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monstersdownthepath · 3 months

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Herald of Besmara: Kelpie's Wrath

CR 15

Chaotic Neutral Colossal Outsider

Adventure Path: Skulls and Shackles: The Wormwood Mutiny, pg. 86-87

When one thinks of Besmara they likely think of "piracy," but her other two areas of concern are 'strife' and 'sea monsters.' One may thus believe that Besmara's Herald may be a powerful pirate captain, or perhaps an intelligent sea beast which either inhabits or commands a vessel. The most visionary may believe that Besmara's Herald could be nothing less than a whole crew of people running an enchanted ship! So when a mysterious fog rolls in and the lights of a ship that wasn't there alight from nowhere, the party may be tempted to look towards the helm, or the prow, or perhaps even the crow's nest to try and spot who's commanding the intimidating galleon... only for the skull at the front to tell you to quit eyein' its aft like some kind of pervert.

Indeed, Besmara has an elegant solution to the problem of what her Herald would look like. It's not a crew on a ship, or a sea monster, or a singular captain, it's a ship made of a sea monster which captains itself and utilizes a crew of zombie sailors when needed. Despite it's skeletal appearance and ghoulish powers, the Kelpie's Wrath is as alive as any demon or dragon, though it can passably imitate the feared ghost ships which haunt the seas at night, able to conjure ghostly lights (Dancing Lights), fearful sights (Major Image), and zombie fights (summoning a crew of up to 20 draugr) seemingly at a whim and wielding terrifying, spectral weapons and even whole ghostly creatures as though they were limbs. Many crews who've found themselves in its sights mistakenly believe its illusions and conjured zombies to be the real threats, unaware that the ship itself is their true enemy... and even if they did, it's unlikely to help.

Have you ever fought an enemy that was its own stage hazard? You don't want to, especially if that enemy can Plane Shift or Teleport with you in tow... or just immediately dive underwater. Though you have to fail a DC 18 Will save to be shanghai'd into another plane, having a ship suddenly teleport out from under you or dive a hundred feet underwater and drag you behind it is a real danger regardless of the situation, and it puts you at a huge disadvantage if you can't immediately clamber back aboard YOUR ship, fly, or walk on water. And if the phantom ship resurfaces right next to you...

Actually, what am I talking about? "If?" No, when. It's a pirate in service to the Queen of Pirates, and pirates are quite famous for never fighting fair. If you find yourselves prey to the Kelpie's Wrath, it's going to use every trick it has in the most underhanded ways it can. Let's take a look at what that entails...

We'll start with the obvious: It's an entire ship. Nearly a hundred feet long and hovering around 25 to 30 feet wide, the Wrath is a battlefield unto itself, but you absolutely do not want to stand on it to fight, because that's just asking for a terrible death. Engaging it from afar means you 'only' have to deal with its 40ft space and 30ft reach, denoting which part of itself it's focusing on defending, which is still a radius that covers most traditional battle maps entirely. Because you're only ever going to be encountering the Wrath on the high seas (regardless of what world or plane those seas are on), staying out of its reach is practically impossible unless you're using Pathfinder's rules for ship combat to engage it with a vessel of your own (WARNING: Do Not Do This), and you will inevitably be forced into melee with it... and then, unfortunately, forced onto it, which as previously mentioned is almost certain doom.

Everything within the Wrath's threat radius is subject to its trio of incorporeal touch attacks, which manifest as immense clawed hands, ghostly weapons, spectral sailors, and skeletal sea beasts of ages past, each one raking over the ship's target for 3d6 untyped damage plus 3d6 Electricity AND 3d6 Fire damage. The primary danger presented by these phantoms is that the party may not immediately know what's going on or recognize just how the attack works; the Wrath can conjure a crew of draugr to fight atop it AND it can use Major Image at any point within its reach, letting it clutter up the battlefield with obstacles which present no true danger to the party but which it can use as vectors for its incorporeal attacks, potentially making a party member out uselessly against illusions, insubstantial phantoms, and inconsequential minions.

Muddying the waters further, Wrath can use Seeming 3/day to swath its draugr sailors in magical disguises to make them appear more important than they truly are. Able to communicate telepathically, the ship can give complex orders to its entire crew at once to run baffling distractions or attack in tandem with it to make them seem like true threats, a tactic especially useful if the party doesn't yet recognize the ship is alive (or foolishly believes that only the skeletal figurehead is alive). Kelpie's Wrath thrives on sowing confusion when it attacks, and a DM would do well to remember that, describing its attacks and abilities in terms which feel ambiguous, like they could be coming from anywhere, like that one fancy draugr at the ship's helm that's dressed up like the captain or the strange balls of light dancing along its sails.

Even if the party feels like something is wrong, they'll have to go with their gut on this one; magic is unreliable when fighting the vile ship. Not because of any aura or unique ability it has, but because its space/reach means it can make extremely good use of its Disruptive and Spellbreaker feats, the former making it more difficult to cast spells defensively while in its threat radius (which is everywhere), the latter provoking Attacks of Opportunity if you fail the check to cast defensively.

Its touch attacks aren't just bad because of the damage, either. Being hit with two or more of them in a round lets it Keelhaul the unfortunate victim, repositioning them as a free action. Now, a reposition is a Combat Maneuver, which means it has to roll a CMB check versus the target's CMD. The average CMD of a 10th level Human Fighter is hovering anywhere between 25 and 35 depending on if they dumped Dex (WARNING: Do Not Do This) or got ahold of Str boosting items, and let's see what the Kelpie's Wrath has for its CMB...

+41?!

ah, right, Colossal size. This thing can juggle most players. Hope your party cohesion didn't rely on people being in specific positions!

In case you're not sure how the maneuver works: if you're repositioned, the attacker can shunt you into another space so long as that space is A) Within their reach, and B) within 5ft of your previous space... but for every 5 points the attacker's CMB check beats your CMD, that's another 5ft of movement. Now, remember how gigantic the Wrath's threat radius is? That's a LOT of potential spaces you can be shuttled into, and every 5ft you're moved from its Keelhaul you take an additional 1d6 damage because it's literally using your face to scrape barnacles and algae off itself. Keelhaul is an especially potent ability if used on the high seas, because the ability specifically states that it can use its repositions to drag victims underwater, forcing them into the ever-dreaded underwater combat scenario. Even if you've got Water Walk or Fly on, it can still shove you right into the drink if it beats your CMD by enough, forcing you to waste precious time getting back into the fight... if only to push you back down again, because pirates don't fight fair.

Also, Keelhaul specifically states "a creature hit with two or more of its attacks in 1 round," meaning AoOs and other off-turn attacks count. If you take one hit during its turn and then get schmacked because you triggered Spellbreaker or its Combat Reflexes, you're going into the soup.

If it doesn't want a victim in the sea, it also has the option to shove creatures directly into the center of its space, at which point victims are automatically dragged into its cargo hold and battered by treasure and captured supplies. This is treated as the swallow whole ability, victims taking 1d10+7 damage until they can get out, but it's not especially obvious what's going on, meaning players might waste their time trying to find an exit door out of the cargo hold or try to clamber back out the unyielding door when the 'proper' solution is to make a new door.

If the party manages to find out that swinging at the phantom limbs and illusions is useless, attacking the ship below their feet isn't exactly easy. The Kelpie's Wrath is magically reinforced, having an AC of 30 (hint: target its measly 6 touch AC) and DR 10/Lawful. It's got 30 Resistance to Acid, Cold, and Electricity, as well as 10 Fire Resistance and, of course, if you find yourselves managing to get past its defenses to outpace its Fast Healing 10, it can still suddenly poof away to rebuild, and if you think you can just use Dimensional Anchor or similar, it can still pop its once-per-minute Rush to crank its swim speed from 60ft to 150ft for one round, diving to the sea floor in a single round to give itself breathing room... and potentially taking breathing room from whatever schmucks are trapped in its hold.

And you know what? I've typed down... 12 entire paragraphs without even touching the Wrath's ranged options. This was on purpose! Because the Wrath is meant to get right up next to the ship it's attacking, and has every tool it needs to do so, including the ability to turn itself and its crew invisible 3/day or shroud its entire space with magical fog. Compared to all the shenanigans it can pull to get into melee and then make everyone wish it didn't, its ranged attacks need a little more preparation and math on the part of the DM, something they may not want to do on top of everything else it's already got. This is because its only ranged attack is using Telekinesis to hurl a storm of whatever garbage it's amassed at targets within 180ft of itself.

The Wrath can catapult up to 375 pounds of objects or creatures in a single action, not only allowing it to throw actual ammunition (which deals a flat 1d6 damage per 25 lbs; max 15d6 for a full weight object), but whatever it may have on hand or in its hold that it doesn't especially value. Since it can use Telekinesis at will and the spell itself has a tremendous range, there's no reason for it to ever run out of ammo, as it can simply dredge stones and wreckage from the sea floor and ferry it into its stores for later... but of course, there's nothing stopping it from using its enemies own cargo against it, or even lifting its enemies directly and throwing them around with nothing more than a thought. Most Medium-sized Humanoids weigh between 150 and 200 pounds, letting the Wrath snatch up two people at a time to toss around like ragdolls, including straight into the air if it wants.

There's something to be said about it hurling things far more dangerous than bricks and cannonballs, though, like casks of oil and a lantern, or barrels of Green Slime, or its own zombie crewmates. The Long range of Telekinesis also means it can get up to some pretty dangerous shenanigans if an enemy ship gets just a little too close, as it can pilfer cargo from a range, loose sails, send weapons hurling into the seas, or even spin cannons around just as they're about to fire if it readies an action to do so. Much like its phantom weapons, its telekinetic power helps make its illusions and zombie sailors all the more realistically threatening, adding to the confounding puppet show it puts on to throw people off.

The Kelpie's Wrath is one of the most dangerous Heralds a party to encounter, because they're going to encounter it on the seas (one of the most dangerous environments to fight in), AND they're not likely to even know it's nearby until it's dragging their crew to a watery grave. Even if they do, a DM can play up the possibility of it being a ghost ship for a while before any of them wise up to what they're really fighting, by which point someone might already be neatly folded and packed away in Davey Jones' Locker. It's not only dangerous for what it can do, but why it does what it does; most Heralds are only encountered if a god is offended, or has sent them on an important mission, but the Kelpie's Wrath freely wanders all creation in its off hours, attacking vessels with wild and greedy abandon. It's one of the few Heralds that an unlucky party may just randomly encounter, and thus have no possible way to prepare for.

You can read more about it here.

#monster spotlight #CR 11 to 15 #Misfits and Monitors Month #pathfinder #dungeons and dragons

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alexthebordercollie · 8 days

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Soooo I made thing. I will probably redraw this in the cannon style in the future. As for my own personal style for drawing GF stuff, I'm still fleshing it out. But I have another AU now. My Hand of God AU has Ford committing to Bill and spending years trapped in a very abusive relationship, also the apocalypse so that's fun. This one's the complete opposite direction. Ford and Fidds accidentally come into possession of a pair of twins, these boys end up being the motivation it took for Ford to cut things off with Bill and do whatever it takes to keep him from ever getting out.

(I've yet to flesh out exactly how these two were born but the boys were created through anomalous means.)

On the left is Nik (Nikola) An adrenalin junkie who loves adventure and is an absolute menace to society as is the Pines tradition. On the right is Newt (Newton), a pastel-loving soft boy who will cry if you tell him pink is a girl color and gets overly attached to every weird critter Ford brings home.

Nick is missing a pinkie because Bill cut it off while possessing Ford when he was a baby as a threat. Trying to scare Ford into compliance by threatening to kill the boys. Ford did some very unsafe brain surgery on himself to make it impossible for him to ever sleep again. Cutting off Bill's ability to control him for the most part.

Portal is gone, still living in Gravity Falls though, and keeping an eye out for anyone Bill might try to manipulate. Fidds and his wife are divorced. Emma has primary custody but Tate stays with them in GF during the summers where he often bullies Nik and Newt. But Nik and Newt don't tell their dads about it because they know how much Fidds loves his other son and they don't want to make things complicated for him. Tate is just taking out his frustration over his parents failed marriage on his half-siblings. Fidds takes the twins with him when he visits Tate and the rest of his family in California for Christmas. Ford stays behind because Emma hates him and he doesn't want to deal with her family.

Ford and Fidds aren't married both cause it's not legal yet but also tbh not sure they ever would regardless just cause Ford is pretty disinterested in those sorts of formalities. Whatever it is they have going for them right now works for him.

Heavy thoughts below the cut.

TBH I made myself sad thinking about autistic people and our relationships. The way we love isn't always obvious to NT people and it can sometimes feel like you're not good enough for anyone because loving people in the way you're expected to is such a struggle.

Sometimes I see people frame Ford^2 as this completely unrequited thing and it reminds me of the experience of loving people very intensely but feeling unable to prove it because it's so difficult to live up to the standards most people have in relationships.

I like Fiddlestan as a ship it's cute and a fun idea and I get the appeal but there's a little nagging thought in the back of my head that it kind of implies Ford's neurotypical brother is better. More capable of real love. That Ford was never good enough. Not to say Fiddleford didn't deserve better but the idea that these two couldn't have worked makes me kind of depressed for kind of personal reasons so I wanted to make up a universe where they do.

Not to say there isn't plenty of material of Ford and Fidds reconnecting as old men and making it work but the fact they lost so much of their lives to bad decisions is still sad.

#gravity falls #ford^2 #ford pines #fiddleford mcgucket #fiddauthor #next gen oc

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venus-haze · 1 year

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Sinnerman (Father Paul Hill x Reader)

Summary: You can’t even see your old life from Crockett Island, but nevertheless it weighs on your conscience like an anchor on the ocean floor. Father Paul Hill tries to pull the anchor up, only to sink your whole damn ship.

Note: Female reader, but no other descriptors are used. Reader is a lapsed Catholic for plot reasons. I also played with the show’s timeline a little bit for this fic. Anyway, 10 years of Catholic school later and this is the result. Inspired by the Nina Simone song. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 7k

Warnings: Brief mentions of blood and violence. Reader’s morals are all over the place. Obviously a lot of Catholic themes (especially guilt) and imagery. Sexually explicit content between a member of the clergy and a lay person. Do not interact if you’re under 18.

Unlike pretty much everywhere else in the country, houses on Crockett Island garnered very little interest. There were no frustrating bidding wars or last minute phone calls made to real estate agents. The available houses barely registered on the listings you scrolled through, some having been on the market for years. When you called about a two bedroom you’d never even stepped foot in, offering to pay upfront in cash, the agent on the other end of the line almost hung up on you, assuming it was a scam. No scam. You just wanted to disappear.

To the world, you were gone, a vapor who abruptly quit her incredibly well-paying job with a generous severance package. Painting was a hobby that got increasingly pushed to the backburner as you focused more on your career until you couldn’t remember the last time you touched a paintbrush. Of course, that wasn’t why you quit your job, but it sounded a lot nicer than the reason that ate you alive. You hoped that if you disappeared, the guilt that made its home in your gut would go away too. On Crockett Island, however, you were far from invisible.

Despite the unforgiving ocean wind that raged the day you arrived, you were met with nothing short of a welcome party. The mayor, his wife, the sheriff, and the elderly monsignor of the singular church on the island accompanied by a woman who constantly hovered. Nice enough people who greeted you with a mixture of delight and disbelief that you were moving onto the island instead of off. You shot yourself in the foot the second you mentioned you had been raised Catholic, as everyone but the sheriff extended offers to join them at mass that you awkwardly declined.

Sheriff Hassan gave you a sympathetic look when he left your new home, the last of the informal welcoming committee to do so. Get used to it, his eyes said. You almost asked him to stay for coffee if you could dig your pot out of whichever cardboard box you packed it in. You decided against it. On an island so small, coffee could turn into something else quickly enough.

It took a week or so to get into a comfortable routine. Wake up early, make coffee, take your time eating breakfast, then head out to some new part of the island with your art supplies in tow, only to be held up for fifteen to twenty minutes by someone inevitably stopping you to talk. Usually small talk, but you could tell a lot of people were just happy to have someone new to tell old stories to instead of regurgitating them to the same handful of people all the time.

Some days, when the fog made it almost impossible to see your outstretched hand in front of you, you’d find yourself drawn to St. Patrick’s, painting or sketching the church. The fog would inevitably roll away, and in the distance you’d see the monsignor, sometimes with Beverly and other times by himself. He’d always wave at you, though his face betrayed his confusion as to who you were. Poor guy. You thought the parishioners were crazy to send him over to Jerusalem.

The day after he left for his trip was another foggy one. You made your usual trek out to the church to draw. It was a nice, informal ritual. Spiritual enough for your tastes without the risk of bursting into flames if you stepped foot in the place. With the monsignor gone, mass wasn’t being held, and the area was quieter than usual. Not completely, though.

