#most of the others died only a handful of times with mostly no physical alterations from their abilities

[arolesbianism]

Sigh. Why must you have died Aris, now I have to actually think abt what your abilities are instead of just sweeping it under the rug and calling it good enough

[cupidsintern]

Billy doesn’t really have a lot of like, vices, anymore. Mostly because any one of them could kill him. His lungs barely work, his liver’s shot, and he’s been strongly advised against any kind of ‘mind altering substances’ because no one knows how all the meds he has to take would react to that being thrown into the ring. 

Mostly though, he misses smoking. 

Probably because he’s addicted and whatever, but that part was already getting better. Ish. 

He really misses the feel of it. The series of motions, the warmth. How he’d feel like he could think better, or at least like all his strings weren't wound to breaking. He misses the smells like the one that clings still to his leather jacket- that he hasn't worn is as much time since he quit- he misses the relief. He doesn't get much relief from anything these days. Not from the constant body aches and migraines and how he still coughs enough that it stings sometimes. 

But it’s fine. He’s fine not smoking. At least now he wont get lung cancer. Probably. Also there's that thing of how if you fall asleep with a smoke lit you could like burn to death in your sleep or whatever. 

Billy doesn’t have the luxury of risking incineration anymore. 

Now most of Billy’s comforts come from owning headphones, getting to wear actual clothes rather than sweatpants and hospital gowns, and seeing Steve. 

Who maybe counts as a vice. Probably. 

Steve’s counted as a vice since Billy first saw him, more so after he apologized, and Steve started acting like he liked Billy around. Still acted like that, even after he un-died in July. 

Steve was kind of Billy’s only friend. Which was as ironic as it was fucked up. 

Not that Steve had many friends to speak of himself. Just that Billy could actually get this close to Steve, and it still was not enough. 

Billy always felt like he was pushing it, too. 

He remembered the first time he begged Steve to smoke for him. Remembered how he actually said ‘please’ which made one of Steve’s eyebrows shoot up because ‘is this like a kink of yours or what’ and ‘no jackass i just can't so i want you to.”

Steve had started hanging out with Billy out of pity. Probably. Billy didn't actually know he just knew Steve was one of the only people that didn't treat Billy like he was made of glass. 

Then they were hanging out all the time. Maybe because of a sort of, mutual recognition kind of thing. 

But here they were on Steve’s couch, Billy asking if Steve had any smokes and yeah he knows he‘s not allowed to smoke them himself he wants Steve to do it. Please. 

Steve has this weird little smile on his lips. Maybe because it’s got to be like, 2am and they’re still up and watching TV and shooting the shit but. 

“Okay.” Steve shrugs, get up to go find a cigarette. 

Billy listens, only a little sleepy, to Steve’s soft footsteps as he leaves the room, comes back with- thank god- a pack of Reds and Billy’s fucking saved but he’s also a little crazed because Steve waves the carton a little and says “I think there’s a light in that drawer if you wanna hand it to me-” “I wanna do it.” Billy says, insistent, when Steve sits back down. 

Steve blinks at him with those sleepy puppy eyes of his, smiles a bit more while saying “Ooookay.” All slow like ‘what are you up to, huh?’

Billy doesn't know what he’s up to really. He’s a little too tired to think that far in advance. All he cares about is digging a lighter out of the coffee table drawer and holding to where Steve’s leaned over the distance between them, cigarette paper pulling ever so subtly at the skin of his lips, waiting for Billy to light. 

Billy does. 

He watches Steve inhale. How his cheeks hollow a little, makes the cherry match the brightness of the TV, how the glow of the TV makes Steve’s cheek bones look like harsh lines under those soft eyes. He catches his end of the cigarette with practiced fingers to pull away from his mouth. Billy feels like he sees the whole thing in slow motion.

He exhales when Steve does, even though Steve turns his head a little, the smoke blows away from Billy. 

“This doing it for you, weirdo?” Steve laughs a little, Billy realizes how close they are, how intently he’s been staring. 

“You try quitting cold turkey.” Is Billy's comeback. 

“No thanks.” Steve says, only half genuine. “I like my bad habits. Only got a couple.” He takes another drag. A shortish one. And when a couple seconds ago this was helping, suddenly it’s not nearly enough. Steve’s not pulling hard enough. And he keeps blowing the smoke away from Billy, like the polite son of a gun he is, which means Billy can only sort of of smell it- the scent that takes him back to before he was a corpse, before he spent all his time at doctors appointments- a time when the guy crowned in smoke before him was all he fucking thought about. 

If Billy wanted to try to think why he was doing this, he wouldn't like the answer. 

Steve’s fingers looked so natural, parted so gracefully Billy didn't even really realize he was touching them until he already had, letting his own finger’s slide up the back of Steve’s hand, over his knuckles, to pluck the cigarette from between his slender pale fingers into Billy's own. 

Steve watches Billy do it, makes no move to stop him. In fact, when Billy lifts his hand, Steve leans forward to smoke from it without even being asked. 

Billy watches, the same process of the bright cherry, hollow cheeks, Steve’s eyes lower to track Billy's hand, his eyelashes dark against his skin. Steve’s face is warm where Billy's hand touches it. 

Steve doesn't exhale fully this time, just drops his mouth open a little like you do for blowing smoke rings and lets the smoke drift out of it. Billy watches as the opaqueness dissipates- he can see the pink of Steve’s tongue. 

Steve’s eyes flick up to look into Billy‘s, then immediately away again. 

Billy realizes their legs are touching. It’s so late, nothing real can even happen at 2am. 

“Did I ever tell you how much I like it when you come over?” Steve says, low, not making any effort to pull his eyes up again.

Billy’s so close. Closer than he’s been to anyone in a while in terms of physical distance. In any terms really. 

Steve’s breath smells like smoke. 

That's probably why Billy kisses him.

But to be fair, he only leans in to breathe Steve's air, from right in front of his lips, and it’s Steve that kisses him. 

Tips his chin forward so he can get to Billy’s bottom lip, and then it‘s an honest to god kiss, and Billy can taste his favorite Marlboro Reds on this pretty boy's lips- that's enough. That scratches the goddamn unscratchable itch.

Billy feels like whatever he thinks he needs. Or wants. Steve anticipates it. 

And what now?

“Still seems like a kink.” Steve mumbles, smile fighting for a right to occupy his expression. 

“Shut up, man.” Billy feels his face going red, however unreal 2am is.

“Make me.” 

The cigarette- which ends up lying half smoked in an ashtray- burns itself out. There’d be others.

[unpopularwiththepopulace]

Don’t I Get a Dream for Myself ? – Bernadette Peters and the 'Gypsy' Saga

Gypsy. It’s perhaps the most daunting of all of the projects related to Bernadette Peters to try to grapple with and discuss. It’s also perhaps the most significant.

For someone notoriously guarded of her privacy and personal life, careful with her words, and selective of the questions she answers, the narrative around this show provides some of the most meaningful insights it is possible to derive in relation to Bernadette herself. The show’s ability to do this is unique, through the way it eerily parallels her own life and spans a large range in time from both Bernadette Peters the Broadway Legend, right back to where it all began with Bernadette Lazzara, the young Italian girl put into showbusiness by her mother.

The most logical place to start is at the very beginning – it is a very good place to start, after all.

(Though no one tell Gypsy this, if the fierce two-way battle with The Sound of Music at the 1960 Tony Awards is anything to be remembered. Anyway, I digress…)

Gypsy: A Musical Fable with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, burst into the world and onto the New York stage in May of 1959. After closing on Broadway in March 1961, Ethel Merman as the world’s original Mama Rose herself led the first national tour off almost immediately around the country. Just a few months later, a second national touring company was formed, starring Mitzi Green and then Mary McCarty as Rose, to cover more cities than the original. It is here that Bernadette comes in.

A 13-year-old Bernadette Peters found herself part of this show in her “first professional” on-the-road production, travelling across the country with her older sister, “Donna (who was also in the show), and their mother (who wasn’t)”.

The tour played through cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, New Haven, Baltimore and Las Vegas before closing in Ohio in 1962. Somewhat uncannily, its September 1961 opening night in Detroit’s Schubert Theatre even returns matters full circle to the 2003 revival and New York’s own Schubert Theatre.

Indeed this bus-and-truck tour was somewhat of a turning point for Bernadette. She’d later remember, “I mostly thought of performing as a hobby until I went on the road with Gypsy”.

But while this production seminally marked a notable moment for the young actress as well as the point where her long and consequential involvement with Gypsy begins, it’s important to recognise she was very much not yet the star of the show and then only a small part of a larger whole.

Bernadette was with the troupe as a member of the ensemble. She took on different positions in the company through the period of nearly a year that the show ran for, including billing as ‘Thelma’ (one of the Hollywood Blondes), ‘Hawaiian Girl’, and additional understudy credits for Agnes and Dainty June.

The above photo shows Bernadette (left) with another member of the ensemble (Sharon McCartin) backstage at the Chicago Opera House as one of the stops along the tour. Her comment on the stage of the Chicago theatre – “I’d never seen anything so big in my life!” – undeniably conveys how her experiences were new and appreciably daunting.

Along the tour, she assumed centre-stage once or twice as the understudy for Dainty June, but playing the young star was not her main role. Unlike what more dominant memory of the story seems to purport.

Main credits of June went instead to Susie Martin – a name and a tale of truth-bending that’s now well-known from Bernadette’s concert anecdotes. While performing her solo shows as an adult and singing from Gypsy, Bernadette has often been known to take a moment to penitently atone for historical indiscretions of identity theft or erasure where her mother long ago conveniently left out the “understudy” descriptive when putting down Dainty June on her resumé, in an effort to add weight to the teenager’s list of credits.

Whatever happened to Susie Martin? – many have wondered. Well, she soon left the theatre. But not before appearing in two more regional productions of Gypsy and a 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward with Liza Minnelli and Christopher Walken.

Bernadette too went on to other regional productions of Gypsy. She spent the summer of 1962 in various summer stock stagings with The Kenley Players, like in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and this time she did indeed get to play June.

Above shows photos from different programmes for these productions. While some may have featured odd forms of photo editing, they at least also bring to attention Rose here being played by none other than Betty Hutton.

The two women couldn’t have been in more different positions when they coalesced in these rough-around-the-edges, small-scale productions. A young Bernadette was broaching summer stock in starting to take on bigger roles in the ascendency to her bright and long career. Meanwhile, Betty found herself there while navigating the descent that followed her sharp but fickle rise to Hollywood fame in the ‘40s and early ‘50s. Top billing Monday, Tuesday you really are touring in stock after all.

While details aren’t plentiful for these productions, it was recounted Betty apparently struggled in performing the role. And understandably so. Following the recent traumatic death of her mother in a house fire, and the birth of her third child shortly before the shows began, it’s not hard to see why her mind might have been elsewhere. Still, she was apparently impressed enough by the younger actress who turned in one of the show’s “creditable performances” to make comment that she would’ve liked Bernadette to play her if a movie were made about her life.

Bernadette might not have done this exactly, but she did go on to revitalise Betty’s best-known movie role, when stepping into Annie Oakley’s shoes in the 1999 Annie Get Your Gun revival. With Bernadette’s first Ethel Merman show under her belt, the ball was soon rolling on her second.

The 2003 production of Gypsy was imminently beckoning as her next successive Broadway musical and it was Arthur Laurents who lit the match to spark Bernadette’s involvement. Laurents, as the show’s original librettist, drove the revival by saying he “didn’t want to see the same Rose” he’d seen before. Going back to June Havoc’s description of her mother as “small” and a “mankiller”, and Arthur’s take that Bernadette sung the part “with more nuance for the lyrics and the character than the others”, the choice of Bernadette was justified. Moreover, “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

So Bernadette also had her own baseline of innate physical similarity to the original Rose Hovick, in addition to her own first-hand memories of the women she’d acted alongside as Rose in her youth to bring into her characterisation of the infamous stage mother.

But there was a third factor beyond those as well to be considered in the personal material she had access to draw from for her characterisation. Namely, her own real life stage mother.

Marguerite Lazzara did share traits with the character of Rose. She too helped herself to silverware from restaurants, and put her daughters in showbusiness for the vicarious thrill. Marguerite had “always wanted to become an actress herself”, but had long been denied her desire by her own mother, who likened actresses to being as “close to a whore as you could be without, you know, getting on your back”.

In that case, to “escape a housewife’s dreary fate in Ozone Park”, Marguerite channelled her latent dream through her pair of young daughters instead, shepherding them out along the road. Thus was produced a trio of the two children ushered around the theatre circuit by the driven mother, forming an undeniable parallelism and a mirror image of both Bernadette’s reality and Gypsy’s core itself. Bernadette didn’t see some of these familial parallels at the time when she was a child, considering “maybe I didn’t want to see” – “didn’t want to see a mother doing that to her daughter”.

It was coming back to the show as an adult that helped Bernadette resolve who her mother was and some of the motivations that had propelled her when Bernadette was still a child. She realised, “I think she thought she was going to die very young”, as her own father died young. So “she was rushing around to get as much of her life as she could in there”.

When she herself returned to the production in playing Rose, Bernadette conceded to sometimes bringing elements of her mother and her driven energy into her portrayal, and admitted too she looked “like her a lot in the role”. You can assess any familial resemblances for yourself, from the images below that show a young Marguerite next to Bernadette in costume as Rose, and then with the pair backstage in 1961 in a dressing room on the tour.

Marguerite was ambitious. From her own personal position and with the restrictions imposed upon her, it was ambition that materialised through her children. Irrevocably, she altered them. She placed Bernadette on TV as a very young child (“I was four when my mother put me in the business”); changed her daughter’s surname (“She told me my real name was too long for the marquees,” or really – “too Italian”); doctored her resumé (“Somehow the word ‘understudy’ vanished. ‘No one will know,’ said Marguerite”); and lightened her hair (“She’d say, ‘Oh, I’m just putting a little conditioner on it.’ But slowly my hair got blonder and blonder!”). All in the hope of giving her child a more favourable chance at the life she’d always wanted for herself.

On paper, a classic stage mother. “When I was a kid, she fulfilled herself through me,” Bernadette would say. “She put me into show business so she could get a taste of the life herself.”

But it’s important to consider Bernadette often qualifies that her mother wasn’t as brutal as Rose, nor was she herself as traumatised as June.

Bernadette didn’t begrudge her mother for her choices – at least by the time she was an adult, she’d rationalised them, explaining “naturally it was more exciting [for her] to go on the road with me than staying home and keeping house”.

As a child, Bernadette hadn’t necessarily wanted to be on stage, but there was a sense of ambivalence – not resentful belligerence – as she “didn’t care one way or the other” when she found herself there.

Like June, Bernadette may have been entered into and coaxed around a path she hadn’t voluntarily chosen. But unlike June, Bernadette had a deal with her mother that “she had only to say the word”, and she could leave.

Most crucially, she never did.

But that’s not to say Bernadette was enamoured with acting from the beginning.

She seemed to feel ‘outside’ of that world and those in it. And others saw it too.

It was in 1961 in Gypsy that Bernadette first met Marvin Laird – her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger. The way he put it, he “noticed this one young girl, very close with her mother” who, during breaks, “didn’t mix much with the other girls”.

Beneath the effervescent stage persona, there’s a quieter and more reserved reality, and a sense of separation and solitary division.

When asked by Jesse Green in 2003 for the extensive profile in The New York Times if she thought her experiences on the road in Gypsy were good for her at that age, she gives a curious, somewhat abstract, predominantly dark, potentially macabre, response. He wrote:

She doesn’t answer at first but seems to scan an image bank just behind her eyes for something to lock onto. Eventually she comes out with a seeming non sequitur. “I didn’t know how to swim. I remember, in Las Vegas, I fell in, once, and they thought I was flailing, but I felt like: ‘It’s pretty down here!’ I might have been dying and I was thinking: ‘Look at the pretty color!’ And suddenly my fear of water was gone, and I could have stayed in forever.” After a while, I realize she’s answered my question. Then she dismisses the image: “But I had to get my hair dry for the show that day, so up I came.”

I’m still not entirely sure I know what she’s trying to convey here. My interpretation of this anecdote changes as I have re-visited and re-examined it on multiple occasions at different time points. It’s arguably multiply polysemic.

Was she simply swept up in a moment of childlike distraction, lost in the temporary respite alone away from the usual noise and clamour? Was she indicating comprehension that her feelings and perspectives came secondary to any practical necessities and inevitable responsibilities? Was she using the water to depict a muffling and fishbowl-like detachment from others her age who got to live more ‘ordinary’ lives in the ‘normal’ world above that she felt separate from? Was she referencing the pretty colours she saw as a metaphor for show business and how she became bewitched by them even despite potential dangers? Was she trying to legitimately drown herself, or at least exhibiting an ambivalence again as to whether she lived or died, because of what the highly pressurised demands on her felt like?

The underlying sentiment through her response in answer to Green’s primary question was that, in essence – no. Being a child actor was not “over all, a good experience for a youngster”.

Acting might have been something she fell in love with over time, but not all at once, not right from the beginning, and not without noting its perils.

It was a matter of accidental circumstance that landed Bernadette in the show business world to begin with at such a young age in the first place – “I just found myself here,” she would offer.

Her mother, who was “always crazy about the stage”, “insisted” that her sister, Donna take lessons in singing, dancing and acting.

A further point of interest to note is that, although it was Bernadette with her new surname who would grow up to be the famous actress, look to the cast lists from the 1961 touring production of Gypsy that featured both sisters in the company (see photo below) and you’ll find no ‘Lazzara’ in sight. Donna too, appearing under the novel moniker of “Donna Forbes”, had also already become stagified (nay, ethnically neutralised?) by her mother. As such it is clearly demonstrated that Marguerite’s intention at that point was to make stars of both her daughters. Correspondingly so, when her sister returned from her performance lessons some years before, “Donna would come home and teach me what she had learned,” Bernadette remembered. She may have gotten her “training second hand”, but the key element was that she got it.

For Bernadette, it was a short jump from emulating magpied tricks from her sister as well as routines from Golden Age Busby Berkeley musicals on the ‘Million Dollar Movie’ in front of the TV screen, to her mother getting her on the other side of the screen and actually performing on TV itself – belting out Sophie Tucker impressions aged five for all the nation to see.

The photos below show Bernadette in performative situations at a young age (look for criss-crossed laces in the second for identification).

“At first, as a toddler, Bernadette enjoyed performing; it came naturally, a form of play that people inexplicably liked to watch.” It was “just a hobby” and she “wanted to do it”.

But while she may not have detested it, she didn’t entirely comprehend what was going on either. “I didn’t even know I was on TV,” she said. “I didn’t know that those big gadgets pointed at me were cameras and that they had anything to do with what people saw on the television set.”

When she started gaining more of an awareness of how “such play [was being] co-opted for commercial purposes”, she grew less enthralled. “She didn’t care for the bizarre children, accompanied by desperate mothers, she began to see at auditions: ‘They spent their whole time smiling for no reason, you know?’”

Being a child who had become sentient of being a child performer began to grow wearisome and grating to the young girl who had her equity card, a professional (and strange, new) stage name, and an increasingly long list of expectations by the time she was nine. There’s a keen sense she did not enjoy being in such a position: “I wouldn’t want to be a child again. When you’re a child, you have thoughts, but nobody listens to you. Nobody has any respect for you”.

Gypsy did indeed mark a turning point for Bernadette as mentioned above – but not just in the way that seems obvious. Looking back at it now, it does appear the monumental turning point at which she started appearing in significant and reputable productions, beginning what would be the foundation to her ‘professional’ career. However it was also the turning point after which she nearly quit the business altogether.

When she returned from performing in Gypsy, Bernadette felt like she’d had enough. One way of putting it was that she “then retired from the business to attend high school”, wanting to have some semblance of a normal scholastic experience “without the interruptions”. But whatever dissatisfaction she was feeling as an early adolescent on stage, she didn’t resolve at school – going as far as saying that while at Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, “she was in pain”.

“When you’re a teenager you’re too aware of yourself,” she recalled. Being a teen and trying to come to terms with of the expectation of the ‘60s that “you are supposed to look like Twiggy, and you don’t, you feel everything is wrong about you”. Everything “was all about tall, skinny, no chest…[and] hair straight”. Little Bernadette with her “mass of [curly] hair and distracting bosom”, as Alex Witchel put it, was never going to fit that mould. “That was not me,” she stated. “At all.”

Her self-consciousness grew to the point that it became overwhelming and asphyxiating. “I was trying desperately to blend in and be normal, but that doesn’t allow creativity to come out,” Bernadette said. “I knew I was acting terrible. The words were sticking in my mouth and all I could think about was how I looked”. It was hard enough just to look at herself (“I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror”), let alone to have other people gawk at her on stage. So she stopped trying. She “didn’t work much from age 13 to 17” in the slightest. Bernadette would later reflect in 1981 in an atypically open and vulnerable interview, “I was very insecure. Insecurity is poison. It’s like wearing chains”.

It was a combination of factors that helped her overcome these feelings of such toxic and weighty burden to draw her back into the public world of performing and the stage. “The two people who helped her most, she says, were David LeGrant, her first acting teacher, and her vocal coach, Jim Gregory.” Jim helped with “[opening] a whole creative world for [her] with singing”; and it was David who’d give her the now infamous and often (mis)quoted line about individuality and being yourself.

Having these kinds of lessons, she reasoned, was “really a wonderful emotional outlet for a kid of 17”. The process of it all was beneficial for her therapeutically – “you have a lot of emotions at that time in your life, and it was great to go to an acting class and use them up”. And Bernadette felt freer on stage than she did out on her own in the ‘real world’, saying “[up there] I don’t have to worry about what I’m doing or saying because I’m doing and saying what I’m supposed to be doing and saying”.

Finally then and with considerable bolstering and support, she grew comfortable with the notion of being visible on stage and in public, and realised she was never going to blend in as part of the chorus so it was simply better to let go of such a futile pursuit.

David LeGrant’s guiding advice to Bernadette (“You’ve got to be original, because if you’re like everyone else, what do they need you for?”) wasn’t just a trite aphorism. For her, it was a life raft. It was the key mental framing device that allowed her to comprehend for the first time that she might actually have intrinsic value as herself. And that it was imperative she let herself use it.

She had always stuck out, yes, but she had to learn how to want to be seen – talking of it as a conscious “choice” she had to make when realising she did “have something to offer”.

Thus soon after Bernadette graduated, she stepped back into productions like in summer stock and then Off-Broadway as she made her debut at that next theatrical level at 18. It wasn’t long before she was discovered in what’s seen as her big break in the unexpected smash hit, Dames at Sea. And so Bernadette Peters, the actress, was back. And she was back with impact and force.

Besides, as she’s also said, she couldn’t do anything else – “if I ever had to do something else to earn a living, I’d be at a total loss”. An aptitude test as a teenager told her so apparently, when she “got minus zero in everything except Theater Arts”. So that was that. Her answer for what she would’ve done if she’d never found acting is both paradoxically exultant and macabre – “I don’t know, probably shot myself!”

Flippant? Maybe. Trivial? No.

Acting is thus undoubtedly related highly to Bernadette’s sense of purpose and self-worth. This is what makes it even more apparent that a show with such personal and historical connections for her, as in Gypsy, was going to be so consequential and impactful to be a part of again as an adult and perform on a public stage.

She’s called inhabiting the role of Rose in the 2003 revival many things: “deeply personal”, “life changing”, “like going through therapy” – to name a few.

In interviews regarding Gypsy and playing the main character, when asked what she had learnt, Bernadette would frequently say something like, “It taught me a lot”. Pressed further about specifics, her answers often hem close to vague platitudes as she maintains her normal tendency of endeavouring to keep her privacy close to her chest.

