#nobody ever wants to witness their sibling flirt

[cheapshrimpysheep]

First Date - Ignihyde

SUMMARY: What would your first date with Idia be like? I know first dates might not go so well, but let's pretend this is different. ;) In Ortho's case, you are more like his new older sibling because Idia wasn't available. (He didn't want to leave his room -.-) Not a romantic date. Actually, he acts a little like your matchmaker with his older brother.

CHARACTERS: Idia Shroud & Ortho Shroud (Platonic)

TAGS: Fluf; GN Reader; Flirting; Kissing

WARNING: None, I think. I think that in this one I don't give spoilers, so none I can remember.

WORD COUNT: An average of 650 words per character.

Heartslabyul / Savanaclaw / Octavinelle / Scarabia / Pomefiore / Ignihyde / Diasomnia

COMMENTS: The thing is I didn't wanted to just have Idia in here. And i remembered Ortho talking about wanting to go on an amusement park but Idia don't wanting to go and me thinking like "Awww, I would go with you, Ortho."

I hope you enjoy ;)

I hope you don't mind having a nerdy date in Ignihyde. Because a first date outside among the normies is out of the question! Οχι! (No in greek)

However, you will not spend time in his room. For too many reasons, but the main ones are: A) Idia knows spending your first date in the bedroom is the stupidest, most absurd, most insulting idea! I mean, you guys could have dates in his room if the relationship progressed, but for a first date? Absolutely NOT! And B) His room is a total mess. Fortunately: Him being the housewarden + The rest of Ignihyde students being also shut-ins = Him being able to find a good room where nobody bothers you two.

He found an empty room and used technology to decorate it. AKA: Do you remember that magical projector you use on the guest room? Basically the same cause he's a lazy boy. But at least the bean bags and the consoles were real.

He ordered food. Come on, he won't even try to cook, he knows how much he sucks at it. You like pizza right? He asks for your favourite. Ortho told him what it was. He registered all the information about your tastes, preferences, allergies, etc. He also bought your favourite drinks.

It is a really comfy room. The only lights were the RGB around the room. Blue and pink at the moment. And if you smirk at him, like a for a shut-in, you know how to set the mood look,his hair will turn the same colours of the room. But since he knows you have a crush on him too, he's in his confident mode. So he'll smile at you back. And that is going to make your heart skip a beat.

It's probably the chillest first date you could ever have. You two will sink into beanbags and play co-op games while snacking. You'll literally be his player 2. Great chances that you’ll make a mistake or having difficulty at some point in the game and he’ll mess with you and make fun of you. You will pick up one of the cushions around you and throw it at his face. “O-oi! Don't tell me you want to start a pillow fight just because I'm commenting on your lack of ski-” Another hit from you!

“Don't tell me that you're pillow fighting skills are that low you think you can't compete with me." You'd tell him and bring out his proud, competitive side. The flames in his hair get excited, like himself and he starts attacking you with his own pillow. However, he won't use his full strength. The last thing he wants is to hurt you.

But that doesn't stop him from winning the battle with his wits... and foul play. Tickle you! If you say it's foul play, he'll say you sneak attacked him first. He will only stop when you surrender, lying on your beanbag chair with him practically on top of you. When he realizes that, he'll blush, just like the ends of his hair. But since you don't show yourself uncomfortable in that situation, he wouldn't get up either.

“I can't believe you got me into a pillow fight.” He'll tell you, that deep voice of his. “How childish.” But you can see him smile a little. And you feel like teasing him a little more: “I wonder what else can I got you into.” You did it, his hair was all pink now, a bit like his face. But remember, since he knows you like him, he is much more confident. He smirks and bring his face so close to yours that your noses are practically touching. “You would like to know wouldn't you? Go on.” and he speaks in an even deeper voice “Try it.”

If you kiss him, you will feel him return passionately. And you'll feel the two of you sinking into the beanbag.

You ran into Ortho in the courtyard. When he sees you he closes his eyes in a smile, but you had seen his slightly sad expression moments before that. You ask what's going on, but he doesn't want to bother you with it. Then you insist a little more, saying that he can tell you, that he's not bothering you at all.

Then he tells you that a travelling amusement park is coming to Sage's Island and he really wants to go with his older brother, but Idia doesn’t want to leave his room. Instead, he suggested to code up a VR amusement park. But that would defeat the whole purpose! And he says he'd really like to go to that park, because he's never been to one.

“Aww... Would you like me to go with you?” you ask. He looks at you with sparkling big eyes “Really? You would come with me?” Knowing the students at that college, you wonder if he didn't know from the beginning that you would offer to go with him when he told you that story. But honestly, who cares? He is so cute!

You agreed to go pick him at Ignihyde, and then go to the amusement park. But when you arrive, he looks different. His new gear is similar to his Athletic Gear, since he have "normal" feet instead of his regular floating ones. Idia made that new gear, partly because his little brother asked him to go with feet like the other visitors, and because he wanted to make sure Ortho went with a body that could handle the rides.

“You should come with us Onii-san! Are you sure you really don't want to come?” Despite this last attempt, Idia will continue to say no and tell him to have fun with you. “Aww...” Ortho does that smirk with his eyes “Not even knowing that Prefect comes with us? I was pretty sure that would convince you.”

If you ask why he’s saying that, the ends of Idia's hair will start to turn pinker, he’ll say it's nothing, say one last time for you to have fun and hide in the room quickly. Oh well. Ortho is REALLY excited to go, so he practically pulls you along the way.

This boy is so happy to finally go to an amusement park, even though it's not with his brother. If you're not afraid to ride the rides, you're super cool. But if you are afraid of something he wants to ride, he will try to convince you to ride with him. He'll even tell you the low probabilities of you getting hurt. If you agree, he’ll be very grateful. If you're still scared, that's okay, he understands. Also, he is able to read your vital signs and he won't insist you do something you don't want to.

It feels so good to see him so happy. He will ask you if you had fun and that it's a shame Idia didn't go. “He's always so excited to be around you.” he lets it slip, “accidentally”. You ask him to explain it. “Well, I know he always looks scared and uncomfortable but you've seen him smiling, right? One day when he was talking to you, I checked his vitals. His heart beats faster, but not the same way it does when he's anxious, his body temperature rises, his blood pressure drops-” He stops for a moment, and looks at you with that smirk in his eyes “Similar to what's happening to you as I talk about him.”

Even if you don't blush much, he can still read your vitals. “You should take the first step.” He says to you. “Because we both know my brother doesn't have the courage for that. And I'm 97% sure you're not going to regret that. After all, your vitals are almost the same. And according to my research, that can only means one thing.”

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[tenthgrove]

yess thank you for letting me ask you about the lore >:3c so I have to get my absolute favorites outta the way first— what kinda lore and thoughts do you have for sorbet or gelato ( <- before they get together and the earlier years of them getting together if you need a specific period ) I have to also ask are you ok if I go down the “line” and get your thoughts in other asks about the rest of the la squadra babes? Thank you sm 💖💖 I hope you’re having a wonderf day/evening

Ah! Now this is one of my absolute favourites! Apologies to anyone who has already heard me ramble about my Sorbet and Gelato backstory ad nauseam on multiple occasions, but this is really an area where I can't help myself. Besides, this is my opportunity to go more in depth where I haven't before:

(Note after writing this: It's stupidly long. I'm sorry I just can't help myself with these backstories. I couldn't decide what to leave out so I decided nothing.)

(Also please feel free to ask me more lore questions because I love doing this)

We'll begin with Sorbet, born in Naples in February 1967 if you follow the canon timeline (although by default I write in modern AU so move the dates 20 years later). His situation at birth was absolutely dire, the eldest child of an incredibly vulnerable woman and one of her clients as a sex worker. Sorbet's mother was by all means a decent woman but her severe mental illness and drug addiction made it impossible for her to be a good mother, which of course had a bad effect on Sorbet growing up. After Sorbet, she had 5 more children, all through clients, and Sorbet was saddled with much of their care.

Though he loved his siblings, Sorbet was pretty much done with this life by age 12 and was easily swept up by older boys from the local street gang, who paid him well to peddle drugs when he should have been in school. This was a very underfunded neighbourhood so nobody questioned his truancy, and within the next couple of years he had stopped going to school entirely. Shortly after this, having acquired sufficient money through his crime involvement, Sorbet left his family to stay with his new friends, moving between them on a regular basis. He also discovered his sexuality around this time and dated a few male friends, though none of these relationships got very far.

By age 16, Sorbet had earned a reputation in the street gang for skilled and passionate violence, and was selected by the ringleader to commit the group's first planned murder, in exchange of course for a lucrative reward. Sorbet accepted, succeeded, and became the group's de-facto assassin whenever needed. He continued to hoard considerable money for the remainder of his adolescence, though continued to be functionally homeless since he didn't see it necessary when sofa-surfing was suiting him fine.

Before resuming with Sorbet, let's explain the life that Gelato came from. Gelato was born in October 1967 in St. Petersburg, Russia, (Note- I previously used the city of Minsk, unaware that this is in fact, in Belarus) to an upper-middle class businessman and his Italian wife, a distant relative of French Monarchy. Gelato's relationship with his parents was rocky from the start due to the fact they would have preferred a girl after three successive sons, but any parental love they had for their youngest child broke down entirely after he was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD at age 5, in an evaluation intending to find the cause of some behavioural issues that were really, just a response to emotional neglect.

When Gelato was 13 he, his parents, and two of his three brothers (the eldest was already an adult by this time and elected to stay behind) moved to Italy to escape some allegations of corruption in the father's business. They moved to a rural village in North-West Italy where the community was very middle-class and quite stifling for Gelato, who had enough social rules to remember in the familiar, economically-diverse city he grew up in. His behavioural issues got worse and began to include things he would later regret, such as attacking and stealing from younger children, and things he would absolutely not, like attacking and stealing from teachers. By this point the family had largely written him off as a failure, revering instead their academically successful, well-behaved older children, which absolutely contributed to the spiralling cycle of behaviour issues Gelato faced.

Then, at age 17, Gelato failed a crucial exam and was expelled from high-school. His parents kicked him out on the spot, and with no other family in Italy Gelato had very few options on what to do next. He recalled, however, one older friend having links to a street gang in Naples, and decided to see if this boy might have a route out of destitution for him. Indeed, the friend did know of a man in Naples needing assistance within the gang, but could offer no help in getting Gelato there. Seeing no other way, Gelato walked the whole journey.

Arriving in Naples, the friend's associate announced that the position Gelato was after had been taken, but taking pity on his distress, informed him of another friend who needed someone to look after an unlicensed bar that served as one of the group's main meeting points. He agreed to arrange for the small apartment above the bar to be given as payment.

Gelato accepted, but although he had now solved the problem of homelessness his life was still incredibly miserable. For one, with his pay being the apartment he had to rely on measly tips to get by, which rarely left him with enough to eat let alone anything else. Additionally, as an outsider with little understanding of the way gangs work Gelato was an easy target for abuse, and was treated like absolute shit by the bar's patrons.

By this point in time, Sorbet had just turned 18. He was, incidentally, in the same gang Gelato had joined, and a regular at the bar he worked in. For a good couple of months they took no notice of each other, until Sorbet came to be in a coincidental feud with one of the men who was violent to Gelato at the bar. When Gelato witnessed the two of them in a fight, he made the spur-of-the-moment decision to join in on Sorbet's side, knocking the patron unconscious and leaving him too afraid to visit again. For his trouble, Sorbet gave Gelato a portion of the money he looted from the fight's loser, and flirted with him lightly before going about with his evening. Unknown to Sorbet, he had just sent Gelato falling head over hills in love.

Gelato found out about Sorbet's sexuality from other patrons and, delighted, attempted to flirt with him the next time they saw each other, but his attempts came off very poorly and Sorbet actually thought he was being insulted. Angered, he dragged Gelato into the cellar to demand what was going on. Gelato, terrified, admitted having a crush, which Sorbet found to be the sweetest and most genuine thing he'd ever heard. While he couldn't promise a relationship, he did agree to show Gelato more attention in the future. But, it was only a matter of days until Sorbet found himself loving Gelato back.

This whirlwind relationship continued happily for three weeks, Sorbet greatly improving Gelato's situation through his saved money and helping him fend off the abusive patrons. Gelato, in turn, offered Sorbet a permanent place to stay in the apartment, which he accepted. Sorbet was in the process of moving his things, and they had plans to refurbish the place to make it actually habitable.

But then, everything came crashing down. One night the bar was subject to a surprise raid by the police, operating by the false assumption it was empty. Sorbet and Gelato attempted to flee but were caught, and in a panic, Gelato shot a policeman dead. Rushing to his defence Sorbet killed two more, but a fourth escaped to tell the tale. The couple knew they were screwed. Running to the headquarters of their gang they begged for protection but were informed the small group simply could not save them from a charge this serious, and gave them only a single night of shelter to plan their next move. Gelato, who remember had never committed anything more serious than minor ABH before, had an absolute breakdown over this predicament that night, and whilst comforting him, Sorbet devised a blood pact with him to stick together no matter what came.

Over the next few days, Sorbet and Gelato fled north, avoiding the police through Sorbet's skills as a criminal and Gelato's very convincing Russian tourist impression. They were almost at the French border when Sorbet awoke one night to find Gelato missing behind him. He chased his tracks to the driveway of a rural house, a tearful Gelato clutching a knife at the shut door and trembling. He informed Sorbet that he had intentionally led him to the village where his family lived, with the intention to break in and kill them as revenge for the years of abuse. Sorbet warned Gelato that this would not be good for their attempts to flee, but said he understood fully and would help him if this is truly what he wanted. Gelato agreed, and together they broke into the house and slaughtered Gelato's mother and father, additionally killing one of his brothers after he woke from the noise. The other brother, the youngest other than Gelato, was spared, as Gelato felt his role in the abuse had been comparatively more minor and he did not deserve to die. This of course, left another witness.

The massacre in the village was quickly linked to the one at the bar and Gelato was promptly identified from a comparison of DNA found at the scene to his surviving brother's. Sorbet, a known criminal, was identified soon after. Not only were the pair now known but the police figured out what their plan was and informed the French police as well, making things exponentially harder for the couple.

They made do for a while by hanging low and keeping on the move, living off money stolen from the parents' house. Eventually however, they needed more, and began making deals with local crime organisations to carry out assassinations in exchange for money or temporary shelter. While Sorbet was already a pro at this, Gelato found himself a fast learner, and soon realised he shared Sorbet's adoration for the act of killing. He felt as though he was finally coming to meet his true self.

Though the assassination deals were lucrative, they did not help the couple keep a low profile and the attacks from police were relentless. Several times, they barely escaped capture. All this was not good on their mental states, and after two years, Sorbet knew it needed to end. He and Gelato returned to Naples in the hope their old gang might reconsider protecting them, but they were met with a surprise as their old gang had been completely overtaken by Passione. Even still, the new mobsters had heard a lot about Sorbet and Gelato's exploits and agreed to get them an audience with a local Capo, Pericolo, who was impressed by the men's skills and moved by the sense of honour suggested by their love for each other. He agreed to initiate them into the gang.

Soon after this, Sorbet and Gelato recieved stands which, although not very powerful, assisted them greatly in the art of assassination. Soon, they were natural choices for Passione whenever a hit needed carrying out in the Naples area. At some point a few years in, they befriended a man named Prosciutto who had been recently forced into Passione due to his heritage. Prosciutto was also funnelled into assassination jobs and, with less of a reputation for impulsivity than Sorbet and Gelato, was the one given the order to form a new assassination squad when the need arose, around 1993 if we're following canon.

(Note, I hc La Squadra was created by Passione in response to a real life government crackdown on the Italian mafia around 1992-93, in response to an incredibly scandalous series of assassinations. In such a climate, it would make sense for Passione to want to consolidate an elite squad of its best hitmen, do avoid future problems.)

Due to personal commitments Prosciutto did not want to be the captain, so attempted to give this responsibility to Sorbet, a request the boss promptly denied. Prosciutto was, however, allowed to add Sorbet and Gelato to the team's ranks, cementing the three of them as the first members of the team.

Prosciutto would, soon enough, find another person to give the title of captain to, but that's a story for another time.

[official-weasley]

The Irreplaceable Charlie Weasley: Pt. 8, Ch. 5

PART 8: WHERE IT ALL ENDS Chapter 5 - Planning the Future

Warnings: SMUT in the Sanctuary!

Nova

We have been so busy lately that I forgot how good Charlie's touch feels. His hands on my neck, in my hair, on my waist, and my back. I could never get enough of him and the feeling it gives me is pure ecstasy.

His lips found mine again, after biting my neck. I didn't know what I would rather do bite his perfect lips or let our tongues dance together. Even though it wasn't our day off and we only had one more hour we somehow managed to get to the bedroom this time. Our clothes were all over the floor from the front door to Charlie's boxers next to the bed.

I tried wrapping my arms around him but he stopped me. The look in his eyes told me that he is going to be in full control for the next hour. He brought my hands together and grabbed my wrists with his right hand and pushed them above my head. He started sucking the end of my ear while arousing my nipple with his free hand. I moaned in his ear.

He supported himself with the hand that held my wrists before and scratched me from my chest down to my belly button with the fingers of his other hand. He pressed his lips hard on mine again and even though I tried hard to keep my hands where he put them before I couldn't resist burying them in his curly hair.

I gasped for air as his fingers penetrated me and he started moving them around.

“Fuck, love!” He breathed in my ear. “Do you ever need any foreplay?” My lips curved into a naughty grin. I knew I was soaking wet because of all the flirting we did at breakfast. I couldn't stop thinking about him and the things I wanted him to do to me all morning at work.

“Not with you, no.” I replied, my voice rusty from breathing fast.

He grabbed my legs and turned me around. He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and crossed my arms on my back. I let out a loud groan as he entered me and started to move his hips back and forth. When I tried freeing my arms because I started twisting from pleasure, he leaned forward, still inside me, and started biting my back. He knew that was my weak spot and I started getting louder.

I tightened my muscles to grasp him more and he let out a sound that was pure melody for my ears. I knew his knees got weak for a second so I took the opportunity to take over. I pushed him back so he stood up and turned around. I wrapped my arms around his waist and got up too. Turning us around, I pushed him on the bed, biting my lip and climbing on him.

His eyes rolled back as I sat on him and he put his hands behind his head to enjoy both the view and the sensation I made him feel. It didn't take us long to both start breathing faster and faster, Charlie's hands now on my hips to help me move as I was getting weak. Just as we were about to cum together, we heard a knock on the door. Our eyes met as we opened them and we knew we didn't care if both of our mothers came through the door. We picked up the pace and finished, not even trying to be quiet.

“Can't we have one day where we can have sex in peace?” Charlie rolled his eyes as he was putting his boxers on. He was right, we were disturbed 3 times in the past week. We didn't know what exactly was going on but the Dragons were bothered by something and needed more attention than ever before.

“Are you mates done?” Charlie smirked, knowing that Felix, who was probably standing in our living room, knew what we were doing.

“We'll be right down!” I shouted and cussed when I remembered that Charlie took my shirt off the second we came through the door. I went to our closet and took out the first thing I could lay my hands on, which was Charlie's Christmas jumper with a Dragon on it.

Charlie grinned at me when he saw what I was wearing and we rushed down the stairs.

“I know I disturbed you, yet again...” Felix looked rather uncomfortable. He was unfortunate enough to catch us twice in the act this week. “But this came for you and seeing it wasn't brought by your family owl, I assumed it had to be important.” He handed Charlie a letter. “It's addressed to both of you.”

