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#also the death note thing is true and I will die on that hill
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*Game Night for the older kids a.k.a. No Damian Allowed* Duke: Tim, your turn
Tim, who had been using the time to take a nap on Cass: Huh? Two truths and a lie right?
Cass: Yep
Tim: Okay then. Uhhh, I have the highest body count out of everyone in this family, Lady Shiva hates me, and I made a deal with Klarion to stop aging so I don’t become Batman
Jason: You really think you’ve slept with more people then B? Well it’s obviously the last on- wait. Tim, I need you answer this seriously, how old are you?
Tim: 17
Dick: That’s no possible, you were 17 when Damian was 10, and he’s 14 now
Tim: I am aware of that. I am also 17 years old at this moment.
Jason: Why the fuck would you make a deal with Klarion?!
Tim: I can’t become an evil Batman if I never become a legal adult
Steph: Putting that aside, You and Lady Shiva have causal sparring matches like once a month Duke: Can we go back to the fact that Tim doesn't age?
Tim: No we can not
Dick: I will skip over the fact that you keep making friends with people who have tried to kill you fo now, but we are going back to that later Steph: Does that means you’ve actually slept with more people then Bruce? The "Brucie" Wayne?
Tim: I never said I’ve slept with more people
Jason: Then what do you mean by body count- Tim. Have you killed people?
Tim, now fully awake and panicking: Okay I was briefly out of employment with Bruce and the League has a very different company policy-
Dick: The League? like the League of Assassins- TIM WHO DID YOU KILL?
Tim, backing his way out of the room: You know what we should talk about? How the height of all Death Note jokes are “kinda gay” and how it stems from the fact that Yagami spelt backwards is-
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allbark-no-bite · 4 months
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marriage and honor.
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jake seresin x reader (wc: 6.5k)
summary: the Navy has already taken two people from your life, and you don’t intend to let there be a third. that is until Jake Seresin walks into your life
warnings: severe plot holes, mentions of character death, swearing
authors note: based off of the movie Purple Hearts. it’s a great movie and i highly suggest watching it! please bear with me in the beginning of this, the plot holes fix themselves, i promise lol. i literally threw this together because i wrote one scene for shits and giggles and had to commit to it
(read parts two and three here: december and devotion, cats and christmas)
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No one ever expects to have to bury their brother at fifteen. Kinda just like no one expects to have to bury their other brother at eighteen. But you do it the first time and then you do it again three years later. It's a bit like deja vu the second time, like you're reliving the actual nightmare all over again. Except this time there's no one to hold your hand and tell you it's all going to be alright because he's dead and buried too.
They both die honorable deaths in service to their country. At least that's what they say at the memorials. You're not so sure there's anything comforting about dying honorably. They're both still dead, honored or not.
Raised by your grandparents, you'd grown up the youngest of three on a military base smack dab in the middle of San Diego, better yet known as Fightertown USA. True military brats, your old brothers enlisted straight out of high school, one after the other. As their young and impressionable kid sister, you worshiped the ground they walked on and had your heart set on following in their footsteps. That was of course, until they both went and died.
'Sometime these things just happen', is what you were told. And you know, freak accidents do happen. Engines fail, training exercises go awry, safety precautions are ignored. But that doesn't make up for the fact that lightning has, against all odds, stuck the same place twice.
So after the Navy takes away not one but two people from your life, you swear off all things to do with military life. The moment you graduate high school you pay out of pocket just to move off of the base into a shitty the-bedroom-and-bathroom-are-in-the-same-place apartment. You go to college and get the kind of degree that looks good on paper but you can't really get a job with. But it's fine because it helped you to put the past behind you and move on. So much that when your grandmother passes away unexpectedly, leaving your grandfather widowed, you're able to stomach moving back closer to home to take care of him.
At least, you'd thought that you had moved on.
Now, standing in the middle of the courthouse wearing what had been your college graduation dress (the only white dress you could find on such short notice) and watching the man before you slip a ring on your finger, you're not so sure. As a matter of a fact, you actually feel sick, queasy like you might have to bend over the nearest trashcan to get the blood rushing to your head again. That might would be a good idea because what the hell were you thinking.
Jake must take notice of the expression on your face because he offers you a weak smile, his pink lips pressed together. The same thought must be running through his mind too because he also looks like he might be sick at any moment.
What the hell were either of you thinking?
"I now pronounce you husband and wife." Thankfully the minister is too bored looking with his own job to notice that both of you are looking worse for wear. He also completely forgets to say 'you may now kiss the bride', which is another thing to be thankful for. That might have been the straw that broke the camel's back and sent both you and Jake running for the hills. Instead he mumbles a unenthusiastic congratulations and departs from the room, leaving you and Jake standing numbly side by side.
In the following seconds after the minister leaves the room, silence settles between the two of you, partially due to shock and partially because you don't even know what to say. It's a sight, Jake in his pristine navy dress whites and you in your too short college graduation dress.
Finally, Jake clears his throat, swallowing. "Well, there's no turning back now."
*queue rewind noise* 
You may be wondering how we got here.
*six days ago*
"C'mon baby, you didn't think that was funny? Girls usually love that line."
He'd been after you all night, smiling, cracking jokes, buying you beers. You had to admit, he was nothing if not persistant.
"Unfortunately for you, I don't date funny guys." Despite your tone, you're actually genuinely amused by the situation. He's trying so hard, and it's getting him absolutely nowhere.
He's handsome, without a doubt the most attractive man at the bar, but he could be the most attractive man in the world and you still wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. Not with that smile and defiantly not with that uniform on.
"And why is that?" he laughs, undeterred by your blatant disinterest. His friends are watching, have been watching the two of you do this dance all night, and he's not about to back down now.
You watch the smile lines that appear on his tanned face, the way his eyes crinkle in amusement as he awaits on your answer. He's probably a few years your senior, early thirties if that's anything to go by.
"Funny guys are dangerous. They make you laugh and laugh and then boom you're naked."
His smile twitches and yeah, you can be funny too, wise guy.
"Is that where you think this is going?" he asks.
"Where else would it be going?"
And that's how it all started. The beginning of the end.
"You know navy spouses get a monthly stipend and are allowed to live on base?"
You remain facing the bar, peeling at the label on your bottle, not bothering to glance to your side. "You know, I really fucking wish Natasha would keep her mouth shut."
"(Y/n)—"
"It's no one else's fucking business what—"
He grabs the seat of your stool, nearly jerking it out from under you as he pulls it closer to his own. "Listen to me," he growls, a stark change from his usual demeanor.
Stubbornly leaning away so that you're not so close, you regard him with suspicious and narrowed eyes. You raise an eyebrow as if to say he's got your attention, however unwillingly.
"Right now, we're both in a tight spot, okay?"
You knew about his dad. Heard the whole spiel from Natasha— who you're learning that while, your best friend, cannot be trusted to keep her mouth shut— about how they weren't on good terms, hadn't talked since Jake got into the academy, and suddenly he calls out of the blue to tell Jake that he'd had enough of his son's playing around and that it was time for him to start thinking about getting married. That if he didn't within the next few months, he'd arrange the whole thing himself.
"You need a place to live—" You shush him, eyes darting to the people around you. You don't need anyone knowing that you can't exactly afford to pay your rent. Jake rolls his eyes because he doubts anyone could hear him even if he was yelling with how loud it is in the bar, but he lowers his voice regardless. "You need a place to live, and I need to get my old man off of my back..." He trails off, as if you should know where he's going with this.
You don't. You're just staring at him with an increasingly annoyed expression on your face, wondering how soon you can get out of this conversation.
He takes a deep breath and sighs. 
"Hear me out, okay? What if we get married?"
You had actually laughed in his face at first, and Jake was so dead serious about it that he didn't even dwell on the fact that it was the first time you had laughed at something that he'd said.
"Not a chance in hell, Seresin,"  had been your second response. But that's the thing with pretty guys, they can be awfully convincing.
It all happens so fast that you have metaphorical whiplash. Next thing you know, you're wearing a brand new diamond on your finger and going out to the bar with his entire squad the night before their deployment.
Of course, they're all a bit shocked at first. You would be too. You and Jake hadn't exactly been even remotely civil with each other just a few days prior. But if any of them are suspicious of your's and Jake's sudden union, they don't let on, all too happy to have something to celebrate before they ship out. Fanboy and Payback have each brought their wives and Natasha her girlfriend as well. You suppose you're expected to mingle with them, maybe shed a tear or two over the shared bond that your partners are going across the country, but you can't really find a way to connect with them so you kind of just avoid them altogether. You do feel bad, sitting there without a care in the world while they all try to offer comfort and reassurance to each other. But you don't really know what else to do because it's not like you're exactly sad.
Thankfully Javy, or as he's known, Coyote, stands up and raises his near empty bottle of beer in the air and saves you from anymore uncomfortable sitting. "I'd like to make a toast! To the newlyweds!" You spoke too soon. The table cheers and raises their bottles in response, all of the attention turning to where you and Jake are sitting. Cheeks immediately flushing, you have to refrain from sinking down in your seat. Jake is grinning, accepting the few rough pats on the back that he receives from Rooster beside him.
And just when you think that's the worst it's going to get, it gets worse.
"Kiss!"
You're not sure who starts it, but like teenage boys, the entire squad parrots in unison.
"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"
At first Jake just laughs and shakes his head good naturedly, shrugging off the insistent urging of his friends, and you think that's going to be the end of it. But the chanting doesn't stop and finally Jake turns towards you. Your face is probably red hot and undeniably panicked. Heart racing, you try to read him in the half second that you're given as he leans and wraps his arm around you. Is he going to kiss you? Are you supposed to kiss him?
Neither option happens. Jake's arm wraps around your shoulders, pulling you close into his side and at the last moment, he turns to press a kiss to your cheek. A series of disappointed boos follow but they are drowned out by clapping for the most part. He's uncomfortably close, closer than you ever would have liked to be to Jake Seresin, but you have to remind yourself that it's all for show. When Jake does turn away, you can still feel the warmth of his lips smeared against your cheek. Even so, he hasn't let go of you pressed into his side. 
Your heart still racing, you reason with yourself that if Jake can play the part, you might as well too, and under that pretense, allow yourself to hide your face into his shoulder to conceal it's redness. The smell of his cologne washes over you, and oddly enough, you don't hate it. It's subtle, with a hit of what might be amber, and nothing like the overwhelmingly masculine scent that you would have pegged him for. 
If Jake finds your sudden willingness to touch him strange, he doesn't comment on it, likely assuming that you're just trying to make this thing between the two of you seem real. You somewhat reluctantly pull away when Coyote's voice raises again.
"And here's to shooting down some fucking MiGs!"
Again, the table erupts into a chorus of cheering and hollering. You still, allowing Jake to fully pull away from your side while the proclamation rings out in your head. It's a very grounding moment, and suddenly you feel very alone sitting at the table. No one seems to have noticed your shift in mood. Maybe you're the only one put off by Javy's statement because this is their reality. There are people who are not coming home from this mission; everyone just likes to assume it won't be them. You know better.
You can't help it, the words just come out of your mouth. "That's a fucked up thing to say."
It's the first time you've really spoken up the entire night and all heads turn towards you. Based on the look in Jake's eyes, which is a bit apprehensive, as if he knows this is headed nowhere good, you realize you probably should have just kept your mouth shut.
Payback shifts uncomfortably in his chair while the rest of the crew glances around the table wearing varying states of confusion. Their gazes shift from you to Jake, as if waiting for some sort of explanation. 
Coyote is the first to break the silence. "Look, sweetheart, that's just the way things are. Here in the Navy, that's a badge of honor. Your boy Hangman here is the only one of us with a confirmed air-to-air kill."
"(Y/n)—", Jake attempts to interject, but you're not about to let him explain himself to you in front of all these people.
You set your jaw and swallow back the anger threatening to rise up in your throat. "Yeah, because killing people is so honorable."
Coyote scoffs. "We're just doing our jobs. And if that means taking down a few planes while we're at it, so be it."
"Your job is to protect people," you snap. "There are people out there who have families—"
"Alright, that's enough—" Jake begins to interject for the second time, but this time it's Coyote who interrupts him.
"Come on, man. You're really going to let her say that kinda shit—"
You stand up. "I don't need his permission to—"
"I SAID ENOUGH." This time it's startling enough to cut both of you off. "(Y/n), what is your fucking problem?" Jake snaps.
You flinch at the harshness of his question.
Your eyes travel around the quiet table, where everyone is holding their breath, and then back to Jake. His green eyes reflect a type of pissed off what would be terrifying if you weren't so angry yourself.
A small, logical part of you knows that he has a right to be angry. You've picked a fight for no apparent reason in front of his friends and he hasn't the slightest clue why. It's not his fault your brothers are dead and you blame the Navy for it.
Regardless, that doesn't make up for the fact that you're pissed off by his defense of what Coyote has said. Even though you probably owe him an explanation, you're not about to answer him when he's just yelled at you. You also know that if you don't say something, he's going to and you'd rather die before letting him tell you off in front of all these people. You abruptly push away from the table and storm off for the bar top. You can hear Jake chasing after you.
"(Y/n)."
You ignore him in favor of heading towards the back door of the Hard Deck, pushing past people regardless of whether they're in your way or not. Being slightly more considerate, you can hear Jake moving much slower as he excuses himself through the crowd.
"(Y/n)—"
You come to a stop once you reach the door, spinning on your heels with a fire in your eyes.
"What's my problem?!"
Behind you, you can hear the loud jesting and jeering of his friends back at the table. They're still ruffled with excitement from your outburst, and Coyote's voice follows your retreating back. "Jesus man, get your girl under control."
I'm not his girl, you want to snap. He doesn't own me.
Jake has stopped a few feet away from you. 
"What's my fucking problem?! My problem is that your friends are sitting over there calling murder honor."
Jake sighs harshly though his nose. Shaking his head, green eyes looking up, he begins, "He didn't mean—"
"No. I know what he meant, Jake. You're all a bunch of cowards. You're all too goddamn scared to admit that maybe you're not doing as much good as you thought over there, and so you just justify it by saying all killing is good killing, right?" you spit.
His vibrant green eyes harden but he doesn't respond. "That's some real goddamn honor, right, Jake?" you repeat, angrier this time, wanting more than just some watered down reaction from him. If there's one thing that pisses you off about Jake, it's that you've never gotten anything more than what he's conditioned himself to respond with. It's like he's locked up in this stupid box of his and the most you can ever get out of him is a glance. You want him to be angry with you.
"That's enough." His jaw is tight, and you can tell that even despite his lowered voice and rather subdued demeanor, you've hit a nerve.
"Admit it. Admit that you—“
"(Y/n)." His voice adopts a seriousness that you've never heard from him before. It sounds almost dangerous.
Jake steps towards you and for a moment you think you've won. And then in the moment following that, you actually think that he's going to get physically angry with you. Your heart stalls. Jake's a big guy, a naval aviator, and no matter how good he sells himself to be, he could hurt you if he wanted too. You would never have pegged him as someone who would put his hands on a girl, even after only knowing him for a week, but a man is a man, perfectly ironed uniform or not.
Only he doesn't. Instead he steps into your space and leans in closer than you've  ever been before. His hand presses into your back, firmly pulling you into his chest so that you have no choice but to shift closer to him, your bodies molding together. "I said that's enough. They can see us arguing."
The press of his mouth to your ear conceals the exchange of your conversation from the listening table. You can smell his cologne on the starched collar of his uniform.
"I don't care if they see us—" Pushing your palm into his chest, you try to reestablish the distance between you, but like a brick wall, Jake doesn't budge.
"You realize that we have to make this look real?" he hisses. "From here on out, they're watching everything we do. The government is watching everything we do. Do you understood that?" His voice is tense, and it sounds more urgent than angry now.
