in the room, Anakin gave a true smile. His former Master inhaled deeply, realizing after hearing those words, Anakin looked more like himself than he had in a long while.

-----

A few hours and a Council meeting later, Anakin walked back into your chambers, closing the door with a huff. He wasn’t enraged, per se, but definitely conflicted. You approached him cautiously, heart falling when you saw those familiar clouds back in his eyes.

“Did Obi-Wan not take it well?”

Anakin shook his head. “It’s not… he was supportive. But the Council has assigned something to me and…” He trailed off and looked at you. Only then did you see his bloodshot, puffy eyes.

“What did they ask of you, Anakin?” You questioned, coming behind him to gently massage his tense shoulders.

“I’m needed to spy on the Chancellor. Apparently there’s a Sith Lord somewhere in the Order. They suspect him.” He tried to keep his voice strong, but you could see how torn apart he was by the inflection in his tone.

You took a breath and tried to process the information. “Will you do it?”

“I don’t know… if the Council tells me I must, then I must. But the Chancellor has only been good to me. I worry about betraying him but I don’t want to let down the Order. I’m not sure how to do this without causing someone harm.” He confessed.

“They shouldn’t have put you in this position, it’s unfair. And you don’t have to, Ani. I know it feels like you do but you don’t need to bend to each of the Council’s requests. Whatever the fallout, whatever you choose, please know that I’m with you. And so is Obi-Wan. Not that it fixes anything, but at the very least, you’ll always have us.”

Anakin turned around so he was facing you. “I don’t know what to do.” He whispered, voice laced with hopelessness.

“Trust yourself. You have a good heart, intelligence, and strong morals. They’ve never failed you before.”

He nodded before leaning into you and your arms instinctively wrapped around him. Your fingertips found their way to his hair, gently weaving through the golden strands.

“We’ll get through this, yeah?” While it was a question, you both knew you meant it as a statement.

“We’ll get through this.” Anakin echoed. He mumbled the words into your neck where he had buried his face. As if the words could seep into your skin. As if the hope could find its way to your heart and stay there, ever protected, ever true.

-----

The next day, Anakin found himself in Palpatine’s office. He was wary, guarded. It was evident by the look on his eyes, the way he took a moment before taking another step. It was his training as both a Jedi and a General that allowed him to do this. The careful complexity of planning every move.

“I heard the Council debating whether or not they should have made you a Master. It seems they do not trust you or value your talent as they should.” Palpatine’s words made Anakin freeze. Rationally, he knew this was wrong. At the very least, Obi-Wan trusts him and so do you. But there was a part of him that felt so validated by the Chancellor’s words that he wanted to hear more. To bask in them, in feeling wanted and appreciated. He hated himself for it.

“I… I’m not sure what you mean by this.” Anakin attempted not to give himself away any more than he already has.

“Well, they care about your potential. But they hold you back. They’ll never show you your true power, for they don’t want you to understand. They just wish to use it, no matter your own fate.”

“I feel cast aside. Like I don’t matter.” Anakin wasn’t even sure why he shared these words. Somehow, in feeling so praised, the doubts just bubbled their way to the surface. He felt like a child in these moments, so painfully fragile.

“You don’t. Not to them, Anakin. But with me I can teach you your power. I can teach you the ways of the Dark Side. I know of your fears, of those nightmares that plague you. I know about your secret marriage and how close you are to losing it all.”

Anakin froze, his heart hammering in his chest. His thoughts raced as he tried to piece together the truth from all the lies. The mentions of Darth Plagueis. The Dark Side of the Force.

“You’re the Sith Lord!” Anakin said, igniting his lightsaber and pointing it at the older man’s chest.

Palpatine bowed his head slightly, a small smile gracing his lips. “Well done, my boy.” Anakin felt sick as he noted the pride in his tone. And yet that aching part inside him still swelled, ever so slightly.

“Now, don’t do anything rash.” The Chancellor reasoned. “Only the Dark Side can save the one you love.”

Anakin wanted to do the right thing. He wished to be the one who could stand up and arrest Palpatine without a single ounce of guilt or regret. But as soon as Palpatine mentioned you, it’s like all his logic disappeared. He just wanted to save you, to not fail you as he’d failed his mother. But then he thought back to your words. “Strong morals.” And to his Master’s. “We’ll do this together.”

“I’m turning you into the Council.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer to kill me?”

“Yes.” Anakin’s remark was forceful and clipped with anger.

“Then do it. Give yourself over to your wrath.”

He felt himself burning with betrayal, with resentment toward both sides. Even so, he could still tell right from wrong, selfless from selfish. And whatever Palpatine was doing… it certainly did not have the will of the people in mind. Without so much as deigning him with another response, Anakin turned and walked out of the room.

“If you turn me in, you’ll never save them!” Anakin tried to will Palpatine’s voice out of his head as he ventured back to the Council chambers. When he arrived back, he decided to slightly alter his plans. While he knew he must face all of them eventually, he wanted to talk to Obi-Wan first. Perhaps his Master could give him guidance, like he did about your nightmares.

“General Skywalker… are you alright?” Anakin stumbled as he walked right into another figure, too caught up in his own head.

“I’m fine, Master Windu. Thank you- I’m sorry.” Mace looked at the younger Jedi with an unreadable expression. While there was much in his eyes, concern was definitely a part of it.

“Have you seen Master Kenobi?” Anakin said after a brief pause for composure.

“He’s supposed to leave for his next mission any moment now. If you hurry, you can probably still catch him.”

Anakin thanked Master Windu before taking off in a run. No matter how fast his legs carried him, he felt his mind was working even faster, the internal conflict brewing more intently by the second.

-----

Obi-Wan opened the door as soon as before Anakin could even knock. He looked at Anakin and gestured at a vacant chair, a silent invitation to sit. Anakin shook his head quickly. The younger Jedi’s eyes were scattered and conflicted, as if he’d been shaken to his very core.

“Palpatine is the Sith Lord.” The words came out rushed, yet clear. As if Anakin needed to get them out as quickly as he could but replayed them in his head until they were all he knew. The intensity showed Obi-Wan that there was no doubt in his friend’s mind.

Obi-Wan blinked. “Okay.” He stroked his beard, trying to find the words to say. “Are you alright?”

Anakin looked at Obi-Wan in confusion. Certainly there were more important questions his former Master would want to ask than that.

“I know you and the Chancellor were close. This can’t be easy for you. I just wanted to ask if you were alright.”

“I’m not sure.” Anakin said after some hesitation. “I don’t really know what to think… Palpatine is evil, right? But he believed in me when no one else did. He saw my potential, allowed me to confide in him. He told me he could show me how to save Y/N. Would someone evil do that?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes softened as he looked at the painfully conflicted young man in front of him. “Anakin… he was manipulating you. He was isolating you so you had no one to turn to but him. It was a tactic, a ploy. He doesn’t care for you.” Anakin looked so heartbroken that Obi-Wan knew Anakin believed him. “I’m so sorry.”

“But what about Y/N?” Anakin asked desperately.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Loving someone in the Order isn’t easy. Especially after everything you’ve gone through. And losing someone… it changes the way you love. You fear constantly, wondering when your love will evade you. When it will fall apart, like all the rest. But living like that, loving like that… it leaves no room for growth or peace. And that’s what relationships are for, aren’t they?” His voice was filled with compassion and wisdom. From experience, perhaps? Regardless of the reason, Anakin was reminded that someone did understand him. Despite the circumstances, he felt content. At least a bit.

“Is there any way to save them?”

“I’m not sure. Let’s focus on Palpatine for now, alright? And we’ll bring Master L/N with us so you know they’re safe.” Obi-Wan wished nothing more than having a set solution to save Y/N. But some things were even out of his grasp. “I know this must be impossible for you, Anakin. I truly am sorry.”

Anakin nodded. After all, it was true. If there was anything to describe the impending threat of losing another person he loved, impossible summed up the process. “I know. You’re doing all you can. Thank you, Master. And yes, I would like to bring them with us.”

Obi-Wan clasped a hand to Anakin’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze as they met each other with a smile. “I’ll send them a message right now.”

----

You gasped when you received Obi-Wan’s message with the details of the Supreme Chancellor’s truth. Your heart cried for Anakin, knowing the betrayal must be breaking him. All you could do was wish that with Obi-Wan’s help, the two of you could support Anakin until he felt like he could breathe again. And you had faith in him. You always had faith in him.

Grabbing your cloak, you jogged to Obi-Wan’s quarters. As soon as you opened the door, you ran to Anakin and hugged him to you, needing to feel his presence. Somehow, you knew he needed it, too.

“Ready?” Anakin and Obi-Wan gave you nods of confirmation and you gave a tentative smile. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

-----

Anakin entered Palpatine’s chambers first. For once, he felt sure of himself. He finally knew what he had to do. His gaze shifted to you, making sure you were alright. You placed a hand on his arm, rubbing your thumb up and down to reassure him. He inhaled. Exhaled. And ignited his saber.

“I knew you’d come back, Skywalker. I knew you’d join me.”

“Think again.” Obi-Wan responded as you and him walked into the chambers. Pure, unfiltered rage flickered through Palpatine’s eyes in response.

“Anakin, they’re trying to corrupt you. They’re trying to keep your power. Come with me, boy, and I’ll teach you all you wish to know. I’ll teach you how to save them.” He said, pointing a pale finger toward your face.

You let out a sharp breath as you suddenly understood Anakin’s conflict. Of course Palpatine was using you as a bargaining chip. Using Anakin’s fear of abandonment, of losing his loved ones against him. It was disgusting, even for a Sith.

“I… you can’t possibly know how to do that. It’s impossible!”

“Not on the Dark Side. Look… Obi-Wan has turned them against you. He’s the cause of this! I’m sure he didn’t even pose a solution to saving Y/N. It’s because he doesn’t care about you, not like I do.”

The shadows returned to Anakin’s eyes as his gaze switched between Obi-Wan and Palpatine. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at you, to see the pain in your eyes as he struggled with a choice that for others would be so simple. He hated himself for being weak but he truly couldn’t fathom losing you.

Obi-Wan stepped forward, backing Palpatine against the wall and pointing his lightsaber at Palpatine’s throat. Anakin stepped back, too frozen to move, and unconsciously placed himself between them and you.

“It’s over, Chancellor. Don’t make this more difficult than it already is.” Obi-Wan said.

Palpatine shot lightning from his hands, causing Obi-Wan to deflect the matter with his lightsaber, redirecting it to Palpatine himself. As Palpatine shook from the force of his own blast, he once again called to Anakin.

“If you let him kill me, dear boy, Y/N will die. If you don’t try to save them, you will be the cause of their death.”

Anakin’s eyes widened, those words hitting him right in the chest. He moved forward, pointing his lightsaber at Obi-Wan but refusing to make the final cut to end his life. Obi-Wan looked like he wanted to speak but the effort of holding of Palpatine’s lightning rendered him useless. It was Obi-Wan, after all. His former Master, his friend. The one person who he trusted with the secret of his marriage. He couldn’t kill him, right? He faltered, stepping slightly back.

“Ani,” You said, your voice calm as you tried to reason with him. “Ani if you do this, you can’t come back from it. I know you don’t want to lose me and if you kill Obi-Wan, you will, regardless of the fate of my life. You aren’t too far gone, yet. You haven’t done anything irredeemable. Remember who you are, my love.”

Anakin heard your words and looked at your face. You. He wanted to do good by you, to do good by all of them. He wanted to make his mother proud, make himself feel like leaving her for the Jedi Order meant something. And then his gaze filtered over to his friend. Obi-Wan stood tall against the force of Palpatine’s lightning, reminding Anakin of his friend’s strength. It was something Anakin wanted to emulate, too.

Understanding his choice, Anakin took a step forward to position the blade toward Palpatine’s chest. His hand was shaking, movements unsure, eyes glossed over with immeasurable pain. But before he could make contact, you swiftly moved in front of him and killed Palpatine instead. Obi-Wan was thrust backward as the lightning ceased, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

“Why would you do that?” Anakin asked as he looked at you.

“I didn’t want you to have to kill your friend. No matter what he turned out to be.” You said as you shifted on the balls of your feet. The weight of Palpatine’s death now weighed on your soul, as do those of every life you’ve ever ended. You could bear it and you knew Anakin was strong enough to do so, as well. You just didn’t want him to have to.

Anakin nodded and whispered a thank you back to you. You just smiled, the love for him clear in your expression. Anakin turned around, walking to his friend and extending a hand for him.

“I never doubted you.” Obi-Wan said simply as he met Anakin’s guilty eyes.

“I should have made the choice to believe you earlier. I shouldn’t have let him get to me. I’m sorry, Master.”

“Look at me, Anakin. We all struggle with our morals. We struggle and we’re unsure and we pray and hope to land on the right decision. And you did. You have nothing to apologize for.” Looking at your and Anakin’s arms around each other, Obi-Wan made one last decision. “How about the two of you retire for the evening? I’ll debrief with the Council, you’ve been through enough.”

Once again, Anakin was struck by the older Jedi’s strength and selflessness. He nodded, as did you, before he accompanied you back to your quarters.

----

You kept one arm around Anakin’s waist the entire way home, mirroring his that was around your shoulders. You couldn’t bear to separate, not after the events of the past few days. Seeing Anakin so torn up inside, it was eating away at you. Knowing you couldn’t save him was one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to deal with.

Now, Palpatine was finally gone. There was no more threat to the Jedi Order, the Force once again balanced. But both of you still understood the one solution that hadn't been found: how to save you. It made everything easier, that you chose to kill the Chancellor. Anakin refused to voice the doubts in his head, wondering if he actually would have gone through with it knowing he would lose his chance at saving you.

The air was melancholic surrounding you both. Heavy. Neither of you knew what to say, words failing in a moment that was so conflicted it almost overwhelmed you. But your heart warmed as you saw Anakin scamper in front of you to open and hold the door for you. You loved him so much, for doing the little things even in moments like these. It gave you hope.

You were okay with death, so long as it only affected you. When you joined the Jedi, you had to make your peace with it. But after you fell in love everything changed. You didn’t want Anakin to go through the pain of losing you. He’d been so open with you about, well, everything. Especially his past. He’d gone through so much, felt such raw pain and loss, you didn’t want to add to that.

Taking his hands in yours, you looked into his blue eyes.

“I don’t want you to die.” He whispered, the desperate, deflated tone making your heart break. “I won’t.” You wished to say, but you knew you couldn’t.

“I don’t want to die, either.” You chose these words instead, relying on their honesty.

“Palpatine could have saved you.” Anakin said after a beat.

You sighed. “You don’t know that.” You stated, knowing it wouldn’t change how he felt.

“Neither do you!”

“But at what cost? At the cost of losing your soul? Anakin, you would have had to join the Sith! That’s no longer you! You’re good and you couldn’t have saved me if you were there, don’t you see that?” You pleaded. You wished he would see your logic, the truth behind your words. How even though he thought otherwise, he made the right decision.

“What good is saving the Order if you won’t be a part of it?”

“What good is saving my life if I wouldn’t have you to live it with?” You countered.

Anakin let out an exhausted breath before pulling you into him, hugging you. The fighting was too much and, frankly, he didn’t want to argue. Not with you, not ever. You both let out a humorless chuckle as you leaned into each other.

“I love you.” His tone conveyed it all.

“I love you.” You replied, your voice muffled from being pressed into his robes.

“Can we sleep? I don’t want to face this right now. Can we just put this aside, if just for a moment? Can I lay with you and can you hold me and can we just have each other?” You questioned breathlessly.

“I would like nothing more, my love.” He smiled slightly and pressed a kiss to your head as he added the words of endearment, wanting you to understand he wasn’t upset with you. You already knew that, though. You were in love with Anakin Skywalker. Of course you’d argue from time to time. But at the end of the day, you were two hopelessly in love Jedi just trying to save each other.

Crawling into bed, sleep came for the both of you quickly. You were holding him and he was holding you, tangled together as you nestled his warm embrace. He tucked his face into your neck as you did so and savored the feel of you next to him. Safe.

Drifting off, Anakin tried to fight the pull of sleep, knowing he’d just suffer from another nightmare like he had every day since the first one. One where you’d die and he could do nothing to stop it. Amidst these tumultuous thoughts, his breathing evened, lulling him under.

You were in the grass, a flower crown atop your head. Anakin was leaning against a small house. It was quaint but beautiful. Small, not outwardly flashy, but full of love and meaning. Looking around, he smiled as he saw green vines crawling up the sides of the house, a garden of your favorite flowers out front. You always had a soft spot for that.

