#like yeah- it makes sense she would make crappy decisions after losing one of her oldest and closest friends while in the middle of a war

[navii-blaze]

listen to my vision boy

[busycryin]

REPOST - THE NIGHT WE MET

THE NIGHT WE MET

PART ONE - THE NIGHT WE MET

Pairing: Javier Peña/ Female Murphy!Reader

Words: 5.3k

Summary: You decide to travel to Colombia on a whim, there you meet a gorgeous stranger that just so happens to be your brothers partner. 

Content Warnings: 18+ Smut-ish (I wouldn’t wanna read it out to my mom), dry humping, dirty talk in Spanish which reader doesn’t understand so does it really count?, gratuitous love of the black shirt from the torture scene.

Anon was worried about losing my work when I switched blogs, so fear not. I’m reposting on here but I have no intention of deleting my other blog, it’s where I got my first 200 notes and I’m honestly blown away by it. I’m happy to announce I’m working on a fourth part. I’m not sure when I’ll post it as I’m still in the idea stage but it’s definitely a start, ay!

AO3

MASTERLIST

Author Note: So here is my return to writing! The word count got away from me but I loved every second of it. Always after prompts, so drop me a message on here if you’d like to see anything in particular. If it’s in my wheelhouse, you’ll definitely see it.  

Pedro in the black shirt is what inspired me to write this, I can’t lie.

If you were brutally honest with yourself, this spur of the moment decision may have been a mistake.

Other people could make these choices and not have that nagging feeling in their gut from the second they booked their fuckin’ airline ticket. You had attempted to grab your crappy life by its metaphorical horns and go and sort this shit show out by yourself, but after your momentary bravery was used up, all that was left was a crippling anxiety that threatened to send you into one of your full scale panic attacks if you thought too hard about the fact you were following your big brother to Colombia.

Yes, Colombia. You, a U.S. national with no particular interest in hunting Pablo Escobar, had decided to vacation in sunny, crime ridden Bogotá on a whim.

You were fuckin’ dumb.

Sarcasm aside, you weren’t actually here on vacation, you were going to check on Stevie. Your brother, one of the DEA agents assigned with taking down Escobar.

You’d been worried about him for a few months, it had sounded like he was dealing with heavy shit in South America, you knew that was the job, but he was still your brother.

His calls had gotten less and less frequent until he stopped returning them all together and the only reason you knew he was alive were your pep-talks with your sister-in-law, trying to help her keep her shit together, but hell, you weren’t a therapist or a miracle worker. So when Connie rang asking to stay at your place you had obliged and she had returned to Miami a mere shell of her former self.

After a mammoth amount of prodding over the course of two days you managed to wring the truth out of her, not the nuggets of information she had given you over the phone in hushed whispers during her time in Colombia but the whole messy story; the communist Elisa Alvarez, Steve’s kidnapping and the cold edges your brother was developing.

It was all you could do not to book the tickets there and then, but you held out and supported Connie in the ways Steve couldn’t have, taking care of Olivia when you could and just trying your hardest to be there for her. Your presence alone seemed to be enough to help her through the days that followed.  A week and a half after her return, you booked your flight to Colombia in secret.

You had to check on Steve.

He hadn’t answered a single one of your many many calls. You packed light and told Connie the morning of, and whilst she didn’t like it, she understood. You supposed that a part of her was relieved to know her husband would have someone in Colombia that wasn’t there to kill him.

So here you sat, two hours into your flight to the paradise destination; Bogotá. Your brother’s address scrawled on a scrap piece of paper in the one hand and a glass of cheap whiskey in the other.  The alcohol did little to to calm your nerves, this was a dangerous place for a cop, let alone a fuckin’ clueless civilian.

When the plane finally touched down, you stood from your seat emptying the last few drops of whiskey which had tried to evade you onto your tongue, you picked up your backpack and queued to leave the plane.

The second you left the aircraft the humidity hit you like a brick wall, it was like all of the fresh air had been sucked out of the atmosphere. On a normal evening you would appreciate such a warm climate, but now the heat meant frustration to your tired brain and it only added to your baseline levels of anxiety as your hairline and upper lip were drenched as you walked through the arrivals gate.

Cards on the table; you didn’t have much of a game plan, you spoke no Spanish and stuck out like a sore thumb. You had the address but no means to get there, you didn’t relish the idea of getting in a taxi as a woman alone in a foreign country, but with little to no other options you went to hail one of the cabs that sat outside the airport.

Your fears turned out to be for naught, well not quite naught as the man had raked his eyes across your body for a large percentage of the trip in his mirror, but he had the good grace not to kidnap or murder you, which for you meant it was a successful journey, how low you had set the bar was just occuring to you.

After paying the gentleman he dropped you outside what appeared to Steve’s apartment building. You take a moment on the pavement to recollect yourself ready for your reunion. Peeling your denim jacket off, you decide instead to wrap it around your waist, tying the sleeves securely. With a harumph, you grab the handle of your suitcase, and drag it behind you. Your success thus far gives you a second wind of determination.

Though apparently dumb luck can only get you so far, because after heaving your suitcase up a flight of stairs and rapping on the door of apartment 20 until your knuckles ached, it began to dawn on you, you had no clue if this was even the right building.

“Fuck.” you mutter to yourself, you should’ve rang Connie or tried Steve again when you landed, but you’d been so single minded in carrying out your plan all common sense had apparently abandoned you. So with a million different scenarios of things you could’ve done better playing out behind your eyes you dragged your suitcase to the small lobby of the building, where the front door stood.

You huffed and dropped onto the bottom step in surrender, not quite sure where to go from here.

Weeks of anxiety and worry finally took their toll on your body as reality set in, and as it did so you couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer stupidity of the situation you’d put yourself in. A light chuckle escaped your body as you held your face in your hands, you rubbed at your eyes as a way of refreshing yourself before sighing and leaning back.

You must have sat with your head in your hands for around three hours before anyone of note arrived, you had received strange looks from residents in their comings and goings as they stepped around you, your expectant looks turned to disappointment when you realised they weren’t Steve. In fairness, you, a gringa sitting on the stairs at 2am, most likely wasn’t a daily occurrence to these homeowners.

By the time he came through the door, your eyes were closed and your head was leant on the bannister, trying to get what little rest you could. Your eyes opened a crack to see a man and a woman enter the building and turn right, the man had his arm around her as he stared at you in confusion, the look was so quick you may have missed it if you blinked, but they were talking in low whispers of Spanish and from the looks of things he didn’t give you a second thought.

So you extended him the same courtesy and shut your eyes once again, you heard the metal jangling of keys going into the lock, the sound of smacking lips and then the door was closed. You figured that was the end of it, instead you heard hurried footsteps coming towards you, your eyes shot open as he rounded the corner.

“Estás bien?” The man questioned. It took you a moment to realise he was talking to you, as you took him in you were struck by your stupidity, how could you have dismissed this man so quickly even in the throes of a mental breakdown. His chocolate brown eyes bore into your own as you realised he was waiting for a response.

“Uh… no hablo… español?” you pretty much asked him, cringing internally at your butchering of the most basic sentence of this gorgeous strangers language, his lips quirked at your mumbles making his mustache raise on one side with his smirk. Now, you’d never been a fan of a mustache, Steve and your father had both taken to styling their facial hair in such a way, and as a rule of thumb they were a big no-no. But my god. This man made that mustache his bitch and that bitch worked for him.

“You’re American?” He questions, smirk dropping along with his eyebrows in confusion as his brain processes the information.

“Oh thank god and Jesus fuckin’ christ above. You’re American!” Your timid nature had given way to pure unadulterated relief. “Stevie, Steve Murphy, he lives in this building, yeah?”

“Yeah… Stevi…Steve lives here- I’m sorry, who the hell are you?” He asks with a puzzled look and a shake of his head, there’s an air of distrust about him for some strange reason.

“I’m Y/N Murphy, I’m his sister.”

“Sister? Mierda… does he know you’re here?”

“Nope,” You pop your P as you shrug at the man before you with false nonchalance. “He’d have to answer the phone to me or Connie to know that now, wouldn’t he?”

“Steve.” The stranger sighed, annoyed.

“Sorry, who are you?” You asked, yourself becoming more bemused by the man by the second.

“I’m Steve’s partner, Javier.” He held out his hand which you were more than happy to take in a shake, his tan hand was soft yet strong as it held your own captive within it. “C’mon in I’ll give him a call, God knows what time he’s planning on getting back.”

“Uh, I don’t want to interrupt…” You mumble, waving your free hand vaguely towards where you knew the woman was waiting for him, making him smirk once again.

You were beginning to think that the sarcastic raise of his mouth was just his default resting face.

“You’re not interrupting anything.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause I’d think it to. This is how people die in America, let alone fuckin’ Colombia, but if it’s a choice between dying at the hands of a gorgeous man who seems to know your brother or a stray that wonders in through the non-descript lobby door then you’d rather go out with a nice view, even if he did have a girlfriend.

If you had to gamble, you’d say you had a damn good chance of making it out of this apartment alive.

So you nodded and used the hand he hadn’t released yet to pull yourself up into a standing position. He wasn’t particularly tall but he still towered over you, your eyeline gave you a great view past his black shirt which was unbuttoned quite liberally, you assumed that was courtesy of the woman he’d entered with.

“Thank you,” you nodded at him with a genuine smile of relief. He didn’t reply, only grabbed the handle of your pull along suitcase before extending his arm towards his apartment and motioning to wordlessly say, after you.

Now you know how people say when you can feel a stare? You had the sensation before, but as you leaned over to pick up your backpack from the bottom step, you felt his eyes laser focus on your denim clad ass. You turned your head in disbelief and found his eyes still lingered there for a moment before meeting your own. Unbelievable. Part of you was flattered, the other part was bemused that he had a beautiful woman in there waiting and here he was ogling you.

You rolled your eyes, instilled with a new confidence as you turned and walked towards his apartment, you felt his eyes follow your form once more.

Steve’s hot partner was an ass man… Good to know.

…

As it turns out Javier’s girlfriend, or what you we’re starting to think was more of a one night stand, was not happy with the situation at all, you came to this discovery as Javier pointed you to the sofa before beginning arguing with her in hushed Spanish, the beautiful woman huffed and sent a dirty look your way before storming out and slamming the door behind her, with enough power to make it shake in its bearings. You raised your eyebrows at Javier from your seat. He shook his head with a sigh and began lighting up a cigarette, he turned and offered you one.

“No thanks, I quit.”

“Woman with an iron will?”

“Not quite,” You whisper, shaking your head.

He smiles before clearing his throat and moving over to pick up his landline. Javier presses a combination of buttons, before putting it to his ear and blowing the smoke from his lungs. His eyes met yours as the phone rang, he gave you reassuring wink.

“Murphy? … Yeah…  you need to get back to your place now… You’ve got a guest…. No … come find out why don’t you?” Sarcasm dripped from his lazy tone, his voice was so smooth. It was like chocolate on gravel, you could listen to him talk for hours, which led your mind down that deep dark hole of what he sounded like during more carnal acts, he’d be a talker, for definite, what with all that confidence and swagger. “‘Kay… I’ll see you soon.”

Shaking your head you centred yourself, it had been a dry patch for you. You needed to calm down and not throw yourself at your brother’s partner, even if he just so happened to be the first man you had any interest in to show you attention in months.

“He’s on his way,” He confirmed what you already knew but you liked hearing him speak so you nodded in thanks. An awkward silence filled the air for a few moments, as you two perfect strangers shared one another’s company.

“Drink?” He offered pointing at the bottle of whiskey on the counter.

“God, yes.” You all but moaned at the offer. Javier chuckled, and grabbed a second glass from his cupboard, before pouring you both a generous serving.  He walked around the back of the sofa, and passed you the glass of liquid gold and took a seat next to you. Close enough to initiate something, but not touching, quite a respectful distance.

Initiate something? God Y/N, get your mind out of the gutter. This poor man had only invited you in because you were his partner’s sister and he was doing the decent thing.

“Uh… The television work?” You ask, pointing at the empty screen.

“I didn’t realise you could speak Spanish…” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, mocking your earlier attempts at the language, though he reached across and switched the box on with the remote, he began flicking through the channels so quickly he almost gave you a headache.

“Oh yes, I’m very proficient, I just didn’t want to intimidate you earlier. Hola Señor Javier.”  You say continuing his ruse. He chuckles at your words, it’s a deep warm noise that shakes his entire frame. You were definitely thinking about adding Javier’s voice to your top ten list of favourite sounds.

He flicks through the channels, for a few seconds before sighing and dropping the remote in your lap. Taking your assignment seriously, you sit up, bringing yourself a few inches closer to the man next to you, purely accidentally of course and begin flicking through the channels as Javier had done moments before, though 3am TV scheduling left a lot to be desired.

News, News, Colombian QVC, News, News, Soap opera. Bingo!

“Ah, now we’re talking.” You mumble, eyes stuck on the screen of the Colombian Soap opera playing. The two of you sat in silence once again as you slowly sipped on your drinks watching drama play out.

You watched in silence for around ten minutes, not understanding a single word of what was being said. The scene was on two latino actors sitting in a bedroom. The woman was sat on the bed being confronted by the man in a serious tone.

“What is she saying?” You question narrowing your eyes at the beautiful woman’s tone. Javier, who had been watching your reactions the whole time as you got into the awful tv show scrambled as he tried to listen and translate the woman’s words.

“Uh… her dads an alcoholic and she’s trying to support her son… that guy didn’t know about the son… I think… she was happy living a double life without the worry and she wants him to forgive her and start over…”  Javier translated, giving you the general cliff notes.

“Oh shit,” You gasped at his words, but your attention diverted to the screen where the two had continued their heated argument and began kissing or rather where the man was devouring her neck, “I’m getting vibes that he might be open to forgiving her.”

You chuckled at your own joke, as did Javier. Though this time when his body shook his bare elbow touched your own.

How was he so goddamn warm?

All he was wearing was a black button down shirt. One that looked to be the wrong size it was so tightly fitted- not that you were complaining about the view. My God, were you horny today.

You took a gulp of your drink, trying to refocus for the third or fourth time this evening, trying so desperately to reign in your inner school girl and focus on the television, though that didn’t help as the actors were now eating one anothers faces on a bed. The silence was thick with tension, though that could’ve been entirely on you; one innocent touch of a man’s elbow and you’re a blushing mess.  

Get a grip Y/N.

The silence dragged on as you pretended to watch the soap opera you had absolutely no understanding of in a futile attempt to ignore the man next to you. You can only imagine what he thought of your levels of focus on the tv, as you stared at the box in the corner of the room like it was the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time and you were getting ready to write a full-scale analysis on the work of art.

Javier broke the tension in the room by finally asking the question that had been on his lips all evening.

“You came all the way to Colombia… Why?” Javier grabbed a cigarette off of the coffee table, placing his drink where the carton of smokes had been. He lit the stick and waited for your response, honestly, you were thrown. The question had come out of nowhere whilst you were still trying to analyse why exactly this man had such an effect on you when he was doing nothing but being a good host.  You hastened to think up a half coherent reply before you just answered truthfully.

“Steve stopped answering the phone, I mean he’s always been shitty at checking in, even when he was in Miami. When he got here we’d have a catch up every week or so, we all know how dangerous it is for you guys over here, so we joked about calling it ‘the alive check’. For the last couple of months, I was checking in with Connie more than Steve but he’d still pick up once every week, without fail. Then four weeks ago the fucker stopped answering my calls all together and Connie showed up on my doorstep with Olivia in tow last week.”

“Look, you coming down here probably makes more problems than it solves, Steve’s a big boy if he doesn’t call to check in, it’s probably ‘cause he’s busy…  He’s-” Something about Javier’s dismissive tone rubbed you the wrong way, call it sleep deprivation or blame the weeks of stress, but you were tired of being called paranoid. You were not an overbearing mother hen.

“My brother always answers my calls. Or at least he used to. I can’t begin to understand what you guys are going through, but I’m not losing my brother to some piece of shit Colombian drug dealer.”

Javier raised his hands in mock surrender, cigarette still in mouth. “He’s actually more of a drug lord slash narcoterrorist, but-”

“How is he?” You interrupt Javier’s attempt at diffusing the situation with humor, turning to him on the sofa. You rearranged yourself, bringing your leg up so your knee touched his thigh as you gave him your full attention,  you plucked the smoke from between his lips and held it between your two fingers as you spoke. “Tell me Steve’s fine. Tell me I’m worrying for nothing and I’ll get back on that plane and leave tomorrow morning.“

You take one drag and offer it back to him, he accepts it, deliberately looking you in the eyes as he places the cigarette in his mouth, attaching his lips to where your own had been seconds earlier.  He takes it from his mouth and stubs it on an ash tray that rests on the arm of the sofa, his focus is single minded on his task. The pressure in your lower stomach is mounting as you stare at the tanned man before you who is carrying out a menial task that has you more turned on than you’d ever admit.

When the red tip is extinguished thoroughly, taking much longer than you thought it needed to, Javi turns to you, his mahogany eyes have you pinned in your tracks. You found yourself admitting they were gorgeous for the second time this evening, they were the type of brown you could never quite describe, they had so much depth, not quite a chocolate, not quite coffee, they were rich and deep pools. They reminded you of the forest, not the green leaves but the earthy brown, the strong beams of wood that held everything up around it.

Javier’s hand emigrated forward slowly, your eyes followed the movement in your peripheral but you didn’t dare look away from the pools of molasses as he reached to grip one hand at your denim thigh, his eyes roamed your face for any sign of this being an unwelcome approach and when he found none his other hand began its climb to rest on your jaw, just below your ear.

You couldn’t say if you moved towards him or if he advanced on you, all you knew was he was on you now as the tips of your noses rubbed against one another.

“Quiero saborearte…” He whispered so lowly you barely even heard it before he leaned in that last inch and captured your lips in a single, chaste kiss. Your lips connected and you realised the heat you had felt from his arms had been nothing. Fire coursed through your veins upon contact, surging through your blood and going south to a pressure that built in your lower stomach.

Your hand shot up to land on his collarbone, before you could even really consider your own actions you pulled apart until your foreheads were the only thing touching.  He was intoxicating, you could lose yourself completely in this man, he somehow smelt like cinnamon, whiskey and sweat, a combination you’d never thought would send liquid fire through your central nervous system.  You’d give anything to taste him properly, but this was wrong. So so wrong. This was your brother’s partner, this was inviting complication to your door, when you were just here to check on Steve. You were here for Steve.

You were here for Steve…

“… This isn’t a good idea.” You all but whisper, closing your eyes. Regret pulses through your veins at your self imposed restraint.

“Never is.” He leaned forward and captured your lips. You didn’t have any fight left in you, exhausted and at wits end you embraced your spiral into stupidity instead and your hands glided across the clammy skin of his neck to grab at his short ink black hair. You wrapped your fingers around it to drag him closer to you, your lips clashed, all teeth at first but you didn’t care as his tongue began to fight against yours for dominance.

He tasted as good as you imagined, he was the right combination of sweet and bitter, with undertones of whiskey and tobacco on his tongue. Your response to his assault on your mouth told him it was go time, Javier pulled you into his lap and his hands lowered to your ass. Your body was flush with his own as your breasts pressed against his chest, you could feel every solid line of his lithe body against your own.

You licked at his honied tongue, before withdrawing and pulling his bottom lip into your mouth and sucking on the soft plush skin. His mustache tickled your upper lip, a sensation you weren’t used to but could so easily grow to love.  This made him tighten his grip on your backside in response and he let out a throaty groan at the meat he found there, Javier was definitely an ass man, you felt his bulge pressing against your core as you both began grinding against each other in earnest. You felt like a horny teenager as you grinded on a man you barely knew.

You felt him grip at the bottom of your tank top and begin to lift it, except he stopped, and began to rub patterns on the stomach he exposed. Javier’s mouth descended from your lips to begin to suck and lick at your throat. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head at his work as pleasure rippled throat your body. His hands slid the length of your body to grab at your chest, which conforming to every stereotype was heaving, he palmed your breast blindly as his face was still buried in your hair, sucking and kissing along to your ear, before he raised his mouth a mere inch and whispered  “Te follaré toda la noche niña.”

He said it with such surety that your body convulsed in on itself without even needing to know what the man above you was saying. You could only hope it was absolutely filthy and profanity ridden, because then at least, the sentiment would be shared. He bit at the lobe of your ear before his hands left your breasts and travelled to the hem of your tank top, getting ready to pull it over your head.

It was strange to say that you remembered your brother was on his way here as a man tried to take your t-shirt off, but that’s just the way it went. You knew if that top came off, dry humping would be the most PG action of the night and if Steve turned up and found you mounted on his partner, he probably wouldn’t be too thrilled.

You couldn’t stop yourself from stroking the man’s hair whose face was planted in between your tits as his hips rose against your own pushing his hardened length up against the seams of your jeans, you gasped as he hit that sweet spot. You let out a noise that sounded like a wail. You wanted nothing more than to lie back and let this man have his filthy way with your body. And you know, from the hour you’ve spent with this man it would be phenomenally filthy. The kind of sex that would ruin all men for you, but no. You had to be a good sister. Like a fuckin loser.

Sighing, you threw your body sideways before you could change your mind and ended up on your back. Javier followed you, caging you with his frame as he covered your body with his own.  Gripping your face like he was a starving man and you were the only sustenance he’d ever need. It would be so easy to get lost in him, to give in to that magic tongue but you couldn’t let this go any further so you placed a hand on his chest.

Taking your cue he paused his tongues assault on your mouth and stopped, resting his forehead against your own. You were both breathing heavily trying to come back down to reality, his eyes were no longer the chocolate brown you’d been comforted by when you met, but rings of obsidian staring into your soul. You wanted this man, my god you did. But this would make more problems for Steve.

The two of you stayed that way for a while, foreheads and bodies pressed against one another until both of your breathing evened out. The silence dragged, heavy in the air as you two strangers both waited for the other to break it.

“…Is Steve okay?”

“…No… He’s been fuckin’ mess ever since Connie left.” Javier sighed whilst closing his eyes and breathing deep. You raised your hands from his chest, which was difficult as he was crushing his body to yours and cupped his cheek, you joined your lips once more, much like the first kiss. This was sweet and there wasn’t a carnal appetite behind it but rather an understanding.

The loud knock on the front door startles you both as you’d been so wrapped up in one another you’d not heard the steps leading to it. The two of you split apart like a pair of guilty teens caught in the act. You both stared at each other for a second before he nods at you and walks to the front door whilst rearranging his bulge discreetly in his jeans, this was something you pretended not to see as you sat back up right on the sofa. You had only a moment to fix yourself, as you pulled your tank top from where it was hooked by your breasts and ran your fingers through your hair so you didn’t look like you’ve just had the ravaging of a lifetime.

Javier pulled open the door and you clutch your hands into your lap, not quite sure what kind of reception you were about to receive from your brother. You hear the two men greet one another in hushed whispers, you couldn’t make out Steve’s voice much until you hear his voice clear as day “…what the hell was so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

You stand from your spot on the sofa and quickly realise the button on your jeans is undone; if you’re honest you don’t even know how he managed to do that without you noticing, even though it’s not the time you take a solitary second to commend Javier on his artistry of disrobing a woman. Turning quickly you pull the rivet back through the hole and swing around as Steve crosses the threshold from the hallway.  

Steve looks from you, to Javier and then back to you once more in complete surprise. It takes his brain a hot second to process that you’re here in front of him and in Colombia before he rushes you. Clutching you tight and hugging you to his chest. You hear something that sounds suspiciously like a sob leave your brothers chest before he collapses into you. The front door and Javier’s bedroom both in rapid succession, giving you the privacy you knew your brother would need after breaking down like this.

You couldn’t support Steve’s weight with your considerably smaller frame and the two of you fell to the ground as you held your broken brother. His body shook with silent sobs as he buried his face in your shoulder.

You said nothing as you held him and stroked his hair. In that moment you thanked your every instinct that screamed at you to come to Colombia.

This had definitely not been a mistake.

[a-crimson-lion]

Ultimatum: The Art of Lying In A Made Bed

(Or Why My Experience With Chapter 285 Is Contrary To Everyone Else's)

[Manga Spoilers Ahead. Also Opinions. Feel Free To Ignore.]

After Chapter 284, many fans were wondering how the story of BNHA would follow up on Katsuki's development. Now that Chapter 285 is officially out, fans are clamoring about Katsuki's latest acts of heroism, about how his arc is finally kicking it into high gear.

I'd be inclined to agree, but… you know how these things go.

[Heads up fans/stans, if you like Katsuki you might wanna bail. The word vomit that follows is pretty much incoherent and reflects my disaster of a thought process.]

I was looking forward to Chapter 285. I had my reservations on the execution of Chapter 284, but if the next chapter could follow it up and then some, I'd be pleasantly surprised. But then the leaks came out. And then the fan translation. And as of today, the official VIZ translation.

While everyone else is cheering for explosion boy, I'm just… done.

285 didn't get me to see how far Bakugo's journey has come. 285 didn't get me to finally root for him. And maybe I am making this decision prematurely, maybe I am missing something, but…

...the way things are going in the story I just- I just CAN'T root for him.

