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fandom-meanderer · 4 years

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Beauty and the... [Pt. 6]

Pairing: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd x Reader, Sylvain Jose Gautier x Reader, Felix Hugo Fraldarius x Reader

Part: (6/?) [First] [Previous] [Next]

Genre: Romance, Drama

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

P.o.V.: 2nd

Word Count: 2,584 Words

Warnings: Language

Further Notes: And the long awaited chapter is here! Four chapters after this are left, are you ready?

You watched Sylvain from across the room. You had told Mercedes, who came to check up on you, that you weren’t feeling too well that day and was going to skip classes earlier today and she simply agreed and wished you a happy rest. None of the other Lions were particularly concerned about Sylvain’s absence, it wouldn’t have been the first time this semester when it occurred after all. But now that your hands were free from their snares, your mind wandered back to the night before only more often, and it drove you insane.

What did he mean by that?

Well, of course you knew. It wasn’t the first time you’ve heard him say it, but for some reason it felt different. You weren’t dense. You knew that boy caught feelings for you, and he caught them hard. But you truly didn’t feel the same—

Wait, actually?

You relaxed in your seat in the classroom and watched him yammer on to Felix. Would being in a relationship with Sylvain be that bad? Then you watched as another female student blew him a kiss, to which he winked back at her as if it was just a reflex and you scoffed to yourself.

“What was I even thinking?” You rolled your eyes and opened your book. But some strange thought compelled you for a moment and you shut your book and looked back to who you thought was your older brother figure and your best friend and huffed slightly. “Well…”

You knew Sylvain, you knew him well. If you looked past the obvious flirt, he’s actually a very deep person with very deep insecurities. He’s a lot smarter than people chalk him up to be, and truthfully you don’t think he’s be a bad boyfriend, but he would have to be as hooked to you as you are to him, otherwise you’re just set up for heartbreak.

Now you know Sylvain’s got it bad for you, you didn’t miss the way he blushed, you just elected to ignore it, but at the same time that’s just Sylvain. He gets hooked on one girl, then it dies out like a flame in the rain. You’re very close with him, that much is fact, and you’re really not sure if risking your near sixteen years of friendship is worth a relationship. But there lies the possibility that he is that infatuated with you, but now it’s the argument of is it love or is it infatuation, because both are two very different things, to your understanding. If you were to ask him, truth be told, he’d probably say they’re the same thing.

Now for a brief lesson on the whims of love, as presented by Professor Byleth to his colleagues. The origin of ‘Love’ and the origin of ‘Infatuation’ do stem from the same roots, they start in the heart, but it is where that feeling travels to that differentiates the two. As many might protest against, infatuation travels to the head, while love travels to the rest of the body. Infatuation is to be defined as the being obsessed with the simple idea of being in a relationship, and in this case that is a majority of Sylvain’s feelings in general. Where as love is something that encases one whole, it is the simple deciding factor that allows you to put the other before yourself when necessary, but at the same time to prioritize yourself when you must.

To bring this back to your situation, you know Sylvain enough to know that the boy is constantly hooked on the idea, but never on the truth. You trust Sylvain, you really do, after all, it is him you go to before the others most of the time, he has the best insights once he drops his dumb-jock facade and decides to become an actually decent guy.

“Um… (Name)?” Dimitri tapped your shoulder and you are pulled out of your in-depth analysis.

Dimitri.

Whenever you think you’ve gotten over him, he just has to show his dumb face in front of you in his dumb school uniform with that dumb blue cape and his dumb blue eyes and you feel yourself falling for him all over again. You feel bad for Sylvain, he had to sit through you talking about Dimitri over and over again for years, you thought about apologizing, but whenever you gave a hint to, Sylvain would reassure you that it was fine.

Dimitri is such an enigma, let that be known. You had known him for years, thanks to your mother, and you have seen his rises and falls and everything in between. But the question now arises, is what you feel for Dimitri love or infatuation?

“Oh, hey, Dima, what’s up?” You force a smile on your face and he eyes you suspiciously.

“I was wondering if you could help me out with bow training?” He asked.

Oh, you almost forgot about that. Dimitri’s strong proclamation of switching to bow skills, one you wouldn’t have seen coming from a mile away, but one that wasn’t a horrible surprise. You nodded.

“Sure, I’ll try to get you a silver bow so it doesn’t break again,” you laugh. And there’s another thing that was on your long list of ‘WHY I LOVE DIMITRI.’ It’s the honesty, the way you could read his feelings on his face. The first thing you noticed was how the tips of his ears would turn red first before the rest of his face did, then he would do that nervous side glance that would send your heart racing. Sometimes you were afraid that people would be able to tell how whipped you were for the young prince because, truth be told, the odds of you and Dimitri being end game were short, very short. He’s a prince and you’re a commoner who just happened to be lucky enough to be a part of the lives of nobles, it was just not meant to be.

You would describe your story as a complicated romantic plot. But the boy behind you would describe it as a sob story. As frivolous as he seems, Sylvain is in no way an idiot. He knows your feelings for the Prince, and he knows Dimitri’s feelings for you, there’s no way he could ever stand a chance against the crown prince of Fhirdiad, and in your heart, your relationship has plateaued at ‘Sibling-Like,’ a placement he wasn’t happy with, but one he was willing to maintain.

“Honestly, Sylvain, look at you, you’re pathetic,” Felix scoffs. “You’d might as well just tell her how you feel so you could stop looking like such an oaf when she does as much as breathe.”

“It’s just that we’ve been friends for so long, I don’t think I should say anything,” Sylvain kept his carefree smile on his face, but his words were somber. “Plus, her and Dimitri have a bond we could never have.”

“I don’t think so, but alright,” Felix shrugs. “I’ve had enough of your moping, take action or I will for you.” Sylvain blew a piece of his hair out of the way and slumped his shoulders.

“Yeah, I hear you, Felix,” he groans. The door to the classroom opens and Byleth walks in, tomes and papers stacked in his hands. He tosses them on the table and turns to the class.

“I hope you’re all ready for your first mission as students. Bandit removal, make sure your weapons are ready and repaired, we move out in a few hours,” he instructs. The class affirms his questions collectively and next thing they knew it, they were at the drop-off location, getting in formation.

This wouldn’t be your first time going against enemies, which is sad enough to say. But the life of a commoner isn’t one of luxury. When you weren’t with your mother in the castle, you were with your father at home, home being a small cottage in the middle of the woods since your father was a paranoid maniac.

It sounds cruel, but there’s no other way to put it. From a young age you had to do things for him, and that included making sure people who were hellbent on killing your father, claiming that he was “cursed” or whatever new word they cooked up for him, weren’t a problem. When did it start again? You had to have been ten at least, right?

Oh, goddess above, you just realized how bad that sounded.

Let’s set something straight, you’ve never killed anyone! Gods no. You just scared them away, is all, enough for them not to come back to hurt your father.

Now the person who taught you how to use your sword in the first place was your father, before the “Goddess please take my life away as well as my wife and child” blubber he spouted out, in fact, he was also involved in the Monastery’s defenses, until he was untimely “retired” as Seteth put it.

Another unknown fact to most, actually you didn’t recall ever telling your friends either, you had connections in the Monastery even before you were admitted to the Officers Academy, mainly for fear of being disparaged since you were technically only let in because of “connections,” and goodness how you hated using that word but it was all that was there to use. As far as your classmates know, you got in because of good grades.

Which you believe would have been right, if only you actually went to school.

# Commoner Things.

Regardless, Dimitri and Ingrid’s books always kept you as educated as you had to be.

But let’s get back to the story.

“(Name), I want you and Felix to work together for this battle,” Byleth instructs. “You two should play off of each other well, focus on bow skills.”

“Right,” you nod. You link your arms with Felix. “Guess you’re stuck with me, Lix.”

“Great, now I have to babysit while I’m in battle,” Felix rolls his eyes and you smile.

“I feel like I never partner up with you anymore! What’s the worst that could happen?” You shrug.

“With your luck? Murphy’s Law is your best friend, (Name).”

“Don’t be like that, don’t worry, I have your back!”

That exchange was ten minutes ago.

You and Felix have been pushed back and essentially cornered by the enemy bandits, and the rest of the class was on the whole other side of the battle field.

But it wasn’t your fault! Felix was the one who was cocky enough to think he could handle the west side by himself, and you had to follow him because otherwise Byleth would have failed you. So now the both of you were hiding behind a rock, out of Vulnaries, and on the brink of exhaustion. And since the Professor wanted you to focus on your bow skills he may or may not have confiscated your sword, and Felix was being a dick and not letting you use his.

“How many arrows do you have left?”

“Uh… six.”

“How many enemies are left?”

“Uh… also six.” You hold your bow close to you and Felix holds both of your shoulders.

“Look, (Name), I always make fun of you and say you will never amount to anything because you are a commoner—“

“Geez, Lix, I get it, I’m worthless, chill out.”

“But right now this is me telling you that you can and you will one shot all those enemies because otherwise we will both die out here.”

“Well maybe if you gave me your sword—“

“It’s broken, (Name), you really think I’d give this to you and toss you out there? If Sylvain doesn’t kill me, Dimitri will tear my innards out.”

“Right. Okay,” you nod in tiny. “I dunno, Lix, my hit rate is one to six.”

“You can do it, I know that better than the others,” he shakes you slightly.

“Okay, okay, but if I die I am so convincing the Goddess to let me come back down so I can strangle you.”

“Deal. Now go kill those bandits.”

“Right, okay, right,” you nodded your head again.

Quick reminder, you’ve never killed anyone.

Also quick reminder, you don’t specialize in bow.

Also another reminder, last time you killed a fly you cried.

Okay, good luck, (Name).

You stood up and drew your bow back, focusing on the closest bandit, taking a deep breath in, you adjusted your stance, remembering Claude’s words, and as you exhale, you release the arrow, following it’s trail and hitting the enemy, leaving him out of commission.

“Oh gods, I did it. I actually did that… I am so sorry, I am so so sorry,” your expressions shifted dramatically. Felix poked his head out from behind the rock.

“See what did I tell you, (Name)? Go fuck some shit up!”

“Watch your language, Frauldarius,” you draw your next arrow, a new found confidence setting in you, and aim for your next target. Maybe you’re imagining it, but there was something different about how you were using your bow today, something more intense, to put it simply. Did arrows really fly that fast? And was a wooden bow really that strong enough to eliminate the enemies in one hit?

All questions for later.

Finally there was one last bandit and, using the same technique as the previous bandits, you took your shot.

And missed.

“You missed?!” Felix ran both hands through his hair.

“I told you I was a beginner!”

“So you miss your target the one time you shouldn’t miss?!”

“Oh shut up, Felix, you’re lucky I got the first five!”

“You two are really arguing, at a time like this?” The bandit halted in his tracks.

“Yeah we are, fuck off,” Felix grumbles. You glare at the bandit, grab Felix’s broken-ass sword, and drive it into the bandit’s chest.

“Don’t fucking interrupt me!” You growled. “Anyways, I don’t understand why you’re so unreasonable, Felix, you don’t see me complaining about your attitude 24/7.”

“That’s because you’re weak.”

“Say that again to my face!”

“I did!”

And the argument continued for the Goddess only knows how long and it finally ended when the Professor found the two of you and explained that the battle had been long over, then after a thorough scolding for worrying the entirety of the class, the two of you just decided not to talk to one another. Although you did find some joy in seeing Ingrid nag Felix about his broken sword, going off about how he should have checked before their very important first mission. But then your joy ended when she turned her anger towards you and lectured you on how you should have some respect for the people who were older than you, and also how you shouldn’t argue in battle since it’s “distracting” to the other classmates, but how could it be “distracting” if it was only you and Felix?

Either way, you had a bitter attitude for the rest of the week, and none of the Blue Lions were brave enough to go up to you and even make small talk.

And it wasn’t until Friday night when Felix decided to man up and go up to you.

Tag List: @cynicaltj @jumblybumble

#fe3h #feth #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #fe3h x reader #fe3h scenarios #fe3h imagines #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #dimitri x reader #fe3h dimitri #felix hugo fraldarius #felix x reader #fe3h felix #sylvain jose gautier #sylvain x reader #fe3h sylvain #ingrid brandl galatea #mercedes von martritz #byleth eisner

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raywritesthings · 5 years

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Blackbird: In the Dead of Night 1/9

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Tommy Merlyn, John Diggle, Quentin Lance, Lucas Hilton, Sara Lance, Dinah Lance Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen (Eventual) Summary: Oliver Queen returns to Starling City after five years away, three years after Sara Lance was found and rescued by her mother. More troubling to him is Laurel's abrupt and unexplained absence from the city for the same length of time that her sister's been home. Three years into the past, Dinah Lance makes a terrible choice. *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN (links to both accounts are in bio)*

After five long years away and all the time he had had for regrets and thinking about how he wanted to make amends, Oliver knew exactly where he needed to be when he returned to Starling City. He didn’t get the chance to act on that plan until Tommy asked him what he had missed most on their driving tour of the city he could once again call home.

“Laurel.”

His best friend barked a laugh and scratched at his ear. “Yeah, uh, problem with that plan. Laurel’s not here anymore.”

Oliver turned sharply to look at him. “What?”

Tommy shrugged. “She skipped town three years ago. No forwarding address, never answered any calls or emails. Never been back.”

“You’re sure?”

“Look, she left just before Sara came home. If that wasn’t enough to bring her back to Starling—”

“Sara,” Oliver echoed dumbly. “Sara’s alive?”

“Yeah. I guess you wouldn’t have known. She told the Queens she thought you had died, too.” Tommy shook his head. “Your mom and Thea took it pretty hard, not that they weren’t happy Sara had lived. Made things easier with the Lances, even if it didn’t fix their marriage.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Lance separated?” With every sentence, Tommy was sending him reeling and struggling to play catch-up. He’d known on some level that the things he had done before and the shipwreck itself would have affected the people around him, but it was still so strange seeing and hearing how much everything had changed.

“Yeah. That was less than a year after the shipwreck. Mrs. Lance moved to Central City, and Sara’s with her now.”

“What about Detective Lance?”

“Well, not so much a detective anymore,” Tommy told him. “He got busted down to officer and then I think he was asked to resign after his drinking got out of hand. That was probably about a year after Laurel left.”

And that brought them back around to the main issue. Laurel was gone. In all his years of yearning, recriminations, and vows to make things right no matter how impossible, he had never accounted for a scenario in which Laurel simply wasn’t there. It was unthinkable. She wasn’t just supposed to be at home...she was home.

“Laurel’s father got kicked off the force, and she didn’t even come in to check on him?”

