#and/or most i can do without harming my reputation among family | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

There was a comment a while back about NMJ having capybara energy. So have a cracky prompt of some strategists in the Sunshot Campaign deciding how this could be weaponized, or used as an interrogation technique. If they give cooperate and give information, they can be in a cuddle pile with NMJ.

ao3

The worst part about war was, unquestionably, the war itself.

The loss of life, the injuries, the stress – the agonizing terror of knowing that each moment might be your last, the painful boredom of waiting for something to happen, the shaking anxiety of never knowing which one the day would bring. Watching your friends and family suffer, watching innocent people suffer…it was grotesquely awful in ways Lan Xichen had never even dreamed of it being.

And yet, as if war wasn’t bad enough by itself, it also had – side effects.

Evil creatures thrived on resentful energy, their own or others’, gathered at sites of death or violence, and there was nothing that they liked better than the wasted spiritual energy that accompanied the untimely death of cultivators. This war, sect against sect, was a breeding ground for all the creatures that they ought to be night-hunting, not encouraging.

Led by Nie Mingjue, who never forgot his obligations, their side – the Four Great Sects, that was – took care of the innocent people who were being harmed by their war, protecting them from the immediate aftereffects, settling them in new places if their homes were damaged, making sure they weren’t caught in the middle of ongoing battle. Sects that skimped on their duties to the common people were mercilessly cut off in turn, where necessary, and Nie Mingjue had even demanded that Lanling Jin personally recompense an entire village that had lost their homes due to their negligence or else face the next Wen attack without his aid – the cost of doing so was negligible for them, but the humiliating loss of face among the rest of the sects that he had even had felt the need to make the threat, coupled with the fact that they really did need his help, served as an extremely potent reminder for everyone else.

When possible, the sects devoted some resources to night-hunting, trying to restrain the effects of their war, but it was like trying to hold back an avalanche that had already started: they could mitigate some of the damage, but until the war was over, it would only get worse and worse.

It didn’t help, naturally, that the Wen sect’s leaders didn’t care one whit about the effects of their actions.

Wen Ruohan loudly blamed the other Great Sects for it, claiming that they were ‘rebelling’ against him – as if they hadn’t all been equal just before – and that the heavens were punishing them for their violation of the natural order; his commanders followed suit, disdaining even the distraction of night-hunting and making dismissive promises that it would all be resolved when the war was won.

Still, however Wen Ruohan felt, however his generals and commanders felt, even they couldn’t ignore all the effects.

Especially not the ones that hit everyone equally.

“More nightmares?” Lan Xichen asked Jiang Cheng as he came into the command tent, rubbing his red eyes and looking awful. They all looked awful, but the recent affliction of dream-eaters that had swept through their camp and the enemy’s was especially vicious - particularly on those like Jiang Cheng, who had already existing trauma and were already burdened by nightmares. They were killing the creatures that generated the nightmares as quickly as possible, but there was only so much they could do with the encampment of the Wen sect not far away, waiting for a display of weakness that would give them the opportunity to attack.

The Wen sect were afflicted by the dream-eaters, too, and under any other circumstances Lan Xichen would propose that they raise the flag of truce long enough to eradicate the menace. Unfortunately, the Wen sect had proved themselves fundamentally untrustworthy – Jiang Cheng’s own family situation told the story quite vividly, even if Lan Xichen didn’t have to only close his eyes to see the burning of the Cloud Recesses – and so they all just suffered, instead.

“Bad ones,” Jiang Cheng said grimly, and nodded at Wei Wuxian, who had followed him into the tent looking, somehow, even worse. Not a great surprise, given that he’d been trapped in the Burial Mounds and now utilized resentful energy as a weapon – he had to be even more susceptible to the nightmares than the rest of them, but there was nothing to be done about it; his new cultivation style was too valuable for him to stop now. If Lan Xichen had to guess, Wei Wuxian was working himself to the bone and collapsing into nightmares, never getting any rest; his eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard, his waist too thin.

When Lan Wangji entered the tent next and saw Wei Wuxian there, looking half-dead, his face immediately twisted in what Lan Xichen recognized as clear concern. Poor Lan Wangji was suffering, too, although perhaps Lan Xichen was the only one who could tell.

Lan Xichen felt a stab of pain on all their behalf, all of them, and handed out tea to strengthen their spirits. He’d selected the most energizing blend he could find in preparation for this meeting, their first in several weeks – they were all fighting their own fronts, Lanling Jin in Langya, Qinghe Nie in Hejian, so on and so forth, but they needed to coordinate, and these in-person meetings were the best option for it.

And they really needed to discuss what to do about this new nightmare scourge.

“I think it’s like this for everyone,” Jiang Cheng said, accepting the tea, and Lan Xichen was just in the middle of nodding when he heard a strange sound – laughter, of all things.

They all turned to stare at the door, where Nie Huaisang was walking in, followed by an exhausted-looking Jin Zixuan as his father’s representative. It had been Lan Xichen who had asked for Nie Huaisang to be brought here from his refuge at the Cloud Recesses, thinking that this highly protected meeting was as close to safety on the battlefield as they could get and that it would be good for Nie Mingjue to see his little brother safe and sound.

Of all of them, they needed Nie Mingjue to remain strong. He was the Great Sects’ most effective general, their most terrifying war god; he was as viciously effective a general as he was a frontline fighter, designing many of the strategies they all used and providing many of their sects with critical assistance even though his Nie sect and its affiliated sects were the least numerous of the Great Sects, excluding only the significantly diminished forces of the Jiang sect.

More than his personal contribution, though, he’d become something of a lucky talisman for the rest of them. Lan Xichen had heard all sorts of stories about each and every one of them - Jiang Cheng as the resurrected phoenix, unkillable; Wei Wuxian as a demon barely leashed and used for their own purposes; Lan Xichen himself as a beacon of light bringing hope to those who needed it most - but that was nothing compared to what was said and believed about Nie Mingjue: that as long as Chifeng-zun was there, inexorable and inviolable, the unquestioned king of Hejian, the Wen sect’s eventual defeat was inevitable.

Even Lan Xichen found himself thinking it, reassuring himself late at night that all their efforts were not for nothing, that it would all end well in the end.

It wasn’t a healthy way of thinking, not for them and least of all for Nie Mingjue himself, who had to live up to that terrible reputation, but it was what was getting them through each day of this terrible war. So if there was something within Lan Xichen’s power to help Nie Mingjue keep himself together, he would do it, no matter the risk.

Nie Huaisang had arrived at their encampment the day before, with Nie Mingjue himself arriving even later, coming very late at night, and now it was morning and Nie Huaisang was laughing.

Laughing free and easy as if he didn’t have a care in the world, no less, and probably at one of his own jokes; Jin Zixuan was looking at him as if he’d never seen such a strange and wonderous thing in his life, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian and…well, everyone, really, were all following suit. They’d all laughed in recent days, of course, war lending itself to black humor, but Nie Huaisang looked so light-hearted.

So…well-rested.

“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen said, blinking owlishly at him. “You look…good.” No, that wasn’t the word he was looking for. “Healthy.”

Not in need of sleep, he meant.

“Oh, well, you know,” Nie Huaisang demurred, hiding his face behind his fan. “I’m happy to see da-ge, that’s all. I get to comfort myself that he’s well and get a good night’s sleep for once; why wouldn’t I be well? Nothing much to it.”

“Good night’s sleep?” Jiang Cheng echoed, looking disbelieving – as well he should, too. Their current encampent was right next to one of the worst collections of nightmare afflicting creatures, the vicious dream-eaters that confused the mind and injured the spirit. “You got a good night’s sleep?”

“Better here than in the Cloud Recesses?” Wei Wuxian asked, rubbing his eyes. “Really?”

“Uh, yes?” Nie Huaisang said, and now it was his turn to blink at them. “My da-ge is here. I slept well and untroubled for the first time in ages.”

“That sounds...nice,” Jin Zixuan said, rubbing his eyes as well – probably inspired by Wei Wuxian. Such things were communicative. “You must have been worried about him.”

“Oh, da-ge will be fine, I’m sure,” Nie Huaisang said blithely, and Lan Xichen suppressed the abrupt and overwhelming desire to punch him. “But I have nightmares sometimes, you know, and there’s no reason not to use medicine if it’s available, right?”

“Medicine?” Lan Wangji asked, voice intent, and Lan Xichen went from mild irritation to sadness at once: for Lan Wangji to ask such a thing, to show such weakness, the nightmares must be very bad indeed.

“Yes, my da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said. “He’s nightmare-proof.”

“I’m glad that that works for you,” Jiang Cheng said snippily. “Pity about the rest of us.”

Nie Huaisang frowned at him. “It’s not just me,” he said. “It’s just how he is. Don’t you know?”

Lan Xichen was going to intervene and settle them down – their tempers were all unduly short, given the nightmare situation, and he really didn’t want to have to deal with that before having to cope with the same from Nie Mingjue, whose temper was extremely short at the best of times – but then just as he was opening his mouth to say something he was suddenly hit by an overwhelming feeling of sudden calm, the same sort of pleasant languor that came in the early morning of a calm rest day where you didn’t need to get out of bed, or perhaps in a warm and lazy afternoon when you had nothing to do and were considering a nap.

It was amazing.

Lan Xichen could see the same effect taking hold of the others, too: Jin Zixuan let out a little sigh, Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji both rocked back a little on their heels, eyes sliding closed in pleasure, Wei Wuxian actually let out a near-audible whimper of relief –

And then Nie Mingjue walked into the command tent.

“Good morning,” he said. He looked as steady as always, a tall and unshakable mountain; his brow was creased in his usual expression of neutral ill-humor and one could arguably feel the heat of his always simmering temper, but at the moment it just felt like warmth. “It’s good to see you all.”

They all murmured greetings in return, watching as Nie Mingjue – and the aura of calm relaxation that, apparently, accompanied him – passed them by and went towards the table where they had laid out all their plans. Unconsciously, they followed after him, drifting in his wake, each of them edging closer to him without ever having made a decision on it; as the other sect leaders who were leading the war showed up, they did the same, and by the time the usual pleasantries had concluded and the meeting was about to start, Nie Mingjue could barely turn around without nearly bumping into someone who had drifted too close.

Lan Xichen really ought to tell them to stop – he was the courier, the connection between the sects, familiar with each and every one of them – but he found himself instead abusing his position and his history as Nie Mingjue’s old friend to finagle a place at his right side, just behind his shoulder, and just stood there, his eyes half-lidded as he basked in the feeling. It was a little like really good meditation, he thought, the type that centered you and grounded you, let you be steady and hold your ground, come what may.

As the general, Nie Mingjue opened the meeting, running through the usual updates – he was short and to the point as always, which invariably made these meetings run significantly better because after a start like that even the most long-winded and shameless of old men felt a bit constrained to keep their words within the realm of the reasonable. After he finished detailing their current positions, the Wen sect’s latest moves and his predictions on their next, certain counters he planned to use – all at a very high level of generality, of course, in the event of spies – Nie Mingjue looked around, frowning a little: they had been all listening with surprising quietude, not a single objection or comment among them the way there usually was.

“Is there any other business?” he asked.

One of the leaders of a smaller sect – Sect Leader Ouyang – visibly shook himself and coughed. “The…scourge?”

“Scourge?” Nie Mingjue scowled. “What scourge? Has there been a greater than usual resurgence of evil creatures? What type? Why was I not informed?”

Lan Xichen looked at his old friend as though seeing him for the first time, as though abruptly realizing that your old familiar pillow was in fact a wonderous treasured pearl to be held carefully in one’s hand.

“It’s dream-eaters,” Jiang Cheng said, sounding blank and surprised. “The sort that cause nightmares...you know the type, surely? Common enough and usually fairly harmless, but there’s a whole lot of them and they’re breeding faster than we can kill them – not unless we devote ourselves just to the task, which we can’t do. Has - has the Nie sect not suffered from this affliction?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, frowning, and he seemed oddly discomforted, the reason for which he immediately revealed: “In fact, I’ve never seen a dream-eater. They’re not common in Qinghe, I think.”

That was impossible, of course – dream-eaters were notorious for being a pest that could be found anywhere, no matter what the climate or terrain; it was a little like saying that your household had never known a rat.

Although, Lan Xichen supposed, one could see such a statement being made by the single household in the village possessed of a cat…

“That was one of the main reasons I wanted to have this meeting,” he said, clearing his throat. He had told most of the sect leaders that it would be on the agenda, but he hadn’t had time to meet with Nie Mingjue, nor had he needed to – as the general, Nie Mingjue’s presence was a necessity, and so Lan Xichen had known that he would be there and had assumed (incorrectly, it seemed) that he would obviously want to devote some time to the issue. “It has been a rise in the number of such creatures, and yet we cannot divert attention from our frontline. Surely there must be some solution?”

“If it’s so severe, then we could strike a balance,” Nie Mingjue said, looking relieved at the possibility of turning the discussion onto the practical. “Those sects in regions with less ongoing strife could send teams to other fronts specifically to aid in eliminating the dream-eaters –”

“How has Qinghe Nie not suffered from the affliction?” The person interrupting was one of the sect leaders affiliated with Lanling Jin, even though Jin Zixuan turned and glared death at him. “Whatever can be said about dream-eaters in Qinghe, Hejian certainly doesn’t lack them, or at least it never has before. If there is some means of resisting them, it ought to be shared.”

That particular sect leader had arrived late and was seated relatively far back; perhaps he was out of range of Nie Mingjue, and hadn’t noticed – or perhaps, and more likely, he was simply being obnoxious and looking for an opportunity to snatch up whatever talisman Nie Mingjue was using to relieve the effects of the dream-eaters for Lanling Jin’s benefit. As if they had some greater claim to it, when they were doing the least of the fighting..!

“I haven’t seen them,” Nie Mingjue said, his face black with annoyance that Lan Xichen knew was merely a cover for embarrassment. “Not even in Hejian.”

Nie Huaisang giggled behind his fan. “That’s not your fault, da-ge,” he said. “They run away when they see you coming. Isn’t that right, Xiaochun-shushu?”

Eyes turned to the man standing by Nie Mingjue’s side – one of the Nie sect commanders – who looked a little awkward to be put on the spot, shifting his weight and clearing his throat. “To the extent it has been an issue at any of our outposts, we usually ask the Sect Leader to check in on morale, which generally resolves the issue,” he said circumspectly, and Nie Mingjue looked minorly outraged at the suggestion that his entire sect apparently used him as a way to ward off a creature usually classified as a minor pest. Without telling him, no less.

“So the effect is not caused by a talisman or spiritual instrument?” Sect Leader Yao asked, looking disappointed. “Nothing that can be duplicated?”

“What effect?” Nie Mingjue asked.

“Perhaps we could ask Sect Leader Nie to visit some of the other territories?” another sect leader suggested.

“And risk Hejian? Don’t be ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng said, though he looked sorely tempted.

“What effect?” Nie Mingjue asked again.

“I wonder if the Wen sect is suffering to the extent we are,” Wei Wuxian said thoughtfully, spinning his flute in his hand. “We have some prisoners of war, don’t we? They might be inclined to share more information if they were a little more relaxed. Don’t you think?”

“Especially following a state of heightened distress,” Jin Zixuan said, nodding. “The relief will be much more pronounced, which could lower their defenses –”

“Maybe we could even get –”

“Xichen,” Nie Mingjue hissed in his ear as the debate began in earnest, each sect leader rushing forward to add in their views. “What are they talking about?”

Lan Xichen looked helplessly at Nie Huaisang who scuttled over. “It’s the dream-eaters, da-ge,” he said in an undertone. “Sustained exposure. People get tired, cranky, irritable; their cultivation is weakened, their focus impaired…they become simultaneously less sensitive to certain things, like social niceties, and more sensitive to other things. Like a feeling of steadiness and reliability.”

“…so?” Nie Mingjue said.

“So a lot of people are noticing for the first time that you’re very – uh – grounding.”

“Grounding,” Nie Mingjue said skeptically. “Like…a lightning rod?”

It wasn’t quite the metaphor Lan Xichen would have gone with.

“It’s always like this?” he asked Nie Huaisang, fascinated, and Nie Huaisang nodded. “Why didn’t I notice?”

“You probably noticed subconsciously?” Nie Huaisang guessed. “People like being around da-ge, even when they don’t like him. Anyway, you’re usually very steady yourself, Xichen-gege –” Nie Mingjue sighed at his brother’s rudeness. “– so you probably didn’t notice that you were feeling even more so. In our sect, you’ll find parents coming by to drop off their kids next to da-ge; they follow him like a flock of ducklings, it’s the only thing that keeps them quiet…”

“I thought they just liked watching me train?”

“I mean, they like that, too, da-ge, I’m sure. But mostly people just feel safe when you’re around.”

Safe. Yes, that was what it felt like, calm and safe and secure, like there was a rock-solid foundation to the world that nothing could tear down; like even if Nie Mingjue were at the end of his rope, he would still do everything he could not to let you down.

“It’s very nice,” Lan Xichen said.

Nie Mingjue was pinching the bridge of his nose. “Huaisang,” he said. “If this is such a common phenomenon, why didn’t anyone tell me about it?”

“To be honest, we were a little worried that it’d go away if anyone pointed it out to you,” Nie Huaisang said. “Apparently not. Good!”

“This is ridiculous. I’m a sect leader, a front-line fighter, a general…I can’t go traipsing around fighting dream-eaters. We have a war to fight!”

“People fight better if they can sleep,” Nie Huaisang said wisely, and Lan Xichen nodded in firm support. Lan Wanji had drifted over at some point and looked to now be sleeping standing up, which was practically an endorsement as well. “Anyway, I think the idea of gathering people up to go deal with the problem is a good one, and anyone who’s really desperate for a good night’s rest can trade over to fight in Hejian for a while. That’ll keep your forces fresh, encourage the circulation of people and the development of relationships between the various sects, and you’ll have the chance to get a good look at who’s actually competent or not while they fight directly under you.”

“Hmm, true,” Nie Mingjue said, and Lan Xichen had to agree – it wasn’t a bad idea at all. Maybe it was the fact that Nie Huaisang was the only one of them who’d gotten any sleep that had allowed him to be the one to suggest it.

“And of course, best of all, as long as our side is getting relief and the Wen sect isn’t…”

“Oh, all right,” Nie Mingjue said. “I still think this is ridiculous, and I’m having some difficulty believing that I really give off some sort of – sleep field, or whatever.”

“You do,” Lan Xichen said. “In fact, I may propose that we break up the meeting temporarily to allow everyone to take a brief nap.”

“We are not doing that,” Nie Mingjue said. “We’re not toddlers.”

“We should do that,” Lan Wangji said, opening his eyes.

Wei Wuxian’s head turned at the sound of Lan Wangji’s voice. “Do what?”

“Break up the meeting for everyone to take a nap and return with steadied nerves and calmer minds,” Nie Huaisang said.

“We should definitely do that,” Wei Wuxian said, and nudged Jiang Cheng. “Hey, Jiang Cheng, how do you feel about everyone in the room taking a nap before we continue discussing the war?”

“That is the best idea I’ve ever heard,” Jiang Cheng said.

“You’re not serious,” Nie Mingjue said. “You cannot be serious right now.”

“Oh, we are very serious,” Lan Xichen said, and cleared his throat, waving for people’s attention. “Everyone, in light of the scourge of dream-eaters we’ve all been struggling with over the past few weeks, I have a suggestion…”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #lan xichen #lan wangji #nie huaisang #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #dream-eaters #ebonykain

271 notes · View notes

fullmetalscullyy · 3 years

Text

royai week day 4 - communiqué

summary: roy has an announcement to make to everyone

rated: g | words: 2084 | tags: royai, post-canon, romance, marriage, marriage announcement, marriage of convenience, kinda? bc they just have~ to do it but it works out for them, basically royai using royai to further their agenda

read on ao3 | read on ffnet

“Good afternoon,” Roy greeted with confidence into the microphone atop the podium in front of him. Hundreds of pairs of eyes stared back expectantly, and while that should have been unnerving, his excitement at the upcoming announcement kept the feeling at bay. This communiqué had been a long time coming, crafted from years of subtle diversion, and playing a tactical game. Now, it was coming to fruition. It was all still part of their game, but Roy had a personal stake in this part of it too. It was still a win for both parties involved.

A huge personal win.

Up there, on the podium, he was completely exposed. While that was dangerous for someone like him with such high political standing, Roy trusted the eyes that were watching his back implicitly. He does not turn complacent, but is more than confident in their abilities. He trusts each and every one of his subordinates to ensure the day goes well and without incident.

“Today’s announcement,” Roy continued, “will hopefully put to rest any fears you may have had regarding me assuming the role of your leader. Fuhrer Grumman has led this country exceptionally well over the last five years but feels ready to step down. As you all know, I have been named his successor and will make a promise to you all now, this country’s citizens, that I will do my utmost to ensure I do my best by you.”

There was a pleased applause after he finished, accompanied by a quiet murmur.

He meant every word, but that was not the reason Roy had taken the stage that day.

“I would also like you to know that I’ve heard the rumours surrounding me,” he smirked, letting his gaze sweep across the crowd before him. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed how this had piqued the interest of those in the audience with the various media outlets. Their ears perked up at the mention of rumours, understandably. “I am aware of the public’s opinion on a bachelor like myself being given the title of Fuhrer. However, I have come here today to offer my reassurances.”

Some people in the crowd turn to one another, momentarily confused by what he’s saying. Roy smirked to himself, thinking of his own private joke before he opened his mouth to finally reveal to the world something he has wanted to for over two decades.

“As you can imagine, this will be a busy transition period for us, so I hope you will extend your respect, as well as privacy, to both myself and my new fiancé as we navigate this new chapter in our lives. I can assure you though, an official date for my upcoming wedding will be announced soon.”

It was like the crowd had frozen. A few jaws went slack, and mouths parted in shock as they processed the news faster than others.

“More news will come in due time. Thank you.”

With a simple bow of his head, Roy stepped back from the microphone and turned to look at the stunned officials up there with him. Breda and Havoc approached, nonplussed by the news, and started to escort him off the stage.

There was a split second where the world was completely still, as everyone was still processing what he’d just announced. Then, everything felt like it exploded. The crowd erupted into applause and cheers. Cameras flashed in desperation to capture the moment that Roy Mustang, the most eligible bachelor in Amestris and a well-known womaniser in his younger years, announced he was engaged, and his wedding would be announced soon.

Roy can hear some of the questions being yelled by the reporters.

“Who are you due to marry?”

“What’s her name?”

“General Mustang! When did this happen?”

He ignored them all, for all would be revealed in due time. It was enough for now that it had been announced. Roy never planned on revealing anything else other than that today anyway. He would have loved to. He can’t wait for the day he can finally give the order to give the announcement, but he must hold off. The mystery will drum up interest in their favour. It will draw eyes to them and get people talking. No other Fuhrer had caused quite as much a stir as he had, and Roy wasn’t even officially in office yet. He was popular and well liked among the masses. Not as much as the Fullmetal Alchemist, the alchemist of the people, but Roy’s work over the years had built up a perfectly crafted reputation for him. It played well into his plans.

A womaniser who announces he’s settling down with someone who is a complete mystery. It was interesting news. Especially for the imminent ruler of the country.

The public ate it up, desperate to know. Out the corner of his eye he could already see heads bowed together in excitement as they gossiped about the news while Roy walked off the stage.

He was led by his security team into a private room within the building behind them. Havoc gave him a quick nod in response to his order, reaching for the door handle and pulling it closed behind him. Breda was down the hall, already speaking into microphone after microphone in order to soothe public relations about the surprise announcement. Poor guy, but he did volunteer. Having Breda assure them, but give nothing away, would only cause more intrigue. If Roy went out there and spoke to them all, they’d never let him leave.

His shoulder slumped now he was away from prying eyes. Not with fatigue, but just to relax. The initial phase had finally started, and his plans were set in motion. While he did have a personal stake in this and was more than happy to go along with it, it could certainly be draining. But then again, nothing had ever been simple between them.

The door opened as he was pouring himself a glass of water. He reached for a second glass and smirked, not turning around because he knew who it was who’d entered. His order to Havoc was to permit only one person entrance to the room.

“Did you really have to do it so dramatically?”

There was a grin on his face as he turned on the spot, coming face to face with his fiancé. Well, according to the country, she was still his fiancé. Nobody, except from them and his team, was aware that they were already married, and had been so for a while. While touring Aerugo last month they’d taken a clandestine trip to one of the islands off the coast to the south. It was just the two of them, the team, and his mother in attendance. Gracia had made the trip, and so had Edward and Alphonse, along with their respective families. Everyone who mattered most to Roy was there to witness them come together as a couple.

Marriage was not the be all and end all for him and Riza. They already knew where they stood with each other and what their relationship was. They had done so for years, and the ring that nestled comfortably on the end of his dog tags proved that. The legal document was just a formality at this point and given his current position as leader of the country, it would be necessary. So, they’d compromised. A private, personal ceremony for them to do things their way, exchanging the rings they’d already given each other years ago. The grand wedding that was yet to come was for the masses, not for them. Once the official ceremony happened, he would move the ring onto his ring finger where it had always belonged and where he’d always wanted to wear it.

Riza’s lifted one eyebrow expectantly, awaiting his answer.

“They expect a show,” he shrugged, “so I’m going to give it to them.”

“So, our official wedding is just a show,” she deadpanned.

His expression softened at her light teasing. “Our official wedding has already happened,” he reminded her. “In case you had forgotten, we are already legally married.”

“I hadn’t,” she placated as she approached him, “but you need to stop talking about it so openly. You were the one who suggested keeping it a secret, and the walls have ears,” she replied cryptically. Once close enough, she brushed a piece of invisible lint off his immaculate uniform and his shoulder tingled where she’d ran her hand over it.

“Let them listen,” he shrugged again. Roy lifted a hand to rest upon her hip as he grasped one of hers, lifting them both to rest between their bodies. He bent his head forward and kissed the backs of her knuckles, a small, fond smile playing on his lips. “It doesn’t matter now that our news is out.”

“Part of the news is out,” she reminded him. “You were quite adamant about only revealing some of the truth so early on,” Riza smirked. “It will be a busy transition period for us, after all,” she quoted back to him with mock sympathy.

His eyes rolled fondly.