Charlie looked at me and I nodded for him to open it. I slowly stepped closer to him and started reading over his shoulder.

Charlie,

I know that you and Nova are busy and I wouldn't be writing to you if it wasn't urgent but something happened during the last task of the Triwizard Tournament and Dumbledore asked us to call you straight home. I understand that you might not get a day off immediately, but please come home as soon as you can. We need to talk about the Order.

Love, mum

Molly's letter sent shivers down my spine. What happened at the last task? Was Harry okay? Why did Dumbledore want us to come home and why was Molly talking about the Order of the Phoenix, for which I only knew because my mum told me about it.

“Felix, it's from my mum.” Charlie started. “We have to go home, something happened at the Tournament and...”

“You go. I thought it was urgent when it was sent by an unknown owl.” Felix looked at both of us, nodding.

“We'll be back as soon as possible.” I said and started upstairs to pack some clothes for us.

When I got back down, Charlie was sitting on the sofa, his eyes still on the letter.

“Char?” He looked up at me, worry in his eyes.

“Your family is okay.” I sat down next to him and embraced him. I had a feeling the letter had more to do with Harry and something else than anything happening to any of his siblings or parents.

We apparated to the Burrow together and as soon as we arrived the doors swung open and Arthur pulled us both inside.

“Dad, what is going...” Charlie couldn't finish his question as Arthur put a finger over his mouth, telling us to stay quiet. My heart started beating faster as I put our bag down and we stepped into the living room.

Molly, the twins, Bill, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore were all sitting there looking at Harry. He looked dreadful. I have never seen anyone so upset or terrified. I exchanged a look with Charlie and the expression in his eyes told me he was just as worried as I was.

Molly turned her head to us and stood up.

“You should sit down, dears.” She hugged us both and gestured us to sit next to the twins. Everybody had the same expression on their face; serious and knowing something I was sure we were about to find out.

Harry then started explaining what was going on for what seemed to be one time too many for him. He told us what happened at the Tournament. Where the final Portkey took him, how Pettigrew brought back He Who Must Not Be Named. How he killed Cedric Diggory without any hesitation and that he summoned some of his most loyal Death Eaters. He then told us how Moody was locked away and that the Moody teaching them all year was Crouch Junior and that he confessed to everything. He finished by saying how nobody believes him he is back because the only witness to him coming back was Cedric and he was killed.

When he finished the story, the room went quiet. I felt like I could hear my heartbeat. I had no idea how to respond. I stood up and kneeled before Harry who was trying hard no to be seen crying. How could he even hold back the tears with everything that has happened to him?

“Harry,” I said softly, looking up at him even though his eyes didn't meet mine, “we believe you.” He finally looked at me and then at Charlie who was standing next to me and nodded to Harry.

I couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't believe the kid that went through more than all the rest in the room combined. Why would anyone in their right mind think that he could even come up with a story like that? Nobody wanted him to come back not even some of his most loyal subjects from the previous Wizarding War.

“We are here for you, Harry.” Charlie kneeled next to me. “If you need anything.”

“What can we do to help?” I turned around and searched for Dumbledore's eyes. I knew he was here for a reason and not just to bring Harry to the Burrow.

“If you'll step with me.” He gestured to both me and Charlie through his half-moon spectacles. We followed him outside.

“It pleases me to know that you believe Harry.” He said gently.

“How couldn't we!” Snapped Charlie. “Nobody can make that up.” I nodded in agreement.

“If he says that He Who...” I shook my head. If Harry was brave enough to say his name, we should be too. “That Voldemort is back then it's true.”

“Unfortunately, we made Mr. Crouch Jr drink a Veritaserum potion and he confessed to everything. It's true.” Dumbledore closed his eyes, trying to remember the event.

“Then why doesn't the Ministry believe Harry?” I questioned.

“Because they would rather deny it and keep people calm than tell the truth.” Dumbledore said, harshly.

“Well, that's a bunch of rubbish!” Charlie frowned. That had to be the dumbest reason I have ever heard. How could the Ministry be so negligent?

“That's why we decided to take proper action.” Dumbledore continued.

“We?” Charlie asked puzzled.

“How much do you both know about the Order of the Phoenix?” He bowed his head down, his eyes on us.

“My mum told me about it.” I said slowly. I knew she was under an oath and should probably not speak about it but she told me even before I went to Hogwarts. My parents never kept secrets from me.

“Bill and I found some old photos of the Order while going through our parent's stuff once.” Charlie admitted, his cheeks red.

“Your mum probably had the pictures.” Dumbledore said without accusing Charlie of doing anything wrong. “Her brothers died for the Order.” I started biting the inside of my cheek. This was all getting too real too fast.

“I have formed the Order the first time Voldemort came to power to gather Wizards who would fight against him and his cause.” He started to explain. “Your parents and your brother Bill already joined. As did Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Hagrid, Minerva McGonagall, your mum...” His eyes turning to me. “And your friend Nymphadora Tonks.” My heart sank hearing her name.

“What about the rest of our friends?” I needed to know if they were going to put themself in danger as well. Especially Penny and Andre who had a little girl.

“I haven't gotten to them yet.” Dumbledore answered, hearing the worry in my voice.

“What do you need us to do, Professor?” Charlie asked, determined.

“I am giving you an option, you don't have to join if you don't want to.” He looked at both of us, his head high now. “It has come to my attention that you got engaged last November.”

“We did, but we want to help, Professor.” My hand found Charlie's and I was hoping he couldn't sense me shaking.

“We want to join and help as much as we can, even though I can't see how we can do much from Romania.” Charlie locked his eyes with mine, tightening the grip on my hand. Who was I fooling, of course, he could sense I was afraid.

“It's perfect, actually, that you are so far away from Britain.” It was the first time he smiled a little since we came here. “I have a very big request to ask from you.” He stopped for a second, making me anxious. “I need you to recruit as many foreign Wizards and Witches as possible. I am sure you have some connections and despite the unpopular opinion that those not living in Britain have nothing to do with this War, every person joining our cause makes us stronger.”

We both nodded to let him know we understood. It shouldn't be that hard. I am sure we can convince most of our team to join us and we both had outside connections as well with everyone that comes and goes from the Sanctuary.

“We will do our best to send people your way, Professor.” Charlie assured him.

“Good.” He bowed his head. “I have to warn you that sending letters with your owls is no longer safe, neither is using the Floo Network.”

“We will make sure to be careful while sending letters.” I said, feeling relieved I can leave Pip out of this.

“Thank you.” Dumbledore smiled at us and went back inside.

Charlie and I didn't say a word to each other not outside, neither while being with his family. I kept thinking of my mum, not knowing if it was safe to even write her a letter.

We got home late that night and I felt more exhausted than I would be if I was working with Ajax all day.

“I can't believe this is happening.” Charlie finally spoke as he got back downstairs after finishing his shower and sat next to me on the sofa.

“Everything happened so quickly.” I took a deep breath and positioned myself in his arms.

“Do you think we have to postpone our wedding?” He asked, sadness in his voice. We finally decided to get married at the end of August last month.

“How about we wait to see what happens?” I looked up at him and he kissed my forehead.

“Do you think he's going to act quickly and start where he left off?” I wondered after a few minutes of silence.

“I honestly don't want to know what is going to happen.”

Neither did I. Our lives went from having a normal job to being in a secret organization, recruiting reinforcements.

“Poor Harry.” My voice trembled. I felt for that boy. I wish he didn't have to go through so much at such a young age.

“I feel so lucky that we had such a normal life at school. Seeing Voldemort come back and then duelling him...” Charlie shook his head. “How did he even survive that?” I was asking myself the same thing. He got away from the most powerful Dark Wizard of our time.

“I dunno. But I'm happy he did.” I answered honestly. If he failed to defend himself nobody would know that Voldemort was back.

“And just when I started to think we can settle down.” He said softly, into my hair.

“We can elope.” I suggested. “We wanted to do that anyway.”

“I wasn't talking just about marrying you.” I turned in his arms to look at him.

“What do you mean?” His eyes were so full of emotions that he melted my heart.

“I know it might not be the right place and of course we could wait longer but I can't stop thinking about having a family with you.” My mouth fell open. We never talked about this before. We both wanted a family one day but besides thinking about it occasionally, especially when Penny sent us pictures of little Joanna, I didn't feel like we were in a place with our work where we could afford to have kids.

Knowing that it was going to be hard for both of us to let go of our careers, I rather didn't put much thought into it, not to get my hopes up. There was a big difference between wanting and having a family.

“Did I leave you speechless, love?” Charlie chuckled.

“I didn't know you were thinking about having kids any time soon.” I answered honestly, wishing terribly to have some tea, my mouth was so dry.

“Of course, I do.” He said as if we were talking about what to eat for lunch tomorrow. “Don't you?”

“I do but I try not to. We both have quite a dangerous job and you don't exactly see anyone raising children in the Sanctuary.” Charlie let out a laugh.

“We could move somewhere safer and apparate to work.” He wrapped his arms tighter around me. I was already living my dream with him and he was just describing my fairytale.

“You have everything figured out, don't you?” I giggled. “Next thing I know, you'll tell me you know how many kids we'll have and what their names will be.” I teased.

“I can if you want to know.” I turned in his arms, abruptly.

We told each other everything and despite being so afraid to ruin our friendship when we started having feelings for each other, we were still best friends. But I had no idea Charlie had everything so planned out or that he thought about these things.

“You know how many kids you want?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“Two girls and a boy.” He said at once. If we weren't already engaged I would ask him to marry me right then and there. “Aoede for one girl, after the Jupiter moon since your middle name is after one as well. Luna because it's just a very beautiful name for the other girl and Roger for the boy after your dad.” I was speechless. He listed those names as if he was thinking about them every single day.

“When you snap back to reality and not imagine marrying me right here right now and start making babies, you can choose the middle names if you want.” He chuckled. I couldn't imagine the expression on my face as I couldn't get over the feeling in my chest.

I might not have thought about our future like that but now I could see myself being married and have those beautifully named children with him.

“Do you reckon they'll have violet hair?” I finally found my voice. Charlie burst out laughing.

“Did the Coloring Charm manage to change your DNA?” He asked.

“I dunno but imagine them!” I clapped my hands, excitedly. “Your curls and...”

“Your eyes.” He finished my sentence, kissing my nose.

“With your freckles!” My eyes sparkled. Damn it, Weasley! Now I wished I was already pregnant.

We laid on our sofa, talking like this for hours. It was a good distraction from the real world and what we were about to face. I knew that we couldn't afford to go beyond talking and dreaming of having a family with everything that was going on, as we knew it would probably get worse. But we couldn't stop discussing it. It made us laugh and I couldn't help but fall even deeper in love with him if that was even possible. He truly was the man of my dreams and for the time being, having him by my side, safe and healthy was going to be enough.

[merlinssaggyyfronts]

BBC Merlin Rewatch:

01x01: The Dragon’s Call

—

FIRSTLY THE FUCKING DESCRIPTION LMAO “Merlin, a young country boy” COUNTRY BOY AHAHDHSNDH IF ONLY YOU KNEW!!! ITS LIKE SETTING SOMEONE UP FOR DISASTER BUT THEN AGAIN THEY WERE SO LIKE I MEAN-

aw look at merlin all happy and smily, walking into camelot like he isnt going to witness the death of his best friend/king and basically everyone he loves

LOOK AT HIM HES SO HAPPY!!! HE DOESNT KNOW YET

“like everyone, he must live and learn” yo shut ur bitchass up lizard man u literally tried to murder everyone in camelot that one time

“his name: traumatised 😍😍”

AH YES THE OPENING!!1!1!-!-! AHHH THE AMOUNT OF HAPPINESS I FEEL HEARING THE OPENING

fuck ur bitchass uther no one likes u

“i pride myself as a fair and just king” sir didnt u like basically kill ur wife... and thousands of peo- OH MY GOD MORGANA BB ILY

oh jesus okay hes dead um chile-

“when i came to this land” wait i thought he was raised kn camelot brb i forgot im an idiot wait,,, does this mean before this it was the du bois family on the throne of camelot?? also, mired in chaos? u mean like.... before ur wife died and everyone was living peacefully? ....okay

“merlin, seeing a person who's been stated had been studying magic get beheaded: [a magical being himself] ah,, welcoming.” -my gf

“since the great dragon was captured” ....so did no one think about where they put a dragon?? a captured one at that. ud think he’d be more smart but nah he just left a random ass dragon under his castle like THAT is going to end well

YUHH MARY COLLJNS HATE HIM!!! YELL BABEY YELL!!! “you took my son!” YES MURDER HIM OMG I CAN FEEL HER PAIN

“a son for a son!” omg why couldnt u have killed uther bb ur the perfect villain i love u ur literally just a loving mother i-

OOOOO GAIUS

.....why is there a bunny mask in there

why is thERE A BUNNY MASK-

why didnt merlins eyes glow when he dragged the bed to gaius to save him

also whats this slomo magic why didnt he do this after this why did season one haveso much magic and like every other season was just everyone throwing it back

like i get instinctual magic but like.... if its instinctual wouldnt it happen more especially when his powers get stronger-

gaius: what did you just do?!

also gaius, five seconds later: i know what it was!! i just wanted to know where you learned it

merlin: 😐

merlin, about his magic: i was born like this

gaius, who knows full well warlocks exist: impossible!

(are warlocks naturally born knowing how to use magic without learning? i mean if u have to learn magic like a sorcerer then whats the difference between a warlock and a sorcerer cuz wouldnt sorcerers atleast have to have some magic in them to actually cast spells? am i dumb or do i just not get it)

wait so merlin arrived in camelot on a wednesday

merlin, walking into camelot: it is wednesday my dudes

merlin: [witnesses an execution] aaaAAAAAA-

“someone that might help him find a purpose of his gifts” oh honey he’ll get something mUCH LARGER THAN THAT-

—

oH MORGANA

SHUT UR BITCHASS UTHER SHE WILL KILL YOU-

“the more brutal you are, the more enemies you’ll create” oh the waY SHE PREDICTED THEIR FUTURE OO

ah bless u lady helen/mary collins we love them spicy villains

...why do you have a dressing table in a tent

[watches mary collins murder lady helen] i never snitch on dadd- ...someone pls delete me

merlin, about his instinctual magic: i just do it!

gaius: ...lord have mercy what did i just sign myself up to

what ever happened to sir olwen did he die from accidentally overdosing

—

oHHH THERE HE IS THERE HE IS THERES MY BOY!!! MY LIL PRAT MAN!!!!

merlin looks so offended, oh god i could watch this whole scene for HOURS

oooOOOO YES MERLIN FUCK HIM UP!!! SHOW HIM WHOS BOSS

“do i know you?” “im merlin” “so i dont know you” ugh theres already sexual tension

“i would never have a friend who could be such an ass” “or i one so stupid”

also them, ten years later: “i use my magic for you arthur, only you” “just hold me” “i cant lose him! hes my friend!” “thank you..”

“tell me merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees?” OOOOH THE BOYS ARE FLIRTING

NOT THE “would you like me to help you?” SIR YOU ARE FLIRTING SO INTENSELY AND DONT EVEN REALISE IT SIR DO YOU KNOW YOURE FALLING IN LOVE

im convinced atleast half the knights with arthur were like “ayo thas kinda sus bro 😳😳 ayo 😳😳”

arthur: tell me merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees? would you like me to help you?

merlin: ....i really dont know how to answer that

imagine being paid to throw fruits at colin morgan omg id be so thrilled

OOOH HERE COMES OUR QUEEN GWEN!!! MY LOVE MY EVERYTHING YES ILY

gwen: well, arthur looks like one of those, save the world kinda men... and you dont

merlin, 1500 years later, having failed his destiny: well i mean you’re not wrong

—

gaius: uther banned magic a long time ago

merlin, flabbergasted as if he wasnt raised on tales of the death of his kind every day in the kingdom right next to his: why?!?!?

gaius: the dragon is imprisoned where nobody can free him

merlin:

(that is the face of someone knowing full well hes going to free that dragon. look at him. he’s already made up his mind.)

—

[sees merlin and arthur in the marketplace] oh heres he is again heres the lil bitxh ooo theyre about to FIGHT

god hes flirting so hard without even realising it, oh my god

“i could take you apart with one blow” “i could take you apart with less” um sirs this is a mcdonalds drive thru 😃

arthur: ahah, you’re in trouble now~ 😏😏

i had to pause cuz wHAT THE HELL WHY DOES HE SOUND LIKE THAT-

—

....yall are yelling very loudly, um, arent there guards near yall? people passing by? please relax

“im just a nobody, and i always will be” OH IF ONLY YOU KNEWWW

“if i cant use magic, i might as well die” ....well, ive got a surprise for you-

“maybe theres someone with more magic than me?” like... a whole dragon? i mean if you say so 👀

merlin about why he was born like this: if you cant tell me, no one can!

a fucking dragon, basically every magical creature and the druids: WELL-

the camelot guards are so stupid how the hell is this kingdom still standing

how does kilgharrah know merlins name? in prophecy hes known as emrys (and we see basically every magical being call him emrys and not merlin,, i think). so how does he know? did he stretch his neck long enough that he could somehow hear merlin? is it cuz theyre kin? is it cuz merlin and gaius were yelling so loudly that kilgharrah could hear them all the way in his cave? ig we’ll never know 🖐

merlin: where are you?!

kilgharrah:

kilgharrah: without you, arthur will never succeed.

merlin: ....oh look, im already paranoid

the amount of sadness i feel hearing kilgharrah say “none of us can choose our destiny, merlin. and none of us can escape it” is INSANE cuz in season one you can SEE merlin trying to escape it. hes doing his damned best trying to have some control over his life. and then in later seasons you can see the light slowly drain from his eyes as he becomes just another toy for the gods to be entertained by. he realises he cant control a single thing about his life so he does the one thing he can: protect arthur. and he loses SO MUCH because of it! its not fair, he deserved so much, and when he finally got everything he could ever ask for, it was taken away from him by his own mistakes.

arthur, seeing morgana in a beautiful dress: god have mercy 😍

uther: .....um

the way they set arthur and morgana up as if they arent gonna make them siblings i- what the fawk 😄

person A, who knows arthurian lore: oh no! arthur is going to have an affair with morgan(a) and have mordred! oh no!!

person B, whos seen merlin: oh no in this show its worse

person B, knowing full well theyre siblings: much worse....

gwen: who’d wanna marry arthur? 🙄

-

gwen, getting crowned queen of camelot: well fuck

hhhnghnh yes queen sing them to sleep yes murder his bitchass (and fail but like its the thought that counts)

on a sidenote tho this is such a fun way to murder someone, id try this

the absolutely OFFENDED “FATHER!” and the horrified look in arthurs eyss when uther announced merlin would be his manservant is PRICELESS OMG

oh the way uther unintentionally plants the first seed of his sons love story omg 😍😍

Conclusion: this episode is a 10/10 greatest episode with so many iconic scenes omg. mary collins u will forever have my heart for unintentionally kickstarting merlin and arthurs relationship destiny. i loved the whole thing and oh GOD does it already hurt knowing full well how the show ends

[judediangelo75]

We’re Just Friends

A/N: This is an idea that me and @that-scouse-wizard have chatted about while ago. Now that I thought about it, it wouldn’t leave me alone. So here it is.

I hope you guys enjoy this silly one-shot. I would make it super concrete and specific but I don’t have the energy for that.