We are on Naboo, he realized. It was peaceful. It was the dream you always talked of together. Anakin’s breath caught as he felt the certainty of this dream. It felt just like his nightmares, except this one left him content. He didn’t want to entertain the thought for too long, afraid of jinxing it. But he knew it was prophetic. He wasn’t sure how he changed his fate, what exactly gave him this future. Something inside him just knew that when he wakes up the next morning, all will be okay. He felt infinitely lighter as he understood the threat was gone.

When you looked up and saw him, you raced toward him and jumped into his arms. Anakin stumbled but caught you, breathing in your scent as you kissed the side of his neck. As he held you, his thoughts slightly wandered. But he was grounded by your presence, reminding him that you were safe and he was okay. With you, he was finally, completely, home.

-----

the link to join my taglist is in my bio and masterlist!

permanent tags:

@saltybreaddream @buckysbeloved @lolquarth @sodaoverstars @artiza-n @poestardust @beskar-tano @starwarsflowers @sunsetkenobi @90steaology @revengeofskywalker

anakin tags:

@anakinswhore @kennedywxlsh @coldlilheart @adamgetawaydriver @chokemeanakin @gayidioot @katelynnwrites @haydens-moles @serpntines @anakinlove @rowley-with-ackerman @dexthtoyounglings @babykinskywalker @cluelessgurl @april-showers-and-flowers @savingpluto @beiroviski @captainshazamerica @wintersoldiersthings @mystic-writings @thejediuniverse @anakinravageme @cafeoiogy @dracowars @idkyouu1800c3 @luminara123 @jedi-general @collywobbl @soveryhowvery @asthefirerisesblog @kelieah

#megan writes #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker imagines #anakin skywalker angst #anakin skywalker fluff #anakin x reader #anakin imagines #anakin angst #anakin fluff #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x y/n #anakin skywalker x you #anakin x y/n #anakin x you #anakin skywalker x gender neutral reader #anakin skywalker x gn!reader #anakin skywalker fanfiction #anakin skywalker fanfic

806 notes · View notes

rivendellsstuff · 3 years

Text

𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ━━━ 𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐈 𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍

𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮 | ❝In despair, he condemns his desires. Regretted, he know the consequences would be eternal and all he wanted was you. Your fiery personality, bright lips and soft skin.❞

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2310;

Genre: friends to lovers;

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: Mentions of canon-typical violence. The first chapter is set before the events of the first season. Friends with benefits — so, it'll be eventual smut (like, a lot!)

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: English isn't my natives language, so if you spot a misspelled word or anything else, feel free to let me know.

━━━━ 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

Some men's whish the glory, others crawl like snakes by power and there is those who live like rats in the system. However, there is a exception — and his names is Levi Ackerman. Emerged from the underground, by dust and blood, forged as a weapon at an early age and steeped in pride, he raised as humanity's strongest soldier. He carries a doctrine, imbedded in his bones: he serves to humanity, the balance and the freedom of mankind. If there is a threat, he is the man who can fight against it, ranging from cruel people to evil titans.

He was born in cruel times and did his best to survive in the Underground. He found a glory he wasn't looking for. Something many wish to through their lives, but which, for him, was irrelevant. They all bleed, they all are stuck on the Walls and share the same ended chapter: the death. The final outcome is not defined by possessions, achievements or privileges in life. The only difference was that could get death any easier and painless. Levi was not a hypocrite: he would rather a peaceful death, lying on his bed, instead of being eaten by a titan.

He rather — and is all what it is. It wasn't like if he had any choice. The Ackerman's family were designed to protect the people and to fight. They were cursed with a power. Some people could say it is a miracle in dark times. Others would argue that mans were corrupted, cruel and too ambitious to deal with that awakened power. Well, Levi knows, that no everyone were worthy to possess such ability — Kenny, that asshole, was one of them.

However, there was kind strange situation. An only exception, an affliction that hung over through the heart and maddened his mind: you.

Desire wasn't a word enough to define how he feels close to you, a fearless female warrior, who destroy each barrier he has built over the years, causing delirium with the thought of you hurt. Levi knew he would have taken a checkmate just by desiring you.

But when it all starts? He couldn't say with sure. Maybe, when he, Farlan and Isabel were recruited by the Survey Corps, and you were the only one who spoke to them without undriveable mock and trial. You, besides Erwin, didn't seem to care where they came from. As deeply loyal as you were to your comrades, you didn't depend on your interactions with them for take a direction — you were content to follow your own passions and desires without input from anyone else.

Maybe it started when he saw you in battle or an a argue with a member of Military Police Regiment. Fear is not in yours's vocabulary when you are on the battlefield or when you are speaking her mind to others.

As their partnership grew, he'd find some similarities between you, but also many differences.

You, just like him, has little patience for any form of prose or riddles when you are communicating with others. You speak bluntly and without pretense, and expects others to do the same, prefers to get to the point and doesn’t seek to romanticize your expectations or intentions. You also are focused on the present issues and what role you can play in protecting the people that you love, what can prevent you from seeing the future results of your present actions and, unlike him, does result in some impulsive and risky — yet brave— actions.

All these little things over the years, made him fall in love with you, and Levi had ways to say it without saying "I love you".

Like that night.

He wasn't hiding his disgust face when handed you a cup full of that steaming, black liquid; the simply smelling coffee could make your stomach turn, but still, he prepares a cup for you every night.

As the second in the command, you have spent several evenings together conducting the next advances of the squadron. So, there you are, sitting next to him, eyes focused on the paper, turning the pen between your fingers and... biting your lower lip.

Occasionally, almost instinctively Levi raises his eyes to you. Being so close of you was it's a unique feeling. The smell of your perfume as stunning, and his throat closes around the words he would like to say. The tension that has been brought in was too dangerous for someone like him.

Fucking woman, fucking lips. Fuck you!

''Is there a problem?'', you inquired making eye contact for the first time that night. He couldn't say if there was perversion when you wet your own lips, but Levi felt his muscles become tense and contracted when you made it.

Levi responded with a faint whimper before observed: ''You shouldn't be drinking so much coffee at this time. You look like shit when don't get sleep''.

Lie. Fucking hell, you're always beautiful, but no way he'd say what he thought.

You rolled your eyes. ''It's you who did'', you put forth.

''I wasn't in the mood to put up with a brat attitude from you.''

''Brat? You know that we have about the same age, don't you?'', your gaze traveled from the figure sat in front of you to the window, confused as to why you would be embarrassed about his presence. You took in a breath before adding: ''Anyway, don't want sleep.''

There was a pause for a few seconds. You and he eyed each other.

''Why?'', he asks, authoritative one.

You shrugged and shook your head firmly. ''It doesn't matter.''

''If it doesn't matter, why would I have asked that?''

"Cause you're snooper”, you smirked.

''I'm not a snooper, brat."

He felt his heart begin to quicken when you carried the pen to your lips and start biting.

"Yes, you are a horrible snooper old man, bossy and with an astonishing mania for cleanliness."

"Old? You know we have about the same age”; he repeats. His eyes drifted back to your face, noticing your gaze had shifted again to the woods beyond the window. "And you're avoiding the question", he softly says (at least as softy as he could be), interrupting your rampant thoughts. "Are you alright?"

Levi watches in silence as you'd shoulders slump.

"I can't sleep. My mind has the scary capability of being evil, although I always thought that one day it'd get better", you're voice was low and flat, quiet and a little sad as you spoke to Levi, who seemed to know what are you exactly referred to and only nodded at your words. "I feel guilty. All the time."

Even in the darkness the room held, your eyes find his greys one like the starlight's.

''Are you afraid of your dreams, too?'', you asked, never expecting the humanity strongest soldier to have any fears.

'Yes'', he said quietly.

You nodded with hesitation, his words repainting in your head as you struggled to forma a sentence to answered.

Levi was used to such sadness, he had month's — no, years — to griever over the deaths of his mother and friends. Death was not uncommon thing in his life. His childhood who should be carefree, playing in the sun, was like a living nightmare, learning to fight in the darkness of Underground. Later, when he left the place to join the Survey Corps, he accepted to live in that never ending tragedy that people had sadly grown used to. Death was more common in that job than anything else, and he knows how badly it fuck with his mind.

“I’m beginning to think we’re a lot alike… you and me. We’re both strange cast, who’ve learned to fight when we’re backed into a corner'', you began weakly.

''Well, we’re backed into a corner now. Two fucking insomniacs”, he shook his head, thinking about your words. He didn't seem to like the way your voice sounded sadder. You raised your eyes to him again as he slowly spoke: ''You're not alone''

You answered a tiny smile onto your lips. Levi felt his cheeks burn and opposite glanced to your empty coffee cup, thinking that he'll able to always tolerate your strange addiction.

A few second later you both went back to work, and Levi was left with words stuck, temptation planted in the mind and a sure thing for him: the insomniac nights would become better by you.

【 ━━ 】

Inside Wall Sheena, guests were arriving, among them five members of the Scout Regiment - consisting mostly of commanders - walked through the gates, exuding self-confidence, bitter to participate in that boring and stupid meeting.

Little lies, little social sacrifices to feed what kept the Scout Regiment going: funding.

It was not necessary to be an expert in politics to see beyond the traditional veil of those events, to perceive the intentions of certain parliamentarians, very sadistic. Knowing it was part of your job to relate to these kinds of people annoyed you.

For one minute, you saw out of the corner of your eyes, the first on your command. The man of grey eyes used a black suit that fits perfectly. Be present in an event with so many politics didn't seem to his liking. Was kind of hard for all of you play nice one with all this tension in the air.

You've never felt the feeling of fear and tension like that inside the Walls before.

''Stop frowning before you break your face''

'It would be so sad, and you would cry for being depriving of that beautiful face''

''Oh, fuck yourself'', he says, angrily.

''If you watch''

You smirched at his expression as he looks up to you, after seeing your face, he turns away.

''Watch your words, brat''

''Or what, old man? What will you do to me?''

He looks back up at you.

''I could break you habit of drinking coffee, put you to clean all the HQ or even to help Hange with the experiments. The three together seems good, by the way''

You roll your eyes.

''You're mean''

'You're annoying'', he replied. ''And you know, if you keep rolling your eyes one day their going to get stuck like that''

''Are you trying to be funny?''

His little grin showed up making you roll eyes into a smile. He was terribly bossy and annoying, but you like that about him.

You took the glass of wine to your lips and raised your eyes to hit his. Levi hovered over you, making you felt that flame into your heart once more. Your eyes tailed down to Levi's lips then back to his eyes. You could feel your heart beating recklessly.

Fucking grey eyes, fucking black suit. Fuck you!

You felt a thumb on your cheeks, making them burn.

''You look...'', he started whispered and slightly caress your cheeks. Your body started to get hot under his soft touch. ''... beautiful. You look beautiful''

You were speechless.

You liked the sudden ardor, of the dangerous attraction, of folly and frivolous with provocative sins. Liked and thought how the taste of his lips would be: the indomitable, the irresistible, the powerful and sin.

He slowly dragged his hand down to my thorax wrapping his hands around it. A soft gasp escaped of your lips.

''You know... If you want dance, it'll not rude to ask'', you try to say. ''The song is awful, but I'm not a demanding partner''

''Only if you don’t step on my foot''

His prepotency make you smile.

''Don’t be a bad partner and there will be no mistakes'', you retorted, making him raised one of the eyebrows. ''That's how a men should behave next to a woman''

He took you in his arms, abruptly, making the bodies collide with intensity. You gasped, very close to Levi's ears, who felt the hairs stand on the back of his neck. Leading you through music, in no second was the look averted, in a battle for unknown control.

You and Levi explored a unique experience.

He stares burned deep into your body. His touch on your skin made your body tingle.

Fuck, control yourself. Don't get turned on by him!

He didn't say anything, just left you hold into him. You could feel your body burning around him. What was he doing to you? It felt like a spell. The effect of sin, of desire. You should get rid of that, all you needed least were distractions in the workplace and ruin the friendship, trust and partnership that you two took so long to build.

However, both keep looking to each other longer than friends should. Longer than friends should...

He could saw you lost inside your mind. Slowly, he pulled down his fingers, lazily touching the skin of your exposed back by the dress. Levi's vision was blinded by the desire his image represented. The surroundings smelled wine and fruits, intoxicating his sense. The ears, doomed to hear the political bullshit. His tact could burn by touching you. His taste? It was dangerous, because wanted to discover the taste of your lips and body.

But not now, not here.

You are his friend — the only who was left. In despair, he condemns his desires. Regretted, he knew the consequences would be eternal and all he wanted was you. Your fiery personality, bright lips and soft skin.

To hell all of that. When you both got back, he'll fucked you, every way that he can thinking off. He wants to pound into you, slammed into you and give the best night that you ever have. He wants to kiss every inch of your skin.

''Good girl'', he whispers next to your ears. ''But I'll show you how true men should behave next to a woman when we get back''

#aot x reader #attack on titan imagine #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman imagine #levi x you #levi smut #levi ackerman series #attack on titan fanfiction

117 notes · View notes

causeiwanttoandican · 3 years

Text

Robert Lacey excerpt

I fully expect them to say William was the one commenting about the baby’s skin color after this. Battle stations! Book excerpt

The Times

Prince William ‘split his household from Prince Harry after Meghan bullying claims’

June 07 2021, 7.00am BST

‘So, are you saying,” asked Oprah Winfrey, talking to Meghan and Harry in their famous interview of March 2021, “that there were hints of jealousy?”

She was inquiring about the Sussexes’s wildly successful tour of Australia and the South Pacific of late October 2018, and the couple shifted uncomfortably in their plush wicker chairs.

“Look,” replied Harry, “I just wish that we would all learn from the past.”

By bringing up “the past”, the prince was venturing into an area that was almost taboo. He was making a sensational comparison between his mother and his wife. Harry was suggesting that Meghan had demonstrated in Australia the same massive star quality as Diana and was now having to face the family envy that went along with that.

“It really changed,” he said, “after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour . . . it was . . . the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.”

Memories of what? Again Harry shied away from putting words to the almost unmentionable. But Oprah had prepared and polished this moment, like so many others in the interview, and she had a reference ready to prompt her prince’s revelation. The latest, fourth season of TV’s The Crown had depicted Charles and Diana’s 1983 tour of Australia, showing how Diana had been “bedazzling” in her ability “to connect with people”. Episode six had depicted how the crowds would groan when they realised that Charles, not Diana, was walking down their side of the street — hence the beginnings of the “jealousy” on the family’s part.

“So is that what you’re talking about?” asked Oprah. “It brought back memories of that?”

“Yeah,” Harry finally replied in a fashion that was both dismal and unmistakably aggressive.

What on earth had happened, viewers had to wonder, to the old and once-familiar happy side of Prince Harry?

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother William — the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 — Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018. But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

Both brothers agreed how bitterly they had clashed back in the early days over William’s attempt to slow Harry’s courtship of Meghan — “Don’t feel like you need to rush this . . . ” But both of them had subsequently moved on. Harry’s transparent contentment with Meghan had relaxed the tensions, give or take the odd row over bridesmaids’ dresses. The “no speaks” had eased just a little by the time “best man” William escorted his brother down the aisle in May 2018.

Then five months later came the conclusive and determining rupture — the division that has lasted to the present day — though here the brothers’ retelling of history diverged. As Harry explained it to Oprah, Meghan’s Australian tour success sowed the jealousies that caused feelings to “change”. According to this scenario, William and Kate resented the Diana-like popularity that was generated by Harry’s wife. William had a different recollection.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia. Feelings had already “changed”, as Harry put it, and drastically so. The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Most Kensington Palace courtiers were noted for the comparatively long tenures of their comfortable and prestigious jobs. But it came to look as if employees could not wait to escape service with Harry and Meghan. Those who left formed themselves into an informal fraternity that they titled the “Sussex Survivors’ Club”. They had finally hit back, and their organising agent had been PR man Jason Knauf.

The joint communications secretary for Kensington Palace — who was still, at that date, working on behalf of both of the brothers and their wives — had become concerned by the numerous stories of mistreatment being brought to him by colleagues whom he knew well and trusted.

Texas-born and New Zealand-educated, Knauf, 34, was a popular character in Kensington Palace, widely noted for his friendliness and loyalty towards his colleagues. He had been considered a real “catch” when the brothers snared him from the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2015, and one of his concerns was that professional management practices should be more effectively enforced inside the traditional British palace. Knauf’s American sensibilities caused him to see the Meghan situation as raising principles of human resources management in the palace system that needed to be formally addressed.

Knauf’s first priority was to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record: “I’m very concerned,” he emailed to William’s private secretary Simon Case, in a document he drafted in October 2018, “that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.”

Knauf described Meghan’s treatment of one aide as “totally unacceptable . . . the duchess seems intent”, he wrote, “on always having someone in her sights”. Specifying another staff member, Knauf alleged Meghan had been bullying her as well, “seeking to undermine her confidence”. His office had received “report after report”, he wrote, from people who had witnessed “unacceptable behaviour” by Meghan towards this member of staff.

