mama-21-joker

[cha1cedony]

Just mouthed ‘aww’ to myself while writing about a grown ass man snoring. Mortifying. I need to explode

[welllpthisishappening]

On This Night and in This Light (3/3)

Emma Swan knows she’s pretty good at what she does.

Helping the magically afflicted and affected find jobs in this realm isn’t the most glamorous thing in the world, and, sure, there’s a lot of paperwork, but she figures she’s helping people and that’s the important thing. It’s structured. Calm, even.

Until. It’s always until.

Killian Jones shows up with his stupid smirk and his tendency to lean against the door frame in Emma’s office and his distinct lack of magic. Or knowledge of what they’re really doing at Mills Personnel. Everything kind of goes off the rails after that.

—-

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 6.5K of magic and eventual happily ever after

AN: There’s some magic here. Some kissing. Some curses. And happily ever after, of course. Thanks for reading along with this little distraction from the legitimate stress of the real world. You guys are all an absolute delight.  

Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll || Or start from the top

—-

“Are you good?” Tilting her head up to meet Killian’s vaguely crinkled forehead and passably confused expression, Emma almost regrets the question she didn’t plan on asking. That’s the problem with him. And them, at least in the abstract sense. 

Words tumble out of her without much thought to their meaning or collective, if not slightly metaphorical, weight. Defenses she’s spent a lifetime cultivating feel as if they’ve crumbled at her feet, which is impressive since she’s laying down, but the metaphor still checks out and Emma keeps asking questions. 

Without being wholly afraid of the answers she’ll get. 

“Be more specific,” Killian murmurs, and her heart does something stupid. Skips a beat. Sparks her magic. Threatens to leave her glowing in the tangle of sheets she’s absolutely stolen in the middle of the night. 

“Just—I mean with everything.” Nosing at her cheek, Emma can practically hear Killian’s smile. “‘Fraid that’s not any more specific, my love. But if we’re going to speak in the abstract before coffee—” “—Oh, we should make coffee.” He kisses her cheek, that time. “Then I am exceptionally good.” “Pretty vast adverb.”

“Well, you asked a very broad question. But I stand by my answer, particularly when you’re not wearing any clothing. Why, am I giving off not-good vibes?” “Maybe lame ones if you keep using the word vibe in actual conversation. I just—I don’t know, wanted to make sure, I guess. Working for Mills isn’t exactly the height of luxury and it can be a weird place, and I...we never really looked at apartments for you, because we can do that if you want to, but—” Stumbling over the words, Emma wishes her hands were free. She’d like to wave them around. Use them as a distraction to whatever has settled on her face and in the pit of her stomach, and this wasn’t really the plan. Granted, the plan occurred while she was overly exhausted and reeling a bit from rather large emotional realizations, but telling him the truth about absolutely everything is suddenly a bit more daunting in the light of day. 

And they haven’t even had coffee yet. 

Killian’s hand moves. Faster than Emma’s entirely ready for, his fingers brush a strand of wayward hair away from her eyes and then he’s kissing the bridge of her nose and pulling her against his chest and—

“This was not my plan. In some great expectation for my life, I’m not sure I could have ever imagined this is what it’d be like. But,” Killian adds, as soon as Emma’s magic shifts into something far closer to dread, “if all of this ended with your freakishly cold feet waking me up every morning, then I can’t be very upset about it.”

Swooning pre-coffee can’t be advisable. Emma’s heart doesn’t care. It flips and flops and does that possible explosion thing again, and she’s a little concerned the force of her smile will have adverse effects on the paint in her bedroom. 

“You don’t think Mills is weird?” “Do you?” Emma shakes her head. “Nah, no questions for questions. This is—” “—An inquiry?” Her shoulders slump. Under the blankets, and she’s really got a shit ton of blankets. “I don’t know, Swan. Mills is...a place, a job. One where you work, and that’s mostly why I’m interested in continuing to work there. Should I not be thinking that?” The last few words come with a bit of understandable concern and maybe a hint of frustration, and she should have said something earlier. 

It’s very frustrating to realize how much smarter the part-time cricket is than Emma.

She hopes he’s enjoying his job, too. 

“My feet aren’t really that cold.”

Killian scoffs. “I promise, they are like little ice cubes attached to your legs.” “Lucky you’re here to provide external heat, then.” 

Burrowing her face closer to the crook of his neck, Emma gives herself a moment to relish in that warmth, like he’s some sort of personal sun or a battery or another bit of science she doesn’t understand and David always likes to say that science is just explained magic. Emma wonders if it works the other way, too. 

Magic is something that simply hasn’t been explained yet. No rational reasoning, or anything except the kind of gut feeling that can change everything. 

“I am,” Killian says, and it probably isn’t meant to sound like a promise. “Are you good?” Dots of light appear behind Emma’s eyelids every time she blinks, trying to come up with an answer that won’t send him running and she doesn’t know what she’ll do if he runs. Energy prickles at the tips of her fingers, curling around either one of her wrists and lingering in the slight bend of her left elbow because at some point her left palm has flattened itself against Killian’s stomach. “Mills can be kind of weird,” Emma mutters, trying to pick her words more carefully now. “And that’s...there’s a reason for that, and a reason I started working there and—” A phone starts vibrating. 

Loudly enough that it also immediately falls from the nightstand it was charging on, and keeps buzzing around on the floor. Killian sighs. 

“Hold that thought.”

Emma wishes she could. But her hands are already back underneath the blankets, and she’s all too aware of how bright they’ve gone in the last few seconds and the state of Killian’s shoulders make it obvious he’s not all that pleased with whatever he’s being told. “Yeah, yeah, I can—I mean, it’s like twenty blocks the wrong way, but—God, yes, Scarlet. I can come back for a few minutes.”

He doesn’t bother to plug the phone back in, and for like a solid half second Emma gets distracted by the lack of clothes before her eyes fly up and Killian’s sighing again and the weight in the pit of her stomach grows. 

“Coffee later?” Emma blinks. “Sure. Is everything ok?” “No idea, just that Scarlet said he had to talk to me and it couldn’t wait and—” Killian shrugs, fingers finding the back of his neck. “I probably won’t be that late, but if Regina asks—” “—I’ll tell her.” Something tugs at the back of her mind, a warning Emma can’t place, but she can sense a lie with almost startling accuracy and she knows Killian isn’t lying to her. She just can’t figure out why Will would lie to him. 

Halloween’s not her favorite day. 

People assume all magical and mythical creatures thrive on this one day of the year, but more often than not Emma finds that it’s just another busy day when those same magical and mythical creatures come out of the metaphorical woodwork in droves to get jobs. And sure, some of the rumors are true. There are certain times when the fabric between realms can be a bit more flimsy than usual. Both midnights, for example. Eleven-eleven’s another big one. So, teenage girls had that one right, at least. 

And yeah, ok, Halloween also means Regina bakes half a dozen apple pies for the whole office, but when the whole office is already overrun by inquiring applicants, Emma can’t find it in herself to be very excited for a dessert she only kind of likes. 

She’d never admit that to Regina. 

Self-preservation instincts, and all that. 

Plus, days like this are always cold. Fraught with that certain nip in the air, and leaves that crunch under Emma’s boots. Only to also get stuck to the bottom of Emma’s boots, and she has to twist her wrist to get rid of her leaf-based trail on her way to her paperwork-covered desk. 

The same one David’s leaning against. 

“You tell him yet?”

She missed one leaf. Figures. Emma never even went trick-or-treating as a kid. Halloween’s a sham. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” “Sure you don’t. It’s dumb that you haven’t yet.” “Voice your opinion a little louder, please.” “Nothing is going to happen,” David says, but Emma barely hears over the sound of sudden and complete disagreement that scratches its way from the depths of her soul. Maybe Halloween makes her a little maudlin, actually. She can’t believe she didn’t get to tell him. “It hasn’t yet.” “Why are you jinxing things like that?” “There is no such thing as jinx, and c’mon, if you guys can get through today with a hundred magically unemployed people, then sky’s the limit.” “Not even clever.” David shakes his head. “You’re impressed and swayed, I know it. Plus it’s not like you’re a bad witch or anything.” “I’m sorry, a bad witch?” “Yeah, you know. None of your intentions, even when lying to the guy you’re stupid into—” “—Opinions keep coming fast and furious, don’t they?” “Because he’s right,” Ruby calls, twisting around desks to involve herself in a conversation Emma doesn’t want to participate in anymore. “You really didn’t tell him yet? That’s nuts. And you’re a good person, Em. With a very good looking face. Who wouldn’t want to make out with that? Ad nauseum.” “I’m going to be honest, using a word that sounds like nauseous isn’t helping your case much,” Emma says. “And I’m going to tell him. I am, just—things got crazy this morning.” Ruby howls. With laughter. Drawing more than a few curious stares, and rather pointed glare from Regina’s direction. David pales noticeably. “Did they?” Ruby presses. “How crazy are we talking and was it also vaguely acrobatic, because I feel like Jones could move if he had to, but that’s strictly theorizing on my part, so—” Sentences without end are quickly becoming Emma’s least favorite thing. Only slightly edging out ringing phones. The one on her desk lights up, which doesn’t happen very often, but she can’t imagine the light is supposed to be green. 

David’s talking. She’s dimly aware of it — the soft hum that sounds more like Charlie Brown’s teacher than any of the human characteristics Emma is certain they both have, and that’s another quasi-Halloween reference. Rocks appear to have landed rather forcefully in her stomach, and that’s what she gets for optimism. 

“Swan,” Killian breathes, as soon as she pulls the phone to her ear. “Swan, Emma listen to me, you can’t—” Seriously, the lack of sentence structure is becoming intolerable. Killian grunts, the sound turning into a gasp almost immediately and a few shouted no, no, no leave them alone and Emma doesn’t remember standing. 

Only that she’s knocked her chair over in the process. 

“Is this Ms. Swan?” a new voice Emma almost recognizes asks. “Because it seems I’ve got something of yours, while you have something I’m particularly interested in. Let’s make a little exchange, shall we?”

It’s disappointing that her mouth goes dry. Emma assumes that’s because she’s all but panting, bent awkwardly over her desk while her eyes scan the room for something or someone and—it clicks. The voice. 

“Zelena. This is Zelena, isn't it?” Both David and Ruby make matching noises of disbelief, but the buzzing is back and Regina is moving and the line’s gone dead anyway. “She’s not supposed to be here,” Regina says with enough calm that it grates on every single one of Emma’s already-fraying nerves, “magical control sent her back to Oz.” Emma can’t cope with this. Any of it. All she wanted was to drink coffee with her decidedly human and very normal, if not ridiculously attractive boyfriend and they’ve never actually used relationship qualifiers. 

That’s disappointing. 

“Right, right, yeah, ok, of course” Emma mumbles, and she doesn’t bother to fix her chair. “Happy fucking Halloween, I guess.”

It takes her all of five minutes and one person dressed in costume to realize that running is absolutely and completely pointless. 

Emma’s a goddamn witch.

And it’s raining. 

Drops slide down her temples, drip down the back of her neck and work under her jacket because she never even got the chance to take her jacket off. Which is something of an exceptionally small miracle now, but she’s already cold and she’s always so fucking cold and—

He called her Emma. 

He called her—

“My love,” she whispers, entirely to herself and that part isn’t really true. Shadows hover just outside the edge of her vision, what Emma knows are her friends waiting for instructions or a plan, and she’s got to come up with a plan and she doesn’t know where Belle and Will live. 

She doesn’t have to. 

Reaching her hand back, Emma’s fingers lace through Regina’s, and her soft instruction of “all instinctual,” doesn’t get lost in the hum of the city or the bustle of a holiday that requires masks and chocolate-based gluttony. It takes root. In Emma’s mind, and those same pieces of her soul, finds the tiny bits of space between her stomach rocks and spreads out from there. 

Warming her from the inside out. 

She closes her eyes. 