“So,” she continued, extracting her hand from his and taking a step backward to put some distance between them. Roy felt like a petulant child, pouting at her actions. “We must keep up pretences and give ourselves the time and space we need to adapt to our new circumstances and navigate through it.”

“You’re no fun,” he complained, his tone nearly a playful whine.

“I know, dear,” she replied, sounding like she didn’t particularly care he felt that way. Roy was only joking though, of course.

“How did it look from up there?”

Riza’s perch had been on the roof of the building behind him, on the lookout for anyone who may wish harm upon him, along with her own elite security team.

She snorted lightly. “I will admit, it was entertaining to see the looks on their faces.”

“They were very surprised,” he chuckled, pleased with himself.

“It’s never a dull moment with you.”

“I would hope not because you’re stuck with me now, fiancé,” he grinned.

“Unfortunately,” she deadpanned quietly. When he scowled at her, she laughed loudly, her smile reaching her eyes.

For a moment, Roy is enraptured by her beauty. Her grin lit up his whole world and the sound of her laughter pulled at the stings of his heart pleasantly.

He is married to this woman, he thought to himself, and still couldn’t quite believe it.

After so long… After so many years of ignoring feelings and holding back – or trying to – now he didn’t have to.

Although it was his plan to delay the information given, he really wished it wasn’t. He wanted to go back out there and tell everyone how much he loved and cherished this woman before him.

All in due time. And the pay off when that day finally comes will be so worth it.

They’ve both waited for so long. Roy could stick it out for a few more days. What was more important was holding this woman close and loving her so freely like he has always wanted, and Roy planned to do just that.

Riza smirked and didn’t shrug him off as Roy wrapped his arms tightly around her frame. He pulled her close and kissed her, trying to convey just how much he loved her with one kiss alone. She hummed against his lips pleasantly as her arms lifted to loop around his neck. One hand slowly, tantalisingly, trailed up the back of his neck, making him shudder. She noticed and grinned against him. When her nails scratched lightly against his scalp and Roy groaned, Riza’s smile widened. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. She could play him like a fiddle, but Roy didn’t mind at all. There’s no way he was going to stop her ministrations when they felt so good.

“I love you,” he breathed. His chest heaved with his breath and the words almost got stuck in his throat, both from the emotions overwhelming him and their passionate kiss.

“Love you too, Roy.” When she pulled away to look at him, Roy didn’t let her move far. Their noses were almost touching but he could see her expression soften. She looked so happy and content. So in love. Which was exactly how he felt too.

They both couldn’t wait to start this new chapter in their lives together.

#royaiweek21 #royai #royai fic #royai fanfic #royai oneshot #emma writes

43 notes · View notes

thebountyfucker · 3 years

Text

Kyuzo/Phatrong Headcanon Masterpost

I created a post similar to this on my main blog @kyuzan-queen years ago and wanted to give it a refresh!

Included in this post:

Kyuzan biology (does include NSFW elements) Culture: Clothing, Music/Art, Religion, Familial culture, Politics, and life of Phatrong

Kyuzoni biology:

The Kyuzo are an omnivorous (carnivorous-leaning) reptilian species. They sport a mouthful of sharp fangs and a long tongue. While they are reptilian, they are warm blooded and do not lay eggs. Because of Phatrong's inconsistent weather, Kyuzo evolved to be able to maintain and regulate their own body temperatures. Their bodies can accept a shift in temperature of about 20 degrees Fahrenheit before it starts to affect them. They, like cold-blooded reptiles, do enjoy sunning/basking. It's good for their mental health and other bodily processes!

Kyuzos also evolved to carry pregnancies and give live births, also because of the weather. The process of Kyuzan pregnancy is awkward and painful, though, and mortality rates for mothers are quite high.

Kyuzo skin is rough, but not scaly like Trandoshans. Skin colors can range anywhere from green, to yellow, to blue and in between. However, those who are purely yellow or blue have a common pigmentation disorder. Their health is not negatively affected because of this, although people might treat them differently depending on where they live.

All Phatrongi Kyuzo are born with honeycomb eyes, that can be any color. Their eyes tend to glow in the dark, and they can see in the dark better than most humanoids.

Other than having slightly wider hips, cis females are very similar to cis males. Cis females do not have breasts or any noticeable secondary sex traits. While cis males tend to be a bit taller and wider framed, its not uncommon for cis females to have those traits, and vice versa. Intersex Kyuzo are common. Gender is very fluid among the Kyuzo, as parents tend to raise their children without a defined gender; when the child is of age, they get to decided what their gender is. Thus, being trans or nonbinary is prevalent.

The Kyuzo can be up to 7′6″ tall, with most falling in the 6′ to 6′6″ range. They tend to have larger frames than humans but are considerably more agile.

The weakest part of the Kyuzo is their lungs; if there is too much moisture in the air, they can easily contract pneumonia. Too little oxygen in the air and they’ll suffocate. Thus the reason they wear masks off planet.

Kyuzo, beyond that, are an incredibly hearty species that can live upward of three hundred years. After reaching sexual maturity at around young adulthood, their aging slows down. Whatever kills them before old age is usually attributed to their lungs or more physical means. They can contract other diseases, but they are usually nonfatal. Usually.

They have an amazing amount of stamina and can run at speeds that are hard for most humanoids to attain. They, unfortunately, have high pain tolerances and a hard time receiving fatigue messages to the brain, and this generally spells out problems. Kyuzos have been known to run themselves to death - literally. It’s not uncommon for families to find the bodies of missing members hundreds of miles away from where they were last seen. They have to make a very conscious effort to stop, or they won’t.

Kyuzo are much stronger than other humanoids, and can jump higher. Most outsiders confuse them as force sensitives for this reason. Kyuzos can be Force-sensitive, but it's rare to find Kyuzo Jedi.

Kyuzan cocks are long, with a tapered head. Most cocks have ridges or nodes on the top that would expand when inside a Kyuzan pussy. These nodes would help to anchor the cock inside. However, when fucking a near-human, these nodes/ridges tend to only work as extra sensation against the g-spot and a-spot.

Culture:

Clothing:

Most feminine presenting Kyuzo wear headwraps/headdresses. Other than displaying wealth and covering cold heads, there isn’t much of a reason that they wear the headdresses. It’s not required, but most feminine presenting people wear them because they grew up seeing other feminine presenting people wearing them. If one is wealthy, their headdresses will tend to be large and elaborate; it’s not uncommon for one to wear a headdress that is pounds upon pounds of metals, jewels, and cloth. Poorer feminine presenting people generally just wear cloth, or nothing at all.

Kyuzoni clothing is colorful and flowy; people wear very similar clothing, no matter what gender they are. Dresses and skirts are very common, and people will generally go topless. While most colors are okay to use, there are certain colors that are not used in everyday clothing, such as purple, light blue, gold, and white; the Kyuzo place sacred meaning in some colors, so they are only supposed to be used for special events.

Phatrong’s army/police force wear loose, non-restricting clothing with a leather-like armor covering their chests. Their family’s crest is painted upon the armor, in case that the warrior is killed in action. Their clothing is trimmed in gold, which represents bravery and wisdom.

Light blue cloth, specifically headwraps or shirts, signify that a wedding is approaching. Purple is a wedding color, as it signifies prosperity and commitment; wedding clothes are trimmed with silver. White is only used for funerals or births, as it signifies both death and the innocence of new life.

Music/Art:

Music on Phatrong generally revolves around stringed instruments and percussion instruments; they don’t generally listen to music for leisure. Music is only played at festivals, and generally tells the stories of ancient heroes and gods. The Kyuzo also create dances to these story-songs, to make things more dramatic.

Art varies around Phatrong. By the oceans, it’s mostly glass-work like beads and giant stained glass windows. Those Kyuzo that live by the rivers create pottery. Richer families will paint large murals that will cover the walls of their homes. These murals tell tales of their gods, but more often than not they are used almost like photographs that capture small moments in the lives of the family. Jewelry making is also common.

Religion:

The Kyuzo believe in a polytheistic system; the most prominent goddess is Vohaoya (Vo-ha-oy-ah), the mother of the gods and creator of worlds. She represents women, fertility, life, and nature; she is described as having a mostly Kyuzoni appearance, with three eyes and four arms. Often, she is shown in art or statues sitting cross-legged, cradling Phatrong in her lap; her arms are either pointing toward the sky, or she is making gestures with her hands. Her bottom arms are often portrayed as laying flat against her legs with palms upturned - this relays openness. Her left top arm is often resting on the planet, which portrays her protective nature. And her right top arm is often pointed upward, her pointer finger curling in toward her palm while the rest of her fingers are outstretched; this is a symbol of love for the Kyuzo. Her statues are mostly made out of gold, but are painted with the likeness of galaxies; some people swear that the stars shift in the right light.

Other more minor deities include Ixpi, the goddess of peace, and her brother Echting, the god of war. Because the Kyuzo like to believe that they are a peaceful race, Echting is often described as a villain. Ixpi is described as a small, rainbow-colored being that floats rather than walks; besides being the goddess of peace, she is also a patron of happiness, sunrise, and the LGBT community on Phatrong. Echting is also the god of destruction, mayhem, and storms; he is often described as a fiery being too bright to look at. He is surrounded by lightning and is easily angered.

There are temples, wherein these gods can be worshipped. The temples are all large and ornate, made usually of marble or wood. The temples for Vohaoya and Ixpi are run exclusively by priestesses, and though men can worship there, men cannot serve the goddesses. Men can work at the temples of Echting, but not many do, given the god's bad reputation.

Legend has it that Vohaoya created the Warriors of old to protect the gods from those that wished to harm them. They were created from the rich soil, and they were considered divine beings. In the modern era of Phatrong, it is still considered one of the highest honors to be a Warrior.

Life on Phatrong:

The Kyuzo tend to live in large villages or the few small cities around the planet; those who are born into the more obscure villages often never leave the villages.

Villages are generally comprised of thousands of people, all of which are extended family members. Separate families can have more than twenty-five members, all living in one house. Villagers take turns tending to the communal farm, which produces most of their food and fibers for clothing; to supplement the farm, they also forage, hunt, and fish.

Village born Kyuzo are very secluded, only working with neighboring villages to marry off their children. Because of their seclusion, they are the more suspicious and less educated than their city counterparts. Knowledge is passed down through the generations as those born in the villages don’t have access to teachers. At most, they know Kyuzoni and basic math: they are instead taught more practical skills, like sewing, cooking, cleaning, and animal husbandry.

There are two ‘real’ cities on Phatrong, Shutalo and Shouji; Shutalo (Shoo-tah-loh) is the capital city, to the north. Shouji (Show-zhee) is a large industrial city in the southern hemisphere. Any outside trade is limited to these two areas.

Kyuzo that live in the city tend to have smaller families, with about six members at the most. The Kyuzo in the cities have actual jobs, but they don’t make money; they are given items of use instead. (Think of bartering, almost. If they work at a textile store, they are given cloth, which can then be traded for food, etc.) Villages that have produced too much food or are in need of other items will sell food to the city folk.

City Kyuzo have better access to education, although it’s still not the best in the galaxy. Most city Kyuzo learn things like writing, higher levels of math, and an objective look on the planet’s history. Kyuzo that wish to learn beyond that must travel off planet.

It’s extremely difficult for Kyuzos to speak Basic, just because Kyuzoni and Basic are so different. It can take years and years just to get the verbal language down, and that doesn’t count how long it takes for them to learn to read Aurebesh. If the Kyuzo do manage to figure out how to speak Basic, they have thick accents that are often hard to understand, thus making them vulnerable to mockery.

Politics:

Politics on Phatrong are strange as the government actually doesn’t do much. The senate, located in Shutalo, is a group of Kyuzo (and a few Kataline) from various villages and cities that are there to set basic laws so that they can have a seat in the Council of Neutral Systems. Really, the various villages will set their own rules, and as long as it doesn’t interfere with the senate, they’re generally alright with it. (A law would include: Murder is punishable by death. But their definition of murder is loose and up to interpretation.)

Kyuzo children (generally young men but it’s not limited to males) learn to fight from the moment they can understand. The Kyuzo, although a generally ‘peaceful’ race, train their children to become a quasi-army/police force. The most promising fighters are then shipped off to various academies around Phatrong to train with masters to hone their skills. Many children, as a result of poor quality of life at the academies and dangerous fighting practices, end up dying. It is rare that the academies are punished. The children that make it then must complete a three-year stint as an active warrior; those who passed but are not necessarily promising are sent to protect sacred temples. Those who show a certain level of finesse can continue to climb the ranks until they are high-ranking military officials. They act more like a police force than a military, but they have the training just in case.

Marriage and Family Life:

Kyuzo children are often promised to each other at birth; throughout their childhoods, they get to meet and connect with their betrothed. They generally marry at eighteen, with a week-long festival preceding it. Certain wives -ones that are ordained from birth by priestesses- are considered sacred embodiments of the Goddess Vohaoya, and are limited to bearing five children; superstition says that having too many children will thin out the wife’s existence. Daughters are vitally important to carry on their mother’s bloodline.

Because Kyuzo value large family, a husband will take a wetzandi as well; a wetzandi, or birth maid, is a younger woman who births the rest of a man’s children. A wetzandi is someone who is generally caught bedding out of wedlock, or has committed some other small crime against the goddesses. Unfortunately, they are not valued by most, and are treated as little more than breeding stock.

#most of this is old stuff but there is so new info here!#kyuzo #my headcanons #iri headcanons #star wars #star wars headcanons

15 notes · View notes

warrioreowynofrohan · 4 years

Text

Headcanons - Maeglin

I suppose after my last post I might as well put this together. I would prefer it in the form of a post-canon fic, specifically a very uncomfortable conversation/confession between Maeglin and Tuor and Idril in (or more specifically, directly off the coast of) Valinor, but it’s not like the chances of that ever coming together are very high.

I go with what The Silmarillion says: that Maeglin did desire Idril and hate Tuor, and that that was a contributing factor in his betrayal of Gondolin to Morgoth; and that fear was also an element in it but, since the narrative says he isn’t a coward, the fear was not specifically of physical torture.

Additionally, because active and knowing collaboration with Morgoth is something otherwise unknown among the elves, by the time he came to the Halls Maeglin’s soul was, in effect, a orc. (This likewise applies to various of the Fëanorians, but somewhat less obviously visibly. They can still lie to themselves about what they are. Maeglin can’t. In some ways that gives him a better possibility of changing. Going by Celegorm’s clear hatred of Dior, it’s evident that he’s managed to rationalize himself as somehow the victim of the whole course of events in the Leithian and is pretty determinedly locked into that perspective of seeing himself as the wronged part rather than as one who did anything wrong. Whereas it’s nigh impossible for Maeglin to look at the product of his decisions and go yes, that went well; it is now patently obvious that Morgoth was never going to keep any agreement.)

So here is Maeglin’s story, featuring a scary and manipulative Morgoth.

He is captured and brought before Morgoth, and Morgoth does not torture him. Instead, Morgoth shows him visions of all that his curse did to Túrin and his family, the endless destruction of all that Túrin cared for, strove for, or sought to achieve or protect. And he says, “I have no intention of killing you. I will let you go, and I will do this to you. Your city, your friends, the woman you love, your reputation, all will be destroyed. It does not matter if you deny me; everyone will still think you betrayed the city, and loathe you. I have my own ways of finding things out. The city has no chance.” And he shows Maeglin the power of Angband, and last of all shows him the winged dragons, which could easily fly over the mountains looking for a hidden city. Morgoth’s not ready to reveal them outside Angband yet, but Maeglin doesn’t know that.

And then Morgoth says, “If you refuse me, the city will still fall, and every one of them will blame you. But, if you reveal it to me, I will spare you, and the king’s daughter, and some others that you may choose, and you may rule them. But I claim the life of the king, and of the would-be prophet; that must be your sacrifice.” And the last line twists the knife excellently, because Maeglin genuinely loves Turgon as a father, but he has no objection at all to Tuor’s death or capture by Morgoth; that’s a feature, not a bug, and Morgoth knows it.

So Maeglin’s fall to temptation proceeds from two things. First, given the choice between doing right and being percieved by all as having done evil, and doing evil but being percieved as good, he chooses is the latter. [Is this partly inspired by Plato’s discussion of that concept in The Republic - the just man seen as unjust or the unjust man seen as just? A bit.] Second, the same cause as Anakin’s fall in the Star Wars prequels: valuing one’s ability to possess a desired person rather than valuing that person’s own beliefs, convictions, and desires. Idril would never wish to preserve her life at the cost of Gondolin, and would (and does) despise Maeglin for seeking to make such a choice on her behalf. Padmé would never wish to preserve her own life at the cost of the Republic, or of the lives of innocents, or of Anakin’s soul. But the men who desire them are seeing them not as individuals with meaningful choices, but as treasured objects to be clung to at all costs. (Obviously, the lack of reciprocation in Maeglin—>Idril is one of the things that makes it worse than Anakin/Padme.)

So Maeglin agrees to Morgoth’s terms, and betrays Gondolin. And having made that agreement, he has given Morgoth an inroad into his soul. His thoughts, his desires, his choices, are all more susceptible to corruption than they would otherwise be. Over the following years, he has intermittent doubts and regrets about his choice, but he can’t break away. It’s not impossible - he could - but only if he could bring himself banish all selfishness, to care solely about saving what can be saved of Gondolin, and not at all about the consequences to himself or what anyone would think of him. And he can’t muster that kind of purse sense of purpose. The way he descibes it in this conversation is as if an indolent man, without any prior exercise, set out to climb a mountain; unpractised and unready, he would be unable to muster the physucal strength to do it. Maeglin lacks moral exercise; he did not cultivate the needed qualities when he had the chance; he did not seek to restrain his negative impulses (desire for Idril, though she is a married woman with no interest in him; hatred for Tuor, though he has done nothing to deserve it); and now, when he needs that strength, he lacks it.

And the more the years go by, the more Morgoth’s power creeps into his spirit. (Do you know, Maeglin asks, what it is to feel you soul rot within you?) By the time the city falls, he retains little beyond his worst impulses: desire for Idril, and hatred for anything other than himself that she might love.

At this point in the post-canon confession/conversation, Maeglin turns to Tuor and Idril in turn. Thank you, he says to Tuor. Thank you for ending it. And to Idril: Thank you for saving what could be saved from my treachery.

And Tuor asks: What do you think would have happened, if you had lived?

Maeglin: He would have taken me, and completed in body what he had already achieved in spirit.

Tuor: You think he would have....would have made you an orc?

Maeglin: In the Halls of Mandos, the fëa, shorn of flesh, can no longer disguise itself. In every way that mattered, I already was.

The conversation goes beyond there, in bits and pieces, and Maeglin explains the nature of his recivery from orc-ness in the Halls, and they reach a form of reconciliation, but the part I describe is the part I’ve envisioned most clearly.

A bit of my other headcanon around post-Mandos Maeglin is that he is deeply, deeply uncomfortable around the Valar and Maiar, which tends to manifest in abrasiveness and apparent lack of respect about/towards them. After all, he hasn’t lived among them as the Noldor did; the only Vala he’s ever met is Morgoth, and that didn’t go well; and on top of that, he’s traitor; so the Valar flat-out terrify him, and since that makes him feel like a coward - which he already regards himself as - he compensates with some hostility towards them. He can’t offer anything like an apology to them because of the standing question (unresolved even in Maeglin’s mind) as to whether such an apology would be out of genuine contrition or abject terror. The Valar largely understand this and are willing to give him time and space, but some Gondolindrim (Ecthelion, particularly), take it as insolence and an indication that he’s not sincerely repentant.

The above conversation with Idril and Tuor takes place entirely upon boats, which only adds to Maeglin’s discomfort, since he’s particularly scared of Ulmo (as patron of Gondolin, Ulmo has particular reason to be displeased with him).

Okay, one final headcanon. Maeglin is literally the only person who Eärendil dislikes. This makes Eärendil very uncomfortable, as he’s not accustomed to disliking people. He doesn’t wish any harm to Maeglin, he wishes him well, but he would vastly prefer that Maeglin could have that good life somewhere with no reference or proximity whatsoever to Eärendil. Since Idril and Tuor’s situation and typical location is...peculiar, Eärendil is the one who - with great misgivings - arranges for Maeglin to have the opportunity to talk to them.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #maeglin #idril #tuor #gondolin #redemption #morgoth

99 notes · View notes

dramaticsnakes · 4 years

Text

How two exasperated doctors adopted three robots

Characters: Janus, Logan, Virgil, Patton, and Roman

Warnings: Gunshots and cursing, but I think that’s it. Let me know if I missed something!

Summary:

After being hired at the Neo-mechanical Engineering and Research Facility, Dr. Janus Dedrick began noticing some suspicious things going on there. He decided to take matters into his own hands, and look into it.

Meanwhile, Janus' frustrating colleague Dr. Logan Croft, had apparently gotten the same idea.

A victorian steampunk fantasy scientists and robots AU.

Word count: 7358

A sincere thank you to @rainbowbutterfrosting on tumblr for beta-reading this fic! It means the world to me.

Read on AO3

Janus Dedrick often considered himself quite brilliant. He had more than one doctorate to prove it, even if such titles couldn’t always be considered truthful. They could either prove that you’d worked hard or that you merely had the money to spare, so that wasn’t what made Janus consider himself brilliant. Neither was his position at the Neo-mechanical Engineering and Research Facility. A Facility that was among the first to attempt to figure out how to utilize the previously inaccessible “magic” (as it had been unprofessionally dubbed thus far). His confidence was hardly linked to a title such as “Dr. Dedrick”. According to Janus, his brilliance shined the most when he was doing things entirely on his own accord.

Such as, breaking into the Neo-mechanical Engineering and Research Facility at 1am on a Saturday.

One might wonder what Dr. Janus Dedrick was doing, elegantly flipping switches he wasn’t supposed to flip, and walking through passages that were clearly locked away for a reason. It was quite simple really. Janus wanted to figure out what said reason was. Just because Janus worked at the Facility didn’t mean he had access to any and all knowledge about it, and Janus simply intended to change that. Really, was hiding information from the public not enough? If the Facility didn’t intend to make scientists and engineers curious, perhaps they shouldn’t have a gate practically labelled ‘prohibited’ that led to a closed off section of the Facility, which hardly anyone was allowed to enter. They were practically begging for a tactical break-in.

So that was what Janus was doing. In the weeks leading up to it, he’d left skilful remarks, and made sure his duties led him to the right offices. He’d opened a few drawers and lockers, using his fashion-choice of constantly wearing gloves to his advantage. It wasn’t even that difficult, and his suspicions only grew with each new discovery. The fact that there was a prohibited area wasn’t the only weird thing going on. There were blueprints that contradicted each other in strange ways, parts that hadn’t been delivered on time, and multiple other minor inconsistencies. Janus could respect things being kept close to one’s chest, but he also respected anyone intelligent enough to uncover what was being deliberately hidden from them.

Janus heard the final lock click and the steel gears turned on the door. The passage that opened was dark. There were no windows in sight, and even if there were, it was as previously stated, 1am. Janus riffled through the pockets on his vest underneath his cape that he wore in the cold. He got a hold of a box of matches and struck one. He lit the oil lamp in his other hand, which illuminated a small area. Not enough to see everything ahead of him, but enough to ensure that he didn’t easily step on anything vital (or trip, harming himself, who was also a rather vital asset).

His steps echoed down the hall. He noticed a few paintings on the walls, that he hadn’t seen before. There were other paintings in the Facility, but these were different. Made by a different painter perhaps? Some depicted various mechanics, and one or two were of people Janus had seen around the Facility at times but hadn’t had much to do with. He wondered if they worked in this part of the Facility sometimes. What had they done to gain access there? Janus wasn’t certain if he was bitter or excited to see what it was the Facility was attempting to hide. You wouldn’t have this level of security for a couple of unimportant documents or employee files.

The room expanded the further Janus made it. While Janus couldn’t see the entirety of it, he became increasingly aware of just how big the room was. The light was reflected from the surface of a machine, that was several feet taller than Janus. He put the oil lamp a bit closer to it, to get a good look at the switches and buttons. There was a brass panel on it, that didn’t seem too complicated to figure out.

Then Janus heard steps from a door on a different side of the machine. Damn. Who the hell would be there at this hour? Janus scanned the room for a good place to hide, but quickly realized that it was too late.

A man walked around the machine, and locked eyes with Janus. The man wore a black vest with a dark blue necktie. At first Janus was frightened, fearing that his otherwise rather ingenious plan had been found out, but once Janus had a good look at the man, his expression faltered with exasperation. The man had a pair of glasses and a confused look that made Janus’ blood boil.

“What the hell?” Janus said, because really it made no sense.

The man tilted his head slightly and looked Janus up and down. “Dr. Dedrick? To the best of my knowledge you are not allowed in here.”

Janus clenched his fists, but then his expression turned smug. “To the best of my knowledge, neither are you, Dr. Croft.”

Dr. Logan Croft was an agitating individual, who unfortunately happened to be Janus’ colleague. He was hired a few months after Janus and had almost immediately earned a promotion through reputation alone. He was known as a prodigy, who had always passed at the top of his class. Even if his family hadn’t had any sort of formal education previously, Logan had apparently against all odds made it to one of the most esteemed universities. Impressive sure, but it wasn’t as if Janus hadn’t done just as much, if not more. At least Logan Croft hadn’t had to change his name in the process.

The two had many overlapping fields of expertise, which could either result in a wonderful friendship or a bitter rivalry. In this case, the latter was more prominent. Logan’s entire demeanour and the way he was always so hung up on rules and the law annoyed Janus to no end.

Logan adjusted his glasses. “That is correct.”

So why, of all people on this godforsaken planet, was Dr. Logan Croft in the prohibited part of the Facility? Janus huffed with amused disbelief. “If you are here without permission, surely there is no reason for you to condemn me for doing the same?”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t condemning anyone. I was simply wondering what you’re doing here.” he sighed, “Though I wouldn’t consider myself surprised.”

Janus gasped and placed one hand on his chest, taking mock offense. “And why is that, dear doctor?”

“You have a history of doing things you shouldn’t be doing.” Logan said matter-of-factly.

Janus grinned. “Ah, but it’s only truly wrong if anyone of importance notices.”

Logan huffed. “I noticed.”

“Anyone of importance.” Janus repeated, but Logan didn’t react with enough annoyance for it to be satisfying. Janus gestured towards Logan with his free hand. “Though that doesn’t answer why you are here. It seems uncharacteristic of you.”