“I guess she figured he’d be fine. He probably gets alimony, right?” Tommy pushed at his shoulder. “Let’s not worry about all of that, okay? You’re alive, Sara’s alive, and wherever Laurel is she’s probably happy to know she can hate you both in peace. So come on, where else did you want to go?”

“Nowhere,” Oliver answered blankly. He had absolutely no plan forward now that the one thing he had been determined to do — the one person he had wanted perhaps most to see — was out of reach.

“Sushi it is,” Tommy replied with false cheer and turned the engine on.

Their drive to the restaurant was interrupted when they were attacked and kidnapped, however, and Oliver’s hand was forced in debuting the man in the green hood much earlier than he had wanted to.

Jumpstarting his mission early caused him to make the decision to recruit his newly appointed bodyguard, John Diggle. Diggle was capable, level-headed, and a good man. He needed allies, as was proven when he had been unable to bring Jason Brodeuer down in enough time to stay the innocent Peter Declan’s execution. That one was still weighing heavily on his conscience.

And truthfully, Oliver needed him as a teammate just as much as a confidant.

“Reminiscing?” Digg asked one night as he walked up to Oliver at the computer.

He minimized out of the article he’d pulled up about the Queen’s Gambit wreck and his and Sara’s supposed deaths. Laurel had been mentioned in it by name. It was the last record of her he was able to find.

She’d been planning to go to law school before he left. But that took three years, and she wasn’t on the pass list of any state’s bar exam, which eliminated the possibility that she had transferred for her last year. And why would she have done that?

Diggle was still waiting for an answer. “Not exactly. There’s someone I knew before the island, someone I thought would still be here when I got back. But she’s not.”

“The girlfriend you cheated on.” Diggle shrugged at his surprised look. “I did my research, too, you know. Thought I should know who I was signing up with.”

“Well, the tabloids aren’t the best place to start anymore.”

“So why are you looking at them?”

Oliver turned his chair around to face Digg. “Tommy told me that Laurel left around two years after the shipwreck and that no one has heard from her since, even when Sara came home.”

“And that rubs you the wrong way?”

“It’s not like her.” Laurel would have come back to see her sister, to yell at her at least. And the idea that she’d just let him return to a comfortable life without making it clear how much he’d hurt her didn’t feel right, either. Laurel did not do the silent treatment. She was confrontational always.

“Well, maybe she just wants to get on with her life. Everybody else seems to. Has Sara even contacted you since you came home?”

“No.” And that was strange, too. He would have thought she would want to know how he survived, or to talk about their experiences. He still remembered when she had blindsided him on the island with a love confession, and perhaps his discomfort over that had kept him from reaching out.

Oliver turned back to the computer and searched for Sara this time, finding a few articles about her reappearance. A photo of herself and her mother leaving the courthouse sat over an article titled Mother finds daughter pronounced dead in shipwreck.

Mrs. Lance had been involved? Reading further, the article stated that Sara had washed ashore on an island with little connection to the outside world, but that her mother had been looking in the area and heard word of an American girl matching her daughter’s description.

There was nothing about the Amazo, Lian Yu, himself or the others, and he could understand that Sara might not have wanted to go into those details, traumatic as they were. He had covered up his own experiences to keep people from tying him to the Hood, after all.

But if parts of the testimony were partial or full lies, that made the entirety of it suspect.

Oliver studied Sara’s miserable expression in the photo. Something was off about all this. He needed more information.

“I’m going out,” he decided, getting up and crossing to the stairs.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” When he looked back, Digg mimed putting up a hood.

Oliver shook his head. “Not that kind of mission.”

—-

Quentin sat at his customary stool, working on his second glass. It was that or stay home and watch news reports about this Hood guy the police were totally inept at catching. It was obvious this nut had to be independently wealthy himself. They should have started looking into who among the elites had some kind of grudge or something to gain from all this upheaval. But his theories wouldn’t be welcomed around the station anymore, so he kept them to himself.

His peace and quiet was interrupted as someone took the seat next to him.

“Hello, Mr. Lance.”

At the familiar voice, he blinked and set the glass down, then looked to his right at Oliver Queen. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

Queen raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Nothing. I had a question for you, that’s all. Then I will happily let you get back to your scotch. In fact, consider the next one on me.”

Figured he would consider everything good between them, no harm no foul. “If you think I’m glad to see you just cause it turned out Sara wasn’t killed out there, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I won’t take up too much of your time, then,” Queen replied. “I just was wondering if you had Laurel’s new forwarding address.”

“Gotta be kidding me.” He scoffed. “You think if I knew, I’d tell you?”

“So she really hasn’t been in touch.”

“No. Guess she got sick of me.” Quentin prodded at his drink a couple times. “We got into it, just before she left. Said some things. I didn’t mean ‘em.”

“But you think she thought you did.”

“Well why the hell else would she have left? An- and who cares? Couldn’t be bothered to call or write, not even a peep when her sister came home. She doesn’t care anymore.” Quentin gave a single shake of his head and drained his glass. “None of ‘em do. Sara comes up every other Christmas. Talks on the phone sometimes. But she’s with her mother.”

He’d believed when he first heard the news that maybe there was a possibility for the four of them again. The chance to be a family like they’d had before. But Dinah had kept her place in Central; Sara hadn’t quite been the same bright, mischievous girl he’d lost; Laurel had never come home. His girls had all left him one by one.

“And Laurel’s alone? You know, I did some digging—”

“You think maybe you of all people should leave it alone?”

“—she was going to law school, right? But she hasn’t passed a bar exam anywhere in the US. Wherever she went, it wasn’t to continue law school.”

“Okay, so she dropped it. She never wanted to be a lawyer in the first place. It was the police academy,” Quentin mumbled. He’d kept Laurel from being an officer because of how dangerous he knew the job to be, yet look at him now. He hadn’t been anywhere near the precinct for a year and a half.

“Did she drop it between semesters or in the middle of one?”

“Look, Queen, what are you trying to say?”

“I’m not sure yet. I just have an odd feeling about it, I guess,” the man admitted, his brow furrowed. “It doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Look, I would’ve hoped that hearing your sorry ass turned up might have prompted her to come back here and give it a good kick. But she’s obviously washed her hands of the whole thing. Probably for the best. One way we’re different, she knew when to let things go.”

“That’s not the Laurel I knew.”

“Yeah, well turns out she didn’t know you too well, so maybe you didn’t know her, huh? Why do you care?” People around them were staring, but all he could feel was anger at the fake-concerned act Queen was pulling. It didn’t matter how stricken the billionaire looked at his accusation; it couldn’t be genuine. “You never cared about her! You broke her heart, and she was a damn fool to give it to you in the first place!”

“Quentin, I think it’s time to pack it in, alright?” Frank came down to their end of the bar and took his empty glass. “Don’t worry about your tab, you can get it the next time.”

“Great, just great.” He slid off his stool and staggered. Queen caught his arm to steady him, but he threw him off. “Tell you what, you find out wherever she went, tell her don’t bother coming back. I don’t need her. Never did.”

He stormed from the bar and back home, breathing heavily by the time he cleared his steps. He just didn’t have the energy he used to.

In the morning, he woke up on the couch in his clothes from the night before and his shoes untied but still on his feet. He shuffled to the toilet and relieved himself, staring at his bloodshot eyes and unshaven face.

God, what he’d let himself become over the years. And there was Queen, young and handsome and rich as ever. It boiled his blood.

But perhaps what felt worse was, as he contemplated the bits of their talk he could remember from the night before, he had to admit — the bastard was right.

It didn’t sit right that Laurel hadn’t returned. She loved an argument, always wanted the last word. And she cared. She cared more than most people ever bothered to. Hadn’t he always said she was trying to save the world?

Back when he’d first realized she had gone, he was just so angry. Angry that she hadn’t bothered to say anything. Angry she didn’t want to see Sara after her ordeal, the little he’d ever managed to get from her about it, that was. Angry that she’d left him. Because he did need her. Look where he’d ended up in her absence.

So what did it mean? Something wasn’t right. How the hell did he go about figuring out what the something was?

Quentin struggled into a suit and tie for the first time in years, then made his way to Laurel’s old apartment building. That was the first place he could think of that might still have some kind of record about her.

He got the number for the landlord on a sign right by the mailboxes. “Yeah, I needed to talk to you about a previous tenant in apartment 305. Dinah Laurel Lance. She was my daughter. It’s a bit urgent.”

Lucky for him, the landlord agreed to see him just after his lunch. Good service in a good neighborhood.

Quentin found the man’s office easy enough and was shown to a seat.

“You had some questions about your daughter’s use of the apartment?”

“Yeah, specifically the end of it. Was her lease up? I’m trying to get some family accounts in order,” he claimed.

The landlord opened and perused a file on his desk. “No, she still had several months. But she understood she was breaking the lease and told me to account for that with the check.”

“She told you?”

“Well, it was in writing. I never actually spoke to her about it. I suppose her mind was made up.” He took a piece of lined paper from the file and passed it to him along with a photocopy of the check. “Normally, I’d have asked the tenant to fill out the amount to be withdrawn, but she had already left the apartment and wasn’t answering any calls.”

Quentin supposed there wasn’t much the man could have done, especially with a note stating Laurel’s wishes. But right away, he spotted something off.

“This isn’t her handwriting.”

“It’s not?”

He looked up with a frown. “Nope.” The signature on the check held up okay, but then it wasn’t hard to scribble some cursive.

“Well, I’m not sure what to tell you, Mr. Lance. That note and the check were left in my mailbox one morning, and the bank accepted the check.”

“What about her stuff? Was it all cleared out?”

“As far as I remember.”

Someone else had written this note and the information on the check. Had someone else cleared out Laurel’s things as well? And for what purpose, to make it look like she’d moved?

The bank had accepted the check. The bank could also tell him more about the current state of Laurel’s accounts and affairs. Quentin stood up.

“Thank you, you’ve been a big help.”

He didn’t think this was a case of fraud on the landlord’s part. Either way, he’d learned everything he could here. Yet Quentin was acutely aware how little the bank would be willing to tell him without Laurel actually present. Back when he’d still been on the force, that hadn’t been a problem.

He needed the information, but he didn’t have enough information to get police involved. Unless...

He swallowed his pride and dialed the number for his old partner.

“Detective Lucas Hilton.”

“Hilt, it’s me. I need you to meet me at Starling National Bank if you’re available. I’m at the branch on Fifth and Gail Street.”

“Quentin? What’s going on?” He thought he could pick up the rustling of some papers on the other end of the line. “You sound like you’re on a case.”

“Something like that. But I don’t got the badge anymore, so you know. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s kind of a personal matter. Family.”

Hilton gave a heavy sigh. “Alright, think I can make some time. Give me twenty.”

“Terrific. I’ll be here.”

He was pacing by the time Hilt’s squad car pulled up, but he made an effort to stop as his friend walked up.

“So, what’s this about?”

“Laurel.” He watched Hilton’s eyebrows raise. “I went over to see her old landlord and asked about her lease. When she left, she had to break it. Only she did so via note, and the note the landlord had wasn’t in her handwriting.”

“Wasn’t that three years ago? What’s brought this up now?”

He wasn’t about to admit it was Oliver Queen of all people, so he gave an evasive, “Been doing some thinking. I think I missed some signs back then. Between Sara being back and everything…” He trailed off for a moment. “I just need some information about her account to be sure I didn’t get it all wrong.”

“Alright, let’s see what we can get.”

They headed inside and up to an unoccupied window in the line of tellers.

“Hi, how can I help you today?”

“I need you to tell me about the account belonging to a Dinah Laurel Lance. It’s part of a case,” Hilton lied as he flashed his badge.

The teller blinked. “Oh. Well, let’s just step into one of our personal offices and have a look.”

They both followed the woman and sat across the desk from her as she booted up and typed away at a computer. A frown started to form, which made the bad feeling in the pit of Quentin’s stomach grow even worse.

“Her account has been in some trouble for the last few years. There’s been no deposits. Most of her funds were garnished. Outstanding loans, credit card bills. There should have been a court order sent to her place of residence in the case of the credit card, but federal student loans don’t require one.”

“So she hasn’t been using it for, what, three years?” Quentin asked.

“Almost exactly.”

“And if someone was going to move cities or even out of state, they would have closed the account first, right?” Hilt checked.

“Well, we would have recommended transferring to one of our sister branches, but yes.”

“So what does that mean about where she is now?”

The teller blinked at him. “I’m not sure how to answer that. This isn’t really something common. It’s almost as though the account has been left open while it’s in probate.”

He gripped the arms of the chair and leaned forward. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh. Probate is—”

“I know what it is.”

Hilton touched his shoulder. “Thank you, Miss. That’s all the questions we have.”

His partner led them back out onto the street and over to the car. Then he blew out a breath. “Okay, Quentin. What are we looking at?”

“Laurel didn’t move. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but she didn’t just leave. Not on her own. Someone forged her note, I’d bet Dinah’s next alimony check that that same someone sent an email to withdraw her from law school, and the teller in there thinks she might as well be dead from her account activity.” He dragged his hands through his hair, yanking at tangles he rarely bothered to comb. “She’s missing, Lucas.”

Hilton watched him solemnly.

“She’s been missing for- for three years, and I didn’t notice.” His hand rested over his chest while his heart pounded loud in his ears. “How did I not notice?”

“There’s a lot that’s been going on in your life the last five years, Quentin. And whoever did this wasn’t an amateur. The important thing is that we know now. I’ll open a case at the station, but I think you should get home. You look exhausted.”

He didn’t want to go home, but he knew better than to show his face around the precinct. So he let Hilton drive him home. Quentin undid his tie as he entered the little apartment, and he dropped back down onto the couch.

Laurel was missing. It didn’t feel real. After all those years he’d spent resenting her for staying away — and he’d been wrong.

Worst of all, the person who’d pointed it out to him was the person he loathed most in the world. How had Queen known?

More importantly, how was he going to find his daughter?

—-

Three years ago

Laurel’s eyes were stinging with the tears she wasn’t quite able to hold back as she held the close door button on the elevator. She was thankful when the door slid shut before anyone could get on. She didn’t feel like being around people at the moment.

Why did he have to be so cruel? They were all each other had, and he—

Well, he probably felt justified blaming her. If she hadn’t dated Oliver, maybe he wouldn’t have picked Sara to cheat on her with. Maybe Sara wouldn’t have agreed and gotten on that boat. And maybe mom wouldn’t have left. If she were her dad, Laurel would probably blame herself, too.

It was the alcohol talking more than anything. She knew that. He just kept getting worse, especially now that he’d wrapped up the Mathis case and didn’t have work to distract him as much. Laurel wasn’t hoping for another serial killer, but there had to be something other than the drinking he could lose himself in.