Standing there, you realize his heart is thumping heavily beneath your palm. His body is uncomfortably rigid, like a scared dog waiting for its owner to show up and see the mess he's made. Behind you, the table has gone relatively quite. Rooster murmurs something along the lines of, "It's a little early for there to be trouble in paradise already."
Someone—Coyote—responds, "I don't think he thought this through, man. They won't last two weeks."
Jake's eyes meet yours, and you know he can hear them too. You swallow, trying to relax a little in his grasp. He's right, you have to make this look real, and fighting right off the bat doesn't exactly look good.
"Are they still looking at us?" You finally ask, leery now to even speak too loud.
Jake breathes a sigh of relief beside your ear, taking your sudden quiet as cooperation. "Yeah, just keep talking, okay? Act like we're working it out."
Despite trying to appear more comfortable than you are, you don't move your hand from his chest. The coarse material of his dress whites rises and falls steadily beneath your palm. It's calming in a sense, and you try to focus on its rhythm rather than the fact that you're so close that you can feel the heat of his mouth beside your ear.
"Still looking?" You ask after a few moments pass.
He hums. "Yep."
"Well then what do we do? We can't just stand like this forever." The longer you stand together, the more details you become aware of. Like the fact that his face is freshly shaven against your cheek and that he must have brushed his teeth before this because his breath smells like Listerine.
"Look at me."
"What?" You ask, your brow furrowing as he pulls away. His hand that had been holding your waist firmly in place lifts to grip your jaw.
"You're going to have to kiss me," he explains, glancing briefly over your shoulder.
"What?" Before you can even protest, he's leaning in and pressing his mouth to yours. Without the time to process what exactly is happening given your state of alarm, all you can do is go along with it. His lips mold against yours in what might be the most borderline tame kiss you've ever had. Despite this, you are reluctantly surprised to note how good of a kisser he is. It's just forceful enough to let you know he's in control but not so much that it's unpleasant. His lips are full and taste vaguely of his mouth wash.
You don't kiss him back.
It makes no difference to the group behind you whether you actually kiss or not; they can't tell from this distance and all they have to do is believe it happened. It's more for your own self preservation than anything. It's one thing to play the part, it's another thing to get caught up in it and catch feelings. And with Jake Seresin, that was a dangerous game to play. You'd already felt it, him prying his way under your skin when he'd held you at the table and the smell of his cologne filled your sense. It would be that easy.
To his credit, Jake lingers just long enough to make the kiss believable before pulling away. Even si, it still feels uncomfortably long. He leans back and you don't miss the fact that he wipes his hand across his mouth. "Sorry," he mutters under his breath, looking away.
"Jake..." you begin, immediately feeling bad, but he stops you.
"Whatever, (Y/n). It's fine." He won't look you in the eyes now. You turn to look over your shoulder, desperate to get yourself out of this increasingly bad situation .
"They're not looking," you say, finding the table now amicably chatting with each other rather than focused on the two of you. The sudden PDA must have finally diverted their attention. "...you can step away now."
"Right," he says, clearing his throat awkwardly. Jake drops his hand from your waist and steps back like he's glad to finally put some distance between the two of you. So much for making this look natural.
You return to the table shortly after, in hand to make it appear as if you've made up and smiling tightly when Bob cheerily welcomes you back to break the awkward silence. Once seated, you drop each other's hand beneath the table immediately. The rest of the evening is spent avoiding contributing to conversations that involve the other. If anyone notices, they don't comment on the fact that the two of you hardly look at each other for the rest of the evening, and somehow you manage to put up an otherwise happily married front.
When a few of the guys finally get a little bit too drunk, specifically Rooster, you're all too happy when Natasha calls it a night. Because they ship out the next day, Jake drives you back to the hotel where all of the married couples have rented out a room for the night. Apparently it's a tradition or something. You make the drive in silence. You let him check into the room and carry both of your bags up, disappearing into the small bathroom to splash cool water onto your face. It helps to ease some of the tension from this evening. Leaning over the sink, you watch the water swirl down the drain.
Is this crazy? This is crazy, right?
Jake is sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands when you step out. He's taken off his hat and suddenly he seems a lot more fragile than he was a few minutes ago. There's a softness to him, something having been previously concealed by the precise styling of his hair and tense pull of his set jaw. Before you can break the silence, he sucks in an uneasy breath.
"Hey, we need to talk about something. Um, you know... in case I..."
In case he doesn't come back.
You swallow, looking down at the ground. After tonight, after he's kissed you, all of this is starting to feel a little bit to real. What the hell happened to pretending? This was all supposed to be pretend. "Jake, please don't do that—"
He stands up from the end of the bed, and you notice the folded paper in his hands. "This is all of my personal information, you know, bank accounts, passwords, phone numbers... Anything you might need if something happens to me." He says it all as if it's so normal, but you can hear the apprehension in the thinness of his voice.
Already, you're shaking your head as he hands you the letter. "Jake, please. I don't want that." Your heart is pounding and all you want to do in the moment is go back in time and never have agreed to do this in the first place. This was insane. What were you thinking? Like you were going to put yourself through this again? 
"(Y/n)—“ Jake tries, interrupting your spiral of thoughts.
"I said NO, Jake," you snap, stepping back from him and the letter. There are tears burning at the backs of your eyes, like you might burst into a hit of hysteria at any moment. "I change my mind. I can't do this..."
Jake's eyes glance from you to the paper in his hand and then back to you, and then he drops his outstretched arm with what sounds like a laugh. "Right. Not like we're fuckin' married or anything." He releases a puff of air from his cheeks and runs his hand through his hair like he's contemplating pulling it out. "Do you know how screwed we are if anyone finds out about this? Do you, (Y/n)??" he asks, his voice rising to a concerning level. "We're done!" 
"Jake, I—"
He tosses the letter onto the bed and sits back down with a heavy sigh, looking down at his feet. When he finally speaks again, his voice had lowered to a more acceptable volume. "It's a bit too late for you to back out now. If the Navy finds out about this— if anyone one finds out about this, I could lose my job. We could both go to jail."
Silence settles over the two of you as Jake sits on the bed, staring at his feet, and you stand there in the middle of the room, willing your heart to stop pounding in your chest. You need to get out of here before your heart implodes. You turn and grab your coat from by the door.
"Where are you going?"  Jake asks, his voice tired and annoyed.
"I need some air," you say, shrugging on your coat and opening the door. He doesn't try to stop you on the way out. 
You regret the decision the second that you walk out the door. Now that the sun is gone, it's freezing outside. Your original plan had been to go for a walk to clear your head but you doubt now you'd make it very far. Walking down the stairs and out into the nearly empty parking lot, you look around, considering whether or not you would survive the trek to a gas station. When you realize you've left your phone back in the room, you decide against it. You aren't dumb enough to walk in the dark alone. Instead you head towards Jake's truck, which is parked out by itself at the end of the lot. To your surprise, you find it's unlocked and the door swings open when you tug on the handle. You climb in and the switch to lock the door behind you. Even the inside of the car is cold but at least it's out of the wind. You hug your knees into your check and tuck your chin into them, curling up in the driver's seat to keep warm.
And then you just sob.
It's the kind of sobbing that starts long and drawn out and then escalates into the rapid breathing that happens when you can't get enough air into your lungs and it feels as though there's an entire golf ball stuck in your throat. You haven't cried this hard since you were a kid—since your first brother died. You didn't cry the second time, didn't allow yourself to feel anything the second time because you knew there wasn't going to be anyone to pull you back together if you did. 
At least being away from all of this had allowed you some time to forget, even if for just a moment, that they were gone without having to be constantly reminded. You had moved to put as much distance between yourself and the Navy as possible. Because that way life wouldn't get the chance to take another person from you in the same way. Looking at the ring on your finger now, that's exactly the opposite of what you had just done. This was just supposed to be until you could get back on your feet, and if it helped Jake out in the process then great. Now that you think about it, it was stupid of you to think that you would be able to make it through this with out catching feelings for him. 
Now you're going to lose him too.
You cry until you almost make yourself sick and then some more. Your sobbing is interrupted every few minutes when you choke on your own air and have to swallow the golf ball that is lodged in your throat so that you can breathe. You're not sure how long you sit there just crying. Surely at least an hour has passed. By the time your sobbing has slowed, your head hurts and your chest aches enough to be sore.
Knock knock knock
You jump at the noise, head shooting up from between the bracket of your knees. It's dark outside, the parking lot just barley lit in a wash of grey by the moon. Even so, you can make out Jake's broad figure in the darkness.
"Open the damn door." His order comes out in a puff of frosty condensation that warms a spot on the window, his voice only partially muffled by the barrier. His shoulders are hunched against the cold, the upturned collar of his coat doing little to protect him from the brutal conditions.
For a while you just stare at him through the window, swallowing back the spit in your throat.
"Open the door," he repeats, knowing better than to think that you can't hear him. If only locking yourself in his car was the solution of all of your problems. Reluctantly, you reach over and click the lock, slowly rolling down the window.
After it stops, you stare at each other through the open car window, separated only by the frame of door that he could now easily reach out and open. His soft brown hair is mushed and in disarray, nose and cheeks tinted pink form the chill. The pleasant green of his eyes is mostly hidden as he squints against the wind.
Finally, you suck in a breathe, your chest shuddering. "I cannot do this," you stress, all of the fear that you've been shoving down now presenting itself in a singular sentence.
Jake sighs, his face softening to reflect a look of sympathy. "Look, I promise you, it's not that bad. You'll come with me to the carrier when I ship out tomorrow, we'll hug each other goodbye, and then you won't even have to see me for a couple of months. It'll be like none of this ever happened. And when I come back... we'll figure it out. Okay?" His voice is soft and understanding, like he's talking to a child.
You stare at the dashboard, your stomach still churning anxiously. "That's not what I'm... It's not you, Jake." Quite the opposite. "I lost my brothers to the Navy. Both of them. And I don't think I can take losing anyone else."
Immediately Jake's face falls as he puts everything into place. Your initial distaste for him, your furious outburst at Hard Deck, your reluctance to have have anything to do with the Navy... "I—God, I'm so sorry, (Y/n). I had no idea."
You shrug, calming down now that you've finally let go over everything that you've been holding in. "I asked Natasha not to tell you. I just thought that I could get over it so what was the point in even telling you?"
The wind blowing into through the open window is bone chilling and so you can only imagine how cold Jake is standing outside the car. For a while there's only the sound of his quiet breathing.
"Nothing's going to happen to me, (Y/n)," he says into the darkness.
"How can you be so sure?"
Hands shoved into his pockets, body braced against the wind, he shrugs. "I'm not. But if I didn't tell myself that every morning, I'd never get out of bed."
Sighing, you pull the handle on the inside of the door. "C'mon, it's fucking cold out there."
Jake huffs as if to say, you're telling me, and grabs the handle to pull open the door. Only instead of climbing in, he steps further inside the door and grabs your head in his cold hands so that your faces are mere inches apart. "I mean it, kid. I'm not going to leave you, alright? You just gotta trust me."
Looking into his eyes, you know he means it. For the second time since you've known Jake, you really see him. Standing before you is the same man that you saw in both of your brothers. Granted, they were much younger than he is now, but you get it. You'd been trying to see him as anyone else other than the brothers you lost, praying that it would hurt less, but you can't make someone into something they're not. 
"Okay," you whisper. "I trust you, Jake."
You're awake hours earlier than what you're used to in the morning, but that's only because you had glanced at the alarm clock at half past three and realized that you only had few hours left with Jake. The both of you had returned to the hotel room and changed in comfortable silence, slipping into the single bed together without a word. Jake had reached over and pulled you into him without so much as a second thought. Now his body is draped heavily on top of yours, his nose tucked into your hair as your fingers trace along the bare skin of his exposed back. 
You switch between staring at the ceiling and watching the numbers change on the alarm clock, trying to think about anything other than the fact that Jake would wake up in about an hour, you'd drop him off at the carrier at six, and that would be it. You'd only just gotten him and now you were going to have to let him go.
When Jake's alarm does go off, you're more emotional than you thought you would be, but Jake seems to be fine, dutifully putting on his uniform and carefully packing all of his bags, so you try to put on a brave face. You move slowly, dragging out the process of getting dressed as long as possible just so that there's no excuse to leave for the dock any sooner than you have too. After you're done getting ready, you watch him shave once and then again for good measure before he ultimately decides that you've both wasted enough time putting off the inevitable.
The drive there is silent as well and would have been unbearable had Jake not reached over the consol to reassuringly squeeze your hand. He doesn't let go of it until you pull into the crowded port. Between people trying to get their things on board and a bunch of teary goodbyes, it's beyond you how you manage to find the Dagger Squad in the midst of the chaos. Fanboy and Payback are saying goodbye to their families while Rooster and Natasha chatter excitedly with an older man also dressed in naval attire, the name plate on his uniform identify him as 'Maverick'. It's all so overwhelming that only when Jake squeezes your hand again do you realize that it's time for you to say goodbye.
Reluctantly, you turn towards him, interlocked hands swinging between the two of you. He does his best to smile, and to his credit, it's not entirely fake. "Well," he sighs. "This it it."
"For now," you add, returning his soft smile as you look up at him.
"For now," Jake agrees, his smile brightening now that you seem to be okay also. He pauses, just staring down at you for a moment before he adds, "Are you going to let me kiss you?"
You smile, answering him this time without hesitation. "Only if you keep your promise."
Jake's large hand comes up to cup your cheek, cradling your chin in his palm as he leans down to you. "I promise," he murmurs before pressing his mouth to yours, perhaps even more tender than he did the first time at Hard Deck. Only this time you reciprocate it, chasing his mouth as you lift up on your toes and run your fingers through the back of his hair. Groaning, Jake sighs into the kiss. It's dizzying and you don't know how it's possible to put all of the passion that you've been holding back into one kiss, but somehow you do. His lips are soft and you have to shove down the urge to grip his hair and demand him for more, because it by some miracle occurs to you that you're on a ship in front of hundreds people. 
Jake's the one to pull away, his eyes shining and pink lips slightly more swollen than they were a minute ago. You can't help but laugh, wiping away some of your lipgloss from his mouth with your thumb. "Goodbye, Jake."
"Goodbye, (Y/n). And don't forget, I'll see you soon."
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You’re Somebody Else | Ghost x Fem!Reader | Prologue
Update: I split the prologue because I feel like the pacing fits better if it’s split into two parts.
Note: This is based on a request which I changed a bit since I did not play any other Call of Duty game besides Modern Warfare 2 (2022). I did a bit of research tho for the older games so I hope it’s not complete bullshit that I’m pulling out of my ass, also related to the military stuff xD 
Thank you for this first request of my current favorite character :)) 
Also a warning, this series will be angsty as hell but I’m not planning to make it very long, as I learned my lesson with a certain witcher fic xD 
This fic has religious undertones at least in this part, I hope I don’t make anyone uncomfortable with this. I grew up Christian (tho I’m an atheist now) and I thought a bit about how I would react if I was suddenly in a parallel universe where I and several other people are supposed to be dead.
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Warnings: Death, Mentions of Gore, Angst, COD Typical Violence, Mentions of Original Characters, Mention of Religion and Hell, Inaccurate Depiction of Medical Stuff, Injuries and prolly Military, Transmigration (lol)
Summary:  You watched him die and yet he’s somehow still alive. You’re certain that you’ve died too and yet you’re still kicking. Is this a message from the universe? A second chance to make things right? To confess? You want to believe it but you quickly realize that he’s not the same man you knew and loved. Yet your heart is fluttering when he touches you. Can you love this new version of him?
Word Count: 1.2k
Taglist: -
If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)
Masterlist
Part I, Part II, Part III, ...
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“Fucking hell, there’s so many of ‘em!”