On one occasion, she actually elaborated somewhat on what she’d learnt, giving a fuller answer than the question is normally afforded anyhow. Beyond all it revealed to her about her mother, she extended to admitting “my capacity for love and my capacity for anger” as aspects in her that the show had permanently altered. Moreover, Rose to her was undoubtedly the “most rewarding and fulfilling acting experience” she had ever had.

But while such deep, personal and emotional depths and memories were being stirred up beneath the surface in private, she was getting vilified in public singularly and repeatedly by New York Post columnist, Michael Riedel.

Even before she’d set foot on stage, Riedel set forth in motion early in the 2003 season a campaign of vocal and opinionated defamation against Bernadette as Rose that she was miscast, insufficiently talented, and would be incapable of executing the role.

Too small, too delicate, too weak, too many curves (and too much knowledge of how to use them). Not bold enough, not loud enough – not Merman enough. Chatter and speculative dissent begun to grow in and around the Broadway theatres.

For such a prestigious and historic musical theatre role, it was always going to be hard to erase the large shadow of an original Merman mould. Ethel was woven into the very fabric of the show, with the rights to Gypsy Rose Lee’s memoirs being obtained at her behest in the first place, and the idiosyncrasies of her voice having been written into the songs themselves by their very authors.

To step out from such a domineering legacy would be a marked challenge at the best of times. Let alone when battling a respiratory infection.

Matters of public perception were certainly not helped when Bernadette then got ill as the show started its preview period and she started missing early performances.

Nor did it help with critical perception that the Tony voting period coincided so synchronously with Gypsy’s first opening months – giving Bernadette no time to recover, find her feet, and settle more healthily into the show for the rest of the run before the all important decisions were made by that omnipotent committee.

The tale of her illness is actually undercut by a more innocent and unsuspecting origin than you’d expect from all the drama and trouble it engendered. Bernadette decided nearing the show’s opening to treat herself to a manicure. In the salon, she was next to a woman very close to her with a frightful sounding cough. Who could’ve known then that this anonymous and inconspicuous lady through a fateful cause-and-event chain would go on to play such a part in what is among the biggest and most enduring Tony Awards “She was robbed!” discourses? Or even more broadly – in also arguably playing a hand in the closure and financial failure of an $8.5 million Broadway show after its disappointing performance at the Tony Awards that ominously “[spelled] trouble at the box office” and led to its premature demise?

Bernadette did not win the Best Actress in a Musical Tony that night on June 6th 2004. The award went instead (not un-controversially) to newcomer Marissa Jaret Winokur for Hairspray.

She did however give one of the most indelibly resonant and frequently re-referenced solo performances at the awards show just before she lost – defying detractors to comprehend how she could be unworthy of the accolade with a rendition of ‘Rose’s Turn’ that has apocryphally earned one of the longest standing ovations seen after such a performance even to date.

Even further and even more apocryphally, she reportedly did so while still under the weather as legend as circulated by musical theatre fans goes – performing “against doctor’s orders” with stories that have her being “afflicted with anything from a 103-degree fever, to pneumonia, to a collapsed lung”.

Seeing then as unfortunately there is no Tony Award speech to draw on here, matter shall be retrieved fittingly from that which she gave just a few years earlier in 1999 for her first win and previous Ethel Merman role in Annie Get Your Gun to wrap all of this together.

As has been illustrated, there are many arguably scary or alarming aspects in Bernadette’s Gypsy narrative. There’s undeniably much darkness and an ardent clamouring for meaning and self-realisation along the road that tracks her journey parallel to the show. But unlike Rose’s hopeless decries of “Why did I do it?” and “What did it get me?”, there was a point for Bernadette.

As her emotional tribute in 1999 went: “I want to thank my mother, who 48 years ago put me in showbusiness. And I want to finally, officially, say to her – thank you. For giving me this wonderful experience and this journey.”

Whatever all of this was, maybe it was worth it after all.

[the-blackest-spider]

Contractual Obligations

@storieswrittcn (Sebastian)

Once upon a time there was a Little Girl who was thrust into a dark world full of lies, blood and survival.

One day, in the dead of winter, the Little Girl and seven others were sent out into the cold unforgiving Russian wilderness with supplies only meant for one. The Little Girl was wise beyond her years, she knew what this meant, only one of them would return. The other girls were confused by the circumstances and afraid. But they were also a part of the world that put them there and they knew that in order to survive they had to do what was necessary.

The Little Girl wanted to survive this hell, but she didn't want to do what was asked of her. She knew these girls, by name, the sounds of their voices, what they liked, how well they could dance. No, she did not want to kill them, but there was no choice. It was either her or them.

Desperation filled the mind of the Little Girl. Please she cried, begging for something to spare her from having to stain her hands with the blood of her sisters. An answer came in the form of a tall, slender man in dark clothing with red eyes.

A chance was given, a choice. He would dispatch the other girls, soak his hands in their blood for her, but she had to tell him to do it. Still guilty, but her hands would be clean, for now.

The Little Girl gave her command and the dark man obeyed and from then, in moments of desperation, she called and he came, willing to obey to do that which she was unable to do herself.

The contract was simple, she did not require his constant presence, only for him to appear when summoned and when she died, her soul was his.

Only it wasn’t quite that simple at all.

Years passed and the Little Girl grew, changing with the life she was forced into, becoming the deadly thing she was meant to be. She no longer called upon the dark man, seeking to try and escape the agreement made. Staining her own soul in order to keep it safe and escaping death. She learned to feel nothing when she killed, until one day a different man entered her life, dressed in purple. He too offered her a choice, and she took it, deciding to try and change, become better. She even went as far as to change her name.

She did not forget about the dark man who had spared her from so many evils in her youth, but perhaps naively she believed taking up a more honorable existence would free her from the bond made, make her soul less appetizing. Still in moments of desperation the dark man seemed to find her, reminding her of their agreement, of the mark he had placed behind her left ear as she had requested, that remained unlike other marks, much  like a deep scar, such as the two gained from the Winter Soldier.

Then one day, a terrible evil swept through and drove the once Little Girl to make another choice of life or death. Sacrifice. A life for a life. For many. However her pure, goodly intentions altered the terms, sparked curiosity of the object for which she sacrificed herself and it granted her life once again, though it could not return that which she had given it so freely, that in truth was not hers to give, her soul.

Natalia Romanova had the last laugh, or so she believed...

It was easy to return to the life she had lived before, well parts of it. Her apartment had been retained, she retrieved her cat from her lawyer, Isaiah Ross and began doing something with her second life.

Killing people was easy, but all the same, there were horrible, terrible people who didn’t deserve to return from wherever Thanos had sent them. It wasn’t right. Fair that they returned, that she came back, but Tony Stark had not.

Natasha did, to her credit, balance herself, any money she got from contract kills, she donated it to places who needed it the most. The world was in turmoil, and needed all the help it could get. She didn’t worry about anything else, her objective, her purpose for now was doing what she could to help, one way or another, often more one than the other.

She was the ghost story now, and while she thought she was content in it. She was not. She had never felt more alone in her life before and now. But she ignored that pain with the other, the constant ache so deep in her bones, it actually left her breathless at first, the throbbing agony of it, but slowly as she was taught to do with physical pain, Natasha molded it into something else, fuel for her fire and distraction.

Feeling particularly tired, Natasha moved up the stairs to her apartment, a bag containing some Chinese takeout in hand. Though she felt weary, she slept even less now than she had before her death, wondering if that had to do with what she was lacking. In some ways it helpful, in others aggravating at best.

Her apartment was mostly impersonal save her bedroom and there on the bedside table rested the only items she had ever truly owned all her life, a most prized possession a worn well read copy of Anna Karenina and tucked inside the back of its jacket, two black and white photographs, one of a little girl and the other of the same little girl and the man who was the only Father she had known. Moments captured before her life changed, for worse and better.

Placing the food on the kitchen counter, Natasha moved about, grabbing what she needed for her and for her cat, Liho enjoyed a bit of tuna in the evenings, spoiled creature that he was and to think it was the cat who had adopted the human.

“Liho?”

Said feline liked to come and go as he pleased, for that reason, Natasha kept her bathroom window open just enough for Liho to slip in and out. Figuring he was out doing whatever cats do, she covered the bit of tuna and put it in the fridge before settling to feed herself. Maybe she’d try to sleep tonight, get it over with and then figure out where she would go next to continue what she had claimed as her purpose.

[marumafan]

A Guide For Yuuram Fans

Hello fellow yuuram fan! Have you ever caught yourself thinking:

- Does Yuuri like Wolf? - No, but I mean like "Does he REALLY like Wolf?" - Am I getting invested just to find out it's clickbait? - Is Yuuri ever going to accept Wolf's feelings? - Does Yuuri like guys? - Will they get married or not?

You have questions? I have source material-backed answers!

The Basics

First, you need to understand that there's a variety of so-called canons. There's an anime canon, a manga canon, a drama cd canon, a musical canon, and then some other random things that you can't really call canon but exist: such as games, radio shows, tv stuff not written by the author, etc.

All of these canons and non-canon stuff are fine, and you can enjoy them as much as you want, but they're NOT the source material. Source material are only the novels and stories that have been written by Takabayashi-sensei (anything in written form and some dramas also written by her according to interviews).

Takabayashi-sensei is the author of the novels (the source material out of which everything else is derived), and her word is "god's word". By the way, she used this term to refer to herself in regards to the maruma series, I'm not fangirling, but using terminology she herself used.

Please understand that most of the material that isn't 'source material' has been altered in many ways to appeal to a 'larger audience' (manga and drama cds), or to make it palatable to the more homophobic society of the 2000s (in the case of the anime). When the anime began social media didn't exist. And when the anime ended (in 2009), social media was in its infancy. That's how long ago these media were adapted from source material.

The Fandom

The fandom has influenced the source material itself at times (such as Conrad fans throwing a hissy fit when he died in novel 5 to the point that Takabayashi-sensei had to resurrect him and change who the key was and many other plot points since then). Certain shippers still force sensei's hand to write fanservice here and there, and despite that, one thing has been clear from the beginning:

Takabayashi-sensei's 'main couple' is the one she got engaged back in novel 1: Yuuri and Wolf, the royal couple.

The Bias

Before we get into the thick of this, let's take a moment to understand bias. I'm sure that if you're reading this far into this you really like yuuram and don't have a problem with homosexuality, boys love, etc. (I use yuuram to mean the royal couple: Yuuri and Wolf, nothing to do with 'who's on top' or anything like that, just a name for the ship with these two characters).

Despite that, anyone reading this has been born and raised in a highly hetero-normative society where if a girl so much looks at a boy she must be into him, and vice-versa.

Who can forget the "He was a boy, She was a girl, Can I make it any more obvious" lyrics of the 2000s? Same applies to 'ships' all across the board.

If any, and I mean any 'boy-girl' relationship was 10% of what the yuuram relationship is, there wouldn't be a single doubt that those two are in love, dating, married, and living happily ever after.

But when it comes to Yuuri and Wolf it feels like pulling teeth to get people to accept that they’re in a relationship. I blame mostly the anime for including weird non-canon ideas into fans minds, as well as heteronormative societies.

Please don’t be this person:

Finally, please take a moment to read THIS as an introduction to my next section.

The Royal Couple

Begin by forgetting everything you consumed from other canons (TV, manga, fanfics) if you truly want to appreciate the Royal Couple in its source material form.

1) Romantic interest

The source material has made Yuuri very interested in Wolfram since the very beginning. Of course, at first, he was only interested in Wolfram's physical appearance. But the more he got to know Wolfram the more he cared about him and the less he cared about his physical appearance.

To get a full picture of how madly he falls for Wolf, you need to read the novels, but here are some excerpts to illustrate my point:

How it started:

Source: Novel 1-Chapter 1

"Even if our bodies are evenly matched, when I just glanced up, I've already been defeated. How can he be this beautiful! (どうよ、この美しさ！) At the same time, his head is emitting an aura. Although it's likely that it seemed that way because of his dazzling blond hair. His looks and voice are like an older Vienna chorus boy. His white skin seems transparent, and his irises are an emerald green that make me think of the bottom of a lake, and furthermore he doesn't have a split chin. He's an angel, definitely an angry angel. However, because he's in this place, he's probably a beautiful demon."

-> Yuuri writes a fucking sonnet in his head about Wolf's beauty when they meet.

Source: Novel 1-Chapter 10

 From the far side of the corridor, the blond with wavy hair comes running. The intense navy blue uniform suits him; the mazoku Prince Wolfram. I muttered in a sigh 'Although he's a man, he's this beautiful, Günter'.

-> Yuuri complains to Gunter that Wolf is too beautiful.

How it's going:

Source: Novel 17, Chapter 7

"Those words hurt me deeply inside my heart, a pain as though I was burnt in an instant. Because I had an experience like that, in which I nearly lost the most important person to me, just because he was wearing someone else’s clothes."

-> Yuuri calling Wolfram his most important person, code in the maruma series for person you're in love with.

Source:  Do you want an exorcism? 2 (post novel 17)

"And because of that rich VARIETY in the configuration, mazoku is more an ethnicity than a race.

You have from kotsuhizoku, kotsuchizoku, and bone fish who are living creatures, even though they are just bones, to the seasonal migrating tribe of half-humanoid, half-fish maidmer princesses. As for the humanoid ones, there are regular looking ones like me or Conrad, but there are also some who are super beautiful like Günter or Wolfram............. as for the last one, this is just a little bit of my own personal bias, but it makes no difference if he's beautiful or not."

-> Yuuri saying that the beauty he went head over heals in novel 1 for, doesn't matter to him anymore because of his 'personal bias'

Source: Misepan 2: (post novel 17, arguably the last story written near the release of the novels)

"If I was in trouble, and I was missing something important. And you had one that was exactly the same ...."

"I'd lend it to you, of course"

I thought about this, literally with my hands on his chest. In fact, with my hand, that was pressed against his chest, I could feel that the speed of my partner's and my heartbeat was the same. Anyone would get blood rushing to their brains when they're seriously thinking about something. When I could calm down a little, I let out a small sigh.

"Or rather, when it comes to things that I can give you, I would give you anything, Wolf."

-> Yuuri tells Wolfram he would give him anything in the world.

2) Sexual interest:

-There are several times when the source material implies that Yuuri and Wolf don't just sleep at night.

Again, please remember that in the novels Greta does not sleep with Yuuri and Wolfram. This was a TV addition to appease homophobic minds. In fact, in the novels, Yuuri forbade Greta from sleeping with them because she's 'too old'. Also source material Greta is rarely in Shin Makoku as she's studying abroad half the time.

Source:  Novel 2- Chapter10

"If I leave it up to you, it will never get settled."

"So, what kind of settlement do you want...?" My voice trails off as he sways his hips closer.

The former mazoku prince's face brightens and he pulls me down by the arm.

"Wah!"

"So you finally feel like settling things!?"

"I don't ~"

I'm scared to think about what sort of settlement this is. I'm not going to lose my life or anything, but I do feel like there's something else I'm going to lose. I desperately extract myself, fly into the bathroom and lock the door.

"Yuuri!"

"Wait wait wait! I gotta take a bath first, okay!? You don't wanna do it with a sweaty guy, right!?"

Do it...? I blanch at my own words.

-> Yuuri's subconscious is clearly working against him.XD It looks like Yuuri doesn't want to lose the v-card yet (he barely knows Wolf at this point), but he still says  to Wolf he should take a bath before they do it. Gambare, Yu-chan

Source: Novel 4 - Chapter 1

-> Yuuri and Wolfram have been sleeping together for 3 months at the beginning of novel 4! Please! If this was a guy and girl you wouldn't be wondering what they're doing! He has a lock on the door! He can keep Wolf out , order him out, but he never does. Don’t be the gray haired lady!

Source: Never Ending Poison Lady 1

- "As a measure against Wolfram, who somehow even on our trips sleeps in the same bed as I do, I made a wall with three pillows which also had cute egg shaped buttons. I tucked my shirt into my pants, so that my stomach wouldn't get cold. After all, in the mornings when I woke up, both my clothes and my sleeping posture were always preposterous."

-> Yuuri says he puts some pillows to avoid getting into the weird sleeping postures and getting his clothes messed up and shirt untucked, but he never thinks of 'not sleeping with Wolf'~

Source: Never Ending Poison Lady 1 (same book as last)

- "While watching Wolfram's cheeks get red in excitement, a surprised Josak swallowed the question" You even sleep together when you're out on a trip?".

-> Even Jozak (the spy who's supposed to know everything) seems surprised that they're "sleeping together all the time". They're clearly hiding it from people.

Source: Maru maru maruMA-  (book with series info and interviews)

Takabayashi-sensei replied to a question about Yuuri and Wolfram and what would happen once they get married... and she said it clearly: They'll have sex.

("Please answer my maruma question", maru maru maruMA)

Source: SS: Murakenzu 2018-11-13 (Paper 1 accompanying cd72) "Yeah, my father was talking about it, and she's still being called 'Gokumi', huh? At any rate, even if he was smiling way too much, his footsteps started to sound louder and faster as he got farther away. In that moment we thought: Eh? Is it that bad? Maybe they saw something while we were sleeping, or rather, maybe they took peeping photographs and want to do something bad with them."

"Rather than while you were sleeping, before going to sleep?"

"You mean like, when I do practice baseball swings naked or something?"

"Yeah, naked practice."

"Or maybe like, a picture of Wolf's butt when he's wearing his sexy negligee or something?"

"Ah! If a picture of it peeking out is released it would be bad, huh?"

"Then, I suddenly realized that "secret" might just be a hook. In other words, those trick titles that often appear in sports newspapers."

"Yes, yes."

-> Yuuri talks about Wolfram's butt showing as a common place and about himself being completely naked doing 'baseball practice' in the room with Wolf, whatever that may mean.

3) Illustrations

The 4 wedding pictures. Yuuri and Wolfram have been illustrated as married four times by the series' illustrator:

1  | 2  | 3 |  4 

And I like to add this fifth one (used in There's Valentine's Day in Shin Makoku!? DVD special), since in the black and white version, there's a comment by Takabayashi-sensei that says: "With this we've finally won against the anime team! ", meaning they beat them to the wedding. 

4) Terminology

Yuuri and Wolf are referred to in tweets by Takabayashi-sensei, GEG-san and Temari-sensei as the Royal Couple (ロイカプ). The author, editor and illustrator all know already what they are and that's why they call them that.

More information:

Please, please read the source material. But if you won't, at least read some of the analyses I've made to find out more about yuuram. Yuuram is here, it’s canon, and their ship has sailed a long time ago, in novel 1. They were always meant to end up together and they have. (”The dream ending” was how the author wanted yuuram to end, happily married). This isn't clickbait, or fanwork. The author likes the Royal couple and will see that they end up together no matter what.

Additional information:

Yuuram in novel: 1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |10 |11 |12 |13 |14 |15 |16 |17  

* Novel Analysis:  Crossheart and Love Letter

* Novel Analysis:  Misepan2

* Novel Analysis: Do you want an exorcism?

* Bias in KKM: English version of KKM

* Novel Analysis: Yuuri confessing to Wolf (w/quotes)

* Novel Analysis: Physical and mental development in mazoku

* Novel Analysis:  Yuuri and Wolfram’s daily routine (with quotes) 

* Novel facts: No mpreg in Shin Makoku (I get asked a lot)

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Black Sails’ Toby Stephens on Captain Flint and the Final Season

Black Sails will return to Starz on January 29, 2017 for its fourth and final season. When we last left the pirates, Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) was beginning the revolution in Nassau and Long John Silver’s (Luke Arnold) star was rising. We recently got a chance to chat with Toby Stephens about the end of the series, what’s coming for Flint and working on this epic show. Check out his thoughts on season four below!

Here is the official synopsis:

The fourth season opens with hundreds of British soldiers dead in a forest… the Royal Navy sails back to England in retreat… the West Indies are now a war zone, and the shores of New Providence Island have never been bloodier. With the help of Eleanor Guthrie, Woodes Rogers transforms Nassau into a fortress without walls, as Captain Flint amasses a fleet of unprecedented strength, hoping to strike the final blow against civilization and reshape the world forever. Meanwhile, from within the island… an insurgency builds, fueled by the legend of its exiled leader, whose name keeps grown men awake at night… the one they call “Long John Silver.”

But as Flint, Silver and their allies are about to learn, the closer civilization comes to defeat, the more desperately and destructively it will fight back. Oaths will be shattered, fortunes will change hands, and amidst the chaos, only one thing remains certain: it has never been more dangerous to call oneself a pirate.

xxxx

Legion of Leia: I was in South Africa on the set when you were filming that crazy storm sequence in season three. What sort of set pieces are we going to see this time around?

Toby Stephens: It’s huge. There’s loads of stuff that will keep fans extremely happy, I’m sure.

Legion of Leia: Flint had a crazy few seasons. I’m curious about whether or not you think his destiny was set with Miranda’s (Louise Barnes) death.

Toby Stephens: I think yes, it kind of compounded the way he was going. I mean, I think before Miranda died, maybe people could reason him out of certain choices, but I think when Miranda dies, that’s the last nail in the coffin in terms of him going after England in this relentless way. And also, I would say, the other thing that compounds it is finding an ally in Silver. The fact that they become partners in this enterprise, it seems that Flint can only function when he has somebody who he’s allied with or is an alter-ego for him. Someone who can balance him and he can work through. So that is both good for him and bad for him in a way.

Legion of Leia: In the last episode, there is that conversation between Flint and Silver where they’re like, oh, we’re friends. But bad things happen to Flint’s friends. We know a bit about where this is going to go because of “Treasure Island.” What’s ahead for Flint here?

Toby Stephens: Yeah, well, I think it’s really the end game for the whole series, and we know it’s a tragedy because there was no great revolution in the pirate world. There was no emancipation of the pirates and the slaves. It didn’t happen, so why did it not happen and what happens to Flint at the end of that, when his dreams are crushed? What happens to Silver and him? How does that play out? And also, how does the Silver that we know become the eponymous Long John Silver of “Treasure Island?” How does that happen? And I think season four brilliantly leads us to a point where where, it’s a very satisfying ending, but also leaves you to fill in the gaps between there and “Treasure Island.” You kind of know who these people are at the end of this, but it’s a kind of really cool thing to allow people to do that themselves rather than go, look, this is what happens, all the way to the end. It leaves you to do some work yourself.

Legion of Leia: I love that. This show has sent me to Wikipedia more often than you would believe!

Toby Stephens: [laughs] I know!

Legion of Leia: How much research do you do for a role like this, or do you rely mostly on the script?

Toby Stephens: Do you know what? It’s a combination of laziness and there is method to it. I just go with what is in the script. I mean, like you, I’ll go to Wikipedia if I need to know something, if I don’t know what something is. But whether or not it has real historic context, for me is immaterial because I’m working in a fictive world. It’s a fictive world with dashes here or there of historic fact. A pinch here, a pinch there, and I need to work in that world, so it’s better if I stick there.

Legion of Leia: I did love seeing how much was actually built on the set and how many little touches were there, historical and fictive, both.

Toby Stephens: Yeah, what I love is the detail in terms of everybody else, the props, etc. There was a lot of care taken about what would have been there, what wouldn’t have been there, creating that texture of the world, where you can believe it.

Legion of Leia: When we were there, we were hearing stories of bugs in the walls!

Toby Stephens: We were always having problems with–there were these crickets. And they would get in. We would call them “sea crickets!” [laughs] You would be in a take and you would hear [makes cricket noises]. We’re supposed to be in the middle of something scene! [laughs] Or there would be birds up in the rigging going “cheep, cheep!” And you just go, oh my God, there’s another hour in ADR!