“What the fucking fuck?” Will shouts, Emma’s feet slamming into hardwood floor that was probably highlighted in this apartment listing. Eyes bugging, he’s plastered to the wall opposite her, and Emma’s pleasantly surprised to find he’s not gagged, but she also kind of figures it’s because Belle is and there’s something inherently villainous about allowing the love interest to make noise while their partner is being tortured. 

By a woman wearing a pointed witch’s hat. “Kind of cliché, isn’t it?” Ruby muses, and Emma’s not surprised they’ve started their rescue mission with sarcasm. She also can’t respond. Her eyes are too busy trying to take in the scene. 

Stacks of books litter the floor, half the living room furniture on its side as if it’s been knocked over in a fit of inevitably-magical rage, and Belle doesn’t look as scared as annoyed that she’s been bound in one of the few upright chairs. Emma’s heart stutters. Catching her breath is impossible, head on a swivel as she tries to find—

“Killian,” she exhales, and he’s not gagged either. No visible restraints keep him a few feet away from Will, but Emma can feel the magic rippling off him and it smells strongly of bitter lemons. Or expired key lime pie. 

Neither of those things are inherently Halloween, or all that magical. But then Zelena’s turning slowly and the green splotches on her face ensure any attempts at passably funny metaphors or desperate attempts to maintain her sense of reality disappear. 

“Huh,” David says, “that’s new, actually. We ever see anyone change color before?”

Regina clicks her tongue. “She’s not changing color. She’s giving in.” “To what, exactly?” “Jealousy. Isn’t that right, Zelena? Been the crux of the problem forever, hasn’t it?”

Emma’s head is spinning. She’s not moving. “Wait, wait, what the fuck is going on?” One side of Killian’s mouth tugs up, amusement in his gaze and that can’t possibly be right. “You are stuck to the wall, idiot!’ “Oh, Swan, you do know how to flatter a man.” “What is happening?” He can’t shrug, but Emma knows he tries and that should not be as charming as it is. Mary Margaret squeezes her hand. The one that’s almost neon. “Turns out Scarlet didn’t actually want to talk to me this morning. We definitely could have had coffee.” “Is that a euphemism for—” Ruby starts, only to snap her jaw closed when Regina gapes at her. Emma’s starting to lose feeling in her fingers. 

And she sees the exact moment any sense of teasing and entirely false bravado leaves Killian. Lips going thin, his shoulders still don’t move, but Emma swears his fear reverberates through her and that’s not the emotion she was interested in sharing that morning. “You’ve got to get out of here, love. Now, it’s—” Zelena’s hand moves so quickly, it’s not much more than a passably-green blur. Nothing else comes out of Killian’s mouth. His jaw moves, working against a shield none of them can see, and Emma’s stomach is somewhere in the vicinity of her throat. 

Even with all those rocks. 

“How did you get back here?” Regina asks, stepping towards the front of their ragtag group. Fire bursts from her hands, flames that flicker up her forearms and draw another grunt out of Will. Whether it’s surprise or just the generic sound of being impressed, Emma’s not sure. 

Bits of green cling to the end of Zelena’s mouth when she smiles. “Shall I start at the beginning, then?” “God yes, please,” Emma sighs. 

Zelena doesn’t take her hat off. Really, she’s almost making it work for her. As far as costumes go, this one’s kind of basic, but there’s no cape or a broomstick and Emma’s never met a witch who was interested in flying a broom anywhere. 

“Wanted to stay conspicuous, you understand,” Zelena says, “Draw too much attention to myself and—ah, well, that’s not what’s important now.” “What?” “Why you, Emma Swan. Obviously.” “This isn’t the beginning,” David mumbles, and both Emma and Regina shift before Zelena can so much as lift her chin. One of the windows on a different wall flies open, half a dozen pigeons descending on the living room and nipping at the ends of Zelena’s hair. They pull on the sides of her dress and peck at the green spots that are growing on her cheeks. 

Whistling, Mary Margaret jerks her head and the pigeons fly away, looking a little like an avian synchronized swimming team. “Leave him alone.”

“Shit,” Ruby says, “that was impressive and aggressive. Ignore the rhyme.”

Emma tilts her head. “Slant rhyme, right? Can’t rhyme matching sounds.” Someone makes a noise — it comes from the general direction of Killian and Will, but it can’t be Killian and Emma wants it to be him anyway. Zelena doesn’t look very impressed with any of them. That’s fair, it’s probably frustrating to have your monologue interrupted so often. 

“If you don’t mind,” she sneers, Emma waving her free hand like she’s capable of giving the bad guy permission to keep talking. “It had been quite some time since I’d been in this realm, and plenty of things had changed. More magic, a certain kind of power that hung in the air. Energy that could change the course of everything, strong enough that it could probably rewrite time itself if it wanted to. And I want it to.” “To what?” “Were you not listening? Rewrite time.”

Breathing out of her mouth is not attractive. It’s loud and makes Emma’s tongue feel larger than it actually is, especially when she has to keep using it to lick her lips. “That’s—that’s insane. You’re insane. You didn’t just want to get a normal job? I mean...you were at Mills. I saw you.” “Power of the Universe at my fingertips and you think I’d be satisfied with a normal job? No wonder you have no idea what you are. Which,” Zelena glances meaningfully at Killian, “means you, Emma Swan, are the reason I’m here.” “Speak English!” Zelena huffs. “I am. What I felt when I returned to this realm? It was you, my dear. Your power, your magic, your ability. And, yes, I could have given into the hum-drum existence of this place and the structure of Mills Personnel, but where exactly is the fun in that?”

Emma hopes she’s not expected to answer. She doesn’t have one. It’s entirely possible she’s going to snap several of Mary Margaret’s fingers in half. 

“Anyway,” Zelena continues, “locating that power wasn’t easy, but Regina Mills’ ability to make things happen is legendary. Finding a person’s niche, that’s her greatest talent. And so I did come to Mills, looking for a position that would help me get the rest of the requirements.”

Ruby keeps shaking her head. Emma can’t seem to move. Or breathe. Her eyes keep darting back towards Killian, trying to make sure he’s breathing or reacting in a way that doesn’t threaten to make her cry. Nothing. 

He’s plastered to a wall with magic, of course not. 

“You see, a time spell is one of the more complex out there. Need all sorts of things in addition to the kind of magic that can fuel it. Which is what I wanted when I got to Mills. Hoped I could get placed in a hospital or something of the sort.”

On the increasingly small scale of things that surprise Emma, that somehow makes the cut. “You need, like, an IV drip or something?” “A baby,” Zelena replies easily, and Belle whimpers against the gag. “Pure of spirit, you understand. Other things too. Courage, wisdom, maybe a heart if I could get lucky—” “—An actual heart?” Will balks. “Spend a lot of time in Wonderland, did ya?” “I mean, she could probably get the heart in the hospital too if she wasn’t picky about her choices,” Ruby reasons, and this whole thing is absurd. Maybe that’s the theme for Halloween as a whole, though. 

More of Zelena’s face is green. 

“I had hoped I’d get someone competent who could help me. Or even the source of the power. Naturally,” she jerks her head in Killian’s direction, “I ended up with this sot. Who suggested working at a clinic or agreeing to something called an orderly position. Well, I knew he wouldn’t help me, but I did get something out of it. I knew you were there, Emma. And—” Zelena’s eyes rove towards Belle, and the hands collapsed over the front of her stomach. Realization crashes over Emma in waves, the rocks disappearing only to be replaced with a bone-deep chill that douses any bit of light in her. “So I do have a few options for you all now.” “What are you trying to fix?” “Hmm?” “Fix,” Emma repeats, “or change, I guess. I mean—that’s not how life works.” Zelena hums in what can only be passing interest and something almost like an agreement. “Seems unnecessary to tell you my whole plan, but when it works it won’t make much of a difference. I want to get rid of the girl. That nasty little thing that fell in Oz and ruined everything. Robbed me of my chance to prove myself, claimed there had to be good witches and bad witches and you’re absolutely right, Ms. Swan. That’s not how life works. Nothing is quite so cut and dry as all that.”

Words hang off the tip of her disgustingly dry tongue. Want to be said and proclaimed, and for all the mistakes Emma has made — good and bad, right and wrong, trusting and the opposite, she’s happy to find she’s not particularly interested in changing them. 

Not if she ends up here. 

Well, maybe not here—with her boyfriend, they’ll get to that eventually, magically silenced and Belle doing her best to glare daggers at the half-green witch who commandeered her living room, and Ruby’s teeth are definitely getting longer. But maybe here-adjacent. With people who care about her, who followed her without question or thought and the guy who is still somehow staring at Emma like he’s got every intention of keeping her feet warm. 

Ad nauseum. 

“I’m not really interested in anything you need.”

Disappointment flashes across Zelena’s face, only to immediately morph into something much closer to fury. “Hero types, always so sanctimonious. That’s why I said several options. It’s one now, but—” Flicking her wrist, Killian slides down the wall in what Emma knows isn’t actually slow motion. Still, the amount of time it takes for his knees to crash to the ground seems to last forever and Zelena doesn’t try to stop Emma from rushing forward. 

Eventually, she’ll realize why. 

“Regina discovered what I was trying to do,” Zelena explains, “my fault. Kept coming back to Mills, demanding better placement and as much as it pains me to admit she’s smart...well, she sent me back to Oz.” “So how are you here?” Mary Margaret demands.

Emma doesn’t need that answer, either. Halloween is a bullshit, overrated holiday. Pulling Killian close to her, he’s far too limp and impossibly silent, and Emma barely spends a moment thinking about either of those things before she’s kissing anywhere she can reach, mumbling apologies and half-explanations into his skin and—

“Ah, I’d be careful if I were you,” Zelena says, a soft lilt to her voice that rattles down Emma’s spine. “See, your option is to give me your magic, Ms. Swan. If you won’t do it willingly, I’ll take it by force.” “I don’t—” 

Movement catches Emma’s attention, the soft flutter of fingers across her back and she has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. At first. All it takes is a few seconds, and that’s probably another sign. She hopes so. Tracing letters on her jacket, Killian’s eyes flutter shut like he’s exhausted and determined not to sleep and— “No,” Emma exhales, but Zelena’s smile looks victorious. It’s too late. They’re too late. And there’s nothing they can do to change that. 

Slumping against her, Killian’s eyes don’t open again. His breathing evens out, and Emma supposes that’s something of a very twisted victory because he isn’t dead, but he’s even more obviously sleeping and sleeping curses are notoriously hard to break.

“Especially when they so often require a kiss,” Zelena grins. “True Love, and all that. So let me ask, Ms. Swan. Do you think what you and the plebe have is True Love and, more importantly, will you be willing to sacrifice your magic for it? Because the only way he’s waking up is with a kiss and the next time you kiss him, you’ll lose your magic.”

To suggest that it kind of all goes to shit after that is something of an understatement. 

Light pours out of Emma, unsteady legs under her even as she juts her chin out. To her credit Zelena doesn’t back down. She stands there and she turns a bit more green, and magic is so goddamn weird. Emma’s also never been in a magic fight before. 

Spending so long hiding that part of her — certain it was going to be the reason everyone left, the opportunity never really presented itself. Fighting for the sanctity of time itself and Killian’s consciousness seems as good a reason as any to flip the script, so to speak. 

Heat races through Emma, wind swirling at her ankles as frames clatter to the ground. Shards of glass fly on the manufactured breeze, Mary Margaret darting towards Belle and David sprinting towards Will, and it’s something of a confidence boost when they’re both able to pull them away from the battle. 

Although Emma can’t really believe she thought the word battle, even in her head. 

“Not exactly the magical dominance you were bragging about, huh?” Emma quips, twirling a finger in the air. Bands of light circle Zelena’s calves, twist up her legs and turn her answering laugh into a gasp that also does dangerous things to Emma’s ego. 

“I never—” Zelena grunts, twisting against bonds that don’t even flicker. “—You were the powerful one, I thought I made that blatantly obvious.” “I mean,” David shrugs. 