“Meghan governed by fear,” claimed one courtier. “So many people said it. Nothing was ever good enough for her. [She] humiliated staff in meetings, [would] shout at them, [would] cut them off email chains — and then demand to know why they hadn’t done anything.”

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.

“Americans can be much more direct,” wrote the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in defence of the duchess, “and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.”

A Brit might have raised an eyebrow at Meghan’s alleged behaviour, then looked the other way. The Yank decided to act. Knauf was actually one of Meghan’s most senior advisers — her chief adviser, in fact, when it came to public relations. Earlier that year she had gone to Knauf for help when drafting the disputed letter of severance that she sent to her father. She valued his PR expertise.

Before that, Knauf had helped Harry to word the fierce anti-media statements that he had framed to try to protect Meghan from press harassment, both as his girlfriend and then as his fiancée. The PR man had taken considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts who criticised him as being overprotective in fighting the newcomer’s corner. Like so many people in all the palaces, Knauf had started off on Meghan’s side.

But as the months went by the American’s feelings became more ambiguous, as numerous colleagues — women whom he greatly respected — continued to bring him stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan’s hands.

“I can’t stop shaking,” one aide had told a colleague in anticipation of an encounter with Meghan. Another reported that the prospect of confrontation with the duchess had made her “feel sick”. “Emotional cruelty and manipulation”, were the words of a third, “which I guess could also be called bullying.”

The b-word featured prominently in the accounts of several, along with an even more sinister set of initials: PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a deeply serious condition to allege — flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of deep anxiety — but that was how one complainant said that they had felt.

Several people maintained they had been “humiliated” by the duchess, and that criticism extended to Harry as well.

“I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,” recalled one Kensington Palace courtier. “Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other’s faces.”

Shouting and screaming? PTSD? Making people feel sick? Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that Knauf had gathered. We do not know whether the communications secretary brought his allegations directly to his boss or submitted them via Simon Case. What we do know is that the prince was astonished and horrified. He was instantly furious at what he heard.

“I remember Christian Jones [William’s press secretary and later private secretary] explaining to me how the Cams [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] are paternalistic with their staff,” recalls one royal correspondent. “They copy the Queen in that respect with all her Christmas parties and Christmas presents to her people. They’re proud to treat their staff like family. They recognise that they don’t get paid loads of money, so they are just really nice to them. So this was a very deep clash of philosophies, with Meghan being used to a Hollywood service culture — getting exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted in that famous way that Harry said.”

William personally knew and liked all the individuals whom Knauf had named in his dossier. The prince regarded them as assets to his household — colleagues to be cherished and for whom he was responsible. Human beings. Like Knauf, the prince was appalled that his respected staff may have been put in this position.

For William, Knauf’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed — that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start — even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives said this was quite the wrong interpretation of their client’s thinking and behaviour in a statement that they issued to The Times early in March 2021. They denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”. The duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

I have never met Jason Knauf. What you have just read is based upon the published accusations that Knauf set down on paper — refuted as “defamatory”, it must be stressed again, and “based on misleading and harmful information” in the view of the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers. It also relies upon William’s personal account of these events to one of his friends who then spoke to this author.

The moment the prince heard the bullying allegations, he related to this friend, he got straight on the phone to talk to Harry — and when Harry flared up in furious defence of his wife, the elder brother persisted. Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say.

The showdown between the two siblings was fierce and bitter. William’s pre-engagement questioning of Meghan’s suitability had been quite reasonable, in William’s opinion. His fraternal doubts had been provisional, based upon how the new recruit appeared to be. The elder brother did not really know Meghan in those early days.

But now William had seen enough of his sister-in-law to feel sure that, sadly, he did know her and that many of his reservations linked unhappily with what Knauf’s colleagues had alleged. William believed Meghan was following a plan — “agenda” was the word he used to his friend — and the accusations he had just heard were alarming. Kate, he said, had been wary of her from the start.

Meghan was undermining some precious principles of the monarchy, if she really was treating her staff in this way, and William was upset that she seemed to be stealing his beloved brother away from him. Later courtiers would coin a hashtag — #freeHarry. It was only half a joke.

“Meghan portrayed herself as the victim,” recalled one Kensington Palace staffer, “but she was the bully. People felt run over by her. They didn’t know how to handle this woman. They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath — basically unhinged. Which was why the pair of them were drawn to each other in the first place — both damaged goods.”

William felt deeply wounded. “Hurt” and “betrayed” were the two feelings that he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry but this was the moment the protection had to stop. At the end of the day the British crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values — the mission of the monarchy — had to matter more to William than his brother did.

Harry, for his part, was equally furious that William should give credence to the accusations against Meghan, and he was fiercely combative in his wife’s defence. Some sources maintain that in the heat of the argument Harry actually accused someone in the family of concepts that were “racist”. But it must be stressed that neither brother has ever confirmed that the hateful r-word was used face to face.

Only William and Harry can know what they said to each other and they have respectfully maintained their silence on that. But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah that he considered his family’s response to Meghan to have been essentially racist — using the heavily freighted code words “unconscious bias” to provide an intellectual framework for his analysis.

Where could the two brothers go after such painful and damning notions had been thrown into their debate?

We have reached the crux of the drama. What painfully unforgettable and surely unforgivable things have been said? These are not passing differences. They are two core sets of values in conflict — love versus duty — going to the very heart and deriving from the deepest beliefs and loyalties of each man. Two opposing identities butting heads. In the months following the tragic and not-obviously bridgeable rift of October 2018 between William and Harry, the younger brother solidified his belief that his family were suffering from “unconscious bias”.

William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive “agenda” to be removed from the operations of the British monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect. He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.

When accounts of the rift started seeping out through the winter months that followed, it was generally assumed that the volatile Harry must have set the pace in the splitting up of the joint Kensington Palace household. He was the brother who visibly departed, stalking off to set up a new home in Windsor, with offices for himself and Meghan in Buckingham Palace.

But the reverse was the case. It was William who made the decisive move. Following his furious confrontation with his younger brother in the autumn of 2018, the prince instructed Simon Case to start the process of dividing their two households immediately. William wished to be separated from Meghan on a day-to-day basis — and that meant being separated from his brother as well.

“William,” says a friend, “threw Harry out.”

©Robert Lacey 2021 Extracted from Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey, to be published by William Collins on June 24 at £9.99

374 notes · View notes

findingjoynweirdstuff · 3 years

Text

Dream SMP Recap (April 27/2021) - Facing Fears

Ponk confronts Foolish at the Community House and plans to build a supreme fridge to make things up with him after the Banquet.

Tommy, preparing for the prison break, decides he needs to face his fears before he does so.

---

VOD LINKS:

Ponk

Foolish

Tommyinnit

Tubbo

Ranboo

Captain Puffy

---

- Ponk starts off in the cobblestone pyramid base.

- Ponk looks at the photos on his walls and puts on his shoes.

“Chat...today, we make the supreme fridge. We lost a friend -- it should’ve been Eret, okay? In all honest, it should’ve been Eret...it’s sad. It’s all so sad to think a friend of mine -- another friend! -- betrayed me like this, you know?”

“I guess...Purpled won’t be needing our supplies anymore.”

- Chat thinks Ponk doing a deep voice sounds like Sam.

- Ponk wants to make it up to Foolish, and what better to do than make him a supreme fridge? He still has the cake Foolish gave him at the Banquet. He had no idea.

- He starts mining down the Netherite blocks. Purpled won’t be needing these anymore.

- Ponk then goes over to Niki’s city to retrieve supplies.

- Badboyhalo is like that one friend who’s way too into a pyramid scheme and tried to get everyone else involved.

- When a dono points out that Ponk still got involved in the scheme, Ponk replies:

“I mean...look. The pyramid scheme gave me structure to my life, alright? What kind of structure did I have before then? Huh? Think about it. What was I doing? Who was I sharing my thoughts with, chat? Exactly. So anything with structure was probably better than that, you know?”

“‘I had Sam?’ I had Sam. Chat. What did Sam do to me?”

- Ponk makes it to the ocean monument farm.

- Sam joins the game.

Ponk: hello...

Sam: You’re cute :)

Sam: Later <3

- He leaves. Purpled joins the game.

Ponk: So

Ponk: LOOK WHO IS HERE

Purpled: hi ponk

Ponk: DONT HI PONK ME

Purpled: ok

Purpled: bye ponk

- Purpled leaves. Ponk realizes he missed out on his chance to play Bedwars with him.

- Ponk gets a message back and goes to play Bedwars.

- Foolish notices the renovations and new obsidian layer on L’Sandburg. It doesn’t actually look too bad, and he decides he might keep it.

- After Bedwars, Ponk returns to the cobblestone pyramid to get things. He takes a closer look at the photos again. Sam is crossed out with red in one.

- Ponk waits at the Community House for Foolish. He has a photo of him and Foolish and a cake.

- Foolish asks what happened at the Banquet. Ponk boats over to him, but Foolish notices his eyes are still red.

- Ponk tells him that he never knew Foolish was going to get hurt. He was just the coat man.

Ponk: “Look at me! Does this look like someone like the guest of honor? No, alright? To have to serve people that have betrayed me, Foolish! How do you think that hurt? And then to see you! Taken up there by my friends, alright! I don’t know.”

- He tells Foolish that they’ve had good times together, that he saved the cake Foolish gave him. He gives Foolish the cake. When Foolish worries it might be poisoned, he says they can eat it together.

- Bad said he’d found armor in a chest and gave it to Ponk. Ponk didn’t know he was going to need it.

- Foolish asks how he knows this isn’t some sort of trap. Ponk tells him that he wants to make it up to Foolish.

Ponk: “Obviously, you can’t trust me and I know that, right. But I wanna make it up to you. Okay? Trust is something I hold very dear to me, and for me to break it, alright...be it from a third party’s perspective, okay? I didn’t have much to do with this Banquet, Foolish, you have to understand me.��

Foolish: “You’re telling me the Egg isn’t in control of you right now, is what you’re saying?”

Ponk: “The Egg helps me, Foolish. It gives me structure, okay?”

Foolish: “Do you still believe the Egg is some kind of good thing? Do you believe it’s actually something you should have in your like?”

- Ponk tells him to walk with him. Foolish points out he led the attack on his temple, all for the Egg.

Foolish: “You did it for the Egg! Thinking you would like, impress it or something, like it would give you more! What’s the real problem, Ponk? You haven’t explained. What’s the real problem? Your hand, like what’s with your hand -- what’s with the Egg in the first place--”

- Ponk tells him they don’t talk about the hand. That’s something he has to deal with. But he’s truly sorry, and he’s going to build Foolish a supreme fridge.

- Foolish is still concerned about the eyes. Ponk says the eyes mean nothing. Foolish doesn’t know how much Ponk has lost, who he’s lost.

- Foolish snaps, saying he died. Does Ponk know how scary a thing that is? Ponk replies that he does know, but Foolish is taking it out of proportion.

Ponk: “A quick death, or a slow, painful one, Foolish? Come on, man.”

- Ponk will still lay the foundations for the fridge. Even if Foolish chases him off, he will come back, day after day, to build the fridge and prove that he’s a good person.

- The Egg provides free Starbucks, and that is worth it.

- Foolish says he can’t trust Ponk until the red eyes and everything in his system are gone. Ponk says it will all be explained in time.

- Foolish has had enough and leaves. He heads back to the summer home. Ponk got him thinking about death again. He makes it back to the green light to calm down.

- Foolish then goes to continue building, to finish the mansion.

- Tommy wasn’t there for the Banquet. The Blood Vines are gone from the path now, and he is not afraid of the Egg. He wonders where it went.

- He has something to do today. He heads over to Snowchester to meet with Tubbo. Tubbo and Ranboo come over to the mansion.

- Tommy pulls Tubbo aside to speak with him alone. He asks Tubbo about how, after the Disc War Finale, he gave Tubbo the Nightmare armor set. He wants it back.

- He asks for Tubbo’s help with some things, but doesn’t want Ranboo there.

- Tubbo takes Tommy into the Snowchester vault. Tommy says he’ll give the rest back, but he wants to keep the Totem of Undying. Tommy puts on Dream’s armor.

- Next, Tommy and Tubbo go over to Pogtopia to retrieve Tommy’s sword. They open Sam’s vault door and Tommy gathers his things.

- Tommy and Tubbo go mine some obsidian in Pogtopia. He needs obsidian and blackstone.

- He gets home and cleans up the blood on the Prime Path. Ranboo arrives and gives him more stacks of obsidian.

- He explains to Tubbo and Ranboo that in a few days’ time, things are going to change, and he’s not strong enough yet. He wants to face the things he’s scared of.

- Tommy mines below the watchtower. He wants to create two bunkers. One that replicates the Final Control Room, and one that replicates the prison.

- Tommy asks if either of them have been to the prison. Ranboo says no, Sam doesn’t let him in. Tubbo says Sam didn’t let him in either.

- He tells Ranboo and Tubbo that he’s afraid of taking damage.

- Tommy’s heard rumors about the Panic Room and asks Ranboo what it was. Ranboo says it was just a room he went to when he got stressed, kind of like what Tommy’s making but the opposite.

- After they finish the bunkers, Tommy leads them all to Logstedshire. Tommy walks around, looking at everything there and remembering what happened.

- Next, Tommy goes to visit the exact recreations of the rooms in the museum. He meets Eret on the Prime Path.

- He asks Ranboo and Tubbo to lock him in for a minute and walks into the Final Control Room, talking through his feelings, pressing the button like he did when it happened.

- Tommy starts looking through the chests and finds the book that Eret left for Wilbur named “I’m Sorry.”

Tommy: “It’s okay...it’s okay because times have changed, and so have people. Not all people...but most.”

- They leave the museum and Tommy asks Tubbo to stab him with a sword.

- Tommy then goes into the recreation they made of the prison cell. He starts panicking and asks to be let out. Tubbo and Ranboo let him out. He tells them that in the next few days, it’s all going to change. He’s going to try and do what he should’ve done a long time ago.

- Tommy gives Ranboo a hug and thanks him for helping. He asks Ranboo to leave, then tells Tubbo to come up the watchtower with him.

- There, he tells Tubbo about dying and coming back. He and Tubbo had the chance to kill Dream and they didn’t, but now, Tommy’s going to break into the prison and do it.

- He needs from Tubbo a couple of things, and Tubbo can’t tell anyone -- even Ranboo -- about this. He needs Tubbo’s help to get him several invisibility potions, defenses stronger than TNT: withers.

- People are going to be upset with him because getting rid of Dream will get rid of the revival book. Tommy says the revive book isn’t worth it to keep him alive. Being in between life and death was worse than just staying dead.

- Most of all, he needs Tubbo to trust him.

Tommy: “This isn’t the right thing to do, Tubbo. It’s the only thing to do.”

- He tells Tubbo he’ll see him soon and leaves.

- Tubbo and Ranboo go off to fight some wither skeletons for skulls.

- Later, Ranboo goes mining with Tubbo in VC.

---

Upcoming events remain the same.

#dream smp #dream smp recaps #long posts

215 notes · View notes

remakethestars · 3 years

Text

Being Damian Wayne's Twin Sister Would Include:

Headcanons.

❝Exactly. I don't ask my dog to drive, and I don't ask the Justice League to solve my problems.❞

— Damian Wayne, Adventures of the Super Sons #9: Showdown on Hexworld

TRIGGER WARNING: Cursing, (Damian’s) death. Mentions of toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny, nightmares, blood, knives.

Headcanon masterlist.

When people ask you, “So, which one of you is the evil twin?” Damian always glowers, and you always motion to him.

You look disturbingly alike when only your eyes are showing; Damian’s got long lashes. Talia taught you a good tactic for tag-teaming in combat as kids was to pull up your hinged balaclavas and make the enemy think there was only one of you, that they’re seeing double.

Or for one of you to hang back while the other attacks as a distraction before the other knocks them out from behind.

Obviously, this won’t work when the two of you start filling out, but it works when you’re kids. It’s the reason why, even off the field, the two of you usually wear a matching outfits with hoods.

You utilize the same methods when she sends you to live with Bruce.

You don the Robin costume just like he does, much to the rest of the Batfam’s confusion (both because they weren’t expecting it and because they can’t tell you apart either), but sticking with the “red” theme, you go by Redstart.

There’s a rumor on the street that Robin V. is a meta that can teleport.

The two of you are freakishly good at mimicking the other’s voice and mannerisms, which makes it even harder for your family.