Legion of Leia: Did you have to do a ton of ADR?

Toby Stephens: Oh yeah! I have become the master of ADR. I breeze it now! I kind of like it because sometimes you can actually improve things. You know? There was a scene I did in the first season where it was with Gates (Mark Ryan), and it was a storm, and we’re having this conversation and we’re having a drink, and we’re on the set–it was the beginning when they used to gimbal the set. It was so noisy! There was water coming in, dripping everywhere. They wanted it to look authentic. Because it was quite a stressful set to be on [laughs], for some reason my [in a high-pitched voice] my voice was up here! I watched it–I mean, I had to loop it because there was so much noise there, but I thought, I sound like an hysteric! I managed to re-voice the whole thing and kind of couch it where Flint speaks normally. That’s a case in point where you can really improve on things.

Legion of Leia: I can’t imagine trying to speak clearly during some of those storm scenes!

Toby Stephens: I mean, it was mad! This job was amazing because I loved the people and I loved working on it, but there are aspects that I won’t miss. It was totally exhausting. By the end of this last season, I was literally hanging in rags, because it makes such demands on you. You’ve got enormous amounts of dialogue and enormous amounts of acting to do, and then at the same time, you’ve got all of this physical stuff to do, and it’s day in and day out. And you’re in the costumes and you’re in baking heat, and it was long, long days. No other job I would be able to do, in terms of acting–I mean, I’m not working in a coal mine–but there is no other job I could do that would come near this. It sort of made me immune to–it made everything else seem like a breeze. It was so arduous. And some of the stuff we did in season four, some of the stuff that I did towards the end, it was really difficult. Really difficult.

Legion of Leia: Having seen that storm scene and the tanks of water being dumped on you and the ship moving back and forth and the yelling–it was crazy!

Toby Stephens: Yeah, it was also the length of time it went on for. Because we also did two weeks straight, and then we kept on coming back for pickups because it was so particular. And also, it’s part of the reason why I’m so proud of the show, is that they had such exacting standards for what they wanted. They’d cut it together and realize they were missing bits, or that they could get bits better, but it was a drag. You had to get back on this deck and they were spraying you with stuff and they had the engines on. It was brutal. But you look at the end result and you go, that will stand. In ten years time, it will look amazing.

Legion of Leia: What are you going to miss the most, now that the show is over?

Toby Stephens: I think I’ll miss all the people that I worked with. One of the things about the job is, you create these very intense and very fun relationships with people, creative relationships with people, very creative, and then they dissolve and move on. I’ll miss that, and working with such great writers. John [Steinberg], Robert [Levine] and Dan [Shotz], you know, just brilliant writing, fantastic showrunners. They were so good and we had a really intense relationship. I’ll miss that.

Legion of Leia: What do you have coming up next?

Toby Stephens: So I just started doing the reinvention of Lost In Space for Netflix, so I literally just started working for them. I’m really excited for that. It’s a brilliant segue from one genre to another. [laughs] It’s a really fun reinvention of it. It’s really clever, and I’m really excited about it. I think this will be fun in terms of, it’s servicing fans, making a show for now.

Legion of Leia: Also, different costumes. Maybe not so much wool in the heat!

Toby Stephens: I think it will be differently uncomfortable. [laughs]

Legion of Leia: Those costumes were insane and it was so hot while you were filming.

Toby Stephens: Yeah, it was tough, and also in the brutal sun all day long. Standing on ships. It was killer. And the boots. I remember always complaining. I bitched and moaned about my boots all the time. [laughs] These things are killing me! Can you imagine these pirates going, “Jeeze, man! Couldn’t we have flip flops? Could we have a pair of thongs? Why do we have to wear these things?” [laughs]

Legion of Leia: I feel like pirates should have worn fewer clothes!

Toby Stephens: Yeah! [laughs] But apparently they didn’t. They didn’t, actually. The whole thing of pirates wearing all of that is baloney. They actually–they had very light shirts and stuff. Apparently they just didn’t wear much.

Legion of Leia: That was for fancy pirates.

Toby Stephens: And also, it was just for show. Also, what Black Sails kind of gets into is, a lot of it was p.r. It was p.r. by the English, because they wanted to demonize these people, but it was also their own p.r.–like Blackbeard having fuses on his beard and stuff like that. It was all to make people scared.

Legion of Leia: You can see that even with what Billy [Tom Hopper] is doing at the end of season three with Silver.

Toby Stephens: Yeah, and here’s a really fun thing. You get to the end of this season, and you take a screenshot of characters at the end of this season and you compare them to screenshots from the beginning of season one and they’re just like–the journey that they’ve been on, and the toll it’s taken on them is really cool. I mean, Luke just looks terrible at the end of it! And he was so beautiful at the beginning! [laughs] And the same with Tom Hopper who plays Billy Bones. You see he’s headed towards the Billy Bones of “Treasure Island.”

Legion of Leia: I wanted to ask you about Flint and Billy. There is such a tense relationship there with so much history. How is that going to shift this season?

Toby Stephens: Yeah, it really comes to a head. It comes to blows. They’re not going to be able to–it’s really interesting the way Billy goes, I think, in this season. It’s been a long time coming.

Legion of Leia: Do you think Flint has any of the idealism left that he had at the beginning?

Toby Stephens: Well, what’s really interesting at the end of it, one realizes how personal this is for Flint. And that, actually, it’s not really some altruistic scheme that he has to liberate everybody. He’s playing out his own psychodrama in reality. And how demented–how he will not stop. How it will go on and on and on. And somebody has to stop that. You know, it’s a tragedy because we know that there was no–it’s got to end somewhere. It’s not going to be good.

Legion of Leia: I do have to ask you about working with your family! [Toby’s wife Anna-Louise Plowman plays Mrs. Hudson and his brother Chris Larkin joined the cast as a Redcoat this season]

Toby Stephens: Yeah! It was wonderful, actually! It was so wonderful because I hadn’t spent so much time with my brother for a while. And was really great hanging out with him. And it was a bit strange. We had one scene where we were given direction to look at each other across–we had no lines together, but we had to look at each other across this town square. And I suddenly realized, this is really difficult because nobody on Earth knows me as well as my brother does. And to try and pretend with one another is just impossible! There cannot be any artifice! [laughs] So both of us, it was hopeless! I said, you look at my chest and I’ll look at your forehead. [laughs] It’s impossible! You can’t hide!

Are you guys excited for season four? Let us know in the comments! Black Sails will return to Starz on January 29, 2017.

sources: Legion of Leia (unfortunately I can't put link because it wasn't secured)

[lliblo]

BN09 Draconic Spirit

Prompt:

By all technicality Katsuki was quirkless. Fait had put him in a body with that extra little toe joint but no one ever noticed. Since they never had a reason to look. Like everyone else in his grade he gained a “quirk” at five years old but what everyone saw as a quirk Katsuki knew it was just the draconic spirit of his past life manifesting in his present form. 

He was the dragon lord of destruction and had a massive army of dragons at his command. It was a ruthless show of power to get there; he had to subdue rival dragons, kill nefarious wyverns, and fight off those who wished to use dragons for their own selfish reasons instead of keeping the wellbeing of the clan in mind.  

Yet through all of that he was still forced into war as the humans sought to purge the world of magic. Unfortunately, through hypocrisy, the humans won then turned on their own magic users to finish the job. 

But before that the dragons were the main opponent against the humans. Katsuki would never just lay down and let his lands be taken and fellow dragons slaughtered. He joined forces with a magicless Druid who had eventually forged his own power through grit and determination. It was hard for the dragon lord not to fall for such a determined creature. Although they first entered into a reluctant alliance the two died with an unbreakable bond. One that would follow them into the next life. 

Dragon souls are too strong, too unyielding to be reincarnated easily. Fate had to wait for the right conditions, the right body to hold such a beast’s soul and with dragons extinct that took centuries. 

Until, finally, the first quirk manifested. 

And the conditions were favorable. 

Humans had evolved and with bodies able to contain strong physical abilities it was just enough for a dragon soul to be comfortably contained. 

But again, dragons were troublesome there was a reason they were reincarnated and that was because they refused to forget their past lives. Their memories were etched into their very souls.

Druids on the other hand were free spirits that went from one life to the next. There was no afterlife for them, only the next life to come. So in death the dragon chased after and the Druid wouldn’t leave his love behind so they drifted through the void until both of the souls could find a new life. 

The memories came in dreams. But only for the dragon now named Katsuki since Druids didn’t gain their memories back. 

Katsuki’s powers lay dormant until they partly came through as explosions from his hands. Even then his body would never be able to handle the full transformation so it would remain repressed. 

Other instincts not so much. 

He was aggressive, possessive, and kept many of the traits of his past life to his parents dismay. 

He hated sleeping on a bed and would instead create a nest of toys and objects to lay on in the corner. But that was not suitable for his current body and eventually he settled with a nest of pillows, blankets, and soft plushies with his other toys lining the outside. He was forced to clean it up each morning until eventually he was smart enough to hide a smaller version in his closet. The closet was more suitable anyways he just had to wake up before his parents got him up and found him there. 

His need to hunt appeared every time he spotted a small animal but after the first time he caught and almost killed a bird his parents put their foot down. He never heard his father yell at him before. When asked why he did it he told them he was hungry and it wasn’t much different then chicken. 

His actions were dragon-like and so were his customs but he was smart and as he grew up fought most of his instincts in a world where they were considered weird. 

He hardly cared, he only did it because it was convenient. 

But it was nice that he didn’t have to try too hard around Izuku. His Deku. (Deku could mean druid in dragon tongue?)

He relived his memories mostly through dreams but at times in waking hours he would see things that triggered flashbacks. 

One of those moments was when he fell into the stream. 

Looking up at the green hair blending into the leafy trees above, and a worried looking boy stared down at him with his hand out.. That was when Katsuki saw his Deku. 

In a past life they met when they were older. And he saw that looking up at Deku. The memory overlapped and for a moment he was sitting on the ground next to a dying fire with Deku holding his hand out “come on the wisps are about to wake up” he grinned. “I don’t want you to miss them” 

“Are you ok?” Five year old Deku asked as he interrupted. “Did you hit your head?” He sounded worried, because of course he did. It was Deku

Katsuki grinned sharply as he suddenly sprung from the water tackling Izuku in a hug causing them to fall against the bank. He didn’t fully understand the feeling he felt at that age, but they were young and he would grow into them. For now all he knew was that Deku was a very important person to him. 

From then on they were inseparable. And Katsuki told him everything he could remember. Each time a new memory popped up he’d tell the other boy. 

At recess they would play pretend. Instead of hero’s and villain is was dragons and sorcery though they still beat villains and they still were the good guys. 

Bakugo still looked up to All Might, seeing him as an equivalent of a dragon lord and wanting to take his place one day. Be the best protector. That’s what it meant to be a dragon lord. To protect and lead those under him.

-

Eventually when he’s in UA he gets to release some of his draconic powers and everyone in the class (or most) see (at the USJ incident? Before All Might wins? Fouled by the immense urge to protect Izuku.) a ghostly form of a dragon covers Katsuki like a cloak as he goes head to head with the Nomu and wins 

“You should heed my words weaklings, I AM the dragon lord!”

They finally let him have the name Dragon Lord of Destruction as his hero name.

This is a lovely blend between the medieval MHA and the modern MHA. I have this fun little head canon that the humans of this world are not purely humans anymore and that quirks come from fay magic from the fay who were smart enough to integrate themselves into human society when the magic war stated. It just took awhile for the magic to resurface. Could explain why Bakugo’s hatred for humans doesn't translate into this new life... because they aren't technically humans.   

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[livingmybestfictionallife]

Live Wire--The Dirt--15

Summary:  Wren Ledden, Tommy’s best friend from high school, has had a rough life, and she intends to keep the nitty gritty details of her suffrage to herself until the day she dies. Only Tommy has gotten her to open up about a small portion of her troubles, and it’s only Tommy who she trusts with her life. That is until her life gets turned around sneaking into a concert one night…the same night Motley Crue is born.

A/N: This chapter is a super long filler that’s mostly fluffy, but mentions and discusses self-harm, suicide, and abuse. Additionally, (SPOILERS) there’s mentions of sex and a short sex scene. If it’s not your cup of tea, please know I tried to make it tasteful, but feel free to skip over it.

Also available on AO3

Nikki and Wren had spent the months of 1981 through 1982 as acquaintances  who became friends, and slowly learned to live with each other. They'd grown together in ways so silent to one another that when they decided they wanted a relationship, neither quite knew how to act, let alone react to the other admitting they wanted to be more than friends. The night they first kissed didn't follow up with an admission of their feelings, or either of them even saying they had any feelings towards the other at all. It was a simple fact known in their individual hearts that they wanted the other--soul, mind, and body. There was no vocal acknowledgement on either Nikki or Wren's part that they were actively starting a relationship with one another, no discussion of how that relationship should or should not be presented to the rest of the band, no conversation about boundaries or deal breakers, nothing except the fact that they each wanted the other in ways much more intimate than physicality--more intimate than either of them had ever wanted to know another person.

In public, Wren and Nikki acted as they always had with one another--teasing each other and bantering in somewhat arrogant ways--but in their time alone, their conversations became deeper. Even in their relationship, it took time for each to warm up to the other, but as the months ticked by, both Wren and Nikki found it easier to talk about their pasts with the other, easier to talk about their fears, and easier to trust the other with the information being shared.

Nikki had been the first to open up and paint himself in such a vulnerable light. He'd been home alone with Wren one night, discussing philosophy as they sat across from one another on Nikki's bed when Wren asked about a scar that ran vertically along the inside of his forearm. Instead of the nonchalant lie he normally told people, or even a false version of the truth, he slowly and steadily began to relay the horrors of his adolescence to her until he found himself nearly breaking down in front of her. Suddenly, all of the anger and neglect he felt as a teenager came boiling back to the surface, along with the empty feeling of never being enough for the people he loved. He looked down at his arm, noticed the gentle way her fingers traced the scar, and jerked it away from Wren as quickly as he could. At first, he didn't want to tell the truth. He feared what would happen if Wren listened to his side of the story: would she see him any differently? Would she think he was weak and realize she didn't want to be with someone so hopeless? However, before he could allow himself to think too long on these hypotheticals, he took a breath, looked into her eyes, and extend his arm back out for her to see.

"I pulled a knife on myself just to get away from my mother." His voice was flat. unemotional, and hung in near silence through the room before he decided to say more. Before he could stop himself, Nikki had told Wren about the revolving door of his mother's boyfriends and his step-fathers that would torment his life, and although he did note a few of the good ones that gave him hope, Nikki made a point to share with Wren just how horrible his childhood was. He explained how calming it was whenever he found happiness and stability in the life he had whenever he was shipped away to live with his grandparents; however the calm never lasted once she brought him back to the chaotic cycle of neglect and abuse in her household. "I figured if I could get her arrested, I would finally be free from her, but if I died in the process, well, that was also another way out." Wren could feel her heart sink into her knees as she absentmindedly traced the tip of her thumb across the scar. Feeling the mood shift to that of comfort, safety, and serenity, Wren pulled her legs under herself to sit cross-legged on Nikki's bed.

"Tommy doesn't like to talk about this, but I owe him my life," Wren said softly and found herself growing weaker the longer she looked into those light, hazel-green eyes of Nikki's. "I swallowed a bunch of pulls--some painkillers. some sleep-agents, some I don't even know what the hell they were. I had completely forgotten he was supposed to come over that day, and when he came in, I had passed out. It didn't take a genius to figure out what I had done, so he jammed his fingers down my throat until I'd thrown up and then rushed me to the hospital. I could see how much I hurt him by doing that when I woke up after having my stomach pumped, and it honestly made me feel so much worse about trying to kill myself. As much as I wanted to die then, I'm grateful Tommy saved me. Somehow, he continues to save me."

Wren and Nikki continued to learn how to be vulnerable with others through each other, and as their conversations deepened, so did their passion--for one another, for music, for the band. It was curious for Wren to see how close she'd become with Nikki throughout the beginning of their relationship, yet their interactions with one another in front of the band remained unchanged. She wondered how could part of the pair stay the same during such a drastic change in their personal lives, but part of her knew that their public interaction with one another had been the foundation of their romantic relationship. No change was necessary, there was no need to show what they felt or to announce it for that matter, because they each held one part of the puzzle that was their feelings. Together, they just clicked.

Mick had been the first to find out about Wren and Nikki's hidden relationship about ten months after they had gotten together. The couple had been drinking and smoking pot--Wren only a few puffs here and there to keep the buzz alive, and Nikki blowing through multiple joints at a time to reach the high he'd given up getting through coke due to his promise to her. It was a normal weekday night where they had been left alone due to Vince wanting to take Tommy to the strip clubs late at night. It was always during these times of solitude that Nikki found writing to be most productive, and this productivity only escalated when Wren was around to help him.

Wren sat on the couch with her feet kicked up, and a glass of wine in her hand as she passed the joint back to Nikki who continued to pace through the room. A half-eaten pizza sat on the makeshift coffee table, and beer bottles were littered about the pizza box. Mick had decided to drop by the apartment on a whim. He'd made tentative plans with someone he knew in the area only for them to decide to bail on him only after he'd driven out to the strip. Walking into the scene, everything appeared normal to Mick: Wren and Nikki were having their bickering matches over either lyrics or chords, and she seemed like she was wearing him down until he quipped back with some sarcastic remark that helped no weight when it came to Wren, because he knew that if she was criticizing something, it was for a good reason. Mick took a beer Nikki had offered him, pulled a seat up to the coffee table, and started in on what remained of their pizza. He played a few riffs that Nikki had asked him to in order to better who Wren his vision which she "was refusing to see." Then, he would play the altered version of Nikki's riffs that Wren had rewritten, and together, Mick and Wren convinced Nikki hers were better.

It wasn't until Mick glanced up from the pages of notes Nikki had put in one of Mick's hands and the pizza in the other, that he noticed Nikki stop pacing, make his way towards the pizza, pick up two slices, hand one to Wren, and then plant a soft peck on her cheek before he walked away. Mick silently smirked to himself as he smugly bit into the slice of pepperoni pizza in his hand. It was such a domestic thing, a moment of sweetness that no one ever got the chance to see either of these two rough and rugged people express, and it was this knowledge that kept Mick from bringing it up. He had briefly known Wren for a time when she was hardly thirteen, and even from that encounter, he knew she wasn't one to express her feelings. Hell, since meeting her again with the band, Mick still hadn't seen her be soft with anyone besides Tommy, and he never thought he'd see the day when Nikki Sixx of all people would be so docile with another person.

Mick ended up staying until the early morning hours practicing new songs with Nikki, conversing about theology, becoming a moderator for Wren and Nikki's differing points of view, discussing a variety of topics, and entertaining themselves with a variety of drinks. Shortly before three forty-five, Mick decided it was time to head home and get some rest, but on his way out, he forgot he had pledged to himself he wouldn't mention the little moments of soft, sweet, domestic life that Nikki and Wren had gifted one another with throughout the night.

"I'm glad you two found each other," he said as he made his way to the door. "You git each other well. Just don't hurt her, Sixx, or I'll hurt you."

Tommy was the next to learn Nikki was in a relationship, however they were able to keep Wren's involvement in that relationship a secret for a bit longer than anticipated. Tommy came home early one night from a family dinner with his parents and sister, and he quickly learned Nikki had a girl over thanks to the sound of the bed rhythmically hitting the wall and the heavy breaths that hung in echoes through the apartment. He quickly left the apartment, returned to his parents' house, and waited an hour to phone back home.

"Hello?" Wren asked through her shortness of breath as she answered the phone.

"Hey, Wren, you okay?" Tommy asked upon hearing her panting into the phone.

"I just got done working out," Wren sighed into the line as she leaned against the kitchen wall wearing only one of Nikki's shirts.

"Oh, my bad! Was today a cardio day or something?"

"Yeah, today's cardio day," she responded as a smirk fell over her face. With a laugh hiding in her lungs, she eyed Nikki where he sat on the counter, a bowl of cereal in his hands and a chuckle on his lips.

"When I got back an hour ago, Nikki was...occupied...with a girl. Is it safe to come back?" Tommy asked without a thought in his mind about Wren possibly being the woman Nikki was with.

"It's just me and Nikki at the house now, so I'd assume it's safe for you to come back," she said and watched the playful chuckle on Nikki's face fall to a sultry smirk as he waited for Wren to hang up the phone and return her attention to him. "Tommy's headed back now, so I think we have time for one more round if you make it quick."

For another three months, Wren and Nikki kept up the joke of Nikki having some mystery girlfriend whenever they were around Tommy. Nikki went so far as to leave a pair of Wren's underwear in his laundry for Tommy to find, knowing he wouldn't suspect they were hers. Wren went out of her way to buy a shade of lipstick Tommy would never expect her to wear in a million lifetimes so she could smudge a kiss on Nikki's lips or cheeks or neck, only to wipe all remnants of a the color from her face, only to keep the joke alive. Tommy didn't become fully aware of who Nikki was dating until he heard splashing water and those heavy, sexy breaths coming from the bathroom one afternoon. He decided to wait in Wren's room rather than leave this time, and after a few minutes, he could hear the shower turn off and people exit. Once he was certain Nikki had brought his guest back into his room, and that they were clothed, Tommy emerged from the bedroom only to see Wren sitting in the living room.

"When did you get home?" Tommy asked her as he sat down beside her as she thumbed through a book.

"I've been home, where have you been?" The question left her mouth without a second thought.

"I've been in your room waiting for Nikki to stop fucking his girlfriend in the shower," Tommy grumbled as he kicked his legs over Wren's lap and titled his head back as he heard Nikki walk down the hall towards the living room. "Other people live here too, Sixx!" Tommy shouted out. "Just take it to her place like I do most nights." With a smirk playing on both Nikki and Wren's lips, Tommy's eyes quickly flashed back to his best friend. Her nose was buried so deeply in the book that she was sure her expression wouldn't give away her secret, but her hair was a different story. The soaked brown strands fell around her shoulders in wet waves, and Nikki's black locks were no different. With a quick glance between Wren and Nikki, Tommy's eyes and moth widened. "Oh, shit!" he cried out in realization and then jumped up and trapped Wren in a hug. "Nikki, you better not just be fucking my best friend!"

"I'm not," Nikki grumbled in response as he reentered the room to see his girlfriend tangled up beneath the mess of limbs that was his drummer. His girlfriend...the words still hadn't left his mouth since the pair started their relationship over a year ago, yet they felt so right hearing them in his head.

"If you so much as make Wren cry, I'll end every part of you, Sixx," Tommy tried to threaten Nikki as he eagerly hugged both of his friends in excitement.

"Get in line! Mick has first dibs," Nikki grumbled as he broke free from Tommy's grasp and fell into an armchair to allow Tommy to sit with Wren.

"Mick's known before me? You two are shitty friends for that," Tommy huffed as he threw himself back down and put his legs over Wren again.

"Not to Mick, apparently," she smirked only to have Tommy lightly kick her arm, which caused her to drop her book. "Seriously thought, T. we didn't say anything to anyone."

"Well," Tommy sighed as he locked eyes with Nikki, "how long then?"

"How long since what? Since Mick found out?"

"No, how long have you been fucking my best friend?" Tommy had a faux bitterness in his voice that his excitement over Wren and Nikki being together couldn't hide.

"Dude, she's like your sister! Do you really want to know that?" Nikki asked as he tried not to laugh at how happy he was that Tommy was this  excited for him and Wren.

"You're my friend too, Nikki, so guy-to-guy, how long have you been fucking my surrogate sister?" Wren smirked at how red Nikki's ears became under his jet-black hair as he realized he was being forced to answer the question.

