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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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Fake Sith TCW Trio

I have another fucked up time-travel AU! Who’s surprised? (Nobody.)

So like. Have you guys read that one fic where Luke and his students go back in time and pretend to be Sith Lords and are super hammy about it? (Sith Lord Swell by AMournfulHowlInTheNight)

This AU has contributions by @atagotiak, @the-lunar-system, @purronronner, @gelpenss, @creepingthroughthistidalwave, and @thisarenotarealblog.

I want TCW trio (plus Rex and Cody) to go back to several years pre-TPM and, since the Council DEFINITELY won't believe them about the Sith being back... they'll force the issue.

Anakin is weirdly excited about things and building up their backstory.

Anakin: Okay so I can definitely be a Maul type, with the unhinged ranting and manic laughter, Obi-Wan can be the whole Refined Rich Guy type like Dooku, where you can't even tell he's evil until he starts talking about getting out the eyeball scoops, maybe toss in a bit of mad science stuff? Ahsoka could play up like Ventress OR, oh oh, she can be the Light Side Child we need to PROTECT who's publicly begging us to return to the Light after our big dramatic Falls where we murdered like eighty people to save her, and-- Obi-Wan: Why are you never this enthusiastic about actual undercover missions. Ahsoka: Did you just have all this ready to go, or...? Anakin: WE COULD GET YELLOW CONTACT LENSES FOR ME.

Obi-Wan: How's my evil laugh?

Anakin going “Okay.. so if any of us need to murder someone to sell the bit it should be me, I think I could handle it the best. Why? No reason.”

Obi-Wan: I'm not sure a complete Fall could come from protecting Ahsoka, really-- Anakin: No, no, it could.

Obi-Wan: Surely you’d hold back because you realize neither of us want that for you. Anakin: Uh. Sure. Definitely.

Obi-Wan points out that none of them can channel the dark side to Prove they're Sith and Anakin just goes "Okay, give me like two seconds to stew in my negativity and--right, you can stop staring in horror, please."

Anakin rambles on that they can TOTALLY make the galaxy a better place while playing at being Sith! He's got a whole LIST of slave empires to "take over" and disassemble!

Anakin has a whole excited spiel about how EVIL soldiers and assistants are minions, in this case partly because Cody and Rex are too good at what they do to be mooks. Cody could pull off evil minion very well. Facial scar? Looks good in black? Quietly competent and sarcastic?

He also pushes for Obi-Wan to lounge in a fancy throne with a glass of wine while Anakin stalks the shadows and Ahsoka hangs out on the window ledge. The disaster lineage is dramatic, okay, Anakin’s just leaning into it, he’d appreciate it if everyone stopped looking at him like that.

Qui-Gon, surprisingly, ends up a skeptic about all of this. Everyone is freaking out about the Sith and he’s like “y’know I’m not even sure they’re darksiders.”

Some Jedi, possibly Qui-Gon for his conspiracy board, gets in a real risky situation and one of the Fake Sith saves them, but also panics and kinda drops character for a bit.

Jedi: You saved me! Why’d you do that? Anakin: I uh... just wanted the pleasure of killing you myself?

"You saved me. Why?" "Mmmm. Jedi." [walks away]

Qui-Gon: [trying to figure out what is up with these people semi-competently (from his perspective) pretending to be Sith] Dooku: [trying to protect Qui-Gon from Sith influence]

The gang is the most successful at pretending to be Sith to Dooku. Sure, they’re not gonna punish him for something he hasn’t done, but it’s not hard to act menacing and angry around him.

(They really do have so much fun irritating the heck out of Dooku. He hasn’t Fallen yet, but they want to keep an eye out.)

At some point, future Obi-Wan definitely drops that little tidbit of "What, you didn't think the Banites were the only Sith running around did you? You... didn't even know about the Banites. How... disappointing."

They REGULARLY use Ahsoka as an excuse to be marginally less terrible. They claim that if Ahsoka pouts, they stop. ‘Soka also uses them as an excuse for why she’s a lil feral. (To be fair, that one is accurate. She was already a lil feral before but it’s not like they did anything to stop it.) Ahsoka gets her "breaking into people's offices" jollies by bugging Nute Gunray's office.

The Jedi keep trying to Rescue Ahsoka.

Rex and Cody end up in real beskar, there's a whole Thing with Mandalore and Jango and Satine.

Obi-Wan is CONSISTENTLY worried about Anakin Falling for real, which... hey, at least he knows to be worried about Anakin Falling. Step up from canon, really.

Anakin is WAY too into killing the Hutts but like. It does... technically sell the bit.

Obi-Wan: Sure, I’m not sad that they’re dead, especially because we’re not connected to the Republic, so we don’t need to worry about starting a war and all that. But. Anakin is disturbingly cheerful about this. Rex: Wasn't he a Hutt slave? Obi-Wan: Well yes, but-- Rex: I'd kill Nala Se if I could get away with it.

Cody and Rex are very supportive of Anakin's murderous intentions.

Obi-Wan does understand anger, even killing someone in anger. Like Maul (the first time at least) and D’nar and a few others. All the same, like... y’know. The level of bloodthirst from the others is a little off-putting.

At one point, Anakin accidentally addresses young Obi-Wan by name, despite never having met before, and to cover it up, he... panic-flirts. He panics, and so he flirts, with young Obi-Wan.

(He will later blame this on old Obi-Wan, because he had to pick up the habit of flirting with the enemy from somewhere.)

Anakin vaguely implies that he's a wee bit obsessed with young Obi, and that the padawan should "get used to being the target of a dark-sider's interests," because he’s scrambling for Ominous Shit and, well, future Obi-Wan was pretty frequently a fixation point for darksiders, right?

The second he gets out, he just starts screaming into a bucket while Rex pats him on the back.

For the next however many terrible months, possibly years, he has to keep up the act while having an ongoing meltdown about how That's My Dad As A Twenty-Something.

(It doesn't help that young Obi-Wan reflexively flirted back.)

Old Obi-Wan, meanwhile, is just very "you dug this hole yourself, padawan."

There is an argument at the beginning about Obi-Wan’s outfit. If he’s gonna be a Sith, he can’t just go around in beige, but he’s like “I like this and it’s comfy.” Sure, he’s changed clothes for undercover stuff, but that’s always been temporary, y’know? He likes his beige.

We have a number of options.

My first instinct? Beige linen three piece suit, like a southern lawyer. "Now I may just be a simple Outer Rim force adept--"

And, of course, you can TOTALLY make the beige sinister: he’s impersonating a Jedi! Jedi impersonation would also explain why nobody has a red saber.

“Sure is good that the Jedi don’t seem to realize most of the galaxy doesn’t know red sabers are different and bad.” “Shhhh, stop poking holes in our story where a Jedi might overhear.”

Like.... if you do enough doublethink, it works! How would a Sith hide? In plain sight. Also, it’s a GREAT way (if they were actually assholes) to try to slander the Jedi name.

(Anakin and Ahsoka still think he could stand to put a little more effort in. Add a splash of color, for pity's sake!)

Though tbh part of me is like “What if Old Obi wore, like... a split skirt suit...” Victorian womenswear inspired because he misses his robes, but he has to look Professional, and like he's MOCKING Jedi instead of BEING one, so he wears a vintage-y split skirt thing over his leggings. Ends up looking a lot like what Ventress had for a while, but Beige. I also keep wanting to put him regency menswear.

Anyway. Obi-Wan’s wardrobe aside...

Anakin builds up his Tatoo accent again. It helps him with the (mostly true) "slavery helped me fall" backstory.

Either Cody or Rex offhandedly mentions being made to serve them (the Fake Sith) and now the Jedi are somewhat concerned about brainwashing. Are these Mandos the victims here?

“No like. Literally made for this. In a lab.” This is even more horrifying. So...

On the one hand good! The Jedi should be scared about Sith! On the other hand... it makes the Jedi more determined to stop them, specifically. They keep on getting in the way, just, all the time, and they’re not investigating the actual Sith problem, which is decidedly not great since the Team doesn’t actually know who’s a real Sith right now, except Maul, and who even knows where that guy is.

Obi-Wan, at some point: Do you think we've succeeded at this ruse... a little TOO well? Anakin: I don't follow. Obi-Wan, gesturing at the truly obnoxious amount of wealth they've collected, including "trophies" of their kills: Really? Because I'm a little worried! Anakin, planning out a battle to take on Nar Shadda: ...I'm not.

"How many people do we realistically we need to take over Hutt Space? Apparently... five."

(Mostly because Anakin is ridiculously op.)

ANAKIN AND YOUNG OBI GET KIDNAPPED BY PIRATES TOGETHER. It's tradition.

Anakin: Okay, so, I need to get really angry about something to pass as a Sith... time to think about my WIFE and how I'll NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.

Since Anakin’s life never goes as planned... this does not work. Instead of getting properly angry, he makes himself sad. There are tears. There is wailing. There’s a distraught rant or two. Young Obi ends up awkwardly trying to comfort him.

“Oh no, this… Sith?? Is crying on me. What do I do???”

Later on, when the Council wants intel: "So... one of the Sith cried on me about his wife. I think she's dead? He wasn't very clear about it but it, uh... it sounded like it might have contributed to his Fall. Also the relationship was a little unhealthy? He basically worshiped the ground she walked on and kept ranting about how he would have given her the galaxy on a platinum platter of she'd only asked, but that might be new and inspired by the Dark."

One of the random Jedi is REALLY good at detecting the truth Through The Force, and asks Anakin how he Fell...

Anakin just. Tells the Tuskens story.

They don't get pinged as lying, but oh boy does old Obi have a LOT of questions for Anakin once they're in private.

There are other things happening to help sell the ruse. Some of them are necessary! Some of them are... not.

Obi-Wan: What's the best way to show we're rich and kind of evil, but like... classy about it? Anakin, immediately: I sit on the floor next to the throne, leaning against it, and you call me pet names while stroking my hair, and then when you need something killed I get to do it for you and then I go back to the floor and you thank me for the directed violence, and then you go back to Negotiations with criminals while I’m sitting there covered in blood. Obi-Wan: ...is there something you want to TELL us, or...?

"You're all going to get a glimpse of something normally kept hidden about me." "Anakin, you don't have to do that." "No, I'm gonna."

(Anakin has decided hes going to peel his kink tomato to sell this ruse, and the others are slightly uncomfortable with that.)

Anakin: Okay, I cannot keep flirting with you. Young Obi: Wait, what? But that's the best part of any time we run into you! Anakin: You look WAY too much like my Master did when I met him. Obi: O...kay? If someone looked like my master when HE was young, I'd-- Anakin: My Sith Master half-raised me. He's basically my dad. Obi: ... Anakin: What's that look for? Obi: I mean, you spend a lot of time lounging at his feet, and, like, given how much you hate slavery, I... kind of assumed it was a kink thing? Anakin, brightly: Oh no, I just have a LOT of trauma. And neuroses. Snips says they’re neuroses.

Young Obi is a little upset because he was actually getting REALLY into Flirting With The Enemy and was hoping it would go somewhere. He mopes to Qui-Gon about it. Qui-Gon isn't sure whether to be proud about Obi breaking rules, or worried over Obi-Wan falling for a Fake Sith.

(As Tia put it: "You enjoy making young Obi-Wan have a completely unrequited crush on Anakin, don’t you?")

Fortunately, one of those attractive Young Mando boys very kindly helped him tape up his ribs this one time, and has thus caught his eye...

I feel like having Cody date Young Obi would court an entirely different kind of (internet) drama because clone ages, but whatever.

Also please imagine an element of "so I'm dating the genetic identical of my boss... who's dating the man I'm a genetic identical of..."

(It's probably not actually Jangobi but man would that be funny and also stupid.)

Somehow Young Obi figures out that the "Sith Master" is a future him before he realizes that they're not actually dark. In his defense, Anakin was pretty convincing. Especially with the wife rant. It makes HIM more obsessed with Anakin, in a reversal of the implied earlier dynamic, which is all kinds of weird. Less romantic but like. Still weird.

"Future Me Scares Me" with Extra stupid. "Future Me Annoys Me." "Future Me acts like grandmaster Dooku, but more sass." "Future Me raised a really hot evil guy that refuses to bang Present Me." "Future Me might be a Sith, but I'm getting more and more convinced he's just fucking with us all." "Future Me is really rocking that beard, and I can't BELIEVE we figured out a way around the babyface."

"I’m kinda concerned about the whole evil thing, but I’m also glad that I know I’ll stay hot as I get older."

Quinlan approves of the priorities.

Also a lot of interactions with older Obi are very Anakin: [does/says something deeply unhinged] Obi-Wan: So, do you want to…. Talk about that? Maybe? Anakin: What’s there to talk about?? I’m fine, everything’s fine! Anyways how about those plans for tracking down Maul?

Anakin later, like way after the ruse is lifted, just blankly tells everyone that he did Fall, once, and Older Obi made him get therapy about it after the truth came out between the two of them a few months into the Fake Sith thing.

Where'd they find a therapist? I'm sure there's one SOMEWHERE around. Denon and Herdessa are close enough, and they've done enough "your criminal empire now belongs to me" that they can pay well. They make sure to find one that takes confidentiality real seriously.

It's all very "we need some more time to unpack all that."

Therapy helps get Anakin to figure out Sheev’s whole deal. They don't necessarily figure out he’s a Sith from it, but they figure out he’s sketchy and they need to look into that more. Obi-Wan probably already thought he was sketchy, but the whole active gaslighting campaign was a little surprising. They realize that he kinda benefited a lot from a lot of Sith plots and they still probably don’t think he’s a Sith but Obi-Wan is definitely starting to think he’s working with one.

"Okay, we're already bugging Gunray, should we bug Palpatine just to be safe?"

They get away with a lot of slicing because Anakin is a technical genius from twenty years in the future.

The reasons they're so good at Taking Over Hutt Space: 1. They know parts of the future. 2. They have superpowers and FAR less reason to not use them, now that their actions aren't going to reflect on the Republic. 3. They have Cody and Rex, who are two of the greatest military minds in the galaxy, and know EXACTLY how to wage a war that covers a solid third of the galaxy, starting from a position of relative weakness. 4. Anakin's charisma is scary high, and his knowledge of slave culture means they gain a lot of trust from the people they free, and they just... keep acquiring volunteers for the army they didn't plan to have. Obi-Wan doesn't know what to do. He thinks they might have started a cult?

In his defense, Dooku sort of started a cult, and Komari got kidnapped by a cult, brainwashed into joining it properly, and then took it over as head figure of said cult. It's practically tradition!

Comics Vader is the central figure of like three different cults, it was really just inevitable.

Anakin: Aw, don't worry master, it's not a cult, it's a revolution! Ahsoka: They're worshiping him, though. Anakin: ...it's still a revolution! Just... with some misunderstandings.

Also, if they got wind of people trying to keep people from being able to leave and other culty stuff like that, they’d probably put a stop to it pretty damn quick.

Names! Time for names. As per usual, it's easiest to keep track of Obi-Wan's alternate Older Self by just calling him Ben.

Darth Ben.

Ahsoka: You should be Darth Boring. Obi-Wan: I can still make you run laps, you know.

Anakin: The Force is telling me to call myself Darth Vader. Obi-Wan: ...why? Anakin: I dunno, but it sounds cool, I'll run with it.

Someone: Ben has all the answers; we shouldn’t question him, ever. Ben: One time I lost a planet, and a five-year-old found it for me.

More options: Going with the "evil word with the prefix 'in' chopped off" that we get with Sidious and Vader: Darth Surrectus (as in insurrection) Just random Latin words: Darth Temporus (time) Darth Commenticius (fake)

Anyway, back to Nonsense:

Maul goes after young Obi early, because the Fake Sith are really invested in this one random Padawan (Sidious is saying he might be a cousin of the false Sith Master? They do look similar enough) so someone needs to investigate. Naturally, Anakin shows up with some wild screeching to fight Maul, and when someone questions why he got involved it gets very "Kenobi is MINE!" and like. Okay. So.

Anakin means it in a very Sith "to toy with" and "to torture" way, or the ‘my chosen opponent!’ way, just the same kind of Obsession as Maul had with Obi-Wan in the original timeline. Unfortunately, Anakin’s a weird-ass person who flirts with Young Obi against his own better judgement, so there's some awkward "Like... your boyfriend?" from young Obi. Anakin just screeches in SOME emotion that nobody wants to interpret, and couldn't even if they wanted to, and starts whacking away at Maul again.

(Anakin hasn't explained the "you look exactly like my dad, sorry, it's just too weird" thing yet, and he is HAVING MANY REGRETS.)

There's definitely at least one instance where a person asks Anakin if he's planning on dating That One Jedi Twink, or at least banging out the tension. At that point in time, Anakin doesn't actually know who the fuck they're talking about, because "Obi-Wan + Twink = Does Not Compute" for dear, dense Ani, and instead he just ends up ranting about how he is LOYAL TO THE MEMORY OF HIS LATE WIFE, how DARE anyone so much as INSINUATE that he would TARNISH HER PERFECT MEMORY and UNWAVERING KINDNESS and WHOLESOME BEING, and the person who asked doesn't end up lightsabered but they do end up with a LOT to tell whoever they're reporting to.

Young Obi-Wan definitely hears Anakin mutter the phrase “something to discuss with my therapist later” a few times, and he’s a little bewildered because darksiders definitely don’t seem like the type of people to go to therapy. They’re the type of people to need therapy, sure, but not the type to go to therapy.

I think it would be very fun for Young Obi to continue sighing over Anakin (who's pretending to be fine with it and even flirting back because he's in too deep to stop and hasn't worked up the courage to explain the elephant in the room) while Anakin is covered in grease and infodumping while having a slightly manic hyperfocus on engine repairs while the two of them Somehow got stranded together in the middle of bumfuck nowhere (it's Plagueis's doing, he finds the interactions between THESE two in particular to be the most informative regarding the fake Sith).

Anakin, at some point while stranded with young Obi-Wan, and having actually started unpacking some stuff in therapy, though he’s def still got a ways to go: I’m pretty sure Ben cares about me. He acts like he cares, like he’ll do stuff like put extra blankets in my quarters in the spaceship because I get cold real easily or track down those droid parts I need for a project and he always has my back in a fight but y’know it’d be nice to hear him say he loves me once in a while. Especially because we kinda had a rough start and idk I don’t think he wanted me around at first.

And uh. Obi-Wan definitely relates to that a bit too much, y’know?

I want to say that Young Obi ends up mentioning All That to one of the clones or Ahsoka later, because they seem probably invested in Anakin's well-being, even if Ben is, well, a Sith, so Obi-Wan's a little worried the man's affection really is fake, but at least Ahsoka...

(Ironic, given what Anakin's actual eventual Sith would-be-Master was like.)

Young Obi mentions Anakin’s most recent rant to Ahsoka, and she just goes "Wait, is that why Skyguy likes to sit by the throne and get called pet names?" "Uh... I don't... know... but it sounds like all of you have a LOT to unpack there, Miss Apprentice."

Later on: "Master Kenobi, you need to tell Skyguy you love him 'cause apparently he's been having a lot of emotions about you not telling him you care and he's been talking to mini-you about it whenever they get stuck together and--"

Young Obi-Wan is just constantly the "Now we don't have time to unpack all of that" John Mulaney gif. Anakin in particular is a mess, and young Obi-Wan slowly goes from "I want to date that" to "I want to study that" about him.

Obi-Wan gets stuck somewhere with Ben, tries to small talk, gets on the topic of Vader, and spills the drama. He gets an awkward “Thank you for bringing that to my attention.”

It’s followed by a fairly frustrated “I try, but Anakin refuses to communicate his needs to me, and it feels like I’m always falling short.”

At least one member of the group is in therapy, probably all of them, but they’re still using young Obi as a sounding board for all this stuff. On the bright side, this is probably good for impressing the importance of good communication on Obi-Wan.

Good for Obi-Wan! And... whatever Padawan he eventually has.

As for baby Anakin, who is approximately age four, I want to go with "Anakin decides to be his own uncle, and Shmi just rolls with it because fuck it, she’s not a slave anymore, and a Fake Sith is a solid defense against anyone trying to re-enslave them."