Ruby nods. “She did kind of, Em. That’s true.” “Whose side are you on?” Emma snaps, but the retreat back to absurd is almost comforting in a familiar, banter-filled sort of way. 

“Please,” Regina sighs. Her hands are on fire. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, and I know you claimed you didn’t have to tell Killian the truth before.” “Yeah, well, cat’s pretty much out of the bag on that front, don’t you think?” “Flew out on pigeon’s wings, I think.”

Laughter has no place in a moment when Zelena’s entire face has turned green, and her own fireballs are threatening at her palms, but Emma can’t help herself and maybe the dumbest thing she’s ever done was suggest Killian shouldn’t have worked at Mills. Or that she couldn’t be head over heels in love with him. 

That helps, honestly. 

“You’re not getting my magic,” Emma announces, all too sure she sounds as ridiculous as she feels. Heroic soliloquies are also overrated, it seems. “And you’re not getting Killian or—God, were we actually talking about Dorothy that whole time?” Zelena snarls. That must be the response. 

“Well, you’re not getting her either. Sneaking back here on Halloween was dumb. Trying any of this was ridiculous and threatening Killian was the worst of all your ideas. Because—” Emma takes a step forward. Nothing shakes. If anything her knees almost lock out, the hair falling over her shoulders noticeably brighter than usual and Zelena recoils. Seriously, her confidence is through the roof. “Magical job placement might be boring, and it might have a shit ton of paperwork, but it’s also a chance to help people and that’s...that’s the point, isn’t it? Finding that sense of belonging? Giving a person a chance. Being able to—” “—Fall in love,” Mary Margaret cries, scrunching her nose when Regina and Ruby shush her. “I mean…that’s what it is, isn’t it? Love’s not a weapon. It makes Emma glow.” And that makes Emma curse. “Maybe we phrase it differently?”

“Maybe we worry about language once we actually defeat the witch, huh?” Regina challenges, and that seems like a legitimate plan. 

Balls of fire fly through the air. Ricochet off Emma’s lights, and every window flies open as Mary Margaret calls upon not only pigeons but what look like several sparrows and a few nightingales if the sounds they’re making is any indication. Leaves swirl around the room, partially from the actual wind and also from whatever Emma is apparently capable of. 

A lot more than she thought, honestly. 

Warmth rises in her spine, sets her shoulders in a straight and determined line and she gives Will an appreciative smile when he pulls Killian out of the fray. Only to immediately jump back in, ducking and twisting and there’s a lot more cardio involved than she thought, but then a flash of magic nearly singes her ear and Emma’s thankful for her own agility.

She moves. Refuses to back down, ignoring the growing ache in her muscles and the weird popping thing her hip is doing. And Zelena starts to cower. In an especially villain-type of way.

Backing into the nearest wall, she stumbles over her feet as light tightens around her. It pins her arms to her side, curls around her ankles and guarantees she can’t run away when Emma stalks forward. 

With a smile on her face. 

Oz authorities appear at eleven-eleven, which seems to suggest it is somehow still morning and Emma cannot rationalize that at all. 

They thank Emma for containing the fugitive, nod towards Regina and well—that’s that. Leaving the rest of them in a slightly singed apartment with pillows that somehow haven’t burst, and what feels like a distinct lack of oxygen. 

“So,” Will drawls, “what do we do now?” He doesn’t have to look at Killian. The still-sleeping form is the far-more-attractive-than-an-elephant elephant in the room, draped across a couch that David had to lift on his own. One of his feet is hanging over the side. “True Love’s Kiss isn’t a real thing,” Emma whispers, but the words taste like ash on her tongue and Regina makes a very obnoxious noise. 

“Dumb, dumb, dumb.” “Do you think I’ll lose my magic?” “Do you actually care?” Shaking her head, Emma doesn’t bother saying the words. Not when she knows they’re so obviously painted on her face and sudden realization is almost as annoying as not ending sentences. She knows what he was tracing on her back. 

Maybe she is the idiot, actually. 

And for a moment, Emma’s mind falters. Remembers that other moment, standing frozen as a different set of lights threatened to blind her and metal snapped around her wrists and she’d been so certain then. Never again. Nothing else would get through the defenses. No one else would know. No more mistakes. 

This isn’t a mistake. 

Careful to avoid the glass on the floor, Emma tiptoes forward and crouches next to Killian. She brushes her fingers over that scar on his cheek, the ends of lips that are somehow still tilted up into half a smirk and—

“God, just do it already,” Belle shouts. 

That’s that, again. 

Kissing at this angle isn’t particularly easy, and Emma’s knees aren’t particularly pleased with the amount of pressure she’s putting on them, but it does allow her to basically drape herself across Killian and that also makes it easier to get her hand under the hem of his shirt. And nothing else really happens. 

No sharp inhale. No tilt of his head. Absolutely no sign of his tongue, which Emma has come to find herself almost obsessed with in the last few months. She doesn’t care. Doesn’t allow herself to stop, not when there’s a flicker of hope and all that want simmering between her ribs, mixing with her magic and how ridiculously in love she is and it’s annoying that she’s the one who gasps. 

As soon as arms circle her waist. 

Emma can’t really tumble when she’s above him, but the edge of the couch digs into her thighs and Killian’s doing an admirable job of trying to get her parallel to the rest of his body. Her fingers find his hair when he arches up, his own hand roving the expanse of her back before his arm curls tightly around her like he’s trying to make sure she’s still there. Leaning into her palm against his chin, Killian’s lips drag across the back of Emma’s wrist, sparking another round of magic and even more glowing. “Oh shit,” Emma mumbles, not able to pull herself away from Killian. Because of his arm. And...other reasons. 

“Was that a response to me, or—” “—No, no, I just—well, there’s still magic. I’ve still got magic. And, uh, I’m a witch.” He laughs. Throws his head back and lets his body shake under her, which really isn’t helping Emma’s state of mind at all, but she’s admittedly preoccupied with the overall volume of the laugh and how wide his smile is. “Swan, Emma love, did you honestly think I didn’t know?”

She—

Has absolutely no idea what to do with that. 

Ruby might fall over. Regina’s eyes bug, Mary Margaret using David to stay upright, Belle covers her mouth with her hand, Will cackling loud enough for the both of them. 

“Did you,” Emma starts, but Belle and Will shake their heads and Killian’s tongue click is awfully put-upon for a guy who was just cursed. 

He taps on her jaw until she’s able to look at him. And his stupid blue eyes. “I could feel it, love. Also you have a tendency to...glow. Which I'm assuming is a compliment, for me. Or us. There's an us, right?" She nods. Can't do much else. "And you’re not very subtle. Extra cinnamon in the cabinets, moving the remote so I don’t have to look for it. Working at a job placement agency that helps the magically afflicted. Plus there was paperwork. Was Freddie really a gold statue at one point?” “Yeah, but they un-statue’ed him with water from Lake Nostos. Not True Love’s Kiss.” “So we won, then?” “Competitive weirdo.” “Absolutely,” Killian nods. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I figured you’d get around to it at some point and then you were talking today and—” “—We’re not such shitty friends that we’d demand Killian show up back here before nine,” Will reasons. “Plus, it’s been kind of nice to have a free couch.”

Killian gags. “Did I say congratulations yet?” “We were busy.” “Wait, wait,” Emma sputters, and she’s going to go into cardiac arrest. Or magic overload. “So this whole time. You knew.” “Well, not the whole time,” Killian objects. “Most of it though, yeah.” “But you’re still here.” “Where else did you expect me to go? Aside from your apartment now that we’ve defeated the wicked witch? I’m assuming we defeated the wicked witch.” Emma nods. “Well, then I’ll apologize for drawing you into that, too. She was half the reason I started to suspect anything, honestly. Told Regina about her and the last thing I expected when I got here was to see her, or to have her demand I get you here. I tried to avoid that.” More nodding. More aching muscles and poorly performing hearts, and Emma wouldn’t mind if Killian traced several other sentiments into a variety of different areas, but they’ve got an audience and a pregnant lady and they never did get coffee. So, it makes sense to ignore that for a second. Or several. 

“I love you,” she says instead. Shouts, really. “More than I realized I could and I—” Any other words get lost in the feel of Killian’s mouth on hers and the ability of his tongue to incite butterflies in her stomach, and she hardly hears him say I love you back. It doesn’t matter. She hears it on loop for the rest of the day, once they’re ushered unceremoniously out of Belle and Will’s apartment. Neither of them think much about getting coffee. 

And she’s just on the cusp of sleep, eyelashes fluttering and blankets halfway to stolen when Emma hears something else. Pressed into that one spot below her ear. 

“I’ve got no intention of leaving,” Killian whispers, “not because of the magic or the power that comes with it, only because I love you. A ridiculous amount, honestly.”

Sleep seems kind of pointless after that. 

He decides to leave Mills, eventually. 

“I don’t have magic,” Killian rationalizes, and Emma supposes that makes sense. “But I will need some help finding a job.”

Sliding a file with his name written in swirling script across her desk, he’s got the gall to smirk at her and Emma resists the urge to magic him into her chair. “Luckily I do have other skills, including a job offer—” “—If you’ve got a job offer, you don’t really need my help.” “Yeah, but you’re very pretty and I hear you’re real good at what you do.” “Which is?” “Moving in with me,” Killian says, which isn’t the last thing she expects but it still manages to catch her off guard. Lights erupt at the end of several strands of hair. “The reaction I was going for, absolutely.” “No, no, that’s—that’s dumb.” “Is it?” “I was going to ask you to move in with me. First.” “Competitive weirdo.” “I have an apartment,” Emma argues. “With laundry on site.” “Ah, yeah, that is a marker in the pro column. Plus, you’ll be there right?” “In my apartment? Yeah, probably,”

Pushing back on the chair he’d never really been sitting in, Killian leans across Emma’s desk. To kiss her. Hard. Magic flares in the air around them, causing bulbs to flicker and more than a few cries of get a room . “What I’m trying to do,” Killian mumbles. “If you’re asking me to move in, Swan, I’m going to accept.” “Make it sound less like a warning next time.”

He chuckles against her mouth, either ignoring the desk that must be pressing into his stomach or not bothered by it at all, and Emma tries not to throw herself at him too quickly when he brings a whole box of recently-bought blankets with him.

“So you don’t get cold, love.”

[yeaahishowedupatyourparty]

MORE ABOUT MY NEXT GEN BABIES. 

Adelaide ‘Addy’ Maeve Coleman - daughter of Zara & Danny. 

- scars to your beautiful - alessia cara   - july 1st, cancer  - actress, studying at diamond bridge (LA) - bisexual with no preference, single  - esfp, hufflepuff  - raised in lilac heights in zara & danny’s home they live in now  - ditzy, naive, energetic but also sensitive and insecure. she has a tendency to let herself be walked all over by friends and lovers. she also lacks the confidence to really accept that she has talent and is capable of doing things.  - she was painfully desperate to be one of the popular girls in high school, to the point where she would let her “friends” treat her like dirt. even though she’s now in college, the effects of the underhand bullying stay with her and it makes her very reluctant to trust and open up to new people.

Allison ‘Ally’ Marie Cortes-Smith - daughter of Adrian & Holly. 

- seven - sleeping at last - august 13th, leo  - model & athletics (surfing, figure skating & dance), studying at gold coast (australia)  - heterosexual, dating brett jackson - entp, gryffindor  - raised in violet springs (?), in her family home with adrian and holly - energetic, outgoing, adventurous but also explosive and stubborn. ally is constantly looking for family-like connections away from holly, adrian and haley. she craves feeling like somebody’s first choice because - particularly with holly - she felt like the back-up plan until she got custody of haley. she has one song about her, whereas haley has enough for an EP of music with holly worshipping her and she’s just always felt that subtle favouritism in her household.  - from an early age, she’s sought out love in all of the wrong places but is currently in a good place with brett, who is definitely her safety net. she’d be lying if she said living in australia made her homesick. 

Aurora Faith Kingsley - daughter of Soraya & Julian.