"Only a few months, but we kind of started going out on dates a little over a year ago." Wren bit her lip softly as she heard the words leave Nikki’s mouth. She didn’t expect him to be honest with Tommy about the timeframe of their relationship and its relation to their timeline of intimacy, simply because she knew how the guys were. Tommy had a new girl almost every week as teenagers, and now it seemed he was making the acquaintance of a new girl almost every night. Vince was still technically dating Lovey, but each night he found himself either at a strip club, or fucking a fan before a show. Nikki was definitely a looker, and Wren wasn’t ignorant or naïve enough to think she was anywhere close to his first. Although he wasn’t truly hers, he was the first to not pressure her into something she wasn’t ready for,; he was the first man she wanted to be with, and even then, it was nerve-wracking for her to admit her fears and reservations about sex to Nikki.

Nikki would have taken Wren to bed the night they first kissed had she been anyone else, but he knew enough about her to know not only would that never happen, and trying to do so would be a terrible move on his part. Getting her to open up about what happened in her past with Clay was damn near fucking impossible, and he wasn’t ever going to pry that out of her. He figured that with time, she’d feel safe enough to come to him about it, and until then, he’d just test the waters and see what she was comfortable with. Very slowly, she grew to trust more of her body to Nikki, and each time she did, he tried to show her true pleasure without asking of anything in return. He thought things were fine between them sexually and knew she would eventually come around and either talk to him or feel safe enough to take the next step with him. However, one night roughly five months ago, as Nikki’s hands found themselves around Wren’s waist while she lay next to him in his bed, he could feel a hot tear somehow transfer from her face to his.

“Wren, what’s wrong?” The lights were off in the room, but Nikki swore he could see Wren’s sorrow radiating from her heart. “Come on doll, talk to me,” he said as he pressed his lips to her temple. For a while, she remained unmoving in his arms as his breath traveled gently down her neck and he waited for her response.

“You’re being too good to me, Nikki,” she sighed through a small hitch in her breath. “And I want you! I mean, I really, really want you, I just—”

“Wren, we don’t have to have sex right now if you’re not ready,” Nikki tried to say despite the pulsing in his groin.

“I want to, Nikki, I really want to, it’s just—”

“You went through something hard that you don’t have to talk about, Wren.”

“Clay forced me into a lot, and tying me to a bed while he forced himself on me after I screamed and begged for him to stop is something hard,” she said through anger as the tears slowly stopped falling from her face. “But I don’t want some fucking asshole taking something from me to keep me from wanting to be with you.” Nikki traced small circles on Wren’s back as she leaned into him with her arms wrapped around his shoulders. After he felt her breathing subside, Nikki pulled her even closer to him and whispered softly into her ear.”

"I'm never going to expect something from you, Wren. You should know by now that you don't have to change a thing about you to be special to me."

"Nikki, I know I put up a front, and--"

"You don't, Wren. I know you think you're just playing a part of the badass rock and roll chick, especially when life's being a bitch and you're feeling more vulnerable than you care to admit, but just because shit happens to you doesn't mean you're not that badass. You are one of the only people I can hold an intellectual conversation with, you're defiantly strong willed even though it causes us to butt heads, you're so talented and insightful that I'm ashamed to admit to the fear in the back of my mind that, without you, the band wouldn't be what I can feel it's becoming, and most importantly, you are the single most incredible woman I've ever known. Just so we're clear, you will never have to change anything about yourself for me. I just want to let you know that I’m here when you’re ready, and until then, I don’t mind continuing to show you that I’m not going to push you into anything.”

Wren had her eyes pressed closed as he spoke, but when she opened them, she could see the moonlight fall over his clear skin and dance in his light eyes. Before she could think about her next steps, her lips were on his as she pulled him over her and she lay her back against the bed. She’d wanted this for so much longer than she thought she had and was surprised by how gentle Nikki was with her. Everything about their first time was different than either could have expected. Normally, sex wasn’t something Nikki had to wait for, and was almost always was quick, rough, and near emotionless; however, Wren wasn’t one of the random hookups or cheap dates he was looking to get a quick lay out of. He wasn't lying when he said she was special, but he didn't quite understand how special until then.

Part of Nikki knew his soul was drawn to Wren’s the second she stepped around him and paced out of the men’s room and into the bar, and then again when she made her way through the diner to his table and sat down defiantly across from him. There was a fire in her that drew him to her like a moth to a flame, and it wasn’t long since they met that he knew he’d do anything for her.

From the second they became one, Wren was weak and trembled under Nikki’s weight and touch as she clung to him so desperately. Every motion they made together caused her heart to swell in her chest and her walls to come crumbling down. Nikki sighed heavily and his breath trickled down Wren’s neck and chest as he stared at how beautiful her skin looked as the light from the moon fell over her body as it lay beneath him.

“You’re so beautiful, Wren,” Nikki sighed against her ear as he pressed his bare chest against hers, “so fucking beautiful.” He could feel himself getting close to finishing as he looked into Wren’s eyes and saw them locked on his. The way her mouth hung open as she gasped with each slow thrust he took made him weak, and he felt a pull in his stomach when a soft, longing gasp fell from Wren’s lips. As her nails clasped into his back and her legs tightened around her waist, Nikki couldn’t hold back any more. A low moan escaped his lungs as he felt her clench around him before he collapsed onto her on the bed and got lost in the smell of coconuts as he buried his face in her hair.

It wasn’t long after Tommy found out about Wren and Nikki that Vince was clued into the little secret that had been floating around in the band. He’d finally been caught cheating on Lovey just before a show one night, and despite being upset for about half a second, after the show he wasted no time in making a pass at Wren.

“So, now that Lovey’s gone and you’ve forgiven me for the bullshit in high school, what do you say about getting a drink?” He asked as he tried his hardest to keep his words from slurring. Tommy and Nikki had left her, Vince, and Mick at a table in one of their regular bars—one that her great uncle or one of his friends didn’t own—to get another round of drinks. Wren tried her hardest not to laugh at Vince’s proposition, so she directed her attention to Mick, who was smugly smirking across the table with his eyes narrowed on her. “And not just like this. I mean without the guys as chaperones.”

“Hey singer, I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Mick chimed in after Vince drunkenly ignored Wren shaking her head.

“And why is that? Are you trying to play the long game with her, mister two-kids-and-an-ex-wife?” Vince snarled.

“That’s pretty big talk for the guy who knocked up a girl in high school and hasn’t seen his own kid in who knows how long,” Wren snapped back.

“Damn, Wren. I’m just trying to be nice and ask you out!” Vince grumbled as he finished the drink before him and glanced up to see what was taking Nikki and Tommy so long with the next round.

“And I’m just saying don’t bother,” Mick again tried to intervene on Wren’s behalf in order to keep her and Nikki’s relationship under wraps.

“And why is that?” Vince repeated his question again in a mocking tone as he stared down the guitarist across the booth from him.

“Because Sixx would kick your ass,” Mick muttered as he took a swig of his beer and narrowed his eyes on Vince.

“Sixx? Oh, come on, he hasn’t done shit to try and get with her in the damn year and a half of knowing her. Shit, if he wants her, he’s gotta work quicker than whatever he’s been doing. I’ve waited long enough for him to make his move,” Vince huffed just as Nikki and Tommy returned with the group’s drinks. With a smirk playing on Wren’s lips, as Nikki slid back into the booth beside her, she brought a hand to the base of his head, pressed her lips firmly against his, and smiled into the kiss as she felt his hands fall onto her waist.

“Hey, babe,” she said upon pulling her face from his and seeing Nikki’s taken aback expression.

“What did I do to deserve that?” he asked in sultry tone that was meant to be under his breath but was loud enough for the table to hear.

“Vince was asking me out so I figured it was about time we just let this cat out of the bag,” she said as her fingers wrapped around the chilly glass he’d just brought her.

“Are you fucking kidding me? How long did I miss the window to make a move on you?”

“You’ve over a year late, Vinny,” Tommy said with a laugh in his voice as he saw his two best friends in a new light. Sure, Nikki had been the only other person besides himself who could get away with being physically affectionate with Wren, even before they were a couple. Tommy had noticed since the early months of the band’s existence the subtle ways Nikki would sit closely to Wren on the couch, the way his arm would find its way around her shoulders, the way she would gently rest her head against his, he’d seen it all, but something was different the moment Tommy saw Nikki pull Wren closer to him in the booth, rest his chin on her head, and glare over her at Vince as he spoke.

“Were you seriously just trying to hit on my girlfriend?” Nikki’s gravely voice rolled through the air and caused Wren’s heart to rise as if it were a helium balloon. As the last word of his sentence fell from his lips, Nikki could feel his lungs deflate, his cheeks grow warmer, and his stomach twist into knots. Almost instantly, he became even more aware of her body language—the way she was positioned against him, the amount of pressure she placed on him as she leaned her torso into his, the way her jaw felt as it rested on his shoulder. It was as if his were dialed up to their max so he could detect any non-verbal indication of what he said being either a good or bad move on his part. He didn’t want to have the “what are we?” talk with her because he had been damn near certain that they were a couple—not two people who were dating, not just friends, not even friends that had sex. To him, the second they kissed in the hallway that night over a year ago, they were a couple. Thankfully, the way Wren gently folded herself against him, leaned further into his embrace, and lightly traced circles with her thumb on his thigh was enough to convince him that they were on the same page.

[violetwolfraven]

“Oh my gosh, Flynn! Don’t bother coming!”

Part 2 of that flarrie angst I wrote earlier. This should be fun.

Tw: abandonment, denial of feelings, a little internalized homophobia.

...

“Oh my gosh, Flynn! Don’t bother coming!”

Of course Carrie doesn’t want Flynn and Julie to come to her performance. Why would she? It’s not like they’re friends anymore. They’re not. They haven’t been for a while.

Carrie does not miss Flynn and Julie.

She doesn’t. She doesn’t need them. They were good friends while it lasted, sure, but that’s over and dead and it’s never coming back so Carrie isn’t stuck in the past missing them.

She’s got Dirty Candi now. And the others are talented, but not enough to be competition like Julie is, and they have a healthy fear of the girl who can kick them out of the band if she wants, so they don’t challenge her like Flynn does. They do what they’re told. Carrie doesn’t have to care about their opinions beyond making sure they know they can tell her if any choreography or costumes make them uncomfortable. Considering she’s had to alter a grand total of two dance moves since they got together, that’s not even that big of a concern.

It is not lonely, being a bubblegum pop princess ruling alone over her little kingdom by fear. It’s... different from how things were with Julie and Flynn, but it’s better. The other girls know that their talents lie mostly in dance and these days, that alone isn’t enough to get them the fame they want so badly. They need Carrie to get any real fame. Hopefully, that means they can’t just leave at the drop of a hat.

Sure, maybe Kayla never used to look at her with that caution before their dance class became their band, but it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s probably better, because if she’s afraid of Carrie, she can’t hurt her.

None of them can. No one can.

Carrie’s finally as invincible as she always wished she was and she is not lonely.

She doesn’t miss having Julie to bounce music ideas off of and Flynn to...

Flynn. Talking about everything from things that don’t actually matter to things that really, really do. Watching Pirates of the Caribbean and chugging soda to stay awake and braiding each other’s hair.

Flynn, who is as sarcastic as she is compassionate, level-headed as they are ready to throw hands with anyone who hurts one of her friends. Fiercely protective yet would probably sell you to Satan for one corn chip.

Carrie can still remember the process to help when there’s something bothering them. Turn on her favorite movie trilogy, mess around with her hair a bit, talk about nothing important until they’re ready to talk about whatever is important. Give Flynn her full attention, making sure they feel seen and her feelings are validated. Carrie got it down to a science years ago, and it always felt nice to help when they were upset. It made this warm feeling flush through her chest, seeing that lovely smile of hers creep out, and...

And okay, maybe Carrie can’t watch Pirates of the Caribbean anymore because it feels wrong to watch it without them, but that doesn’t mean anything! It doesn’t mean she misses her!

Carrie doesn’t miss people. Missing someone doesn’t bring them back, so why bother? And besides, Flynn and Julie are hardly the first people to leave her behind.

Honestly, though, she doesn’t expect Nick to leave until he does.

She knows about his crush on Julie (and on at least one of his lacrosse teammates at any given time). She’s not blind. Of course she knows. And she doesn’t particularly care, because she knows Nick, and she knows he wouldn’t cheat.

And she knows that they’ve been together since the beginning of 8th grade—over 2 years—and most teen relationships don’t last 2 months, so it’s not exactly a surprise that he doesn’t like her that way anymore. He did in the beginning, but lately they’ve been drifting apart not so much physically as emotionally. They’re not the same people they were in 8th grade.

Nick has known Julie for as long as he’s known Carrie, so of course he knew Rose, too (another person in Carrie’s life that left.) and for him, with the Molinas’ tendency to provide family figures to anyone who needs them, her death was probably a ripping open of old wounds, considering how his own mother died when he was little. Rose’s death affected him almost as much as it did a girl who’s known the Molinas since she was in diapers.

Carrie just... tried really hard not to think about it. She’s still trying really hard not to think about it. Because Rose was... well, she was around for more of Carrie’s childhood than her deadbeat of a blood mother was.

That woman is another thing Carrie tries really hard not to think about.

She who only stuck around for the first 7 years of Carrie’s life, and then left because... because she cried too much or needed too much attention or just got to be too much effort? Because she wasn’t a part of the future her mother wanted?

Because Carrie was never wanted in the first place?

It’s not like her dad ever told her, but Carrie’s not stupid. She knows that her parents were never married, and her dad had been tripping hard on the consequences of teenage fame around the time she would have been conceived. He’d cleaned up his act for her and her mom hadn’t because why would she put in the effort for the product of what was probably a one night stand?

Carrie’s not stupid. No one told her, but she knows she was an accident. And she doesn’t care. She doesn’t let how she came to be affect how she lives her life. She doesn’t be bright and flashy and talented to prove that she deserves her space in the world. She doesn’t let it affect her perception of herself or her relationships.

Flynn is always so effortlessly confident in themself, no matter if she’s feeling conflicted about her mom having a girlfriend or angry about their dad ignoring them or sad about her best friend’s mom who was as good as another mother to them dying. It’s one of the things Carrie loves hates the most about her. That she could be that confident (so confident she could almost make Carrie feel confident in herself).

Flynn always acts like they’re right. It’s infuriating because she almost always is she’s wrong when it comes to Carrie.

Okay, maybe Carrie doesn’t like Nick that way. Maybe Flynn’s right about that. But he bops to her songs. He doesn’t challenge her. And he’s hiding from acting on any of his actual crushes just like her.

They’re together because... because Carrie does like being around him. Nick’s easy to like. He’s friendly with practically everyone and has pretty flexible music taste. He’s popular, like her. They make sense together.

And Carrie knows he’s been hiding behind her to avoid confronting his crush on Julie for the last several months, so it honestly doesn’t make sense why he’d want to stop. What they’re doing now is safe. It’s easy. Effortless, really.

And it’s apparently not enough. Carrie is apparently not enough for him anymore.

Whatever. She doesn’t think him and Julie are going to get together, be it because of Julie’s new crush on her guitarist or Nick’s already-established inability to make a damn move on a real crush. Honestly, she’s expecting him to chicken out and run back to her like the last couple times.

Or at least... she is until he accuses her of the same thing Flynn did years ago.

When Flynn who is always right insisted she’s...

Carrie remembers back when they first came out, when Triple Threat was they were maybe... 11? 10? As a lesbian with she/they pronouns. She remembers how everyone was supportive, but Rose did pull Julie and Carrie aside later to say that they need to look out for Flynn because people can be hateful and though it’s getting better, things will be harder for her because of who they are.

And Rose was right. In the spotlight, it’s harder to be anything but straight. Her dad told her once about a friend he had when he was younger who faced so much shit because he was gay. She saw the stickynote some idiot stuck in Flynn’s locker in 7th grade. She’s seen producers and choreographers willing to work with Dirty Candi—until they look at Courtney’s Instagram and find that she’s out and proud and therefore not as marketable to a mainstream audience.

It’s not easy to be anyone trying to get your big break. But if you’re straight your sexuality is never one of the things that gets in the way, so Carrie is straight.

She’s fine with Courtney being out. She’s not their front woman and the group’s reputation can survive that. And Julie and Flynn’s sexualities are never one of the things Carrie mocks about them, but she knows from stalking the comments on Edge of Great and seeing some assholes saying shit about Julie being bisexual that others aren’t so kind.

Another reason Carrie liked being with Nick was because she had an excuse not to think about any of this.

Not to replay Flynn’s voice in her mind from when they were 13, confessing feelings Carrie had never even considered and asking her out.

She’d run away from that—run to Nick—because... because she felt bad, breaking Flynn’s heart. Not because there was any kind of realization and consequential panic about feelings for her that Carrie might, hypothetically return.

It’s easier to be straight. Being straight doesn’t hurt her career, and she needs her career because she’s got to prove to everyone who ever left her that they should’ve stayed that she’s just as talented as her dad.

So when the feelings and heartbreak and complications ruin their friendship because Flynn is right can’t accept being wrong, she doesn’t miss Flynn. She doesn’t miss Flynn. She doesn’t miss Flynn.

Pirates of the Caribbean isn’t even that good of a franchise anyway, so what does Carrie care if Flynn hates her guts and calls her a demon and growls that you don’t even like him and you can lie to the world and yourself about who you are but we can be friends again when you’re ready to stop lying to me.

Carrie doesn’t miss them. She doesn’t miss Julie, either. She doesn’t need either of them. She doesn’t want them around. She doesn’t enjoy the (grudgingly) impressed look on Flynn’s face on the rare occasion she shows up to a Dirty Candi show and watches Carrie shine without them.

But with how weird Nick’s been acting lately... maybe she does need Julie and Flynn’s help to find out what’s wrong, because the normal Nick left her clearly doesn’t trust her anymore and she won’t be able to help him by herself.

So after over a year of pushing them away, telling them not to bother coming to her performances, being angry that Julie is so successful, Carrie sucks it up, takes a deep breath, and walks over to Julie’s locker for a civil conversation.

The murderous look that Flynn gives her doesn’t matter. It’s fine.

Carrie hasn’t missed her, or... desperately wanted her around even when they were fighting or anything.

...

I’m pretty sure I saw someone call the blue one Courtney once. I don’t think it’s a canon name but that’s who that is if anyone was wondering.

I kinda rushed finishing this because jatp won an mtv award and I wanted to contribute to (maybe) making it trend so sorry if it kinda sucks! If you do like it, comments are love so please comment!

Also let me know if you want a part 3 cause I’m undecided on writing more to this.

[that-scouse-wizard]

David Willows MK 2

A/N: Just an updated version of David’s profile, complete with a few changes and a more in-depth description of certain characteristics. Hope you guys enjoy and if you’d like your MC to be friends with him, message me and let’s chat about it.

Some more things to note:

-Merula is not the mole.

-I’m using the female version of Rowan as David’s best friend because to hell with game restrictions. Also, she survives, at least... David’s Rowan does.

-Drastic alteration to the Quidditch storyline. Skye is in David’s year and a Gryffindor. Orion, Murphy and Erika are two years above David and are in Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin respectively. Also including Andre and Charlie while introducing Oliver Wood and Lee Jordan.

-It goes without saying but spoilers for my ideas. Some are kept deliberately vague and some aren’t covered entirely more so because I intend to write about it someday. Let me know what you guys think of those that are given though. 

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

General Information

Name: David Owen Willows (Formerly David Owen Hall, changed to mother’s maiden name in 1982).

Gender: Male

Age: 11-18 (1984-91), 19-25 (1992-98)

DOB: 30/03/1973

Species: Human

Blood status: Half-blood

Sexuality: Straight

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Ethnicity: White-British 

Nationality: English (maternal side of family is Irish, paternal grandmother is Scottish, paternal grandfather and father are English).

Residence: Liverpool/ Lancaster (during his Hogwarts years and depending upon who he’s staying with).

Wimborne (during his career as a pro Quidditch player)

Hogsmeade (final place of residence after becoming Charms professor)

Myers Briggs Personality Type: ENFP, The Campaigner

Character summary: Though he may come across as stand-offish at first, David Willows is a friend as loyal as he is bull-headed. A student of Erika Rath, he became known as Hound on the Quidditch pitch for his relentless pursuit of opposing players. A skill in duelling and the muggle martial art of muay thai (also a pair of knuckledusters) ensures David is a formidable opponent with or without magic.

Personality:

Aggressive: While he tries to reign in his anger, David is known to have a short temper when it comes to certain taunts. Chief amongst them, comparing him to Jacob. In his early years he was even willing to physically fight much older students despite the clear difference in both size and strength.

Aloof: For all of his first year and a good portion of his second year, David isn’t the one to initiate a friendship (except for Chiara but that was when there was no one else to really talk to while spending a night in the Hospital Wing due to the Devil’s Snare incident). However, while undergoing his first time as a quidditch player, he’s taught by Penny how to be a bit more social at pre and post-match parties.

Artistic: David was taught by his mother Rue to draw in greyscale sketches, something he improves on during his time throughout Hogwarts. In the midst of Jacob’s disappearance, his parent’s divorce and especially the stress that comes at Hogwarts, drawing provided an escape for him. His favourite things to draw are people and creatures.

Competitive: This aspect of David tends to come out the most when it comes to sport. With Erika as his mentor, he nurtures a healthy sense of competition as well as a determination to best the other houses and put Hufflepuff on top when it comes to quidditch.

Courageous: Largely as a result of his loyalty, David is willing to throw himself headlong into danger. The Sorting Hat didn’t nearly put him in Gryffindor for no reason.

Determined: When David sets his mind to a goal, he wants to accomplish it to the best of his abilities. In the case of finding Jacob however, it led to a sort of tunnel-vision, one that was finally broken when Chauncy and Philip succumb to injuries sustained under the sleepwalking curse.

Empathetic: Throughout his years at Hogwarts, David starts to empathise with people in his life. Even in the case of Merula, he sees how lonely she must really be and tries to reach out to her on numerous occasions. If he doesn’t fully understand it, he’d like you to share your feelings with him, at your own behest of course.

Loyal: In spite of a prickly exterior at first, once you win David’s loyalty, he’ll return it ten-fold. The type of friend who would take a bullet for you.  

Snarky: David has a sharp tongue, preferably he tries to shut down an argument with his wits. Only going for duelling when he feels it necessary. That being said, he isn’t shy about getting petty in a verbal spar, for example his response to Merula when first being taunted about Jacob supposedly teaming up with Voldemort: “At least that’s just a rumour, can’t say the same about your parents.”

Stubborn: A self-described ‘stubborn git’, David is quite notorious for not budging from his position once he thinks he has all the facts he needs. If he’s being especially difficult, just get Merula.

Appearance

Face Claim: Dave Franco (as an adult at least).

Voice Claim: Paul McCartney.

Game appearance: 

Physique: Athletic, broad shouldered and fairly bulky as a result of weight training with Erika.

Hair Colour: Dark Brown

Hair style: Chin-length (1st-2nd year), crew cut (3rd-4th year), short but long enough to slick back (5th year-present).

Eye colour: Dark brown.

Height: 5′11″ (as of 6th year)

Weight: Approx 80kg (when fully grown)

Scarring: A few small ones sustained during duels and the occasional mishap in quidditch, mostly on his upper body with a few on his legs. Sustains a burn scar on the left side of his waist during the battle with R.

Body modifications: Get’s the phrase “You’ll never walk alone.” tattooed on his right bicep at eighteen. Later gets a ram skull tattoo on his upper back just between the shoulder blades at age twenty. Finally, gets a shepherd crook just below the ram skull tattoo at age twenty-one.