And I'm not saying the rest of you can't, if you're still reading. Katsuki is definitely a different person compared to Chapter 1, a better person, and he's definitely been heading on the up and up! If you can and want to support him, then by all means, go for it, don't let me stop you! It's just…

For me, chapter 284 was a wavering torch: a flicker of hope that sometimes dwindled, but was still there. Chapter 285 was the moment where I wanted to jump on the Katsuki Development Train, to finally gain some semblance of respect for him. But when I jumped, I landed on the tracks, and had to crawl back onto the platform.

I missed my chance to jump on that train. Whether it's because of previous circumstances or recent circumstances, I'll never know…

You probably wanna ask me at this point, "But Crimson, why DIDN'T Chapter 285 make you see the awe inspiring pinnacle of character development that is Katsuki Bakugo???"

To put it simply: it's a culmination thing.

For starters, there's a sort of… whiplash with Katsuki's development in the last few chapters. People like me will complain that Katsuki's development is too slow, in the case of the last 2-3 chapters, it feels like a switch was flipped, and now it's become too fast. Perhaps it's a me thing, but let me try to explain…

Shoto starts out as a standard background character. By the time he gets his spotlight in the Sports Festival, he comes off as reserved and antagonistic. After the whole "it's your power" moment, Shoto is finally able to accept the side he always hated. Then Katsuki fights Shoto, and we're shown he still needs time to grow; his left side comes with a lot of baggage he can't just brush off in the span of a single sparring match.

Fastforward to Hosu. Shoto's starting to take other people into better account. He's starting to learn to better control his fire. He's reconnected with his mother. His goal is no longer one-upping his old man; he has goals, people, that he wants to protect. He's coming into his own and wants others to do the same, like Tenya.

He joins the Katsuki Rescue Squad because, like Izuku, he had an opportunity to save Katsuki, didn't, and now he wants to make up for it. When we get to the Provisional License Exam, we're yet again slammed with the fact that his growth is still not done via Inasa, that there's still a bit of Endeavor he has to shake off, even if it was in the past. And he does progress towards that with the Remedial Course Arc. And while I have my opinions on the Endeavor Agency Arc, I'll admit that it was another development opportunity for Shoto and the Todoroki family. Shoto's growth comes with setbacks, but overall it's consistent.

Let's shift gears to Tenya, who's characterization I find fascinating. He starts out opposed to Izuku when they first meet at the Entrance Exam. He sees how Izuku is (for lack of a better phrase) "better qualified" at heroics thus far, reassesses his position, and apologizes whilst making amends. When Tenya resorts to LITERAL MURDER against Stain, the narrative does not let him go off without reprocussions. His arms are damaged, his supervisor's teaching license is revoked, and while he managed to avoid legal charges via police cover up, it still came close. Tenya listened to Stain's words, and opted to improve himself by that notion. He tries to set a better example, be a better class rep. It isn't a one and done.

Him lashing out during the Hideout Raid Arc is an offshoot of that. He doesn't deck Izuku just to be a dick; he's trying to knock some sense into him. They're so focused on Katsuki that they're forgetting about everyone else. Their friends, their teachers, their parents. If they f*** up like Tenya almost did at Hosu, they'll have hell to pay, and he doesn't want that. Of course, once they explain that combat/murder is not their M.O., Tenya tags along, if only to ensure the operation goes smoothly without this hitch. And again, Tenya keeps up. He looks after his classmates, looks after Izuku during the Shie Hassaikai arc. His growth is also consistent.

There are probably more characters I could elaborate on (Ochako, Momo, Eijiro, etc.), but I'll stop there. So, what's the deal with Katsuki's arc?

Well, it's… frustratingly back and forth.

It's one thing to have setbacks like Tenya and Shoto. It's something else entirely to have multiple setbacks and to keep trucking on with only abstract signs of development, but otherwise feeling like a very similar character compared to several chapters ago.

This is (in my opinion) Katsuki's problem. If we're going by what the manga stated, his arc technically started in Chapter 11: "Bakugo's Starting Line." But this is a rocky start. Izuku tells him about OFA right from the getgo out of guilt, but this neglects the fact that he's technically lying to everyone about it (including his new friends Ochako and Tenya), that OFA is a world-shattering secret, and that Katsuki is likely the worst person to tell this to considering that Izuku just handed Katsuki's ass to him and Katsuki was willing to use lethal force in their Trial. That aside, instead of say, sucking up his pride and opting to try and learn from everyone else, Katsuki doesn't really change strategies or approaches. He essentially does what he was planning to do since the start of UA; he's only crying because, SURPRISE, people are better than him. You'd think he'd expect that considering he called his middle school crappy…

After the USJ, once everyone had their "Lol Bakugo sux" moment on the bus ride, we get to the Sports Festival and everyone is clamoring to join Katsuki's team despite his apparent unapproachability. This feels less like something happened in the two weeks leading up to the Sports Festival, and more like history repeating itself from middle school. Moving on to the tournament, we don't even get to see how capable Katsuki is at serious combat. Two of his matches resort to Deus Ex Machina pulls, and the other two are in his corner by principle instead of difficult.

First off, Katsuki vs Ochako. I don't know why people praise this fight. For starters, it makes Katsuki HEAVILY OoC. Ochako is the only person he asks if she wants to back out before the match even starts. The ONLY person, which kinda undermines the whole "he didn't underestimate her" thing. Then he takes a reactionary stance the entire battle. Like, I thought we were still dealing with the "fist first" Katsuki. He does this to Eijiro, Fumikage, even Shoto, but Ochako? Stay still and then attack. Even if he did get his gravity removed, couldn't he just… propelly himself and let her have it. If he was proactive, he could have ended the fight quicker. Instead, he just plays sitting duck and headless chicken. If you're gonna have Katsuki win the fight, don't bulls*** it.

Which brings me to the final bit of that fight: the meteor shower. Having Katsuki blow that away after supposedly expending most of his energy earlier in the match just does NOT sit right. Ochako gets the upper hand, and then you just… negate that? You expect me to believe that Katsuki could generate an explosion at that magnitude, if nothing else? And what exactly does that do for him in the end? No one else tires him out for the remainder of the festival, which is pretty sketch.

(And yeah, I know I know "What part of her was frail?" but that's more of a retrospective thing than in the moment, coupled with the facf that it's never elaborated on again in any capacity, with Ochako or with someone else. It's a throwaway moment; a waste. Moving on…)

You really can't say much about the matchups with Eijiro and Fumikage. With Eijiro, it's an endurance match, and Katsuki apparently has infinite stamina and is on the attack. And he just… rushes him, which I'm pretty sure anyone else would do. Then with Fumikage, Dark Shadow is weak to light. Katsuki's explosions emit light on contact. Do the math.

And I am especially mad at Katsuki vs Shoto because one, he stays in place yet again at the start of the match, and two, he can apparently ignore his Quirk' weakness to low temperatures. In a gym uniform. Against a glacier the size of a building. Even with his power output, you don't see his explosions dampening in magnitude. It's obviously in his favor, which defeats any tension the fight could have had. It sucks, and in the long run, as a wise man once said, "Todoroki should have folded [his] ass."

Then we get to the Final Exams (ABOUT DAMN TIME) and… Katsuki hits Izuku for trying to cooperate, nearly gets knocked out once, and gets knocked out the second time around. He does not want to work with Izuku despite it being All Might, is petty enough to consider losing, and actively grumbles against working with Izuku. And all of his supposed self-preservation goes flying out the window when he's willing to try and beat All Might, leaving Izuku having to come and carry this boy out of the gate, which should not have let him pass.

Then there's the Training Camp attack. The second Izuku is mentioned, Katsuki decides to go AWOL, and while being kidnapped sucks, I am less sympathetic when you're boneheaded enough to help them capture you because you wanted to fight villains instead of getting to safety like the professionals recommended, all because of your one-sided hatefest with one of your classmates. Congrats, you played yourself.

Then we get to the Provisonal License Exam, which feels like a step in the right direction… until you realize this will boil over into Deku vs Kacchan 2, which will get both of them in trouble, which will give Katsuki insight into OFA while Izuku gets shunned by his classmates, and which will prevent Katsuki from the one ass beating that could have potentially taught him something. It's essentially the narrative covering his ass, and then he has the gall to be happy about other people potentially getting set back just because he was set back. Geez dude.

The Cultural Festival essentially undoes what the Remedial Course Arc accomplishes, having Katsuki look down on the rest of UA when he said NOT to look down on people earlier. And then his speech is still heavily antagonistic to the rest of the school, and to the idea of basic human decency and kindness in general. And if I'm being honest, that whole "he can play drums" feels like a big ass pull to keep him in the spotlight. At least the story brought back his ability to cook down the line.

The Joint Training Arc is just shoe horning in regards to Katsuki. It acts like his gearing up towards saving, but the circumstances are heavily, heavily in his favor, and not in a good way. I've already brought up how Katsuki won't get "saving" until the Endeavor Arc, and how here he's just doing it to show off, so I won't go into it here. Then apparently he gets to outwit a recommendation student 'cause why not? It makes him look more impressive than he actually is, even though he outright states he hasn't changed much if at all. Not to mention the narrative makes it sound like he was some sort of underdog, even though he only got kidnapped and didn't get his license. And I know those are big things, but not enough to warrant his victory feeling that triumphant. I'd probably buy it if he didn't win the Sports Festival or pass the Final Exam. Keep him in that slump for longer than you actually do, or it lessens the impact. And let's not forget, he might have been willing to help Izuku with Blackwhip via fisticuffs, but the second he realized he wasn't getting anything out of it, he noped out. And it's been what, almost 200 chapters since his "starting line?"

I don't have much to say during the Endeavor Arc (that was its own can of worms),  but as for the War Arc thus far… here's what I mean by "whiplash." The arc begins in Chapter 253. By Chapter 257, Katsuki will demonstrate how much he just does not give a f*** about Izuku's mastery over OFA so long as it looks like he'll come out on top. By Chapter 274, when Izuku's gotta split, it'll look like Katsuki has been thinking about some stuff, but by 275 he's gonna throw that out the window so he can attempt to one up Tomura and Izuku, and then he'll nearly get killed for it. And we won't know what exactly Katsuki is thinking until a flashback in Chapter 284 (which chronologically takes place after 257), where he has a conversation with All Might about his past with Izuku. Or at least the bullet points. If you're me, the start of the conversation feels less about Izuku and more so about his situation: his situation with OFA. And as much as I want to believe there was at least one good kernel in Katsuki that he was too stubborn to let out with Izuku, I feel like Katsuki only brings up him and his capabilities now because he got a Quirk. That's what put him on Katsuki's radar. That's what forced Katsuki to take notice of Izuku, what caused him to be unable to ignore his own weakness. Because of a Quirk. That's… borderline shallow, if not remarkably so.

And even when Katsuki is attempting to save Izuku in 285, his first thoughts are still on OFA. And even if we go by the line of thought that Katsuki is thinking "Even if OFA sucks, it's still Izuku's Quirk." And that's nice and all, but the flashback makes it seem like the Quirk is still All Might's Quirk as well. That all of Izuku's worth is hinged on the fact that he got a Quirk now and therefore can't be written off. Maybe he doesn't owe this to his accomplishments, but the narrative is terrible in its implications that Izuku wouldn't have gotten as much attention without it. At the end of the day, Katsuki is still associating Izuku's worth with his Quirk. And as much as I want to vaguely, vainly hope that this will change later on, I'm already at my limit

...and now that I've said my piece on almost the entire narrative thus far, let's shift gears to a few more tidbits in 285.

Again, the flashback. I think it's significant that they're shifting the focus briefly on middle school again. But you wanna know what sent me the wrong way? They didn't include the god forsaken suicide instigation. They can show Katsuki gloating. They can show Izuku up against a wall. They can even show a notebook and Izuku's face during the Sludge Villain rematch. But they can't show Izuku reacting with sorrow mixed with almost fury. That can't show Katsuki threatening him with a mere "What?" and the sparks on his palms. They can't show Izuku standing and crying, small and defeated.

"BUT HORI SAID HE WENT TO FAR WITH THAT SCENE!1!" Blah blah blah, doesn't change the fact that it still happened. Doesn't change the fact that it should be addressed, at any capacity. Doesn't change the fact that the story had the balls to recall middle school but couldn't bring itself to remember the one thing that could get its audience raising eyebrows.

But that's alright, it gave you the notebook; clearly it's done enough.

And maybe in another timeline, I could have let my jaw drop when Katsuki was hit and the chapter title was revealed. "Katsuki Bakugo: Rising" It would have been pretty damn powerful too.

...but with all the previous crap the narrative has pulled, it feels like more shoehorning. It feels like more Erasehead stepping in and shaming the audience. It feels like more All Might letting Katsuki in because he's not completely familiar with the finer details. It feels like more people. In narrative parroting that Katsuki changed when he does the bare minimum, as a hero or as a person. I can't treat this development legitimately, because so many other "legitimate" developments pulled a "psyche!" and headed out.

So, I'm done. I'm done with Katsuki, done with hoping his development will be done in a somewhat satisfying manner. Done with people telling me "it's actually good though!" like I'm blind and deaf or something, when I have enough brain cells to formulate my own opinions, and we both have enough brain cells to leave each other alone if we don't agree. Maybe when the series ends and we can all look at this in hindsight, and Katsuki has either found a way to redeem himself, or remain deplorable, I might talk about it then. But for now. I'm drawing the line. I might talk about what we've gotten up to this point, but everything past 285 I'm taking with a grain of salt. 'Cause I'm sick of hoping for something that obviously won't come through, and it's better for me and everyone involved if I just pack up and move on. BNHA isn't just Katsuki's story after all.

And if you made it to the end of all this… I hope you'll either respect my opinion, or respect my thought process. That's all I can ask.

-Crimson Lion (27 September 2020)

[omni-scient-ramblings]

Daily Writing Challenge - June 2nd 2021

Based off the Song Adventure Is Out There by AJR

Also a prequel to the short story I wrote yesterday... This is leading up to the day Sarah met Evan

Sarah sat on her bed, covers thrown over her head, intent on blocking out the world around her. Her hair was a mess and so was her room. Her joints ached from being curled up in one spot for so long and while she was tired of feeling this way, she couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed and actually do something about it. 

The world was terrible and cruel anyways, there was no reason for her to actually get up and do anything anyways. People would dump you for no reason and they’d break your heart through a text message without a second thought to how excited you were to celebrate your six month anniversary.

Sarah buried her head in the mattress, throwing the pillow across the room as if it were some sort of voodoo doll for her ex-partner. Was it too much to ask for someone that actually cared about her?

A soft knock came to her door and Sarah groaned out some sort of response. “Go away” maybe.

The door opened anyways, despite her wishes, and her mother walked in. “Sarah honey?” Marge asked, sitting on the foot of her bed.

Sarah rolled over as if to face her mother, glaring up at the ceiling. No wonder Jesse hadn’t wanted to stay with her. Who would want to date a college student still living with their parents?

“Sarah...” Her mother began, sounding concerned. “I know the break up with Jesse was... Unexpected to say the least, but that doesn’t mean it has to stop your whole life up does it? What about that dive you were so excited to sign up for?”

“I cancelled it,” Sarah grumbled, hating how raspy her voice sounded from crying. She really needed some water or something. “I didn’t see the point in going if they were going to be there.”

Marge sighed. “Sarah, you can’t avoid him forever. Just because they broke up with you doesn’t mean that you two can’t be friends!”

Sarah sat up this time, resisting the urge to glare at her mother too. Even in her muddled post-breakup state she could tell that glaring at her mom wouldn’t end well for her. “Mom, they dumped me because he had completely lost all interest in me. If they wanted to still be friends after all this then he should’ve at least had the decency to break up with me face to face instead of doing it over text. Heck, even a voice text would’ve been better than a single message telling me it’s over!”

Marge winced slightly. “I know honey, and what Jesse did wasn’t right in the slightest-”

“He texted me five minutes before our dinner reservation was scheduled, and the cancellation fee at that point was more expensive than the reservation itself, so I had to eat dinner in the most well known couple restaurant, alone, on the verge of tears the entire time, unable to ask for clarification because of their strict no phone policy Mom! I can’t just ‘go on a dive’ with them!” Sarah said, her voice breaking towards the end as she realized that not only had her ex ruined her night, but the dive trip she had been looking forward to all semester long.

“Sarah,” Marge began, getting off the bed and beginning to fold Sarah’s discarded clothes that were scattered about the room for her. 

Sarah gulped. Her mom’s no nonsense voice was no joke. “I did not raise my daughter to lose all her confidence over a single breakup, no matter how crappy the break up was.”

“But Mooom-” Sarah protested, wishing she could just throw the covers back over her head.

Marge stopped folding clothes to shoot a look at her daughter. “The only but is going to be yours getting out of bed and getting ready for the dive tomorrow.”

“I told you, I already cancelled on the dive trip,” Sarah said, fiddling with the edge of her blanket. 

“Well then, luckily for you, Dr. Matthews was double checking the list yesterday and noticted you’d been taken off. She called the house to ask if it was purposeful or not and I told her it must’ve been some administrative error, so you’re going on the dive trip tomorrow, whether you like it or not.”

“MOM!” Sarah exclaimed, finally looking over at her mother.

“Don’t you take that tone with me young lady,” Marge warned, and Sarah crumpled again. “Trust me, this’ll be good for you. If you didn’t go on this trip you’d be kicking yourself for it years in the future.”

Sarah sighed. “Alright fine then... Can I at least have some privacy so I can get changed and make sure I have everything packed?”

Marge nodded, setting the pile of clothes she had already folded down on Sarah’s desk chair before heading for the door. “You’ve got 15 minutes to get dressed, and then I’m coming back in here to annoy you til you actually get out of bed.” she stepped outside, shutting the door softly behind her, and Sarah reluctantly slid out of bed, looking around the room for something to pull on.

“You’d think that with all these clothes everywhere it’d be easy for me to find something decent to wear,” Sarah grumbled to herself, looking under her bed for a pair of socks.

Sure enough, 15 minutes later, Sarah was out her bedroom door, sitting at her kitchen table with a bowl of cereal in front of her, despite the fact that it was almost noon. 

“I really don’t see why I have to go on the dive," Sarah complained, scooping a spoonfull of cheerios in her mouth. "It's not like seeing Jesse on this thing is going to make him want to take me back."

Marge just shot her a look from across the dining room table, taking a sip from her coffee. "It's not about getting Jesse back Sarah, it's about rediscovering your love for all things other than Jesse. You were excited for this diver before you met them, and you can be excited about the dive for it after you broke up too, Jesse is not the only good thing in the world you know."

Sarah forced a small smile onto her face. "I know Mom... It just... It really sucks you know?" 

Marge smiled sympathetically at her daugher. "I do know. And I also know that things are going to get better. I promise."

"Thanks Mom..." Sarah trailed off, staring down at her cereal. "I think I need to go out and buy a new pack of socks from the store. I couldn't find any at all in my room and I know for a fact I don't have any dirty laundry."

Marge laughed. "If it'll get you out of the house then by all means go for it. It's a do nothing day for me, so you can take my car if you'd like."

Sarah perked up a bit. Her mom never let her drive her car. "Really?"

Marge smiled. "Yes really. And if you happen to run into Jesse at the store, don't be afraid to show the old girl off a little."

Sarah grinned for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Maybe this whole dive trip wouldn't be so terrible after all.

***

Not less than 24 hours later, Sarah was regretting every single decision she had ever made up until this point. "You're sure I have to go Mom?" she asked, standing in the living room, peaking out at the bus that wasn't supposed to arrive to pick her up for another 10 minutes.

"Sarah," her mom told her, shooting her a look that was equal parts intimidating and encouraging. "There is so much more out there than Jesse. Or if you want me to put it into marine biologist terms, there are so many other fish in the sea."

Sarah resisted the urge to smile at her mom's corny joke.

"Adventure is out there!" Marge told her, doing her best to put on an encouraging smile. "You shouldn't be in here, moping about over some stupid demiboy that couldn't even bother to break up with you properly. You go on that dive and you show them that you're better than that. You're the up and coming marine biologist that can do anything you set your mind to. So get out there and find some adventure!"

Sarah let herself smile, feeling some of the tension leaving her body. "You really think so?"

"Honey, I know so," Marge told her. "Eventually you'll be out there making memories and having so much fun that you won't even remember your times with Jesse. And instead of losing your socks, your socks will be the ones losing you."

Sarah allowed herself to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of that one. "How did that make any sense at all Mom?"

Marge just shrugged. "Maybe it didn't, but it made you laugh, which is the important thing here."

Sarah smiled. 

"Now get out there and go on that dive! You've got this!"

"Yeah, Sarah reassured herself. "I've got this!"

She took a deep breath and pulled her backpack higher up on her back, opening the door and standing in the doorway for a few moments, staring out at the bus. “... Adventure is out there.”

“So why are you in here?” Marge asked.

Sarah hesitated for a moment longer before taking her first step out the door. “I’m not.” 

Marge smiled and Sarah did too as she glanced back at her before heading to the end of her driveway. Adventure was out there. And she was going to find it.

[mansionofmuses]

Alright fuck it I figured it's time to put my nuts in the ring when it comes to writing up rwde reviews about shiddy writing.

I already made a post about how closure doesn't exist in rwby, so that SHOULD trim this a bit. Hopefully.

These last two of seasons of rwby have been ASS and idk even know where to start. So lemme do some character progressions instead of jumping all over the place. Let's start with my fav: Neo. And I'll be as unbiased as possible.

Starting from v6, she came back and teamed up with Cinder. Cool? Cool. Fair enough. V7 onwards she's been treated like a BITCH by Cinder and has visibly shown her disdain for that on screen. And yet she still chooses to hang with her? Why? Like... Genuinely why? Is Neo not like the stealth queen? And the driver of a thousand vehicles? Why does she even need Cinder? Could she not have just jacked an airship herself, flown to Atlas after getting the info from Cinder, and began her hunt there? Instead she's just some minion to her now? Okay fine so let's say their team up makes sense in some odd world. Why the fuck would Neo agree to go to Cinder in the Satan Whale? Why? Why the fuck is she there? After being denied multiple times to get to Ruby and even being treated like shit with visible disdain, she should have absolutely left with a middle finger to Cinder. But nope. We get to see her be visibly uncomfortable in this cult and clearly wants out. Which she does, so good shit. She snatches the lamp and heads out. Fair enough, I guess? I don't know why the fuck she trusts Cinder to go back to her after being treated like shit. After Cinder's doodoo attitude towards her, Neo should be like "wow maybe she's lying to me about roman lemme check with this genie bitch" but no. And don't say "oh well she can't talk so jinn wouldn't be able to answer her." Fuck that. 1. I should hope that the password wouldn't be so ableist against mute people. 2. Neo's resourceful as hell. Text to speech and boom. There ya go. Instead she goes back to Cinder like a lost puppy after being shown multiple times how much she hates her. Why the fuck does she need Cinder to get to Ruby? I have no fucking idea! And then everyone's favorite scene. I know I know she killed Blake's hip atta-- I mean character devel-- I mean Yang. That scene. Was doodoo. And I'll get into more intricacies about it much later. But for now, why the hell was Neo so sloppy in that assassination? Like gurl you revealed yourself so early from, apparently so far away? Pretend to be a passerby with everything disguised (I saw that lamp) impale her and boom. Done. Not sure why she went for a slash either when a thrusting weapons like that would be best for a quicker impale. It would have made any on screen death so much more confirmed instead of up in the air bullshit.

Next we have Ironwood. Oh James. How far you've fallen. I don't really understand what the hell they're doing with this character any more. Like... At all. I fully expect him to turn into the joker and join salem at this point lmfao. At first he was complex, but cool, right? Ok a stern leader who still wants to help people and see team rwby in beacon grow and be successful. Fair enough. Then came v4 and he was like "hey yang. Heard about the arm. Here ya go homie." That was pretty cool to give to a young veteran. Fair enough. But good god once v7 hit, everything just went haywire. He started making the dumbest decisions. Kind of. I understand how he's like "aite let's sack mantle to ensure atlas lives cause otherwise both parties will be dead." except idk why he didn't just make a plan to evacuate everyone to mantle first but whatever. I mean team rwby did it like... In a day? Shouldn't have been hard. Then he started losing his fucking mind. There was an entire thing about trust issues and plans (ngl I didn't care enough to pay much attention) and he ends up wanting to arrest the kids more than actually stopping Salem. Like homie. Why. You have a gang of strong ass hunters on your side, don't just throw that away. They could say "acab fuck the police anarchy reigns" and you should still keep them just to fight literal satan on your doorstep. But he fucking drops everything and resources and materials on arresting them. Like why???? And then he just shoots a child just because? And he goes around full fascist mode and his character is just gone at that point. He literally actively wants to kill the people of Mantle now instead of stopping Salem and I don't fucking get it. He could literally plot with salem about how to nuke mantle and I'd be like "shoulda seen it coming". And then when he gets outta jail he kills Jacques... Just cause? Like why? I understand Jacques let Salem's forces in and eventually led to this shit show, but like... Atlas was falling. Just leave. I don't understand. But I guess it's to show how hateful he is towards those who oppose him, so whatever. Idk I'm so done with him. This man is just so boring I just can't wait for him to get killed off so we can be done with him. I'm sure I missed a fuckload of intricacies about Ironwood but I really don't care at all about this schmuck.

Next on the shitlist is the entirety of team rwby. Just to compact it all into one. Ruby has been getting on my nerves SO much. She is so holier than thou and always right. If she had just openly talked with Ironwood about all these secrets and shit, none of this would be happening. Yeah there would be panic, but homie what's the alternative? Fight in secrecy against the police and Salem?