[This is a backstory I've had them use before (see here and here).]

Seeing Big Ani and Little Ani in the same space might be what finally pings the "oh shit, that's future me" thing for Obi-Wan... you know, if he’s ever allowed close enough to see Little Ani in the first place.

Little Ani stays with the fake-Sith and is sorta jointly trained by all of them, and young Obi-Wan teaches little 'Soka at the Temple. Ani and 'Soka still end up friends somehow, but it is fairly different.

Every time little Ani addresses Old Obi as "Dad," it's just like ten kinds of awkward. The one time someone tried to explain that Ben wasn't his new dad, Shmi glared them down. She is of the opinion that, all the gods be damned, Ani deserves to refer to the most mature man in his life, who raised another him in another timeline already, as a father.

Ani doesn't NEED a father, Shmi herself is more than enough, but he does deserve to have this if he wants it.

An alternative conclusion to the time travel is uh. So the Mandalorians are genetically identical (give or take a hair gene) and really resemble Jango Fett, though whether anyone notices that is up in the air. Then the three ‘Sith’ (two fake Sith and their morality chain tag-along) have three younger, identical copies show up….

It could be really weird cloning shenanigans. Now, it makes no sense that they’d make clones, and stagger their production like that, and leave them as babies on various planets for Jedi to find. IDK what reasons Obi-Wan would come up with for that, but it’s a fun little detour before he gets to time travel.

There's a really painful moment (for the audience, who know about canon Vader) where someone tries to convince Ahsoka to leave the Sith and she's just like "no way, they'd never hurt me!” Then she clarifies that “someone has to keep them from doing stupid Sith shit whenever they get bored, you know?"

A bunch of Jedi probably think she’s delusional, but the few that have seen her get into trouble that is legitimately too much for her, which isn't often, have then seen Anakin show up like the devil himself to save her, and it's like. Oh. This is why she isn't scared of them hurting her.

We’ve discussed how Anakin does get concerningly in character with the fake Sith thing. However, Anakin and Ahsoka are, just once in a while, surprised by how Ben gets sometimes when playing the bad guy.

After all, he stabbed a dude with a fork and threatened to eat him during his time as Hardeen…

He has the same dramatic streak as all the rest of the lineage. He can be vindictive and creepy and scary as fuck.

HOWEVER:

Obi-Wan: I know I'm supposed to be playing at evil right now, but how do we feel about me making that evil a little... fruity? Ahsoka: Fruity, master? Anakin, who knows where this is going: [buries face in hands] Obi-Wan: You know, the... [limp wrist] Ahsoka: ... Obi-Wan: I mean, I'm already bisexual and well-groomed, I can play it up.

What’s the point of being evil if you can’t be flamboyant?

Anyway, I had to put in a lot of thought for what to do with Rex and Cody, because there's a solid place for them in terms of strategy, but it doesn't do much to give them independent narrative arcs, and 'young Obi-Wan has a crush' isn't much of an arc, you know?

So, basic info first: Cody, Rex, and Anakin all hold the rank of General in this AU because, like... who else is gonna. Ahsoka remains a commander because everyone declares her Baby, and also to keep up the "I'm a morality chain" ruse.

Cody maintains a very stern and unyielding public persona, but the second they're behind closed doors, he's roughhousing with his little brother.

Rex has some fun pretending to be a sadist whenever he and Anakin have to team up, because hamming it up as an evil bastard in front of Jedi is actually really fun... but usually, he's a competent fucking professional.

Because here's the thing: someone has to be.

They both kind of hate the army they've gotten, because these people don't even have proper trigger discipline, let alone any actual discipline.

This army? Tragic. They hate it. Give them the clones.

They have to be drill sergeants for months before they have anything worth sending onto the field.

I think that might be how/when they end up reaching out to Jango. Like, the first inroad is absolutely "we're your clones from the future and you were a Shit Dad so you owe us," but then they actually talk him around into letting the Fake Sith hire him. He brings along all the Mandalorians he can get to answer his calls, and on suggestion from Those Mando Twins, joins the army Ben doesn't even want.

Darth Boring doesn't want an army! Unfortunately, Cody thinks that's stupid as hell, and is overruling Ben so they can actually work on this 'cleaning up the galaxy of slavery' thing with actual resources.

Cody and Rex are super competent, and it shows in their horrified disdain for the state of their troops.

Rex: Fucking natborns. Anyone who isn't in the know: What's a natborn? Rex: [leaves without answering] People: WHAT'S A NATBORN???

(I'm assuming that the word smush is harder to parse in Basic.)

I think young Obi-Wan's new crush on Cody should also be unrequited. Cody's just like... bemused. Very "Okay, then, that sure is an Affection you've decided on."

Cody and Anakin both: Sorry, it’d just be too weird. Obi-Wan: Why would it be too weird? Cody and Anakin: Reasons.

Rex has to deal with the "whyyyyy" from both his brother and his (former?) General.

Young Obi-Wan just likes cute boys that fight good! Is that so wrong???

Ahsoka: So since we're not officially Jedi anymore-- Obi-Wan: We're still Je-- Ahsoka: Can we date? Can I date now? I want to date someone before we go back to the Code. It's a classic life experience for most teenage girls, and I want to Have That Experience before we're back at the Temple. Obi-Wan: You're not... you can date, Ahsoka, that's not actually banned by the Code. I mean, you'd have to keep it casual, but-- Ahsoka: I CAN DATE!!!

(Great priorities, Ahsoka.)

An idea I'm toying with is that one of the clones ends up Legally Engaged to Satine for political reasons, and young Obi-Wan is just like ???? because not only can he not date the hot boys, but one of said hot boys has become Mr. Steal Yo Girl.

Young Obi-Wan is suffering, and Quinlan is the worst friend ever because Quinlan is laughing at him.

There is obviously the question of

"How would Satine ever end up agreeing to that, given what their public personas are like and all that? She puts duty ahead of personal feelings but all indications are that it’s a terrible decision both ways." (as stated by Tia)

Which, yes, I forgot to actually say that I was imagining Jango had declared "those twins" his heirs after telling people they were his younger* cousins. Because reasons.

* Jango is about 27 when they land in the past, and I’m going to say the accelerated aging ended after hitting physically twenty because no, I don’t want to deal with that. As far as anyone knows, Cody and Rex are about five years younger than Jango. They’re less than year apart, which isn’t very visible, and most people assume they’re identical twins (except Rex’s hair), and that Cody just looks slightly older because of the scar.

Darth Boring had convinced Satine that the way to keeping Mandalore peaceful was to work with Jango (because Darth Boring, which is not his actual title but it is what Ahsoka insists on calling him in private, has a vested interest in keeping Mandalore and all interested parties calm), and he... maybe accidentally set up a political marriage between her and one of the clones.

It wasn't on purpose! Satine never married in his timeline, okay, he didn't expect her to ever get married here, either! He didn't even suggest it! This just happened!

(I want to say that Cody would be more competent at having a political marriage? But IDK.)

Do I do the Satine thing? It has potential, but also it's a bit of a cop-out. Do I have Cody be a diplomatic representative for their pseudo-Sith empire? He could be, but I think he'd hate it. Do I have Rex date one the Chaos Entities (Anakin or Ahsoka), or is that too repetitive with my other works? THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH GOING ON.

Part of me wants Quinlan to get a crush on Cody, and the crush gets bigger specifically in response to the fact that Cody refuses to take him seriously and/or just doesn't give him the time of day.

Based on their one interaction in TCW, they probably let get along ok. Cody maybe likes him back, buuuuuuut internally he's just a little "you were tolerable at almost-forty; early twenties you is obnoxious."

Just imagine the absolutely puppyish attempts at gaining approval and Impressing The Hot Mando General. Quinlan keeps having vague daydreams of seducing someone to the side of the Light. He really leans into the bodice ripper fantasies of saving someone evil with the power of love! (And also the power of really good sex.)

Bant looks at Quin and Obi and wants to throw them both into the nearest pond because they're idiots, but on this topic they are the same flavor of idiot. She considers calling up Reeft and Garen to help her knock some sense into them.

Quinlan: Can I volunteer to go undercover to the Sith? The Council: No. Quinlan: ...what if I-- The Council: No.

Tholme tries to get Qui-Gon to commiserate over their Padawans getting obsessed with Hot Sith Boys, but Qui-Gon just finds the whole thing funny. He knows from the chats he has with Ben that Anakin feels so completely, utterly, incredibly awkward about all of this.

(Ben continues to hold to "Anakin brought this on himself.")

(Ben also “kidnaps” Qui-Gon a lot.)

Also, hey, at least Quinlan isn’t actually into hot Sith boys! He’s into hot Sith minions which is... probably a step up. At least Cody’s not a Sith himself!

It's a step in some direction but Tholme has no idea which one.

(Quinlan sees Cody in dress uniform once and just keeps the mental image for Ages. It’s in his dreams. Sometimes said dreams overflow to Tholme via Force Mind Magic and Quinlan wakes up to someone smacking his face with a pillow.)

Arguably, Quin's also a lot more romantic about his crush than Obi-Wan is, in this case. Quinlan: I want to save him... Obi-Wan: Hey, hey, cute boy. Look at me. Let’s bang.

Cody: There are currently two future Jedi generals having some form of absurd romantic fixation in my direction. I don't know how to feel about this. Rex: Bed them. Cody: ...I'm not saying that's not eventually an option, but one of them is the younger Kenobi, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Rex: Pat him on the head like a tooka and then bed his friend, it'll be funny.

I think the Quinlan thing and also general exasperation of leading an absolutely useless army can function pretty solidly as the basis for Cody, but I have another idea for Rex now.

Komari is currently brainwashed in a cult, yes? So.

I keep bouncing around back and forth on what to do with Rex, but part of me suddenly really likes the idea of, after Team Fake Sith finds and dissolves the cult (as one does), and takes Komari into custody (because she's dangerous and deeply unwell), Rex kind of ends up her touchstone to being a decent person. He’s not a morality chain, and it’s not really a redeemed-through-love thing, just This Is A Solid Dude who doesn't pity her or thinks she's irredeemable (however you choose to define such a thing), but actually relates to the kind of conditions living like that can involve, and just kind of...

I don’t know. I think Rex's arc in this AU could be very heavily grounded in something to the effect of "You're not the worst darksider I've met. You're not the only person who was in a cult. You're not even the only former Jedi I know that's committed awful, horrible crimes. My question is just this: What are you going to do moving forward?"

Later Anakin: Wait, who do we know that was in a cult? Rex: What did you think Kamino was?

(Rex isn't as chill as he'd like her to think, but he's trying, and she's fairly reliant on the Force to understand emotions, and is currently in nullifying cuffs, so he can bluff.)

Komari needs someone solid and dependable to rely on for at least conversation, and I think Rex needs to feel needed.

I’m not sure if it’d be romance or friendship, but I think there's a solid basis to work with, potentially.

Per Tia:

One thing about Rex and shipping is like. If you want to do Rexwalker again that's fine, but if you're worried about repetitiveness but still want to like. Ship him in a non-political-convenience way. Rexsoka here actually would be different than your other stuff.

I'm trying to figure out if I can make it work because Ahsoka thematically fits very much into a little sister shaped hole here? She feels younger than in other works, despite not actually being younger than she is in, say, Commander Buir. In those other fics, she has some time alone to function and prove herself independently of Anakin and Obi-Wan.

I usually pluck Ahsoka out at sixteen if I'm pulling her from TCW, so she's got most of her competence but hasn't gotten quite all the trauma yet. Commander Buir, in particular, also has baby-shaped Anakin for contrast.

That said, I can see a decent source of narrative conflict in her wanting to experiment with romance and all that, and Anakin trying to tell her she's too young.

A year into this whole time-travel mess, she wants to give the dating thing a shot, and it spirals into "You were only two years older than me when you got married!"

I think I could build a plot out of Ahsoka wanting to do these things, and Anakin as an audience insert not quite processing that she's old enough to make these decisions. If she's choosing to date Rex, whose age works out as being close to hers when one takes into account Kamino fuckery, and whom she trusts absolutely, it’s arguably extra weird for Anakin to be upset with it.

"Senator Amidala was five years older than you, and you married her when you were nineteen and had only really known her for a week! I can go on a date with a guy we both know is one of the most trustworthy people alive if I want, Skyguy!"

I can definitely see Ahsoka getting annoyed with Anakin being overbearing and controlling at some point before that unrelated to romance, too. It’s not exactly a new fault of his.

My god, just imagine someone snidely asking Anakin "where's your little shadow?" and Anakin, being Himself and also a Fake Sith, has an emotional breakdown about how Ahsoka yelled at him for micromanaging her and not trusting her to make her own decisions in life and so she got herself a multi-month solo mission from Ben that Anakin isn't allowed to know any details about, and--

It's another one of those "oh, you have PROBLEMS problems with your mental health" incidents for the Jedi to add to the file, because Anakin having emotionally charged rants about his issues at seemingly terrible times is how they get a lot of information.

Some of the rants are planned.

Many of them, actually.

They want the Jedi to know these things.

Just, well. Anakin.

He really is a little Like That.

On that note, I'm low-key imagining that Anakin gets put on mood stabilizers by the therapist in this context, and he's doing good! He's handling his issues! He's--been captured with Obi-Wan the Younger again and his medication was confiscated.

Anakin is... not great. He's a little out of practice managing his unmedicated self, and when adding withdrawal symptoms onto that... poor Anakin.

(Poor Obi-Wan.)

I think it would be best if Anakin makes a bunch of ominous blustery comments at their captors about how they won't like what's coming to them if they take his belongings (AKA the fanny pack that has his backup pills), and then Obi-Wan just gets to watch Anakin get more and more erratic, because like. Yes, Anakin is using the Force to compensate, but unfortunately he's mostly cut off, and the stress of the situation is pushing him away from depression and into the beginnings of a manic episode.

Anakin is aware of his issues to the point where he's mostly managing, and he keeps asking Obi-Wan "would it make sense for me to [slightly deranged, very impulsive action]," and Obi-Wan realizes he's being the morality sounding board for the Hot Sith because ??? reasons?????

Eventually, Anakin does flop back in bed and dramatically throws his arm over his eyes, and says he needs his meds back, he's absolutely going to lose it, and Obi-Wan tentatively asks what kind of medication. There are levels to worry about. Mild allergy medication is one thing, but heart medication that needs to be taken every four hours is another, you know? He wants to know how much panic is appropriate.

Anakin lets him know that it's Psychiatric In Nature. Obi-Wan suddenly realizes that he really, really, really doesn't want to know what a properly erratic, unmedicated Anakin is like.

(An unmedicated Anakin really isn't nearly as bad as Obi-Wan fears. Anakin's been dealing with this for a while, and knows what his issues are and some of how to deal with them. He'd need to be running on no sleep and higher levels of stress, or to have been drugged with something meant to increase his aggression, to really lose his shit and do something worthy of Vader. RotS levels of stress and sleep deprivation is required to pull RotS levels of manic paranoid delusion.)

Tia asked:

How long does it take the Jedi in general to catch on to how like. They have opportunities. But these Sith never seem to harm any Jedi. And it’s not just like, the past timeline parts of the disaster lineage. They probably get opportunities to hurt other Jedi. Ones that are less skilled at saber work. And more importantly ones that they don’t seem weirdly interested in."

I'm not sure, really. The Jedi don't spend as much time in the Outer Rim as they could, and that's where the Team operates, so actually running into them by accident is unlikely for anyone other than Shadows.

Fortunately, it's really easy to toy with Shadows with the excuse of "I want to see how long it takes before you Fall with us."

I do want like... okay. Here’s the mental image:

Qui-Gon calls them out on being Fake Sith pretty quickly, so Ben just sort of eyes him, dramatically, and orders out "Leave us" to all non-team people. The threat of torture is implied but not stated. He gestures with wine to keep in character. He definitely makes sure Young Obi-Wan is ushered out, so it's just five time travelers, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Ahsoka's immortal force birb.

"...so, what's the reason for the farce, Obi-Wan?" "How in all the hells did you figure it out so quickly?"

(Qui-Gon cheated a bit. He could feel the broken training bond that was never properly severed due to Traumatic Death Of A Master on Ben's end)

Ben didn't realize he'd feel it! Young Obi-Wan can't feel his older self or a training bond with Anakin or Ahsoka, so why could Qui-Gon?

IDK if there would be anything on the level of crying and hugging it out, but I think it would be very funny if, every time young Obi and Anakin are getting captured by pirates or something, Ben and Qui-Gon are just having a nice afternoon tea and checking their watches to see if their respective walking bundles of neuroses are done with their adventure yet.

The Council is So Done, because Qui-Gon continues to insist that they're Not That Bad, but every time anyone other than Qui-Gon brings up the friendship, Ben laughs and makes a comment about how absolutely gullible Master Jinn is.

Obi-Wan is skeptical of his own experiences with Anakin, at least, if only because he's skeptical about Anakin's everything.

"I don't know if Vader is telling me the truth. I don't know if he's telling himself the truth. I don't think he's a great source of information even when he thinks he's being honest."

Anakin could tell Obi-Wan the full and complete truth, and Obi-Wan would worriedly put a hand to his forehead and start doing tests for hallucinations and paranoid delusions. In his defense, this is a very reasonable assumption to make with an individual like Anakin. It's just also not accurate, this time. I don’t know if Anakin hallucinates in canon without a weird inciting incident like Force Nonsense or getting drugged by the enemy, but paranoid delusion is pretty much all of RotS.

"I’m your time-traveling padawan who’s pretending to be a Sith to catch some other Sith who’re going to start a galactic civil war and those Mandalorians you like are from a clone army based on a template of Jango Fett made to serve the Jedi (because that’s totally something he’d sign up for), and one of the Sith is your grandmaster but he doesn’t seem to have fallen yet, it’s probably fine," is hard to believe.

Honestly, even if he seemed stable before saying that, which he doesn’t, it’s all real far fetched. There's a lot going on and Obi-Wan wouldn't even begin to believe it without evidence.

I've had it in my head that he and Bant and Quinlan have been gossiping about the mess for months if not years about these idiots, and at one point it became common knowledge that Ben was a Kenobi, and Bant convinced them (since the two were among the most likely in the entire Order to encounter the Fake Sith) to get a DNA sample, probably hair or blood since that's easiest so they can figure out HOW these two are related, if they are, and then there's a whole big thing.

Bant: No, no, this must be contaminated, it's coming up as Obi-Wan! Are you sure you didn't accidentally grab some of your own hairs? I know it's a little long for most of your hair, but the braid-- Quinlan: Wait, they keep claiming stuff about cloning, right? Maybe someone's a clone? Check for artificial telomeres! Bant: ...okay, so, there aren't any artificial telomeres, but the ones from apparently-Ben are... a lot shorter... um... I don't know what to do with this. It's like I have two samples from the same person, twenty years apart. Quinlan: Obi-Wan, what's that face? Why are you-- Obi-Wan: Vader told me he was a time-traveler. I thought it was the fever talking, but...

That’s how he finds out that Ben is future-him before finding out about how he’s not evil!

"Master Jinn... I think... I think the Sith controlling the Outer Rim is me from the future." "Oh, you finally figured it out?" "I AM HAVING A CRISIS HERE."

Obi-Wan, after a few hours of dazed realization, runs screaming to Quinlan and Bant like 'GUYS GUYS THIS EXPLAINS WHY VADER KEPT SAYING IT WAS WEIRD AND THAT I LOOK LIKE HIS MASTER AND THAT IT WOULD BE LIKE DATING HIS DAD.'

You know, the important stuff.

I think Qui-Gon tells him that Ben isn't evil because, like, That Sure Is A Crisis Obi-Wan's Having. He could hold off for shits and giggles, sure, but Obi-Wan’s on the edge of something Really Concerning, mentally. Best help calm him down on at least one or two things.

Obi-Wan’s maybe still a little skeptical until he confronts them over it. Because their Sith act was real good and also like. Maybe Qui-Gon just wants to believe the best of his Padawan, y’know?