She’d never been the favorite. Laurel had known that for a long time. She wasn’t the one who got souvenirs at the aquarium or pets for her birthday or special edition Rockets baseball caps. But she’d been the one they were proud of, and she’d told herself for years that that was enough.

Ever since the Queen’s Gambit had been lost at sea and Sara with it, that hadn’t been the case. Her mother had left without a phone number or an address to reach her at. Her father now found fault with every single action she took. If she went out with friends she was irresponsible; if she came to collect him at the bar she was a nag; if she wore a skirt instead of pants she was a slut, and no wonder Queen had gotten to her, used her to get to Sara.

That was the latest recrimination he’d given her tonight.

Laurel looked down at the pencil skirt she was wearing to match her blazer, the outfit she’d chosen for a mock trial showcase at her university he’d promised to come attend. She’d found him in the bar across the street after instead.

Laurel pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, just barely choking back a sob. She was not going to have runny makeup over this, she was not.

The elevator dinged as it opened, and Laurel breathed in and out once to collect herself before striding down the hall, the picture of calm and unaffected on the outside.

It was dark in the apartment — too big for one graduate student; she’d rented it with the thought she’d be sharing it with the man she loved, and moving out or getting a roommate would be admitting that sad truth to her and everyone else — and Laurel set her briefcase down before flicking the light switch.

Nothing happened. Laurel tried again, flipping it back and forth a couple times with the same result.

Her lights weren’t working. Laurel frowned, torn between heading for the circuit breaker or her gun. It could just be a blown fuse, right?

Her hesitation cost her. Laurel took one step towards her desk and was suddenly seized from behind. Her legs kicked uselessly in the air as she was lifted off her feet, and some kind of dark cloth bag was shoved over her head.

She tried to yell out, but it was muffled. Something sharp pricked her neck before she knew no more.

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #tommy merlyn #john diggle #quentin lance #lucas hilton #sara lance #dinah lance #green arrow #black canary #blackbird #my writing

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jewpacabruhs · 5 years

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Love how having different Cartman’s headcanons means you automatically see him as a bigot or something negative. There’s billions of headcanons people give him. Yet, you can’t seem to process that everyone is different and won’t like the same thing you like.

luv wakin up to ppl deciding my words mean one thing when they dont. one thing about me is i never say one thing and mean another. i say exactly what i want to be heard, and it's not up for interpretation, even tho yall always twist my words (and im talking strictly about me in all this, not any of my friends, jus me). if i say it, take it at face value. and all ive ever said is that certain versions of kyman/cartman are antisemitic in nature. can they be redeemed? absolutely. kyman as a whole ship has been redeemed imo.

ive said tall!cartman and short!kyle makes me wary because it imposes a physical power imbalance where there's already a psychological and verbal one - but if someone makes it clear that their tall!cartman isn't abusive, then it's just fine! but ive noticed that there's a natural inclination to make the tall person in a ship the overbearing one, and that in general makes me uncomfortable, but especially when done in kyman - it's icky to me. but if tall!cartman is a decent human lol (and ur definition of decent might be different than mine), again, lovely! it's just the pairing of physical dominance with mental dominance. iv grown wary over the years of certain... red flags that seem to be present in legitimately antisemitic "interpretations" of kyman.

now, what one considers antisemitic is debatable, though i've never encountered a jewish "mountain" kyman & therefore as a jew talking to goyim, i think my opinion on it should be valued. and i'm not saying im the authority on all things jewish, but im friends with... four jews in this fandom now and we all have the same opinion on kyman. i think that's notable. i'm jus the loudmouth one. and additionally i don't think it's a ridiculous opinion that should be adhered to under like. a dictatorial iron fist. like people seem to think, if im not lai's lackey, i'm a neurotic jew-bitch that wants to police the fandom, but i consider myself a pretty realistic and self-aware person, and i like to think i don't get clouded by righteous self-conviction. so if i got ridiculous, i'd admit it. but i can honestly say i really dont think i have.

all ive ever said, and u can fact-check this claim because i never delete posts, is that some versions of kyman are or border on being antisemitic, and it makes me sad. ive gotten a little aggressive at times, when faced with death threats and intimidation swastikas, but always in public and always bluntly. lemme reaffirm that: i never send anons. i rarely dm ppl. and everything i've said privately to people i've argued with over the last year, i'd be comfortable posting, because i don't think i've ever said or done anything wrong - and you might roll ur eyes at that, but like i said, i pride myself on being levelheaded and nondelusional about my own actions. if i went crazy with power lmao, i'd admit it & go "damn wtf". in any other debate, i'd step into the other side's shoes, but in this case i cant, because everyone who's argued with me seems to really wanna hold onto their antisemitism, and i can't sympathize with that.

anyway. it's not an issue of liking the same thing i like. for me, it's only ever been about antisemitism. for lai, i don't wanna speak for her but kyle means the world to her and she dislikes when people do him dirty - for me, frankly, i don't really give two shits about kyle, but him being jewish means im automatically protective of him, especially because he has been done horribly dirty in the past. people can do whatever they want, but if someone tells someone their portrayal is a little iffy (and that's all i've ever done. i never send anons, i never send my friends after people. i say that with full honesty.), they shouldn't take that as bullying or cruelty; they should go "omg im sorry i didnt know! do u hav suggestions on how i can do better? i love kyle and kyman so i wanna do him/it justice." but if they laugh and embrace the accusation & proudly deem themselves a "bad kyman" or a nazi lmao, i think it's safe to assume there's some legitimate antisemitism under there.

and if they don't try to do kyman in a less offensive way, if they spitefully and intentionally make cartman creepier and more bigoted, make kyle girlier and more pathetic, have cartman call kyle "jew" ten times more than they already did - it's sus. it makes me wonder why you even ship them at all. because kyman should never be about antisemitism. that's not a big part of it. the original appeal was a rival ship, and now it's about their extreme dependence on each other. if people think demeaning kyle and his religion is a necessary part of kyman... 😬😬😬

#eh #discourse -#anon

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pandoraspocksao3 · 6 years

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What are you reading this week? 03/18/2018

So, you know how Netflix has that thing where they recommend movies based on what you last watched? How cool would it be able to do that for fanfiction? In the spirit of that idea, I'm doing my fic recommendations for this week as:

Pandora's Picks!

Your mood:

What a shit day. I need hugs/cuddles, some action, but mostly romance!

PP recommends:

Reign by Optimistic Beth @optimisticsprinkles - *WIP. Fluffy romance, slow burn, arranged marriage, spunky Rey, enemies to lovers, great original characters! Intriguing original plot devices. Great writing style, easy and fun to read.

Thwarted by Perry Downing @perrydowning - *Complete. Slow burn, lots of feels, humor, and a cat! Fantastic original characters you really care about. If you want less action and more of just Kylo and Rey's love story, this one focuses on exactly that! There is also sumptuous descriptions of the surroundings and minutiae that really make you feel you are in the fiction yourself. And this is an author who delivers big time on “the feels,” so have tissues for when they creep up on you! The girl in a gilded cage and the man who doesn't understand why it's not enough. (Her latest, Unbidden, *WIP, is also fantastic!)

A Gift for the Emperor by LastMouseLeft - *WIP. Slow burn, Rey is captured and presented to the Emperor, but is a little too docile to be believed. What is really going on? This has a dreamlike quality to storytelling I really love. Original characters, beautiful details of settings and costumes. She has two other fics that are also very good, so check under her profile to explore!

Your mood:

I want some Reylo sex and I don't want to wait 10 chapters for it! My devices are charged, and I'm not talking about my phone!

PP recommends:

Dreaming Against the Stars by DragonWhiskers *WIP. Nothing "slow burn" about this! Fantasies spurred by reader prompts and author's vivid imagination, this one is pure erotica!

Wanton Lullabies by CoraRiley. *WIP. Reylo fantasies that are explicit and fun! This smut was so enjoyable it became a spinoff, Lascivious Weapons, also by the author, who wrote about Rey as a courtesan brought to the First Order who is quickly discovered by Kylo!

Hypothermia by LucidLucy @lucidlucy. *WIP. Kylo Ren and his wicked, wicked ways....oohh-la-la! Seriously, if you need a booster shot of sexy, read Chapter 2 (which is a long chapter) and see if you aren’t swooning at the end of it! This is HOT! This author has been on my “to read” list for a long time, and I’m finally getting some of hers started!

Your mood:

I need to laugh. I need something so funny I pee, but I also want smokin' hot sex. Does this fic even exist?

PP recommends:

The Force Arranges A Marriage and The Force Arranges a Honeymoon, both by Terapid @terapid. *Complete. This is, bar none, the FUNNIEST and sexiest thing I've read in AO3! It is explicit with graphic sexual content, but Rey and Kylo have a lot of steamy sex amid dueling each other, and there are other unconventional couples you will gasp at. (I don't want to include spoilers!)

Seriously, I have never laughed so damn hard I have had to put the fic down and wipe the tears off my cheeks! This is a satire that pokes good-natured fun of the Reylo Fandom, the author himself, and Star Wars in general with hilarious results! It's over-the-top hilarity and also scorching hot sex. I didn't even know that could be done, but somehow the author manages it!

Your mood:

I'm burnt out a bit Star Wars stuff, but I still want that Reylo dynamic in a different setting.

PP recommends:

Stranger than Fiction by Daxcat79 @wheresthefuckingexit79. *Almost complete! This is one of my favorites at the moment. Ben Solo is an author in England writing about Kylo Ren, but his publisher, Hux, insists the character needs a girlfriend. Ben meets Rey and pays her to hang out with him (not for sex), and from then on, art imitates life as Ben's world expands. This is REALLY FUNNY, but there are also deeper themes as the plot deepens. If you have a dysfunctional family like Ben does, you might even recognize things about your family or yourself (as I did), and it becomes something very relatable. Longer fic review to follow on just this story because of its awesomeness.

The Escort by Grliegrl @grlie-girl. *Complete. Amazing crossover fic that crosses Pretty Woman with Reylo. It is FUNNY and also has some great action and fabulous detailed settings in Chicago. Rey is spunky and independent and Kylo is the billionaire who finds himself swept away by the escort he hired. (I did a whole post about this you can search for under Pandora's Review or "The Escort" with details.)

Across Alternate Universes by INTPSyltherin_reylove97. *WIP. Summary: Somehow two Ben Solos from different universes switch places, leaving their Reys to figure out how to handle a Ben vastly different than their own—not to mention the finicky thing called a force bond. So, TWO sets of Reylo couples here! I just started it and I love it! I came across this randomly. I don’t know who this is on Tumblr.

Your mood:

Enough with the rom-coms; I want a thriller/horror story. Scare me!!!

PP recommends:

Praxis by CoraRiley @corariley. *Almost completed! This is about serial killer Kylo Ren, and there is no Ben Solo to be found! Rey is kidnapped by a creepy yet sexy Kylo who has already abducted and killed several women. Can she escape him? Explicit sexual content - not for underage readers or readers who are not okay with violence and sex. This is Dark Kylo Ren...expect twists, surprises, kinky sex, and plenty of suspense!

Your mood:

I'm ready for some Gothic horror or vampire stories with Reylo in them.

PP recommends:

Sanctuary by Terapid @terapid *WIP. This is one of my absolute favorites in the Archive. I lost my mind when I read the setup for it, an old Catholic boarding school of Gothic design. Professor Solo and student Rey are the main characters (Rey is not underage). Leia is headmistress, and...the rest of the cast is in it, but I won't spoil the plot by saying what their roles are. I was fascinated by this. Angels and demons and the occult figure in heavily, and this author is a master of suspense and action sequences, not to mention smut when called for! An interesting tidbit is that I would see a long black feather in my backyard usually the day before it updated. In fact, a few things turned up in a chapter once that were items I had that the author couldn't have known about and it freaked me out to the point that I wondered if the fic was "haunting" me a bit! True story!

Vampire's Kiss by DragonWhiskers @belovedunderwing. *Complete. An eerie Gothic read about Rey finding a Victorian mansion that she takes refuge in that is owned by Vampire Kylo Ren.

Witch's Moon by DragonWhiskers @belovedunderwing. *Complete. Kylo is a witch hunter who is sent by Snoke to investigate Rey. This is also one of my favorites. I'm very partial to this author, so I've read everything she's written!

Your Mood:

I just saw The Last Jedi again and I need a great post TLJ fic to read!

PP recommends:

Songs of Innocence, Songs of Wisdom by Cosmogonika @cosmo-gonika. *WIP. I just found this story and had the honor of doing a beta on a chapter for it, so I got to chat with author for quite a bit and I love where this is going! The title caught my eye because I'm a poetry buff and I recognized William Blake's words immediately. I haven't read all of it, but this fiction explores the dichotomies between Rey and Kylo, just as the poem suggests (poem can be viewed on the first page). It delves deep into the psyches of Rey and Kylo and has a good rhythm and pace, with a good plot and a lot of description.

Your Mood:

Meh, I'm so sick of conventional couples. How about polyamory?

PP recommends:

Codega, by Juulna @juuls. *Complete. This is another one that you should be able to do a search on in Tumblr by title and find my long review on this. This is a Reylux fiction that was recommended to me by Terapid, one of my favorite authors, and even though I didn't think I'd enjoy a pairing with Rey, Kylo, and Hux, he told me to give it a chance, and I really did like it! It's a slow burn and tasteful. The writing is so beautiful! There are lots of descriptive details about the setting and food and wine, and her action sequences with lightsaber training were fantastic.

Three’s Company by LucidLucy @lucidlucy. *Complete. Summary: Three might be a crowd elsewhere... but not here. A collection of unconnected Reylux (Kylo Ren / Rey / Hux) stories, some in-verse and some AU. I haven’t read this one, but I’ve read other’s by her and she’s a sublime writer, so I’m sure this will meet expectations!

Your mood:

I really need some interrogation chair crack fics...

PP recommends:

Admissions by Miss Harper @missharpersworld. *Complete. This is a short, sexy one-shot that packs all the fun you’re looking for in the “interrogation room” scene!

Forces Intertwined by Marla_Singer21 @marlasinger21 . *WIP. This is an excellent writer who started at the interrogation room scene and worked her way forward from there. It’s one of the first fics I found initially when I got on AO3 and it remains a very sexy and well written Reylo fic!

WRAP-UP:

I could go on for pages and pages, but I think this is long enough for this week! I try to keep alternating and adding in new authors, although I'm repeating myself a lot on this one. I'm trying to expand my reading and author list currently. Part of the reason I chose these is because I'm so familiar with them. I don't get as much time to read as I would like and I have a lot of fics going at once, probably like a lot of you!