“You know, you’re always loitering outside of the church, but I never see you in it,” Beverly said while you were sketching the weathered wood building.

You kept your focus on the page you were working on, not sparing her a glance. “Not my thing.”

“At one point it was, though. You said it yourself on the day you moved in that you were raised in the faith.”

“Not my choice.”

Her lips pressed in a thin line, her voice strained, “Well, you’re always welcome at St. Patrick’s. I’m sure when the monsignor returns, he’d be overjoyed to see you in the pews. We all would.”

“Thanks for the offer.”

“Yes, well, have fun doodling.”

Your jaw clenched. Doodling. You shot her a glare over your shoulder when she walked away.

Luckily, you weren’t the focus of the islanders’ attention for much longer, because the Flynns’ son had returned home from prison on the mainland. A quiet guy who kept to himself despite Annie excitedly introducing you to Riley. You were polite, but didn’t pry. It seemed like he wanted to keep to himself too. Then, the following day, the parish was in a tizzy over the unexpected arrival of a new pastor, a temporary replacement for the aging monsignor. You didn’t know the old guy very long, but he wasn’t quite with it. Doubtful the replacement would be temporary. Maybe he said that to soften the blow of not being able to give their monsignor a formal goodbye.

You had mixed feelings about the new guy. The evening following his first mass on the island, Father Paul had sneaked up on you while you were trying to paint an old fishing bungalow. He startled you so bad that you jumped, arm jerking and leaving a green streak on the paper in its wake. He was nice enough, apologizing profusely for scaring you. Still, you felt the pit in your stomach that’d become somewhat more manageable recently threaten to engulf your psyche again when he said that Beverly mentioned you were a lapsed Catholic, because of course she would, and expressed disappointment at not seeing you at mass.

“You’ll be at the potluck at least?” he asked. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

You laughed. “Yeah, the Crock Pot thing. I’ll be there.”

“Fantastic, maybe we can talk more then. I’ve bothered you enough, nearly ruined your painting.”

“Happy accident. I can make a tree,” you said.

“That’s a nice way to look at it, but really, I’ll be going now.” He smiled. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You too.”

You caught his profile as he walked away, handsome in the golden hour. Setting your painting supplies aside, you grabbed your sketchbook and a pencil and began drawing. Maybe the guilt you felt was for finding a priest attractive and not the resurgence of your past sins. The word weighed heavy on your conscience. You could sleep better at night convincing yourself you’d made some mistakes. You could learn and grow from mistakes. Sins held magnitude beyond what you could manage on your own.

The day of the potluck, you slept in, only rolling out of bed an hour before it was supposed to start. When you walked over to the gathering, you felt that pit in your stomach causing you trouble again. The islanders’ devotion left a sour taste in your mouth, and seeing the physical embodiment of it in the form of ashen crosses on their foreheads didn’t help.

You made small talk and wandered around with your plate of food, taking a seat on one of the benches. One huge perk of living on the island was the fresh seafood and dozens of people who knew how to cook it all perfectly. Everything on your plate would’ve cost at least sixty dollars in a nice restaurant on the mainland. You got it all for your five dollar donation.

While tearing apart a piece of bread on your plate, you could hear hushed voices arguing to your left. They were either speaking louder or getting closer to you, but either way, you recognized Beverly and Father Paul’s voices.

“Her? Father, she doesn’t attend mass. The church should not be—“

“I’ve made up my mind, Bev,” Father Paul whispered loudly before waving you over. “Y/N, I have something I’d like to run by you.”

You gave him a hesitant nod as you got up from your seat, leaving your plate to walk closer to where he and Beverly were standing.

“I’d like to commission you to paint a mural on the west-facing wall, where the sun sets. I already discussed the idea with Monsignor Pruitt, and he raved about your talents.”

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna end up being the next monkey Jesus lady.”

He gave you an amused smile. “I’ve seen your work. You’re more than capable of what I have in mind.”

“As long as it’s not that godless abstract nonsense,” Beverly interjected.

“Tell that to Alfred Manessier,” you said.

“I don’t know who that is.”

You scoffed. “He was one of the most celebrated modernist painters of the past century. He created some of his best works using St. John of the Cross’ Spiritual Canticles as inspiration.”

“See?” Father Paul interjected. “I can’t think of anyone better for the job. I made a mock-up, a crude sketch, really. I can show you when you have time to go over some of the details I have in mind.”

“Sounds good.”

“You haven’t given your price.”

“Why don’t we work that out afterward?” you said, not sure if you were even going to go through with this. “I am going to need supplies, though. Different paint and materials depending on the type of mural you had in mind.”

“Yes, of course, whatever you need, we’ll have Sturge bring it from the mainland.”

Not long after that, the festival ended on a heartbreaking note as Joe Collie’s dog died, was poisoned more like it, but there was no proof. You didn’t get much sleep that night. It didn’t matter. Early the next working, you were pulled from your half-slumber by a rapid knocking at the door.

Without thinking, you shuffled over, opening it to find Beverly standing on your front porch, less than impressed with your wrinkled pajamas and dazed expression at the sunlight in your face.

“Yeah?”

“Father Paul has time this afternoon to speak with you about the mural.”

“Okay.”

“Will you be there?”

“I guess, what time is it anyway?”

“Seven-thirty, I wanted to come by before the school day began. If you’re not serious about this, don’t waste his time.”

“Alright, I’ll be there around two.”

You didn’t wait for her to respond, shutting the door in her face and heading back to bed. If you woke up in time to make it to the church, you supposed you’d do it. When you lifted your head from the pillow later on and checked the time on your phone, it was a quarter after one. Damn. You were actually doing this.

The otherwise unassuming church seemed to loom over you as you approached. You sighed. It was just a building. Still, you hesitated outside of St. Patrick’s for a minute or so before building up the courage to walk inside. No hellfire or spontaneous combustion upon your arrival. Though, there should have been, with the way Father Paul was sitting on the steps leading up to the altar, legs splayed out in his jeans. Your mouth almost went dry. Suddenly his eyes were on yours. You panicked, dipping your hand in the font and making a sign of the cross with the holy water. That had to absolve you of thinking a priest looked hot for a split second.

He practically jumped up from where he was sitting, closing the distance between you with an excited smile and a folded up piece of paper that he handed to you.

He spoke animatedly and used sweeping motions in reference to the wall and what he wanted it to look like. “Call it divine inspiration, but I had a vision of an angel. It’s burned into my mind. It needs to be up here for the parish to see.”

You looked at his sketch, tilting your head as you took in the monstrous creature that resembled Nosferatu rather than an angel. Still, it wasn’t like artists regularly were commissioned to paint elaborate church murals anymore. You supposed the prestige of being able to say you did such outweighed the odd nature of his vision.

“I was thinking just on the wood wall here. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”

“No, but I think for the best result, I’ll have to strip the existing paint off the wall and then prime it to paint over. That may take up to a week, depending on how much of the wall you want the mural to take up.”

Father Paul chuckled humorlessly. “Bev’s going to have a heart attack when she hears that. Why don’t you write a list of what you need, and I’ll give it to Sturge.”

You would have been surprised at how quickly he agreed if he weren’t so enthusiastic about his vision coming to life. He kept talking, rambling was more like it, about the angel and his vision. There was an air of conspiracy to his voice, almost as if he was telling you something that was meant to be kept between the two of you. His rambling was interrupted by Beverly’s appearance. You took the opportunity to slip out, claiming you promised your mom you’d call her to catch up before dinner.

By the end of the week, you had all of the supplies you needed, and Father Paul gave you free reign of the church when mass wasn’t going on. You hadn’t expected him to be such a big help in the preparations, figuring you’d be scraping the stripped paint off the wall yourself. It made the process go by faster, even though Beverly looked constipated every time she saw the bare wood wall in contrast to the rest of the church. Father Paul had to remind her it was temporary.

The hours spent with him felt almost natural, like you were talking to an old friend. At least, he was nice enough to let you ramble about art and the mural techniques you read about on your phone the past few days. Though, you didn’t miss his offhand comment about how so many great artists were Catholic. You wanted to clarify that you weren’t Catholic, not anymore. Besides, there were great artists of all faiths. The Catholic Church just had the money to bankroll some of the more prominent ones. Deciding it best not to stir up any unnecessary tension before you even started on the project, you let the comments roll off your back, not bothering to acknowledge them. Things were going great, otherwise. At least, they were until it was time for you to actually start painting.

That pit in your stomach started acting up again as soon as Father Paul told you that he went ahead and primed the wall already, so you could start painting the mural.

“I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure you’ll work better if I’m not breathing down your neck. Let me know if you need anything,” he said.

You smiled, giving him a silent nod as he left. Hesitation overtook you, soon followed by dread as you looked at the wall in front of you. There was no way to back out, at least not without drawing the ire of the growing number of devout islanders. You hadn’t witnessed Leeza Scarborough’s miracle, and as much as the skeptics tried to talk circles around it, you couldn’t think of any other explanation for what had happened. It scared you, how real the faith you were raised in felt here.

As soon as your brush touched the primed wall, you nearly passed out. It was a holy place, meant to reflect the power and glory of god. You didn’t feel worthy to alter it in such a significant way, as if you were Michaelangelo or DaVinci and not some corporate flunkie who only got such a big severance package because—no, you couldn’t think about it in this church of all places, not one where god seemed suffocatingly present. The brush then fell from your hand with a clatter that seemed to echo through the church, through your ears.

Father Paul spoke your name softly, tentatively, like you were a wounded animal. “Why are you crying?”

You weren’t sure how long you were in your fugue state of despair for him to find you like that. “I don’t think I’m the right person to do this. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s you. It has to be you.”

Shaking your head frantically as he approached you, you threw your hands over your mouth to muffle your sobs. He outstretched his arms, not forcing you to accept his comfort, but you felt inexplicably pulled to him, to the absolution he offered if you’d just accept it.

“Do you know what St. Teresa of Avila said about prayer?”

“What’s that?”

“She said that prayer is allowing yourself to be loved,” he said. “Pray with me.”

He took your hands in his, bowing his head and closing his eyes. You did the same, though you were unable to focus on his words, not when your mind was racing so much. Too loud, too overwhelming, you couldn’t take it.

In the middle of his prayer, you blurted out, “At my old job, my boss did a lot of illegal stuff, and I helped her cover it up because I knew if I did that I’d be set for life. Except it’s been eating me alive ever since. She offered me this huge severance package if I’d sign an NDA when I quit. I can’t–I feel like it’s gonna drown me one day.”

“What did you—surely it can’t be that bad.”

The cry you let out was akin to a howl. “Father Paul, I can’t—I’m a horrible person—“

“How long has it been since your last confession?”

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been—“ you paused. “I’ve never truly confessed in my life.”

He nodded, understanding and encouragement in his gaze rather than the judgment you expected.

“My boss was one of those cutthroat types. I admired her for it for the longest time, even when she got indicted. I used to work late nights, so I told her if she gave me a raise and a promotion, I’d testify that she was in the office with me on the days the prosecution had her doing some of the stuff she got charged with,” you said. “I thought it wouldn’t bother me. I’d been screwing people over to claw my way up the corporate ladder for years and learned how to shake it off, but this shit—it might as well be in my veins. Some people lost everything because of me, because I lied.”

You were hyperventilating, and all you could focus on was how tightly Father Paul was gripping your shoulders.

“The worst part is, I thought it’d make up for the emptiness. I spent so much time working that I pushed people away, and I wanted something to show for it. I’d give anything to feel that emptiness again,” you choked out. “I am sorry for these and all my sins.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

“No, it’s not.”

“It is. I promise it is. The bible shows us time and time again that god can use our past sins to glorify him, to show the power of forgiveness in the blood of Christ. You feel guilt, regret, and sorrow. That’s good. Your penance,” he said, pointing to the blank wall. “God brought you here knowing you needed absolution, while this church is on the verge of a renaissance. I don’t think something like this happened by chance.”

“Okay,” you breathed. “I—I’ll do it.”

You fumbled your way through the Act of Contrition, Father Paul guiding you through the short prayer you’d embarrassingly forgotten most of the words to. In his name, my god, have mercy.

“God, the Father of mercies, through the death and the resurrection of his son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the church may god give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” he said, making a sign of the cross over you.

You nodded, making a sign of the cross. “Amen.”

You nearly jumped out of your skin when he brushed his thumbs along your cheeks, wiping away the tear tracks that’d begun to dry. He smiled kindly, warmly, and you felt warm too. Taking a deep breath, you brought the paintbrush to the wall, making the first stroke of what would become Angulus autem Crockett Insulus, the Angel of Crockett Island.

Work on the mural went smoothly after the roadbump the first day, and you felt better than you had in months. The guilt that’d tethered itself to you for so long had vanished. You’d never received so many compliments on your art in your life. Suddenly dozens of people were admiring your work, regarding it with awe as if it were in a cathedral rather than a small fishing town’s wooden church. Erin even had you come to the school and teach an art class for the students. It helped that Father Paul took every opportunity to talk up your skills whenever someone would mention the mural.

While the lighting in the church was undoubtedly better during the day, you’d work at night sometimes, just to get an idea of how it’d look when no one was around to see it. The shadows that fell over Father Paul’s angel made it appear almost sinister. You wondered if it was something you could fix in the morning, soften it a bit to not be as harsh and imposing.

You almost laughed when you saw Father Paul standing in the door of the sacristy, knocking on the door frame as if it weren’t his church the two of you were standing in.

“I know it’s late, but do you want coffee? I’m about to brew a pot,” he said.

You smiled. “That’d be great. Thanks.”

“Door will be open, just let yourself in when you’re finished here.”

“Oh, in the rectory?”

“Yes, but if that makes you uncomfortable–”

“No, of course not. I’ll be there in a few.”

He made his leave, and you grabbed a paintbrush, noticing an odd, shadowy spot on the angel that wasn’t due to the lighting. You winced a bit. Your hand had started cramping recently. Of course carpal tunnel would catch up with you, working almost non-stop on an elaborate mural would do that.

The last thing you wanted to do was take a break on the progress you’d made. Father Paul’s enthusiasm was infectious, and you didn’t want to lose the inspiration you were running on to bring his vision to life.

Taking a step back, you frowned. The shadow over the angel almost looked worse. You set your brush down, figuring you’d have a better idea of what to do with a fresh set of eyes in the morning.

You kept your supplies on a plastic tarp to avoid getting paint elsewhere, and so it could be easily moved out of the way for mass. From what you’d heard, there was a full house every Sunday, and daily mass actually had decent attendance. You could remember seeing only Beverly, Annie, and Leeza making their way into the old church for the early morning services during the week.

The lights were off in the sacristy, and you took a few tentative steps toward it. You knew there was a door through there that led out back toward the rectory, but something in you hesitated at entering that part of the church. Instead, you walked out the main doors and around the building.

There was an eeriness to the lone house not too far off in the distance. You’d learned from your time on the island that lighthouses were meant to warn incoming ships that they were nearing cliffs or rough waters, not so much welcoming them in as advising them to stay at arms’ length, be aware and alert. The light that shone from the rectory gave you a similar impression.

You walked up to the small house, finding the door open for you. A staticy oldies station played in the living room, Father Paul leaning against the kitchen counter as he waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

“All of this stuff is so old. Radio barely picks up any reception,” he said bashfully.

“It has its charm. This whole island does. I feel like I’m really starting to be part of things.”

“You are!” he exclaimed. “Our resident artist. Everyone’s wondering when they’ll see you at mass.”

“Maybe next Sunday,” you said unconvincingly.

“I think you’ll be impressed at how different it is from what you remember growing up with. Things are changing—for the better,” he said. “How do you take your coffee?”

He grabbed a mug from the cabinet, older and chipped with a faded ‘Crock Pot 2003’ printed on it. He poured the coffee, preparing it to your liking and handing you the mug. You followed him over to the kitchen table, taking the chair next to him rather than on the other side of it.

The radio became the slightest bit clearer a few notes into Dusty Springfield’s version of Son of a Preacher Man. It was one of those songs you grew up hearing, but never truly understood the lyrics until you got older and really listened.

“You know, growing up, I didn’t know Protestant pastors could get married. I thought they were like priests where that wasn’t allowed,” you said. “Do you think it makes that much of a difference? Not being married, or even romantically involved?”

He paused, furrowing his eyebrows before giving you the non-convincing answer of, “It allows me to devote myself to God and focus on my congregation.”

“Yeah, but the Catholic Church is so pro-family, saying all that crap about not using contraception. Why not lead by example? Isn’t it natural to do that?” you asked, stopping yourself before you could go on talking about pregnancy with a priest. “I overstepped, sorry.”

“No, they’re good questions. I’ve thought about them myself.”