"hey Ruby I noticed that lamp you keep hanging around. What is that?"

"oh uhhhh definitely not a grimm magnet HAHAHAHAH"

Like no shit everyone's gonna be pissed when you lie to them and keep these secrets. Also these plans are dogshit. "We gotta get a message out." To who??? The rest of the world is gonna see some lil kid be like "hey Ironwood's gone crazy and some evil witch bitch is here tryna kill us all." Like who are they gonna believe? A random girl or the fact that ironwood is the head of the largest military state in the world? For all they know it's just some prank and it's totally unbelievable.

Team RWBY sippin team for v8 and doing nothing all volume? Nice. "But they needed to protect Nora." You mean to tell me Ruby, May, Blake, and Weiss all had to be there to protect someone. The Grimm attacked once and that was it. You guys have no medical history. At all. All you did was wrap her up and drink tea during the volume where there's a literal war happening outside. You don't just "wait for help" you ARE THE HELP you're hunters you fucks! Go out and get shit done. Have like one person stay behind just in case shit goes wrong. Preferably Weiss so she can have those meaningful conversations with her family members she never fucking had. But whatever. Ruby and Yang get into... A fight? That lasts for five seconds when they leave and then when they see each other again it just doesn't matter so I'm not sure why the fuck it was brought up at all. It had no impact whatsoever. And there's a ton more I'm sure I'm just burning out at this point. But let's just talk about the big shit. Yang's death. Everyone's saying she'll come back because plot armor but I'm in the "I genuinely think she's dead" group. She turned to Dust as she fell. I mean who knows maybe Deus Ex machina rears it's convenient head. I hate hate hate how that scene was done. That was such an unbelievable death. Weiss, Ruby, and even Blake all have ways of catching her. Easily. Weiss has like fifty ways of catching someone between summons and semblance. Ruby can teleport around the world. And Blake can just shadow clone jutsu her way there but WHATEVER. I guess everyone was too busy being nerfed and sucking ass. Again. And the reactions? Dog shit. Even when she sacrifices herself for Ruby, it's still all about the bees. It's so genuinely annoying. Ruby just whispers her sisters name and that's pretty much it aside from a >:( face here and there. Weiss doesn't even grieve she just comforts Blake who's losing her shit. And I don't know why Weiss doesn't grieve cause SHE WAS HER HOMIE TOO LIKE C'MON RT LET'S SEE SOME UGLY SOBBING DAMN so now everyone's gone feral (except Weiss who just doesn't give a shit about Yang apparently.) And despite Blake saying "yo let's not kill people aite Yang?" She's gonna say fuck that and have it out for Neo and Cinder out of revenge. Alright I guess. That's fair honestly. Challenging ones own morals based on emotions. Good enough. But god I just wished we could see more from Ruby and Weiss during that. Also I'm so sick of the "oh this character fell are they dead are they not?" Thing that rt keeps doing. Just have Neo impale her and go. Easy as that. On screen confirmation. I'm sure team RWBY has a fuckload more to crit but I'm done with this topic.

Winter. Bootlicking to the extreme that she casts aside her own sister and doesn't care if her friends die. Nice. No closure at all after she turns back to being a good guy I guess. I'm done with her. Not a whole lot to say.

The aceops are just so dumb. I'm done with them. Everytime they talk about genocide for the good of atlas I'm just rolling my eyes. Just say you're fascists and move on. And idk why the fuck harriet is gonna bomb an empty mantle. Atlas is already falling on it, you literally have no reason to do this. And this plot point is stupid as hell. Next.

Cinder. I'm not sure why they decided to randomly drop her background story into the mix. Like I don't think anyone gives a shit after all the crap she's done. I'm so sick of rt trying to make her some "uwu woe is me" woobie after doing so much shit and killing so many people. Her uwu crying moments are just stupid. Honestly watts is one of my fav characters just for telling her how crappy she is. Next

Hazel. Homie is dumb as hell. He hates Ozpin because his sister died in a mission. Fair enough. Why the fuck would you ever join Grimm Hitler when Grimm are what killed her in the first place??? Like??? Just hate him on your own time dude, jesus. And he is consistently hypocritical and it's so stupidly funny how bad this character is.

"HOW MANY MORE CHILDREN WILL YOU HURT OZPIN" as he beats the piss outta Nora, Ren, RWBY, Oscar, and probably some random five year old on the street while shouting OZPIIIIN to the skies. It also didn't take a whole lot to convince him how stupid he was thank god. His character was so cool in design and in theory but good god he got executed soooo fucking poorly. Kinda glad he's dead just so we don't have to deal with his stupidity. Next.

Emerald. This bitch. I can't. I LOVE how easily rwby just forgave her. It was so stupidly funny. "oh but yang was ready to fight her at first and snatched her weapons" yeah for five fucking minutes. Then came the part where she helped stabilize Penny and gave a half assed speech about switching sides. Meanwhile everyone's just magically forgiving of her like OH THAT EMERALD AHAHAH like she didn't help orchestrate the fall of Beacon, the death of many, including Penny, and all the terrible shit that's gone down. No resentment from RWBY except for my favorite line delivered this volume. It was Weiss's ever so beautiful "SHUT UP" LOL (I play Smite and I love how her VVGQ Quiet voice line sounds the same. So when I heard this line, I thought of Smite and immediately laughed. Kudos to you Weiss.)

Salem. The hound attacked Penny in the mansion... Why? You already established connection with Watts in jail. Did he not tell her "ay she cool with us." And in turn did she not tell him "ay she cool with us don't hit her"? I guess not? Cause the hound and penny shoulda bounced together the second they met up lmao. Other than that, salem's done nothing this volume except try to be scary and get her ass beat by hazel. She could easily just go out in the field with her grimm and blasts some people or SOMETHING GOD so far our main villain is just so boring and unimposing that literally every other villain, including her subordinates, feel more like threats than her.

Now I'll just talk about scenes.

The scene with ambrosius was COATED IN CONVENIENCE. Apparently Ozpin didn't tell the gang about the WinMore button they could just fucking walk to until now because??? Idk. I LOVE how team rwby just assumed that penny would be okay when they took her robot parts out. Realistically she should just be a floating husk of aura and nothingness. Like she never had organs. I don't understand how she's a real person now? Which, by the way, I'm pretty fucking insulted about how they handled that. Why make Penny human? She was already a real girl and accepted by her loved ones. Like shit, she was a character that a LOT of transgirls, myself included, could relate to on a personal level and we LOVED how Ruby handled it in v2. It was cute! It was sweet! She said she was a real girl back then and it made all of our collective kokoros go doki doki. Fun stuff!

But now? It feels like none of that was validated until she got an actual human body. Like damn I wish I could just get my ideal body within seconds. Shit. I've seen and heard a lot of upset from my fellow tgirls about how doodoo that scene was, because it's implying penny wasn't a real girl until after she got her human body and that's probably how most of the rwby fandom is gonna see it too. "oh wow penny's a real girl now!" And just forget Ruby's cute speech in v2. So annoying. Minor nitpick, if she's got the aura of a black man inside of her (her father), and her robot body is gone, why the fuck isn't she black? Like? Idk minor nitpick I guess. But anyways back to ambrosius scene. I love how rwby had the answers for everything within the hours worth of planning they were given by Ironwood's motive. Totes believable. And yet the "one way ticket to vacuo" thing was the simplest shit they could have avoided lmfao. Like THAT is what you trip up on? Not the portals you're trying to make or the assumption that penny lives without her robot parts? Insane. (side note: how did oscar have a flashback to that scene if he wasn't even there?)

And now everyone's favorite scene. Yangs death. Already covered it early I just wanted to add more on. This scene is insane. Like... If they actually go through with killing her (i don't see how she could have survived turning into dust) then roosterteeth is dumber than I gave them credit for. Like... They have to realize the shitstorm they're gonna receive right? First they kill off clover, an lgbt+ coded character. Next is Yang? A main character who is WIDELY loved by all. Apart of their most pandered ship in existence: bees. (Both the ship and the character make them so much money in merch btw so this was stupid from an objective standpoint.) You can't just kill a main character that is heavily lgbt+ coded in THE most popular ship in the show. Like... How dumb can they be? They're gonna lose so many fans at the very least. Sales? Down. Death threats? Way up. It would be astonishing if they weren't up to their necks in shit in backlash by that decision. Bury Your Gays trope strikes again folks. But this time with everyone's favorite! Like I just... Idk that decision was stupid and that scene hardly was given any real pomp or circumstance it deserved. She's a major title character and that scene lasted like a minute lmao. It's gonna be RWBY without the Y. RWB. As in rt is a bunch of rubes for making that decision. A cynical part of me thinks they did that just because they want an excuse to off Neo, another really loved character. (Well if everyone hates her now we can kill her off cause god knows we don't know what to do with her), but I'm not gonna make this about her. I honestly don't know how to feel about this death tbh. On one hand it's shitty and *points to essay above*. On another it lets Blake be her own character for once. We get to see who she is on our own. And we can finally shift gears from The Bees Show featuring Some Plot to RWBY without the Y. But again that scene was done horribly with doodoo writing already explained up above. They're gonna use this as some edgy excuse to have the heroes start killing again or grieve or whatever bullshit shock value.

(now that I think of it tho, Neo shoulda killed yang in v2. How the fuck did Raven know she was finna die again. Lmao)

Anyways, that's my two cents. I'm sure there's so much more I forgot. Love or hate my ramble idc these are just my thoughts. I'm sure I made doodoo arguments at some points so feel free to call me an idiot and point them out. Imma bounce. My fingers fucking hurt lmfao

[noethicalconsumptionunderdisney]

Ranked: Hannah Montana — Mamaw vs. Dolly

So this seemed like a fun one for me to do!  These are two of the most iconic recurring guest stars, so naturally I had to pit them against each other (or, well, pit their episodes against each other).  This competition isn’t particularly serious, but it is a nice excuse for me to talk about some of my favorite episodes on the show.  Like before, I’m going in reverse-order of how much I liked them, or Worst->Best, so I can save the best for last.  

“B-B-B-Bad to the Chrome” (Season Three)

It’s a testament to how awesome Vicki Lawrence is that even in the “worst” episode she’s in, she still brings it and is in many ways the strongest part of it.  This one loses out mainly on writing, and me fucking hating the subplot.  I’m sorry.  “You forgot some really arbitrary timestamp I decided to put on our relationship without telling you, which means you don’t love me” will just never be anything but annoying to me ever, no matter how much I like the couple involved.  Honestly, it was shit like that that made me glad I didn’t do a lot of dating in high school.

The main plot is kind of weak too tbh, but I’m still in some ways fond of it, because it’s very clear that it’s all coming from a place of love.  They replace her car because they love her, and they try to recreate the old crappy car because they love her, and she pretends not to notice because she loves them right back.  The best scenes are the one-on-one interactions between Miley and Mamaw, where you can see how much they understand each other.  It was because of those that I almost bumped this up one… but they weren’t quite enough to sell me on this episode.  Sorry again.

“You Give Lunch A Bad Name” (Season Three)

This one, again, not a very strong episode, but there are a few reasons I liked this one just a little bit more.  Part of it is I’m a sucker for Miley/Jackson centrics, and they strike such a perfect balance of brother-sister solidarity and sibling rivalry in this: the song in the beginning, the schemes, the mimic fights, them immediately pointing at each other when Mamaw asks them who the “guiltiest grandchild” is.  Another part is that weirdly, Lilly and Oliver seem to have more of their natural chemistry in this episode than they do in the one where they’re actually dating.  Case in point, their little quiet communication to leave in the middle of the siblings’ bickering without having to say a word to each other.

What’s interesting about this one is, Mamaw isn’t necessarily wrong that the kids are gonna take advantage of their dad being gone.  That’s exactly what they’re planning to do.  But then she takes it too far and holds on too hard, treating them like they’re 10 rather than 16 and 18 respectively.  There’s a classic conflict here of teenagers thinking they’re more mature than they really are, versus their family knowing they’re still kids but treating them like outright children instead of meeting them where they are. And I think it’s harder for her to accept they’re growing up than it is for Robby Ray because she isn’t around very much to see it happening.  While she recognizes in the end that they had good reason to be embarrassed, that theme of holding on to how things were because she’s afraid of losing them seems to be a consistent one with her in later seasons.

“I Am Mamaw, Hear Me Roar!” (Season Four)

First off, I just want to say that I think having a Dolly episode and a Mamaw episode after “I’ll Always Remember You,” and right after each other, was a really smart choice, especially the way they did it.  Dolly can help her embrace what it’s like to be all-celebrity, all the time, and Mamaw reminds her not to forget her family, and how hard that kind of life can actually be. Not just for Miley, but for the people around her.  They just tie really well into that whole, “She’s always had the best of both worlds, but now she’s gotta learn what living without her secret feels like” theme that late stage Season 4 has going for it.

One thing that always strikes me about this episode is how it puts so much of her actions in context, not just in this episode, but retroactively.  Of course Robby Ray forgot to visit her when he was younger and his own music career was in full swing.  Of course she would panic when the same seems to be happening to Miley, when they can’t take one picture or have one tea without Miley getting hounded by her fans, because she doesn’t have Hannah Montana to hide behind anymore. (Of course, I’m not so sure the timeline adds up there, but I’m gonna let that go because of the point it was trying to make.)  Being smacked in the face with Miley’s fame is really a wakeup call for all of them, but that makes Miley’s efforts to make sure Mamaw understands how much she cares all the more sweet.

“Good Golly, Miss Dolly” (Season One)

I’d initially put “Kiss It Goodbye” here, but I switched them when I realized I was underrating it— that episode was better than I remembered.  But I like this one, too!

This is Dolly’s first appearance and introduction, and she comes in with a bang.  The frou-frou, the flowers, and of course, the infamous camera that kickstarts the conflict of the episode.  Well, sort of— the real conflict is Miley’s confused feelings for Jake Ryan, torn between “falling all over him,” playing hard to get, and not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her vulnerable.  The way it ends up intersecting with Oliver’s subplot of trying to compile a goodbye video for the principal is brilliant, and that sneaking scene?  Just amazing.

Of course, this puts her right back where she started, and she ends up regretting it when it’s seemingly too late for her and Jake, but her ripping up the flowers is funny, and then Dolly gets to show off her singing chops a little when she and Robby Ray cheer her up in a really sweet scene.  Beyond that, the subplot is… fine.  It’s pretty forgettable, but I liked it okay.  It’s not frustrating like some of the subplots in previous episodes on this list, but not quite as awesome as…

#3: “Kiss It Goodbye” (Season Four)

And with that, we’ve cracked the top three!  This one surprised me upon rewatch.  I knew I liked it, I just didn’t know how much I liked it until I saw it again. I think part of it might be me attributing some of my own feelings about Cancel Culture as a whole and how that’s affected us for the worse overall, celebrity or not, as well as some meta-significance to Miley’s career, both at the time and afterwards.  But let me get into the episode itself rather than getting on those tangents.

Miley starts off being a little careless with her image… but this is understandable, as she’s used to having her privacy, and living without it’s gonna take some getting used to.  Dolly has this legendary entrance in a personalized helicopter, complete with a pink ladder.  She uses her own know-how about fame to help Miley navigate the paparazzi, reassures her after a brutal interview with Colin Lassiter, and then encourages both her and Robby Ray to sing with her at her performance.  While both of them object at first, Robby Ray eventually gets up the courage to go… which is the push Miley needs to get past her fears and get back on the horse herself.

Beyond the main plotline and overall message that I love, it’s really quotable, and has one of the best subplots this show has ever had.  Rico goes practically catatonic because the Stewarts, a family of “idiots” he looks down upon, fooled him, an evil genius with an ego that can’t handle that.  I also like that we see Lilly’s compassionate side coming back in this episode in both plotlines, it’s the one thing I felt season 4’s Lilly was lacking overall, and it was fun to see her point her sharp tongue towards herself for once this season.  And of course, Jackson enjoying Rico’s suffering, but ultimately being the one to help him out of it was perfect, and bringing back the choir from earlier that season was even better.

#2: “I Will Always Loathe You” (Season Two)

Before anyone gets mad that this wasn’t my #1 pick, let me just say for the record that this episode is AWESOME.  Mamaw and Dolly’s rivalry is so explosive and they play off each other so beautifully, and the culmination of that into the “Granny Smackdown” is so well-done.  And look, yeah, I know that there were stunt doubles and probably a mannequin or two involved, but I don’t care, it’s a fantastic scene.  I love Robby Ray trying to make peace and ending up getting dragged into it, I love Hannah Montana awkwardly trying to salvage the situation, and ultimately breaking them up, and I love Jackson and Lilly scarfing down popcorn and watching the whole thing unfold from home.

If I had to pick which one of these episodes was the funniest, it would be this one, no contest.  The subplot here is great too; simple yes, but I think the simplicity works in contrast to just how much is going on in the main plot, and Oliver’s shame at his own involvement in the end?  Wonderful.  The contrast between the two women picking clothes for Miley’s award show, and the decision to genuinely make up after seeing how much it hurt Miley were executed beautifully too.  We don’t get the sense that they’re going to be BFFs, but I do like that the ending scene shows promise, that they’re at least capable of getting along, when they want to.   As Miley says, “You’re trying.  That is all I’ve ever wanted.”

So yeah, this episode?  Amazing.  But… not quite my favorite.

#1: “Grandmas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Play Favorites” (Season One)

Remember when I said I’m a sucker for Miley/Jackson centrics?  Yeah.  This episode was probably where all of that began for me.  (Also the beginning of my feelings about Jackson going from “oh he’s pretty funny” to “LET ME LOVE YOU,” but I’ll try to keep my stanning to a minimum here.)

We start off with what appears to be a fairly straightforward story.  Hannah Montana is meeting the queen.  Jackson has a volleyball game.  Mamaw’s coming to visit, and she’s critical of Robby Ray, particularly his eating habits, she’s tepidly nice to Miley, but treats her as an afterthought, and she heaps praise and adoration and attention onto Jackson by the bucketload.  On the surface, it seems that this is about Mamaw unfairly favoring Jackson over Miley.  Right up until this happens:

“She’s gonna insult the queen and ruin my command performance all because of her ‘little Jackson.’  It’s always about you!”

“Me?!  Well, it’s never about me!  Everything in this family revolves around you!”

One comeback, and the tables are turned.  Yes, Mamaw hasn’t treated Hannah Montana getting to sing for the Queen of England with the respect and admiration it deserves.  But Robby Ray and Miley haven’t been treating Jackson with the respect and admiration he deserves.  When Miley snarks that Mamaw would rather go to Jackson’s volleyball game than her performance, she responds with, “Well, if I don’t, who will?  I don’t see either one of you heading for the door.”  She doesn’t ignore Miley because she loves her any less.  In an ironic turn of events, the reason she ignores Miley isn’t about her at all.

I do like, though, that the episode doesn’t treat this as “two wrongs make a right.”  Mamaw still apologizes for making Miley feel “invisible,” like her accomplishments don’t matter, like she doesn’t care.  Jackson feeling invisible because his dad and his sister and the whole rest of the world treat him that way, doesn’t excuse Mamaw treating Miley that way.  And the fact that all of it’s unintentional, and that the neglect is coming from someone who does, genuinely, love that person, doesn’t erase the harm it causes. This is a lesson for both of them, and Miley comes away with a greater understanding of what her brother goes through.

There is still a part of me that wishes this had gotten elaborated on more in the show?  Not that Jackson doesn’t bring up the favoritism issue multiple times afterward, but it’s not treated seriously very often after this, considering how often it comes up.  It saddens me to think that, for all the efforts they make in this episode to make sure they’re there for Jackson in the end, Miley and Robby Ray still end up falling into the same patterns with Jackson as the show goes on, and worse.   I can’t help but think this pattern of neglect and Jackson’s deterioration into “the family failure” are related, and while I don’t need every single episode to treat it as A Big Deal, the truth is, it is a big deal, and I wish the show had been more consistent in actually taking it seriously.

So that’s my list!  In the end, I think we can all agree Mamaw and Dolly are both pretty iconic characters, and made the show all the richer for being on it.  I’ve loved getting a chance to look at their episodes again, and make sure to stay tuned for my next Ranked post for this series, where I may be talking about another iconic recurring character on this show….  (Hint: one of these episodes is on that list, too.)  Until next time!

[teakmiddleton]

- discord thread with @akbartheolder , @lostboyjamiebevans , and @teakmiddleton

---

WHEN: February 26, 2021; mid-morning. WHERE: A stand of coconut trees near the Leander.

The fog was gross. That was all Teak could think when he saw it out of the porthole in their cabin on the Leander, the thought was reinforced when he and Jamie stepped out onto the deck of the ship, and it grew exponentially as they headed down the gangplank and onto the beach. "This isn't normal," Teak had said, as they listened to people moving around, barely visible. "This is messed up." He'd stooped, undoing the shoelaces from his sneakers (they didn't really need them; the laces were decorative, and not even really great at that), tying the strings together and then handing one end to Jamie. 

"Tie that through a belt loop," Teak instructed, doing the same on his own jeans. "We're gonna see what we can find and I don't want to lose you." A plan he congratulated himself on when they remained together long enough to join up with some people who were frenetically trying to get down some trees, for possible raft-building or something, and Teak only then turned Jamie loose with the order for him to sit in the sand and not move. He could do this. Whatever that light out on the ocean was, it could be the ticket home for the Bevans-Middleton boys, and Teak wasn't about to let that opportunity pass him by.

Jamie did as he was told when Teak offered up his shoelaces, tying them tight through a beltloop, the fog cold and cloying and more frightening than he'd ever thought fog might be - and it was comforting, doing what Teakettle said, handing over the reins of decision making to the brother that had always protected him in the past. When Teak set him free though, ordering him to sit in the sand and not move, Jamie felt himself want to balk. He didn't want to be free yet, not when people were taking down trees and Teak was determined to join them. Not when that tether had been keeping them both safe; keeping them a set, a unit. Jamie didn't want to let that go. 

But Teak was the elder brother, and what he said went, so Jamie sat in the damp sand and tried his best to see through the gloom to keep an eye on his Kettle. Helping in the way of all baby brothers before him, watching carefully and following orders. Keeping Teak in his misty sights so he could be sure that he was still there. That Jamie hadn't lost him in the thick white fog. Counting the minutes until they could be tethered again. Whatever they were going to do, they had to do it together. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. "I'll sit," Jamie said, "-but I don't like it." And then he parked himself like a statue, ready for Teak's next idea.

Emre kept losing his way back to the boat.  He maintained his calm demeanour, even if internally he was roiling with frustration and impatience.  The fog was unresponsive to water-magic, that Emre had figured out.  Not that he was any good at it himself, but because other more experienced water-magic users had failed. But he still toted supplies that could be useful for the accelerated boat-building, still hoping in vain to find his bearing and meet up with the rest of the volunteers.  Tamyra must be thrilled, knowing that she was right (maybe) and that so many people were now eager to jump on her 30-year mission. Emre wished at least that, like London fog, this fog would be enjoyable to stroll in.  But the sense of electric urgency and confusion in the air made Emre antsy as well.  Glancing around but trying to walk straight, eyes peeled for any sort of movement.

And he got it.  A flurry of people jogged past him, seemingly out of nowhere.  Emre froze - he'd found some boat-volunteers, but they were now talking about the ship getting closer (maybe) and voices on the water (maybe) and a life-raft (maybe).

"Oi," Emre said faintly to the last one running by, but they didn't hear him.  Instead, Emre kept walking, and made contact with something solid.  A person, sitting in the sand.  Emre couldn't quite make them out.  "Alright?" he asked, for lack of anything else to say.  "Know where the boat's being built, mate? Been trying to get back to it for ages."

"Ooof," Jamie wheezed, all the air knocked out of him at the sudden contact, and then a disembodied voice - a vaguely familiar voice - asked him if he were alright. "Yeah," Jamie said, realising that he was, "Yeah, mate, I'm fine. I'm the one sitting in the way, aren't I?" Jamie stood up for a moment, still staying rooted to his spot, just trying to see the man he was talking to, "The boat I'm not so sure of, but those people over there," he gestured at the noise of work, "are trying to get some trees down for a raft. I'm just meant to stay here and keep out of trouble. My brother will have my head, otherwise."

Helping to chop down the tree was taking a lot of concentration -- for some reason, the rest of the people making the attempt were sticking to their crappy little tools for doing it, and Teak was embroiled in trying to get them to let him use his firepower for it -- but he kept making time to check in on Jamie, periodically. Darting forward to look for the little teddybear-lump in the sand and make sure it was still there. "Won't be long," Teak called to him at one point, although that was a lie. These people were taking for-ever. 

He was about to get back to it when he thought he heard Jamie start talking (the words were hard to make out, but the lilt of a London accent made it through)-- --and then realized it wasn't Jamie at all. It was Emre. Talking to his baby brother. Watch what you're doing! one of the other idiots squalled at him, and Teak tore his attention away from Jamie to slap his hands against the trunk and out of the way of the swinging axe that was as dull as the guy wielding it. Everyone else seemed to have run off somewhere, leaving only this one guy and him. "Yeah, yeah, if you just let me burn some of the trunk--" Teak began, but the guy wasn't listening, and he was. To see what Jamie and Emre were talking about.