There are a lot of recommendation lists going on that I'm making sure to reblog as well, because I do think people find fiction a lot that way. I used to just do arbitrary searches on AO3 and found some great ones. A lot don't have the kudos they deserve, so they deserve our support. And I also feel the authors who do have a lot of kudos deserve reblogging, too, because they spend a lot of time honing their craft and working on providing us with free entertainment!

Don't forget to leave kudo and a comment - even just a short one - for the author to show your appreciation. You won't believe how much even a short comment can make someone's day! And feel free to reblog this and add your own story or stories you like if you want! If you are a fic writer and you have a story no one seems to have found, I want you to reblog and tell people about it! Get it out there and circulating so people can find it.

#Reylo #Reylo fanfic #Reylo fanfiction #tlj #tlj fanfic #tfa #tfa fanfic #Reylo fanfic list #Reylo fanfiction list #Pandora's Picks #pandora reviews

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eserenityyyy · 6 years

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The Same Old Lily

A/N: Another one of my older fics...

Ao3 Link

Rating: General Audiences

Fandom: Love Live! School Idol Project

Pairings: Nozomi Toujou/Eli Ayase, Nico Yazawa/Maki Nishikino, Alisa Ayase/Yukiho Kousaka

Words: 2008

Summary: Maki finds a letter in her parents’ bedroom.

Maki was contented with her life. She was a successful doctor and a part-time musician too. Though she barely had any time for herself, she was happy.

One night, when she was walking home, she received a call.

Hello, Maki-chan? It was Yukiho, wife of her mother’s sister.

“Yukiho-san? What can I help you with at this time? It’s already past 11 pm”

Just wanted to check if you’re fine. I knew you would go home this late. So, how are you doing?

“I’m perfectly fine, don’t worry about me.” Her voice had a hint of tiredness in it.

Your voice tells me otherwise though.

While still holding her phone, she opened the door of her house with her free hand. She removed her shoes and proceeded to the living room. She slumped on her couch and put down her bag.

“I’m just tired from work Yukiho-san”

If you say so. Just be sure to take care of yourself alright?

“Yes, yes. Is that all?”

Actually… I have news for you.

“What is it?

It’s about your mom. Her condition’s not getting any better. We’re convincing her to stay at a hospital but she doesn’t really want to. She said she wants you to be the one to check her. She wants you to be the one to cure her… so I was hoping if you could make time to visit Eli-san? You’re the one she really needs right now.

At this point, Maki started to tremble and tears fell down from her tired eyes.

Maki was contented with her life. She was a successful doctor and a part-time musician too. Though she barely had any time for herself, she was happy.

But how could she forget her mother? Eli, her mother, who was the reason why she wanted to be a doctor. Eli, her mother, who moved to Alisa and Yukiho’s house so she wouldn’t be a burden to her while she was studying. Eli, her mother, who she promised to cure when she becomes a doctor. Eli, her mother, who was dying.

Maki-chan? Are you still there?

“Damn it, how could I forget her… I hate myself.”

Don’t hate yourself Maki-chan, Eli-san understands your busy schedule... I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you again.

“Please tell her I’m sorry. I’ll be going there in a few days. I need to complete my research about her condition first. Tell her I love her too…”

Alright. Then see you Maki-chan! We need to get rest now.

“Okay, thank you Yukiho-san”

Maki didn’t sleep a wink that night. She spent her time finishing her research about Eli’s rare condition. She was hurrying. She was running out of time.

She was breaking down. She hated herself for forgetting her mother. She became so absorbed in becoming a doctor that she forgot why she was doing it in the first place.

She went to her parents’ old room. Their things were still in there. It still smelt of Eli. She inhaled and relished the soothing smell as she walked to the bed. She sat there, clutching her mother’s pillow. She cried. She cried her heart out. She was missing her mother so much. She was missing her calming voice, her comforting smile.

She tilted her head to the side to breathe and something caught her eyes. On the bedside table was a baby blue envelope. She took and turned it around. Two words were beautifully handwritten,

My Love

She recognized the neat handwriting, it was her mother’s.

She opened the envelope and found a purple card folded in half. She opened it and read the letter.

My darling Non-tan,

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m missing you so much.

Do you remember the time when we first met? Yes, it was that time after school, at the staircase. You called out to me out of nowhere and introduced yourself. Back then, I thought you were just like the others who fussed over me because of my hair and eyes. But as the days passed by, you proved me wrong. You were different. You became the best friend I ever had. You told me I never have to be alone anymore, and yes, you made sure I wasn’t alone. You were always there for me.

Do you remember the time when I found out that you were living alone? Yes, it was some time before the end of our first year in high school. You insisted that you were fine, but I didn’t think so. Ever since then, I regularly came over to visit you.

Do you remember the time when we first got together? Yes, it was the day that we were proclaimed as the student council president and vice president. After my speech, you dragged me into the student council room. You told me you have something to talk about and I was alarmed. I was worried. I thought you’ll have to move away again to live with your parents. Then you held my hand and said, What’s with that look, Elichi? I’m not going anywhere. I was in awe. It was like you were reading my mind. Oh, but it has always been like that hasn’t it? You knew me like an open book. You understood me. You intertwined our fingers and whispered your love to me. I was so flustered and surprised that I wasn’t able to say anything back, and I embraced you instead. You accepted the embrace and we were like that for a while, until you pulled away. That’s not a proper answer, Elichi. You pouted. I fell in love with you more. I leaned on you and put my forehead on yours and said, I love you too for the first time. But it really wasn’t the first, was it? I made sure to tell you I love you in my own little ways, in my actions. Ever since then, I would always give you a lily to represent my love.

Do you remember the time when you gave me five more people to love? Yes, it was the day that we joined Muse. I was really happy. I enjoyed every minute with them. Of course, with you too. Being in Muse brought me to a lot of places I’ve never been in. Being with Muse made me experience all sorts of things that I won’t be able to if you didn’t push me to join. I love everyone in Muse, but I love you the most.

Do you remember the time when we first moved in together? Yes, it was our first year in college. You often laughed at me every time we went to grocery because of all the chocolates I get. I just couldn’t help it, you know? Being with you under the same roof was a whole new experience again. I got to see your face the moment I open my eyes every morning, and every night before I close my eyes to sleep. It was a dream come true, you could say, to be living together with a goddess as beautiful as you. But it wasn’t enough.

Do you remember the time when I asked you to marry me? Yes, it was that night when your parents came home to visit you. I asked you to marry me in front of them. I pushed through, despite of the embarrassment that I felt. I almost cried when you weren’t saying anything, until you broke down. I held you in my arms, and felt tears rushing out of your eyes as you mumbled yes. I held you tighter, never wanting to let you go.

Do you remember the time when we were made as one? Yes, it was our wedding day. I was in tears, seeing my goddess walking down the aisle with the happiest expression she ever had. You were holding a bouquet of lilies almost as beautiful as you. It was then that I told myself that I won’t ever let you go. I will love you endlessly.

Do you remember the time when our little family of two became three? Yes, it was the day when you gave birth to our Maki. We were the happiest couple. We made sure to take good care of her. We made sure that she’d always feel loved. We made sure that she would never have to be alone. We love her so much.

Do you remember the time when you told me you were going home from work? Yes, it was the day before your birthday. I was with Maki at home, helping her with her homework. You called me to say you were going home... but you didn't.

Next thing I knew, I was carrying Maki in my arms, holding a bouquet of lilies, and you were going down the ground.

I was frustrated, why did you have to leave me that early? We promised to grow old together, didn’t we? How am I supposed to take care of our daughter alone? I was breaking down. Would I be able to live without you?

But I guess everything happens for a reason.

I took care of Maki. It was hard. There were times that I felt like giving up. But I became strong for her, because I knew that you were always watching over us. I made sure she feels our love, just like we promised. She’s all grown up now. She just became a successful doctor. I am very much proud of her, and I’m sure you are too. I heard she’s even courting a girl named Nico too. I heard she always gives her flowers, and guess what kind of flower? Yes, it’s the same old lily.

Do you remember the time when you told me I never have to be alone anymore? I guess it’s time to return the favor. I’ll see you soon, my love. I love you so much.

Yours forever,

Eli

Tears fell like waterfalls from Maki’s eyes. She loved her parents so much, even though she could barely remember Nozomi. Eli would always tell her stories though, and she loved every minute of it.

She got up and rushed out of her house, her parents’ house. She ran to Alisa and Yukiho’s, where her mother was. There were no trains or cabs anymore so she had no choice. She didn’t even care that she was only wearing a t-shirt and pants in the cold weather. She didn’t even care that she had no shoes on. All she could think about was her mother.

She arrived at their house.

But she was a bit too late.

Eli passed away just minutes ago.

Maki came to her and embraced her. She held onto her as tightly as she could. She whispered ‘mom’ over and over again, like doing so would make her alive.

She buried her face into Eli’s shoulder. “I’m sorry mom, I’m so sorry…”

It was then that she felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up to see who it was. It was Alisa. She gave her a piece of dark pink paper.

“Onee-chan wrote this for you before she passed away. I think you shouldn’t be sorry, she’s happy now with Nozomi-san.”

She read the letter.

My dearest Maki,

By the time you read this, I may have already passed away. And knowing you, you must’ve been feeling guilty. Don’t be sorry, my daughter. I understand your reasons for not being able to be with me in my last breaths. I want to say I am so proud of you and I love you so much.

Don’t worry about me too, I’ll be with your mama in a short while. I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for you before I pass away. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I miss her so much. Just remember that we’ll always love you, Maki, and we’ll always be watching over you.

Eli

PS. Make sure to give lilies to your girl, it’ll keep her to you. It worked with your mom.

#love live! school idol project #love live!#fanfiction #ao3 #serenityyyy #nozomi toujou #eli ayase #maki nishikino #nico yazawa #alisa ayase #yukiho kousaka #maki is nozoeli's child #nozoeli #nicomaki #yukiali

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darkhymns-fic · 4 years

Text

The meaning of passive-aggression

Yuna only wanted a bit of fun with Aegis after an exciting conversation she had with Vicious - or so she said.

But Aegis had never been good at detecting lies.

Fandom: Tales of Crestoria Characters/Pairing: Aegis Alver/Yuna Azetta, Vicious Rating: T Mirror Link: AO3 Notes: Based on that one skit about tying up Aegis. You know the one.

There was nothing more suspicious than seeing two troublemakers huddled in a shadowy corner of the inn’s main room, going into fits of giggling, their grins stretching from ear to ear. Like children reveling in their latest crime of stealing the last chocolate cake slice, or thieves that prided themselves on their petty crime of snatching a few gald from an old lady that passed by.

It only got more obnoxious when they wouldn’t leave said corner for around ten minutes.

“Are you two ill?” Aegis asked of the pair, going to them. “The innkeeper here keeps giving us looks because of…whatever this is. Have you forgotten that we’re supposed to be undercover?”

Yuna was covering her mouth with just her fingertips, barely hiding away the smile. She seemed absolutely tickled about something and whenever Aegis saw such an expression on her face, he knew it had to be bad news. Maybe he should check his pack later, and see if she hadn’t put something incriminating in it like last time…

“Oh Aegrouch, don’t be jealous now. We are just ‘avin a, how do you say… a little bit of girl talk!”

“…You don’t say.” Aegis narrowed his eyes at the slouched form of a certain Great Transgressor. His grin matched that of Yuna’s, even as he had to bend down his long legs to whisper effectively with Yuna just before. “Yeah, learn to mind your own business, knighty boy!”

To that, Aegis just rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Kanata and Misella have already gone to their rooms, so I’ll just be going to mine. Have fun looking as suspicious as possible then.”

“Heh, you know it!” Vicious flashed another sharp-tooted grin at the ex-knight, and once again, Aegis had no idea what to make of this man, except that he was most likely deranged in the head. He tried to ignore the strange flutter in his chest. It had just been a very long day.

“If you are so curious, per’aps you would like to join in on our little discussion.” Yuna winked as she spoke, her voice like liquid that probably would have melted any other soul if Aegis’ will wasn’t made of steel, as he knew it was.

“Going from experience, I’m quite sure that the less I know, the better. So, goodnight.”

Aegis wasn’t going to linger, especially in this ramshackle lobby of the inn, which strangely looked like every other inn lobby they had been visiting for the past few weeks. But true to his word, he didn’t stay, walking up the stairs, remembering to feed little Meakyu before going to sleep for the night.

He only barely noticed the mischievous tinge to both Yuna and Vicious’ grins as he turned away, but to be fair, that wasn’t exactly out of the norm. This only emboldened him to check his vest pockets in the morning and get rid of any tufts of grass stuffed inside. The joke was certainly getting old.

“Hey, I told ya I’d kill to see you try that, right?”

“Must everything be so violent with you? Maybe Aegrouch is right, you truly are a barbarian…”

Aegis thought he was dreaming it up. Not exactly the first time he had nightmares about the very people he was traveling with after all! Perhaps it was just Vicious finally coming upstairs to get to bed, even though he couldn’t recall ever actually seeing the man sleep. And still, why was he hearing Yuna at all…?

Bleary-eyed, and a bit grumpy, (trying to feed Meakyu had taken the better part of an hour as the small creature kept avoiding him in fear…) Aegis finally sat up, groaning in annoyance. “I’ve barely slept for more than an hour. Can you two please-?”

Then he felt himself pulled back, the back of his skull smacking roughly against the headboard of the bed.

Hearing Vicious’ voice again made him think that he was definitely stuck in some sort of nightmare.

“Huh, didn’t actually mean to do that. These thread things are temperamental.”

“You would blame them for your oafishness?” A sharp tsk of the tongue. “Mon amie, you are much too violent.”

“I didn’t think he’d get up that quickly! It’s his fault!”

Aegis was sleepy, a tad bit famished, (Meakyu also ate his food) and now his head was aching after being so roughly pulled by…something!

He tried to move his arms, then found that he couldn’t. Not at all!?

They were pressed to his sides, due to the binding around him, the material much stronger than it seemed at first glance. It looked like thread that had been dipped in red paint, but as he struggled, he could feel it nearly bite into him from their tension. “Gah! W-w-what is this?!”

And only then did he finally turn to his left, seeing both Yuna and Vicious standing by his bedside. In Yuna’s right hand, he could see her kunai held deftly by her fingers. The red string dangled from the very end of the weapons.

Wait, her kunai? That meant-

“You’re using your blood sin on me? Are you insane?!” And oh, he wished his voice hadn’t cracked just then.

She coyly tapped the kunai’s sharp tip against her lips, concern in her eyes. “Oui, juzt a little experiment. But you are not being a very promising subject for it…”

“I told you, I could have just knocked him out like that!” Vicious clenched one hand and slammed it into the open palm of another. The motion of it somehow made Aegis get pulled forward, smacking his nose straight into Vicious’ arm – and only now did he notice the Great Transgressor held one end of that curious red string material too, complete with Yuna’s very weapon. “You never let me try out my ideas!”

