#marlene uses they/he

[trohpi]

@microficmay • day 10: rise & fall • 869 words

cross-posted on ao3

In Marlene’s humble opinion, there are only three known constants in this ever-changing world: Chocolate is the superior ice cream flavour, Joan Jett is cool as fuck, and Regulus Black is one regrettably attractive poncy bastard— one that needs to get knocked off his high horse. Desperately.

Seeing as Madam Hooch had banned Marlene from speaking during the start of their games many moons ago following some titillating banter with the Black brother in question, they can only hope that the challenging glint in their eyes is enough to send the intended message.

You’re going down, Black.

The other Seeker merely raises his eyebrow, all haughty and aristocratic as if to say, That’s what you said last time.

By Merlin, does Marlene hate him.

All too soon the shrill blast of Madam Hooch’s whistle rings clear, and the game begins. Within moments, they’ve risen into the clouds as their eyes scan for the ever-elusive glint of gold. Across the pitch he sees Regulus doing the same which only fuels the flames of his stubborn resolve.

Marlene will catch the Snitch before Regulus does, if only so they can rub that sweet Gryffindor victory in his annoyingly pretty face.

“Oi, Marlene!” someone calls from some feet away. They drag their eyes away from Regulus and look over to see Sirius, Beater’s bat held loosely in his fist as he hovers nearby. His narrowed eyes bore holes into them.

They level him with the blankest of stares. “What?”

Sirius huffs and turns to fly off, but not before he calls over his shoulder wryly, “Stop ogling my brother and do your job!”

“Oh, fuck you, Black!” he calls after his friend, his face burning.

In the end, it really doesn’t take long for them to see the Snitch, nor does it take long for Regulus to take notice of their sudden burst of flight as they hightail it across the pitch. Within seconds he’s right behind them, and the race to win officially begins.

If Marlene had to choose their favourite part of Quidditch, it would be this. There’s nothing quite like the exhilarating rush of speed, the bobbing and weaving through the air as they push themself to the limit, the thrill of racing against fellow Seekers. The thrill of racing against Regulus, who is one of the most skilled players Marlene has ever gone up against— not that they’d ever tell him that.

Marlene’s heart races as they push forward, the Snitch tantalisingly close. Scooting higher on his broom, reaching out with his right hand, he can almost taste victory in the air.

That is, of course, until the Bludger.

Regulus shouts out as the bewitched ball flies in between the two Seekers, crashing into the tail end of Marlene’s broom. It tips over, and everything seemingly stops.

Their heart stutters as the freeing feeling of weightlessness disappears, replaced by heaviness as their broom slips from their fingers and gravity takes over, dragging them down.

Marlene gasps as they plummet.

“Fuck!” they hear Regulus cry from above, and they barely have time to ponder how odd it is to hear him curse before he is diving after them.

It feels like eternity, but it must be only moments before his slender fingers grab them by the wrist and catch them from midair. He grips onto them fiercely as he slowly descends to the ground.

“Merlin, Marlene,” he gasps as they touch down, immediately tossing the broom to the side as he cups their face in his hands. “Never do that again.”

“Never do what, get knocked off my broom? Not like I can bloody control that,” they say breathlessly. His hands are cold on their face, and they find that that’s all they can really think about.

Regulus decompresses, sighing shakily. They hesitate before clearing their throat.

“Is now bad timing to tell you that I caught the Snitch?”

Regulus hands fall from their face in shock. “You what?”

“Right before I fell,” Marlene says, opening his enclosed right hand to showcase the Snitch lying within. Distantly, he hears the crowds go wild as the commentator screams about Gryffindor’s victory. Regulus blinks in astonishment.

“Guess this means I can add another point to my wins column,” they add smugly. Regulus hums, disagreeing.

“I’d beg to differ. I won today.”

They splutter. “Wha— You absolutely did not!”

“I absolutely did,” he says calmly.

They wave the Snitch in front of his face. “I literally beat you!”

“And I literally just saved your life,” he shoots back.

Marlene groans dramatically, deflating. “I hate you so, so much.”

Regulus opens his mouth to reply, but he’s cut off by the sudden loud exclamation of, “What the actual fuck!”

Sirius throws his broom onto the ground where he just touched down, storming over to them.

“You fell! You seriously fell!”

“Well spotted,” Regulus quips. Sirius ignores him.

“Does your weird flirting with my brother have to include nearly falling to your death?” Sirius demands, throwing his arms up in the air theatrically.

Regulus’ lips twitch upwards and Marlene’s face heats even as he scowls.