“Have you ever wanted to have your Sound of Music moment? Y’know, how Julie Andrews just says ‘Fuck it’ and gives in to her feelings for Christopher Plummer?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Maybe not Christopher Plummer specifically, but in more or less words, yes.”

“Do you ever feel lonely?” you asked softly.

He didn’t speak, only reaching over to squeeze your hand. The suddenness of the tender gesture sent a shock through your system, and you could feel your heart skip a beat. Whoever was the late night DJ at the oldies station must have had it out for you as Roy Orbison’s Only the Lonely started to play.

You squeezed his hand in return. “So do I.”

He stood up, murmuring something about refilling his cup. You kept your slight grip on his hand, standing up from your seat at the table. You shouldn’t have even been thinking about it, not when you’d finally rid yourself of a guilty conscience. The corners of his lips quirked up, and he tilted his head slightly, a silent inquiry as to what you were going to do next.

You kissed him. You kissed a priest, and it didn’t even feel wrong. Father Paul pulled you closer by your entwined hands, releasing it when your chest was pressed against his. He was a bit clumsy, but you’d have been surprised if he weren’t. You opened your mouth for him the slightest bit, feeling his tongue on your lips, inside your mouth, a hesitancy behind his actions still.

Pulling away from him, you caressed his cheek. You couldn’t absolve any guilt he may feel, but you could keep it at bay, only if for a night.

“I want this, Father,” you assured him. “I want you.”

His eyes searched your face for any indication that your words weren’t sincere, and finding none, he pressed his lips to yours with more confidence than before. Still, you took the lead on deepening the kiss as he became more comfortable with how you felt, his nose brushing against the soft skin of your face. His hands held onto your hips, fingers digging gently into your jeans. Your tongue gently swiped at his lips, and he opened his mouth, allowing you access.

Your lips curled into a smile when you finally pulled away, but only to divert your attention to his throat. His breath hitched upon feeling your hand on the side of his neck, thumb pressing into the base of his throat. You bit into the crook of his neck, sucking and biting the same spot until he made a pained noise of protest.

“Don’t worry, Father. I won’t leave a mark,” you whispered, proud of the way he reacted to you, to your touch, feeling his length pressing against you through his pants.

You kissed his neck again, gentle this time, though you slid your hand from his neck, down his torso, to his crotch. Palming him through his pants, you lifted your gaze to see his eyes hooded, head tilted back a bit. He was still holding back, you could tell that much, so you squeezed a bit, feeling his cock twitch against the fabric, his hips involuntarily thrusting.

“Bedroom,” he choked out to your surprise.

Your hands were still on him, groping his crotch, his ass, the softness of his belly as he clumsily led you to the small, sparsely decorated bedroom. He kissed you again, barely managing to shut the door behind him. He moaned into your mouth as you began unbuckling his belt, unzipping his fly and relieving some of the pressure from his hard cock.

His passivity didn’t last long after that. He pushed you onto his bed, lustful determination in his eyes as he undressed you, hesitating just a moment when he reached your panties. As soon as his fingers hooked beneath the waistband, it was like a switch flipped. You watched as he rid himself of his clothes, your fingers teasing your wet pussy when he pulled off his clerical collar and unbuttoned his shirt.

You laid back as he climbed on top of you, allowing him to take the lead. He fondled your breasts, his thumbs brushing your sensitive nipples, making you gasp.

“You’re so soft, honey,” he murmured.

You smiled. Honey. Too sweet for you, what you were doing. Taking one of his hands, you guided it down to your pussy, making him feel your wetness, velvety between your folds. “Softer,” you whispered.

“Fuck,” he groaned, sliding his index and middle fingers inside you.

He pumped them in and out, almost cautiously before you lifted your hips for more. His thumb brushed your clit, rubbing it as he curled his fingers drawing a ragged moan from you. A groan escaped his lips as he felt your pussy clench around his fingers, wet and wanting for something more.

“Father, I need you,” you moaned. “Inside me—I—“

You choked out a gasp as he slid his cock inside you, your pussy clenching around his length as he thrust into you. He pressed your hands into the bed, intertwining his fingers with yours, loving and intimate. You whimpered beneath his intense gaze.

“You’re so good,” he whispered, his voice a bit husky. “Feel good. Take me so well.”

A harsh thrust, and you cried out, throwing your head back on his pillow. He kissed your open mouth, greedy for you. He released your hands, and you immediately grabbed at his forearms, digging your nails into his skin as your body began to tense up before its release.

“I’m close. Father–fuck–I’m gonna—“

“Let go, honey,” he moaned. “I’m there too.”

He came inside you, his cock pumping his cum into your pussy, his thrusts sloppy as he hid his face in the crook of your neck. Your orgasm followed the brief, scandalous realization that you’d let a priest cum in you. Tangling your fingers in his dark hair, you tugged at it as you rode out your orgasm on his cock, not as hard, but still buried inside you.

After a few moments, he pulled out, lying down next to you. His eyes didn’t show any regret or guilt, and he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.

He traced your features with his fingertips, softly, mindlessly, as if he were in a haze until he whispered. “How long have you wanted to do this?”

“Since golden hour.”

“Golden hour,” he repeated softly

“When you first came to see me, I was working on the painting of the fishing hut at sunset. Artists call it golden hour, when the natural light is perfect, like liquid gold.”

“I think I’ve always wanted to, it’s come and gone in waves, but it’s always been there. You—you’re something else.”

“You’ve done this before,” you said, an observation, not in judgment.

He closed his eyes, exhaling as if he were about to make a confession to you. “You asked me earlier if I ever wanted to have my Sound of Music moment. I did. I should have. That mural you’re painting, the angel. It’ll make things right.”

The church bell chimed its midnight tune, and you sighed, reminded of where you were, who you were with. “I should go.”

He gave you a sad smile. “I’m sorry. I wish things were different, that you could stay and—“

“Hey, it’s alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You hastily threw on your clothes and gave him one more kiss before cracking open the front door. Glancing around briefly, you didn’t see anyone else around, and slipped away into the night. The overwhelming guilt you expected to feel never manifested. Instead, you felt almost giddy at the thrill of what you and Father Paul had just done.

When you returned home, you let out a laugh in disbelief. You had no expectations of it becoming a regular thing, that it’d even happen again, you having sex with Father Paul. The subtle intimacy that had coiled around your relationship with him from the start had only magnified with this. Perhaps once was all you needed, but you secretly hoped it’d devolve into something far more torrid.

Bright and early the next morning, you woke up feeling light, almost wanting to chalk up the past night to an unusually vivid wet dream, if it weren’t for the ache between your legs. You decided to detour from the church for the day, opting to work on something else temporarily while you were in a great mood. A smaller part of you worried things would be awkward with Father Paul. He didn’t seem guilty or regretful when you left, but he still had plenty of time to overthink.

You ran into Father Paul as he was leaving the Gunnings’ house, an odd expression on his face as he looked back at the place briefly.

“Would you mind coming by the church later tonight?” he asked. “I have something—it’ll be easier to explain there.”

“Yeah, of course,” you said. “See you later, Father.”

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, you sat at the docks, sketching portraits of the fishermen as they came and went. They were all so expressive, their weathered skin and deep lines in their faces betraying the decades of hard work they did. You’d heard from the islanders how difficult things had become for the fishermen between the oil spill and restrictions on what they could catch. Still, the ones who recognized you from St. Patrick’s smiled, stopped and talked to you despite being busy. Maybe you really would go to mass on Sunday.

Your stomach reminded you that you’d missed lunch, so you headed back to your house to get something to eat and look over your work from the day. Tonight. Father Paul wanted you to meet him at the church, but didn’t give a time, just at night, after dark. You wondered what he was going to tell you. Surely if it were about the two of you having sex, it could be said privately in the light of day.

Around nine o’clock, you left home again, heading for the church. It was dark. The rectory too. Was he even there? You walked up to the building, opening the front door to near pitch black. For some reason, you stood there, not bothering to call out for him.

The only light in the church came from the sacristy. Your eyes were drawn to your mural for a moment. Somehow, the angel looked like it was enrobed in shadows, far more sinister than when you’d started painting it. Your attention was soon returned to the sacristy. You could hear shuffling, low murmuring, and something almost like a strong gust of wind. Your brow furrowed. Maybe some of the local kids sneaking communion wine.

You took a cautious step toward the illuminated room, and for the first time in years, you truly prayed to god that none of the old wooden floorboards would creak and give you away. Not that you deserved his favor, having repented of your sins and then turning around and sleeping with a priest. The light only grew brighter as you approached, your heart in your throat as you peered into the room where the priest and altar servers would prepare for mass.

Father Paul stood in front of the communion wine. Your eyes were glued to the creature by his side. It looked like it could hardly fit in the room between its height and the width of its wingspan. Huge, imposing, sickeningly pale. It opened its mouth, razor-sharp teeth in full display.

You nearly gasped at the realization of what it was. The angel from the mural. Monstrous, otherworldly in a way that made you want to vomit. Surely even Beverly would regard something like that as demonic. In either shock or self-preservation, you weren’t screaming, though your brain was howling for you to leave. Get the fuck out of there while you still could.

Father Paul looked inexplicably calm around the thing, comfortable, even. You didn’t know how. There was no way you could ever look at something like that and consider it holy. You held your breath as you retreated, internally begging god for enough mercy to get out of the church alive. A floorboard creaked just as you got to the door. You ran.

The cool night air stung your eyes as you bolted down the unpaved roads, too afraid to look back and see if you were even being followed. Aside from a few porch lights, the island was pitch black. All you needed to do was make it home, and you’d be safe. No. You needed to get the fuck off of Crockett Island. Then you’d be safe.

You may have been a shitty person and an even shittier Catholic, but you knew things like this weren’t acts of god. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing all along, a power-hungry false prophet intent on turning the whole island to fit his corrupted vision of holiness.

With a final push of adrenaline pumping through your veins, you sprinted to your house in the distance. As soon as you got inside, you locked the door, pushing one of the kitchen chairs in front of it. Realistically, it wouldn’t do much to stop the angel if it were coming after you. At least you could say you’d done something.

Grabbing your suitcases from under your bed, you opened them on top of your comforter, considering what to pack. You wouldn’t be coming back to Crockett Island. Soon enough, there wouldn’t be anything to come back to. You could tell as much. That thing you saw, the monster in the mural, it couldn’t mean anything good for the islanders. They deserved some kind of warning, even if they didn’t believe you.

You paused for a moment. Your mural was their warning. They could see the grotesque angel materializing for themselves, and they praised it, full of wonder and awe. A voice in the back of your mind said it wasn’t enough, it was a cop-out, another way to shirk responsibility for your actions, falling into old cycles all over again. You drowned out the voice with a bottle of wine you’d kept around for cooking, and shoved clothes and painting supplies in your suitcases in your half-drunk stupor.

Pale, golden light filled your bedroom as the sun rose. With a shaky breath, you looked around your house for the last time. In the weeks you’d been living on Crockett Island, it’d become a home. You should have known it was all too good to be true.

The suitcases in your hands made your fleeing the island appear less conspicuous, going on a short trip with the intention of returning rather than abandoning the community that had taken you in, leaving them at the mercy of the creature that was waiting to pounce.

You bought a round-trip ticket for the Breeze’s morning voyage back to the mainland. Round-trip. As if you’d be coming back.

“Father Paul know you’re headed back to the mainland?” Sturge asked, helping you with your bags.

He’s just a priest. It’s none of his business, you wanted to snap back. Instead, you gave him a small smile. “Yeah, my mom’s come down with pneumonia. I’m gonna help her around the house for a week or two.”

“Late in the season to get pneumonia.”

“Her immune system isn’t great.”

“Maybe bring her on over to the island. Miracles happening here every day.”

You knew your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I think she’d really like that.”

As you watched the island shrink on the horizon, the guilt that settled back in your gut felt comfortably familiar. Maybe you weren’t meant for absolution.

#father paul x reader #father paul hill x reader #midnight mass #father paul hill #slasher x reader #for my own blog organization sorry

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heliads · 5 days

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promise me - cato hadley

Cato promises you he won't volunteer for the Hunger Games, and then he does. When Plutarch Heavensbee offers you a chance to get back at the Capitol for taking your boyfriend away, of course you're going to say yes.

masterlist

Cato is dying. So they say. You haven’t been watching.

It sounds bad. It is bad. But you had made your boyfriend promise that he would stay as far from the Games as he could, and you’d actually believed him when he said he would, that he’d live to old age with you. Cato has been wanting the Games as long as he’s been alive, but you’ve been wanting him to stay with you for about that long, anyway. It took forever to wear him down enough for him to say he’d give up his dream of being a Victor, and just when you felt sure of yourself, he’d gone and volunteered.

It was stunning how quickly everything fell apart. You’d heard the representative from the Capitol read out the name of the male tribute, and when you didn’t hear your boyfriend’s name, you thought you were safe, you were fine. Another year guaranteed. Before you could even take another breath, though, a familiar voice rang through the town square. In your nightmares, you’d seen Cato volunteer a hundred times over. It was fitting, somehow, that when he volunteered in real life, it was exactly like every other time you’d seen it.

He’d looked at you from the stage, tried to find you in the crowd. You weren’t smiling. And, when they’d asked for the last visitors to see the tributes before they were shipped off the Capitol to die in glorious combat, you’d never even had the chance to talk to him. You’d tried to go to him, but the small holding room was swamped with adoring fans. You know Cato saw you over the heads of all the people saying how proud they were, how they were so sure he’d win. He saw you, and he saw you shake your head at all the people cheering for his imminent demise, and he saw you go.

You regret it half the time he’s been gone, leaving so early. It wasn’t like you would have been able to talk to him anyway; by the time you were turning around, the Peacekeepers were already starting to usher people out, and Cato, breaking another promise, hadn’t kept a space clear for you to find him. But, at the end of the day, you didn’t just leave because it was impossible to get to him. You left because you couldn’t stand to hear everybody praising him for going to his death, and you couldn’t stand to hear one more word about how his betrayal would make him a better man.

At the end of the day, you almost saw it coming. Winning the Hunger Games is Cato’s big dream, and it has been since you were kids. Even when you were small, you remember him staying late to train. He was proficient in the sword before most kids got their first kiss. You had always hoped that he would love life enough to stay away from that arena of death, but the last of your hopes were gone when he volunteered.

You don’t watch a second of his Games, you can’t stomach it. You try to picture watching your boyfriend die live on camera, your own falling face broadcasted live to the Capitol. Would your neighbors approve of your reaction when the love of your life was run through or shot or poisoned? It makes you want to throw up, so you stay at home and try to stay away from the screens, but nothing works. Even clamping your hands tight over your ears doesn’t stop you from hearing the roars of the crowds outside when something happens.

You have to assume Cato is doing well, but recently, people have been saying it looks bad. When Clove died, the mood shifted in the entire district, and that sense of jubilation over a seemingly guaranteed District Two victory has never returned. They say Cato is hurt, maybe. They say Katniss and Peeta are going to kill him.

Night falls when someone gets you, tells you that you have to head to the square, now. You get there just in time to see Cato on top of the cornucopia in the dark, trapping Peeta with the baying hounds below him. Katniss shoots. He falls. The cannon rings, and you’re dead along with him.

You’re numb for days. You don’t even remember the laments around you, strangers you’ve seen on the street telling you how sorry they are as if that does a damn thing when they pushed him to this. You get home, apparently. You get to bed. Somehow, you live when he doesn’t. You wouldn’t know how it happens. You don’t know a thing at all.

You stop leaving your room. You don’t want to see anyone, or have to witness the awkward guilt when they recognize who you are and why you look like the whole world has burned to ash around you, because to you, it has. Your parents try to bring you food, and you eat it, tasting nothing. You drink water and wonder why you bother when it just lets you cry again hours later.

When someone knocks on the door, you don’t bother answering, assuming it’s your family. The knock sounds again a few seconds later, smart and unavoidable. It doesn’t really sound like the tentative rap of your parents, so against your better judgment, you rise and answer.

There’s a man looking back at you, one you’ve never met before. He’s in his forties, maybe, his hair an early white. He looks Capitol, but you can’t fathom why he’d be here. He invites himself in, taking a seat at your desk and looking back at you once he’s settled himself.

“You should close that,” he says, gesturing to the door.

You’re not really energized enough to start arguing, so you do as told and sit down on your bed, hands clasping at nothing in your lap.

“Who are you?” You ask, voice scratchy from tears and lack of use.

The man glances once at the windows, once again at the door, and finally a quick scan of the room before he speaks quietly. “My name is Plutarch Heavensbee. I’m going to be the new Head Gamemaker.”

You eye him dolefully. “I didn’t realize the Head Gamemakers did personal apology tours for the dead tributes.”

He chuckles dryly. “We don’t. To speak plainly, I’m here because I need something.”

His honesty, however brutal, is a relief after all the saccharine half-meant apologies from the rest of Two. “What could I possibly give you?”