- boss bitch - doja cat  - january 17th, capricorn  - fashion designer, studying at rosewell (paris)  - heterosexual, bisexual dating peter romano  - entj, slytherin  - raised in violet springs (?), in her family home with soraya and julian. she definitely has a dual-citizenship like soraya, though, and often spends summers in cuba with her grandparents.  - outspoken, confident, witty but also explosive, judgemental and harsh. aurora was definitely spoilt with love when being raised by her parents; both soraya and julian doted on her in different ways, and while she knows the value of materialistic things, she’s not entirely used to not getting her own way or not having people adore her. that being said, she’s a fiercely loyal friend and shows the love she was given when she was younger to people she thinks deserve it. - aurora’s expectations and standards are impressively high and she’ll always credit her parents, who always modelled a healthy and secure relationship to her. she doesn’t take it for granted & always strives to find people who treat her the same way julian treats soraya.

Belle Cynthia Carmichael - Daughter of Anastasia 

- donatella - lady gaga  - november 3rd, scorpio  - dancing & modelling, studying in west ivys (london)  - heterosexual, single  - esfp, slytherin  - raised partially in los angeles and also in lilac heights with anastasia and her father (divorced) as well as her older sister, darcy.  - aesthetic, good-humoured, magnetic but also irresponsible, self-indulgent and superficial. belle is the baby of the family and took a shine to the socialite los angles lifestyle from around 12 years old. she’s a big spender, loves the night life of any big city and is a BIG fan of the attention that being a rising star brings her. unlike her sister, who’s a lot more lowkey, belle demands attention and will do anything to get her own way in any situation. - everyone was expecting anastasia and ryder to split from their (what would have been) their fifteen year marriage. everybody except belle and darcy, anyway. the girls were caught off-guard and it wasn’t easy. belle had the most extreme reaction, becoming very emotional and self-indulgent. her way of dealing with it has been to do everything in her power to go against anything either of her parents ask of her; she’s definitely out of control.

Daisy Louise Romano, daughter of Florence & Dominic. (tw: cancer) 

- style - taylor swift  - may 22nd, gemini  - dance, studying at liberty (new york city)  - heterosexual, single   - isfp, gryffindor  - raised in violet springs (?) in dom and florence’s family home, but i imagine they have a family home in italy because of dominic’s roots too. florence and dom spend a lot of time in italy in general, so it’d make sense.  - creative, friendy, warmhearted but also over-protected, nervous and idealistic. daisy is the only daughter in her family and it definitely shows. on top of dominic, she also has carter and peter who have kept a close eye on her growing up and has definitely been protected from things other girls her age may have learnt to deal with themselves, or without as much back-up. rather than rebelling against it, she’s very comfortable & probably relies on her brothers - especially peter - for more than she should. she’s very rooted in family and while she’s a hopeless romantic and loves flirting, going on adventures and seeing the world, her heart is with her family. - daisy’s pre-teen years were snatched away by the fact that she was diagnosed with cancer. she spent three years of what would’ve been her high school life in hospital and was far too weak to dance or do anything she usually did. she was put into remission at 15 and was cancer free for three years before it made a return, now she’s nineteen (pushing 20), she’s once again in remission but her anxiety and trauma from the sickness are very much alive.

Darcy Briar Carmichael - daughter of Anastasia. 

- nothing breaks like a heart - miley cyrus  - february 27th, pisces  - modelling, studying at st judes (violet springs)  - bisexual, single - infp, ravenclaw - raised partially in los angeles and also in lilac heights with anastasia and her father (divorced) as well as her older sister, darcy. - patient, imaginative, loyal but also argumentative, guarded and defensive. darcy has always been wise beyond her years in the sense that she’s mature and has a responsible head on her shoulders. anastasia used to worry that she wouldn’t enjoy her early twenties/teen years in the same way everybody else seemed to, but it just never appealed to her - she preferred to lose herself in art, reading and individual activities rather than going out to huge parties and festivals like her sister. she’s quietly confident and is happy to be seen as the ‘boring’ one if it means not having to be forced to sit at social events she’d rather not be a part of.  - darcy’s confidence was knocked by her parent’s divorce. it actually ruined her application to blossom bell academy - where she wanted to go and do art and photography. she was unorganised and just a mess in general, so she knew she’d get rejected. st judes, her second choice, also rejected her art portfolio but because of her looks, offered her a modelling position. she figured it was better than nothing but it’s never been her passion. only now is she starting to feel inferior in comparison to her little sister.

Dixie Gisele Carmichael - daughter of Disney and Brody. 

- god is a woman - ariana grande  - october 1st, libra  - fashion design, studying at rosewell (paris) - heterosexual, single  - estj, slytherin  - raised in new york but spends the summers in france & christmas in violet springs to be close to grandparents  - confident, hard-working, charming but manipulative, calculated and jealous. dixie has grown up in the spotlight due to being the child of arguably the most famous couple to come out of st judes in her parents era. she’s very used to it and it’s something she’s numb too. however, unlike her sister, who seems to just get things a whole lot easier than dixie, she has clawed her way to the top of everything she has, not caring who she scratches on the way up; being the most popular, young socialite on the upper east side, her fashion career and everything else are things she’s had to fight for out of the threat of otherwise being branded as ‘fleur’s twin.’ she holds herself and others at a viciously high standard. she’s been on dates and enjoyed attention from guys but she hasn’t slept with anybody and has never had a boyfriend; it’s not something she hides either. her main goal right now is to become the best designer there is, and she’s proven that she’ll stop at nothing to get there. - while at gallagher high school, fleur was already booking modelling jobs and becoming the more successful of the twins. dixie resented it. she couldn’t stand feeling inferior or lesser than and wasn’t happy for her sister at all. quite the opposite. the two of them applied for rosewell but unfortunately for fleur, when their acceptance letters came through, she was out at new york fashion week, leaving dixie to reject her offer and forge a fake one telling her she’d been rejected....and she’d do it again.

Dylan Samuel Powell - son of Janey. 

- fine line - harry styles  - february 15th, aquarius  - photographer, studies at west ivys (london)  - heterosexual, dating lily  - infj, hufflepuff  - raised in sweden until he was thirteen, and then moved to violet springs to be closer to his family with janey.  - patient, practical and compassionate but over-protective, nervous and sensitive. dylan had a quiet childhood. when janey graduated from west ivy’s, she moved out to a rural part of sweden where she started a new. her life consisted of writing and exploring until she had dylan with a man who’s no longer in the picture. dylan fell into janey’s lifestyle too; quiet, peaceful and creative. he enjoyed it for the most part, but the trauma of janey’s experiences definitely became his too. he grew up seeing his mother have anxiety attacks in public or not want to leave the house if she had a feeling she was being watched. in many ways, dylan became the parent. he was the one who made his mother feel safe. he was the protector. he never really understood until he finally met his grandparents at 15 and was told exactly why janey was the way she was. this only brought out an even more protective side of him, after having his eyes opened to how disgusting the world can be. - dylan was reluctant to study anywhere too far away from janey, but she pushed him to branch out at least a little, because she has a lot of guilt about holding him back for al of these years. 

Emmett Charles Hamilton - son of Imogen & Nate. 

- go stupid - polo g  - april 12th, aries  - actor, studying at st judes (violet springs)  - heterosexual, single  - entp, slytherin  - raised in london (south kensington) with imogen and has always been a city boy. he’s your typical private school kid; his father has been out of the picture only for a few months but it hasn’t had much effect. his younger brother, ethan, chose to move in with nate while he stuck with imogen. - intelligent, intuitive, social but lazy, restless and unmotivated. out of emmett and ethan, emmett definitely takes the crown for the family disappointment. his brother’s childhood was full of sports trophies, A*’s on report cards and being at the top of the social hierachy. emmett, on the other hand, would’ve happily lived in his parent’s loft and never seen the light of the day if he could. he did pretty wel in school and had al of the potential, but a life of getting high and falling back on to his trust fund seemed way more appealing. imogen was more willing to let him coast through life (being from wealth herself), whereas nate was always pushing him to go out and make something of himself, meaning naturally he prefers his mother.  - emmett is in the process of burning through his trustfund. he’s impulsive and careless and without proper guidance, will soon find himself with nothing. he has no respect for his dad - who is the stricter parent - and thinks he’s invincible. 

Jay Alexander Hamilton -  son of Park. 

- tonight you’re perfect - new politics  - september 17th, virgo  - athlete, liberty academy  - heterosexual, seeing sylvia(?)  - enfj, ravenclaw   - raised partially in the canary islands with his dad, running their hotel, but also in violet springs with his grandparents.  - friendly, ambitious, a deep thinker but also impatient, overly-critical and a perfectionist. jay was brought up on the canary islands with his father after losing his mother when he was eight. constantly being at the beach, the hotel and new people, he’s a social person with an active imagination and is always on the go. he’s both book and street smart but can at times hold himself to impossible standards; he definitely gets his perfectionist streak from his aunt. the loss of his mum has hurt him, but he buries his feelings as much as possible to avoid talking about them. jay’s always fit in with popular crowds seamlessly and it’s exactly the same story for liberty academy. - jay has already shown huge potential at liberty academy and has been given attention that first years usually don’t get. he’s currently dealing with the end of a friendship with ethan, though, his best friend for many years. it’s lowkey weighing on him but he’d never show that it effects him.

Kai Arden Powell - son of Louis & Lexi. 

- fireflies, owl city  - march 3rd, pisces  -  writer and actor, studying at willow house (cardiff)  - heterosexual, dating sofia  - infj, ravenclaw  - raised in violet springs (?) with louis and lexi, close to his family with good connections to both sides.  - imaginative, selfless, creative but pessimistic, self-pitying and emotional. kai is the perfect example of a high achieving burn-out. all through his school life, he boasted great grades and came at the top of the class for most things, but as the years went on, he lost momentum and started to rest on his abilities. while everybody else levelled up and got better, he declined and started to slowly stop caring about his academic achievements. he was more concerned with the social side and fitting in with people who really didn’t care much about him. when it came to college admissions, he was already failing many classes and got rejected from everywhere besides willow house. he hates it and refuses to even try to enjoy it. - sofia is his lifeline, at the moment. she’s trying to get her dad, wesley, to negotiate with people at st judes to get him a space, but it isn’t necessarily going to work. especially if kai can’t get his grades up and apply himself to his writing and acting seriously. 

Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Bradford - daughter of Drew & Annabel.

- first man, camila cabello -  june 30th, cancer  - singer-songwriter & musician, studying liberty academy (new york)  - enfp, ravenclaw  - raised with drew & annabel as an only child  - romantic, loving, protective and sympathetic but touchy, defensive and an overthinker. lottie grew up with both of her parents and spent a lot of time on the road with drew when he was touring. she’s used to big crowds, music and moving around a lot but grew up very attached to her mother, annabel, she’s her favourite person in the entire world and everything she does is to make her proud.  - lottie ended up dropping out of high school to go to a stage school in london when drew stopped touring; she was around 14, but eventually got homesick and returned, spending her last few years at springs park high before she got accepted into liberty. she’s really set on making memories and doing her absolute best in music - but she’s prone to falling in love with people and getting extremely distracted.

Sullivan Rosini - son of Ruby.

- song undecided  -  14th may, taurus  - actor & singer (vc: frank ocean)  - esfj, gryffindor  - raised by ruby  - independent, humanitarian and sociable but also head-strong, stubborn and judgemental. sullivan was adopted by ruby when he was seven and settled very quickly into the family home. since around 12 years old, he’s been an activist and had a huge presence online for animal rights. he’s been arrested multiple time at different protests and it gives ruby the most anxiety but she’s also very proud of him. 

[olicity-fanwork-exchange]

Title: Your Fire Under My Skin by allimarie_xf ( @allimariexf )

Rating: Teen

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationship: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak

Characters: Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak

Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Remix, Fic of Fic, AU, Alternate Universe - Earth 2, UST

Notes:

Dear @cruzrogue (AO3: cruzrogue) Surprise, my friend! I am so lucky to have you as my giftee, and I’ve had an awesome time “living” in your universe!!