Inventory: His wand, a pair of knuckledusters, a sketchbook, a pencil case containing stationary.

Fashion: He trusts Andre’s advice on what looks good on him though knows what works for him and what doesn’t. Partly influenced by his musical tastes (mainly punk, and rock and roll), has a love of leather jackets and slightly ripped jeans.

Background/ History:

Pre-Hogwarts:

-David was born in Liverpool, living in the suburb of Allerton. One of his favourite things to do was play football with Jacob and his dad.

-His mum would teach him to draw, most often on rainy days.

-Close to both of his parents as a result but it all changed when Jacob disappeared. He knew Jacob and his parents had arguments after being expelled but hadn’t heard any of it on account of the use of a muffling charm. Furthermore, Rue and Matthew were driven apart, Matthew blaming Jacob’s change in attitude and eventual disappearance on magic in its entirety.

-Sometime after Jacob disappeared and when the general shitshow stirred up by the Daily Prophet had died down, it was settled that Rue and Matthew would divorce. Given that David would go to Hogwarts as well, they thought it would be best for David to take Willows as his surname, hopefully not being recognised as Jacob Hall’s brother.

-This was fruitless, Rita Skeeter caught wind of the proceedings and sensationalised them, exposing the name change in the process. The stress and grief caused both parents to distance themselves from David in some way. Rue threw herself into work and became even more strict with David’s freedom while Matthew just left.

-David however, was fighting his own battles, it became known at his muggle school about Jacob going missing as well as his parents divorcing. This caused him to become quite reclusive from his classmates and would lash out at anyone who said a bad word towards him, especially if it concerned his family drama. He lost any friends he did have and refused to make any more.

During Hogwarts

-Year 1: He first meets Rowan, even being introduced to her younger brother, Alder (basically male Rowan). 

David, Rowan, Tonks, Diego, Chiara and Penny first begin to form what becomes known as the Hufflesquad. 

Also befriends Ben and Charlie.

Angelica Cole takes him under her wing despite not being in the same house and even shows David a group of trolls she’s been tending to in preparation for her apprenticeship in training security trolls.

Meets the Booths during the Christmas break and despite a rocky start, begins to develop a positive relationship with them even coming to an understanding with his dad.

During one of his expeditions with Angelica, he’s confronted by Needle, an acromantula that previously belonged to Jacob. 

Finally stands up to his mum properly, resulting in him staying with the Booths for the summer in Lancaster.

-Year 2: David meets those who are involved in the Quidditch scene at Hogwarts, including Erika Rath, who he briefly develops a crush on until he’s let down gently at the end of Year 2.

He duels Merula for a second time, winning once more, which makes her cry albeit in private. This then results in having his first encounter with Barnaby Lee, who confronts David about upsetting Merula. David tries to get past but Barnaby wraps his hands around David’s throat. Not actually choking him mind, more to get his attention. David panics as it reminds him of the Devil’s Snare that wrapped around his throat and lashes out at Barnaby.

David puts Barnaby in the hospital wing, much to the anger of Liz Tuttle.

The last Quidditch match for the House Cup between Hufflepuff and Slytherin is interrupted by the spread of the cursed ice. Ultimately resulting in Gryffindor’s victory in the cup for that year. 

Rue comes back, mentioning how Corey Hayden (David’s American cousin in this AU) would like to transfer to Hogwarts.

Year 3: Amelia comes to Hogwarts as a first year and gets sorted into Hufflepuff. Similarly, Alder starts at Hogwarts and is sorted into Ravenclaw. 

Amelia brings Dusty, her cat, along with her. However, Dusty goes missing shortly after arriving at the castle.

Later, in a COMC class, Barnaby mentions that he found a cat matching Dusty’s description. Initially, David is very suspicious to the extent of threatening Barnaby if he harmed Dusty in any way. Barnaby refutes this and returns Dusty to him unharmed, causing David to apologise for both for the accusation and the events that happened last year. Eventually, he even befriends Barnaby.

In a similar vein, when tending to some of his creatures on the reserve, he bumps into Liz and winds up introducing her to Needle. The two get a friendship going, David admiring Liz’s passion for creatures and Liz appreciating David for not finding her weird when she rambles about animals. To the extent that they go out on a few dates.

Close to the end of the year, he rants at Merula. Effectively asking the question of why she seems to hate him. Yet despite the rant he closes off with how he understands Merula, he’s been that lonely kid lashing out at the world and it’s not fun. Despite her reluctance to admit it, Merula knows David is right.

He gets the chance to verbally unload on Rita Skeeter for the articles she wrote about his family when she comes to the school looking to interview an interesting student. Later, several of his friends plus Merula of all people step in to put Skeeter in her place when she successfully provokes him into a fit of rage to make him look bad. The situation is eventually diffused by McGonagall.

Year 4: 

Corey officially transfers to Hogwarts from Ilvermorny after exchanging letters with David throughout third year.

Though David wasn’t particularly close to them, Chauncy and Philip (two of his dormmates alongside Diego) succumb to injuries sustained when they were attacked by a red cap under the Sleepwalking curse. When he learns the truth of what attacked them, David slays the creature.

David starts to realise he has a crush on Merula after assisting her in casting Expecto Patronum. Later in the year, he takes her out on a date to Hogsmeade, gets her a songbook for Christmas and even takes her out to the Celestial Ball.

Merula’s parents are freed from Azkaban by R, her mother even meeting Merula in secret throughout the year. During one of their meet-ups, she has a hunch Merula is starting to develop a crush on David (something which is true but not something she would admit it at the time). 

In order to eliminate this apparent threat to her family’s blood purity, she asks Merula to bring him to her in the Forbidden Forest under the guise of allowing the two of them to join R like she has. Instead, she subdues David with Petrificus Totalus, attempting to convince Merula to leave him, that David isn’t worth it.

Merula sides with David even though it pains her initially. David stays with her over the summer, where they try to figure out... whatever the hell their relationship is at the moment.

Year 5: Throughout this year he dates Merula in secret until Valentine’s Day. It’s here that she confesses she’s ready to have their relationship out in the open.

One of the most major event for David is Rakepick’s betrayal, he had actually grown fond of her as a mentor. Being stabbed in the back wasn’t a good thing for him.

The second is Jacob leaving immediately after David finds him. It’s hurtful and David becomes a bit reclusive for a while. Finally, he’s comforted by Bill, Orion and Erika, the older sibling figures in his life.

Year 6: Jacob returns, under the watchful eye of Alastor Moody, acting as the DADA  teacher for that year. Naturally, there’s tension between the brothers, which eventually resolves.

Jacob does join David for the Christmas break, where he gets along well with the Booths and reunites with his parents.

As well as this, R attempts to come after Amelia, resulting in the death of Alder Khanna. As well as being a devastating loss, it causes a rough patch in David and Rowan’s relationship when in her grief she winds up shouting “I wish I’d never met you, David Willows!” She only realises what she just said when the words leave her mouth but regardless, it causes a fracture within David’s larger circle of friends.

Eventually, the time comes for when David, Jacob and their allies take on the vaults like they had always dreamed of. Together, they face off against the guardian of the Sunken vault, an Ammit (based on the creature of Ancient Egyptian Mythology). Eventually the beast is defeated and they claim the treasure of the vaults, what seems to be the base of a necklace.

In a celebration at the Three Broomsticks, R attacks and murders Jacob. This sends David spiralling into grief, hitting his truly lowest point. He worked so hard, he rebuilt his family at home and forged a new one at Hogwarts, all the while hoping Jacob would be able to join them. And what was it all for? Nothing.

Before the school year is up... he snaps his wand and runs away from Hogwarts. Not to Liverpool, not to Lancaster, just anywhere but there. It will keep his friends and family safe or so he reasons. Deep down though, he thinks it’s cowardly.

During this time, he finds his way to Glasgow and starts sleeping rough on the streets all the while battling with grief, anger and self loathing. This goes on for two months before Moody tracks him down, apparating him to a secluded area of the Scottish countryside, kicks his arse and talks him down. Taking him to Grimmauld Place afterwards with the intention of formulating a plan to take the fight to R. 

Where he finds most of his remaining friends waiting for him. At first he staunchly refuses their help, feeling he’s already put enough people in danger. Yet they refuse to leave.

This is actually the moment where the Circle of Khanna is formed, this time named for Alder. Reconciling with Rowan after a serious heart-to-heart.

Year 7: ...Let’s just say R is going to regret setting David Willows on the warpath.

R’s destruction becomes widely regarded news, however David allows Moody to take the credit for it. Frankly, by this point he’s sick of any attachment to the Cabal and just wants to play Quidditch.

He’s able to pass his NEWTS and win the Quidditch cup for Hufflepuff one last time, resulting in him being offered the position as beater on the Wimborne Wasps.

Post-Hogwarts:

David and Merula work things out, moving in together. Though it’s odd with David still keeping at his Quidditch training and Merula now working for Gringotts as a curse-breaker. After winning the British and Irish League for the Wasps in 1993, he proposes to Merula which she accepts.

In 1994, they have a wedding in the summer time with Rowan being David’s best woman. They did plan on having kids until Cedric’s murder at the hands of Voldemort. With Quidditch cancelled and Merula being affiliated to Gringotts, both are approached to work for the Order. 

Though initially very hesitant, David agrees. Eliminating Death Eaters, rescuing their hostages and even fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts.

He returns to the Quidditch scene when it starts up again in 1999, helping the Wasps win the cup three more times. 1999 is also the year in which Merula and David have their first kid, Robin. After the latest victory in 2002 he discovers Merula is pregnant again, and his retirement from Quidditch is looming on the horizon. He’s convinced by Judith Harris (@judediangelo75) to teach for a few weeks over the summer at KC’s (@kc-needs-coffee) quidditch summer camp.  It’s here that he develops a love for teaching. Getting in touch with professor Flitwick to work as his assistant before becoming the Charms professor. 

In early 2003, he welcomes his son Nicholas into the world.

Family

Matthew Hall (father): 

Face Claim: Ben Miller

A stern but fair man and CIMA-qualified accountant originally from Yorkshire, Matthew met David’s biological mother Rue when he was on a business trip to Dublin in 1956. Encountering her in a quiet pub being told “I’ve dealt with a real dragon today” when he asked if she was okay on account of how tired she looked. Matthew took it as a joke but Rue was being entirely serious. They struck up a friendship and began dating, eventually getting married in 1961 and having Jacob in 1964. 

initially, he was fascinated by the existence of the wizarding world but soon came to fear it after Jacob’s disappearance. Divorcing Rue afterwards and cutting off contact from David aside from agreeing to send child maintenance. However, after being chewed out by his girlfriend Lyra, he all but begs David to come visit him in Lancaster over Christmas in 1984. 

The reason being that Amelia’s magical abilities finally began to manifest, which became a cause of conflict between David and Matthew, largely from David thinking that was the only reason he was invited. Eventually, they come to an understanding and try to work on improving their relationship.

Rue Willows (mother): 

Face Claim: Fiona O’Carroll

A dragonologist from Dublin in the employ of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau. Though she was strict, she was generally attentive towards David, being the one who taught him to draw.

After Jacob’s disappearance however, she became very withdrawn and austere. It was her way of opting for a ‘tough love’ approach, thinking she had been too soft and in her misguidance tried to control David’s life. Even then, she still grieved, frequently getting into arguments with David about his behaviour at school, bringing up Jacob when David tried to make her proud of him and other such things. 

During the start of the summer break between first and second year, David finally stands up to her properly. The words that get through to her are the following, “That stranger’s name is Lyra and she’s been a better mum to me in the weeks I’ve known her than you have for me in years.” and “I love you too mum... but I don’t know if I like you anymore.”

She does a lot of soul searching after that, staying with relatives in America for a year before coming back and promising to do better with her and David’s relationship.

Lyra Booth (nee Robinson) (step-mother):

Face Claim: Ruth Wilson

A muggle and CIMA-qualified accountant originally from London, left widowed in 1980 after her first husband, Peter died in a car accident. She met Matthew when working at an accounting firm in Lancaster shortly after his divorce from Rue. After a couple months of knowing each other, the two began dating, Lyra introduced him to her children, who he hit it off well with.

She knew he had a son who he sent child maintenance to but it wasn’t revealed until Amelia accidentally made a plant pot explode in a fit of frustration that Lyra learned the truth. Consequently... she blew up at Matthew for as good as abandoning as his son. Insisting on inviting him around for Christmas.

While David was prickly when he first came around, he eventually warmed up to her and the rest of the Booths, being a positive maternal influence on him.

Jacob Hall (brother) (deceased):

Face Claim: Tom Holland

David’s only biological sibling, a gifted though trouble-making student, first became interested in the cursed vaults during his first year when he was informed about the legend by seventh year Patricia Rakepick. In his sixth year, he stood up for fellow Gryffindor Angelica Cole when she was being bullied (at the time she was a first year).

His investigation into the vaults would put him into conflict with the mysterious cult known as R. A conflict that would put his family in danger and even cost him his life.

Alex Booth (step-brother):

Face Claim: Jody Latham

The eldest of the Booth siblings, Alex is a highly protective big brother and was worried upon realising his little sister was going to be part of a world none of them had any knowledge about. He tried to make David feel welcome despite the younger boy’s hostility.

When David attempted to run away during his first stay with the Booths, Alex caught him in the act and made a deal, get past him and he wouldn’t tell anyone he’d left. Though David was tenacious, Alex stopped him every time even pointing out the flaws in David’s technique if he tried to physically fight Alex. After David finally gave up, Alex didn’t breathe a word of his run away attempt to anyone. David would take up Alex’s offer to teach him muay thai during his first visit.

Sarah Booth (step-sister):

Face Claim: Emilia Clarke

The middle child of the Booth siblings and also the least welcoming, Sarah was most vocally against Amelia being part of the wizarding world. She treated David coldly at first, going on a grouse hunting trip with her friends the day after he arrived to stay with them for Christmas.

However, at some point, she caught him reading an old copy of a Shooting Times magazine and after some persuasion by Alex, took David clay pigeon shooting. Becoming quite impressed, and even a little endeared from how quickly he picked up shooting.

Amelia Booth (step-sister):

Face Claim: Maisie Williams

A muggleborn witch and the youngest of the Booth siblings, Amelia was surprised to realise she possessed magical abilities. Though was even more shocked to learn Matthew already knew about it.

When she was five years old, she was involved in the car accident that killed her father. Resulting in her being scarred with a gash on the right side of her forehead, a similar one on her left cheek and a larger one that cuts across from shoulder to her chest. Though she repressed the memory, she did indeed see her father die, thus Thestrals are visible to her. Another thing the accident did was give her motorphobia, though can tolerate it as long as she’s A) In control of the vehicle and B) It’s not motorised.

However, she does have a love of cycling, she was taught to do so by her dad before he died. Similarly, gymnastics helped her get some of her confidence back after the accident and still keeps up with it. A love of plants and animals prompts her to excel in Herbology and Potions, then later COMC.

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Affiliations: The Circle of Khanna, The Wimborne Wasps, The Order of the Phoenix, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Professions: Beater for the Wimborne Wasps (1991-95)

Agent of the Order of the Phoenix (1995 - 98)

Resumes position as beater for the Wasps (1999-2003)

Charms Assistant Teacher (2003 - 05)

Charms Teacher (2005 - present)

Hogwarts Information

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: E

Charms: O

DADA: O

Herbology: E

History of Magic: A

Potions: A

Transfiguration: E

Electives:

Care of Magical Creatures: A

Muggle Studies: O

Quidditch:

Hufflepuff Beater (1985 - 91)

Hufflepuff Captain (after Orion graduates) (1989 - 91)

Extra Curricular:

Duelling Club (Becomes known as one of the best duellers in Hogwarts)

Art Club

Football Club (Founder)

Apparition Class (in 1991)

Favourite Professors:

Professor Sprout, his head of house and someone he feels he can go to if he needs advice. One of several people who warned him about being careful with Patricia Rakepick.

Professor Mcgonagall, his Transfiguration teacher and head of Jacob’s house when he was at Hogwarts. Though they disagree entirely on him tackling the vaults, he always pays attention in her lessons as while she’s often stern she can be a great teacher.

Professor Flitwick, as his Charms teacher, David always found Flitwick to be respectable. David especially respects Flitwick for teaching him Expelliarmus, even after he was honest in what he intended to do with it (i.e. use it in a duel against Merula). Also came for Flitwick’s help in developing Cometa.

Least Favourite Professors:

Professor Binns: Finds his droning entirely too boring and really only passed History of Magic thanks to Rowan.

Every other professor he’s either neutral on (Snape and Trelwany) or he likes but aren’t his favourites (Kettleburn).

Best Canon friends:

Rowan Khanna

Diego Caplan

Nymphadora Tonks

Penny Haywood

Chiara Lobosca

(David plus the above five make up the original members of the Hufflesquad)

Bill Weasley

Charlie Weasley

Erika Rath

Orion Amari

Badeea Ali

Barnaby Lee

Liz Tuttle

Love interest:

Erika Rath (crush)

Nymphadora Tonks (first kiss)

Liz Tuttle (dated briefly in third year but broke things off fairly amicably when they realised they were developing crushes on other people).

Merula Snyde (began dating in fourth year, later marries David in 1994)

Best MC friends:

Judith Harris (@judediangelo75): The closest of his MC friends, David and Judith first get acquainted by being pushed into friendship... somewhat subtly by Penny Haywood. Both of them catch on when Penny mentions they should try out for the Quidditch team. Both of them still go for it, bonding over a shared love of martial arts and proving they have the potential to be fearsome beaters.

Throughout their time at Hogwarts, David and Judith would demonstrate a fierce loyalty to each other, being as close as siblings. David even becoming godfather to her children, Bakari and Kendrick.

Cato Reese (@catohphm): David was first introduced to Cato by Penny. The two find themselves sharing very similar values, having a great love their friends and absolute ruthlessness towards their enemies.

Like anyone involved in the Quidditch scene at Hogwarts, David has a bit of a rivalry with him. Tending to trash talk him (though with no real weight behind it), Cato understands that David doesn’t mean it.

Katriona Cassiopea (KC) (@kc-needs-coffee): The two of them are sports fanatics, they could talk to each other for hours about Quidditch. While David definitely knows more about footy, he’s eager to learn about any sport, such as baseball which KC is highly knowledgeable about.

KC would be one of the first to jump at the football matches David organises during his time at Hogwarts. 

Lizzie Jameson (@lifeofkaze​): Like David, Lizzie is an avid fan of LFC. Even meeting up at some point with their respective partners to watch a footy match at Anfield, where Liverpool were playing. 

On the quidditch pitch, Lizzie is a chaser and knows she can count on David to keep the bludgers off her back.

If any of your MCs would want to be friends with David, let me know!

Rivals:

Merula Snyde (For most of his time at Hogwarts).

During Quidditch: Erika Rath, Skye Parkin, Andre Egwu, Charlie Weasley, Angelica Cole, Oliver Wood, Cato Reese and Katriona Cassiopea.

Enemies:

R (including Patricia Rakepick, Fenrir Greyback and Peter Pettigrew).

The Snyde family (minus Merula)

Voldemort

Death Eaters

Magical Abilities

1st Wand: Blackthorn, unicorn hair core, ten and a quarter inches, slightly springy and flexible. Snaps it in half shortly just before the end of sixth year, citing, “What kind of warrior can’t even protect his own brother?”

Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view very well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior.

Unicorn hair generally produces the most consistent magic, and is least subject to fluctuations and blockages. Wands with unicorn cores are generally the most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts. They are the most faithful of all wands, and usually remain strongly attached to their first owner, irrespective of whether he or she was an accomplished witch or wizard. Minor disadvantages of unicorn hair are that they do not make the most powerful wands (although the wand wood may compensate) and that they are prone to melancholy if seriously mishandled, meaning that the hair may ‘die’ and need replacing.

2nd Wand: English Oak, Dragon Heartstring core, twelve and a half inches, unbending.

A wand for the good times and bad, this is a friend as loyal as the wizard who deserves it. Wands of English Oak demand partners of strength, courage and fidelity. Obtained from Garrick Ollivander while being accompanied by Alastor Moody.

As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon  wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.  

Animagus form: A ram, specifically of a Dalesbred Sheep. Rams symbolise determination, initiative and leadership, factors that are put to the test more than once during his time at Hogwarts.

Misc magical abilities: Legilimens, Rue informs him of potentially inheriting her legilimens ability between third year and fourth year when he tells her of his delve into the Vault of Fear. David prefers not using it on people, rather using it to see through the eyes of animals as his great grandfather Reuben used to do.

Occlumency: Snape, at Dumbledore’s behest begins teaching David the art of Occlumency in fifth year.

Non-verbal magic: David began learning the non-verbal use of magic in fifth year thanks to professor Flitwick. Becoming highly skilled in it by his seventh year.

Spell creation: Assists in the creation of Stella Cascadia alongside Badeea Ali. Given how dangerous the vaults could be, he begins to work on another spell inspired by Stella Cascadia alongside several of his friends, Cometa, the comet jinx.

Boggart Form: Initially, Jacob as a death eater after hearing about the rumours of him taking Voldemort’s side.

From year four onwards, himself as a dark wizard as he worries about the path the vaults will set him on.

Riddikulus Form: Death eater Jacob’s mask turns into a pie that promptly splats him in the face.

Later, his dark wizard self in the uniform of Everton Football Club with a blue clown nose and wig to match. Since he’s a Liverpool Football Club supporter, seeing himself in one his rival team’s colours as a clown is hilarious to him.

Amortentia (what do they smell like?): A sea breeze and heather.

Amortentia (what do they smell?): Freshly mown grass and clear air after a rainfall.

Patronus: African wild dog, a symbol of his loyalty and relentless pursuit of his goals.

Patronus memory: -Attending the LFC vs Nottingham Forest semi final match of the Football League Cup at Anfield on the 12th February 1980 with his dad and Jacob. They drew 1-1 and LFC didn’t get through to the final but David was still happy to be there with both them.

Mirror of Erised: Jacob being back, alongside all of his friends and family. All of them are safe and well.

Specialised/ favourite spells: 

Cometa, a spell that David creates in sixth year with the help of Badeea Ali, Rowan Khanna, Merula Snyde, Diego Caplan and professor Flitwick. Inspired by Stella Cascadia, and using some principles from the Ice Jinx, the spell initially creates cricket ball-sized pieces of ice that explode into a mist when they impact against something. This makes it especially useful for blinding or disorienting a target. Later they develop the more-powerful Cometa Maxima in seventh year. Its main limitations are maintaining eye contact directed at the target (as is the case for all jinxes) and its general range is quite short (about twenty five feet) due to the “comet” (really a mix of ice, dust and gases) disintegrating quite quickly.

Protego Diabolica, A spell taught to him by Felix Rosier in sixth year, nothing says “Get away from my friends!” Like a massive wall of blue flame that incinerates enemies and leaves allies unharmed.

Expelliarmus, the Disarming charm taught to David by Professor Flitwick in first year is one of his go-to spells when duelling.

Protego, learned in order to protect himself from spells and other projectiles.

Healing spells: Largely taught to him by Chiara throughout their time at Hogwarts, healing spells have come in handy more than once when he needs to preserve his own or his friend’s lives.

Expecto Patronum, though niche, a spell that can get rid of a dementor is nothing to scoff at. Plus it’s a sentimental reminder of his friendship with Tonks.

Incendio, good as a fire-starter and a duelling spell, also reminds him of a time when Merula stood up to Rita Skeeter for him by burning her camera.

Misc Information

-David is a huge supporter of Liverpool Football Club (LFC), so much so one of his casuals is a club uniform.