“Oui, because if I let you, you would just give this poor boy a concussion. That iz not what we want.”

“You sure about that?”

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?!” Aegis once again tried to wriggle his way out of the strings, but to no avail at all. He was shivering, the blankets he had tucked around himself now in a messy pile at the foot of his bed. Though his legs were free, he was still half-submerged in fatigue to do much of anything else with them except shift them around. And to think he had slept through…through whatever they had been doing to him!

“Just what is this? Is…is this a hostage situation?” He grew quiet, his voice barely above a whisper. “Are…are you traitors!?”

Yuna smiled and nodded. “Zat is true. There iz big money on your head!”

“Yeah! What she said.” Vicious pointed a thumb at her, trying so hard to hold back laughter that he nearly doubled over. “Gonna get a lifetime booze supply out of ya!”

“…You are just both making fun of me again, aren’t you?”

Yuna nodded once more. “I would think you would see through my lies by now, Aegrouch.”

Aegis very, very deeply frowned, but that was literally all he was capable of doing right now. Dressed in his underclothes, which consisted of just a threadbare shirt and his loose boxers (knight-certified, of course), he felt all sorts of vulnerable, especially when underneath the leering gazes of a lying journalist and raucous criminal that still never learned how to wear a shirt himself. If this had been a few weeks earlier, Aegis would have felt completely mortified. Currently, he was just very tired.

He sighed. “I would prefer it if you didn’t rope me into your strange games… Stop that!”

He could already see Vicious laughing, pulling at the ‘rope’ that was bound so very tightly around Aegis’ arms and torso. “Aw, come on! I didn’t make you say it.”

“That’s not the issue, also you are cutting off the circulation to my shoulder!”

“Circu-what now?”

“Az I said before,” Yuna interrupted before the two could get lost in their own arguments. “Vicious and I just wanted to try a little experiment with you. We were having a bet, you zee. Knights like you are so stiff, a bit of a bore…”

“I am not boring!” Aegis couldn’t help but feel a bit defensive.

“I’m not done, but yes, such a bore! Vicious here thought you would be impossible to loosen up, but me… I have much more faith in you.” She winked, leaning forward, the hem of her robe reaching to the wooden floorboards. It also gave him more of a view than he was comfortable with.

“And how exactly does tying me up make me less boring?”

“Ah Agerouch, hav you never heard the term about opposites attracting? It’s not just to do with people…” She straightened again, and held up her kunai where the ring of it looped that curious red string. “But you woke up before we were complete with it… I had many kinbaku patterns I wanted to try on you.”

Aegis had to pause on that, just for a moment. He had to sift through numerous ledgers in his brain to finally settle on the very meaning of that word.

“I’m sorry, did you just say-” he started, only for Vicious to groan in frustration, interrupting him completely.

“Ugh, stop it with your damn French junk! I already said we should tie back his arms and see how far they go before they pop. Can’t get less boring than that!”

Aegis stared open-mouthed, while Yuna merely shook her head like a scolding teacher. “Non, that would be very bad now, wouldn’t it? Not everyone grows back their arms such az you.”

“Well, maybe if he tried!” Vicious then cackled wickedly, hopping onto Aegis’ bed while still wearing his shoes, still dragging the dirt from the 10-mile trek today. (No!!) “Also! I said first thing we should wrap this junk around his throat, then he’d be knocked out like a light! I know this stuff!”

“That would- that would literally kill me!” Aegis shouted. They must have made a racket by this point, so how had no one come by to his room already? He knew Misella didn’t care but he had at least hoped for Kanata…

“I must agree with Aegrouch. It would very likely kill him.” She clasped her hands together, placing her cheek over them, all while still holding one of the kunais with no fear to their sharpness. “And it would be truly terrible, it would!”

“I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic or not,” Aegis said, in half-defeat. “I do not think I want to know the true answer.”

With Vicious practically standing over him, grinning that terribly sharp grin of his, (and why did he have too stand that way? So much so that his marked abdomen was too close for comfort…at least Aegisthought) there was not much Aegis could do when he was essentially being tied up like a cooked turkey. And he didn’t appreciate the way Vicious seemed like he was about to salivate on him at any given moment. He didn’t handle the kunai he held with any grace like Yuna, looking dangerously close to dropping it straight on Aegis’ head at any second.

“Hm, we could try tying up his tongue!” Vicious helpfully suggested, looking particularly excited on that idea. “Especially if he’s gonna whine so much.”

At that, Yuna motioned with her right hand. Aegis only saw the red string wrapped around her ring finger before the shape of the kunai flew across his face. The weapon sang through the air, the tip nearly grazing his cheek before she caught it and quickly hid it in her overflowing sleeve.

“Hey!” Vicious shouted, and though he was addressing it to Yuna, he was closest to Aegis. So it sounded like he was screaming just exactly into his ear instead. “I was using that dumb thing.”

“Je suis désolé, Vicious. But, clearly, this is too much for you. Kinbaku is not the same as going, as you say, full guns blazing? It requires much more thinking then per’aps you are used to.”

“Ughhh, this is sounding less fun by the minute. I think you tricked me!”

“Does no one care how I feel about this?” Aegis asked, then closed his eyes. “No, of course not. Or I would not be here in the first place.”

Vicious placed a bent arm atop on Aegis’ head, leaning on him as he sighed so very deeply. “I care about you shutting up right now.”

“Duly noted.”

“I could very well go with my first plan, Vicious, and tie you and Aegis together instead.” She smiled, though the leer in her eyes was much more obvious now. “A bit of jealousy that you are not getting the same experience?”

“Hey, told you I ain’t care about what a ham feels like!” Aegis had to think about that turn of phrase, even as Vicious continued. “You and Kanata are way too obsessed about tying me up here.”

“Wh-What does Kanata have to do with this?” Was this his idea? And he had thought the young man to at least have some integrity.

Yuna shrugged. “Now it’s getting to be less fun. And usually we work together so very well.”

Vicious finally stepped off the bed, (while leaving dirty footprints behind!) hands folded behind his head. “Alright. Then I’m out. Gotta say, this just ain’t as exciting as I was hoping for it to be.”

Oh… Were they already going to be done humiliating him like this? Was it truly over? Aegis couldn’t begin to believe his luck.

“Oh Vicious, after all we been through?” Yuna was overdramatic in her disappointment, her hand placed on her forehead in mock despair, her body looking ready to sway right to the ground. Had she been takin acting lessons as well from Penelope? “We were two peas in a pod, and yet you abandon me…”

Vicious waved her off, stepping around her form with all the stealth of a hidden snake in the grass. “Maybe I need to be more drunk for this to be fun… So I’m going downstairs to do just that. Also I expected knighty here to scream a bit more. But all he does is bitch and moan.”

“You are incredibly awful,” Aegis intoned.

“And? What’s your point?”

Yuna moved from her ‘despaired woman’ position to resume her natural stance, looking suddenly so chipper again as she waved at the Great Transgressor. “Please be sure to drink yourself to death again!”

“No promises!”

Again?? But Aegis tried to show himself mercy by not thinking too hard on that.

Vicious shut the door then, and Aegis could only imagine he would go to the kitchen, terrorize the bartender for a little bit before stealing the alcohol from the kegs. His sole hope was that the proprietor would be too terrified later to make them pay for the expenses…

And yet Yuna hadn’t moved. In fact, she just continued standing by Aegis’ bed, smiling so pleasantly.

“Um.” Aegis shifted. Though his legs were still free, the red string continued to bite into his shirt, which was very uncomfortable. “Are we not done with this, or….?”

Ah, first mistake. He shouldn’t have made it a question.

Yuna continued to smile, but her eyes held something else in their depts, and she did so while holding up one kunai. The energy from that blood sin was similar to his own, and he could feel it heat up the air between them. “Aegrouch, but I haven’t even begun to have my fun yet.”

“You and I most likely have very different definitions of that word.”

Yuna stuck out her tongue at him then, showing off her pattern of guilt for the ex-knight to see. “Oui, your idea of fun is making up a grocery list for our next shopping trip, non?”

“You know how important it is that we have supplies! How many times must I explain this to all of you?” He paused. “Also, making lists just happen to be very meditative for me.”

Yuna nodded, but did so as if she would fall asleep at any moment. “See, now zis is why I wanted to do this! Per’aps I could instill a different level of fun for you? It will be for sure to get ‘ze blood pumping as you say!”

“I don’t like the mention of blood here…”

Yuna didn’t listen to his concerns. She held up both weapons suddenly, and the strings unraveled from his body – but they hovered around him, like sharp lines of color that cut straight through the air.

“Besides, without Vicious to interrupt, this will be much more pleasant, don’t you think?”

Aegis tried to react quickly. He shifted from the bed, the brand on his chest burning so brightly, it shone through his shirt. “I won’t let you-!”

But before he could even let another word pass through his lips, he was wrapped up, contained, bound again. The strings from Yuna’s kunais slipped around him like quick-moving snakes, even the very air they traveled through seemed to hiss at their travel. It triggered a memory of when he had seen her control these very strings to dig into the earth with the force of steel, rooting objects from their very foundation.

These strings could cut him up, could break him bit by bit, if she so desired. And he waited for that to happen, awed by their motion.

One slipped around his left thigh, while another wrapped around his chest like a circlet, doing so twice before traveling down to his arms. This time, they were pulled back, just slightly away from his body, and held together with the binding.

The act felt as if it was happening both too fast and too slow, all at once. Aegis found himself staring as the red string weaved themselves into knots, couldn’t move a leg before it was already bound up, limiting himself of all movement and freedom. His arms were pulled in closer to his back, and there was the sensation of the strands moving over his skin, forming knots that seemed impossible to pull apart.

He couldn’t follow their travel for much of it, many of it out of his sight. Aegis tried to struggle once more, and that was when he felt a hot breath just at his neck, saw that mark of guilt, printed black against the pink of her tongue.

“Se détendre, Aegis.” The smile was still on her face, but it held less of the bite than he had expected. “We don’t need to put on a show now.”

This only confused him more, from what had already been a very confusing night all around.

Why was she acting this way with him? Why would she?

He was still, so very still as the strings enveloped him in intimate ways, when he saw Yuna’s fingers move along the air, as if pressing against the invisible keys of an instrument. “Yuna,” he said, finally remembering to use her name. “Are you-”

“And done!” she said so quickly, leaving his neck and sporting another of her knowing smiles. The softness of her voice before had now completely vanished. She then gently placed her weapons on the bed, admiring her handiwork on Aegis. “All wrapped up and as lovely as any present.”

Aegis halted, feeling the binds pressed against his shirt, against his skin. He couldn’t see himself as well as Yuna could see him right now, but he stretched his back just a bit and it –

It was the very the limitation of it. The containment. The suspension, his arms still locked together tight, out of his very sight. If the knots there were more woven tightly, if there were dozens and dozens of them, he wouldn’t have been able to tell, at least not by much. He wasn’t experienced enough to understand it through touch alone.

But through it all, the way he felt, it wasn’t something that tightened or pulled at a nerve. It didn’t threaten to lock the flow of blood or make his muscles ache.

The binds moved with him, just enough. Working with him, almost.

“So…does it hurt?”

Aegis opened his mouth to confirm just that, because hadn’t it just did before? With the thread so tight that, if it truly had been wrapped around his throat like Vicious joked about, he’d have choked?

But he paused, focused on the feeling in his fingers – and his fingers could still bend and feel, despite their current position. The binds were around his wrist, around his thighs, and over his torso. The strings splayed out around him like floral patterns once he, looping underneath each other to create imagery that he hadn’t ever considered.

“I…suppose not…” And he didn’t understand that. Just earlier, the binds had squeezed him much too tightly.

Yuna placed a hand on her chest, and sighed. “Good. It iz not supposed to. Well, unless you would like it to.” She winked. “But I wanted to make your experience a more pleasurable one this time. It feels like a big hug, does it not?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Aegis pouted. “But it is rather nice that it doesn’t feel like my arms are being pulled from their sockets.”

“Ah, magnifique then!” Though she no longer held her weapons, he still saw the string around her fingers, still trailing from her hands, connected to the patterns that decorated his chest, his thighs, and perhaps his back, if he could hazard a guess. It moved along with her, and he felt that gentle motion, nearly in sync with her own. “I always wanted to dress you up as such. Getting the braided pattern down your spine was a bit tricky.”

Aegis flushed, embarrassed at the affair, while also slightly intrigued. “Please do not treat me as your doll.”

“Oh? Even after I gave you such a pretty bow…” She giggled, and only then did the threads started to tickle, only then did he see the end of one looping down to brush against his cheek. He almost didn’t want to know just how extravagant she had made this so-called bow on him.

“You…you humiliate me enough during the day!” he shot back, the calming sensation from before already evaporating. “I demand you untie me.”

“Ah, but do you really mean such a thing? My dear Embroiling Deceit… she would just like to have your way with you.” Yuna tapped a finger against her chin, her gaze thoughtful and so very concerned, (oh of course she was) as she turned to the wall. “I’d assume you would appreciate the fine arts such as zis. My very own chef-d'œuvre, yet you would rather see it scattered and become utter chaos?”

“What are you talking about? You’re the one that assaulted me in my sleep-”

The kunais laid out on the bed snapped right back into the air, their blades catching the moonlight streaming in from the window. They rushed straight down, past his still head to imbed themselves into the wood of his headboard.

There was the sudden sharp clunk of the wood. It was loud, as loud as gunshots. But it was only the blades, their edges humming as they vibrated in the wood from the force of their plunge.

He blinked, and Yuna was over him then, smiling that same smile.

Her hands were placed against the bed, looking over him like he was something just so very interesting that she had found on the ground. “Aw, if only I had brought my enpicturator along… What a fun sight for me.”

His heart fluttered for the second time that night, yet the binds around his wrist didn’t tighten, even in his initial struggle.

“I…I don’t understand you!” The words came out louder than he meant to. Just a small crease on Yuna’s forehead, but he noted it. He kept pushing.

“What exactly do you even want with me?!” Her twin ponytails brushed against the bed on either side of him, tickled his sides cheeks just a bit, the way the threads had earlier. The red of the material seemed to illuminate within the dimness of the room. They matched the very shade of her elaborate hair pins, and, were they loosened? Just a bit? “Why pick me for such a so-called experiment? Just to torture me? That’s all any of you ever do!”

“Oh Aegrouch, you are just so fun to play with.” She sighed, and her breath hit his skin, sent nerves springing to life after being put to sleep from the binds. “Must you keep saying such cruel ‘zings to me?”