Just know nobody is truly dating anyone (Judith and Talbott aren’t together yet, neither is David and Merula)

MC friend: David Willows ( @that-scouse-wizard )

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

Anybody who’s been at Hogwarts long enough has heard about David Willows and Judith Harris.

Siblings of the missing Jacob Hall and Jamal Harris.

Hufflepuff’s feared Beaters, known as Hound and Tigress.

The proclaimed Heroes of Hogwarts.

What started off as a simple teammate relationship on the Quidditch pitch turned into an unbreakable bond. The two were thick as thieves, making sure to have each other’s backs through everything. 

You want to talk smack about one of them? Be ready to be grilled within an inch of your life by the other.

You want to try to engage in argument with the pair? Be prepared to walk away in shambles. 

You want to try to gang up on one of them? The other usually not too far away to act as backup.

Cursed Vaults? Psh, the two will be on the front lines, ready to take on whatever danger there is.

Many people have often wondered if the two were more than just friends. 

It’s a common thing to see Judith fussing over David after a rough training session or after he got into fight. Or to see David giving the sleeping Judith a piggyback ride back to their Common Room.

David grew up to be a handsome young lad. Pale skin, dark brown hair with warm dark brown eyes to match. With the help of his growth spurt, he grew up to be a solid 5′11. Thanks to his constant training and his position as a Beater, he maintain an athletic, muscular figure. It was no secret he had his fair share of admirers, girls often giggling or blushing at the sight of the Hufflepuff wizard.

Judith grew up as well. Upon entering Hogwarts, she was a small, slim girl. An easy target to those who didn’t know her and someone often overlooked. As the years passed, she grew to be a beauty. Dark skin, brown-black hair, with pale gold eyes. She didn’t grow past 5′6 (and a half as she normally stresses), making her one of the shorter members of their group of friends. But it suited her, especially with her body build. While she was still on the slim side, her body fill out and reveal womanly curves. Her training with David and Quidditch helped her maintain this figure. While guys still fear her due to her strength and fighting skills, that didn’t stop them from staring at the Hufflepuff witch when she came into view.

Two good looking people with a bond like theirs? They had to be together. There’s no way they would be just friends.

At least that’s what everyone who wasn’t friends with them thought.

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

“David.” The Hufflepuff wizard in questioned turned to his head to his friend.

“Yeah? what’s up, Judith,” he asked. The young witch’s brows were furrowed, as if she was trying to figure something out.

“Have you head the latest rumor going on,” she questioned him. David shook his head, curious to what the students at Hogwarts have came up with this time.

“Someone started a rumor saying that we were dating...” David blinked once before letting out a unattractive snort.

“Us? Dating? Merlin’s beard, people must’ve gone mad,” he laughed. Judith let a soft chuckle.

“You’re not wrong. Especially when we’re in own respective crushes,” she smirked. David took a deep breath to help calm down.

“So, what do you want to do about it? You wanna mess with some peoples’ heads or shut down the rumor,” David asked. Judith’s expression turned into thoughtful one. Very rarely would she tolerate tomfoolery, let alone entertain it.

This was a pretty stupid rumor.

David and her have been friends ever since second year. Never once has she looked at him that way.

Especially not when a loner Ravenclaw caught her eye during the beginning of their third year...

As stupid as the rumor is, it was kind of funny. In a way she can kind of see how people would think that they were dating.

Very rarely would she mess around and entertain something for her own amusement...

But she’ll make the exception this time,

“I’m down to have a laugh,” she finally said. David cracked a smile and laughed.

“I agree.”

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

Judith and David were cackling in their empty Common Room.

It’s been two days since they decided to have fun with this rumor and the reactions were well worth it.

The wide eyes, jaw dropped and jealous looks they received when they were being “affectionate” never failed to make them smirk.

They made sure to hold hands where everyone could see.

Casually flirt with one another when people where in earshot.

David would sometimes play with her hair. 

Judith would occasionally feel up on David’s biceps.

Hell, just earlier that day, Judith was sitting on David’s lap in the Courtyard. They were revising for Charms class as they did this, quizzing each other as they remain close. Guys were glaring at David as he had his arm wrapped around his friend’s waist. Girls turned red out of jealous rage as Judith occasionally nuzzled him.

They definitely looked like the “perfect” couple everyone thought them to be.

“Whew, that was the best laugh I’ve had in awhile,” Judith gasped, leaning on David for support. David rested a hand over his heaving chest, trying to compose himself.

“Honestly! You would think our House mates would know better. They’ve never seen us that close,” he snorted.

Judith let out a soft chuckle.

“You’re not wrong, Hound. Ahhh, I think it;s time to put this rumor to rest.” David nodded with a smile.

Little did they know, their little stunt soon reached a certain Ravenclaw and Slytherin...

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

Talbott growled, ready to rip David a new one. 

Normally he would ignore rumors and such, but when he heard his crush’s name being mentioned, he couldn’t help but to tune into the whispers around him.

He didn’t like what he heard.

‘David is lucky bloke to score a girl like Judith.’

‘David and Judith make such a cute couple, don’t you think?’

‘Ugh! I can’t believe Judith is with him! Now I’ll never get a chance to be with David.’

‘David is such a smug bastard. He’s basically showing off that he managed to lock down one of the prettiest witches at Hogwarts.’

‘Did you see how they were all cuddled up in the Courtyard?’

“If I hear one more time how perfect David and Judith are, I will puke.”

Talbott felt angry towards both of them. He was angry at David for stealing Judith and he was angry at Judith messing with his feelings.

He liked her for quite some time. And it looked like that she returned his feelings. Until he’s heard that she was dating David Willows.

Talbott was hurt and pissed off. He was a bit insecure about himself and the idea of her and David made that insecurity rear its ugly head.

He wasn’t as outgoing as David. 

He didn’t have David’s strength or fighting prowess.

He was no Quidditch player (while he believe that he could make a decent Seeker or Keeper, he couldn’t compare to a Beater. Players who could strike fear into the hearts of others).

He didn’t even have David’s looks. While he felt like he looked decent, he didn’t really have girls openly fawning over him or blushing and giggling after him.

He was a loner who preferred the company of a good book or birds. Hell, there were people who said he looked like their long lost cousin.

David looked like he had everything. Including the girl he’s been pining over for Gods know how long. Talbott just reached outside of the Hufflepuff Common Room where he met a Slytherin witch with a similar murderous expression on her face.

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

Merula’s blood was boiling. 

All day she’s been hearing about how cute Willows and Harris was and she’s at her wits end.

Out of all the witches David could’ve picked, he picked Harris? That bloody disgrace Jamal Harris’s sister?!

What the hell did she have that Merula didn’t?!

Merula is the Most Powerful Witch at Hogwarts!

‘Have you won a duel against Harris since you got here?’ Well no, but-

‘Did you forget that she can easily defend herself? Or did you forget the bruises and broken nose she gave you back in third year?’ No, but I-

‘Have you bested her at Flying class? Have you ever won a race against her on your new broom?’ Not yet-

‘Can you conjure a powerful corporeal Patronus?’ I haven’t-

‘Do you have a position on the Quidditch team?’ No, but who wants to play that stupid game anyways?!

‘Easy, David does. And Harris can.’

Merula internally growled at her thoughts. She was angry at Harris for walking around Hogwarts as if she was better than everyone else. As if she was better than her.

She was strong, powerful and apparently beautiful. Merula has even heard Slytherin wizards who picked on her when they were in their earlier years talk about how “pretty” and “beautiful” she was.

Now she stolen Willows’s attention from her!

She stood outside the Hufflepuff Common Room, waiting for the two to emerge when a Ravenclaw wizard stormed up.

“What you doing here,” she questioned with narrowed eyes. Talbott rolled his eyes, not in the mood to deal with the “Most Powerful Witch at Hogwarts”.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he snarked. Merula glared and was about to retort something when the door swung open.

David and Judith were surprised to find their respective crushes in front of their Common Room, suddenly glaring at them.

“You have some explaining to do, Willows,” Merula hissed.

“We need to have a talk, Judith,” Talbott said coldly. 

The two Hufflepuff glanced at each other before back at the Ravenclaw and Slytherin trying to murder them with their eyes.

“Yeah...”

“What the hell is going on between you two?!” Both Hufflepuff winced at the loud yell coming from the enraged pair.

“Whoa, easy with the hostility. We’re just friends,” Judith said. David nodded.

“Yeah, there’s nothing going on between us,” David added. Talbott and Merula narrowed their eyes.

“’Just friends’? That’s sure as hell not what I heard, Judith,” Talbott huffed.

“Friends don’t cuddle up in public together, Willows. Don’t bullshit me,” Merula growled. 

Judith tilted her head to the side and David rose a brow.

“Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell us, you believe those rumors,” the Hufflepuff witch asked.

“Who the hell are we suppose to believe,” Merula snorted.

“Us, of course,” David said coolly.

“How do would we know you’re not lying,” Talbott asked. David and Judith looked at each other and back at them.

“Maybe because we don’t like each other like that,” Judith offered.

“Maybe because we could’ve gotten together a long time ago if that was the case,” David added.

“Maybe because we never started flirting with each other until a rumor started?”

Maybe because our friends, especially in Hufflepuff, would’ve saw this coming a long time ago?”

“Or maybe because we wouldn’t lie to you because we care about you,” they finished together. Talbott and Merula looked at them shocked before they’ve started blushing.

Judith and David shared eerily similar smirks that made the Ravenclaw wizard and Slytherin witch take a step back.

“Is there something you want to tell us,” Judith asked in a sing-a-long voice. Talbott shook his head.

“W-what?! N-no,” Talbott denied, though his voice didn’t come out as forceful as he hoped.

“Is it possible you were jealous,” David teased. Merula blushed harder.

“M-me? Jealous of H-Harris?! Get real, Willows! The Most Powerful Witch at Hogwarts doesn’t get j...jealous,” Merula snapped weakly. 

“Are you sure,” Judith continued, thoroughly enjoying seeing the two squirm.

“I-I... I have no reason to be jealous of David,” Talbott retorted.

“Are you sure you don’t like us? Even a little bit,” David chuckled, enjoying the rare sight as well.

Talbott and Merula didn’t even answer and they took off in separate directions, seeking the relief from the unexpected interrogation from the Hufflepuff duo.

David and Judith laughed as they headed upstairs. 

With the fact that Merula and Talbott may feel the same way about them, they had more of a reason to disband the rumor of them being together.

After all, they had to be single of they wanted to get with their crush...

[lesbianklance]

I got so confused for a minute when I tried to open your blog and it gave me what I think might have been your main, but then I found the verizacxa blog (we stan the sapphic poly ships of the Voltron fandom) and then you came back anyway to lesbianklance which is an icon 😉

Also I give you some headcanons about Verizacxa:

Veronica and Rizavi didn't know each other well before the Galra invaded Earth

But Rizavi felt herself falling in that scene where Veronica comes and verbally slays James Griffin and says she should drive

Then Veronica claims shotgun and they sit next to each other for this whole journey

And she is highkey panicking because pretty girl what are words

And then Veronica asks what it's like piloting the MFEs

And they start talking and Rizavi likes her more with every second that passes

Veronica thinks she's the cutest girl she's ever met and she loves how upbeat and spunky she is

And then Rizavi asks if she wanted to be a pilot ever and she says no, that was her brother

And the response is 'Lance, right? You must be really worried about him up there. I always liked him, we were friendly. I mean, he was kind of friendly with everyone so that's not saying much'

Veronica asks if Lance ever flirted with her because how could he not be attracted to this gorgeous girl

And Rizavi oh-so-casually drops the fact that she's a lesbian

Anyway, she's more crushed than she expected when they think Veronica died

And when she returns she literally jumps into her arms

So of course Veronica's siblings, who witnessed this, tease her about her 'girlfriend' whenever she gets a chance

And they help her realise she is actually head-over-heels for Rizavi

Meanwhile, Rizavi is gushing about Veronica a whole lot to her poor fellow MFEs, who have varying reactions (Kinkade is the emotional support, Griffin not-so-subtly hypes her up in front of Veronica and Leifsdottir just outright states that Rizavi thinks she's amazing)

Veronica is clued in by this point so she asks Rizavi out right after a mission briefing one day

Rizavi is kind of distracted for the whole mission

And then... and then they meet Acxa after the battle with Sendak

And they first see her sparring with Keith, where she kicks his ass

Veronica: Who... exactly... is that girl over there?

Rizavi: No offence babe, but I have never seen anyone that badass

Veronica: None taken I was thinking the same thing

Lance: Who, Acxa? She's basically Keith's adopted sister who helped us on our way home. It's complicated

And then the girls make it their mission to make Acxa feel welcome at the Garrison

They introduce her to ice cream and trips to the beach and shopping

And Acxa doesn't know what to do with all this attention because nobody has ever been so affectionate towards her and she half expects them to have something they want from her

But on the Atlas, when they keep doing it, they tell her they don't care she's Galra, or what she did in her past

She's here now, and that's what matters

Long story short, Acxa falls hard for both of them but feels guilty about it because she can't damage their relationship (Galra are typically monogamous so the idea of a poly relationship didn't cross her mind at first)

Whereas Veronica and Rizavi are like:

Rizavi: Acxa is a hell of a catch

Veronica: Yeah she is

Rizavi: So we agree we'd both love to date her?

Veronica: Yep

Rizavi: Great!

But Acxa doesn't want to ruin their relationship so she's started pulling away from them

And eventually they have to track her down and ask what's wrong

And she doesn't know what to say so she just tells them the truth

And instead of them leaving her she gets two wonderful new girlfriends

(When they tell Keith and Lance, Lance crows 'Pay up!' at Keith because he knew it would happen soon - his sister is like that - and Keith thought Acxa was like him and would repress it for years)

-🎯 anon

omg yes i love this so much that moment with veronica and rizavi where she told her to drive??? spectacular i loved it i was like yes sapphics i can get behind this

THESE HCS ARE SO GOOD I LOVE THEMA DJHSNSBWND

thank you for this content<3

also yes it was my personal (well this is actually my main akdhsnhsn) but i changed the urls nack cause lesbianklance is too iconic

[violetwolfraven]

Lean on Me

45 for javid—requested by @livininmyhead

I’ve been lowkey parenting all my friends/siblings alone for a while and now you’re helping me and idk what to do with this???

((I know this is a bit different from my usual style, but I’m trying something out so I hope you like it, anyway.))

...

“Hey, what’s wrong, Elmer?”

“It’s nothin’. It’s fine.”

“It clearly ain’t, so what is it?”

“I didn’t make enough to keep my bed tonight. I’m gonna have to sleep at home. I prefer it here, most of the time, but for one night, it’s no big deal. Like I said, it’s nothin’.”

“Don’t you have like... 10 big brothers and sisters, all livin’ in a normal-sized apartment?”

“I have 8. Why?”

“Nah. You’re not goin’ back there. Sharin’ space is bad enough in a Lodging House, but at least there’s enough for all of us. You can sleep with me and Crutchie on the fire escape for the night.”

“Jack, I—“

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Elmer. And I ain’t lettin’ ya say no, so can the ‘you don’t have to’ bullshit.”

“I... thanks, Jack.”

“Like I said. Don’t worry ‘bout it, kiddo.”

...

“Hey, Jack, ya got a minute?”

“Sure. Need to talk?”

“I was wonderin’... you’re good with things, right? Like... charmin’ people?”

“You’re askin’ me?”

“No, I know how to do it with just anybody to sell papes or whatever. But... but what if it was someone ya actually wanted to... ya know...”

“Ooh! Lookin’ to woo a girl, Romeo?”

“Um... maybe... kind of.”

“...oh. Oh, Ro... It ain’t a girl, is it?”

“No... is that wrong?”

“No. No, Romeo, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, or you. Never let no one tell you different. Just... be careful. I don’t have to tell ya what could—“

“You don’t.”

“If ya don’t mind me askin’... who is it?”

“It’s Specs.”

“Oh. Oh my... I should have seen that coming a long time ago. Okay, so, for flirting with Specs specifically, here’s what you’re gonna do, kid...”

...

“Albert?”

“J-Jack! I’ll—“

“Hey, kid, where ya goin’? What’s wrong? Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. Ain’t no shame in cryin’, Albie. It’s okay. Talk to me, kiddo. What’s up?”

“Go away!”

“No. Like I said, cryin’ ain’t anythin’ to be ashamed of. So why are ya cryin’? What’s wrong, Albert?”

“My... my mom. She’s been sick for a while, but now she’s... she’s...”

“Oh, damn. I’m so sorry, kid.”

“Get off me!”

“Albert, there is no shame in needin’ a shoulder to cry on every now and then, no matter what anyone says. And you just lost your mom, so if anyone’s got an excuse, it’s you. I won’t tell nobody. Just let it all out. It’s gonna be okay.”

...

“Jack?”

“What is—Oh my God!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to—“

“Sniper, did your father do this? I know you’ve mentioned him bein’ bad before, but I never thought it was this bad.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Snipes... I won’t ask if ya don’t want me to. But the Lodging House has gotta be safer than—“

“My mom needs the money. I can’t.”

“Fine. If ya need to keep goin’ back for her... Remember that you’s always got a place here if it ever gets too much... but for now, I’ll patch ya up so you can go back to your ma.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

...

“Hey, Jack?”

“Yeah, what’s up, Mush?”

“You gave Romeo advice on... makin’ moves on people, right?”

“Yes, I did, and if he told ya to come to me... damn. I mean, I suspected, but 4 of my boys? I gots nothin’ against it, but I don’t like that it ain’t safe.

“Yeah... wait, 4?”

“My advice is good, kid. Ro’s got himself a boyfriend. And for you... it’s Blink, ain’t it?”

“How did you—“

“Mush, buddy, ya ain’t as subtle as ya think you are. And trust me; Blink ain’t soft with anyone, but he is with you. He likes you, too. Gettin’ him ain’t gonna be hard. All ya gotta do is be yourself and ask him out. Just pick somewhere that ain’t too obvious as a date spot so nobody suspects. Unfortunately, lovin’ other boys is dangerous, and I don’t wanna lose any of mine because the wrong people found out.”

“You won’t. I’ll be real careful. Thanks, Jack!”

“No problem, kiddo. Good luck!”

...

“Hey, Jojo, ya got a minute?”

“Yeah, why?”

“A couple of the fellas came to me, a bit worried about ya. I was just wonderin’ if you were okay.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong.”

“Jojo, I’s heard a lot of lies in my day from a lot of liars. And you’s honestly got to be the worst liar I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s fine, Jack. I can handle it.”

“Mike said you freaked out and went to a bad place just cause he startled you. What’s that about?”

“He saw me writin’ with my left hand, okay? It’s fine. I just forgot what I was doin’ and didn’t mean to use it, but—“

“What’s wrong with usin’ your left hand?”

“It’s wrong. I’ll go to hell because of it.”

“Who told ya that?”

“The nuns.”

“Jo... can you control it? Usin’ your left?”

“No. Why does that—“

“If you can’t control it, ain’t doin’ it on purpose and ain’t hurtin’ anyone by doin’ it, why is it wrong?”

“‘Cause...”

“Look, nuns say a lot of things, and most of ‘em mean well. But they’re learnin’ from a book written a long time ago. Times change. And look—Mush writes with his left. Do ya think he’s goin’ to hell?”

“...no.”

“There ya go. You’re fine just the way you are. Okay? Don’t let no one tell ya different. Need a hug?”

“A hug sounds nice.”

“Come here, kid.”

...

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, please don’t—“

“Finch, calm down. You’re in the Manhattan Lodging House. You’re okay. You’re safe. Shh. Nobody’s gonna hurt ya here.”