Emre didn't need the other bloke to stand, but he figured it was only polite or whatever.  Especially in the fog, when at the moment it just looked like a pale shadow below him.  Emre could make out his face now - square and rounded at the same time, and rather familiar - but Emre wasn't in the mood to figure out from where, since really everyone around the island was 'vaguely familiar'; it was the nature of a small island and strangers. "They've all run off, innit.  Back to the beach I think," Emre said with a huff as he looked over in that direction (he guessed it was the right direction).  "Right, suppose I should follow them then.  The boat - raft, whatever - is on the beach like..." 

But Emre's decision was interrupted by an awful creaking noise - one loud enough to puncture even through the sound-muffling fog.  Without the ability to see what was bloody going on, Emre could only look in the direction, dropping his dragged supplies and bracing for...something.  A monster?  A jinn?  It could be anything. And it was.  At the last minute,  Emre realized the thing charging down towards them were the fronds of a tree - the coconut tree the other fellow just mentioned.

"Fuck--!" Emre yelped and shoved the other man forward, diving along with him.  The other was sturdy as hell but somehow Emre got him to move, as the tree crashed onto them.  Emre slid off the other man, face colliding so hard into the sand that stars spun, dazed.  He groaned, and tried to crawl up - but his leg felt pinned.  "Fucking hell..."

Before Jamie even knew what was happening he was being pushed forward, and though his body resisted at first - he went down with only the strongest of efforts - he heard the crack, and allowed himself to get shoved down into the sand again; this time under the stranger and the tree, once again the wind knocked out of him. But when he sat up - with a little extra effort than it might normally have taken - he shimmied out from under his saviour and tugged his arm free, only to realise that the other man didn't have the same luxury. He was pinned under the coconut tree. And if the tree had fallen- 

 "Ketts!" Jamie hollered, "Ketts, where are you?! There's a bloke over here trapped under the tree! He saved my life. KETTLE, I NEED YOU!! Come help me!" Jamie got down in the sand again, murmuring to himself, 'Oh god, please let Teak be alright. Please, I'll do anything,' before turning his attentions to Emre. "Are you hurt?" he asked, "Does your leg feel broken or just stuck? What can I do?" "KETTLE!" he shrieked again, "Kettle, come help!"

The other guy had been off like a shot once the tree started falling. Okay, not exactly then -- but when he saw the flash-bang of Teak's concentrated fire-pop, going off like a cherry bomb inside the wedge that the guy had cut into the trunk. "Hey, where are you going?" Teak called after him, insincerely. "Scared of a little success?" He didn't have much time to crow, though; the tree fell at an angle he didn’t expect, and Teak could only watch as shapes on its other end moved, scrambled, fell. And then his brother's voice, high and panicked, and Teak scrambled through the sand with one of his untied shoes coming half-off and making him almost faceplant. 

 "Jamie?" he shouted back. "Jamie, are you okay? You didn't get hurt, did you? If somebody hurt you--" But he collided with the compact, crouched-over form of his brother, and this time Teak did drop down onto one knee as his shoe flew off. And found himself with an eyeful of Emre Akbar, of course, and his brother's worried squalling in his ear. "You're fine, right?" Teak asked Jamie, first and foremost, before looking at Emre. "You're ... you trapped, or something?"

Jamie didn't care how it looked, or if it was an appropriate moment, he threw his arms around his brother and held on tight, thanking Maria that Teak was safe and sound beside him. "I'm fine," he managed in a wavery voice. "I wouldn't be, but I am, because this geezer threw me out of the way. I'm fine. Just shaken up is all. Are you alright? Because we need to get him out of here."

Emre was dazed enough not to register the names that the other man was hollering for, something about a kettle.  Was this the best time for tea?  Honestly, maybe it was.  Emre was afraid of the fact that he couldn't feel any pain in his leg; he couldn't really feel his leg at all, so yeah - best time to put the kettle on.

It was only when he saw someone else racing forward - and bleary, Emre focused when the stout fellow flung his little arms around the new arrival like a child, only to have his brain belatedly fill in the details over a growing alarm.  Jamie, this one was called.  Kettle, he'd called to the other, only it had nothing to do with tea and had everything to do with --

"Teak?" Emre asked hoarsely, and grimaced at the sight. This was the brother - the one Madi mentioned.  English as you please, and clinging to Teak like a little big-eyed monkey.  'Are you alright', Jamie asked Teak, as if Emre wasn't the one pinned under the bloody tree after saving his bloody life.

"Tree's on me," Emre said, eyes flicking from one pale face to the other, so close together they became one.  "It were falling on your mate here first."

Teak rubbed Jamie's back, shushing at him instinctively as he kept an eye on Emre. Who really wasn't looking all that great, and a more petty part of Teak's mind was pleased about that. Not so full of yourself now, huh? None of that attitude when you're under a tree?

If it was just the two of them, Teak would've ditched. Left Emre there for somebody else to give a crap about. But Jamie was clinging to him, panicky and concerned, so Teak drew in a breath and redirected his attention at Emre. "I'm fine, Jamie," Teak said, taking in the pain-tightening around Emre's huge eyes. "The thing we need to concentrate on is moving this tree trunk. Without making it worse on the geezer."

He patted his brother's hip. "Go down to the other end of the tree and take a look so we know where it's pressing against him. I just need to ask Emre a few things." Teak looked at Jamie, giving him a reassuring smile before pushing him in the other direction. "That's my brother," Teak said to Emre, his voice so low it was almost pitched out of hearing range. "And my brother has a very special way of thinking about me. Nothing's gonna change his mind. You got that?"

"Right", Jamie said, half to himself and half to Teakettle, "Right. I'll go look at the other end and see how bad things are." He smiled shakily at the pat to his hip. "I'm so glad you're alright, Ketts. I was so fucking scared," before letting Teak push him away to make himself useful, heading for the other end of the tree and Emre's trapped leg.

The fog was still so thick that Jamie had to get back on his knees in the sand to really see what was happening, but when he realised, he called back to Teak. "He's pretty firmly stuck - do we lift the tree, or do I try to manipulate the earth to get him out?" Not that Jamie was terribly adept at that yet - but he had to offer. Emre had saved his life after all. The least he could do was try everything he had at his disposal. Jamie could still hear his brother talking to the trapped man, but he couldn't make out what was being said. "Teak?" he called again, "Teak what are you thinking?"

"What you mean, your brother," Emre hissed, words sibilant and sharp, with no intention of playing along with Teak's little game.  He mustered up a glare through his haze.  "Mandem's London, and you're American.  Can't imagine it really matters what he thinks of you as it's all a lie,  innit. Bloody wanker."

Emre could only vaguely hear Jamie's voice sing-songing behind him, through the fog.  He pushed himself up on his arms then, struggling to gain some ground and dignity.  The most he could manage was to balance on his arms, like a raised cobra.

"Need a lever, mate," Emre called back over his shoulder, towards Jamie.  "A long pole like, lift the tree off and I'll clip right out."  He looked back up at Teak, resenting how near he was.  "Magic don't work, yeah.  Dunno why. Fog maybe."

"I mean my brother! People are allowed to have brothers from other places, gosh." Teak glared back at Emre, almost wanting to grab the other man by his throat or his collar but loathe to get too close, having the unsettling feeling that Emre might snap those clean white teeth at his hand and snip a finger right off. "You better be calling me a wanker and not him. You better not be calling him anything."

They both held off in their spitting at each other when Jamie called back with his findings, which were, frankly, of concern. "Yeah, a lever," Teak appended onto Emre's comment, although he shouted louder over the tail end to say, "Don't go looking for one! You shouldn't wander off in the fog."

Teak spared a glare for Emre, saying, "Magic won't work on the fog. He might as well try his earth magic." He lifted his voice, still glaring at Emre, "Jamie! Try your earth magic, but be careful. You don't want the tree settling on him even heavier. Maybe if you could try to make a hump of sand further up the trunk to lift it? I'll look for a lever." He scrambled to his feet, and if he kicked some sand in Emre's face and even maybe connected with the guy's chin with the toe of his one still-sneakered foot, well. It was a fog! Nobody could blame him.

Jamie heard Teak's warning not to go astray in search of levers and he smiled to himself, happy to have Teak in charge again; his heart finally starting to beat at a reasonable pace once more, though he got a bit nervous when Teak told him to take a bash with his earth-magic, knowing he could very likely make things worse with the wrong sort of approach. But a hump of sand further up the tree he felt vaguely sure he could do; something in the low reverberations of the ground comforting and reassuring, and Jamie moved to a new vantage point to redistribute the tree's not inconsiderable weight, hopefully making the lever idea an easy task to accomplish.

So he sank back down to his knees and buried his hands in the sand, concentrating for all he was worth, visualising the sand raising the felled coconut tree and freeing Emre's leg; and for a frustrating moment there was nothing, no movement, no shift, no anything at all. So Jamie redoubled his efforts, eyes squeezed shut, until suddenly the sand began to shake around them, skimming and redistributing itself until it had made a hill, a fulcrum, and Jamie opened his eyes again, startled at his accomplishment. "Ketts," he called excitedly, "I did it! Have you found that lever yet? Emre, are you doing alright?"

Emre still didn't understand the nature of Teak and Jamie's fraternity, but it annoyed him nonetheless.  Particularly when Teak - fucking Teak - had the nerve to act protective about his brother.  Emre kissed his teeth.  "Leave it out, you muppet, bruv's what? Twenty-seven? Thirty then?  He's not some youth.  You're easy to exploit my little bruvver innit, you nasty fuck.  I'll call him what I like and he'll thank me for it."

It was grotesque, to Emre, to watch Teak pretend to care about that poor little man.  All he could see was the way Jamie clung to his older brother with such neediness, such fear that Teak might be hurt.  Emre had a hard time believing Teak cared about anything beyond his own well-tanned hands.

Teak booted sand up and Emre snarled, watching him scamper off into the fog.  He remained silent, mulling over Madi's words.  Jamie, Teak's brother, who knew an 'Emre' the drug-dealer.  Fucking hell.  It was likely, now that he heard the accent and knew it wasn't put on.  This little man might've actually been one of Emre's old clientele, from years back.  Jamie wouldn't remember his face though.  He couldn't.

He felt a sudden easing of pressure off his calf, and it filled with pins and needles, making Emre wince.  But then the pressure returned and Emre was almost glad for it.  "I'm all sunshine, sunshine.  Alright?  No panicking, yeah?  Your bruv's gone off to find the lever, he'll be back soon."  Emre hoped.  "You and Teak, you grew up together then?"

"No, no panicking," Jamie answered, closer to Emre's head now than he had been, keeping a weather eye on his little masterpiece made of sand, pleased to have finally done something useful. "As soon as Teak finds the right kind of lever, we'll have you out of there, yeah? And I'll be able to thank you properly for what you did for me. I mean, you saved my life, mate. I'll never be able to repay you for that."

"But no, Teak and I didn't grow up together." Jamie laughed then, slightly high pitched and jangling, "But I suppose the accents rather give that away, don't they? We've the same dad but different mums, right? I grew up in London and Teak in New York. We didn't even meet until I was ten and he was fifteen. We're close though. We made sure to be."

Emre dipped into a moment of absolute surreal.  His brain first reminding him that he was on an island where people didn't age and had magic.  Then afterwards, that they were caught in a mysterious fog that cast everything in muted noise and sight, quiet, ominous and serene.  And finally, that one more 'coincidence' (kismet? punishment?) might've cropped up on the island, in the form of little Jamie, Teaks' Londonist brother and once-purchaser of Emre's gear.

He stayed silent for a long moment, but honed in on a specific fascination: the brotherly connection between Jamie and Teak.  Emre yearned to hear it, yet resented knowing it as well;  thinking jealously and bitterly of Teak and Iyaz on New Years, in flagrante.  Teak, basking in the love and reverence of his own younger brother, but eager to take Emre's little brother as well.

Because of course he did.  Boys like Teak felt entitled to it all, and inevitably got it all their way in the end, after all.  He got Jamie's adoration, he got Iyaz seduced.

"Remarkable, how you managed to be so close, living so far apart.  Seems he's everything to you, innit mate," Emre said, voice hoarse and throaty.  "Where'd you grow up in London then? My ends were Forest Gate, yeah.  Moved about when I got older, though."

"We made an effort to be. Visits, hols, I saw Teak as often as I could, and fortunately our grandfather had enough money to make that happen. And he is actually, yeah," Jamie went on, "Ever since I got here, I'd have been lost without Kettle. I mean, he's my big brother. Looks after me, doesn't he?"

"Try not to move," Jamie said sympathetically, the rawness of Emre's voice something of a cause for concern, "Teak'll be back soon, I promise. We'll get you out of there."

Going back to Emre's questions, Jamie grinned a little when he heard Emre hailed from Forest Gate. "I had a mate, lived over there. Me though, I grew up in Hackney. Shoreditch, if you want to be specific. Still do, I suppose. Or my mum does, anyway." Jamie chuckled to himself. "Did you want to hear something funny?" he asked, "I had a drug dealer once called Emre. What are the odds of that, eh?"

Emre had to admit: he did feel a strange sense of comfort, hearing someone who spoke his language.  Sure, Americans did English too, but their sort of English.  This, this Jamie, was familiar.  That East End sound of him, glorious.

"Shoreditch, what.  You one of them artisanal art-house gastro-pub coffeehouse types then?" Emre couldn't help teasing, reveling in the shared locality.

But Emre knew he couldn't afford to indulge himself.  Not when this little bloke was Teak's brother, and not when Jamie cheerfully confirmed his own 'Emre the dealer'.  He shut his eyes and exhaled, glad to solidify this confirmation, made homesick by Jamie's cadences, but wishing none of this was happening.

"You what?" Emre said, forcing amusement into his tone.  He kissed his teeth.  "Nah man, I worked a Tesco's innit." A reliable lie.  One he'd used with Piper.  "Most drugs I ever sold were vitamins.  Sure could do with some weed right now though, can't I." Emre paused, suddenly feeling wildly cocky and slightly masochistic as he then asked,  "So what ever happened to your Emre then?"

“I am now," Jamie laughed, "It wasn't that way when I was growing up. But yeah, I sell designer trainers at one of those little boutiquey shops where everything costs 10 times what it's worth, so I suppose I might better lean into the Shoreditch of it all."

When Emre went on to ask about Emre the long lost drug dealer though, assuring Jamie that he worked at Tesco's, the familiarity of his voice just seemed to increase tenfold, until Jamie almost had to laugh at himself for even entertaining the idea that this Emre and his hard man Emre might be one and the same. Tesco's was a far cry from what Jamie had heard his Emre was capable of, and besides, even here, really what were the odds?

"My Emre?" Jamie asked, "Well, I suppose we just drifted apart. I was a good customer for about three years or so - just party drugs, nothing to worry over - and then a mate of mine wound up in hospital, courtesy of Emre, and I gave up the drugs after that. I mean a bit of fun is a bit of fun, but when people end up with breaks and fractures, it's time to admit that the fun is over, yeah? I haven't even touched a spliff in years."

"Oi, which shop then?" Emre asked, almost a little too eagerly.  The craving pinged hard and fast the moment Jamie mentioned the magic words 'trainers' and 'boutique'.  What Emre wouldn't give, for a good pair of designer trainers.  No that he'd wear them in this place, of course.  Just keep them, safe and precious, just to....look at.  And clean, from time to time.

He doubted it was any shop he'd frequented though, given what Jamie told him next, about what happened to 'his Emre'.  Right...that was right.  Vague memories drifted into Emre's mind now, sloshing and lapping in waves that made Emre feel almost drunk.  It was all so far away, so far back, soft and hazy like a dream.  A dream about drugs dealing, the street hustle, the roadmen and rudeboys, the clientele and parties, the fights and blood flying in the alleyways.  So Jamie had been tied up in that scene once, and Emre had supplied him.

He wished he could get a better look at Jamie's face, but he was also glad for the fog, for now. Because if there was even a chance of Emre recognizing Jamie, there was also a chance of Jamie recognizing his face too.

"Right yeah mate,"  Emre agreed with a whole-hearted good-lad tone.  "Best to get out of that life before it's too late innit.  Too many...too many mates I know never made it past their twenties innit.  Sure you know the same."

There was no doubt, this Jamie knew the same.  This Jamie, who did not grow up posh  and entitled, like his older brother.  This Jamie who was nothing like Teak, yet retained the deepest loyalty to him.  Fucking hell.   Despite how much Emre felt desperate to connect with a slice of home, he would have to be careful.  Fucking Teak.

Scouting around for a proper branch to use as a lever was proving harder than he'd anticipated; out here on the beach coconut trees were the main ones, and they just had the big long trunk, no branches. And Teak had wanted to stay close by to keep an ear on the conversation, keep an eye on his brother, and even more than that to keep an eye on Emre. Which might have seemed like overkill, given that Emre was currently caught like a mean-faced mouse in a trap, but Teak didn't think it was prudent to underestimate the man. Not after that cut that Emre had left high on Teak's cheekbone when he'd swung at him.

But the lack of branches forced Teak to venture a little further afield, to the supply tent that he'd so scorned earlier when he was getting clothes for Jamie. At least there he was able to collect a long, sturdy branch that some thoughtful person had thoughtfully stocked, and bore it back to the felled tree as fast as he could.

At least his brother seemed fine. Crouched down chatting away with Emre, in fact, and since Jamie wasn't the sort who could conceal his feelings, Teak was relieved to hear that his voice sounded normal, interested, the only tenseness in it from the current situation. "I found something," Teak called, and moved along the length of the trunk until he located a built-up hump of sand. "You did this, Jamie?" he said. "Wow. That's really good. I guess being able to use our powers excellently right out the gate must run in our family, huh? Bevans-Middleton brothers for the win, awwwright!"

Childish and petty to champion his brother and himself in front of the man whose brother Teak had aggressively made out with? Maybe. But Emre the mean-face was in no position to object. "I'm gonna get this lever in and lift the trunk," Teak said. "Jamie, you be ready to pull him out when it lifts, okay? Emre, you get ready to crawl fast."

Jamie was just in the midst of replying that he'd worked at Mr. Sneaker on Bethnal Green Road, and agreeing that it was best to get out of that life before it took more from you than you were willing to part with, when Teak arrived back with a substantial sized branch and some words of praise for Jamie's little built up sand hill, and Jamie grinned with pride, proud of his own achievement and even prouder that Teak was impressed too.

Kettle explained what he was about to do, told Jamie and Emre to be ready, and Jamie nodded, more than prepared to tug Emre free if he had to. "Alright, Emre?" he asked. "Count of three, yeah?"

Mollified whilst chatting with Jamie, the moment Teak showed up in all his tanned glory raised Emre's ire from zero to eighty the moment he heard Teak say 'Wow'.  He even went as far - for Emre's audience, he was sure of it - to holler about how great him and his little brother were.  Emre steamed internally; and there was that small, nagging part of Emre that couldn't help thinking: wasn't Teak right?  Despite people who were wary of Teak, there were always going to be others charmed by him - like Emre's own brother.  And it would be even moreso now that Teak paraded  around his own cute little mascot baby brother.

This was just the way of the world.  And isolated as the island was, the people on it were not all inured to the way the world worked, for boys like Teak Middleton.    They always got their way, in the end.

A rush of tension and mild defeat  washed over Emre's previous glee, and he nodded at Jamie.  "On three, yeah," he said softly.  The moment the brothers worked in tandem and pried the coconut tree up and Emre scrambled free, wincing at the rush of pins and needles again.  He rolled into sitting up, inspecting his calf first, then smacking feeling back into it.  "I'm alright.  I'm fine.  Thank you."

"Well, if you're sure you're fine," Teak said ungenerously, dropping the branch now that it was no longer needed. He turned his attention back to Jamie while taking off his single shoe, annoyed that he'd misplaced the other. "Do you still have those shoelaces, Jamie? We should get going and you need to tether yourself to me again. This fog looks even thicker than it was to start with."

Moving a little closer to Jamie, Teak said in a lower voice as if Emre would jump onto this plan, "--those other people ran off but I think we should check out where they might be building some rafts. And see if we can get on one of those to head out to the rescue ship. Just you and me, maybe, if we can get one for ourselves."

"Kettle!" Jamie scolded, "Give the poor lad a minute. Jesus." He turned to Emre, "You're sure you're not hurt?", then refocused back on his brother, hurriedly pulling Teak's shoelaces back out of his pockets.

"I've still got them, yeah." He got to his feet and began tying himself to his older brother once again. "Right," he murmured, "I think the fog is thicker now. And rafts sound like a good idea - but shouldn't we bring Emre too? He was looking for the boat builders when he nearly got crushed saving my life."

Emre remained in the sand, unwilling to try and stand-up yet because he didn't want to stumble in front of Teak. He just stared, trying to hide his incredulity, as Jamie literally tied himself to Teak.  If Emre ever suggested something like that to Iyaz, he'd get nothing but grief from his little brother.  Rightfully so, really. Every demonstration of blind adoration that Jamie demonstrated towards Teak, only made things more painfully obvious (and a bit horrifying) to Emre.

He hated to agree with anything Teak said, but he called out to Jamie anyway,  "Nah mate, don't fret over me.  I'll find my way to Tamyra's boat, you help your brother, yeah."

Maybe they'd make some bollocks raft, and then drown out at sea together, inshallah.

"And maybe find out who tried to drop a tree on you, yeah? Nearly offed you, didn't it?  Accident or no."

[evien-stark]

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 72

Forty-eight hours came. And forty-eight hours went. The beginning of which you and Tony came to a mutually unmutual silent agreement that you were going to keep away from him. Something devastating was happening to you. Something you had no idea how to handle. Your powers were very clearly going haywire. And you just didn’t know how to fix it. 

It made sense. In an annoying way. Because your powers were emotion based- except for that thing you and Tony had. That deeper connection. And except for that one time you got so desperate you found a way to make Clint nearly end his own life- but those were separate special occasions. And what you were dealing with now was an inability to control yourself. You were leaking out from every pore. Feelings. Feeling too much. Too many. All terrible. And so you were infecting other people, because you couldn’t control yourself. And you couldn’t run the risk of hurting Tony more than he already was. So you stayed out of the office, focusing more on what you could do from home- and trying not to focus too hard on this Mandarin stuff. 

Then at the end of of those forty-eight hours, JARVIS alerted you that Colonel James Rhodes had landed in Washington, and was attending his promotion ceremony. He’d done such a good job as of late, that the powers that be had lifted him up. And at this little ceremony, which you and Tony were obviously, pointedly not invited to, the military also unveiled that with his promotion he would be commanding the new and improved Iron Patriot. 

After Rhodey’s ceremony was over, he called you while he was in flight, and asked to meet somewhere lowkey. Somewhere very down low. He suggested iHOP. Tony suggested Apple-Bees. To which you told them both you’d never be caught dead in either of those establishments- 

“That’s the point.” Rhodey had told you. And so your little group decided to split the difference and meet at a TGIFridays. 

Rhodey was there ahead of you. And you and Tony had decided not to lay into him about not being invited to one of his biggest career accomplishments in a little while. You’d also agreed not to talk about Iron Patriot unless he brought it up. Or the Mandarin. Or the bombings. 

But then, you were all a bunch of liars, weren’t you? 

“Iron Patriot, huh?” You asked first, taking a loud pointed sip of your soda. 

Rhodey just sighed, putting a hand to his face. “See- this is why-”

“Why what?” Tony sat back, arms crossing. “We weren’t important enough to be invited to your knighting?”

“I was doing you guys a favor!” Gesturing loudly at the two of you, truly believing himself as he spoke. “You have no idea how many times President Ellis asked about you. And I know you don’t wanna talk to him.” Almost accepting this truth, you and Tony shared a look between one another. And then Rhodey quietly sped through saying, “Also my bosses didn’t want you around to usurp the moment.” 

“Ah!” “See!” 

The both of you pointing fingers at him. You further ruined it, “Come on, Rhodey. Iron Patriot? Really? And that color job…” 

“It wasn’t my decision! It tested well with focus groups. And you hated War Machine, remember?” 

“She did.” Tony, nodding in agreement. Trying to play for both teams. 

You made a face at both of them. “So what I hated it. You think palette swapping the armor and giving you a fancy new name is going to fix anything? Everyone’s talking about it, Rhode. And not in a good way.” 

Rhodey sighed, very deeply so, head lolling back. “You think I don’t know that? You think I’m unaware I’m being made fun of on all the network stations?” 

Tony, taking a loud slurp of his drink, reached over to pat Rhodey hard on the back. “Welcome to the club, pal. If you didn’t want that, we should’ve been first on the list to talk to. I mean- PR was her job, back in the day. Military liaison. You forget about that already?” 

“How could I?” 

You scoffed. “PR is still my job, thank you.” It practically made up half of everything you did. “And I’ll remind you that that suit is still intellectual property of Stark Industries, and by tweaking its image you’re in direct violation of-” 

Rhodey threw his hands up. “Oh. Here we go.” 

“You got her started, don’t look at me.” 

But you all looked at each other. And now with the pleasantries and ribbing out of the way, light smiles and little laughs graced each of you. Reaching out you gave Rhodey a little squeeze at his shoulder. “Congrats on the promotion.” While you might not have agreed still with Iron Patriot, Rhodey was doing his best. And you were absolutely just relieved to have him here, considering… 

Considering for a hot second there you thought he might have been taken from your lives completely. That was the risk he ran, sure. That was really the risk you all ran now with the lives you led. But the thought was terribly devastating. If that had happened, you probably would have fallen in line with Tony’s footsteps, and done whatever necessary to take that man out. You still weren’t sure you shouldn’t be involved, even if you didn’t really want to-

And Tony was feeling much the same way. Slurping down the rest of his drink before leaning in after the small chatter had completely finished to say, “So. Really. Tell me about this Mandarin guy. What’s really going on?” 