Jason tells you two about April Fools Day, and you make the most of it. Of course, Damian’s a pain in the a$$ and decides to go around pretending to be you and getting into trouble. You’re banned from the mall, and you still have no idea why.

The two of you can communicate with just an impassive expression (Dick says it looks like a prime example of twin telepathy to anyone else), but anyone close to you knows sh¡t’s about to hit the fan when the two of you look at each other and smirk.

If it’s something you can’t communicate nonverbally, you use your cryptophasia.

Cryptophasia is a language developed by twins when they’re learning to talk. Most of them grow out of it, you and Damian decided to keep developing it so it became more of a conlang. No one else has been taught to speak it, and they never will be. It’s for emergencies only.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was your Bible growing up, and the two of you call out verses when you fight together and need the other to understand a tactic (you both inherited Bruce’s eidetic memory, so you’ve got it memorized).

When you get too big to pull off the which-is-which game, you make your own costume and become the true Redstart.

It’s basically Damian’s Robin uniform (the Super Sons’s version is the only one I’ll accept), but the boots and gloves are black, the biceps have a white stripe, the lining of the cape is white (the lining of the hood is black), the gold accents become white, it has a zipper down the front instead of clasps, and the mask becomes black (including the eyes). The waterline of the eyes is white. Like a painted redstart.

If Damian’s into animals, you’re into plants. The two of you find common ground on the fact that pollution sucks, so when you walk Titus, you take a trash bag and gloves with you to pick up litter as you go.

You did not want to go to Jon’s school.

Not because you don’t like Jon (because you do), but because you know you could run intellectual circles around every one of those snot-nosed brats.

School is stupid. Especially because the American education system is subpar; everything about it is.

You hardly pay attention in class. You do all of the homework a week ahead of time incase something comes up. Usually you’re doing next week’s homework in class. You’ve written entire papers on your phone in Google Docs in the middle of class to be printed out later.

If you’ve already done everything, Damian’s usually drawing and you’re daydreaming or you’re working on a case on your phone.

The teachers are always trying to catch you not paying attention, but you little sh¡ts can always answer their questions.

Damian’s closest with Dick, but you’re closest with Tim. You admire his ability to plan ahead (see the entirety of the Red Robin comics), and you know that he’s better than both your father and your grandfather; you want to be as good as him when you grow up.

It takes a long time to wash the toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny our of your head, to learn that your grandfather’s ideas of “strength” were wrong, that it’s okay to lean on someone besides Damian, that you can be just as strong as your brother and still be feminine, that there are acceptable emotions besides anger.

Actually, your father teaches you that anger is more likely to get you killed. He won’t let you go into the field when he knows your angry.

It’s harder to drill out of you than your instinct to kill.

There’s a Lebanese restaurant called Tarbooshes (Teen Titans Special #1) the two of you go to when you’re feeling homesick. They make ox blood soup the same way your mother did, and it’s the only non-vegetarian thing Damian will eat for that very reason.

It’s nice to have a place to go where they know you by name and know what you want when you tell them “the usual.” It’s nice to have a place where you’re not a Wayne or an Al Ghul, where you’re just [Y/N] and Damian.

You disappear for an hour on your birthday to eat there. Bruce has asked you were you go, but you kept that between the two of you.

Speaking of birthdays, you’re eleven minutes older than him. He was six pounds and ten ounces (Batman & Robin #0?), and you were a solid seven.

After Damian died, you go to Tarbooshes to feel close to him.

You were doing all right with the no-killing thing until the night Damian died.

Heretic never stood a chance.

He looked so much like Damian it gave you nightmares, though. Nightmares where you killed your twin brother and woke up sobbing.

Damian didn’t give you a speech in his last moments. He just looked over at you and said in your cryptophasia, “I’m sorry.”

Not “I love you.” Not “Take care of them for me.” You knew that; you’d do that. He didn’t have to tell you, and he didn’t have to ask.

Just “I’m sorry.” Sorry that you were the one that was left behind.

It’s one thing to lose a family member, to lose a friend, or to lose a lover. It’s another to lose half of your soul.

The two of you had always feared you would die apart. It had always been a possibility; you weren’t stupid enough to think, “It’ll never happen to me.” Because it definitely could.

And it had.

You wanted to run away from everything. Even just for a while. Go to one of your safe houses in London or France or whatever and just — you didn’t know — stare at the wall until you felt better? But you’d made that unspoken promise to Damian — “I’ll take care of them for you; don’t worry.” — to take care of Titus and Catfred and Jerry and Batcow and Goliath, to take care of Alfred and Bruce and Dick and Jason and Cassandra and Tim, to take care of Jon and Colin and Maps.

You avoided the cave. And if you had to go down there for some reason, you refused to look at the Robin suits.

Dick noticed. He asked if you wanted them taken down, even just for a while. You gave him a look like he was nuts and said, “No.”

Jon was a mess. More of a mess than you were, somehow.

You’d shown up at the Kents’s. Jon was out doing Superboy things with Clark and Conner. Lois was the only one home.

You nearly scared her out of her skin when you materialized behind her and asked, “Is Jon home? It’s important.”

He had to know first. He deserved to.

For all he put up with from you two, he deserved to be the first to know when one of you was f*cking dead.

Lois, of course, bless her heart, had the mom instincts to know that you were in no way, shape, or form okay even when you were trying so hard to hold yourself together. She asked you what’s wrong, and it’s what made you break.

Your lip trembled. “He’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?”

“Damian,” your voice broke. “He’s dead.”

Jon came home to find you in his living room in your Robin uniform, covered in Damian’s and Heretic’s blood, snot running down your lip, sobbing in his mothers arms and knew what happened without having to ask. He did anyway.

When you and Jon both finally passed out, your Uncle Clark flew you back to the Batcave. No one was in any condition — not even Alfred — so he carried you up to your room; took your boots, mask, cape, and gloves off; and tucked you in. Then he went to find Bruce because there was no doubt he was losing it too.

Bruce doesn’t tell you anything about trying to find a way to bring him back without the Lazarus pit because he doesn’t want to get your hopes up.

You walk into your room one day to find Damian sitting there reading the dissertation (the requirement was three pages, not 120, but your teacher would just have to deal with your coping mechanisms) you had been working on for your World History class and left up on your laptop while on patrol.

He said with the utmost indifference, “You’ve made some good points, Sister,” and, of course, you pulled out a knife and attacked him because this was — was — was some shapeshifting alien or hologram tech or a cruel joke — your twin was dead, this wasn’t funny, whoever did this was going to pay.

He met you blow-for-blow and flipped away from you before saying, “And here I was expecting a warm welcome,” in your cryptophasia.

“Brother?”

“Tt. Obviously.”

Yeah, a college level thesis. You’re smart. You inherited Bruce’s eidetic memory and were raised by assassins.

You learned seven languages and wrote five doctoral theses by the time your teeth came in, wrote your first letter to a newspaper editor when you were two, could’ve had a geology doctorate when you were seven (Super Sons #1), and it only took you a week to learn the language on Takron-Galtos. You’re smart.

You’re also incredibly skilled. You learned to drive when you were five (Super Sons #1), your mother trained you to go for weeks without eating (Adventures of the Super Sons #6), you can micro-sleep for days and converse with half your brain asleep, can use a muscular contraction to move your liver out of the way of a blade (Nightwing #20), and can place yourself in a deep trance to heal damages caused by a hematoma (also #20).

(My dumba$$ didn’t note what Super Sons/Adventure of the Super Sons comic I was reading when I took notes, so I don’t have all of them noted in the two above bullet points. But that’s where they’re from. If I end up rereading them, I’ll edit this and add the comic numbers.)

The first time on patrol you thought Bruce was gonna die, you called him Baba.

The next evening, when Dick came to visit the cave, he turned to you and Damian and asked, “So, which one of you called him Dad?”

“How’d you know?” you asked.

“He’s smiling the way he did the day I called him Tati.”

“He’s not smiling,” Damian pointed out.

“He is on the inside.”

Can we talk about how royally the Arkham Knights game screwed up Tim Drake? (Though, everything seems to screw up Tim one way or another, I guess.) Why does he look like a quidditch player in the gif above the cut?

Visit my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ I’m a dumb white American, and I don’t know much about Arab or Romani culture other than what I’ve learned online. I hope I got it right?? If I didn’t, please drop a comment or P.M. me or something to let me know!

385 notes · View notes

mrsfrecklesmarauders · 3 years

Text

The Magical Word of JKR

In this post, I want to point out all the inconsistencies of the world that JKR has created. Some of us had been worshiping her for so long. But JKR made mistakes, not only outside her world, but inside.

Owls for muggleborns. Sending a letter through an owl seems to be something common in The Wizarding World. But why do children with a muggle background need to go back in time and use them when they could use a phone? Why can't students use any muggle technology? I know wizards are anti muggle and magic does not allow these devices to function at Hogwarts, but why not?

Drunk portraits. How could portraits get drunk? Did artists paint vessels and digestive systems for them too? How can they bleed? They are portraits with voices and personality based on real people yeah. But they are not alive. They don’t bleed or get drunk.

The trace. Wizards under 17 aren’t supposed to do magic outside Hogwarts. But The Ministry doesn’t seem to control this by which wand did it. But by location. Since Dobby did magic in the Chamber of Secrets, and they blamed Harry for it. So, what happens with pureblood kids? They are allowed to use magic outside school because their families are supposed to, so they wouldn’t trace them. So it seems unfair for muggleborns not to be able to practice magic. Since they are the only members of their family that would do it.

Hogwarts being the only school. There is only one school in all Britain for magical people. Yet there seems to be very few students when there should be a lot. And it doesn’t make sense that Hogwarts is the only choice. Or Hogwarts, or homeschooling.

I don’t understand the population of Magical Folks. It seems little because most of the wizarding families are known. There are only 28 pureblood famous families. They even practise inbreeding, they are all related. But why is that, if the wizard gene is dominant? There are more half bloods and muggleborns than squibs. So the magical population should be as large as the muggle one, even more.

Hogwarts Houses are cool. But the way kids are sorted doesn’t make sense. They get sorted when they are eleven. Seems pretty young to me to form traits and criteria that might change as they grow. Also, let’s say 100 kids enter Hogwarts one year. They won’t be sorted equally 25/25/25/25. Because according to personalities and traits, there could be 60 Gryffindors and 10 Ravenclaws, and 4 Slyhterins, and 25 Hufflepuffs. What if one year, there are no Slytherins for example?

Also, sharing a dorm, common room and classes with people from your same house (same personality and traits) seems boring and unhealthy. Having friends with different personalities, traits and beliefs should help you grow and mature. Sometimes friendships are built between two opposite people. And separating houses, forces students to just hang out with people from their houses, not others.

Love potions. These are the wizarding equivalent of drugs. Think about it. Forcing someone to show love for you is very much like drugging someone and forcing them to do stuff against their will. Love potions can permit things like raping. Something that happened to Tom Sr. by Merope. It is horrible. Yet the wizarding world permits their selling and consumption without a problem. And what’s worse, they teach how to brew it in school to children! A potion like that shouldn’t be allowed or taught.

Azkaban being the only punishment. It seems whether you are a dangerous criminal like a mass murderer or just someone that stole something once, you get the same punishment. Azkaban. An inhumane place where dementors live, and make prisoners go insane, live their worst nightmares or suck their soul. Even characters who were under the imperius curse like Stanley Shunpike. Or even The Marauders would’ve gone to Azkaban if their animagus secret was discovered. No matter what your crime is, always the worst punishment: Azkaban.

Wizards hiding from muggles. The Statue of Secrecy in the Wizarding World seems to be important. But I may ask, how can wizards hide from muggles if they don’t know anything about them? Pureblood Wizards don’t have a clue how muggles live, behave, dress, talk. Not even Arthur Weasley who works in that Department. Yet they want to be unnoticed by muggles? For example, each time a wizard dresses like a muggle they do it wrong, using colorful clothes. Wouldn’t it be suspicious? Like even Vernon sees people in cloaks in book 1, celebrating. Also, if there are a lot of muggleborns, shouldn’t more muggles know about wizards?

It is totally inhumane to just obliviate muggles each time they see something. That spell should have some consequences in their brains. Like for example, Hermione’s parents must’ve had mayhem after their minds were modified.

Memories in pensieves are not supposed to be accurate. Memories are from our point of view. From the perspective of people who lived that memory. When Harry sees Snape’s memories or Bob Ogden’s memories, they seem to be clear. Harry can see Bob and Snape in those memories when they should be seen through their eyes, they are their memories. How could Snape remember himself, see himself. You get my point? Also, memories are subjective, not objective. We remember what impacted us the most, we forget about details we don’t care about. There are feelings involved.

Not having another education after Hogwarts. You graduate from Hogwarts at eighteen. Eighteen! And you're supposed to have figured out what you want to do for the rest of your life. Why aren’t there Wizard Universities? Wizards only have 7 years of education and that’s all. Nothing before, nothing after (unless you’re muggleborn). Seems that the wizard community doesn’t care about education that much. With only seven years of education, are you suddenly prepared for the rest of your life? I don’t think so.

Adding to the last point, wizards only teach about magic. What about math, wouldn’t they need it to count their money, or take care of their finances? What about English, spelling, grammar? Not every kid had the privilege to be homeschooled by their parents before. What about Sex Ed? I think it is important for teens that age to be careful with their sex lives.

Quidditch being the only sport in the wizarding world. Quidditch is cool, I get it. But it is not for everyone. Seems that if you want to be a sports person in the wizarding world, you only have that option. Either you like Quidditch or nothing.Shouldn’t there be other sports? In the muggle world we have tons: football, basquet, tennis, swimming, running, etc.

Love protection is not common. Lily sacrificed herself for Harry. She died for him and that love protection saved his life. Why is Harry the only one to experience it? Is it because of the prophecy? I mean Lily is not the only one who has sacrificed herself for love. Not in the story, not in History. Then why aren’t there more people with lighting scars walking around?

Why don’t wizards cure things with magic like eyesight? They have a potion that grows bones back. But they cannot cure Harry’s eyesight? And don’t say that it is because eyes are connected to the soul, that’s a lame excuse. In the muggle world, eyesight can be cured with surgery.

Hogwarts Express. Yeah, we all wanted to ride the train to Hogwarts. It is part of the experience right? But what if you live in Scotland already? Why bother traveling to London to King Cross Station to take a train if you already live there? It seems like a waste of time. Is there a provided transport for kids who live in Scotland? What about those who don't live in London? What if Scotland is nearer to them than King Cross?

Ghosts. They shouldn’t exist. It is not very well explained how you become a ghost. But it doesn’t make sense that they exist and yet many characters died and didn’t become one.

Discrimination against magical creatures. We know how magical creatures are seen in the Wizarding World. Discrimination exists. But the problem is that Jkr never does anything to fix this.Not with werewolves, not with half giants, surely not with house-elves. The only issue that the war solved was the discrimination against muggleborns.

And house-elves liking their slavery is problematic. It is saying that slavery is right as long as the victim accepts it. She created S.P.E.W and never properly addressed the issue.

The Forbidden Forest is dangerous, yet students have detention there. Dumbledore says at the beginning of each year that the Forest is out of bounds. So why would you send students to detention there, Dumbles? Also, building a school near a forest full of dangerous beasts: werewolves, acromantulas, centaurs, seems kind of risky for children. Not every child obeys the rules. Look at the Marauders spending every full moon there.

How did Hagrid come to be? Hagrid is half giant. Meaning that his father is human, his mother is a giant… Ehemm… Excuse me, but how do you have sex with a giant? That’s physically impossible. How does Hagrid exist?

Male veelas? We are only introduced to female veelas in the Wizarding World. Veelas are these beautiful women that men feel attracted to, they seem in trance by their beauty, and they are not responsible for their actions. It seems to me that JKR is saying that men should not be accountable for their actions when they see a pretty girl, because it is her fault? Pretty feminist, JKR. Also, veelas are dangerous creatures. How do humans procreate with them and have half veelas or a quarter of a veela? Are there male veelas too?

Teachers not having spouses or kids. It is a stupid stereotype that teachers are sad non social people, who are only teaching because they don’t have a choice. Like they are allowed to have social lives, date, get married and have children, right? Name one Hogwarts teacher who is married with kids. They all seem pretty single. And I get it, being single is not a bad thing. But all of them being single just because they are teachers in a boarding school? Just because it was convenient to the author? Only McGonagall married once, but her husband died a few years after.

Abusive teachers. Speaking of teachers, why would Hogwarts allow incompetent teachers that are abusive (Snape), and or are dangerous for kids. None DADA teacher had teaching experience before. And since there is no further education than Hogwarts, how do teachers get prepared for the job? Teaching is not about knowing a lot of stuff about the subject, but knowing how to treat children.