“Are-are ya sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Your folks ain’t gonna find ya here, and if they do, I won’t let ‘em get to you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Shh. It’s okay. I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’ll protect you, okay? You believe me?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good. Hush, now. Get some sleep.”

...

“Hey, Jack. You awake?”

“Well, I am now.”

“Sorry... do ya really think we can win this? I mean... that Plumber woman is right. We really are just a gang of kids.”

“Hey. We’re a gang of kids with the wit and will to pull this off. We got a reporter willin’ to listen to us. And sure, she’s a girl, but...”

“That’s more than we’ve ever had before.”

“Exactly. We’ll be fine, Crutchie. Don’t you worry ‘bout it.”

“We’ve never had someone like Davey Jacobs, either.”

“We sure haven’t! He’s somethin’ else, ain’t he?”

“Yeah, but... what if Finch is right and the cops come bust our heads?”

“Then I’ll be there takin’ the first hit.”

“Jack—“

“What I mean is, I ain’t gonna let him get to you or any of the rest of the fellas. Don’t worry.”

“I didn’t say anything about him, Jack.”

“Who said anything about him? There’s no ‘him.’”

“Jack, we both know more likely than not, he shows up. Are you gonna be okay?”

“It’ll be fine, Crutchie. I’ll be fine and so will everyone else.”

“That seems like a promise ya shouldn’t—“

“Goodnight, Crutchie. Go to sleep.”

...

“Whoa, Race are you—“

“I’m fine, Jack.”

“Pretty nasty shiner you’ve got, there, so I’d argue that you’re not, but that ain’t why I’m askin’. I know you, Race. I can tell when your smile is faked, and honestly, it is a lot more than it should be, but—“

“Spot didn’t come.”

“What?”

“I thought he’d come for us! I thought he’d show up at the last minute to save us but then he didn’t and he just—“

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Race. Slow down and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Spot Conlon and me... ya know we’re close, right?”

“Yeah, of course I know you’re—oh. Oh. Okay.”

“What? What’s oh?”

“Ya could’ve told me. I mean, I gots a bunch of queer pairs I’ve been helpin’ sneak around.”

“Spot and me ain’t—“

“Save it, Racer. I think we both know that ain’t true.”

“I... you’re really fine with it?”

“Sure. I don’t care who ya fool around with, long as nobody finds out ‘bout ya foolin’ around with boys.”

“No, Jack, ya don’t get it!”

“What don’t I get? What’s this about, Racer?”

“It’s not just foolin’ around! I... Jack, I think I...”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize... I didn’t think Spot Conlon had feelings.”

“That’s the problem, Jack. I don’t know if he does. The problem is that I think... I think I love him. And he didn’t come for me.”

“Oh shit... the L word. Are you... are you sure?”

“I don’t know! I just know that he’s... I care about him like I care about you, but different! He makes me feel like... like I don’t even know what! Like I’m ramblin’ and he understands it all! Like he gets every part of me! And it is so stupid, but I think I get him, too! Or at least I did! Cause I was sure he was coming, and then he didn’t.”

“I’m guessin’ Davey didn’t tell ya yet.”

“Tell me what?”

“Spot sent over a kid to say he’s comin’ next time, so... I guess your boy is comin’ for ya.”

“...yeah. I guess he is.”

“I guess you’ll get a chance to see if he feels the same, but... Hey, listen. I gotta go, okay? I got a man to see. Do ya need me to stay for a bit?”

“Nah, it’s... it’s fine. Thanks, Jack.”

...

“Hey, Jack, ya got a minute?”

“Oh, sure, Mike. Davey, mind if I step away for a second?”

“Is this something that needs to be a secret?”

“No. No, it ain’t a secret. It’s just... Ike didn’t come in tonight, and I knows he ain’t in the Refuge, cause the Refuge is gone, but what if he’s hurtin’ somewhere? He didn’t tell me he was gonna—“

“Mike, buddy, it’s okay. Calm down. We know where he is.”

“Ya do?”

“He came by and said he was gonna spend some time in Brooklyn.”

“Yeah, it’s late enough that he’s probably spending the night. I don’t know Spot Conlon that well, but he doesn’t seem like the type to let a kid walk all the way back here after dark.”

“He ain’t—you’re right. Look, if he don’t come to the circulation gate tomorrow, then we’ll worry. For now, Ike’s almost certainly fine.”

“You’d think he’d remember to tell his brother when he goes places. That shithead.”

“Language!”

“Davey, everybody curses ‘round here. Includin’ you, come to think of it.”

“I know, but... damn. I’m becoming my mother.”

...

“Jack... can we talk? Alone?”

“Sure, Kath. What’s up?”

“There’s no good way to say this... we need to end this. You and me.”

“...what?”

“Jack, I’m sorry, but... I don’t love you. Not like that. You’re a wonderful friend—don’t get me wrong—but I don’t love you. I never did. I just didn’t realize it because besides Bill and Darcy, I’ve never really had any friends. You were the first friend I’ve made in a long time, and... and now that I’ve gotten some time to be better friends with the others, I’m realizing that what we had was never real.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. I... I guess I was attracted to you, at first, but that faded without me realizing it a long time ago. And I know saying this is hurting you, but... Jack, it wouldn’t be fair to either of us for me to pretend I still want to be with you when I don’t. The fact is, neither of us is what the other really needs. And honestly, I don’t think you ever really loved me, either, and... and if you’re with me, you won’t find that person out there who you will love. I have no doubt that you’ll find someone to love who loves you the way you deserve, Jack.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kath.”

“I really am so sorry. I hope we can still be friends.”

“We can be. Don’t worry about it.”

...

“Hey, Jack? Wait, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Buttons. What is it?”

“It’s nothin’. I can go ask Davey.”

“Ask Davey what?”

“Jack, it’s nothin’ you need to worry ‘bout. You’re clearly not doin’ so well due to the breakup, and—“

“I’m fine, Buttons! Seriously! What is it?”

“It’s just... I didn’t earn enough today to buy my papes tomorrow. Ya know—winter is rough on everyone. I was gonna ask ya to ask around if anyone can spare anythin’, but I can go ask—“

“Ya don’t have to ask Davey. I’ll do it.”

...

“Shh, shh, kid, it’s okay. You’re safe. Everything’s gonna be okay, okay? You’re okay. You’re safe, here.”

“Jack, what’s going on?”

“Oh, crap. I’m sorry, Dave. This is a crappy night for this to happen, bein’ your first night sleepin’ over at the Lodging House, but I can handle this. It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

“Blink? Blink, are you okay?”

“He’s still... not really here. It’ll take some time for him to get back, but you don’t have to stay up. I can handle it by myself. Really, Davey.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have to. Blink, do you want me to leave?”

“...no.”

“Okay. Okay, I won’t. It’s okay, Blink. You’re safe. You’re in the Manhattan Lodging House. Me and Jack are right here, okay?”

“We’re both right here for you.”

...

“Specs, what the hell happened to you? Davey! Davey, get in here, and bring some bandages!”

“What’s wro—oh my God!”

“It ain’t the worst that’s happened, Jack, and you know it.”

“Yeah, that don’t mean I gotta like it. Was it..?”

“Some shitheads who didn’t like me bein’ darker-skinned than them? Yeah. I’ll survive, though.”

“You know how wrong that is, right Specs?”

“Well, obviously, Davey. I’m the one who got soaked.”

“Where are they?”

“Davey—“

“Where are they? I get enough shit for being Jewish that I know a bit of what he’s goin’ through, Jack. And people like that—“

“Gettin’ soaked by a bunch of guys bigger than you won’t solve nothin’, Davey. And believe me, that is all that’ll happen if you go after them.”

“Fine. At least stay in bed tomorrow and rest up. I’ll sell extra to make up you missing.”

“I’ll help. Romeo probably will, too.”

“Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Davey.”

“Thank us after we patch you up.”

...

“If ya tell anyone about this, Jackie Boy, you won’t live long enough to see me deny it.”

“Relax, Spot. I ain’t tellin’ anyone. How’d ya wind up with a dislocated shoulder, anyway?”

“That’s my business. Are ya gonna fix it or not?”

“Oh, I’m gonna. It’ll hurt less if it’s a surprise, though, so’s we gotta talk about somethin’ else. Um... so, you and Racer?”

“...yeah, I guess.”

“That is so weird to think about. I never would have seen that one coming. I don’t need to tell you that if ya hurt him, Manhattan’ll go to war, right?”

“I ain’t gonna hurt him.”

“You’d better not.”

“I’m serious. I ain’t gonna—ah!”

“There. Your shoulder’s fixed. You’re welcome. And... you’s got real feelins’ for Race, don’t ya?”

“...maybe.”

“Good. Cause I‘s known Race a long time, and he fakes half his smiles. But the ones he gets when he talks to me ‘bout you are always real. He’s got it bad for ya, Conlon. You’d better not break him.”

“I won’t. Ever. Cause... cause maybe I’ve got it bad for him, too. But if ya ever tell him or anyone else I told you that—“

“I know, I know. I’ll be dead by midnight. My lips are sealed.”

“They’d better be. So... you and Walkin’ Mouth?”

“What?!”

...

“Where did you learn to braid, Jack?”

“Well, it was a long time ago, but I did have a mother once upon a time, Sarah.”

“Oh my God, I’m so—“

“It’s fine. I don’t talk about her much, but she’s been gone long enough that it don’t hurt so much. And ya know, when Smalls first got here, she had this super long hair that she needed to keep out of the way, ‘fore she asked Crutchie to cut it. Somebody had to help her.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you.”

“So, Sarah...”

“Jack?”

“I was wonderin’... I ran into Spot Conlon a while back, and he mentioned some things about... do Davey and me act like we’s together?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No..?”

“I thought you were together! I just assumed Davey wasn’t telling me about it because... well, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to be together? With Davey?”

“...I don’t know.”

“Well, I’d suggest figuring that out, cause David’s always had a stick up his ass, and I’ve never seen him relax the way he does with you. You make him feel free to be... Davey.”

“You’re sayin’ he wants to be with me?!”

“God, Kelly. You really are oblivious. Yes, you stupid cowboy. So finish this braid and go get him.”

...

“Jackie, can you sit down? Please?”

“I can’t, Davey. I gotta—“

“Everyone’s accounted for. Well, except Race, but Jojo said he saw him headed towards Brooklyn earlier. He’s probably spending the night and forgot to tell us.”

“The dishes—“

“It was Romeo’s turn and I made sure he did ‘em hours ago.”

“Specs—“

“I checked his ribs again this afternoon and he’s healing fine. Everyone’s fine, Jackie. Sit down.”

“...thanks, Davey.”

“You’re welcome. I think you forget sometimes that everybody needs somebody to lean on occasionally, even you.”

“I ain’t been leanin’ on anyone since I was... since I started leadin’ Manhattan.”

“And everyone leans on you. I know. You like knowin’ they’re all safe and happy, but who makes sure you’re safe and happy? Nobody—that’s the answer, so don’t try to argue it. So I guess it’s gotta be me. If no one else, I guess I’m the one you can lean on.”

[justasparkwritings]

Codename Cupid: Chapter 12

Previously: Another Shot at Love Pt. 4

Pairing: Park Jimin X OMC

Genre: Angst, Secret AgentAU, AgentAU, Government Agent AU

Rating: PG15

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Legal Alcohol Consumption and Recreational Drug Use, Flirting, Jimin’s backstory 

Summary: The history Codename Mochi and how his relationship with Codename Arrow came about. 

Codename: The Mochi of it All

Winter, Senior Year 

          Jimin joined OT7 in his late teens and was kept away from his hyungs until he had finished his coursework, spent time in the field, and proved his worth. A quick study, deft in the art of reading people and empathizing, Jimin became an essential asset in the realms of surveillance and field work. Everyone was charmed by him immediately, his megawatt smile and friendly demeanor, as if Mary Poppin’s herself had given him spoonsful of sugar every day of his childhood. Jimin loved tracking marks, observing their tendencies, watching for changes in behavior. He could slip into their lives without them noticing to make strangers become friends, lovers, discerning with ease what he needed to do to become their confidant. Having studied with Codename Cuttlefish for over a year, he knew what to say and do. Joining a yoga class? No problem. Hopping into their pottery studio?  Easy. Wine tasting in Napa Valley? He knew the most exclusive vineyards. Cooking? Please, he was trained. There wasn’t anything Jimin couldn’t do, which is how he fell into bed with Jun-Seo.

         The expectation within OT7 was that you accepted your post, you took your directions and followed through on your work. When it came to dating, relationships of a sexual nature, there was explicit language that if you weren’t comfortable, you didn’t have to. There was nothing so important that the powers at be wanted you to risk your personal comfort and safety for. If Jimin didn’t want to entrap Jun-Seo, he didn’t have to, the plan could be changed, nothing was so definite that it didn’t warrant discussion. Namjoon had taken Jimin aside, walked him through the blueprints ahead of the full team meeting, conferring with him on what he was comfortable doing, and what he wasn’t. The rules for Yoongi applied to Jimin, if he didn’t want to have sex, he didn’t have to, and if he did, he was required to turn off his mic whenever sexual situations arose, as was standard practice. He didn’t have to log any aspects of his sexual relationship with any mark, only if it proved important in the case. With Jun-Seo, it did.

         Jimin, ever the professional, always prepared and always 5 minutes late, took it all in stride. It wasn’t difficult for Jun-Seo to fall in love with him, and unlike Yoongi and his quest to rectify all past failings through his relationship with Cupid, Jimin found it easy to be committed to one person, one man, in spite of the deception. After all, Codename Arrow, wanted exactly what Cupid did: to be loved.

         If Jimin was excellent at everything, he had perfected loving someone.

         Infiltrating Jun-Seo’s life was a manner of timing. Yoongi had been placed in Lee Enterprises while Jimin had already been making the rounds in Jun-Seo’s circles, elusive and enticing, it took three weeks before Jun-Seo had cornered him.

         “I can’t get a read on you,” Jun-Seo said, sitting across from Jimin in a dimly lit bar.

         Smirking, lips plump and coated in a thin layer of petroleum jelly, Jimin played dumb. “How do you mean?”

         “You talk to everyone but me, then you dance with me and flirt with me, but the minute I try and talk to you, poof, you’re gone,” Jun-Seo recited Jimin’s offenses, eliciting a giggle from him.

         “Maybe I like it that way,” Jimin responded.

         “Maybe, or maybe you’re scared,” He countered.

         “Scared of what, a pretty boy in last season’s Balenciaga?” Jimin scoffed, not going so far as saying As If, but implying.

         “A pretty boy with enough money to bury your deepest secrets or sell them to the highest bidder just for fun,” Jun-Seo threatened.

         “Your threats mean nothing. I don’t care about your money. I guarantee I have more,” Jimin brought his glass to his lips, water in vodka glass with a paper-thin lime slice deftly floating on top.

         Cackling, Jun-Seo responded, “Lies,”

         “You wanna play?” Jimin countered.

         “Only if you’re the prize,” Jun-Seo winked.

         It was banter back and forth, texts becoming phone calls that led to dates and nights out. A trip to Paris, followed by Seoul and Australia, all the while Suga was swindling Cupid. By the time Suga and Cupid broke up, Jun-Seo had proposed to Jimin.

         Jun-Seo was known for being a serial monogamist, flitting from one short term relationship to the other, always trading in the old for what seemed brand new. He had a reputation to maintain, an appearance he worked to cultivate. While Dae-Seong and Kwan-Min had to toe the lines of professionalism, of being the faces of the company until Euna was ready, Jun-Seo was given the autonomy to fuck around. A yacht trip in the Mediterranean? Annual. Closing Harrod’s and nearly buying out Chanel and Ferragamo? That was just a Tuesday. He could do no wrong, because while his siblings were busy fighting, he was busy charming. Every relationship, however devoid of emotion it was, provided him with more social capital than any socialite could dream of having. Though the tactics he used to gain this capital were not morally sound, and the level of blackmailable offenses he had witnessed was sociopathic, he continued to be sought after by anyone who breathed. To date Jun-Seo, no matter how brief, was to move up several rungs in society. The longer you dated, the higher you could climb, though Seo had the final say in your destination.

         No one was off limits to him, and he was afraid of nothing. Money afforded him security. Wealth afforded him an attitude that no one was better than him. Being 4th inline to the Lee fortune afforded him privilege. For these reasons, nobody dared mess with Jun-Seo, and in return, Seo messed with everyone.

         For the majority of his life, Seo had just wanted to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. Gossip swam with stories of his escapades, his philanthropy and business prowess made him legendary. He had few friends, but his closest confidant remained Kwan-Min. At the end of the day, however, she would always be his sister. There was no cuddling, no longing stares or passionate touches in the night, there was barely love, mostly respect. Jimin, though, had the potential to become the person Seo went to for everything.

         Jimin knew the lines were blurring when Seo took him to Seoul to track down distant relatives, and then fly to Japan to listen to Kyoto while walking the city. It wasn’t in the way Seo spoke to Jimin, but in the touches he gave, the way his eyes softened, how he was kinder to strangers and compassionate when someone messed up. Jimin was changing him, and that terrified Jimin. A mark is a mark, until they’re not.

         “He’s in too deep,” Hoseok argued, Jimin sitting at the conference table, going through transcripts of his last few days with Jun-Seo.

         “It’s getting to the point where Arrow is clearly, invested. He sees a future with Jimin, a tangible life together,” Yoongi responded, concern in his eyes. He had just started working at Lee Enterprises.

         “That’s what I’m concerned about,” Namjoon responded.

         “Arrow hasn’t given enough information to warrant the intensity of this relationship. It’s high risk, low reward. Better to get out,”

         “But we need to think about when Yoongi is dating Cupid, we’ll have two sets of eyes on the inside. Jimin has to infiltrate Arrow’s computer or very minimum, the philanthropy network so they can access the records,” Namjoon reminded them.

         “He’s going to propose, right?” Seokjin voiced. “There’s no way, at this rate, that he Arrow hasn’t thought about it.”

         “He hasn’t mentioned it, but he does play with my ring finger. It’s almost absentmindedly, and I wouldn’t think much of it except it’s pretty frequent,” Jimin informed them.

         “I thought he wasn’t the ‘marrying type’?” Seokjin asked.

         “Everyone thinks they aren’t something, and then Jimin shows up and all bets are off,” Yoongi smiled. “He’s magic.”

         “It’s because he’s so cute,” Hoseok agreed. “His laugh,”

         “His smile?” Namjoon continued the list.

         “Remember when we were laughing so hard, he told us to stop being funny because –

         “He can’t see when he’s laughing!” Hoseok finished, erupting in wall shaking laughter.

         “Okay, okay, I get it,” Jimin couldn’t help but giggle at his hyungs. “The question is, what do I do with Arrow?”

         “Stay, you have to,” Namjoon’s composure was back. “That’s your order.”

         “Do I push off the inevitable?”

         “A proposal? Yes,”

         “Tell him you aren’t sure you’re ready, or ever want to be married. Give him a real crisis and he’ll spend the next three months trying to figure out where he stands.” Yoongi suggested.

         “Has he said that he loves you?” Seokjin inquired.

         “Yes,”

         “Have you said it back?”

         “The question isn’t if Jimin’s said it back,” Yoongi began, “It’s if he means it.”

         “Jiminssi, do you mean it?”

         “I, no, no,” Jimin shook his head, his quickly lightening pink hair moving with his head. “I don’t love him,”

         “You love who he is with you,” Yoongi followed up, “He’s kind, and thoughtful, compassionate, fuck he’s even empathetic.”