Of the three works you gave me to choose from, I decided to write in your intriguing Earth-2 AU, Earth-2 Felicity Q-Smoak 

I admit that I find writing in AU to be a challenge - I have actually never done it before! But I was drawn in by the mysterious world you’ve created in this story, and I was especially intrigued by the history between Oliver and Felicity. There are 13 years between your story’s “present” and its flashbacks, and clearly a lot has happened between them during those years. I couldn’t help but want to fill in that blank, just a little bit ;)

So this little missing scene takes place early in Oliver and Felicity’s past, during their voyage back to the U.S. (I would say it is set between chapters 2 and 3 of your fic). I had SO MUCH FUN writing this. Thank you for giving me the opportunity! *mwah!*

She’d taken to leaving the door open a crack when she went to bed. She couldn’t exactly pinpoint when it happened, or why, but somewhere in the unexamined back of her mind she was aware it had to do with him.

With the way his eyes were always on her, the way she could feel it. At first it was an annoyance, the way she would look away from her tablet, her meal, her conversation with one of the crew, and the first thing her eyes would meet were his, watching her. It felt like an invasion of her privacy, like he had the ability to see more than she chose to show, and that made her deeply uncomfortable. But the longer it went on, the longer he refused to betray or exploit any of the weaknesses she felt sure he could perceive, the more she began to trust that he wouldn’t.

And without realizing it, she began to find comfort in his presence. She began to crave it, began to let herself enjoy the physical sensation that buzzed down her spine when her eyes met his from across the room. She wasn’t immune to the tension that constantly sparked between them, the attraction that, if she wasn’t mistaken, went both ways, but she had plenty of experience with men, with sex, and she mostly tried to convince herself that the thrill she experienced in his vicinity had more to do with the almost-taboo circumstances of their acquaintance, or with the self-imposed abstinence of her business trip, than anything to do with him personally.

So when his deep blue eyes made something stir in her core every time she connected with his steady gaze, she refused to look deeper into it.

But she did begin the leave the door open, feeling more at ease, somehow, knowing he was just outside.

She woke up with a start, the sweat soaking through her satin nightgown making it stick to her skin.

She took several gulping breaths of air that, if not exactly fresh, was at least not the stifling, smoky air from Nanda Parbat. Her heartbeats began to slow when it suddenly occurred to her that she wasn’t alone. She felt his presence in the darkness. “How long have you been standing there?”

At first he didn’t answer, but she turned her eyes toward the spot near her nightstand where she knew he was watching her with that same penetrating gaze that saw too much. It had only been a few weeks since he’d been thrust upon her, an unwarranted “gift” from Ra’s al Ghul with, she suspected, his own agenda, but as she listened to him through the silence, she realized with a jolt of surprise that she was already learning to read him, too. She could feel him hesitating, considering his response.

“Less than five minutes,” he finally replied, his voice rough from disuse.

She let that sink in, knowing in the back of her head that with anyone else she would have felt violated, but that with him she only felt protected. Comforted. An alarm went off somewhere deep inside her at that thought, because Felicity Smoak didn’t crave protection. Felicity Smoak didn’t need protection. “And why did you come in here?” she asked, her voice extra sharp because she knew she must have cried out in her sleep. She felt exposed, aware that he had seen her wrestling with the fear she’d felt standing in front of the Demon’s Head, fear she’d managed to suppress and overcome, except in her dreams.

He cleared his throat. “I heard a disturbance. A struggle. I thought, maybe…,” his voice faded, but his implication was clear. He’d expected to find her grappling with an enemy, only to find her locked in a nightmare. “But there was no attacker.”

Knowing that he had observed her weakness, and that her first instinct had been to welcome his watchful presence, her alarm blossomed into irrational anger. “Then why did you stay?” she snapped, attempting to leverage the unequal balance of power between them that she normally tried to erase: she, the wealthy woman and he, the virtual slave standing around waiting upon her whim. He, a silent, menacing man, who carried a sword and whose very presence disturbed the peace on her yacht, yet who followed her around offering unasked for protection as if her safety was the only thing he lived and breathed for. Since he’d joined them, the air of camaraderie had evaporated among the crew; even her four hired bodyguards seemed to melt away from his presence. Out of all the people on the boat, she was the only one who didn’t shrink away from him, which she only just now realized had served to isolate her as well. She should have laughed in his face and forced him to sleep on the deck, instead of allowing herself to be drawn in by his eyes.

She waited for a reply that didn’t come, and all at once she needed to see him, to face him down, to prove that she was equal to his evaluating gaze, to prove to him and to herself once and for all that he was just a man, with no special insight or power over her. To prove that she didn’t need nor desire his protection. In one quick motion she switched on the bedside lamp, surprising him as he stood over her with a deeply conflicted look on his face.

All of her anger fell away at once.

MORE UNDER THE CUT!

He was standing next to her bed, much closer than she’d imagined, and his eyes locked onto hers immediately. Wide, blue eyes that held more passion and depth than she had ever seen in another person, and it hit her that he was just a man, and all the more dangerous for it, but it hit her also that she no longer cared.

He was overly large in the intimate space of her bedroom, and Felicity realized with a flash of self-awareness that her satin nightgown had ridden up around her waist. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of answering her, his eyes raked slowly down her body, as if compelled, taking in every inch of her exposed skin.

Felicity watched his adam’s apple bob and felt a spike of hot lust run through her at his reaction. She took refuge in directness, a strategy which had helped her a lot when she’d first been finding her footing in the business world. “It was only a nightmare. I’m fine.” She squirmed internally under his gaze, half hoping he would take her words as a dismissal, half hoping he would act on the raw desire she read in his flared nostrils and dilated pupils.

Her words seemed to jolt him back to the present, and when he turned his eyes to hers, there was a softness there she didn’t expect. “I didn’t realize you were prone to nightmares.” His tone was a subtle question, an invitation.

She knew she could answer him brusquely, reinforcing the wall around any of her seeming vulnerabilities, and that he would leave her without objection. If the past few weeks had taught her anything about him, it was that he would do as she asked, as long as she didn’t ask him to give up protecting her. But instead she found herself asking, again, “Why did you stay?” and this time her eyes were on his, granting him permission to answer honestly.

He swallowed heavily as his gaze dropped to the floor. “I heard…some of what you said.” His eyes drifted warily back up to her face. “About Nanda Parbat, and Ra’s al Ghul.”

Felicity stared back at him, sensing his sympathy but, strangely, not feeling patronized by it.

“It is an uneasy place, and the memories also,” he bit his lip, searching for the right word, “visit me, when I sleep.”

“You have nightmares too?” Her surprise made her blunt, which she realized when he suddenly blinked and looked away. Without intending to, she reached a hand toward him. “I mean, of course your experience there….” She drifted off as she watched him stare at her hand, half-extended and hanging in mid-air. She shivered suddenly, out of nowhere, as her body began to react to the cooling sweat that covered her body.

Instead of answering, he reached out and tugged the edge of her nightgown down, as if doing so could counter her chill. “You’re cold.”

The sensation of his fingers brushing over her skin had her shuddering again, and when she met his eyes they were much nearer than they had been. “No, I,” she licked her dry lips, “I’m just covered in sweat.” She huffed a self-conscious laugh. “Dreaming about those smoky fires and stuffy caverns had a physical effect, I guess.”

Oliver nodded seriously, and she was sorry that her nightmares seemed to have awakened his own dark memories which were, she was certain, much worse than her own experiences. After all, she had faced the Demon and reached a mutually beneficial agreement; Oliver had lived captive in Nanda Parbat for years, fighting to earn his freedom, and yet still not having truly achieved it.

His fingers were still stroking idly along her bare thigh as she held his gaze for a long moment. “I should probably get cleaned up before I try to sleep again.”

He nodded slowly. “I’ll run you a bath.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped, but he had already turned away toward her private bathroom before she could protest. Instead she listened, intrigued, as he turned the faucet on and the tub began filling up. She imagined him in the small space of her bathroom, wondering what he was up to, and whether he planned to stay and bathe her. It wasn’t an unappealing thought, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t let herself think about him like that on numerous occasions already.

She’d caught him staring at her more times than she could count, and it had been weeks since she’d first read the admiration in his gaze. Admiration that had grown more bold, more brazen, since she’d found herself returning it. It was not a thing they’d ever spoken of, but neither was it something either of them was ashamed of. He was clearly aware of his own sexual appeal, and Felicity had never been a woman to play coy. It was only natural that they’d be attracted to one another. Yet the unconventional nature of their relationship prevented her from taking things further, though doing so would otherwise have been the logical and undoubtedly very gratifying next step.

After several minutes of waiting, Felicity stood up, pulling her flimsy nightgown down as far as it would go, which wasn’t very far, and made her way to the bathroom. She could see him through the open door. His back was to her, and he was kneeling in front of the tub, bent over with his hands dipping into the water.

He had removed the stiff outer layers of his dark League of Assassins uniform, revealing a loose linen undershirt. He’d rolled up the sleeves to prevent them from getting wet, exposing his muscled forearms.

Felicity felt herself getting wet instead.

She watched silently from the doorway as he sat back and wiped his dripping hands on his shirt before reaching for a lighter and one of the candles she had strewn along the edge of the bathtub. He silently lit the candle and set it back down, keeping his back to her as he started to speak. “The fires in Nanda Parbat,” he lifted another candle, setting the wick alight, “they’re not comfortable fires. Their flames are too hot for warmth, and they consume the air so that one cannot breathe freely.” He lit another candle, then another. “They burn too brightly, create shadows that are too dark by contrast. When I close my eyes I can still see them against the backs of my eyelids, and when I sleep their heat burns me awake, too.” He turned around to face her, and she saw the shadowed memories in his eyes.

She drew toward him, compelled by the look on his face and his quiet tone of voice, and when he reached a long arm around to flick off the light switch behind her, she stepped closer, unconsciously seeking his body.

He dropped his arm but didn’t lean away, and she turned her face up to him, watching the candlelight play over his face, highlighting full lips and contoured cheeks and jaw. Without his league armor he seemed infinitely softer, more touchable, and Felicity fought the urge to reach out and stroke his jaw.

His eyes flicked to her lips and lingered there, and when he raised his eyes to hers she knew they were both aware of how easy it would be, could be, to close the already small distance between them. But she also knew, somehow, that they were already beyond the point of purely physical gratification. The tension between them already ran deeper.

He stepped aside, gesturing for her to move past him toward the bath. Felicity held his eyes a moment longer before moving away, unselfconsciously lifting her nightgown over her head and stepping out of her panties as she went. She felt his eyes hot on her skin but didn’t turn around.

“You speak of the uneasy fires in Nanda Parbat and yet you’ve gone and lit fires here, too.”

She heard his soft chuckle, so much lighter than any sound she’d heard from him before. “I suppose a part of me hopes the fires in your dreams can be rewritten, Miss Smoak.”

She hesitated at the edge of the bath, prolonging the moment. “And you suppose that you will be the one to rewrite them?”

She heard his small intake of breath and she smiled, knowing she had caught him off guard.

“Miss Smoak, I…,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “I had to try.”

She dipped the toes of one foot into the tub, testing the water. “What about the fires in your dreams, Oliver? Who will rewrite them?”

She felt his gaze on her back, warming her more thoroughly than the flickering candles, and for a moment she thought he might reach out to her, encompassing one bare shoulder in his large hand, his other arm reaching around to pull her back into his chest. But the silence stretched and the air around her body grew colder without his touch and she sighed quietly, lowering herself into the water, knowing their moment had passed.

Just before she heard the door close, his words reached her. “If anyone can, Miss Smoak, you’ll be the first to know.”

She sank deeper into the tub then, letting the warm water ease the ache in her taut nipples, letting the promise of his words sink into her heart.

[pyro-madder]

Passione AU ; the basics

A text post for an irrelevant, self-indulgent AU... more like a crossover actually

Foreword : This AU ended leaning more towards the Navi side, with some human characters still present, and in the end got more or less precise affiliated roles, at least for the main group - hence why it’s become more of a crossover.