Lynx fires her rifle next to you and you do the same, feeling the recoil on your shoulder. You only waste a millisecond to check if your target is actually hit and then immediately focus on the next enemy. 
Below your position the LZ is hot and the hill on the other side is bombarded with mortars. 
You know it’s hell down there and yet you wish you were between those trees instead of the elevated bush area from where you currently provide cover fire. 
He is there and in this very moment you want to be by his side. No matter the heavy gunfire. 
“You still see them?!” your partner asks from your right, and you affirm her question as you kill another hostile. 
Roach and Ghost are steadily moving forward in between the onslaught of Russian soldiers and growing relief trickles through your veins with every step they take. 
But then they run out of the tree line and before either of you can react, a mortar shell explodes right in front of them, and Roach is sent flying. 
“No, fuck, NO!” Lynx yelps and the panic in her voice is earth-shattering. 
“He’s not dead, Anna!” you shout and grab her by the shoulder, stopping her from standing up. She bites her lips but thankfully remains on the ground, just inching a bit forward, desperate to spot her lover alive. 
You pray that your words are true and thank fuck they are; seconds later Ghost drags a shooting Roach away from the trees and the red flare that the masked man popped for Thunder-Two-One. 
“Jesus Christ”, you hear the woman beside you whisper, “I’ll beat his ass when we’re back home!” 
A nervous bubbly laugh escapes you and you hope that you all can return to base safe and in one piece. 
“Move, Ghost! We’ll cover you!” you speak into your mic. 
His voice rings through your earbud “copy that, Nomad!” and you breathe out shakily. Yeah, everything will be fine. 
With your eyes you watch how Thunder-Two-One sends a merciless spray of machine gun fire into the tree line, but you can’t see beyond the smoke and instead focus your scope on the few enemy soldiers that emerge from the grey fog. You take them out one by one. 
You’re about to send another bullet into an approaching hostile when your radio crackles. 
“Gold Eagle is on the ground. Watch for snipers on thermal, over.” 
Lynx makes a noise beside you. “Isn’t it just us and Adle-“ 
Blood suddenly sprays and you blink. Your lips taste iron, your right eye is watering and with one glance to your right the sounds of the battlefield all turn into white noise. 
Instinctively you press yourself against the grass, your left cheek touches the damp ground and with wide eyes you stare at Anna’s unmoving body. Your partner is dead. Shot in the head. 
Based on the whizz of the bullet and the spray of blood that hit you it must have been a sniper who killed her. For a second you think the Russians sneaked up on you, but then you remember the words through the radio; Watch for snipers… 
Realization trickles through your veins. Someone must have betrayed you. 
Your heart sinks and within a millisecond you make a decision. 
You roll to your left, gripping your rifle tightly and a bullet passes overhead, barely missing your shoulder. But it did miss and you’re rolling down the side of the hill. 
The tumble returns your ability to hear, and the sound of the helicopters combined with your racing heartbeat is deafening. 
The small incline of your hiding place saved your life for now and although you know deep down that your luck probably won’t last, you are thankful in this very moment. 
Tears well up in your eyes but you rub them away with your sleeve. A red smear appears on the fabric, and you clench your jaw. Focus, you don’t have time for this right now!! 
You know that whoever killed Anna is probably relocating right now to get a good shot at you, but you don’t care. 
You need to know what’s happening to him, if he dies- 
“Ghost?! Lynx is KIA, someone cut us! Do you copy?!” 
You anxiously wait for an answer, but your radio stays silent. 
Breathing out shakily, you lift yourself from the ground and rush behind a tree to shield your right flank. The dust that is kicked up by the many helicopters, which gathered on the plain, is making it difficult for you to spot the man you’re looking for, but the big Boeing helicopter used to transport the General is a good reference point. 
You position your rifle and adjust your scope to find the heli. 
The clouds of dust are thick, but like a miracle you spot the General- leaning over Roach, Simon laying motionlessly beside them, his grey sweater showing a bloom of red as if he was shot-
Your scream is stuck in your throat, and you watch frozen as Shepherd retrieves the DSM from Gary and simply leaves while four Shadow company soldiers step forward. 
Tears well up again and this time you let them fall as the world begins to spin. 
“No, no, no, please-!” you whimper, sucking in air through your clenched teeth and without a second thought you rush forward. 
You make it about 60 meters before a bullet through your right shoulder throws you off balance and sends you straight to the ground. Hot flaming pain shoots through your body and the brute force of your crash and your rifle painfully pressing against your ribs take the air out of your lungs. 
Dazed you lift your head, heavy from the weight of your helmet, and for a moment your vision is blurry; you blink to regain focus. 
In the distance you see the soldiers clad in black, carrying Gary’s and Simon’s limp bodies to a spot without grass. They drop them like two sacks of potatoes and the pain in your heart is worse than the one of your bullet wound. 
A wail escapes your throat, and you try to lift your body from the ground, to crawl forward, but your limbs feel like lead, and you don’t have the strength to move. 
Your radio crackles and your ear bud lets Captain Price’s voice come through: “Ghost, come on, this is Price! We’re under attack by Shepherd’s men…” 
You can hear gunfire from his side and in one last effort you pull your rifle from underneath you. 
The fact that Taskforce 141- you were betrayed by your superior, the man who you considered a father figure at one point in your life, that he killed the man you loved- love… That fact stokes something inside of you and that barely gives you the strength to position your rifle. 
Weakly you watch how the Shadow company bastards douse your friends, your brothers, the ones you love with gasoline and Shepherd’s plan dawns on you. Bile rises in your throat and you sob through clenched teeth.
You place your finger on the trigger but in the end, you don’t get the chance to pull it. 
The general casually drops his cigar and Gary’s and Simon’s corpses go up in flames right as a bullet enters the back of your head.
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rindouswifeee · 1 year
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𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒻𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊
Haitani Brothers x y/n
Ran Haitani
🖤 I think he is the one that would realize it very soon that he is in love with you
🖤 But he don’t would ever tell you that he is actually in love with you
🖤 Ever than that question if he is in love with someone come he would say something like ,, No , why should I love someone than I can have every girl I want‘‘ ( and this is kinda bite true because he and rindou are very popular in the fandom I think every haitani stan would kill or die for them 👀 )
🖤 He would also try to make it not so obvious that he like you very very much
🖤 Rindou would note it but he knows hes brother better than anyother Person in this world and he knows that someday he would just say it
🖤 Ran can be also very jealous than he note that some over guy ask you out or likes you
🖤 He just can’t stand that fact that a over boy would be on your side
🖤 One day in school he sees you talking to a boy from your class and rindou and kakucho would tell him that he bet confess you or the over guy would and up as your boyfriend
🖤 and boy not with him. So he walk towards you and say ,,Hey y/n I must tell you something can we go talk under four eyes ?‘‘
🖤 He is very cool saying this but would give that boy death look ,, Hi Ran , oh ehm yes sure we can‘‘
🖤 He walks with you to the rooftop ,, so I would like to make this short so, I love you y/n and I really do and I want you to ask if you would like to go on a date with me and maybe be my girl‘‘
🖤 Good this boy can be so soft even if he don’t look like that he was nervous to tell you that and he feels like he is burning red
🖤 ,, of course Ran, I love you to but I ever thought that you don‘t are the type for a relationship but yes I would love to go on a date with you und be your girlfriend‘‘
🖤 He was really surprised he ever thought that you are scared of him, but he was so happy to hear that you love him to
🖤 ,, Fine so let’s meet after school on the front door you can decide where we go to‘‘ he smiles on you and give you a little kiss on the cheek before to two of you would walk to your class
Rindou Haitani
❤️ Honestly he wouldn’t admire it to him self that he is in love with you
❤️ You two know each other since childhood and you are very good friends
❤️ But big bro Ran would note that his little bro is badly in love and than I say badly I mean very badly
❤️ ,, Come on Rindou I know you are in love with her, the whole gang knows it and I would bet that she knows it too‘‘ Ran say than he stands in the door to Rin‘s room and sees him smiling than he listens to a audio you send him telling him from your day
❤️ Rindou would be red like a tomato than he hears Ran saying that
❤️,, How often must I say it again I don’t love her we are just best friends and I even don’t want a stupid relationship that is not a thing for me‘‘ he try to hide his feelings and redness’s in his face
❤️ To be honest it was a good try. Ran would only smirk at it and would walk away and couldn’t realize how stupid his little bro can be sometimes
❤️ and from that day one poor Rindou must bear the teasing of his older brother so like 20 times in a day
❤️ He could swear that one day he punsh rans face for that
❤️ 2 weeks later you and Rindou meet up in Roppongi hills and walk around, he loves seeing you smile and be happy he swear that he would protect and save you from everything
❤️ ,, Rindou I have a question‘‘ you suddenly say than the two of you are standing next to his motorcycle and you are looking in the sky
❤️ ,, than ask you know you can ask and tell me everything y/n we are like best friends‘‘ he says and try’s to be not to nervous about that situation
❤️ he was so a overthinking in that moment even than that isn’t really his but he was scared of what you want to ask him
❤️,, Are you in love with someone ? You act so different in the last time I… I don’t seen this side of you befor‘‘ you says and look in his eyes
❤️ He is shocked he has aspect everything but not this question. He is standing for 5 minutes and don’t know what to say
❤️ He looked on the floor ,, I…I….I love you y/n‘‘ he whisper and beg to god that you didn’t hear it
❤️ One second later he feel your lips on his and god he was dead inside
❤️ after the kiss you say ,, I love you to Rindou I always has‘‘
❤️,, so a..are we…‘‘ ,,.. you know a couple?‘‘ he ask shy
❤️,, I hope we are‘‘ you answered
❤️And in the end of the day all his fears was so unnecessary
❤️ by the way….
Ran has followed you two and recorde the whole confessing scene and send it to the Tenjiku boys with the caption ,, finally it happend‘‘
❤️ Rindou was very pissed than he see it and Ran yeah he try to escape because he know rindou will bet his ass to death than he catch him
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I Hope that my English is understandable 🥲 It was so hard for me to write this and but I have this thought for so long in my head and I feel like I must write it down here.
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souryogurt64 · 1 year
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Miss Sour if you were to choose a last song for patd to play what would you choose. I’ve been thinking about this since I read the set list because boy howdy do I hate it. Then again my pick would be This is Gospel which is slightly cringe.
My gut immediately says Hallelujah, I really love Death of a Bachelor and I would think it would be best to go out on a note Brendon actually liked performing so it would also be the most enjoyable for the audience and everyone involved who contributed creatively to the band.
The song is, in some ways, about eschewing religion in favor of hedonism, which I feel like is maybe one of the most prominent themes in the story of that band.
I understand Brendon says the song is about infidelity but I also think that that can absolutely be interpreted as a queer narrative, particularly the "my life started the day I got caught under the covers with secondhand lovers" verse in combination with the themes about sin and religion. Even if it's just sex in general this concept of getting kicked out for loving in a way people think is unacceptable, and then like being forced to take your own path and succeeding, is still really resonant and inspirational, I think. And I do feel it's queer, which is also an important part of Panic!'s legacy in a lot of ways.
Some of Brendon's personal story seems to be about kind of deciding he was going to completely reject his religion and upbringing and completely go the other way, and that being difficult for him but him still being 100% committed to it.
Which is something I actually really admire about Brendon and think is pretty brave. There's this text post that went viral like probably twelve years ago (old) that's "u can say what u want about brendon urie but the story about a little mormon boy that decided he wanted to be a glittery bisexual weed-smoking emo stripper really fuels me" and I think that's absolutely true and really resonates with a lot of people. And it's maybe like one of the best parts of their legacy, especially in combination with the queer stuff.
However, I think that High Hopes, which is what they actually ended on, encompasses a lot of their sort of more negative narratives, and I feel like that's actually the note they went out on. Their comment section was just absolutely destroying them.
With High Hopes, I feel like the whole theme of the song is coming from nothing. And I do think it's very admirable how Panic! made this like moon shot getting signed by Pete and becoming a sensation.
I also think that I'm sure all of them worked very hard and they really wanted it and deserved it, and I think a lot of what the band produced is excellent and required a lot of talent. But it was kind of this freak thing that happened overnight, it wasn't like they were poor and starving and grinding forever and had this dream that they were willing to move heaven and earth to make happen.
Additionally, I feel like there was a lot of conflict in the band over who "owned" things and royalties and credits, and a lot of people have claimed contrasting things. Also, at least two different journalists were deliberately insinuating in their reporting on Panic! during Fever that they were shitty about money. A major theme of High Hopes is wanting as much money as possible.
I also think there's a lot of almost compulsive lying that goes on in the story of Panic! at the Disco, and thematically High Hopes talks about that as a point of triumph with "rewrite your history, burn your biographies." Panic's lore is on a level beyond misremembering or keeping details private or exaggerating for entertainment value or whatever. That stuff is understandable but I feel like Brendon claims everything from not touching a drop of alcohol until he was 20 to being a drug dealer at 13 to suit whatever narrative he likes at the moment, and the story of how they got signed is 100% a lie and I will die on that hill lol
Most of all, I think the "Manifest Destiny" line is the most critical to the bad parts of Panic!'s legacy because I think it's like this racist ideology that God destined white people-- and a lot of Mormons-- to colonize indigenous lands and like "civilize" them, and that it was okay to take the land because God said so and they were inherently superior.
And it's like, universally recognized as not a good thing but it still ended up in the song, which I think evidences how Brendon's religion still wholly informs who he is and how he thinks, even if he's all about drugs and free love and Reddit atheism. It exemplifies how insensitive and uneducated he can be. And it exemplifies how he's so surrounded by yes-men and has removed all dissenting opinions from the band so that line still got through.
And I'm not trying to be disrespectful by equating this historic movement with real devastating consequences with dumb band politics but the core ideas about being entitled to something because you think you're special and were born to deserve it are very resonant with like the failure and drama of Panic! as a whole
And I also think that racism was a part of the legacy that Panic! left and part of their demise. There was a lot that went into their downfall but when the tide was starting to turn very, very early on there were a few incidents where something incredibly out of line would happen on Periscope like Sarah making that joke about "Negroes" and basketball. Because it was A) on Periscope and B) Sarah that said it, it was never a widely known scandal but it was just so beyond the pale I think it unsettled a lot of people at the very core of their base. I also remember that the first and only time I started hearing people at school who weren't like terminally online Tumblrinas start turning on Panic! en masse, it was when videos of him making insensitive and uneducated comments about race started trending on Twitter.
So it’s a fitting last note lol, it’s also their most commercially popular yet widely reviled song which is also in line with their final legacy
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mugasofer · 9 months
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Thoughts on Secret Invasion (episode 1):
I quite liked the AI opening credits thing. I had seen all of twitter hating on it, and had already kind of made up my mind that it was an "if you make something badly on purpose, that doesn't make it good" scenario, and then ... I liked it. (I do hope they change it every episode, because I didn't like it so much I'm going to watch it enraptured every time, or anything, if it's just the same.) This raises an interesting question: am I relatively pro-AI-art because of my anti-copyright convictions and thus more inclined to give it a chance, or do I just innately find the aesthetic more appealing than most people? If I do, is that why I'm more open to it becoming more popular than most artists?
Early on, the show establishes that MCU Russia has had dozens of Chernobyl-y nuclear accidents(??) most of which are secret(???) This is clearly intended as a paper-thin excuse to use the not!Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as a location for the show but ... what? How is it possible to have a secret Chernobyl?
Overall I was not impressed with the writing, it felt clunky.
Getting into spoilers:
The framing of the Skrulls as just wanting a home, feeling betrayed, portrayal of radicalization, etc, is ... I'm torn between liking it as a somewhat interesting and sympathetic motive, and feeling like it's kinda cliche and betrays some patronising and frankly reactionary attitudes towards refugees. Also, Doctor Who did it better with the Zygons. Overall, the Skrulls were the most interesting characters but whether that will remain true will depend on subsequent episodes.