         “It doesn’t excuse what he’s done, or who he is at his core,” Hoseok reminded him.

         “But it does make it infinitely more challenging to not blur the lines between who he really is, and who he is trying to be,” Jimin sat back, uneasiness in his veins. “I have to remember that.”

         “Do you need to retrain your brain?” Namjoon offered.

         “No, no, I’ll be fine, I can do this.” Jimin nodded.

         “Our second to last member to be put into the field is doing well. Codename V, he’s been onboarded and will continue working Yoongi’s job with minimal fieldwork until Cupid and Suga’s relationship is over, he’s finishing his last bits of training before becoming a full-time member. His office will be next to Yoongi’s,” Namjoon pulled up the file, V’sphoto and information enlarging on the screen.

         “Chim, you also trained him, correct?” Seokjin asked.

         “Yeah, he picked up everything on the first go, insanely intelligent, charismatic, he’s an amazing guy.” Jimin smiled fondly. “He’s my best friend, has been since we joined. Yoongi trained him for a bit too.”  

         “His first year in, he was in my year four training. V stayed in the program to train others and work with the last member of our team-

         “Because it’s impossible to be OT7 when there’s six of us,” Seokjin joked, the fact that they weren’t a complete set had bugged him for over two years.

         “V is the best,” Jimin finished.

         “We’ve all worked with him, why are we acting like we didn’t hand pick him?” Hoseok wondered.

         “Fair,”

         “I don’t know him as well as you do,” Seokjin said.

         “Are you still the new kid card?” Hoseok guffawed.

         “I’m just saying you went to training, the most I got was a month crash course,”

         “You didn’t need additional training. You had freely chosen a path that you loved and are passionate about. It was a choice. We were preyed upon, selected for a Hunger Game’s like war and we’re District 1.” Yoongi informed him. “It was fucking brutal. They took us from our lives, our families, our friends. This newbie? Codename Golden Maknae, was taken when he was 13! Barely old enough to make decisions for himself. He’s been raised in this system, conditioned to work for the betterment of the world, he knows nothing else. We know nothing else!”

         “He worships the ground Namjoon-hyung walks on, he is best friends with V because once you’ve been tapped, you can only rely on each other,” Hoseok said.

         “It hasn’t been a bad life,” Namjoon, ever the diplomat, interjected.

         “Sure Joon, sure. I shouldn’t have been a trained sharpshooter by 19,” Yoongi snapped. They could see it in his eyes, the darkness. Yoongi’s temper flared when he was truly angry, but largely held off until he was a perfect storm of exhausted, anxious and overwhelmed. Or, when competitiveness struck, and he became determined to win. This anger, rarer than the others, struck when he felt defenseless, used, when the job started to take parts of his soul instead of his brain.

         “You were hacking into government systems across the globe by 15!” Jimin refuted.

         “Allegedly!” Namjoon, Hoseok and Seokjin all yelled in unison. The three looked at each other before bursting into a fit of giggles, leaving Yoongi fuming.

         “The point is, you got to live a normal life, go to university, stumble into a relationship out of mutual attraction. You’ve had all the things weren’t afforded. For Jimin, V, Golden Maknae, this has been their life, so be fucking grateful, Mr. Handsome.” Spitting the codename at Seokjin, Yoongi stood violently and shoved his chair in against the table. The men stared after him as he grabbed his coat from his office and left.

Next: Justifying Jimin

[bennybentacles]

Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven

00.05 the boy

00.05, the boy, my brother five. the boy ran away at a very young age, thinking that he is strong enough and mature enough to survive the outside world, and i am not going to seat here claiming that our brother may be still alive out there because the last time anybody saw him he was running out of our dining room and never again.

the boy was a very confident child. growing up he held himself with a sense of imperiousness, always with his nose tilted upwards and smirk so condescending. the boy is a lot of things but gentle isn't one of the words i will describe him as, he was harsh and blunt, words cutting and tone bringing people down because he knows that he is the smartest amongst us. he used his wit to his favor, wielding his knowledge. weaponizing it against everybody.

the boy never tolerated my siblings foolishness, always hissing out insults to anybody who didn't stand straight and talked with a mature tone. because of this fact, the boy was never really close with the sèance, with the boy spilling out venoms on his thoughts about the way the sèance is becoming, resulting in their relationship to rot long before it bloomed. the boy also talked to spaceboy and the kraken with disdain because the boy viewed the kraken and spaceboy as his competition to to our father's approval. the boy never really told anyone on what he thinks about the rumour and the way she used him to cheat her homeworks away and we never had the time to ask him, as he got lost really young.

unlike with almost all of our siblings. the boy liked the horror. maybe because of how their intelligence are on par or maybe because the horror is timid and mature enough that he isn't irritating unlike any of our siblings. the boy and the horror spent hours poring over textbooks, solving equations only the two of them can understands and they also used to trade books, both of them becoming giddy when they have a new one.

the boy was the only one who befriended me, i don't know if its because he want to really get to know me or because he pities me. either way, i appreciate the gesture and i think he may be the only reason why my early years at the academy isn't as awful as it was the following years of his passing. the boy used to sneak away from his trainings to listen to me play on my violin and he used to sneak into my room at night to give me half of the sandwiches that he made. the boy was also the one who used to arrage our weekly sneaking out to the donut place near the academy. every weekend, we would sneak out to eat donuts in midnight and afterwards, he always had to zap in six people into the academy. when the boy ran away, we never sneaked out anymore, or maybe they did and they just never thought of inviting me.

the boy had the most control over his powers when we were children. i remember how he used to teleport absolutely everywhere. he would teleport to go up to the counters and our mother used to scold him everytime. he would also teleport whenever we played hide and seek during our thirty minute playtime and everybody used to get absolutely mad about it. the boy also used to do it on their trainings, he would teleport in front of everybody whenever they raced and our father never called him out on it, even calling it 'adapting'.

the day that the boy ran away started out really, really normal. we went to breakfast that day and i think our mother served us eggs and toast that day or i may be wrong but nevertheless, it started normal with the sèance rolling joint while facing away from our father, the horror reading a book, the kraken carving our our table and the rumour and spaceboy flirting. the boy suddenly snapped at our father, claiming he can timetravel while our father argued that timetravel is not possible yet. they argued that day, the same argument that ran throughout the household for the past months, and i remember that the boy looked at me and i remember shaking my head, telling him to drop the subject silently but the boy never really listened. all i can remember is how he ran from the dining room, shocking everybody and how our father let him run far. i wish i would've shaken my head harder that day, just to get him to understand. or better yet, i wish that the sèance told him it was a good idea just so he would do the opposite.

two weeks after the boy ran away, our father has hang up the ridiculous portrait of the boy on our mantle, somehow painting him more arrogant and cold than he is in real life. weeks after the boy ran away, the umbrella academy got called in a mission that almost killed the rumour and the sèance and i remember hearing our father told everyone that if the boy hadn't ran away, the sèance and the rumour may not be fighting for their lives. our father told my siblings that the boy has left them for dead, that maybe that was the boy's intention from the start. i hope that nobody blamed the boy for that incident but knowing my siblings, one of them probably did.

i hope the boy had been successful in his timetravel and he is somewhere in the future reading this, but that may not be the case. the boy could've died years ago, lost after he botched his attempt or dead for just trying. the boy has way too big of an ambition and everyday i hope that he is out there safe. and just bidding his time to show himself to us again. or if he really is dead then i hope the boy has the peace he deserved. the boy became lost in time, and im afraid we may never find him ever again.

[imagine-always-and-forever]

Being Henrik’s twin sister and therefore the youngest Mikaelson sibling would include...

you had been braiding Rebekah’s hair when Klaus had come running with Henrik in his arms

there was a strange relationship with Klaus after that. Henrik was your twin and the special sibling bond that came with that made Klaus feel something worse than awful when he looked at you

over the years, the hole in your chest at the loss of your twin never left

you never let his memory die and every place you ran while you hid from your father and every new invention you witnessed come into the world, you thought of him and how he’d feel about it

Klaus was incredibly over-protective of you

everyone knew why but nobody dared say it

Rebekah was who you were closest too as she was the only sister you ever thought you had and was the only one who really understood what having Klaus’s restrictive, big-brother protections on you as his little sister felt like

she was the one who helped you escaped the French castle you lived in to sneak out and meet the boy you had fallen for

she was also the one to comfort you when Klaus ripped the boy’s throat out

and she was the one who helped you keep your first boyfriend a secret as well as comfort you when Elijah ripped his heart out for both taking your virginity without pure intentions (love) and breaking your heart

being so young when you turned, even your siblings would forget that you weren’t a teenager and in fact were over a thousand years old as well

you were annoyed when Marcel was turned at an age where he was biologically older than you

you initially agreed with Klaus in that you didn’t want Marcel with Rebekah because you thought he was your friend and didn’t like how much time Rebekah spent with him instead of you

you came around to them as a couple before Klaus did

you got into a lot of fights with Klaus over him treating you like a child and Elijah really wasn’t very better

you were most alike Klaus, a fact Elijah claims is why the two of you fought so much but also why you were closest with him after Rebekah

Kol and you didn’t speak for three decades once after he was undaggered one time because you were the one that betrayed him to Klaus that got the dagger in him in the first place

Kol deserved it in your opinion, not just because what he did to Klaus, but because he told all your suitors that you were actually only fourteen but looked older for your age

Klaus has a zero tolerance policy for any threats or harm coming to you from anywhere

he once daggered Elijah (not for long) because you were almost killed due to a mistake he made 

you and Kol both share a love for the witches that you could have become

you were only daggered twice in your whole life and one time it was a misunderstanding thanks to Kol (who ended up daggered immediately after the truth was revealed) and another when you slept with Klaus’s friend (who ended up dead) after going to a party that Klaus told you not to go to and got way too drunk

everyone seems to know you as Klaus’s little angel but they also know that isn’t remotely true to how you are

Klaus wants to be King and you’ll be the princess

you always assure Kol he has a place as the court jester

Klaus taught you to paint

Damon Salvatore once flirted with you and got a broken chair leg plunged into his crotch

to this day, none of your siblings is owning up to who did it

you’ve been through high school eighteen times and had to transfer schools four times when Klaus went to parent-teacher conferences as your legal guardian and compelled all of them to give you perfect grades and suspicion arose from your flawless GPA

in Mystic Falls, you got your art put up in a town exhibit and Klaus was so proud that between dealing with Elena and her friends, he showed up with flowers, balloons, and a cake

Elijah found a place to hang all of your work in the new house they got while there 

Rebekah talked your brothers into letting you go to prom with an actual date without them watching you like a hawk and killing the guy if he tried anything

When Elena asked you who Henrik was one day, you sobbed because it all came flooding back and no one ever brought it up again

Klaus was terrified of letting you see him when he broke his curse and it took months before you could corner him and talk to him about it

you were finally able to get him to really listen to you

you didn’t blame him for your brother’s death

and you loved him. Wolf and all.

[dr-mizmix]

My sunshine(part 1/?)

Many people have already written about this but I couldn't help it. This fic follows the headcanon in which Five kills Dave.

TRIGGER WARINGS

warzone/mental breakdown

Word count: 1500+

13+

Enjoy!

“It's just another name, it's just another mission” Five never thought about who he had to eliminate. It wasn't worth the time thinking about their lives and getting involved in an emotional level. That would be irrational and compromise the mission. It didn't matter if they were innocent, guilty, men, women or children Five just wanted to get the job done so he could move forward to the next one until the day he finished his equations or his contract whatever came first.

“Eliminate Dave Katz at all costs”

As soon as Five read the name, it made him wonder “Huh, this is weird. I wonder what this soldier soldier must have done for the temp comision to send me instead of letting him die at warzone.” He then looked to Dolores who remained motionless “............” Five then tried to act unbiased “You are right Dolores, that's none of ours business," he read again the name and location “we should get going.”

After that he packed for his unusual destination, even for a time traveling hitman like himself 1968 Vietnam.

While Five was onto his grim mission Dave Katz, his future victim, was having a great time with another time traveler who happened to be a Hargreeves too, but whose plans of what to do with him couldn't be more different.  

At the disco Klaus was killing it the dance floor when discretely he winks Dave who has been watching him from the distance. He takes this gesture as a signal and starts to slowly approach him while dancing “Haha, you have some nice moves” Klaus decided to cautiously flirt with him trying to see where he could go “Really? I could teach you some of them if you wanna” Dave followed Klaus’ game “Oh, and how much would it be for the lessons?” he wished this was 2019 and not 1968 “Well, I would usually charge a lot to know the secrets of my moves.” Dave kept getting closer to him “Oh really?” he said with a playful smile “Yeah but because you are obviously desperate I'll make you a deal. I will lower my price to just one shot of whatever it is your favorite drink.” he knew that if he said to anyone else he could get in trouble. But not to Dave “Then it's settled. Bartender two shots of whiskey please! My treat.” After that they danced together all evening with the excuse of teaching each other dance moves.

“Klaus” Dave called him in a really low tone but he caught his attention “Follow me” They went together to a secluded area. “Are we allowed to be here?” Klaus tried being cautious but Dave made his thoughts disappear in less than a second “What, what are we?” Klaus didn't know how to answer. “I don't know, what am I to you?” Dave thought for a moment “I feel like I can trust you with my life, I would say that you are my friend but that would be lying to myself” Klaus closed his eyes “Keep going” Dave closed his eyes too “You are the most kind,wonderful, brave and handsome person that I've ever met” Dave felt like his heart was about to to leave his body, when Klaus wrapped his arms around him “You are very wrong, because you are the most handsome, strong, brave and vulnerable person I've ever met and you clearly know yourself” Dave got as close as he could to Klaus and when their lips were almost touching he whispered “May I?” to which Klaus responded “Yes you can” They shared a long kiss, when they separated Dave was incredibly blushed “Did I do it wrong?” Klaus giggled and started playing with Dave's hair “No! Why would you say that” Dave looked kind of embarrassed “I'm kind of new to this thing” Klaus then gently grabbed his face “Don't worry, we can do whatever you want” Dave hugged him and a slow song started playing “I've, I've never danced to anything like this before” Klaus smiled and placed their hands on the position for a slow dance. “Hey remember I told you I'd teach you how to dance” Dave shaked his head smiling and they continued dancing through the whole night.

Several months have passed since the night Dave and Klaus shared their first kiss. Since then they've been secretly dating. So far no one noticed anything more than them being really good friends. That or they prefer to ignore it. They even got themselves some matching tattoos which Dave chose. In their way to the front, at the bus, Dave seemed distant “Today it's going to be tough” Klaus puts his arm around him “You always say that, and look at us! We only get so emotionally scarred for life!” He tried to joke around it to see if Dave would relax a bit “Right, right” Klaus started to get worried “Are you ok?" “Well It's just that I heard that my squad is going for the front line this time and I I…”Dave couldn't continue. There was a pause “Is that all?Then I will be going with you”Dave shaked his head with a sad smile “Come on Klaus you know that we can't do that. We are in different squads” Klaus though for a moment “Well then tell someone from your squad that today is their lucky day because I'm not letting you go alone.” Dave laughed “You are going to make some lucky bastard very happy”

Five loaded his trusty rifle and waited for the perfect moment when nobody would notice him. It was weird to witness all those people dying in front of him but Five had to constantly remind himself that it was none of his business. Chaos arises in the trenches and Five decided to shoot his target, knowing help wouldn't come. He activated the trigger and the job was done. A man starts screaming with a somewhat familiar voice. Five feelt startled by it and decided to take a closer look. “Something feels wrong”

Meanwhile the in the trenches Klaus was screaming for help “Medic! Medic!” He held Dave in his arms “You're going to ok Dave, you'll get through this” Dave placed his hands behind Klaus head “I'll be ok Klaus I know I'll be” Klaus cried even harder “Stay with me Dave please, I'll take you with me” Dave closed his eyes “Sing for me” Klaus couldn't think of any song until words started flowing almost automatically from his mouth “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…” Dave grabbed his hand “You make me happy when skies are gray…” Klaus tightened his grip “You'll never know dear how much I love you…” Dave's hand relaxed a bit “Please don't take” Dave opened his eyes “my sunshine” they both smiled “I love you” Dave lost all his grip “Away… ” Klaus looked at Dave, he didn't move “Dave? Dave! Medic! Goddammit I need a need a goddamm medic!”. As he realized that help wouldn't arrive, he looked Dave's lifeless body and laid on it crying. “He's dead. He's dead” his mumbling kept going until it became unintelligible.

Dolores in his back as always stayed silent. “Is just the screaming, he shouldn't have found him so fast. We are in the middle of warzone.” He made a pause to get Dolores perspective. “It's just” he squinted his eyes in an attempt to see the man's forearm, Five sighed as he saw the man wore long sleeves and looked back at Dolores “You are right Dolores, I have no family anymore” He closed his eyes trying to forget the familiar pitch. “What would they be doing here anyway?”He picked up his stuff and left as he never had been there. He was now awaiting for his next assignment.

“Eliminate President Kennedy at all costs”

When Five found himself asking “is it worth it? Is it worth killing l so many people to go back knowing that the future is doomed?” He remembered Vanya and the rest of his siblings and found a reason to keep living.

But this was not the moment to think about his siblings, this was a moment of action.

As Five used his briefcase for the last time he thought of his siblings, and while it was kind of hard to admit, he started questioning if they would accept him. They only knew him for 13 years and he is now 58. What is he going to tell them? He'd been alone for 40 years and now the feeling of being able to come back to his family terrifies him. But it didn't matter now, the apocalypse doesn't wait for anybody.

He arrived at his destination, there he started apply his equations to time travel back his family. He'll show Dolores she's wrong. He knew his arrival would probably cause a huge anomaly so he expected his family waiting for him. What he didn't expect was that one screaming man from his last mission in Vietnam. The first face he saw “Klaus” It suddenly became clear. He got distracted over that fact. So much so that his body started morphing into his 13 years old self.He finally went through it.

“Shit”

I will continue this fic in the near future so stay tuned!

[crappyfics]

Cherry Bomb [Part 2]

Rockstar!au / Chanyeol x Reader

Word count: 1 933

Pervious part / Masterlist

“What do you mean by ‘bandmates’? You’ve never told us about your acquaintance and we’ve been in the dark all this time!” Kyung was furiously yelling at me in the parking lot a few blocks away from my apartment building. There was no one with us, not even the rest of the band. They were all gone to their homes and even took Somi with them not to witness the discussion that was about to go down. 

“It is not like we’re friends anyway. We used to be in the same band a few years ago, but that was it.” I explain myself but he clearly didn’t think this was good enough explanation. 

“The way he talked to you tonight didn’t seem like you were just bandmates, Y/N!” He laughed unamused and brought his hand up to his hair pushing it back trying to calm down his nerves. It wasn’t the first time I saw him having a crisis but this time I did not exactly know the reason why he was freaking out. I could guess it was only because I was one of Park Chanyeol’s ‘old friends’, but it felt more like Kyung did not like it when the rockstar took me to the back door for a private conversation. 

If it was already complicated to explain how things were between Chanyeol and me in the past, it was even worst to try and explain what Kyung and I are in the present. I don’t know, it was some kind of weird open relationship that wasn’t ever serious or anything but we tended to ask for a commitment from each other. Our complicated relationship was only a stupid way of being together without ever letting our personal lives affect the band, which was our business. We never meant to go into deep, we never meant to fall for each other, but it was too late to go back when we always found ourselves tangled in the sheets and sharing dreams before going to bed. 