Muggle vs Wizard music. What is the difference between muggle and wizard music? I never understood that. Is it the fact that wizards play music with magic? If so, why would instruments exist? Why would they play instruments? If anyone can make a spell to produce music, then anyone can be a musician. The only difference that I find is that wizard music has wizard related lyrics. Which is a stupid difference. Wizards could write songs about muggles. Muggles could write songs about wizards.

Secret Keeper. The Fidelius Charm should be a spell to hide yourself from others if you are in danger. Period. There shouldn’t be such a thing as a secret keeper. Why? Why would someone else need to know the place you are hiding? James and Lily shouldn’t have trusted anyone with their location. Not even Sirius. Not even someone they trusted, because Sirius or anyone could’ve died and passed the secret to the others. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. And also, how could Bill and Arthur be their own secret keepers but not James and Lily?

Magical therapists. Healers seem to cure physical maladies or illness pretty fine, but what about mental health? And I am not talking about mental problems because of magic. Like Frank, Alice, Lockheart whose minds were affected by spells. I’m talking about mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, adhd, ptsd, trauma etc. Don’t tell me wizards don’t suffer that. What about Remus, Sirius, Harry? Who treats these things in the wizarding world?

Time Turner. Only exists for the plot. Otherwise it is useless, stupid and confusing. Time traveling confuses the mind. Also, we don’t exactly know how it works. Is it a domino effect? Do the things you do back in time affect the present? They should. Or does it create different timelines, like it is said in Cursed Child? Also, why not use time turners for important situations? For example, save important people from dying, go back to check events of a crime and see if they are true.

Veritaserum. Wizards have a truth potion and they won’t use it. They should use it on trials to take the truth out of criminals, to see if the accusants are innocent or not. They should’ve used it on each member of the Order to find out who the spy was. They should’ve used it to discover who was the Slytherin heir when the Chamber was opened. They should’ve used it on Harry when he came back from the Graveyard to prove Voldemort was back. Why would that shit exist anyway?

Incest families. Pureblood families, or at least some of them are supposed to practise inbreeding. But if you look at the Black Family Tree, the only Black-Black marriage is between Orion and Walburga. Just one. And even if this was the case, shouldn’t this inbreeding have consequences? I don’t know if it’s the magical gene or what but The Blacks and Malfoys seem pretty fine.

If you know more and you want to add them, feel free to do so. This is a critique to improve this word and fandom ourselves. Even JKR's world is cool and wonderful, it is full of flaws that we need to speak about.

#harry potter fandom #harry potter #wizarding world #jkr is a bad writer #anti jkr #anti snape #wizards #hogwarts #quidditch #maraudersera fandom #muggles #wizards vs muggles

119 notes · View notes

awheckery · 3 years

Text

so. uh.

cut for frank discussion of chronic illness and the serious failures of the american healthcare system. tw for fatphobia and gaslighting.

Last July, I got sick. It wasn’t too bad at first: some fatigue, body aches and a slightly elevated temp, until suddenly it was bad and I wound up in the ER. It took three rounds of steroids, a round of antibiotics and a more powerful inhaler to get my feet back under me, but I never fully recovered.

I didn’t talk about it here, except for answering an ask in October and blaming my lack of creative output on depression. It really, really wasn’t depression; it was my health progressively collapsing, one system after another until the avalanche of symptoms that flattened me just after New Year’s.

For the last four months, I’ve spiked a fever over 100°F nearly every single day. My joints hurt. My knuckles are knobbly and swollen, and occasionally my fingers are so painful and weak I’ve had to literally tape my pen to my hand at work. I get rashes at random that itch so badly I claw myself bloody. I overheat and have hot flashes in temperate rooms. The skin on my face and neck and shoulders turns red and hot to the touch, like I’m burning for hours with no immediately discernible provocation.

Some days, I wake up and I don’t have the strength to get out of bed. Some days I can’t wake up at all. I’ve slept through deafening alarms for hours, long enough for my phone battery to run out and die. I can only stand up for ten minutes a day without being hobbled by the effort, and every extra minute beyond that I pay for in hours spent bedbound by exhaustion and pain.

I keep losing words. I’ll arrive at the middle of a sentence and stumble to a halt, because the word I need isn’t there. It’s not true aphasia, and it’s not all the time. I comprehend written and verbal communication perfectly well, but I can’t get my own thoughts out without tripping over them.

I am, to quote a friend attending school to be a nurse practitioner, “a textbook case for SLE,” and I agree, but somehow I can’t pay a doctor to treat me seriously.

In January, I was referred to a rheumatologist after the bloodwork my PCP ordered indicated I had autoimmune activity of some kind.

To date, that’s my only test for anything that’s come out definitively positive for any kind of disease state at all. Ever. I tested negative for celiac disease on a technicality nine years ago, despite how specifically and intensely sick gluten makes me, so I was dismayed but not too surprised when follow-up bloodwork for lupus came back just barely inside the range of “normal.” Despite that, I wasn’t prepared to be jerked around as much as I have been.

The first rheumatologist I saw, back at the end of January, had barely been in the exam room for thirty seconds when I could see he’d already made up his mind about me. He was dismissive and perfunctory and condescending when he told me that “plenty of perfectly healthy people have positive ANA results,” and he referred me back to my PCP for an exercise program and antidepressants to treat my “fibromyalgia.”

Putting aside that I’m not a “perfectly healthy person,” I’m a Fat Lady living in America, and I’ve experienced medical fatphobia for decades at this point. You learn the key words and phrases pretty quickly, and “exercise program” has never not been a euphemism for “weight loss.” (Which is heavily ironic in this particular situation, because before I was Fat, I walked 2-3 miles a day for funsies and spent 15-20 hours in the gym every week. I only stopped because I somehow shredded both my ACLs in one summer. I’d love to get back to that if a rheumatologist could help me figure out how to be active and uninjured at the same time.)

I was frustrated after that first appointment, enough to request a referral to one of the best teaching hospitals in the country. Why not go to the best, right? There was a five month wait for an appointment, but I am stubborn, and I made use of the time by documenting every bullshit symptom my body threw at me. I have a daily symptom journal, full of subjective entries like my pain and fatigue levels, as well as objective entries like daily temperature changes and photos of my rashes and my burning face and my goddamn mouth ulcers.

I thought I had enough logged to be impossible to ignore, and then I saw the second rheumatologist three weeks ago, and the first sentence out of her mouth was the beginning of an interrogation on my blood pressure, and whether I was taking medication or if I was on a fucking exercise program for it. I tried to get the appointment back on track by sharing my symptom diary, and she turned back to my just-under-the-wire test results, and told me, “many healthy people have positive ANA results, it doesn’t mean anything without other positive test results for specific conditions.”

I said, “Healthy people don’t run a fever for months.”

And then she told me that a "fever is not associated with any of the conditions a rheumatologist treats." I was so startled by the confidence and authority with which she stated the lie that I was unable to speak to rouse a defense or contribute anything else for the rest of the appointment. After an insultingly brief examination, in which I never took my face mask off and she declined to look at any of my photos, she said that she “didn’t see anything that could be rheumatologically wrong with me.”

I asked her what she thought could be wrong with me, and she grudgingly admitted it’s possible, though rare to have an autoimmune disease and test negative for everything, so she would order more tests and refer me to appropriate specialists for my various symptoms. She ordered a referral to an infectious disease specialist for my fevers, and a referral to a dermatologist for my “rosacea” (that she’s assuming I have, because I would like to again note she did not see it, at no point did she actually look at my face or a photo of it), and a referral to an ENT for a salivary gland biopsy for my dry mouth, and a referral to a neurologist for my “stroke-like” memory and speech problems.

It was, all told, an unbearably shitty appointment. I cried in my car for an hour in the hospital parking garage so I wouldn’t do anything impulsive like lying down in traffic, and then I went home, cried some more, and went to bed for three days.

On the fourth day, I woke up enraged. It’s one thing to be blown off by a doctor when you’re just reporting symptoms without proof, it’s a wholly different thing for a doctor to ignore your proof and lie about diagnostic criteria to your face.

It’s hard enough not to think you’re crazy when your test results come back negative over and over; it’s that much harder after being told that your major concrete measurable symptom is diagnostically irrelevant, when it really, really isn’t.

(for the record, just going off the symptoms I can concretely prove I’ve experienced in the last week alone, I land a 16 on this chart, which is the most up-to-date, widely agreed-upon diagnostic criteria)

I have decided, for the moment, to play ball. I don’t have the energy to jump through all the hoops this rheumatologist wants, but I'm angry enough to drag myself through them. Tomorrow I’m supposed to see the infectious diseases specialist. On Wednesday I see the dermatologist. In two weeks I see the ENT, and I’ve got a neurology appointment tentatively scheduled for December.

I’m going to be blisteringly forthright with all of these doctors about why I’m there, and that I’m looking to exclude diagnoses other than the lupus I pretty obviously have. (Except with the ENT. Apparently they treat allergies, and I’d like to be able to go outside long enough to walk a dog, someday.)

I’m supposed to see this rheumatologist again at the end of November. Depending on how this week’s appointments go, I’m aiming to either move up my appointment with her when one becomes available, or just send a firm yet diplomatic email asking why the diagnostic criteria apply to everyone but me.

If anybody else has gotten through this fucking nightmare successfully, I’m open to suggestions, it’s not like it can get worse at this point.

#long post #sufferpunk life #chronic illness #chronic pain #sle #lupus #aka why I've gotten nothing interesting or creative done since last year #fml

114 notes · View notes

catrasredemption-moved · 3 years

Note

Can you do a fic where catra gives birth without adora by her side and panics please

I feel like I can't do justice compared to the others that exist, but sure!

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

Adora hadn't wanted to go.

Catra hadn't really wanted to let her go, either. She was coming up on her eighth month of pregnancy, and every single nerve screamed in imagined agony when she wasn't in Adora's arms. She hated it - she had gotten over clinging to Adora years ago. But everyone assured it was okay. She was pregnant. She was allowed to want Adora right by her side all the time.

But this was important. Two ally planets were threatening to go to war, and there was a risk of Etheria ending up in the middle of it. Which, unfortunately, made it very much their problem. Normally, Glimmer would have brought Catra (who was surprisingly good at being diplomatic and talking people down), but Adora had flat out said no to the idea of her very pregnant wife going anywhere near a warzone. Catra would have argued, but that was fair, really. She felt the same way.

So Glimmer had taken Adora and Bow, with the hopes that the three of them would manage to calm everyone down. Catra had resisted the urge to point out that they hadn't even know what a coherent plan was before she joined them.

It sucked, watching the three people she trusted most clear Etheria's atmosphere and disappear into the stars. But after ten years, Catra no longer felt completely alone in the castle. Netossa and Spinnerella had agreed to stay in Bright Moon while Glimmer was gone; they had declared themselves the baby's aunts the minute Catra announced she was pregnant. Entrapta, after nearly two year of work, had managed to replicate Prime's teleportation technology to create teleporting points in each kingdom, so Scorpia could visit her bestie whenever she wanted. Micah had decided the new baby was going to be his grandchild (with a pointed look at Glimmer, who had rolled her eyes and informed him they were adopting), and was happy to look in on Catra every single hour, if she'd let him. She did not let him.

And they were great. They were all great. Catra loved all of them. But Adora's absence was an aching hole in her chest. She wanted her wife. She wanted her when she woke up at three in the morning, back screaming in pain, and there was no one she could ask to give her a massage, or even just hold her until she managed to fall back to sleep. She wanted to see the adoration in Adora's expression every time the baby kicked. She wanted to hear Adora's excited babbling as she told literally anyone who would listen about how they had just finished decorating the nursery, and it was so cute. She wanted Adora.

She really wanted Adora now, as she whimpered into her pillow, tightly clutching her swollen belly. Melog nuzzled her cheek, meowing nervously.

"No, it's fine," she mumbled. "It's nothing. Fake contractions, remember?"

That got her a very unimpressed meow in return. The fake contractions were sporadic and mildly painful, but this? This was a steady pain, pressing down on her uterus, coming approximately every ten minutes, as Melog kept reminding her. She reached out, pushing their snout away.

"I'm still three and a half weeks from my due date. It's fine."

Lying down wasn't a viable option; there was no comfortable position. She pushed herself out of bed, shuffling unsteadily around the room to try and relieve the constant ache on her back. Melog helped support her when she had to stop and lean on the wall, breathing heavily.

It wasn't fine.

"Fuck," she breathed, sliding down the wall, tears burning in her eyes. This couldn't be happening now. No. No no no no. Adora wasn't here. She didn't even know where Adora was. Not within communication range - Catra had already tried to call her. Who knew when she would be back. Catra was alone.

Not alone, Melog reminded her, nudging her shoulder. There were people here who could help her. A healer from Mystacor had even transferred to Bright Moon to be on hand for any emergencies, and the eventual delivery.

"Okay," she whispered. Melog nodded and disappeared. And she was alone.

She was alone.

Adora wasn't there. Adora wouldn't make it back in time. Her entire support system had relied on her wife, because why wouldn't it? Adora would be there. Adora didn't break her promises. Adora would be there.

Another contraction seized her, closing up her already struggling lungs. Tears pricked at her eyes as she wheezed uselessly. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe.

A hand rested on her shoulder. "Easy," Micah said, squeezing. "It's okay. You're okay. Can you breathe with me?"

He exaggerated his own breaths, giving Catra a guide to follow along. It took a few minutes, but finally she managed to take a shaky breath, curling in on herself. "Okay. Good. What's wrong?"

"I - I think I'm in labor," she admitted unwillingly. "And Adora isn't here, and she supposed to be here, she was so excited, I can't take this away from her, I can't - I'm the worst wife-"

Micah squeezed her shoulder again, cutting her off. "You can't control when this happens," he reminded her gently. "That doesn't make you a bad wife. Or mother for that matter." Was he a mind reader? "If Adora doesn't make it back in time, it's okay. I know she'll be disappointed, but she'll be here for everything else. And I know this is hard, but you have to relax a little. The stress isn't good for you or the baby. Take another breath for me. Please?"

Catra nodded, sucking in a breath and letting it out slowly. The bedroom door burst open, Netossa and Melog hurrying in. "Spinny is getting Ivy. Is it really time?"

"Think so," Micah said, taking Catra's hands and helping her stand. "Keep trying to call Darla. Hopefully we can get in touch as soon as they're back in communication range."

Melog brushed against Catra's leg, purring loudly. She scratched the back of their ears, smile turning to a grimace when the dull pain of contraction started to grip her again.

It was going to be okay.

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

"Adora?"

"Yeah?"

"Catra is never allowed to be pregnant again. That was the worst."

It turned out talking and being diplomatic was a lot harder than just punching things. It had taken nearly four days to negotiate a deal that made both planets happy and stopped a war. Adora was fairly certain defeating Horde Prime had been easier.

She and Glimmer were sprawled out on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Bow was slumped in the captain's seat, sleeping. Entrapta was working energetically at the console. She had gotten to spend the last week on Darla, since they all knew letting her try to talk to people was a nightmare. Adora wanted her energy.

"I'm so tired," Adora groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. Glimmer reached out to shove her shoulder.

"Aren't you the one about to have a newborn? You better rest up now, you'll never sleep again."

Adora laughed, ignoring the uncomfortable swoop in her stomach. She missed Catra. She hated that she'd had to leave. She just wanted to be back.

"Entering Etheria's atmosphere!" Entrapta called, as if reading Adora's mind. "ETA - oh."

The console was beeping. There was a call coming in. Entrapta tapped a few buttons, bringing up a large screen. It flickered to life, showing Netossa, who was looking at something off screen.

"Yes I'm sure I'm calling the right - oh!" She jumped when she saw the call had connected. "Hey, finally!"

"Is something wrong?" Glimmer asked, immediately sitting up. Adora shot up as well, suddenly shaking. Netossa chuckled nervously.

"Okay, don't freak out. But um... Catra had the baby."

"What?!" Adora's voice cracked. She practically sprinted across the flight deck, grabbing the screen. "Is she okay? Is the baby okay? How?!"

"Are you asking how the baby was born?"

Normally, Adora liked Netossa's humor. This was not normally. "Netossa!"

"Okay, sorry. She's okay, the baby is okay, they're both sleeping now. It got a little rough, and Catra might need a little more time to recover, but she's okay."

Adora felt lightheaded. She took a step back, sitting hard on the ground. Catra had the baby. The baby was born while she was gone.

"Um... ETA five minutes," Entrapta said, quickly hitting a few buttons on the console and speeding Darla up. Glimmer and Bow moved to sit on either side of Adora, hugging her tight.

"I missed it," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. She had one job, to be there when Catra gave birth, and she missed it. "She probably hates me."