Someone involved in the production knows what a dirty bomb is, and even enough to name-check cesium isotopes. Nick Fury was standing right there when the bombs went off. So... he's definitely breathed in a ton of radioactive cesium dust ... and is definitely going to die ... right? I feel like they haven't set that up enough for them to be doing a "Nick Fury's last case as he dies of radiation poisoning" thing, but also it's going to feel like a cheat if they're not.
Actually, there is one non-cheat way out of this, and that's revealing the Nick Fury we've been following as a Skrull. They made a huge deal of how he's "not the same", Skrulls would know about space tech necessary for the SABRE project, etc. It almost feels too foreshadowed, but it would transform all the rather annoyingly heavy-handed bits where they explain Fury's alleged character development to the camera into a neat enough twist that I would forgive the aforementioned heavy-handedness.
Maria Hill's death just felt like a waste. My family were cracking jokes about how she's never gotten a chance to make us care about her. Apparently Cobie Smulders has been going on in interviews about how excited she was to get to explore her character in more depth, so maybe they're going to redeem this somehow, but it certainly ended the episode on a not-so-compelling note.
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musekicker · 2 years
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This is not one hundred percent on target but I feel like some lines from “They’re Only Human” from Death Note: the musical fit Marmalade? Especially including in the alien nature of his that has been said that still holds true in the movie universe. 
Just lines like 
“They’re only human, they can’t see 
Who they are is who they’ll always be.
Only human after all, so they push and they shove with this thing they call love till they fall.”
Also
“Only human, standing still, doomed to live pushing boulders up hill. Only human after all, so give and they take hoping someone will help break their fall.”
And...
“They will pray, curse, live, die. Never knowing their truth is another mans lie.”
Just those lines really scream Marmalade to me.
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fairytalepsuedonym · 7 months
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Runaway: annabeth chase lyrical analysis. As always its a song so i cant gursbtee 1:1 meaning with a plot. But hey i do this shit to musicals with other characters all the time. So this song probably has a way better chance.
Music notes: the melody is very wistful. Thats all i got.
Going more metaphory in some parts and mlre literal in others.
This song is so not chronilogical foe this. But its annabeth thibking about her life.
[I was listenin' to the ocean I saw a face in the sand But when I picked it up Then it vanished away from my hands, dah] this line feels lik it applies tobtwo thing. annabeth running away. She saw some hope in a lkfe away from her mkrtal family.; pretty well immedistly got hit with the harsh realoty kf being homeless at 7 yesrs old and being hunted.; and annabeth meeting percy and them becoming friends and then her rewlly thinking about the fact hell likely die young *even by demigod standards*
[I had a dream, I was seven Climbin' my way in a tree] "dream"= past/memory. Shes thinking about when was little and she saw thalia die. I think the climbing in a tree thing is just her visiting the treee on the hill. I doubt shed actually climb the tree in a *literal* sense but i can ddfintieky see her going and sitting nesd it and *mourning* shes thinking about all the shit shed seen by age7.
[I saw a piece of Heaven Waitin' in patience for me, dah] shw knows death is pretty much always a possibility for demigods. Hsr ferends. And hersled. Shes never been shektered from desrh. She watched thalia die right in front of her.
[And I was runnin' far away Would I run off the world someday? Nobody knows, nobody knows] this sentiment echoes a llt in the song and i think this use kf chorus is brilliant for this. Her gut reavtion when thing are bad emotionally is to *leave* to run away from the problem. She runs from home. She runs from camp.
[And I was dancing in the rain I felt alive and I can't complain] she enjoyed the quest she and oeecy went on. She found joy in the scary parts. But theres also bits that were just wring. She felt alive she got what she wanted. So she cant complain. But somethings off and she *wants* to complain about parts of ir.
[But no, take me home Take me home where I belong I can't take it anymore] she tries to live eith her family and it doesnt work. So she goes bck to camp which is her home. Where she belongs. But thats not working either.
[ I was painting a picture The picture was a painting of you And for a moment I thought you were here But then again, it wasn't true, dah] annabeth thinking about when she was lkttle and the first person toncare about her was probabky aroubd a dsvsnt amount. Shes thinking about luke. About the times shes drswn little sketches of a person she limely looked up to in a way. And also paintinf a picthre ca just mean renebering. Shes thinking about luke. And hoping hes come ro his sense. But hes not. And for a *moment* in the titans curse she thkught he was still there. And then he tricks her into taking the eight kf the woeld. And as its slowly trying to crush her: the emotional weight weighs her down tok
[And all this time I have been lyin' Oh, lyin' in secret to myself I've been putting sorrow on the farthest place on my shelf La-di-da] this. Part. Kills. Me. In relafion to annabeth. She keeps kying to herself. Hoping luke will stop. Hoping the war will end befire it gets a chance to stsrt. Habing completly ubwarrwnted gsith in their parents. Shes been lying to berself that thins will justbget better. Thwt luke wont *do this* shes been holding out hope. And holding off on mour ing domeone whose *not dead yet* but eventually she cant hold off anymore.
[And I was runnin' far away Would I run off the world someday? Nobody knows, nobody knows And I was dancing in the rain I felt alive and I can't complain But no, take me home Take me home where I belong I got no other place to go No, take me home Take me home where I belong I got no other place to go No, take me home Take me home where I belong I can't take it anymore But I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I kept runnin' for a soft place to fall And I was runnin' far away Would I run off the world someday? But no, take me home Take me home where I belong I got no other place to go No, take me home Take me home where I belong I got no other place to go No, take me home, home where I belong, no, no No, take me home, home where I belong, oh, oh, oh No, take me home, home where I belong, no, no No, take me home, home where I belong I can't take it anymore] this chorus echoing is beutiful and i think its symbolic in this cintext of her running away fdom home ajd ro camp and then running back to home and then bksdding school and just cinstsntly getting aaay bur she nsver can escale the priblem bwvause rhe issue isnt escapable.
@demigods-posts
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stirlingmoss · 1 year
Text
CCLXVII O believers, give of the good things you have earned, and from what We have produced for you from the earth. And do not choose the bad therefrom to give away, while you would not take it without disregard for it. And know that God (Allah) is independent, most worthy of praise.
CCLXVI Does any one of you want to have a garden of date palms and grape vines, with rivers running below it, and have all kinds of fruits in it, but have old age strike him while he still has children in their minority, and a tornado with fire in it hits, and the garden is burned? Thus does God (Allah) show you the signs, that you may reflect.
CCLXV Those who spend their money seeking to please God (Allah) and to strengthen their own souls are like a garden on a hill; when a heavy rain hits it, it brings forth double its fruits.And if a heavy rain does not hit it, then dew. For God (Allah) sees what you do.
CCLXIV O believers! Do not nullify your charities by reproach or abuse, like those who spend their money to be seen by the people, not believing in God (Allah) or the last day. They are like hard rock with some dust on it, hit by rain and left barren.They can do nothing with what they have acquired. For God (Allah) does not guide atheistic people.
CCLXIII Kind and forgiving speech is better than charity followed by abuse. And God (Allah) is self-sufficient, most gracious.
CCLXII Those who spend their wealth in the way of God (Allah) and then do not follow what is spent with reproach or with abuse have their reward with their Lord; they will not suffer fear, nor will they grieve.
CCLXI Those who give of their wealth in the way of God (Allah) are like grain that sprouts seven ears with a hundred kernels in each ear. And God (Allah) may choose to multiply what anyone has, at will. And God (Allah) is all-embracing, all-knowing.
CCLX ​And when Abraham said, “My Lord, show me how you give life to the dead.” [God] [Allah] said, “Do you not believe?” [Abraham] said, “Yes, but it is to satisfy my heart.” [God] [Allah] said, “Then catch four birds and train them to come to you.Then place them one by one on the mountains all around; and then call them and they will rush to you. And know that God (Allah) is mighty, most wise.”
CCLIX ​Or like the one who passed by a city in ruins to its very foundations; he said, “How will God (Allah) revive this after its demise?” And God (Allah) then caused him to die for a hundred years, and then resurrected him and said, “How long were you thus?” He said, “For a day or part of a day.” [God] [Allah] said, “No, you were thus a hundred years. But look at your food and drink—it has not aged. And look at your donkey, so We can also set before you a sign for humanity: and look at the bones, how We raise them and clothe them with flesh.” And when it was clear to him, he said, “I know God (Allah) has power over every thing.” 
CCLVIII Have you not taken note of the one who argued with Abraham about his Lord, because God (Allah) had given him power? When Abraham said, “My Lord is the One Who gives life and brings death,” he said, “I grant life and cause death.” Abraham said, “Well, then, God (Allah) brings the sun from the East; so bring it from the West.” So the atheist was confounded. For God (Allah) does not guide oppressors.
CCLVII God (Allah) is the protector of believers, taking them out of the darkness into the light. As for scoffers, their protectors are the idols, which take them out of the light into the darkness. They are the inmates of hellfire, wherein they remain.
CCLVI There is no compulsion in religion: true direction is already distinct from error. So whoever repudiates idols and believes in God (Allah) has taken hold of the most reliable handle, which does not break. And God (Allah) is all-hearing, all-knowing.
CCLV There is no God (Allah) but the God (Allah), the Living, the Self-Existent, whom neither slumber nor sleep can overtake. To God (Allah) belongs what is in the heavens and what is on earth.Who intercedes with God (Allah), except by divine permission? God (Allah) knows what is before them, and what is after them; but they do not encompass anything of that knowledge, except as God (Allah) wills. The throne of God (Allah) extends over the heavens and the earth, whose maintenance does not weary God (Allah), who is the Exalted, the Powerful.
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mrsstruggle · 2 years
Text
The Lost Child - Chapter 13 // Teen Wolf x Marvel AU
Summary: Y/N Stark was taken from her family when she was three years old. It's fifteen years later and her family believes she is dead. Then how is she living in Beacon Hills?
Warnings: Language, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Kidnapping, Possible Grammar Mistakes (please let me know if there is anything else)
Pairings: Derek Hale x Reader, Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes, Bruce Banner x Natasha Romanoff, Vision x Wanda Maximoff, & More To Come!
Previous Pairings: Tony Stark x Pepper Potts, Scott McCall x Allison Argent
Words: 1.9k
Note: I am posting every 2-3 days! At least I am trying to! My sister and I are trying to start a little jewelry business so my days have been a bit hectic.
Additional Note: While this is a Teen Wolf x Marvel AU, not everything is true to the shows/movies/comics. I had to change things for the story. This also loosely follows Teen Wolf Season 4.
One Last Note: Y/N was adopted by Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. I did this so that more people can see themselves in this story.
***I do not own Teen Wolf or Marvel or any related characters. This is a work of fanfiction and is meant for entertainment only.***
Masterlist
The Lost Child Masterlist
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
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“Y/N’s alive?” Sam wants to make sure he heard Bucky right.
The Avengers are sitting around the living room going through files as Bucky explains to Sam what is going on. Nick and Maria took the jet back to the compound to grab everyone’s gear and send a team to the old base where they found the files. Stiles, Derek, Scott, and Lydia left for Lydia’s lake house a while ago to meet up with the rest of their pack.
“We think so,” Bruce states.
“We know so,” Steve corrects him.
“You heard what the girl said. She knows when someone is dead and all the passwords were names of dead people.”
Steve gives Bruce a harsh look, “She also said she can sense when someone is about to die. That means they aren’t dead yet. Also, we just met her and we’re supposed to believe she has some connection to dead people.”
“We also didn’t believe in werewolves and yet here we are,” Nat mumbles under her breath.
“It was werewolves who took her from Hydra.” Sam informs everyone, thinking about the videos he just watched, “At least, I think it was werewolves. They looked like Y/N with glowing eyes and claws and shit. They killed everyone but they took Y/N. Why?”
“Werewolves took her?” Bucky questions.
“Yeah.”
“We should look up these people who claim they're Y/N’s friends.” Bucky states, still suspicious of Derek, “How do we know that they aren’t the ones who kidnapped her and have brainwashed her into forgetting us? How does she not remember us?”
“She was three when she was taken,” Bruce points out, “Do you remember anything from when you were three?”
“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about Y/N,” Bucky bites back defensively.
“Does Pepper know?” Sam asks Tony.
“I’m not telling her anything until I have to,” Tony grumbles, reading through one of the files on Y/N.
“When is that?” Wanda questions.
“Whenever I feel like it.” Tony sighs, running his fingers through his hair in a stressed manner, “She’s the one who gave up on Y/N. She’s the one who so easily replaced her. She doesn’t deserve to know anything.”
“She’s still her daughter,” Bruce points out.
“Is she?”
“When are we going to tell the others?” Sam asks, thinking about Vision, Clint, and their other friends.
“We’ll tell them once we get her and Peter back and can 100% prove that she’s my daughter,” Tony states.
They continue to look through the files in silence except for the howls from the house across the lake.
“None of these files have any indication of where they could have her and Peter now.” Steve sighs, throwing the file in his hands onto the coffee table, “All they talk about is the multiple experiments they performed on her. On a fucking three-year-old.”
“Language,” Natasha mumbles under her breath.
“We aren’t going anywhere until we find something,” Tony states.
“Why did it take them fourteen years to come and find her?” Wanda questions, not understanding why Hydra would come and get her now, “What changed?”
“Maybe they were too busy with other things,” Sam suggests.
“We’ve raided multiple Hydra bases and none of them ever had any indication of Y/N or Shadow Wolf. They wouldn’t do that unless there’s a reason.” Steve doesn’t understand how there seems to be no trail leading them to Y/N. Even before when she was originally taken, they were never able to track her down, “According to the files, they took her when she was young because they thought it would be easier to brainwash her and more difficult to break her free. She's an adult now. She's not the same kid they took before.”
“Maybe her friends are having better luck than we’re having,” Natasha mumbles in frustration.
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“Liam, just try to control it,” Scott tries to calmly tell Liam, watching him struggle against the chains holding him against a wall in the basement.
“I’m trying,” Liam growls out. This wasn’t his first full moon but he still doesn’t have full control.
“Scott, I can watch him,” Malia tells Scott, aware that he wants to help Stiles search for Y/N.
Scott thinks for a moment, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. If he breaks free, I’ll make sure to kill him before he kills me.” Malia states nonchalantly.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t kill me,” Liam continues to struggle for control.
“Then don’t try to kill me,” Malia shrugs her shoulders.
“Malia, if he breaks from the chains, just yell for us. Don’t kill him.” Scotts tells her, hoping leaving them alone will be okay, “Liam, find something to anchor you or be your own anchor.”
Scott runs upstairs toward the rest of the pack. As he enters the living room, he can see Stiles hunched over the coffee table on his laptop he had Kira bring him. Mason is sat next to him reading through some of the Hydra files they were able to convince the Avengers to give them. Derek and Peter are on the couch going through the books they found on Hydra.
“Where’s Kira and Lydia?” Scott asks.
“They’re upstairs in the soundproof room. Lydia’s hoping to tap into whatever it is she does and see if she can find out anything about Y/N.” Mason informs him.
“What have we got?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Stiles sighs in frustration.
“Maybe we should just accept that she’s gone,” Peter shrugs his shoulders.
“Don’t even try and act like you don’t care.” Stiles scoffs at Peter’s fake unconcerned persona, “You were the first person here and you’ve read more of those books and files than both Derek and Mason combined. I’m sure if I asked one of the wolves in the room, they could hear how fast your heart is beating because you're scared.”
“I just happen to live closer than everyone else, I’m a fast reader, and I have a bad heart.”
“You live the furthest away,” Stiles points out.
“I happened to be out getting food.”
“What food? You didn’t bring any with you.”