Plutarch steeples his fingers together, thoughtful. “Your unwavering loyalty.”

You laugh, now. It’s a far colder sound than his. “You and your Games killed Cato. Why would I ever follow you again?”

Plutarch’s eyes lock onto yours. “I may make the Games, Y/N, but I do not believe in them.” It’s a radical statement, and he lets it hang in the air for a few seconds before he continues. “We have a possibility of taking a stand against the Capitol. I’m looking for inside sources. You’re the perfect fit.”

You arch a brow. “I have no connection to the Games. How could I possibly help you?”

“Your lack of connection is the exact reason we need you,” Plutarch argues. “You’re not on the Capitol’s radar as anything more than a grieving ex-lover. Two is valuable to us.”

You lean back, considering this. “You want me to be a spy so I can get revenge on the Capitol for killing Cato. That’s it?”

“That’s it?” Plutarch scoffs. “You have no idea of the risk we all suffer just by meeting. Let me be clear, Y/N, what I am about to ask of you is dangerous to you and everyone you have ever known. The Capitol will butcher you and display your rotting body as a lesson. This is not something you pick up to pass the time. This will become your life, or you do not join. I want you here because you want to get back at the Capitol as much as the rest of us, but I will not permit you to be near us if I suspect you are not fully committed to the cause.”

His voice is steely, and it cuts through the haze of your grief like one of Cato’s knives. Briefly, the anguish gives way to fierce, bitter pain. You miss Cato with everything you have. There were a thousand things you were supposed to do, places you were meant to visit together, people you were supposed to become. You have been robbed of everything in the world. This is your chance to get the Capitol back, and you– you are going to take it.

“I’m in,” you say before you can stop yourself. “I want Snow gone.”

Plutarch’s thin lips curl into a smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”

He stands, but pauses before he gets to the door. “We’ll be in contact. Keep your eyes open, and stay safe. Spies don’t have a long life expectancy. We’d hate to lose you before you even start.”

You nod grimly. “You as well.”

He almost smiles, then sweeps from the room. You can hear the distant sounds of him thanking your parents for the visit, and expressing his sincere sympathy for the loss of Two’s tributes this year. Then he’s gone, and you’re left wondering what you’ve done to yourself.

Your parents are thrilled when you get a job offer from the Gamemakers later that week. You’re able to pass off Plutarch’s visit as a last interview/congratulations before your new position begins. You’ll work in Two, mostly, deep within the district government, but you’ll have weekly meetings in the Capitol to update the Gamemakers on your progress.

In reality, you’ll be gathering everything you can and checking in with Plutarch once a week. The first time you take the train to the Capitol to meet him, you can’t help but wonder if this is how Cato felt, too, watching home rush away from him, knowing that success or death would await him in the Capitol. Your throat burns by the time you get there, torn raw with unshed tears.

Plutarch is careful, always careful, but as the weeks wear on, he trusts you little by little. He confesses eventually that having a spy in Two was crucial to his future endeavors. He won’t mention what those future endeavors are, not completely, but you understand why. It’s too risky to spill everything to someone he’s only just met.

You don’t know that Plutarch is truly certain of your loyalty, though, for another three months. By now, you’ve had several close run-ins with curious Peacekeepers, and transmitted enough information to feed Plutarch’s flames for years. As a reward, he takes you down to a secret room in the hidden headquarters of the rebellion, and in those cool, dimly lit rooms, he says something that transforms your life completely.

“We have Cato.”

At first, you think they mean the coffin. He was buried in the Capitol, they all were. There’s a broadcasted ceremony every year for all the tributes. That one, you watched. They wouldn’t let you or his family come. No one was by his side when he entered the earth. You sobbed for hours.

Plutarch shakes his head, though. “He’s still alive.”

You have to lean against the wall to steady yourself. “Impossible.”

“Not impossible,” Plutarch says. “We grabbed his body before rigor mortis set in. He’s been in a medically induced coma for months while our medical staff stitches him back together. It’ll be a while before he’s even conscious, and longer before he can walk and talk, but he’ll be back.”

You feel dizzy, head rushing from loss of blood. “They would have noticed,” you fight to say. “He was dead, Katniss shot him. The Capitol would never let him go.”

“They don’t care about the dead,” Plutarch says. “Not yours, not mine. I collected him.”

You glance up sharply. “You wanted him as a bargaining chip, didn’t you? If I didn’t agree so easily, you would have told me that you had my boyfriend.”

Plutarch nods, paying no mind to the storm in your heart. “I would have done anything to secure a spy in Two. You know that. I would go to any lengths to do it. Even, yes, hold Cato over you. That was the whole point.”

Of course it was. Clever, plotting Plutarch, would always have a second option. If he had doubted your loyalty back in your house in Two, he would have ensured he had a safety net to stop you from going to the Peacekeepers the second he left. You hadn’t needed it, so he’d kept his ace up his sleeve until now.

“Why tell me, then?” You croak. “You don’t care what happens to Cato. What do you want from me now? I’ve given you everything.”

“Not everything,” Plutarch muses thoughtfully. “Not your life, not yet. The time may come. But you’re right, Y/N, I do want more. You’ve been with us a long time. Long enough to grow complacent. I want to ensure that you will remain just as sharp as ever. As we draw closer to the Quarter Quell, our plans will accelerate. I need to know that you will guarantee our success.”

“I would have done that without you threatening to kill Cato a second time,” you spit.

Plutarch just sighs. “I can’t guarantee that.”

You can’t stop staring around the room, trying to find a curl of blond hair, a wicked smile, any sign of the boy you’ve loved for so long. “Where is he? I want to see him.”

Plutarch nods, gesturing for you to follow him. “I wouldn’t expect you to just take my word for it.”

He leads you through a series of locked doors to a small care unit. There’s a body encased in a blue cell, the encircling glass walls just large enough to thread the limbs and chest with tubes pumping some sort of liquid throughout. Through the misty aqua glow, you can make out a face.

You stumble. You’d know Cato anywhere, even almost dead, even almost back to life. You stare at him, eyes wide, and a tear falls from your face and drips onto the glass. You didn’t even realize you were crying again. You didn’t think you could, anymore, but this hope– it brings you back to life along with him.

“When will he be awake?” You ask, breath harsh in your chest.

Plutarch straightens up from where he’s been glancing at a nearby readout. “A month or two, perhaps. He’ll be functional by the time of the next Games, which is good. If all goes well, we will need to run.”

You look up at him. “Tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it. Anything.”

His lips curve up into a smile. In the ghostly blue light of Cato’s healing cell, he looks like a phantom. The ghost of Games gone by, perhaps. The ghost of the tributes to come. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

With that, you let the rebellion consume you. Not a day goes by that you aren’t traveling between districts, gathering information, and spreading contraband from rebel group to rebel group. Plutarch keeps you busy. Most nights, you don’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time, any rest caught in brief snatches between train rides. If you ever had a home, it’s no more than a memory now. You don’t stay in any place long enough to remember it. You’re certain Peacekeepers have been following you for days now, but maybe you just can’t tell the difference between the white-armored soldiers in every district.

You’re stopping by the rebel headquarters in the Capitol to bring news of the developments in Thirteen when Plutarch asks you to stay a while longer. You assume he wants you to take on another project, but instead he tells you that Cato has woken up. He couldn’t risk mentioning it through the usual comms, but he remembers his promise just as you’ve remembered yours.

You fly down the stairs to the med center, flying around the corners until you’re back in the care unit. The blue glass cell is gone, replaced by a hospital bed. A patient is sitting up and arguing with one of the doctors. You notice he’s been cuffed to the rail of the bed, and can’t help a small smile. That’s your Cato, isn’t it? Always a fighter.

He falls silent when you enter, eyes wide. For a moment, you wonder if the healing damaged his brain, if he might not remember you, if anything would ever be the same, and then a tentative hope enters his voice as he says, “Y/N?”

You’re across the room in a moment, and then you’re in his arms again, and maybe everything will be okay again. His free hand, the one that isn’t cuffed to the bed, is pressed against your back, drawing you ever closer to him.

“Y/N,” he says in a choked whisper, “Y/N, I died.”

“No,” you murmur, drawing back so you can see his face. It’s the same face, somehow. Still him. Still Cato. “They brought you back. You’re going to be okay.”

“How is that possible?” Cato asks, raising his free hand to touch your face lightly as if he can’t believe it’s you.

“Don’t ask me,” you chuckle weakly. “All I know is that you’re here. That’s all that matters.”

Cato glances warily at the doctors, then returns his gaze to you. He looks more carefully now, taking in the hollows under your eyes, the scars and scrapes on your arms. “What have you done, Y/N? What did they make you do?”

You choke on a laugh before you can stop yourself. “The star tribute is asking me what I did? I haven’t been in the Games, Cato. I’m not the one who signed themselves up to die.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he says. “You’ve got– you look like us now.”

Dully, you realize what he means. There’s a sort of innocence in the faces of people who haven’t had to take a life. Even the hardiest of the careers still have it if they haven’t been in the Games. Cato sees it now in you. The last year has destroyed you.

You let out a slow breath, taking his hand in yours. “Losing you destroyed me, Cato. I had to do what I could.”

Cato looks around the room again, his hunter’s eyes taking in the details of the workers, the sparse decoration of the room. “We’re not with the Capitol anymore, are we?”

“No,” you admit, “we’re not.”

Something savage twists his face. “Good.”

You weren’t sure how he would take the news that you were working with the rebels, but surprisingly, Cato is in favor. He’s mad about what they did to secure Katniss’ victory. The whole point of the Games was that the strongest would win, he says, but they interfered. All that hard work to get to the Games, and then the Makers cheated him out of it.

What Cato doesn’t realize is how deeply entrenched you are in the workings of the Rebels. Cato isn’t allowed to go back to normal, obviously, Panem thinks he’s dead, but he hadn’t counted on you joining him in that fate. They find Cato a place in Thirteen where he can help train the soldiers; it’s good for him to stay busy, and he tries to work his body to the limits so exhaustion will fight off the nightmares of dying for him, but Cato wants you there with him.

Only, that isn’t the case. Plutarch didn’t give you Cato back so you could stop working with the rebellion. If anything, it makes you work even harder. Now that you have Cato, you finally have the brief, glimmering hope of a better life, but you won’t get it if the Capitol still exists.

By now, you’ve been clued in to Plutarch’s master plan for the Games. The rules for the Quarter Quell were announced a few days ago. The dominoes have started to fall. All that’s left to do is make sure the ruin runs where you want it.

Cato doesn’t see it that way. Every time you’re at Thirteen, you make time to see your boyfriend, but it’s never enough. It never will be, not until the Capitol is gone, not until the war is over. For Cato, though, he’s already died. He wants to stop running.

You’re with him now, tucked into his arms on his bunk with your back up against his chest, pretending that you won’t have to leave again in just a few hours. He’s tracing absentminded circles on your forearms, and when he speaks, his breath buzzes against the top of your head.

“Stay with me,” he says. “They’re going to kill you if you keep this up. Stay here.”

“You know I can’t,” you sigh. “Not until it’s done.”

Cato blows out sharply, annoyed. “Let them die, not you. You’re better than that.”

“All our deaths are the same,” you contradict. “Might as well be me.”

Cato’s grip around you tightens possessively. “I’d let all of them die before you.”

You shift slightly so you can look up at him. He’s frustrated again, jaw tight as he tries to control himself. “I have to do this. All of our work depends on the Games going in our favor. If we give up now, it was all for nothing. I can’t let that happen.”

Cato shakes his head tersely. “Promise me you won’t get hurt. Promise me you won’t die for them.”

The twisting guilt of deja vu curls around your stomach. You can’t help but remember a similar moment, a similar promise, almost a year ago exactly. You had said almost the same thing to Cato when he was talking about volunteering. At the time, it had seemed so easy. All Cato had to do was stay with you, and he would have been safe. But Cato had to go, it would have killed him not to go. And it’ll kill you to stay. Both of you know this. It doesn’t make it any easier.

You kiss him once, twice. For past and present. “I’ll see you soon.”

You won’t. You’ll be in the Capitol until after the Games at least, and although Plutarch has promised he’ll get you out with the rest, there’s always the small chance that it won’t work out.

Cato pulls you up in his arms so you’re eye to eye. “Soon,” he says.

“Soon,” you repeat. This close to him, you’re sure he can feel your pulse thundering in your veins, carrying with it the weight of this lie. He would know how to sense it, too. All that time in the arena, he’d know how to tell when someone was about to die.

Cato doesn’t want to let you go, but he has to, piece by piece, second by second, letting you go in the bed just to crawl off and hold you by the door, then walk you to the jet, then hold you again one last time before you’re taken away. You watch through the window as he shrinks away to nothingness, one arm still raised. You’ll see him again, or never at all.

Plutarch is waiting for you in the Capitol. “It’s time to play,” he says.

“It’s time to win,” you return.

He smiles without meaning it and turns back to his screens. There’s a lot of data to get through. Some of the tributes you weren’t expecting, but you have who you need. Finnick knows, Johanna knows, but you can keep Katniss and Peeta in the dark for as long as possible.

Thus, the Games begin, and, electrifying as an arrow in the night, they end. You watch Katniss looking down her bow at Finnick, then turning her weapon towards the sky. Plutarch slips away from Snow long enough to get you, and the two of you hurry towards a transport that will take you back to Thirteen in the dead of night. Voices are hushed. The tributes get out, but not all of them. Peeta, you think, was left behind. Johanna too. Still, it’s a better collection than you’d hoped.

And, when the jet docks in Thirteen, there’s someone waiting for you in the hangar, your golden boy. Cato comes running over before the landing gear is even fully tucked away. He waits, impatient as a coiled spring, while the doors open, and then he’s rushing inside and pulling you into his arms.

“No more separation,” he says against your temple. “We fight together now.”

“Together,” you whisper back, and you mean it, too.

Whatever happens after this, the cards are all on the table. Cato can come back to the public eye. You’ll fight in the war side by side. If you die before the rebellion wins, you’ll do it together. Some would call that tragic, but all of this is a tragedy. At least you’ll have him. Two is gone to you, so too is any dream of normalcy, but Cato– Cato, you will always have. That, at least, is your victory.

hunger games tag list: @w1shes43, @ilovexavierthrope

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

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jeankluv · 1 year

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Come back… be here || Trafalgar Law x reader

Summary: After Wano the Straw Hats and Law parted ways. Looking back, you wished you had more time with him, to say everything you didn’t say back them. But maybe now was too late.

Warnings: Spoilers for the One Piece manga until 1081,after that is all speculations (not real), fluff, angst.

Words count: 2.2k

Note: sorry if there are any grammar mistakes

——————

The crew and you almost didn’t made it out of Egghead, what did Vegapunk knew for an admiral and one of the most important people in the world to be behind him? You just wanted to relax right now, try to calm yourself but it was impossible, the ship was full of new people. All the Vegapunks were here, the cp0 was here, you were trying to understand why those guys were on the Sunny but apparently Luffy was okay with it, so you wouldn’t object your captain decision.

Everyone was being too loud and you could feel your head about to explode. You excused yourself from the crowd and went to the back of the boat. The night sky was clear and you could clearly see the stars, that’s something you love of being on a ship, because it was easier to see the stars in the sea than in a town, due to the lights.

When you were sent with the Heart Pirates two years ago you couldn’t really go out to see the stars because it was a submarine but when Trafalgar Law learned about your love for the night skies, he started to refloat the submarine so you could go out in night and watch the sky. That’s when you probably started to fall for him, for that cold guy with all those tattoos.

He would always show up next to you and ask you thing about the stars and you with all the excitement in the world would spend hours talking.

“Sorry… I talked too much”

“It’s okay. I like listening to you talk about things you love.”

Your heart would beat so fast when he said things like that. And he would always say them with the most serious face.

It was in moments like this where you wish you could be with him and be braver than you were back there.

“You like the captain?” Ikkaku looked at you.

You felt your cheeks burn, “what?! I… I don-“

“Please, I can see the way you look at him.”

You sighed, it was that obvious? “I do… but please don’t tell this to anyone”

“Don’t worry (y/n), besides I think captain also likes you. Why don’t you try telling him?”

“Ikkaku don’t joke around, Law would never see me like that.” You look down. “And don’t forget that me staying here it’s just temporary, then I will be back with my crew and we will be enemies.”

Enemies? You couldn’t truly imagine yourself fighting against the Heart Pirates. So when Luffy accepted joining forces with them you truly were the happiest.

“I heard about the alliance between Luffy and you.” You sat next to him after Smoker left.

“Mugiwara-ya will be helpful to take down Kaido.” He said looking at his soup.

You both stayed silent until he spoke again.

“I missed you.” Was all he said before standing and going to the Sunny.