“Shove off, Sirius. Don’t you and Crouch have your own brand of weird flirting to do?”

“Touché, McKinnon. Touché.”

[toointojoelmiller]

Marlene you DON'T understand he has BOGGLE in his bag and they're supposed to PLAY IT together and have a father-daughter GAME NIGHT 😭

[assiraphales]

I’m still stuck on how marlene saw joel (a dangerous dangerous man that marlene knew was dangerous) wake up from a concussion & hear that his first words were “where’s ellie”, saw how agitated he was, listened to him scream “take me to her right now”, and still gave him a fucking knife and sent him away with the knowledge that the surgery was lethal with only two men as an escort. miss gurl u were planning on killing a 14 year old in her sleep idk why you let morals/guilt get in the way here bc u should have done the same to her adopted father

[ohraicodoll]

I love that in the Podcast they specifically said they wanted to frame the hospital fight not as this action packed scene, but as sad. Because Joel has completely disassociated. He’s checked out because trauma can do that to a person, let’s you separate what’s happening. They said this is him burning his soul for this one girl. He’s doing what needs to be done in the same way Marlene did but while her focus was humanity, his focus is just Ellie. It’s tunnel vision. He kills anyone who is a threat and even if they drop their weapon, they could change their mind and still shoot him and then Ellie dies. He doesn’t kill the doctor until he becomes a threat by wielding the scalpel.  And them saying Marlene actually signed her death warrant the moment she said “let me go” because it meant she planned to try and survive her wound. There would be a tomorrow and in that tomorrow, she would try and come after them. So of course she had to die because her living meant Ellie wouldn’t be safe. 

[enbysiriusblack]

marlene sneaks into the marauder's dorm to steal their clothes (butch marlene with a trad mum fr) and leaves her skirts and dresses and shit in place of what she takes.

cue marauders casually wearing school skirts on weekdays and puffy blouses and on weekends they've got miniskirts and summer dresses and strappy heels, etc.

[forcestruck]

THE LAST OF US 1.09 Look for the Light

[souridealist]

ffvii au where Aerith and Cloud meet because Tifa asks Cloud to pick up pads for her and Aerith finds him standing in front of the shelf for fifteen minutes looking like a forlorn and bewildered tomato

[esmecarmona]

Cut to twelve years later, Outbreak happens, and he convinces me to join a group making their way up to Boston, which I did. Mostly to keep an eye on him, keep him alive. It’s where we met Tess. And that whole crew, we, uh... Well, for what it was, it worked. Then... Tommy meets Marlene. She talks him into joining the Fireflies. Same mistake he made when he was eighteen.

[mariatesstruther]

ellie coming out to marlene and marlene being like girl me too and ellie coming out to tommy and tommy being like girl me too and ellie coming out to maria and maria being like girl me too and ellie coming out to tess and tess being like girl me too—

[blackberrydeer]

[andradrawsstuff]

Menace to society

Inspired by my friends and I messing around in multiplayer last night :)

[dorlezzie]

draft #3; marauders x tlou

[marauders, the last of us au; 631 words] song; exit music (for a film) - radiohead

when she smiles, laughing at some joke james didn’t even hear, the ache in his chest starts consuming him again. a burning hole threatening to swallow him if he does not distance himself. because everytime, it’s not marlene he sees, but his son, his baby boy, his harry. harry’s gone since the beginning. it’s been fifteen years, but the empty space never left. the grief is still a painful process— as he did nothing to process it. actually, he had just bottled things up, refusing to admit the truth; he was dying inside. it felt as if he’d been missing a part of him, an arm, a leg, a lung. not really able to breathe right since he left. 

harry’s been taken from him so abruptly, james was never able to accept it. this night haunts him, the way it happened so fast. lily and him were already divorced; more because they didn’t have the same vision for the future, not because they did not love each other anymore. lily had moved to the city, she was such a talented painter, james’ house was still full of her works. he was his first supporter, and it did not end as their marriage.

harry was seven when the break happened; it was james’ week. harry was at school, james was at the cabinet and everything was perfectly normal. something he couldn’t even imagine anymore, couldn’t even fantasize. he’d just finished a consultation; a dog strangely agitated since the morning. it was the last one of the day, as he’d always arranged his agenda to get his son out of school. well, if he had to recall, james would say some events made him feel uneasy. a coworker not showing up, the radio recalling agitated foreign cities, a day full of animals acting strangely, snarling at their owner for no apparent reason— and james had learned to always trust their instinct. sirius had texted him, telling something was off. he had loads of colleagues calling in sick, and some acting weird. so when he went for harry, he was not surprised to see lily’s name on his phone. they were regularly talking, because he knew her since he was eleven and never intended on letting her go. she was still his best friend. something’s weird, james. people are agitated, she’d said. i’m on my way to get harry, he’d replied. do you think you could come here, just in case? i’m not finished ‘til seven. i’ll come by tomorrow morning, okay?  okay, love. take care, and call me if needed. 