We liked to lie to ourselves too. We pretended that we were fine the way we were, that it really did not affect our band, that regardless of what would happen between us, we would remain professional. But Zack and Jin knew how close we were and how this crazy ass relationship was toxic. If only we assumed each other and tried to keep a balance without hiding and pretending to even our bandmates and friends that we were nothing, things would go much better. 

Me knowing Chanyeol and hiding it from everyone could be a parcel of our argument tonight, but to Kyung the big deal was when I left to speak to the big guy in a more private place because I used to be that close with him. 

“We only talked, Kyung.” 

“What about?” 

“I never hide anything from you, but this time please don’t ask me that.”

“And why not? We’ve been struggling for so long to have stupid gigs around town meanwhile all along you knew someone in the industry. You simply hid it from us that you had a passageway to the industry much easier than what we've been trying to do. I- I don’t get it! And now you can’t tell me what you and Park fucking Chanyeol were talking about?”

“It is strictly personal. I really hoped you could understand that.”

“No, I can’t, Y/N. I can’t! You wanna know why? Because now you’re not hiding things from the band, you are hiding from me and that doesn’t bother me, it infuriates me!”

“Chanyeol and I used to be friends. That’s all, Kyung! We barely still know each other. Telling you that I had a stupid garage band with him wouldn’t change a single thing because HE kicked me out of it!” his wide eyes now watched me surprised by the revelation. Who would ever think that me, a nobody, was once in a band with the biggest rock star in Asia and managed to get kicked out of the project? Oh well, nobody, not even Kyung saw that coming. “He would never help us get there, he would never do anything for me. He never did! Instead, he would steal our songs and make them his own!”

Pause.

It was cold outside but all the yelling heated our bodies. It felt like the thick coat of tension in the air was enough to warm us up. Kyung kept staring at me still agape not really knowing what to say. Me, on the other hand, I did know what I wanted and it was to go home. I couldn’t allow Chanyeol to destroy my career once again, especially now that he had nothing to do with it. I was tired from the concert and the fighting, I just wanted to stay alone, to go home and be by myself. I wasn’t mad at Kyung. I understood his point, or at least I tried. I just didn’t want to open up more than I’ve already done that night. It was enough for me to deal with the memory of Park Chanyeol alone. I didn’t wanna risk having other people reminding me of the guy at times. It was always better keeping it a secret.

“I wanna go home.”

I entered the car and Kyung followed me going to the driver’s seat and silently starting the car. The only sound we could hear was from the engines of the vehicle, we were both silent not really knowing how to approach each other at that point. I wanted to say I was fine and that we should forget about tonight, but I couldn’t forget the memory of Chanyeol’s tall figure towering me when we were both alone by the back door of the venue where the music was muffled and we could hear each other's strange feelings. 

Kyung kissed me goodnight before I left the car, but it wasn’t his affection I was craving tonight. I just hoped it all went away just like Chanyeol did and would do once again. 

I could hear the kettle on the stove dramatically announce that the water was boiling. I got up from the couch and ran to the kitchen to pour myself a generous mug of tea. It wasn’t any great medicine, no. But it sure would help me organize my thoughts better, maybe intercalate ideas between sips. I thought that it all would be weird once the band met again for rehearsal, but afraid of the truth, I stuck with the doubt. I avoided meeting the boys only limiting our conversations to quick and objective text messages.

The only one who caught me home with no difficulty was Somi. But knowing that I wasn’t on my 100%, she also avoided talking about my band's last gig. She did not really have a filter for social interactions, but she had a lot of respect for me and my personal space. Knowing that, I had no problem being at home with her because I knew she wouldn’t push my buttons. Not so soon. 

On cue, I saw my best friend come out of her room and join me at the kitchen table. 

“What’s up?”

“Been trying to finish my homework but I guess I’ll leave it for tomorrow.”

I only nod and shift on my chair giving her space to come and sit beside me. She poured herself some tea and silently we drank from our cups. School was Somi’s life. She woke up early in the morning every day to go to class and she came home late at night. She spent most of her day studying and if not, she would be at work trying to make enough to pay the bills. She would go out with her friends sometimes, but most of those times it was to watch my shows. But she was an ordinary girl. She had an ordinary life and that was amazing. Somi was very down to earth meanwhile I tried to believe I was as responsible as she was. I liked to believe that being a musician was my destiny, that I had a talent for no other thing in this world. But when your band is not very successful, and your talent is not well recognized by big labels, that’s when you have to question yourself and your life decisions. My tea was almost over but I still had no many thoughts I had to go through. I put my cup down. Maybe I should go back to school. Making music was not making much money, at least if I got a job as a waitress and went back to school I might have had a chance to succeed. 

"He asked me what I was doing,” I spoke up making Somi look up at me and try to understand the randomness of the conversation. She stared at me silently. “Chanyeol. He asked me what I was doing playing at a club.”

“What does that even mean?”

“He thinks it’s pathetic.” I moved to drink some more of my tea but I stopped midway remembering there was no more in the cup. I put it down once again. If a sigh could last 4 minutes, that was what Somi would hear from me in the kitchen. “Before that night, the last time I saw Chanyeol was in the garage of his parents’ house. It was after a show in a club. Back then he didn’t think it was pathetic.”

“Why did he even took you to the back door that night? To fucking mock you? What’s wrong with that guy?”

“I wish I knew.”

Ever since my last show, Cherry Bomb got quite popular around town. There were videos all over the internet, and on twitter, we gained so many followers. It had never happened after our show, but last time Zack checked, Byun Baekhyun, one of the Byun siblings, had posted a video of us on Instagram and things got crazy online. 

I wasn’t very fond of the virtual world but I could not deny its power. Zack was doing his best on updating all our social media accounts but things got a little weird and scandalous when rumors started popping out on our feed. Some comments on videos and photos were about “that girl and Chanyeol secretly talking in the back exit door of The Cave.” It was absurd. If they only knew Chanyeol was not being a flirt, these rumors wouldn't have spread so fast like that. 

As if I liked the martyr, when I heard from my bandmates that people were talking about me and the rockstar, I started accessing our accounts just for the sake of knowing what they were saying. Countless comments, countless lies, but also countless pictures taken of us talking so close to each other that from another angle it would look like something else. I was drowning in so much toxicity from the abusive posts, but I could not help myself from seeing them. It was all pretty stupid in the beginning until thousands of notification started appearing on our account.

@Park_CY Old friends reuniting. Fun times!

"OLD FRIENDS!” He literally said that! He called ourselves old friends for the entire internet to see. This was NOT what Park Chanyeol would ever tweet. ‘Old friends’ was not what we seemed to be that night. He called me pathetic, he mocked me, he was not friendly at all. Something was up and I had to find out as soon as possible before it was too late to protect my bandmates. 

Bridge chapter

[plaidstiel-wormstache]

Not All Black and White

Part 2

For @impala-dreamer and @wi-deangirl77‘s separate challenges. The title challenge and the fave spn ep challenge. Here’s the link for part 1. Here’s the link for Downton Abbey info.

Word Count: 2322 Warnings: canon = angst, a little fluff, mostly unbeta’d A/N: This is the part with A LOT of canon. I hope you like it. It was fun watching the ep and furiously typing out the script! P.S this was beta’d in it’s first draft by @whispersandwhiskerburn If you like it, please reblog and leave a comment or a gif, they make our world go round!

"Where's YN?" Dean asked, looking up from the trickster's body. The Winchester brother’s were back in the warehouse after driving a stake through the Trickster’s back. "Broheims!" YN called from the other end of the factory, barrelling towards her brothers, leaping into Dean's arms. “Broheims?” Dean mouthed at Sam over her shoulder, the middle Winchester shrugging. "What the hell was that?" She asked, pushing out of Dean's embrace and straight into Sam's. "The trickster threw us into TV land." Dean explained, Sam gestured to the body when YN let him go. "I guess he wasn't expecting it to turn into a crime documentary." YN snorted at her own joke, punching Sam's arm when he gave Dean an odd look.

Both Upstairs and Downstairs were all abuzz with today’s activities. A female shooter amongst the men! There was a quiet knock at the door as YN pulled on her boots. “Come in.” She called out, looking up when the door cracked open. “I’m decent.” She said with a chuckle. After being here a month, she’d had one male visitor… well one that respected privacy. The other visitor had been dragged by his tie into her room!

“Miss Winchester, I was wondering if you’d selected a gun yet?” A male’s voice came through the door. YN racked her brain, trying to the think of the name the voice belonged to. Once she’d zipped the second boot she stood and pulled the door open. Revealing Mister Mosley.

“I didn’t peg you as one for shooting, Mosley.” She said, smiling (to herself for remembering) and turning back into the room for the scarf Anna had left on the dresser. YN missed the look of shock on Mosley’s face for her knowing his name.

“I, umm, I-- Pardon me for asking, but I didn’t think you knew my name, Miss?” YN bit her bottom lip, back still turned to him. He had her, she hadn’t been introduced, hadn’t even seen him since she walked through the door. She composed her features and turned back to him. “I know you all, Mister Mosley, everything you do for us does not go unnoticed.”

"YN?" Dean asked, looking around the empty motel room after leaving the bathroom. "Sam?" He called, pulling his phone from his pocket, locking the room as he left. "Yeah, dude, where are you both? Call me." Dean ended the call as he planted himself in the Impala. "Dean?" Sam's voice came from the radio. "Sam? Where are you?" The older hunter looked around the cab of the Impala. "I dunno." Sam’s voice came again. "Oh god-- Where's YN?" Dean groaned as he put it together. "I guess we didn't kill the Trickster."

“It will shoot high, aim lower than your target.” Mosley reminded YN as he handed her his father’s shotgun. She gave him a small nod as she took the loaded rifle.

The hunter stood facing the butler a moment, closing her eyes and feeling the weight of the gun, understanding it. Something her father had once said reminded him of Mary, the only time John saw her hold a gun.

“If you’re rethinking your promise of showing us--” Branson began to tease from his line amongst the other men and their rifles. “Hush, you! I’ll have two down by the time you clip one.” YN called, winking at the butler before turning and lining up a shot at the top of the trees.

...

“Congratulations to the woman who showed us all up!” Lord Grantham said, raising his glass with the rest. “Two birds before anyone else!” Lady Edith said, very excited for her friend. “Well, she did warn us.” Branson laughed.

YN was riding the high that everyone else seemed to be enjoying, not forgetting Mr. Mosley, giving him a smile and raising her glass to him. She was sure with the wide eyes from the other staff, he’d have a good story at dinner that night!

“Have you seen Jack?” YN asked Rose as the blonde approached. “Said he had a call? Something he had to deal with? But don’t worry about him, how will you ever marry a man when you’re busy showing them up?” Rose giggled, clinking her glass against YN’s. “Do you mind if I excuse myself?” YN asked, finishing her drink in one gulp, much to Rose’s astonishment. “What shall I say--” Rose began but the hunter interrupted with a shrug. “Make up a story... I’ll see you at the house!” YN kissed her friend’s cheek and headed out from under the tent, using the treeline to help her sneak away.

As the laughter and chatter from the group faded behind her, a soft crackling started in front of her. The trees faded and walls were visible, dark and dank lighting lit the ground, now covered in concrete and dust, not tree roots and leaves. YN spun around, looking for a way out.

"Well played boys." "Dean! Sam!" YN called, stumbling on the spot she appeared, not too far from them. "YNN!" Sam opened his arms to her, instead receiving a punch to his arm. "I knew something was off." Sam muttered, rubbing the sore spot. "YN, nice to see you, how was upstairs?" The Trickster asked, a smirk stretching his face. "Fuck off." YN spat, staring him down.

"Where'd you get the holy oil from?" He changed tack, the smirk gone. "Let's just say we pulled it outta Sam's ass!" Dean quipped, trying not to laugh. "Explain?" YN whispered, looking at her taller brother. "Where'd I screw up?" The trickster, stuck in a circle of holy fire, sounded disappointed in himself! "You didn't, nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did." Sam explained.

"Cas?" YN hushed at Dean, glancing around the factory as if the angel would just appear, Dean just ground his teeth before answering the trickster’s look of confusion.

"Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon." Dean said. "Meaning?" Gabriel bit. "Well, call it personal experience, nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family." Although this hurt Dean’s youngest sibling, it suddenly made sense to YN, like a light switch being flicked in her head. "So which one are you, grumpy, sneezy, or douchey?" She was royally pissed, a temper like her father's that made both her brothers fear her.

"Gabriel, okay?" He said pointedly to the boys, softening a little as his eyes flickered to YN, trying to hold contact, "They call me Gabriel." "Gabriel, the archangel?" Sam said, drawing the Archangel's attention off YN. "Guilty!" He said with a broad smile. "Okay, Gabriel, how does an archangel become a trickster?" Dean said, arching an eyebrow. "My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world. Until you two screwed it up. Not you darling, never you." How Gabriel managed to flirt in this situation was beyond any of them.

"And what does Daddy have to say about that?" Dean bit out, almost growling at him. "Daddy doesn't say anything about anything." The archangel answered cryptically. "Then what happened? Why'd you ditch?" Sam asked, interested. "Why? Do you blame him? His brothers are heavy weight douchebags." Dean prodded. "Shut your cakehole! You don't know anything about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them!" Gabriel was defensive, just like YN would've been, "But watching them turn on each other, tear at each other's throats, I couldn't bear it. Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again!" "Then help us stop it." Sam begged. "It can't be stopped." Gabriel sounded like he was explaining the obvious. "You wanna see the end of the world?" Dean bit. "I want it to be over. I have to sit back and watch my own brother's kill each other, thanks to you two. Heaven, hell, I don't care who wins, I just want it to be over."

"Don't we all." YN muttered under her breath, slowly understanding what Gabriel was saying, receiving a pointed look from both her brothers, while Gabriel’s eyes flicked to her as if he’d found an ally. "It doesn't have to be like that, there has to be someway to pull the plug." Sam said in confusion. Gabriel laughed, "You do not know my family! What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner." YN's eyebrows raised, she knew a family like that!

"That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. This is about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other." The would-be trickster avoided YN's stare, a smirk rising on his face. YN knew exactly where this was going, she'd figured it out long ago listening to the angel's fight over both her brothers.

"You think you two would--" "Let's just go." YN interrupted. She wanted to keep this from them, she feared this would be the straw that broke this overloaded family's back. "No, I think it's about time they hear this." Gabriel yelled over the top of her. "You think you two would be able to relate." "What are you talking about?" Sam asked, looking from YN to Gabriel. "You sorry sons of bitches! Why do you think you two are the vessels?"

"Please, let's just go." YN begged her brothers, pulling at their sleeves. Dean shook her off and Sam gave her a concerned look before reverting his attention back to the archangel. "Think about it." Gabriel began. YN shrunk back behind her brothers, physically smaller, her groan so quiet it could've been the old structure of the building.

"Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father." Dean's brow was creased as he listened intently. "And Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan." The archangel looked between the Winchester's, a pang of guilt set in for YN, but he put it aside for now. "You were born to this boys. It's your destiny. It was always you."

Tears welled in YN's eyes and she wiped furiously at them.

"As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth, one brother has to kill the other." Gabriel finished. "What the hell are you saying?" Dean ground out. "Dean!" YN pleaded, going ignored like usual. "Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Cause from the moment Dad flicked on the lights around here, we knew it was gonna end with you. Always."

"No. That's not gonna happen." YN bit out, the flames danced in the reflection of her eyes. "I'm sorry, but it is." Gabriel almost sounded sorry, then he took a deep breath and corrected back to his cocky demeanor. "Guys, I wish this were a tv show; easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow. But this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be."

There was a long silence as everyone seemed to let everything that had been said, sink in. Then finally, Dean spoke, stowing his feelings towards his learned fate and putting the 'older brother' hat back on.

"First of all, you're going to bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him." He demanded, and after a few threatening words, Gabriel clicked his fingers. "Cas, you okay?" YN asked, noticing the blood dripping from a cut on the bridge of his nose. "I'm fine." Cas said through gritted teeth. "Gabriel." "Hey bro. How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess, awful!" Gabriel teased. "Okay, we're outta here. Come on, Sam." Dean turned for the door, stopping when he noticed his sister hadn't joined them.

He glared at her, nodding to his side when she didn't move. As she turned, she looked sadly back over her shoulder at the Archangel. Some of the things he was saying had made sense. One youngest sibling to another. When Sam and Dean fought she didn't care what it took, she'd do anything to make it stop. No matter the consequences.

"Guys?" Gabriel called after them. "So what? You just gonna leave me here forever?" "No. We're not. Cause we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record, this isn't about some prize fight between your brothers, or destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family." Dean's words reverberated through not only the archangel but YN as well. Her head hung low where she’d frozen when Dean halted. The older Winchester threw open the door and looked back at his sister, nodding for her to let him free, before stepping outside, Sam and Cas following.

"All that stuff he was sprouting back there, you think he was telling the truth?" Dean asked his brother across the roof of the Impala. "I think he believes it." Sam answered, glancing back at the factory door when the fire alarm began to ring. "So what do we do?" Dean asked, ignoring the ringing bell. "I don't know." "I tell you one thing right now, I wish I was back in a tv show."

YN stared across the flames at Gabriel. His eyes bore into hers. If you were an outsider looking in, you'd swear they were reading each other's thoughts.

But they didn't need telepathy to know what the other was thinking. They were the youngest of their families. They were the sibling that felt the pain of their brothers fighting. They were the ones that had the most to lose from this battle.

“That look’s gonna get me in trouble.” Gabriel said from the middle of the climbing flames. Realization dawned on YN and she found it hard to breathe, never mind swallowing around the gob in her throat that had suddenly appeared. When her heart began to beat again and air filled her lungs, she smashed the glass over the emergency fire system.

"Don't say I never did anything for you." She called out, pulling the lever. She stood under the fountain of water, staring at him, emotion’s betraying her, tearing her in half. With a thick swallow, she turned her back on him and joined her family outside.

If you liked this little two parter, please give it a reblog and let me know what you think!

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[misscrawfords]

The Force Awakens Rewatch: Part 1

So I’ve watched the first half of The Force Awakens through shippers’ goggles and it’s really interesting seeing it again after reading so much meta.

Thoughts, many thoughts, under the cut:

- Seems really obvious to me from the beginning that Kylo Ren is not being set up as an obvious villain. His first appearance talking to Lor San Tekka establishes him as someone who shouldn’t be in the position he’s in, that he’s come from somewhere different. Whatever he is, it’s not a 2D villain. The fact that Poe bandies wit with him is also significant. Obviously it shows Poe to be brave to the point of recklessness, but it also undermines Kylo’s authority because neither of the two people he’s confronted are overwhelmed by obvious fear. One stands up to him and claims they basically knew him before he was Kylo Ren (not what he wants to hear) and the other is all, “Yeah, your mask is stupid”. So generally undermining him. He’s violent and filled with the paraphernalia of the dark side - and don’t get me wrong, that still makes him very, very dangerous - but he is no Vader, right from his first appearance. His lack of professionalism continues when he hacks the control panel to pieces after hearing about the droid. Kylo Ren sucks at, well, being Kylo Ren. Do we fear him? Yes. Do we feel that he’s unstable and out of control and ineffectual? Also yes. Is he on any kind of level with Vader? Absolutely not. And this is before we see him without his helmet on or know who his father is.

- Lor San Tekka. I still don’t get him. And I feel like he’s met Kylo before. What’s the history here? And how does he link in to Rey’s abandonment and Luke’s whereabouts?