You covered your face with your hands remembering, why was he like that?

“So… I guess it’s a goodbye, once again.” You said, looking at your hands.

“I guess it is… but it could not be, only if you…”

“No, I’m sorry but I’m not leaving the Straw Hats.” You looked at him. “Heart Pirates mean a lot to me, you mean so much… but I own Luffy and the rest so much. Sorry”

“It’s okay, I understand, you don’t have to be sorry.” He gave you a small smile.

“Law, I…” You could feel your cheeks burning, you were so nervous.

“Take this.” He stopped you. In front of you there was a piece of paper. “It’s my vivre card.”

“Your vivre card?”

“Just in case.” He puts the vivre card in your hand.

“It better not start burning out Trafalgar.” You said trying to joke.

You search for it on your pocket, you always carried it with you. That way you feel like he was with you.

But then realization hit you, the vivre card was burning out, it was half gone. You started to shake, you felt like you couldn’t breathe.

“Y/n?” You heard Robin calling you behind you. “What’s wrong?” You felt her approaching you.

“Robin…” You turned around and showed her the vivre card. Your face was already covered with tears and your breath was messier than before.

“Y/n you need to try and breathe, okay?” She holds you. “We will talk to Luffy and we will follow the vivre card. Everything will be alright.”

Robin's voice was starting to sound farther away every time she spoke. Your legs started to fail and you fell to the floor. You heard Robin calling for Chopper and then everything turned black.

...::::**•°✾°•**::::....

You slowly opened your eyes, it hurt like hell. What happened? You remember Robin, she was calling Chopper, Law’s vivre card… You stood faster than you knew you should’ve done because it made your head feel worst than before.

“Don’t force yourself.” You heard Chopper, he was there, you were in his medical room.

“The… the vivre card…” Words wouldn’t come out. You truly were afraid of his response, you were afraid of hearing that the vivre card ran out completely.

“We are following the vivre card. Don’t worry.” Chopper said, trying to calm you.

But you couldn’t calm down, you needed to see Law, to know he was okay, to hug him and tell everything you didn’t say before.

“Now go back to sleep, you need it.”

“Chopper I need to…”

“You don’t. You suffered a panic attack and fainted hitting your head in the process. So what you have to do now is rest, so you can be fully recovered when we find Torao.” Chopper said everything without blinking, not once. You never saw him like that, so you nodded and layed down.

He felt the room, leaving you alone. Well not really, your thoughts were with you and they were driving you crazy. All the worst scenarios were appearing in your mind. The door opened again and this time all your nakamas were there.

“Y/n how are you feeling?” Nami sat next to you and hold your hand.

“Where are we? Is the vivre card still burning out?” You talked looking from Nami to the rest of the crew.

“We are following the vivre card, y/n-san” Jinbe said.

You closed your eyes and breath in. You tried to stand up but you were stop by Nami.

“You can’t move, you need to rest y/n.”

“How?” You snapped out. “How am I supposed to stay in bed when Law is injured or who knows how? I can’t do that! If I stay here with my thoughts I will lose my mind.” You could feel your eyes starting to fill with tears.

“Y/n…” it was Zoro who talked this time. “You think that you will be helpful being sick if we find Torao and he is in danger? You must rest, so when we find Torao you can help him and not be a burden.” He said with a serious tone. “So go back and rest as Chopper told you.”

“Oi Marimo don’t talk to y/n-swan like that!”

Sanji and Zoro started to argue for the surprise of no one. You look down, Zoro was right, you were going to be a burden if you didn’t rest enough.

Luffy came closer to you and pat your head, “Torao will be alright, y/n.” He gave you one of his big smiles. “He is a strong guy, so rest and leave the rest to us for now.”

You nodded and whipped the tears that were rolling down your face.

“Thank you.” You look at all of them.

They stayed a few more moments with you and then left, leaving you with Nami and Robin, you told them it was okay to leave you alone, you were more calm but they wanted to stay by your side and support you. The three of you started talking about trivial things. You knew they were making this to distract you but after talking with your nakamas, you were more calm. Law was strong, his crew was strong, everything was going to be okay. Law was going to be okay.

...::::**•°✾°•**::::....

A few days passed by and you didn’t find any signs of the Heart Pirates, you were still following the vivre card, which stopped burning out and now it seemed stable. You were still worried, why wasn’t the vivre card regenerating? Law was a doctor, one of the best, so it could mean he was badly injured. You tried to shake those thoughts out of your mind. You were approaching an island, you needed provisions for the journey, so you were stopping on the closet island.

The crew divided into different groups to buy everything that was needed. You were with Brook and Usopp searching for tools that Usopp needed to try and upgrade his and Nami’s weapons. You didn’t understand most of the pieces Usopp was mentioning but you follow his steps closely.

“Y/n-San…”

You froze in place, you knew that voice.

“Y/n-San is everything alright?” Brook looked at you.

You turned, trying to see the owner of that voice. People were going from one place to another but it shouldn’t be too difficult to see him. And then you saw it, hiding.

“Bepo!” You ran to him and hugged the polar bear tightly. “I’m glad to see you alright.” You said holding back your tears.

“Y/n-San… Captain is badly injured.” He said in a low voice, making your heart ache.

You swallowed hard, “where is he Bepo? We will take him to Chopper.” That’s when you took a better look at him and saw him being injured. “You also need treatment.”

“I’m sorry.” He lowered his head down.

“Don’t be Bepo, everything will be alright.” You tried to comfort him, although you weren’t the best to do that right now.

Bepo guided you to the forest and in a small cave covered with blankets was him. Law.

“Law…” You approached him and rested your hand in his chest, feeling his heart beating. You thanked god and started silently crying.

“Don’t cry…” Law said slowly, opening his eyes. He wiped your tears away from your cheeks. “I’m okay…”

“You are not… We will get you to Chopper.” You said holding his hand close to you.

You called Brook and Usopp and told them to help Law and to head to the Sunny so Chopper could take care of him and Bepo. They took Law, carefully, trying not to hurt him and the five of you started walking back to the Sunny.

“Oi Chopper!!” Usopp called him, hoping he was already back on the ship.

And yes, there he was and so everyone else. Chopper started treating both of them, although Bepo kept insisting on treating only Law because he was badly injured.

Chopper was able to stop the bleeding from Law and mentioned he needed rest from the next couple of days, maybe weeks. You stayed by his side the whole time, he was still sleeping. You hold his hand, not wanting to let it go, scared that if you did he was going to disappear from your side.

“I hate to see you sad…” He whispered, opening his eyes.

“Law! Don’t move too much, you need total rest.” You said looking at him.

He stayed looking at you, you never saw that look on his face. He was suffering, sad, he was about to cry.

“I lost them…” He said. “Again, y/n… My family is gone again.” A silent tear started to fall down his face. “Just like it happened with my parents, Lami and Cora-san. My crew, I left them there.”

“Law, it’s going to be alright. Your crew it’s strong, I’m sure we will find them.” You wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Luffy, all of us, we will do everything to find them. I promise.”

“He was so strong. I couldn’t do anything against him. My powers, my powers were useless. I was useless, weak.”

“Law stop please.” You stopped him. “Thinking about this won’t changed everything and you know that. So please my love, stop doing that.”

You both stayed silent, until he spoke again. “I was scared… I really thought I was going to die this time and everything I could think about was you.” He placed his hand on your cheek. “I was scared of not seeing you again. Of not saying the things I have been hiding for so long. I love you y/n. During those 2 years you were with me and the crew, you became the most important person to me. I love everything about you and I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. But from now on, I will tell you everything.”

“Law… I love you too.” You hugged him. “Thank you. Thank you for staying alive, thank you for existing. And you have me, Bepo, your crew it’s out there, the rest of the mugiwaras, we are your family. We will be alright.”

You looked at him and finally kissed him, something you have been dying to do for so long. The kiss was calm, gentle. You broke the kiss and looked at him.

“You need to rest.” You said pulling him down. “I will go and talk with Luffy and the rest. So we can go and search your team alright?”

“Okay…” He softly smiled. “Thank you y/n. For everything.”

You left the room, letting Law rest. Your heart was finally more calm but you still needed to be sure the rest of Heart Pirates were okay.

#trafalgar law x y/n #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar d law x reader #law x reader #law x you #one piece x reader

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olderthannetfic · 5 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749218521745145857/while-i-love-some-queergay-whatever

“Kissing on the forehead isn’t necessarily romantic” makes sense if we are talking about a work of media that is made in a time/place where that was a common thing between same gender platonic friends.

But are you, anon? Or are you talking about like, a piece of Western mass media from the past 50 years? Or are you talking about anime — because if anything, kissing is even more loaded in Japan than it is in the West, especially if there are other people around. (Lots of people in anime fandom love to use “but Japanese culture” arguments to no homo, but are banking on no one reading them actually knowing jack shit about Japanese culture — because it’s almost never true or based on any real Japanese cultural difference, there’s just making shit up. It assumes people will take for granted anything that frames Japan as “foreign and inscrutable and impossible for Westerners to understand” which is just Orientalism tbqh)

Just saying, because I almost never see this shit said about like, a novel from 1820 or something from a culture like, say, some Middle Eastern countries where men kissing other men platonically is a thing…. and almost always see it said about current media from a culture where kissing on the forehead would be seen as something you’d likely not do to a platonic friend of the same gender.

You can’t “impose your cultural norms” on something from the same culture as you lol, or something from another culture that has the same norm! And an (for example) American assuming that modern American media plays by the rules of modern American culture and seeing it through that lens, doesn’t necessarily mean that American is unaware that different norms exist in different cultures. But like… it just makes sense to analyze a current American show for American audiences set in America in the modern day through the cultural standards of 2020s America and not, say, Bangladesh or Namibia or 1850s America.

And on another note, if you were as much of a fan of “queer readings” as you claim to be, you’d know that they often have little to do with authorial intent. In fact, it’s often specifically about reclaiming media that didn’t have you in mind as the audience.

(Seriously, I really doubt you have read many of those queer readings, bc if this bothers you so much, the stuff queer studies academics and cultural critics see as “gay subtext” in old Hollywood movies — hell, the stuff that gay, bi and sympathetic-straight directors and actors and writers often very much INTENDED as gay subtext in those movies — would make your brain explode.)

Anyway, we’ve all been in fandoms where there’s a ship some people insist has a ton of subtext but it’s just two guys sharing a scene occasionally and they just WANT to believe it’s there when it isn’t, and it can be annoying sure if there are so many people insisting this that it’s inescapable and becoming fanon that affects the fic about the ships you like, or if they’re pushy and sanctimonious about it. (My current fandom has a group of people who insist the only reason other people don’t see all the “subtext” for their random rarepair is racism or something, and then ignore how much textual stuff they have to deliberately leave out or misinterpret for their reading to “work” lol. Like scenes where their starry eyed expression is directed at a different character and that’s obvious in the actual episode but not in their selectively edited gif set or meta post.) But that is not the same as doing that with KISSING ON THE FOREHEAD ffs. And also, let’s not pretend that slash (or femslash) shippers are the worst offenders, like het shippers — and the broader culture — doesn’t constantly treat “a man and a woman interact” as meaning “they could/should be a couple,”

If you’re not bothered by that, but you’re bothered by when people do it with two men or two women… yeah you gotta ask yourself why that is. I have an idea why, and it’s not bc of your greater cultural open mindedness lol

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anonymousewrites · 1 year

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One Hell of a Love (Book 1) Chapter Ten

Sebastian Michaelis x Demon! Reader

Chapter Ten: One Hell of a Fair

Summary: (Y/N) and Sebastian go to the Frost Fair and, of course, find trouble there.

(Y/N) looked around at the frozen Thames as people milled about in small shops made of tents, kids happily played in the snow, and people contentedly walked across the thick ice keeping them from falling to the watery depths below.

“The Frost Fair takes place next to London Bridge on the frozen River Thames,” said Ciel, bundling up against the cold. “The last time it was this grand was back in 1814, apparently.” He grinned suddenly as they passed some stalls.

“What is the matter?” asked Sebastian.

“All the wares they have lined up here are shoddy,” said Ciel. “If the ice freezes over like this next year, we could clean up with a stall here.” He nodded to a small ark toy. “That, for example.”

“Oh, young nobleman, I see you have quite the eye,” said the salesman. “That is an item made by the now hugely popular Funtom Company when it was still a small craft shop.”

“What a total fake,” said Ciel. “The Phantom Ark, enjoyed by the last generation, was made by the most skilled craftsmen, and it was an extremely rare and valuable item because only three were made. Since the mansion burned down, even the current company doesn’t have the real item anymore. There’s no way there would be a real one here.”

“Noah’s Ark is a lot like this country,” remarked Sebastian.

“What?” asked Ciel.

“A ship steered by a single boatman,” said Sebastian. His eyes were cold. “The only ones who will be saved are the select few.”

“Arrogance and lack of empathy,” said (Y/N). “It kills humanity at every turn.”

Ciel looked like he was about to respond, but someone stepped out and said, “You’re…”

(Y/N) glanced at the new arrival and remembered him. It was Abberline, the detective from Scotland Yard.

“To see one of Scotland Yard’s detectives has enough free time to dawdle around here, I suppose London must really be at peace,” remarked Ciel. “Today, at any rate.”

“I don’t! I’m on duty right no!” defended Abberline.

“Well, then, work hard enough to earn your keep on behalf of Her Majesty and the people who employ you, Inspector,” said Ciel, turning away.

“Wait, I have something to ask you,” said Abberline. “Master Ciel!” He reached out to touch Ciel’s shoulder, but Sebastian swiped his hand away.

“Pardon me. As you can see, our Master is quite frail…I mean, delicate,” said Sebastian with a smirk. “So I would ask you not to lay your hands on him too roughly.”

“We can grab a cup of tea, and you can speak for a moment there,” said Ciel simply, walking over to a small tea room before Abberline could argue against it.

(Y/N) sighed when they entered the warm shop, bristling from the winter cold. Sebastian snuck a look at them and smiled in amusement at their little habits that betrayed how they were feeling. He had always scolded them for not completely controlling their reactions, but Sebastian was rather fond of them.

“So, then,” said Ciel once they were seated. “What is Scotland Yard doing here, Inspector Abberline?”

“This morning, a man’s corpse was found under the ice of the market,” explained Abberline. “The man was a member of a specific criminal organization. At present, we are chasing after the culprit who killed that man as well as the ring he stole embedded with a blue diamond worth around two thousand pounds.”

“Diamond: the stone that radiates exquisiteness for all eternity,” said a new voice. Lau had arrived in his tea room. “All that awaits those mesmerized by its shine is destruction. However, even knowing that, it is said that it is impossible to resist.”

“How do you know about the Shard of Hope?” questioned Abberline.

Ciel raised an eyebrow. “The Shard of Hope?”

“Huh? What? What?” Lau blinked innocently. “There’s really a gem like that?”

(Y/N) sighed. Lau was an expert at seeming like he knew what he was doing and then actually having no clue.

“He was just joining in,” said Ciel, eyebrow twitching. “Don’t pay any attention to him. More importantly, Lau, why are you here?”

“Because this is my restaurant, Young Earl,” said Lau.

(Y/N) glanced over at the scantily-clad waitresses and deadpanned. “We should have guessed.”

“Not interested?” remarked Sebastian teasingly.

“In the outfits or the women? I’m afraid I’d be saying no to both at this instance,” said (Y/N).

“Pity,” said Sebastian. He thought they’d look sinful in one of those dresses.

“By the way, it seems you’re having a rather interesting conversation, Young Earl,” remarked Lau. “Will you please fill me in on the details?”

“Have you heard anything?” asked Ciel. “It’s part of Lord Henry Hope’s collection; a blue diamond that has become known as the Hope Diamond.”

“Nope, nothing,” said Lau.

“It is a devilish stone that is rumored to have brought all its owners an unfortunate fate, from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette on,” continued Ciel. “After disappearing from the world, the stone was divided in order to hide its past. It was cut, and a small shard was taken off. Consequently, one of the two shards of the Hope Diamond is what you are searching for. Correct, Abberline?”

“The carriage was attacked while it was being transported as evidence, and it was stolen,” said Abberline grimly.

Ciel smirked. “This is intriguing. Tell me more. I’ll participate in this matter, too. I won’t force you to tell me. However, if you refuse, your superior, Lord Randall, might end up in quite the predicament.”

Abberline paled. “Fine. Since you insist.”

Ciel smirked in satisfaction. “Well, then, what are your leads?”

“Well, I was going to ask a certain man for some help,” said Abberline.

“A certain man?” asked Ciel. “Not…”

Abberline nodded gravely.

(Y/N) cocked their head as they regarded the tent before them. It was Undertaker’s. He had set up an undertaker’s shop on the ice. What a strange man…

“Apparently, quite a few people have died of frostbite, so he decided to set up a shop,” said Abberline.