this was their last conversation for months. 

everything got fucked up in the hours that followed. sirius and remus arrived in their pick-up in the middle of the night, the moment distress flares lit up the sky. as soon as they parked in front of the house, him and harry jumped in the car. his boy was scared, trembling and on the verge of tears. but he was doing so well, he’d been so brave in the surrounding chaos. “it’s okay, baby” he kept repeating, over and over again, stroking his hair in the back of the truck. “i’m here. you’re safe, my love” and harry believed him. james lied right to his face, because in the end, he failed to protect him. james closes his eyes, refusing to live through this again. so instead, he just glares at marlene, standing up and getting his bag; 

“we’re going” he tells her, without the shadow of a doubt in his voice. “i haven’t finished my chef boyardee!” she says with a snobby accent, stuffing the last raviolis in her mouth. 

harry used to do the exact same thing. putting as much as his mouth could take, before smiling disgustingly. marlene smiles. james turns around.

[mothlau]

dorlene au where they're both professors (thinking linguistics for dorcas and maybe something in stem for marls) and they're rivals!!!!! dorcas makes her yearly presentation on descartes at the beginning of term? the stem kids are all talking about it because professor mckinnon keeps shitting on it in class instead of actually teaching. marlene has a big science thingy experiment she's trying to convince investors to fund? oh you bet your ass dorcas is presenting why the experiment will fail and pulling out articles from the depths of jstor when they're meant to be presenting coserius theories (oh, marlene has so many opinions on coseriu even though she doesn't even speak any romance languages).

everyone is just waiting for them to fuck it out of their systems so that kids can actually learn shit and not just evil plots to bring the other down. the faculties have bets going on for how long the whole circus will run (so far remus is in the lead with his winnings).

now there are some who believe that oh they're married, this is their weird form of foreplay, but nope. they're not married. they're divorced (something something they got married too young and were both bad at communication) and they're still very much in love with one another :)

[james-sunshine-potter]

Where (in my opinion) would each Marauder character comes from.

James: Born in Punjab, India but grew up in Dorset, England.

Sirius: Islington, London.

Remus: Derwin, Wales.

Peter: Dorset, England.

Lily: Derry, Ireland

Dorcas: Essex, England.

Marlene: Dorset, England.

Mary: Isle Of White, England.

Regulus: Islington, London.

Pandora: Liverpool, England.

Barty: Edinburgh, Scotland.

Evan: Liverpool, England.

[hotdogthightattoo]

The Last Of Us | S01 E01 - S01 E09

[driveelikeido]

some thoughts i’ve been having re:the ending of tlou (most likely contains spoilers for the hbo finale if you haven’t played the games!!!):

completely disregarding the plot of TLOU2 aka ellie’s obsession with the fact that she thinks she was “supposed” to die for the cure and believes she doesn’t deserve a somewhat normal life, let’s think hypothetically for a moment. even IF the fireflies were able to create a cure/vaccine from ellie SOMEHOW, what then? how were they going to mass produce it? how were they going to equally and fairly distribute it to the rest of the world? living in a post-apocalyptic world with limited technology available to them aside from radio, how would they even communicate the fact that they had developed a vaccine to the entire country, continent, and eventually the entire world?

the most likely answer from what we know about marlene/the fireflies: they wouldn’t. the fireflies wanted to be the ones with the cure to use it as political leverage against FEDRA and anybody else who tried to get in their way. ellie was their final hope at winning against FEDRA’s regime, and marlene even admits that she has no problem sacrificing her for the greater good of humanity. but an important distinction to make is the fact that marlene’s ideal world post-vaccine would likely put her in some sort of political leadership role with lots of societal influence, or at the very least would involve the fall of FEDRA. for marlene and the fireflies, ellie was going to be a sacrifice for their cause, not for humanity like they tried to sell it to both ellie and joel.

so yeah, joel saved ellie. because he knew that if he let her die for the supposed cure, his daughter’s life was going to be boiled down to mean nothing more than the fact that she was a pawn in the fireflies’ game. and ellie meant so much more to him than that.