He narrowed his eyes, but failed at hiding away the color he felt rise to his cheeks.

“…I told you that won’t work on me.” Even on the battlefield, she liked to mess with him. More than even Vicious would.

Then so close, once again. She stuck out her tongue playfully, her very guilt branded on her with the brief flicker of flame.

Too close. Not unless she was about to-

Yuna looked down, and it was then he felt a fingertip against his chest, making him wince. Not from pain.

She pressed against that very guilt of his, hidden beneath his shirt, despite its lightness. It felt too much, too overwhelming for a moment. She hadn’t seen how it happened, how it came to be. She could not know. After all, hers had come from the ire of misguided and petty people. A true failure of the vision orb system.

Not like his own, so rightly deserved.

“Yet zis seems to work on you?” She tilted her head, tracing that guilt over him, too accurate in her patterns. “Maybe I should do something else with it then. Unless you truly would not want to.”

Aegis had his answer ready, floating within his head all this time, even as she bounded him up in strangely gentle ways. He tried to speak, but the words would not come.

Instead, he said, “You don’t even like me, I thought.”

She winked. “Aegrouch, I thought you would know my lies by now.” Leaning in, near his neck. “But you don’t know me so well, do you?”

The feel of her tongue was warm and sharp, and the Stain over his heart only continued to burn. Yet…not painful, and still he was bound and kept still, instead of being scattered to pieces as he had so often felt.

“I will help keep you together,” she breathed into his ear. “If you will humor me, for a little while.”

Perhaps she still kept lying, even long after the night drew out, when the shape of her own Guilt was imprinted into his head, into his very own mouth. The threads kept him from being shattered from his own misgivings, while her tongue continued to do carve meaning into him, down to his chest where the light of his guilt never dimmed – but he would not ask why she chose him to assuage her own guilt.

Maybe it was better to not know the answer.

#tales of crestoria #aegis alver #yuna azetta #vicious #fanfiction

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bluephoenixdruidicprincess · 7 years

Text

Shadowhunters Season 2A Final Review and Hopes for Season 2B

So here we are. We’re a couple of weeks off from Shadowhunters 2B airing. As I promised in my Season 2, Episode 10 review, I’m going to talk about things I liked and didn’t like about Season 2A as well as hopes that I have for Season 2B. In reality, I meant to write this post much earlier but I needed a break from the Shadowhunters fandom. You spend too much time within a fandom that has a lot of single-minded haters (like Shadowhunters does) and it really wears you down. I needed to take some time away from the fandom to re-charge my Shadowhunters fandom batteries. And it was wonderful. A break was exactly what I needed because it really helped me sort through my thoughts and feelings regarding Shadowhunters Season 2A as well as the show as a whole.

As always, I do have a disclaimer to make. This is a post reflecting my opinions on the show. They, in no way, reflect anyone else’s. Opinions are never right or wrong. I’m not telling YOU how to think and feel; I’m telling you what I, MYSELF, think and feel. I do have positive opinions about the show but I also have negative opinions about the show. If you’re the kind of Shadowhunters fan where you just can’t deal if someone says something negative about the show, don’t read this. If you can’t respect other peoples’ opinions, I don’t want you here and you’ll be of no real loss to my blog. Now, if you choose to stay and are offended by what I may say, understand I will listen to your opinions and discuss them with you. However, I will not discuss your opinions with you if you come at me in a rude or aggressive manner. I won’t even respond to you. I will completely, 100% ignore you. I’ve found that by responding to haters, it only legitimizes that level of behavior and it will not be tolerated. If you follow me and you are disrespectful to me or anyone else who might be discussing on this post, I will block you. Also, when I talk about this show, I am analyzing it as a TV series. It has nothing to do with my love for the books. If I am negative about the show, it’s not me saying the books are better simply because I love the books. It’s me pointing out issues that the tv show has as a tv show. There also are going to be spoilers for the books, movie, tv show, etc.

Sorry, that disclaimer was a little more lengthy than my usual one. I felt the need because last year when I did my Hopes for Shadowhunters Season 2, the amount of hate I got was astounding. Up until that point, I had no real grasp on just how much single-minded hate there was in the Shadowhunters fandom and geez, was I in for a surprise. My ask box was just flooded with hate. People seemed to think that just because I had negative things to say about the show, that meant that I out-right hated it. I’m not a masochist, so clearly I must enjoy the show to a certain extent because I’m still watching it. I do not hate the show. I didn’t even hate Season 1. I didn’t particularly like it but I didn’t hate it, either. There were moments within the season that I did like. I love the Shadowhunters books and I am so happy that we’re finally getting another chance at an adaptation and I do want to support the show. But that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to blindly love everything that the show does. And honestly, there are things that the show does a decent job with and then there are things that the show does a really bad job with. A desire to not want to see the show cancelled is not a good enough excuse to not acknowledge that there are things legitimately wrong with this show.

I thought long and hard about how I wanted to do this post. And I’ve ultimately decided that I’m going to bring back my Hopes for Shadowhunters Season 2 post from last year and go on down the list and see if Shadowhunters made any improvements in the first half of its sophomore season. Trust me, the list is going to cover nearly everything I have to say about Season 2A. And yes, I’m going to be referencing the post that first exposed me to the dark side of the Sahdowhunters fandom but guess what? I don’t care how much hate I got with that post. I still stick to my guns and I still believe that the issues I listed on there were very important issues that needed to be addressed and I will never apologize for that post because, again, those are my opinions. You hated that post? Guess what? You don’t have to read this. Last I checked, freedom of speech was still a thing on Tumblr. Just leave if you don’t like it. Let’s get on with this now.

Hopes For Shadowhunters Season 2 List

1) Everyone involved with the show needs to read the books.

2) The dialogue needs to be fixed.

3) I would like to see more lines from the books.

I have three from the list here because they kind of go hand-in-hand with each other.

Okay, now with these, everyone seemed to think that I wanted the show to be exactly like the books. That is 100% not true. I am NOT a source material adaptation snob. I personally don’t really care if an adaptation follows its source material. I love The Vampire Diaries and The 100 so clearly, I don’t have a problem with deviations from source material. I expected Freeform to take its own path with Shadowhunters. I’m honestly surprised that this show follows the books as much as it does. What I care about is that the adaptation captures the essence, the soul of the source material. And that’s what I meant when I said everyone involved with the show needed to read the books. Because whereas certain elements of the books were there, the first season left me feeling like the showrunner had no respect for the source material – and that includes the characters and story. Season One completely neglected most of the emotional aspects of the book scenes they chose to incorporate in the show.

You may ask, “What do you mean about capturing the essence of the source material?” Well, here’s what I wanted from this adaptation. I wanted the show to develop this wonderful shadow world, create complex, dark storylines (the storylines could be from the books or the show could make up its own; I really didn’t have a preference in that regard), and to have a certain amount of fun with it. Meaning, have the characters be thrust into these dark situations but still make me laugh from time to time. The books have such amazing wit and humor. The characters are super funny, super relatable and all that I wanted from the source material was to have that translated into the tv show. And Season One does try to incorporate humor, but more often than not, the humor falls flat. Maybe because the joke wasn’t really all that funny to begin with or the actor didn’t deliver it right. Essentially, when it comes to jokes in Season One, a lot of times it had to do with the writing of it. A lot of the jokes felt like they were simultaneously being written by both a 12-year-old and a 40-year-old. Not a good combination. In fact, if you look on Youtube to try and find a compilation video of funny Shadowhunters Season One moments (like there are hundreds for Teen Wolf) you’re not going to find a whole lot. You know why? Because the writing wasn’t all that funny even though they tried to be. Clearly, I’m not the only one who thought the humor was off because those videos are really hard to find. And I’m not talking about funny videos with the cast, I’m talking about funny moments that actually exist within the show, itself.

And then, of course there was the cheesy lines. Season One was beyond cheesy. There were times I was watching the show and I had to ask, “Why isn’t this show airing on the Disney channel? This feels like a Disney channel show.” Ultimately, the dialogue felt like it was too young for me. And I’m in my mid-20s by the way. It was really weird. Like, who was this show really trying to cater towards? If you’re not going to do a good job and come up with your own good dialogue, then I would prefer you to just take the dialogue out of the book. At least that dialogue is somewhat decent. Quit making me hit pause on my tv just so I can try and figure out why that joke was supposed to be funny. If you have to think about why a joke is funny, it’s probably not all that funny. Again, my own opinion. Feel free to disagree but I won’t say that something is funny just because you think it’s funny. Humor is completely subjective.

So, did Season 2A improve with these issues? I have to say yes. The humor and wit definitely came out more. The characters just felt more like actual characters in these situations. And I really enjoyed that aspect. Huge steps were taken to make the story fit the characters and not the other way around and as a starting point, the show did really well with that in Season 2A. The dialogue also definitely felt way more organic. There was very little cringe within the dialogue once Episode 4 came around. The characters definitely felt like they were having conversations real people would be having. This is partly due to the showrunner change. The writing, and especially the dialogue, just got so much better after they came on board.

4) I need Jace to start being more like Jace.

Another big one that I got a lot of hate on. Although this one may be on me because of the way I worded it in the original post which is my bad. My problems with Jace in Season One were not because I thought he was too nice to Clary. My problems with him was that he was this super angsty character but with absolutely no wit or humor or charm to him. You remember how I mentioned that it felt like the show’s humor was written by a 12-year-old? The 12-year-old humor was extremely prevalent with Season One Jace.

“Sounded boring anyway”

“Better than binoculars”

Really? Those are Jace lines? Jace is hilarious in the books. I have no idea why the writers thought these weak-ass lines were going to cut it. The writing of him in the show is just so half-hearted and it’s really depressing. Jace was my first book boyfriend so I have strong feelings about him. Here’s the thing. If you want to write Jace as this angst-ridden character, ok that’s fine. It’s kind of how he is in the books, too. I don’t have a problem with that. However, while Jace was an angst-ridden teenager in the books, he was also a sarcastic, smart-ass and was very self-aware that he was a sarcastic, angst-ridden teenager and commented on it frequently. That’s where the humor comes in. If you just have Jace being this angst-ridden character without any other personality to level it out, what makes him different from Edward Cullen/Christian Grey, Stefan Salvatore, Oliver Queen, Derek Hale, Angel?…the list goes on and on. The point is that Season One Jace just feels like a really cheap, lazily written version of every angst-ridden hero we’ve seen in pop culture to date. What makes him different? What about him makes me want him to succeed? With Season One Jace, the answer to these questions is, “not a single, damn thing”. He is a bland ass protagonist in Season One. Just a cheap copy of every other angst-ridden protagonist we’ve seen grace our screens within the past 10 years. And that’s what I have a problem with. And it’s interesting whenever I talk to fans who love Season One TV Show Jace, because they all come off and say that they like him because he’s nicer than he was in the books. First off, I don’t know where they got Jace being nicer than he is in the books. Season One TV Show Jace was pretty much a complete douche to everyone except Clary. He was absolutely horrible to Alec. Some say Alec was also kind of a jerk to Jace as well but I say Jace had it coming. You don’t tell your brother, your parabatai, “Maybe your mother was right. Maybe your best isn’t good enough” and expect me to see you as anything other than a jerk. And he also doesn’t even apologize for saying it. Poor Alec just accepts it. During my reviews in Season One, I did not call Jace by his name. I called him The Douche because I simply could not associate him with Book Jace anymore. Honestly, if you ask me, Alec is the real angel for essentially forgiving Jace for saying such a horrible thing to him. Second of all, if you think Book Jace is mean, I don’t know how you survive in the real world. I crossed the street using a crosswalk, I had the right of way, and was almost hit by a car…and the driver was cursing ME out. I’ve definitely come across people who are far meaner in the real world. A lot of them, I’ve met right here on Tumblr. Book Jace does say some mean things but there’s always a reason for it. He is never mean just for the sake of being mean. If you think that the use of sarcasm is mean, I don’t know what to tell you. You would not be able to survive in my family, I can tell you that much. My family uses sarcasm to express our love for each other. And really, I can’t even imagine having a conversation that doesn’t incorporate sarcasm. I guess, if you have that issue with Book Jace, you and me just are not compatible as friends.

So, did Jace improve in Season 2A? Absolutely. He was so much better. His sarcasm finally started to shine through and it was great. Especially Episode 7 of 2A. Those scenes with him in the bar were just phenomenal. It was everything I ever wanted from sarcastic, witty Jace. At first, I thought Dom’s American accent was what was throwing him off with the humor but I guess it really was the dismal writing in Season One. I legitimately laughed at the things he said instead of laughing because I was making fun of what he said. He also definitely added a little something extra in his emotional scenes as well. I really felt connected to him in 2A. Particularly in episode 3, Parabatai Lost. That final scene where he’s holding Alec and begging Alec not to die and leave him…so many feels. My eyes were starting to tear up a little and that never happened in the first season. I’m really proud of the new writers and Dom Sherwood for how they wrote him this season. He was soooooo much better.

5) Clary’s personality needs some work as well.

I suppose my main issues with Clary is that she’s treated as this perfect, flawless, little angel who can do absolutely no wrong. Everyone besides Alec pretty much worships the ground this girl walks on and for the life of me, I cannot understand why. She’s self-centered, self-entitled, and oddly abrasive towards people she needs help from. She’s selfish while being toted around as selfless at the same time. It’s very weird and not in a compelling sort of way. Her selflessness comes across as very cheesy. She’s so selfless it’s cheesy. That’s a really odd phrase to say but think about it a little. Ordinarily, someone being selfless is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s an attractive quality. However, when that selflessness is the character’s core personality trait, that’s when it becomes too much. Basically, her character is missing some sort of relatability and complexity. I’m also not a fan of how self-entitled and abrasive she is. She expects the shadowhunters to help her. She expects Magnus Bane to help her. She expects Ragnor Fell to help her. She’s pretty much, “it’s either my way or the highway.” I would never treat anyone I needed help from the way this girl treats people. She’s completely unwilling to bend on anything that goes against her own interests. And most of the time, she doesn’t even have a solid plan to begin with. Hell, most of the time she doesn’t even have a plan. She just runs in hoping she won’t get caught and she, inevitably, always is. Now, to a certain extent, Clary is like this in the books. The difference is that characters call her out on it in the books. That doesn’t happen in the show. Alec calls her out on it and he’s reprimanded for being too mean to her. I don’t mind Clary being an impulsive character because it’s part of her charm in the books but I do want others to call her out on it. In the show, she basically suffers no consequences when she’s impulsive and dumb because everyone forgives her because she’s this precious little snowflake…for some reason. I don’t see it at all. There is absolutely nothing interesting about her personality in the show. God, I hate Mary Sue characters. Even her physical appearance is absolutely flawless. She’s supermodel thin. This girl’s hair is always perfectly curled…even when she gets out of bed. She also emerges from bed with full-blown make-up on as well which I legitimately laughed at. I really wish I looked as good as this girl does when I get out of bed but I normally emerge as a cross between Medusa and a zombie. And also, Season One Clary’s hair was absolutely ridiculous. I don’t care what kind of genes you have, no one’s hair is that orange. The actress even said in an interview that the color is a little more bright than what she would normally go for. It was toned down a little later on in the season but when I first saw it, I was like, “Whoa! This girl’s hair could light up a neon sign.”