It was inevitable that the conversation would end up here. And now that it was out there, there was no taking it back. Even if you asked him to. ...and you kind of wanted to know, too. Not that you wanted to deal with more of Ellis. You waited quietly until Rhodey decided to answer. 

“It’s classified information.” But when the two of you gave him a long look he sighed. “Alright. Look… there’s been nine bombings total.”

Your lips pressed together, still trying to figure out if you should be walking this line. “That’s six more since the last time we heard about them.” 

Rhodey set his hands together on the table. “Yeah, well the public only knows about three- here’s the thing. Nobody can ID a device. There’s no bomb casings. No trace.” 

Saying this already set Tony up for trouble. Evidenced by his sliding in closer, immediately after hearing that. “You know we can help. All you gotta do is ask- I got a ton of new tech, I got a prehensile- I got a...I got a new bomb disposal. Catches explosions mid-air-” He was stuck. Talking quickly. Trying to say anything that would get this to click.

Because much like you, he was over focusing. Running himself ragged. And it was Rhodey that finally took a good look at him- then you- and then asked, “When’s the last time either of you have gotten a good night’s sleep?” 

“Why are you picking on me?” Asked with a hand to your chest. What had you done? It was Tony who was going off the rails. What gave Rhodey an idea that- 

“You look like hell. And don’t think I don’t know about the little highway incident.” 

At this you really were shocked. “It’s an incident now? I just had an anxiety spike- a terrorist took over national television, I think I’m entitled-  and who even told you about that?” Now overly defending yourself. Which only proved your guilt all the more. 

Luckily, Tony came to both your rescue. “Einstein slept three hours a year, look what he accomplished.” Though this really was not the most sturdy defense. But since you had none yourself… 

Rhodey sighed yet again. “I’m just… I’m concerned, alright? I’m concerned about you both. My base was the one that got bombed yet you two look like you walked out of a warzone- ...hell, are still in one right now. What’s really going on? Is this still about New-”

Tony spoke over him quickly. “You’re gonna come at me like that?” Hackles raised, clearly. Not wanting to even hear those two words paired together. ...had it really gotten that bad? 

You felt a small shift. He was uncomfortable. His mind was racing. Panic was starting to find its way to a simmer inside him. Reaching out you laid a hand to his arm. He couldn’t go off right now. It would no doubt have too much pull on you- and if you exploded again- “Tony…” Calm. Gentle. As kind as you could make the shape of his name. 

Falling in line, Rhodey looked at him. “Look. I’m not trying to be a dick-...tator...” 

His sudden stop and pointed look at the side of the table drew both your gazes the same way. You had visitors. Children visitors. There was no telling how long they’d been standing there. You hoped not too long. This was precisely the reason you should have met at the house. A dark crappy restaurant had been a good idea, but the fact was- 

Well. Tony had parked the suit outside, while you’d opted to arrive in a car with Happy. That was a discussion for another time. The same one you kept putting off and off and off… It was like he couldn’t get along without it. And, right now, like he’d wanted to be caught here. 

The little boy and girl held up their little pieces of art, no doubt worked on diligently with restaurant crayons. Siblings, perhaps? 

“Hi there.” You greeted them with about as much warmth as you could muster. Now was no time to lose it. Not in front of children. 

The girl, just a couple years older, smiled bright at you. “Do you mind signing my drawing?” 

You took hold of it carefully, taking a look. It was a picture of the Iron Lady, blasting down a row of angry squiggle monsters. “Of course not. What’s your name?” 

“Erin!” 

“Sure thing, Erin.” 

The little boy waiting patiently thrust his own drawing up Tony’s way. “What about mine?” 

“Sure. You know, I loved you in a Christmas Story, by the way.” You really wished he wouldn’t sass the children, but luckily nobody seemed to have heard him. “What’s your name?” 

“Anthony.” 

At this Tony huffed, shaking his head with a small grin. “Of course it is. Great name.” 

With you and Tony sufficiently distracted putting signatures on paper for your adoring fans, Rhodey leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. “Listen, the Pentagon is scared. After what happened in New York... aliens, come on. They need to look strong. Stopping the Mandarin is priority, but it’s not…” 

“Superhero business. I got it.” Tony’s head was still ducked, really focused on his signature. But you felt the spike in anxiety once those two words were uttered. 

You, on the other hand, were slightly ruffled. “Well I don’t. If we’re not getting involved- which, by the way, I don’t want to- but then why is Ellis blowing up our phones?” 

Rhodey shook his head. “He’s just as scared, and maybe thinks he should be able to rely on you guys- but, that’s a discussion for a different time. That’s a whole other fight.” 

Tony’s tone was suddenly very curt. “I said I got it. I understand. I-...” 

You handed Erin her drawing back, but then reached out as you felt Tony’s resolve waver. As you felt him dip underneath a new wave. “Tony…” 

He pressed the crayon down on the paper, snapping it in half. Rhodey’s hand was on his other shoulder. “You okay?” 

Tony put a hand to his face. “I broke the crayon.” 

Rhodey soothed his hand over Tony’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Tones.” 

You rubbed his back, but already you were finding it hard to breathe. He was overwhelming you so suddenly. “Honey, you’re okay-” Trying to will that thought into existence for him. 

Erin looked up. “Are you alright, Mr. Stark?” 

You hoped against hope that he was going to pull out of this and be okay. But he was spiraling- and he startled you as he sprung up to his feet, suddenly unable to catch his breath. “I gotta- I gotta-” And then bolted, shoving restaurant patrons out of the way as he ran. In his wake he left you gasping for air as you felt yourself drowning in the wake of his panic. 

People were looking. Watching. Everyone was acutely aware Tony Stark had just pushed children aside and ran from a restaurant. You had to claw, had to grab tight of your better instinctual sense to protect him and his image. Because the rest of you had started disappearing so far beneath his waves you’d grabbed onto the table to keep yourself afloat. 

“Rhode-” 

“Go.” 

Knowing he would clean up here, freeing you to launch yourself out of your seat- steady yourself- because everything was fine. Tony Stark was fine- you tried to will the thought into existence so everyone with their phones out recording you wouldn’t make tomorrow’s headline. The last thing you needed. Once you found your feet, you calmly walked from the restaurant. 

Just barely outside, people were gathered around the Iron Man suit, which was kneeling on the ground. Inside you felt the tremble of his continued panicking and it smacked you so hard you wheezed an inhale, pressing a hand over your heart where you felt it start beating double time. 

As soon as you found your voice- “Move, please. Move.” And when people continued to stand around and stare at the spectacle he’d become- the much more interesting focal point- wondering about him, already starting rumors about him, speaking unkindly about him- 

You let anger take you instead. And after that you swept your hands up and then out in a motion just so. Literally clearing them out as you dropped into the dark space and saw each one of their nearby profiles. Every person standing too close to him, you poked with a little bit urgent need. 

Don’t you all have something to take care of? 

Walking around each unconscious being, a little tap tap on the shoulder. A little injection of worry. Thinking: 

Did I leave the curling iron on? I need  to make a phone call. The kids are waiting in the car- 

Didn’t matter. You just wanted them away from him. And once the zombified quick shuffle of feet came on and the two of you were left alone, you knelt down to him, trying to catch your breath. Feeling all too light headed. 

But you focused for him. “Tony.” Trying to level out your tone. Struggling. “Talk to me.” 

You expected the helmet to slide back. To see his face. To hear his actual voice. But instead you heard that slightly mechanical pang as it was broadcast out to you. “I gotta go.” 

Then with almost no thought at all he stood, practically knocking you back, and took off.

Just like that. 

Leaving you half sitting on the pavement, staring up at the sky. Watching him disappear. 

At that exact moment, almost every part of you wanted to give in. To lie down on the sidewalk and just… 

“Hey.” Looking over your shoulder, your saw Rhodey’s hand extended out. To help you. Weakly with your last bit of strength and resolve, you put yours in his and let him lift you. “What the hell was that?” And then, when you took too long to answer, he waved a hand in front of your face. Called your name once. Then set his hands on both your shoulders and turned you to actually look at him. “You okay?” Asking with every sense that you absolutely were not. 

A buzz took over your ear, and LUNA spoke, “Ms. Potts on the line for you.” 

Probably not good. Probably alerting you to the fact that videos of Tony’s meltdown were circulating already. Gaining buzz. Wanting to know what to do next. Weakly to Rhodey, “I’m fine- sorry, one second-” And then turning your head to the side, you tried to prep for more bad news. “Put Pepper on.” 

Pep’s voice started in in a flurry. “Hey, your five o’clock is here early. Which is bad because I kinda wanted to talk to you about this meeting before you went in- I know you’re probably busy, but can you come to the office?” 

A meeting. Trite. Trivial. So small in comparison to the fact that you were pretty sure your life was falling apart. Had been for a while now. And you had no way to stop it. 

That black hole almost swallowed you up, as you stared blankly into the distance. The feel of something on your face drew your attention back. Eyes picking up focus, you realized Rhodey had a handkerchief at your noise, and a gentle hand to the back of your head as he tilted you a little. “You’re bleeding.” 

“I am?” Hadn’t something like this happened recently, too? You took the cloth from him, wiping at your nose. “I’m sorry- about that-” 

“Don’t be sorry. Just be honest with me. You two are not doing so hot, huh?” Your frown as he said this, crossing his arms, probably told the whole story. “I have people you can talk to- and you seem like you need to talk to someone- I’m trying not to be overbearing here, but I think-” 

A shot passed through your ears. Something painful. Terrible. You just started nodding at him as you cut him off. “Yeah- no, I appreciate it. I do. Just. Send them over. I’ll look into it. I have to go- I have to… Pepper needs me and then I have to see what Tony’s doing- it’s date night-” Talking over him. Silencing him. 

When he really understood, he stopped trying and just shook his head. “Yeah. Look. I’m gonna be in town for a while. So just… I’m not far, alright? You want me to check in on him?” 

Waving over, you got Happy’s attention, who’d just been sitting in the car watching something on his tablet. After he started the car again and pulled up to the curb you offered Rhodey a terrible weak smile. “If he’ll let you. That would be nice. Thank you.” 

“Yeah. No problem.” His tone was quiet. A little defeated. 

Weren’t you all? 

[atopearth]

Fate/stay night Réalta Nua Part 6 - Heaven’s Feel Route (2/2)

Day 11-16 Aww, Illya was so sweet and thoughtful to wake up early and help suppress the pain on Shirou (from Archer’s arm) while he was asleep. I found it really cute how Shirou nonchalantly asked Sakura if it was all right for Illya to stay in the house forever, and that since she’s his partner and this is her home as well, he thought he should ask her for her permission and opinion. Sakura blushing was adorable haha. I loved how awkward it was when Sakura and Rin made lunch together, but I loved how Shirou gave Sakura the courage to call Rin “nee-san”, so that now they can finally kinda chase back the times they lost as sisters. I find it hilarious how Shirou always says unexpected things to Rider and it makes her put her guard down lol, he’s like her weakness since she can never keep up her cold exterior for long when it comes to him. It’s so cute how Rider was self conscious about her height haha. Shirou is right though, Rider is so tall and beautiful, it totally suits her. I also really liked how Rider seemed to appreciate Shirou going all the way to the shed just to give her his morning greetings (even though it was afternoon lol), it was funny when he admitted that he forgot about her until now lol, because I totally did too.

I feel like Shirou and Sakura don’t get to talk about much (aside from cooking and blushing at each other lol), so I’m kinda glad they got to have a little talk about how even though she and Rin weren’t really “allowed” to interact, Rin would still greet her at school and watch her practice at the Archery club. And it’s nice to see that Sakura appreciated her doing that. Lol at Sakura being subtly ruthless about Shirou being crappy at magic🤣 She’s probably right about Shirou being the “strongest” out of them three though, I think his pure determination and will is something that cannot be matched. Not sure what Sakura was talking about, but does that mean Shirou actually only has 7 days to adjust to Archer’s arm or he’ll die? Aaaand, no I don’t feel sorry for the piece of shit Shinji lol. I can understand why he’s the way he is, and sure you can blame the grandfather and his own father for raising him to be like that, but honestly he was a shit from the beginning. He always thought he was special and great because of their family origins even though he didn’t have magic circuits, but he always treated Sakura like trash and a servant because he was happy that he “was better” than her, that he was learning magic and she wasn’t. So when he realised that he was the actual trash that wasn’t the successor, and his grandfather and father stopped pretending to be nice to him, he just outright hated Sakura even more because she’s the actual special one, and she’s apologising to him for taking his place that was never his. He hates being pitied as trash and that’s probably why he hates Sakura, but really, even if Sakura wasn’t there, that place never would have been his either way. And he’s treated Sakura so badly her whole life, I honestly don’t care about him and never will. He’s so entitled and is like the epitome of everything I hate in a person, I would never feel anything for him tbh. I’m so glad Shirou took care of her right.

Umm, I hope Shirou isn’t being controlled or whatever and is doing some of those killings at night… Or maybe he’s just losing his memories due to the effects from Sakura draining his magical energy? I feel for Sakura though, she can tell that she’s slowly losing her mind but she doesn’t want to lose Shirou to anyone and wants to be beside him as much as she can because she loves him more than anything else. It’s just heartbreaking that he’s the thing that’s giving her some sanity but at the same time, his existence is causing her to want to destroy everything in their way so that she can keep their life together. I’m starting to think that Sakura might be a yandere and kill Illya and Rin to keep Shirou to herself though, very worrying… And is she turning Shirou into a sex craving monster?? Loll. Like, just as she needs to do it for magical energy, will it in turn consume Shirou to the point that he’s going to die if he doesn’t do it with Sakura or something?? It was saddening when Illya told Shirou that it was impossible for them to live together forever, because they both don’t have long to live… It’s also pretty saddening to see how much Shirou wants to ignore the fact that everywhere the shadow lingered, it smells and reminds him of Sakura. I guess that’s understandable though. Initially, they believed that since Sakura hadn’t killed anyone yet, she could be saved and should be saved. But if he were to realise that the shadow is actually Sakura, he’ll have to accept that Sakura has killed lots of people, numerous people, and she continues to kill people as long as she exists and there’s nothing that can really stop her. Not only will he then have to accept that he must kill her to stop her, he will also have to accept that it was because of his decision to save her instead of kill her back then that has caused all these people to suffer and die. How many people can really accept such a thing? I feel like Shirou’s gonna break at this rate… On the other hand, Sakura’s already broken lol. I guess by getting hurt by Gilgamesh and then swallowing him whole she’s finally realised that these “nightmares” of a monster walking around town was really just her going on a feeding spree. Not sure if she can accept it though, since she only seems to focus on the fact that for the first time, Shirou asked to have sex with her and not the other way around, so she thinks that she has to do anything she can to preserve and protect the life she has right now. By allowing her to live this long, Shirou has only caused Sakura to become more greedy and desire him more, and that’s probably facilitating her desire to need to “eat more” and never feeling satisfied, because in the end, what she wants is Shirou, and she needs to survive as long as she can to experience this happiness as long as she can…

I was wondering when Rin being fond of Shirou due to her seeing him high jumping would be relevant, and OF COURSE it would be heard by Sakura to further agitate her and think that Rin is stealing everything from her, whether it be the “good life” she could have had or the guy she likes the most. Not to mention Rin is telling Shirou that if it comes to it, she won’t hesitate to kill Sakura and told Shirou to think about that too, so yeah… Honestly though, at this rate, I feel like Rin dying might be the only way for Shirou to “wake up” and force himself to realise that he can’t let Sakura stay like this any longer. Or I guess killing Illya would also cause the same effect. Zouken took the broken fragments of the holy grail from the last war and embedded it into Sakura??? I’m surprised there was anything left that could really be put into someone but okay… I guess that’s why the shadow exists to “collect souls”, since it’s basically the holy grail that wants to complete itself by consuming souls? I’m not sure what Zouken wants by telling Shirou to kill Sakura before she becomes even more berserk? Is it because she’s not the holy grail he wants now, so it’s best to get rid of her? But anyway, I guess it’s making more sense now as to why Sakura is losing her human functions such as not being able to move etc, since she consumed so many Servants, and the more she consumes, the more she’ll need to use her functions to maintain them rather than to maintain herself as a human. She is losing herself at a rapid rate and there’s no way to really save her… It was kinda sweet to see Shirou being happy that Illya was fine and would still be able to retain herself as Illya even if she consumed Rider and Assassin as the holy grail. Or maybe Zouken is trying to get Shirou to kill Sakura just to get her to be even more out of control lol.

Honestly, when Shirou wasn’t able to kill Sakura, rather than resolve, I felt apathy and acceptance. Apathy towards Sakura killing so many people, and acceptance of the fact that protecting Sakura means betraying all his beliefs and his whole reason for living all this time. It felt like he accepted that there was no going back after this, and I guess Sakura felt that, because she laments about how her weakness is causing Shirou to break and be in pain for every step he takes in protecting her. Although I do blame Sakura for causing Shirou to have to make such difficult decisions and break himself over it physically and mentally, I was really happy when she forced herself to stay awake and not sleep, so that the shadow couldn’t go around feeding like the “nightmares’ she always had. I was also happy when she used her last Command Spell to order Rider to protect Shirou until the end. Even though Sakura is the cause of all Shirou’s problems, I can see why Shirou is willing to sacrifice everything for her. The fact that she can remain so pure and thoughtful despite her experiences is somewhat of a blessing, and honestly the problems she causes are out of her hands most of the time and is all because of Zouken, so I can understand why Shirou would be so adamant on saving her when the world has always been so unfair to her. Well, I guess I’m not surprised that this "impurity” within the holy grail is what “created” the black shadow and it’s now practically consumed Sakura enough for them to be like “one”. But her sanity restricts it, so as long as she’s Sakura, she can still restrain it~ but that thing that will be “born” from her with the collection of all those souls the shadow is eating sounds dangerous… Hmm how interesting that in order to save Sakura, the only way is for her to completely become the holy grail, and then for Shirou to use the power of the holy grail to eliminate the crappy stuff inside her while she’s still sane for those few seconds or whatever.

I have to say, seeing Sakura desperately want to protect the secret that Shinji was raping her all this time from Shirou was pretty saddening. Saddening that it was what ended up breaking her sanity and forced her to numb herself to the fact that she had killed her brother, and that killing someone could be so easy, as long as she wanted it, she would have the power to kill them. It was saddening to see that happen. As expected, Zouken wanted Shirou to break Sakura by betraying her, and in the end although Shinji was the one who pushed her into it, her love for Shirou contributed to it. Honestly, seeing Illya sitting down on the porch thinking about whether Sakura would come first to kill her/take her as the holy grail or whether Shirou would come and take her away with him was saddening. She’s accepted her fate that she’ll die no matter what, but I’m sure she really wants to spend whatever time she can with Shirou instead. On the other hand, I’m pretty disappointed in Sakura, understandable but still disappointed, because from her talk with Rin, you can tell she’s still her, she’s just allowing her negative emotions and thoughts overtake her and it’s honestly disappointing to see, mainly because all I can think about is that Shirou sacrificed himself for “this”, he sacrificed everything he was to help her and yet the one that isn’t helping her the most is Sakura herself. Although I kinda feel that she’s doing all this so that Shirou can be thoroughly disappointed in her and “give up” on her and kill her to prevent any more innocent people from dying, but still, I’m annoyed at her always being the one to give up when Shirou never gave up. I know she thinks it’s too painful to see Shirou compromise his morals and beliefs for her, but at the same time, now that he’s already done it, I really wanted them to power through it together to find a way to save her instead of resorting to this. Nice reassurance to have Rider save Shirou from herself though~ it’s kinda funny that even though Illya is the “youngest”, she’s probably the most mature and understanding one (despite how childish she can be when she’s with Shirou lol), she knows and accepts what her role is and is not one to falter against it. Illya’s farewell to Shirou was pretty heartbreaking.

I loved their interactions when Shirou reunited with Illya at the castle. Shirou’s pure desire to save Illya from all this even if it’ll end badly was honestly touching, mainly because Illya is obviously trying her best to do all the risky stuff so Shirou doesn’t need to, but seeing Shirou come to save her from it was just sweet. Illya’s smile is definitely worth it, and if I have to be honest, I much prefer and enjoy Shirou and Illya’s relationship in this route than with Sakura lol. LOL at Illya and Kotomine thinking Shirou was insane for jumping from the third floor of the castle without magic (although he did strengthen his feet) even though he just followed them because he didn’t want to fall behind haha. Although I knew Kotomine isn’t one to really sacrifice himself, I didn’t expect that his teachings of God was something that could kill Zouken. Now that I think about it, I think one of the reasons why I like Saber, Rin and Illya more than Sakura is because I feel like despite how logical they are, they would always prioritise protecting Shirou even at the expense of themselves, and that’s something you see in Sakura at times but I feel like most of the time it’s Shirou who does that instead.

I liked Shirou’s fight with Berserker, it was pretty cool how he was able to take off the cloth on Archer’s arm and project Berserker’s own weapon and fend him off, obviously it wasn’t possible for Shirou to really win, but it was Berserker’s hesitation in hurting Illya that allowed Shirou to actually win though. I’m surprised that Kotomine actually had a wife and child in the past because he wanted to experiment whether he could love another person, and she even killed herself to try and prove to him through her death that he loved her. Honestly, even though he thinks he didn’t love her, I think in a certain sense, he actually did, not necessarily romantically, but I think through her, he was able to understand that although he enjoyed seeing them when they suffered, he stopped experiments like these after her death. Regardless of what he truly feels, I think a part of him wasn’t interested in seeing such a thing happen again, and in a way I guess that was his kindness and love after dealing with her death? Or maybe I’m just thinking too much haha. Although, I do believe so, mainly because when you watch Fate/Zero, when he saw how devoted Maiya and Irisviel were towards Kiritsugu, I think aside from his hatred of Kiritsugu having everything he wanted (emotions etc) yet discarding them for saving humanity, it also reminded him of this wife he once had that possessed the same undying devotion to him as they did for Kiritsugu. I think even though he didn’t really “feel it”, he was touched by it in his own way. White hair Sakura looks all right, but yeah honestly, Kotomine is right, this “evil personality” of Sakura’s is really just herself. She just can’t accept that she has such dark thoughts and hates everyone so she tries to make it as if all these disgusting parts of her aren’t actually a part of her, when really, they’ve been a part of her all this time. It really shows how pitiful she is and how saddening her life is though. She’s been wanting to keep herself “pure” and kind so as to be good enough for Shirou, but really, Shirou would embrace her darkness if she allowed him to.

Ohhh so the thing Sakura is “giving birth” to is the eighth class of the Holy Grail War that the Einzberns broke the rules to summon and tainted the Holy Grail… Hmmm, I knew that since the Servants just get absorbed back into the grail when they die it didn’t really matter whether the Masters fought and died or whatever, but I didn’t realise that everything about the war is actually done to achieve this immortality miracle called Heaven’s Feel, which is some sort of sorcery (something that cannot be achieved with magic) that is the ultimate goal of every magus, and I guess that’s why Tohsaka’s dad was so intent on winning the war previously. And I guess we can see why Zouken wanted to achieve this so much, since Heaven’s Feel elevates the soul to a higher dimension and allows them to still influence the physical world, so I guess basically he’ll be like some kind of god or being that won’t die, but would still be able to stay in this world as a “human”. And hmmm I see, the Great Holy Grail is the magic circle that uses the land administrated by the Tohsaka family and it is with the combination of this and the Holy Grail by the Einzberns that they can use the absorbed spirits and everything to open a hole to the land where they can get unlimited magical energy. The story of the anti-hero Angra Mainyu where he was used as a sacrifice in a small village to be viewed and tortured as the epitome of all sins and evil in this world in order to create the impression that everyone else must be good because he embodies all evil already was just ugh. Not that it’s not believable, just…bland and unnecessary imo. And this embodiment of evil is the shadow of Sakura wanting to kill all humans because that’s what his role is I guess.

Initially, when Shirou took Rin’s pendant with him to hold onto whenever he felt like he would lose consciousness, I thought it was just his way of thinking about the person who saved him and getting some motivation from that, but now that he’s talking about it with Rin without realising what it actually is anymore (due to the side effects of using projection with Archer’s arm, which leads to him being unable to retain a lot of memories), it might actually be because Shirou is being influenced by Archer’s memories and emotions as well. Archer really cherishes that pendant alongside Rin, and seeing Shirou cherish it so really made it touching. Even if Archer is gone and only his arm is here, Rin remains the most important person in his memories. I’ve been waiting for Rider to do something again, so I’m happy that she’s cooperating with Shirou because she understands that Shirou’s goal has never changed, he will be on Sakura’s side until the very end, just like she is. Honestly though, Tiger Dojo 38 was pretty cool, you get to see Saber and Shirou face off against each other and Shirou actually wins! Well, he sacrifices his life to keep Saber there and allow Rin to go save Sakura, and we don’t know what really happens, but I think it was nice to see that Shirou was able to fight so vigorously and win. I thought it was really sweet how Shirou went around the house before the last battle and was able to recall all those precious daily memories of Sakura and how important she is to him in his daily life. Even if his memories are foggy and even if he is in pain, Sakura drives him on and renews his resolve for saving her. Even if he’s forgotten everything, he won’t forget her and I think that’s really heartwarming.