“I didn’t have time to get any because you called me and told me I had to be here,” Peter grumbles.
“I told you my sister’s missing and that we’re meeting at Lydia’s cabin. I never said you had to be here.” Stiles points out.
“Can you two stop talking?” Derek groans, tired of listening to them argue. They are distracting him from the book he’s reading.
“He started it,” Peter mumbles under his breath.
“Okay, so these Hydra people took Y/N. They originally took her about fifteen years ago and now they’ve come back to get her.” Scott is trying to think of any logical reason for why they would take her in the first place or why they would take so long to come back and get her, “None of this makes any sense. Did they get her now because they saw her name on the Deadpool? Did they come and get her now because they were waiting on something or waiting for the right time?”
“So, she really is Y/N Stark?” Mason asks.
“Until I see a DNA test proving she’s Y/N Stark, I don’t believe a word they have to say.” Derek states.
“She’s not actually blood-related to Tony so how are they going to DNA test her?”
“Supposedly, they have some of her DNA from when she was a child to compare her to,” Stiles mumbles.
“You okay?” Scott asks Stiles.
“Why wouldn’t I be? My sister has been taken by some psycho terrorist group and the Avengers have come to take her away from me. I bet they have her packed up in a day and shipped back to live with them. I bet they don’t even care about the fact that her life is here, her family is here, and her friends are here. Everything she knows is here.” Stiles rants.
“They aren’t going to take her away.” Scott attempts to comfort the distraught Stiles.
“How do you know that?! You saw how they reacted when we were talking about her! How they reacted when they found out she’s alive! They thought she was dead! Why wouldn’t they take her away?!” Stiles scoffs in anger.
“They know she has a life here. You told them you’re her brother. They know Derek’s her boyfriend. They even know where she works. They won’t just take her away from all of that.” Scott tries to reason with him.
“What am I going to tell my dad? How am I supposed to tell him that there are people here who are Y/N’s original family?” Stiles looks down at the ground sadly.
“I mean, they aren’t technically her original family,” Mason points out.
Stiles gives him an annoyed look, “Stay out of this.”
“I should probably call my mom and tell her that Y/N won’t be at work tomorrow,” Scott sighs, pulling out his phone.
“Don’t tell her why. I don’t want her telling my dad anything.” Stiles states.
“She won’t tell him anything.”
“I also want to be the one to tell her what’s going on. I mean after our mom died your mom kinda became our mom, especially for Y/N. Our dad did his best but didn’t know how to handle things when Y/N started becoming a woman. Your mom was always there for her. She shouldn’t find out about everything over a phone call.” Stiles explains.
“I think I found something.” Mason states, reading back through the paragraph he just read, “You said Lydia heard her name in the fire but she thinks that she might’ve heard it earlier at Derek’s apartment, right? She didn’t know it was Y/N’s name because it sounded like it was underwater, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Scott answers him.
“I think they have her at Crater Lake.”
“Where?” Stiles asks with a confused look on his face.
“Crater Lake National Park. It’s in Oregon. My family and I went there once on vacation.” Mason informs them.
“I’m still not following.”
“Crater Lake is the deepest lake in America. It was formed after a massive volcano eruption which also led to the collapse of the volcano. Lydia heard her name underwater, it’s a massive lake. She heard her name in the fire, it's summer which means it's fire season there. Hydra even used to have ties to Portland.” Mason explains.
“I still don’t understand how this means they’re holding Y/N there.” Stiles states.
“In these files, they keep mentioning how they are waiting on a wizard or that the wizard isn’t ready yet. I don’t think they’re talking about an actual person. They’re talking about Wizard Island.”
“Again, not helpful.” Stiles is getting annoyed that Mason won’t just get to the point.
“Wizard Island is the biggest island within Crater Lake. It’s even nicknamed the Witches Cauldron which is also mentioned several times.” Mason explains.
“Are you sure about this? We don’t want to go somewhere and she’s not even there.” Scott states.
“At least it’s something. We can go tell the Avengers and we can jet over there and at least see if she’s there. I’ve got a gut feeling about this and it’s telling me that I’m right.” Mason tells him.
Derek angrily stands up off the couch and starts to walk towards the front door, “Grab your stuff. Let’s go get my girl back.”
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griffintail · 3 years
Note
I’m surprised people think techno’s grief extends to pure violence. When it’s clear the news of his S/O death leaves him trembling on the floor, and letting out pained wails his first night alone. Leaving him delirious in denial as Philza has to keep watch to make sure he doesn’t kill himself trying to bring them back. And as the grief seeps in he is left to sleep through dreamless nights and live through thoughtless days. And at the end, acceptance isn’t voluntary, he’s too tired to do anything else. (Please write smth for this I can’t sleep this idea’s been eating at me for days)
I went a bit off script- I hope you still enjoy. :)
The Bolt
In-Game
Pairings: Technoblade x GN! Reader
Warnings: Death, Blood, Angst
Part 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Techno blocked the axe coming for his face with his shield as he chugged his last regeneration potion.
        The last battle of L’Manberg was over and he needed to find (Y/N) and get home to safety. He gave a whistle that echoed across the battlefield before pushing Sapnap away from him. Booking it away, he went towards the meet-up spot Phil and (Y/N) had agreed with him.
        “Phil, I want you to have the totem.” Techno held it out to his friend.
        He saw Phil running from the wreckage the withers were causing as he could see the (H/C) head of hair weaving through the chaos. Techno lost his concentration as he stared at (Y/N), everything a dull roar as he smiled softly at their figure. Creating the scene of anarchy and chaos.
        “Wait, I’m your damn fiancé, why don’t I get it?” (Y/N) gave a dramatic huff as they put a hand on their chest.
        It was true, they both only had one life but…
        “Because, you and I, we never die blood goddess,” Techno smirked.
        “TECHNO!” They screamed.
        He had missed seeing the crossbow aiming at him because he had been looking at (Y/N)…
        He went to get his shield but he would be too slow…
        Then there was a cracking as an ender pearl shattered in front of him and in a cloud of purple sparks appeared (Y/N), who gasped as they caught the crossbow bolt in the stomach.
        “You’re such an idiot.” (Y/N) laughed. “Now! Let’s celebrate our freedom from the child by blowing up a nation!”
        Techno laughed as he enjoyed the sparkle in their eyes at the thought of the anarchy.
        “No, no, no!” Techno caught them as they fell, Jack quickly loading his crossbow again.
        He needed to go.
        Scooping them up, he bolted for where Phil was watching in wide-eyed shock. Phil managed to snap out of it though and covered Techno’s retreat as he tried to reassure (Y/N).
        “It’s ok, we’re going to get you home, alright? Come on, you’re going to need to keep your eyes open for me beautiful.”
        But (Y/N) winced before crying out as the crossbow bolt brought them pain. The voices were screaming in panic with them and Techno.
        WE NEED TO GO FASTER! WE’RE OUT OF HEALTH POTIONS! WHY DID THEY TAKE THE BOLT! PHIL, HELP TECHNO! GO GO GO GO!
        “I’m here mate!” Phil ran beside him now, taking off his jacket. “We got to keep pressure on it till we get to the potions. I sent a crow ahead to get one faster hopefully.”
        Phil kept pace as pressed the jacket around the bleeding wound, (Y/N) letting out another scream. Techno wanted to scream himself as he ground his teeth together to keep himself together.
        They had to cross the nether to get home!
        They had so far to go!
        That crow needed to get here yesterday!
        “T-Techno.” (Y/N) sputtered.
        “Quiet, keep your strength,” Techno demanded.
        “I-I-I…” They muttered before their eyes blinked closed.
        “We got to stop.” Phil panicked.
        “We don’t have any potions!” Techno also panicked.
        “We have to slow down the bleeding now!”
        The pair stopped as Techno put (Y/N) down as Phil tried to work as fast as he could being the experienced healer. He tried to stem the bleeding as best he could, he couldn’t take the bolt out though and it had to have hit something important because there was too much damn blood!
        Then a few minutes later…
        (Y/N)’s chest stopping moving…
        “No. No, no, no. Breath damn it!” Techno commanded, putting a hand on their shoulder.
        “Techno…” Phil said quietly, tears in his eyes.
        “Where’s your crow!?” Techno shouted. “We need a potion now!”
        “…It’s not going to help Techno.”
        “It has to! We—They’re not gone! They…they…”
        Techno put his forehead on theirs as tears gathered in his eyes.
        “Please…don’t leave me. I love you; I need you…”
        But (Y/N) had fallen and lost their last life…
        …
        Techno had carried (Y/N) all the way home to the tundra and he held them for a while before he finally let himself bury them. Then…
        He just sat there for hours, shaking.
        In the freezing cold.
        Next to the mound of dirt.
        “Techno, mate. You got to come in.” Phil muttered as he came out as night was starting to fall.
        “I don’t want to leave them,” Techno mumbled.
        The voices were quiet whispers as they talked about all the things they loved about (Y/N) and Techno just sat listening to them, ignoring as Phil protested.
        “They wouldn’t want you to die with them mate.” Phil finally broke through the voices.
        Techno huffed, tears falling behind his mask. “And they didn’t want to die either.”
        Phil sighed before just sitting next to his old friend.
        “What are you doing?” Techno looked at him.
        “You got to pass out eventually. Doubt all the adrenaline from the fight is helping.”
        It really wasn’t. Techno felt bone tired and his body wanted nothing more than for him to sleep but he wanted nothing more to sit here with…(Y/N). He was covered in the blood of his lover and those he harmed today. Maybe it was all karma everything he had done…
        It took another hour but finally, Techno’s body took control and he was out. Phil let out a long sigh before dragging the man into his own home. It was going to be a hard time for a while…
        …
        Phil thought Techno would be the same as the first night, that the other man would become unresponsive. His assumptions had been false though. In fact, it was worse.
        Techno didn’t eat or sleep properly, which Phil had expected, but what he didn’t expect was for Techno to practically go insane as he poured over hundreds of lore books, trying to figure out how to bring (Y/N) back.
        “Techno, mate, you need to take a break from this.”
        “No, I will get them back. If I can just figure this out…I can do it.”
        “You can’t do it if you die too!”
        Phil went around these circles for hours, Techno sometimes striking low saying if he can figure it out, he could bring Wilbur back as well. Techno went full force into his work, the voices only encouraging his behavior as they threw out ideas to research. He had never listened to his voices more than now.
        Techno had been so invested in his work, he didn’t notice when Phil gave Ranboo to build on the land, mostly because Phil gave him one rule, leave Techno be. Phil knew Techno the best and was trying his damn best to knock Techno back.
        The blood god was pouring over notes for a hopeful experiment when Phil came in, food in hand as always.
        “It’s late Techno, eat and go to bed,” Phil told him.
        “After I’m done,” Techno muttered.
        “Techno.”
        “After. I’m done. Phil.” Techno gave him a dark glare before going back to his notes.
        Phil sighed, putting the food down on the table. “Tommy locked Dream in prison.”
        Techno frowned. That made him glance at Phil.
        “Why?”
        “Something about his discs as usual.” Phil crossed his arms, shrugging. “We got a notice on the radios that Dream lost two lives to Tommy.”
        “Huh,” Techno mumbled, looking at his work again. “Kid should have finished him…”
        Techno scribbled out a sentence. That wouldn’t make sense.
        “Probably, I don’t know why he didn’t. Ranboo might know though.” Phil smirked to himself, his tactic working a bit well in his favor.
        Techno’s interest was at least separating a bit from his research.
        “Who?” Techno pulled over one of his sheets.
        “The kid living outside the house.”
        “Heh?” Techno looked up fully at that.
        “He’s been here for weeks Techno; you’ve just been so caught up you haven’t noticed.” Phil pointed out now. “You need a break mate. You’re going…you’re going to kill yourself doing this.”
        Techno looked at the papers in his hand.
        “Techno, you need to fight another day. Come on.” (Y/N) tried to coax him away from preparing potions. “I’m tired.”
        He clenched the papers as the voices were scattered, none of them focused on one thing right now.
        “…Fine. I’ll at least talk to the kid.” Techno grumbled, getting up.
        “Take the food.” Phil grinned.
        Techno rolled his eyes, taking the bread but nothing else. He ate it as he left the house, his eyes not daring to travel to the beautiful flowers around the mound of dirt. Indeed, on his land, was a little house in the side of the hill. Huffing, he went over as the voices were skeptical, remembering one boy named Ranboo from L’Manberg and visiting Tommy.
        “I can’t believe the little brat!” (Y/N) screamed as they paced around the house. “We gave him shelter! I should him love! AND HE BETRAYS US!”
        Techno closed his eyes, his body shaking before trying to distract himself by knocking on the door.
        “Phil?” A voice called from the other side before they opened the door.
        The tall boy shrank seeing Technoblade at his door.
        “Uhhhhh…hi,” Ranboo muttered, looking anywhere but the pig masked man.
        Techno didn’t care really for pleasantries right now, so might as well get straight to the point.
        “Hi, heard you might know why they locked Dream away rather than just kill him,” Techno grunted.
        He hated the fact that Dream also had a favor over him. Would have been nicer for him if they had killed the smiley masked man.
        “Oh yeah…I was there…hang on,” Ranboo muttered, taking a book off his belt and flipping through. “He uh…Dream said he had a book that could bring back the dead.”
        Every. Single. Voice. Went silent.
        As Techno stared at the tall hybrid, who shifted nervously at the stare.
        “He did now?” Techno muttered.
        “Y-Yeah. He said he could bring Wilbur back for Tommy.”
        Techno didn’t care about the rest as his cape fluttered behind him as he took a determined march to the house to grab his things. If Dream wanted to cash in that favor, he owed him one more thing…
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bigteefsmallbrain · 3 years
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General Soul Eater HCs please
Soul Eater: General headcanons
Death the Kid:
He’s an art critic
Hear me out
He is obsessed with symmetry, and loves the beauty in it
So when he sees something non-symmetrical, especially in art, he can’t help but to critique it
May go as far as to send a personal letter to the artist (If they’re alive) about how offensive it is that they created something so asymmetrical
If he can’t send a letter to the artist, he’ll send one to the owner/museum and request it be taken down, while listing reasons why it’s horrible.