“Earl…the name of this shop…it can’t be…” said Lau grimly.

“Since I permitted you to tag along, please wait here, outside,” said Abberline. He went to open the door, but as it was just a painted tent, he fell through to the floor below.

“How reckless.” Ciel deadpanned.

“That is but a privilege of birth,” said Lau. He paused. “So, where is this?”

An irk mark appeared on Ciel. “The Undertaker’s shop! We met him during the Jack the Ripper incident, remember?!” He huffed. “Abberline will be in tears in a moment. Sebastian, get ready to—!”

Outrageous laughter startled the group. Undertaker’s cackles rang out through the air, and his tent nearly came down from the force.

Shocked, Ciel pushed through the flap of the tent and walked in with Sebastian, (Y/N), and Lau. Undertaker lay on the ground, legs twitching as he laughed. Abberline looked incredibly confused.

“You’re amazing. You have definitely chosen the wrong profession,” giggled Undertaker as he stood. “As a comic, you could be world renowned!”

“Just what did you do?” asked Ciel.

“I-I just started talking as I normally do, but then this guy just started laughing,” said Abberline in confusion.

(Y/N) raised an eyebrow. “Impressive, he managed to make Undertaker laugh…”

“It seems you are quite skilled, Mr. Inspector,” said Sebastian darkly, huffing at a human impressing (Y/N) everyone.

“No, I’m just…” Abberline trailed off nervously.

Ciel slammed his hands down on a coffin. “Tell us about the ring, Undertaker, the one that the body you disposed of this morning was supposed to have.”

“There’s a possibility that it was buried around the area he was found in,” said Abberline. “I implore you on behalf of all the good citizens of London, such as yourself, please assist us with the investigation.”

“I have been highly impressed by you, Inspector,” said Undertaker, still giggling. “I’ll tell you. Or, more precisely…I’ll show you.”

The group stared at the ice sculpture of Queen Victoria and the blue diamond ring around her fingers.

“See? Over there,” chirped Undertaker.

Abberline looked aghast. Lau just smiled. “I guess one of the ice sculptors here just happened to come across the frozen ring, and in order to take advantage of it, they made it into a statue.”

(Y/N) leaned forward. “I usually prefer rubies, but I have to admit, the tales of sorrow and anguish around this jewel appeal to me.”

“Get it out! Right now!” cried Abberline at the two constables.

“Understood!” replied the men.

“What are you doing, you ignorant whelp?!” demanded an official voice. All heads turned to a group of people glaring at them.

“That holy maiden is the prize that will be presented to the winner!” declared a dramatic voice. Viscount Druitt withdrew a pink rose and shook a finger at the group. “You mustn’t touch it.”

“Viscount Druitt!” gasped Ciel, going white as he remembered the embarrassment of having to flirt with the man.

(Y/N) deadpanned. Of course he’d weaseled his way out of jailtime.

“The contest’s judges?” said Ciel, fighting for composure and looking at the other officials. “Why is he one of them?”

“Wasn’t he taken in by Scotland Yard for organ trafficking?” wondered Lau.

“He was released a few days ago,” said Abberline bitterly.

“Money,” said (Y/N) with a distasteful “tsk.” “Unbelievable.”

“I’m sorry,” said Abberline, stepping forward to the judges. “Scotland Yard will have to take this statue into its possession now.”

“No! Even if you are from Scotland Yard, we will not permit anyone to have their own way at the Frost Fair, the peak of excitement for all the townsfolk,” declared the head judge haughtily.

“Beauty is something to be adored!” cried Druitt. “Are you people trying to force shame on this beautiful maiden?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” muttered Ciel.

“If you really want her, then just bring out enough beauty to satisfy her,” said Druitt.

“As expected of one who loves fine art, beauty, and cuisine, it’s as Viscount Druitt says,” said the judge. “If you want this statue, win the contest.”

Ciel smirked. “I see. I can agree to that. The ring will belong to the one who wins the contest. It’s simply and clean.”

“Master Ciel?” asked Abberline.

“I will obtain that ring,” said Ciel.

“That’s a stolen object!” cried Abberline. “It’s also important evidence in the serial kidnappings of several young girls!” He covered his mouth after he spoke, realizing he gave out too much information.

“I see. So, that’s why Scotland Yard is in such a frenzy searching for it,” said Ciel with a smirk.

“Even so, it is true that those in possession of the ring have met ill fates, one after the other. It really does fit its name of the cursed stone, and yet you still—!” Abberline was interrupted.

“Cursed, huh?” remarked Ciel. He smirked and gazed at his Phantomhive ring. “Then, it really does fit me.”

“That reminds me,” said Undertaker. “Your ring also has a beautiful blue stone set in it, doesn’t it, Earl?”

“Yes,” replied Ciel.

“You should be careful,” said Undertaker with his mischievous smile. “Diamonds are hard, but for all their hardness, they’re fragile. If you overexert yourself too much, it may shatter.”

“What of it?” demanded Ciel. He smirked. “This body and this ring are both things that have shattered and been revived. As if I would fear them shattering after everything I’ve been through.”

Sebastian’s lips curled into a smirk at the determination at Ciel’s determination. (Y/N) cocked their head. They had been mortal once and seen thousands of lives come and go, and yet human resilience never faltered through the centuries.

Ciel turned on Sebastian. “Win the contest, Sebastian.”

“Yes, My Lord,” said Sebastian. He turned to (Y/N). “Join me for some entertainment?”

“And get all cold and wet? No, thank you,” said (Y/N), their nose twitching. “Besides, I doubt you need any help.”

Sebastian smirked proudly. “Of course. And I will demonstrate that today.”

“And now we will commence the traditional Frost Fair Ice Sculpture contest!” declared the announcer as time ended. “The judging will now commence! First up is the ‘Joyful Scotland Yard’ team with their ‘Guardian of London!’ ” Scotland Yard saluted the actually fairly realistic sculpture of Lord Randall. “Judges, your marks! One. Two. One. Zero. A total of five points!”

The announcer cleared his throat. “Next is the ‘All Women’s Dresses Should Be Tiny” team, but…for obvious reasons, it has been disqualified.”

(Y/N)’s eye twitched as they looked at Lau’s statue. It was of a woman entirely nude.

“Why?” asked Lau “innocently.”

“There’s no way they could show that in public!” cried Ciel.

“I think hiding it with those banners makes it more perverted,” said Lau in disappointment.

Despite the argument, the judges each held up an “X” for their judgement. Except, of course, Druitt put up a perfect “Ten.”

“You can win, right, Sebastian?” asked Ciel.

“Of course. Once you have given an order, I exist but to fulfill it,” said Sebastian.

“Next up is the ‘Queen’s Puppy’ team with ‘Noah’s Ark,’ ” said the announcer.

The curtain fell to reveal the large sculpture of Noah’s Ark, glistening under the sun.

“This is what ice art truly is!” cried a judge in amazement.

“This is amazing!” gasped the announcer. “Please, give us your results.”

“Please wait one moment,” said Sebastian. “You have no seen everything yet.” He snapped his fingers, and on cue, the warmth of the sun melted the slight seal in the ice. The cabin of Noah’s Ark broke apart to reveal a carving of the many animals saved on board.

“Amazing! It’s like it’s alive!” clamored the crowd.

“Good job,” said (Y/N), nodding to Sebastian.

“I see!” cried the head judge. “He made the joints in the roof weak on purpose so that, in time, they would melt and fall off!”

“Oh! Oh!” cried Druitt. “God’s rage! The only one to escape unscathed in the blazing storm was Noah! Leading his paired animals, waiting for the time of regeneration as they drift upon the waves!”

“Young man, I am completely astounded,” said the head judge. “To be able to see such a high-class ice sculptor…!”

“No,” Sebastian smirked, “I am just one hell of a butler.”

“You really like that line, don’t you?” remarked (Y/N).

Sebastian smirked at them. “I am simply being honest.”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh and rolled their eyes in fond amusement.

“Well, then, let’s go to the grading!” declared the announcer.

“Wait right there!” cried a man’s voice, running out to the middle of the ice. He pulled out a gun, and the crowd gasped. “This ring was originally ours. Sorry, but I’ll have you return it.”

“What? You people aren’t the—!” said Abberline.

“That’s right! We’re the bombing thief ring that’s been the talk of the town lately,” said the man proudly. He pulled back his jacket to expose a multitude of sticks of dynamite tied to him. Behind him, two more men kicked over a barrel with more explosives. “I’ll count down from ten.” He grabbed his lighter. “If you don’t want to die, then get lost. Ten!” The crowd ran.

“Master?” asked Sebastian.

“My orders haven’t changed,” said Ciel. “Do it, Sebastian.”

“Join me this time?” said Sebastian.

“Well, this time it will actually be fun,” said (Y/N), smiling brightly.

“Eight!”

“What are you doing? Get out of here this minute, Master Ciel!” said Abberline.

“Seven!”

“If you want to run, then do so,” said Ciel calmly. “Don’t pay attention to me.”

“Six!”

“Like I could do that!” cried Abberline.

Ciel’s eyes widened in surprise.

“I became a police officer to protect the people,” said Abberline.

“Five!”

“In order to protect everyone!” declared Abberline.

“Four!”

“What an idiot,” said Ciel.

Abberline ran forward, but a shot at his feet stopped him.

“Don’t get one step closer!” said the thief. He pointed the gun at Ciel. “I’m down to the last three. Are you really not gonna run, little nobleman?”

“I have no need to because…” Ciel didn’t have to finish speaking as Sebastian jumped into the air on skates and knocked the gun from the thief’s hands.

“What?!” the other two thieves began shooting at Sebastian, but (Y/N) skated up behind them and spun, knocking them down. They landed the jump in an arabesque backwards, and the judges clapped.

“What flawless form!” cried a judge.

The two thieves grabbed for (Y/N), but they tightened once more and jumped into the air, letting the men crash into each other before landing expertly again with a smirk.

“Incredible!”

“It’s the elegant raven dancing on the wings of night!” cried Druitt as he watched. “They ride the winds of darkness with feathers of ebony beauty! They tantalize those who cannot fly with them! Oh, but to touch such beauty!”

(Y/N) sighed at his dramatics, and Sebastian tsked.

“Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten!” cried the announcer as the judges watched the performance and graded it. “It’s a full score!”

“Excellent job, (Y/N),” said Sebastian, skating up to them.

(Y/N) spun before extending an arm and winking. “Well, I can’t let you take all the praise today.”

Sebastian took (Y/N)’s hand and spun them before matching their movements, and the judges clapped in amazement. “I suppose not.”

“You brat!” hissed the leader of the thieves at Ciel. “Be blown to smithereens!” He threw a lit stick of dynamite at him.

(Y/N) and Sebastian picked Ciel up by the arms and skated him out of harm’s way. The dynamite exploded on the ice behind them. The thief glared at them and lit another stick, throwing it once more. Again and again, (Y/N) and Sebastian kept Ciel lifted off his feet and skated him around to avoid the explosions.

“Stop it, boss!” cried the other two thieves, grabbing their leader. “Have you forgotten?! We’re standing on ice!”

As if on cue, the ice cracked, and the three men and the statue of Queen Victoria plunged into the freezing waters below.

“Sebastian!” warned Ciel, wanting the ring saved.

Sebastian and (Y/N) let go of Ciel, and his eyes widened, but Sebastian caught his arms, smirked innocently, and spun him around. Ciel furrowed his brow, and Sebastian threw him into the air. As he flew through the air, the ice beneath Sebastian and (Y/N) cracked. The crowd gasped.

(Y/N) moved to jump into the air, but Sebastian’s had already grabbed one hand and put the other on their waist to leapt dramatically up with them. (Y/N) grinned at the dramatics and allowed him to pulled them closer as they landed on Noah’s Ark.

The crowd gasped in amazement as the ice sculpture supported all three people as it sailed forward through the Thames.

“The ship sails, leaving behind people’s despairs! The ship sails, along with the world’s future, carrying the chosen hope with it!” cried Druitt as women cooed over his poetry. “Onward, to a winding, dreamlike journey, the ship sails!”

“It’s Noah! It’s the living incarnation of Noah!” gasped the head judge. “A biblical miracle has occurred on the Thames!”

“Yes, quite biblical, but more on the other side of things,” remarked (Y/N), smirking.

Ciel put his hands on his hips and looked at Sebastian and (Y/N) crossly. “That was a rather rough method.”

“Apologies. We thought it was the quickest method to ensure your safety,” said (Y/N) with an innocent smile.

“Says the one that got to look dignified,” muttered Ciel. He huffed and looked down at the Thames. “And so the Shard of Hope will sleep at the bottom of the Thames.”

“I suppose that is amusing in its own way,” said Sebastian. “It will curse London.”

“If it ended like that, then it would show that was all there was to this town and country,” responded Ciel. “After all, we Phantomhives have always…fought back.” He gazed at his ring.

“I suppose we’ll have to see how poor London fares after the curse,” said (Y/N), smirking.

Taglist:

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@neenieweenie

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@anxious-chick

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@agentdedf1sh

#one hell of a love #x reader #x gn reader #gn reader #x nb reader #nb reader #demon reader #demon!reader #sebastian x demon!reader #sebastian x reader #black butler sebastian #sebastian michaelis #sebastian michaelis x reader #black butler x reader #black butler fic #black butler ciel #black butler #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji x reader

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sciderman · 8 months

Note

Reading New Mutants #98 is such a wild experience because Wade still acts as the snarky and kinda sadistic shit talking queen of mercs, but he's also like...super menacing and competent too? Especialy next to today where people fuck him up like a noob, seeing him taking out a group of mutants with gadgets and tricks, body Nathan and having to be taken out by a suprise element was a true shock...and i kinda love it? Like, Wade shows up and he's actually a threat, but a threat that doesn't even take you seriously, he insults you but is also oddly polite to his main target. What is your take on the original version of Wade?

interesting question! really really reaaaally interesting question! new mutants #98 is an issue i've read like, a million times because newer comics always always always recontextualise it - so you find out, wait - domino was vanessa in disguise, so actually, she probably had an insight on how to take down wade better than anyone else - wait, nathan knew wade as someone who saves his life so was probably pulling his punches actually - wait - the guy who sent wade to kill nate was actually nathan's SON?? like there's five million plot twists that come after new mutants #98 that get me rereading it over and over.

i do love that wade's introduced as someone who is equipped and prepared – he definitely was more competent in the earlier comics, he was perpetually a threat, and always had just the contrived weapon in his arsenal needed to take out certain mutants with certain powers.

they kind of gradually started stripping him of all that - i think when he started making the transition from minor villain to empathetic anti-hero, they started stripping him of his teleporter belt, his image inducer, his swiss-army-knife arsenal that made every fight too convenient for him. and now - now he's just a guy with two swords and maximum effort.

i'm not saying it's bad – buuuut... i love the mission impossible movies. i love impossible gadgets. it's so much more fun to see than just, you know, guys hitting and slashing at each other. give me stupid weird gadget that wade has tucked away in some pouch belt of plot convenience specifically to take down this specific guy with weird specific powers. give me a competent wade who did all the research before going into the fight. not a wade wilson who kind of coasts by with dumb luck and gumption.

but - you know, on the topic of wade being hyper-competent in new mutants #98 it's - kind of not something i believe, either. sure, he's a menace to those kids but - remember, he does still get his ass handed to him in a humiliating kind of a way. what a start to his career. and these guys aren't shaken at all. no "oh my god. this guy is someone we should worry about. we should worry about letting him free." no. wade is shipped back to his employer in a box. there's no worry that he might come back angrier. deadpool's kind of a joke.

nathan summers does often maintain a level-head in general - buuut, i just don't think there was any moment in that fight that nathan really thought he was going to lose against wade. there was no "oh no, all hope is lost" moment. wade was just quick with his punches, sure, but i don't think the cards were actually in his favour. nathan wasn't incapacitated, and would have easily taken wade down.

he kind of just didn't want to, i don't think.

i think maybe he wanted to see what wade could do. and i think if nate really thought wade was a threat to the kids, nathan would have protected them more fiercely. there's no reason at all why nathan couldn't have so, so easily just - yeeted wade out of the building. wade really, really wouldn't have stood a chance if nathan really saw him as a threat to him or (especially) to the kids. nate's training up these kids. he probably saw wade as just - adequate practice for them, but no real threat. wade is completely manageable for him.

i think later on wade gets savvy to the fact that nathan usually pulls the punches with him.

nathan could so, so easily just...

if he didn't want to deal with deadpool.

i think vanessa probably knew that too. and i think that's why she stepped in when she did - because she probably thought if wade pushed too far and trod on one of nathan's nerves, it would be the end for wade. so she neutralised him.

i write a bit about it in i love you, wade wilson - my beloved fic about deadpool's early days.