Ooh so Zouken’s main body is still alive, I was wondering how anticlimactic it would be if Kotomine really killed him in the forest lol. I think it’s more fitting for Sakura to be the one to kill him, especially since he’s the one who tortured her all these years and is still doing the same thing right now. Honestly, Zouken’s end was pretty cliche, but it was pretty satisfying to see Sakura squish him like the worm he was. To think that the worm inside of her was his real body though. I’m glad he’s done though, Zouken was a pretty boring villain tbh. Tiger Dojo 40 was pretty saddening! Like, I can so imagine Shirou not being ruthless enough to kill Saber even though he has the chance, but his kindness ending up leading to Rin’s death is so real and sad. Rin deserves better!🥺 I love how in the Tiger Dojo, they tell Saber fans to give up on getting a good ending for Saber in this route because there’s none, and that if they want one, they need to go to Saber’s route hahahah. Time to do the normal ending first! I really felt the pain and grief when Shirou stabbed Saber though. It was honestly heartbreaking to see all his memories with her flash, and see how in order to save Sakura, he needed to harden his heart and sacrifice others that he could not save. He chose the path of killing others to save Sakura, and he killed someone that was once so faithful to him. I guess one of the reasons why I don’t like Sakura as a villain is because in a sense even though she’s not as disgusting as Shinji, she’s similar to him in the sense that everything she does is as if she’s throwing a tantrum. Throwing a tantrum that she’s the only one suffering, that no one cares about her and that everyone is living a good life when she has to suffer. And just like Shinji, she doesn’t really use her brain to fight, she just uses whatever powers she has accumulated through her hatred to deal pain on all the people around her until she satisfied, it’s just that she can never be satisfied.. Honestly, I feel like the way Rin is towards Sakura throughout this route has felt rather…awkward and a bit unlike her imo, but I guess maybe it’s because of how awkward her relationship with Sakura is. The only obvious thing was that at this point, even though Rin excelled against Sakura in battle experience and brain in using the gem sword against her etc (which I’m honestly surprised that Sakura’s use of magic is limited by her weakness as a mage even though she has an inexhaustible amount), with Sakura crying at how painful her life had been, and with how much Shirou had all this time shown to Rin his resolve to save Sakura, it was expected that Rin wouldn’t be able to kill her. It’s just terrible that it took Rin to die for Sakura to realise that everything she wanted was already there, she just allowed her negative feelings to take over her.

Honestly, I felt rather dissatisfied with the normal ending. Using a projection of Caster’s Noble Phantasm to break Sakura’s contact with Angra Mainyu was nice and interesting though, didn’t really think it would work that way for this too. Anyway, my dissatisfaction! Maybe it’s because it played out as expected with Shirou sacrificing his life to save Sakura, or maybe it’s because I was dissatisfied at how Sakura chose to live her life after Shirou sacrificed his for hers. I think it’s probably the latter tbh. I just keep thinking about everything that happened across the 16 days, about everything that happened between Sakura and Shirou, about how difficult it was for him to give up himself to save her, about how much he loved her and gave her his everything, and yet what happened in the end? She spent her life protecting his house and wallowing in their past memories! Like, yes it’s romantic in a sense, and it totally suits Sakura’s personality to do that, but it killed me! I feel like Sakura’s love is just so “blind” that it fails to grasp what Shirou wanted for her. He wanted her to live a life of freedom, and a life of happiness with others like her sister. But instead of achieving that, Sakura just felt estranged by something new (instead of her past, it’s now Shirou), guilt at being the one who survived and feeling like she needed to stay in his house and isolate herself. Honestly, it felt so much like a bad ending lol. I guess as Rider said, Sakura needs Shirou to be there with her in order to really live, but seriously I’m still annoyed though, because it felt like such a waste. I understand that Sakura isn’t someone that can stand up by herself or be supported by anyone aside from Shirou, but sigh, such a waste. I felt like if she at least tried to fulfill things Shirou wanted to do with his life or what he wanted to do with her after saving her etc, it would have been much nicer. Sigh.

Ooh so for the true ending, Kotomine is there trying to protect Angra Mainyu. Before this, I didn’t really understand why he wanted it to come into being, but after his talk with Shirou, it’s understandable. Kotomine has at a certain point onwards always thought that it’s because he had a defect from birth that caused him to become a person that can only live happily by seeing people in pain and in grief. But what if he’s wrong? And I think that’s what he wants to explore. What if all along he was blaming it on something outside of his control, but really it actually was within his control? And I think that’s what he wants to see from this birth. When it’s born, will it have the emotions to understand what it has done all this time (killing people) and grieve over it or laugh at it, making it “evil” because it can differentiate between good and evil. Or will it instead just continue to be what it is not knowing emotions, and thus unable to be “evil” because it doesn’t understand what evil really is and only does what it has been born to do? I mean, it’s crazy for Kotomine to give it a chance to live and kill people, but it is something to be curious about haha. Honestly Zouken still being alive was so suitable for the worm that he is, but I really didn’t care for him finally coming to terms that he had to accept the Makiri line ended with him because he was lacking rather than because the land wasn’t suitable for them, and that living was more painful than death anyway. Like, at this point, he better be dead! Lol. I’m so sad. I honestly didn’t want to see Illya have to be the one to die instead of Shirou, but I know that if Shirou died, Illya probably wouldn’t be able to have the same happiness she has now anyway, but still!😭 Oh wow, Rider in casual clothes is certainly different lol, still beautiful though. Hmmmm so even though Shirou’s body died, Illya was able to use the Third Sorcery to revive Shirou’s soul and give him a body free of wounds, so even though that body isn’t really Shirou, it is Shirou since it’s his soul, so basically he’s just in a new form but he’s who he is haha. Although the ending felt lacklustre, it was really nice to see a more mature and beautiful Sakura and Rin, they look so good!!

However, I find it difficult to describe my feelings when I think about Heaven’s Feel overall. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either, and I personally think it’s due to the lack of emotions I felt towards Sakura. In terms of the story, like others have said, it is the “darker” route, but in all honesty, I felt like that was it all it was. A lot of the route involves building up Sakura as an unconscious killer that isn’t redeemable, yet Shirou chooses to sacrifice everything for her, which is all right, because I really felt his feelings of love and resolve, but that was only in the first half. In the second half, I felt the story was lacking, and even the emotions it rode on was lacking, the only thing that wasn’t too disappointing would be the fights, but since the first half is literally just Sakura eating everyone, there aren’t that many fights to begin with, but at least they weren’t as frustrating as the fights with Caster in UBW lol. Anyway, I really wanted to relate to Shirou’s strong determination towards saving Sakura, but I couldn’t. Sakura felt so much like a two dimensional character to me that I just couldn’t relate to how much he loved her and was willing to sacrifice for her, and unfortunately since the whole route is focused on that, the ending and everything didn’t move me at all, I felt so apathetic. I honestly felt more for Illya than Sakura. I feel like Sakura’s route wanted to show something like bitter happiness with Shirou’s physical and mental sacrifice of his whole being for her, but it’s hard to relate when Sakura isn’t worth it lol. I’m sorry, Sakura. 

I also think the thing with Angra Mainyu and the Great Holy Grail etc was boring and unnecessary. But I do acknowledge that Sakura was never meant to be a great villain or last boss kinda thing since it has always shown that this was all caused by her immense suffering and negative feelings that couldn’t be controlled, she’s really just a nice girl. But that made it boring imo. I related to her desire for an ordinary happiness, but I got a bit tired of relating to her needing everyone to die or suffer for it. Heaven’s Feel just really didn’t have the same relatable pain that Saber and Rin’s routes brought out within me even though their respective routes had their own problems. But I guess that’s what stories are like, none of them are flawless, but if they affect you, then they’re usually good, and I could very assuredly tell you that the Fate and UBW routes portrayed the goals of their routes very well, but HF didn’t. I also think HF is lacking because it doesn’t build up Shirou’s thoughts and emotions as well as the other routes too. In HF, he’s constantly losing his memories due to Archer’s arm etc so all he really does is recall his past with Sakura in the first half which can be nice and emotional in itself but it’s repetitive and bland because they’re just flashbacks lacking depth imo, and since most of the second half is Sakura kinda finding a way to die with Angra Mainyu without hurting the others, you really don’t see any more development for Sakura. So yeah, sadly, HF has more cons than pros and I can’t find it in myself to like it even though technically it seems to have less problems than the other two routes haha. Oh well.

[lastcompact]

Voice Link with [TheImmortal]: - After the Confrontation with qiedaji

[Mistral]: Glad this function of the Dreamscape still works for me. 

[TheImmortal]: Oh wow. There’s a name I thought I’d never see again. Shouldn’t you be dead?

[Mistral]: Guess you’re not the only one who can cheat death. 

[TheImmortal]: Fair fair. hehheh...eh? Yeesh. Your level....how’d it get back to 1? 

[Mistral]: I took something that didn’t belong to me. The world decided to take it back. 

[TheImmortal]: Was it...? I’m sorry, I guess. That’s the sort of thing people say when they lose a loved one, right?

[Mistral]: Glad me being gone hasn’t affected your ability to be a dick. Don’t play sympathetic with me; I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. 

[TheImmortal]: That would be a shame. After all, even if it were myself, injuring someone as intelligent as me, as pretty as m-

[Mistral]: Stop stop STOP. Oh god. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t want to hear you praise yourself for the next hour. 

[TheImmortal]: She was kinda my other fake mom slash sister too.

[Mistral]: ...I know. Sorry...

[Mistral]: ...In any case, I need to get back up to speed. With everything. Someone’s tried to kil-

[TheImmortal]: Everyone’s tried to kill you, even m-

[Mistral]: In real life.

[TheImmortal]: That’s a little more troublesome. At least for you. For me though, as someone as great a-

[Mistral]: Yeah, yeah. Dying is for lesser beings, blahblahblah. In any case, I lost most of my Lucid abilities, so I can't create or teleport myself around the Dreamscape. Hence why I need you to locate a place with lots and lots of junk to train Observe.

[TheImmortal]: Shouldn’t leveling be your priority? I mean, I know the stat tradeoff is crappy when bringing it to real life, almost 1:10 ratio, but...

[Mistral]: The stat ratio is crappy, I agree, which is a big part of why I’m not prioritizing it. But...well, after dying I guess. I was experimenting with Air Step for nostalgia’s sake and somehow hit a point where I could bring it with me.

[TheImmortal]: Bring it with you? Like in real life?

[Mistral]: Exactly. Even at my peak of using the Dreamer ability, I was never able to do that. Everything was Dream only minus the whole sixth sense thing and the transferred stats from Duality.

[TheImmortal]: Hrmm...Why Observe though? Wouldn’t you want to go for a combat skill? 

[Mistral]: The person who tried to kill me; essentially, I learned something about her that I shouldn’t have. If I were to try and level to match her stats and abilities in real life, it could take years. Especially when she can Teleport and use magic. The only reason why I lived through that is because I’ve managed to blackmail her last second, which means she values the current state of her life right now over killing me for knowing her secret. 

[TheImmortal]: Glad to see you putting your high Wisdom to use. And before you whine about it being reset, Wisdom represents an accumulation of your experiences. Even if you artificially added points to raise it, what you’ve experienced and the ability to make a good decision based on your experience and options cannot be taken away.

[Mistral]: Weird. That’s surprisingly philosophical of you, Dust. 

[TheImmortal]: I read it in a fortune cookie.

[Mistral]: ...And my brief admiration of you has gone down the tubes.

[Mistral]: In any case, I’m not going to bet my life on the fact her desire to not kill me because of her dumb life is going to last forever. I also doubt she’ll let it rest. She can’t kill me openly, but she can try to do it secretly - despite my warnings that I’ll release the secret if she does. And before you ask, I’m not telling you the secret because I KNOW you’ll release it just to give everyone a headache.

[TheImmortal]: You’re a poor sport, but it’s accurate. Everyone could use a little bit more liveliness in their life. 

[Mistral]: I’m eyerolling, just thought you’d like to know.

[TheImmortal]: I didn’t, but go on~

[Mistral]: Anyway, to tl;dr everything, leveling Observe is my priority because I’m worried she’ll try something covert. I’m hoping to get it to a decent enough level where I can notice a trap if she sets one. 

[TheImmortal]: You know what they say about paranoia?

[Mistral]: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!

[TheImmortal]: ...Weirdgardium flexiosa but ok. 

[TheImmortal]: In any case, I’ll find a nicely-leveled junkplace for you to powerlevel Observe on. And just because I’m so nice, I’ll even play bodyguard for a bit. It’s gonna be hilarious to see the once almighty Mistral try to climb up a landfill to look for high-level trinkets to inspect.

[talkfastbeebo]

Haven - E.R

Title: Haven

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x Alex Faye (MC)

Prompt: Alex was distracted at work and so Ethan took her out for a little while.

Word Count: 1446

The past two weeks were nothing but stressful for Alex. Being the top of the competition, she can’t help but notice the glances of envy and the spiteful words people were exchanging behind her. Entering the competition had started to seem like the worst decision ever. It’s jeopardising her relationships with her friends, and causing her a lot of pressure amongst the other interns.

Alex’s face was grim as she walked down the long hallway, ready to meet with her next patient. However, her mind was elsewhere. She didn’t even notice when someone appeared out of nowhere, blocking her way. Therefore, she crashed right into a warm, toned chest.

It turned out to be Dr. Ramsey

Alex’s eyes met with Ethan’s piercing blue ones, and the gaze held on a bit longer before the doctor cleared his throat.

“Focus while you’re working, rookie.” The deadpan man said, looking down at the intern who’s a head shorter.

“Yeah, um, sorry.” Alex shook her head in return to clear her mind, blinking a couple of times.

Ethan stared, not saying anything in particular. His expression was cold and distant, but Alex could tell that he’s observing. After a few seconds or so, he opened up again.

“Listen, there’s some place I’m heading to and you’re allowed to tag along.” Ethan announced, face still expressionless.

“Who said I wanted to tag along?” Alex smirked, feeling the need to tease him. She understood well that Ethan can tell that she’s having a bad day and wanted to help her take her mind off things.

Ethan looked directly at the intern who’s grinning sheepishly for a solid three seconds, before turning away without hesitation.

“Fine, suit yourself.” He said over his shoulder, taking big strides to leave.

“Wait,” Alex chuckled, reaching out to grab onto Ethan’s white coat. “Let’s go. I knew you liked my company.”

“Dream all you want.” The attending plainly answered, though he couldn’t really help the small hint of smile creeping onto his face.

Together they walked side by side out of the hospital, with Alex sending a quick message to Jackie for her to help with the awaiting patient.

-

The car pulled up after about a half hour drive. Alex was eager to get out, and so she chirpily hopped out of the car with an exciting smile. In front of her is a small cliff overlooking the city, trees surrounding securely that it wouldn’t be easy to spot. Ethan too, got out and slowly made his way over to the girl gaping at the scenery.

“When you said there’s someplace you’re going, I did not expect it to be…” Alex looked around herself, gesturing at her surroundings in an exaggerated way, “this.”

“What did you expect, then?” Ethan didn’t mind the small talk, there’s only the two of them, after all.

“Some crappy place with either medical related people or eerie beeping machines,” Alex answered. “This would be a great murder site.”

Ethan stared at her in disbelief. He finally took her to the secret haven he goes to when he’s clouded with thoughts, and the only thing she has to say about it is that ‘it’d make a great murder site.’

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Ethan mumbled.

The two stood next to each other, looking out from the small cliff. Everything here seemed to be at peace, like what they proposed in the Greek myth, an Arcadia. Away from the clamour of the city, this place is the complete opposite of chaos. One can still hear the fracas from the streets, but the birds chirping and the white noises of breezes hitting the leaves balanced out the cacophony.

Alex’s hand slowly reached up and hooked around Ethan’s toned biceps. The man’s body jerked a little as he was taken back by the sudden act of affection. Hesitantly, Ethan looked down and found that Alex wasn’t looking back. Instead, she continued focusing her eyes on the views, pretending that she wasn’t doing anything at all.

Ethan’s thoughts wandered back to the night of the medical conference, of how he may had possibly made the biggest mistake of his life by confessing his feelings, taking down his own façade. However, he also can’t forget the feeling of Alex’s lips against his, how they fit together perfectly.

“We shouldn’t, rookie.” Ethan finally sighed, gently shrugging off Alex’s hand.

“No one’s gonna see us anyway, I don’t get what you’re worried about.” Alex mumbled the latter part to herself, retrieving her hand. It was loud enough for Ethan to hear though.

“I’m not worried about anything. An attending should not withhold a romantic relationship with a fellow intern, it’s common sense.” Ethan answered smoothly, his hand fixing his tie a little, and his face as passive as always.

Alex’s eyes lowered a little in disappointment, an expression almost crestfallen. She listened anyway, not trying anything further. Clandestinely, Ethan’s eyes flickered toward her draped hand for a second before quickly returning to its original position.

“How did you find this place?” Despite the atmosphere being awkward, Alex still tried to make a casual conversation to ease the tension. Ethan stayed silent for a while before finally opening up.

“One of my patients,” he started briefly. “Leukaemia. Chemo made her lose weight, lose hair, and eventually her smile too. She’d always try her best to stay optimistic, but fighting against cancer isn't that easy. I would always find some spare time to talk to her, and so she told me quite a lot too. I learned that this place, was her secret hideout when she was still healthy, and that I’m the only person she shared this secret with. Now you too, I guess.”

A sad smile plastered across Alex’s face, she can hear how Ethan’s holding back the pain in his voice.

“A few days before she left… I took her here without notifying any of the hospital staffs. It was the first time I’ve ever seen her genuinely smile. A smile so bright that it can light up the whole city.” Unknowingly, Ethan’s lips curved upwards too as he was telling. “I’ve made this place my escape too after that.”

“What was her name?” Out of nowhere, Alex asked.

“Lauren.”

“Well, I suppose I should thank Lauren for this place, now that I get to come too.” Alex chuckled, trying to lighten up the mood. “And thank you too, for sharing this with me.”

The two shared a brief silence.

“Tell me what’s on your mind then,” Ethan said. “I brought you here for a reason.”

Ethan moved forward to a spot near the cliff that’s not spread out with grass, gradually he sat down, patting the space next to him to gesture for Alex to sit as well.

“Well,” Alex paused for a second, thinking about how to start. She too, moved next to Ethan and sat. “I felt like this whole competition thing’s ruining everything. My friendship, my reputation.”

“This isn’t the time to care about friendships, rookie.” Ethan pulled a long face, brows knitted together for the slightest. “And certainly not reputation.”

“But-“

“Your scalpel friend, whatever his name is. He has quite a reputation from what I’ve heard. Do you see him dwelling on it? No. And don’t get me started on the topic of friendship. Your so called friends would immediately turn their back against you once they realised that you’re so good at your job you’re jeopardising theirs.” Ethan cut in, tone hard. Alex’s eyes widened, and was left speechless.

“I don’t think they would,” the intern pointed out, skeptical, “but I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m always right.” Ethan snickered. “Listen, I’m not trying to suggest that you shouldn’t befriend people in this career, but just know that nothing should stop you from achieving your goals. Even if it’s life and death crisis, the most important thing right now is to do you best and become the best diagnostician.”

The heartfelt suggestion made Alex’s mind more at ease.

“What if I topped over you?” She asked playfully, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t ask things that are impossible.” Ethan flicked his finger lightly against the intern’s forehead. He smiled, one that reached his eyes.

Alex understands that maybe for now she and Ethan aren’t going to get anywhere yet, but she does realise how the attending cares for her, and that’s already enough. It was satisfying to ditch job and spend a day with Ethan, she’d always feel anchored with him, no matter where they go. To Ethan, maybe this secret hideout is his definition for a haven. But to Alex, maybe it’s Ethan that she can call her haven.

Feel free to send in requests!

[avengers-nextgen]

All Things Grow XII

Scout shuffled some of the dusty boxes about to create a clear place on the floor. He wasn’t exactly pleased by the dirtiness of the situation, but he didn’t mind too much. It was time he could spend with his mother. “Where do I start?”

“Anywhere,” Wanda laughed, rolling up the sleeves to her shirt.

“Okay, do I need to ask before I toss it?” Scout asked skeptically.

“Chances are, if you think it’s garbage it probably is.” Wanda sighed, sitting crossed legged on the floor with a trash bag settled to her right. “Honestly, I don’t remember most of this anyways.”

Scout nodded, and pulled the closest box into his lap tearing open the tape. Folding the flaps back he peered curiously inside. “Uhm, this is all old clothing. Are we donating it?”

“Yeah, that’s probably the best thing to do.” Wanda agreed pulling the cap of a sharpie off with her teeth to write ‘Donation pile’ on a sticky note. Then, with an excessive flourish, she smacked it onto the floor. “Dump site established.”

“Okay.” Scout snorted, taking time to folding everything neatly anyways. Once the clothes were settled he kicked the empty box over into the corner.

“Is that an empty box I hear?” Piper’s head poked into the room with her eyes alight in excitement.

“Yes, you can take it, and the other empty ones too,” Wanda laughed.

“Yes!” Snatching up the empty cardboard Piper ran down the hallway. “ALEX! WE CAN MAKE CARBOARD RACE CARS!”

“How’d she hear that?” Scout asked, glancing down the hallway trying to catch a glimpse of Piper.

“I’ve learned over the years that the Starks have impeccable hearing only when it’s something that interests them. Like boxes.” Wanda explained, adding to the clothing pile.

“Huh,” Nodding Scout turned back to the work at hand.

He uncovered an old set of plastic drums that his mother had bought so he would quit stealing Tupperware. Giving it a good pat for old times sake, Scout moved it to the garbage pile. He then moved on to the old books about animals and shapes and colors. Almost all of them were worn thin.

“You could barely read most of the time, but you’d sit in your dad’s lap and make up stories like you were reading the words,” Wanda smiled, taking the books from her son and adding them to the recycling section.

“Guess some things don’t change,” Scout laughed. “Oh, what’s this? Awe, these are Dad’s big sunglasses he got as a crappy Christmas gift! He looked like he had bug eyes when wearing them!”

“Yep, and then you insisted on having a pair. Unfortunately, your uncle Clint decided to indulge you. But I got a good picture out of it.” Wanna mused watching Scout put the oversized glasses on. He really did look like a bug. Snorting, she took them off of his face and tossed them aside. “Dork.”

“Oh oh oh! The puzzles we used to play on vacation!” Scout practically dove into the box to retrieve them. “Star Wars, NASCAR, dolphins, cats, and your favorite being the one of a rabbit.”

“You called it the Bun-Bun puzzle when you were little. Tell you what, we’ll keep those. We can do them together sometime,” Wanda promised. Scout liked the idea and put them back into the box gently.

“I’m done with this set.” Scout huffed, standing and dusting off his hands. “I’m going in again.”

Scout headed over to the cluttered closet which had accumulated most of the tower’s residents’ junk. Standing on his tip toes he managed to tug a box from the upper portion of the stack.

Hours ticked by as the duo gradually made sense of the mess. Occasionally, Vision would pop by to help taking a pause in his work. He also managed to convince the two to go out with him to lunch. One thing about the Maximoff family was their ability to hyper focus.

Once their hunger was effectively satiated, Scout and Wanda set to work again. They were in the final stretch of the clutter having reached the worn, dented, and warped bottom boxes.

Carefully tugging off the lid to a particularly fragile one Scout shuffled through the objects inside. It seemed to be a lot of scrap books and little picture folders. Glancing through them he paused only when he saw something labeled with his name. Scooping it out of the bottom and wiping off the dust, Scout opened the tiny folder to see grey and black film like pictures inside.

At first he was confused. It was nearly impossible to make out what the picture was of, until he shifted into better light. After another moment of contemplation he realized what they were. Ultrasound pictures. Curiosity getting the best of him he studied the murky images as best he could. The bottom ones were clearer than the top having been shielded by the upper images.

He was astonished to find the last four-which he could actually make out- not of one small baby but two. “Hey, uh Mom? Is this ours?”

Scout scooted closer to his mother and passed over the pictures to her outstretched hand. After tossing old and damaged CDs into the garbage, Wanda turned her attention to what her son had handed over. She visibly paled. “Where’d you find these?”

“Over here,” Scout grunted, stretching out onto his side and pulling the box over to them. “I was thinking it might have gotten mixed up with Chloe and Arthur’s stuff when they moved in.”

“Well, uhm...it- it’s not there’s.” Scout looked at his mother in absolute confusion, both by the sudden shift in demeanor, and the waver in her voice.

“I don’t understand.” He frowned taking the images back to inspect them further. He checked the ghost colored date on the bottom and the name printed on the front of the folder once more. Slowly, he began to decipher what exactly was happening. “I’m a twin.”

“Yeah.” Wanda nodded, swallowing hard.

“I’m a twin.” Scout repeated. “How-what...?”

“You had a sister.”

“You’re joking.” Scout felt like he couldn’t breath. “Where-is she...she didn’t make it? I don’t understand.”

Scout studied his mother closely. He wanted an answer but she seemed too upset to say anything for some time. Part of him knew he should feel bad, sorry, and sad even, but all he could feel was angry.