Anything he writes has an even amount of letters and words
Be that his test answers
Essays
Letters
Diary entry
Speaking of diary entries, he definitely has one
But it’s actually just a catalogue of symmetrical things he’s seen
He puts photos into it and writes about how beautiful it was to see
He doesn’t care what it is much, just that it was beautiful
Meaning he takes photos of people too
Which can be unnerving at times
He’s probably taken a photography class before, or at the very least is self taught
Literally has a photo album of things he views are beautiful, but non symmetrical and he would die if anyone found it
Like a particular sunset with uneven hills
Or a flower with one too many petals
Definitely has an 8 ball, not a magic one, just an 8 ball, it’s placed on a velvet pillow in his room and he frequently polishes it
Elizabeth Thompson:
Makes several backup plans as a way to cope
Especially after dealing with an experience with a ghost
She has notebooks full of them, labeled and detailed
At one point she started putting them in alphabetical order but stopped immediately when she realized Kid’s perfectionist habits were rubbing off on her
She practices acting in the mirror
Usually so she can charm a man into dating her
But also to con people
She used to be a “Street rat” and that thought of ending up on the streets again constantly plagues her mind
She takes full advantage of the “Rich life”
Shopping sprees
Quality makeup
Salons and spa days
The works
She lets Patty’s thought that she knows everything get to her head
The fact alone that her sister believes in her that much is enough to make her a bit egotistical
And Patty’s admiration for the girl makes it ten times worse
She literally doesn’t care if she ends up being wrong because she’ll just be right next time anyways
So stubborn in that aspect
Patricia Thompson:
She likes dark humor
You can’t convince me otherwise, you actually can’t, I have evidence
She made an origami Giraffe, and broke its neck
Laughed when Kid said he “wants to die”
She literally pokes him with a stick when he’s depressed
She likes dark humor, and probably looks up jokes to tell others just for kicks
She’s secretly sadistic, and likes scaring her sister and others
She may act naïve and innocent, but she is anything but
She definitely has, more than once, banged on Liz’s door at 3AM just to hear her sister squeal like a little girl
Honestly, she probably purposefully gets their pose wrong, just to see her sisters annoyance and laugh when Kid gets smacked
She likes origami
Probably first got into it because of the paper ninja stars
Then just found it relaxing
She most likely makes the ninja stars mostly, and keeps a box of her origami creations somewhere
Has in the past, and will not hesitate to do so again, beat someone up for kicks or just to destress
Patty has two faces, the childlike innocent one, and the insane anger one
So it’s not too far fetched to say that she’ll hide her anger till she can corner someone alone and beat them up
Or that she gets bored and decides to do so
I wouldn’t be too surprised if her sister occasionally joined as well
Maka Albarn:
She’s a Harry Potter nerd and you can’t convince me otherwise
She loves the concept of magic
Loves the dynamic between Ron and Hermione, though feels a bit of Deja vu thinking about it
Probably used to write fanfiction, but in a way that made it seem like it was actually part of the story
She will hit you if you mention it
Definitely the type to compare books to their movie counterparts
Not in like, a critic way, but she will definitely rant about the differences, or how a character looks exactly like she imagined, or if they didn’t put in a particular scene she liked in the book
Forces Soul into movie nights, but it’s only the movie counterparts to her books
I can see her forcing everyone into a group study session
Be super organized about it, and setting it up in a way so that no one can refuse
She probably has specific ways for everyone to study
Like having Black☆Star work out while studying so he retains the knowledge better
Or setting up the session in a symmetrical way so Kid doesn’t freak out about it
She writes letters to her mom, as a coping mechanism for when her emotions get to be a little too much
Like when she’s having a bad day
Or if she’s particularly peeved at something Soul did
She writes a lot more letters when it comes around the time of her mom's birthday or death anniversary
She likes the thought of an old timey romance, and often listens to songs that give off that kind of feel
She really likes “It’s Been a Long, Long Time”, it’s one of her favorites
She also likes the old Disney songs, like “Once Upon a Dream” and “So This Is Love”
She would be so embarrassed if anyone found out though, especially if it was her dad or Soul
She isn’t quite sure why she’s so worried about Soul finding out though
Speaking of, she half realizes, half doesn’t with anyone's romantic feelings, including her own
She’ll fantasize about getting a love letter or having someone present her with a bouquet of roses
But if it actually happens she’s like “Oh, thanks friend!”
She knows the behaviors, she just can’t put two and two together
They would have to be extremely blunt, no over dramatic confession, just “I’m in love with you and want to be romantically involved with you”
She reads dictionaries for fun
She really likes to read out of date dictionaries, just to see what words and slang existed back then
She also highlights words she likes and uses them frequently on accident
She has most definitely yelled “I have cupid’s kettlebells*! I’m not flat!” at Soul before
Soul Evans:
Bottles. Up. His. Emotions.
He’s influenced by “toxic masculinity” and fully believes that being vulnerable in a serious way “isn’t cool”
He will bottle everything up so deep down inside that it seems impossible for it to surface
Feelings of inferiority to others? Bottled
Want to cry or break down? Nope, gotta be cool
Started crying in front of someone and can’t stop? He’s not crying, you’re clearly blind
Speaking of crying, once he starts, and I mean genuinely starts, it’s so hard to get him to calm down, and even then the tears don’t stop
Sometimes he’ll start to freak out and send himself into a panic attack because the tears just won’t stop
He’s that influenced by the thought of being vulnerable
On a lighter note, he does adore playing the piano, but the only person he’ll play for is Maka
He swears it’s not favoritism, and it’s partially true, but favoritism does play a large role in it
He frequently drags Maka to his room to show her a new piece he put together
And if he notices her feeling a little down that day, he’ll start playing a song that he knows she likes
He definitely knows about her love for old timey romance songs and is very embarrassed to admit a lot of the pieces he constructs are based off of that
The walls are p a p e r t h i n , he can hear her music through the walls
He secretly finds it adorable when he catches her listening to it because she’ll be dancing around to it
He also frequently finds himself thinking about those moments
He’s the stereotype that parents tell little girls about, with how boys will bully their crush
He’s a lot more playful and easy going, but still teases Maka, so much
Unlike Maka, he’s fully aware of his feelings, and acknowledges them, but bottles it up, only letting himself entertain the thought every once in a while
He jabs at Maka’s lack of “Cupids Kettlebells” as a way to try and ensure she won’t fall for him, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if she does
He reads the same dictionaries that Maka does, not for fun, but so he can know just what the actual h e l l she’s saying
More than once he’s had to look up a particular word or phrase online because he can’t find it in the dictionary
“What the hell? It’s an old Victorian saying!? Where does she keep finding this stuff!?”
Subconsciously, as time goes on, he starts using old phrases as well, he was so embarrassed the first time he got caught saying “Keep your idle daddles* off of her!” when defending someone from a perv.
Black☆Star:
Is so unbelievably selfish with food
It’s not even funny
He will stab someone if they reach for his food
He surprisingly eats healthy most of the time though?
Says something like “I have to otherwise I’ll never surpass the gods!”
The only person who could ever p o s s i b l y steal his food is Tsubaki, but even that’s pushing it
He has the weirdest dreams, and I mean weird
Dreams like being turned into a potato and being cooked, mashed, and devoured by Tsubaki herself
He didn’t talk to her for a week after that dream, and refused to eat potatoes for a full year because “You never know if it could be a person turned into a potato!”
He was also very offended when Tsubaki ate potatoes during that time period
He takes things very literally
Like up above, if someone does something in a dream, he acts like it was real
Or if someone makes a joke about fighting, he will drag them outside to fight
He’s secretly scared of Tsubaki
But it’s for literally the stupidest reason
And he fully believes that because of it she could fight god and win
She used to have a pet cockroach
One of the flying ones
And he is so unbelievably scared of them, because for some reason they just don’t die, and they have w i n g s
So the fact she owned one as a pet scares him so bad even though it was literally for only a week
He has a soft spot for children
He doesn’t really know why
He just does
Is secretly really good with kids
Literally the definition of dad material
He has his flaws but still
Little kids are the only people who could steal his food and get away with it
Every. Time. and it makes the others so mad
Tsubaki Nakatsukasa:
What can I say, she’s perfect
She probably receives love letters
Reads them over when she’s feeling sad
Likes to keep them in a shoebox she painted
She definitely paints to unwind and relax
Likes to go outside and paint the sunrise/sunset
Takes note of beautiful scenery so she can come back in her free time and paint it
She probably draws/sketches too
Carries a sketchbook with her
More than likely has drawn Black☆Star doing something
Like napping or training
She’d never show him though, too scared of inflating his ego or giving him the wrong idea
Stress bakes/cooks
We know she cooks
Liz took advantage of it and pretended Tsubaki’s cooking was her own
So we know she does
Sometimes painting/drawing doesn’t cut it
So she heads to the kitchen and bakes away her worries and unwinds
The main reason Tsubaki would possibly be spared from Black☆Star’s stabbing habit with food is because she cooks all the meals
She makes sure everyone is comfortable around her
She’ll go as far as to learn someone's customs and practice cooking their unique cuisine just to make sure that they feel comfortable and safe in her presence
She radiates mom friend energy
She’s perfect mom material, perfect wife material, perfect in general honestly
*Cupid's Kettlebells is a old term for a woman's bust
*Idle daddles is a old term for hands
I Hope you like these general headcanons for the main seven! You didn’t say which characters you’d like to see, so I played it safe by putting the main characters! Thank you for the ask!
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girlbossgertrude · 3 years
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10 REASONS AGNES MONTAGUE IS THE TAPES (formal long vers)
Through Gertrude and Agnes’s web bond, it is implied that the two both acquired traits of the other. We see this with Gertrude and her tendency towards fire and the Desolation. This would have to be mirrored in Agnes in some way, through beholding tendency and power. Though I do not think the tapes are of the Beholding, I think this fact is important to remember.
In MAG 162, the tapes that mysteriously came with the package that held the ritual statement both mention fire in the archives/burning down the archives. See here: “TIM: I mean it! We’ll burn this place to the ground!” and the whole scene with Gertrude getting angry at Gerry for burning cursed leighters in the archives. And, as I write this, I realize that fire is also mentioned in another extra tape in early season five (MAG 161); Jon yells at Tim for bringing a fire source in the archives in the Birthday Party scene! (ARCHIVIST: Alright, yes - thank you. I do hope you’re planning not to light those candles.) And, also in 161, Gertrude is literally planning down to burn down the archives and talks of fire, and her pyromaniac streak, caused by her bond to Agnes. (GERTRUDE: Paper burns well,...Petrol burns better. LEITNER: I always forget your pyromaniac streak. GERTRUDE: Mm. Remind me to tell you about Agnes sometime.)
In MAG 80, Leitner talks to the tapes like a specific person right before he gets killed. There is no one else in the room with him. “[SILENCE] LEITNER: I’m not sure you would have liked him, you know. He’s paranoid enough. But I don’t think he’s got the stomach for it [SILENCE].” Most assume he’s talking to Gertrude (I did), but that really doesn't make sense in the context of most tapes theories ™ . Gertrude is very much dead. Basically, it’s possible that he could be talking to Agnes here, especially in the context of the next point-
“REMIND ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT AGNES SOMETIME.” This line from MAG 161 has so much potential for foreshadowing. It could mean so very many things. But in this context, this implies Gertrude could have told him about Agnes listening behind the tapes? Though this doesn’t make sense in some possibilities of how Agnes is the tapes, it is important to note.
Agnes is very marked by the web and the tapes being associated with the web is highly, highly plausible. She has been affected and tied up in the web since birth! She burned spider webs in Jack Barnabus’s home, and obviously, she was anchored to Gertrude through the web’s ties for years, as well as living in Hill Top Road, AKA Web Supreme. Additionally, she’s killed multiple web avatars: Raymond Fielding, and Emma Harvey. Agnes is interconnected to Hill Top Road, and the crew is there right now, its incredibly plausible that she’s going to come up again. She already did, actually. It is mentioned in the 196 statement that Agnes was the one who opened up the dimensional rift incidentally- from burning down HTR, it caused the crack to open more. ([Raymond Fielding was] “immolated by the Chosen of the Ravening Burn. The house of the time was destroyed along with him, reduced to ashes, and with that the crack finally became… a gap. A hole around which time, dimension and reality began to bend, shudder and leak.”) This feels important.
Agnes Montague supposedly died in 2006, and then in MAG 139, which is taken sometime in 2006, Eugene Vanderstock tells Gertrude that Agnes has died, but- then in 2009-2011, Agnes and Gertrude met up, sometime after Sannikov Land to discuss the subsequent murder agaisnt Emma Harvey. So, she came back from the dead. Or, it’s a classic timeline mistake and I’m insane, of course. Two things that are important to note here: 1. It is important to remember that most desolation avatars had to “die” to become an avatar (I.E.: Jude setting herself on fire in front of her wife to become a avatar) while Agnes had been a true avatar from the get-go, so that could have been her “first death” like the others. 2. In some patreon extended version of the season 3 Q+A, Jonny Sims, when asked about timeline mistakes, says there is a “nexus of timeline discrepancies that is [a part of my] master plan.”
The recording of Gertrude’s death was one of, if not the first recorded times a tape turned on. That’s it, I just feel like that’s important.
The tapes are increasingly being confirmed as web, though so far it seems like web AND something else. “MARTIN: Wait. Wait… The tapes… ANNABELLE: A fine material to spin a web with, don't you think?” I think this confirms that the tapes are at least partly web, though what makes me think that they aren't fully web is what the two say after; Martin asks if it’s been Annabelle listening all along, and she says “Oh Martin. You have no idea who's listening, do you?” I know most choose to interpret this as wholly a fourth-wall break, and an implication that the tapes are us, the audience, but I am choosing to interpret it differently. I think, at times, there can be a character that acts as the audience, says what everyone's thinking and all that. I think that’s happened a lot in this podcast, and I think when Annabelle said that, I interpreted Martin as the audience here, and that Annabelle was telling us “Lol. You guys have NO idea who’s listening behind the tapes!” not that like. She was telling Martin you have no idea who's listening *points to us, the listeners, who are listening*. Also! I think it’s important to note that Annabelle said “who” and not “what”? I don’t know, I feel like that’s important for some reason, in a podcast of weird entities.
A new possibility: Agnes (or someone else but that's not what this post is about) communicating through previously recorded tapes, but being able to get her message across through them. What I mean is that at the end of 196, three different tapes click on, of Jon telling Martin specifically to listen. Someone could be manipulating the tapes to do this. I personally think Agnes doing this fits with her story well; as we’ve only ever heard her story told by other people, and additionally, the overarching theme of not choosing what she is, what she's becoming. Additionally, I feel like it is definitely a possibility that Gertrude could have bond Agnes to the tapes as she has a history of doing things like that, or their web bond could have caused it, as well.
The parallels between Jon and Agnes are incredibly obvious. One line parallel that stands out to me is Agnes to Jack Barnabus in MAG 67 Burning Desire: “She asked me if I had a destiny…[after he replies no] She looked at me, with the same sadness I’d seen on her face before. “That must be nice,” she said, and went back to staring into the sunset.” juxtaposed with Jon talking to Gerry in MAG 111 Family Business: “Sh-She never showed any...er, abilities, or talked about...I don’t know, destiny? Like she was...b-becoming something?” Truly, at the end of the day, Neither of them chose this life for themselves. Neither of them wanted to be Chosen, neither of them chose this life like other avatars did (ex: Jonah Magnus, Jude Perry). They could relate to each other, is what I’m saying. And Jon desperately needs someone to relate to right now. Additionally, the talk of burning down the archive throughout the seasons, specifically season five (see reason 2), and Jonah at one point calling the Archivist/Jon the “Archive” does not slip my mind.
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sunmoontruth-stiles · 3 years
Text
Ok this is gonna be long. I’ve literally been slowly working on this for… too long. I’m just in a mood to have a long discussion about ships. I’ll be looking at canon and not, so bare with me. I don’t ship all of these personally. I’m mostly just picking the most popular ones. I chose to leave out a few that I just don’t want to talk about. I tried to keep this loosely chronological, but that quickly went to hell. None of this is meant to be hate towards anyone’s ship, just my personal opinions on each of them.
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Canon:
Scott x Allison: True Classic
Scallison is so sweet as it is truly the epitome of young love. Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo is even more of an idiot and Juliet is a badass who dies for a cause. They’re moral and ethical codes are both highly valued by themselves, even if they don’t align with others very often. They loved with everything they had. They were beautiful. We’re they soulmates in the end, or just the first love who will always hold a special place in your heart? Who knows, but I’ll always love these immature kids who thought their love could change everything.
Stiles x Lydia: The Long Awaited
Stydia is as slow burn as you can get. Unfortunately their actual getting together was slightly rushed in my opinion. They didn’t have time to find their own as a couple because Stiles just wasn’t in the show enough at that point. I know the reasons behind it, but it did leave this couple at an awkward stage of official-but-not-shown. The idea that Stiles loved her as a kid, immature and infatuated, and he saw her for who she really was, will always be cute. Then they grew, changed, became friends, and found other people. Them finding each other later on, having real love that’s developed slowly, is a wonderful arc. Though, a part of me will always believe they should have pursued other story lines in the wake of Stiles’ absence from the plot. They’re finally together! …but we don’t get to see it.