Now, has Clary improved in Season 2B? Eh, it depends. They did tone down the red in her hair so it definitely looks more natural. I also like her new wardrobe. It definitely feels more Clary-like. It always bugged me in Season One when she says, “I’m a jeans and t-shirt girl” when I’d barely seen her in anything but leather and high heels and not once complaining about it. She’s still impulsive and self-centered and Alec is still the only one who really calls her out on it. And he still gets reprimanded for it. They threw us in for a loop when Izzy got angry at Clary for hiding something from her so that was nice. But Clary ultimately didn’t really seem to care. She was all, “I know I messed up but we need to stick together.” And everyone just kind of accepts that. Clary, that may be how it works in your friendship with Simon, but sometimes other people need time and space when they feel betrayed by a friend. Why are there two guys in love with her again? Clary still puts up a hissy fit whenever she doesn’t get her way and again, no one calls her out on it. I can forgive book Clary for behaving this way because she’s 16 but in the show, she’s 18. She’s an adult, she needs to fucking act like one. TV Show Clary really is kind of a weak character but the show totes around that she’s strong and then completely back pedals. There’s moments even in 2A where she completely kicks ass against hordes of rogue shadowhunters and then struggles later on with one or two of them. Besides all of that, I always hated how quickly she picked up shadowhunting. I’ve always thought it was incredibly unrealistic. Jace gives her a 30 second seraph blade training session in a graveyard (ugh, I hated that scene so much) and she’s an expert at sword fighting. Alec gives her a 10 second staff-fighting training session and she’s an expert on that, as well. Only about a month has passed since the beginning of Season One to where Season 2A ended. I’m a martial artist so I can attest that you cannot pick up fighting that quick. It doesn’t even make sense in show canon either. All of the other shadowhunters have been training their entire lives and she becomes an expert in a couple of weeks. Come on. She saves the Lightwoods continuously by poking the demon one time. It completely devalues just how dangerous demon-fighting really is. Really, it’s too late to go back and figure out how she learned how to fight. That ship has sailed but the show now needs to make a decision on what kind of fighter she’s supposed to be. They need to quit going back and forth between her fighting skills just for plot convenience. Is she going to be a bad-ass, is she even going to be a competent fighter, or is she going to be someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing when it comes to fighting? The show really needs to make a decision on that front. And there’s no reason that she can’t jump from any of those levels into a different level; the show just needs to develop it. And that’s not what they’re doing here. Ultimately, I don’t have a problem with Clary being impulsive and self-centered and even selfless, I just want everyone to stop treating her like she’s a perfect, flawless, little angel. See her for exactly who she is, then I might believe these two guys are in love with her. Clary needs some sort of complexity to her personality. She is such a Mary Sue right now and I cannot take her seriously as a character.

But I’m not completely ragging on her character. She did have some nice moments in 2A. I really liked that moment in A Door Into The Dark when she goes to the Art Institute and starts painting. I thought that was a really nice moment for her character. The new Clary trying to get in touch with the old Clary again. I did like that she asks Jace and Simon to kill her if it ever looks like Valentine may legitimately be able to use her to destroy downworld. I also liked her moments when she was dealing with her mother’s death, particularly in episode 5, Dust and Shadows. I thought she was very realistic in that episode. So yeah, even though I ragged on her a lot in this. I don’t 100% hate her. She does have some nice moments.

6) The chemistry with Jace and Clary needs to get better.

7) A dark passionate portrayal of the incest storyline.

Again, these two kind of go together. Oh Season One Clace, how you disappointed me. Really, Season One was just a huge disappointment when it came to romantic pairings, in general. The show wanted so badly to get fans that they pushed every relationship in a way that was completely inorganic. They completely missed the point on why people like fandom relationships. It’s not important if these two character are together, what’s really important is how they got together. I hated the way Clace was developed in the first season. I hated their first interaction, I hated the graveyard scene, I hated the motorcycle scene, I especially hated their first kiss. The one scene I wouldn’t have minded (the 90% slap scene in the pilot) was filmed but they chose to cut it and I will never understand why. In the first season, their relationship is so cheesy that it’s impossible for me to take it seriously. After a certain amount of time, I was asking myself, “Are they trying to make a Clace parody? Is the intention to make fun of Clace?” It was that bad. And then, they had the first kiss which was extremely disappointing and rushed. I didn’t feel that Clace needed to be kissing in that moment. I wasn’t really feeling any Clace feels. Maybe other people were, who knows. I saw them kiss and I legitimately said to my screen, “What the hell is this shit? Why are they kissing? This makes no sense.” I guess Clary remembering how Jace said, “You have the sight” to her back in Episode One was just too much for her to handle. She just couldn’t resist him, his douche-baggery, and his non-existent charm anymore. What was even worse was that this scene takes place in the middle of the Institute with everyone watching. It boggles my mind as to why they swapped out the greenhouse scene for this shit. I will never understand it. In the book, their first kiss was a very romantic moment that was important to them as characters but in the show, it was nothing more than a make-out scene and that’s what I despise about it. They took out all of the emotion, everything that made their first kiss so special. The Clace chemistry on the show is also just plain weird at times. This could be because of the writing, though. Kat and Dom always felt really weird to me in Season One as a couple. They just didn’t feel like they were this ultimate pairing that I wanted to route for. They did get better later on in the season after the sibling thing was announced. That’s when their chemistry really started to improve. I don’t know if it was just because they were more comfortable around each other or if their chemistry just worked better as siblings. But regardless, it was much better towards the tail-end of the season.

Now, has the Clace chemistry gotten better in Season 2A? This is a difficult question to answer. Simply because they went through 2A believing that they were siblings and the showrunners clearly wanted to stay away from any of the creepy incest-like behavior that happens in the books. Understandable. It’s a very controversial topic within the fandom. But I am a little disappointed that the show didn’t really go into it. And before you haters start hating, I don’t say that because I like incest relationships. They creep me out just as much as you. What I like about the Clace-sibling dynamic was that yes, it was creepy, but it also showed the depth of their emotions. That even if they were siblings, something was still pulling them together and they couldn’t understand why and they couldn’t just ignore it even though they certainly tried to. I have a little head-canon theory that part of the reason why they’re so drawn to each other is because they share the same angel blood. You know, blood calls to blood. But that’s my own head-canon. I don’t believe Cassandra Clare ever stated that that was the reason in the books. And I also liked that those feelings are still very prevalent later on in the series even after the sibling thing is sorted out. They still are very much affected by their experience of being in love with each other despite believing they were siblings. So I am a little disappointed that 2A didn’t really go into those feelings. Jace really did feel like a supportive brother in this season and nothing more. We’ll see how their chemistry goes in 2B. It is interesting with Jace now knowing that Clary is not his sister but refusing to tell Clary because he wants her to be happy with Simon. I really liked that because it shows that Jace’s selfish love for Clary has turned into a selfless love. I get the feeling from the trailers that it’s not going to last very long though which is a shame. And to people who complain that they don’t like Climon, guess what? YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO. Their dynamic is always supposed to be best as friends. People who complain about Climon have no concept of a slow-burn couple. I love slow-burn couples. It may take forever and a day for them to get together but when they do, it is that much sweeter because we actually got a development of that relationship, a development of feelings that those characters have for each other. So Clace shippers, just be patient. Your time will come and trust me, you will be so much happier that the show took it’s time with them as opposed to keeping them together right at the start. Pairings that get together right from the start are boring to me. They are never done right. Trust me, slow-burns are 100% more satisfying.

8) Isabelle getting her own story arcs.

Izzy is a character that never feels like she’s actually part of the story. Most of the time, it just feels like she’s along for the ride. Pretty much, all of her story arcs were just plot devices to move along someone else’s storyline. She’s there to help Jace and Alec and to be a friend to Clary, that’s pretty much it. I guess there’s her relationship with Meliorn but really, their relationship creeps me out due to their lack of chemistry and I don’t find them all that interesting as a pairing. Then there was the whole “Izzy on trial” thing which is a plot point I’m not even going to get into because I have so many issues with the storytelling part of it. Really, that plot point was insanely dumb and absolutely pointless to the rest of the story. There’s also the “Izzy is the best pathologist in NYC” as well. But again, there are a lot of story-telling issues with that. Suffice to say, this plot point came about simply because Ed Dector was trying to turn Shadowhunters into the crime procedural show he really wanted to produce. He didn’t actually stop and think, “Is this really a good idea? Is it going to make sense?” And the show pretty much forgets about this plot point when it’s inconvenient for the story because, again, it doesn’t really make sense and it would hinder the plot more often than it would help. Now, Isabelle is one of my favorite characters in the books and she is also one of my favorite characters in the show (even if they did do a pretty bad job with developing her). Ultimately, I just want to see more story arcs that develop her as a person. At this point, we get it. Izzy loves her family. She wants the best for her family. This isn’t news anymore. I would like to see some more aspects of her personality. Actually, now that I think about it, this is a recurring theme with the characters from Season One. The characters really were rather one-dimensional.

Did Izzy improve in 2A? Yes and no. 2A incorporated this drug addiction plot point which, in the beginning, I really liked. Some fans think its absolute trash but I’m not one of those fans. Granted, no one likes to see their beloved character go through a drug addiction storyline and I certainly do not enjoy seeing strong, fierce Izzy being weak. But that’s kind of the point with a drug addiction story. The fact that even the strongest of us can fall to a weakness at some point. In a story, it is essential for a character to come into conflict. That’s what allows us to explore the character and figure out who that character is as a person and eventually even care about that person. A drug addiction plot can be a good way to showcase that. Up until this point, Izzy has always been toted as this strong, independent person but in reality she’s plagued with self-doubt. She doesn’t think she’s as strong as everyone else thinks she is and that’s why she ultimately falls into the drug addiction. And I found that super interesting. The drug makes her feel strong both inside and out. Drug addictions are never fun to watch but I was interested in this when it first came out because I was interested to see what kind of growth we were going to get from Izzy as a character. Which is what I wanted. I wanted to see more aspects of her besides this strong girl who cares about her family. But, as we went further along in the drug addiction plot, Freeform kept on disappointing me. First off, they chose to use yin fen (the drug from The Infernal Devices) and then changed what yin fen actually is. I’m actually a little unclear on exactly what yin fen is on this show. I’m not sure if it’s vampire venom or if vampire venom is just an ingredient within the drug itself. The show keeps on going back and forth on it. But regardless, I don’t like that they changed it to vampire venom, period. It just completely devalues the horror story that yin fen actually is. I could’ve let it slide if the show just opted to not include The Infernal Devices in its canon and that yin fen was just now going to be its own separate thing. I could’ve been okay with that. But the show continues to dig itself an even bigger hole when they mention that Magnus’ friend, Jem, almost died from it. If you think about what the show is saying yin fen is and then mix it with Jem’s story, it doesn’t really make sense and I really hope that TID does not get adapted into the same story universe as Shadowhunters. Because boy, are there going to be plot holes. Second of all, near the end of 2A, it became very obvious that the reasoning for changing yin fen to vampire venom was so that the show could reveal a new sexuality to the show. You don’t agree with that? There is no other reason that the show would logically change yin fen to vampire venom unless it was to progress a storyline having to do with vampires. That being that Raphael is asexual. Now, Raphael being asexual is not the problem I have with this storyline. I actually think it’s really interesting and I’m excited to see it get explored. The problem I have with this storyline is that once again, Izzy was used as a plot device to push along someone else’s story and not her own. Throughout the course of this drug addiction plot, I didn’t feel that Izzy has really changed all that much or that we even really got to see someone all that different from the girl we got in Season One. She feels pretty much exactly the same. Granted, we still have 2B. Maybe more of this drug addiction is going to be developed in 2B. But still, I was disappointed in the show for once again making this a plot device to push along someone else’s character arc instead of making it abut Izzy. But like Clary, I’m not completely ragging on Izzy. Izzy did have some really great bad-ass moments that did mesh with her character so I really enjoyed those. I would like to see the show incorporate more with her whip but I can understand why they don’t. It’s pretty difficult to fight with a whip and the fight choreographers may not have a whole lot of time to incorporate it.

9) Some tension with Malec.

Another couple that the show feels the need to rush. Geez, this show really has no concept of slow-burn. What was interesting about Malec in the show is that they were actually developing Malec pretty decently when they first introduced them in Season One. I was enjoying seeing their story unfold in a slightly different way than in the books. Then, the writers got lazy. I liked that Malec was being subtly pushed together. It was working well for the show until Lydia Branwell was introduced. Don’t get excited, y’all. There will be no Lydia bashing here. I love Lydia. I wish the show would’ve done more with her. No, once Lydia and the arranged marriage was introduced into the story, that’s when Magnus became increasing desperate and it just did not mesh at all with his character. I didn’t like it. What made it even worse was that of course, they would bring Malec together in the cheesiest, most cliché way possible because this show only knows how to be cheesy and cliché. Whenever there’s a wedding, you know the forbidden love interest is going to show up and put to a stop to it. The Graduate, anyone? Not only was the whole wedding aspect super cheesy, I had a hard time reconciling that 1) Alec would be okay with outing himself to the entire Clave in this moment and 2) that Magnus would expect Alec to be willing to do it. Now, keep in mind, when I say this, I am not saying that it is not plausible for a homosexual adult to come out like this. I am saying that it was unrealistic for ALEC LIGHTWOOD to come out like this given the character development he had within that season. The show had been alluding to Alec being gay and his feelings for Jace and by the time the wedding scene happened, he hadn’t actually dealt with any of those issues so I had a hard time believing that Alec, as a character, would actually do this at this point in time. In the books, in a similar scene, it made sense because he had dealt with his Jace issues as well as his coming-out issues. Really, this wedding scene was just a fanservice product and nothing more. The show wanted to get the Malec fans immediately instead of doing a slow-burn like they kind of are in the books. As I’ve said before, what’s important is not that these two characters got together, it’s how they got together. And Season One just completely missed the mark on that one. And whereas I love the kiss they have in that episode, I still feel cheated that we never got to see any actual development of their relationship that would’ve made that scenario plausible.