At this, Logan looked at the floor, and led his hand through his hair. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then locked eyes with Janus again. “I believe I’ve made a discovery.”

“And what might that be?” Janus asked with a silky tone, though the spite was clear underneath it.

“It doesn’t concern you unless I find adequate proof.”

Janus furrowed his eyebrows and chuckled with disbelief. “With all due respect, Dr. Croft, I don’t think hiding your intentions at this point will be easy for you.”

The ‘for you’ was added to provoke some form of anger, and judging by Logan’s clenched fists at the words, Janus succeeded. “And what are your intentions, Dr. Dedrick?”

“I asked first.”

“No, you did not.”

“You simply said, you were wondering what I was doing here. You never asked the question.” Janus said, adjusting his bowler hat.

Logan gave an exasperated sigh. “I suppose that is technically correct.” Janus looked at Logan’s barely illuminated face with amused anticipation. Logan looked at Janus with a serious expression. “I have had my suspicions that the Facility has been hiding something for a while.”

“Is that so?”

“After looking through some blueprints and files, I’ve noticed that there are… Patterns of inconsistencies if you can say it like that.”

Janus didn’t say anything for a few moments. He wasn’t sure what he found funnier and more ironic. The fact that Logan was there for the exact same reason as him, the fact that Logan thought he knew more, or the fact that Logan had apparently also looked at files they weren’t allowed to look at. “Such as the delayed magitoite delivery?” Janus said almost emotionlessly.

Logan turned his head towards Janus. His mouth was gaping slightly. “And the box of 20 teeth gears.”

Janus smiled wryly. “Not to mention the blueprint detailing the components of a hypothetical robotic arm.”

Logan looked a sceptical for a bit, and Janus hoped that it meant he’d learned something Logan hadn’t. Logan continued. “There was a file that talked about a use of magitoite I haven’t seen anyone in the Facility attempting yet.”

Ah. Janus didn’t know that. He tried to think of something to say to have the last word but couldn’t think of anything he could express in that moment.

Logan moved some hair away from his eyes. His expression was nearly unreadable. “So, you’ve been conducting your own investigation?”

“I have.” Janus replied.

The two men stared at each other in silence for a few breaths. Logan looked thoughtful, and Janus didn’t like the sight. Why did he have to run into Logan Croft? At least it would’ve been a little exciting to explain himself to someone with authority, instead of this pretentious idiot. The thought that Logan had been looking into the same matters as Janus made him want to scream. “I have a proposition.” Logan said

“Yes?”

“Instead of getting in each other’s way, I let you follow me on my investigation.” Logan said.

Janus clenched his fist and groaned. “Oh, how generous of you.” he said sarcastically.

“Thank you.” Logan said, nonchalantly.

Janus sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to attempt to explain what I’ve learned so far to you, then.”

Logan huffed. “Guess I will too.”

Janus tutted. “Unfortunate.”

“Indeed.”

Logan turned his head towards the machine in the room. “What is this?”

Janus looked at the machine and at the mechanics on it. As he looked around the room, he saw the hint of a pipe and some wires that led towards the other end of the room. “It appears to be connected to something. Perhaps some sort of opening mechanism?”

“Do you know how it functions?” Logan asked.

“I haven’t had the chance to l-“

“Never mind I’ve got it.” Logan said, barely acknowledging Janus’ words. He flicked a switch and pushed a button. The machine made some noises, that sounded like bits of metal grinding against one another, and steam came out of an opening on the left. There was the sound of some type of gate moving upwards, further into the room.

Janus groaned. “I could’ve figured that out as well.”

“But you did not.” Logan said, and while it seemed indifferent, Janus didn’t miss the sly look in his eyes.

Janus and Logan continued down the passage with an oil lamp each. On the way, they recounted their discoveries. Most of the time they finished each other’s sentences, unfortunately having discovered nearly the same thing, though Janus savoured each time he knew something Logan didn’t.

Click

“What’s that noise?” Janus asked, stopping in his tracks, holding up one arm with concern and confusion.

“It was a click.” Logan replied.

Janus rolled his eyes and looked at the other. “Oh, I definitely didn’t realize that. But where did it come from?”

“Well, it could’ve been a few things. There are plenty of technologies in-“

Logan never got to finish the sentence, as a bullet flew past them after a quick and sudden ‘bang’. It dashed into the wall beside them, leaving a smoking hole in the metal. Janus’ eyes widened, and he saw that Logan nearly dropped his oil lamp in surprise. As soon as Janus heard another ‘click’, he scanned the area. He noticed another bullet flying towards them. Towards Logan specifically.

“Get down!” he yelled and gave Logan’s sleeve a tug. Logan ducked accordingly and dodged the small bullet.

Logan’s mouth gaped. “It would appear that it was a gun.”

Janus narrowed his eyes and looked ahead. “Well-spotted, Dr. Croft. Glad to know your doctorate is being used to comprehend such vital information.”

Logan glared at Janus. “This is hardly the time for-“

Janus tugged at Logan’s sleeve again, and they ducked once more. The bullet wasn’t anywhere close to hitting them this time around though. Who was it that was aiming at them? What was aiming at them?

“Authorized personnel only.” a voice, that didn’t sound like anything Janus had heard before spoke. It sounded forced and inhuman in a sense. As if it was coming through a phonograph. There wasn’t any emotion behind it. Logan and Janus looked at each other. What should they do about that? Janus was almost convinced that Logan would turn around and leave. Janus would never do something like that. He was getting too curious.

Perhaps Janus had underestimated the other doctor, as Logan closed his eyes tightly, sighed, and grabbed Janus’ arm. “Come on.” Logan said, practically dragging Janus further as if he was a dog. Somewhat offended, Janus ripped his arm away from Logan and brushed his own shoulder.

“I can walk myse-“

Another bulled was fired, but it was several few away from both of them. “Authorized personnel only.” the voice repeated. Janus breathed and picked up the pace. Logan did the same. Janus’ and Logan’s legs were almost equally long, so their pace was annoyingly similar, but Janus tried not to think about that. They had to avoid the danger at hand.

They made it to the end of the hall when they noticed the source of the bullets. It did indeed seem to come from a gun, but the person, or well perhaps not a person, who was holding the gun was the interesting part. The thing that held it, was shaped like a human, but without the skin. Where there should be skin there was brass and steel, with nails in between each piece. It had hair on top of its head, which made Janus even more confused. What was the point of the hair? Purple, covering the eyes… No, not eyes. Round holes that were lit up with a purple glow. It wore a black shirt and a black chequered jacket on top of it, and there were three gears turning by its chest. Another strange thing was, that the gun wasn’t held by it, but was directly attached to the top of the steel hand.

It didn’t take multiple doctorates to conclude that this resembled a robot. Not exactly the ideal hypothetical version, but a simple one. It was mostly a robot in appearance, and a sound player and automatic (terribly aiming) gun in function. Though Janus couldn’t help but feel like it was built to be capable of more than that. It didn’t make much sense though, because that would require technology that wasn’t developed. Perhaps it was just an experiment? “Authorized personnel only.”

Janus scoffed. “Thanks, we get the gist.”

The robot(?) moved the gun back, there was a click, and another shot was fired. This time it went straight for Janus’ head, but he ducked before it did any damage.

“Hm, seems it generally has a terrible aim, except for a few select exceptions.” Logan said, deep in thought, as if he wasn’t in immediate danger.

Janus furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the human-shaped gunner. “It’s almost as if it hits by chance rather than technique.”

“How do you think we can shut it down?” Logan asked. It sounded a bit like Logan was a teacher asking the class a question, but Janus couldn’t help but chuckle at it rather than feel offended. It was strange, that Logan hadn’t turned around yet. That he’d rather shut down their mechanical attacker and move on. Perhaps Logan was a little more driven than Janus had initially thought.

“So far, nothing is preventing us from getting closer.” Janus responded. He tilted his head and cooed, “Or does that scare you, doctor?”

Logan let out a ‘ha’. “Not in the slightest. I’d say its lack of aiming abilities renders it rather unintimidating.”

Janus scanned the gunner and noticed that there was a panel on the back. It was possible that there was a switch on there or behind it, which could shut it down. While it had legs, it didn’t seem like it was able to move. Janus approached it just as another meaningless shot was fired, and Logan almost looked annoyed as Janus did so without narration or comment. Just as Janus reached the side of the robot, its other arm stretched out. The sides of it started moving strangely, as if bits of it were finding a place. Before long, two metal plates started reaching through the arm, covering Janus’ path like a shield.

Hold on.

Janus knew of that technology. In fact, he knew it well. “That’s my technology!” he exclaimed, as he looked at the shield. He recognized it on the way, the shield was triggered once he’d reached a certain radius from it. He created it about a year prior, having been tasked to develop a technology that could keep out unwanted visitors. It had still been in an experimental phase then, and he’d been moved to other projects since.

“Ah, it did look rather simple, so I suppose that makes sense.” Logan said, and Janus sighed sharply through his teeth. He tapped the side of the shield, one on the top, one on the bottom, and one on the left, which led the robot to withdraw it slightly. Once Janus reached the back of the robot, he noticed that there was in fact a switch on the back. Janus thought it was a little too easy to see, for it to be an efficient design, so it was likely just a prototype, made to be turned off easily in case of malfunction. The fastened panel made him curious, but he figured that shutting it off first would be ideal. He flipped the switch, and there was a loud, hollow, humming noise, and some clicks from within.

“Hm.” Logan said, “The eyes aren’t lit up anymore.”

“I turned it off, doctor.” Janus said.

“Thank you, I am aware.” Logan replied, a clear bitterness in his tone.

The body felt heavier after being turned off, and it seemed Janus had to hold it up to prevent it from falling. Janus placed his oil lamp on the floor, looked down at his pockets, and grabbed a screwdriver. Logan approached the harmless robot and stood right behind Janus. Logan narrowed his eyes. “Do you bring that with you everywhere?”

Janus smirked and rolled his eyes, as he placed the screwdriver on the screws that fastened the panel on the gunner’s back. “Of course, I’d bring some tools to a break-in. I am not completely dense and inexperienced.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Are break-ins one of your usual pastimes?”

Janus didn’t reply to that, as he removed each screw from the metallic back. Logan was looking him over his shoulder, which was rather irritating. At times it could be fun, if Janus did everything just a little better than Logan would be able to, but Logan was the type who’d notice any small mistake, and Janus would never hear the end of it. To be fair, Janus would do something similar. He wrenched the panel off, which revealed a technology that was indeed exceedingly similar to the one he’d developed. There were more gears, and some of the wires were connected to other places than he was used to, but it wasn’t that difficult to make sense of.

Something that stood out, however, were the bits of the wires, that were twisted in non-optimal ways. Something was being blocked, as if someone was deliberately trying to limit the functions. It didn’t take a genius to deduce, exactly how you could optimize the machine, though Janus wasn’t certain what the optimal version would be like. Would it have a better aim?

Right above all of the gears and wires, Janus saw that the inside of the robot was labelled ‘VIRGIL’.

“That’s not an ideal design.” Logan said.

“I know.” Janus said.

“Its speech centre has a larger vocabulary than ‘authorized personnel only’.” Logan added, which made Janus’ eyes flick to a box in the right corner, whose wires went up towards the mouth.

“Well-spotted.” Janus said, in a way that sounded like he’d immediately noticed himself. He would, of course, if he hadn’t been looking at how his own technology was being used. Janus looked up, and saw that there was a door, blocked by a large metal plate. Logan stood up, and pressed a few buttons nearby, and the plate moved up, scraping against the wall.

“This was the place it was guarding, it seems.” Logan said, nodding into a dark room, “Are you coming?”

“Of course.” Janus said. He placed the screwdriver in his pocket, and allowed the robot to fall just a little, and managed to cradle it in his arms. It wasn’t too heavy. He noticed that the eyes that had seemed pupil-less while they were fully lit up, had something that resembled it anyway, only furthering Janus’ suspicion that it was meant for more.

”Why are you bringing that?” Logan asked.

“Just moving it out of the way for now, so we can make some adjustments and cover our tracks later.” Janus replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He let his eyes flick to the oil lamp. Logan furrowed his eyebrows, leaned down, and took it.

The room was small, and everything in it was dusty. There were scattered notes and blueprints, and Janus quickly noticed that the blueprints were a great deal more detailed than he’d seen before. They were filled with drawings that looked like robot parts, and his mouth gaped upon the sight of a detailed magitoite formula. He wanted to rush over there and take it all, but he froze upon the sight of something even more remarkable.

On the ground, lying languid and lifeless, there were two robots. They were most definitely robots. They looked similar to the VIRGIL, that Janus was carrying in his arms, but they had their own entirely unique design. One wore a light blue short-sleeved suit with a grey pipe strapped over its shoulders. Its hair was red and curly, and Janus wondered if it was synthetic. It had a wide smile on its face, that seemed a little dead on the lifeless robot. The other was built from a more refined metal than the other two and had white broad-shouldered white shirt with a cravat. It also had a metallic red sash with various buttons on it, that lead from the top left to the bottom right. There wasn’t any light in any of their eyes, indicating that they were turned off, but once again Janus noticed that there was something resembling pupils there.

Logan’s eyes were fixed on the robots as well, and Janus could’ve sworn his eyes sparkled. “There… There are more…” Logan said breathlessly.

“Y-yes.” Janus said. He’d expected it to sound more articulate than that.

Logan was shaking, looking at the blueprints on the wall. Janus could hear his own breathing a little too clearly for his liking. Where should they even begin? Logan placed the two oil lamps on a nearby wooden table. “I suggest that we look at the… Robots, first.” Logan said, answering Janus’ unspoken question.

Janus nodded. He walked a little closer to the two bodies on the ground and carefully placed the lifeless VIRGIL next to them. Janus looked at the robots, and the machine in the corner. There were wires connecting to the backs of each one. “Should we try to turn them on?”

“We could dissect them.” Logan said, “And figure out how they function first. Judging by the VIRGIL’s functions, they could be hostile.”

Janus hummed. “I thought you said its lack of aiming abilities rendered it rather unintimidating.” he mimicked Logan’s voice at the last words.

Logan adjusted his glasses and exhaled sharply through his nose. “If you want to risk it, I’m not opposed to it.”

Janus smiled a little to genuinely for his own liking. He nodded towards the machine in the corner. “Try to turn that on, if it isn’t too complicated for you.” he said in a somewhat belittling tone.

Logan rolled his eyes and walked towards it. “Let me know if you need my help turning the robots on.”

“Well, if they’re based on my technology, I hardly see the problem.” Janus said, walking towards the mechanical bodies on the ground.

“I highly doubt they’d all use such a simple protection mechanic.” Logan said.

Janus didn’t bother replying to that. He looked at the three robots on the ground. He wasn’t too keen on turning on the gunner again, so he picked the one in the blue suit with the big smile. He unscrewed the panel on the back, revealing a system that was… Similar, but not entirely. For one, it didn’t seem to utilize Janus’ protection technology, but it did have something else going on. Once again, it was as if something was blocking it.

The name written on this one was ‘PATTON’.

Logan mumbled something to himself, having placed one hand on his chin. He grabbed a tool on the table that Janus couldn’t see, pushed something into the side of the machine, and flicked a large switch on the side. Gears on the walls started turning, and there was a hiss, as steam was released from the top of it. Janus felt some power in the wires of the robot. He flipped the switch on the back. It stood up, suddenly, and Janus almost fell backwards. He shuffled back to his feet and looked at the other side of the robot. The eyes lit up in a light blue colour. It hurt to look directly at them.

“Please state—order” the robot said, but Janus could tell it wasn’t a complete sentence. He looked at the wires inside. He squinted, and unscrewed the side of the speech centre, and switched some of the wires.

“What are you doing?” Logan asked from the other side of the room.

“Fixing it.” Janus stated, in a matter-of-factly tone that could almost be confused with something Logan would say.

Logan bit his lip. “Is that wise?”

“Please st—Please—state order—order.” the PATTON struggled.

Janus tightened one of the gears and gave the water container inside a tap. Steam was released from the mouth of the robot, and Janus moved his hands back abruptly.

“Something is happening.” Logan said, his mouth gaping.

“What?” Janus asked.

“The eyes are different.”

Janus stood up and moved to the front of the PATTON. It was true. The light faded just a little and they no longer looked quite as lifeless. There was a visible pupil and the mouth that had otherwise been stuck in an emotionless smile, moved just a little. As if there were flexible muscles in the jaw. For a moment it frowned, it moved its head in a way that was frighteningly human. It looked at its surroundings, confused, concerned, perhaps scared, until its eyes fell upon Janus and Logan. It smiled, in a sudden and natural motion as if it had done it a million times before. Steam was once again released and there were a few oddly satisfying clicks, as the PATTON moved its arm up in a mechanical, coordinated wave.

“Hey there kiddos. What can I do for you?”

The voice wasn’t as inhuman and mechanical as it had been before. In fact, if it wasn’t for the phonograph-like volume and quality, it could easily be confused as human. Janus and Logan looked at each other at the same time, eyes wide, and without a hint of a single snarky comment from either of them.

“I… I uhm…” Janus said, looking the robot up and down. This wasn’t possible. The design was too complicated, the tone and use of words completely distant from the words of any machine. What Janus was looking at was something that would be considered purely hypothetical. “Who are you?” he asked because no other words were cooperating with him.

“Oh! Where are my manners?” the impossible robot said. One arm moved in a few mechanic motions to the robot’s chest. “I’m Patton.” The eyes closed for a moment as Patton’s head tilted and its (their? his? her?) smile widened.

“That… This…” Logan tried, speechlessly. He shook his head. “I have questions.”

“I’ll answer anything, within the best of my ability.” Patton said with a polite nod.

Logan looked at Janus. “Dr. Dedrick, we do agree that this doesn’t make any sense, do we not?”

Janus nodded a bit too sheepishly for his own liking. He corrected his posture and pulled at his cape a little. “We do.”

“Usually a creation such as this would be considered…” Logan began.

“…purely hypothetical.” Janus finished. He looked at Patton who was smiling as if he was frozen in time. “And judging by the strange shipments, the use of my technology…”

“…the blueprints, the prohibited area, and everything in this room…” Logan added.

“…I assume that the Facility has been keeping some rather influential scientific progress from us, no?” Janus said, his voice gradually shifting into something more bitter.

“Yes.” Logan said with a nod. He looked at Patton. “What do you think Patton’s functions are?”

“Patton, what are your functions?” Janus echoed at the robot.

Patton barely moved. “My purpose is to assist humans with anything they might want help with. This includes but isn’t limited to: cooking, cleaning, holding objects, transporting objects, taking care of children, taking care of pets, and anything else I can be programmed or taught to do.” he closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again, “Though I apologize, I cannot do all tasks perfectly, as I have a few malfunctions. I am a prototype.”

Janus furrowed his eyebrows and Logan took a step closer. “Who built you?”

“My creators didn’t identify themselves, but I was produced by the Neo-mechanical Engineering and Research Facility.” Patton answered, moving his arms a bit more dynamically, in rather human gestures.

“When?” Janus asked.

“Depends on what year it is now.”

“1891.”

“A little more than four years ago” Patton responded.

“Four ye-“ Janus breathed and chuckled dryly. “There has been this advanced technology at the Facility for that long?” Janus didn’t know is he was more pissed or more ecstatic.

Logan’s breathing was shaky. “Why would they keep something like that from us? Surely it’d be ideal to have as many people as possible working to perfect such a technology instead of having them create a technology that already exists.”

Janus sighed and looked at his colleague. “Dr. Croft, surely you’re not dense enough not to recognize ill intentions?”

Logan looked at Janus with a strained, but neutral expression. “Surely you’re versed enough in the sciences to know, that we cannot jump to such a conclusion without proper data.”

“Oh, because I’m certain people with wonderful intentions would make a robot with a gun that shoots after anyone in range and protect their secrets with this much care.” Janus said sarcastically, gesturing with his arms.

Logan scoffed. “You’re one to talk about secrets.” Janus hissed through his teeth with exasperation.

“Are you talking about Virgil?” Patton said suddenly, sounding a lot less compliant than anything else he’d said. Janus could easily interpret a hint of confusion or concern in Patton’s voice, though that didn’t make much sense. “I- I mean, not to ro-butt in or anything.” Patton added with a smile, as if the robot had caught itself doing something bad and wanted to cover it up.

Logan gasped and squinted. “What did you just say?”

“Virgil?”

“No, the last part.”

Patton stuttered, “Ro-ro-butt in?”

That was… That was a pun.

“No no no that doesn’t make any sense. If wordplay isn’t the robot’s primary function, there is no way that would be a part of its language centre.”

Dr. Logan Croft was in fact, correct, even if it wasn’t what Janus would initially focus on. “Patton.” he said, in a tone that was meant to be friendly and polite. He felt somewhat foolish speaking like that to a machine, but it seemed that Patton was more than that. “Is making… puns… a part of your programming?”

Patton’s upper body moved back a little in a surprise. Patton looked down, in an almost ashamed manner. “No. I am so sorry… I-it’s one of my malfunctions I’m afraid.”

“That’s not…” Logan tried disbelievingly, “How did you learn that?”

“I uhm…” Patton tried, and Janus thought it was remarkable that the robot even added filler words like that. “Well, I once noticed that certain words in my language centre have similar pronunciations or meanings that can be utilized in different situations, and… And it’s terribly addicting.”

“That shouldn’t be…” Logan attempted. “That’s… That’s incredible!”

“Huh?” Patton said, tilting its head slightly.

“You’ve been able to learn from your programming without human interference! I can’t even begin to describe how unique and… Impossible that is.” Logan said. He locked eyes with Janus, and just then, Janus knew exactly was Logan was thinking.

“Magic…” Janus said. It was unbelievable. So much technology was right at their fingertips. Janus looked at Patton. “You mentioned Virgil, correct?” Janus asked, “Something was blocking its programming. Yours too. Why is that?”

For a moment, Patton’s mouth gaped, and the eyes were wide. Then Patton looked down in defeat. “I… I’m not sure. Some humans must have done it because it was the best option. Humans are good at that kind of thing.”

Janus scoffed. “Debatable.” He felt like there were a thousand questions to be asked, but there was a lot of information to take in. Everything was flying around him and meshing in an incomprehensible puddle, which was terribly inconvenient. He looked at Logan. “Should we turn on the others?”

Logan bit his lip. “I am… I am curious.”

“Oh! I can help you!” Patton said excitedly. He stopped moving for a moment. “I-if you desire, that is. What are your names if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Logan Croft.” Logan said.

“Janus Dedrick.” Janus said.

“Of course, Logan Croft and Janus Dedrick. Who would you like to turn on?”

Logan looked at the two robots on the floor. “How about… The one with the sash.”

“That’s Roman! He is a lot of fun.” Patton said. “I’m sure you’ll get him booted up in no time.” Patton winked and pointed at the boots he wore. Logan groaned, although there was still some light in his eyes from the entire situation. Janus couldn’t blame him. Unfortunate really.

“Wait, hold on.” Janus said, “Are you all considered… Are you referred to as a ‘him’?”

“Oh no no, not necessarily! It’s whatever you prefer to refer to us by really.” Patton said, frantically, once again acting as if he’d made a serious mistake.

“But… You use that among yourselves?” Janus asked.

“…Yes, but humans don’t usually do that.” Patton said.

“Where did you learn then?” Logan asked.

Patton paused, and his eyes became distant for a moment. Then he looked up, hesitantly. “I… I don’t know.”

Janus and Logan looked at each other once again, some sort of silent communication between them. Janus could almost forget just how much Logan annoyed him right then.

Patton walked over to Roman, and it dawned upon Janus, that it was the first time he’d seen the robot walk. The movements were loud, and you could clearly hear the metal scraping against itself while each joint moved up and down. It was still impressive. Janus and Logan followed.

“Let me know if I can do anything, to help. That’s what I’m here for.” Patton said.

Janus’ expression faltered a little as Patton said that. Having robots with functions like that made a lot of sense, but at the same time, this robot seemed to have… emotions and thoughts of his own? Janus couldn’t help but feel that there was something a bit sinister about having the robot act as a servant and nothing else.

“So… All of the robots have a full setting and a limited setting.” Logan stated.

“Will he shoot us at the full setting?” Janus asked, coldly.

“No no, Roman wouldn’t do that as far as I know.” Patton said with a smile. Janus almost wanted to comment on the ‘as far as I know’ but figured that saying it to the robot wouldn’t get him anywhere. Even if it was an advanced one.

“Where is my screwdriver…” he mumbled instead.

“Right over here, Janus Dedrick.” Patton said. Janus noticed Patton lean down, picking up the screwdriver from the floor. He marched towards Janus, extending his arm a little, which was apparently something he was capable of, and handed it to the doctor.

“Uhm… Thank you Patton.” Janus said, grabbing the screwdriver. Patton tilted his head and looked confused for a breath, but then his expression softened. It was remarkable how expressive he was. “No problem, Janus Dedrick.”

Janus unscrewed the panel on Roman’s back and fixed the wires and gears. He flicked the switch on the side, and the robot stood up. He didn’t stand up in the same clumsy way that Patton did. It was a little more coordinated and vivid. He held up his arms in a theatrical gesture. “Here comes the noblest Roman of them all!” he exclaimed. He stopped and looked at everyone in the room. “Hello there. How might I entertain you today?”

Ah. An entertainment robot? That seemed… Frivolous, but not entirely surprising. Interesting.

“What are you functions?” Logan asked.

“My, what an honor to meet such a dashing human on this… time of the day, I don’t have a clock function.” Roman said, bowing in a way that produced a few loud clicks. “I am Roman. Designed solely for your entertainment. I can recite all poems, plays, and songs I’ve ever heard.”

“Fascinating.” Logan whispered. “Can you produce poems and such on your own as well perhaps?”

“What?” Roman said, suddenly sounding very frightened, “Well… I…”

Janus squinted. He thought of the way Patton had acted upon the mention of his ‘malfunction’. “It wouldn’t be bad. It would be impressive if that is the case.” he explained.

Roman perked up. “I… Uh… I can!”

Janus watched Roman intently. These robots were truly advanced. Their language was so much like that of a human and their and they even hesitated in their sentences at times.

Logan looked at the final robot on the ground. “What’s it- what’s his function?”