Jackson x Lydia: The Image
Oh Jackson and Lydia. Honestly, I love them. Their connection at a time in their lives when they couldn’t open up to anyone else, just hits me right in the feels. I mean, god that HUG. You know the one. Always brings me to tears. I’m so sad their relationship was almost entirely depicted during Jackson’s kanima time when he couldn’t think nor truly act for himself. Those small moments of scared vulnerability when he wanted to protect her from himself… I’ll miss these two. They deserved to find other people and remain life-long friends. I loved their moment in the last episode. I wish they’d gotten to see each other grow. Also they had such bixbi solidarity vibes, and I’ll die on that hill.
Scott x Lydia: Leaders
Ok, I’m gonna be honest here. I ship it. The power couple they would have been?? Also them coming together after they lost Allison would have actually made sense. A part of me kinda wishes the writers had moved on from Stydia as a romantic relationship and leaned into them growing as friends and Stiles moving on from his childhood crush. Scott and Lydia actually would have had good chemistry. They were both very headstrong heroic types, but Lydia would have balanced Scott out well intellectually. They had the history, and I think it could had worked if they wrote it right. Plus, Scott and Lydia would have been a better endgame that Scalia.
Scott x Kira: New Beginnings
These two were adorable. Kira was a badass, don’t get me wrong, but she let herself be soft in a way Allison was always afraid to. This couple was truly Baby. Absolute dorks. I can definitely see the lasting quality between the two of them. They saw things very similarly, and had a ton in common. I do think Kira deserves more characterization outside of their relationship, like more of her friendship with Malia. Overall, her departure from the show will always be sad to me. It was bad writing. Scott was over her far too quickly.
Aiden x Lydia: Pretty People Herd
I honestly didn’t see much between these two other than mutual attraction. The best thing to come out of this relationship was Lydia’s line, “You’re not just a bad boy, Aiden. You’re a bad guy. And I don’t want to be with the bad guys.” Good character development moment.
Ethan x Danny: Step to Redemption
Danny really was the thing that made Ethan look outside of the pack for what he really wanted out of life. They had a few cute scenes. Gotta love Danny’s final remarks, “Dude, it’s Beacon Hills.”
Allison x Isaac: Unexpected Rebound
Ok, I like these two. Isaac could match Allison’s snark in a way Scott couldn’t. They both fought the progression of the relationship slightly. They didn’t expect to fall for each other. They were less willing to let someone in close. I’d love to have seen more… but unfortunately their time was limited. On a side note, sometimes their relationship did feel like ‘we both are in love with the same guy, let’s cope with each other’, but I find that completely valid. I’ll talk about Scallisaac later though.
Stiles x Malia: Anchors
Ok but, them <3 I love what they did for each other. Stiles was able to help Malia connect to her humanity and other people. He never tried to isolate her in their relationship and encouraged her growth. Malia offered Stiles the emotional support he never asked for. She defended him, fought for him, and loved him fiercely. Stiles needed that so much after season 3. I think they were a love that wasn’t meant to last, but the impact of it was forever. I wish we’d gotten to see a real end for them where they agreed that they needed to grow as individuals but would always still care.
Liam x Hayden: Three’s a Pattern
These two’s characterization stopped whenever they had storylines together. Their relationship was built on Scallison references. Hayden’s character could have been interesting, but they never really gave her a moment to shine. Liam has the worst plots when they revolved around her. Cute couple, poor writing.
Derek x Braeden: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl Boss
Derek deserves to be happy so much. Kate and Jennifer were just... jeez. Him and Braeden were cute and deserved more screen time. I think her intensity allowed for Derek to let go of control a bit more comfortably. Let Derek Be Soft. Anyway, love them.
Corey x Mason: Gotta Have That Rep TM
These two could have been cute if they were shown for more than two seconds at a time. I highkey forget Corey even existed all the time. Kinda just felt like a relationship to fill TW’s gay quota.
Jackson x Ethan: The Callback
Honestly? Loved them. Loved the chemistry. Loved the dynamic. Best twist. I know it was probably written in like that because Colton came out during his time away from the show, but it absolutely fit his character. Jethan is top tier.
Melissa x Chris: BAMF Parent Duo
Ok, so like, Melissa deserved this plot. She deserved someone to care about her. However... what the hell? Chris? In canon, his wife died like 2-ish years prior? His daughter died 1 year prior?? Is Chris really in a position to pursue a new relationship?? Also, like, Scott and Allison dated and loved each other up to her death. Kinda weird to have their parents hook up. I don’t hate it, but I don’t ship it…?
Scott x Malia: Lead up? What’s lead up?
These two came out of nowhere I stg. Like, 6B really tried to tell us this was something that had been slowly developing in the background? Also, I understand that they are their own people, adults, and completely in charge of their own romantic pursuits: but did Scott seriously never call Stiles? Like, Malia wasn’t just his first girlfriend. She was his first. Like, dude that’s your best friend?? Not even a head’s up? No, ‘hey would this bother you?’ Oof. Plus Malia was way too chaotic for Scott. She existed in gray morality that always prioritized her immediate circle, and Scott was a very black/white type of heroism. I just didn’t feel like they fit.
Non-Canon:
Scott x Stiles: Childhood Best Friends
Ya, sorry, I don’t ship Sciles at all. I get it. Like, I totally understand the ship, and I mean no judgment at all. I just see them as friends. I really value good male friendships in media because I feel like we don’t get enough, and I always liked these two.
Stiles x Derek: Enemies to Lovers. 100k. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.
God these two really are what fanfiction was made for. I could write a much longer discussion about Sterek, and I probably will eventually. I’ll try to keep this brief. These two weren’t always on the same side, but their approach was the same. They were very similar at their core. Plus, wow the chemistry. This should have been canon. Jeff’s a coward.
Allison x Lydia: Powerful.
This ship is so great. They really had a great dynamic, and a romantic plot would have easily fit the established narrative. Lydia’s confidence in herself and Allison’s confidence in her own abilities crossing over to each other because that’s what the other lacked? Iconic.
Danny x Jackson: He Gets Him
Danny really saw Jackson for everything he was and still cared. I wished we’d gotten to see more of them. I  want more background with Jackson’s eventual coming out and his friendship with Danny. Like, they ended up dating the same guy. What did Ethan have to say about that??
Stiles x Jackson: Bastards
Ok these two had a super fun dynamic. The asshole-energy between them was, great. The snark was always so entertaining.
Melissa x Noah: Family
How were these two not endgame? Their sons were practically brothers already. They had amazing chemistry. The flirting? Not to mention, their timeline would have made way more sense. Missed opportunity.
Chris x Peter: The Opposite of Love is Indifference, Not Hate
Ok so like, this was definitely one of those ships that I had absolutely no knowledge of before I was pretty into the fandom. Like, this was not something I would have guessed just after watching the show. That being said; my god the chaos alone…
Scott x Isaac: The Disaster Duo
Okay ya I love these two. Two dumb asses who act like idiot puppies. Such a fun dynamic. Plus?? Chemistry??? Hellooo
Scott x Allison x Isaac: Three Heads Are Better Than One
This ship is definitely one of my personal favorites. I very rarely poly-ship. I just feel like most of them are just love triangles with an ‘easy solution’, when two of them have no real connection. That is so not the case here. I feel like all of them have such great chemistry with each other. They also have a great dynamic as a group. Season 3A was really just Scallisaac rights.
Stiles x Isaac: I Hate You, jk…Not Really
Ok I loved their banter, but I really just don’t see this ship. Idk, I don’t personally ship it. Would have loved to see their friendship develop more tho.
Erica x Allison: Duo that would stab you with a stiletto
I don’t ship it, but I do wish we’d seen them become friends. I feel like they had a very artificial ‘girls fighting over a boy’ dynamic? They could have been such a badass duo.
Stiles x Erica: Batman x Catwoman
Ok I’m not sure exactly how to express my feelings for these two so bare with me. OMG I love their dynamic so much, and they are sooo cute. Their energy? Amazing. Chemistry? Great. History? It’s there and has so much potential. 10/10. Love them. But, no, I don’t ship it lol. Just really love their friendship, but with the underlying history of crushes.
Boyd x Erica: Was This Not Canon?
How can anyone not love Berica? Ugh they are adorable. These two deserved so much better.
Boyd x Cora: Survivors
Honestly I don’t really see it? Like they definitely had a connection, but it never felt romantic. I really feel like they just had to lean on each other and bond to make it through captivity, and it just lasted.
Boyd x Erica x Cora: The Pack
I literally learned this was a ship a couple days ago. Similar feelings towards this as Bora, but with the added hesitancy of we never actually saw Erica and Cora interact.
Cora x Stiles: Slow Build Up
These two were clearing being lined up to be a thing before Cora ended up leaving. I can’t say I’m disappointed they never happened. Kinda felt like they just wanted to straight-code Sterek.
Cora x Lydia: Mean Lesbians
Not much interaction to actually go off of, but yes I 100% support. They have very different approaches to problems, which is fun. Very ‘opposites attract’.
Malia x Kira: “Maybe you could date the coyote?”
Another one of my favorites!! They really complimented each other. Also, how full circle would they have been? They were introduced in back-to-back episodes. Malia stalking her as a coyote? The line from Kira’s dad about dating it? It would have been so funny if that ended up happening.
Malia x Lydia: Beauty and the Beast, but make it wlw
These two were fun. I liked their friendship, but I don’t really ship it. Though, rip Stiles that would have been hilarious.
Parrish x Lydia: The Cop and The Minor
Must I say more? Like, Parrish’s character, so sweet and big rule follower, did not make sense for what went down with Lydia. I love Parrish, but the dynamic just felt off. It didn’t feel consistent with the rest of his characterization.
Parrish x Stiles: The Cop and The Minor, but gay?
Ok, same reasoning as above, but also they had absolutely no connection romantically.
Scott x Theo / Stiles x Theo: Sometimes The Villain is Hot
Ok I’ve put these together because I have the same opinion for both. I don’t ship it. Neither had any rebuilding of trust, and Theo really hurt both of them. I just don’t really think they work.
Mason x Liam: Sciles Puppy Pack Edition
Similar to my feeling about Sciles, I just don’t ship these two. They had a good friendship, from the little we saw of it.
Theo x Liam: Anchors 2: Electric Boogaloo
Another personal favorite! I really don’t even understand why this didn’t go canon?? The elevator scene was just, so intense. They helped each other grow in 6B, and I really loved their dynamic. They should have hooked up.
Honorable Mention?: 
Parrish x Laura: What’s canon?
I’ve seen this in fanfic a lot, and I actually really like it lol. I thought I’d add it in here because I do love the creativity of fandoms.
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secretshinigami · 3 years
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Beyond Birthday's Day Off
Author: @ironblowtorch​ For: @pinkmalus Pairings/Characters: Beyond Birthday, A, L  Rating/Warnings: Mature- Mentions of death and grief  Prompt: Beyond Birthday’s Day Off  Author’s notes: I really wish I had thought of a more creative title but that’s exactly what the fic is!! <3 I hope you enjoy, the idea was that B is trying to figure out his next steps in life after leaving whammys and he finds himself inspired to start his lifestyle as a killer! :3 
Beyond Birthday had never been this alone in his life. 
  Well… no, that wasn’t exactly true. He was an orphan after all. He had spent his very early days alone, cold, seeing the world in red and numbers. He doesn’t remember much of his time before Whammy’s at all, and he curses the fact that his so-called genius mind never remembered the names above his parent’s head’s.  If he actually thought hard about it, maybe he had always been alone, and now was no different. He did name himself, after all. A name so ridiculous there was no way anyone could have one like it, that was until the nicknames ‘B’, or worse “Backup” became his normal. Yeah… he definitely has been alone all along. 
The saltly wind that suddenly smacked against his face brought him back to the present, reminding him that he was actually alone on the beach, as well as alone in life. He had just  arrived in Los Angeles only hours after sneaking onto a mail plane from London.  Unfortunately that was as far as his plan had taken him… he still had to sort out a place to sleep, food… and most importantly his revenge on L. 
  In all truth, he felt exhausted and overwhelmed. He was happy when he arrived to find himself so close to the ocean, a sight he’d never seen after a lifetime in the orphanage.  If he let his mind drift to Whammy’s or any of the… events that happened this week he wouldn’t be able to keep it together much longer. And he needed to focus on his survival for now. Some genius he was! No plan, no future, no identity… no A… 
  B suddenly threw sand into the water with a shout. He needed to stop thinking. Turning away from the sunset, he started to make his way up the animal path he found hidden under the pier towards the beach. Instantly numbers and names started to swirl around him as he found himself lost in the crowds of people headed towards the water. With no direction in mind, he kept to the edge of the sidewalk with his hands tucked into his jeans. Unfortunately for himself, the only clothes he was able to smuggle with him were L’s standard of a white shirt and blue jeans. At least he managed some flip flops for himself. 
  Even with his California acceptable footwear he stuck out like a sore thumb here. Why didn’t training to become the next greatest detective include social skills? Maybe that takes away your deductive reasoning, like sitting normal, or eating a meal without sugar.  
  Beyond sighed heavily and shook his head at an attempt to clear his thoughts again. This was no good… he needed to find something to distract him… with no money it would be pointless to try and go into a store. He could try to steal, but he really wasn’t familiar with America yet… maybe his best bet was to look for someone whose time was running short… Perhaps he could crash in a dead man’s home for a few days? 
He had been walking with his head down for so long that when he turned the corner and looked up he was greeted with the movie worthy view of the Hollywood sign! In all honesty, he was less impressed than he thought he’d be. But it did give him the great idea of something to do… he could go sightseeing! 
  Truthfully, he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had ever done something just because he thought it would be fun. Most of his life he was just mimicking L, or studying old cases and autopsies, or cheering up A… He deserved a day off! Beyond laughed to himself as he watched the sun start to disappear behind the rolling hills. Yeah, a day off from thinking about L would be long over-due.
  ~~~
  The next day he awoke with a smile on his face, excited for the day ahead for the first time.  
  The night before he had managed to find a public library and used the computers and references to plan his entire next day! He told himself he would figure out food and shelter later, because for now he just wanted more excitement in his life. He wanted to do something just for him. 
  So his first stop at 11am was to visit the famous museum of death on Hollywood Ave! He stumbled upon the poster on a bulletin board in one of the seating areas, and felt like it was destiny. The museum held exhibits of past serial killer trials, autopsies from various diseases, endless animal taxidermy, and plenty of bones and weapons! It was perfect! 
Beyond always felt that when looking at crimes as the detective, you aren’t focusing on the corpses or criminals often at all… it’s more about solving and deductions and justice… blah blah blah. Beyond thought crime and life meant more than all that. Death and life coexisted all the time, he could see it for himself with his own eyes. It had only been a week now since A had died, and for every second leading up to the moment Beyond saw his number drop to zero, they were together. Before it happened, there was no way for him to guess what zero would mean. Maybe a part of him knew, but… it wasn’t real until it was. 
  He felt like he needed to go to this museum as a way to place the grief that was holding onto him somewhere else for a while. Seeing the person you’re closest to die and knowing it… it was too much for him. 
  But at the same time he felt secure in his understanding and knowledge of criminal behavior… in fact his own heart was warming up to the idea of becoming one himself. So the museum felt like a great bridge from his past life towards his new one! His next chapter would begin today, B just needed some inspiration first. 
  On his walk there, he happened to pass by a candy store window, surrounded by people watching through the glass as they watched a man spin taffy. Beyond found himself getting lost in the art of it all along with the crowd of people, so much so that he decided to pop inside. As he walked the aisles he recognized almost all the brands from years of sitting behind L during lectures as he ate enough of the stuff to kill a small child in one sitting. The truth was, B didn’t have much of a sweet tooth himself. He thought candy was kinda pointless, all it did was coat your teeth in sugar then disappear. L swore it made his mind work better, but he also swore a lot of his weirdest quirks did that for him, and Warati let him do whatever he wanted anyway… Yeah. So candy was just another thing B resented about the detective. 