-As well as Needle, David has other creatures on the reserve, Lucky (Knarl), Clop (Porlock), Bonita (fairy), Mori (thestral), and Chen (Chinese fireball).

[sing-swan-spring-swan]

kam & solinh, fairytale au style

hey, did i ever chuck the 13-page bullet-point-style fairytale au i wrote once on here? no? well we’re fixing that. kam, solinh, draws from various fairytale tropes but is mostly a mix of “beauty and the beast” and “sleeping beauty”. so!

the sencens live in a small rural town on the edge of a cursed wood. they're like, the town's pet nobles. sometimes they get messages from the council. the town thinks they're cool as heck, because nobles! they never get nobility all the way out here- but no one actually knows why they chose to live here.

it's because lady gisela did some Bad Stuff, actually. or she tried, and failed, but without enough evidence to prove it the council couldn't do anything, and lord cassius had enough clout to prevent her from most of the consequences but, of course, they subsequently moved because, y'know. not a good idea to be in close proximity to power structures you definitely defied.

so, keefe, cassius, and gisela live in this small rural town. keefe, despite being popular (see: nobles!) has exactly one actual friend, and her name is sophie. they are friends mainly because sophie took one look at keefe and went "you're chaotic neutral, aren't you" and keefe went "oh thank god all these people think i'm lawful good where do i get some mischief in this town"

it's not perfect. sophie hates being stuck in a little orphanage of a little town and knows she’s going to be basically nothing when she comes of age, keefe is basically stuck with his family, who exemplify a power structure he hates and can’t seem to change, but y'know, they're happy. 

and then one night, when keefe is trying to turn sophie's hair purple, he sees his mother sneaking into the woods.

he leaves the hair dye and sneaks after her. in the woods, he sees lady gisela making some sort of deal with a demon- she offers it a vial of her son's blood and promises it sophie's life in exchange for power. (enough power to regain the sencens' influence and eventually take over the kingdom, with keefe as a puppet king, but keefe doesn't know that yet.)

so keefe, shocked by this, tries to run and reveals himself. lady gisela chases him and he flees, but he can't go to the town because sophie, so he's just crashing through the woods until he finds a castle, gets into it, slams the gates shut.

and then a voice behind him says "you really shouldn't have done that."

keefe screams. because it's a ghost! sort of a ghost. transparent enough to be a ghost.the ghost explains that now that he's here, he can't leave- the curse will keep him trapped. keefe's like, sure, what curse? and tries. he gets maybe three feet out before vines that definitely weren't there before crawl up from the forest and fling him bodily back into the castle.

"told you," the ghost says, then gestures to where keefe is now bleeding significantly, because thorns. "let's get those taken care of." 

the ghost informs him that the castle is his to explore and that it will provide for him, but he should really never ever go up the stairs. one because those floors aren't really maintained, but two because the stairs aren't maintained either, and they'll probably collapse and kill him. keefe asks if that's how the ghost died. the ghost glares. 

meanwhile- sophie hasn't seen keefe in three days. gisela says he's most likely exploring in the forest, what a shame, so dangerous, you know, but he's a hero at heart and he thinks he can save it and sophie thinks "nope, you know what, he's an idiot and i'm gonna go find that idiot"

so she goes into the forest, and she finds the castle, and she finds keefe, and keefe is like "sophie what the frick now you can't leave either"

sophie is . . . pretty chill about this, actually, because she didn't have much waiting for her in the town, but keefe is like "no this is actually a problem gisela is planning things and she's making deals and if you're here she can't fulfill them and i don't know what she's going to do, and also there are ghosts here"

"hi," says the ghost. 

keefe introduces the ghost as tam and they give sophie a rundown of the curse and what's going on. tam repeats the "don't trust the stairs" thing and keefe and sophie Look at each other, because keefe is now healed enough to attempt sneakery and now they can do it together.

they wait a few days, and then they try the stairs. they go to the basement first, because the basement stairs look more solid and there are fewer of them.in the basement, they find a pool, large and wide and still. for a moment, there's no sound, and sophie begins to walk towards it.

and then a monster bursts from the surface. 

"who invades this castle?"  it screams, and its voice shakes the stone.

sophie, who is soaking wet and terrified, puts her hands up and tries to back away, before tam rushes up behind her.

"they're villagers! they're just villagers." he glances over at sophie and keefe. "foolish, stupid villagers who got lost and found this place. they're harmless."

tam approaches the monster and they talk, tam in a whisper, and the monster in a gravelly voice, like ocean tides, that sophie can't make words out of. the monster backs off, and tam storms towards them. he grabs them and starts dragging them towards the stairs, and then he glares until they start moving up the stairs ahead of him.

"what was that thing?" keefe asks, as they approach the ground floor. 

"she," tam hisses, "is . . . the owner of this castle. she protects us." 

"from what? the curse keeps you here." 

no response. 

". . . is she responsible for the curse? because if she is-" 

"the curse protects us! from people like you! they would kill her, they killed me, and the curse keeps us safe. you were the ones stupid enough to come in!"

they walk the rest of the way in silence. when they get to the ground floor, tam says that they’ve already proven they won't listen to him if he tells them not to go to the tower, but he is asking them not to, as a basic kindness. 

they don't see tam for the next few days. both keefe and sophie feel bad, but it's sophie that first decides "you know what, i'm gonna go apologize to the monster." keefe responds with "look, you're right but tam got so angry last time. maybe this is a bad idea." they think for a moment, and then sophie's like "what if we write a letter?"

the castle provides for them, at least, so finding paper and ink isn't too hard. they write a letter and decide that sophie will deliver it.

sophie goes down with the letter and is planning to just leave it there but surprise! monster, who asks her what she's holding. sophie explains about the letter, the monster asks sophie to read it to her since, you know, claws and things make paper a Challenge. sophie feels painfully awkward but she does, and the monster thanks her and apologizes in turn for her reaction when they entered. as sophie leaves. she promises they'll find a way out, and leave the two alone. 

meanwhile, keefe, who is going a Little Bit Crazy here waiting for sophie, goes looking for tam. he finds tam, the two kind of- end up in a standoff for a bit, until keefe, who has no better ideas, asks if tam knows how to cook. tam does not- the castle has always provided for them. keefe takes tam into the kitchen and shows him how to make mallowmelt. neither of them are very good at it, and also tam sometimes phases through physical things, but they get a sort of mallowmelt that is a little burnt but still very sweet and very good. 

tam comes in the next day and tells sophie that "she wants to see you." there's only one other being in the whole castle, so sophie and tam go down to the basement. tam lingers, before sophie says it's okay, and then he lingers a little longer until the monster gives what's probably a nod.

"i'm not going to eat you," the monster says. she very well could- those fangs are proof enough- but. 

"i didn't think you were," sophie says.

the monster explains that the curse is magic, complicated, confusing magic, that even she doesn't understand, but if sophie wants to get out of it then she'll probably need what the monster knows.

sophie pauses. 

"i thought you cast it," she says. 

". . . yes, but i don't know how." "can it be broken?" 

"you're not breaking the curse," the monster says, and there's a snarl to her voice. 

"no, that's not what i meant, just- if you knew a way to break it maybe we could alter that to just- pause it temporarily? so keefe and i could leave?" 

"oh. no, i don't know how to break it." 

"okay," sophie says, and then she goes and gets paper and ink, and the monster tells her everything she knows.

when they're done, she looks at her pages of notes, and then she looks at the monster, but it doesn't feel right to keep calling her that. 

"do you have a name?" 

the monster pauses. and then she says, "linh. and you're sophie?" 

"i- yes. how did you know that?" 

linh gives what might be a laugh. 

"you said it in your letter." 

"oh. right." 

"sophie. it's a pretty name." 

"thank you," sophie says, and then, "so is linh." 

she does that sort-of laugh thing again. "i'll see you tomorrow, sophie." 

two days later, when keefe and sophie head into the kitchen, there is another plate of mallowmelt on the counter, and keefe does not know if that's the castle's doing or tam's (or if they're the same). it tastes a little weird, and keefe assumes, since tam can’t actually eat, he was guessing at the flavor, but it’s good. it feels like approval, too, which gives keefe the confidence to ask if tam knows how to make dye. he does.

they make dye. they also stain the kitchen, and keefe's hair, and for a moment keefe forgets that tam is non-corporeal and tries to put finely chopped cabbage in his hair. there's a moment of awkwardness, before keefe pouts about it not being fair and knows he's succeeded when tam laughs.

they get one of the squirrels that lives on the castle grounds and dye its fur multiple colors. the squirrel, to its credit, seems to be enjoying the whole thing. 

at some point, probably late one night, tam asks where he learned to do all this, and keefe tells him that he mostly uses it to play pranks on people, back in the town. 

"geez," tam says. "your parents let you get away with all that?" 

"ah," keefe says, "no. they don't. they're actually, uh . . . kind of terrible." 

there's a moment. 

"i'm sorry." 

"no, don't be. i mean, it's normal, right?" 

"no," tam says, vehemently. "it's not, and it shouldn't be." 

keefe looks at him. "were yours kind of terrible too?" 

". . . yeah.”

"i mean. you don't have to tell me, but what happened?" 

there's a pause, as tam looks at his hands. 

"i'm a twin. my sister was born first, by about five minutes, so she was technically crown princess, but she had . . . magic. a lot of it." 

"isn't that a good thing?" 

"she wasn't- it was a lot. and they never taught her how to control it, they just expected her to, and when she couldn't, they made me the heir. and i fought it, so they fought me, and eventually they sent us . . . here." 

"and then people attacked. and they killed you." keefe says, and tam nods. 

"i'm . . ." keefe looks for something better and doesn't find it. "sorry." 

"yeah, well. what happened to you?" 

"my dad hates me, and, uh, my mom tried to feed my blood to a demon." 

tam winces. "well. at least they can't get to us here?" 

"yeah," keefe says, and then he tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. "nobility, am i right?" 

"nobility," tam replies, and the air feels lighter.

so linh and sophie and tam and keefe just kinda! hang out in the castle together! and bond! and they work on fixing the curse so keefe and sophie can leave

there’s one conversation when they’re all working together where sophie brings up the concept of “true love”. It sounds silly to her, but there’s mentions in the text of it being really powerful magic.

“of course,” linh says. “all the best spells draw on love.”

“and all the worst,” tam adds.

for a moment, they just look at each other, and then linh sighs and turns back to sophie. she explains that while love is an extremely powerful magic, it is also one that tends to be uncontrollable. magic born out of love is extremely strong- it can overcome most other magical forces and constructions in the world, and there are stories about it performing what are essentially miracles- but it's not really the kind of thing where the outcome can be predicted. so, since both tam and linh are insistent that keefe and sophie not break the curse, it’s not a viable route. keefe and sophie agree, and they get back to work.

 also at some point in this they start a girls vs. boys prank war and they have fun and everything is fine for a little while

 but of course, you know, they keep talking, and keefe and sophie are starting to put it together. and at one point, when they're all down in the basement and it's quiet, sophie asks, "were you two siblings?" 

tam and linh look at her. 

"i just thought- if we want the best chance of getting keefe and i out, we need as much information as we can get. and we still don't know what happened to cause this curse." 

"we haven't been snooping," keefe says, quickly. "you've just said some stuff, and we just been thinking.”

linh looks at tam. tam takes a breath. "alright. come with me." 

 he leads them up the tower. they climb flights of stairs, before they are stopped by a thicket of thorns.

"oh, i didn't- i don't know if you can get through." 

but keefe steps up, and the thorns pull back, revealing a passage. 

"well," tam says, quietly. "that's new."

the passage leads to a room. in it is a single body, resting on a dais, surrounded by thorns. 

it's tam: the same clothes, same hair, same face. the only difference is the broken arrows, three of them, lodged in the body's still-breathing chest. 

"this is why you can't break the curse," tam says. 

"it's keeping you alive," sophie breathes. 

"barely." 

keefe takes a step closer to the body. 

"i thought you were a ghost," he says. 

"i am, really. but i'm not dead. just . . . sleeping."

 they leave the room and go back down to linh, and together linh and tam explain that when they were attacked and tam was killed, linh felt it. her magic exploded and twisted around the castle, creating the thorns and the lake. it saved tam's life, but it came at the cost of her body, turning her into what she is.

sophie and keefe leave tam, who clearly needs a little space, alone with linh. the next day, keefe makes mallowmelt and presents it to tam, who, while not necessarily able to eat it, smiles at him anyway.

they keep working, but now they're looking- or at least, sophie and keefe are looking- for two things: a way to get out and a way to heal tam. it's unlikely they'll find anything linh and tam haven’t, but they still try.

 but.

sophie has been missing for weeks now, and lady gisela, back in the village, still needs her and keefe. so she convinces the demon to give her enough power to find them, and she discovers the castle, and she creates a plan.

she goes to the leaders of the town, and in front of them, she starts to weep. apparently, her son has gone missing, and she knows where he's been taken- into the cursed wood, by the beast that lives in the castle. she produces a torn letter with a sketch of it, horribly monstrous, and she convinces the town to go into the woods and kill the beast.

the people of the village launch an attack, and linh and tam are unprepared and overwhelmed. they tell keefe and sophie to hide. 

"what are you going to do?" sophie asks. 

and linh rises out of the lake, water pouring off her in rivers. 

"fight," she says. 

"i'm not letting you go alone." 

linh looks at her for a long, long moment, before she bends her head to sophie. 

"then get on."

before keefe runs off with tam, he says, very quickly, "they're good people. not all of them. not my parents. but there are good people in the village."

 linh nods, and sophie dips with the movement. 

"we'll be careful. now go."

sophie and linh fight the mob, led by lord cassius. linh's strong, but in her current form her magic is weak, and there's too many of them- sophie keeps them off of linh as best she can, but they're just two people, linh hasn't fought in ages, and they're trying to pull their punches.

they hold them off for as long as they can, but it's not enough. they overwhelm linh. they pull sophie off her back, and lady gisela, who is smart, grabs her and holds a knife to her neck. 

"stop," she says. "or the girl dies." 

linh goes still. 

"linh, no," sophie begs, but she does not move, does not look away from sophie even as lord cassius lifts his sword and stabs into the soft flesh just behind her head.

 they take rope. they tie sophie to linh's body as she sobs. 

"spread out. search the castle. find my son, at any cost." 

"he's not yours," sophie cries, as the mob scatters. 

lord cassius looks at her, once, and then he turns away.

 keefe and tam, in the tower, hear the noises downstairs, the sudden silence that means nothing good. 

"do you know how to use a sword?" tam asks.

keefe nods. 

tam reaches into the darkness by the thorns and pulls out a sword, shadows curling off the edges. keefe stares, open-mouthed. 

"my sister wasn't the only one with magic," tam says, smiling, before he glances at his body. "i think- if i do too much, it'll break this, and kill me, but i can give you this." 

and just then, the thorns curl back as if burned, and lady gisela enters the room.

"keefe,” she says, reaching for him. “come back. stop this, come home with me. i did this for you, you know. i'll give you power. you'll be able to change the world. isn't that what you always wanted?" 

"i don't want anything from you," he says, and swings. 

keefe's good with a sword but he's never had to use it in combat before. and what's more, gisela trained him. gisela knows how he fights. and for all that he is in danger, he doesn't want to kill his mom. 

the sword is helping him, pushing force behind his strikes and blocking attacks with its wisps of shadow, but it's not enough to beat gisela. he manages to fight her to a standstill, sword pressed up against her shield of flickering power, but it's taking all keefe's strength to do that. 

"you'll see," gisela says, gathering power in her other hand. "i'll take you with me, and you'll do great things." 

keefe shakes his head, but there's nothing he can do to stop her. 

then he hears, "kiss me before i die, okay?" 

and just as gisela raises her hand, the sword explodes.

when the darkness fades, lady gisela is unconscious. the only sounds in the room are that of keefe's heavy breathing, and behind him, the rattling, raspy breaths of a dying body, on the dais behind him. 

keefe turns, and sees blood.

tam is back in his body. tam, who knew it would kill him, who did it anyway to keep keefe from his mother. 

kiss me before i die, okay? 

he wants tam to be awake for this. he wants to stumble over a confession, and he wants tam to shut him up, and he wants tam to kiss him back. but if this is all he gets, then. well. nothing’s fair. this is the least he can do. 

keefe leans in.

 sophie leans against linh's body. the water is cold but linh is still warm and she thinks of the last time they did this, when sophie fell asleep in the basement and linh curled around her to make her comfortable. she thinks of waking up to a smile that was all teeth and fangs and somehow, still soft and kind. she thinks of what she wanted to say, then. 

"i love you," she whispers, to someone who can't hear her anymore.

and linh's body begins to glow.

 up in the tower, keefe kisses tam, just once, quick and gentle. when he pulls away, tam's body is still, and keefe pretends he doesn't notice the tears that drip onto tam's face. 

but then something catches the corner of his eye, and he looks up. 

all around him, the thorns are blooming into dark purple roses, shining at the edges of their petals with a strange light. he looks to tam's chest, where the shafts of the arrows are growing, twisting together before they, too, burst into bloom, and dissipate into petals.

the blue glow around linh's body gets stronger, and brighter, until it hurts sophie's eyes, but she doesn't look away. around her, she hears, faintly, shouting, but it can't seem to reach her. the light twists, turns, and then the ropes go slack. in her arms is a girl, thin and pale, with waist-long black hair and torn clothes. 

her eyes blink open, grey-blue. she smiles, and sophie knows her, even without the teeth. 

"linh," she says. 

"i heard you." 

sophie reaches for her hand and laces their fingers together. linh looks at it in wonder, as if she's forgotten what it felt like, to have hands. 

"ready?" sophie asks. 

"always," linh says, and then, as the mob approaches, she raises her voice. "i am princess linh of exilium. this is my kingdom, and you are going to leave." 

sophie calls on all linh’s shown her about magic, on the glowing thing at the center of her chest, and together, they pull.

 the petals fall, gently, to tam's chest. the arrows are gone. so is the wound. 

"keefe?" says a shaky, familiar voice. 

he looks back. tam's eyes are open. 

"you idiot," he says. "you died." 

"you saved me," tam tells him, and keefe, helplessly, has no clever response to that. 

"i love you," he says, instead. 

"i love you too." 

and then the ground beneath them starts to rumble. keefe glances around them, worried, but tam laughs, once, bright and wondering. 

"that's my sister. that's linh. she's back."

 the lake washes through the castle. it sweeps up the villagers, the swords, the weapons. it washes into the tower and takes the dais and lady gisela with it. keefe scoops tam into his arms and they walk down, untouched by the raging current, as tam lifts a hand and starts to pull the last of the demon’s shadows from gisela and the villagers that pass them. they twist around each other, before dissipating into nothing but harmless wisps. 

sophie and linh are there, in the foyer, hands clasped at the center of it all, as the waters curl and turn around them. 

"can i kiss you?" sophie says, half breathless. 

and linh leans in, and in the center of a bright blue whirlpool, kisses her.

[doyouknowhowtowaltz]

BEHOLD!

AN AU!

Guardian “Angel” AU

The Beast, Enoch, and the Queen of the Clouds are guardian “angles”, creatures with very little relation to the biblical idea of an angel except perhaps in appearances. Guardian Angels have no defined hierarchy, they are simply semi-intangible eldritch beings that roam the earth. They all have an intrinsic pull that guides them to a mortal that they guard and protect from death. 

The Beast and Enoch are old friends, they enjoy one another’s company between wards, but when they feel the calling they typically break away to go and tend to their respective mortal charge. The Beast and the Queen of the Clouds are on the other hand, old enemies, and will fall into blatant animosity when confronted by one another. Enoch and the Queen of the Clouds are amicable, though Enoch’s friendliness to the Beast puts strain on their relationship.

The relevant timeline of this story starts with Gregory’s birth, at which the Beast adopts Gregory as his new charge. When the baby and his family return home the Beast finds that little Gregory has an older half brother, Wirt, who is under Enoch’s watchful eye.

They band together to keep the two brothers alive and well, acting as a tag team of sorts, looking after their charges. Talking to them, though their words are unheard, they are not unheeded, and they have quite a bit of influence when they’re careful. 

(On a side note, morality is a pretty loose thing for them, they don't care who gets hurt, who dies, etc, as long as their charges are alive and well.)

On the fateful Halloween night cannon takes place on everything plays out similarly, though with the added commentary of two eldritch beings trying to encourage Wirt into asking out Sara without being physically able to shake him by the shoulders.

They climb over the wall as they normally would, but it is Enoch’s intervention that moves them off the tracks, and it is the Beast who wakes Wirt up to go and grab his brother and stagger onto the shore. 

Life continues.

Enoch and the Beast continue their vigil. 

Now for some concept art

Bonus information:

- The Beast does in fact have arms, he just doesn't bring them out much. 

- The Beast cannot fly, he has no membrane between his wings, he can however dissolve in and out of shadows

- Enoch’s size changes to fit his needs, most of the time he’s taller than the Beast, but he is occasionally cat sized

- Enoch has no mouth and does not blink with his main eye, the eyes on his wings do blink though.

- Enoch’s body and individual limbs are only defined when he’s moving, when he’s still he’s just an rough shadow shape with a tail. 

   - Sometimes when Enoch moves he still doesn't separate into proper limbs and just glides as a shadow, usually only when moving short distances.

- Between the two of them Enoch is more tangible but objects still usually pass through him unless he focuses. 

- The Beast sings lullabies to put Greg to sleep when he’s a baby 

- They can show themselves to humans selectively, they don't really do that and between the two of them Enoch is way more likely to do so

- If Enoch and the Beast happened to get into a physical alteration Enoch is physically way stronger than the Beast, but the Beast’s eyes are hypnotic so it could go either way-

- For most guardian angels touching wings is taboo unless you’re in private

- Unlike most guardian angels, the Beast cannot feel his wings,  he can move them, but he physically cannot feel them.

- The Beast wings were also badly broken at one point and you can still see where they broke.

- Since they are mostly intangible they’re not great at stairs, they can get up to other floors other ways, but they’re just really not good at stairs

- The Beast is the one who encourages Wirt to join band, even though Wirt cant really hear him he still gets the impression that he should join band and does.

- Most guardian angels only work in pairs when they’re romantically involved, Enoch and the Beast aren't romantically involved... yet (I’m a beastnoch writer primarily, you can connect the dots)

- Thus far, the Beast is the only one who has encouraged blatant murder, he was unheeded because Wirt is a wimp. 

 - This is a fucking niche self indulgent AU that lets me think about morally gray eldritch husbands co-parenting very poorly.

[nblenasabrewing]

Does Lena have PTSD?

This excellent post from @drummergirl231-2 goes into a detailed analysis about Della and the examples showing possible PTSD. I, being who I am, wanted to look at the same for Lena. Full credit goes to them for the idea and format!

According to the DSM-5, in order for a person to be diagnosed with PTSD, they must have a certain number of symptoms from eight categories: Criteria A through H.

For a diagnosis of PTSD, someone needs: to meet Criterion A to have at least 1 symptom from Criterion B to have at least 1 symptom from Criterion C to have at least 2 symptoms from Criterion D to have at least 2 Symptoms from Criterion E to meet Criteria F, G, and H

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional. I do NOT have a degree in anything related to psychology and simply enjoy dissecting the layers of a fictional character. If you feel you fit any of the criteria, please see a professional for a real diagnosis. This isn’t something that can be easily self-diagnosed, and a professional diagnosis would open you to more opportunities for help.

Lena does and doesn’t fit the criteria in general for PTSD. She’s certainly suffered from traumatic events, but the event is more... her entire life. She’s a classic child abuse victim, which makes her more of a candidate for C-PTSD. 