#sci speaks #sci talks comics

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alexblakeisgay · 3 months

Text

The Cheese Tax

Ship: Alex Blake/Reader

Summary: Inspired by THIS song. Five times Alex had to remind you to pay the Cheese Tax and one time she didn't have to…

Word Count: 2725

Mozzarella

The moment Alex shut the door behind her upon returning home from the latest case, she was greeted by the sound of toenails clicking across the hardwood in an excited tap dance as your golden retriever puppy came racing towards her in his excitement to greet her.

She dropped to her knees just in time for Pippin to collide with her in his eagerness. She scratched behind his ears and narrowly avoided sloppy dog kisses. “Hello, Pippin!” she exclaimed, making his tail wag impossibly faster. “I missed you! Yes, I did! Did you miss me?”

She took the sound he made in response to mean that he had.

Getting to her feet again, she asked the dog, “Should we go see what Y/N is doing?” Together, they made their way to the kitchen in search of you. You smiled brightly upon catching sight of her and paused what you were doing to give her a quick kiss in greeting. “Dinner smells wonderful,” she murmured, pulling back from the kiss.

“Lasagne and Cesar salad. Should be ready shortly,” you said, returning to your work of shredding cheese.

“Did you pay the Cheese Tax?” Alex asked.

You rolled your eyes. “You can’t be serious...”

“Oh, we’re very serious,” Alex insisted, apparently on Pippin’s side in the matter.

“The Cheese Tax isn’t a real thing,” you maintained.

With a dramatic sigh, Alex turned to Pippin and said, “Your mother is very mean to you...” And, with that settled, she reached around you to grab some of the cheese and fed it to the dog.

You really didn’t know how exactly, this had happened: how Alex Miller of all people ended up the soft-touch when it came to the dog she hadn’t even been all that sure about getting in the first place. It wasn’t that she didn’t like dogs, it was just that she didn’t want the burden of caring for one to fall entirely on your shoulders. At the same time, though, she thought it would be a good idea for safety and for companionship while she was away. Which is all to say that she’d mainly agreed to getting the dog for your sake.

What actually ended up happening, though, was that Pippin had her wrapped around his little doggy finger in no time flat.

All the well-meaning rules the two of you had intended to institute in the beginning were slowly eroded away...and it was mainly Alex’s doing. Pippin wasn’t allowed on the bed until you came home from work one day to find Alex working on her laptop in bed with Pippin nestled beside her. Pippin wasn’t supposed to beg for table scraps, but Alex was apparently a soft touch. Eventually, you’d decided to just let it happen. (It didn’t mean you had to like it, though.)

...

Cheddar

When you woke up from your nap, you were briefly disoriented – you’d been waiting for Alex to arrive home and had fallen asleep on the couch, losing track of time. Pushing yourself to sit up, you realized that at some point Alex must have arrived home and covered you with a blanket.

“Lex?” you called out.

No reply.

“Pippin?”

Still no reply.

Sighing, you went in search of the two of them...finding them cuddled together on the bed. For a moment, you stood in the doorway, watching the two of them – in spite of the ‘rule’ that Pippin wasn’t allowed on the bed, you couldn’t help but find the image adorable.

At least...it was adorable until you realized that they were watching Bridgerton. “Hey!” you whined, “You promised not to watch it without me...” It was one of the rare shows the two of you always watched together and you’d been doing everything in your power to avoid spoilers of the new season while Alex was away at work.

Alex shrugged, offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Pippin wanted to watch,” she said as if the matter were simply out of her control.

You rolled your eyes. “The dog wanted to watch Bridgerton?” you scoffed.

She nodded, contrite but not that contrite...

Reluctantly accepting the fact that Alex might just love Pippin a little bit more than you, you shrugged off your robe and climbed into bed (or at least the sliver of the bed available with Pippin nestled in your spot).

It wasn’t until you were settled next to them that you realized Alex had broken her rule against eating in bed as she proceeded to unwrap a Cheestring, peeling off a strand and offering it to the dog who slurped it up like a piece of spaghetti.

You couldn’t help but smile to yourself and shake your head. Who would have thought that Alex Miller would end up absolutely whipped by a ball of golden fluff?

“What?” Alex said, seeing you shake your head from the corner of her eye. “Gotta pay the Cheese Tax.”

“Nothing,” you said, holding up your hands in surrender. You’d long since begrudgingly accepted the fact that the ‘Cheese Tax’ was just a part of your existence. And, truth be told, you found it really hard to be annoyed about it because Alex was cute and Pippin was cute and together they were really fucking adorable. So, regardless of whether it was a real thing, the Cheese Tax was here to stay.

...

Feta

You carried a bowl of salad from Rossi’s kitchen to the backyard where the team had gathered for a summer barbecue. “Are you sure it’s okay that we brought Pippin?” you asked him as you passed him at the grill. Pippin was sitting at his feet, wagging his tail happily as he optimistically hoped for a hamburger to drop.

“He’s one of the family,” Rossi insisted, patting the dog on his head. Pippin wagged his tail even faster, thinking he was about to get some kind of treat and he licked at Rossi’s hand, which no doubt tasted of burger drippings.

“I’m starting to think all you profilers aren’t as tough as you want people to think,” you said, “Every last one of you is a big softy when it comes to this airhead...”

“Do you hear the way she talks to you?” Alex cooed to the dog as she arrived on the scene, pretending to cover his ears against your insult. “You’re very smart, aren’t you? My little doggy genius.”

You had plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise – for example, his repeated attempts to eat rocks – but you decided not to say as much. Instead, you exited the conversation and set the salad bowl on the table with the rest of the food.

“What’s that?” Henry asked, standing on his tiptoes to peer over the edge of the table.

“It’s a yummy salad,” you said, pick up the bowl to show it to him. When he crinkled his nose at the word salad, you couldn’t help but grin. “I bet you’d like it...” you cajoled, “It’s got spinach, sliced strawberries, mandarin orange segments, slivered almonds, and feta cheese.”

He still seemed skeptical, so you bargained, “How about you try just one bite of mine and see if you like it?”

With a dramatic sigh, he nodded.

While you speared the different elements onto a fork for him, JJ approached with a knowing smile. “So...” she said, elbowing you gently, “When are you and Alex going to have a baby?”

Immediately, you felt your cheeks flush bright red. The two of you had been dancing around the issue for awhile now and the conclusion you repeatedly arrived at was that Alex was reluctant to take the plunge a second time after Ethan. “That’s not... I mean, we haven’t...” you stammered.

JJ rolled her eyes. “You two are hopeless,” she muttered, though she didn’t say anything else on the matter. “So, what do you think of the salad?” she asked Henry.

“I likes the cheese,” he said with a shrug.

From the distance, Alex called out, “Make sure you pay the Cheese Tax!”

JJ shot you a confused look. “What the hell is the ‘Cheese Tax’?”

“A thing that Alex made up to justify feeding Pippin cheese...” you explained. She just laughed and you couldn’t help but join in because it was pretty funny. And, though you did it reluctantly, you plucked a piece of feta from the salad and whistled for Pippin who eagerly came jogging over.

...

Gouda

“Lex, can you get that?” you called out. You’d been on bedrest for the past two weeks and were quickly losing your mind from boredom. The doorbell rang a second time. “Lex?”

No reply.

With a huff, you slowly and awkwardly manoeuvred yourself out of bed and downstairs, wondering what it was that Alex was doing that required so much focus that she couldn’t even answer the door...only to nearly have a heart attack when approximately twenty people shouted SURPRISE!

“Jesus, guys, that’s a good way to send me into premature labour,” you said when your heart stopped racing and you eased yourself into the armchair, narrowly avoiding sitting on Pippin who had made himself at home there.

He shot you a glare as he reluctantly vacated the chair.

“What’s his problem?” Garcia asked, ruffling the fur on his face and dropping a kiss between his eyes. “He’s not his normal cheery self...”

“He’s sad about not being our baby anymore...” Alex lamented, entering the living room with a charcuterie board.

You rolled your eyes. “He’s a dog,” you reminded needlessly.

“Dogs are very intuitive and may actually have additional senses beyond the human capabilities,” Reid pointed out. “They’ve been documented as being able to sense cancers in the body and may be able to sense magnetic fields, though it’s quite difficult to research magnoreception in mammals.”

Shooting him a pointed look, you asked, “Whose side are you on?”

Cheeks pinking, he determinedly avoided your stare, mumbled something incoherent. Then, there was laughter from the group and the conversation quickly moved on. And, since focus was momentarily not on you, you used the opportunity to grab a handful of cheese cubes and devoured them as if you hadn’t seen food for weeks.

When you reached for a second handful, you realized that everyone was staring at you. It was your turn to blush under everyone’s attention. “Don’t judge me,” you said, “I’m pregnant and I’m starving!”

Alex stood, dropped a kiss to the top of your head on her way to the kitchen. “I’d better get some more gouda...” she commented teasingly. To everyone else, she explained, “We may just go broke keeping Y/N in cheese for the next four months...”

“I can’t help what I crave!” you said on a whine.

“Baby Gouda Miller has a nice ring to it...” Derek teased.

You rolled your eyes again. “We’re not naming our son Gouda.” Pippin chose that moment to let out a short sharp bark.

“See?” Derek said, “Pippin agrees with me. He wants his baby brother to be named Gouda.”

With a weary sigh, you said, “A) We’re not taking name advice from a dog and B) he’s just mad I haven’t paid the Cheese Tax.”

...

Raclette

“So...” Alex said, settling in the seat across the table from you, “Our last day of freedom.”

You nodded, gently kneading your belly where two little feet were pressing against your side. “I’ve gotta say, I will not miss being pregnant,” you declared emphatically. Tomorrow, you were being induced for a C-section, as your placenta was covering your cervix, preventing you from delivering naturally.

Alex nodded sympathetically, reaching across the table to squeeze your other hand. “Thank you for being such a good home for him,” she murmured, then kissed your knuckles.

“Well, I do feel as big as a house...” you said wryly.

“Don’t be silly,” Alex insisted, “You’re gorgeous.”

With a pointed look, you said, “You have to say that if you don’t want to sleep on the couch tonight.”

She laughed. “Pippin happens to be a very good bedmate,” she said with a playful grin.

“He only likes you because you’re not the one bringing his replacement into the world,” you said. She looked like she would have liked to argue that point, but it was hard to when there was so much evidence that it was true. Before you knew what was going to happen, you’d burst into tears, wracked by noisy sobs.

Looking quite alarmed by the sudden shift from playful to sadness, Alex moved to the seat next to you, pulling you into her side. Rubbing a hand up and down your back, she waited patiently for your tears to abate before asking, “Tell me what’s going on in there...”

Sniffling, you said, “I don’t want him to hate me...”

“The baby isn’t going to hate you,” she was quick to reassure you.

“No, not the baby – Pippin...” you corrected her.

She made a noise of understanding. “Pippin doesn’t hate you,” she insisted, “I bet that as soon as Baby is here, Pippin will fall in love with him and he’ll be back to his normal happy self.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” you pressed.

Cupping your cheek, she pulled you in for a gentle kiss and said, “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, hmm?” With a little sigh, you nodded, conceding that she was, in fact, right...as usual. “I know a way you might be able to win Pippin over to your cause, though...” she added. At your curious expression, she said, “I hear the Gschwellti with Raclette is to die for here...”

You groaned. “I should have known your answer would involve the Cheese Tax,” you said with a roll of your eyes, but a fond smile.

She shrugged. “The way to that dog’s heart is through his stomach,” she said with a little laugh. You were forced to laugh too because, if you knew one thing for certain in life, it was that Pippin was a simple simple dog, motivated by cheese and little else.

...

Parmesan

With more than a little difficulty, you manoeuvred the steps up to the front door, clutching at your middle with one arm and holding the pizza box with the other. Behind you, Alex carried the baby in his carseat, as you weren’t allowed to lift anything that heavy or you risked busting open your stitches.

You groaned with each step, the small motion of lifting your leg high enough causing immense pain at the incision site. “I swear to God, when I sit down on the couch, I’m not getting up again for a month,” you declared.

Alex just laughed, certainly not about to argue the matter, though she had a feeling a crying baby would be a pretty strong motivator, regardless of what you said. She unlocked the door for you, calling out, “Jack, we’re home!”

Jack quickly emerged from down the hall with a little wave. You’d paid the preteen to look after the house and, more importantly, Pippin while you were in the hospital, figuring you’d be hard-pressed to find a more responsible dogsitter than the progeny of Aaron Hotchner.

“How was Pippin?” Alex asked, setting the carseat down and proceeding to unbuckle the baby. You, on the other hand, kicked off your shoes and moved to set the pizza on the coffee table before you accidentally dropped it.

“He was good,” Jack said, “He seemed kinda sad, though...”

It was clear that didn’t sit well with Alex. “Where is he, by the way?”

You returned from the living room to get the baby, knowing he would need to eat soon...but were quickly faced with the dilemma of being unable to bend down to get him out of the carseat.

“Last I saw him, he was sleeping on your bed,” Jack said. (You didn’t bother pointing out that he technically wasn’t allowed on the bed...you’d long ago given up on that fight.)

Alex lifted the baby from the carseat and said to you, “Why don’t you start eating and I’ll bring him to you when he’s hungry.”

You didn’t need to be told twice. You moved to the kitchen in search of parmesan before returning to the living room and settling on the couch. Then, puzzled, you called out, “Lex, did you take a slice already?”

“No?” she called back quizzically.

“Then who did?”

#criminal minds #alex blake #fanfiction #mine #alex blake/reader

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stupendousfoxthing · 7 months

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I want to share a post making the rounds that made a lot of great points, but op dismisses the idea of any romantic relationships existing between any two members of the group in the replies. I will never be down with the "no ships are real" crowd because I can't think of a single valid (non-homophobic) reason to think a romance between two men is impossible. A romantic relationship between two people who met when they were young, worked and lived together for the better part of a decade, and enjoyed each other's company so much that when given the opportunity to build lives separate from that work STILL chose each other makes more sense than a lot of other things people will accept as perfectly reasonable (if it's a man and a woman of course). But the homophobia is just one layer to their dismissal, and the post hit on several others. There are so many layers to the shitty way this fandom treats Taekook and Taekookers. The video I shared earlier from an anon tells it like it is. Taekookers are not delusional to believe it's possible there is something there. No matter what antis would like you to believe, they are not literally brothers. Saying they are brothers is literally delusional (believing something is true when there is evidence to the contrary). There is a pattern of suspicious behavior going back years and only intensifying during solo era. I've talked about this before, but during the frenzy over the Dream premiere last year I saw something I thought was funny. I saw two people on Twitter talking about it, talking about Taekook fondly, and saying they felt like it had been a million years since they had seen them together. I realized then that they had no idea about all of the things that had happened with Taekook in the months prior to that. I started to wonder if we get called delusional just because people really do only pay attention to what is laid out in front of them, mostly in official content. Like...yeah, we probably do look delusional if you don't know about 95% of the things that have happened. This would tie back into how the fandom sees Tae as well, and why he is treated like an outsider. If you've been in the fandom for a while, you know how people who go against the company narrative in any way are treated. Tae does go against that narrative. He has talked about the more negative aspects of their position openly more than any other member. Why was he allowed to hint that things aren't all rosy between him and the company in the recent documentary? Look at how the fandom treats those who go against the company, and you will know. Taekook as a ship has a unique ability to create a perfect storm of animosity in this particular fandom that literally has training materials and guidelines written up for "baby ARMY". Layers. Homophobia. Company loyalty over everything. The spoon-fed narratives. The "outsider" and the "privileged" one dating? But they're awkward brothers... Taekookers get treated like monsters, no other group even comes close and it isn't because we're "shippers". I see evidence of that everyday. Other ships/shippers within the group have a free pass to do whatever they want. The fandom loves Namkook, for instance. You can openly romanticize/sexualize them and the fandom eats it up. Tons of people showed their ass with Tae/IU as well. It's not shipping that bothers them. It's Taekook. Taekook challenges what they've been led to believe. Taekookers shine a light on it and celebrate it. That's what pisses people off, and I do believe that when they actually look at Taekook they see it too. We bring something that makes them uncomfortable to their attention, something they'd rather not see or acknowledge. When a Taekook "moment" happens and we haven't even said anything yet but people are already bitching about the fact they can't enjoy it because they know Taekookers will be happy and celebrating? It's not us. It's Taekook as a pair that bothers them.

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buckybarnesss · 11 months

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Blessed post where you detail the storytelling points proving Derek's very young age both when the fire happened and during the show. And it's during the show too, because we may have been watching for six years but the story actually spans about two if I'm not mistaken?

The college-age-Derek-when-the-fire-happened truthers have been around forever and my favorite line from them is: "Why do you want so badly Derek/Kate to have been statutory rape? Just so your fave can claim more suffering?"