  He didn’t hate all sugar though. He used to think fruit salad from the orphanage cafeteria was the best side they ever offered. Why only eat one fruit when you could eat them all together at once, in a bowl? Fruits were high in sugar content as well, but at least you got fiber and healthy carbs from them! 
  Beyond started to feel a bit guilty as he realized he was going to leave a candy store, a place that should bring any sane person joy upon arrival- in a worse mood than when we walked in. But he didn’t see any fruit or snack that interested him at all… he started back to the door just before he spotted a display of local creations the owner had featured. He walked up and found himself smiling wide as he picked up a jar of locally harvested strawberry jam. This would do! 
  ~~~
  By the time 11 rolled around, Beyond had already eaten his entire jar of jam as well as figured out his sleeping arrangements for at least a few days! Just behind the museum he found an abandoned shipping storage container he could even lock up at night. He finally felt like he was doing something right in his life, as everything fell into place for his new life. 
  Well, almost everything. He was really hoping he would find his last missing piece in his future in this museum. Maybe they were hiring? Maybe he’d find some inspiration for a different line of criminal detective work? Only one way for him to find out. 
The money he used from the wallet he pickpocketed at the bus stop was more than enough to cover his limited expenses for the next few days. The ticket for the museum was $13, which B felt was another sign he was going in the right direction! 
  As he walked through the gift shop and to the entrance, he noticed that it wasn’t crowded at all. The ticket lady did say it was strange to see someone, especially alone, on a Thursday… but he wasn’t complaining. She also warned him about the most explicit parts of the museum being a bit gruesome, and he made note of them to go to first. He could take as long as he needed without being distracted by lifespans! 
  He first wanted to check out the taxidermy animal room. Nothing too gory was in there and that was fine, he just had never seen taxidermy before! Or many animals. It was educational to learn that birds came in just about every size…
  After comparing himself to the stuffed angry badger he excitedly hurried to the serial killer exhibit. Purely out of curiosity!!! B just knew that was where the best autopsy photos were! Along with actual explanations of the killers’ stories… well, at least the ones that were solved. 
  As Beyond stepped into the room his excitement was suddenly matched with the new grief he had as a part of him. B longed to be sharing this moment with A… When they were kids…how many nights had they snuck to the library just to look at photos of other places? How many drawings did B slip into their backpack, how many smacks to the head did B get… all of those moments combined couldn’t have added up to much. But they had meant the world to Beyond… He didn’t feel alone in those moments, A was the only one who noticed him as someone other than a copy of L. Now A was gone forever. 
  Beyond stumbled back to sit on a nearby bench as his heart felt heavier by the second. He swallowed hard and gripped onto the edge of the seat, trying to ground himself. He blinked his eyes and then noticed the name Bertha Marie Smith with a shorter than average lifespan stumble up to him in a panic. 
  “Oh, sir?? This room can be a bit much for most people! It’s alright, we have an exit to the lobby this way…” she reached out to help him sit up-
  “Ha! What? N-No… excuse me…” B quickly stood up and moved away from her. “I’m fine. I just…. needed a moment. I’d like to finish my tour, if that’s quite alright.” He smiled and tipped his head and quickly turned the corner to avoid her. 
  Beyond Birthday was actually better than fine. In fact, before Bertha had come up, he had the most intense realization. 
  A was the only person who knew him as himself. A would be the only one to ever remember him. Who would remember him when he was gone? Who would remember A? 
  He looked around the walls scattered with information he had expert knowledge of. All these crimes… any crime really, he had been learning every strategy a killer could use since he could read. B had given up his chances of ever following the path they had planned  for him, that life was long gone. So what was his chance of ever being remembered now? Hardly above zero. He was sure even L himself wouldn’t attend the funeral if he passed tomorrow. 
  So B decided maybe he was meant to be at this museum after all. Maybe… he could pull something off that couldn’t even compare to any crime the world had seen. Something even L couldn’t get to the bottom of. 
  He could have his very own exhibit here, at the museum! Maybe a whole room dedicated just to his case, something so unsolvable, people would talk about it for centuries…. He could be the world’s greatest criminal instead. 
  Beyond smirked and turned to enter the next exhibit, excited for this next chapter. After all, he was alone now, and nothing could stop him from redeeming A now. 
One Day the Los Angels BB Murder Case would be written about somewhere, he just knew it.  
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lastxviolet · 3 years
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Madripoor is for Lovers (Zemo x F!Reader) - Ch. 2
Summary: Y/N is a SWORD agent recruited to help Sam and Bucky track down Karli and the super-soldiers. When Helmut Zemo joins the team, he takes a special interest in her. The friendly union is wrought for disaster, but then things take a turn for the worst when Y/N is taken as collateral. Will Zemo keep her forever? Does she even want to escape? And what happened in Madripoor that made the whole thing so complicated?
Warnings: 18+ / eventual smut / kidnapping
https://archiveofourown.org/works/32878015/chapters/81589774
The plane completed its descent, jolting you awake and away from the dream of what happened next.
His hands inside your dress and the moment in the evening that stopped feeling like an act.
“We are here,” he confirmed, gripping your hand and leading you from the plane.
The air wasn’t cold anymore and smelled like spring. It was May in the states and DC had felt the same so it was possible that you were still in the northern hemisphere. The United States and Canada weren’t options for the criminal, neither was Germany.
Italy?
He spoke to the driver in German and although you recognized the words, you had no clue what they meant. A short drive later and the car stopped. He untied the blindfold and you took in the sight of a lone chateau at the end of a lavish driveway. He opened the door and motioned for you to follow.
“No gun,” you questioned, eyeing his relaxed demeanor.
He smiled. Although you were angry and the sun was too bright, you were glad to finally be able to see something again.
“Not necessary,” he nodded at the rolling hills around them. “Where would you run?”
You glared at him, letting him know that this was still against your will and that any familiarity you’d had, was gone.
“You’re very confident that I prefer your company over death,” you hissed, eyeing the wilderness.
“You’ve come with me this far.”
Your eyes met his. It was impossible to know what he was thinking beneath the stern exterior.
“You could’ve screamed for your comrades,” he shrugged.
“There was a gun aimed at my temple.”
“Or jumped out of the plane.”
Again, you glared at him. If looks could kill.
“This way,” he said, clearing his throat. “Please.”
You followed him, debating if you could make it to the car or even out of the compound before Zemo shot you or caught up.
The terrain was unfamiliar, and now you were in a foreign country, alone and uncounted for.
Zemo slowed and matched your snail’s pace, signaling that it was time to hurry up. You moved slower despite his hand on your back and he clicked his tongue. You made the journey last as long as possible until there was no choice but to cross the threshold.
“Your room is up the stairs and to the right,” he said, eyes on your face.
You stormed up the wooden stairs, making each groan with your anger.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” he called after you.
You slammed your door in response. The wall shook and you half hoped it’d bring the whole house down, taking you and Zemo with it.
An hour later, you entered the small and intimate dining room. A round table sat in a nook surrounded by windows, looking out onto the cliff-like drop below. You didn’t even glance at the food before you. There was only Zemo, and convincing him to let you go.
“Is your room to your liking?”
You scoffed. “My cell is fine, thank you.”
Unfortunately, your warden was fond of conflict, and difficult people. The words only seemed to intrigue him further. His eyes danced over your face, glancing down towards the exposed skin on your chest and then up to your lips.
“They say a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity,” he mused.
“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence,” you quoted.
His eyes twinkled again, he knew, as you did, that it came from an Italian philosopher. It was applicable but also, a guess.
He raised his glass towards you before finishing the quote. “But an optimist because of will.”
In true Zemo fashion, he neither confirmed nor denied your suspicion. You lifted your glass of red wine towards him with a scowl.
You ate in silence for a while, you, staring out the window, Zemo, eyeing you. You made it half an hour before the weight of his stare became unbearable.
“So what’s your game plan, with all this,” you asked, waving your fork to yourself and then to him and the house.
“Do not ask questions you already know the answer to,” he chided. “It is beneath you.”
“My life for your freedom.”
He sighed then, almost like he didn’t like that answer either. It was the right one, you both knew that but it looked like it pained him. Seeing that flicker of humanity hurt more than you wanted to admit. It'd be easier if the man beneath the mask wasn't real. It'd be easier if he'd been lying and there weren’t two versions of him. You wished that there wasn’t a charming and passionate man beneath the evil Baron facade, but there he was again.
“Prison is not an option for me,” he admitted, laying down his fork. “But I am sorry that it had to be you.”
You nodded and scoffed, rolling your eyes for good measure.
“I do hope to make you comfortable, in the meantime — ”
“Before you kill me,” you interrupted.
He clicked his tongue again and glared. It was the plan he orchestrated and yet, he didn’t seem to like it.
“I may not have to,” he corrected.
You laughed then, with little care for his strained expression. “Have you met the Dora Milage? They’ll go through whoever they need to, to avenge their king. They don’t know me nor do they care about me. You don’t have the winning hand that you think you do.”
“You are forgetting about your colleagues. They've lost one of their own. If not loyalty, then pride will make them come for you,” he corrected.
Again, you smiled at his miscalculation. “I’m a foot soldier, not an avenger; not a super soldier; not one of them.”
"There is no such thing as small people, only small — ”
“Great,” you bellowed. “More wisdom! Your riddles and literature are useless now. You should’ve spent more time studying negotiations while you were incarcerated. Why didn’t you take Bucky? Or Caps little assistant? The US would’ve been at your feet for them back. You could’ve gotten a pardon and a reward!”
“I have no need for a reward,” he spat.
Your chest was heaving, out of anger, out of nerves, but most of all because the man in front of you was once again, impenetrable.
“Or a pardon from the great United States,” he continued, almost in a whisper.
Your eyes snapped to his but he avoided your gaze. He swirled his wine and stared off into space before inspecting you again. Something was missing, something that didn’t make sense.
The glimmer of humanity returned, despite his best efforts to hide it.
He’d been the main orchestrator of his outbreak from jail. He had private homes, apartments, transportation, weapons, cars, everything. He could run forever but he didn’t need you to do it. How was this life any different than what it would be if he was free? He watched you come to the realization and winced as it clicked into place.
“Why am I here,” you whispered, squinting.
He was silent and looked back to the window.
“Zemo,” you whispered. “Look at me.”
Funny enough, he followed the order.
His lips moved in silence but words didn’t escape.
“Why did you choose me?”
He pursed his lips in exasperation. It was no secret that he liked having the upper hand but he’d shown you all his cards a moment ago. You wondered why he hadn’t bothered to lie.
“I chose you because they wouldn’t — they won’t.”
He stood up and leaned against the sill, sipping wine in small swigs and staring out at the greenery.
“You would die for your country, Y/N,” he explained. “I find that admirable — heroic even but the problem, for me, is that they would let you.”
“Let me?” You repeated the phrase slowly, trying to understand the point.
He let out a huff. “If you caught a grenade in the name of bettering America, what would happen?”
You cocked your head in question. “I die? Maybe get a Purple Heart?”
“And then what? Would they bat an eye before rejoicing you — celebrating you and your sacrifice? Encouraging others to do the same in your name?” He paused and stared at you.
“No….no they wouldn’t because your death would mean that their wars are working. Another name in the long list of people that they were willing to gift to the god of war.”
“That sacrifice is what I signed up for — it’s my choice,” you explained, confused about where he was taking this.
He nodded and yet made no amends or clarification. The angry veins in his forehead receded and his gaze flitted away like he couldn’t bear to continue. You suddenly wondered if he'd even sent a ransom note, or whatever kidnappers do. The look in his eyes, told you no. The tone of his voice told you that he might not ever.
“Then you are doing your duty as a prisoner of war here, with me.”
He smiled and your anger dissipated. You lunged to grab onto any remaining frayed piece of it but there was nothing left. All those years of training and fighting, all to succumb to an evil man in a fitted turtleneck. You hardened your expression in an attempt to remain vexed.
“Your circumstance could be worse,” he concluded.
“And what of your circumstance?”
Silence ate up space between you. His gaze was set on you once again and then it seemed like you were the only two in this room, this home…the world.
“Better than it has been in a long time, schatzi,” he sighed.
“How so,” you asked, pushing for information.
He shrugged. “I am free and I am alone….with you.”
You winced and shook your head. “Don’t,” you whispered.
His brows furrowed. “In previous interactions, you did not seem to resent my…affections, Y/N.”
Butterflies ravaged your sternum, bringing memories of the night at Sharon’s with it. If it was different, if he had turned over a new leaf, then it would be easier to admit your feelings.
“Is this your version of affection? Holding me hostage?”
“Yes,” he breathed, coming to sit next to you, so close you thought he might touch you.
“Let’s not…talk about it,” you whispered, trying to push away the longing in your chest.
“I would like to,” he pushed.
All you could do was stare. The memories should've stayed in Madripoor. It should live in your brief collective drunk past. But you could see that it weighed on him as heavy as it did on you.
“That is fine,” he sighed. “I can talk if you will listen.”
You nodded once. The residual affections plagued you and it was impossible to keep your heartbeat at bay. The thought that he might feel the same was exhilarating and terrifying.
“It was you who assisted me with my escape plan. You who tracked Karli. You who guessed that I’d betray you on countless occasions. You who ensured that we evaded Captain America as long as we did. You who played your part so well that everyone in Madripoor thinks I have taken a wife.”
“Your point,” you hissed, deadpan.
“The super soldier solution does not increase intelligence, as you know. Nothing does. Even all the books in the world cannot alter what is already there. Either you are born with the glorious burden, or you live in ignorant bliss,” he explained.
He reached up and brushed his thumb along your forehead. “I know your burden, Y/N, because I share it.”
A stuttering breath left your chest. Compliments were the easiest forms of manipulation. You’d studied it, known it, resisted it in many years of training but this felt different. Everything he did and said, felt different.
“I do my job Zemo, that’s it.”
“You excel,” he corrected. “You make the rest of your colleagues look like newborns and yet they don’t...value you. Not like I do, Liebling.”
“If this is about the incident at Sharon’s,” you said, recognizing the nickname. “It was a mistake.”
He chuckled. “An optimist would call it a happy accident.”
“I’d call it life-ruining,” you said, trying to decipher the feelings of anger and something warm inside your chest. “If it led you to this.”
“I understand if you hate me,” he explained. “But you should know that living here with your hatred will be akin to breathing, for me, if it means you are safe. Natural and life-bringing.”
Your face gave nothing away but he’d stunned you.
“The evil baron is becoming less and less of a character.”
“They say hate itself is a version of love,” he mused, ignoring your words and staring at your lips.
The word knocked thought and common sense back into your head. This wasn’t love. This was ownership and selfishness. A myriad of terrible things that had tangled you both in this mess. It’d spurred from fascination and proximity but for love to grow, there has to be more. There has to be more good than bad. You looked around the home, owned by the man in front of you. Both beautiful, breathtaking even. But not enough to trade your freedom for.
“How convenient for someone with so many enemies,” you hissed.
His eyes squinted then and the Baron who commanded respect in Madripoor returned. There was this side of him too, you reminded yourself. And it seemed to be winning over the side who loved books and witty conversation.
“Are you my enemy, Y/N?”
For the first time, you didn’t know what to say. Before this, it wasn’t safe to call him anything other than an enemy but now? He ruined any chance of normalcy or redemption. The question lingered between you and it struck you how close he’d gotten. It would take almost nothing to start a repeat of the night at Sharon’s. But this was a different man.
“I didn’t have to be,” you breathed before breaking eye contact. You gave him no time to answer before fleeing back to your room.
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