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD; also known as complex trauma disorder) is a psychological disorder that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma in a context in which the individual has little or no chance of escape. Being stuck with Magica for fifteen years absolutely contributes to Lena’s current issues. C-PTSD and PTSD share similarities, there are a distinct differences - mainly that PTSD focuses on one event and the effect it has on a person long term, while C-PTSD focuses on years of repeated trauma. However, there’s no approved criterion yet for C-PTSD. So I’m using the PTSD criterion with some added explanation where C-PTSD would be applicable. 

Criterion A: The traumatic event

A person must be exposed to one or more events involving threatened or actual death, threatened or actual serious injury, or threatened or actual sexual violation in one of the following ways:

Direct involvement

Witnessing the event happen to someone else

Hearing about it happen to a loved one

Repeatedly hearing details about traumatic events, such as police officers repeatedly hearing stories of abuse

The obvious example here: Lena effectively died. Twice. Following that, she was trapped in a realm where she couldn’t be seen or heard by anyone and she couldn’t touch anything for six months (give or take). Her first interaction with anything since she had been trapped there was smacking the Boggle case in Friendship Hates Magic! And even she’s surprised by that.

In addition, she spent fifteen years with Magica in her shadow, who effectively acted as an abusive parental figure. She’s proven to be an expert in gaslighting, and knows exactly how to manipulate Lena - by hanging the promise of freedom over her head and reminding her repeatedly that people will think she’s a monster if they find out the truth about her.

Criterion B: Intrusive Symptoms

Expected or unexpected reoccurring, involuntary, and intrusive upsetting memories

Repeated nightmares related to the traumatic event

Some form of dissociation, such as flashbacks, where the individual truly feels the traumatic event is happening again

Strong emotional distress when exposed to internal or external triggers associated with the traumatic event

Strong bodily reactions (such as rapid heart rate) when exposed to reminders of the traumatic event.

Nightmares: While we can’t say for absolute sure that Lena has nightmares outside of Magica’s influence via the helmet in NOKH, the fact that no one is surprised by her nightmares does seem to imply that’s she probably had more than she’s letting on. Lena’s biggest fear is turning into Magica, after all - it’s no surprise she would have dreams along that line.

Emotional distress, strong bodily reactions: These really come out in Violet’s library, when Lena gets overwhelmed and tries to hide. The fish-eye view of everyone trying to talk to her while she sees Magica over their shoulders was most likely meant to imply she was having at least the start of a panic attack.

In addition, her reaction to Webby calling her (looking like Magica) a monster was pretty extreme. Again, the dream world setting makes things a bit wobbly, but given everything we know about Lena up to this point, and the fact that she yelled at Magica for saying they’re both monsters, it feels safe to assume she’d be angry and upset and scared if anyone ever called her a monster (again, something Magica constantly used against her.)

Criterion C: Avoidance

An individual with PTSD will frequently avoid reminders of the traumatic event in one of the following ways:

Avoiding thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations that trigger memories of the traumatic event

Avoiding people, places, conversations, activities, objects, or situations that bring up memories of the traumatic event

Whether the nightmares were caused by Magica or not, their effect on Lena is real and pretty easy to see. She sets up an entire sleepover just so the kids can help keep her awake. Avoiding sleep to avoid nightmares is pretty extreme.

She also continues to keep secrets from everyone despite Webby’s constant reassurances that they all care about her and don’t think she’s anything like Magica, because the alternative is having to talk about it or worse, have her fears confirmed.

Criterion D: Negative changes in thoughts and mood

The inability to remember important details of the traumatic event

Persistent and elevated negative thoughts about oneself, others, or the world

Exaggerated self-blame or blame of others for the cause or consequence of the traumatic event

Pervasive negative emotional state (anger, fear, shame, etc.)

Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities

Feeling isolated or detached from others

Difficulty experiencing positive emotions

Lena’s opinion of herself seems to be pretty low. We only get one episode to really see it, but her fear of turning into Magica and active attempts to avoid such an outcome definitely make it seem like she still considers herself “evil”, and is trying to make up for it. She also readily gives in and says, “I am her”, essentially giving up on herself.

The dream adventures also excellently illustrate how Lena feels “Othered” from everyone else - they get butterfly wings, she gets weird monster wings. She falls behind at Dewey High and is separated from the others. She’s the only one in Louie’s dream, aside from Louie himself, to experience any sort of physical change. Even when she tries to be happy with them, she can’t keep up the facade.

And before all of this there’s the classic example of her being jealous of Violet (under the guise of protecting Webby from being tricked again). She immediately assumes the worst of Violet and follows Webby around telling her not to trust Violet.

Criterion E: Alterations in reactivity that started or worsened after the traumatic event

Irritability or aggressive behavior

Impulsive or self-destructive behavior

Hypervigilance (feeling constantly on-guard, or like danger is lurking around every corner)

Heightened startle response

Problems with concentration

Sleep disturbances, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless sleep

Lena’s personality in season one was mostly that of the sarcastic, irritating cool teenager who can’t be bothered. Under that, she was an unwilling slave to Magica, and while she did show irritable tendencies toward her, those can be forgiven as “Magica is terrible and provokes her.”

Season two, on the other hand, shows us a much different teenager - one who snaps easily and seems constantly frustrated by her own perceived shortcomings. Those emotions, of course, come out on the other kids (i.e. snapping at Huey and Violet). And while all of that can be attributed to her inability to sleep, which is being driven by Magica, Frank’s already said this isn’t the last we’ll see of Lena’s emotoinal growth and negative feelings.

Criterion F: The above symptoms must last for more than one month.

Obviously time is relative in Ducktales. Given everything that was going on around them, we can assume she’s been home for around a month-ish. Donald left for a month-long cruise two episodes before Lena came back, and everything after that has to have taken place within that month or it would have been way too obvious something was up. And again, Frank has said this is going to come up again. But even while she was still in the Shadow Realm, she was showing signs of trauma.

Criterion G: Distress from symptoms significantly impairs the individual’s ability to function in multiple areas of life (social, occupational, etc.).

While we haven’t seen much of Lena’s daily life, we do know a few things - before returning, she was living in Webby’s shadow, presumably following her around and getting comfortable in her shadow-y life. Violet throws a complete monkey wrench into that comfortable life, and Lena reacts... poorly, to say the least. She initially refuses to take responsibility for the tulpas feeding off her own negative feelings, continuing to project all the reasons she hates herself onto Violet (”She’s a spy, she’s a second-rate me,” etc.).

In NoKH we see that the triplets aren’t quite used to the fun, happy persona Lena tries to project, which immediately gets a frustrated yell and fire flaring up. She’s so worried about trying to be Good that her anxiety bubbles over into her life. She’s also constantly keeping secrets, something that is, unfortunately, normal for her, but not normal overall.

Criterion H: The symptoms are not due to substance abuse, medication side-effects, or another condition.

So the real issue comes in here - while there’s no medication or substance abuse, there is an outside force. Most of what we see of Lena’s symptoms are due to increasing sleep deprivation via Magica’s brainwave helmet. By the time NoKH starts she’s already gone at least several days without sleep, and it’s obvious the dreams are deeply affecting to her, to a point where she arranges an entire sleepover with her friends just to keep from going to sleep. There’s no way to know what she was dreaming about (although I have a few theories), but it almost certainly involved Magica, the main cause of her trauma. And we see how understandably upset she gets when she’s finally face to face with Magica.

In conclusion:

Lena is a complicated character with a lot of different factors playing into who she is, but there’s little doubt that after fifteen years of emotional/psychological abuse, two deaths, and six months trapped in what could almost be summarized as an isolation chamber, that Lena has some serious trauma. And while Magica influenced a lot of NOKH, it should also be noted that Magica, as her abuser, most likely acts as her trigger now. She spends the entire dream sequence running away from Magica, terrified to confront her. And while she has an amazing, empowering moment at the end of the episode, I’m sure this is going to come back up again.

(***All GIFs by me)

[indiavolowetrust]

THE OBEY ME BOYS AS RPG BOSSES: NEO-OSAKA

LEVEL 1-7

LEVEL 8-10 (YOU ARE HERE)

FINAL BOSS

ENDINGS

Word Count: 2,803

You are one of many modified humans in Neo-Osaka. A relic of your brief time in the criminal underbelly. Your adopted little brother, Luke, has been kidnapped by a criminal syndicate known only as The Devil Triad for unknown reasons. Simeon, his upperclassman, is the sole witness of his kidnapping. Armed with your trusty katana, the healing microbots in your blood, and  the information Simeon has given you, you venture back into the underworld of Neo-Osaka to save your brother.

TW: Blood, Violence, Mention of Drug Use

LEVEL EIGHT – SOLOMON, THE SCIENTIST

It’s difficult to believe that the cadaver before you was ever human. If the label in front of its preservation tank can be believed, anyway. Thousands of glassy eyes rest from branch-like limbs, rolling aimlessly in the fluid. The surface of its skin reminds you of marble. Multitudinous horns protrude from what you think may have been a head once, one of them curling in to skewer the dead flesh, and it is only then that you notice that the mouth appears to be wrenched open in a scream. You hope that it – no, the human – hadn’t died that way. Aside from that, there are stranger details: a ring of bone encircles its head, seemingly having wrenched its way through the skull; six fledgling wings have sprouted from its back; and there are even veins visible within the corpse’s skin. Blue blood.

You’re not sure what you had expected upon infiltrating the The Devil Triad’s main base of operations. Something akin to an expensive manor, maybe, like where you had found the treasurer. A secret underground laboratory. A lair built into one of the many floating mountains surrounding Neo-Osaka. While the last part is partially true – the human swordsman had directed you to a business district on a floating mountain, after all – you certainly hadn’t expected the main base of operations to be hidden in a corporate office.

Especially not in one of Neo-Osaka’s most magnanimous companies. AkumaGen Technologies is known for its charity events, contributions to the people, and aid it gives to various hospitals throughout the city.

You read the label once more. HUMAN SUBJECT #491, it says. ANGEL PROJECT. METAMORPHOSIS UNSUCCESSFUL.

The door opens somewhere behind you, allowing white light to filter into the otherwise dark laboratory. Someone steps in. You quickly make yourself scarce, slinking into the glass-covered rafters above, and will your body to remain completely still.

It takes less than a minute for the figure – a tall, lanky man in a white labcoat – to make his way to where you had stood. He observes the preserved cadaver before him with a clinical eye, jotting down a few notes onto a clipboard, and powers up a holo-screen. He scrolls through various files, flicking away information that he deems unnecessary. A muffled conversation through a hand radio is barely audible, and you strain your ears to hear it. Something about sanguine material, you recognize. Something regarding recorded data, results of a process, and the latest subject. The scientist mutters something under his breath.

He takes his time with his observations. You take the opportunity to assess him from your position.

He stands a little less than two meters tall, you estimate. Given his narrow frame, he is likely less than seventy kilograms. You imagine that his physical strength is marginal compared to yours. While it is possible that the scientist could alert another worker in the facility, you’re fairly confident that you could incapacitate him fast enough. Your hand rests on the handle of your katana. If you can just --

An invisible force wrenches you from your hiding place. The glass of the rafters shatters beneath your body, and you grunt in pain as the shards dig into your flesh, the metal floor rapidly approaching. Thankfully, you break your fall with your face.

“I didn’t realize we had a rat in here,” the scientist remarks, the fingers of one hand splayed out. A psychokinetic stance, you realize. “Don’t you think eavesdropping is a little impolite? How did you even get in here?”

You open your mouth to speak – only to hack up blood, your body racked by shuddering coughs. You glance down at the sizeable shard of glass embedded into your abdomen. Much to your horror, your own blood has already begun to pool beneath you.

The scientist sighs. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Sorry about this, by the way.”

You don’t have time to react. Another force knocks you back into the shadows of the laboratory. The metal of some unknown machinery dents when you crash into it, a gasp of pain escaping from your mouth.

In the time it takes for the scientist to attack, however, you take note of  approximately three things.

One, he is a true psychokinetic. A psychokinetic with an absurd level of strength and control over his own abilities. Unlike the dockmaster with his modified limbs and horrific scars, the scientist before you has needed no such alterations to his physiology. His abilities have likely been honed over a number of years by The Devil Triad – although he was likely recruited for his abilities in the first place.

Two, his psychokinetic energy is connected to the movements of his fingers. While you had to effectively dismember the dockmaster in order to get rid of his psychokinetic abilities, it looks like you might only have to chop off this one’s  fingers. A task easier said than done, of course.

Three, his psychokinetic abilities seem to be limited to the manipulation of glass and air. There is a simple rule when dealing with psychokinetics: remove them from an environment that contains the materials of their affinity. Unfortunately for you, the laboratory is composed of mostly glass.

Something above you begins to splinter. You look upwards to see yet another glass-covered rafter shaking with the force of his will. The scientist furrows his brows in concentration, splaying his fingers into that stance once more. Blood runs from a nostril as he does so, staining his white lab coat, but he doesn’t falter. The air itself ripples and cracks in front of his hand, much like glass. You can see the shards forming.

“Now,” he says, gritting his teeth, “s̷̺͌h̶͍̚á̶̲ṭ̶̈́t̸̳̅e̴̯͆r̴̙̊.”

LEVEL NINE – BARBATOS, HEAD OF SECURITY

The sharply-dressed man before you only regards you with boredom. You stare back at him in disbelief. In spite of your katana buried into his neck, effectively spearing him, there isn’t even the slightest hint of pain in his expression. No discomfort, no adverse reaction, and certainly no surprise. The man – the head of security, judging by his badge – only gazes at you dispassionately, wraps one gloved hand around the blade of your sword, and wrenches the blade deeper into his body. The act pulls you closer. He rears back the other hand. Tightens it into a fist.

The man hadn’t even bothered to dodge your attack, now that you think about it. You should’ve known better.

The impact of his fist against your cheek sends you flying into the monochrome wall behind you. You grunt in pain when you finally crash into it, your body making a distinctly shaped dent in the concrete. Already you can feel the effects of your injuries: your ribs are cracked again, one of your lungs may be perforated, and you may or may not have broken one of your wrists. You’ve been separated from your one and only weapon. Worse, you suspect that the man very well be another cybernetic organism.

It only takes another moment for your suspicions to be confirmed. When he draws your blade from his throat and tosses it aside, the blade is completely free of blood. The white dress shirt that the android wears bears no sanguinary stain.

You’re running out of time. You only have so many hours to find Luke until he is turned into one of the many cadavers you had stumbled upon in the laboratory, and it has already taken you long enough to put down the scientist. With the scuffle ending with both of you being impaled by glass – and only one of you possessing healing microbots – you aren’t entirely convinced that you’ve properly recovered. Not enough to take the android in front of you head on, at least.

You need time. Time that you don’t have.

A bit of metal hangs from the android’s throat. He rips it off in annoyance, tosses it aside, and mouths wordlessly in your direction. Despite your rather serious injuries, you’re glad that you’ve taken away his ability to speak. You’re not sure if you would have wanted to hear the things he would have said otherwise.

Even if you could run, it would be utterly futile. You would only get lost in the monochromatic, winding halls, given the size of the facility, and it would take little time for the android to find and eliminate you. There are no windows in this hall, the next, or the one before this that you can jump through. No doors, either. Aside from the harsh, industrial lighting above you, the white concrete corridors are almost completely featureless. Devoid of all escape routes. If you want to get to the heart of the base and save Luke, you’ll have to incapacitate the android as soon as possible.

That is, if you can.

Even with the aid of the microbots in your blood, the simple act of forcing yourself  to move is excruciating. The world fades in and out. Your body screams in protest as you stagger onto your feet, your cracked ribs grinding against bruised organs, and you cry out as your bones and flesh knit back together. Despite this – no, despite everything about the horrible journey into the underworld of Neo-Osaka – you find that you’re no worse for wear. Some deep-seated part of you hadn’t expected you to survive this far. Some horrible, insidious voice had told you to turn back, that it would be so much easier if you gave up, and that this was one of the most stupid, reckless ideas you’ve ever had. You’ve questioned yourself countless times, and each time you’ve only given yourself the same answer.

Luke is the only family you have left. You’ll do anything to save him. Even if it means tearing yourself apart in the process.

Your katana is a short distance away from you. The android has picked up a pipe that has fallen from the damaged wall, apparently intending to bludgeon you with it. You need to move. Now.

LEVEL TEN – DIAVOLO, CEO OF AKUMAGEN

You’ve seen him countless times. You’ve seen his face plastered over holo-ads at least four stories high, spray-painted on the sides of buildings, and welded into various merchandise. You’ve seen that dazzling smile glaring back at you from interactive ads on the train, filtered through TV screens, and scrawled across news stories. You’ve learned through years and years of media consumption that this man is a hero. That Diavolo, CEO of AkumaGen Technologies, is nothing short of magnanimous, selfless, and ultimately perfect leader. You would recognize that shock of red hair and pinstriped suit anywhere.

The actuality of him in front of you, however, is jarring. Bizarre in a manner that makes even you drop your guard.

“You’re here,” Diavolo says, his back to you. The skyline of Neo-Osaka is laid out before the massive windows, its silhouette painted with the neon lights of holo-ads and airships. The floating mountains of Neo-Osaka idle against the clear night sky. “I do hope you’re enjoying the view. It’s precisely why I had this office built up here. There’s nothing quite like it, don’t you think?”

The massive skylight allows moonlight to stream into the room, as do the expansive glass windows. Despite his referral to the space as an office, you can scarcely believe that it is what he says it is. Not in the traditional sense, at least.

A single platform composed of marble sits at the center of the room. A myriad of strange apparatuses have been both embedded and placed beside it, most of which appear to have medical uses. Tools for dissection, if you had to guess. You don’t really want to mull over that idea. The presence of chains, shackles, and needles located near the platform give you enough information of whatever it is that they plan to do to your little brother. If the information you have taken from the scientist’s documents is to be believed – as well as what you have gathered from the cadaver – then The Devil Triad truly does intend to use your brother as a subject for the Angel Project. A stepping stone to creating the ultimate panacea. While it could very well work, you --

No. No, there’s no time to think about that now. Regardless of the circumstances, Luke isn’t some animal to be experimented on. Whatever reasons they have aren’t your concern.

There’s no chance in hell that you’re letting them to do that.

“You’ve caused a great deal of trouble for us.” Diavolo turns to face you, smoothing down a wrinkle in his suit. “Murdering left and right, slaughtering indiscriminately, cutting down anything and everything in your path. Have you ever wondered if you’re doing the right thing? If you’re on the right side?”

As if he has any right to talk, you point out. He’s the head of The Devil Triad, for fuck’s sake! Last time you checked, gangs aren’t exactly known for being moral, either. Of course you’re doing the right thing! If they give Luke back, then you’ll get out of their hair.

“That Levi boy was dismembered and left for dead by his own family,” he says, taking a step towards you. His hands are folded behind his back. “We stitched him back together and offered him a position in the triad.”

Like you would believe that. No one would be able to survive something so traumatic. Yet those scars of his – those scars could only be from --  

“Asmodeus was an adolescent addict when we found him.” Another step. “We were never able to truly wean him off his poison, but we did pull him off the streets. It’s hard to get them sober when they get addicted that young.”

So what? You’re not here for some pity party. Even if the patrons wanted to be somewhere else for a while, even if they wanted to escape the gritty reality of Neo-Osaka, surely there was a better way than --

“Mammon’s big brother got me pretty good with his knife the first time I found them in the alley.” His tone is light. Casual. Diavolo raises his hand in confirmation, pointing to a faded scar on his palm. “Goes by Lucifer, but you probably knew that already. He likes to tell people his name a little too much. Mammon was a savant with numbers and wouldn’t go anywhere without him, so we took them both in. I’m surprised he didn’t disembowel you.”

As a matter of fact, he did. But why does that matter? You just want your brother back! These people have probably killed countless times, so it’s not like you’re any less justified. You just want a happy, normal life with your family.

“And what makes you think that they were any different?” Diavolo presses. He is nearly within arm’s reach. “What makes you think they didn’t want to live happy, normal lives? I never had any intention of keeping them in The Devil Triad. They were the ones that chose to work for me. With me. The people you killed had lives, too. We took the twins in when they were starving. We picked Satan’s head out of the dumpster when he was set for the junkyard. We fight to keep our territory safe from other triads and to keep the people under our protection safe. We do what needs to be done. That doesn’t mean that we’re monsters.”

The rush of air is there before you can even see it. You dodge backwards just in time to see the blade of a thermal saber materialize in the air. The tip of the weapon reaches where your head was in a matter of moments, nearly singeing the air itself, and you move to unsheathe your own weapon. Light spills onto Diavolo’s form as he regards you with a cold, quiet ire. A flick of his wrist, and the blade of his thermal saber sets itself alight. He splits the handle into two and brandishes the second sword in the other hand.

For the first time, you see his mouth twitch into a frown.

“What makes you so different from us?” he demands. Determination burns like fire in his gaze. “Tell me, and I just might decide to kill you quickly.”

[th3atr3phant0m]

I Want to be Okay

For the majority of his life, Zim had considered himself to be above most other humans. His self-confidence was through the roof and he had an ego the size of his kismesis’ head. That paired with his mild God-complex was a fun little cocktail for absolute disaster and it was only a matter of time before Zim was taken down a few notches by his fellow classmates and everything changing around him.

As middle school and high school progressed, everyone around Zim changed. Their voices, their bodies, their personalities. Zim, on the other hand, felt as though he had remained mostly stagnant throughout the time. It wasn’t until how the others treated him and how Dib acted began to change that this was brought to his attention.

Suddenly, Zim felt the crushing pressure that everyone talked about but that Zim had never been able to imagine would ever impact him even slightly. He had never felt such hatred towards himself as he did those dark years of high school. It was as if every good thing he had seen in himself had been washed away as a cold bucket of water was upended above him, dousing him in the reality that he hadn’t seen before.

And that reality hurt more than most other things seemed to.

For the first time ever, Zim found him doubting himself almost completely. He felt happy about very few aspects of his appearance and personality and it weighed upon him heavily as the days dragged by with people becoming increasingly hostile and dismissive of him.

What hurt the most, though, was the realization that Dib had completely lost interest in him.

For several years, their relationship had been based on mutual hatred mingled with respect for the other. They were pinned against one another constantly and did everything they could to keep a constant battle going on between them, whether it was with their fists or with their intellects. They did everything in their power to do better than the other and excel in ways that the other could only hope to achieve. Zim and Dib were constantly at the top of their classes due to their battles to best the other and both pushed themselves both mentally and physically to get further than the other.

Now, though, Dib had completely given up on him. The other man has abandoned their strange relationship in spite of the fact that it had lasted for several years. Just like that, he dropped their entire dynamic without sparing a glance back at what he had spent so much of his time and energy on. Dib left without a word in favour of someone else- some pretty girl that he has a far more peaceful and cheery relationship with. He abandoned Zim as if he meant nothing.

Just like his mother, Miyuki, had all those years ago when she died.

Zim was sick and tired of being left behind and forgotten as though he was nothing . Zim was brilliant and powerful in so many ways that those around him just couldn’t comprehend. It wasn’t that he was less than them, they were just too blind and foolish to see that he was perfect. Zim wasn’t the problem!

...but what if he was?

It hadn’t just been Dib who had left him. His birth mother had left him as well and several of his foster homes had given him up before he finally landed in the care of his current fathers. That was more than enough to form a pattern that was clear as day and that pattern told him that people just had a tendency to leave him. People got bored with Zim and discarded him and, for the first time ever, he had to wonder if it was actually his fault.

Zim had to change things and he had to so quickly. He refused to continue to be left behind by those that he grew attached to any more. No longer would he be overlooked and unloved. He was going to change things.