I have no idea which country this takes place in, but it’s probably not that important.

They have Stands ? With powers based on their own + their parodied counterparts for the main guys (I’m not gonna design them right away though, because heck it it’s hard).

The backstories are also a big smash of what we know of the Navis and their original Passione counterparts. It’s totally not because I totally lack imagination or anything, alright

So !

- I realized we actually HAD a Mafia in EXE, therefore I chose Gospel (Shun’s hologram disguise from BN2) as the secret Boss, except here Gospel is a full human being and Shun Obihiro is their duplicate personality/appearance whom they use as everyday disguise - you could say their roles have been switched. However I’m gonna go with Nebula as the organization’s name, because naming it Gospel would be dumb - besides, there’s a bit of everyone in there.

Nebula is very influent over whichever-city-this-takes-place-in. Infortunately, most of its success is due to drug trade (*whispers* daaku chippus), but thanks to the amount of Stand users/netbattlers in its ranks, it’s powerful in many other domains.

- The protags’ group : led by Cole, includes gangstar-aspiring student Saito Hikari, former cop Blaze Raitt, street thug Sergeï Levinski, stray kid Tohopka and rebel Frey Cossack. Allow me to explain that here Forte’s character would be the one BEFORE he went rogue ; irascible and arrogant maybe, but still trusting and caring about others.

Saito : 15 y/o. Born with a rare heart disease, he spent most of his childhood in solitude in his hospital chamber, his parents often absent due to their work, and having trouble mingling with other children. As he was coming home from school one day, he met an injured person on the ground of a back alley. Realizing that that person was pursued, he lied to men who interrogated him a minute later, protecting the stranger, then went home once they got away safely. More preoccupating at the time was his disease which suddenly worsened, until he couldn’t leave his hospital bed. When he only had a few weeks left to live, he was suddenly offered surgery and finally recovered. He learned afterwards that the stranger he’d saved that day had been the one behind the surgery ; later finding out they were a gangster, Saito has been aspiring to follow their footsteps ever since.

Stand : Virtual Insanity. Close-range type. Extracts “data” from living beings and inanimate objects alike, which can later be infused to other beings and objects, granting them all kinds of abilities, and control them. Saito can also extract data from allied Stands and temporarily gain a fraction of their abilities.

Cole : 28 y/o. His mother left when he was still young, and he lived with his taciturn little sister Iris and his father - a cop - until the latter was killed in an accident involving drug dealers - leaving Cole and his sister in a difficult situation at ages 21 and 8, respectively. Around this time, Iris developed a grave, unknown disease that would kill her within few years if nothing was done, but Cole couldn’t afford medical treatment for her, as the middle class they were part of suffered strongly from the economic crisis. He decided to enroll in Nebula for financial support, stabilizing his sister’s condition, but realized afterwards that Nebula was, in cruel irony, the very source of the drug the trade of was responsible for his father’s death.

Stand : Gates of Delirium. Colony type. Creates small portals from which emerge toy-sized soldiers. He can also keep weapons behind portals which he may call upon when needed for lightning attacks.

Blaze : 21 y/o. Originating from a wealthy family, Blaze had a tense relationship with his father, notably regarding his career - wishing to become a police officer instead of inheriting the family’s business. Ultimately his younger brother Enzan was made heir to the company and Blaze was free to do as he pleased. However, soon enough, Enzan was targeted by the underground notably due to his young age (12 then) and, as he was about to be abducted for a ransom, Blaze who was on the spot shot without thinking ; leaving his brother safe for now, but incurring an entire gang’s wrath on his family. As a result, he was immediatly disowned by his father and, as he had lost most of his sight from receiving eye injuries during the altercation, couldn’t continue his police career either. Because he had nowhere else to go, and so as to fully ensure Enzan’s safety, he ultimately joined Nebula. 

Stand : Bible Black. Tool-bound type. A sword-like Stand of which the blade, when set to the ground, gives its user a retrocognition of the events that occured in the direct surroundings for a defined period/timespan. Contact with living beings (whether a simple touch or an attack) will also show a glimpse of their past to Blaze (but he sternly affirms that, unless under dire circumstances, he’ll never look into somebody’s background without their consent). 

Sergeï : 26 y/o. Homeless street thug without relatives, Sergeï was one of the numerous victims of the economic crisis and grew up in back alleys through pure survival. By the time he reached his late teens, it had become more of a carefree lifestyle, managing to rent a (crummy) studio and, leading a small group sharing his situation, living off money he got from beating up unsavory thugs. But one day, he was betrayed by his group ; and curiously, despite being outnumbered, he managed to kill all of them without receiving a single bullet himself ; but for that reason, nobody believed that his perfect shots had been out of self-defense. Jailed, he was soon noticed by Cole and bailed out. He joined Nebula as the gangster lifestyle wouldn’t change much from his former one, but would at least guarantee him food and a roof.

Stand : Paranoïd Eye. Long-range type. A satellite-like Stand used for scouting, relaying its user all kinds of informations about its surroundings - weather and atmospheric pressure, air composition, number of living beings, etc - allowing Sergeï to prepare a perfect snipe. It can also redirect bullets by making them ricochet against itself.

Tohopka : 18 y/o. Born of neglectful and sometimes abusive parents, Tohopka has been skipping school to hang out with delinquents since he was 14. One day, he witnessed a particularly close “friend” beat up someone nearly to death, and was threatened to stay silent. Tohopka was eventually arrested as accomplice (for watching without stepping in) but not the actual perpetrator, and was put in detention center for one year. Once released, he realized that he could neither go home nor try to retrieve his “friends”, and couldn’t attend school either. Roaming the streets for several months, he was eventually found and temporarily taken in by Cole as he would soon die of hunger and sickness. Feeling indebted and grateful for being treated with genuine kindness for the first time in years, he decided to follow whatever footsteps Cole would take and joined Nebula.

Stand : Wings of Freedom. Long-range type. A jet-like Stand with the shape and size of an eagle ; possesses a strong firepower but few precision apart from its ability to detect heat.

Frey : 16 y/o. He lived normally with his father, renowned doctor Mikhail Cossack, and sister Kalinka in a small town - or, almost normally, as his terrible temper often lead to fight with local thugs and even adults. But one day, as Dr Cossack was planning to soon move into the city, Frey was wrongly accused of a murder, jailed despite his father’s efforts, then forbidden visits for a reason he wasn’t revealed. Noticed by Cole, he was bailed out, only to realize that his family had already moved away, leaving him behind, and had no choice but to join the gang. Obviously, the truth is that his family was forced away from him, following a mysterious conspiracy, but he only learned that much, much later. 

Stand : Nujabes. Close-range type. Creates miniature atomic explosions which liberate strong radiations in a five-meters radius ; anyone caught in them dies nearly instantly, whether friend or foe. It represents Frey’s violent side and cannot be controlled, so he avoids using it as much as he can.

Together, they are entrusted Hina Sakurai (15 y/o, Stand : Girls’ Generation, close-range type, creates all kinds of mechanic and electromagnetic waves), for a reason I have yet to find (following the original work would make her Gospel’s daughter and have her be targeted by the assassins’ group ? idk)

- Assassination Squad : WWW Navis from BN1, 3, and 6 (Fire, Color, Elec, Magic, Flash, Beast, Desert, Plant, Blast, Dive, Judge, Circus, and Element, maybe the solo ones too but that’s a lot). Traitors targeting Hina so as to have a lead for the Boss’ identity ? Either way they’re both enemies of Gospel and Cole’s band.

- Gospel’s guard squad : Gospel Navis from BN2 (Air, Quick, Cut, Freeze). Sent after Cole’s group after they betray the organization (supposedly to protect Hina, Saito joined to overthrow Gospel anyway).

- Narcotic Squad : Slur + Nebula Navis (Shade, Blizzard, Cloud, Cosmo). Their traffic doesn’t sit well with Saito & Colonel ; they eventually go rogue, and Forte, Meddy, and Kingman are sent after them and ultimately take them out (because Kingman and his NetOp were actually important characters, even if only for one game...)

Annnd that’s it for now

[allitalksfandom]

Okay. So I tried to save the Arvis ask for @swordsoprano as a draft, but Tumblr sucks so I’m starting over. (Ooor...resume it half a month later and spend a good chunk of it talking about fanfic AUs and being silly. #JustAlliThings) Obligatory disclaimer that this is all my opinion and if you feel differently about anything I say here, it’s okay!

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

It can be both, right?

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

I know I’m ace-spectrum, but this (and loving Saias) is why I find Aida #relatable. I have a weakness for redheads stemming from a childhood crush. And he’s tall and wears a cool outfit. 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

I’m just going with what @markoftheasphodel said.

best quality:

He genuinely loves and cares Azel, even if he fails to express it in a healthy/non-intimidating way. I think I heard that there’s more about their relationship in further Oosawa chapters, so once I am mentally and emotionally prepared to resume the liveblog of legend, we’ll see if she can make me cry a third time about their relationship. No. Really. (A warning: In one of those links I use the term “biologically female” in reference to a trans OC of mine. Now I would use either dfab or afab, but I was unaware of the correct terminology at the time, so this is just a warning!)

His letting Azel’s mom stay once he becomes duke, and the Treasure article talking about how him, Azel, and Azel’s mom were like a family. GAH!

It’s pretty cool that he liberated slaves when he was emperor.

Julia seems genuinely fond of him, and not just when she talks to him in FE4 (I had wondered if she was just saying empty reassurances). Granted, FE Heroes came out twenty IRL years after the fact...

Pictured: “My” Julia talking about her dead family, but it’s going to be okay because she’s my daughter now and no one will ever hurt her again. Except on the highest levels of the Training Tower.

worst quality:

*points to FE4* 

ship them with:

Oookay. So...as is well-known, I had Issues TM with the execution of SigurdxDeirdre in the Oosawa manga. So when I saw how Arvis’ interactions with her were presented...I kind of shipped it. Which makes me feel awful because I hate incest ships! And there’s a bunch of other things about shipping Arvis with Deirdre that are unhealthy! But I realized this ship was kind of born out of reactionary feelings, so now I ship Oosawa!Deirdre with one of my potential boyfriends from Alli FE. She can indulge her knight fetish with Itri the anxiety-ridden scholar knight, there’s no incest, and my self-insert gets to feel pleased that she helped thwart yet another evil cult.

...Back to Arvis. For fic, I’ll write what I need to write. But if it starts out sweet, it’s going to be unhealthy.

And I guess I’m glad he and Aida did the horizontal tango*. (I felt like calling it that.) I love my children.

brotp them with: 

Azel! I also like him with Aida. They have one of those bickering friendships, but they do care about each other he just doesn’t care about their kids that much

I do feel like, although he wasn’t the most emotional man with Julius and Julia, he cared a lot about them, and tried to do his best to show it. needs to stay away from:

Even when they both know that they’re siblings, I feel like his relationship with Deirdre might be tension-filled...

At least in the Cinderella!AU, he cares about her, yeah, but he’s also wondering how she can further his political ambitions. After all, she’s a young woman, and she needs a man to guide her. 

Not a husband, of course, no man is worthy of his sister. But certainly, someone should look out for her. And he’s clearly the best for the job.

The exception would probably be that happy-ending AU I promised @arthoure I’d write one day. There, they share custody of Julius and Julia, who were adopted from the cult that their mom escaped from. The same cult that tried to use them to rebirth their dark god, but hey, it’s 2009, Arvis has pictures of his mom in his home. And she sure looks like this amnesiatic stranger. And the news has a story about a missing young woman. So, yay?

misc. thoughts:

Back when all I knew about FE4 was incest, I was freaked out by it. This was a good thing. Why? Because this was before I entered my post-Phantom phase of fandom, so I would’ve been an Arvis apologist like I was for Lyon in my early teens >_>

I remember reading this article on him and being confused, mainly because I read the other Jugdral articles at the same time. “So, who’s the main character of this game? Why is half of this article backstory? WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?!”