- Moving onto Rey’s abandonment, this is much more of a “thing” than I remember it being having come down so much on the side of Rey Nobody myself. Like, this is a big mystery! And I feel like that both Rey Solo and Rey Skywalker are being flirted with. The Jakku link between Luke and Rey is tantalising as is the scene with Maz where Anakin’s lightsaber calls to Rey. Then there’s Han and Rey’s instant connection over the Falcon - they finish each other’s sentences, she can fly the ship, Chewie likes her... So both these possibilities are being dangled over the viewer but I’m inclined to think neither correct. I’ve been scrutinising facial expressions and I just cannot on any level believe Han would forget he had a daughter. I’ve not got to Leia yet but she even more would remember the fact! Rey Solo makes literally no sense. The connections between Rey and Han on the other hand work on a meta-narrative level: Han is Rey’s father figure (not her father) and therefore she naturally has things in common with him and quickly bonds with him - he relates to her much as Obi-Wan does to Luke. And of course she is being set up as the future pilot of the Falcon and paving the way to Han leaving the series, so naturally she’s being presented as a worthy pilot and someone Chewie will trust. Rey Skywalker is tougher to disprove expect that Han and Leia would probably remember if Luke had a daughter unless we’re expected to believe Luke had a secret relationship, unexpected child and then abandoned her or didn’t even know? Luke Skywalker, intergalactic player? I don’t think so. We’re meant to think she could potentially be Rey Skywalker... because she isn’t.

Then there’s what Rey herself says. She says her identity is “classified”, “big secret”. I’d forgotten that. Is she just being facetious because she doesn’t really believe BB-8? Or is that true? Does Rey actually know more about her own identity than she lets on to anyone? Is she keeping this secret not only from everyone else in the film but also from the viewers? It’s an intriguing idea. And if that is the case, her parents are certainly not Skywalkers. Her response to meeting Han and hearing about Luke seems really genuine. I don’t like the Rey-the-secret-princess theory because I would like to be genuinely Rey Nobody, an example of someone being special simply because they are not because of a legacy or their blood - a real contrast to Kylo - but there’s something intriguing about it. And so many questions about Rey’s past are raised in the first part of the film that it makes me mistrust Maz saying that the belonging she seeks is not behind her. I mean, I don’t mistrust that - it absolutely is ahead of her - but rather I disagree with the interpretation that that means we shouldn’t enquire after Rey’s heritage. I think the series would really drop the ball if that wasn’t dealt with and it didn’t have some meaning. What that meaning is, I don’t know. Rey Kenobi is a popular theory; I quite like it, and it would fit the evidence. But we shall see!

- Coming back to Kylo and Finn this time. Finn is such a wonderful cinnamon roll! He is absolutely playing the hero roll here. “Because it’s the right thing to do”. In a series that is already skirting uneasily around the nature of the villains, Finn is a shining light of the initially reluctant but good-natured, truly good and morally upright hero. If Rey is going to be more morally ambiguous, the trilogy absolutely needs Finn. He’s an interesting parallel to Kylo too. Both start off wearing masks and Finn removes his mask, decides to do the right thing and proves the viewer wrong about stormtroopers. He immediately puts the viewer off-kilter for what to expect from a SW film. The stormtroopers aren’t uncharacterised bad guys! They’re human beings! They have thoughts and feelings! And faces! And make decisions! And one is going to be our hero! Is Finn’s initial journey where his defection and struggle is pretty quickly over going to set the viewer up for the much trickier journey of Kylo Ren back to the light over the course of the entire trilogy? Something to consider in more details somewhere, perhaps. 

- Finn and Poe have the most adorable meet-cute and banter. I really want to ship them! Finn and Rey however seem to have much more a sibling vibe on this viewing. Their bickering seems much more “ew get off me!” type sibling stuff and Finn climbing over her in the Falcon and Rey grimacing really had that feel about it. That changes slightly as they get to know each other. It’s a really lovely relationship because neither of them has ever had anyone of their own before. Both of them were abandoned children, neither have friends, both have wrenched themselves out of the only life they know, both are desperately seeking belonging and have found each other. And I think their feelings grow - but that doesn’t make it a romantic/sexual connection, though I think Finn does have an unexpressed interest. Rey has no interest in that - she is very single-minded. And why would she want a boyfriend who wants to hold her hand when she needs to get the map to the Resistance and all she wants is a friend?

- One thing that comes across particularly when Finn and Rey meet Han is how young and naive they are and I think it’s intentional. I’ve seen Kylo Ren derogatorily called a villain for Millenials, but that’s kind of true. Finn, Rey and Kylo are all presented as very young. (Their actual ages don’t matter. This is a fantasy world. No1 curr what high school year you would be in.) Because the audience knows and loves Han Solo - he is suddenly the familiar face on the screen, we suddenly see Finn and Rey through his eyes. They’re blundering around in the Falcon, desperately insecure (”I can do this!”), filled with wide-eyed interest in the myths of the previous generation and a naive but earnest heroism and desire to do the right thing. Han is thinking - and so is the audience in a way - “They’re so much younger than I ever was” and “This is the next generation”. It’s really beautifully done actually. And Kylo is part of that too. He’s said explicitly that he’s like an adolescent, full of that rage. He too is struggling in his own way to find his place in the world. I don’t think this is limited to the Millenial generation by any means, but it does speak to a very current outlook on the world.

- Not the first to say this, but Kylo, Finn and Rey all start wearing masks and over the course of the film, these masks are to a greater and lesser extent removed. All conceal their true nature and it’s not at all certain that at least for Rey and Kylo we have seen their true selves by the end of it. Kylo is concealing Ben Solo still and we don’t know who Rey is. Does she? I don’t think the new trio is Rey, Finn and Poe. I think it’s Rey, Finn and Kylo. Awesome as Poe is, he’s not a major character in the mythology of the new trilogy. There’s very little to analyse about him.

- Rey is such a great character. SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER. She’s so domineering and bossy and crabby and utterly single-minded and sees everything as black and white. But at the same time, she has her flower and she doesn’t sell BB-8 and she is excited by a legend of Luke Skywalker and weirdly trusting of everyone who comes her way. She’s managed to survive in this awful, hostile environment of Jakku and it’s just made her determinedly good. In some ways, more good than Finn, who doesn’t want to be a hero - initially he just wants to escape and he lies about it, though of course, he grows from that, as Han did in the OT.

- At the beginning of the film, Finn and Rey are both on the same hero’s journey. But at Maz’s, their paths diverge. Finn is more heroic in the traditional sense - he wants to protect the girl, he does “the right thing”. Finn is the archetypal knight with a code of chivalry. Rey is... it’s hard to explain. She sees everything so clearly and that there is only one way to act - she’s so certain the rightness of the light that the only way her story can go is to challenge that certainty and tempt her to the dark. Rey changes when she hears the call of Anakin’s lightsaber.

- As the film builds up, the intrigue about who Rey is - both her origins and her importance/abilities - parallels the intrigue about who Kylo is. They are both being set up as characters with a mysterious background who have some connection. (Yes, I know this is obvious.) Why does Rey have visions of him? What is this awakening that Kylo perceives before Rey has touched the lightsaber? Why does her vision segue from Kylo to her abandonment flashback? Who says “Rey”? (It sounded kind of like Obi-Wan but???) Equally, Kylo’s background is being drip-fed to the audience over several conversations which it really takes a repeat viewing to piece together. 

- The idea that Kylo and what has happened to him and what will happen to him isn’t the central story in the trilogy is laughable. Like, he is the Skywalker! And he has the most complicated backstory and psyche and link to previous characters. It’s kind of a genius move, making the Skywalker on whom the plot of the trilogy depends into the villain. And I love the theory that the ST will do a reverse of the prequels and Kylo will be a reverse Anakin. He starts where Anakin ended. Will the trilogy see him fall to the light side? This is heavily suggested by his monologue to Vader’s helmet when he says he hears the “pull to the light”. He is undergoing the exact opposite of the hero’s temptation to the dark side. It’s a really interesting and quite novel idea to explore - the villain’s temptation to the light side. Certainly the TLJ trailer suggests this will happen. Also “by the grace of your training, I will not be seduced”. Uh, honey, that’s an interesting verb you chose to use... Nobody talks about being seduced unless a part of them wants to be... And again, a phrase normally used of temptation to sin.

- Incidentally, how effing tragic is that scene when Kylo is talking to Vader’s mask? By this point, we know that he’s Han and Leia’s son and have established that if Han and Leia haven’t had some major falling out, at least are not together in a good place. We may have connected the dots to realise that Kylo is the boy who destroyed Luke’s school. And we’ve seen him bowing before the terrified Snoke. And we’ve seen his temper tantrums. And possibly put him in parallel with Finn and Rey, two other young lost souls searching for meaning and family/friends and belonging. Kylo is trying to find it by pleasing a dead grandfather, the one family member who has had no expectations of him, the only one who has never been disappointed in him. Like, it makes complete sense he’d turn to Vader - but how tragic to see him trying to prove himself to a twisted mask!

Anyway, I’ve watched as far as Rey running off into the woods at Takodama so I’m excited to finish it tomorrow! :)

Go to Part 2.

[whydidireadthis]

All-New X-Factor

In 2014, Marvel embarked on the All-New initiative, perhaps reasoning that novelty would bring and keep readers. There was, at least in some cases, an attempt to go back to the high-flying adventure at the heart of the superhero genre, with less of the soap opera angst and sophomoric antics that seemed to drag comics down more every year.

As usual in superhero comics, they looked for a name. This time, they got Peter David, who had done X-Factor work before and, in my reading experience, did a good job making his first run on the title compelling...at least, until editorial started interfering and promptly ruined it.

Peter David and the Fan Favorites

I’ll say this and get it out of the way: I don’t like Peter David that much, personally. He’s at least as much of an asshole as I am, and he’s a real internet troll, as well as petty. But I’ll also say this: pretty much 90% of all well-known popular figures in superhero comics are some brand of either “crazy” or “asshole” if they’re not just plain stupid. David is extremely overrated for having written Young Justice throughout its run, despite it not being all that good and nobody apparently being willing to read it again without nostalgia goggles glued to them.

But at least he’s not any one of the seemingly endless hordes of names overrated for outright garbage. He does decent work, even if most of the time I don’t find it that exceptional, and doesn’t seem to need a strong editorial influence to keep his work tolerable. His sense of humor can bring a quality of realism and believability to the characters and situations, which is a really good thing. Often, it’s the lack of any humor at all that makes stories seem artificial and stilted.

All-New X-Factor assembles a team of characters that are basically all “fan favorites”, often underrated or relegated to the background in larger casts, and introduces a couple of new characters as well. The team lineup is a solid one that really showed a lot of potential. And I’ll admit, starting at the next-to-last issue and then jumping back to the beginning to read through, that was potential that never really came to any fruition, which is a huge shame.

The thing is, when David joined up with the original run of X-Factor, way back in volume 1 issue #71, he also stayed for 20 issues. And similarly then as now, the stories he told were derailed by the scourge of everything: “events”.

These “events” continue to plague the superhero universes, with meaningless crossovers that accomplish nothing. Storylines are built up in individual titles, then events come along and force those storylines to stand still while the event introduces new ones...and then after the event, it’s forgotten along with everything started during it, and also everything before it. So the title inevitably is cancelled, or the creative team swapped out, because it can’t recover from the ground level it’s essentially been reduced to. It is, in a word, Sisyphean.

And that’s basically what happens here. The Axis event dominates more of the run than any single storyline, and it’s a crossover. And not a particularly good one. What is really the worst about it, though, is the fact that even though the most pressing problems are solved on-panel, much of the resolution of the story takes place between issues and is just obliquely referred to in the next issue.

This is really not an okay way to do things, unless you’re doing a flashback to deal with it for some reason. Remember, “show, don’t tell” is usually a good rule of thumb, especially with comics.

It kind of exemplifies this run, though. Nothing really amounts to anything or leads anywhere. All-New X-Factor is basically one huge plot cul-de-sac, consisting of characters that were treated like shit in previous writing, trading references to some of that bad treatment and commiserating. In that, it usually gets its best moments. That’s essentially what you can take out of it: moments, with incidental connecting plots that don’t really add up to much. You think things are going to go somewhere, but they basically stay where they are.

And it’s fine, setting and sticking to a status quo is fine, but it is also unfortunately paired with a seeming lack of exceptional quality to the writing and characterization. It’s remarkable that Peter David, who most famously wrote that twenty issues of the original X-Factor, shaking up the by-then-stale series and reacquainting us with newly-relevant characters, seems to have forgotten who these characters are, and has no real idea who the others are that he’s saddled with.

At least in his original run, he had things happen that were appreciable, like Polaris breaking her jaw and having to recover from that. There’s nothing to really work with in All-New X-Factor, because the overwhelming impression is that David doesn’t really understand most of the characters and doesn’t want to take any risks with them. Which I applaud, don’t get me wrong -- I’d rather see someone who doesn’t get the characters be more cautious, instead of throwing it to the wind and totally ruining them. But David, in most of his more ambitious turns in the title, ends up forcing some of the characters into situations that don’t really suit them and do them no favors as people.

The Team Lineup

I always thought trying to claim Polaris was related to Magneto...was stupid. It’s facile and obvious, and it does nothing to develop the character at all. But for a while, Marvel were bound and determined to not only tear down any sympathy for Magneto, but also seemingly wanted to find some replacement. Ideally with boobs, similar to their desperate need to make X-23 a thing. So not only is Polaris dealing with her adult half-siblings (which, I will tell you, is not at all how that works in real life), she’s also conveniently comic-book crazy. Meaning that she sometimes goes a little violence-happy and has to be talked down, but only when the story needs her to do so.

It amounts to basically nothing and vanishes pretty quickly. She’s supposedly the leader of the team, but functionally there really isn’t a leader. It’s more like she organizes them sometimes, and occasionally she has some advice on how to do things. She is mostly easy enough to like, and the good thing about having a character who’s been so chaotically inconsistent is that any coherent personality is an improvement. Lorna is basically the same Lorna, personality-wise, that she was in David’s first run, with a weird personality tic.

Quicksilver is basically how he’s always been: a less obviously gay, and significantly less interesting, Northstar. And yes, I know Jean-Paul was created later. It doesn’t matter; that’s how people always tend to write the both of them. Pietro’s entire character in All-New X-Factor is “mildly clashing with Gambit”. That’s it.

Doug, also known as Cypher, gets the most character-building, which is nice since Abnett and Lanning’s fairly crap tie-up for their run on the New Mutants series didn’t leave him much to work with. Of all the characters involved in the title, Doug benefits most from it and actually gets the most to do. It isn’t always good, but at least it’s not essentially rehashing old plots from the first run of New Mutants that were done far better then. It is pretty puzzling that the character still has yet to resolve significant issues with various other characters who were extremely prominent in his life before dying and coming back to life, and I just have to chalk it up to yet another missed opportunity with the potential of All-New X-Factor.

Gambit is one of my favorites, but he’s almost always written badly. Either he ends up a shitty caricature even of the outrageously exhausted trope he came from, or he’s a misremembering of the 90s X-Men cartoon, or he’s just a completely different person than he’s ever been.

Here, Remy is sort of okay, most of the time, but he does some stupid things that aren’t really suited to him, like his lame and uncharacteristic pick-up artist turn in one issue that literally never manifests again at all in the entire series. Not that he isn’t a flirt, but this was phoning it in where it counts, and really disturbing where it didn’t.

He constantly seems toned down from his usual wit and cheer, to the point where he feels almost nihilistic and embittered. There’s little distinctive about his speaking patterns, too, which makes it seem strange when compared to a character like Rogue, whom I am bringing up not because of their extremely unhealthy, often ignorantly-celebrated and stupidly-promoted past relationship, but because she speaks like she just fell off the turnip truck and Gambit barely shows any signs in accent or in syntax of being from the deep Louisiana bayou.

There’s also an on-again, off-again narration from him...at least, that’s what I managed to figure out, because it’s not really made clear and seems extremely questionable at several points. It only appears in a handful of issues, and it never adds anything to the story. It’s almost ironic, really, because if Remy’s focused on as a narrator, you’d think he’d get more of a personal examination and development.

Nope! He gets one issue that really doesn’t focus on him at all.

Danger is a character I’ve always thought was idiotic, but she ends up kind of amusing, mainly for occupying the “fish out of water” role in the group and because of other people’s reactions to her. She’s still a pretty stupid character, and her introduction in the series does her no favors, but she is one of the few to show any real development over the course of the series. Essentially though, she’s one of the series’ deus ex machina characters, because none of the stories really seem to be committed to any sort of resolution. It’s almost ironic, since the team is filled with extremely powerful, highly capable characters, but only a couple ever distinguish themselves in resolving a problem.

Harrison Snow, the head of Serval Industries, basically occupies the other deus ex machina slot in the title. He’s not interesting or likeable, or sympathetic or compelling in any way, and what little development he’s given -- which links him to the godawful 2099 stuff -- is too late and not anything anyone cares about.

Seriously, stop trying to make 2099 happen.

At Least They’re Committed

Remember how I said there was a lack of commitment? It’s the same with the tone of the whole series. There’s no real reason they should be affiliated with this corporation, but they are for some reason anyway. There’s opportunity for scathing satire of the corporate world, but it never really shows up, outside of a couple of throwaway lines. X-Factor being, for some reason, a corporate-sponsored team never factors into the series all that much.

And it starts to get frustrating after a while, especially given that David’s original run actually committed to something. At that time, X-Factor had become a government-sponsored team, and examining the relationship between the US government and the rest of the Marvel Universe was a pretty large part of the team’s arc. Here, the only compare and contrast we get is to the Avengers, which barely factor into anything.

That brings me to Alex, Havok, who is in the series for the first few issues and then vanishes, never to return. He’s now a member of the Avengers (and if you don’t know why, you’re one step ahead of the writers; AvX was the absolute bottom of the barrel, even for an “event”) and decided to get Pietro to join the team in order to keep him informed on Polaris. I wish I could say this went anywhere, or played with any development to make it seem creepy, or sad, or just plain obnoxious, but it doesn’t. Alex is written like Scott, when Scott’s written his worst: a bland yuppie who reminds you of that person you know’s forgettably boring dad.

Alex and Lorna had a long-running relationship that ended at one point and never really rekindled, and that was even further sidetracked by Marvel’s insistent retcons of Magneto and his family, with further ruin thanks to -- let’s all say it together now! -- events. Here, David could have introduced a tension between Alex and Lorna again and had the two advance...but they never really address it or even really talk directly. And when Alex is done with eavesdropping, Pietro decides not to return to the Avengers, and Alex disappears from All-New X-Factor.

When another Avenger shows up, it’s Wanda, of course, since there’s a half-assed need to address Lorna’s sudden investment in her just-as-sudden half-siblings. But trying to make a joke out of something so serious as to be unforgivable is a poor choice, and it’s one of many that David makes during the run. Wanda is, by this point, an irredeemably terrible character and a bad person, someone who would greatly benefit the world by not being in it. If the point hadn’t been brought up, it could have been forgotten...and for the betterment of the narrative. But as it was brought up, it can’t really be ignored. It doesn’t help that, throughout her appearance, Wanda is pretty hard to like, when she’s not being noncommittally boring.

But this brings us to our last members of the team, and they’re two I can’t really address without bringing up the story further.