Quinlan runs into Ben before Obi-Wan does, after this whole mess, and gets to observe as money changes hands and people act like sore winners about bets made for When Does Obi-Wan Figure It Out.

Anakin was saying 'soon' because he really didn't think the fever-fueled rant would be discounted as easily as it was.

Cody was of the opinion that it would take at least a few more years since they're actually pretty damn good at this whole schtick.

Quinlan: Wow, he's... going to be really disappointed that you have such a low opinion of his intelligence. Cody, gesturing at Ben: Experience. Darth Ben: ಠ_ಠ

Cody just rattles off some of the Extremely Stupid Shit that Ben's done in their time working together.

Rex cheerily offers up "You didn't even realize General Skywalker was married, sir! And they weren't subtle!" "I knew they were together, I just didn--" "Everyone knew they were together, sir. Everyone."

(Rex had the lowest opinion of their deductive capabilities. He claims it would have taken until Baby Ahsoka showed up at the Jedi Temple.)

-Once Obi-Wan accepts that they're decent people after all- Obi-Wan: Wow, Anakin, you're real good at acting unhinged! Anakin: Haha. Yeah. Thanks?

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foreverindreamlandd · 3 years

Note

Bucky wanted to read her fanfictions and she always declined. So he begged and begged and begged... until she finally gives up and let him read one. 'Cause who could really say no to Bucky making puppy eyes?!

Let me know what you think about it

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Plus Size!Reader

WC: 1.5k (I am apparently incapable of writing a drabble)

A/N: Thank you again for another awesome request! I was basically cackling the whole time I wrote it. Want to read about how Bucky and this reader got together? Check out their origin story in my To Be Wanted series! Only warning in this one is the usual swearin’ like a sailor.

----

“See, this is why I always order Thai food. I can never do it justice.” You frown over your wok, mixing the noodles around with a wooden spoon hoping it will somehow make your creation taste better.

“I’m sure it tastes great, doll.” Bucky walks up next to you and grabs a noodle, tilting his head back as he drops it into his mouth.

His eye twitches almost imperceptibly and you groan.

“It’s good,” he coughs out, trying with all of his strength to regain his composure. “I think you just went a little too hard on the chili paste. I can feel my sinuses clearing up though, which is good, right?”

You roll your eyes. “Can you check the recipe on Pinterest again? I swear I put in the right amount.”

Bucky walks over and picks up your iPad. Right as he’s scrolling to find out if you should have used 2 tablespoons or 2 teaspoons of chili paste, a notification banner pops up and he accidently taps it, opening up your Tumblr app.

Omg! This fic is amazing! The way Bucky is there to support the reader. My heart completely melted! Your Bucky stories are amazing, Y/n! <3

Above the comment is a photo of him. It’s a shot from the news where he’s helping a civilian stand up after one of the attacks made by The Red Hand.

“Uh….love? What’s this?” He holds the iPad up to you and you shift your gaze over to him.

You drop the wooden spoon into the wok as all of the blood drains from your face. You’re frozen in place for a millisecond before you pounce on Bucky to grab the device from him. He’s never seen you move so quickly and it catches him off guard.

“Bucky give me the iPad right now,” you fling your arms toward it and he pulls it away, both amused and a bit concerned by your reaction.

“Wait, what is this? Is it something I should be worried about?”

You see a flicker of panic flash in his eyes and you stop flailing. You close your eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“No, I mean, I should be concerned because if you read that I’m probably going to combust and you’re going to dump me and run for the hills.” He furrows his brows in confusion and you slowly lift up your hand. “Can I please have that back before I have a mild panic attack?”

He stares at you, trying to gauge your emotions. All he can see is panic and sadness and it breaks his heart so he instantly gives in and hands you the iPad.

“Don’t worry about it, love. I trust you.” He leans forward to give you a chaste kiss.

You let out a pained groan against his lips and Bucky is once again confused.

“Ughhhh I hate hiding things from you.” You lock your iPad so the screen goes dark. “Okay, fine, I guess this conversation is happening. Remember when we first started dating and I, uh, mentioned I used to read and write stories about….us being a couple?”

Bucky nods, trying not to reveal any emotion to you that might make you spiral into a panic, and you continue.

“Well, that was one of those stories I wrote. I stopped looking on Tumblr basically as soon as I met you because it got all weird and meta and I got super uncomfy by the idea of reading fanfics - that’s what they’re called - about my new friend/now boyfriend Bucky Barnes. And then we started dating and I was all happy and shit and I totally forgot that those fics were still out there. Obviously I haven’t written any since then because that would be weird for...many, many reasons. Someone must have found an old one and commented on it. I’ll delete it. I’ll delete all of them. I swear. I’m so sorry, Bucky. I should have been more on top of this.”

Bucky stares at you, lips pursed and you grimace, afraid of the next words that are about to come out of his mouth.

This is so weird, Y/n. How could you do this?

No wonder you didn’t date anyone before me.

Obsessed much? (Okay, he probably wouldn’t say it like that but STILL).

No, what Bucky said next was much, much worse than what you could have imagined.

“Can I read one?”

Your mouth drops. Closes. Drops again. You blink rapidly.

“I’m sorry, I just hallucinated. What?”

Bucky points to your iPad, a sly grin forming on his face. “I want to read one of your stories.”

You take a step back from him, horror stricken as you pull the iPad closer to you as if you were protecting your collector’s edition of ‘Throne of Glass.’

“Absolutely not.”

Bucky steps forward and you step back. He chuckles. “Come onnn, doll. I want to know what your fantasies were about me before we got together.” He laughs harder as the look of horror on your face grows more manic.

“Bucky, I know you’re a super soldier and could probably punch me into the sun with your metal arm, but I promise I will fight to the death before I let you read one of these fics.”

You and Bucky continue this dance of him stepping forward and you stepping back until you feel your legs make contact with your couch and you fall back into a sitting position on its arm. Bucky uses this opportunity to tower over you, his arms resting on the couch so that you’re pinned between them.

Then, he pulls out the big guns.

His gaze softens, blue eyes shining into yours. His bottom lip puffs out and he gives you the most adorable, sexiest pout you’ve seen in your whole life.

“Please, love?” He says it with a slightly higher pitch, almost like a whine and it still sounds like honey to your ears. He even nudges your nose with his like a freaking sociopath.

Damn.

You close your eyes, let out a breath, then open them back up to him. “I hate you.”

His pout turns into a boyish grin and he gives you a quick kiss. “You love me.”

You groan. “Hopefully you still love me after this, Buck. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

You stand and open up your iPad, scrolling through your masterlist and finding what used to be one of your favorite fluff pieces. You begrudgingly hand it to Bucky and he sits on the couch.

Unable to sit still during this agonizing experience, you proceed to pace around your apartment like a crazy person and resort to cleaning the inside of your microwave which you haven’t done in a few months so it’s a good thing that Bucky is reading your fic so that you could get that out of the way. You probably won’t have a boyfriend in a few minutes but at least your microwave will be spotless.

You only steal a few glances at Bucky as he reads, mortified each time as you see his eyebrows move in every possible direction. Up, down, knit together, were they criss-crossed at one point?

Finally, after what feels like the longest ten minutes of your life, Bucky lets out a soft grunt, placing the iPad down on his lap. He looks up to you and you give him a weak smile.

“Alright, let me have it, Buck. Give me your worst. Be honest. Also, I love you.”

Bucky glances down at the iPad and then back at you.

“Well, I have a few questions.”

Your right eye twitches. “Hm?”

“Now that you’ve met me, do you still think my eyes are an all-consuming storm of blue?” You groan. He grins. “Or do you think my jawline was cut from marble created by the gods?”

This time, you breathe out a laugh and you walk over to sit on his lap. You take hold of his chin.

“Bucky, I don’t think I could ever come up with the right words to describe you. The real thing is quite literally a million times better than anything I’ve ever written.”

His eyebrows raise. “That is...probably the best compliment I’ve ever gotten in my whole damn life.” He leans forward and kisses you, and you sigh into the feeling of his mouth on yours, relief flooding through you.

You pull away, eyes skeptical. “So, you’re not thinking about how you can escape and never see my crazy ass again?”

“On the contrary, love, I’m thinking about how I can convince you to buy this gorgeous green dress you apparently wore as my wedding date. The one that showed off your cleavage in a way that made Bucky’s brain melt.”

The two of you burst out laughing and you lightly shove his chest. “Sure thing, Bucko. How about I work on the dress situation and you work on ordering us Thai food so that we don’t lose our taste buds from whatever the hell I just made.”

-----

Thank you for reading! Feel free to check out my other stuff here. :)

Taglist: @ceo-of-daichi @biiskuitx @forgetthisbull @eclipses-and-moondust @abcdefxkyou @jackiehollanderr @billionsofbeans @abitgryffindorky @lovelylostminds @mija-just-breathe @semlohkratz @bratty-longbottom-replies @carrotfantasimp @cremedelabrulee @ant1r3al1ty @th-e-mg@laura-moehrchen @emma-the-duck17 @sunnyjane4 @rosaline-black @parodsal000 @vicmc624 @abrunettefangirlnerd @officiallykuute @edityourwishingwell @mymindslabyrinth

***This was the original tag list for the To Be Wanted series. If you would like to be removed from the taglist for any other stories related to this series, feel free to DM me! And let me know if you would like to be *added* to the taglist for any other future stories featuring these two knuckleheads. :)

#bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #to be wanted #james bucky barnes #marvel #mcu #plus size!reader #plus size #fanfic #fanfiction #sebastian stan #inbox

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cizzisblog · 4 years

Text

things that piss me off about dabi and fans’ reactions to this arc:

-Dabi is definitely, absolutely not justified in going after Shouto (who deserves none of this!! this boy deserves only love and support and some gotdamned therapy) ima just say that now.

-It’s also shitty of Dabi to say he didn’t care if Natsuo was hurt/killed.

-The canon characterization may very well be Dabi is so far down the path of revenge and has spent so long suffering alone away from his family members that he no longer cares for them/feels anything and is willing to proceed with plans to hurt Endeavor even if they are caught in the crossfire. However, I also feel it’s worth mentioning that right now, he very much seems to be caught up in a manic episode/meltdown/basically losing his shit. Think about it- he’s spent however many years plotting this moment and his chance to get revenge on his father and expose him to the world is finally here, and I think the likelihood that he’s saying whatever shit he thinks will hurt everyone the most is likely. That, or he’s so caught up in the mania he’s just lashing out at fucking everything. I think to some extent he means it, because he’s shown signs of being severely depressed and there’s a numbness that comes with that, but I also think deep down there is still some care there, even if small, or at least some acknowledgment that the other members of his family aren’t the main target and source of his suffering. He literally hasn’t seen them in years and it’s easy to say ‘I don’t care’ when it’s not to their faces. (Why send a tape specifically to Rei and keep track of her? Why not hurt Shouto at the summer camp when he so easily could have?) I think it’s also clear he didn’t mean to kill Endeavor with the previous Nomu attacks, but wanted him to succeed (in a ‘Build him up bigger so when I bring him down he falls even harder’ type of way. After all, Dabi obviously wanted to be the one to take down Endeavor, not a random Nomu.) Again, shitty he didn’t care that Natsuo/Shouto got caught up in it, but I think he didn’t think Natsuo would die due to Endeavor saving him. (Again, that doesn’t justify it, and is some twisted logic, but this is complicated.)

-I want to make very clear I’m not absolving Dabi of his actions, but as an abuse victim and someone who’s intimately familiar with familial abuse, his actual feelings do not make him a bad person and are actually more common than you’d think if you’ve never experienced abuse. When you’re suffering that kind of trauma for so long, you lash out at and feel angry at other people in the household, even other targets of abuse, because your abuser fucks you all up so bad and turns you against each other (even if not intentionally). It becomes a sick competition for attention even from a person who’s horrible and terrible. Dabi undoubtedly felt like he’d been thrown away and jealous of Shouto, the ‘perfect child’ Endeavor finally succeeded in getting (again, this doesn’t excuse him actually hating Shouto, but I can see why he might feel bitter). In a perfect world he would’ve dealt with those feelings with therapy and realized Shouto was just as much a victim and not murder attempts, but this is bnha lmao. Him wanting to hurt Shouto- a fucked up urge, but in a trauma-inducing environment as a mentally ill teenager, you can understand why he felt it. Acting on it is what’s truly fucked up. I also find it unlikely he doesn’t care for Natsuo at all. Natsuo, who he went to specifically for comfort for his whole childhood, not even his mother but his brother?

-At first glance, it may seem many “fanon” interpretations of Dabi are now ‘invalid’ or whatever but I disagree. Sure, we do know that he wasn’t secretly skulking about watching out for his siblings from the shadows- clearly. But narratives that involve him reconnecting with his siblings, remembering or learning to care for them again, realizing he’s hurting them and he isn’t the only one with trauma, reconnecting with his want to protect them as his family, etc. still make sense. People are not static. They still hold the capacity for change and healing given the proper circumstances. Most fanfic are AUs, given they don’t follow canon exactly and word for word, and characters can make different decisions and feel differently if different events happen. Even if you do want to write a very different characterization for Dabi, that’s fine, especially if bnha ultimately ends up doing the whole Todoroki narrative dirty.

-In conclusion: yes, currently Dabi is acting a madman and doing some very reprehensible things. He is a severely traumatized individual who grew up in a home involving copious amounts of violence. However, I do not think the point of all this family drama is just to say “fuck it, Touya’s dead now he was too far gone whoops! But heroes are good anyway!” I think it’s likely we’ll get some scene with him arrested and being confronted by Rei or Natsuo or something along those lines and see some regret. (Why spend so much time on this arc and show their reactions if they aren’t going to be involved at all?) Simultaneously, it’s also possible the story will go the “he’s too far gone” route and basically have him end up as a mirror of Endeavor: so obsessed with his own trauma he threw his own family under the bus for his own revenge plan. While possible, I think that’s a shitty and lazy way to go and disrespectful to Touya himself as an abuse survivor. He is definitely extremely deep in his revenge right now, but I do not want that to be the end of his character.

-I want Dabi to have to face up to his own actions. I want him to realize he fucked up and hurt people he shouldn’t have. I don’t think we’ll get some mushy apology montage, but we have not once seen all the Todoroki siblings together at one time, and I want Dabi to have to deal with the repercussions of seeing his family again and realizing oh, they were never the ones I should have hurt, and I don’t think he’s too far gone to do that.

-I think it’ll be really shitty if Dabi, an abuse survivor, is ultimately depicted as the insane lunatic that needs to be put down and has no chance for any kind of redemption while his abuser who bought his wife for eugenics and neglected/abused his entire family gets to walk free with a shitty redemption arc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware Dabi is a villain and as such is going to be on the losing side in a story where heroes win (I mean, it’s technically all a flashback from number one hero Deku) but he still has very valid points about hero society and how fucked up Endeavor truly was, and throwing it all away would be such a cop out. If bnha does truly go with the most insulting route for Dabi I feel it shows a lack of understanding for abuse and abuse survivors and fanfic authors are justified in ignoring and changing that for fics, especially if they’re abuse survivors themselves. I guarantee they’ll write better narratives about abuse lmao.

-Lastly: Dabi is a morally grey character. He’s a villain. But people who like his character or want to look at the why and how of his actions in a nuanced way are not just ‘dumb villain stans’ or whatever weird shit the bnha fandom has come up with. We just want this narrative to actually make some goddamned sense. Dabi’s actions are not all justified but do make sense in the context of his backstory and motivations and current mental state, I just hope to god hori doesn’t ruin it completely from here.

Edit: this post is also highly likely imo and also explains Dabi’s behavior (but as a reminder for those who don’t read closely, explaining something is not the same thing as justifying it.) “I can’t feel anything anymore” is a hallmark of being depressed/suicidal and his supposedly not caring for his siblings anymore most likely has to do more with his own suicidal state than aggression towards them. Dabi acting as manic as he has these last few chapters makes sense if he isn’t planning on living.

#dabi #Todoroki Touya #bnha #Touya #bnha 292 #Todoroki #touya todoroki #bnha spoilers #character meta

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rosereview · 3 years

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Top 11 Albums of 2020

Much like my top EPs of 2020, this consists of all the albums that came out in 2020 that I really enjoyed. I just did a small description of my favourite things about these albums, and for all of them, I highly recommend them.

11. Weird! by Yungblud

This one was a very big surprise for me because I generally don’t like the type of music Yungblud creates (a more punk/pop rock-ish sound), but many of the songs on this album made me fall in love with it. Yungblud knows how to use his voice to inflict raw emotion that gave me goosebumps particularly in his song “mars,” “teresa,” “love song,” “it’s quiet in beverly hills,” and “god save me, but don’t drown me out.” These are for sure my favourite songs on the album. He has such an interesting voice and even my least favourite songs, I can still listen to and enjoy because they evoke other types of emotions that really resonate with me.

10. Rare by Selena Gomez

Next we have Selena Gomez’s new album after a five year hiatus, which now feels like it came out a million years ago, but it was just last January (a little more than a year ago). I also had quite a few songs that I liked on this album and the whole theme of mental health and finding yourself I really enjoyed. Not all of the songs were my favourite which is why it’s lower on my list, but many of the songs also grew on me more as time went on. Almost all of them are also really catchy so I found myself singing them in my head at random times, which also made me realize the genius of some of these songs.

9. Leave It Beautiful by Astrid S

Like Selena Gomez’s album, this new one by Astrid S had a lot of good singles that I fell in love with even before the album came out. But when the album came out, I wasn’t as impressed with the rest of the songs, even though some have really grown on me with time. I think I was just wishing for some more ballads and stripped down songs like from her Down Low EP. But besides that, this is Astrid S’ debut full length album, which in itself is really exciting since I’d been waiting for this forever.

8. These Two Windows by Alec Benjamin

Next is Alec Benjamin’s new album, which definitely has some songs that make me pause and give me goosebumps. I really liked how on this new project, Alec Benjamin had some more interesting and different production styles in the songs, so they weren’t all the same, or very similar, styles like in his last album. By that I mean that he used his voice in different ways and there were cool sound effects in the background of the songs that added something extra to them. Although that being said, I think I have to say that the last album had superior storytelling skills than this one, and even though I really did like the lyrics in these songs, in the last album I felt like there was more of a variety of topics and stories that I missed in this album.

7. Wonder by Shawn Mendes

And finally Shawn Mendes came out with a new album this year too, which was really exciting. I overall thought that this album was really good because it was so different from his older stuff. I know that some fans didn’t like this album for that reason, but for me I thought it just made it better. Shawn Mendes is still growing as an artist and I liked seeing him try out different styles of songs that he wouldn’t normally do in his other albums. When “Wonder,” the single, first came out I was sold on this album, and I liked how he did have a theme of wonderland and love and wonders about life throughout the album. It made it feel like a very complete project. (I also loved how there was a song called “Dreams” on this album and Camila Cabello also had a song called “Dream of You” on hers!)

6. Loves Goes by Sam Smith

Sam Smith’s new album was also long awaited, especially when I thought it was coming out in the first half of 2020 instead of the last half. But I can’t say that the wait wasn’t worth it. I was worried that Sam Smith was going to do a whole pop album, but instead I was very happy when they came out with many songs that are still slower ballad heart-wrenching pieces. Most of the songs I really loved, and I also kind of wished that they had an album with none of the bonus tracks from their original album since I felt that just the new songs made it feel more complete, if that makes sense. But even with the old songs that aren’t really my favourites still there, the new songs definitely make up for it.

5. Confetti by Little Mix

Little Mix’s new album is absolutely stellar. I loved so many of the songs on this album and I thought it was all done really well. They were all really fun and make you want to dance and sing along, while still being original and different from their older projects (although some songs take inspiration from older ones which I also liked). They did release a lot of the songs before the album even came out, and I got a little nervous because when that happens, I usually like the singles more than the other songs on the album, but that didn’t happen here. I loved the non-singles probably more than the singles, which I didn’t think possible. They also played around with different production sounds in this project, which I also thought was a very smart idea, and this album just makes me love Little Mix more and more.