“That’s Virgil! He protects humans!” Patton said.

“Did a great job at that earlier.” Janus remarked sarcastically, but no one reacted to it. Logan took the screwdriver out of Janus’ hand. “Hey!” Janus exclaimed. Logan walked towards the robot on the ground and started unscrewing the panel on the back. “Oh why, don’t bother asking or anything.”

“I apologize.” Logan said, though Janus could tell from the wry smile, that he’d done it partially because it was amusing. Logan removed the panel.

“It’s my technology, you know. I know more about fixing it.” Janus said.

“It’s really not that difficult.” Logan said. He moved some wires, unscrewed a gear. He flipped a switch, and steam was released from the side of the robot. Janus sighed.

“AH!” the robot yelled, standing up abruptly. “What is going on?” he held his gun in front of him and Janus jumped backwards.

“Hello.” Logan said, and Janus was suddenly overcome by how soft Logan’s voice sounded. It sounded kind and caring in a way Janus wasn’t used to.

“W-who are you?” the robot asked.

“Logan Croft.” Logan responded. “Who are you?”

“Virgil.” Virgil replied. He looked around. “Where am I?” his eyes landed on Patton. “Patton! Where are we?”

“I have no clue!” Patton replied, with a smile that didn’t quite suited his response.

“You’re in a prohibited area of the Neo-mechanical Engineering and Research Facility.” Logan responded.

“Oh, you’re not obligated to answer our questions!” Patton said, hastily, “Unless you really want to.”

Roman looked at Logan and Janus. “Where are the other humans? Why are we… Here? Did we… Did we do something… Wrong?”

“Goodness, no.” Janus said, “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“Do you feel pain?” Logan asked curiously.

“Nothing that matters.” Patton replied. Janus tried to figure out exactly what the implications of that sentence was.

“Well, physical pain would require a nerve system, which seems like an incredibly complicated and useless thing to add, so it wouldn’t make sense for you to have that.”

“Like I said, nothing that matters.” Patton said.

Janus looked at Logan breathlessly. “Croft, they… They feel. Emotions that is.”

“What?” Logan whispered, narrowing his eyes. He looked at each robot. “That’s not possible, there’s no way that the magic can… That’s essentially creating life.”

“Are there more of you here?” Janus asked.

“I am not… Certain.” Patton said, moving his hand up to his chin with a single click. “I mean, we aren’t the only ones that were built but if we’ve been transported here, I don’t know where to find anyone else…”

“Have you been ordered to do anything with us?” Roman asked. Virgil was standing in front of them holding up his shield in a protective stance.

“No.” Logan said, simply, “No one sent us here. We br-“

“We’re here on our own accord.” Janus said, brilliantly. He looked at Logan harshly. “What… What are we supposed to do with all of this.”

“There is so much information, and we can’t just…”

“It’s going to be difficult to cover our tracks…”

“We should resume looking through the Facility.” Logan said.

Janus looked at the robots. “We have to… We have to do something about them before we do that.”

Logan nodded. “You’re right… Ha, ‘right’, that’s unlike you.” but the snarky comment hardly sounded sincere.

Janus exhaled once through his nose and allowed himself to smile just a little, even if he felt that it damaged his reputation. Then he gave the robots a determined glance. “I’m bringing them.”

Logan looked at Janus with a somewhat baffled expression. “And the notes and blueprints?”

“We have to bring them too somehow.” Janus said.

“Perhaps having you tag along wasn’t so bad after all.” Logan said, which made Janus turn his head confusedly, “It means we have more hands to carry all of this.”

Janus huffed.

“Huh?” Virgil said.

“Would you like to come along with us?” Janus asked.

All the robots looked dumbfounded, and there was silence for a few moments, where you could only hear the clicking of their gears and some steam being released from each of them. Roman was the first to step forward. “Certainly, dashing humans. If you desire my presence.”

Logan looked at Virgil. “Would you like to come along as well?”

Virgil looked at Logan sceptically. “I-If you need my protection.”

Janus looked at Patton who was looking at the floor meekly. “Would I… Like… To… Uhm…”

“Would you?” Logan asked.

“It’s not in my… I can’t…”

Janus breathed as the realization set in. “We would like you to come along.”

“O-of course!” Patton said determinedly, “I will go with you!”

Janus bit his lip and watched as Logan started to collect some of the documents in the room.

This was going to be interesting.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! I want to write more in this AU at some point. It probably won't be a cohesive story, but I have some ideas for more stories that take place in this universe. For instance, I would like to introduce Remus at some point. If you'd be interested in reading more stories like this, let me know!

197 notes · View notes

emersonfreepress · 4 years

Note

okay so is there content that you had planned for the ROs and story in general but then scrapped cause there wasn’t a good place in the story to stick it in? and if so, can you share what it was? 👀 👀 👀

yes, definitely. *rubs hands together* oh man, you done asked THE question today xD I can't wait to get into this 😁

Academics. I almost decided to have classes and grades be a minor part of gameplay, but the more time I spent designing it the more I realized I wanted nothing to do with it 😂 I haven’t really enjoyed academic gameplay in other interactive fiction because I 1) hate having to choose between studying and interacting with awesome characters, 2) have terrible short term memory, and 3) hate school in general!! So instead I just opted to have the MC be really good at school, point blank period so I could focus on social drama and relationships instead! 😆

Physical skills. I spent literal months crafting the catering scene around setting up stats for stamina/endurance, dexterity, and strength instead of just magnetism, confidence, and persuasion. They had their own backstories with the MC’s parents being overly invested sports parents instead and I think the background choices were like... martial arts, gymnastics, and track? But yeah, I ended up scrapping it all because I was spending hours on research about those individual sports so I could integrate them into the MC’s narrative organically but like... when I tried to think of what use they would be in the actual story, I came up blank. Best decision yet, esp since it means a lot less coding!

Skin tone customization. For one, I noticed that a lot of my favorite IFs don’t offer that customization and it hasn’t impacted my experience at all. For two, I originally realized I might as well not implement it since I am striving real hard not to introduce any customization that won’t actually be mentioned in interesting or meaningful ways in-story. I don’t think it’s really all that common for real life friends (esp in high school?) to comment or compliment each other’s skin and like... when it comes from someone who doesn’t share a similar complexion or ethnic background, that type of commentary gets... d i c e y. So then I wanted to be sensitive to that but what’s the pay-off? An RO mentioning how they love your skin tone once? Awkward sentences with the MC referring to their own skin color? Idk, just wasn’t vibing with it. I’m open to revisiting it in beta or something but for now it’s scrapped.

Singing, Rapping, and Gaming as Hobbies/Talents. I feel bad about scrapping these, honestly 😂 They’re great and I really wanted to incorporate them but it just came down to already having a lot of stuff to code. Plus, I know I can write the Hobbies/Talents I stuck with far better. And for Book 2 purposes, as well!

Leo. as @sourandflightypeaches asked me about a long while ago, I had to scrap an entire RO 😢 His name is Leo, he was the nephew of wealthy west African diplomats residing in Emerson, and I love him dearly! His backstory was largely based on my mother’s childhood and the circumstances she lived through after immigrating to America. and... ok, i’m about to go on one hell of a tangent so buckle up and bear with me if you can 😅

my intention with this story, aside from writing things that I personally enjoy (graphic violence, spooky woods, social drama, romance, conspiracies 😚), is to explore greed, wealth, and how the ways people and families interact with those two things influence young people and who they grow up to be. here i go sounding pretentious af 😝 and here’s where I apply a cut for those who want to preserve a little mystery to the main characters!

With Gabe, we’ve got someone who grew up with very little stability or financial security but who has found unscrupulous methods to gain status and money, with both noble and selfish motivations.

Kile has some of that childhood experience in common with Gabe, having been in the foster care system since infancy, but they lucked out when they were adopted into massive wealth by a caring, loving couple—a couple that uses their wealth and privilege to be far more lenient and protective of Kile than is actually reasonable or responsible.

Jack comes from a prestigious wealthy family on his dad’s side who he loves dearly but there’s no getting around the fact that they love him back as much as they despise his working class mom.

Jessie is a spoiled sweet heiress (being the baby of her family and the only girl) and while she lives blissfully ignorant of the harmful source and impact of her father's income and career, she bears the weight of the expectation to fulfill very traditional gender roles, including her behavior and appearance, but also extending to her career and life plans.

Rain's wealth led to them growing up sheltered and isolated but also extremely accommodated, giving them maximum freedom and opportunity to discover and develop their personal talents and interests. However, they have almost no positive relationship with their parents who have essentially decided to give up on a kid that couldn't be exactly the accessory they tried to mold them to be—both in terms of their identity and personality.

Rupan/Rohan, at their very core, rejects everything about conformity, self-importance, and excessive luxury—which means they have never, ever truly fit in with their peers. Going full non-conformist, however, has resulted in them becoming alienated from much of their family, as well, despite them all loving each other very much. Their history with false friends and betrayals has led them to over-indulge in their vices and reckless behavior to compensate for that isolation. Sometimes, they just get in over their head and many times, they know better. Every time, it's just that the feeling of finally belonging is utterly intoxicating.

Vivian/Vincent has two extremely successful parents who didn't inherit but instead built up their wealth and they aspire to be just like them, to a degree that is well and truly unhealthy. Their mother specifically is an over-achiever and applies mountainous pressure for them to follow in her footsteps, especially academically. Vi is completely capable of achieving what their mom expects of them, but they were already an extremely sensitive perfectionist so this has made them intensely critical of themself. This is a large part of why they are such a rigid, no-nonsense person and that in turn has made them one of the most disliked people among their peers—which is a huge personal failure to them since their father is a very well-liked and socially successful person in town.

And the Emersons are peak privilege: inherent high social status, brains, looks, charisma, athleticism, and massive wealth. They could never have been anything less than extremely popular, just by virtue of their last name and the nature of the town's social dynamics and politics. And they do enjoy that privilege (esp Curt lol). However, it should go without saying that being so high profile, even (or maybe especially) just in the isolated scope of your hometown, isn't always a boon. Their family's and their own perceived failings are widely discussed and privately mocked and/or celebrated. Real friends are scarce while fake ones and snakes are plentiful. Plus their dad is a gigantic dickhead who sees his kids as extensions of his own status and reputation and not much else. Public shortcomings make for an unbearable time at home and the world outside the estate is at once overly accommodating, full of assumptions, and even subtly hostile at times—all unrelated to their own actions or character.

And with the MC, I think the narrative will make it clear there are several ways that story can go. You start off with irresponsible parents that have lost their wealth due to their own mismanagement and material ambitions—how that affects any individual MC should differ based on choices and consequences!

So why bring any of that up when I was supposed to be talking about my cut OC? 😂😂

Leo was going to be the unwelcome recent addition to his uncle’s household, the son of a brother his aunt hates for (petty af) Reasons, and she took that resentment out on him directly by restricting his access to nearly every aspect of the family's wealth. Especially material goods and living conditions. He was basically treated like the help, tasked with playing nanny for his many younger cousins and burdened with doing the homework and providing academic cover for his dumb as rocks cousin in the same grade as you all. To sum it up, he was basically a victim of trafficking at the hands of his own family with his uncle out of town enough to feign ignorance to how bad his wife was treating his nephew and his aunt going out of her way to keep him busy, at home, and isolated. This is sadly a super common form of trafficking in Francophone African cultures (although I don't think most people view it as trafficking. and I’m sure the same is true of other cultures but I don’t want to speak outside of my purview). And like I mentioned above, it’s how my own mom's (and idek how many cousins') child/teenhood went.

It’s a perspective on modern wealth, privilege and greed that I really, really wanted to tell. I am confident in saying it hasn't been explored in interactive fiction yet (though correct me—and direct me 👀—if I'm wrong) and out of all the wealth/greed explorations I came up with, it's the one I have the closest personal ties to and the strongest feelings about. The characters and plans I had for it were detailed and I'm proud of them but at the end of the day... I just couldn't find a place for Leo in the story at large.

Leo was, in fact, the last main character I came up with, when I had already designed and fleshed out the larger story and started crafting the timeline of major events. I think the worst thing I could have done for a story and perspective that I care about this much is shove it into a plot that didn't have room for it at the very base level, regardless of how well the character or his story is written. Shoe-horned characters always stick out. I didn’t want to disservice Leo by having him be the character that did nothing or could be removed from the main plot without affecting it at all, y’know? That’s so much worse than just forgoing the indulgence, imo :((

ugh.... Leooooo 😭 I'm so sorry bb, I failed youuu 😥

#lovely anon #answered #hotmess #ok I am truly so sorry for going on and on like this #writing #ch design #ty for this question it was really nice to revisit this stuff 😃#and a nice reminder to not look back lol #scrapped

41 notes · View notes

chrisemrysfics · 3 years

Text

After my post on Wangxian and unconditional love, among other things, I realized I forgot all about a source of unconditional love for Wei Wuxian: the Wen siblings and remnants.

Here is the thing: first, Wei Wuxian had a few years with his parents, he barely has memories, yet he remember the sense of happiness, joy, and the love of his parents, both for each other, and for him.

Then, he lose them, and faces the streets. And then he’s picked by Jiang Fengmian, and brought “home”... and right away there’s an issue with Jiang Cheng and puppies. Yu Ziyuan also shows displeasure.

Jiang Yanli shows care for him, while Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian make peace, however, from here on, Wei Wuxian is under constant disapproval by Yu Ziyuan.

And I believe Wei Wuxian is not blind to Jiang Cheng being hurt by what his mother says, and the apparent not-care his father shows. But he says it and I believe he’s right: Jiang Fengmian is lenient toward Wei Wuxian because Wei Wuxian is not his son. What appears as indulgence, is simply that he doesn’t care all that much past what Wei Wuxian is bringing to the clan.

He doesn’t seek his safety: he could have chosen to make Wei Wuxian stay to Lotus Pier rather than let him go to Nightless City, but he didn’t. He even said “he can choose”, which make him wash his hands of responsibility and make Wei Wuxian own up to his own fate. And his last words to me nailed the confirmation: he doesn’t give any word of care, he only echo what Yu Ziyuan said: protect my children.

Wei Wuxian grew up knowing he’ll be scorned by Yu Ziyuan regardless of whether or not he’s truly at fault, and knowing Jiang Fengmian doesn’t really care, as long as he’s around, he let him do what we want, knowing Wei Wuxian is loyal to the Jiang and to his children. Jiang Cheng express it awkwardly, but his attempts at “taming” Wei Wuxian “hero complex” is that he recognizes no one else is trying to stop him from harming himself (including his father). However, because Jiang Cheng let himself be influenced, he doesn’t show unconditional love, Wei Wuxian knows he cares, but Wei Wuxian also recognize Jiang Cheng doesn’t understand him.

This leave only Jiang Yanli that he can be himself with. We understand he feels safe with her, to show his true self, that he know he’ll be love without condition, because it is to her, and only her, he asked such a thing as “why does someone like someone else”. And that’s why his hesitancy to tell her anything about the three months disappearance is so heart-breaking, and she can be seen being worried still: for the first time, he doesn’t tell her.

And this shows how he views himself. For the first time, he thinks there is finally something that might be the one think Jiang Yanli won’t accept. That he’s become something that finally is where she draws the line. No one else before her truly showed any unconditional love, and he’s terrified what will happen if he let her see who he has become.

And it explain why he push away Lan Wangji: he knows Lan Wangji values are righteous, to Wei Wuxian, if Lan Wangji disapprove of him, it means he’s something that cannot approved of. Which then reinforce the idea that he cannot show Jiang Yanli what he’s become.

In the end, he’s traumatized, and scared to be rejected by the two people he cared for the most. He knew he felt pulled to Lan Wangji, he cared for him, he knew in his heart he valued him, just like he values Jiang Yanli. If he allowed himself to be vulnerable, and he got rejected, it would break him. So he didn’t take the risk.

All of that to arrive to the Wen siblings.

And the important thing I realized is that it never was a question of owing each other anything.

Wei Wuxian met Wen Ning, and showed kindness to him, which is pretty clear Wen Ning rarely, if ever, received, outside of his sister and the branch of their family. Its enough for Wen Ning to want to come when he hears about Lotus Pier, and willing to help them.

When Wen Qing enters the scene, she knows the risks, but there is a vital factor that made her decide to let them stay hidden and recover: her brother. Yes, she is a healer, however, it was risky to allow this, except, this was someone who inspired loyalty in her brother, someone who treated her brother well. Someone with a brother that was hurt.

Then, Wei Wuxian asks her to do the surgery, and she refuses. She knows what this will mean, and the thing is, I do end up thinking he’s not blind to how he’s been treated. He had to develop his own moral compass because either he’s scorned no matter if he’s at fault or not, or he’s “indulged”, or he’s not understood. He cares, and he sees himself as owing everything to the Jiang, but I feel like he knows how it can sound like. Wen Qing refuses because she isn’t certain he truly realize what he is asking, or she questions how willing he is, past any conditioning. But he insists, and she sees something that let her know that he does know what he is asking for.

Ultimately, Wei Wuxian is still misunderstood when people think his choice is because he’s been conditioned: yes, of course, we can understand someone shouldn’t have to sacrifice himself, that they shouldn’t have to “pay back” in such a manner... except no one asked. No one forced him to do this. He looked at his brother, and decided he didn’t want to see him like this. Wen Qing refusing meant he had the occasion to rethink his choice. He still chose.

That’s why they also speak of not owing anything to each other: Wen Qing chose to help them, and Wei Wuxian chose to go through the transplant. They understand the risks they took for each other, they had each other life in the other hands (if WWX and JC are seen, its death for WQ, if WQ fails, its death for WWX).

And that’s why they don’t seek each other, they owe nothing to each other, understand where they stand in the war, and trust each other has continued to follow the path of their heart. Wen Qing didn’t betray her values as a healer, nor did Wei Wuxian betray his own values.

However, Wen Qing ended up desperate, and there was only one person she knew had values she could trust: Wei Wuxian. She knows what she is asking out of him, but just like she didn’t leave Wei Wuxian and his brother to their own fate, Wei Wuxian would not leave her and her brother to their own fate. Just like he chose for the transplant, she knew Wei Wuxian would choose what is true to his heart.

And so they end up in Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian once more doing a sacrifice, yet it is done out of his own choice, the refusal to betray his own values (be it that it was the care for his brother back then, or the protection of innocent now). And here is the thing: Wen Qing knows about Wei Wuxian’s core.

And the Wen Remnants are well placed to fear him, distrust him, be unkind to him, but they don’t. More than that, they welcome him as family. He becomes family to them, and they become family to him. No one judges him, they all see him, and none of them disapprove of him, and they care for him.

To me, Wei Wuxian only ever had two things that were truly his: his demonic cultivation, and the Wen Remnants as family.

He says it himself: he owes spiritual cultivation to the Jiang. But demonic cultivation? He chose to not die, to resist, to survive, to return, to continue following his own values, and developed his own tools for it. He saw the scorn of others, but knew his heart, and stayed true to it. Everything “bad” about him was his trauma, not his cultivation (proven as to how he is, after his death and return).

And the Wen Remnants, they became his family. The Jiang siblings are his family of adoption, but the Wens were the family he, himself, adopted. They were to him what the Jiang Clan was to JC: the people he would protect, the one he placed first.

If JC and/or JYL had no one else to turn to, WWX would have protected them too. But JC had a whole sect, and JYL was part of it. More than that, the best protection was to distance himself, the Wens already had a tainted reputation, like his own, but not his siblings (and same for LWJ). He couldn’t take that risk.

And the strength of his heart and values show when everything goes extremely bad: he accidentally kills JZX, he doesn’t manage to protect/save the Wen Siblings, and still he doesn’t outright slaughter everyone, he attacks after being provoked. He also stop when JYL show up, but because someone else tried to kill him, he sees her protect him and die to protect him... just like the Wen Siblings.

And he just effectively lost the last, and first, sibling who has loved him unconditionally. The Wen Siblings knew all about his lost core, while JYL knew about him in many ways. Loosing all three of them, effectively meant he lost the three people who knew him best and loved him without condition.

Is it so surprising that his psyche broke there? He went mad with grief, the trauma catching up to him. Then he finds himself conscious again, away from Nightless City, not knowing there is still one person who loves him.

And what does he decide to do? Break the seal. Now, I realized a thing: he didn’t die from breaking the first half. The accounts are confusing on purpose, but he himself is seen thinking about how he broke half of it, but didn’t have time to break the second before the Siege happened.

This means he knows how to do it without dying... or he was already half dead.

Then he looses the Wen Remnants, he’s Sieged by the whole cultivation world, including his own brother. There’s no Lan Wangji in sight, leaving him uncertain whether he doesn’t deserve to die in Lan Wangji eyes, or if he’s not even worthy of Lan Wangji being present. Or if its a last kindness, to not be part of the people who attack him.

But Wei Wuxian has lost everything, everyone, his own brother is here with hate and grief in his eyes, Wei Wuxian knows there is greed behind the Siege, and so he finishes what he started: he destroys the seal.

And to this day, I am still convinced there was no backlash, but rather, a last command, either conscious, or one he didn’t realize he made but born of how he was feeling.

However, because he never returned as a vengeful ghost, this make me consider that, for all his death was violent, he died with a peaceful heart.

He knew his own heart and values, and he followed them to his last breath. He knew the greed and blindness of the cultivation world, but what would he do? Kill them all? Be what they claimed he was? No. And then, to him, he caused the deaths of people he never wanted to: JZX and JYL. To someone who gave his core because he considered he owed it to the Jiang, what will he give, if he consider he owed to repay the deaths he caused?

He chose, died with peace in his heart because he followed it to his last breath.

And I wonder if the corpses “eating him” weren’t eating the resentment within him. That’s a whole other headcanon to develop.

But yes, all of this to say: the Wen Remnants were WWX family, the Wen Siblings became his siblings, and WWX remained true to his heart up until the end.

That’s why he didn’t return as a vengeful ghost, and why he was calm and level-headed when he returned. It also strongly imply his temper and so-called “lack of control” were due to his trauma. Yet, this just goes to show how strong willed he is, to both survive the Burial Mounds, and never loose himself, and show that he is truly the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, because he never lost himself through it, and still mastered it.

#wei wuxian #wen qing #wen ning #mdzs #mo dao su zhi

13 notes · View notes

josefavomjaaga · 4 years

Text

A bit of a misunderstanding

Briefly (okay, not really) back to family trouble and that truely complicated almost-father-son-relationship between Napoleon and Eugène. In mid-February, as related earlier, Napoleon had had Josephine write to Eugène in order to repeat to him an order to evacuate Italy. This had wounded Eugène deeply as he – probably rightfully – saw this as distrust from Napoleon's side. Distrust in Eugène’s loyalty; apparently, Napoleon had felt the need to bring Josephine into this, in order to give Eugène sufficient motivation to remain in Napoleon’s camp.

And, as has also been said, Napoleon in truth had ample reason to question where Eugéne really stood in this struggle. From his private correspondence it becomes pretty clear that Eugène’s only hope for the empire to continue lay in Napoleon making peace, not in him winning. Eugène refused to go along with the plan to evacuate Italy (even if for good reasons), he had never completely given up his correspondence with the enemy (i.e., with his family in Bavaria), he continued to negotiate with Murat (in a way Napoleon could not directly oversee), and he had on several occasions even contacted his Austrian opponent Bellegarde, both on business (armistice) and in private matters: about his family.

The one thing Eugène truely worried about was the fate of his wife and children. He had four kids at the time (three daughters and one son), and Auguste was due to have her next child in mid-April. Eugène was mortified at the idea that Auguste might fall into the hands of enemy troops (or possibly of rioting Italians?) without him being able to come to her aid. (Maybe that’s his childhood memories resurfacing. He had grown up during a revolution, after all; he had lost a father on the scaffold.) In order to make sure nothing would happen to her, Eugène had contacted Bellegarde early on, and Bellegarde not only gave all sort of promises for Auguste’s safety and liberty, but even contacted his emperor. Who actually sent the following note:

Emperor Franz of Austria to the Vice Queen. Troyes, February 18, 1814:

Madam my cousin, Marshal Bellegarde having reported to me the determination of Your Imperial Highness to fix her stay momentarily at the castle of Monza, I pray her to be convinced that this general has perfectly fulfilled my intentions by anticipating all that can be pleasant to Your Imperial Highness. I have just ordered that a guard of honour be formed for your suite: your suite will in any case enjoy the most complete freedom, and I can only regret the reasons which force you, Madame, to a decision which would flatter me in all other respects. I beg you, Madame to accept the assurances of the very distinguished consideration with which I am, Madame my cousin, of Your Imperial Highness, the good cousin,

François.

This letter would reach Eugène and Auguste on March 2. On a sidenote: How all these good cousins and other relatives managed to write all these polite letters while having people fire at their recipients is beyond me. - Anyway, this is the letter Eugène asked Auguste to tell her father about in order to calm Max Joseph’s fluttering nerves.

It should also be pretty clear that this sort of amicable conversation between enemies was not what Napoleon had in mind when it came to defending the borders of his empire. And so, right after having sent off his own letter to Napoleon, defending himself about not evacuating Italy, Eugène received yet another missive from his imperial step-father.

Napoleon to Eugène. Château de Surville close to Montereau. February 19, 1814 My son, the vice queen must immediately go to Paris for her delivery; my intention being that under no circumstances she should remain in a country occupied by the enemy: therefore, make her leave immediately. [...]

This is when for Auguste and Eugène the proverbial shit really hit the fan. What could this be, other than Napoleon’s reaction to Eugène’s disobedience? Napoleon was basically taking Auguste hostage, in order to make sure Eugène would remain loyal to him!

On top of that, Auguste was already approaching the last five weeks of her pregancy, and as she had suffered of bad health after giving childbirth before, she had really not planned on travelling in her state, particularly not on winter roads. But that was not really what infuriated her. She had already been angry about Napoleon before, about the divorce, for him having stripped Eugène of his right to the crown of Italy, and especially for the reproaches regarding the evacuation of Italy. The way Auguste saw it, Eugène was always there, always Napoleon’s last resort, was always called in to clean up other people’s mess, and never did he get any reward for his efforts. In an earlier letter to Eugène she had already written:

I am appalled, my dear Eugène, and I am no longer surprised that the Emperor is abandoned. Is it possible to be more ungrateful than this man is? You who sacrifice everything for him, who have done wonders, to receive reproaches as a reward! No, my friend, I did not expect this last blow which crushes me, I feel all that you must feel at this moment, I am disgusted with this world and with men; it is clear, the family of the Emperor, and perhaps the Emperor himself, is jealous of you, they would like to see you make mistakes. The King of Naples will be forgiven his treason, but they will never forgive you for the reputation and esteem you enjoy. [...]