Enter 2012, when I join the Jugdral fandom. Things get...heated.

I’ve talked about the contradictions inherent in his character with Mark and @siegmunds a few times, and I think that’s what draws me to him! For me when I imagine fic in my head, Genealogy of the Stones!Arvis is a more sympathetic character than most of the other incarnations, for example-he’s aware that he’s being manipulated by Manfroy, and he wishes he wasn’t deceiving Deirdre to the same extent (it’s a bit odd in this AU since there’s no sexism preventing her from ruling herself, but her being inexperienced means that Azmur wants her helped out by Arvis one way or another). He also fears that Azel will get caught up in things somehow. Yet when it’s the Battle of Berhella equivalent in my AU, although he’s courteous to the Renais twins and is willing for them to leave without a fight, he’s all venom otherwise. He’s enjoying this rush of power.

Meanwhile, in other AUs he’s a lot more happy to manipulate people, and he likes to think that he’s calling the shots with Manfroy. The beautiful thing is that you can legitimately write him either way!

/tl;dr Arvis is my trash boyfriend

*It’s such a funny expression! The tango is always portrayed as something where the dancers are really in control of their movements, and sex doesn’t seem like something as...graceful. I could see the comparison on physical demand, though? /asexual virgin’s thoughts

[animemisogynist]

Fall 2017 Anime Season Preview

It’s almost time for a new season of anime, so here’s the first installment of what will hopefully become a regular feature here at Anime Misogynist: the season preview, where we tell you what’s worth watching before it’s even aired. Now, most sites are slow and lazy and wait until a show has aired an episode (or even three ghastly episodes, for shame!) to tell you whether or not it’s worth your time. However, here at AniMog we are more evolved; when you’re just using a show as a kind of Rorschach blot for your ideology, do you really need to see any of it before judging? The teaser paragraph and one image should be more than enough; frankly, the show doesn’t even need to be animated yet. Honestly, we could post our Summer 2019 Preview Guide right now. Still, we already wrote this one, so we’ll just go with this for now.

Note that these are not the only shows that are going to air this season, but they’re the only ones worth talking about; all the other shows are stupid nonsense that only chicks and cucks would watch. By the way, did you know “cuck” is the absolute best insult? I don’t know what it means, think maybe it has something to do with poultry, but by God, every time I use it I feel so manly and strong. Don’t be a cuck, cucks watch Gamers.

Returning/Continuing Shows

March Comes in Like a Lion, Season Two—First of all, as we’ve been over before, there are no goddamned lions on this show, which is a damned shame. Imagine if instead of a skinny teen moping around his apartment starving to death and wondering what new futon to buy, this show was about an actual lion that plays Shogi? Like, they go to that stuffy club where all the televised Shogi matches happen, then a Lion prowls in wearing a bowtie, and then someone goes “Why is there a Lion in the stairwell?”, and he’s like, “Despite being leonine, I enjoy a stimulating game of Shogi every now and then, on languid afternoons,” but then halfway through the game he rips out someone’s jugular with his teeth, because he’s the king of the jungle and he has no patience for cerebral board game shit. That sounds like a pretty good show, but alas, it is not this show. Still, this show has Akari, who is really hot and pretty and one of our ideal waifus, so we’re probably going to watch it just for her. Watch if you like motherly, mature waifus, skip if you really want a waifu who will step on you.

Rating: 2/10

Fate/Apocrypha, Continuation—Look, I’m just going to throw something out here, it may sound crazy at first, but hear me out: What if all these people just stopped fighting over the Holy Grail?

I mean, think about it: every time we see the Holy Grail, it’s basically a cancerous tumor that has blown up to the size of a Dairy Queen, and it oozes pure evil in the form of black monster bile that burns your skin like acid. It’s supposed to grant wishes or something, but it’s been corrupted by the venal sins that lurk deep within the heart of man, and now it’s just a giant Bouncy House made of oozy suck. So maybe we could get a bunch of historical and mythical figures together, in these awesome, pimped-out costumes with big swords and lances, and have them do…I don’t know, literally anything BUT fight over the Holy Grail. Like, imagine Saber and Jeanne d’Arc starting a coffee shop, and tell me you would not watch that show in a hot second. It would be like Is the Order A Rabbit?, only with frequent disembowelment instead of a talking bunny.

Oh yeah, and speaking of Jeanne D’arc, it’s cool that she’s in this show: because if there’s one thing misogynists love, it’s seeing martyred young girls get empowered and kick righteous amounts of ass.

Rating: Malevolent Menstrual Tumor/10

Food Wars!, Season Three—An important disclaimer: this season, you can either watch Food Wars!, or one of the bishonen idol shows, but not both. Because if you try to watch both, what’s going to happen is that Food Wars! Is going to make you ravenously hungry, eat everything in sight, and gain 60 pounds. Then you’ll watch Dynamic Chord, and cry manly tears that you just gained a spare tire around your waist and will never have the lithe, willowy physique that men in otome game adaptations have, and in all likelihood, contemplate killing yourself. This is just another way the misandric anime industry tries to brutalize male feelings of self-worth, and we’re warning you now so you can take care of yourself; please practice proper self-care.

Anyway, as to the show itself, it’s pretty okay. There’s lots of fanservice from the girls, but the same girls who provide the fanservice are also awesome chefs who give the lead character a run for his money in the cooking competitions, and that’s messed up. Also, like its many predecessors, including Mister Ajikko and Yakitate! Japan, the show manages to harness all the excitement of shonen battle manga while sidestepping the hetero-masculine trope of using violence as progression, so it’s a good show to watch if you’re some fancy fuck who likes taking sociology classes.

Rating: Veal Piccata/10

Yuuki Yuna wa Yuasha de Aru: Yuuasha no Shou—It’s the second season of Yuuki Yuna, or as we like to call it, Poor Man’s Madoka. Honestly, we never watched the first season, so we have no idea if writing off this show as a Madoka Magica clone is fair, but that seems to be the consensus of opinion on the internet, and that’s all that really matters. Of course, if this show is a lot like Madoka, then it presents misogynists with the same fundamental problem as Madoka: it gives little girls magic and makes them very powerful (Misogyny BAD!), but it also puts those girls in situations where their powers do nothing except make them miserable and suffer horrendous fates (Misogyny GOOD!). Kind of puts us in a delicate position: “Why would you want to watch a show all about girls who kick ass?” “yeah, but they’re being put through a metaphorical meat grinder while they kick ass,” “irrelevant, the point still stands that you are watching a MAGICAL GIRL SHOW, explain this shit.”

So yeah, we’re not sure whether we recommend this show or not. We have someone in the back room crunching the numbers, trying to figure out if it’s more misogynistic to watch a show about females suffering than not to watch it at all on account of the stars being girls, but until we get a preliminary estimate back from our math guy, you’re on your own here.

Rating: Meguca is Suffering/10

Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness, Season Two—There’s a lot to talk about with this show, like the beautiful traditionally-styled Japanese art art, the quirky humor and the ingenuity of making a kind of slow-paced workplace comedy that happens to take place deep within the bowels of hell, but honestly, all that is overshadowed by wondering how the fuck this show even exists. See, there are four categories of anime: Moe anime (cute girls), Ecchi anime (sexy girls), Shonen Jump manga adaptations (shows where people punch each other for several hundred episodes), and Fujobait (shows for desperate-ass chicks.) Occasionally we get something that doesn’t know what the hell it wants to be, like Bungo Stray Dogs, but in general, most anime produced come in one of the aforementioned flavors. Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness is very much its own thing, meaning there’s only one explanation for how this show got made: it’s produced in an alternate dimension where anime has incredible artistic variety.

Maybe in the mysterious and wonderful dimension Hoozuki hails from, there’s an anime for every taste, Harmony Gold never got the rights to Macross, Cowboy Bebop is up to season 147, the director of Kemono Friends wasn’t fired, and Funimation can write an entire dub script without putting in a totally ham-handed reference to intersectionality? Maybe J.J. Abrams died in a horrible lens-flare related accident before he had a chance to announce his adaptation of Your Name? The possibilities are endless!

Come to think of it, that Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju show must also come from that dimension, since it doesn’t really fit any popular genre molds…neither does Joker Game. Neither does ACCA. Neither does Poco’s Udon World. Neither does The Morose Mononokean. Neither does Barakamon. Neither does Erased.

Hmmph. Either a lot of shows are somehow making it through the portal from the Antimatter Anime Dimension, or modern anime has a lot more variety than most people are giving it credit for. Must be lax security on those interdimensional portals….

Rating: Makes us question the nature of the multiverse/10

Himouto Umaru-Chan R (second season)—We love Umaru-chan! All hail goddess Umaru! Actually, we hate this show with a passion, because if it was gender-swapped and it was about an otaku dude who was a bum at home and acted like an asshole toward his sibling, everyone would call him a pathetic loser, but because Umaru’s a chick, it’s fine; just another example of this glaring double-standard at work. However, if the last time this show aired is anything to go by, in about a week from now every inch of the internet is going to be wallpapered with GIFs of chibi-Himaru rolling around in her Snuggie, guzzling liters of Coke, and you just can’t fight that level of media saturation. Like, it’s going to be that insufferable “Dude turning around to check out another woman while walking with his gf” meme, only the girlfriend is Umaru-chan, the other woman is also Umaru-chan, and even the cheating dude is Umaru-chan, but slightly taller. So in this case we’re adopting a philosophy of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and pretending to be huge fans of the show; only dedicated AniMog readers will know that we’re actually liking it ironically, HAHAHAHAHAHAH. Because watching a show ironically is COMPLETELY different from just watching it normally, and earns you coolness points from God.

All that said we will (ironically) enjoy watching Umaru do her lazy secret otaku thing, and (ironically) enjoy the sundry references to otaku culture that the show will surely make. We look forward to the (completely insincere) joy we will experience with this series once again.

Rating: 11/10 (wink)

Idolmaster Side M—Once upon a time, idol anime were about cute girls, and all was right with the world. Then some schmuck decided to make an Idolmaster anime about guys, and it’s like, really? Wasn’t idol anime supposed to be the last area of anime that was just for the enjoyment of creepy dudes, now creepy chicks have displaced creepy dudes as the target audience? What are all the creepy dudes supposed to do now? Jump down a well?

Really, the way these idol anime objectify young men makes us sick, especially knowing it’s all being done for the enjoyment of drooling fujoshis who would probably die if they had to talk to a real guy IRL. At least there’s only one of these problematic male idol shows this season.

Rating: Hard to find a good well to jump down/10

New Shows

Dynamic Chord—Wait, actually there’s two problematic male idol shows this season, and this is the other one (and also, the show you should absolutely NOT WATCH if you’re going to do the Food Wars! thing.) From cursory inspection, it seems like a poor gal’s version of Uta no Prince-sama, and even UtaPri is a poor gal’s version of UtaPri, if you know what I mean. At least UtaPri has that slowly mounting tension as you wait for Evil Succubus Nanami to show her true colors and start snacking on the guys’ entrails, but it doesn’t look like there’s any of that intrigue here: just an endless stream of handsome, objectified males for women to put on a pedestal and deepen their aversion to real, flesh-and-blood men. At least there’s only TWO of these problematic male idol shows this seas--OH WAIT, FUCK--

TsukiPro The Animation-- God is a Fujoshi, and we live at her pleasure; That’s the only explanation. Even if we were to die, there would be no escape from armies of emaciated male idols crooning insipid JPOP for all eternity. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a singing, pink-haired bishounen in a sparkly tuxedo stepping on a dude’s face, forever.