I got a lot of hate on the original post for this one so I really felt like I needed to explain myself. Understand, I’m not saying gay people shouldn’t come out in public like that, I’m saying it was unrealistic for Alec to come out like this given the character development he had up to that point. Malec in Season One ultimately turned out to be a disappointment for me. They are one of my ultimate bookOTPs so I had very high expectations for them. Really, I hated that we never got to see their relationship progress in any way. That’s the problem I have with the way Malec is developed in this show. They’re always telling us what’s going on with them instead of showing us. The writers are breaking the cardinal rule of story-telling: You always want to show and not tell.

Now, did Malec improve in Season 2A? Maybe? I don’t know. I’m a little off and on about this one. Malec was very cute in 2A. They had a lot of really nice scenes. The issue I have is that Malec, as a couple, didn’t have a whole lot to do with the main plot. They were given maybe two or three 30-second scenes in an episode and that was all we got and those scenes never had much to do with the central plot. It always felt like they were just slipped in there to appease the fans. And that’s what I dislike about Show Malec. Say what you want about Book Malec. You can say that it didn’t focus on them nearly as much but at least in the books, when we did have Malec scenes, they were done in a way that still made them relevant to the main plot. And that’s what I want from Show Malec. I want them to be relevant to the actual plot of the show and not feel like their scenes were inserted at the last minute.

Another issue I had with them this season is just how quickly they went through the relationship milestones. One episode, they’re going on their first date (which was a fantastic first date, I loved it so much), couple of episodes later, they’re having their first time (I’ll get to that in a few). Couple of episodes later, they’re professing their love for each other. I just wish the writers would take their time with Malec and develop the relationship slowly and organically. If it keeps at the pace that it is, Malec is going to become stagnant before we know it and I don’t want to see that happen.

Lastly, Seaosn 2A had the issue with sex scenes or the non-existent sex scenes as is the case with Malec. Ordinarily, I don’t care about sex scenes. Most of the time, they’re never done right so I find them to be a complete waste of screen time in general but I can say the show dug itself a hole on the Malec sex issue. First off, they brought up Malec having sex front and center, and then they took a fade-to-black approach when it came to the actual act. Now, normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this. The problem is that it’s weird that previously, the show has never had an issue with sex scenes before with its heterosexual couples but yet they’re unwilling to go the same lengths for the homosexual couple. I can definitely understand why fans would be angry. In this context, it would appear the show is displaying passive homophobia. In Season 2B, I really hope the show addresses this. I like the new showrunners and I want them to keep on working but this is going to be a very hard issue to overcome if something isn’t done about it. The network really needs to make a decision on just how “edgy” they want to be. If they want to incorporate sex scenes in their show, that’s fine. I don’t necessarily think it’s important for a show like this but whatever. For a show like this, I think epic-ness is going to sell more than sex. If Freeform chooses to have sex scenes, they have to do it for everyone. It boggles my mind that Freeform did not see this one coming.

10) Please, let us never, ever see Jace and Alec fight again…EVER

Not gonna lie, the Jalec fight in Season One is one of the reasons why I didn’t particularly like the season. Understand, I’m not opposed to main characters fighting. That’s not the issue. I want my characters to have disagreements and falling outs. It’s what makes the relationships feel real. I just did not like the way the Jalec falling out was developed. It was dumb, lazy, and ultimately didn’t really make sense. The parabatai relationship is super important in the series and Season One made it look like it was just friends having a fight. I absolutely did not like it. I never want to see the show take this approach again.

But on the bright side, the show did so much better with the parabatai bond in 2A. There were so many call outs to the parabatai bond to how it actually is and I loved it. As I said before, that one scene in Parabatai Lost between Jace and Alec was absolutely beautiful. There were other parabatai moments that I also really liked. Jace telling Magnus that he better not hurt Alec, Jace being worried about Alec when Alec was stuck inside the institute while it was being attacked. There were so many great parabatai moments. See guys? I’m not completely ragging on the show. Season 2A gets a B on the parabatai improbvement, though. I give them a B because I didn’t particularly like everything that happened in Parabatai Lost regarding how Jace and Alec got into that situation in the first place but I’m not going to get into it here. I have a whole review that talks about it. You can read up on it there. You should be able to find it in my Shadowhunters Review tag. But everything else this season with the Jalec parabatai bond was great. I loved it.

11) Give the extras at the Institute a purpose or get rid of them

These extras, man. They just mess with the logic of the show so bad. Season 2A definitely did a much better job of incorporating them but still, I don’t like that they just kind of hang out at the Institute. Most of them don’t really do anything. They’re just walking scenery. Really, I’ve kind of gotten used to them but I do secretly hope that they will just one day, disappear. I did like the minor characters such as Raj and Lindsey. I think they could be fun as random inserts into the show. In that regard, I hope the show keeps them around. But overall, the extras are really pointless and the show is wasting their money paying extras who don’t really need to be there.

12) Better fight scenes

13) Better CGI

OMG! The fight scenes were such an improvement from Season One. I loved them so much. As I’ve said before, I do martial arts, so fight scenes are important to me and I am critical of them. Particularly the ones in Season One. The fight scenes in Season One, by themselves, are not bad. The show just edited them badly because I guess the show didn’t want to put too much effort into the choreography and CGI, maybe. Regardless, there was a drastic improvement in Season 2A. It was great. The seraph blades actually look like swords now and not light sabers so that’s an improvement in itself. Izzy’s whip turns into a staff which I thought was super cool. I do wish we could see Izzy fighting with her whip more but I understand why the show doesn’t want to do it.

The new CGI was pretty great, too. Magnus’ magic was really fun to watch not to mention the demon in Dust and Shadows was incredibly creepy…like American Horror Story Season One scary. You remember, back in the day when American Horror Story was actually scary. No offense to those who may still find American Horror Story scary. I, personally, find it to be more of a thriller show than a horror show these days. But anyways, I’m so glad we’re past the days of Shadowhunters Season One crappy CGI. The show gets an A+ on that improvement.

14) No more huge, gaping plot holes or storylines that don’t lead anywhere

This is more of a problem with the show’s general storytelling. Season One was just a mess in terms of storytelling, I’m sorry to say. This was the number one reason for why I didn’t particularly like the show in its freshman season. You know how there are CGI snobs? People who will gripe and complain if CGI is not up to society’s current standards? Well, I am a plot snob. If a plot is bad or it has plot holes, I’m not going to keep quiet about it. I spend pretty much all of my free time watching movies, tv shows, anime, reading books and fanfiction, writing stories, etc. Storytelling is incredibly important to me and I will not apologize for holding Shadowhunters to the same standard of writing that I would hold any other tv series. The way this show is written at times is so unbelievably lazy, at times. Particularly in Season One. Plot holes, galore.

Now, did the show get better at its story telling in 2A? Yes and no. I say yes, because at least the episodes are arcing properly now. They weren’t in the first season. I can’t tell you how often a Season One episode chose to end on the climax part of the story and I was like, “Wait. What? Where’s the rest if it?” That’s an arcing issue. You don’t want to end on a climax all the time. It makes the show feel very disjointed. It should be climax, aftermath, and then end credits. An episode can end on a climax but it’s best if a tv series saves that for a finale type episode. Now, I say no that the show did not get better with its storytelling because the plot feels incredibly “easy” at time. So many really convenient things happen in this show and there’s not a whole lot of explanation for why it happened. The team is trying to find a kidnapped girl and the first homeless person they find knows exactly what happened. Convenient. In Day of Wrath, a demon gets into the Institute. How? Well, the demon has cloaking abilities apparently. No explanation for why it has cloaking abilities besides Valentine’s experiments. It’s never talked about again. Convenient. Madsie having the ability to get through the Institute’s wards. Convenient. The Mortal Sword just so happens to have the ability to decimate all of downworld which is exactly what Valentine wants. Convenient. An adamas stone can somehow be used to track a parabatai when it’s never been mentioned before. Convenient. The Mortal Sword doesn’t have to be powered by a bolt of lightning. Valentine can just use an angelic power core that’s located in every Institute. A plot point that has never been stated before. Convenient. You see where I’m going with this. There is no complexity to the world at all. The writers just pull things out of their asses when it comes to moving the plot along. No one actually works for the story at all and I would definitely like to see that changed in 2B. I would like the storylines to be a little more complex than what we’re getting. This show irritates me to no end in regards to its storytelling and if anything, that is what’s going to make me drop this series.

That’s pretty much all I had to say regarding the list I made last year. Here are some hopes I would like to see in 2B.

Luke

I really want Luke to become a more active character in this show. In 2A, it felt like we barely got to see him. He is a main character but yet it feels like he never really has a whole lot of purpose within the story. Luke is a bad-ass character in the books and the show really hasn’t even scratched the surface with him and I would like to see more of him. Hopefully, he becomes much more of an active character in 2B. It definitely feels like the downworlder community is going to play a bigger role in 2B so maybe by proxy, Luke is going to be back on a more consistent basis.

Maia

My hope for Maia is that the show develops her character a little more. I really liked her character when it was first introduced in the show but in 2A, she was doing things that didn’t really make a whole lot of sense for her character. I do understand why Maia wanted to kill Clary. I got that. However, I didn’t like how Maia just immediately jumped to killing when there was a scene earlier on in the season insinuating that she has a problem with killing. I just wish her decision to kill Clary actually had some sort of emotional weight to it. Maia was also incredibly overbearing in this moment, as well. I get that she made a decision to do this but at the same time she was also completely unwilling to accept the consequences that would come with killing Clary. That being she would’ve destroyed any relationship she might’ve had with Luke and Simon. Clary is pretty much Luke’s daughter and she’s also the girl Simon has been in love with since he was a kid. It boggles my mind that Maia would possibly think Simon and Luke would ever forgive her for killing Clary. She comes off in the show being all, “This is what needs to be done. Why are you two ostracizing me? I thought we were friends?” It would’ve been fine if Maia made the cold-hearted decision to kill Clary and that she also accepted the consequences of such an act but the fact that she can’t understand why Luke and Simon aren’t on her side is what bothers me. Particularly, since she knows what Clary is to Simon and Luke. Hopefully, she’ll be developed a little more in 2B.

Sizzy

I kind of hope the show start alluding a little more to Simon and Izzy’s relationship. Of course, I’m not saying that I want them to be together by the end of 2B. As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of slowburns and Sizzy most certainly is a slow-burn. I wouldn’t mind them starting to allude to it a little more, though. I know people are yammering on about Saphael and I don’t mind if Saphael becomes a thing. Or even Rizzy. The asexual thing is kind of interesting. I just want Sizzy to be endgame. That’s really the only thing I want from this show. There’s just something so fun and interesting about the nerd ending up with the hot, sexy demon hunter. I mean, I was hoping for Sizzy before Cassandra Clare even started developing their relationship in the books. They’re just such a fun pair.

Sebastian

Well, of course I have to mention Sebastian. I really hope the show does him justice. Sebastian is such an interesting character and an interesting villain. He is a completely different villain from Valentine and I really hope the show harps on those differences. I’m really excited to see what the show does with him. I saw a synopsis of what his character is supposed to be on the show and whereas it doesn’t really feel like that’s Sebastian, I’m withholding all judgement until 2B comes out.

The Destruction of the Shape-Shifting Rune

This is a really naïve hope that I have. I know there is absolutely no way they’d actually get rid of this rune but it still doesn’t change how much I hate it. This rune is such a huge plot hole. I called it when it was first introduced. I said the writers were not prepared for the huge can of worms that this rune was going to open and I was spot on. The rune completely devalues Tessa from The Infernal Devices. Infernal Devices aside, I hate this rune on principle, alone. It makes absolutely no sense to me that this rune exists, shadowhunters know it exists, they realize anyone can use it, and yet they’re duped by it EVERY SINGLE TIME. I suppose if the show doesn’t want to get rid of the rune, maybe they could create some rules for this rune. It is so important that magic have limits and I hate that this rune appears to have no limits. Also, Sebastian better not be revealed by using that rune. I will be so disappointed with Shadowhunters if they try to use that rune as a plot twist again. It wasn’t that surprising the first time around or the second time around; if they try to use it again, I don’t know if the show will ever be able to recover in my eyes.

Ultimately, I am still enjoying watching this show to a certain extent. They are doing some interesting things with the story. If I could tell the showrunners one thing though, I would tell them, “Quit the fanservice and just tell the story.” A lot of times, it feels like the main plot gets put on the back burner because the show feels the need to engage in the fans’ desires for the characters. I realize this is coming off a little hypocritical since I just finished talking about things I wanted to see in 2B. But if 2B chooses to ignore everything that I want, I would still be happy with the show if they ignored all fanservice desires and just TOLD THE STORY. I go off and on about whether or not Shadowhunters is actually a good show and part of the problem is that the showrunners care too much about what the fans want. For me, what makes a good show is just watching a story unfold and see how the characters develop within that story. If the showrunners were to ignore the fans to a certain extent and just tell the story, the show would definitely be MUCH stronger. But they’re always consumed with doing the politically correct thing and trying not to insult certain factions of the fandom and it’s actually hindering the development of the story. I can already feel the number of hate messages about to hit my ask box but you know what? I don’t care. I just want to see a story unfold and characters develop within that story in a realistic way. That is all I want from Shadowhunters. So if the showrunners were to ignore everything else that I would like to see in 2B, I would still be happy with the show if it, at least, managed to tell a coherent story. I can’t necessarily call Shadowhunters a good show at this point in time. For me, Shadowhunters is a conglomeration of nice scenes but without much of a story in the background and I sincerely would like to see that change. Right now the show is probably at a B- for me, overall.

Well, these are my feelings regarding Shadowhunters right now. Again, these are my opinions. They, in no way, reflect anyone else’s. I would love to hear what anyone else is thinking about 2B. Do you agree with what I said? Do you disagree? As a reminder, I will ignore anyone who is rude so if you are going to send me hate and you want me to respond, you might want to try moderating your tone. I’m an adult and I expect everyone else to behave as mature adults. Really, bullying is beneath us and I will not tolerate it. Let’s create a fandom that is supportive of everyone’s opinions. Fandoms can be so much fun if there’s support but they’re an absolute nightmare if you have to worry about the hate you’re about to receive every time you post. I left for a couple of months and delved deep within the anime fandoms which was great. I really needed the break. And along the way, I found Dragonball Z Abridged by Team Four Star. If you have not seen it, you absolutely need to. It is absolutely hilarious. I love it so much! Maybe even more than the original series… o

#shadowhunters #shadowhunters review #shadowhunters 2A #shadowhunters 2B #clace #malec #shadowhunters 2B hopes #shadowhunters 2A review

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