4. Only Child by Sasha Sloan

Also a very anticipated release, I was almost in tears when Sasha Sloan said she was finally releasing his debut album this year. I have been obsessed with her EPs for a long time and now having a full length project is such a treat and she definitely did not disappoint. All of these songs on the album are amazing and so many of them are so relatable it almost scares me. I really don’t think there is a song on this album that I truly dislike, and every time I re-listen to the songs, I find a new love and appreciation for them. These songs just feel so personal like a diary entry, which also makes them feel so powerful, and even though Sasha Sloan is known for being a sad girl, this album also has a lot of happy songs when talking about love that made me smile.

3. Heartbreak Weather by Niall Horan

I was very surprised with myself for putting this album in the top three, but I really have to say that I love it so much. I was not even expecting to have a Niall Horan album on this list, but this album took me by surprise in all of the best ways possible. This is the type of album you can just continuously listen to on repeat because all of the songs are different and so good that you just never get sick of them. I love singing along to all of them and I’m obsessed with almost every single song on the album (which usually doesn’t happen with long projects like this one).

2. Folklore & Evermore by Taylor Swift

I put these two together because they do feel like one project and I needed to talk about them as one. First off, I’m just obsessed with the lyrics, the production, Taylor Swift’s voice… you name it, I love it. These albums are just perfection in every way, I can’t find any bad things to say about them. Also the fact that we were gifted with TWO albums instead of one is amazing, and the fact that they have different stories in them with literal characters is also superb. I don’t think there is anything negative or something I don’t like about these and I feel like you can just look at anything a Swifty says to know what I like about these albums.

1. Manic by Halsey

And finally my favourite album of the year, and probably of all time, is Halsey’s Manic, which makes me smile just thinking about it. This was the exact project I dreamed of getting from Halsey and she delivered in every possible way. I loved all the different styles of music in here and every lyric that she wrote. Listening to the album all the way through on repeat makes me so happy that I can’t ever turn off the music until it’s run through all the way. And just having been on this journey with her for this long, makes it so much more special because you understand all of the little meanings in the lyrics and the story that she’s telling. This is definitely my favourite album from her and my favourite album ever!

And that concludes my top favourite albums of 2020, and I also have a top favourite list of EPs if anyone’s curious.

Until next time!

~Rose Reviews

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liberons · 3 years

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so anyways have a weird pseudo-meta on the 239894 ways levi’s character could’ve been better used story-wise

tbh i do believe yams had it in him to write a nice, tight, cohesive story where everything could’ve fallen in place well enough -- at least to the point where actions made sense with reference to established character personalities and arcs within the story. i have no issue with regression, but you can’t make it half-assed or just. entirely left-field and leave it at that and ok moral of the story i’m like, 90% sure come from being far too invested in the fandom as an author. NEVER change your story because of someone else’s opinion when it’s SERIALISED y’all.

SECTION I . KILL HIM OFF !

let’s be honest !!! this is the most obvious !!! we get it he’s popular, you’ll get backlash, yaddi yadda ya girl’s tired.

( i . ) why didn’t eren kill him.

why

remember what levi was actually established to DO early on? the whole “i’ll take care of eren if he goes manic”? his WHOLE NARRATIVE PURPOSE? would be great if we, you know, played with that At All.

how fucking FRIGHTENING would eren’s final form be if it just fucking nipped levi in the bud? if levi, completely fine and uninjured, stayed true to his word and lead to handle eren, just to be fucking annihilated? eren has like 60 fucking titans inside him INCLUDING the activated founding. I THINK IT’S PRETTY FAIR TO REDEFINE HIM AS BEING FUCKING OP NOW.

just define some real form of tension come on.

this could’ve also just. so naturally shifted the tension in mikasa’s direction. literally everyone instinctively has mikasa jotted down as second-best-next-to-levi, both in and out of canon. it would make sense for other characters to just eye awkwardly in deciding mikasa ‘has’ to be the next one to try through the framing bias that presents.

right now it’s like it’s not even her choice but everyone decided it would be for no goddamn reason. why does mikasa need to be ok with killing eren at all??? why cant one of YALL do it????????? and like mikasa kills him but then presents absolutely no real conclusion in doing so. we get 0 insight into what’s really going on in her head and WE DONT EVEN GET TO SEE IT !!!!!!!!!!

( i i . ) zeke if yOu’Re goNnA do it dO it RIGHT

to stay more true to canon, here’s way better ways zeke could’ve actually been rid of him that aren’t. regressing and dumb lmao:

zeke’s still a war chief, he’s had YEARS of troop strategy / planning up his sleeves. why didn’t he use turning levi’s squad into a means to set up some real traps because what’s he gonna do to a bomb, huh? Fight it?

or better yet, spike more than just levi’s squad and just have swarms and waves of mindless titans coming in to provide that distraction.

or have more help?? there’s all the yeagerists at your disposal and not ONE can secretly set something up with you?

overall like zeke should know levi’s skill and levi shouldn;t have to assume zeke’s not ?????????????? “willing to die”??????????? WTF????? AREN’T YOU WHY WOULDN'T HE BE?????

god anyways

zeke kills levi u know what that sets up? the fact that he’s pretty fucking clever and powerful on his own???? so now when eren & zeke team up to cause the rumbling, regardless of zeke’s original intent, would make them Far more horrifying to the rest of the crew;

tbh i feel like this should mean moving the ‘reveal’ of eren’s betrayal to the very end of the manga when eren explains everything through path visions bc at least it keeps his moral grey area more.... grey.

we know by the end that he betrayed zeke so it’s like ok So Yes He’s Doing Summ For The Greater Good But What and at least this would balance the scales of mass murder a lil by not snipping all the men i fucking Guess lmao god

( i i i . ) RUMBLE HIM

step on him

but really he can just??? die during the rumbling???? point blank??????????? why were there not more major character casualties lmao boi

if the colossal titans are just far too many and far too boring, all the previous titans on eren’s back is so delicious and should’ve been drawn out im not sorry about it.

where’s the 349873 iterations of character x character teaming up and slowly getting better at absolutely Slicing these bastards? WHERE ARE THEY?

i want my warriors x stray marleans x survey squads just dedicated to keeping the 9 titan iterations out of eren’s neck.

he could’ve finally killed zeke here too but i’m gonna get to that whole thing lmao god.

we've also established him getting wounded when others are involved (à la leg injury helping mikasa) so have him??? sacrifice???? to help others like finish his empathy arc

let him sacrifice himself by keeping the titans back while armin blows up idc

and for all of these — it doesn’t even have to be a quick death. let him lose a body part and die of blood loss. let his organs fail. let him get infected like yo not every death has to be in 3s flat.

SECTION II . OR DON’T !

like. let’s just say there’s absolutely no way your publicist is gonna let you kill this character. you love him too much / he’s become a weird self-insert. ok sure. YOU CAN STILL DO SOMETHING.

( i . ) why does he just. not grow.

he’s five three but does his heart have to be?

anyways fr he’s literally a huge fucking asshole and he doesn’t grow out of it. no one ever point out that it’s terrible. the biggest blacklash he gets is historia punching him like pew. and it’s not even addressed why she did that. it’s just like haha, yep.

can we get him some uhhhh??? clear empathy ???? some actual growth?? like we know he went from the guy beating eren up Excessively to forcing historia to be queen to giving armin the colossus, and then back to just slicing zeke up uselessly and caring about one (1) thing. like he was clearly on a path somewhere.

like first of all, holy fuck get over it. it’s like he had a manic episode for 4 years just obsessing over killing zeke when the game changed buddy??? it’s been established that the issue is No Longer zeke why are we so hard on this. his entire character just becomes kill monkee because his arc is DONE so if we’re going to keep him around find something else?? or CONTINUE to develop him.

make him grow his soft skills as a leader. make him learn how to stick around his team and know exactly how to fall back.

if he’s injured, make him LITERALLY stay back and learn how to handle those he has to keep back with him.

make him struggle keeping morale.

make him argue with some of the non-paradisians, or even those from paradis that are like what the FUCK and just learn to offer his perspective.

if he’s so obssessed with zeke maybe uh?? address that with someone???? talk it out with your therapist buddy you’ve clearly not come to terms with the fact you let erwin die and he has no reason to be so caught up by that and if he does like lmao ok let us see and understand it???

( i i . ) do something with the ackermans

that’s it that’s the post

idek what else to put here i want this fucker dead

#❛ ⍀ 𝟎 𝟎 𝟔 ．» ᵒʰ ʰᶦ ᵐᵃʳ ∕ ooc ．#next time i'll be logging into my ymir blog to talk about how to better treat ur lesbians #i could probably write this properly but the disarray feeds into my fury #i was going to work on more drafts but instead i just sat here seething in my rage the Second i thought about the last arc again #those Fill In The Blanks games with character names and we could probably write a better final arc #anyways

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kitsbookshelf · 3 years

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The Twilight Saga: a detailed review of why I can’t stand them and love them in (almost) equal measure

Before I start this borderline scathing review, I just want to let you know that it's full of spoilers, so if you haven't read the books, look away now. This is your only warning.

Now that that's out of the way... I can't stand the Twilight saga. Twelve-year-old me is cringing at my hatred for it, and Twilight fans are waiting to set me on fire, but it's true. I think they're poorly written, and there are soooo many parts of every book that just...missed the mark, at least for me. Let's start at the beginning, with the first book: Twilight.

Bella, our darling main character, moves in with her dad, Charlie (let's take a moment to appreciate perhaps the only normal, mentally stable person in this entire saga), in the rainy small town of Forks, Washington.

Bella is quite a bland character, but that just makes her easier to project yourself onto when you're reading the book if that's how you immerse yourself. For me, I found her obsessive and definitely not emotionally stable, and it did honestly feel like reading the diary of a manic and very unstable 17-year-old. On one hand, that's good--I'm reading from Bella's perspective, and it's written exactly how I'd expect her to write--but on the other hand, the writing feels...cheap? I completely blame my own taste in writing style for my opinion on this one, but I just couldn't enjoy the very boring storytelling happening here. It was all very 'tell-tell-tell' instead of the 'show-tell-show' way of writing I prefer.

Now here is where my adoration for this book comes in: Edward Cullen. Specifically, the interactions between him and Bella. They have conversations, and banter, and it's a fun little human-vampire-friendship that isn't awful to read (I will never never forgive the films for leaving some of the dialogue out, it's pure gold and possibly the only saving grace of this book). The characters felt like teenagers here, but it was only for the few short pages we got of them interacting without the overly-exaggerated brooding that our sweet Ed is known for.

The romance between Bella and Edward is...concerning. For me, I couldn't find a single bit of actual romance between the two of them beyond Bella's obsession with him and Edward's bloodlust and weird self-control thing he has for her. It felt really unhealthy, and I couldn't wrap my head around how people actually think there's romance there.

The whole James thing...I don't know about anyone else, but it felt really random. Yes, it added a conflict to the book, but I felt like there wasn't really any good development to make it more relevant. That all seemed to happen later with Victoria, but James didn't really feel like he fit into the story very well. I think I would have preferred it if he was gradually brought in through the book, or if there was some sort of lead up to the conflict instead of just--WHAM! Tracker dude wants to kill Bella because Edward got protective and now only the final section of the book has any action.

Twilight completely had the potential to be a good vampire-human romance novel. There was no real need for the James-Victoria storyline, even in the later books. What did they add? Only the entirety of Eclipse, but that book could be taken out completely without disrupting the story all that much.

New Moon feels like a completely different book, and I actually really liked it. The writing style still got on my nerves and made it more difficult for me to enjoy the book, but the content was so much better.

Bella's spiral in New Moon really added something to her character. Instead of another book of her constant Edward-Cullen-is-the-most-beautiful-man-to-ever-exist inner monologue, we got a whole book of her.

Jacob Black was introduced, and he was a genuinely likable character (the one thing I will say is that his inability to take 'no' for an answer really did put me off him for a large portion of the book and the next one) who brought some more normality into the book. It didn't feel like I was reading an overly-exaggerated supernatural romance, and I enjoyed it. The banter between the two of them was so realistic, and I actually really loved how Meyer explored Bella's coping mechanisms and her dependency issues when Jacob phased and Bella was left without him again.

The conflict here was much more well-executed than in Twilight, with the Volturi having been mentioned before and now becoming established properly in the saga. They're the perfect villains, and I enjoyed reading about them much more than I enjoyed the rushed few chapters of James's story in Twilight. I loved how Meyer kept Bella awake the entire way home from Italy. You really got to see the sort of wild relief that she felt when getting Edward back, and I think it was well-written and made me feel like there was slightly more going on here than the forced romance in Twilight.

I really do feel like the subject of them being mates should have come up a lot sooner. Maybe some questions on how a human could be a vampire's mate, or exploring the complications of it, because then maybe Bella's obsession would have been far more understandable earlier in the saga, and it might have felt more 'organic' than the relationship I read until Bella became a newborn later on.

And now we reach Eclipse... Eclipse, Eclipse, Eclipse... I hate it. There isn't a single part of this book that I can honestly say I enjoyed. I felt like it could have been taken out completely, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the story.

The whole book felt like a filler, purely there to resolve the issue of Victoria before moving on to Bella's pregnancy and vampirism in Breaking Dawn. It didn't feel like any part of it was important, or really memorable.

Victoria's whole storyline could have been erased without destroying the saga. The only interesting thing about the whole conflict with her was that she managed to orchestrate it without Alice seeing her, and that was the one thing that kept the book rolling on instead of it being a handful of chapters of the newborns being defeated.

The one thing that this book set up was the truce between the werewolves and the vampires, and I definitely think that could have been done in another way if James and Victoria had never existed (if you can't already tell, I really don't see the point to James and Victoria, and they don't add anything to the books except for a tiny, irrelevant bit of drama).I enjoyed how Meyer wrote the love triangle, and how she made Bella love them both. It felt, to me, more realistic that Bella would feel something for Jacob after everything we read in New Moon and how much she cared about him.

Beyond those things, though, this book really did feel completely useless to me, and I couldn't wait to stop reading it and get back to something that felt like it had a decent plot.

Okay, last one (I commend you for surviving this far). Breaking Dawn.

I...didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I think it's a good conclusion to the saga, and I like how the characters all got a happy ending, but I can't say I think it's amazing or even close.

Bella becoming a mother felt strange and disjointed to the rest of the books--she'd never said she wanted to have a baby, and had even stated that she didn't mind not having a child if it meant being a vampire with Edward. Then suddenly she's pregnant and will let herself die to give birth to the baby? It doesn't fit with what we've read of her character up to this point, and it irked me.

And the baby name...Renesme... Can we take a second to appreciate how stupid that sounds? There were so many other options--honestly, I'd have taken literally any other option--and Bella chose to mash their mothers' names together in the worst possible way. Renesme. Ugh.

Don't even get me started on Jacob imprinting on a baby. The whole thing of imprinting makes perfect sense, but why, why, why did he have to imprint on a baby? A half-vampire baby? Surely his wolf-y instincts would be telling him to get away from her, not throw him right into her tiny little arms and have him fall in love with her. I don't get it, it creeps me out, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

As for everything else... I think it was good, it just sort of felt flat to me. All of the good parts seemed to happen intermittently through the book, scattered between barely tolerable sections and parts that, in my opinion, were shoddy. It made for a difficult book to get through, but the conclusion to the saga was almost worth the trouble.

#twilight #bookreview #book recommendations #twishite #twilightsaga #twilightbooks #booktok #honestreview #renesme

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celtics534 · 4 years

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Whatever it Takes

Covert Love Chapter 21

It’s finally over 😥! The final chapter of Covert Love is upon us. Y’all have been amazing with your love for this story and it makes me so happy! Thank you for all the encouragement and love 😁. I need to credit the amazing @thedistantdusk for all her help with this story! Literally the best person ever!!

This chapter title is based on Whatever it Takes by Imagine Dragons.

Read on: FF.net or AO3

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“ Hey, Prue. Long time no see .”

Harry’s entire body turned to ice at those words, at that voice. He’d know that voice anywhere. It was in all his dreams of the future, in every daydream his mind concocted, and it was the voice that made him feel safe with every word spoken. Except for those six words. Except for in this moment where he was tied up by a lunatic who had a crazy obsession with the love of his life (who happened to be the owner of the voice).

He tried to turn, to look at her, but the rope Prue had tied around him stopped him from turning more than ninety degrees. But even with that limited angle, Harry was able to see Ginny standing in the kitchen doorway, her palms out.

Prue’s shoulders tensed at the familiar voice. She spun around slowly, her eyes sharp as steel as she stared at the person. “ Well , I didn’t expect to see you here , my dear.”

Ginny’s laugh was humorless. “I could say the same for you, Prue.” She moved forward slowly, her gaze locked on Prue. “How about we catch up. I think we have a few things to talk about.”

The laughter that came out of Prue was manic, raising the hairs on his arm. “What is there to talk about, Ginevra? You were supposed to stay at my house. Actually.” Prue’s brow knit together. “How did you get here? France isn’t a short trip.”

France ! Harry’s mind faltered at the word. Prue had taken Ginny all the way to France! They hadn’t even spread their search past the United Kingdom. At the rate they had been going… Nope ! Harry needed to focus on what was going on right in front of him, not some what-if situation.

He took a deep breath, which wasn’t an easy task due to the gag shoved in his mouth. Ginny had moved to stand only a few meters away from him. She was so close he could almost touch her (if it weren’t for the rope pinning his arms to the back of the chair). Every part of him ached to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her. Of course, all the relief he felt at seeing her was numbed by the situation they were in. Yet all his body craved was a chance to hold her in his arms.

“So, care to tell me why you’re here in my brother’s house?” Ginny asked as if she were merely discussing the most recent rainfall. “I assume you have a reason for showing up uninvited to their lovely home.”

“Well, I had to meet this adorable niece you keep raving about!” Prue lofted Victoire a little higher in her arms, making the little girl whimper. “And of course I thought, why not having a cup of tea with the family while I was at it, but for some reason the moment I showed up everyone got rather tense. Including your little boy toy over there.” She jerked her chin at Harry.

“I can’t imagine why.” Ginny’s tone oozed sarcasm. “People tend to respond poorly to surprise visitors, Prue.”

Prue stared at Ginny for a few seconds before her lips curled into a condescending smile. “You may be right there, my friend. Next time I’ll have to remember to send an owl. But until then…” Prue twisted the blade in her hand ever so slightly, making it dig into Victoire’s skin a little more. “How about we all settle down for a lovely chat.”

“Should I go make that tea?” Ginny asked, her tone still level as if they were talking about morning broom traffic over Dublin. If Harry didn’t know Ginny as well as he did, he might have been fooled by her aloof attitude. But if there was one thing in this world Harry was proud to understand was Ginny Weasley. The way her fingers twitched every few seconds, the stiff way she stood, and the tension in her jaw… Ginny was nowhere near relaxed.

Ginny had told him stories about her tremendous acting skills. As a child, she’d used it to get an extra biscuit or get one of her brothers in trouble instead of herself, but Harry hadn’t yet been graced with a presentation of her skills. But as he watched her go toe to toe with Prue he decided she was as good as she’d claimed, maybe even better.

Prue’s head tilted to the side, as if considering Ginny’s offer. After a few moments, Prue shook her head. “Why don’t you take a seat beside your brother?” She jerked her chin to Bill. “Best seat in the house. You’ll be able to see everyone and everything .”

Again, if Harry wasn’t adept in watching Ginny he would have missed the way her neck tensed as she swallowed hard. “Oh? And what will I be privy to seeing?”

The wicked smile that turned Prue's lips made Harry's heart pound against his ribs. Her eyes fell onto him. "Something that should have happened a long time ago."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry bit his tongue as the steel blade ripped into his leg. He refused to give her the satisfaction of showing how much pain he was in. Prue's cuts were precise and deep. Every swipe of her knife sent fire shooting through his body.

The first few cuts hadn’t been so bad, but after Prue’s twentieth slice Harry had given up keeping count. He’d closed his eyes after the tenth slash. At first he'd kept his gaze locked with Ginny, who was straight across from him, her arms and legs bound, but after the tears started falling silently down her cheeks Harry couldn’t look any more. She had tried to stay strong for him, but he saw her wince at every mark Prue made.