Warlock is a familiar face to anyone who knows the New Mutants, especially Doug. He’s kind of fun to have around, but it’s a real disappointment having the once-potent Magus turned into...yet another corporation. But as with Serval Industries, there’s no real commentary or satire to this decision. It’s just there, as if the absurdity of it, in and of itself, is supposed to be funny or clever somehow.

Spoiler alert: it’s not.

The story does do some interesting and even fun things, though, and it’s nice to see Warlock, especially with Doug around for him to play off of, as the two are perfect together.

But this also dovetails nicely into one of my most significant problems with All-New X-Factor, which is the fact that David manages to fuck up Doug, Warlock, and Danger all at once. He does this by a probably accidental or incidental storytelling bias, but so much of the series revolves around it: I’ve heard it called, and accurately, “straight people baby daddy problems”. That’s it in a nutshell.

Straight People Baby Daddy Problems

Danger trying to score makes up a level half of the series, and it’s amusing for a small amount of that time. Some of the reactions she gets are genuinely funny, and her fixation on sex does bring up some questions that most comics would never, ever even think of presenting. It also makes her much more likeable as a character, and it humanizes her to an extent, enabling the audience to sympathize with her more effectively. I don’t have a problem with this direction for Danger, especially since she’s basically just the emotionless big gun. She needed something, anything, to make her more compelling, and having her be curious about sexual relations does add an interesting queer dynamic to the whole thing, which I like.

But I’m not sure that was intentional. I’m not sure it was meant to be more than a throwaway joke that just kept coming up when David couldn’t think of anything else to punctuate a scene; sometimes it would work, sometimes it would just make me wonder if this was an attempt at a running gag that didn’t always fit.

The thing that made it not work was that Warlock and Doug were put at odds with each other because Danger approached Doug for sex, after Warlock and basically the entire rest of the team turned her down. It kind of feels creepy (but that’s not new territory in the series up to this point), but the part that doesn’t work is that David has Warlock coming off as jealous. Of Doug.

Maybe I’m not reading it the way it was intended, but if anyone in this situation, Warlock should be jealous of Danger. Warlock and Doug are not just friends, by any definition of the word. They have communed the very essences of their beings, basically mingled their souls, as well as their physical forms. Maybe David planned for the real target of jealousy to unfold, but he was aware that he had a certain number of issues left and kept writing as if he had unlimited time and space to address these things. After so much that amounted to nothing, why bring up something that is exactly the opposite of how these characters would act in that situation, then do nothing with it?

Even in this run, though, Warlock is very attached to Doug. For that to come out of nowhere makes it seem even more questionable. If that’s not what David intended and it was in fact supposed to be Warlock jealous of Danger and protective of Doug...he definitely didn’t present it very well.

I mean, it wasn’t well done by any means, but if he was aiming for that, he definitely missed and botched the shot.

But Doug constantly gets abuse heaped on him, and I really don’t like that. It was lazy, half-assed writing when it happened in New Mutants, and it’s lazy, half-assed writing here. At the very least, David has more respect for Doug than Abnett or Lanning seemed to (and certainly more than the patchwork of writers from New Mutants v1, least of all Louise Simonson), but at the same time, he’s only rarely allowed to be funny, strong, or compelling, much less actually do anything. He’s an immensely powerful character, as are all the members of the team, but they almost always end up playing second fiddle to Danger and Snow.

The last member of the team is Georgia, whose storyline is just...

Okay, I’ll be honest, I hated her. She was an annoying kid character who was fickle as anything and frankly came off as an obnoxious little twat. I didn’t care about her stupid story, her background of abusive, violent bigots, unlikely magic business, or her inane powers. She’s irritating all the time, she runs hot and cold and is utterly impossible to depend on, and there was no reason at all for them to basically make her part of the team instead of sending her to the X-school so she could actually learn to use her powers rather than being a danger to everyone around her.

She basically served no useful purpose and constantly derailed the stories to revolve around her, making her come off a lot like a Mary Sue type of character, a la Kitty Pryde, who is the Marvel Universe’s most painful Mary Sue. Once upon a time, Kitty was interesting and even sympathetic. That was a long time ago.

I suppose the thing that I disliked the most about having Georgia around was that when Luna finally showed up, she ended up basically pushed to the background in favor of Georgia. But if Luna had occupied that position instead of Georgia, then Pietro could have actually, you know, had some development during the series. Imagine the dynamic evolving between Pietro and Luna. The two haven’t had much opportunity to be together. I always thought Pietro and Crystal was a stupid relationship, and even worse that they were married and popped out a kid, but marriage was the big thing in comics at the time, and they often did that with characters they couldn’t think to do much else with.

(Not that they’ve changed much; nowadays, it’s just a method of killing characters off without really killing them off. They tried for years with Northstar, and then decided, hey, gay marriage is hot right now -- that’ll get him out of our hair. Subsequently, they had Iceman realize he himself was gay, but Jean-Paul had been shuffled off into the dead hell of comic-book marriage by then, essentially making useless the one “will they or won’t they?” storyline that gave both Bobby and Jean-Paul any meaning whatsoever in the past twenty-something years.)

Anyway, we’re stuck with Luna and Pietro has to live with his previous mistakes, which he does end up admitting. And I’ll admit myself, I have no idea what he’s talking about because my knowledge of and interest in Marvel from 2000 to now is minimal. It is nice to see him have to own up to his actions, though, and it is really great that he gets to connect with Luna again. But wouldn’t this have been even more meaningful if she had occupied the role of “clever young character learning about herself, her parent(s), and the world”? It would’ve required far less building of an ultimately useless character who basically tended to just shove the characters we know and actually like to the background or into some kind of fucked-up abuse. The elements were there, freely available, for David to use and create a close-knit, intimate group of characters who could develop richly between their party dynamic.

He just...missed it by that much.

Every time.

Dangling Threads

The Gambit story, close to the start of the run, brings up parts of Gambit’s backstory. Basically, the stupidest parts of his backstory, like the Thieves Guild and this floating island they somehow have now. And the aforementioned Danger, who behaves horribly during the story, which really should have added more pathos so that we could sympathize with her ordeal.

But it seemed to treat the people on the island as if they were nothing to be worried about, that it was okay that they were put in mortal danger by, uh, Danger. Everything was somehow resolved by one of the most awkward and frankly ludicrous non-resolutions ever, and it raised far more questions than it answered. And I mean, this is ludicrous even for a superhero comic. I could have got behind it even then, if it had been funny or witty or engaging, but...it really wasn’t.

Harrison Snow's 2099 shit doesn’t even show up until basically the last issue, but we’re treated to an ongoing saga of infidelity with his wife, which involves his secretary and then, later, Gambit. It’s very forced and awkward, but what makes it worse is that even after Remy is made aware of what happened and who she is -- which she was not honest about -- Snow abandons Gambit on a mission and he’s horribly abused and put in danger of his life. Which isn’t funny or amusing, and it’s nothing that anyone would just shrug off.

But that’s exactly what happens in the next issue, with a non-resolution to the subplot that addresses exactly none of the real concerns the characters, especially Gambit, should have. Especially given that he was shown to have concerns about even belonging on any team, least of all this one, in the issues up to then. He showed indications, and rightly, of being ready to leave the team over the debacle...and he should have, with an utter lack of any real dealing with the problem. Instead, he just apparently takes Snow at his casual handwave towards the whole situation. Sloppy writing.

The same can be said for Snow’s own subplot with his secretary and wife. The secretary basically drops out of the story early on, and the wife only pops up to be a hostage later. She’s kind of amusing for what of the story she factors into, but it feels like plot elements that were built up as being major are just dropped unceremoniously. Which is kind of a trend for this title.

But I said I didn’t hate the run, and I don’t. There are problems with it, but it’s not unenjoyable to read. It’s actually one of the more fun series that Marvel’s put out in a long time. It wasn’t perfect, or even close, but it at least didn’t nosedive into angst so deep that only teenagers wallowing in their own self-importance could tolerate it...like most X-titles unfortunately do. It tried to be more of an adventure title with interpersonal things, and that was why it was more enjoyable than not. It’s just too bad that David tended to revolve it around the “straight people baby daddy issues” and not anything more interesting or novel.

Gambit, especially, deserved better. He’s a well-loved character, even if he oddly sees comparatively little fanwork and merchandise. It’s unfortunate that most writers (and a good number of fans, for that matter) just don’t get him or what he’s about, tending to boil him down to just some “bad boy womanizer” type, which he really isn’t except superficially; he has a facade that he’s employed for so long that it’s second nature, but it’s all part of being a master thief. He’s not a simple character, which is probably why superhero comics tend to fail him; they simply don’t have the time, and often don’t have creators that care, to understand who he’s supposed to be.

There was even a bit of acknowledging the fact that Gambit is attractive, and he got to show a lot of skin, even appearing almost naked on a cover...at first. This vanished as the series went on. Even that would have been a refreshing change from most teams’ way of dealing with the character, who in All-New X-Factor became less and less prominent, and less and less relevant. We couldn’t even have eye candy Gambit, and we ended up with Remy in one of his dullest stretches, though mostly inoffensive.

It’s just disappointing that so often, the best and most meaningful traits of the character are overlooked or forgotten. Marjorie Liu’s run on X-23 -- my general dislike of the title character aside -- actually addressed a lot of things that most writers never touch upon or even notice. For example, some of the coded queer tones that come up repeatedly with Gambit and the fact that he’s a mature adult that often functions best when he occupies the role of an “older brother” type. Liu usually at least tried to write Remy believably and realistically, and that character was an interesting person with real feelings that were not easily pinned down.

I will say this, though: for all my disappointment in David’s portrayal of Gambit, he at least managed to avoid having Rogue make a guest appearance. It seems like a token inclusion anytime Gambit is anywhere, largely due to people bowdlerizing the characters and overblowing their relationship, and it always invariably makes Remy into barely an arm-warmer for Rogue. Everything about Gambit is cheapened by attaching him to Rogue so casually and easily, and every bit of development between the two is made even more puerile and obviously dysfunctional, rather than allowing the two to grow as people separately, accepting that they can one day possibly be friends, but they don’t really work together romantically.

If they ever did, if that all wasn’t just a convenient excuse for Remy’s well-hidden thoughts and feelings...but we won’t get into that here. That’s a discussion for another day.

Quicksilver came off well enough, mainly because there was so little done with him that what was done seemed even better. Doug saw some much-needed character improvement and building, though he didn’t get what he really deserved out of the run.

The rest was a mixed bag, mostly not much going on with them. Polaris seemed to stabilize remarkably fast, and that’s certainly a good thing for her. But there’s a plethora of issues waiting for her to address that might have been brought up, which were never really dealt with.

To the Future

I can only hope that whoever takes over the writing for any of these characters, they give it a little bit more thought than Peter David did when writing All-New X-Factor. I do hope that they keep the lighter tone, but even comedies have stakes. The tone in this series was insistently light despite the things that happened, and it wasn’t something that was really appropriate at all times, like dealing with Scarlet Witch.

Things don’t have to be relentlessly dark or oppressive in order to deal with serious problems, but you do have to actually deal with the problems, or else it can get as frustrating and feel as meaningless as a lot of this series did. David’s original run on X-Factor made its cast, who had largely been sidelined and neglected, feel new and interesting again, as well as realistically a group of friends. This run tries to recapture the same magic, but it falls short because of a lack of commitment all around. In some parts it’s overambitious, with its new characters it never develops or makes likeable or at least interesting. In others, it’s lazy and clumsy and fails to invest the effort it needs to realize and complete any of its concepts.

It is a pretty interesting series to read through, though. Would I recommend it? Sure! It isn’t a waste of time, and there are moments that made me laugh out loud, which is really not something most comics make me do anymore. At least, not intentionally. Straight people baby daddy problems notwithstanding, there’s some fun adventure to be had and a little character development that, thankfully, isn’t glacier movement that ruins the characters irreparably.

It just occasionally dents them and writes checks it can’t, or isn’t willing to, cash.

The art is splendid when it’s Carmine di Giandomenico, who did most of the interiors. He has a gorgeous style, and I love the very physical, tangible feel of the forms of the characters. In motion, they are graceful and spectacular, and there’s an obvious great knowledge and appreciation of anatomy. It’s especially nice to see that now, in comics, we have men that actually have genitals. And yes, this is an important thing in art and storytelling. It’s weird when men have smooth crotches that look like they’re made out of flat plastic.

Pop Mhan’s couple of issues are perfectly fine, but after getting used to Giandomenico, it seems almost jarring to have this different, perhaps more conventional, style presented, and it doesn’t quite feel suited to the story or the characters. The two issues Mhan does are two of the weakest, though, so that also doesn’t do the artist any favors.

Giandomenico’s bodies are really pleasing, and everything looks...right. There is also no shortage of amazing, luscious ass in the series, mostly Gambit’s, and it’s great to see for once. Pietro, at times, seems too bony, but he’s strangely not given much opportunity to show off at all; he’s either in costume or in casual clothes, rarely anywhere in-between.

My only complaint comes from Giandomenico’s portrayal of Remy, and while I do like seeing so much of him -- at least at first in the series -- the inveterate Gambit reader in me has to point out that Remy has body hair. Giandomenico only ever seems to put hair on Jean-Luc, which is cool, but Remy has always had it. It stands out especially when Kris Anka’s cover art has Remy with the hair, but the interiors don’t have it. Remy doesn’t depillate, he just trims.

I really wish I liked Anka’s work on the covers more, but it’s kind of uneven throughout. Sometimes I like what he does, sometimes I don’t care for it. I don’t hate his work, and I think he’s very expressive in his style and brings a lot of fun to the subjects. There’s life and liveliness and energy in what he does, which is what superheroes really need. He also doesn’t hesitate to “sexy up” male characters, which is nice. The cover to issue #3 is wonderful and adorable and everything it should be, whereas the cover to issue #9, naked Remy and all, just isn’t right. He’s too bulky, and the composition is uneven and strange.

I do appreciate Anka getting the full frontal sketch out there, though. Bravo! We need less body shame in general. This wave of puritanical bullshit is...well, bullshit. Honestly, maybe if All-New X-Factor had been a mature title and thrown some more adult dealing with things it brought up and danced around, it might have been better. Although the more adult-oriented Marvel titles tend to be up their own asses and filled with enough grimdark edgelord shit to make a high schooler tell them in embarrassment to take it down a few notches, David might have thrived in an environment where he could cut loose a bit more.

As it is, All-New X-Factor is something that is better than it probably deserved to be, but not as good as it could have, and should have, been. It’s something worth reading through at least once, but it may not hold up to repeated read-throughs. If you’re a big fan of any of the characters, at least give it a chance; they each have some moments to be in the spotlight, although not all of those are going to be good or necessarily even in-character for them. It’s just nice to see them, which unfortunately all of the team’s members suffer from not having happen enough.

But whoever was responsible for that Longshot redesign needs to be slapped. Whatever the shit garbage that was supposed to be...brush it under the rug with the rest of Axis and forget about it.

[dancing-in-tig-territory]

Character Questions: Eliza Morrow/Trager

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with? Jax Teller is her step-brother, and he is some years older than her. As we don’t have an exact age for Jax it’s hard to say but at the start of TFWTCF Eliza is 23 and Jax is around 10 years older than her. She is pretty close to Jax, especially as time goes on as he comes to rely on her for honest advice and emotional support, though earlier on he was very protective of her and always wanted to look out for her.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like? Her mother was a drug addict who did love her, but didn’t have much time for her. She did try to clean up when Eliza was young but it never lasted. After that the relationship was neglectful and borderline abusive. Eliza loved her mother but was left with no respect for her by the time she died. She generally believes she was better off without her, but she was sad when she died all the same.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like? She has a generally good relationship with Clay, although when she was growing up she didn’t see him so much. He was very protective of her, but trusted her judgement at the same time. Their relationship deteriorates throughout the story, but he remains always supportive of her and that is his saving grace in her eyes, although she has mixed feelings because of all the bad things he did which hurt her and people around her.

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know? There is innumerable stuff she grew up witnessing that nobody explicitly knows about, including drug use and domestic violence. However the main event which changed her was seeing Dawn get burnt alive in her place. She was left permanently damaged by that incident and found it hard to come to terms with the survivors guilt, the event itself, and her ability to stomach violence decreased a lot.

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets? Her phone, some money, maybe a picture of Alex in her wallet.

Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams? Not in particular

Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares? Drowning (a trait she shares with me, lol)

Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target? Yes. She learned to shoot from Clay when she first moved to Charming. Not sure what her first ‘target’ was, but her first kill was the ATF agent, Estevez.

Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up? She can support herself throughout the story and makes more money as it goes on. She didn’t have much growing up as her mother spent almost every penny on drugs.

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing? With less clothing. She keeps the clothes she wears light and doesn’t like too many layers.

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been? In the oil pit.

In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been? Any time she is with Tig, alone.

Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way? Not in the slightest.

Does your character remember names or faces easier? She’s pretty good with both, but I’d say faces.

Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not? Not in particular. She just doesn’t think that way.

Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success? Happiness.

What was your character’s favorite toy as a child? Something Piney gave her- something small probably, like a figurine she could’ve kept in her pocket.

Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others? Wisdom for sure.

What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before? Boundaries with others. No but it puts her in hot water with Tiggy!

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism? In the beginning she compares herself to Gemma because Gemma raised her to be like her, and she wants to live up to those standards. However later on when she makes the same comparison it’s for self-criticism- she doesn’t want to be like her anymore.

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others? She isn’t quick to do either. However, she will eventually figure out who caused the event and blame them, e.g. Clay

What does your character like in other people? Kindness, compassion, strength and whatever makes them unique.

What does your character dislike in other people? Dishonesty where it hurts others, manipulation, anyone who tries to control things too much.

How quick is your character to trust someone else? Not too quick. She won’t outright distrust everyone she meets but she is guarded at first until she’s sure.

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person? Depends on the situation, but she can usually work things out quickly. I don’t think it changes depending on her closeness to the person.

How does your character behave around children? She likes children, and she is nurturing towards them.

How does your character normally deal with confrontation? If it’s somebody like Gemma, she will shy away from it because she knows it is likely to just keep escalating and she won’t win- unless she’s really pissed. However, she is not easily intimidated and generally will stand up for herself.

How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation? It takes something really big to turn Eliza violent. Fear or extreme anger.

What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true? An artist. It did in some senses as she is a tattooist.

What does your character find repulsive or disgusting? Insects, bad breath, abuse.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable. Surrounded by the SAMCRO guys, or at home with Tig and Alex and/or Chibs in particular.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable. Around any type of law enforcement.

In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve? It depends who levies the criticism. If it’s Chibs or Tig pointing out something like her relative naivete she’ll be self-deprecating and/or willing to improve but if it’s someone else, especially anyone outside her immediate close circle, she’ll be defensive.

Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method? Move onto a different solution/method.

How does your character behave around people they like? Cheerful, bubbly, talkative, messes around and teases them, maybe even flirts a little.

How does your character behave around people they dislike? Cold, guarded, sharp-tongued and snappy.

Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status? Defending their honour.

Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat? Her first instinct is to remove herself but she has learnt to become more willing to stand her ground and remove the threat.

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)? No.

How does your character treat people in service jobs? She’s friendly. She’s been there, she deals with customers all the time, so she’s patient.

Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first? Earn it.

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them? Gemma Teller is her step-mother, so yes. Also, she considers some of the older MC members, for example Piney, as something like father-like figures, even though she has her real Dad around.

Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them? No

How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it? She found it hard to say to Tig because she wanted to be absolutely sure it was true before she could say it. So no she can’t say it without meaning it.

What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? She thinks when you’re dead you’re dead, and that doesn’t bother her.