“She was stillborn.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” He asked, unable to keep his voice from rising. “It just never occurred to you to say anything?”

“It was a mutual decision.-“ Wanda started.

“So dad’s in on this too?” Scout cried, clambering to his feet. “Are you serious? I can’t believe you! Were you ever going to mention anything about this?”

He waited impatiently for an answer but none came. He wasn’t going to get one.

“I’m literally so angry right now you have absolutely no idea. I-I need to go before I do something.” Scout fumbled for words. Tugging lightly at his hair he left the room hurriedly behind. His mind was going a million miles a minute.

He had a sister. A sister he hadn’t known about for years. A sister he may not have known about for more than decades. There was a big chance he’d have gone on clueless to this major fact until he died. What was worse, none of his aunts or uncles bothered to tell him. Then again they’d probably sworn not to.

“Hey, Scout! Come check out the carboard race cars.” Orion beamed, jogging up to the other boy. “Oh no. What’s wrong? Did a character die?”

“No.” Scout snapped.

“Wow.” Orion blinked. “Okay, hey, uhm come on.”

Scout allowed Orion to tow him into his room and ease the door shut.

“I need a minute before we talk.” Scout huffed, pacing back and forth at an impeccable rate. But no matter how hard he tried, the anger wouldn’t dissipate. Then, with a burst of anger, he spilled everything in a frenzy that left him gasping for air at the end. “I’m so angry.”

“You have a right to be.” Orion agreed.

“I’m not talking to her ever again. I can’t.” Scout shook his head. Orion noticed the way the other boy’s hands twitched with faint red energy. “Or my dad.”

“Scout, you have to calm down.” Orion frowned. “Think about this. Think about what you’re saying.”

“I am.”

“No you’re not.” Orion spoke firmly. It was so out of the norm that Scout actually paused to stare at him. He’d never seen Orion so authoritative. “You’re going to listen to me for one minute mister. Then, you can talk as much as you want but I think this is important for you to hear.”

“But-“

Orion held up a hand silencing his boyfriend. “Have you thought about your mother’s perspective? Don’t answer- that was rhetorical. You always tell me and the others to think things through. See both sides to the same story. Right now you’re being very hypocritical in not doing that. So, I’m going to help you out. I’m laying this down from her point of view.”

“Fine.”

“Don’t you think that if anyone knows what it’s like to lose a twin it’s her? That maybe she knows the pain about it more than anyone? What if, even if it was done with good intentions but not the best action, she was trying to protect you from that? To keep you from growing up and longing for someone you weren’t ever going to have? To spend a life wondering perpetually about this sibling and who or what they’d be like? What your relationships would be like? Spending years with fantasies that would only hurt you?”

“Orion, most of my life I felt like something was missing. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t fit anywhere.” Scout’s voice trembled. He stared with teary eyes at the ground. “It might have made things easier to know.”

“Yeah, It might have. But don’t you see? Maybe she was trying to do what’s best for you?” Orion asked.

“Yeah,” Scout nodded. Logistically, Orion was right. “But it’s like my mom was trying to forget about it. Like she was hiding that away so she could pretend it never happened. How does someone want or try to forget about their kid?”

“I guarantee you Scout, there’s not a day that goes by where she doesn’t think about your sister.” Orion felt a lump form in his throat. “My uncle Drax? I can’t tell you how many times he’s cried over his family and kids. He’d give anything to have just one of them back.”

Silence settled between the two of them for some time until Orion pulled Scout into a hug. “I feel like an ass Orion.”

“You should, but you should also feel angry. It’s natural. But now you have to go back and talk about it. You can’t ignore it now, and it’s best to understand and attempt to clear the air than let things be left alone.” Orion consoled him, running a hand through Scout’s hair.

— — —

“Mom?” Scout asked hesitantly, knocking on his parent’s door. “Can we talk?”

Seconds later Scout was perched on the end of his parent’s bed listening intently to what they had to say. In turn he explained himself. He learned that Orion’s presumptions were mostly correct and that his sister was supposed to have the name Janice (Jane for short) after a variation of JARVIS, with the middle name Pietra (they had planned on Scout having a middle name after Pietro’s middle name).

It hurt to see his mother cry but he also wondered how long she’d been hiding that burden and how much it wore on her. What struck him the most was seeing his dad cry too. He was normally so stoic that it nearly startled Scout. But at the end of it, after Scout had cried some too, he fell asleep tucked snuggly between the two of them. Both of his parents held onto him like he was the most precious thing in the entire world.

And though he wouldn’t say it, Scout felt a shift in the room. A sense of peace. Something that he hadn’t realized was oddly missing for some time. Maybe he’d needed this, but most of all maybe his parents had. He by no means approved of the secrecy, but he at least understood. And sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to understand. He’d have to thank Orion later for knocking some sense into him. For now though, he would enjoy the company and the embraces.

[youhearstatic]

Exit Interview for a Fic

(or: 10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked)

I’ve decided that I’m going to do one of these whenever I finish a fic as a sort of exit interview with myself. It’s too easy to forget stuff as you move on and time passes, you know? I want to remember what I felt as soon as it was finished.

So here’s a bunch of questions about Losing Time.

Under a readmore because again, it’s long and pretty really self indulgent! (There are some behind the scenes/further explanation of things if you are interested though.)

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why? I’m still going to say the unfinished Barry POV even though that’s awful of me. I know I keep saying this but there’s a section in that story that I’m just so freaking proud of and can’t wait to share... But I have to wait because the fic is unfinished and I can’t put that one up episodically. So even though it’s unfinished that section makes it my favorite.

Having said that? I’m really damn proud of this! Putting up something one chapter/part/episode at a time was nerve wracking. Hoping I’ve laid down enough pieces to pick up later? And I didn’t know what I was doing for at least the first third, and only an idea for the next third. And I FINISHED IT! So yeah, proud of all of that. Plus there was a lot of stuff that’s outside my wheelhouse. So I pushed my boundaries in a lot of ways that I’m also proud of.

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in Losing Time? This is going to sound awful but... part 10 - the scene where Barry/Sildar goes through the portal. That’s when it felt to me like the story changed gears if that makes sense. Up to that point it was just so. much. talking. It was necessary! But I felt like I was doing a really crappy job telling a story when it was just so much standing around talking.

And just for an early scene that made me have hope there was something good here: Lup helping Barry/Sildar with the panic/asthma attack. Lup is so ferocious and caring and just this amazing force of nature and that moment between the two of them answered the question “what would happen if they met and he didn’t know her?” Obviously the answer was: he’d fall instantly in love with her of course. She came in and terrified him and still he was putty in her hands thirty seconds later.

3. Which part of Losing Time was hardest to write? I think part 11 was hardest. Like I just said, it felt like the story had just changed gears and I knew where things needed to go but only in the vaguest sense. I sat looking at an empty page for the longest with that section, for sure.

And then of course the end of part 14. That scene needed to carry weight and the whole time I was writing it, right up until that last line showed up, I felt like I was failing miserably.

4. If you could change anything in Losing Time, what would it be? I wish I were better at writing Taako. I feel like I understand his thinking and motivations? But his speaking style is really hard for me to emulate. I don’t want to lean into it too hard and make him ridiculous because he’s not! So I probably err too hard the other way, unfortunately.

5. Did you make an outline for Losing Time? Did you stick to it? No outline at all. I started this thing with a vague “what if” idea: what if Barry were suddenly younger? It turned into more what ifs. What if Barry was suddenly - after canon, with Lup there - alive without his memories? How would everyone else deal with it? How would that effect he and Lup? I certainly didn’t write part one with any clue what was going to happen - I didn’t even know it was going to become a full fic. 

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in Losing Time? There was another scene with Merle but it was giving too much information too soon. I pushed it back and then it just didn’t fit anymore. I also had a brief conversation with Magnus but I knew I wanted this to be the four of them - Barry, Lup, Taako, and Kravitz - so that didn’t go very far before I cut it.

Also, originally they were not going to tell him what was going on. Then I was like... hold up. He’s an adult. Lup would respect him more than that. She would absolutely argue to tell him the truth. So there was more of them keeping things from him that got cut out.

7. Who was your favorite character to write in Losing Time? Lup. I think at this point in the timeline she’s still struggling with the last decade and trying to figure out what their lives are like now. I think she’s just starting to figure that stuff out and then this knocks her for a loop. (heh)  I was a little worried in the earlier parts when she and Taako were talking and just kept having this friction. I didn’t want it to seem like I was having her just be this emotional ping pong ball bouncing all over but... she kind of is? She and Taako are butting heads there. It’s for the same reason though - they are scared and worried and neither are dealing with their emotions very well. Taako has seen that he’s got the tendency to try to cut out people before they can lead to pain and at one point he’s reminding himself not to do that with Kravitz but then he’s totally doing that with Kravitz. And he’s doing it with Barry. To part of him, he’s decided this is already a failure and he is going to shut that part of himself down and stop caring about Barry before it hurts. But dude, it’s too late! And that attitude - like Lup understands but also she can. not. take. it. But then it spirals back around to her feeling like if she’d been around he wouldn’t have gotten this bad about things. So she’s feeling so many things. I really hope I handled it well enough to make that clear but I suspect it’s a weak point.

OH WAIT I FORGOT. Favorite character to write? THE RAVEN QUEEN. I can’t imagine trying to write her for more than brief glimpses but good grief, she is SO much fun to write. My favorite scene ever (as yet unshared sorry) involves her and I just... ahhh. I feel like there is ALWAYS so much going on behind her words. She is absolutely an enigmatic deity. Also, yeah, totally ship her and Istus like for real. But also I think she plays it cool. She plays EVERYTHING cool. Unless she’s mad. 

8. Which came first, the title or the fic? The title was basically me going: okay if I’m going to start putting this on AO3 it has to have a name so... It was the best I could come up with.

9. Which idea came to you first in Losing Time? Just the general idea of de-aged Barry.

10. What are some facts readers may not know about Losing Time? Apologies, this is gonna get really long! 

I really struggled with a few things: 

Lup’s emotions, like I mentioned above.

The Barry/Sildar name thing. It just started as part of his confusion when Lup first comes in. I headcanon hard the thing about Barry was a typo and the twins never let it go and then they added the Bluejeans part. I feel like for a little while it maybe bothered him but then he realized it came from a place of love - the twins tease everyone about everything and that was the earliest sign they accepted him - and so he embraced the name to the point that Lucretia didn’t try to erase it with the void fish. (In my Barry POV story he tries to give his ‘real’ name when alive and memory-less but it just doesn’t feel right so he goes by Barry. So when the coin says “Your name is Barry Bluejeans” it’s not just saying: here’s proof I know what I’m talking about. It’s saying: here’s proof you know what I’m taking about.)  Then in this story, the name thing became a bigger issue. It was him standing up for himself, making himself a full fledged part of things, not just a wounded bird they were dragging along and looking out for. (Which is also why he knocks out the guy with the empty health pot. Even without magic, Barry is a fucking scrapper who will try his damnedest to hold his own.) And I felt like Lup would absolutely respect his wishes on that. Taako slips up not because he doesn’t care but because he’s so much more off the cuff about things. It’s not coming from disrespect, it’s habit. But what I really went back and forth on was how does the narrative refer to him? Is it confusing to switch in the middle? I decided it would be more confusing to call him Barry while the characters called him Sildar. Also, obviously, it was going to be part of the conclusion. The most confusing was when they’re talking about things that happened to Barry before he was de-aged. Kravitz goes back and forth then just calls that person Barry-of-three-days-ago which seemed a very Kravitz way to handle things.

Writing that scene at the end of part 14. I knew that was coming for a while. Sildar had to make the decision that saving the innocent mattered. I knew there’d be a happy ending. I knew what the Raven Queen was up to. I knew pretty quickly (though not immediately!) that Lup referencing him saying “last first kiss” would come back. But that scene... it was important! It needed to be big! It needed to feel like a sacrifice! And I was writing it and it was... okay. And then, without thought or plan I typed “and then he let her go.” And reader, I fucking cried. I cried and I shut my laptop. I’ve NEVER cried at my own writing. Now, I’m well aware that the line only has power because of GRIFFIN’S words and I’m fine with that. I’m not trying to claim any skill or effectiveness. I’m saying it was a gift that finally gave the scene the weight it needed. The scene got better on editing but I could work on it for a hundred years and never get it to where I wanted it to be. But that line redeemed it, got it as close as it was going to get. Having said all that? I know that people will HATE me for cliffhanger-ing there. I honestly thought for a long time that it would end on a very long part 14. And then it kept getting longer and longer and I scrolled back up going... where can I break this and... yeah. I’m sorry. That’s where it needed to break. That’s the shift in things. That’s where the pause belonged.

And then...... Sildar stabs himself. I knew that dagger was coming a long time back. I was pretty sure when Taako asked Angus to research he was going to find info on the dagger. I knew the dagger - this ancient magic weapon that actually belonged to The Raven Queen (part of why she was SO FURIOUS) - was the magic explanation for what was happening. And I knew that he’d already been hit with it. (I hope it’s implied clearly enough in the story that is what happened even though the specific events of 3 days ago are never clearly explained.) And look, it’s rough stuff. I knew and I know. But I literally could not think of any other way for it to work. He had to make that decision. This was not him committing suicide. I realize that’s a fucking razor thin margin but that was not my intent. This was him saying, I fucked up and while it’s not entirely my fault I now take responsibility for this innocent and will do what I can to fix the situation. And since he wasn’t a reaper anymore... His touch didn’t work, his blood didn’t work... because literally his soul was the key. Also... in case it’s not clear I’ll say it here: The Raven Queen totally knew this was the best case secnario but she couldn’t say that. Her hands were tied. That’s why she’s ANGRY AS HELL. Someone fucked with her people and she’s furious. Sildar is out of her hands. He really was clear of his lichdom and his service to her and had he died without the ‘decision’ between him and Istus going the way that it did, his soul would have released to the Primordial Soup/Sea of Souls. The Queen knew this was the only way this could work out and she couldn’t influence it. That’s why she couldn’t manipulate space to get him on that path. She only did it the first time to protect him. She booked out of her court because she could not participate any further in the proceedings without influencing things she wasn’t allowed to alter. In the Stockade, she’s the one who opened the portal for the innocent. The string disappeared (Istus’s dominion over him) and she regifted him the feather (her dominion over him and all that entailed.)

Oh, and one last, small thing. Just for bookending, when Barry checks to see if he can summon his staff? He says the exact same thing he said before he went through the portal. Only this time, of course, it works. I hoped that was proof enough that everything was fixed.

If you’ve read all this, thank you! I feel like I owe you a prize or something. Thanks so much for sticking with me through this project. It was fun. I hope there’s more stuff like this to come!

[keigo-birdies]

My thoughts on The Last Jedi

Warning in advance, I’m giving my full HONEST opinion about the movie. If you can’t bare to read any type of criticism, I suggest you to ignore this.

Anyway, this movie was all over the place and I have so much to cover; good, bad, and unnecessary. 

This is a long one so let’s jump into it.

First, let’s start off with what good moments this movie did have:

Finn and Rey constantly on one another’s minds; worried about each other’s safety and well-being. Finn doing everything he possible could to make sure Rey would come back to him safely. 

Billie Lourd getting her moment in this movie. Just so proud of her.

Rose admiring Finn’s actions that lead him to the Resistance. She’s basically a teary mess but her smile could melt any cold heart. (Kelly deserves the world.)

Rose and Finn giving the weapons manufactures, rich from blood money, hell in Canto Bight. Rose getting her own form of revenge against the people who oppressed and basically enslaved her and her sister.

>Speaking of revenge, Finn getting his well deserved revenge against Phasma and his oppressors. That was everything. Plus, did you see my boy with that electro-staff.

Leia being a total badass, honing in on her force abilities to pull herself back to the ship. (She really did drown in moonlight.)

Rey being a total badass, ready to kill Snoke at any chance she can get; not backing down once. She’s such a spitfire and I love her with all my heart.

Rey refusing to accept Kylo’s offer to rule the galaxy and force pulling that lightsaber, ready to cut his hand. You know that’s what was going to happen if Kylo had tried to pull it back.

Our Luke and Leia reunion. It’s not what I hoped for, but considering the outcome of the movie, I’m glad we got some sort of reunion. Even if Luke wasn’t physically there on Crate.

Another reunion to make the list; our long awaited FinnRey one. The look on their faces once they catch just a glimpse of each other. Finn running to Rey, wrapping her up in the tightest embrace. Both of their eyes are closed and a smile of peace and relief is plastered to her face. They’re so happy to be by one another’s side again.

Rey and Leia talking on the Falcon. Just that whole moment was very sweet.

Some of the little things I enjoyed:

The visuals were nice.

BB-8. Just BB-8.

Porgs.

Luke ‘yeeting’ his old lightsaber over his shoulder. (Relatable when it comes to adult responsibilities.)

Chewie busting down the door like the god damn S.W.A.T.

Rey with a lightsaber. She definitely knows how to wield that thing.

Finn and Rose’s dynamic. (When she isn’t tazing him.)

Poe Dameron’s beautiful face.

Luke’s dramatic ass.

And that all black Return of the Jedi throwback ensemble is everything.

And his goddamn moves. Like DAMN.

Rey and Poe’s little meet up.

The ending shot of our heroes on the Falcon.

Now onto the bad, and boy was there bad in this movie.

The characterization was so off.

Poe is a arrogant, trigger-happy, hot-head. He’s rude and very chauvinistic to his female superior officers. He goes against orders and puts his friends and fellow Resistance members in danger because of this behavior. This was not the Poe Dameron we seen in TFA and that pisses me off.

Rey, for a moment, is very much in character. At the beggining of the movie, her integrity and hopeful spirit from TFA are there. She is determined to get Luke back to the Resistance to bring hope to the galaxy. However, after a few days she loses said trait, going from “This man is a monster”, to “There is conflict in him. I can turn him back”. That’s where her characterization from TFA just falls off completely. I’m honestly supposed to believe this after all the horrible things Kylo did to her and her friends. No. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen. This sets such a bad and toxic example for young girls who admire Rey. (Thankfully, after she refuses his offer to turn, her characterization returns somewhat.)

Luke “wide-eyed-full-of-hope-optimistic-there-is-good-in-you-i-know-it” Skywalker did not appear in this movie. That man is gone. His characterization was butchered. Instead we are given a shell of a man who is nothing more than that. Just some old, grumpy hermit who lives on an island. He’s made out to be someone so consumed by paranoia that he would murder one of his student, his own nephew, in cold blood. Nah man. I could go on about this but we’d be here until ep.9. He’s a complete 180 in this movie.

The plot was all over the place and consisted of inconsistencies that don’t align with the information given to us in TFA.

The movie is tangible shitty writing.

For two-thirds of the movie, the Resistance is basically just trudging through space trying to fly away from the First Order with no avail. It becomes very boring after the Resistance jumps to light speed to escape. It’s just a stalemate space battle that seems never ending. Like I said, it became very boring to watch.

The treatment of our characters of color for “comedic” purposes was anything but funny.

Finn, Poe, and Rose’s arcs are sidelined; not in the fact that they hardly got any screen time, but that their arcs were basically for nothing. Their arcs had absolute no purpose in this movie. No matter what they did, their actions didn’t matter. In the end, the FO was somehow always a step ahead. Their arcs were pointless in moving the story along, meaning Rian Johnson lied to everyone when he said their arcs were important to the story.

When Rey gets to the island, after a day or so trying to convice Luke to come back, he asks how did she find him. He says that he came to the island because he knew that no one would find him there. Yet, in TFA, Luke was the one who left the map fragments across the galaxy for someone to come find him. That inconsistency bothered me so much. You said you watched TFA Rian, yeah right you lying bitch.

Also, the temple attack described in this movie contradicts what was shown to us in the TFA force vision. In the vision, the attack on the temple was shown to be a premeditated slaughter, but in TLJ were are led to believe that it was a panic fueled event that happened in one night. 

Kylo Ren is made out to be a conflicted boy who doesn’t have a say in his choices; who can’t be blamed for all the terrible things he has done and shouldn’t have to face the consequences of said actions. Were supposed to feel sorry for him but it just makes us hate him more. He whines and throws his little temper-tantrums. He isn’t conflicted. There is no light in him. He is pure evil and there’s nothing anyone can say that will make me think different of his character.

Speaking of blame, all the blame is put on Luke for Kylo turning to the darkside. Not Kylo himself or even Snoke. Again, they turn Luke into a paranoid freak, ready to kill his own nephew, which takes all the burden off of Kylo from his choice to turn, onto Luke’s shoulder. Luke has to carry the blame while Kylo can continue living carefree, free of consequence. Luke takes the blame for Kylo turning to the darkside. It wasn’t Kylo’s fault or choice, Luke pushed him too hard, and Kylo was just a poor helpless boy. 

Snoke was made to be a treacherous villain in TFA but was ultimately underwhelming in this movie, being so easily killed, even with the power he possess. Or should I say possessed. 

Kylo’s treatment of Rey in this movie is absolutely disgusting and very toxic. First, he’s invading her mind time and time again. Even if it was Snoke pulling the strings on that (shitty writing) he still went through with it. He gaslights her. He manipulates her. He talks down to her. He calls her nothing, uses her parents against her, says she’s no one special, that she doesn’t matter to anyone but him. And he only says that in hopes he can use her for his own power hungry needs. And yet, with Rian’s writing, he persistently keeps wanting Rey to redeem Kylo. That’s it. It’s terrible and disgusting to watch.

Speaking of her parentage. That was not a fucking satisfying reveal, Rian Johnson. In fact, from a story-telling perspective, it makes absolutely no goddamn sense following the events of TFA. Plus, how the hell who Kylo even know who her parents are. Again, it makes no sense. SHITTY WRITING!

Also, the whole ‘he’s conflicted and I can bring him back’ came out of nowhere for Rey. It’s as if Rian tried to recreate Luke’s arc from ROTJ and failed miserably. It made Rey look naive and her ‘mission’ to bring Ben Solo back from the dark is completely useless. “Because she heard the story of how Luke brought Vader back” is not a good enough reason. Again, more crappy writing.

There are so many inconsistencies in TLJ that contradict with TFA.

Luke just dying on the island. He uses the force to project himself on Crate and then just disappears. Okay, yeah, he’s at peace, sure, whatever. It doesn’t mean that made this writing decision any more shitty. This, and along with everything else in this movie involving Luke, was unsatisfactory. Luke could’ve done so much. Luke could’ve been there for Leia and for Rey and for the Resistance. No, instead we got this. And it makes absolutely no sense. We don’t know why he just dies/vanishes. There is no explanation.

Also, Rey and Luke’s relationship was suppose to be the heart of this movie. It wasn’t. They’re constantly fighting and at each other’s throats.

Even some of the acting seemed forced and off, as if the actors really didn’t want to be a part of this but were under contract so they had to.

Maz Kanata had more screen time in TFA than in TLJ.

Also, they tried to make Rey and Finn look like complete idiots at least once in the movie. Finn’s walking around naked in the bacta suit, dripping water everywhere, and looking as lost and confused as ever. Rey literally holds out her hand when Luke tells her to reach out. Luke then scratches a leaf or something against her hand and she says she can feel the force from that. Both of those moments were so cringe-worthy, even though to some people it was cute or hilarious. It wasn’t. It made a lead character of color and a lead female character look like idiots. But hey, it was for comedy.

There was so much bad and I’m probably missing a few more things. If I were to try and remember it all, we’d be here until ep. 9. Anyway, let's get into the unnecessary. Which, a lot of this can be qualified under the bad as well and some of these are extremely cringe-worthy..

Every sacrificing death, or every sacrifice in general, made by the Resistance are all for nothing. It doesn’t change the outcome. Every sacrifice, every death in this movie, is for absolutely nothing. They don’t make a damn difference. Again, shitty writing because Rian had no idea how to move the story forward, apparently.

The physical abuse of our POCs.

That stupid shirtless scene of Kylo.

That stupid scene of Luke milking that creature.

Holdo and DJ, or whatever his name is, are pointless characters in this. They’re introduced and then either turn against our heroes or sacrifice themselves for nothing.

The humor was terrible. There was no need for that many terrible, middle-school jokes in this movie. Seriously, it’s one joke after the other or humor that really isn’t funny at all.

Chewie eating a porg in front of the others.

Those island caretaker creatures.

The end with the three children, and the one boy force pulls the broom to him. There was no need for that. It’s not as if that child could fight in the war now. That just came out of nowhere and felt like a young self insert in my opinion.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of at the moment. This list is so lopsided. Goes to show you that shitty writing will never be accepted or ignored, no matter how far back you stuff it behind aesthetics. To finish off, I have a few more statement to make and it’s centered around a certain part of the SW fandom.

Any chance of R/eylo, after this movie is dead. She refuses his offer. She knows there is no light in him. She knows the only way to end the war is to kill him along with the rest of the FO. There is no chemistry there and there is no romance between them.

After he captures her twice, tortures her and her friends, manipulates her, gas-lights her, you should not be shipping this. He uses basic abuse tatics by talking down to her and calling her nothing to everyone but him. He’s only doing that to get what he wants. Again, mental manipulation and mental abuse.

ONCE MORE, R/EYLO is dead.

What I had hoped to see and never got/What I would’ve done:

Rey and Luke’s relationship should’ve been more like Luke’s and Obi-Wan’s in A New Hope. There should’ve been an actual bond rather than them constantly fighting.