And now Napoleon ordered her to Paris. Under a pretext, obviously – after all, France was just as menaced by enemies as Italy! The Allied armies were closing in on Paris already. This really was too much!

Eugène’s own reply was still somewhat toned down, stating basically »Okay. I’ll tell her. She won’t like it. And I really don’t know what I have done to deserve this.« However, Auguste this time took to the plume as well.

Auguste to Napoleon. Milan, February 27, 1814.

Sire, Eugène has just communicated to me the order given to him by Your Majesty: it surprised me greatly, for I did not expect that after all the proofs of attachment Eugène never ceases to give you, you would also demand of him to risk the health and even the life of his wife and children, the only asset and consolation he has in this world. If he does not speak on this occasion, it is for me to do so. Without doubt I know his and my duties towards Your Majesty. We have demonstrated this to you often enough, and we have never failed to do so; our conduct is known to all; we do not resort to intrigue, and we have no other guides than honour and virtue. It is a sad fact that our reward has been nothing but sorrow and mortification, which we have borne in silence and with patience. Although we have done no harm to anyone, we have enemies, I cannot doubt it, who seek to harm us in your Majesty's mind; for, if you would open your heart, you would not treat us as you do.

What have I done to deserve such a harsh order of departure? When I got married, I never thought that things would come to this.

My father, the king, who loves me dearly, had offered to take me in when things were going so badly, so that I might be able to give birth in peace. But I refused, fearing that this step would cast doubt on Eugène's conduct, although his actions spoke for him, and I intended to go to France. I have since been ill, and the doctors told me that I would be risking a great deal if I made such a long journey at this time, being already in the eighth month of my pregnancy, and so I decided to retire to Monza, if Eugène was forced to leave Italy, believing that Your Majesty could not find it bad; but I see that you no longer take any interest in what may happen to me, which grieves me deeply.

In spite of this I will obey your orders, I will leave Milan if the enemies should come here; but my duty, my heart, makes it a law not to leave my husband, and, since you demand that I risk my health, I want at least to have the consolation of ending my days in the arms of the one who possesses all my tenderness and who makes all my happiness.

Whatever his fate will be, I will share it, and it will always be worthy of envy, since we will be able to say to each other that we have deserved a happier one, and that we will have a conscience without reproach.

In spite of the sorrows which Your Majesty is causing us, I shall never cease to rejoice in His happiness, and to wish for that of the Empress.

However, this time, they probably really did Napoleon an injustice. He, but also Josephine and Hortense had talked about Auguste coming to Paris for the birth of her child on several occasions before (apparently, all French ladies were convinced that life outside of Paris was unliveable). And Napoleon never made much words about personal matters. (This at least Eugène could have known – Eugène’s invitation to his own wedding had basically read: »Be here! Yesterday, if possible!«) Napoleon indeed answered Auguste very politely:

Napoleon to Auguste. Soissons, March 12, 1814.

My daughter, I received your letter; as I know the sensibility of your heart and vivacity of your mind, I am not surprised by the way in which you have been struck. I thought that, with your disposition, you would have a bad time in a war zone and among enemies, and that the best thing to do for your safety was to come to Paris. I did not tell you this earlier, because Paris was then in danger, and I saw nothing to gain by placing you in the midst of the alarms of Paris instead of those of Milan. But, as soon as the danger of Paris was over, I thought that this journey had all sorts of advantages for your state. Acknowledge your injustice, and it is your heart that I hold responsible for punishing you.

It was – who else - Eugène at the receiving end of the imperial wrath:

Napoleon to Eugène. Soissons, March 12, 1814. My son, I have received a letter from you and one from the vice queen, both of which are extravagant! You must be out of your mind. It is by reason of human dignity that I wished the vice queen to come to Paris to give birth, and I know she is too delicate to find herself in this state among the Austrians. At the request of Queen Hortense, I could have written to you earlier, but then Paris was threatened. From the time when that city is free, there would be nothing simpler today than to come and give birth in the midst of one's family and in the place where there is the least cause for concern. You must be mad to suppose that this has anything to do with politics. I never change my style or my tone, and I have written to you as I have always written to you. It is unfortunate for the century in which we live that your reply to the King of Bavaria has earned you the esteem of the whole of Europe; as for me, I have not paid you a compliment because you have only done your duty and that is a simple thing. However, you have already been rewarded for it, even in the opinion of the enemy, whose contempt for your neighbour is in the highest degree. I am writing you a letter in figures to let you know my intentions.

»What’s up with you two? You gone both totally bonkers now? All I said was: come to Paris!«

This was basically the last »family« interaction between Napoleon and Eugène. At least for quite some time. After Napoleon’s abdication, Eugène did try to contact Napoleon, before and after Josephine’s death. There are three letters from that time, none of which seem to have reached Elba. As for later communications, during the Hundred Days and on Saint Helena, I know there was some, but this seems to have been almost completely about financial issues, at least from Napoleon’s side.

#eugene beauharnais #eugene de beauharnais #auguste von bayern #napoleon #italy1814 #milan #Bellegarde #endofempire #is there life outside of Paris?

14 notes · View notes

heart-of-tempered-steel · 4 years

Text

𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 // {fred weasley x ofc} preview

As soon as his gaze slid down from her slender shoulders to her neatly folded hands, he saw it.

Her hands, he mused, were small and delicate looking and usually when they were at rest when she sits, are folded neatly one atop of the other. Like bird wings.

Now, her hands were anything but resting. They were slightly fluttering.

As if something ruffled their feathers.

Summary: Fred starts to see through the cracks on the mask she wears and realizes that it wasn’t just a mask... but a full suit of armor as well.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Seri Waldren (OFC)

**Additional Note**: Face claim for Seri is Lee Ji Eun as Jang Man Wol

Warnings: Almost none except for a bit of slightly one-sided angst with a hint of enemies to friends to lovers as well as an ofc (but PLEASE give this a chance before scrolling past!!! I really worked so hard to get everything in place here! 🥺)

His eyes are a deep hazel like his twin.

However, Seri thinks to herself, staring at his side profile as he faced the fireplace, the flames casting a warm glow over his features, that in this light at least, they held a hint of mahogany in them. With the way that the light was catching in his eyes, she can see that it brought out the dark red undertone in them. She gives him a once over—steady gaze tracing his features from his hair to his eyes.

Orange.

Red.

Brown.

Like the fallen leaves that drift with the autumn breeze.

And before she thinks better of it, she is pulled into a memory.

Like the forest floor at that time when the sun was setting and its dying rays peeked through the canopy to shade everything a warm copper and bronze—the earthy smell of dirt with a hint of petrichor from last week’s rainfall; laughter echoing through flying swirls of leaves, recently scattered from a pile.

Mug of hot cider, freshly made, warming you up inside and out. Its warmth spreading from your fingertips to your head as its heady aroma of apple and cinnamon wafts up to your nose and fills you.

Pairs of strong yet gentle arms holding you—comforting you. A melody, sweet and tender as the arms you’re held by, drifts into your ears and lulls you with its lullaby.

Soft wool tickling your cheek as you nestle yourself further into the warm embrace, letting the song carry you over into a peaceful slumber. Here, you are content.

You are safe.

You are not alone.

You are loved.

And just like that, she is consumed. The sudden onslaught of the memory hurtling towards her like a tornado of broken glass, pieces of what was once a precious and tender reminiscence, now in shatters. Jagged, sharp edges were simultaneously slashing, ripping, and embedding themselves into her heart; threatening to shred through every soft layer of tissue to raw and bloody scraps.

She nearly recoils from the emotions that was all at once churning and burning her from within, fighting to keep the tempest within her contained. If she does not get a hold of herself…

She. Will. Fall. Apart.

Seri instantly turns away from Fred and lets her hair fall to the side of her face like a black curtain between them as she attempts to silently reign in her tumultuous emotions.

Her companion hears a barely suppressed, sharp intake of breath and turns his attention to her. He finds her face turned away, seemingly focusing on a spot just off to the side of the fireplace. Or at least he assumes she was staring at a spot. Her long black hair effectively blocking off his view of her face.

Her figure was stock still except for the slow and methodical breaths he can see her quietly forcing herself to take. She still held the same posture on the carpet as when he came by the fireplace to sit next to her. Back straight, legs tidily folded underneath to accommodate for the sleeping gown she was wearing underneath her silk robe, and hands resting on top of her lap.

That was where Fred found the slight difference in the way she was holding herself. As soon as his gaze slid down from her slender shoulders to her neatly folded hands, he saw it.

Her hands, he mused, were small and delicate looking and usually when they were at rest when she sits, are folded neatly one atop of the other. Like bird wings.

Now, her hands were anything but resting.

They were slightly fluttering.

As if something ruffled their feathers.

One hand still lay on top of the other but the other hand beneath was tightly curled into a fist. Its tightened grip causing her hands to faintly tremble. He had an inkling that if the other hand on top was removed, he would see the white knuckles she was making as she dug her manicured nails into the palm of her hand.

It lasted for only a moment and it was gone as soon as he saw it. As if she could feel his gaze on her, she took in a last deep breath and slowly unfurled her hand back to how it was. But it only took that one passing moment for Fred to know... that something was wrong.

“You alright, princess?”, he let out in a soft voice, his tone laced with concern.

She felt it.

Yes, she could tell he was worried over her. And not just because she was a born empath. No. She didn’t need to rely on that part of her to know that. His voice was—so gentle and soothing. Yet, it held such an intriguing blend of both boldness and apprehension to it that it didn’t want to make her pin the person who was asking under a glare of disdain. Usually, with the kind of rumors and reputation that garnered around her, there were mostly only two types of people in her life who would ask about her well-being with feigned compassion: reporters and suitors from highborn pure-blood families like hers.

One wanted to use her to stamp their name on the cover page of every magazine and newspaper.

The other wanted her hand in marriage for her wealth and, out of their archaic and medieval beliefs, to secure the continuation of their family’s pure-blood lineage.

But both were attracted to her by their uninhibited ambition.

Both wanted a piece of her to claim for themselves.

The empath part of her can sense an oily power-hungry leech like that from a mile away, eyes closed.

Although now, the empath in her was sensing something entirely different from the red head beside her.

There was concern, yes. But there was also sincerity… genuine sincerity for her and—

Oh.

There it was. Buried beneath a bundle of his nervousness and the abrupt need to reach out to her...

Kindness.

It was kindness…

And no. It wasn’t the pitiful kind of kindness that would be offered to her with condolences every time her parents’ deaths were brought up in every one of her mandatory but rare social outings. This kindness that she was sensing from him was pure and so unrestrained that it took her aback. Maybe even perturbed her a bit.

She was sensing this from the young man. The very same young man, who, along with his twin, would set off pranks to soak up the chaos they ensued. Resulting disruptive inconvenience and bodily harm to others be damned. Unapologetic and destructive, the two laid waste with their antics on and off the school grounds. Fred Weasley, one of the loud, cocky, and rambunctious devil duo pranksters of Hogwarts…

Was sitting next to her worrying about her well-being.

And Morrigan knows, with the kind of tempestuous and vitriolic relationship that they started off with—almost a week after she transferred from Ilvermorny, she’d never thought that he’d show her, let alone be capable to have this side of him. Perhaps, it was a good thing that she was already sitting down because reconciling these two sides of him was leaving her a tad disoriented.

Despite that… she lets herself welcome the feeling. She lowers her defenses a bit, letting its tendrils wrap around her senses in a warm cocoon. His earnest need to ease her out of whatever unsettled her—so honest and guileless, centers her while it melts away and soothes any residual pain that the painful memory left in her heart.

So different.

A/N: *tenatively pokes her head into the fandom* hey there! 👋 I hoped you enjoyed this “little” preview of my upcoming fred weasley drabble! I’m a newly minted fan so I wasn’t sure how my fic would fare among you older and OG fans so I decided to just post a snippet of it and see how many of you would be interested in my little project. tbh I wasn’t that into the harry potter fandom for most of my life. I did ofc watched the films when I was younger and ended up with a Daniel Radcliffe crush tht lasted up until I became a Hiddlestoner.

But other than tht I didn’t really consider myself as a potterhead.... until one rerun marathon film series drew me back into its clutches and not only got me to start reading the books but also gave me a newfound appreciation and love for the Weasley twins (especially Fred 😉). the twins deserved a better ending than tht btw. heck. almost half of the characters were done dirty by the end of the series 👀

Anyway, I didn’t expect to fall so hard for the twins considering the massive crush my 9 year old self had w/ harry potter lol. those sneaky twins really have a way of worming themselves into your heart without you ever noticing it! Now, it’s been almost two months since watching the movies and I’m still overwhelmed with all the feels about those two 😩. so this fic/drabble was sort of a cathartic release of all my pent up emotions for them. tbh this just started off with me just wanting to describe the aesthetics Fred was giving me but well... all my feelings spilled out. oops 😬

the title is based on a great song that I stumbled on YouTube called “It Takes A Lot to Know a Man” by Damien Rice and I think it fits the dilemma of Fred and Seri finding out that there’s more than what the eye can see with each other. but that’s enough of my rambling for now 😅. If u made it all the way here, congratulations! And thank you for checking out my fic! I really do appreciate the time you spend reading this as well as any feedback you can give 🙏 (the more detailed the better!) Please reblog/like if you enjoyed this as well! I really appreciate it if you could share this with some of ur friends/mutuals it really makes all the sleepless nights working on this worth it!

Also let me know if there are any grammar errors too (bc I’m def sure there are some floating up there) I’m more of a fanfic reader than a writer so this was a BEAST to get out for me!

P.S. I’m also planning to have a self-insert/reader imagine version of this and any future drabbles of this series in the future since I know how some people feel about ocs 👀

Taglist: @firewhisky-kisses @yourssuccubus (who expressed great support in helping me write this! Thanks, u two ❤️ I hope it was worth the wait!

#fred weasley x seri waldren #fred weasley #fred weasley x oc #fred weasley x reader #harry potter oc #seri waldren #fred weasley imagine #james phelps #lee jieun #lee ji eun #harry potter #hp fic: italtks #hp fic: it takes a lot to know someone

73 notes · View notes

suchalonelysunflower · 4 years

Text

Entangled Part II (c.h) (h.s)

Pairing: Calum Hood X Reader / Harry Styles X Reader

Requested: Yes!

Summary: After months on tour, the boys finally make a move. But you are too caught up to even notice it. Let the triangle begin!

Warnings: Love Triangle! Pinning, unrequited love, language, angsty with a little fluff, mentions of alcohol and some grammatical error (English is not my first language, I’m sorry)

Word Count: 8 K

Author’s note: Part 2 is finally here! Thank you so much for all your support, it really means the world to me. Reblogs, comments and feedback are always welcome, I love to hear from you guys and if you have any questions about the series, please don’t doubt to reach me 💕 You can read my other works for Harry and 5SOS HERE. Hope you like it and happy reading 🦋✨

Part 1

Part 2: Dates and other names

“Calum stop that right now!” You said sternly while glaring at him. The boy, however, raised his eyebrows defiantly.

“Make me”

“Oooh” You heard Michael say, teasing at the probability of a conflict while he sipped his beverage with a metal straw, sitting in front of the vanity. But you paid no mind to it, not when Calum was at risk of doing something incredibly stupid.

“Calum Thomas Hood” You threatened, knowing that everyone has a reaction to their full names being called with such a tone, Calum was no exception “Put down the brush and leave your hair alone before I grab a razor and shave your entire head”

Calum just kept staring at you, still standing on the couch where you couldn’t possibly grab a hold of him or the brush that was dripping with pink dye. He shot one of his charming smiles at you, shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t. You always tell me that you love my hair as it is”

“I do. That’s why I don’t want it pink!”

“But Michael has pink hair! Why wouldn’t I?” He argued.

“Let Michael deal with the consequences of too much bleach when he’s older” You heard Michael give you a whiny ‘heey’ “Sorry Mike, your hair is lovely as it is but it’s true that you need to take a break on all of these dyes before you end up bald”

Michael groaned an ‘okay, fine!’ Before turning all of his attention back to the interaction. You, on the other hand, turned to Calum with one of your ‘dont fuck with me’ face and placed one of your hands on your hips, extending the other so he could place the brush there.

“Okay, I'll tell you what” he bargained “I’ll leave my hair alone if…”

“If?”

“If you go to dinner with me after the concert” He smiled.

You stared at him, lips slowly going upwards as a shy smile formed on your face. You lowered your gaze from his eyes, shaking your head as a small giggle came out of your lips. Calum, on the other hand, didn’t even flinch his eyes from you, his smile growing wider and wider while the teasing tone of the question still lingers on between the two of you… And Michael who was just as invested in this scene as anyone would be.

“You seriously are crazy, Cal” You said “Of course we can go, are you kidding? It’ll be fun”

Calum’s eyes gleam in delight at your words. His face at that moment could only be defined by comparing it to a child receiving their dream toy on Christmas morning.

“Now, give me the brush before I change my mind” You threatened again, extending your hand to him. Calum jumped off the couch and compiled, handing you the dyed tainted brush as he walked past you to sit in his own chair and giving Michael a small fist bump while doing so.

You walked over to the green eyed boy, finally being able to keep going with your work and the conversation started flowing once again.

It was amazing, but at the same time not so hard to believe, how well you got along with all the guys. The end of the tour was close, but you didn’t want to focus on the sadness that brought you, instead you decided to enjoy every single moment of it. It was amazing how you found yourself creating a loving family among them and Lottie, who was always by your side calming your nerves the first few days. The way you find it so easy to talk to either one of the Australians or the 1D boys is something you didn’t expect, quickly creating emotional connections with each of them.

For example, you always considered Louis like an older brother to you, always very protective and attentive. Who would’ve thought that Zayn fell under the same category? On the first few days they, along with Lottie, always made sure that you were taken care of as well as having fun and not overworked yourself as you normally would. But it was hard to even consider this a ´serious job´when you had nine young adults running around your little office. However, when it did get serious, you knew you could count on Ashton or Liam for an encouraging chat, always ready to listen and give you the best advice for any situation, creating a sense of trust you never really had with someone, especially someone you just met not too long ago.

For quiet moments though, Michael was perfect. It didn’t seem like it at first, knowing that boy had a reputation for being extremely loud sometimes. But if someone understands the need of just staying silent and doing nothing for a few minutes, was him. Always inviting you to play some of his games or just sit around you, keeping you company or just relaxing after a tiresome day, Michael was your guy. On the other hand, Niall was the complete opposite. That Irish little shit never stayed quiet for long, bringing his guitar with him wherever he went and lifting your spirit anytime he caught you feeling a little off. He made you laugh the most along with Luke who was just as chaotic as he was but with a little more common sense. He was like a little brother to you, even though he was a feet and a half taller than you, and you always felt the need to protect him of any harm. If someone won the soft spot on your heart, it was Luke, without a doubt.

And then there’s Calum and Harry, your boys. You would never admit this to anyone but they were your favorites. From day one they were nothing more than pure sweethearts. Yes, you did have your rocky start with both of them, nearly breaking one’s nose and the other one almost breaking you, but you wouldn’t have it any other way with them. The best moments on tour were the moments you shared with them, and they seem to agree on that. They always look for excuses to spend time with you, trying to get your focus completely on them and you find that funny, assuming it was their nature, but what you didn’t know is that they were both completely and utterly smitten by you.

Harry and Calum both laid their eyes on you from the beginning, practically jumping at every chance they had to help you or hang out with you or just talk to you about anything. And the funny thing is that you were completely unaware of all this circus around you. Friendship was one thing, and you were very grateful for that, not even in your wildest dreams you thought you would’ve befriended all of these amazing guys, so the idea of something else was absolutely out of the question, that was just simply impossible. Only if you knew what you were getting yourself into…

You were so unaware of these feelings that you didn’t notice how Calum’s smile didn’t leave his face for a second after he asked you, watching you work through Michael’s hair through the mirror.

“So,” Michael said, while your fingers were entangled in his hair “Are we going to wait for the full concert to be over or just our set to go back to the hotel?”

Lately they found excuses to hang around backstage after their set, management wasn’t too happy about that decision, not wanting even more attention to the Aussie band than to the actual main act, but they managed to sneak around them, only staying backstage and not actually being able to see the concert.

You, on the other hand, never missed a set, not only because you promised Harry and Calum that you’d be present in each one, but because you actually enjoyed the energy of the whole thing. You loved to jump around and dance to their songs, you already mastered the lyrics of every song on the set list and even created some kind of choreography with Lottie for each one. It didn’t matter to you that your feet hurt afterwards from the massive tiredness of the next few days, you were living your best life watching your boys perform and you would do that every single day of your life if you had to.

“Oh, I’m staying the whole concert” You answered “Can’t miss see them on stage”

“Aw, c’mon Y/N” Said Calum, faking a whine “You can miss at least one concert”

“Who is going to miss the concert?” Someone asked as they opened the door.

Everyone turned their faces as they saw Lottie came in with Louis and Harry. You smiled at them while they took a seat in front of the vanity, Harry’s eyes shining when they met yours through the mirror, smiling almost at the same time when Calum lowered his gaze and started fidgeting with his thumbs.

He didn’t know why, but he always got uncomfortable with the idea of Harry being around you and spending your time with him. Is not like he didn’t like the guy, on the contrary, they had a very good relationship, but the fact that you shared jokes, touches and moments with him made Calum feel uneasy. Same thing goes for Harry, he didn’t particularly enjoy how close you and the bassit were, but he wasn’t going to mention it, it would make him look like an asshole to you and to the Australian who he considered a friend. And you, as usual, were completely oblivious to it.

“We were just asking Y/N if we are going to skip the concert so they could get ready for their date” Michael said, pointing his finger between you and Calum as your cheeks went red.

Harry’s smile went away in an instant, snapping his head towards Louis who just stared at him blankly as he gave an apologetic smile to the curly haired man.

“What..? Michael, is not a date.” You said in an awkward laugh “We are just hanging out, right Cal?” You asked, smiling at him, not noticing the surprise in his eyes.

All eyes were on you again. Louis, Lottie and Michael gave you a confused look while Harry looked like he could breathe again. Calum, however, just blinked a couple times before lowering his gaze again, trying to hide the hurt in his eyes as he responded “Yeah.. it’s not a date”

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the group for a few seconds, no one really knowing what to say until Lottie was brave enough to break it by commenting on Michael’s new hair color that needed rincing, making the conversation flow easily among them, well, among everyone but Calum and Harry who stayed silent in their seats, having very different but similar thoughts.

A few moments later you excused yourself to go towards the catering section, expressing your dire need for a snack before you pass out applying gel to the boys hair. Louis offered to go with you.

As you were walking down the halls of the venue, he ventured “So… What made you accept the lad’s proposal?”

“Calum’s? it was not a proposal” You rolled your eyes “It was more like a quid pro quo kinda thing. He threatened to dye his hair if I said no” You chuckled.

Louis hummed “And you’re sure it’s not a date?”

“This again?”

It wasn’t the first time this conversation rolled around between the both of you. He had been teasing since that night of the party, where you found yourself with two drinks in your hand, one from Harry and the other from Calum. You spend the whole night talking to them, apologizing for the misunderstanding and thanking them for being such sweethearts. For you it was an innocent act of good manners, a nice gesture from the two boys. For Louis, that witnessed the whole thing, was more than that.

He was convinced that they had a thing for you. He believed, no, he knew that they were completely head over heels for you and, he had to admit, it was pretty funny to see all the things they did to gain just a little bit of attention from you.

“He is just friendly and so am I. We are just going to hang out, nothing more. It is not a date” You explained “We’ve had this conversation over and over again and it’s still the same answer, don’t you think that if he was making a move I would know?”

“Actually, no, love. You are completely blind and I would be very surprised indeed if you happen to notice that”

“What? Lou…”

“Didn’t you see the face Calum made when you said it wasn’t a date? Or Harry’s when Michael said it was? He was crushed”

“I-“

Louis shook his head and sighed “Look, love. I know you don’t mean to, but you’re breaking those guys’ hearts”

“I’m not breaking anyone’s heart. How could I? They’re just my friends, they can’t like me like that”

“Why not?”

“Because! Look at me, Louis”

“I am looking, love! And I’ll I can see is a beautiful person, inside and out, with an enormous talent and even bigger heart. Anyone would be lucky to have you” Louis said, placing his arm around your shoulder and giving it a squeeze “And I just happen to know two lads that would kill to have that privilege” You rolled your eyes and he sighed again “Fine! Don’t believe me. But don’t say I didn’t warn ya”

After grabbing a snack and a drink, you started to make your way back to your little room, but then you realized it was almost time for them to start the show so you decided to go wait by the side of the stage until the Australian band came out to the public.

On your way there, your mind didn’t stop thinking for a minute about what Louis had said before. Was Calum upset that it wasn’t a date? Did he expect it to be? And why was Harry even a topic? Did he talk about you with Louis? They couldn’t have a crush on you… could they?

Suddenly flashes of the past few months flew by in your head. How Calum’s eyes shined every time he heard you talk about hair related things because he knew you were very passionate about it, or how Harry always seemed to have some kind of trouble with his hair and needed your help, and only your help, to fix it because you were the only one who ‘understood his curls’ even though Lottie could’ve done a better job if he asked her. Calum put you in charge of recording his keeks and always made you feel welcome and comfortable around him and the guys, making you laugh uncontrollably with each shenanigan they pulled, or when every time Harry told a really bad joke he always looked at you first, almost like searching for your approval and smiling every time you did laugh, even if it was out of pity. How every night they were on stage they looked to the sides to find you dancing or singing along to their songs, making faces at you or copy your movements or give you reassuring smiles as they kept performing. They always seemed to know when you were feeling under the weather and they always went out of their way in order to make you feel better, going from making silly things on stage that night to just hold you and listening to you rant about what was bothering you, not even flinching at your touch but actually craving it. Every time you hug they don't pull away, in fact, they hold on. And you didn’t seem to mind at all.