“You know,” Prue’s voice was higher than normal as she spoke somewhere to his left. The amusement was too clear in her tone. “This could all stop if you acknowledge your true calling, Ginny.”

Harry slowly opened his eyes to see Ginny’s pinched face, clearly trying to hold back any more tears. When she spoke, the tremble in her voice made Harry’s gut clench. “I don’t know what you mean, Prue. I’ve never known what you meant by that!”

Prue made a tisking noise with her tongue as she tapped the blade of the knife against the side of Harry’s chair. “I was afraid you’d say that.” Harry didn’t even see her hand move but rather felt the sting of the blade as the wound opened on his bicep. Prue let out a high pitched laugh that made every hair on Harry’s body stand on end. “ Whoops .”

Harry forced himself to breathe through the pain. He looked over at Ginny who looked ready to crawl her way to Prue to kill the woman. The way Ginny’s eyes burned with rage… Harry had never seen her emit such anger. He’d seen her angry a time or two, but this… this was a level of intensity that would make Harry cower if the look was direct at him.

“Prue.” Ginny’s voice had lost all its false serenity. Now her fury washed off her like tidal waves. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! So why don’t you stop this insanity!”

Prue just shook her head as she circled around Harry, like a bloodthirsty shark. She let the knife tip graze over Harry’s body as she went around. His shoulder, bicep, arm, thigh. An uncontrollable shiver ran down Harry’s spine every time the blade touched bare skin.

“I’m disappointed to hear you say that.” Prue stopped so she stood directly behind him. Harry watched the knife skim over his arm to hover over his neck. “And I’m sure boy wonder here is feeling… discouraged by your inability to grasp your true self.”

Harry stared at Ginny, willing her to look at him. There were so many things he needed to tell her. How this wasn’t her fault, how much he needed her to stay safe, how much he loved her… He prayed that she could understand all that just by looking him in the eye. But she didn’t take her gaze off Prue.

“I swear if you kill him -'' Ginny's jaw clenched as she pursed her lips so tightly together that the skin around them became impossibly white. Her chest was heaving as she struggled against her bounds. “Just take me instead. Forget about them… about him.”

He could feel Prue’s body as she stood stiffly behind him. Harry could imagine her staring at Ginny with that cold, calculating look. When she spoke her tone was that of a soothing parent, yet her words sent another round of shivers down Harry’s spine. “No, sweetie , you need to be taught a lesson and I think this is the only way.”

The tip of the blade dug into Harry’s skin. He sucked in a deep breath. Harry wasn’t afraid to die. No, in his line of work he’d accepted his death might come at a young age. But to die knowing Ginny would still be in danger… it made a claw seize his heart in a tight hold.

He could feel Prue’s fingers at the side of his neck as she started to let the blade slide along his skin millimeter by millimeter. Harry closed his eyes, wishing he’d been given more time. Time to fulfill his dreams with Ginny. The dreams of getting married, having children, growing old together and getting to watch their grandkids play as they sat on their back porch.

Then suddenly the pain lessened to nearly nothing. Harry briefly wondered if she’d somehow killed him instantly. But the logical part of him knew that was nearly impossible with a neck slash. Then the noise of a scuffle reached his ears. He opened his eyes to see the bloody knife laying on his lap while Ginny and Fleur wrestled with Prue.

He had no idea how the two women had escaped their binds but apparently while Prue had been busy with him, they’d been doing their own work. Ginny’s fist connected with Prue’s cheek bone, making the woman cry out in pain. Fleur had focused on Prue’s feet, knocking her to the ground.

Ginny followed Prue to the ground. Straddling her waist while her knuckles slammed into Prue’s nose, making blood gush instantly. Prue howled in rage and pain, however she didn’t give up easily. She kicked out, knocking Fleur away from the tussle.

Harry struggled against his binds. He needed to help Ginny. Fleur rushed over to him, grabbing the knife from his lap. “ Une seconde, chérie ,” she said before hurrying off to free Bill’s ties.

Normally, Harry would have been offended at Fleur’s choice to free Bill first. But he had to figure his appearance didn’t inspire confidence in being ready for a fight. Hell, without the adrenaline coursing through his system, Harry was almost certain he would have blacked out. He did a quick visual inspection of himself. His once-white shirt was now a dark red and his blue jeans now had darker stains tinting numerous spots. Yeah, he didn’t exude ready for combat .

Harry’s focus was divided between the two groups. To his left Fleur, sliced every braid on the binds that held Bill. To his right, Ginny had Prue pinned to the ground, both women fighting with a fury rarely seen even on a battlefield. For every punch Ginny landed, Prue claws marked Ginny’s skin.

Everything was moving so quickly that Harry’s mind could hardly keep up. One second, there were three strands of rope binding Bill, then there was nothing. At the same time, Prue’s right hook connected perfectly with Ginny’s temple, making the red head fall backwards. Ginny’s loss of balance was all Prue needed. She pushed Ginny off her, springing to her feet faster than Harry expected.

He could see the short lived debate in Prue’s eyes, to run or to fight. It wasn’t more than a second before her flight instincts took control. She bolted towards the kitchen, but Bill was hot on her heels. With a tackle that would have made a rugby player proud, Bill took Prue down to the hardwood floor.

That was when he noticed Fleur had begun to cut his ropes. She was already to the last knot before he’d noticed. Then he was free and on his feet. He reached into his back pocket where he kept a pair of muggle zip ties that he crafted into handcuffs. Bill had Prue face down into the floor, giving him easy access to her wrists.

Prue was screaming unintelligibly into the floor, her body wiggling under Bill, but he outweighed her by nearly five stone, making her struggle for escape practically pointless.

After Harry pulled the ties tight, he rose to his feet, Bill locked eyes with him. “I’ve got her.” his voice was like sandpaper, but his eyes were steady. “Go check on everyone.”

It took Harry a moment to think past the fact they’d caught Prue to remember that there were others in the room. He turned around to see if Ginny was still on the floor where Prue had knocked her, but she’d risen to stand beside Fleur. The two women were trying to comfort a crying Victoire, who had been tied next to her daddy when Prue had turned her focus onto Harry. Fleur pulled the little girl into her arms and held Vic to her chest. Harry could see Fleur trembling as she held her daughter close.

Ginny turned around and their eyes locked. Harry’s mind was completely empty, except of her. Of Ginny, who was the most incredible woman he’d ever met. His legs moved with no hesitation. He needed to get to her, to touch her. Within five long strides he was holding her face in his hands.

Her face had numerous cuts, darkened bruises, and a lip that was rapidly swelling, but she’d never looked more beautiful to Harry. “Are you okay?” His voice was just as rough as Bill’s, but at the moment he couldn’t care less about his scratchy throat. All that mattered was what he held in his hands.

Ginny smiled at him, that smile she saved only for him. “Never better.” She rose to her toes to lightly kiss him. For such a chaste peck, it said so much to Harry. In the two seconds their lips touched, Harry’s heart expanded two sizes with the love he felt for this woman. He leaned his forehead to hers as she said, “I don’t know if you know this, but punching someone is very therapeutic.”

It took a second for his tired mind to register her words, but once they had, Harry started laughing. Ginny joined him, her smile wide as she laughed too. To an outsider they might have looked insane, but Harry couldn’t care less. He was alright, Ginny was alright, and past that nothing else mattered. He kissed her again, letting his lips linger this time speaking against her smile. “I love you.”

Ginny ran a hand up the side of his neck before cupping his jaw. “Right back at you, darling. I think we need to take a little holiday. Have a chance to relax. Somewhere warm and where I can have my way with you whenever I want.”

Harry’s breath hitched as he nodded. “Oh that can definitely be arranged.” He kissed her one final time. “But first, we’ve got to introduce our friend over there to her new cell in Azkaban.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“So Prue was convicted of all accounts,” Jamieson greeted as he plopped a manila folder on Harry’s desk. “Five accounts of kidnapping including a minor, multiple accounts of torture, and of course the stalking.”

Harry picked up the file and quickly flicked it open to see Prue glaring at the camera, her scowl becoming more prominent with each second. Her nostrils flared as she stared down the photographer. “That was fast. A trial and conviction in three weeks. Did Tonks discover anything else that could be added to Prue’s sentence?”

After Prue’s final attempt at freeing Ginny, Tonks and her partner, Emmeline Vance, had dug into Prue’s background and financials. Harry hadn’t been allowed to help due to his removal from the case, and his forced medical leave. He’d been commanded to take three weeks’ leave, which for once hadn’t bothered him because Ginny had also been given time off from the Bats.

They had taken their medical leave to heart, deciding a trip away was the perfect remedy to heal their emotional wounds (because the St Mungo’s healers had easily healed their physical trauma). The Spanish coast they’d found had been secluded and ideal for them. They’d swum with dolphins, eaten a plethora of bananas grown right outside their casa’s window, and spent every night in bed together.

But none of that had been his favorite moment of their holiday. There had been one night that outshone the rest. Every time he thought about that evening a goofy grin split his face. The sunset on his back, Ginny’s hand in his, the waves creating the perfect melody as they crashed against the sand… the best moment of his life had been the instant Ginny has said —

“Potter?” Jamieson slapped his arm, bringing Harry out of his daydream.

“Hm? Oh sorry!” He cleared his throat. “What were you saying?”

Jamieson snorted. “Clearly you had a good medical leave based on that cat-ate-the-canary grin.” Harry could feel his cheeks heat as his boss continued. “Tonks was able to find Prue had offshore accounts. Apparently, before coming to Ireland she’d had a rather lucrative muggle business, which we discovered to have been committing tax fraud before she’d performed an insurance fraud that allowed her accounts to reach a level to somewhere in the high millions.”

Harry had not seen that coming. “Seriously?”

“Yup.” Jamison popped the last letter. “The muggle police had been on her trail until she’d confounded them and disappeared to Ireland.”

“Okay so that’s where she gained her wealth, but what caused her to become obsessed with Ginny?”

“Ah.” Jamieson let the word out on a sigh, propping his hip on the side of Harry’s desk. “It turns out Canon had grown up in an abusive household. Her father was Tom Riddle.”

The name was familiar to Harry, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Remind me of who that is.”

“He was one of France’s most notorious killers. He ran one of Paris’ largest drug cartels. In his twenty-five year reign, he made over five hundred thousand in profit. But during that time he impregnated a young prostitute by the name of Estelle Canon. Based on the intel we’ve gathered through journals found at the homestead where Prue brought Ginny, Riddle sold Prue’s mother to a rival gang for access to their land. Riddle was trying to expand his empire out of Paris. But once Prue’s mother was gone, there was no one there to protect Prue from Riddle’s... more sinister behaviors and desires. ”

Harry’s gut clenched because he had a good idea of what Jamieson meant by desires , and even though he hated Prue, no one deserved to be abused like that. He let out a deep breath. “Okay, so she had a really bad childhood. But that doesn’t explain her fascination with Ginny.”

“Prue’s mother used to read her children’s books where a goddess was stuck on Earth. The goddess was said to be stuck in a human form until she discovered decency among humans. Prue somehow connected Ginny with the goddess in the tale.”

“Okay, I can get that on a crazy level, but why Ginny? Have we tried to get her to explain why she thought Ginny was this goddess?” Harry asked.

Jamieson snorted. “Of course! Vance has been to Azkaban everyday, but Prue refuses to speak. Anything we learn is going to be through her journals, which I’m surprised she even had. We’re planning on taking them to Ms Granger when she has some time.”

Harry nodded, he was no psychologist, so trying to understand why Prue kept a diary was a mystery to him, but maybe Granger could figure things out. “Well, I’m just glad it’s over.”

“You and me both, Potter. “Jamieson clapped a hand to his back. “You did good, minus the whole falling in love with your ward thing.”

Harry looked up into his boss’ amused eyes. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m pretty sure when you knew when assigning me the case that it’s nearly impossible not to fall in love with Ginny Weasley.”

Jamieson let out a bark of a laugh. “I’d never tell her, but that girl had me wrapped around her finger the first time Bill introduced us.”

“Oh and how easy it was,” an amused voice came from behind the two aurors, making them jump and turn to look at the woman they’d been talking about. Ginny was beaming at them as she moved closer.

Jamieson rolled his eyes before smiling at Ginny. “What are you doing here, Weasley?”

She pointed at Harry. “We have an appointment with my parents this evening and I refuse to let him claim some work -- thing -- as a distraction.” She met Harry’s eyes. “We’re in this together aren’t we, Potter?”

Harry could feel that goofy smile coming back. “You know I’d follow you anywhere, Love.”

Again, Jamieson rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to watch this. Potter, you’re free to go once you return that report to Tonks.” He pointed to the folder that he’d lefted on Harry’s desk. Then he was gone, moving across the bullpit to his office without so much as a farewell.

Ginny took Jamieson’s vacated spot, leaning slightly on the edge of his desk. “So how was the first day back?”

Harry shuffled the papers back into the folder, before rising from his chair. He stood in front of Ginny, his fingers moving to graze her hips “Not so bad, though… My mind did wander quite a bit.”

“Hmmm.” Ginny stood to her full height, still making her half a head shorter than him. “And what did your rambling thoughts focus on?”

He brought his hand to hers, threading their fingers before pulling their joined palms up to his lips. He kissed each knuckle until he reached her ring finger where two bands rested. The engagement ring they’d recovered from Prue’s house and the silver ring he’d slid there only a week ago. “How much I missed my wife and wished we were still in our little seaside casa where I could drag her off to bed whenever I wanted.”

Ginny pulled their interlocked fingers away from his face so she could replace it with her lips. She smiled against his mouth, “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about my handsome husband while going through Kennedy’s drills.”

Harry groaned quietly as she nipped at his bottom lip. “How upset would your parents be if we skived off tonight?”

She laughed, pressing a final peck to his lips before away.“Pretty angry, seeing as we’re already going over there to tell her we eloped. Best not to test Molly Weasley’s patience by cancelling.”

He sighed. “I know you're right. At least I think our parents will take it better than Sirius. He’s going to throw a fit that he wasn’t there to be my best man.”

“Don’t worry, love.” Ginny brought their joined hands to her lips before using them to pull him towards the exit. “I’ll protect you from our disgruntled parental figures.”

“I’ll be holding you to that, Ginny Potter.”

She sighed happily. “I love it when you call me that.”

“ Do you.” Harry stopped their movement to pull her into a small alcove near the muggle exit of the auror offices. He pressed her back so she leaned against the wall. “I’ll make sure to say it more often,” he said, leaning in to put his lips right next to her ear. “Mrs Potter.”

Ginny's hand came to knot in his already messy hair, drawing his lip away from her ear before kissing him. “At — this — rate — we’ll never — make — it.” Ginny said each word in between kissing him.

Harry was about to say he didn’t mind one bit, but Ginny cut his words off with a heated kiss that made his mind go blank. Right as he started to debate if he could get away with setting some privacy charms around their little niche, Ginny pulled away. Her hand slid back into his, their matching rings clinking happily together. She winked. “Remember that for later tonight.”

Then she pulled him out of their hideaway and towards the street where they could apparate back to their flat. Harry smiled as they stepped out into the rare Irish sunshine. He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed all because of a covert mission. All because he’d fallen in love with Ginny Weasley.

#hinny #hinny fic #Harry Potter #Harry and Ginny #harry potter fanfiction #harry X ginny #harry potter fan fiction #Covert Love Chapter 21 #Covert Love Final Chapter

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talpup · 3 years

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Summary: Yami Sukehiro just wanted to join the Magic Knights and make his mentor proud. He knew there would be trails. He knew trouble would come his way. Knew he would be faced with discrimination for being a foreigner and a peasant. What he didn’t know. Didn’t expect. Was that literal Chaos would come his way. That he and his mentor’s sister would be at the center of world ending trouble. Or that he would fall in love with his mentor’s sister and face more than discrimination; but the jealousy of Nozel Silva who loved the same woman he did.

Please remember this fic is rated mature and has warnings of violence, abuse, sexual tension, sexual behavior, and other possible triggers. For a full list of story tags please check the fics AO3 (link to that at the top of my tumblrs homepage).

Doing a double update this week for two reasons. One of which is because I’m really excited to share chapter 101. A LOT will be going down next chapter.

Chapter 100

Yami rubbed his eyes, tired from the late night spent in Jax’s office. The secret meeting had felt like it would never end, everyone talking and theorizing about all they had learned. Yami could’ve kissed Greywright when the Commander called an end to it saying it was getting them nowhere. Exhausted from the long day and troubled sleep of the night before, Yami couldn’t have agreed more. The meetings talk had devolved into a mess of words that had left his mind fogged and dizzy.

Having told Jax he would fill Bran in on the rest in the morning, Yami had taken the younger man out for a ride to do exactly that. Jax hadn’t been happy. The Captain was protective of his squad and didn’t like another member being brought in and endangered by all this. Jax hadn’t been much happier about Yami going out for a ride either; but had relented now knowing the cause of Yami’s added aggression, and wanting to help in away way he could.

Back from their ride, Yami latched the gate behind Pilfer. “Any questions?”

“Too many.” Bran stepped back from No Name’s closed kennel. After hearing the whole of it all, his mind was even more fried than it had been after last nights meeting.

“Any questions I can answer.” Yami clarified.

Bran thought a moment, nothing and everything flipping through his mind at once. He shook his head. “None that I can formulate or think of now.”

Yami nodded, understanding. If Bran hadn’t been overwhelmed from sitting in on last nights meeting, he certainly was now. “If you do have any don’t go bugging Teris or Jax.”

“Does that mean I come to you?” Bran asked, a little too eagerly.

Yami nearly said no; but he was the one who had brought Bran in on this. He was responsible for the kid now. As if he hadn’t felt responsible enough for Bran before, what with being Vice Captain and the way Bran looked up to him.

Giving a nod, Yami grumbled. “So long as you aren’t a nuisance.”

“I won’t be.” Bran promised.

“I know it was said last night and I stared with it. But you really can’t tell anyone. Family. Friends. Sir Jorah. Anyone.”

“I know. I won’t.”

Thinking of how poorly he and Teris had masked their own knowledge about Ellara when faced with the Advisor a few weeks ago, Yami told. “And no letting on that you know. So stay well away from Olsen, Iban, and Ellara if you can’t act dumb.”

Before Yami could say that he should stay away from Iban and Ellara regardless, Bran told.

“I can act dumb! I’m real good at it.” Bran grimaced.

Yami chuckled and turned to the path that led up to the house. “Come on. Let’s get inside. I’m hungry.”

100.2

Jon turned the corner to see a squad member leading Jax down the hall.

“On your way to see Captain Julius, Captain?” Jon questioned.

Jax turned, his escort doing the same.

“I’ll take Captain Jax, Fragil. I’m on my way there anyway.”

Fragil nodded and left the two men, going about her business.

Pulling up beside Jax, Jon utterly softly. “You all must’ve learned something really important or disturbing last night. I woke up early this morning to find Captain Julius in his study surround by books. Don’t think he ever went to bed.”

“I didn’t go to bed either.” Jax yawned. “And it was both important and disturbing. How are things with Kess?”

“You say you learned something important and disturbing enough that you and Captain Julius didn’t go to sleep, yet are asking me about the Silver Eagles Captain?”

“No. I’m asking about your new betrothed who just so happens to be the Silver Eagles Captain.” At Jon’s look, Jax shrugged. “What? Someone elses troubles help take my mind off mine.”

“What makes you think the engagement is troubled? And how did you hear of it? We were only just betrothed yesterday afternoon.” Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Have you and my Captain been gossiping again?”

Jax smirked. “News like this travels faster than Wild Fire in a windstorm. So, are congratulations or sympathies an order?”

Jon gritted his teeth and opened his Captain's private study door.

“Stop!” Julius spun around, hand outstretched.

Jax stopped in mid-step.

Julius quickly created a time sphere for all inanimate objects in the room, freezing them in place. “Alright. It’s safe now.”

“Are you sure about that? Julius, what…” Jax slowly stepped inside, concerned eyes looking about the room.