Rating: Orwell Reference WE SO CULTURED/10

My Girlfriend is a Faithful Virgin Bitch—Okay, we are not falling for it this time. You’d think a show that goes so far as to call the female lead a bitch in the title would be a field day for misogynists, but whenever anime promises us a show that seems like it’s for us, it’s always a damned trap. Remember when Keijo!!!!!!!! was supposedly this super-misogynist show, so much so that trashy online magazines were writing hit pieces on it? How did that turn out? Oh right, the female fanbase was so fucking empowered by that show they went out and invented a whole new sport. If that show was supposed to make women feel bad about themselves and stay home, then someone was asleep at the fucking wheel there, ya think? Oh, and remember a few years back, when people were all offended over The Pet Girl of Sakurasou because of the titular “pet” girl, thinking the girl was being treated poorly, and the show turned out to be about creative genius and the psychological toll it takes on the people geniuses rely on for support? And remember when people said that Kuma Miko was…wait...well, okay that show WAS hella misogynist, but that was like, the one time. It was bound to happen once.

Anyway, the point is that we no longer believe shows that dangle the promise of wymyn-hating in front of us like a carrot. More likely, “Virgin Bitch” will end up being about how women will dominate the STEM fields of the future, and the Virgin Bitch will only be a virgin because she’s too busy developing a new form of clean energy from discarded takoyaki containers to have any time for sex.

Rating: WTF is a “Shobitch?”/10

Anime-Gataris—It’s a show about an anime club, kind of like Genshiken from the sound of it. Except, you know how at the beginning, Genshiken was mainly about dudes, but by the end it was a couple of sweaty fujoshi yelling about whether or not bald dudes were hot? Well life seems to be imitating art here, because we have now reached the point where our “anime nerds go act like nerds” shows are all-female. I mean, I hate to be a broken record here, since we’ve already railed about the tragedy of the generic male leads in Magical Girlfriend shows being replaced with women, but seriously, what roles are left for males? Soon the only dudes left are going to be Boruto’s Dad’s son, whoever Gintama is, and the baby seal from Go! Go! Goma-chan, assuming he is even a boy…I mean, how would you know? I wouldn’t know where to even look on a seal, to be honest.

Rating: Location of Seal Penis?/10

Net-juu no Susume—“Gee, Anime Misogynist is exaggerating here. Some of the roles traditionally filled by men in anime are opening up to female characters, sure, but it’s not like it’s happening everywhere or anything.” Yeah okay, this show is about a 30-something loser gamer NEET, the role that men were born to play, only the main character now has a blasted uterus, ARE YOU MAYHAPS NOTICING A PATTERN HERE GENIUS?

Rating: Soon Boruto Will Be All We Have Left/10

Black Clover—Yaaay, it’s a show with a male lead who isn’t an objectified pop singer! Except it’s one of those shows where a guy wants to become a great magician, and how many of those have there been already? At least with The Irregular at Magic High School people could sidestep the dullness of the premise by arguing on Twitter over whether or not Ayn Rand was smoking crack back in the day, but I doubt we’ll get any such stimulating political discussions here. Apparently the hero gains the power of Anti-Magic, so maybe he’ll be like Touma from A Certain Magical Index, and this show is just a means to an end until we get the inevitable Railgun-esque sequel that focuses entirely on the female cast? Fuck, that’s probably exactly what’s going to happen. Skip this show and stop the next Raildex loli phenomenon before it starts: only YOU can prevent another Kuroko.

Rating: Only My Railgun Is A Good Song Tho/10

UQ Holder: Mahou Sensei Negima! 2—If you think this is the kind of blog that does actual research before we post anything, then I have some very bad news for you. However, after the extremely minimal amount of online goofing off we did before writing this post, we got the impression that this is based on the manga Ken Akamatsu really wanted to make, when he made Negima!, only he had to make Negima! first for some reason? Or maybe the second half of Negima! was the manga he really wanted to make, and this is the sequel to the thing he wanted to make, so he super-duper-wanted to make it? Not really clear on the details here. However, if what we remember about Akamatsu from the Love Hina era is still valid, what he REALLY wants to do is play MMORPGS all day, so we should let his show fail so he can do that; that’s what he wants, deep down, probably.

Rating: Let Gamers Game/10

Wake Up, Girls! Shin Shou—It’s more WUG, the idol show that somehow keeps getting made despite the fact that idol fans hate it and no one else will touch it with a ten-foot pole. How do these seasons keep getting funded? Maybe it’s one of nature’s mysteries, like how bumblebees can somehow fly despite the fact that the calculations show that they really shouldn’t be able to. We’d say that it comes from the AntiMatter Anime Dimension, except that whole concept is predicated on the notion that the people who live in that dimension have shockingly good taste. At least by its very presence, this show is balancing out the alarming number of male idol shows this season, but to be honest, if WUG is your only alternative for idol waifus, you may as well just turn gay already.

Rating: Taste the Rainbow/10

Urahara—It’s about three girls who want to protect Harjuku’s culture from some evil aliens, somehow. Now it would be one thing if it was say, Akiba culture they were protecting, but Harajuku? Isn’t Harajuku all gothic Lolita fashion and shit, like chicks wearing those tiny little top hats on their heads that are about five times too small to be actual hats, and their heads must be really chilly? We’re watching this show to root for the aliens, because seriously FUCK those tiny little hats, take them into space, either wear a fucking hat on your head or don’t 

Rating: Extraterrestrials and Questionable Haberdashery/10

Juuni Taisen—Having done no research, we don’t know anything about this show, but at first glance, it appears to be a ripoff of Fate/Stay Night, only themed around the Chinese Zodiac instead of badass historical figures holding pointy things. In that case, we’re going to give this show the same advice we gave to Fate/Apocrypha: Stop fighting over the Holy Grail, it’s overrated! Unless this is the one instance where the Chinese knock-off is better than the original, in which case, as you were, gentlemen.

Rating: Incoming Hate Mail From China/10

Blend S— On a surface level, this show sounds good; a girl takes a job as a waitress at a role-playing café, and she gets assigned the role of a extreme sadist, so maybe we can anticipate some sexy dominatrix-type action. However, once you think about it, the premise falls apart; we finally get an anime about a dominatrix, only the girl doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s probably going to be all sweet and kind and innocent, and only in episode 12 will she get five seconds where she acts the part properly. The entire show is probably going to be about her coming into her own budding sexuality or whatever, in a totally healthy way, and it’ll be about as kinky as an episode of pre-HBO Sesame Street (don’t get us started on what HBO did to our girl Abby Cadabby.)

Dammit, remember that show Amanchu! from a few seasons back that was supposed to be about scuba diving, but the bitches didn’t even really go scuba diving until episode 12? Why can’t we have a show be about what it says it’s about from episode 1? Is that really too fucking much to ask?

Rating: Make a Goddamned Commitment to Your Premise, Please/10

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utao—We interrupt your regularly scheduled Anime Misogynist to bring you something that has nothing do with misogyny, but really should be mentioned. The synopsis of this show says that the main character is an archivist on a floating island called Mud Whale. “Mud Whale.” There is only one way this came about:

J.C. Staff Executive 1: “Damn, we only have 3 shows so far this season, and according to the venerable J.C. Staff Company Charter, we must have at least four. Anyone got any pitches for another show?”

J.C. Staff Executive 2: “I have two words for you: Mud Whale.”

J.C .Staff Executive 1: “Get me a script by Monday. And that’s why we’re the best goddamned cartoon company in this industry, kids.” *puffs on huge cigar* “Eat your heart out, Kyoto Animation.”

Rating: Inspiring anime studio fanfiction/10

FILMS

Free! Take Your Marks—If you somehow resisted the urge for self-harm Dynamic Cord and its brethren inspired in you, you can go to your local cinema and torture yourself with images of the perfect abs of the Free! boys. Being Free!, presumably this film will be filled with lots of striking images of lean, beautiful boys swimming in beautiful, sparkling swimming pools, so it’s maybe worth watching if you have some kind of a fantasy about belonging to a really nice country club that doesn’t allow fat people. Otherwise, avoid like the plague.

Rating: TOXIC MALE BODYSHAMING/10

Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] 1. Presage Flower—What number adaptation of the same 2004 visual novel are we up to already? They’ve been making these F/SN anime for over a decade, and it’s not like they’re adapting a whole sequence of visual novels or something; they’re literally adapting different parts of the same game. For a decade. This is where Fate fans jump up and say “But Heaven’s Feel is about Sakura and Rider, it’s TOTALLY different than Fate and UBW!” You mean to tell me that somewhere during the last five anime productions in this franchise, they couldn’t have found some time for Sakura and Rider? Maybe they could have edited out those scenes in Fate/Zero when people just walked in circles around each other and smirked, then they would have had enough time for poor little Sakura to have her day in the sun.

The fact that this franchise has been dragged out for so long, with so much repetition (since there’s a lot of overlap between the routes) is by far the worst thing about it—and we’re saying this about a series where King Arthur has been known to experience menstrual cramps. Oh, and stop fighting over the Holy Grail, it blows.

Rating: As I Pray, Unlimited Adaptation SpamWorks/10

TV Short

Taishou Chicchai-san: The Bad News: it’s based on a Boys Love game, because as previously established, God is a Fujoshi and she’s also a greedy bitch who wants all anime to herself. The Good News: it takes place during the Taishou era (1912-1926), so everyone involved is probably going to die of cholera before things get super-gay.

Rating: They could also die of polio/10

Osake wa Fuufu ni Natte Kara: A short anime about a tipsy wife who enjoys her husband’s cocktails, because apparently someone thought I Can’t Understand What My Husband is Saying had too ambitious a premise and they needed to scale it back. Why is she the only one enjoying his cocktails though? Does he ever get any cocktails? Maybe it’s a “she cooks, he makes the drinks,” situation, but you know damned well there is no cooking going on, lazy ass drunk girl is probably microwaving Healthy Choice meals for him every night. And is that a filling dinner? No, it is not, he will likely be hungry again by 9 p.m.

Rating: File for divorce/10

OVAS

Is The Order a Rabbit? Dear My Sister—We don’t actually care about this show, but we feel the need to point out something that’s been bugging us for years; shouldn’t the name of this show be localized as “Did Somebody Order a Rabbit?” Wouldn’t that be a much catchier English title, with proper syntax and whatnot? Anyway, if you like watching cute girls drink coffee, this franchise is basically the Citizen Kane of cute girls drinking coffee, so knock yourself out, I guess.

Rating: Also there is a tea shop/10

Encouragement of Climb, Omoide Present—This may come as a surprise, but Encouragement of Climb may just be our most hated anime here at Anime Misogynist. Why? Well, if we have to live in a world where the premise of 99% of anime is “cute girls do a thing,” the least they can do is try something awesome, like climbing mountains (although, to be fair, “Cute girls ride thoroughly realistic armored tanks,” is pretty good too.) So we had high hopes for this show, only to discover that this show’s version of “climbing” is what your Great-Aunt Estelle from Boca Raton considers a leisurely stroll. Seriously, these girls buy backpacks and sundry equipment from Campmor, only to do these little pedestrian hikes on gentle hills that even toddlers and the elderly can do. If the premise of the show is mountain climbing, then for God’s sake, climb Everest. Climb K2; take your hobby SERIOUSLY, dammit. But no, Encouragement of Climb makes the Boy Scout Jamboree look like the absolute epitome of outdoor sportsmanship.

Now that there’s a new OVA, we can only hope this show is going to do what it should have done in the first place, and show the girls climbing an actual fucking mountain, like with climbing spikes and ropes and….oh. Oh. Oh God, no. Just saw the preview and what does it say? “The OVA centers on a certain item that relates to the memories of Aoi and Hinata.” They ain’t gonna climb SHIT, are they? Fuck you, Encouragement of Climb, you could have encouraged us to climb but you never have and you never will.

Rating: DISCOURAGED/10

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

We hope that this timely feature will help you navigate the confusing and sometimes scary smorgasbord of swiftly moving drawings available this season. Now would be the standard time to request that you donate to our Patreon, except as sitting board members on the International Council of Patriarchy, we have no use for something as plebeian as currency. If you would still like to support Anime Misogynist, because you are a nice and high-quality person, please let all your friends know about the value of looking at anime through a misogynist lens: the nuanced, rigorous media criticism of the future.