You love them both, truly and wholeheartedly. And you would be a fool if you didn’t think they’re very attractive and attentive and different and special in their own ways. At the beginning of the tour you could’ve easily fallen in love with one of them if they ever showed interest in you, but you were sure they didn’t and probably never will so, why bother to think like that as a possibility? It will only get your heart broken in the end. You were sure that if they liked you as more than a friend they would’ve said something by now.

The thing was that they tried to tell you, countless times. But they were, in all honesty and innocence, idiots. So you had no clue on their true feelings.

But you would be lying if you said that Louis didn’t plant the seed of doubt in your mind.

“Hey, Y/N!” You heard a voice call you from the end of the hall. You lifted your gaze and smile when you saw Calum approaching, bass in hand ready to go out on stage. You lifted your finger and brought it to the side of your nose and he did the same. It became your own little secret ´handshake´

“Calum! Are you ready to go and kill it in front of a thousand screaming fans” You teased, resting the back of your hand on your forehead, mocking a faint.

He laughed, shaking his head “I rather concentrate on the fan that keeps dancing along Amnesia like it’s not an acoustic song backstage”

“Are you saying I’m distracting you?”

“You always distract me, sweetheart” He smirked “But I can’t say that I don’t like it”

You felt your cheeks get warm with his words. You must admit that Calum had a way with words, always tempting the line of cute remarks and downright flirting, creating a friendly banter between the both of you. Now you begin to wonder if they were ever friendly at all.

“Well the job of a fan is to hype their favorite band while on stage, right?” You smiled. Calum’s eyes shined like glitter.

“Are we really your favorites?” He asked.

“Hey, I don’t go around creating bomb coreos for any band, you know?” You slightly punched him in the arm as you both chuckled.

Suddenly you became very aware of his proximity to you and you didn’t seem to mind one bit, in fact you were enjoying how close he was, noticing even the crinkles by his eyes every time he smiled. “Hey, Cal. I’m sorry for earlier” You apologized, not really knowing how to approach the subject “I’m sorry if I made it awkward and-”

“What? No, no, no, no,” He said way too quickly, shaking his head rapidly “It wasn’t awkward” Calum said awkwardly.

Your face visibly cringed “Yes it was! And I’m sorry, I didn’t know that-”

“Hey, hey hey. It 's okay. If you say it’s not a date, then it’s not a date. We are just hanging out and that okay” Calum calmed you, rubbing his hand up and down your arm in a reassuring manner “It’s more than okay, actually. I really love spending time with you, Y/N”

You looked into his eyes and you could see the honesty in them, you covered his hand with your and smiled “I really love spending time with you too, Cal”

“CALOOUM” You heard someone yell from the side of the stage, not even a second after Ashton popped out his head from the wings “Get your ass over here, the concert’s abou to start you dipshit!... Hi, Y/N”

“Hi, Ashton” You laughed.

Calum rolled his eyes at his bandmate and took a step back from you “Well, duty calls. Someone has to woo the thousand screaming fans, right?”

You nodded as you quickly cupped his left cheek on your hand to give it a small kiss “Go kill them, you dipshit” You chuckled.

Calum did his best to try and hide the redness of his cheek, lifting his finger to the side of his nose as he walked away, turning around quickly to delicately press his palm to his cheek, still warm from that little kiss you just gave him and smiling like an absolute idiot.

“Mate, you’re whipped” Luke teased when he saw Calum’s grin.

“Shut up”

It was after Calum had turned away that you realized what you just did. You mentally slapped yourself, it was no big deal, right? just a friendly kiss like you and Louis do all the time but, why did it feel so different?

In the midst of your internal debate, you decided to walk to the other side of the stage where you knew Lottie would be waiting for you, you also knew it was Calum’s side of the stage, but it had the best view you could ask for. So you made up your mind of sucking in the embarrassment of your careless and innocent action from earlier and started making your way.

You enjoyed walking backstage, you knew every venue was different but the backstage rarely changes so it was easy to find your way around the messy halls full of people you now know and love. Every person you met along the way greeted you with a smile or a nod, they all respected your work and you respected theirs, all of you knew that this tour couldn't work without any of you.

Tonight, however, there was a new face in the multitude of people. You catched her eye as you almost walked past her, but she stopped you by gently putting her hand round your shoulder.

“I’m sorry, dear” The woman said with a smile “But aren’t you Y/N L/N? The stylist?”

The mysterious woman stood in front of you, her hand already gone from your shoulder, but she had your full attention now. She was wearing a black suit with a white button down to go along with some killer heels. Her black hair stopped right at the end of her neck, giving her a Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction vibe, elegant yet powerful. She was smiling at you like you were her next meal and it made you uncomfortable.

“Yes, I am. Well, one half of the team,actually” You answered, nervously looking around for nothing in particular “Can I help you with anything, Miss..?”

“Oh, how silly of me,” She laughed “I’m Mariah Slendge, I work for Jordan Coutier? You heard about them?” Of course you have! They were the most famous, most expensive, most stylish beauty company of all times! Led by the Jordan Coutier himself, the legend of legends when it came to hair and make up. A true inspiration for you and for many others. You nodded, trying not to freak out too much in front of one of his representatives “Well, we’ve heard about you too”

“‘Bout me?” You asked in disbelief.

“Why, yes, darling. I’ve seen your work with the boys, very impressive”

“Oh, it’s nothing really-”

“And your Instagram?” She said, pulling out her phone and showing you your feed that was filled with different hairstyles you’ve made along the years and on the tour, showcasing your work on different types of hair and for a wide variety of people “You are very talented”

“Thank you, but-”

“I have an offer for you” She stated, putting her phone back in her purse “Well, an almost offer, actually. I wanted to have your consent before I do anything”

You stared at her, wide eyed as your mind was a blank space. What was happening right now?

“Once this tour ends I want you to come work with us in New York as a paid intern for a few years. You would learn everything you need to know in order to succeed in this business and more. You’ll be working with the best professionals in the world and you’ll make really good connections in the industry, I can assure you that”

“Y-you want me to work with you?” You stuttered.

“Only if that’s okay with you, darling. I haven’t said anything to the big boss yet because I needed your approval first but-”

“YES!” You yelled “Sorry! I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that but, yes. My answer is yes, I would love to”

Mariah smiled like the cheshire cat “Wonderful! You’ll be hearing from me in a few days. Take care, darling”

She blew you a kiss and waved as she walked away, leaving you in complete awe before you could even begin to thank her.

You shook your head, waking up from your daze and practically ran towards Lottie, who was waiting for you at your usual spot from the side of the stage.

“Where have you been?” She asked when she took on your breathless appearance “The boys are in the middle of the set already and-”

“I know! I know, I’m sorry but,” You said, panting as you tried to gain some composure “You would never believe what just happened”

To say that Lottie was over the moon with the news you just brought to her was an understatement. She celebrated with you and congratulated you like you just won the lottery “Oh my god! I can’t believe it”

“Well, it’s nothing sure yet, but-”

“But nothing! This is amazing and you completely deserve this, honey” She hugged you “I’m so proud of you”

You melted into the hug, wondering how on Earth did you get so lucky, having a best friend like her was… Oh, it was more than you could ever ask for “One more thing,” You said, separating from her embrace “Don’t tell anyone. I don’t wanna jinx it”

“But Louis will be so happy and-”

“Lottie, please” You pleaded with your best puppy stare. She rolled her eyes and muttered a ‘fine’ before wrapping you into a hug once again.

When she let you go, you focus all of your attention towards the stage. Your eyes met Calum’s as he was looking at the two of you with a quizzical look. You lifted your finger to your nose once again and brushed it off, he smiled and mouthed something like ‘You’ll tell me later’ making you laugh and shrug as you started dancing to their cover of Teenage Dream.

Moments later, when their set ended, Calum came running towards you but you pushed him away “Uh uh, no touching until you get into a shower”

“What about you, Lot?” He asked your friend with open arms, she just shook her head and started laughing “What? You can hug but I’m left all alone?” Calum pouted.

“Take a shower and we’ll see, Hood”

He mocked a salute and said “We’re still hanging out later, right?”

“Of course!”

“Great, can’t wait”

Calum smirked and ran offstage. You stayed with Lottie, talking about your hypothetical plans for the future until it was time for One Direction to take the stage.

The energy on the concerts was hard to ignore, every night you found yourself with goosebumps running up and down your skin every time you heard the guitar riff or when you felt the bass and the drums shake the floor, literally. Not to mention the vocals of every single one of them, it filled you with joy seeing them perform and give their absolute best to all of their fans, who loved them just as much as you did.

You followed your usual routine with Lottie, dancing your specific choreographies to each song, but something was different tonight.

Every time you glanced at the stage you found a pair of green eyes already staring at you. Harry smiled whenever your eyes met, but his gaze always seemed to lurk around you for a second too long before putting all of his attention on the crowd once again.

When it was time for a break, Harry, as usual, took center stage and started interacting with the fans.

“Okay. Here in One Direction we sing a lot about love” He said, making the crowd go absolutely ballistic “Now, who here came with a date? C’mon now, wanna see those hands up, who here is taken?”

You laughed at how the fans started screaming unintelligible things at the boys, you saw how some brave ones started lifting their hands, showcasing their love in front of a full arena of people.

“Aww that’s wha’ I wanted to see! And what ‘bout over there at the sides” He said, pointing to your side of the stage “‘nyone in the crew who might be on a date today?”

He was asking the crew of the sides in general, some of them raising their hands in amusement, but Harry's gaze was locked on you and how you were giggling with Lottie about the whole ordeal.

“I think he’s talking to you, love” The young Tomlinson whispered in your ear.

You looked at Harry with your eyebrows furrowed, he returned the gesture by raising one of his own, asking you to answer him. You rolled your eyes and smiled while giving him the middle finger. His face visibly relaxed as he gave you one of his signature smirks and went back to amuse the crowd, who by now, were already losing their shit.

“‘M very glad to know that” Harry claimed into the microphone “Love is love everybody so if you love someone you gotta tell ‘em” And while his eyes were fixed on the crowd, you managed to find Louis bold stare already setting on you, giving a knowing look that you tried your best to ignore “Let’s celebrate love, everyone! This song is called Little Things”

As they settled around the stairs of the stage, you and Lottie started to sing and dance, not noticing how, every time he had a moment of silence, Harry would glance at your direction and smile a little bit to himself, hoping that you would look his way. And the universe seemed to listen, because when his last chorus was approaching, you turned your gaze to meet his. Harry smiled as he started singing, and, for the first time, he didn’t advert his eyes from you.

You felt a warmness spread from your chest to your whole body as the curly haired man started his last verse, green eyes staring right back at yours as the words slipped through his mouth with such an ease and calm melody, you didn’t dare to look away.

The feeling had no name, for what you could tell at least, but it was almost the same as the one you had when Calum was close to you earlier in the evening. It’s not uncomfortable, in fact, it’s totally the opposite. It’s almost like a calming breeze flowing through your entire body. Safe, noticed, warmth, shyness, love? You couldn’t figure it out.

The trance ended just as the song did, you felt a little nudge on the side of your body and turned to see Lottie giving you a smirk. You were about to tell her off when you were interrupted once again by a known beat, the next song was already starting as Harry’s eyes concentrated on the crowd once again, only glancing at you a few more times the entire set.

After the show ended, you and Lottie went backstage to celebrate with the boys.

“That was amazing!” The girl said, giving her older brother a pat in the back, not wanting to get all sweating because of him. You joined the congratulations and started simple conversations about what happened tonight on stage. You were so invested in the story Liam was telling about how he thought he saw the clone of Justin Bieber watching the show, that you didn’t notice how close Harry was to you until he whispered in your ear.

“Did you lie, earlier?” He asked.

You turned to face him, his face was unreadable, but his eyes had a glimpse of desperation in them, almost begging you for an answer he might like. “What are you talking about?” You responded, looking around, but no one seemed preoccupied with your little conversation.

“When I asked if anyone was on date”

“Mmh, and I recall I gave you the finger, didn’t I?” You smiled “Why did you think that was?”

Harry smirked “It was a tad rude, actually” You rolled your eyes at him “So you’re not seeing anyone at the moment?” He pressed, even when he saw you shake your head “Not even an Aussie lad that’s traveling with us?”

You sighed “No, I’m not dating Calum. We are just hanging out, as friends and nothing more. Just like I do with you, H”

Harry tried to mask the sudden hurt expression that came upon him, is that all you thought of him?

“And besides,” You continued “You can’t believe anything the Tomlinsons tell you, most times at least”

He chuckled “That’s true, love. I just…” He sighed “I really care about you, Y/N”

“I really care about you too, Harry” You said in all honesty.

“No, but I mean-”

“Hey, Y/N” Interrupted Lottie “Shouldn’t you be on your way to the hotel now?”

You opened your eyes like plates and looked at the time on your phone “Oh shit” You grabbed your stuff as fast as you could and said goodbye to everyone as you ran through the exit to grab a taxi.

Once you reached the hotel, you already saw Calum waiting in the lobby for you and suddenly you felt way underdressed when you saw him wearing a white shirt and some nice black pants to go with it.

Calum lifted his gaze from his phone and smiled when his eyes met yours. You gave him an apologetic smile as well as your secret code of putting your finger on the side of your nose while you walked up to him “I’m sorry I’m late, I got caught up in the concert and-”

“Hey, I get it” He chuckled “I know what it’s like to be a fan and those guys give a whole damn spectacle of everything. I’m glad you came, though. So,” He said, clapping his hands “Ready to go?” You nodded and let him guide you through the streets of the city.

You ended up in a little secluded sushi restaurant, not so far away from the hotel “The best sushi in town” Said Calum “Or at least that what they told me”

The night was spent between laughter and deep talks. You got to know a side of Calum you never expect. The way that he talked about his family and how hard it was for him to leave them behind in Australia but how, at the same time, he was happy he did it because now he could live his dream with his best friends. He told you anecdotes of when he, Michael and Luke were in school and played all kinds of pranks to their music teacher and how he lived in Brazil for a few months before realizing his dream was music all along.

He got to know you as well, how you grew up in a very strict family and how you were the ‘child-with-too-many-dreams-to-count’ how you met the Tomlinsons and how they became your real family in no time. He listened enthusiastically when you talked about when you first found out about your passion for styling someone when your first dance came around and you had to do all your classmates' hair and make up with the help of Lottie, creating a form of art that was so simple yet so special at the same time.

He made you laugh as well, playing with the chopsticks that were mostly for decoration and pretending to be some weird animal, he was so invested in his act that he didn’t notice how much wasabi he had put on his sushi bite, having to excuse himself to go to the bathroom.

You were wiping away your tears of laughter when you notice something, or rather someone, walking outside and entering the restaurant at that exact moment.

“Harry?”

The curly man turned around and faked a surprised face “Y/N? Hi, darling. What are you doing here?”

“Me?” You laughed “What are you doing here? I thought that maybe you and the other would go to a club after the concert”

Harry grabbed a chair and sat down next to you “The others did, but I was jus’ so tired tha’ I asked someone to recommend me a place to grab some take out” He chuckled “The food at the hotel is truly awful for a four and a half star restaurant”

“Well, let me tell you. This salmon roll is just exquisite so you won’t be disappointed here” You said, not giving too much thought at his excuse.

Calum got out of the bathroom soon after, he couldn’t see Harry just yet, but he could tell you were laughing at something. Once he got closer and noticed the british boy sitting next to you, making you laugh and give you the pretty eyes, he felt that uneasy feeling again, the one he always had whenever Harry was around you. He noticed how his jaw clenched and how his hand became a fist when he heard you laugh again, knowing it should’ve been him the one who should make you smile like that tonight.

When you looked at him, however, the uneasiness went away as soon as it came. He walked over to your table and put on a surprise show at Harry’s sudden appearance.

“Harry,” He said with a fake smile “What are you doing here?”

“Jus’ passing by, looking for something to eat and then I found Y/N here” Harry answered in a cool tone “What a coincidence, right?”

“Yeah, weird” Calum said, looking directly at the green eyes from across the table.

An uncomfortable silence came upon them as they glared at each other. From any perspective it was easy to see that they were having a silent conversation with those looks. A conversation filled with questions, realizations and accusations as the two men finally acknowledge the feelings each one had towards you. And, just like any situation when a man feels threatened by another man's feelings, it meant war.

However, they were not stupid. They knew they had to keep it civil for your and the tour’s sake, knowing it would not be fair for anyone to start fighting over you and especially when you seem to have no clue about what’s going on. So, with one look, a deal was sealed: You would have to choose eventually, and whatever you say goes, they were mature enough to respect your decision, but that doesn't mean they are not going to try to win your heart.

“So,” Harry said after a while, faking modesty as he made a move to get out of the chair “I should better get going, I don’t want to interrupt whatever’s happening here”

“Oh, you are not interrupting” You said, completely oblivious “Right, Cal?”

Calum looked at you, and he found it impossible to deny you anything at this moment, even if it mean having Harry joining your ‘not-date-date’ So he gave a fake smile to the curly haired man and said “Nope, not interrupting at all”

Harry smiled with sufficiency and sat back down, officially joining you for the night.

From your perspective, you were having a great night next to two of the people you love the most, having fun and joking around. Too busy enjoying their company to notice the passive aggressive attitude they excelled, silently competing to gain your attention. At one point in the evening, Harry started singing along the song that was playing on the restaurant’s speakers, telling you a story about the composition of that specific Fleetwood Mac song and you gladly listened. Calum then proceeded to woo you with some food related tricks, making you laugh at his failed attempt to try and put three California rolls in his mouth.

The talks came to a neutral ground when you started mentioning the tour. They both loved to hear you talk about your experience so far and they even shared some stories and tips about it too. You shared anecdotes and your favorite moments, making your boys smile whenever they realized they shared most of those moments with you. They understood that, whatever happens, they were truly the lucky ones just by having you in their life.

The evening went on and as it did, all of you started to feel more and more tired, given that you had to be on an airplane somewhere the next afternoon, so you decided to call it a night. Walking out of the restaurant, you made your way into the hotel again. Calum said his goodbye with a kiss on your cheek, making you blush and Harry clenched his jaw. He lifted a finger to his nose and disappeared into the other hall of the lobby where the elevator to his room was. You were about to do the same, already walking to the other elevator, but Harry had another idea.

“There’s an ice cream shop down the block” He said as he grabbed your hand to call for your attention “Wanna try it, Y/N?”

“Oh yes! I would love to” You smiled at Harry“But, aren’t you tired? You perfomed a big show tonight and-”

“I could never get tired if you’re by my side, love” He grin and tugged on your hand, leading you once again into the streets.

The ice cream shop was very small and it was horribly decorated with pink and purple cows. Their ice creams, however, were a delight. You sat down in a tall stool next to Harry, enjoying your scoop of rocky roads with chocolate syrup and sprinkles on top. Harry was staring at you, his smile never fading for a second.

“What?” You asked when you felt his green eyes on you “Do I have something in my face?” You brought your napkin to your face, but Harry just shook his head.

“You’re just too cute,” He said, smiling again.

“‘m not”

“You are” He countered “Knew that from the moment I met you”

“You mean when you knocked me to the ground and almost broke my bum?” You teased, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Exactly,” He said, unfazed by your sarcastic tone “Thought I died and went to heaven”

You laughed and gently punched him in the arm “Oh, shut up, Haz”

For the rest of the night and the beginnings of an early morning, you and Harry sat down on those stools in that ice cream shop, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. He talked about how hard it was to be constantly under a magnifying glass in the eyes of the media, about the rumors and about how he didn’t expect his life to turn this way “I assume it’s not easy” You said “But what you’re doing is amazing, Harry. You and the boys have changed the lives of so many people, it’s… truly something else” He thanked you for your words and then started to change the subject so the conversation was focused on you.

You pretty much told him the same old story you told Calum a few hours ago, he too, was very invested in whatever you had to say and let you ramble on and on about everything you thought it was worth mentioning. He even let you play with his curls a little bit before noticing your eyes were beginning to close, already too tired to keep the conversation going.

You walked to the hotel once again, this time it was you who gave Harry a good night kiss on the cheek before making your way to your shared bedroom with Lottie and basically plopping down on the bed, thinking about how great this night was.

There were two more stops before the tour finally ended. You could feel the tension in the air. It seemed like everyone was anxious about coming back home and seeing their families again, and you were too, but you got to admit that you were going to miss this even more.

And it seemed like it was the same for Harry and Calum, because for the past few days they barely left your side. And it was not like you were complaining, not at all.In fact, you were savouring every moment of it, not knowing if you would ever have the chance to do this again. So you let them play with your stuff, hanging out till late at night , you laughed at all their antics, from Calum’s keeks with the band to actually helping Harry pull down a prank to their bodyguards. On stage the energy was always the same, stolen glances and mocking faces between you, inner jokes said at loud only for you to understand and weird dance moves to make them break in front of the crowds.

You were definitely going to miss all of this.

When the last night of the tour arrived, so did an email addressed to you. You were sitting in your little office, cleaning and setting everything up before the boys needed to get ready when you phone dinged.

Your breath got caught in your throat as you realized who that email was from.

From: [email protected]

To: Y/E/[email protected]

Dear Y/N, I am very glad to inform you….

Suddenly the door bursts open, a breathless Calum standing right under.

“Y/N” He panted.

You looked at him, confused “Calum, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

Calum smiled “Yes! I’m more than okay actually, uuhm,” He said, trying to find the words “You know the band is going on tour, right?” He said referring to one of the biggest tours 5SOS was going to make following the release of their new album.

“Yes! And I couldn’t be more excited for you! That 's huge!” You celebrated.

“Come with us”

“What?” Your smile faded. Calum got nervous.

“Uh, I- well I mean we-” He took a deep breath “Me and the boys want you on tour with us as our stylist” Your mouth hung open, Calum took it as a good sign “We already talked to our management and they all agree. We want you to come on tour with us”

You were speechless. Part of you wanted to jump in joy, but the other part… “Cal, I-”

“Hey, Y/N” Another familiar voice called from the door “Great news, love. Yo- Hello, Calum, what are you doing here? Harry said when he laid eyes on the Australian, who wasn’t very fond of the interruption.

“I came to tell Y/N some good news,” Calum said, dryly.

“What a coincidence, I came for that as well”

“I don’t think there are any coincidence when it comes to you, Styles”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked, defyenty.

Calum was about to answer with another passive aggressive remark when you interrupted them “Guys, not now” You said with a tired tone “What’s up, Haz?”

“You’re coming on tour with us” He said, smiling at you “We already talked to management about it and you and Lottie are staying for the next tour”

You opened your mouth to respond but Calum cut you off, fuming.

“Well, that’s not possible”

“And why not?” Asked Harry, putting his attention on the other boy.

“Because Y/N is coming on tour with us”

Harry scoffed “As if Y/N would want that”

“How do you know that? You’re so arrogant and self centered-” Calum said a tad too loud.

“Don’t start something you cannot finish, Hood” Harry started, leveling his tone to match Calum’s “You immature prick -”

“Enough!” You yelled over their voices, making them turn their heads to you “What the hell has gotten into you today? It’s the last day of tour and this is the memory I get from you two? What a parting gift!”

“Wait-” Calum said

“Parting gift?”

You sighed “Guys, I can’t go on tour with either of you. I got an internship job with Jordan Coutier” You could see the disappointment in their faces as you softly said the words that would break their hearts “I’m going to New York”

Part 3

76 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Note

How about a canon divergence where wen qing doesn't bump into wwx but instead bumps into nhs and nmj. Would it be a tragedy or a fixit? Would nhs temper nmj's hatred for wens? Would nmj act honorably at seeing the old men and women and children doing hard labor or would he only see the clan he hates?

It was Nie Huaisang’s fault, probably. Someone tripped over someone else’s feet, and then he apologized and she apologized and then they both apologized, and then there was the whole “you go first, no you go first” dance and anyway eventually Nie Mingjue stormed over to yell at his younger brother for wasting time. He took one look at the ash-faced girl, caught her by the shoulder and said, “Aren’t you that Wen Qing? I used to see you at discussion conferences – what are you doing here?”

The whites of her eyes showed in her terror, and he scowled fiercely. “I don’t slay unarmed women or children outside of combat,” he said. “The question was literal – what are you doing here? The Jin sect said they resettled the remnants of the sects somewhere they wouldn’t make trouble.”

Wen Qing pressed her lips together, then couldn’t help herself and snarled, “If you call hard labor camps where everyone dies ‘resettled’ – they took away my baby brother! They took me to another city, I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t have a choice and when I returned…my brother’s as soft as yours – they’re going to kill him!”

Nie Mingjue’s scowl deepened, and his eyes flickered over to Nie Huaisang, the words ‘hard labor’ clearly ringing through his mind and struggling with his deep and abiding hatred for the Wen sect, the memories of Nie Huaisang being snatched away from him and sent to an indoctrination camp to be used as live bait. The very reminder of it made his face black in anger.

Nie Huaisang looked between the two of them and covered his face with a fan. “Dage,” he said, and his voice helped break through the haze of anger. “Maybe we should – check?”

It’s not like we trust the Jins, given the way they want to be the next Wens, he meant, and maybe there’s a little bit of Isn’t our sect’s guiding principle to stamp out evil wherever it’s encountered, human or not?

“Sect Leader Nie, I demand an explanation!” Jin Guangshan shouted. “You cannot barge into my territory, threaten my sect’s disciples, take away the prisoners won at war –”

“I’m not so blind as to tell the difference between captivity and torture unto death,” Nie Mingjue snarled in return, not even slightly moved. “Not only did I take the prisoners from Qiongqi Path, I demand you turn over every other one you have, no matter where –”

“Those were legitimately captured prisoners of war! We took them instead of spoils –”

“If the allocation of every penny matters so much to you, you may have the spoils seized by my Nie sect in exchange,” Nie Mingjue said, flicking his sleeve disdainfully. It couldn’t be more obvious what his implication was: that the Jin sect, despite all its riches, cared more for money than for honor.

Jin Guangshan’s eyes narrowed. “It’s most unlike you to get up in arms defending Wens, Sect Leader Nie; wasn’t it just yesterday that you called them all Wen-dogs and sought their utter destruction?”

Nie Mingjue sneered at him, but he continued, oily smile spreading on his face like a stain, “It couldn’t be that Sect Leader Nie has changed his implacable mind so quickly – perhaps it is the pressure of war on a man so young…you should take care for your health, make sure you’re not being unduly confused. People in your family die so very young, after all.”