Jon followed in the Black Bulls Captain's wake. He quickly closed the door behind, not wanting any servants or squad members who might pass to see the manic mess. And it was a mess. Books were piled as high as a man was tall. Countless tomes laid strewn open over each other, covering every surface from tables to chairs to the backs and arms of a sofa. There were even a couple books precariously balanced on a pot, crushing some poor plant. But it was the scrolls and loose leaf papers that really made the scene. They were scattered everywhere. Apparently out of room Julius had begun laying pages out on the floor. And when that wasn’t enough, he had taken to tacking things on the wall and pinning them to the curtains.

“Julius! What the--” Jax tripped over the curled part of a scroll, Julius’ spell making it immovable. The Black Bulls Captain cursed, taking several steps to steady himself.

“I had Marx transcribe what Bran overheard, and what the History of Chaos said about the portrait, along with what Teris read from Captain Shadow’s journal.” Julius said, as if that explained the state of his private study.

Jon looked between the two Captain's. “She was able to read it?”

Jax frowned. He was going to tell his friend that it still didn’t explain all this, but Julius spoke first.

“I can’t believe you let Teris keep Captain Shadow’s journal.” Julius said, neither man acknowledging Jon’s question.

Jax shrugged a shoulder. “Seemed reasonable since she’s the only one who can read the hidden message.”

Reasonable as it was, Julius wasn’t having it. “But you know how she is. What if she--”

“Became obsessed and stayed awake all night, littering the floor with paper and pinning things to the walls?” Jax cut in over his friend, looking pointedly around the room.

“I know about the journal you found.” Julius said, reasoning his behavior.

Jax made a face, feeling both guilty and grateful he hadn’t been able to tell Yami about the journal two days ago when Yami had called him out on holding a secret. “I’m going to tell them.”

“You can’t. Teris will--”

“Do the same as you and make a mess of the general study at my base?” Jax questioned over Julius. “Maybe. But we promised those two no more secrets. More than that, Teris and Yami have the History of Chaos. After what we learned last night. Given what you and Greywright came to suppose after I found that journal Iban told me about… What if you and Greywright are right?”

Julius’ eyebrows pulled together. He didn’t like Jax thinking he was right. He didn’t want to be right. It had been a crazy theory at the time. It was still a crazy thought. Just because what they had learned last night further pointed to such a possibility didn’t make the idea any less insane. But given everything else; talk of Chaos and primordial forces, and crazy zealots who wanted to end everything to start a new beginning. Was the notion that they were dealing with someone that old really that insane?

Sighing, Julius relented. “Fine. But at least wait a couple days. Give them tomorrow off to relax and unwind. They’ll need it.”

100.3

Ready for a nap after a hearty lunch, Yami entered Teris’ makeshift office. He shook his head, seeing her bent over Captain Shadow’s journal exactly as he figured she would be. “You gonna obsess over that thing all day?”

“I’m rereading, not obsessing.” Teris muttered, without lifting her head.

“What obsessive freaks like you and Julius call rereading. Normal folk call obsessing.” Yami teased.

“You’re far from normal, Sukehiro.”

Yami smirked, hearing the smile in her voice. He pushed aside the journal Jax should've taken away from her last night and set a plate of food in front of her.

“Hey!” Teris complained, reaching for the diary. Seeing the food, her brows furrowed. “What’s this?”

Yami leaned back against the table. “What’s it look like?”

“Lunch.” Teris’ eyes widened. “It’s lunch time?”

“Past.” Yami crossed his arms and stared down at her. “See what I mean about obsessing?”

Teris’ stomach grumbled. She blushed.

Chuckling, Yami encouraged. “Dig in.”

“Thanks.”

Yami kissed her head, hand smoothing her hair. “I’m gonna take a nap. If you’re not at the table for supper, I’m coming in here and burning that thing.”

“You wouldn’t.” Teris said with certainty.

Yami righted, hand falling to his side. “Try me.”

Feeling less certain, Teris turned in her seat to look at him. Finding his expression void of taunting or humor, she complained. “You’re terrible.”

A small grin cracked Yami’s somewhat stern expression. “Yet you choose to be with me. What’s that say about you?”

“That I’m either a fool or glutton for punishment.” Teris half grumbled, half played.

“Well I know you’re no fool. As for punishment...” Yami’s eyes raked over her, crooked smile growing. “The only punishment I’d ever give would be pleasurable for the both of us.”

100.3.2

Yami closed the door to Teris’ makeshift office feeling a light-hearted ease despite all they’d learned last night. After teasing Teris like that and seeing her beautiful blush, how could he not? Teris was capable of making all his troubles disappear with a single smile. She--

Yami’s footsteps stopped as he passed the narrow door of the servants stairs. “I told you to stay away from Teris. What are you doing sulking around her?”

“I’m not here for Teris. Why do you think I let you sense my presence?” Iban stepped out of the dark opening that led down to his lab.

Yami turned, watching the Blood Mage appear out of the enclosed stairwell.

Iban looked Yami over and tisked. “You really are having a time of it aren’t you?”

“A time of what?” Yami asked. Even without Bran having overheard the conversation between Iban and Ellara, it was always better to play dumb and hope Iban would give further information for free.

Iban stalked closer. “You don’t have to pretend with me, Vice Captain. I can help.”

Yami would’ve rested his hand on the hilt of his katana; but he rarely carried the weapon around the house. Instead he placed a hand on his left hip. “I already told you never to mention that dark magic ritual of yours to me again.”

“I am not speaking of the communicative dreams with the page of Chaos. I am speaking about the trouble you are currently having with the Darkness building within you. ” Iban said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Creepy.”

“So that dark, consuming pull I feel is not beginning to effect your temper?” Iban questioned. “At first I thought it was simply because you have such a short temper as it is. But I was wrong. The force within you is greater.”

“Greater?”

“Greater than the Light that is within--”

Yami snarled, daring Iban to say Teris’ name.

Iban smiled and went on. “I think the Darkness within you is far greater than Alowishus Spade could have ever imagined.”

“But you can help.” Yami supplied with a huff.

Iban gave a single nod.

Yami’s lip twitched in another sneer. “You wanna help? Tell me about this Darkness that’s supposedly building inside me. Way is it so much stronger? What do the Agents of Chaos want with it? What do they have planned for the Winter Solstice?”

“Sorry, Vice Captain. Such answers are far too costly.”

If it weren’t for what Bran had overheard, Yami would've thought Iban was referring to the price it would’ve cost him. But now he knew otherwise. Alowishus Spade had forced Iban into some sort of vow of silence; and the the cost the Blood Mage was referring to was the cost to lives of Iban’s family.

“There’s people working on it. I don’t need your help.” Yami gruffed.

“Who? Captain Jax and Commander Greywright?” Iban’s eyes glimmered in the dim hall light. “Our Captain and Knights Commander are highly capable men. But this is so far from their field of expertise. No doubt that is why the Captain has not told you of the assistance I gave him several weeks back. Because Captain Jax has deferred to Captain Julius. And the Azure Deers Captain is overly protective of his little sister, and protege.”

Yami’s eyes narrowed wondering what he was talking about.

“No doubt you mean Captain Julius and Senior Investigations Mage Marx are working on it.” Iban went on. “Such great scholarly minds might be able to find something that may be of assistance. But will they find it in time? And will it help enough? I can feel the force seeping from your seams. It is like the pressure of an oncoming storm. Ready to burst and wash us away at any moment.” He tilted his head, staring Yami in the eye. “I wonder which you will do first. Kill everything in sight, including your friends. Or head straight to Teris to--” His words cut off in a gurgle.

Hand around Iban’s throat, Yami growled. “Say her name again and I’ll end you.”

“I—be—lieve—oo.” Iban choked.

It was a fight for Yami to force his hand to release the Blood Mage. He stepped back, corded muscles trembling with bridled energy. Never had he moved so fast without mana skin. He could have killed Iban. He had wanted to kill him. The only thing that had stopped him was a small lingering voice of reason. And that voice was quickly fading. Iban was right. He would soon lose control to the force inside him. He had to get a handle on this or else…

Yami looked down the hallway toward Teris’ makeshift office. He could sense her mana as bright as any ships warning beacon. Never before had he worried at how her mana called to him, but he started to now.

Regaining his breath, Iban followed Yami’s gaze. “She may be able to stop you. Call you back as she did once before. But do you really want to put her through that? To take the chance that she will be unable to? That you will devour her and destroy everything in sight?”

“I don’t want your help.” Yami rumbled.

Iban heard the conflict in his voice. “This one will not cost you, Vice Captain. After all it is a form of self preservation.”

Tempted as Yami was, there was one thing stopping him. “No doubt it entails black magic.”

“Yes.” Iban admitted. “It is unavoidable. After all it is black magic that is causing this. Or have you deluded yourself into believing that things Alowishus Spade is doing, including the rituals he put her through and has in store for you, is nothing but benign sanctioned magic.”

Yami glared and told again. “I don’t want or need your help.”

“I admire a man who doesn’t want to dabble in black magic.”

Yami looked skeptically at Iban.

“What? I do.” Iban exhaled, slowly. “That said. In this instance. You either get your hands dirty with black magic. Or you will see them soaked with blood.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“What? Seeing you tainted by using black magic? Or seeing you stained in the blood of your friends?”

Yami ground his teeth, wishing Iban would stop calling such images to mind. “This force inside me is connected or part of my magic and mana, right? Why can’t I just use so much mana a day and stop it from overflowing?”

“That might work for a time.” Iban said.

Yami growled. Julius had given the same answer when Yami suggested it during last nights meeting.

“There is a mana source that could be of help. But I am fairly certain you would be even less likely to accept his assistance than you would mine.”

“Why?” Yami asked.

“Why Spade’s mana? He is Death. The father of Darkness.”

Yami almost ask how Alowishus Spade’s mana could be of help but it didn’t matter. Instead, he asked. “Why me? Teris didn’t have this problem.”

“Your counterpart is not a third seventh born son. Nor does she wield three types of magic from three different worlds. She is from this land. In tune to this lands magic. Her ties are deep. The roots of House Nova’s bloodline goes back further than the Clover Kingdom itself. The family one of the oldest this land has.”

Frowning, Yami shook his head. “I wield no magic from other worlds.”

“Do you not?” Iban questioned.

“My homeland has no magic.”

Iban sighed, annoyed at Yami’s small mindedness. “I am not here to convince you of your unique power, but to offer you a way to deal with the force growing inside you.”

“I said no.” Yami growled, wanting to pummel Iban till the answer got through his thick head.

“Very well. You know where to find me when you change your mind.”

Yami watched Iban turn back toward the servants stairwell, presumably to return his labs. A nagging worry made him call out in question. “What happens if we manage to stay out of the Agents of Chaos’ grasp and their sick ritual doesn’t go down? Do I stay like this? Does the force inside me continue to build until it takes over completely? Or will it just go back to normal?”

Iban looked over his shoulder wearing a crooked smirk. “It is both cute and sad that you think you have a chance of evading them. The man is Death. One would think that you would have grasped at least that by now. You cannot avoid Death, Yami Sukehiro. In the end, Death will always have its way.”

100.4

Olsen’s smile grew at the sound of rowdy banter coming from the dining hall. He heard Venice ask about tomorrows plans and something made him stop short. As a gentleman, Olsen made a point never to eavesdrop. Especially when a lady was talking. It didn’t matter that Venice's question might not be addressed to anyone in particular. Or that the rest of the squad was likely at the table making the conversation far from private. It was still unchivalrous.

Yet Olsen had no control over himself as he inched quietly closer, and listened in, eyes unfocused.

100.4.2

“I’m not sure.” Teris answered Venice's question.

“You should take the day off.” Jax encouraged from his seat.

Teris turned to the Captain. “Really?”

“Yeah. You both should.” Jax said, looking to Yami who sat to his left. He smiled, pleased Venice had given him a way to go about Julius’ ask without raising too much suspicion. The Azure Deers Captain had been right, of course. Whether he was going to tell Yami and Teris about the journal the day after tomorrow or not; his Vice Captain's needed a days break.

Yami’s eyes narrowed. Jax had managed to get the entire squad, save for Iban, two days off little less than a month ago for Vanessa’s birthday party. Encouraging them to take a day off so soon after that seemed suspect.

“What are you playing at?” Yami asked.

“Nothing!” Jax assured, his tone and expression affirming the answer for the lie it was.

Seated to Yami’s left, Tobin nudged him with an elbow. “Don’t go questioning an offer of a day off.”

Yami’s hand curled into a fist. He didn’t want to hit his friend; but these days there was a constant underlying urge to hit something. And, playful or not, Tobin’s nudge nearly had him doing so.

He noticed the way Iban watched him, gold eyes shining. Yami’s hand twitched wanting to wipe the smug, knowing smirk off the Blood Mage’s face. Swallowing, Yami forced his hand open. It didn’t matter if expending a sizable amount of mana wouldn’t work long term. He just needed something to help right now.

“Jack’s been bugging me about going over to the Green Mantis base for a day of sparring.” Yami eyed Tobin. “You game?”

“For squashing that gangly bug? Do you even have to ask?” Tobin grinned.

“That means Teris and I can have a girls day.” Venice enthused.

“It’s been far too long since we’ve had one of those.” Teris said, excited by the thought.

Looking at Venice over the rim of his cup, Jax said. “I find it amusing you and Tobin think you’re getting tomorrow off.”

Abril laughed at Venice's expression.

“Abril will cover for me.” Venice volunteered the other girl.

Abril laughed all the louder.

Jax shook his head. “She can’t. I let her and Bran have tomorrow off a week ago.”

Venice's head snapped to Abril. “What are you two doing?”

“Going to Raque to see Ricte.” Abril answered.

Bran glanced nervously at Gendry. While Gendry frowned at Abril.

“What happened to Ricte worked and couldn’t have any ol’ day off?” Teris asked, protective of Abril.

“Oh! I wanna go to Raque! I haven’t been in so long.” Venice whined.

Thinking Teris wouldn’t have much of a day off without her friend. Never mind that he didn’t want her going out alone. Jax sighed and told Venice. “Fine. You and Tobin can have the day off.”

“I don’t care about Tobin. I just want to go to Raque with Teris.” Venice said.

“Hey.” Tobin complained.

Venice looked at Teris. “You good with spending the day at Raque?”

“A day at the beach sounds grand.” Teris smiled.

“Almost as grand as Gendry and I kicking Jack and Tobin’s ass’s.” Yami said, in attempt at cheering Gendry.

“Hey!” Tobin complained again.

Rolling his eyes, Jax submitted to Yami’s sly addition of Gendry getting a day off. “So long as Iban and Olsen stick around in case a mission order comes in and actual work needs to be done.”

100.4.3

Eyes still unfocused, Olsen quietly exited the house. He created a cloud of water vapor and took to the air, having a sudden explicable and overwhelming need to see Ellara.

Comments are VERY MUCH appreciated and really make my day. Thank you to those who have left hearts. And a special THANK YOU to those who have recently commented or re-blogged. It really means a lot.

I’ve worried for a while that readers would have a hard time keeping everything with the Chaos plot straight given the long, slow draw of that plot and it seems a that worry has come to life. Below is a list of Alowishus’ past lives. If any of you would be interested in a list of chapter and scenes where the Chaos plot is prevalent please let me know, all it would take is a slight amendment to my personal fic notes.

Fin Spade – 1st life, son of Erin (who was Yurist's son) and Mira Spade; Fin was the one who stole the Future of Chaos out of labyrinth #297,353 only having it for a short time before Erin stole it back and "joined" it where it would be safe. Some years later Fin killed his father Erin at a placed known as the Dais.

Garo Belin – 2nd life, son of a middling merchant family; After starting to remember his past life as Fin and thinking he was going crazy, Garo went to the Dais (the place where the geyser labyrinth will eventually be, and currently is in fics timeline). There Garo found Erin Spade's skull and died doing the spell that put Erin’s soul in the skull.

?? – 3rd life; remembered 1st & 2nd lives when he was 10yrs. Collected Erin Spade’s skull that Garo spelled, and finally got some answers from Erin. Because of that he found a purpose that the other incarnations have worked toward and built upon. He's also the one who created what is now known as the Agents of Chaos; and is the one who was/is still called the "Master of Master's".

?? – 4th life

?? – 5th life

Everard Spade – 6th life; was Master of the Agents of Chaos; Captain Shadow killed him 3yrs before she was locked in the geyser labyrinth. Jax currently has his old journal thanks to Iban telling him where to look.

Alowishus Spade – 7th life, currently 380yrs; spent several adult years working on his own before rejoining the Agents of Chaos. Challenged and killed Alric (Iban's third great grandfather) for the right to be Master of the Agents of Chaos.

*Note: thanks to learning and using corpse magic, Alowishus is by FAR the longest lived of all his lives. His second longest life was his 1st incarnation Fin who lived 77yrs.

Next chapter snippet:

“We’ll sort that out later. For now surrender and come with me, and I will see no one gets harmed.”

“And who might you be?” Teris asked.

“Commander Fanzell.” Fanzell said.

It was then that Teris noticed the diamond on his grimoire.

#yami sukehiro #julius novachrono #Black Clover #light in the darkness

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thotsforvillainrights · 4 years

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Oop, I forgot to add it's just depends on how you wanna do it, if you wanna do them in groups, it's fine! Also, I'm the Rat/Mouse Anon that asked bout the their reactions! I'm just sort of curious about their reactions!

(I remember you. Let’s just give it a shot with the League of Villains if that’s okay with you. I’ll even throw Hawks in there for free.)

The original ask went like this: “ Headcanons or reactions if the villains' s/o has a rat/mouse quirk(like they have mouse ears but a rat tail) and they always made jokes about them being part rat like, "I'm finna give you the black death if you keep poking me-"

~Rat/Mouse quirk S/O~

headcanon|scenario|imagine|match-up

-Hawks: As if he weren’t already kinda annoying and cheesy with his bird reference. He’s going to double up with mouse references instead. There’s a whole lot of “Hey mousy! You know you’d make the best prey for a Hawk like me.” I guess it’s his form of flirting, but it can be annoying if it carries on for too long of a time but I’m sure you can handle it because you know he means well.

-Moonfish: For the most part, he never really teases you about how your quirk makes you look. He’s all too familiar with the way a quirk can affect you. Even if you’re not offended by it, he takes respectful strides to treat you like a regular human.

-Kurogiri: Just like moonfish, he’s very respectful and doesn’t tease you about your quirk. Very rarely, he acknowledges it. When he does, it’s always during a more soft moment. He offers reassuring words if it ever makes you insecure. He also takes the time to stroke your ears when you two are alone. It’s just Kurogiri being soft as usual.

-AFO: First thing he does is offers to take the quirk from you because he can. “Are you positive dearest? Is it bothering you? What are the benefits you gain from keeping it?” So say you keep it because it’s a big part of what makes you, well...you! He respects that decision and treats you no differently

-Toga: Obsessed to the highest degree. Tough because you should have already known she’s got this fixation on 2 things...Bloodied and beaten things or super cute things. Because a relationship wouldn’t work with the first option, she takes her interest in the cute aspect instead. She will literally buy a mouse ear headband and walk around like it’s disneyland just to share in your cuteness. Constant random pics of you will be taken, constant moments will come when she tries to put bows on your tail. You’re just cute food for her, and she’s hungry lol

Twice: Can be a little annoying when he’s in Twice mode. When he’s in Bubaigawara mode (stable Twice) then he is mature about most things. After all, it’s just a quirk altercation. No big deal. In Twice mode, he is always in your face giving 2 different opinions at once and also offering you cheese all the time. He’s a little manic so you have to put up with that for a bit. Really it’s not that bad once you try to get him away from the mouse stereotypes

-Shigaraki: He smiles whenever he looks at you because you’re so cute. Unlike most of the others, of course he’s going to tease you sometimes. “Hey mouse, want some cheese?” You probably punch him at this point for being annoying. If you ever happen to get down, expect him to actually be there to support you too. At some point maybe you feel like shit or something because of the way you look. He’ll say something along the lines of “You’re amazing Y/N. You’re the most amazing girl/boy/person I could have ever laid my eyes on. I want you to know that okay? Besides, you’re just a mouse. Everyone knows I’m the ratty looking one in this relationship.”