"There is no way Catra hates you," Bow said confidently. "Trust me."

"She never stops talking about how much she loves you and how you're going to be a great mother," Glimmer added. "I share an office with her, I hear about it every single day. 'Adora stayed up all night painting the nursery, Adora's been practicing how to swaddle with some stuffed animals, she's trying to set a record swaddling time, Adora woke me up at three a.m. because she had her head on my stomach and was letting the baby kick her ear' - seriously, it never stopped. I tried to send her on maternity leave two months ago so she'd stop."

"But I-"

"I know, you missed it," Glimmer said, hugging Adora. "But Catra isn't going to be mad. She probably just wants you there now. It's going to be okay."

Adora scrubbed her eyes, sniffling. "Yeah. It'll be okay."

They landed, and Adora darted off the ship. Bow and Glimmer smartly decided they could visit later, and let her go.

Netossa and Spinerella were sitting outside of Adora's and Catra's room, playing a game on their tracker pad. They both gave Adora a grin when they saw her approaching.

"Hey Mom. How's it going?"

Adora slowed to a walk, hands shoved in her pockets to keep from fidgeting. "Is... Is Catra mad?"

"Is Catra ever not mad?"

Spinnerella elbowed Netossa. "She's a little upset, but mostly at herself. I think she'll be happier you're here, though."

"How long has it been?"

"About twelve hours."

Adora had barely missed it. She did her best to put on a brave smile. "Thanks for being here."

"Honestly, thank Micah. He's the only one besides Ivy who knew what was going on."

"And he didn't almost pass out," Spinnerella added, smiling wickedly at her wife. Netossa gave her an offended look.

"I did not almost pass out."

"You absolutely would have if I didn't drag you out."

Adora left the wives to their argument, carefully peeking into the room. Catra was sleeping, bundled up in a nest of pillows and blankets. Adora just barely got a look at her before she was being tackled. Melog nuzzled up to her, purring and licking her cheek. She laughed.

"Hi, Melog."

This was good, right? Melog always did this when Catra was feeling particularly needy but didn't want to say anything. Adora couldn't have been in too much trouble.

She stood, feeling a bit more emboldened, and toed off her boots before making her way across the room.

And she finally got her first look at her baby.

They were so small. A small mop of blonde hair barely hid twitching ears, little claws kneading mindlessly against Catra's chest. Their fur was a mix of Adora's skin and Catra's fur - a beautiful dark blonde that was absolutely the most amazing thing Adora had ever seen. She wanted to pick them up, to hold them, to feel their weight in her arms. But she also didn't want to disrupt this moment of pure tranquility.

Catra made a small noise, nose twitching, and one eye fluttered open. "Hey 'Dora," she mumbled sleepily. "Really left me t'do all the hard, huh?"

Adora pressed a hand to her lips to keep from laughing. "Mind if I join you?"

"Left enough room for you, didn't I?"

She had, Adora realized. A perfectly sized space right next to her for Adora to slide into. She tossed her jacket off and carefully slid in next to Catra. Her wife shifted slightly to snuggled into her chest.

"How're you feeling?"

"Tired. Your child is so difficult."

"Oh, my child?"

"Yup. Stubborn, just like you."

Adora finally reached out to brush a finger against one of their tiny paws. "Cute, though."

"Got that from me."

George and Lance, it turned out, had a surprisingly extensive knowledge about Magicats, and had been more than happy to educate Catra after they'd met her. One of the big things they'd learned was that Magicats didn't name their children before they were a year old (some superstition) and all babies used neutral pronouns until they were old enough to understand what gender was and could choose their own. Two more things Shadow Weaver had taken away from Catra. Two things she was determined to give their baby.

"Do you think I can..."

Catra rolled her eyes, yawning. "No, Adora, you can't hold your own child. Come on, seriously?"

"I just don't want to bother them!"

Adora was reaching out even as she said that, carefully scooping up the little bundle. They wiggled a bit, making a few distressed noises, but stopped when they were close enough to burrow into Adora's shirt. And if the baby hadn't owned Adora's heart before that moment, they certainly did now.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, to their baby and to Catra. "I'm sorry I wasn't here."

"M'sorry they were so impatient," Catra murmured, snuggling a bit closer to Adora now that she was free. S'okay, though. You're here now."

Yes, she was. And she'd be damned if she ever left this planet again. Why would she? Everything she needed was already here.

#Sam Writes #askbox fic #pregnancy cw #vague descriptions of labor #Catradora

116 notes · View notes

dana-chan-the-control-brain · 3 years

Note

Hey, did you saw the film theory on Invader Zim on Membrane that Low-key makes sense

NO. IT. DOESN’T!

Okay, maybe this is my personal bias shining through, because I really don’t like Mattpatt sometimes... No. Okay, I have nothing against the guy personally. More frankly, I don’t like his fanbase or the way he structures his videos.

The way Mattpatt words and structures his videos acts like he’s the first person who thought of this idea, it’s the main contributor to why I stopped watching his videos a long time ago.

He speaks in a lot of rhetorics and strawman arguments rather than just saying what he wants to say. Like “If you don’t believe me... look no further then...” and that’s the one thing I ABSOLUTELY HATE on theory videos.

And some of Mattpatts own theories he doesn’t take seriously, but this is what you get when you base your INCOME off of youtube ad revenue and browse the reddit forums for new ideas. A completely monopolized way of theorizing. (and this is why there are several paragraphs in my current chapter of Tech Support of Zim’s Computer complaining about the concept of youtube entertainment in general.)

Sure, I don’t think Mattpatt will run out of theories... but I really hate the structure of his videos follows along strawman arguments, acting like he’s always arguing with an imaginary audience for entertainment value rather than just say what he wants to say.

That, and people will often cling to theories of someone with good editing software and a youtube channel then Their own opinions.

Something that I learned was incredibly dangerous to do. I learned my lesson with “That Guy with the Glasses dot com” and I don’t plan to act like I know something or am better than someone else cause I agree with someone who said something on youtube once.

I do watch Internet reviews and theory videos for entertainment, but that’s all they are to me. I don’t like to watch youtube videos to give me opinions on how I feel about things. And I seriously think a wide margin of his subscribers lack critical thinking skills at times, as well as a majority of the youtube audience, or from what I’ve seen in the comment section.

However, remember... These are just my thoughts on the matter... My thoughts are not law and I never claim them to be.

Like when I first joined the fandom and posed my GIR analysis questions... I even said:

“I don’t know if the fandom has talked about this in depth or not... I just got here... or if someone put it into this many words before but...”

Also... the thing that bothers me about his Invader Zim theory...

A lot of Mattpatt’s sources are just..... Wrong...

(for the next few minutes I will be talking about this video, feel free to watch or don’t)

Okay.. “Membrane is an Irken” this has been a popular fan theory since before I even entered the fandom and there are old fics about this. I have read Irken Membrane stories before.

It’s not personally my cup of tea, but it’s fun to think about.

But the straws Mattpatt grasps in his video.... Really upset me because there is some thought to the theory back in the day.. ... Like back in 2002??? but like.... NOW?!

Okay, I’ll pick apart this a little... bit by bit...

He says that Membrane takes a hard stance against anything paranormal.

Kinda... but no.. Membrane never outright denies the existence of aliens. (except in ETF... which he mainly says out of frustration...) This is what Membrane says about “there are no aliens” in the show:

Membrane just says that there are no “intelligent” aliens...None that are able to travel the massive distance to Earth, anyways... If aliens existed at all, (like the cryptoids Dib talks of) they would have traveled the distance to the planet and communicated with them by now.

However, this is a nitpick of a minor issue. One that a majority of the fandom tends to overlook when viewing Professor Membrane and Dib’s relationship in general.

And I do find it weird that he used this for evidence when he cut out the most important snippet from the full lecture he gives Dib here.... JUST to support his claim... as if he’s intentionally leaving that part out.... hmmmm

However, I can let this slide, because it’s a nitpick and really doesn’t change anything that Membrane is very dissuasive of Dib’s alien-hunting hobbies. (I have a theory as to why and I explain it here in my own way)

The point is, Membrane is dismissive of anything alien... maybe because he’s an Irken...okay, good, yes. fair.

A lot of Mattpatts claims from then on are pretty solid, and I won’t bunk them with “But in my headcanon/Fanfic verse...” Because what he is saying is all true.

Membrane denying the existence of aliens even after being taken to space jail doesn’t have much of an explanation and is played for comedy and there are many ways you can go with this, and I am not going to bring up my fanfics or my own headcanons to argue with him here.

Because there is no explanation, and he is going with the “Membrane is Irken” theory... So that’s very solid when he’s talking about Membrane denying the Hallucinations.

Mattpatt claimed that Membrane wore his face covering at all times and had been dressed this way since he was a child.

I will not deny this. This is true.

However, isn’t bringing up Membrane’s childhood kinda put a hole in your own argument?

MEMBRANE WAS A CHILD.

He had been shown to have childhood memories in the comics and the show.

Irkens don’t really have a “Childhood” per say, at least not in the way that humans do. They are a smeet, then elite, then Invader..

If he’s claiming that Membrane came to earth as an Irken SMEET....How, why, and when?

That kinda raises more questions than it answers.... What are you proving by bringing up Membrane’s baby pictures on Earth exactly? It kind of works against your own argument?

Saying that they’re Irken because they all have the same hair.... that’s just stupid... and he’s citing the Invader Zim wiki on this .... oh boy.

Yeah, Like before I watched the show I thought Dib and Disguised Zim were the same character or brothers...

But I don’t think character design here is a solid enough reason in this case... At least not when it comes to the hairstyles... That’s a stretch.

“Hmmm Membrane’s hair forms an M shape... What could the M stand for? Mirken?! SUSPICIOUS!” (this is just a joke)

Also... the lack of ears thing... He did say it would be hard for Membrane to hear if his headpiece was covering his ears, but not necessarily... The entire thing is a headset and he is the man of science, he can really do whatever the fuck he wants cause Science is like magic in a show like this. So if Membrane wears a headset that doesn’t obstruct his hearing at all, I can buy it... Also.. it’s equally possible his ears got blown off in a chem lab accident or he’s legally deaf and that headset acts as a hearing aide and HELPS him hear...

Actually, I always noticed how in Membrane’s original design from the show, the headset looked a lot like a hearing aid. Specifically one with a head clip, It’s one of the things I first noticed about his design in the show.

And it’s just something I always assumed because he’s a scientist who deals with explosions in his face on a daily basis... (in fact he experiences one in episode 2B) So on first viewing, I thought that his headset served as a hearing aid as well as prescription glasses and a communication device.

I’m just throwing out possibilities because the “lack of ears” is also kinda a stretch.

Mattpatt complaining about “lack of nose” however... Okay, yeah I’ll give him that one. It’s a character design choice that is a little odd for Professor Membrane, but it does fit with the Irken theory, since a majority of human characters, in fact, all have noses. So, Yes the “lack of nose” does fit more into the Irken theory.

However.... Florpus anime Membrane DOES have a nose...

Meant to be drawn in a more semi-realistic artsyle, you can clearly see the bridge of his nose here.

And he looks very similar to anime Dib... Sooooo... Shrug-city...

It’s likely that Membrane not having a nose in the show is simply a stylistic choice than anything else. Basically, the bridge of the nose is there... we just don’t see it.

Especially since Nightmare Membrane has a nose as well..

Membrane is like Home Improvement’s Wilson. We will never see his face, and that’s part of the gag. The man probably sleeps in his labcoat honestly...

I also find the voice pattern thing a bit of a stretch. Membrane and Zim are just eccentric characters who yell to emote or emphasize a point or emote stronger. And Membrane’s inflections are never the same as Zim’s.

Remember, no other Irken TALKS like Zim. Professor Membrane doesn’t really go around screaming: “I AM PROFESSOR MEMBRANE” either.....

If anything... it just kinda proves both characters have auditory processing issues or hearing problems more then anything.

And there is a lot of screaming on this show.... Screaming from Dib, screaming from Membrane, Screaming from GIR, screaming from Zim... Screaming is funny... and characters scream so much that the characters with their mouths wide open is somewhat a staple of the show.

This is more because of Johnen Vasquez’s voice direction...

Especially since no other Irken really talks like Zim..

Zim’s manor of Speach is strictly a Zim thing and not an Irken thing.

Professor Membrane’s manner of speech is simply a Membrane thing and not a human thing.

I will give Mattpatt that. That a lot of tech in the show looks similar to Membrane’s. I feel this is mostly a stylistic choice, but it really does fit in with the Irken theory.

Like that Zim just so happens to use the same operating system as Dib is played off as a joke. But it does add some small credence to the theory here... I need to point out when he does get it right... some pats on the back.

These are very good points and does follow through with what he’s trying to prove by the end of the day.

(even if Membrane was lying about the destruction of all mankind with the beans thing, but that’s a minor nitpick here)

But his entire paragraph comparing Membrane’s tech to Irken tech is a really good one. Props there.

This whole paragraph about there being only Tall or short irkens cause their society is height based and there are no “medium-sized” irkens....cause they were “dealt with”

Okay.

....

Sure Mattpatt. Let’s just entirely ignore the existence of the Frylord and this entire character even though you mentioned it in the synopsis at the start of your video... Showing that Taller irkens are in positions of power against the shorter, also... Zim is a tiny irken... there are many Irkens that stand taller then Zim.

Being tall in Irken society is a rarity, and Almighty Tallest Purple said that he and Red “became” the Tallest. How? We don’t know, but we do know at one point the current Tallest looked like this:

How do Irkens get that Tall? Body modifications? Maybe... it’s never explained, but considering the Frylord is super big and probably eats a lot of snacks might have something to do with it. We don’t know.

It’s safe to say that being Tall in their society is a rarity and Tallests are either born or made special from the cloning chamber from the get go.

Not to mention, Membrane is Taller than the current Tallest are already...

and you said earlier in the video that Membrane would have gone to Earth as a child...

When he was no taller than a wrapped Christmas box of socks...

So why would Membrane take refuge on Earth at this point? Mattpatt says that Membrane was sent on a mission to Earth because the Tallest felt threatened by his rule...

BY MEMBRANE’S RULE?!?

HE’S THE SIZE OF A CHRISTMAS BOX OF SOCKS!

What do they have to be threatened by?

Because... Mattpatt DID bring up Membrane as a child earlier in the video... meaning Membrane came to earth when he was about the same size as Zim.

SO THEY HAD NOTHING TO BE WORRIED ABOUT AND HAD NO EVIDENCE TO BELIEVE MEMBRANE WOULD GROW TO BE TALL ORE EVEN VIEW HIM AS A THREAT

You bunked your own argument. Congradulations.

Membrane conquered the world through his inventions. In a way, sure. Membrane Labs does own a lot of stuff. But he doesn’t own everything. A majority of the Corporations that keep the population stupid usually don’t have anything to do with Membrane Labs and aren’t affiliated at all.

But this does fit into the “Membrane is an Irken” theory so I will give him that one.

However, Membrane being an evil corporate dictator is a hot take I never really appreciate at all and I can never get behind it.

It hits too close to home in the real world, and I always like to view Membrane as a self-made man and a World loving hippie at his core who just wants to make the world a better place, much like his son, but he actively does something about it. (which can also be why he encourages Dib with real science so much cause he knows Dib wants to save the Earth as much as he does)

Just calling Membrane a capitalist billionaire that doesn’t care about the little guy kinda seems disingenuous towards his character for me.

Especially when Membrane in “Ten Minutes to Doom” created a machine (foodio) that completely end world hunger... which was in BETA in the unreleased episode...

but by the time the movie rolls around... Foodio exists... past his BETA, meaning that he’s probably no expensive than a common household microwave and can materialize food from nothing:

Yeah. Membrane completely ended world hunger off-screen. thanks. (something no capitalist would ever do...)

Membrane also does appearances for charity (in the comics), and often takes funding for sponsorships when he is low on funds and he had to find a cure for pig mouth.

Sure “Membrane conquered the world” fits the Irken theory...

But I never appreciate that take on his character and that is admittedly, very personal bais.

I just wanted to say my peace a little bit here about how I 100% don’t vibe with the “Membrane capitalist/billionaire scum” especially since he ended world hunger...and invented a cure for the un-common cold.

Works for the theory, so good on Mattpatt for that one, but I personally don’t vibe with it.

Mattpatt compared Zim and Dib’s head shape as something to argue... Like because Dib has a similar head shape to Zim... that Dib has to be an alien... Okay... But If you look at the Invader Zim artbook (which I own)

The show has a very distinct look on how they draw characters’ heads. It’s a very distinct stylistic choice and there are pages upon pages in the artbook describing the style and how it looks in motion, and many revision notes to the Korean animators.