It started off simple.

Zim became incredibly conscious of his caloric intake. He carefully considered how many calories were in every single food item he ate, cautious to not go over the limit that he had set for himself, no matter how hungry he was. Zim may not have been particularly large beforehand, but he knew what it was that people wanted and who was he to deny them?

The changes in his physique were minuscule, taking far too much time to leave any impact on Zim’s body aside from the lingering hunger when he didn’t eat well enough. He wasn’t happy with the small changes, so he began to eat even less, pushing himself to eat as little as possible when he did eat and to drink as much water as he could instead, warding off hunger and weight with the liquid. It may not have been satisfying as actually eating food was, but it was something.

Both of Zim’s fathers seemed to constantly eat junk foods. Despite this, their metabolism was so powerful that they stayed in good shape no matter what. It was a shame that Zim couldn’t get that trait from them. Oh, how much easier it would be if he could look pretty and perfect without having to starve himself as he did.

But Zim wasn’t so lucky. He had to work hard for the changes in his body and he wondered if his fathers were noticing. While they had likely noticed the fact that Zim had been eating less and less- coming up with excuses to not eat anytime they had family meals together- he wasn’t sure whether or not they would care that he wasn’t eating. As much as he wanted them to and as much as it made sense to him, he couldn’t be sure. Clearly, Zim had been overestimating himself and how much others liked him. Why would his dads be any different?

Weeks passed with him eating as little as he possibly could while still consuming enough to function and Zim couldn’t help but feel proud of himself in some twisted way. Despite the way hunger clawed at his stomach, seeing the numbers on the scale slowly slide back more and more over the days made him smile. The flatness of his stomach and the more prominent curve of his ribs and dip of his hips made up for the dizzying hunger that overtook his body as the weeks passed.

Despite the massive change, nothing in the way his peers treated him seemed was altered. They still overlooked and ignored him unless he was screaming or demanding their attention in one way or another. Even Dib- the one he had hoped to gain the attention of the most- continued to refuse him anything more than a passing glance.

That hurt even more than the hunger did.

Clearly, what he was doing already wasn’t enough. That was okay, though. He could change things. That wasn’t all that he had to offer the world.

Being gender fluid gave Zim an array of ways to express himself and a variety of outfit options to play around with when he was looking to impress those around him. Typically, when he chose clothing, he looked for things that made him feel comfortable with however he wanted to present that day rather than thinking about how he would be perceived and whether or not others would find it appealing. Recently, though, it seemed like a far better idea to begin focusing more on the latter option.

In another attempt to gain the respect and attention of his peers- specifically Dib- he ended up revamping his entire wardrobe, taking on a style that wasn’t entirely his own nor entirely in his comfort zone.

Zim began pushing his outfit choices to the extreme no matter what day it was, wearing form-fitting or revealing clothes most days. On Zim's feminine or androgynous days, she wore cropped shirts to expose their flat, somewhat muscled stomach. On other days, tight button-down worked wonders at showing off the physique he had worked so hard for.

As it turned out, he had been right about one thing- dressing differently did draw attention to himself. In his new outfits, even if he didn’t like all of them, he turned heads and oh he loved the attention. Their stares as he walked by, their heads swivelling to follow his movements made him feel amazing. He felt seen by them. He felt appreciated. He was proving to them that he wasn’t someone to just be discarded as they had done once before.

Zim was almighty.

But Dib still wouldn’t even look his fucking way. No matter what it was he did, it seemed he could never gain the boy’s attention. Despite all of his attempts, Zim wasn’t able to restore their previous relationship. The changes that he underwent did absolutely nothing to ignite the same spark he had within the other boy when he first met him. He just couldn’t seem to get Dib’s attention at all and the attention that he got from his peers, while immediately gratifying, was clearly not akin to respect.

Even with his best efforts, Dib was still staring at that stupid girl and not paying any attention to him. Nothing that Zim had done to make himself more impressive had drawn any of his nemesis’ attention back to him. Despite making himself even more of a formidable foe than he had been before, Dib refused to give him the time of day- as is he didn’t even notice Zim’s existence.

Zim hated the fact that Dib had been able to move on to something else so easily while Zim was stuck in the past, missing their relationship regardless of how fucked up it had been.

The more he longingly stared at them from afar, the more he found himself wishing that he were her - or at least, like her. While Zim didn’t particularly like the girl, it was clear that Dib did and even if Zim didn’t want the same kind of attention that Dib was giving her for himself, he wanted something . He wanted their old chaotic, intense rivalry back. He wanted a reason to push himself like Dib had given him throughout all those years. He wanted someone in his life who was important to him like Dib had been for such a long time. He wanted what they used to have back.

Zim gritted his teeth angrily as he ran his fingers through his hair harshly, dragging the dye through the strands as he did so. Zim kept telling himself that it wasn’t strange that he was doing this so he could look more like her - more appealing. He kept telling himself that what he was doing was normal. Those shitty videos about self-esteem that their teachers had shown them all in middle school were enough to prove to Zim that, at the very least, he wasn’t completely alone in these strange concerns about himself and his body.

He continued to lather the coloured dye into his hair, working it in as best as he could without getting help from a third party. If he couldn’t even get and keep Dib’s attention then how was he ever going to get anyone to care about him? If Dib had been able to give up on him so easily after everything that they had gone through together, then Zim had no confidence that he would be able to get anyone else to care about him for any longer than a couple of years. The attention that he was getting at school wasn’t enough and it was his own fault. He wasn’t working hard enough to make himself perfect, to make himself desired enough by others for them to actually care about him.

Zim tugged harshly on his hair, yanking at the fibres despite the pain that prickled in his scalp as he did so.

How was anyone going to love him if he couldn’t even keep his nemesis’ attention?

By the time Zim rinsed the paste from his hair and dried it, his hair was bleach blonde. Just like her’s.

While he didn’t think it suited him and never would have died his hair like that under any other circumstances, seeing his reflection made him smile. He may not have been perfect yet, but he was getting there. He truly looked beautiful, even if it was strange on him.

He hoped that it was enough to make the others care about him.

~~~

As he waltzed through the hallways, he drew people’s eyes his way. People stopped in their tracks to watch him and a few people even attempted to speak to him, a couple going as far as to ask him out on dates.

All of those requests made Zim frown. While it was definitely a nice amount of attention, it wasn’t the right kind of attention. It was clear that none of them actually cared about or loved him. They felt nothing more for him than infatuation. They wanted nothing more from him than his body.

It made him sick.

Why wasn’t anyone giving him what he wanted? Everything that he had done to change his appearance had been for them, so why wasn’t he able to form any meaningful relationships? Why did all of it feel so fake and plastic?

The pain was overwhelming.

His stomach ached with the desire for any substantial food. His hips and upper thighs stung with the echoes of his own nails from those nights when the stress and aggravation grew so strong that he began to take it out upon himself, raking his sharp nails over the sensitive flesh. His head pounded with the headache that grew the longer he went without eating and the more he allowed his thoughts to overtake him.

Most of all though, the feeling of being overlooked and unloved was overwhelming. It hurt far more than any of the physical pain that ailed him. The scratches across his skin and the growling of his stomach didn’t hold a candle to the pain he felt inside himself.

Abruptly, Zim was drawn from his thoughts as he felt a new presence enter his space.

He had been sitting on the floor of the hallway, hidden away from the majority of the chaos that was going on, and sticking to the relatively empty halls of their school. He couldn’t stand being in the cafeteria during lunch- partially because the place was packed with people and absolutely disgusting, but primarily because the sight and scent of all of that food made him feel nauseous.

As he looked up, Zim felt his heart stop. Next to him was the very target of all of his recent concerns: Dib Membrane.

“You’ve been acting weird, lately. You’re not eating like normal, you’re not wearing your weird, eccentric outfits, you bleached your hair, and you’re always brooding.” As Dib sat down beside Zim, his eyebrows drew together in concern, “So what’s up?”

Despite the fact that Zim wanted nothing more than to tell someone, anyone , all fo the problems and concerns that had been plaguing him recently, he just couldn’t bring himself to. Instead, he felt defensiveness bubble up within him, “Nothing.”

Dib looked unamused, “I think these past few months you’ve changed more than you have throughout the entire time I’ve known you. You don’t seem happy about it, though.” For a moment, his eyes scanned over Zim’s gaunt body, “Have you been eating at all, Zim?”

“Of course I have. I’m not an idiot.”

Dib ignored him, opting to dig into the pocket of his trenchcoat instead. What he withdrew was something smelling strongly of cinnamon and sugar wrapped carefully in a paper towel. He held out his hand, offering it up to Zim. “We made monkey bread in home economics. I was just going to save it and eat it when I got home, but you clearly need it more.”

Zim scowled at the offending item that was offered to him. He couldn’t resist, though, the desire to eat and the scent of the delicious food more important than his body for a moment.

Without a word, Zim reached out and grabbed the baked good from Dib’s hands, quickly unwrapping it and digging into the delicious food.

As Zim ate, Dib stayed silent, just watching him with a distant sort of concern in his eyes. By the time Zim finished eating it, he began worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. He shouldn’t have taken that from Dib. He shouldn’t have eaten anything today. He-

“Hey,” Dib drew Zim’s attention to him by snapping his fingers before the man’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” Zim reassured before Dib could even say anything. It didn’t sound convincing to either of them, though.

“Clearly you’re not…” Dib frowned, leaning back against the wall, “Listen, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I have problems with my body, too.”

"I do not have problems with-"

"Then why aren't you eating?" Dib's voice was mildly accusatory as he spoke, "If you don't have problems with your body, why did you change everything if it clearly isn't making you happy?"

"Oh, fuck off !" Zim snapped, "You've been ignoring me for months and now you care? After years of us being pinned against each other in every way, you just… left me! You've been avoiding and ignoring me for months and now and all of a sudden you care what's happening to me? After actively ignoring me for months, you've finally decided to grace me with your presence and ask me uncomfortable, prying questions about things you know nothing about."

"Then explain ."

Zim glared, "Why should I?"

"Because something is obviously bothering you and I'm tired of watching you destroy yourself," Dib sighed, "I'm not going to leave until you tell me so you should just start talking."

Zim sighed as well, letting his head fall back to lean against the lockers behind them, "I'm just… sick of everyone overlooking me."

Dib began to frown, "I don't-"

"Yes, you do," Zim countered, "You've completely abandoned our rivalry. You don't even try to do better than me in our classes anymore. You don't even speak to me anymore. You've left me. You wouldn't even tell me why."

Dib fell silent as if he didn't know what to say. Instead, he leaned to the side slightly so that their shoulders brushed up against one another's faintly, "So… why change your appearance, then?"

"I had hoped people would take interest in me if I looked more appealing to them," Zim sighed, "They say beauty makes people happy. Clearly , that wasn't enough, though."

"You looked great before."

"I don't think anyone else in this shithole would agree."

"I mind of have a similar problem," Dib gestured to his body vaguely, "I, uh, worry about not looking masculine enough and getting misgendered or having people claim that I'm 'faking it'."

Zim hummed. At least he wasn't along.

"The point is, even if people here are dicks about it, you shouldn't let them control your decisions. The people here seriously aren't worth the trouble, Zim."

"I know that. That doesn't change anything, though."

"Why not?"

"Because if the people here can't love me, how can I expect anyone else to?"

"It may not be the kind of love you want, but I definitely do care about you," Dib tilted his head to the side, "I'm sorry that things got… weird between us. When we got into that argument, I really thought that you didn't want me in your life anymore."

"Well, you were wrong," Zim glanced to the side to look at Dib, "You're not the only problem, though. Everyone else leaves me, too. I'm pretty sure it's my fault, at this point.

"It's not your fault," Dib sighed, "People leave you because the world is shit, not because you've done anything wrong. Even if you did, changing your appearance wouldn't do anything."

"I can see that," Zim glared disdainfully in the direction of the cafeteria where nearly all of their peers were. Zim drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself.

Why was it that even now that Dib was finally talking to him, it didn't feel any better? Why did he still feel so empty inside? Nothing was better. Despite all of his effort, he just couldn't seem to fix himself. Even after everything he'd done, he felt like a disappointment. The only reason Dib was even talking to him was because he pitied the smaller human. He didn't want Dib's pity- he didn't want to be seen as nothing more than a pathetic kitten that couldn't even get through a day without breaking down.

More than that, though, Zim wanted fo stop feeling like that pathetic kitten struggling through the day. He didn't want every day to be so difficult. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to be loved. He just wanted...

"I just want to be okay…"

The stunning cover art for this piece was done by the fantastic @sai-doodles​! Go give them some love and support!

I originally posted this work here on Archive. It’s the first part of my Human Zim series. Check it out if you’re interested!

This fic was inspired by the song Prom Queen by Beach Bunny and the story was suggested by the stellar @sams-art-shit​.

[black-streak]

Waiting For The Worms - The Show Must Go On

Part 4

Sooo, this isn't nearly as dark and has very little angst in comparison to the point I'd almost say it isn't? It's pretty much just an update on life in a way. Which is also part of why it took so long for me to write. Like, the struggle was real. Next chapter will go back to your regularly scheduled heartbreak.

Warnings from chapter 1, while mostly inapplicable for this part, still in effect.

The gallery: @northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @miraculousdisapointment @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @dast218 @lysslovsanime @emilytopaz @naoryllis @iloontjeboontje @thepeacetea @danielslilangel @finallyaniguana @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @vixen-uchiha @yuulxd @bleeding-heart-romantic @magic-inthe-stars @st0rmy-w1th1n

~---~

The next year of Jason's life was hectic to say the least.

It started with the downfall of Lila Rossi. Which consequently, he had no part in. She stepped on the wrong toes, made a few too many contradictions and suddenly a pile of lawsuits were stacked against her. Her mother went completely ape shit on her and pulled her out immediately to be shipped off to a very strict boarding school. More like a juvenile detention center if the rumors were true.

For the first month, no one approached him. The guilty, stricken looks upon his classmates' faces told a million stories of apologetic remorse, but since becoming a jaded, snarky outcast, 'Marinette' was no longer the person you could give a simple apology to and expect forgiveness. And no one wanted to be the first to get shot down.

Eventually, the first apology came. Surprisingly, Alya tried to win his favor. She groveled and apologized up and down on how terrible she and Lila had been and named every reason in the book as to why she had reacted and treated Marinette the way she did in an attempt to explain herself. While it wasn't necessarily surprising that she would be the first to not fear him, it was shocking she saw the error of her ways so soon with all that bull headed ego she carried around.

Bravery got her nowhere, however, as Jason only lifted an eyebrow, arms crossed as he leaned back, and calmly replied.

"Cool story, still betrayal."

As the girl sputtered before him, he turned back towards Chloe, continuing to make their plans for the day. After two minutes had passed and Alya still stood there hunting for her words, he turned back.

"Can you leave? Sometime today would be nice."

And so the precedent was set. While it took another week for someone else to approach, they seemed spurred on by the ease of Alya's dismissal. Suppose they figured if the biggest offender only got mild verbal abuse and dismissal, things had to go more smoothly for them.

Nino came next, awkward shuffling and avoided eye contact included. He pushed through his apology, beating around the bush and trying to defuse the situation at the same time he built it up. It only served to piss Jason off. They deserve better than this. At least meet her eyes if you're going to apologize and expect me to believe it.

"Uh… Marinette? Did you hear me?"

"I'm sorry, were you talking to me? I assumed you were talking to the desk next to me and minded my business. Would hate to be accused of eavesdropping."

He flinched at the reminder and finally looked him in the eye.

"I'm sorry. What we did was wrong. What I did was wrong and I am so beyond sorry for it. There is no excuse for my behavior."

"You're right. There isn't. Do better in the future."

"I will!," he rushed to reassure Jason, voice hopeful, "Does this mean we can be friends again?"

"No. Do better for those who chose to be your friend in the future."

"Oh… okay, yeah, that's fair," Nino gave a downtrodden look and wandered off.

Next came Sabrina and Rose, who didn't so much as apologize to him, but instead tried to reattach themselves to Chloe and Juleka's sides as if nothing had happened at all. This might not have thrown Chloe in the slightest, but poor Juleka looked a moment from having an anxiety attack. Chloe made short work of both girls, dismissing them entirely and when Rose started to cry and stare at Juleka for reassurance that everything was okay, Jason pulled the goth into a hug, glaring at the little blonde girl, until eventually she received the hint and ran off, tears streaming down her face. Apparently Nathaniel gave Marc the same treatment.

Lastly Kim, Alix, Max, Ivan, and Mylene came as a group. They must've taken comfort in their numbers, hoping it would somehow protect them from him singling them out. Thought everything would go smoother that way. He could hear Juleka grumbling at his side where they sat under a tree for lunch. They both appreciated the shade and quiet peace of the place. Marc sat on her other side, writing away in a journal.

"Hey Mari, we wanted to apologize for the way we've been acting lately," Alix took the lead.

"Yeah, it was really uncool of us," Kim followed up, the others nodding along.

They looked imploring. Like they were waiting for some sort of forgiveness. He couldn't help but wonder if they thought their actions were somehow better. That he couldn't really be mad at them because they weren't the ones who lied or lead the pack against his soulmate. They didn't make harsh accusations or physically attack Marinette. So somehow, they were better and their apologies could be less.

How fucking rude. How presumptuous. How entitled to think his time, thoughts, feelings were forfeit in their need for forgiveness. Marinette deserved better in her time here than these heartless bastards. None of them ever defended her either. Or him for that matter. Not one of them tried to so much as change the subject to avoid harping on him. None cared when his soulmate never returned to her body. Maybe that wasn't fair, but at the very least they could've approached him in his grief when it was easily displayed. Everyone here had a soulmate and knew the signs of loss for when one died. Surely they knew that this person in this body lost their other half. And yet not a soul outside of his group had offered condolences.

"That's all you have to offer? That it wasn't cool?" Juleka asked, tone quiet but sharp.

"Well it's not like we-"

"Let me cut you off there, before you piss me off. You didn't personally attack me, you just watched and snickered behind hands. Joined in to the cruel jokes and snide remarks. Encouraged those who did attack. At least they had the decency to be that way to my face and let me know where we stood. You? Hiding behind others actions and grouping up to give half-hearted sorrys that you barely think of before you speak? Now you guys are the ones that truly infuriate me. Either you believed I deserved the treatment I received but refused to be singled out for it. Or you thought what was happening was wrong and were too much of a coward to step up and help me out. I'm not sure which is worse. Either way, I don't want to see a single one of you approach me again. I don't mean enough to you to make a stand? Then you don't mean enough to me to even speak to. Get out of my face."

When his little speech was done and the startled masses ran off with an added glare, protests held on the tip of tongues, Jason slumped back against the tree, taking small comforts in the silent support of his two companions.

Adrien never approached. That was for the best.

His friend group was also something new. Marc, Juleka, Chloe, and Kagami. The group technically leaned more female than anything, but after the heavy masculine energy of his old life, this turn of events felt refreshing. It helped that Marc came out as nonbinary and Jason couldn't help but relate in a way with his view of this body fitting as female, but his mind staying firmly male. Altering his soulmate's body to fit would never happen, but it also didn't match him. 

The group only grew stronger and more resilient after Jason agreed to revealing identities in the team. After the loss of Mari and the stripping of the ring from Adrien, Jason found it necessary to place new permanent holders. With Kagami and Chloe having screwed up their original hero personas, the placement became a challenge. 

He started out with figuring out his new cat. 

Talking it over with Fu and dragging the decision out way longer than it needed to, he eventually convinced the old guardian of Kagami's worth. She took to Plagg with ease, the design of her look altering to match. The suit stayed all black but wasn't leather and had gold detailing. The ears and tail looked more realistic as well. Her hair went pitch black and eyes went to shades of gold. Kagami insisted her new name be Serval.

Next came Chloe who ended up comforting Jason the most through his despair, whether she knew the reason for it or not. Without the bee as an easy go to, he ended up giving her the Dragon. Sure, the mix wasn't the best ever, but it kept her on the offensive side and more active, so it worked the way they needed it to. Her outfit consisted of tight fitted scales in shades of black and blue. Unlike when Kagami used the dragon, her and Longg took more to the shades of blue that came with most weather. Her shock of blonde hair played nicely with the idea of lightening on a stormy day. She went with Nimbus.

Surprisingly, Marc became the next holder. Jason planned on handing off the fox to Juleka, only to realize it wouldn't quite suit the girl. She stayed in the shadows most of the time, yes, but not really by choice. She wanted to be a model and show up in photos more than anything, so it made no sense to stick her with another identity she had to hide in. Add on the fact that she wasn't necessarily the most creative and well, Jason couldn't hand off an illusion piece to her. That's when Marc came into play. The kid had creativity in spades and preferred to avoid the spotlight. Marc and Marinette grew closer with all their time spent in the art room and courtyard together and especially with Nathaniel having ditched them. With Marc starting to build a spot of their own within the group, it only made sense to pair them with the Fox.

Now that he thought about it, the whole team really stuck with black. Marc had a black velvety almost shapeless form, with white tail, ears, sash, gloves, and boots. Their eyes fell white on gray on black and gave off an eerie feel. They choose Jocular for their hero name.

Finally, Jason hunted down the perfect miraculous for Juleka. The mouse. Quiet and unseen, playing in the background until the moment was right. And then she was everywhere, a multitude taking over the scene and overwhelming the enemy in a matter of moments. Perfect for the girl who hid behind her bangs but longed for the spotlight. Mullo played to both halves of her personality. The suit that came with consisted of a deep vivid purple that matched her bangs while detransformed. While in costume, the highlights disappeared and her eyes shined purple as well. The fit was reminiscent of a belted, hooded tunic with black leggings and matching purple booties. She went with Fievel. Turns out Juleka had an interesting favorite childhood movie. Months later, they would find themselves sitting around a tv, watching the old animated musical, but in the beginning, they just took it in stride.

The last major change came in a heavier bond forming amongst his team.

When Jason agreed to reveal identities, if for no other reason than the guilt of already keeping one major secret from the group, things spiced up. For one, Juleka and Marc traded their respective miraculouses back and forth depending on their comfort level for the day. If one felt more ready for the spotlight, they took to the mouse for the battle. If one felt especially creative at the moment, they tagged in for the fox. Of course, they jumped in with whichever they had when an akuma hit while separated, but the switch off seemed to comfort them.

Secondly, Chloe started running more interference to allow them escape time if stuck up in civilian form. Her false bratty attitude and daddy issues came into play here, despite her actual maturity about both. It helped to amp it up from time to time.

Lastly, Kagami and Jason begin to switch on occasion.

Plagg hadn't been outside the ring since Jason removed him from Adrien and Kagami received him. The shock and horror on his face when Tikki told him the reality of their situation broke Jason a little more. The cat insisted on spending more time with Jason after that. His soul resonated better with the ring anyways, so the time spent as the cat holder felt soothing after so long as the ladybug, despite this body feeling more receptive towards Tikki's magic. 

As an added bonus, the two kept the other's costume and attributes such as eyes and hair. Between that and the heavy magical glamour hiding their identities, no one, not even Hawkmoth, knew which one was which until their fighting style came into play at which point, it was too late. Luckily, with the sneaky aspects of the mouse and fox, the other two became quite the ambush as well. Add in Chloe showing up with one of three different powers at any given moment, and Hawkmoth's akumas became easy prey.

By the time the year ran out, their team ran as a well oiled machine. Despite the horrific heartbreak festering in his heart, Jason felt hopeful. Hopeful that they might take down the villain that had taken over his soulmate's life from so young. That this battle at least might end on a happy note. That soon he would be free to seek out justice for Marinette once and for all.