-Dabi: He’s going to be the one on this list that is most likely to hit you with the plague jokes. This bastard thrives on teasing and annoying you. Go ahead and get pissed because that only pushes his cause even further. The only time he’s not on your ass is when he knows it’s a serious time or something like that. Other than that, be prepared for every mouse/rat joke in the book. Not to mention the way he pulls on your tail or ears from time to time. Then there comes the sexual teasing when he pushes you against the wall gently and locks you in with his arms so you’re forced to look into to striking blue eyes as he leans down and utters “What’s wrong little mouse? Cat got your tongue?”

-Spinner: This boy will be soooooo defensive over you that it’s ridiculous. Due to everything he endured in his life because of quirk altering appearances, he’s going to go out of his way to protect you from anything like that. He’s stressed because even though you’re cute, there will always be people out there that won’t accept quirks as a part of society. You will always be a freak to someone out there. Spinner is determined to protect you from that hurt. Even if you’re just chilling on the couch at the LOV headquarters and someone is being playful with you (IE probably Dabi) then Spinner will literally fight over that. What may be a joke to them, could potentially hurt you (even if you tell him you’re okay lol)

-Compress: 10/10 boyfriend and husband material. I don’t mean to put him on a pedestal like Kurogiri, but they’re both best to be with especially if you have a quirk like this. For Compress, he manages to be respectful but cheesy at the same time. Like the mic jokes come, but he’s so awkward and over the top with his flirting, that he makes you laugh every single time.

-Magne: Sis is shook. She already feels like you’re hot but now you’re also cute as well?!?!?! She is the type of significant other to wanna show you off all the time. It would work if she weren’t currently a villain and avoiding social media lol. Either way, expect a lot of dates and compliments out of her because that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. She spends more time complimenting your quirk rather than teasing you over it.

-Muscular: The only other big asshole in the group besides Dabi is of course going to be my mans Muscular. The difference is that he can be a little too rough for you sometimes and may even end up telling you to suck it up if he hurts your feelings but I swear he’s not that bad all the time. There are soft moments when no one else is around and he’s softly stroking your tail while you guys watch a movie together on the couch or something

-Mustard: Little sweetheart but won’t admit it. Lowkey makes shitty art of you in his notepad. He’s even the type to write your two initials together somewhere in the hideout where he thinks you won’t see it. He has a little beanie baby mouse he sleeps next to when you’re away. It’s not full cuddling or anything, he just puts it on his nightstand and stares at it until he falls asleep, or until you call him with your good night message. A real cutie but will deadasss hit you with the plague insults when you’re together.

»—————————–———————————————————–✄

TIp Jar: https://cash.app/$YuTakeyama

#league of villains #lov #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #hawks #moonfish #bnha mustard #kurogiri #afo #toga #twice #magne #dabi #shigaraki #spinner #muscular #compress

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litwitlady · 4 years

Text

whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still (4/6)

Read on AO3. - A chapter ahead over there.

Warnings: mentions of murder and childhood abuse

iv. Max

‘And Max. He’s your brother? You were found together?’

Michael nods but frowns. ‘We’re brothers in theory, I guess.’

‘In theory? Explain that.’ Dr. Sampson hands him a cup of coffee and settles back into her seat.

He shrugs. ‘He and Isobel were adopted together. I got thrown into the system. Once I returned to Roswell, we struggled - I struggled.’ He clears his throat and takes a sip of the coffee. ‘He can be a condescending dick. And as de facto leader, he pisses me off - a lot.’

‘Have you ever been close?’ Dr. Sampson has a voice that lures things from you - ugly truths that you never made a conscious decision to admit. To yourself or anyone else. Michael decides it’s her superpower.

‘Once. Back in high school. Before all the lies.’

She smiles warmly, trying to soothe the answers loose. ‘I know you two aren’t blood related, Michael. And that your relationship is often strained. But do you still think of him as your brother?’

‘Only sometimes.’

***

Michael doesn’t immediately go to Max. He drags his feet for a couple of weeks and is happy to continue doing so, but Isobel has other ideas. She begins orchestrating reasons for family meetings - their doppelganger problem, Liz and Max’s emotional crisis, her desire to cook some new recipe.

None of her plans work. Michael too stubborn and Max too oblivious. It’s not until Max unexpectedly climbs down into Michael’s bunker that avoidance is no longer possible. And he comes at the worst moment. Michael is already fuming - his newest calculations providing nothing but bad news. No matter how many simulations he runs. It’s frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating as when he’d run into Alex and Forrest that morning. At the Crashdown having breakfast, hands touching across the table. This time they had noticed him and he honestly wishes they hadn't.

‘Not in the mood, Maxwell.’ He doesn’t bother looking up from his worktable.

Max ignores him and slides a stool over, sitting far enough away that Michael can’t reach him. Already playing defense to Michael’s anger. ‘You’re never going to be in the mood for this, so sit down and listen.’

Michael laughs, bitter and sarcastic. ‘Fuck you, Max.’

‘I don’t want to be the leader of this anymore.’ He motions vaguely around the bunker.

That certainly grabs Michael’s attention. ‘Come to handover your letter of resignation?’ He sits down on his own stool and smirks at Max. ‘Because I accept. Long live Queen Isobel.’

‘Not Isobel, Michael. You.’ He’s looking at Michael through those big, brown puppy dog eyes - full of sincerity. Not a single hint of humor anywhere on his face.

Michael laughs anyway. ‘I don’t have time for this, Max. Go brood somewhere else.’

Max stays quiet but he doesn’t move. He watches Michael work for a long time. It frustrates Michael because it’s always been one of his favorite strategies. Wait him out until he crumbles - which Michael always does because Max can be a patient motherfucker once he digs his heels in and decides to be an asshole.

The air around them thickens and when Max clears his throat, Michael comes the tiniest bit unhinged.

‘Alright, fuck! Say what you came to say. I’ll listen.’ He only half means it, but Max seems satisfied enough.

‘Sheriff Valenti confessed something to me a few months back. Something I’ve kept from you and Isobel.’ He stares down at his hands and grimaces. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you or what any of it meant or even who I was anymore. And that was wrong. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things, Michael. Especially with you.’

Michael rolls his eyes at Max’s melodramatics. ‘Spare me the contrition, Max. Just spit it out already. I have work to do.’

‘It wasn’t you in the group home who was drawing all over the walls. It was me.’ Their eyes meet over the table and a heated silence falls around them. Michael blinks slowly, not comprehending what he’s just heard. ‘I was the deranged, damaged kid. And I think I’ve known that all along.’ He shakes his head and breaks eye contact, staring back down at his hands.

More silence. Several moments stretching long between them. Finally, Max sighs. ‘Say something.’ Emotion straining his voice. Eyes welling with tears.

Michael continues to glare at Max. Not believing he has the audacity to cry. He tries to stand but it’s like he’s glued in place. And instead of his normal white hot rage, a calm coolness washes over him. Pooling in the bottom of his belly. Michael knows that feeling is hate. Pure, icy hatred. He’s not unfamiliar with the feeling - Jesse Manes, Kyle Valenti, Flint Manes, Noah Bracken. Sometimes the list seems endless.

‘Explain it better, Max. Make it make sense.’ Every word pushed through teeth clenched so tight he’s worried they’ll break.

The tension surges between them, the temperature palpably rising in the windowless bunker. Michael’s not sure he’ll hear anything Max says - not with the ferocious pounding in his head. Blood pumping through his veins like icy sludge.

‘All my nightmares as a kid - the times Isobel literally had to mind-walk me so I’d calm down. My obsession with the symbol - the way I’d doodle it over and over again in every notebook I ever owned. And then the tattoo.’ His voice cracks, high-pitched and frantic. ‘Now, with all that devil talk? Michael, I couldn’t have survived what you survived. I’d have killed more than some random pervert in the desert.’

Michael stalks towards him, fists raised. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? I was kicked around - slapped, beaten, burned. And that’s all supposed to be okay because you were safe? From yourself?’ A strangled noise rises from Michael’s throat. ‘I was never loved, Max. Not ever. Not once. All so you could be protected and loved, held tight by the perfect fucking family?’

He takes several steps forward, fisting the collar of Max’s jacket. The urge to wrap his hands around his brother’s throat throbbing in his fingers.

Max grips Michael’s wrists softly. ‘And yet, you are the most loving of the three of us. Of anyone I’ve ever met. And no that’s not fair, but it’s the goddamn truth.’ He pounds his fist on the table and Michael flinches, dropping his hands away and stepping back. Watching as Max’s tears finally crawl down his cheeks. ‘You’ve always had the most control - ever since we were kids.’ He throws his hands up in submission. ‘You’re not the murderer, Michael. I am. It always had to be this way.’

A manic sort of laughter overwhelms Michael. He can barely believe what he’s just heard. And by someone meant to love him. He turns his back to Max and moves as far away as he can. The rage inside him festering into something almost sentient. He closes his eyes and counts backwards from twenty - inhaling and exhaling around every number. Like Dr. Sampson had suggested whenever his anger tries to get the best of him.

Michael can choose to take back control. To let it all go. Even if the other person doesn’t deserve such kindness.

And it works, mostly. Some of his tension drains away and the weight on his chest subsides enough for him to breathe again. He’s still angry - still furious. But it’s a low, simmering heat now - not the numbing white hatred that had consumed him earlier. His head is spinning with this sudden rewrite of his life and there’s only one person he wants to talk to right now. And that person is certainly not Max Evans.

Michael slowly turns around and shakes his head at Max. ‘I need time. Maybe a lot of time.’ He needs Alex. ‘I miss my brother. I’ve missed my brother for a long time now. But the truth is, Max? I don’t recognize you anymore.’

Max nods. ‘I get that. And for whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.’ He starts to walk away but stops with one foot on the ladder. ‘I won’t tell Isobel yet. To keep her out of your hair for a while. However long it takes for you to process all this.’

‘I’ll tell her when I’m ready, Max. You don’t have to keep making all the decisions and putting in all the work. We can’t be a family until we’re all on equal footing.’ He moves towards Max. Not necessarily because he wants to - because he doesn’t. Not right now, anyway. But he knows that some future version of himself will want this. That Max needs this and Isobel. Maybe even Liz. So, he wraps his arms around Max, quick and tight. One sharp clap on the back. ‘Maybe take a trip to California.’ He pulls back. ‘I hear it’s nice this time of year.’

Michael returns to his calculations and Max leaves, already planning the best route to California in his head.

#whoever is filthy let him be filthy still

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crimeronan · 4 years

Note

i wanna hear more about your headcanon of declan as autistic (no pressure! only if u want to)

oh ariana we’re really in it now

not all of these bullet points are specifically related to autism bc this just turned into a post about how fond i am of declan. however. autistic declan lynch rights here we go

speech

declanisms

really, keeping a list of action-based conversation starters to meet your goals that all sound like something a caricature of a high-level business executive would say... honey

memorizing clever turns of phrase and the cadence of storytelling

and refusing to ever use this love of language in public lest it make him vulnerable or ruin anything he’s built

having practiced regulating his vocal tone and inflection to make them both as normal and as free of personality as possible

being unable to modulate his vocal tone and inflection when he’s Not actively concentrating on regulating them - speaking impulsively from a place of upset, getting excited about things, etc

physicality

having also practiced his physicality to appear as unthreatening and unobtrusive as possible

mirroring strangers, casual acquaintances, criminal associates

actively schooling himself not to talk with his hands; natural storytelling comes with gesturing and physical involvement

having pleasant conversations and being pleasant to exist around while managing to have absolutely no friends

anxious stomachaches

nervous tics

refusing to allow himself comfortable clothing or a comfortable living space despite seeming to want these things

deciding he can have nice shoes, as a treat (doesn’t have anything to do with neurodivergence i just think it’s cute)

internal emotions

Everything Is Horrible, All The Time, But That’s Fine Because That’s Just How Life Is For Me And I’ve Accepted It

deeply unhappy, deeply bored, deeply exhausted, deeply terrified

given up on dreams and ambitions because they will never be accessible to someone like him (one of those things that in-narrative isn’t autism-related, but sure can be a hashtag relatable feel)

happiness, excitement, joy, any positive emotions are all “dangerous” because they represent a loss of control

zero to one hundred IMMEDIATELY in terms of anger, manic excitement, terror, misery, self-flagellation

constantly self-regulating, compartmentalizing, putting aside, and refusing to act on emotions despite feeling Incredibly Deeply

anxiety

obsessing, catastrophizing, making contingency plans, exploring bad outcomes, regretting past actions literally every single second of every day

aforementioned physical anxiety manifestations

resigned to ronan and matthew’s eventual deaths even when things are Mostly Okay

convinced that if and when something happens to ronan or matthew, it will be his fault

none of these things are autism-related specifically, there’s just something in his repetitive thoughts / methods of self-soothing / ways of internalizing trauma that's..... a feeling

child development

one of those kids who would have been called “precocious”

had developed a system for watching/protecting ronan and trying to convince ronan not to dream things by age five

specific interests in things deemed uninteresting or unimportant

didn’t engage in the same play behavior most kids his age would

got overwhelmed and cried over liking a gift too much

consciously aware of niall’s disdain for him, aurora’s ephemeral nature, and ronan’s dangerousness to himself at age five

some of these things are definitely exacerbated or fully caused by a childhood of emotional neglect and endangerment; autism reading integrates with this rather than replacing it. i strongly feel declan would still have been a “precocious” child with a healthy happy parental upbringing as well

sense of responsibility

extremely stressed by any situation he can’t control

will attempt to control situations beyond his jurisdiction to minimize this

studies so many parenting books after technically becoming ronan and matthew’s caretaker because he has no frame of reference for parenting and does not trust his instincts

“if you want something done right, do it yourself” a life motto by declan lynch

“everything is my fault, all the time” a life motto by declan lynch

“except when it’s dad’s or ronan’s fault” a pretty fair addendum by declan lynch

mental stimulation

so unbelievably bored with his life situation

THRILLED any time he gets to play games or engage in clever conversation - seen a little in his “crime makes me feel alive” vibes, his back-and-forth banter with jordan

won’t let himself get engaged in things because passion feels unsafe

enjoys himself for about one hour of one single night and then immediately starts cracking to pieces about how living in a constant state of mental dissatisfaction is killing him slowly

somehow manages to be surprised by this turn of events

interests

he hides art he loves in a murder attic like a feral cat who refuses to eat in front of people. i don’t even need to get into this

absolutely immediately enchanted to the point of self-labeled stupidity by watching jordan paint

infodumping about art history

trading art interests with jordan bc he’s legitimately interested and excited by what she knows and feels passionate about

this entire post should just be the murder attic. declan oh my fucking god

aforementioned collecting of language he likes

the whole tyrian purple thing. again. declan oh my fucking god

emotional intimacy

craves emotional intimacy but is TERRIFIED of being known and/or being rejected

is convinced he can never and will never have emotional intimacy in his life

has all the stamina of a wet tissue in terms of keeping his emotional secrets when jordan cottons onto them

gets annoyed by relationships with people who want emotional connection but continues playacting through the motions of said relationships in the hopes of being less lonely

comforting people / expressing genuine care

declan attempted to dispense comfort. “everybody dies, matthew”

i have to put attempted to dispense comfort on the list again. oh my god. to declan’s brain, emotional comfort is a vending machine that’s eaten ten dollars in a row and is now falling on him after he made the mistake of shaking it

declan regretted saying anything. [immediately says the worst thing possible]

write your routine, ronan. now. now. write it. write it down. (because i’m worried you’re going to kill yourself but have no idea how to say that so i have to focus on concrete action.)

every time he’s tried to say “i’m worried about you” and instead gone “why are you inconveniencing me this way.” king

having no sense of how to communicate feelings or solve emotional conflicts through talking despite attempting to do these things frequently, AFTER STUDYING OUT OF BOOKS, to his detriment

preferring to take care of people silently and subtly through protecting them and making things easier for them, extremely similarly to how ronan does

irritability

constantly in a low level fugue state of annoyance

runs on caffeine and fumes

very thin patience for anyone else’s inability to stick to plans, manage time, regulate emotion, do their jobs, follow through on commitments, etc

the unceasing “i’m not unhappy. i’m not unhappy. i’m not unhappy” while at work screams of “i am in sensory/emotional hell all the time and checking slightly out of this plane to deal”

loses control all at once, when he does lose control

drains energy like a broken cellphone battery from the effort of combating misery, anxiety, mental overload, boredom, masking all thoughts and feelings

bonus content: parents

the actual in-universe reasons for these things aren’t related to neurodivergence as far as we know, but

growing up as the unfavored child whose interests are constantly ignored or shut down

seeing your siblings get preferential treatment for no reason

being silenced or punished every time you express dissatisfaction or unhappiness or anger

being considered disposable

internalizing the idea that you’re a burden unless you’re worth something to others

that’s a real common lived realty for autistic ppl

bonus content: brothers

i read all three lynch brothers as being on the spectrum and all having different experiences with it

i read matthew as having had the inverse experience of declan, in which he flaps and stims and chews loudly and talks a mile a minute and expresses himself with excitement and passion and bouncing

& he has Not been punished for it or made to feel like it should be hidden

declan’s ferocious protectiveness of matthew is in many ways bc he wants to keep matthew from suffering the same way he has

differing autism spectrum experiences fit neatly into that

ronan and declan’s experiences are in some ways wildly different

in other ways, though

going zero to one hundred on the emotional spectrum, defaulting to anger to avoid fully feeling internal chaos, being unable to understand the other’s feelings or thought processes / making wildly incorrect conclusions about them, preferring to show feelings through action rather than words, struggling to translate genuine emotion into expression without coming across as a dick

they are Very Similar

declan and ronan do a lot of “dog growls at its own reflection” about this because neither of them is more furious than when they see their own perceived shortcomings in the other

i’m positive i’ve forgotten some things and also positive i have not communicated all of these thoughts as effectively as i would like but i have been typing this post for a thousand years. here you go

#trc #cdth #declan lynch #i love my idiot son #suicide m #ableism -#Anonymous

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shakespearerants · 3 years

Note

Mocha, Jasmine Tea, Iced Lemon Tea <3

Mocha: Dream job?

Oof I honestly don’t know. I like knowing things and laghing manically so...evil scientist? Let’s see if something works its way out. Though tbh I’m just starting to gain enough energy to master day to day uni stuff again so I’m not really in a place where ‘what do I want to get paid for when my minimum of another three years of uni is done’ is something I really think about.

Jasmine Tea: If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

That is a QUESTION! There are three answers to this:

1) Italy, specifically the Naples/Sorrento area, because that’s where my Studienfahrt went to and it was honestly beautiful and one of the very very few good memories I have from my time at school BUT I would like to see it without a horde of drunk 17 year olds. Also I was sick the day we went to Pompeii and that has been a source of constant regret ever since.

2) The United Kingdom, specifically Ireland, Wales and Scotland. This is for archeologist reasons also I just always wanted to visit.

3) Someplace without light pollution. I long to see the milky way again, ideally when camping somewhere really remote. Looking at a light pollution map of Europe, there aren’t that many options! I’ve been thinking about Iceland, Greenland, or I might someday take a trip to the Czech Republic to connect with old family roots in Schlesien.

Iced Lemon Tea: Favourite song/ band?

Have you SEEN my Spotify??!! No you haven’t so let me tell you I regularly crash the app because I have too many fucking playlists. I am Obsessed with what my friends are listening. The second question I ask anyone after I meet them for the first time is what kind of music do you listen to. This question prompted hours of rumination and enough digging to make my head spin. I had to divide this question up into different parts because else I never would’ve answered it.

Favourite song i.e. a song I’ve been obsessed with lately: Garmana - Naden

Favourite song i.e. I know all the lyrics and you physically can’t stop me from singing along: Faun - Dies kalte nacht, Qntal - Palästinalied, Klaus Lage - 1000 und 1 Nacht (Zoom!) (also pretty much the entirety of my Mitsingen! playlist)

Favourite song i.e. I won’t ever get sick of it: In Extremo - Frei zu sein, Fall Out Boy - Disloyal Order of Waterbuffalos, Celine Dion - All By Myself

Favourite song i.e. objectively perfect from a technical standpoint: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Favourite song i.e. I can’t listen to it without crying: The Irrepressibles - In This Shirt

Favourite band i.e. Spotify says I listen to them the most: Linkin Park

Favourite band i.e. every song is a banger: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance

Idk I don’t really listen to bands? Or albums for that matter I’m a playlist and single songs kind of person.