Much more Finnrey, more of Rey and Poe interacting, more of the ot3 together kicking ass and taking names. Just better and more interactions between our heroes in general.

Luke actually training Rey like Obi-Wan did with Luke. Just Luke training Rey without hesitation.

An actual satisfying answer to Rey’s parentage. (You could’ve made her a Skywalker and still have made her her own character too. It could’ve prevent this: During and after the original trilogy, the Skywalker family/name is a beacon of hope to the galaxy, yet in this movie, the family/name is written to be a genetic mistake that should be whipped out. You can see what’s wrong with that, right?)

TFA characterization carried over to TLJ.

I could add so much more to the list. But seriously, Rian Johnson should’ve used the information that J.J. Abrams left in TFA to build a story, rather than scraping it to write his own that made absolutely no sense in correlation with TFA.

In conclusion, TLJ was a slap in the face to the fans. It was just a big fuck you to fans of the franchise and to fans of our heroes both old and new When coming up with this story and directing it, Rian Johnson did not care about the fans. In the end, he did not make this movie for the fans. This movie was made for him. It was about making his own mark on the franchise no matter how good or bad that mark was; no matter what he did to the characters and story from here on out to peruse this. It was self-service.

And Kathleen Kennedy did not care about the story, characters, or fans either. This was just another movie to line her pockets with more money. She’s just as much fault here as he is.

So in the end, we’re left with this mess of a movie, (if you could even call it one) that’s ridden with a shaky plot, meaningless sacrifices, and character assassination (both metaphorically and literally), rather than a movie with a meaningful story, sturdy plot, and character development that builds off of the events in TFA.  But hey, the visual aesthetic of the movie is nice, huh?

Anyway, I’m just hurt and disappointing overall. I know I’m not the only one to feel this way. I, along with many fans, invested time and ourselves into these characters and into the story TFA left off with. We were excited to see where those events would take us in the next two movies of the trilogy. I was hopeful aft TFA, and now, I feel nothing. In all honesty, I wish they would’ve just let J.J. Abrams direct all three movies. Hell, I would’ve rather seen rehashes of the original trilogy from these movies than what Johnson threw at us. And if they couldn’t have gotten J.J., they should’ve had Dave Filoni (Rebels) direct this movie. He could have done amazing. But no, we were left with Rian Johnson and is terrible story and his crappy treatment of the characters.

*long, exasperated sigh*

Thanks for your time and feel free to add in anything I missed; good, bad, or unnecessary.

[kitanoko]

Fire, Fire pt.3

Hey! Part 3 of my bakumomo fic with jelly Todo which was due for months is here!!

 I’m posting Part 4 tomorrow! 

Thanks to those who still send me asks about it

//READ PART TWO HERE//

“We were having fun,” Bakugou spat, still in Todoroki’s clutches, and gave the boy in front of him an urgent shove. Todoroki took a few steps back, and distanced himself away, watching as Bakugou soothed his throat a little. They were having fun? Todoroki didn’t want to dive deeper into that comment but his mouth turned dry thinking about whatever that insinuated.

Bakugou steadied himself, his left hand leaning against the desk next to him. Toying with Todoroki’s emotions was dangerously fun, he thought. It hadn’t even been a minute and Bakugou was already enjoying his new-found experiment.

“Why do you care so much two-face?” Bakugou coughed out as he managed to flip his collar back to its original state, “For the record, pony-tail girl was the one who came to me, not the other way around.”

Kirishima moved forward, wedging himself between the two in case things got out of hand again. At this time, the sun has almost disappeared below the horizon, leaving the classroom an eerie abyss.

Todoroki inhaled deeply and exhaled.

“What’s your intention?” He asked, noticing Kirishima’s uneasiness, and Bakugou let out a chuckle.

“I have no intentions whatsoever,” Bakugou spoke with a sense of ambiguity, “But pony-tail and I seem to be getting along.”

The blond swiftly grabbed his bag in one motion and slung it across his shoulders, a mischievous grin spread across his face. His red-haired friend placed a hand gently on Todoroki.

“It’s late,” Kirishima stated, eyeing the two, “Todoroki, let’s leave this for another day.” The Red Riot hero gave a meek smile, but deep down he was hoping that this was the end of it. In the back of his mind, Kirishima imagined the disaster that would be of Todoroki and Bakugou’s full on fight, if it were to happen. Aizawa would for sure sentence the three of them to house arrest. Kirishima groaned inwardly. How unfair would it be if he was penalized, it’s not even like he wanted to be a part of it! It didn’t help that Bakugou had a crappy attitude too.

“We’re going,” Kirishima’s voice trailed off, and saw Bakugou charge out the door, “See you tomorrow bro.”

Todoroki answered him with a light flick of his wrist in the air as he turned away. His hair covered his expression but Kirishima was positive the heat he was feeling at the moment was from him.

~

“That’s absolutely preposterous!” Yaoyorozu screamed into the phone, “You guys thought I had a thing with Bakugou?! Are you insane?!”

Jirou pulled the phone away from her ears, and closed her eyes, “I know, it was Kaminari and Kirishima! I didn’t believe them but when I saw you and Bakugou coming back late—“

“Yeah, FROM HATSUME-SAN’S LAB,” Yaoyorozu wanted to punch someone in the face, though of course, her mother would not approve. She should have known this would happen! Rumours come and go; if she wanted to keep her little ‘project’ undiscovered by Todoroki, she’s going to have to keep the truth amongst a few people.

“I know now you were making something for Todoroki,” Jirou muttered, “you should’ve told me earlier.”

“I wanted to keep it a secret,” Yaoyorozu explained as she pulled her stuffed penguin closer, “It’ll be done within the next few weeks. Let’s keep this between us. I don’t want Kaminari’s big mouth going around.”

Jirou leaned back against her bed rest, “Alright, Momo, but for the sake of Todoroki’s mental health….you should hurry it up.”

“What do you mean?” Yaoyorozu questioned as her penguin fell out of her hands. Did something happen when she was gone today?

Jirou snickered and took a bite out of a chocolate bar. Swirling the piece inside her mouth, she waited a little before answering her best friend.

“Todoroki punched his desk super hard then walked out.” Yaoyorozu can practically see her friend grinning like an idiot. Jirou was a closeted hopeless romantic after all.

“Wait, after he heard you guys?”

“Yeeeeep, after he heard us. Actually scared me a little too. It’s so unlike him to lose his cool.”

Yaoyorozu’s eyes lit up and her heart started to pound.  With dainty fingers, she clutched her chest, her pyjamas scrunched in the small of her palm.

Does this mean Todoroki was…was…

She needed to keep her head straight.

“He’s probably jealous or something,” Jirou finished her thought for her, and tossed the candy wrapper into the bin as if she was shooting a three-pointer.

She could hear Yaoyorozu’s breathing but no response came. “Momo, you still there?”

“Yeah. Um…Jirou I think I’ll go now…it’s…past my bedtime.”

“O…kaayy…” Jirou said in a puzzled tone, eyes narrowing, “I bet your heart is going todorokiDOKIDOKI—“

“NO, STOP!” Yaoyorozu buried her face in exasperation and Jirou laughed so hard she choked on her own saliva, “GOODNIGHT!”

She hung up before a response came from the other side.

~~

The lab was always in disarray, but today, it looked even more so. Trinkets were hazardously dangling from the edges of tables that looked scratched from wear. Hatsume’s ‘thought-of-the-day’ projects (which really just seemed to be made on a whim) laid in a pile so monstrous at the corner of the room, that one would think it was a landfill.

Bakugou yawned, slamming the door as he stepped foot onto the concrete floor covered in histories of machine-made scratches and oil stains that melted into the covering. The room was especially dark in the morning, the only source of light coming from a desk lamp on his far left. Bakugou noticed the usual host of the lab in the middle of something, steps away from him. He squinted.

Hatsume was no doubt a gold mine of knowledge; a girl so creative and utterly inspiring that it made Bakugou shiver. And he wasn’t the kind of person that’d be impressed that easily.

She was completely immersed in her tenth ‘ground-breaking’ project for the week, spine-curved, arms raised with tools, black and rusty, sticking out of her pockets. Her hair, a lovely colour of cherry blossoms, damp with sweat, held up with nothing but her usual goggles.

Bakugou grunted a few times to get her attention. Hatsume didn’t budge, her pupils changing like a kaleidoscope and he realized she was in the process of using her ‘zoom’ quirk. Bakugou walked closer, observing her fingers twist and tug at every gear, apparent that her hard-earned skills were the cause of the familiar movements that she was performing.

“YO,” Bakugou cried out. Hatsume picked up her head and gave a wide grin.

“You’re here! Right on time with two minutes to spare! Come over here,” the girl gestured to the empty space beside her, “I’ve improved the blaster as discussed with Yaoyorozu, you have no idea how much more thrust this thing has now.”

“Un.”

“And to think that I’d be spending at least three days on this, well guess what, I only spent a day! Hah! Talk about efficiency!”

“Un.”

Bakugou side eyed the girl beside him. She was intoxicated in her work, her explanations feeding off of dedication. For a minute, watching the chatterbox in front of him, his mind wandered off. At this time on most days, he’d be out and about given his busy training schedule. Never a bad decision to squeeze in some physical activity before classes start, especially if he had to climb the ladder against people like Deku and two-face.

“I’m asking you a question, hello there,” The inventor made a quick motion with her hand to his face clearly having stopped her tedious anecdote, “I said, what made you come here? Is it because of my amazing babies?”

Her arm waved to showcase what looked like junk behind her. He guffawed.

“No way IN HELL am I interested in your trash.”

“Hey, don’t disrespect my babies!” Hatsume made a pout and crossed her arms, “It’s odd how a rude boy like you became friends with a lady such as Yaoyorozu herself. I’m just curious why you’re willing to help us, is all.”

A vein twitched on his forehead.

“Free math lesson’s what that pony-tail bitch said I’d get. Like I give a rat’s ass about being her friend and whatever else two-faced had to do with it. Y’all better watch yourselves or Imma leave and you’d be stuck with no one to test your shit out. I swear –“

His eyes shot opened when he was cut short with a bitter taste of metal and mint on the tip of his tongue which expanded towards the cave of his throat. His immediate attention turned towards a machine, though it appeared to have something similar to eyes and a mouth, propelling itself flippantly in front of his face.

Bakugou swatted it away with a painful snap of his palm rendering smoke from the robot’s exhaust. Did he just bat at her creation as if it was a mosquito?  

Hatsume watched devastated as her robot whizzed out of commission, twirling down to the ground with a loud bang.

“BLEH,” Bakugou spat out the foam, eyes intensely glaring at the culprit, “did that thing of yours just spray some shit into my mouth?!”

He continued to spit out the remains.

“Aw why’d you do that!” Hatsume knelt down to inspect the corpse of her machine.

“Uh, oh wells, I made that machine for jokes last month, its purpose was to spray cleaning agent on people whenever they swore. Guess it’s still working,” Hatsume chuckled, brightening up, “It’s great isn’t it?”

Bakugou flipped her a middle finger. Realizing what he just did, he turned around to scan if any more of these artificial intelligence were coming his way.

Hatsume straightened herself, arms on her hips before dragging Bakugou’s extended hand to the counter before them.

“Let’s get this going, shall we?”

~~~

This bitch is cray, Bakugou wanted to voice out loud in the middle of class.

It was the second period, right after lunch, and the smartest girl in class was already all fired up, spewing whatever nonsense he deemed to be a hodgepodge of bullshit. It irked Bakugou’s ears to hear her talk. With such quick wit, no less.

The time he spent at Hatsume’s wasn’t the best either, and his mind refused to let it go.

Aizawa watched intently as the VP of the class stood up, with such dignity that seemed limitless, and continued with her half-way finished explanation.

“….And that is my theory as to what would happen if three black holes were to ever collide.”

Finally she’s done, Bakugou thought. He held his chin in his hand and shifted back to the instructor standing behind the podium.

Yaoyorozu sat back down, lips upturned, eyes glazed over. Everyone was dead silent as Aizawa’s jaw-dropped expression transitioned into a soft, ‘what-the-heck-just-happened’ face.

“Uh…excellent, Yaoyorozu,” their teacher coughed out and cleared his throat before he grabbing a chalk to scribble some formulas on the board. The other students were silently praising their Vice President though no one had a clue.

After what felt like a decade (it didn’t help that Kaminari and Ashido had to ask a million questions in between each new question), Aizawa handed each student a worksheet. Bakugou chewed at the back of his pencil, teeth grinding harder into the wood at what was written beside his name.

“This assignment is due in two days and you each have a partner to work with. I’ve written down your partner’s name at the top,” Aizawa said and sighed, “Now get started. If you have questions, you can ask later, I’m going to take a break.”

And with that, their teacher crawled slowly into his yellow silkworm-esque sleeping bag at the corner of the room.

Bakugou kicked his feet onto his desk, arms crossed in anger.

What the heck were the chances that it’s her again?!

“Bakugou-san! What are the chances, eh?” Yaoyorozu appeared to be thrilled as she verbally repeated what he was thinking and he replied with a dissatisfied ‘TCH’.

Yaoyorozu didn’t seem to care. Or rather, she seemed to be used to his antics already. Her hair swayed with every movement as she sauntered over, apple-cheeked and smiling. She pulled up what used to be Midoriya’s chair and sat crossed legged beside him.

Flipping the page over, she began, “So,” she leaned forward a bit more, “How was the improvement?”

Bakugou saw her scan the surroundings before adding, enunciating every word, “I’m so sorry, I apologize for not being there this morning, I had a meeting with the Cooking Club and I couldn’t miss out. Hatsume-san said that you seem to approve the changes though? Is that true?”

“Well, it’s not totally shit.” The blond closed his eyes, and pushed his legs back down. The two was probably in everyone’s radar now seeing how suspicious they were acting.

“I do think that the power is great but the precision of the blast is not quite there. Octopus knows. She’s gonna fix it up a bit and get it up and running in a few days,” the boy promptly said and his brows scrunched together at the sudden thought of the unpleasant occurrence that morning.

Yaoyorozu caught on.

“I also heard from Hatsume-san that you got ‘mouth-washed’ by one of her swear-bots.”

“DON’T REMIND ME!”

At that, Shouji turned around to hush the two with a finger to his lips. Mineta was disgruntled.

“Sorry, Shouji-san,” Yaoyorozu nodded an apology behind her, and gave Bakugou a sneer right after.

“Must’ve tasted like toothpaste,” she teased in a hushed voice, having no thought of how dire the situation could get if a Bakugou’s rage awakens.

“More like shit mixed with shit. Fuck, y’all piss me off!”

“Aw, don’t be like that-“

“Hey, don’t touch my hair!”

Bakugou contorted a frown as Yaoyorozu attempted to give his spiky hairdo a pat resulting in more giggles from the girl beside him.

This was not the kind of relationship that he wanted to have with anyone or expected to have with anyone. Ever since entering UA, Bakugou has felt somewhat of the same conviction as Todoroki. He wasn’t here to make friends nor was he here to establish any kind of passive connection with his classmates, let alone this girl, whose preppy demeanor could blind him in a split second.

Bakugou gritted his teeth; though he had this at the back of his mind, he still couldn’t unravel the mystery that is Yaoyorozu, who seemed to be gradually stripping him of the façade that he wasn’t sure he could hold up much longer.

[pocketsizedsam-blog1]

The Unexpected Perks of Being a Nanny ~ Chapter One

Pairing Jared X Reader

Word Count: 2.1K

Warnings: Swearing

"You're leaving?" To this very day, your mother's words still rang through your ears.

The look on her face made you feel a thousand times worse about your decision. Four years ago, you needed to get away from your mom. She never really felt like family to you and your dad left when you were very young. You had a half sister and half brother. Twins, born from a different father than yourself. In the divorce between your mother and your step father, he gained full custody of the twins. You were about seven when they were born and nine when you never saw them again. Today however, you sat at the desk you recently purchased in your dingy, dark basement apartment, preparing for your finals in one of Vancouver's finest Early Childhood Care and Education programs. With a smile on your face, you pushed the bad memories of your mother down and continued to read over your notes just one last time. You felt the finals went great, or so you hoped and thought. Your grades wouldn't be posted until you graduated. Recently, you made flyers detailing your hopes to work full time taking care of kids, whether it'd be a nanny or a daycare owner offered you a job. With just your luck, however, you posted your flyers one week ago and you haven't gotten a single message. You made your way back to the apartment, deciding to work on your resumé and send it out to local daycares and post it on websites promoting childcare. You heard a knock on your door and shot up, dancing over to it.

"Feel up for a drink?" Your best friend, Lacee smiled.

"Lace, you know my opinions on drinking." You frowned.

"Okay... Would you like to come with me, while I get drunk, so you can drive me home?" She grinned, brushing past you. "I don't understand how you could live in this place for so long." Her happiness turned to disgust. "It's gross."

"We don't all have daddy's money, Lacee. I'm very broke." You snickered, pushing the door shut.

"I think if I stay in this place for too long, I might cry."

"It's not that bad!" You began to defend the apartment you hated so much.

"Whatever, so will you come with me?"

"Rein-check?" You cocked your head to the side.

"C'mon, Y/N! Let loose!" She begged.

"I don't want to be a babysitter!" You grumbled.

"Uuhh then why'd you go to school to look after children?" Lacee shot back.

"Okay, correction, I don't want to be your babysitter!" Your [E/C] eyes wandered from Lacee's charcoal gray ones to your phone.

There was a message from a number you had never seen before.

"Who is it?" Lacee tried to stick her nose in your business.

"It's nothing for you! That's for sure and certain!" You giggled, pulling your phone away from her. "It's this guy, says his name is Jared. He's an actor on a TV and he seen my ad! He's looking for someone to look after his kids!"

Your face lit up like a Christmas tree! You done a little dance before messaging the man back.

"This is good, Y/N." Lacee smiled.

"He wants to meet. Tomorrow at twelve thirty." You exclaimed.

"Well if you're not going to come with me, I'll probably just stay home. I can help you!" She squealed.

"With what?"

"Well, he's going to ask you questions! I'll look up some practice questions while you finish up your resumé."

You pulled an extra chair over to your desk, giving her a place to sit. You used your computer to finishing typing up your resumé, adding things you knew would make you look good. You can speak French and you added the name of the school you're going to, also the courses you were taking. You added a bit about your past, not too much however. Lacee came up with some practice questions and you answered them off the top of your head in detail.

"Maybe I will go out with you for a drink." You smiled.

~

You only had one drink, far from intoxicated. Lacee decided to get as drunk as hell. You took her to your apartment to keep an eye on her. Lacee drunkenly staggered next to you, her arm slung over your shoulder as you fumbled with the key.

"Hey!" She giggled. "What's this?"

She bent over, nearly loosing her balance while you unlocked the door.

"Ooooh! Y/N, bad girl." Lacee purred. "You got evicted!"

"I what?" You snatched the paper from her.

Sure enough, a piece of paper, issued to your apartment had the words 'Eviction Notice' written on it. It was previously taped on the door, but had fell.

"Shit." You muttered as you went into your apartment with Lacee holding onto your shirt tightly.

She began to pull it down and you continued to speak, "You're worse than a two-year-old." You frowned.

"Sorry, mom." Lacee jested.

You laid her down on the couch and pulled the comforter off your bed for her. You wrapped her up, making sure that in her drunken state, she wouldn't escape it. As you turned to go over to your bed, you forgot about the coffee table and ran into it, stubbing your toe.

"FUCK!" You cried out.

Thankfully, Lacee was already in a deep sleep, but your upstairs neighbor didn't like it too much. He stomped on the floor to let you know. You slowly began to lose your temper.

"I already got evicted!" You yelled at him through the ceiling. "Go ahead and complain."

You started to mutter curse words under your breath as you went to use the washroom. You threw your foot up onto the counter top, the two toes next to your big one were already bruising and swelling. You used the washroom and brushed your teeth, then limped out to bed.

~

The next morning, you woke up to the sound of your good friend throwing up her guts. You groaned and threw the pillow of your ears.

"What happened last night?" Lacee scratched her forehead and wiped her mouth, as she took a seat at the end of your bed.

"You got piss pour drunk, I got evicted and broke two toes." You grumbled.

"Oh Jesus, Y/N." She frowned. "I'm sorry."

"None of it was your fault, don't apologize." You sat up and threw the blankets off you.

"You really did break your toes." Lacee winced, glancing at your two swollen and black toes. "What'd you even do?"

You explained to her what happened as you took a change of clothes into the bathroom. You changed then came back out.

"What do you want for breakfast? I got cereal and- Cereal that's it." You sighed.

"That is a crappy selection."

"I realize that, Lacee. But as you can tell, I don't have enough money to buy food right now so I might as well starve myself!" You snapped at her.

"Y/N, I'm sorry. No need to get pissed off at me. I will rephrase that and say I'll take you out for breakfast." She offered.

"I don't need a pity breakfast." You growled.

"Oh, my fuck, there is no pleasing you!" Lacee threw her head back in annoyance. "It's not pity, you need to eat! You're already tiny enough." She noted your small figure.

Lacee approached you and brushed some of your hair back out of your face.

"Just remember, you got that meeting with that actor today." She smiled softly. "Worst comes to worst, you can stay with me until you find a place."

You nodded as she wiped a tear that rolled down your cheek. You and Lacee had breakfast at a local café in Vancouver. You started to get nervous about your meeting with Jared. Him hiring you or not decided your future living arrangements. The two of you went back to your apartment so Lacee could help you pick out an outfit. She majored in literature in University, but she has a great fashion sense.

"Y/N, this will make his jaw drop and make you look professional all at once, you should go with this!" Lacee squealed.

You stuck your head out of the tiny pushout you called a closet and glanced over at the outfit. Lacee held up a dark blue shirt, loose fitting shirt, with five black origami birds across the front of it and a pair of black leggings.

"Yeah, that's nice." You smiled.

She laid the shirt and pants down on the bed and went to the dresser. She opened the top drawer and dug deep down. She pulled out a black lace push up bra that does up in the front with a triangular lace back. She also found the matching pair of panties and laid them down on the bed as well.

"Lacee, I'm going to go to him to get a job, not to fuck him." You half laughed.

"I know... I know, I just like these, I bet they make your boobs look really big." She poked one of your breasts as you passed her.

"Ow, jeez Lace." You took the clothes and changed.

"You look great! And I was right! Jesus, they're huge." She chuckled.

"They're not that big." You blushed.

You took the bus to the set of Supernatural, where Jared asked to meet you. He had a beautiful trailer. You were kind of fangirling when you got to the set, you were a die hard Supernatural fan, but you had to keep cool, calm and collected. Jared greeted you at his trailer door. He was so tall compared to you! You could barely contain your smile when you first seen him, you were dying a little on the inside.

"Hi, I'm Jared."

"Hi, I'm Y/N." You smiled, shaking his hand.

"Are you a fan of the show?" He smiled.

You nodded.

"So, I guess you know Gen and I got divorced about a year ago." He sighed.

"I heard, I-I'm really sorry. It must be hard." You frowned.

"Yeah, A little, one of my biggest thing to overcome is living arrangements for the boys and Odette. I seen your ad and decided to message you." Jared half smiled.

"Well I'm glad you did. You read the fine print, right? I haven't graduate yet. But I'm close to it! Oh, and here's my resumé." You handed him the sheet of printed paper. "I didn't get time to laminate it, sorry."

"Of course, I did. Thank you." Jared chuckled, taking the piece of paper. "I know you're just about to graduate, but do you have any other experience with children? What age group were they?"

"I worked part time in a daycare when I was younger. There were three kids under the age of three, which really helped make my decision to go into ECCE."

"ECCE?"

"Oh, oh sorry, Early Childhood Care and Education." You giggled. "I took courses in infants, toddlers and school aged children."

He nodded and smiled at you.

"Do you have Emergency training? Like CPR and first aid?"

"Oh of course, I needed it to graduate." You nodded.

"Can you speak multiple languages?"

"Je peux parler français." You grinned.

"Okay that's good." He chuckled. "Uh, let's see what else and I'll give your resumé a look."

"While I'm gone to work, you would have to cook for yourself and the boys. Is that okay? Would it be too much if I asked you to help clean around the house occasionally? In the mean time, I will always be stocking the fridge and cupboards, so you don't have to worry about buying things. Also, I have a dog, would you be willing to take care of him?"

"That's fine with me, Jared." You gave him a small smile. "It's not too much, I'm here to help."

"Are you willing to take the kids to the park for an activity?"

"Oh yes of course."

"Gen and I agreed on making sure we read to the boys for at least twenty minutes to a half hour a day, are you-"

"Yes, I am willing to read to them and with them." You smiled, finishing his sentence.

"Okay, I think we've covered everything." He smiles. "I'm really liking you for the job, I got to talk it over with Gen and she'll want to meet you, she's probably gonna ask you a lot of the questions I just asked you."

"Okay, that's fine with me." You shook his hand.

You took a bus back to your apartment to find Lacee with several boxes.

"Lace, you don't have to help me." You frowned.

"Y/N, I'm your friend, I want to help you." She sighed. "How'd the meeting go?"

"Pretty Great, actually. He told me he likes me for the job, he's just got to talk his ex-wife about it and she wants to meet me too."

"That sounds really good!" Lacee took sharpie marker and started labeling your boxes.

For the rest of the night, You and Lacee packed up your things in boxes.

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