“Enough nonsense,” Nie Mingjue said, eyes very nearly red in anger. “If my mind is so unclear, why did you choose to follow me during battle? When Wen Ruohan threatened, you dithered and delayed, and when there was no other choice but war, my blade was strong enough for you to hide behind, but when we have peace you rush to the front to claim a position that shouldn’t even exist – no one should be Chief Cultivator, Sect Leader Jin, no sect placing themselves and their own interests above another’s! But if the alternative is you, perhaps I should strive for it after all!”

“Is your brother actually going to try to be Chief Cultivator?” Wen Ning asked Nie Huaisang shyly; he was the only Wen currently inside the Unclean Realm, on account of needing heal his injuries. The remainder were all living in a small valley not far away where Nie sect cultivators kept a close watch.

Nie Mingjue hated injustice above all else, even Wens, but only by the smallest margin; in their new homes they were given food and water and medicine, but not freedom. Too many cultivators, male or female, had hidden themselves among the helpless to launch sneak attacks and assassinations; even children could carry a knife and swear to avenge their fallen parents.

Those like Wen Qing were watched most of all – she led one of the Supervision Offices that everyone had so hated, and she did nothing to stop them; she was indifferent to evil, and to Nie Mingjue that was very nearly the same as evil. It was only that the war had been officially ended that held back his hand; if they had still been at war, he would have executed her without so much as blinking an eye.

Still, Wen Qing had told Wen Ning that she was pleased with their current situation. A true prisoner of war camp, however strict, meant that they would be kept safe from all those who sought personal revenge, and Wen Ning couldn’t help but agree that the trade was worthwhile. The Jin had all but sold opportunities to those who wanted to get in a kick at their fallen bodies, just to say they’d been involved in the Sunshot Campaign; the Nie sect had those types of people, too, glaring and hateful, but the Sect Leader’s military discipline made them too afraid to do anything more than raise angry voices – and what were angry voices, compared to angry hands?

After all, if they’d come even a few shichen later – if Nie Mingjue hadn’t already known where the Wens were being kept, due to his position as sect leader, and been able to fly there on his sword at full speed – it would have been too late for him. Wen Ning didn’t even recall exactly what had happened, but two of them had been beating him and the chief inspector hadn’t stopped them, only told them to be sure to throw his body over the cliff when they were done with him…

“No, of course not,” Nie Huaisang said, pretending to be busy by his side. He had no skill at medicine, but it was a way to spend his time that his brother approved of and wouldn’t interrupt, so he came as often as he could. “He hates the idea, thinks it’s rotten to the core – like we’re all a bunch of sheep, needing a shepherd. No, he’s just saying it to annoy and distract Jin Guangshan. Besides, imagine if they made the position inheritable; that would make me the next one, and wouldn’t that be terrible for everyone?”

“The children young enough not to remember may join the Nie sect as guest disciples, if they wish,” Nie Mingjue said, his tone brooking no argument. “The adults will remain as they are.”

Wen Qing crossed her arms. “There aren’t many cultivators left among us, and it’s fine for all of those - they’d be happy to take up a life farming,” she said. “But those of us who are already on the path of cultivation should not be stymied –”

“You mean your brother, Wen Ning.” Nie Mingjue had some natural sympathy for her position, due to having his own weak-willed younger brother, but not very much. “No. In the end, he’s a Wen; we will not raise snakes to bite us later.”

“What wrong can you put on my brother’s shoulders beyond his surname?” she challenged. “What evil does he have?”

“Indifference to evil –”

“He was hardly indifferent!” she snapped, pushed beyond her limits. “I told him to do nothing, me, and yet he wouldn’t listen, time and time again. He kept Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng hidden after the destruction of the Lotus Pier, smuggled the latter out, even carried him out on his own back, and if that wasn’t enough, he collected what he could of the Jiang masters’ ashes for them – later, when Wei Wuxian asked me for help, he even –!”

She suddenly seemed to realize she’d said too much and shut her mouth.

Nie Mingjue looked at her thoughtfully. “You’ve already said this much,” he said. “There’s no point in stopping now. What did Wei Wuxian ask you to do?”

“Shh, don’t tell anyone I’m here,” Nie Huaisang said, gesturing for Wen Ning to join him in the closet where he was hiding.

Wen Ning, still a little uncomfortable in his new Nie robes, confusedly obeyed, even though he was still sweating from saber practice – he’d had to start over, alongside the children, but to his surprise he’d found that the straightforward brutality of the saber suited some secret resentful part hidden inside of him that wanted nothing more than to chop up everything he saw. “W-what’s going on? Why are we h-hiding? We’re in the Unclean Realm. What can harm us here?”

“Feelings,” Nie Huaisang said. “They’re the worst. My poor brother has to sit out there and listen to it directly, too – the burdens of being Sect Leader. I’m glad it’s not me.”

Wen Ning blinked. “Oh,” he said. “Are Wei-gongzi and Jiang-gongzi still fighting?”

“No, they’ve moved on to crying.”

“They were crying while they were fighting.”

“Yes, well, now they’ve moved to the just crying stage. There’s been lots of hugging, too; they stop for half a breath and then set each other off again, it’s awful. Can’t they be all manly and stoic like we Nie?”

Wen Ning gave Nie Huaisang a doubtful look.

“Well, me excluded, of course,” Nie Huaisang said with a laugh and a wave of his hand. “And anyway, even I only like crying when it’s going to get me something. Or out of something!”

Wen Ning suddenly felt as if he understood much more about his new Sect Leader’s endless frustrations with his younger brother. “But why are you hiding?” he asked.

“I have a reputation of avoiding work to maintain,” Nie Huaisang said, totally puzzlingly, but a few moments later there was a knock at the closet door.

“Huaisang, I know you’re in there. Get out of there and have an emergency,” Sect Leader Nie said. “Anything, as long as it requires my personal attention, and have it happen as soon as their sister, the young madam Jin, arrives – that’ll just set them all off again, especially as she’s pregnant.” A pause. “Do you think I can order Wen Qing to handle this as part of the terms of her parole?”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wen qing #wen ning #my fic #my fics #Anonymous

1K notes · View notes

a-long-walk-in-the-forest · 3 years

Note

Do you think the villages are cults? In my opinion, they do score quite high on the BITE model

Hello, I’m going to give a very poorly thought out and messy answer so I apologize in advance.

It isn’t really an answer to your question just my ramblings about my confusion about the term cult.

I’m not really qualified to speak on any matter concerning sociology since It’s outside my field of expertise and I’m kind of confused about what a cult is, the term to me, without further research, implies a vaguely malicious organization that engages in brainwashing and causes some sort of harm.

I looked at the definition of the word itself and it’s a word with several different definitions, most of which are very broad:

According to the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971), the term cult originally referred to

worship; reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings ... a particular form or system of religious worship; especially in reference to its external rites and ceremonies ... devotion or homage to a particular person or thing.

More recently, the term has taken on additional connotations:

A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious...

A system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator...

a. great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work...

b. a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1994)

If we go based on these definitions almost anything can be considered a cult.

I briefly looked at google scholar for articles regarding the topic (I’m not sure which sources are considered reputable in this field so that is also a problem). I had a brief look at this and this. I also looked at this which said:

Robbins’s (1988) review of recent sociological contributions to the study of cults identifies four definitional perspectives:

cults as dangerous, authoritarian groups

cults as culturally innovative or transcultural groups

cults as loosely structured protoreligions

Stark and Bainbridge’s (1985) subtypology that distinguishes among audience cults (members seek to receive information—e.g., through a lecture or tape series), client cults (members seek some specific benefit—e.g., psychotherapy, spiritual guidance), and cult movements (organizations that demand a high level of commitment from members).

Rutgers University professor Benjamin Zablocki (1997) says that sociologists often distinguish cult from church, sect, and denomination. Cults are innovative, fervent groups. If they become accepted into the mainstream, cults, in his view, lose their fervor and become more organized and integrated into the community; they become churches. When people within churches become dissatisfied and break off into fervent splinter groups, the new groups are called sects. As sects become more stolid and integrated into the community, they become denominations. Zablocki defines a cult as “an ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and demanding total commitment.” According to Zablocki, cults are at high risk of becoming abusive to members, in part because members’ adulation of charismatic leaders contributes to those leaders becoming corrupted by the power they seek and are accorded.

Definitions proposed at various times by associates of ICSA tend to presume the manifestation of what is potential in Zablocki’s definition. These definitions tend to emphasize elements of authoritarian structure, deception, and manipulation, and the fact that groups may be psychotherapeutic, political, or commercial, as well as religious. One of the more commonly quoted definitions of cult was articulated at an ICSA/UCLA Wingspread Conference on Cultism in 1985:

This part is what I’m assuming you mean by cult

Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it…), designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community. (West & Langone, 1986, pp. 119–120)

From what I understood, it goes on to say that it’s hard to label many organizations/movements as cults (has to be looked at on a case by case basis and a lot of the time there isn’t a consensus) and the lists are only things that could be cults and aren’t necessarily cults (it also greatly depends on which exact definition you are using). The other source mentioned how the term should be avoided in legal and academic matters for various reasons.

This made me question the validity of available predictive models as from what I know, having accurate and reliable data is necessary for an accurate and reliable model. A naive example would be if we wanted to predict an disease (Di) based on various symptoms (S1, S2, S3) we would have to have a bunch of data with these labels (so for example person Pi has Di and has S1 and S2 but not S3, we have these correctly labeled for n people) then we make a model based on a part of this data which will have a certain accuracy that we will check from the rest of this dataset.

If we can’t say for sure if various organizations are really cults or not then the datasets that we are building our models from are very arbitrary and inaccurate so our model isn’t very reliable. I’m going to stress again that I don’t know the first thing about sociology and I only had a brief look at some articles.

There was another source that proposed looking at various key words that were published along with the word cult for various time period to get an understanding of what the term is mostly associated with during different time periods. This method obviously also has its shortcomings and basically I have no idea.

There was this fairly recent article that said this in its abstract:

I tried to introduce a new category, “criminal religious movements,” including groups that either (or both) consistently practice and justify common crimes such as terrorism, child abuse, rape, physical violence, homicide, and serious economic crimes, as opposite to the vague or imaginary crimes of “being a cult” or “brainwashing members.” The paper argues that there would be definite advantages in replacing categories such as xie jiao, “destructive cults,” and “extremist religions” (the latter now fashionable in Russia) with “criminal religious movements,” a notion that would refer to ascertained crimes perpetrated by each movement rather than to notions so vague that they become dangerous for religious liberty.

I only read the abstract but from this I concluded that it probably really is a vague (and somewhat problematic) term. This is to say, I have no clue what a cult actually is and what model is accurate, how to judge its accuracy, ...

I also don’t think the model you mentioned is very good. It has many parts that seem questionable and dangerous to religious freedom and the person who wrote it seems very biased to me. Still, I don’t know much about the subject and I’ll leave it to people who know what they’re talking about.

If I go by just intuition and that one definition (the ICSA/UCLA Wingspread Conference one) then I’m going to say yes (since we don’t know much about the other villages I’m only talking about the leaf). The excessive devotion is there (although what constitutes as excessive is up to personal interpretation to some extent, I think the grey of their case is close enough to black to be categorized as such), they employ unethical tactics for manipulation and control (much of it is canonically unethical, hence their insistence on hiding it and their various excuses), for the leader and to the detriment of the community part is somewhat grey but overall I do think it was more a personal matter than genuinely caring about the community for most leaders (particularly the council but others as well). In general though, I can’t say for sure.

If you made it this far I apologize again for not being able to answer your question properly and hope you have a good day.

5 notes · View notes

crispyliza · 4 years

Text

Spamano multi-chapter fanfiction recommendation masterlist!

For all you home-quarantined people that have nothing to do and also because I’ve been meaning on making one of these since 2015 (took a global pandemic to get me started lol)

These fanfics are all with multiple chapters and listed in no particular order. Of course some are better than others, but every single one has its charms! I added only a few with 3 or 4 chapters because i liked them too much not to whereas the rest of the fanfics have at least 5+ chapters. So without further ado, here they are:

Una Notte A Napoli “One night in Naples, by the moon and sea, my heart was stolen by an angel who had forgotten how to fly.” (completed)

Per Sempre Tuo “Lovino Vargas, better known as Romano, is a famous TV actor. He has everything anyone could ever want. The only problem is that the thing he wants, over-night singing sensation Antonio Fernandez, is married.” (completed)

HOVA “The Nova Sagittarius was a ship that would take myself and countless other passengers on a one month trip around our solar system. But things went wrong; the ship changed and just like that, we were stranded. We got to know each other but more than that, we got to know ourselves.” (completed)

What We’d Do Without Gravity “While lost in a hospital Antonio comes across young terminally ill patient, Lovino Vargas. With Lovino left only six months to live it’s an awful time a romance to blossom between the ill fated pair, but with a bucket list to race through as the clock ticks down, the two find that love is very hard to avoid.” (completed)

Numbered Lithograph “When Lovino starts attending art school with his brother he finds his most important lesson doesn’t come from his professors, but from a culinary student at a sister school: sometimes the flaws hold the beauty.” (completed)

Tienimi Streto “Lovino Vargas is a detective with a poor attitude and a dark past, driven to the side of law by pain and revenge. After his partner quits, he is paired with specially recruited Antonio Carriedo, who becomes something more than just a co-worker. When deaths linked to the Italian start popping up over the city, Lovino begins to question everything he thought he knew.” (on-going)

More than attraction “Antonio says he met his love’s eyes over the bin of tomatoes. Lovino says he was stalked relentlessly until he was forced to give in.” (completed)

Credo “AU, 1502. Fueled by revenge, Lovino Vargas hasn’t failed an assassination job yet - but when a new Spanish captain comes to Rome, killing the unorthodox Antonio Carriedo might just be the death of him.” (completed)

Secret Tunnels from Madrid to Sicily “When Antonio Fernández Carriedo begins work as a professor at a prestigious university in Britain, one of his students, a Sicilian boy who goes by the name Romano, immediately catches his eye. He is a clearly gifted writer, who closes himself off in the wake of a dark and painful history. Even wrapped in his darkness, pushing everyone away, Toni finds himself determined to bring out the potential within Romano…They drag each other into a passionate, inevitable affair–doomed, they know, to end in flames.” (completed)

Why Did it Have to be You? “Lovino’s parents are tired of his horrible behavior, and hire Antonio to babysit him. But time is a cruel mistress, and in absence the heart grows fonder. These are just some of the things Antonio and Lovino will learn.” (completed)

And the Birds Sing No More “Don’t ever leave me.” Lovino said nothing. He allowed the tense heaviness to settle among his shoulders, tighten his lungs, and spread between the space from where he stood to where Antonio was seated lethargically. Antonio’s gaze sharpened. Lovino, inclining his head slightly, whispered, “I won’t.” (completed)

A Dancing Star “Antonio is the easy-going, life-loving art professor and Lovino is the Italian exchange student who walks into his art studio. When Antonio falls in love he thought he only had his job to worry about, but maybe it’s Lovino’s dark secret that’ll push him away. Trigger warning for self-harm and dark themes.” (completed)

Kismet “Lovino learns the hard way that things change and that they can change quickly. The necklace fell and now he’s in a strange land far from home. Will he ever see his brother again? Will he find his way home? Or will he discover home is where the heart is? Fate is a strange woman and can work in mysterious ways.” (completed)

Let that be enough “Lovino had given up hoping for someone who’d care about him. Antonio never expected to fall for the most tormented guy in town. But dark secrets and hidden dangers threatens their blooming relationship. Is it over before it even begun..?” (completed)

Child services “Romano and Feliciano Vargas have just lost their parents. Romano, who is 22, must care for his 6 year old little brother. Enter Antonio Carreido, the agent from Child Services who must record his progress, however, it’s hard for the cheerful Spaniard to keep from falling in love with this little broken down family and with Romano.” (on-going)

Loving a Stranger “You don’t remember, but I know you. We were- I don’t even know how to describe our relationship. That sounds bad, I know. I think you might have been in love with me, although I cannot see why. That’s just what I’ve been told. I acted as though I hated you, but I never did. I was afraid, because you were kind to me. I didn’t know I loved you until you forgot me…“ (completed)

The Many Personalities of Spain “England casts a spell to rid himself of Spain. As expected it goes wrong; leaving Romano to deal with the many personalities of Spain. That sounds like a normal day for Romano, right? It would be if the personalities not had their own personifications.” (on-going)

Daisy Genocide “My name is Lovino Vargas but that’s not who I actually am. I’m my brother. They put his DNA into a little ball of jello and grew me like a house plant. To say it blatantly, I’m a clone and I’m in a disturbing amount of trouble. I’m about to tell the story of my fight to preserve my humanity followed by a vicious history of crime but it’s a secret. Nobody has to know.” (completed)

More Than Meets The Eye “Striving to find approval and meaning, Antonio throws himself into the world of art determined to come out on top. Yet, in all of his searching, burning, and pain, he never thought that a single culinary student could ever manage to tear down his walls and make him face his biggest fear; himself.” (on-going)

Cryonic “After suffering a fatal attack from an unknown illness, Lovino Vargas underwent cryopreservation, leaving behind his only family, his boyfriend, and a blooming company. Years later the effects are only just coming into play causing more problems than his preservation was supposed to solve. Human AU; T for language; pre-established Spamano.” (on-going)

All of Our Flaws “Antonio is a man whose world revolves around anyone but himself. Lovino is a man with dreams bigger than a job behind a drugstore counter. Antonio is broken; Lovino is incomplete. Will a chance meeting lead them to mending their cracks and finding their missing pieces? Human AU, trigger warning for self-harm.” (on-going)

Truly an artist “Having already completed college, Lovino Vargas lives in Madrid as an artist suffering from severe artist’s block. In one of his visits to his old school he runs into a new teacher, Antonio Fernández Carriedo, who decides he’ll be the one to help Lovino in his endeavor to find himself. However cheerful and optimistic, Lovino still feels there’s more to Antonio than he’s letting on.” (completed)

The Heartbreaker “Sometimes the best things happen unexpectedly. Certainly this is Antonio’s opinion at the moment. The handsome stranger he met upon moving to a new town in Italy seems to be able to do almost no wrong. Until he digs a little deeper below the surface and begins to discover an unsettling reputation. And if the rumours are true, is it wise to trust a man known as ‘The Heartbreaker?” (completed)

We sing, We dance, We eat tomatoes “When Lovino Vargas takes in a starving guitar player called the Curbside Prophet from the streets of Philadelphia, he isn’t expecting the man to tolerate him for more than a couple weeks, much less fall in love with him. Based on the the music by Jason Mraz.” (on-going)

Underwater Land “Antonio was a merman. Lovino hated water. It was truly a match made in heaven.” (completed)

Flashlight “If I throw a tomato at you, vampire bastard, will you still sparkle under the sauce?” Twilight parody. (completed)

Catch you, Catch me “Clumsy, clueless detective Romano is on the trail of the infamous handsome and charming thief El Apasionado Caballero. But there’s more to this, what seems like a simple game of cat and mouse, than meets the eye.” (completed)

Blackbird “Antonio walks into a small coffee joint, hoping for just some caffeine to take the edge off of late-night studying for midterms, and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for in the form of a snarky, foulmouthed, Italian barista.” (on-going)

Counting Stars “Antonio, failed writer and journalist, thinks things are finally going his way when he lands an interview with actor Lovino Vargas. But it’s only the start of a long line of problems… the biggest of which may be Vargas himself.” (on-going)

Cosa Nostra “Based on the historical background of the Sicilian Mafia during the First Mafia War starring Mafia!Romano.” (completed)

Tight Rope “Rich, spoiled kid Lovino Vargas hates pirates. Pirate captain Antonio Carriedo hates rich, spoiled kids. None of them ever thought they could feel something different from hatred towards one another. However, Fate seems to have different plans for them, and twists their lives in unexpected ways.” (on-going)

When You Recover “Nurse Lovino Vargas has to take care of brain damaged patient Antonio Carriedo, who seems to have a strange affection towards him. N-not that Lovino likes it! The Italian is determined to make the man recover, no matter what it takes. What will little Lovino get himself into with this patient?” (on-going)

Like All Things, It Ends “Lovino doesn’t want his family to know how much his childhood trauma still affects him and he does a good job at hiding it. That is, until he moves to a new town and meets Antonio, someone he is unable to hide anything from. (Warnings for PTSD, Depression, harmful thinking of oneself, and violent death of a loved one)” (completed)

Wish upon a star “A drunken wish on a star lands Lovino back in the time of pirates, and when he runs into a familiar face with an unfamiliar personality, he’ll start to question his own heart. Pirate!SpainxRomano. Rated for language, violence, and maybe mature situation” (completed)

Crooked Timber “As an artist, Lovino understands that perfection doesn’t exist. If only Antonio agreed with him, and stopped trying to hurt himself. -Human (College) AU. Spamano multi-chapter with other minor pairings. Depressed!Antonio, Writer!Antonio, Artist!Lovino- TW for self-harm.” (completed)

Just Pretend! “Romano liked Emma- a lot. Except her stupid big brother was too overprotective (and, okay, a little scary)! He wouldn’t allow any guy near her- unless they weren’t romantically interested in Emma. So, Romano decided to pretend to be gay, with the help of Antonio, in hopes of getting Emma to fall in love with him. Perfect plan, right?” (completed)

The Duty of an Elder Son “Lovino Vargas knew a lot about duty.” His Grandfather’s swollen empire puts all of his family in danger, the other gangs are massing, the police are on their tails and Lovino is given a bodyguard in one Antonio Carriedo. 1920s Mafia AU fic. (completed)

Flatmates “They were flatmates, they were best friends and they were really frustrated about relationships. So what would two young men do about this?” (completed)

Zero Tolerance “Lovino lives a perfect life. Or atleast thats how he is suppose to appear. Antonio lives a life as a dangerous gangbanger. North Side meets South Side as these two are partnered in their Chemistry class. But there is one chemical reaction these 2 arent prepared for- Love. AU, human names used. Based on the book “Perfect Chemistry” by Simone Elkeles.” (completed)

Your Love Can Be My SIght “Seventeen year old Lovino Vargas lost his sight in a terrible car accident. Antonio, a teacher at Lovino’s school was born without it. Can Antonio teach Lovino that even without sight, life can be beautiful?” (completed)

The Greatest Treasure, You Idiot! “Spinoff of the “Sea Foam” chapter in Hetalia Fairy Tales. Captain Carriedo of the pirate ship, Buscador Dorado, seeks a legendary treasure “that is worth gaining” with the help of the infamous wish-giver, Lovino. But what is the true treasure?” (completed)

Crowns of Triple Gold “Things are rarely simple for Romano in the Eternal City, especially when he falls for one of his clients, a Hispanian senator up for consul against his father.” (completed)

Prisoners on the Slave Ship of Love “Lovino Vargas has been captured and taken hostage in a pirate raid led by Captain Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and his band of Spanish buccaneers. Tensions grow high and hearts are tested when Lovino becomes Captain Carriedo’s personal prisoner…” (on-going)

The Lemon Tree “Lovino didn’t want to be a slave in that scary mansion. He needed to break free. The fight for independence, however, is a difficult path, and falling in love with the man that destroyed his life doesn’t make things any easier.” (completed)

Sun Kissed “A powerful man once created gods to rule the sky as the creatures of the land lives. The Sun and the Moon. Brothers since birth, and all powerful, they rule side by side. As time passes, the Sun realizes how unhappy he is watching people hide from him. What happens when he discovers a man who isn’t afraid to live under the harsh sun?” (completed)

Tesoro Mio “Antonio’s the charming, handsome farmer with an infuriating Spanish accent, and Lovino is the mysterious wine entrepreneur who comes and goes. When Antonio falls in love, he throws society, expectations, and religion to the wayside, but can a strict Catholic like Lovino do the same?” (completed)

Because of the war “A first person POV for Romano during and after WW2. His thoughts as he fights and survives. Beware of angst.” (completed)

Just Add one Mermaid’s Tear “To gain something of ultimate value; the unthinkable must be preformed. The line is etched upon the brow of every nation, the taste of the water still on their lips. What happens though when one nation desires the fountain of youth once more?” (completed)

Until the Moss Had Reached Our Lips, and Covered Up Our Names “In a city filled to the brim with gangs, all the territory split between them, peace has lasted for the past sixteen years. It’s a tentative peace, won after the last massive gang war reshaped the entire city. Except all it takes is one domino to fall, and the Vargas patriarch is dead, leaving behind Antonio to lead his house, who isn’t even his blood relative. With an untried Head, the balance of power has started to shift again, and it seems as good a time as any to start calling in old debts and revenges.” (on-going)

The Bet “When someone kisses you, and then moves away you’d think that would be it. But when Antonio comes back from Spain he wants Lovino to be his again. Except Lovino now hates Antonio…which sucks for Lovino because Antonio isn’t going to let go that easily.” (completed)

Wings “People ask me a lot why I love him. Why I spend so much time chasing him when he never returns my feelings. It’s because I see something they don’t.” (on-going)

My Heart is Drenched in Wine “Wine and romance. More importantly, when you cut through my wine!fangirling, this is a story about Lovino and Antonio and how they find their way back together (in spite of the past and occasionally the present) as they attempt to make wine and sometimes love.” (completed)

Of Two Minds “Feliciano and Lovino are living on the streets, with a secret that keeps them from getting close to anyone. Will their lives get better or worse after being forced to join a pirate crew, and what will happen when their secret finally comes out? Rated T for some (minor) violence, Romano’s mouth, and some angsty feelings. Pirate AU.” (completed)

Beats of Fever “Antonio Fernández Carriedo is a doctor working in Madrid dealing with a crush on an Italian tourist when the tensions in Spain reach a head and Civil War breaks out.” (on-going)

All of Our Sins “Lovino is Catholic, but he’s not entirely sure what he believes. Nevertheless, he and his brother Feliciano are forced to attend confirmation classes. When Lovino meets their group leader- bizarre, cheerful Antonio; one of the first people to treat Lovino like he matters- things get complicated. When they find this church is much darker than it appears, things get terrifying. Fast.” (completed)

Es Sólo Tu Corazón “Lovino has been in love with Spain for as long as he can remember. All he wants is to be with his former caretaker, but he soon finds out that the Spain he knew as a child is no longer there…and the real one is far more dangerous.” (on-going)