This is...not everything. Literally I am always down to just exchange songs with people my favourite thing in the world is just going “listen to this” with someone for hours.

#Quizzed!#Jessi ilysm for asking <3

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gofordrakgo · 4 years

Text

Dwelling Chapter Sixteen

“The moment her head jerked back ever so slightly he was sure that he’d messed up, but it still took him far longer than it should have to pull his hands away from her shoulders. Even as his hands slowly dropped back to his sides, he couldn’t look away from her eyes staring into his. They really were a startling shade of green. He was sure that he’d never seen such gorgeous and memorable eyes in his whole life.”

Dwelling Summary

Dwelling Chapter One

Dwelling Chapter Fifteen

Dwelling Chapter Seventeen

The vibrant streak of blood on the toe of her shoe turned his stomach, but Drew couldn’t bring himself to look at anything else as he stumbled along beside Shea who was very nearly carrying him after his knees had suddenly buckled underneath his weight. He’d vaguely heard her saying something about “shock” when she caught him before he could fall. Her grip still tight on his arm was the only thing that stopped him from curling into a ball in the middle of the stairwell.

Her hands were warm.

And she still smelled good.

And, although he couldn’t make out what she was saying, her voice was nice to listen to.

But he couldn’t stop staring at the streak of blood on her shoe.

He’d never seen something so ruthless in his life. Or at least, he’d never seen someone do something so ruthless on his behalf. It wasn’t shock, he thought, that had his head spinning. At least, not about how effortlessly she’d won a fight against a man twice her size - one who was armed, at that. It was that when she’d turned to look at him - or rather not look at him - she’d looked more nervous about… him than she had about a man she accused of threatening to kill him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he couldn’t help but note that she hadn’t even broken out her glowing green fire to help her. That thought was beaten down by the realization that bile was rising in his throat.

Choking it down he gasped out, “Your shoes,” just as Shea unlocked the door to their apartment. She hummed curiously in response and, nearly begging, he elaborated, “Off. Take them off,” hoping he wouldn’t upchuck what little food was in his stomach.

Pulling out of her grasp, he stumbled over and collapsed on the couch while she kicked her shoes off at the door. He’d all but forgotten the strawberries clutched in his arms until she walked over and plucked them from him. A faint smile formed on his lips as he watched her eat one like she was sneaking candy before putting the rest of the carton into the fridge.

“Are you okay now?” she muttered, sitting curled into a ball on the chair beside him. It was obvious that she was still avoiding making eye contact with him even if she tried to look relaxed, fiddling with the sleeve of the borrowed hoodie.

Nodding, he closed his eyes to focus on taking a deep breath before trying to speak again. If he wasn’t expecting to blurt out what he said next he could only begin to imagine how much more surprised she must have been. Still, at least his offhanded question, “Have you ever seen a robot fight?” finally got her to look at him.

“Sure,” she answered after a moment. “Um… this lady, Electronique, has sent robots after us a few times. Doesn’t work very well, but she keeps trying.”

Drew blinked. Then blinked again. Despite the fact that he knew he ought to be scared of making her mad, he threw his head back and let out a laugh upon realizing what she meant.

“That’s not the kind of robot fight I’m talking about,” he told her when his worryingly manic (even to his own ears) laughter died down. “I mean a– a robot fight. It’s… sorta a competition. Teams build robots then, well, make them fight.”

“Oh,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing. His own face warmed up at the thought that when she blushed like that, with the hood of his sweatshirt still pulled up over her head, she turned so green that she looked a bit like a turtle hiding its head inside its shell. A cute… A turtle. Just a turtle. Turtles are not cute.“Then… no. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

“Would you - only if you wanted, of course - but I um… Would you want to join my team? Well, it’s not my team. I mean, the team was my idea and all, but James and Bobby and Kashwin are all–”

“Drew?” Shea mercifully interrupted his ramblings, raising an eyebrow at him. He gulped as he fell silent, and hoped that his nod showed her he was listening. “Not that I’m… saying no but I don’t know the first thing about building robots.”

Grinning, he shook his head. “You wouldn’t have to worry about that. We’ll build the robot.” He felt his grin grow wider as he thought about how merciless she’d been fighting a real person - he was sure that a robot would get even less pity from her. “But I think you’d be the perfect person to operate it.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Drew repeated, scoffing before he remembered that not everyone’s minds worked the same way his did. “Sorry,” he apologized, although she didn’t look particularly offended. “Well, it’s just that you… You didn’t flinch. And that was a real fight, Shea! We could use someone as… as cutthroat as you.”

He was fairly certain cutthroat didn’t mean… actually cutting someone’s throat. Could robots have throats? He supposed they could. Humanoid ones at least. Although animals had throats too, so if they built a robot that looked like a dog or a… a lion or something then it could sort of have a throat, right?

Shaking his head, he forced himself to focus on the actual conversation he was having.

“Of course I didn’t flinch,” Shea was mumbling, as he turned his attention back to her. “Flinch and people die.” Her voice was high and mocking, he presumed in mimicry of some lesson that had been drilled into her during her time as a superhero. But there was a more serious undercurrent to it too, something angry and sad and a little scared.

Looking at her just then, the thought he’d been trying to avoid infiltrated his mind and wouldn’t get out. It must be terrible to be her. She really was just… a scared little— well, she wasn’t a little kid at all, but she was just a scared teenager. Sure, he knew he’d been the one to get so startled during that awful movie she’d made him watch that he fell off the couch and that she was the one who’d found it more entertaining than anything else. He also knew that never in his life had he met someone who seemed so on edge. And how could he blame her? How could anyone blame her?

“What was it like?” he blurted, letting the question stray from his thoughts before he could stop it. “To be a superhero, I mean? Were you ever scared?”

“No,” Shea scoffed and then started to fidget, shooting a frown in his direction. “I mean, I guess when I was little it was…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head, then shrugged. “Training was always worse than the real thing. By the time we actually had to face down people who wanted to hurt us, it… didn’t seem all that bad.”

“What about your little brothers? Don’t they get scared?”

Shea scoffed again, though any trace of amusement was gone from her voice. He watched as she curled up into a ball once more, resting her chin on her knees. Her eyes turned glassy as she stared absently ahead of her.

“Of course they don’t get scared,” she muttered. “They still think it’s a game. They’re barely even ten. They don’t know that they should be scared.”

“I would be terrified,” he declared, only realizing the truth in the statement as he said it. “Even with your powers - don’t you ever think that someone will—”

“Drew,” she snapped, pointedly cutting him off. He blinked stupidly at her and immediately began to feel guilty for blabbering about a subject she clearly didn’t want to talk about. “If some horrible awful thing exists I promise you someone’s already tried to do it to us. There’s nothing anyone could throw at us that we haven’t already faced at least once.” Adding in a mutter that he wasn’t sure he was meant to hear, she all but spat, “Or I haven’t faced, at least.”

Although “shut up” went unspoken, it was clear enough that’s what she wanted him to do. He bit his tongue to stop from asking her more about what her life was like.

“I guess I wouldn’t want to talk much about it either,” he relented apologetically. “After all, I’m sure you didn’t just run away on a whim, did you?”

From the way she frowned at the floor, he suspected that hadn’t been the best thing to say. Maybe she had run away on a whim, he didn’t know. He didn’t know much of anything about her, really.

“I should make dinner,” he announced for a change of subject. “Do you… want to help?”

She shook her head and after spending a moment too long watching her in the hopes she might change her mind, he decided to just let her be, retreating into the safety of the kitchen to prepare the chili mac he’d planned. It wasn’t his most impressive recipe - to be honest, he wasn’t particularly fond of it -but he hoped she wouldn’t mind. Given that her eating habits seemed so far to consist of nibbling on fruit when she wasn’t forgetting to eat, he couldn’t see why she would. Besides, it was a little late in the evening to be cooking anything more time-inducing as it was.

He had just about finished prepping the ingredients he would need - only digging through to the back of the cabinet for his last unopened box of macaroni noodles - when he heard her shuffle into the kitchen, though hearing her didn’t stop him from jumping when he turned to see her sitting on the counter. She still had yet to pull the hood off her head and he was increasingly tempted to push it down himself.

“There’s this one guy,” Shea began, her voice quiet. “His name’s Magnus. Literally, Magnus Tism. And you’ll never guess - the guy’s obsessed with magnets. Well, sorta. He’s convinced he can control metal. Or, at least, he seems convinced. We all thought he could at first too, before we found out that he had some weird super-powerful magnets hidden in this ridiculous costume that he wears.”

She paused a moment, staring into space as he silently added his ground beef and onions into the skillet on the stove and began to stir. He almost said something to encourage her to keep speaking, but then she sighed and continued as if she’d never lost focus at all.

“The first time we fought him was a month after we got out of– a month after we officially became heroes. You know what he wanted? What he demanded so he wouldn’t bring down every building in the city? He wanted metal so that he could use his superpowers to make a sculpture. He didn’t even want a lot. But we couldn’t just help him get some metal. Oh, no. We had to fight him and throw him in jail even though all he’d done by then was make empty threats.”

She brought her hands up, closer to her face then, and started lighting her hands and letting the flames die over and over, plasma bouncing between her fingertips like a ping-pong ball made of light. He couldn’t stop himself from staring at her borderline-hypnotic idle habit, even as he continued cooking.

“He didn’t even know we existed. He didn’t want to hurt us. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. And then Heath - Hego - punched him halfway down the street. After that, he decided he was going to kill all of us. We spent half an hour dodging cars that the two idiots were throwing at each other. But you know what the worst part about it was?”

Shea paused for a moment, long enough that he eventually realized she was genuinely looking for an answer, and he hummed questioningly in response.

“All I could think the whole time was that at least cars were easier to see than knives. Easier to dodge, too. After dealing with that in training, having some mad-man with a magnet try and obliterate us didn’t seem that bad.”

There was a part of him, a large enough part that it took more effort to keep it silent than it should have, that could only think that the story she’d told would make a fantastic comic book. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d seen her glow - and now seen her fight as well - he might have called her a liar and assumed she’d gotten it from one in the first place. He very nearly asked if there were comic books about her, but decided against doing so, remembering how upset she’d been that he knew something as basic as her hero name. It seemed best to let her tell him what she wanted when she wanted. Even if he was undeniably curious.

He didn’t know how long he stood there in silence, trying to piece together some response. It wasn’t as if he had any experience with superheroes outside of reading about and watching their adventures. And until a few days ago, he’d thought they must all be entirely make-believe.

“Huh,” he managed to utter when her foot - when had he lent her a pair of his socks? - pushed against his hip. “I um… Did he change his name or did it always sound like the word ‘magnetism’?” It wasn’t what he meant to say, not that he knew what he did mean to say. But it served to make her snort and push him back another step.

“Far as we know, it is his real name,” she answered with an amused (or at least he hoped) roll of her eyes.

There was another silence then, and finally, he confessed, “I’m sorry, I really don’t know what I should say.”

“I don’t know what you should say either,” she said. He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not and he felt himself nervously staring at her until her eyebrows furrowed and she glanced away, making him realize what he was doing.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, glancing away as well to turn his focus intently on starting to add in his other ingredients.

After a long moment, Shea spoke again. “Do you… want any help?” She sounded unsure of the offer, even as she said it.

“You?” Drew asked, immediately starting to tease her without thinking about it. “You actually want to help cook dinner?”

She turned to glare at him, and he grinned back at her, more amused than scared. “Forget I asked,” she grouched. The small smile fixed on her lips detracted from how annoyed her crossed arms made her look. “Get stirring or whatever, oh king of dorks.”

It was his turn to glare, though he didn’t think he did a much better job at looking annoyed than she did.“You could measure out two cups of the macaroni for me,” he suggested, realizing that, distracted by her story, he’d completely forgotten to do so himself.

“After you tried to burn me alive yesterday?” Shea snorted.

“Nngh! I did not try and– And your hands are fine, anyway!”

“You also tried to shoot me last night.”

“It was a grape!” he protested, his ears warming at how whiny he sounded. “Pest,” he added, grumbling under his breath. Was it really only the night before that all that had happened? It seemed like ages had passed since then. His whole body felt heavy with exhaustion suddenly.

“Uh-huh,” she agreed, and it took him a moment to recognize the sarcasm in her tone. Airly commanding, “Just cook,” she waved a perfectly healed hand in his general direction.

“You know, you’re very demanding!”

Her laughter shouldn’t have delighted him so much, and he tried to glance away before thoughts about how cute she was could infiltrate his mind. He was too late and, for a long moment, the only thought in his head was one loudly pointing out how wonderful she was - even though it was true that she was very demanding.

“Yeah,” she answered, sounding almost too cheerful. “I know!” Her voice was wonderful too… and Drew desperately wished he could make the voice in his head shut up. He sternly reminded himself that she was only sixteen, feeling as if he were mentally stomping on his own foot. He nearly missed her teasing, “Like you said - I’m a pest.”

Too busy fighting his own mind to give her mockery any proper response, he practically begged, “Would you at least get the cheese from the fridge?” as he took on the responsibility of measuring the pasta. He all but threw the macaroni into the skillet as if the force would work to drive the discomforting thoughts away.

Her sigh came tinged with all the drama that only a teenager could muster, which was perfect too, and he— He needed those thoughts to stop before he got so frustrated with himself that he burst into tears. Even though he was sure he would never do anything… inappropriate… with her, it was still unsettling to know that even the vaguest notions of attraction to a sixteen-year-old girl existed within him.

“Fine,” she said, and he almost didn’t remember what he’d asked her to do until she opened the door to the fridge.

When she popped back onto the counter, bag of shredded cheese in hand, impulsivity got the better of him. It was just after she muttered, “Here ya go, Doc,” that the… frustration, or whatever it was he was feeling about her hiding her face inside the hood of his sweatshirt finally got to him. And without thinking, he reached over and pushed it off of her.

“Would you quit hiding your face?” he all but demanded. “I can hardly hear you!” It wasn’t quite true but an excuse still felt needed.

The moment her head jerked back ever so slightly he was sure that he’d messed up, but it still took him far longer than it should have to pull his hands away from her shoulders. Even as his hands slowly dropped back to his sides, he couldn’t look away from her eyes staring into his. They really were a startling shade of green. He was sure that he’d never seen such gorgeous and memorable eyes in his whole life. And though there was something nagging at the back of his mind, telling him he ought to look away now, he couldn’t respond to the thought. He only vaguely noticed the green-tinted blush on her face, or the warmth spreading across his.

The awkward clearing of her throat finally snapped him out of it. Her mocking question of, “What are ya planning to do, kiss me?” only heaped on an extra serving of embarrassment. Especially when he couldn’t resist glancing at her lips, something in him wondering what it might be like to kiss her. Would she taste like plasma? What would that even taste like? Would her lips burn his when they touched? Would— stop!

And as seemed to be his only skill, he made the humiliating situation even worse. Stumbling away from her and stammering out some sort of apology, he managed to smack the skillet straight off the stove. His only reflex was to yelp and jump away to avoid the food splattering - which he’d thought would be inevitable. Her reflexes were far superior to his and without even having to do anything more than lean down a bit, she managed to catch the skillet in her palm. Only a few bites of food spilled down the side.

“Doesn’t that—?” His panicked question died on his lips and he gulped slightly at her glare. “Right,” he managed. “Never mind.” Of course, the heat wouldn’t hurt. Still, the sight sent an unpleasant warmth into his palms, as if he were the one whose flesh was touching hot metal. “It really doesn’t hurt at all?” he asked, failing to resist the urge to shake his hands as if to cool them off. Bits of chili mac went flying off the spatula he’d forgotten was still his hand as he did, and he flinched when some landed on Shea’s face.

She flicked it off and shrugged. “Not really.” Her gaze met his as she set the skillet back on the stove and they were both quick to glance away. “It kinda tingles, but it doesn’t hurt.” She sounded almost as awkward as he was feeling.

“What about when you– your plasma?” he asked - or tried to ask. Clearing his throat he tried again, managing, “Does your plasma feel the same way?”

As if the mere mention of her powers made them surface, she brought her hands up and started lighting her fingers one by one. From the corner of his eye, he saw her gaze flick to the flames and, despite himself, he stole the chance to watch her face, wishing however briefly that he could read her mind and know what she was thinking.

It took a long moment for Shea to slowly reply, “No… It’s– it’s more like…” She paused, and he quickly looked away as she hopped back onto the counter. “You know how you get all bundled up before going out on a cold day,” she started again, “so you don’t feel cold, but you can see your breath so you feel like you should feel cold?”

In the silence Drew found himself looking up at her again. “I… I guess so,” he replied, already making a mental note to remember that description for the first cold morning so he could be sure he understood what she was trying to say.

“It’s sorta like that,” she concluded, putting out the flames and wiping her palms over her knees as if wiping off any residual plasma. “Using my glow kind of makes me feel warm, but like I shouldn’t feel warm. It feels more… comfortable than anything. Nostalgic, almost? Which I know doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what it’s like.”

It did and didn’t make sense at the same time. He wished he could experience the feeling, if just for a moment. “Did it always feel like that?” he wondered aloud.

The shrill ring of the timer he’d forgotten he’d set seemed to momentarily startle them both. Had he really been cooking long enough for it to go off? He wasn’t sure anymore. He gave the skillet an extra moment on the stove, feeling a need to make up for the brief moment it had been knocked off, then hastily reached over Shea’s head to grab bowls. Scooping a generous serving into each bowl, he refused to let himself worry about making it look fancy.

He pushed one of the bowls into her hands just as a curt, “No,” left her lips - her only response to his question.

All but flinching away from her harsh tone he raised an eyebrow. “I get the feeling I shouldn’t ask.”

She slipped off the counter and he took that as his cue to walk to the table. “I catch on fire, Drew,” she pointed out, trailing a step behind him. “I’m sure you can imagine what that felt like the first few months.”

He thought he could. He didn’t want to. The very idea made him cringe. “It must have hurt.” She hummed in agreement, taking a bite so large he almost snapped at her to take smaller bites. Biting (heh…) his tongue, he asked instead, “Why’d you keep… using it? If it felt like that?”

“I tried to stop it,” she said, sounding like she was confessing a secret.

He pushed his food around his bowl with his spoon, embarrassment still making it difficult for him to look right at her. “Yeah?” he muttered when she didn’t elaborate.

A dark look, angry and sad and a little scared - just like her voice had been earlier in the evening - passed over her face. He wanted to flinch away from it, and he wanted to make sure that whatever she was feeling to give her such an expression… he hoped she would never feel that way again. He knew protecting her from feelings was probably even more difficult than protecting a superhero in general but he still desperately wished he could.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he assured her and momentarily forced himself to look at her again. His eyes were immediately drawn back to her lips and he had to look away.

Despite his assurance, she told him, “It was… right after we stopped being dead. It hurt to use my glow so… I decided to stop, and just pretended I couldn’t when someone asked me to. And, that worked fine for a week. Even had a few of the doctors convinced it had completely gone away.” She sounded proud of that. “Then I was allowed to stand up for the first time in nearly a month. I’d barely been able to walk across the room without help and… halfway back to the bed I combusted. I don’t really remember much except that I swear every cell in my body was on fire. I guess I burned the nurse that was helping me too, cause she never came back.”

A worryingly frightened look crossed her face and he scarcely heard her horrified murmur of, “Oh god…”

“What?” he nervously asked, ignoring his feelings long enough to force himself to meet her petrified gaze as her eyes locked on his.

“I think I killed her.”

#drakgo #drakken #drew lipsky #shego #shea go #fanfiction #drakgo fanfiction #kim possible #kim possible fanfiction #shego x drakken #drakken x shego #Dwelling #chapter sixteen #gofordrakgo #14 pages #4281 words

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