There are lots of pages on the artbook describing in detail the differences between the main characters’ heads, what to do, and what not to do.

It’s a difficult style to replicate, and Dib having a big head was mostly a joke from the showrunners to the showrunners, cause they kept drawing Dib’s head slightly bigger to make him look more appealing.

A majority of the audience doesn’t really notice because all the children in the show have big heads. All the kids are like 3-4 feet tall and have huge heads.

Also... Dib’s head is far more rounder then Zim’s in the comics and the Movie... comparing their head shape as an arguing point, when Dib’s head shape changed midway season 1 when the designs got slightly more streamlined is just... bad form..

Dib and Zim’s heads never really look the same from the early episodes as they do later on.

Comparing this character design similarity just because of the artstyle is really stupid.

This is the most infuriating thing about the video... because Mattpatt disproves his own argument with his own footage not a few seconds earlier.

He claims that Gaz sarcastically mentioning she has a squeedly spooch is a canon fact...... but ... hmm.. Mattpatt... can I rewind the footage of your video, please?

Where’s her squeedly spooch?

IS IT BEHIND HER CLEARLY HUMAN ORGANS?! I DON’T SEE IT?

And this isn’t just a stylistic choice... here’s a picture of another human’s organs for comparison.

Mattpatt literally disproved his own argument and ignored the fact that we saw an X-ray of Gaz’s organs in the very same episode...

Gaz doesn’t have a squeedly spooch and she literally was being sarcastic.

and the whole thing is disproved very easily.

Everything Mattpatt says in between those two points, about Dib being taken aboard an alien ship as a baby, and that there is no mother, and the Clone theory... That is all good stuff and this is what the theory video should have speculated and focused on, because there is some digging to be had here... I feel he focused a lot on the wrong points in his video...

And this is the most outrageous point he makes in his video. It’s the thing that pissed me off the most... and lead me to write this essay in the first place.

He claimed Eric Trueheart himself confirmed the clone theory and had story plans where Dib would discover his clone origins.

HE DID NOT!

IN FACT, Eric Trueheart himself published Volume One of the Invader Zim script book AND THIS IS WHAT HE SAID:

Eric neither confirmed nor denied the rumor.

But for Mattpatt to blatantly say that Eric said that Clone Dib was a planned thing by the screenwriters?!

He is BLATANTLY putting words into a Screenwriter’s mouth! Something that you should NEVER do.

Because it is 100% a lie.

He had no source for this claim. He probably just read the same rumor on the wiki and has no source.

This is the reason why I don’t trust videos like Mattpatt. The truth is often stretched for entertainment value, or information is just made up to prove “they were right” about whatever the topic of the day was. He doesn’t even bother to cite the source he got “Eric Trueheart’s word of mouth” from... because it was wrong.

Sorry if this whole thing is more hostile than it intended to be... But Mattpatt was looking at the ENTIRELY wrong evidence for this show....

Irken Membrane is a fun theory... but Mattpatt picked the entirely wrong topics and points of discussion, even to the point of hiding the truth and straight-up lying to his audience about his sources.

It’s kinda like saying “Birds eat ghost peppers because they’re part dragon and dragons can handle spicy food”

While, yeah, Birds are descended from dinos, it’s kinda missing the full story there and it’s not the reason why birds can eat spicy food.

Irken Membrane is a fun fan theory... do what you want with it. I am not here to dissuade Irken Membrane headcanons...

I’m just here to encourage critical thinking, and perhaps NOT put words into content creators' mouths when there is no credible source for it just because it benefits your argument.

#Invader Zim #Film Theory #Mattpatt #danachan's rants #lol sorry i went off but he really needed to cite his sources more on this one

268 notes · View notes

my-writings-and-musings · 3 years

Note

Not sure if you still want to write for old prompts but if so; May I request Rodimus, Brainstorm, and a bot of your choice for the kidnapped s/o defending their bot and giving the kidnapper a tongue lashing? Your writing is so good it seriously brightens my day reading through it all! :D

I never tire of my prompts, lovely anon! Thanks a million and here's the good boys! I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to do for the third bot but I poured my heart and soul into these two, I hope you like them!

Rodimus

·Your panic had never really gone beyond some light anxiety about when you'd get to eat next, but you credited that to the rescue party you knew was coming. Rodimus had bested bad guys far more competent than this loser, so you had few worries about getting out. Truthfully your greatest concern was how unfathomably annoying your captor was proving to be. Between their grandiose personality and their constant taunting over the communication line, you feel as if you're going to go mad. Unfortunately, when the mocking starts to be aimed directly at Rodimus without end, you quickly build to your limit. The gloves come off when your captor crosses the final line and calls your partner "Hot Rod" in an unacceptable jab.

·"Oh for God's sake! It's Rodimus you dolt, not Hot Rod! I know the extra syllable is a little difficult for you, but try to keep up!" Your shout echoes so loudly in the tiny cave that a bit of dust falls from the ceiling. Your captor is quick to try and shut you up, but that doesn't stop you in the slightest, as yelling feels far better than taking any more of their trash. For pete's sake, they stole you for ransom and they're expecting good behavior? Entitlement falls way short of describing what a jerk this bot is, and you let them know it, channeling the insults you know your partner would unleash if they could.

·"You think you scare me? You think you scare anyone?! You're dumb enough to piss off the captain of the Lost Light buddy, you should be afraid! Rodimus sees guys like you as footnotes compared to what he usually deals with!" Quite accustomed to your beloved captain charging in to save the day, you let loose a long list of his accomplishments, proudly defending and boasting at the same time. Your captor can't even get a word in edgewise. With a devilish smirk, you start to go on about all the less public ways Rodimus rules as a partner. His impeccable charm, his smooth wit, and his capacity to perform as a Prime where it really counts... That last bit is kept from vulgarity only due to a none too distant explosion cutting you off.

·Before anything can move, the door quite literally melts before imploding inward as molten metal, revealing Rodimus covered in flame. He moves in a fiery blur, his fist more akin to a meteorite as it collides with your captor to knock them out in a single punch. At your cheering of his name, he comes to your side in a flash, fire dissipating completely after he frees you of your bonds. Moments later the remainder of the crew is pouring in with Magnus scolding Rodimus for rushing ahead. He ignored him completely as he takes you into his arms, optics shining as if he's beholding something more precious than the Matrix could ever be. Though his words are flirty, his tone is tender and brimming with affection as he takes you back to the ship. His lovestruck expression doesn't seem to go away even when he throws a massive party to celebrate your rescue.

·In an incredibly rare moment where his responsibilities pull him away from you, a bot close to him tells you something they think you should know. Rodimus was initially devastated by your kidnapping. Though the entire ship had rallied for your rescue, he'd barely held it together enough to take charge, and hearing the bot mock him had nearly sent him over the edge. Your outburst had, as if by a miracle, revitalized him. Hearing you stick up for him, including your grand list of what you adored about him, had so inspired him that controlling his fire had become easy. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. You believing in him had put into perspective what he was capable of, to the point it lit a fire in the most literal sense of the phrase.

Brainstorm

·Dating a bot brilliant enough to rend time had made you quite accustomed to shenanigans of all kinds. Thus, you were calm when kidnapped, both due to the aforementioned reason as well as your certainty of rescue. However, that calm had proved short lived when your captor proved to be an annoying jerk with a massive inferiority complex. Their ceaseless mockery through the communication channel was like torture the DJD would have found too cruel to condone. You'd been able to stay cool for some time, focusing on keeping the situation calm and looking for weak points your rescuers might exploit, but inevitably you'd been pushed to your limit. The final straw had been your captor having the audacity to mock your partner for being a hopeless inventor who only managed to make things no one needed, and that sent you over the edge.

·"Hopeless?! You call inventing time travel and creating the multiverse hopeless?! This coming from a loser in a cave with the most backwards security system on this side of the galaxy?!" Your outburst had come with a rattling of your chains to emphasize your point, and between your voice and the clanking metal you'd immediately had the full attention of the bad bot. Still enraged, you made a point of detailing every single categorical failure they'd displayed, having learned plenty about judging the quality of technology in Brainstorm's lab. There's more than enough material for you to throw at them with the nightmare of poor maintenance surrounding you. "When was the last time you bothered patching up these turrets anyway?! Hope you're not planning on using these for defense, Brainstorm will have them short circuiting before he's done hacking that door!"

·There's something resembling an attempt at a comeback, but you're a mile ahead before it's even halfway out. To say your beloved bot eclipses this loser's intellect would imply they'd actually register on the same level, and you have to laugh at the absurdity of someone so incompetent daring to come after one of the most brilliant bots in the galaxy, something you let them know in no uncertain terms. The litany of reality warping ways you might be rescued is as long as it is ridiculously plausible. You begin going off on the countless other ways Brainstorm might get around this captive situation, extolling his many talents in weapon design and paying special attention to how brilliantly he thinks outside the box. You're about to get into the details of other areas he's creative in when the lights go out and everything plunges in to darkness.

·Flashes of biolights, small explosions, and shouts of action are all you have to discern some incredible rush of activity. Before you can really figure out what's happening a beautiful pair of yellow optics light up the darkness, and in a split second your chains are broken and you're being lovingly cupped by a pair of careful hands. At the flip of a small device the lights flicker on to reveal a beaten but otherwise fine captor being cuffed, but you ignore that entirely when Brainstorm removes his mask to speak to you. Playfully fussing over your condition, he uncharacteristically kisses your little head in full view of everyone, something he's never done before. In fact, the next few days he's nothing but openly loving and outright showy in his affections, publicly presenting you with a series of fantastic gifts invented to profess his love.

·In a rare moment of solitude, you're unexpectedly taken aside by a bot who says they need to let you know something important. Brainstorm was almost dangerous. He'd already lost one love, and he'd been so intent on not losing another he'd been forced from his lab to prevent him from tearing reality asunder to get to you. He'd been nearly impossible to console or restrain until your voice came through the comm. Hearing you defend him so passionately had calmed and invigorated him all at once, grounding him in reality and giving him the clarity he needed to assist in rescuing you. The device he'd created to extinguish enemy defenses had been put together at a speed that impressed Perceptor. It was thanks to you that he remembered to go slow and take things one step at a time, because just as much as you were worth fighting for, you were worth living for.

200 notes · View notes

stovetuna · 3 years

Note

CW: character death and Tony lack of self esteem and self preservation. Ignore if not ur jam

(¬_¬) psssttt angst time. post-Endgame Steve accidentally ending up in 616 and meets that Steve and Tony. And after failing to wrestling ANY info about why this Steve is here, 616-Tony figures out other him is dead and this Steve is taking it badly and this has Tony trying to make MCU-Steve feel better by saying something like well that me probably deserved it??? All us Tonys do (This does not make MCU feel better. Nor does it make 616-Steve very happy)

ANON MY HEART! IT CANNOT TAKE THIS! (she says as she mulls over this prompt for DAYS and even snaps out of half-sleep to write a little bit of it)...

but like, imagine it. Somehow or other Steve ends up in 616!universe—a spell of Dr. Strange’s gone awry, maybe, or a clusterfuck while returning the time stone—and he’s ended up in 616!Tony’s workshop. It’s late, he’s confused and disoriented and grieving, and he’s already making for the ratty sofa (thinking fixing this is a problem for future steve) when he realizes there’s already someone stretched out on it.

not someone. someones. together. wrapped around each other like koalas on a branch. one of them is Tony—no amount of darkness can smother that blue light, or so Steve once thought—and his heart is breaking all over again, when the person wrapped around him, partially hidden behind Tony’s shoulder, raises his head, eyes alert, and Steve realizes it’s him. Himself. Steve Rogers, from another dimension. Universe. Tony would know which.

Rogers snaps to attention and is standing and interrogating Steve and he manages to not wake Tony up the whole time. This Tony sleeps like a rock, or maybe that’s just because of Rogers, and Steve is spiraling over the fact that maybe that’s all it would have taken to make things right—better—in his own universe. He could have been brave, he could have been strong enough for both of them to walk up to Tony and ask him out, kiss him, something. Instead he lied, and hid, and ran. He’s still running. Meanwhile this taller, broader, stronger version of him chose happiness, because what else could life with Tony Stark be?

Rogers is grilling him in the semi-darkness, asking questions Steve isn’t sure he’s allowed to answer (the rules of the time heist are still fresh in his mind), but the questioning stops when Steve starts crying and asks him how long they’ve been together. If it was enough to stop their fight, and everything that happened after.

Rogers tells him they were too late to stop the Civil War, but they pulled their heads out of their asses eventually. When Steve mentions Thanos, Rogers’ face flashes recognition but not the same level of grief Steve feels like a railroad spike lodged in his heart. Whatever else has happened in this universe, Thanos hasn’t, and this Steve and Tony are together. Steve can’t stop thinking this is all just a cruel nightmare disguised as a tear in the fabric of the universe.

And then the lights come on at a dim 30%, revealing a Tony Stark who is whole and alive and very, very different from the man Steve knew. While Steve stands there poleaxed in crisis mode (Stark mentions “blue screening” which is a reference Steve does get and he hurts all the more deeply because of it), Rogers fills Stark in on what he knows about Steve, when he showed up, what they’ve talked about. When Rogers mentions Steve’s question about their relationship, something brightens in Stark’s blue eyes.

“Your universe’s Tony Stark is dead, isn’t he?”

Steve makes a sound that is something between a sob and a laugh. Of course Stark would figure it out with the least amount of information at hand. In response, Rogers grabs Stark’s hand. He’s gone deathly pale, as if the very thought of losing Tony is too terrible to imagine, and he shares a look with Stark that speaks volumes, because Stark looks just as grim. Something happened there, Steve thinks—one or the other of them died, or came close enough to put the fear of it in them for life.

And then Stark opens his mouth and says “If your universe’s Tony Stark was anything like me, and categorically speaking he probably was, he probably deserved it.”

Steve’s gut plummets because Jesus Christ, does Tony Stark not have any sense of self-worth, in any universe?? Apparently he and Rogers are the same wavelength—shocker—because he rounds on Stark with “Tony, we’ve talked about this” while Stark waves him off with a scoff.

“This isn’t low self-esteem talking, Steve—you know my track record when it comes to near death experiences. How many would you say have been the inevitable result of my own actions?”

Rogers’s face flattens. His lips and eyes narrow. “Too many.”

“Right. So am I right, or am I right?” Stark asks Steve, but Steve’s tongue has cleaved to the roof of his mouth. Of course, Tony Stark was always able to talk enough for three people, even if two of them were, technically, the same person. “He probably went down thinking he was the only one who could fix whatever was broken, walked right into a coffin he made himself, literally if not figuratively.”

Steve swallows. “Actually,” he says, thinking of the gauntlet fused to Tony’s armor, which had fused to his arm, “it was something like that.”

Steve’s eyes laser in on their joined hands, tearing up when he sees Stark squeeze Rogers’s fingers. A small touch of reassurance, stabilizing and loving, to remind Rogers he was still here. Still breathing. Still alive. The look Rogers sends Stark is so warm, so full of things Steve doesn’t have the strength to name, it threatens to shove him deeper into an already devastating downward spiral.

So of course Stark chooses that moment to look at Steve and be his usual smart self, because some things are truly universal, and Tony Stark’s intelligence and ability to read people is one of them.

“You never told him?”

Steve shakes his head. Rogers makes a small, hapless sound, like the thought of never telling Tony Stark his feelings, being with him, is too sad to consider. It is—Steve can honestly say it is, and of the two of them, Steve is the only one who has to live with the consequences of the choice he made (and made, over and over again) for the rest of his life.

Whatever nonverbal communication passes between the two men, Steve doesn’t see it. He’s too busy staring through blurry eyes at the floor of the workshop, wishing this nightmare would end so he could go back to his own universe and not have to be confronted with the life he wishes he could have had with a man who was now dead.

He’s so wrapped up in his own misery, he doesn’t register movement until two socked feet stop in front of his shoes and he looks up to see Stark standing there, eyebrows knitted in concern and wonder and, worst of all, understanding. Like he’s been where Steve is, lost and bereft, irreparably heartbroken. Did this Tony lose his Steve? How? Rogers is standing right there. But Steve has seen Stark’s expression in his own mirrored reflection every morning for the past year, and while he was never on par with Tony Stark’s genius, he could read people too. Stark knows this kind of loss as deeply as Steve does now.

“We’ll get you home first thing,” Stark tells him, but it sounds like a line to quell Steve’s nerves, which it does, and a good thing too, because Stark is moving into Steve’s personal space as he says it, breathing his air and meeting his gaze straight on. “Nod if you understand?”

Of course Stark would be considerate of Steve’s inability to speak when they’re this close. Steve nods.