There Goes My Life “Antonio, 26, a old gourmet chef, a bachelor who’s all party. Lovino a 20 y/o premed student who only has one goal, to be become a doctor. He is determined to let his feelings for the Spaniard fade away, but after receiving devastating news, a drunken one night stand leads to the end of life as Lovino knows it.” (on-going)

As We Were “Rich, bored and unhappy, Lovino Vargas is the heir to his grandfather’s wine brand. Antonio is the restless young traveller prone to attacks of claustrophobia. For them, falling in love is a journey. Literally. Spamano, Human AU, multi-chapter. Warnings for language and sexual themes.” (completed)

NekoRoma “Antonio has been feeling lonely with his recent break up with his on/off boyfriend. The solution: a new kitten that his boss doesn’t want. Just as he gets used to this cat, a new challenge is thrown at him. How do you teach a cat to be human?” (completed)

Summer Sensations “The hot summer nights of Madrid bring many things, but one very special night changes two lives forever. Lovino learns that love is not such a frivolous thing after all.” (completed)

Fools Like Us “What starts out as a normal Friday night for the “Bad Touch Trio” soon becomes an opportunity for Francis to use his favorite word in reference to his best friends. Unfortunately, Gilbert and Antonio couldn’t possibly have fallen for people who would return their feelings easily, but Francis is determined to help them out despite his own relationship-or lack thereof.” (completed)

Hear Me “Antonio and Lovino are trying their best to get by in high school, but between the stresses of grades, family, friends, and heartache, it’s a lot harder than it looks.” (completed)

Fame and Fortune “Lovino Vargas is a barkeeper and reluctant Stasi informant. As much as he despises what he does, he obeys the terrifying Red Army colonel, Ivan Braginsky. That is, until the secretive and frustratingly attractive Antonio Fernandez Carriedo arrives in his life and breaks all the rules. Inspired by the Elvis Presley song of the same name.” (on-going)

It’s all Antonio’s Fault “Condoms, footballs to the stomach, fake nurses, confusing hallways, and flying backpacks. Lovino Vargas’s first day at World Academy was already one of his worst, and he could only imagine that it would spiral downwards as he got to know the tomato bastard, otherwise known as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.” (on-going)

My Antonio “Going against everything in his strict, Catholic upbringing, Lovino has fallen desperately into love and lust for his family’s Spanish stable boy, Antonio.” (completed)

Sound Life ��Spain is dead, leaving Romano distraught and wishing for there to be a way for him to see his beloved Spaniard alive and healthy…Only to wake up in a strange alternate world… with another Spain seeking his affection.” (completed)

Possessively Scary “Romano begins college late with his brother after their nonno passes away. When entering, he meets a very strange Spaniard. The man is odd but still attractive at the same time. As they get closer, Romano learns more about Antonio and doesn’t know if he should be scared of the man or not. Can he get out of something he got himself into?” (on-going)

This Dance “Antonio wants Lovino to be his dancepartner at Austria’s ball. Lovino, struggling with his growing feelings of love and affection for everyone’s favorite tomato-bastard as always, agrees. Now, there could be worse things, right?” (completed)

Powdered Sugar “Truth, like powdered sugar, tastes sweet but goes down cold. If a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, we might need a bit more.” (completed)

Singles “Antonio, Francis, and Gilbert are three friends who suffered their first heartbreaks at the age of fifteen, and made a pact to never fall in love again. That will change for Antonio when he first lays eyes on a brown-haired young man in a club…” (completed)

A Heated Story “Sky High / superpower hs au. wip. Lovino Vargas is a new kid at Sky High with his brother. He has the power to control fire. Only one problem, he hates the heat. Spamano, and other ships. Doesn’t actually have anything to do with the movie, just used the school.” (on-going)

I Don’t Hate You “Lovino and his brothers face the unknown while on a mission to Earth. The Italian angel comes up against more than he bargained for when a dark angel takes a liking to him and now he and Feliciano might be cast out.” (completed)

Like all things, it ends “Lovino doesn’t want his family to know how much his childhood trauma still affects him and he does a good job at hiding it. That is, until he moves to a new town and meets Antonio, someone he is unable to hide anything from.” (completed)

Disegno e Colore “A young, apprenticing artist, Lovino craves rationality, perfection, and self-possession, and has curated his life to one day attain that. He never expected a chaotic and brash painter to barrel into his life and test everything Lovino thought he wanted and knew of himself, his art, and his heart.” (on going)

Land Beyond Dreams “Antonio is saved from death by someone he’d spoken to only a few times, but who lost his life in the process. Grief-stricken, he only wishes he could have gotten to know his savior, when his dreams suddenly become reality…or are they still only dreams?” (completed)

It’s All Antonio’s Fault “Condoms, footballs to the stomach, fake nurses, confusing hallways, and flying backpacks. Lovino Vargas’s first day at World Academy was already one of his worst, and he could only imagine that it would spiral downwards as he got to know the tomato bastard, otherwise known as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.” (on-going)

A tale of endurance “Lovino had no idea what to do. Knowing that your life will be over in half a year tends to do that to you. Well, one thing he knew for sure. No one would ever discover this until the day he was pushing daisies. And that was a fact.” (completed)

The Risk of Love “Romano is dead and Spain is broken, spiralling into the deep, blackness of depression. And as he locks himself from the outside world, isolating himself from his friends, from everyone, in his oblivion of pain, Romano find’s he’s the only one who can help. Only, how can useless ghost like him even dream to help the slowly dying love of his life?” (completed)

Dance with me “Lovino Vargas started taking tango lessons completely by accident. Who would have thought that one day he wouldn’t mind those hands roaming over his body? That he would be dancing with his teacher as if there was no one in the room but the two of them?” (on-going)

Fireflies “Lovino was abandoned in Italy with his grandfather at age seven because his parents liked his little brother better than they liked him. On his way back from America, he sits next to a far too happy Spaniard. But, when this childish Spaniard turns out to be his new teacher, what will happen? And with a field trip to Venice on the way, what antics will they get up to?” (on-going)

El Corazón del Pirata “Fate is once kind, twice cruel. And Captain Antonio Fernandez Carriedo does not have a heart, nor does he fall in love with his prisoners. But Lovino Vargas might just be the fuel to his flame - certainly there’s more to him than meets the eye.” (completed)

More Than Lust “Why did the Spaniard always hope for the impossible? That Romano would come to him one day, confessing his feelings, and they would make LOVE? That they would cry out each others names, he could hold the Italian, wake up the next morning, and he would still be there?” (completed)

The Prince and the Pauper “When Prince Feliciano goes missing, it is up to a poor servant boy Romano to step in to take his place and thwart an evil plan to take over the kingdom. However, falling in love was something neither one anticipated. Based off of the Princess and the Pauper.” (completed)

Talking to My Shadow “Lovino spends his life telling doctors about his brother, Feliciano. They hear about his look-alike brother everyday but never see him. Lovino is finally taken to a new physiologist and he meets the doctor’s son, a springy little Spaniard who’s excited to help his new friend, no matter the difficulty. Will this illness mean a life time of seclusion for Lovino or can he win?” (completed)

Spend my time dancing “As much as Lovino loved seeing the upperclassman in his soccer jersey, he’d much rather help him take it off. It’s about time they started playing on the same field. AU. SpaMano. Various others. All’s fair in love and soccer.” (completed)

Maybe, Just Maybe “Romano couldn’t help but be instantly attracted to the stranger on the train, the one with bright green eyes and an unforgettable smile. How could something so simple end up changing his life so much?” (completed)

Dead Alone “Lovino drains the life from anything he touches, seriously. It seems that he’s the embodiment of death while his lively twin brother is his counterpart life. He has isolated himself from everyone, for their own protection. So what happens when a new transfer student decides to take an interest in him his freshman year of high school?” (on-going)

Lovino and the Conquistador “Lovino lived a life of simple pleasures; a good book, his own little world and an odd, but loving, family. However, in order to save his family, he must take their place as prisoner of a hideous beast within a gloomy castle. Based on “Beauty and the Beast” (completed)

Truth Be Told “The Well of Uncomfortable Truths is discovered & deals Spain a hard fact- "Whenever you said you loved him, you didn’t really mean it. You were thinking of his brother. They were empty words.” Can Romano be convinced about whom the Well was talking about?” (completed)

Scaliest “When his entire life is taken from him, Antonio vowed to slay the beast that ruined his life no matter the cost. But on his travels he meets a secretive, sassy bard who might be more helpful than either of them realize. Is vengeance the answer or is there more at stake?” (on-going)

All I’ve lost “Lovino Vargas has slowly fallen into the trap that is Anorexia. He meets Antonio who is a strangely kind kid. Lovino thinks maybe, just maybe…there is hope. Warnings: Depression, anorexia, bulimia, mental illness and bullying.” (completed)

Infection “Antonio didn’t know what to think of the man who randomly showed up in his home… completely naked. Yet, he still found himself drawn to this “Lovino”, only to be thrown into his worst nightmare.” (on-going)

Tomato Angel “What happens when Antonio get’s jealous? (Aftermath of ‘Awesome Being Evil’)” (completed)

Step-Lovers “King Romulus is getting married to Queen Isabel. While the wedding goes smoothly, things don’t go all that smooth for Antonio and Lovino. The heat is especially turned up when it’s decided that there will be a competition for who gets to be heir to the throne.” (completed)

There goes my life “Antonio, 26, a old gourmet chef, a bachelor who’s all party. Lovino a 20 y/o premed student who only has one goal, to be become a doctor. He is determined to let his feelings for the Spaniard fade away, but after receiving devastating news, a drunken one night stand leads to the end of life as Lovino knows it.” (on-going)

Broken Wings, Healed Hearts “Junior Lovino Vargas, a broken angel, has a dark secret he’s determined to keep to himself, now matter how much of an outcast it makes him. But will his new neighbor, Antonio, change that?” (completed)

The Reunion “Light or Dark?” Lovino asked. Feliciano studied him before answering. “Light. Light always wins” When Feliciano Vargas catches the eye of a mysterious man only by the name of “The Lord,” he finds himself and his brother on an adventure ending in Germany’s infamous Black Forest. However, the Lord’s affections are not what they appear to be and Lovino finds himself worried there is a worse threat other than some creep trying to get into his brother’s pants. (on-going)

Slowly But Surely In Love “Lovino Vargas turns fifteen, the age at which the words of peoples’ soul-mates say to them when they first meet is branded onto their wrists. Feliciano has a brand as soon as the hand strikes midnight, but why doesn’t Lovino?” (completed)

Life with Lyrics Lovino Style “Lovino struggles with what he believes is a one-sided crush and his completely oblivious, also entirely too cheerful, brother. Mentions of suicide, but not a death fic!” (completed)

Walking the Line “Maybe stumbling into Walmart in search of supplies during the end of the world wasn’t as good of an idea as Lovino initially thought. Nothing screamed desperate like raiding the aisles of a fucking Walmart for food while a hoard of the undead snarled at him from outside, but that didn’t seem to matter to the armed trio he stumbled into, or more specifically, the odd Spaniard munching on Skittles. His ideas were getting to be pretty lackluster these days.” (ongoing)

Hymn to the Sea “Please, call me Antonio,” he says. “Oh, and Lovino?” “What?” Lovino snaps, a little sharper than he wants when his brain has finally caught up to his embarrassment and he realizes he’s acting like a love-sick child. He finds he still can’t keep up when Antonio’s smile changes into something different: not the friendliness it was earlier nor the comforting warmth it was moments ago. No, this one is affectionate. “I prefer your smile over Feliciano’s any day,” he says, quiet and honest. (completed)

I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You “Throughout the 500 years they spent together, Antonio never stopped reminding Lovino of how special he was, and Lovino never stopped making Antonio the happiest man on earth.” (completed)

Lentamente “Antonio and Lovino are struggling with catastrophic life changes. A traumatic event leaves Antonio scared of his own shadow; a romantic betrayal destroys Lovino’s ability to trust people. And when coping seems impossible, can dance save them?” (completed)

We’d Be Together “Something felt off about Antonio’s new home. The stairs creaked, the windows groaned, and in the mirror he saw a face he didn’t know. The face was young but the gestures old; Toni began a romance untold. He felt an issue new to most… if only he could touch Lovino the ghost.” (completed)

Blessed WIth A Curse “Monsters are real… and they didn’t just hide in your closet or under your bed. Too bad they came in the form of Antonio Fernandez Carriedo- a Spaniard too sexy for his own good. / AU Vampire!AntonioxLovino” (on-going)

Speak “Lovino is shy. So is Antonio. Oh dear…” (completed)

You Belong With Me “Lovino wished for a lot of things. He wished he had a family or food or fitting clothes or friends but mainly just wished to belong. He doesn’t quite get what he wished for when he meets filthy rich Antonio, who just came from Spain and has settled in the same town as the little thief. Still…it’s a start.” (completed)

The Witch of Sicily “There were still whispers, rumors that the witch of Sicily remained in that forest, cursing all who would come near. It was a place many feared to tread, treated almost as sacred ground. Only fools would dare incite the wrath of the witch by entering that place. Only fools…and pirates.” (on-going)

We the Dreamers “New York City, 1940: Antonio is a recently arrived refugee from Spain, a scarred soldier with firm political convictions. For Lovino, everything is pointless and nothing ever lasts. The two of them live, love and dream desperately, as World War Two threatens to take it all away.” (completed)

Guide Me “After witnessing a startling event, Lovino Vargas finds himself stricken with blindness from a psychological misfortune called ‘conversion disorder’. Without anyone to guide him, he is placed with Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, a novice seeing-eye counselor, who will try to help him regain his sight and if not, teach him how to live in the new dark, lonely world ahead of him.” (completed)

Pirate’s Lullaby “It was the last thing in the world that Lovino Vargas wanted. To fall in love with Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. But when the pirate takes him aboard his ship, Lovino learns that maybe it’s not so bad to be a pirate.” (on-going)

Infamous “Lovino was a childhood actor, but once the show he was a part of got canceled he thought he was free and could leave all the acting and fame up to his brother Feliciano. However, when a 'follow up’ episode is decided upon ten years later, he ends up going back. There he sees a familiar, face; Antonio Carriedo, a singer with his eye on Lovi making normal impossible” (completed)

Guilty Bliss “Lovino has had a drug problem for years that he’s never been able to stop. With his debts getting out of hand, Lovino finds himself in situations that made him wish he had quit.” (completed)

Bottoms Up! “Follow Lovino on his weird and, well, at least quite interesting trip around Europe in order to find out some of the greatest secrets ever about himself, Europe, tomato-shaped alarm clocks and the past of his lovely, but complicated Spanish partner.” (completed)

A Trip To Spain Could Only End In “Lovino is a foreign exchange student in Spain. Things were going just brilliantly before he happened upon a Spanish restaurant in the heart of Madrid where he laid eyes on a certain Spanish Sex God…” (completed)

The Pirates Treasure “Pirate Captain Antonio wants one thing, and one thing only; a mermaid. Boy or girl doesn’t matter, as long as they are royalty and can make him jewels.He’s got his wish, but dealing with this prince is going to be much harder than he thought.” (completed)

Strike a Pose, Fake a Smile “Antonio loves the stage; Romano hates it. So when he’s “convinced” into coming to drama club, he’s not gonna like it. In fact, he’s going to say things that he’ll regret. And because he’s such a good actor, this time Antonio believes him. Uh-oh.” (completed)

A Helping Hand “Antonio owns a cafe low on business. One day a strange boy comes in, running from a group of men and covered in wounds. Antonio offers for him to stay and repay him with work. As payment, the boy Lovino begins to make new dishes to bring more people into the cafe. Who is this boy and why won’t he tell Antonio anything but his name and age?” (completed)

A Beautiful Story “Lovino Romano Vargas is a suicidal designer who is unhappy with his fate. One day, he chances to meet Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, who turns his life upside down.” (completed)

Careless “This year, Antonio had priorities: grades, girlfriend and the Football competition, securing college with his two best friends! But that was before the Vargas moved in with all their drama including kidnapping, threats, and football talents. If anyone asks Lovino, not getting killed would be a clear ecstatic success. He is just what Antonio needed, or not.” (on-going)

This is it for now but I might update this if I get any suggestions, if I remember any fanfic that I missed or if I find any new good ones. If you’re an author and want me to add your fanfic or if you just want to suggest me one don’t be afraid to PM me! (because this is a masterlist after all)

173 notes · View notes

gambitgazette · 4 years

Text

The X-Perts: Gambit

The following is a repost of an article about Gambit that was posted to the Marvel site in 2011. We’re reposting it here at Gambit Gazette for two reasons; 1) it’s no longer on Marvel’s site (as far as we can tell), and 2) it exhibits insight and respect for Gambit’s character far deeper than what’s displayed on the comic book page the vast majority of the time (sadly). Gambit Gazette has taken the liberty of highlighting passages we find especially noteworthy.

The X-Perts: Gambit Kieron Gillen, Mike Carey, Marjorie Liu and Victor Gischler determine where this wild card will fall Posted Jul 12, 2011 1:31 pm Updated Aug 4, 2011 1:58 pm

By Ben Morse

This July, X-MEN: SCHISM kicks off a startling metamorphosis in the mutant corner of the Marvel Universe that will split the Children of the Atom and lead to ReGenesis in the fall along with two new ongoing series, each featuring it’s own distinctive team: UNCANNY X-MEN and WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN.

With change in the air, here on Marvel.com we’ll be regularly gathering the creators and editors responsible for guiding the X-Men’s destiny to dissect each of their charges to examine what makes them tick and perhaps lend some insight into where they will find themselves once the Schism ends and the ReGenesis gets underway.

This week, we take a look at Gambit, the thief-turned-X-Man who currently serves on the mission squad led by his on-again, off-again love, Rogue, while also mentoring the unpredictable X-23.

Marvel.com: How would you describe the core of who Gambit is and what is most important to him?

Victor Gischler (writer of X-MEN): Self-reliance.

Mike Carey (writer of X-MEN LEGACY): Gambit’s a guy with a core skill that he glories and excels in, and his sense of himself has formed around that, to some extent. He’s not just a thief, in the sense of having earned his living by stealing—he’s a Thief in a self-defining sense that’s halfway between family and ethnicity. [He was] raised by thieves, in a city where thieves were a clan with clan loyalties. So I think that’s his core, and his instincts and identity and an X-Man were grafted onto that.

Kieron Gillen (writer of UNCANNY X-MEN): Gambit's just one of those classic conflicted characters, torn between a fundamental selfishness—or, at best, self-interest—and the realization that [this] isn't right. His shows of genuine compassion are all the more striking now because of where he's come from. I mean, put aside his recent interactions with Rogue. Look at his interactions with X-23. A man of experience who is man enough to realize that not all experience is worthwhile. He'd roll his eyes at anyone who takes the Sinatra-ian "Regrets? I've had a few, etc" line.

Marjorie Liu (writer of X-23): At his heart, Gambit is a good man who believes in taking care of his friends, and his friends are what's most important to him. People are his home. He will do anything for those who matter to him.

Marvel.com: What is Gambit’s view of how the mutant race should conduct itself moving forward?

Kieron Gillen: Any future of the X-Men that involves having a future and keeps him out of long, boring meetings is probably good with him.

Mike Carey: Arising out of his childhood experiences, I think Gambit is fairly tribal in his gut instincts. Protecting his own, and keeping faith with his own, are core values for him. He’s also perfectly comfortable with a sort of under-the-radar lifestyle, and he knows first-hand that it’s possible to live invisibly among others who don’t share your values or your lifestyle. I’d say Gambit would be comfortable with a strategy that saw mutantkind dropping right out of the rifle sights of the various nut jobs out there and going underground until its numbers are up again and it can confront the world on its own terms.

Victor Gischler: I think he knows that difficult things need to be done, but he wants to see the mutant race finally push through those times so things will be better for the next generation.

Marjorie Liu: The thing about Gambit is that he's a man who knows how to adapt to survive. He plays things by ear, depending on the situation, and never feels obligated to follow the rules, because the only rules that matter are his own sense of honor. Ultimately, that sense of honor includes 'doing no harm'—at least, not to the innocent.

Because of that, however, I don't think he has a firm idea of how the mutant race should move forward. There's no overarching philosophy, no set of rules. Again, he adapts, he plays by ear. I think he would be more likely to say that the mutant race is filled with individuals, and each situation needs to be taken on an individual basis, without imposing some master plan.

Again, though, he's a survivor, and if the world turned on mutants as a whole, his approach would change, as well. He'd fight. He'd protect.

Marvel.com: Does Gambit like being a member of the X-Men? What keeps him affiliated with them?

Mike Carey: He likes the excitement. He likes the company—or some of it. He likes the sense of family. I think those would be the most important things for him. Having said that, he’s definitely someone who would be able to step into another life if the X-Men folded. He’d miss it, but he wouldn’t mourn it. He’d survive perfectly well.

Kieron Gillen: Honestly, I could spin out an enormous answer about how he sees himself in relation to mutants—though it suddenly strikes me that I see Gambit as one of the mutants who least self-identifies as "mutant"—but about 85% of it boils down to the following: One word, five letters.

Marjorie Liu: I don't know if he likes being a member of the X-Men, so much as he likes some of the people there, and feels obligated to stick by them, and guard their backs. It's a 'people' thing that has him sticking around, and not philosophical.

Victor Gischler: There is kind of a lone wolf aspect to Gambit, but I think deep down all lone wolves really want to be part of the pack. They just don't want to get burned or have their trust betrayed. Gambit has been an X-Man too long not to be a team member in his heart.

Marvel.com: What are Gambit’s most honorable qualities? His least honorable qualities?

Mike Carey: His chimerical gallantry. His insane courage. His anarchic shrewdness.

When he first joined the X-Men, Gambit served as a cynical and occasionally ruthless counterpoint to their stern virtue. They’ve met him more than halfway now—in fact, in some ways, they’ve surpassed him: the X-Men’s moral mainstream has changed so much that Gambit now seems more like a Robin Hood among them, a principled thief with a paradoxically strong code of ethics. He’s still got that ruthless streak, and he can be dishonest both in concealing information and in lying outright. And he has a weakness for going it alone when he ought to trust the people around him. That was what got him sucked into Apocalypse’s wake.

Victor Gischler: He's honest about who he is, warts and all.

Marjorie Liu: Most honorable qualities? Least honorable? Sometimes I think those are one and the same. He'll take care of his friends, no matter what. That's great. But what's not so great for everyone else is that he'll take care of his friends -- no matter what. Even if it means an act of betrayal.

Marvel.com: Do you think the rest of the X-Men really trust Gambit?

Kieron Gillen: Dark, tortured past. Propensity for playing on the other side. Will make out with your other half behind your back. A big part of me thinks they trust Gambit more than they probably should.

Or maybe they don't. The Utopia-era Cyclops-condoned Wolverine-lead X-Force—Gambit wasn't on that team.

Marjorie Liu: No, not really. I don't think they know him, that's the problem. The individuals who do—Storm, Jubilee, X-23—would trust him with their lives, without question. Everyone else? Not so much. To them, he's a wild card, so to speak. They see his reputation first, before they see the man.

Mike Carey: I think they didn’t, and then they did, and now they don’t again. He’s got a lot of lost ground to make up after the Limbo debacle. His past as a thief doesn’t count against him any more, but his past as a Horseman and his past as a Marauder during Messiah Complex do.

Victor Gischler: As long as they keep one hand on their wallets at all times.

Marvel.com: Could Gambit ever be leader of the X-Men again?

Victor Gischler: I don't see it. But that's mostly because I don't think he’d ever really want the job.

Marjorie Liu: My first instinct was to say yes, but the more I think about it, issues of trust and reliability would undermine his position. I'm not sure all the X-Men would feel secure with him in charge, or be willing to follow him to hell and back—and that's a huge component of successful leadership.

That said, I do think he can lead, just on a smaller scale, with a team that would fit his highly adaptable nature.

Mike Carey: He’d never want that job. It’s too public and too constricting. He wouldn’t be afraid of the responsibility, although he wouldn’t exactly relish it, either—he would be afraid of having his hands tied in a fight by having to co-ordinate what everybody else was doing.

Kieron Gillen: It doesn't seem a natural fit, but I'd never say never. I wouldn't say he could lead the X-Men as they are now. But a hypothetical X-Men team of the future? Yeah, I can see him pulling that off. As long as it doesn't involve all too many of the aforementioned long, boring meetings.

Marvel.com: How does Gambit’s relationship with Rogue color his place among the X-Men?

Marjorie Liu: I wish it didn't! If this was real life, that relationship would be one of those bad running jokes that people tell each other around dinner, or when there's nothing else to talk about and so you go to the one topic that's only less boring than dull silence. Don't get me wrong, I used to be a fan of Gambit and Rogue, but the relationship doesn't do either of them any favors.

Mike Carey: It’s the main reason why the X-Men feel like home to him. If she left, his attachment to them would be significantly weakened.

Kieron Gillen: What can I say? Heavily.

I know I've been laboring it, but more than almost anyone else, his ties with the X-men are personal. He's happy to exist in a world with the X-Men. He's happy to do the X-Men's work. But he's an outsider, and I think that's a real core of who he is. He needs shadows to step out of.

Mike Carey: Who among the X-Men does Gambit trust? Who does he feel should lead the team?

Victor Gischler: I think he'd trust Storm under almost any circumstances.

Kieron Gillen: Rogue. That's about it. And I don't think he has particularly strong feelings about who should lead the team—but he is interested in the institution of the X-Men. I wouldn't say he's a "Doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in" cynic, but as long as there's an institution which exists to do the job the X-Men have been doing, he's happy. If a leader appeared who changed that role entirely, it's only then Gambit would raise an eyebrow.

Marjorie Liu: I'm biased, but I feel he trusts X-23 and Jubilee, along with Storm. I'm not sure he trusts Rogue, even though he loves her—and I'm sure he's comfortable with Wolverine leading.

Mike Carey: I think he trusts Cyclops and is comfortable with his leadership. Certainly there’d be more tension for him if, say, Magneto had a leadership role. But the question of who leads isn’t a compelling one for Gambit, because he doesn’t see himself as being a follower. He follows his own conscience: sometimes that takes him outside the X-Men’s big tent. When he’s there, he toes the line, but his allegiance isn’t easily given or given without provisos.

#gambit #marvel #gambit gazette articles

26 notes · View notes