“Can I give you something, Steve? If I know myself—and I do, really, even if my judgement isn’t always perfectly sound—your Tony would have wanted to give it to you himself. But life wasn’t fair to either of you, I think. Not that it ever is, but, I’d like to correct the imbalance in some small way. Is that okay?”

Steve nods before he realizes he’s doing it, like his body knows what’s coming before his brain does and he’s helpless to resist.

Logically, Steve knows this isn’t his Tony. Not because his Tony is dead—although that does play a major factor—but because this one is so unlike him. This Tony, Stark—he’s too tall, Steve’s mind supplies, too young, too broad; his hair is too dark and his eyes are too blue.

But Steve Rogers would recognize Tony Stark anywhere, in any dimension. In any universe. And if it means getting to give Tony everything he was too scared to offer him in life, even for a second—let alone getting some of it back—then so much the better.

Stark pulls him in for a kiss like it’s second nature to him. Muscle memory. But to Steve, it’s a shock to the system. Every hair on his body is standing on end. He gasps against Stark’s lips and suddenly fingers are buried in his hair, tugging him closer before he can stop and ask them if this is okay, if they know what this means to Steve, if he can actually have this.

A sob sticks in his throat as he finally musters the wherewithal to kiss back. Stark takes it handily, licking a hot, wet line across Steve’s bottom lip before Steve slants left and kisses him hard and deep, wrapping his arms around the similar-yet-unfamiliar frame. Kissing Stark, Steve realizes, makes him happy, in a profoundly genuine, comforting way he hasn’t felt in years, and the only way to express it is to wrap a hand around the back of Stark’s neck, just below the nape, and suck the moan right out of his mouth. Even if that happiness is soured by his implacable grief, he can shove that into the back of his mind long enough to luxuriate in the feeling of Stark’s tongue brushing against his soft palate, those hard, scarred workman’s hands sliding up under his shirt to splay soft across his lower back. He feels safe, and happy, and loved.

And if he imagines his Tony in Stark’s place, no one has to know. And if they did, Steve doesn’t think either of them would judge him for it. His instinct is confirmed when Steve pulls away long enough—breathing hard, just like Stark, who looks for all the world like someone who just fell off a Tilt-a-Whirl ass-backwards—to look over Stark’s shoulder at Rogers, who’s staring hungrily at both of them like he doesn’t know whether to pounce or stay put. The tent in his sweatpants speaks for itself.

Before Steve can piece two coherent thoughts together—like does he feel weird about an alternative universe version of himself being turned on by this? or does he need to stop kissing Stark before this gets out of hand? how is he supposed to get home? how is he supposed to live without this now that he’s had a taste of it?—Stark is pulling him back in for a kiss that tunes out all the noise and warms him through, tucked in the safe, quiet, happy circle of Stark’s arms.

Steve holds the man and the moment as close as he can, as long as he can, and he’s grateful, for the first time in his life after coming out of the ice, for the silence.

#stevetony #steve rogers #tony stark #616 stevetony #MCU steve rogers #rachel writes fic #stevetony fic #stony fic #superhusbands fic #fic rec #superhusbands #I'M SAD BUT ALSO HOT UNDER THE COLLAR NOW THANK U ANON

116 notes · View notes

ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her · 3 years

Text

On Education

An excerpt from Memoirs of a Flesh Eater, never published.

Previous Excerpt

Next Excerpt

I think every parent struggles with the question of when they should teach their children hard truths. At some point, every child needs to learn about death. They need to learn about hatred. They need to learn about the horrors people will inflict on them for being different. This is something that is as true for ghouls as it is for humans. For most people, it is a fact of life that someone will hate you for existing.

Human-on-human prejudice is still something I don’t fully understand. At least humans have a reason to hate us. I don’t know why they go looking for reasons to hate each other too.

Educating ghouls is a challenge. We need to know about ourselves, of course. We need to know about our kind - our needs, our history, our ways of moving through human society - but we need to learn everything that humans learn too. The more we can fit seamlessly into the human world, the safer we are. You probably don’t know this, what with how much the news loves a story about a ghoul living in secret among humans, their murders exposed to the shock of their friends and acquaintances, but those of us who are brought up among humans don’t get found out very often. It’s the feral children, the big city packs that still hunt most of their food, the all-ghoul communes, that are easier targets for the exterminators. Those of us that are fully integrated are much harder to sniff out, unless we seriously fuck up.

{Editing Note: Don’t say fuck. Even though it’s a really good word}

The best way to make sure a ghoul can pass as human is to start us young. Get us into kindergarten, then elementary school, and keep going all the way through college. There’s nothing better than hands-on training. That’s what my mom did for me, mostly. I was raised in human society, in the human public school system, and I’ve never had a true close call. I’ve never caught the eye of an exterminator, and no human has ever asked me pointed questions about my habits or diet.

For the sake of completeness, I should say that I was in the human public school system for everything except for middle school. It’s not like that’s a great loss, though - everything I’ve heard about middle school sounds like hell. I don’t know how any of you survived going through puberty in front of all your peers.

{Editing Note: I am not talking about ghoul puberty unless I can find a reliable human to tell me what their puberty was like. If I wrote about something that I thought was ghoul-specific but is actually normal I’d die on the spot. I’d call a fucking exterminator on myself.}

Conventional schooling might be the best setup for success, but it’s also the most dangerous route. Kids talk, and that’s as true for us as it is for you. It takes a lot of work to make a child understand that there are some things you can never tell anyone, not even your closest friends, not ever. It’s not a fun burden to grow up carrying either. I’ve known the fear of death for literally longer than I can remember. I’ve known that letting myself be truly honest and vulnerable with any of my classmates would bring it to me and my parents before the day was over {Editing Note: True vulnerability is what I need now, though. I should find a place to talk about my dad}. It’s more loneliness than any child should ever grow up with. I was lucky; I found Scarlet in 4th grade. There are plenty of ghoul children that don’t find each other until high school, if there are even any other ghoul children to be found.

Some parents decide that the risk is too great. They’d rather have alive children than well-adjusted children, so they homeschool them {Editing Note: Okay, that’s way too harsh. Don’t be biased}. I did get to experience this approach for those couple of years when I wasn’t in middle school, and it does have some advantages other than safety. When I was in public school, my mom had to find time after school to teach me about our people. In a homeschool setting, ghoul studies could actually be integrated into our curriculum. It wasn’t completely asocial, either - ghoul parents often use their Society connections to find other ghoul children that are homeschooling so we can learn together. I met my second best friend, Scorpio, because we were homeschooled together.

{Editing Note: My friends are going to read this. I need to make it super clear that Scorpio is the second best friend I made chronologically. I’m not ranking my friends in front of the entire world.}

Scorpio’s a good friend, but he’s also a good case study for the drawbacks of homeschooling. He was homeschooled K through 12 and he is definitely the worst of my friends at passing. He has no idea what’s normal for ghouls vs normal for humans, so he compensates by either saying nothing or saying the most obvious, outlandish lies you could imagine when childhood comes up in conversation. In his defense, those lies are usually pretty funny, and he does connect pretty well with the right kind of people. Scorpio’s got a bunch of very specific subjects that he knows a ton about and loves to talk about. He and Scarlet can go on for hours about literary theory.

{Editing Note: That’s too meandering. I’m just trying to explain why some ghouls homeschool and some don’t - I don’t need to put my weird friends on blast.}

There’s another kind of formal schooling for ghouls that’s much, much rarer - the ghoul private school. The only one I even knew of, St. Raymond’s, was shut down last year by exterminators. Normally I’d tell you to take the lurid details you hear on the news with a healthy pinch of salt, and I still would, but that many rich young ghouls, completely cut off from the rest of humanity… it’s hard to predict what becomes normalized in that kind of echo chamber.

Fortunately, my patron knows more people than I do, so I have more to offer you than grim speculation. According to her, these kinds of places always have a very small student body, rarely breaking a hundred. The lesson content is pretty similar to homeschool - fully integrated ghoul curriculum, plus a few specialized lessons on blending into human society. Out of necessity, they’re almost always boarding schools. It’s easier to keep a low profile if you don’t have a bunch of ghoul kids not used to hiding going to and from the campus every day.

Apparently, it’s that kind of logistical challenge that makes these schools so rare. Aside from all the money you need to run a school in the first place, and how careful you need to be to pass scrutiny from the Board of Education, providing discretely for the needs of that many ghouls is an organizational nightmare. I mean, there’s a reason that ghoul families are so small, a reason why even our extended households rarely do more than scrape the double digits. There’s only so much flesh that can be safely obtained in one area at a time. There aren’t a lot of ghouls that have the resources and the inclination to put one of these schools together.

There is, of course, one more ways that ghouls are educated - the school of hard knocks {Editing Note: That’s such a trivializing way to put it. Have some sensitivity, me}. Given how short our average life expectancy is, it’s inevitable that some ghoul children have to fend for themselves from a very young age. I doubt it comes as a surprise that most of them don’t manage to integrate into human society very well. The lucky ones figure out early on how to kill discreetly, how to hide their nature from observers, and how to vary their hunting patterns enough to avoid the attention of the exterminators. The rest either starve quietly or die violently.

Most of these feral ghouls who survive to be teenagers eventually find each other and form packs. From a pure survival standpoint, this is a bad move. A group of feral teenage ghouls have a much harder time covering their tracks than they would as individuals, but for most, the chance at companionship is too tempting. It’s miserable, being alone in the world. Packs offer most of them the best chance to escape loneliness that they’ll ever get. And for most of them, it ends in a shallow grave within a year. Putting down a pack of feral ghouls is a good headline for an exterminator, and it’s a lot less work than trying to ferret out those of us who’ve figured out how to pass. That isn’t how the majority of ghouls die, but it’s how a plurality of us do.

For those few feral ghouls that survive to adulthood, their lives take one of three paths. Sometimes they find a patron and fall in with a household, and they do their best to heal from the trauma of their childhood. They do their best to find a happy life in human society, just like those of us who were luckier. Sometimes they become true Hunters, living their lives on the outskirts of our Society; still embraced by us, if only at an arm’s length. I’ll talk more about them later.

And sometimes, they become the Lost. Not that ghouls from any walk of life are immune to that fate, but… I’ll get to them later too. You may not have heard of them by that name, but I guarantee you’ve heard of the Lost.

{Editing Note: That’s a really grim note to end the chapter on. I should play with the structure a bit and find a more uplifting note to leave this subject on.}

{Editing Note: Or I could ask Kestrel. I’m sure she’d have ideas on how to better write the section on feral ghouls, and she could help me strike a more authentic tone. But… I don’t want to upset her. She doesn’t like to think about it, and I don’t want to hurt her. Is this important enough? Would she think it’s important enough?}

#my writing #original fiction #not tlt #memoirs of a flesh eater

32 notes · View notes

mymedlife · 3 years

Text

Guys, the pandemic has broken me. Every time we seem to be making any progress I feel like we get set back again.

Sorry for the long rant ahead, but I feel like I need to get it out of my head.

Back in the beginning, last March or so, when the state I'm living in shut down, I felt like I could do it. Daycare shut down for almost 3 months to prevent spread.

My husband's job changed his hours to 10a to 8p since everyone was working remotely so they could all be working on the same time zone.

My cofellows were generous enough to switch shifts so I could work all nights and weekends and watch my kiddo during the day. Which kind of sucked, because she doesn't play independently for very long, o was tired, hubby wanted it quiet, and everything was closed so there wasn't anywhere to go to break up the monotony.

Work was filled with frequent changes around what protective equipment we have and what is required to be worn where. I got fitted for 3 different N95s because we kept running out, despite having to check them out and have them sterilized between uses.

I had frequent discussions about how COVID is real with families who refused testing. Parents lied about their symptoms to be allowed into the hospital with their kids, including one who collapsed mid visit due to respiratory failure. Several people ended up having to quarantine because they weren't wearing their N95s during the resuscitation as it was unexpected (at the time we were only wearing N95s during aerosolizing procedures including bagging). This lead to a new rule on not stopping in to help until you have the proper equipment on (which makes sense, but but is so hard).

Early on I spent some time volunteering for the COVID hotline for my state. Most of the questions I got were people upset that things were closing. There were very few health calls.

My aunt died. My sister, a psychologist, argued with her boss she should get a raise for being a frontline worker. My other sister, who is immunocompromised, was mad that all her friends continued to party guilt free and we kept telling her to stay home. My husband began to enjoy his new schedule to the point that he would stay up until 3am playing games after work (the kid was asleep and I was working) and sleep until he had to work at 10 am. My friends talked about their new lock down hobbies, including my co fellow who spent her time creating a new lecture series for the residents. I felt like I was trending water, I started getting behind on fellowship things and I was so tired. My kiddo was happy that I was spending more time with her, and it all was temporary, right?

Eventually things started opening up again. Daycare returned. Two days later my husband was fired. Thankfully he found a job within a few months, but during that time was quick to anger and his staying up all night playing games and sleeping most of the day got worse. He dismissed anything I had to say about it and frequently promised to sleep earlier, later saying he had to stay up because the kid had a nightmare that I slept through.

During this time, many of my pediatrician friends were called to see adults due to high patient volumes and doctor shortages. Luckily I only had to see kids, but there was still a lot of mystery surrounding symptoms and the discovery of the multi system inflammatory syndrome.

My kiddo got sent home a few times from daycare for vague symptoms that necessitated a COVID test, and at one point she was at home with me for 2 weeks due to a COVID positive exposure in class. My husband's job was new so he couldn't take off time to help. At some point things shifted so I was now doing all the daycare pickup and drop-off as well as all the bedtimes (unless I was physically at work).

Following Breonna Taylor and George Floyd there were large scale protests around the downtown area, where my hospital is located. I wholeheartedly support the movement, but someone told my kid it was dangerous to go downtown, and she became fearful of me going to work. This combined with the break in at our home lead to sleep refusal. Something I had to help he with, leading to bedtime taking hours, because my husband would yell at her. Most nights I was too tired after getting her to bed to do much, which lead to more work piling up.

Job hunting was not as fun as I had hoped it would had been. I had one in person interview, everything else was virtual. Thinking about working at a place I've never seen was terrifying.

Many places simply ghosted me. Lots weren't hiring. A few went on a hiring freeze after my interview.

Every interview asked what hobby I developed during lockdown. I admittedly could have answered this question better, and explained that I survived the lockdown with a toddler and that was an accomplishment.

My home institution decided to go with my co fellow over me. When I asked my mentor why she said they felt she had more to contribute to medical education than I do. I'm convinced that in part this has to do with all the lectures she wrote during lockdown.

I was able to get a job, but it's at a smaller community ED where we have a few beds in an adult ED. I mentioned to my associated program director I was a little disappointed, and suddenly everyone is telling me to be thankful for what I have.

I can be thankful and disappointed at the same time.

I think the biggest thing is a fear that if I hate this job I wont ever be able to find another one.

I also kind of resent my kid and husband, if I had more support or time to focus on fellowship things may have been different.

But life goes on. The vaccine was created, things opened up, and now those who aren't vaccinated can stop masking.

The my body my choice people who previously refused to mask are pleased, and now there are barely any masks when I go out (despite a not great vaccination rate in my area).

My kid is 3 and cant get the vaccine, so we still wear them. She loves to whine about how the others don't wear their masks. "It's not fair."

No, it really isn't.

Masks are still required in the hospital, which parents complain about daily. Recently every time I recommend a COVID test it has been refused. The pandemic is over. Kids can't get COVID. And other nonsense.

Kids as young as 12 can get vaccinated. However there is real concern about post vaccine myocarditis. Now everyone who comes in with chest pain wants to complain, even if they are unvaccinated.

Things have been stressful, and my kid is picking up on that. She still has trouble sleeping and has started having tantrums. We recently had a meeting with daycare and they want us to have seen by psych to get her evaluated.

I've found that I've lost interest in most of my hobbies, not that I have a lot of time for them. Fellowship finished and I have the next two weeks off before starting my new job. I was planning on spending it sleeping, cleaning the house, getting out the baby stuff as we are expecting a new little one in a couple of months, and rediscovering my hobbies.

Today I had an awful migraine. I cant take the meds I usually take because of the pregnancy, and my OB wont prescribe anything because he is worried about masking signs of preeclampsia. My husband refused to get up to watch the kid because he was tired, so I pushed through until he was ready to get up.

I lay down to try to get a nap and I get a call that there has been a case of COVID at daycare, and they will be closing for 2 weeks. They will open up the day I start my new job.

And this my friends is what has broken me.

I was so looking forward to finally have time for self care, and now I get to play stay at home mom again with my kid who is in isolation.

After that call I got up and left the house. I'm sitting in my car at the park writing this, and while I know I will go back home eventually, I'm tempted to drive off and let my husband deal with this for a change.

38 notes · View notes