And it's not untrue that we like to see our faves suffer because it makes for compelling storytelling. The jokes and memes about the hurt-comfort are true. But this isn't that? No one ever walked up to J*ff D*vis and asked him to write up the story in a way that keeps supporting a timeline where Derek was 16 when the fire happened. He did that all by himself and it's not on us that we went along with it and didn't just discount the actual storytelling for retconning claims D*vis made in some interview or panel or other.

And more importantly, why are these people so passionately for this retconning? That's the real question. Why do they want so badly for Derek to have been 19 or 20 or even 22 (which would be beyond a stretch no matter how you retconned it) when the fire happened? Why is it so much more palatable to them -better yet, why do they think it would be so much more palatable, so much less the suffering for Derek if he'd been college-age? Is it maybe a secret third idea that it's not even rape if he's a legal adult? That being underage is the only thing that made Derek/Kate not actually consensual? That made it rape?

The funny thing is that Derek is not even my favorite. I do like him but I also happen to like Allison and Scott just as much. And it's Stiles that happens to be my favorite, and I am very much in love with Sterek, but I liked both Derek and Jennifer (however complicated the ship ended up being) and I liked him with Braeden especially because she was the first canon love interest (Paige aside) he got that was actually a good match for him, that genuinely cared for him and didn't hurt him. The point is that Derek doesn't have to be your favorite to call out what Kate did to him as what it actually was, and it doesn't make you sexist either (I've seen the argument, they're really that stupid).

Obligatory addition that Sterek is fanon at the end of the day. So is any other ship involving adult Derek and a teenage character. So @ Derek haters (there's a Venn diagram that shows the impressive overlap between Derek haters and the above-mentioned truthers) who love accusing Derek of being what Kate actually was: canonically Derek had Paige when they were both 16, then he was 16 or even 22 and Kate is established older than Derek (which is what makes 22-year-old Derek impossible when the fire happened because Kate was 22 according to the chem teacher whose name I forget and who told her how to burn the Hales down), then he's an adult and he has Jennifer (who is a high school English teacher and that speaks for itself) and then he has Braeden (who was, like, a marshall or something years ago, before losing her job obsessing over hunting down Malia's mother or something, and I'm pretty sure that also speaks for itself on the question of Braeden's possible minimum age). Even that scene with Erica in season 2, poorly executed as it was, had Derek literally throwing off of him the only teenager that made a move on him (what Erica was actually going for is not the point here at all).

I haven't touched the show in years and I didn't watch the movie either, so correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. But anyway, thanks for reading my rant. It's defending Derek o'clock apparently because there's just some things in this fandom that can really grate your cheese.

thank you anon!

yeah i do not know where people got the idea of derek being much older. in the presentation pilot script derek is specifically said to be 19 but they realized that if the fire was 6 years previous than he would've been 13 when he was involved with kate so they aged him a few years so he'd be 16.

of course that still isn't super great but jeff clearly had a specific story in mind for what happened with derek and how the fire occurred. picking up on those storytelling cues isn't us wishing bad things upon a character and it doesn't make me or anyone else a bad person. it's us engaging with the story and understanding what the creator is trying to convey to their audience without it being explicitly said.

and while it's conjecture that kate was a substitute teacher because it was never confirmed in canon i think there's evidence to support the idea between the on fire novel and how in season 2 the the argents infiltrate the school system. her being a substitute would explain not only how she was able to gain such access to derek but also how she knew to approach harris and how to approach him to get the information she wanted.

when i was watching the show while it was still running from 2012-2014 it was pretty accepted fandom wide that derek was very early 20s and had been 16 when the fire happened. it has only been since i returned in 2023 that i've seen an uptick in the idea that derek wasn't underage when he and kate were involved.

peter and cora's comments in visionary about age were tongue in cheek. it was show winking at the fans about how they were shit with character ages and timelines. and even then despite how messy the teen wolf timeline is we can be reasonably certain of a lot of events within canon and suss out ages and such.

derek wasn't in his 30s during the show. he wasn't even over 25. he was barely in his 20s. scott and stiles treat him like a peer because he is one. the idea of him being some much older guy needs to be put to rest.

i didn't go into detail with kate's behavior in that post because it was about whether or not derek graduated beacon hills high but like kate is a sexual predator. the narrative is very consistent with her behavior.

she makes several suggestive comments about both jackson and scott. in the tell when she's tormenting derek at the hale house she says:

"this one grew up in all the right places. I don't know whether to kill it or lick it."

that is not ambiguous. i've discussed kate and derek before here and here.

her behavior towards de-aged derek isn't ambiguous either.

kate argent is a sexual predator that likes teenage boys. she groomed and raped teenage derek all the while planning to murder his family. this doesn't get any better if derek had been older and was in a consentual relationship with kate.

there's a very consistent story throughout the entire show of derek's consent and body being violated by others for their own gain. kate, gerard, deaton and scott, the twins and kali, jennifer and even the nogitsune.

and yet antis like to turn that all around on derek which i've discussed here about how derek isn't a perfect abuse victim and how it's been used against derek here.

when people deny what happened to derek it's with the same reasonings that people deny men can experience sexual assault and rape. like, how many times has a female teacher engaged in sexual misconduct with a male student only for the comments to be that he should've been grateful and enjoy an older woman's attention? look at the way the news coverage of mary kay letourneau was handled.

i have discussed derek's turning of erica here, here and here. more here about the subject.

the whole sterek thing. it's whatever to me at this point. antis seem to think they're gonna make people stop shipping it when they're not. there's no moral high ground.

#my blog #thoughts on teen wolf #teen wolf #rape tw #sterek

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sflow-er · 4 months

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20 questions for fic writers

Thank you so much for the tag, @silvagrey!💜

How many works do you have on Ao3?

Eight.

What's your total Ao3 word count?

355,461 (that's a bit deceptive; one of my fics is 239k).

What fandoms do you write for?

Young Royals. I did write for other fandoms all through my teens, but those fics haven't been online for a long time now.

Top five fics by kudos:

Other people's secrets (1,215) Matters of adjustment (190) The real deal (180) Like you better (152) Last chance (126)

Do you respond to comments?

I respond to every comment on new fics and WIPs. Having discussions in the comments section is the best thing about sharing a story, and I love my little community of regular commenters!

However, I am currently learning not to beat myself up for not getting round to answering every backlogged comment on OPS. I still try my best, but I had to change my previous "always respond" policy when @willedeservesbetter left very long thought-provoking comments on the first 20+ chapters and I simply couldn't keep up... 😅 I'm trying to trust that people know life gets in the way sometimes.

That being said, I do reply to all comments where the reader has shared their personal thoughts on the ace rep! It may take me a while to get to them, but they never fall off my to-do list.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Årnäs, February 2016. I don't necessarily think the ending is "angsty", but it's a very bleak fic with no happy ending.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It's impossible to choose between all my Walty fics. Does the emotional payoff from all the angst make OPS the happiest ending? Or is it one of the fics that are sweet from start to finish?

Whichever one it is, I would like to think none of them are too sugary sweet. They are very happy on the romance front because I want them to be a comforting read, but there is usually at least something left for the characters to figure out on their own after the story with the insight/support/lessons they have gained.

Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no. There is one rudely worded public bookmark on OPS, but it doesn't qualify as hate. Also, I once got a comment calling a plot point "ridiculous :D", but the person didn't mean any harm.

Do you write smut?

I did write a couple of scenes in my teens for one fic, just emulating what I had read. The feedback was good.

I think I've mentioned this on here before, but I actually tried to write some as an exercise last year! From a "technical" standpoint, it turned out okay, but from an emotional standpoint, it just made me cringe and roll my eyes a lot. I don't know if it's a grey thing or a me thing, but I just can't buy into it at all. And I'm not interested in writing allo PWP, so unless I decide to write an explicit ace sex scene one day, the answer is no. I don't write smut.

Craziest crossover:

I'm not really a crossover person.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Well, I did enlist my "live-in expert" as a consultant on ÅFeb16 (to help me get child August's POV right and sign off on Carl Johan's characterisation and all the bad stuff bubbling under). I really enjoyed the collaboration - but I don't think actually co-writing a text with anyone would be a good fit for my process. I wouldn't even want a regular beta reader because it would only stress me out.

All-time favourite ship?

To write? I don't have an all-time favourite, but since I started up again, I would obviously have to say ace Henry/allo Walter.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I've got two WIPs at the moment. One is an unfinished and unpublished S3-compliant Walty fic, and the other is The real deal. At present, I'm feeling a resurgence of motivation for TRD, so the other fic is shelved for now. I do plan to finish it, though!

What are your writing strengths?

My planning and research game is pretty strong, as are my grammar and language skills. I guess the overall quality of my writing is decent when I'm not too stressed or low on creative energy. Many readers seem to find my writing fairly engaging, and they have said nice things about the dialogue, my characterisations, and the relationships between the characters.

Oh, and I think I'm pretty good at writing kissing scenes.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Perfectionism, self-criticism, "compulsive editing syndrome." When I'm unhappy with a passage, I tend to get stuck in a rewriting loop until I either get it right or spiral into writer's block and severe self-doubt. I also have a tendency to get swept away to the point where I neglect my wellbeing and burn myself out, which affects both my update schedule and the quality of my writing.

If you want more tangible weaknesses, I'm too wordy, my teenagers are unrealistically mature, and I occasionally overuse exposition.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

This is only my personal opinion and others are welcome to disagree! I'm not judging or criticising anyone in any fandom for using dialogue in another language in their own stories!

As a translator, my day job is all about conveying the same message in another language, and I can't just turn that logic off for writing. If the characters all speak one language throughout the text, it doesn't make sense to me personally to render some bits of dialogue in that language and others in English (unless those bits are truly untranslatable).

Not to mention that languages work differently, from word choice and grammar rules to the underlying communicative conventions and even thought patterns. Many people feel that using some sentences in the language that is actually being spoken adds authenticity, and that's a valid opinion! But to me personally, it's the other way around. I feel that the dialogue can only be consistently fluent in one language at a time, and if I'm writing the story in English, my dialogue will be an English rendering of what the characters would be saying in their own language. Similar to a translated book, only without a source text.

Now, if someone in the story is actually speaking another language, that's another matter! Dialogue in that language could be used very effectively in different situations, as in @silvagrey's example of Linda switching to Spanish to talk to Simon and Sara.

Again, this is just my personal opinion that I apply to my own writing! It is not the only valid opinion!

First fandom you wrote in?

If writing in my English notebook in lower secondary school counts, it was Final Fantasy X. The first fic I ever posted online was in an obscure anime/manga fandom in high school (and yes, I did use Japanese greetings and such back then).

Favourite fic you've written?

Other people's secrets. It's one of the best stories I've written, the one and only reason I'm still writing now, and one of the most meaningful things I've done for myself and my own ace identity (and apparently for some others too, which absolutely blows my mind). Furthermore, it was my first fic in over a decade and the biggest creative project I'd ever undertaken, so even just finishing it in a way I could be proud of was a huge accomplishment.

Thanks again for the tag, I had a great time answering these! 💜

No pressure tags: I honestly don't think I know any writers whom I haven't seen tagged yet (not ones who usually blog about their writing anyway)! So I'm just going to say if anyone reads this far and wants to play along, please tag me in your post. Or if you want to be tagged first, just let me know!

#young royals fic #young royals fanfic #yr fic #yr fanfic #yr but doesn't need to go in the tag #tag game #fic writing #writing ask #silvagrey #other people's secrets #walty #unpopular/controversial opinion on dialogue

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thegeminisage · 28 days

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STAR TREK UPDATE TIME. last night we watched voy's "waking moments" and ds9's "waltz" (omg waltz).

waking moments (voy):

i was afraid this one would be bad but it was good! -something i say about voyager a lot lately.

naked tuvok was extremely funny especially when they kept teasing him about it. he's like "vulcans dont experience embarrassment may we please change the subject as quickly as possible"

my villain origin story is when inception came out and claimed to be about lucid dreaming i, who was at the time obsessed with lucid dreaming and attempting to teach myself to do it, flipped my lid because absolutely none of it was even remotely accurate to like, actual dream science. (in the very first act, someone READS, which like...you can't read in dreams or at the very least not in the same way you do as in reality. i spent the whole movie fuming and took something very different from it than the shipping girlies did)

anyway, this healed me, because while i WAS annoyed that tom paris was like yeah one time with no training whatsoever i had a lucid dream (not impossible but man come on), he did quickly and accurately explain what they ACTUALLY were

this is also a piece of media that made me very afraid of the moon. just like majora's mask

like, the plot twist when he thought he was awake but was still dreaming...damn...they got us...and then they did it AGAIN. those magnificent bastards, etc

like, not only is that a very successful and smart bit of writing to be able to do the same twist twice, it had me guessing for the rest of the episode at what might be real and what might be fake. they could never do this, but chakotay seeing the moon again in the final shot would have been great

speaking of chakotay, can we please stop saying "vision quest" on this television show. that's two episodes in a row. he can just lucid dream like anybody. don't worry about it. you don't have to make a special racist lucid dreaming ritual

waltz (ds9):

OMG WALTZ...............................

dukat is crazy. off his fucking rocker. it's so good and so layered and it's the perfect way to illustrate that like. the ramifications of colonization and occupation on EVERYBODY involved without forgiving him for what he did and what was his personal responsibility to stand up against and like. how "good" people who do nothing are in so many ways worse than evildoers and become evil in a system that turns them into evil people because if you're not against the oppressors you're literally with them

like, dukat shows up to bajor and he is just Some Guy. shaped by the values of his culture (ie that their race is superior and colonization is the cool hip thing to do) yeah but he's just a dude. he's never really had to look at it up close until now. so he looks around at the labor camps and the executions and he goes yikes this makes me squeamish! hey guys what if we were super nice to the bajorans. and then less bajorans died and they were like Great this enables us to fight back better! let's do some terrorism! and he was like wait what why are you fighting back. you're supposed to love me because i said we should kill less of you. like i need you tell me it's all okay now and i fixed it and he absolutely SNAPPED when they would not do that

like he's crazy now but i think this is just the final result of like. he looked around at what was happening and he could not deal with the fact that he was participating in it. he needed someone anyone to tell him he was good and kind and loved and would never do such bad horrible things unless he was FORCED to and when no one told him that he just told himself that and it became the truth. because either someone forced him to do this or it's his fault and he is a bad and evil person

he begged sisko ALL. EPISODE. to tell him he wasn't evil. he just wants one single person to tell him he's not a bad person. that he wasn't a bad person when he raped leeta, or (in all probability) ziyal's mother. that he wasn't a bad person when he sentenced innocents to torture and execution and that he wasn't a bad person for overseeing the slave labor that BUILT THIS FUCKING STATION

and no one will tell him! his own daughter wouldn't tell him! ziyal got FUCKING SHOT because he's so evil his OWN DAUGHTER could not stomach what he's done. HIS OWN DAUGHTER. and he's so evil that he's not even grieving for her! he's grieving for the loss of the one person he had managed to trick into thinking he WASN'T evil! when sisko took him into prison and he handed back that baseball he was full of forgiveness because he wants just ONE PERSON to forgive him (even kira said this in a previous episode) and like NO ONE CAN. his own daughter can't!

and then hes like. well they MADE ME do this. the bajorans MADE ME punish them because they wouldn't worship me for being SLIGHTLY less awful than the other people occupying their planet and forcing them into labor camps. but I'M less awful everybody should LIKE me everybody should FORGIVE me but they MADE me execute them by the hundreds and rape and torture them they MADE me do that!

AND HE'S NOT EVEN GETTING MAD AT THE RIGHT PEOPLE. you could justify anger at the cardassian government even if that still does not let you off the hook morally for helping that government commit atrocities but he CAN'T. because his identity and his idea of acceptance is so tied up in that society he CANNOT believe it's the problem because it's too much like believing HE is the problem and he CANNOT be the problem because HE'S good and moral and soooo nice to bajorans! he was even "in love" (blech) with the bajoran who became ziyal's mom! he loves bajorans so much he called leeta into his office just to be better friends with one and definitely not abuse her at all!

and the end result is you take this mostly normal guy who is not a good person by any means but is also vaguely squeamish about war crimes happening right in front of him. and you put this guy who wants really badly to be liked in this position of immense power where he is doomed to be hated. and what that does is turn him into the screaming maniac we got in this episode saying he should have killed every bajoran man woman and child who ever lived. colonization ALSO HURT HIM, irreparably. like we're also doing a fantastic at job at illustrating the evils of colonization - just the entire concept of it is so systemically rancid that it is hurting and making worse literally every single person involved, because the people upholding it and participating in it, like dukat, can never ever be forgiven for that crime

AND HE SHOULDN'T BE. this is so crucial: there is NO sympathy. sure he is suffering but he made his own bed of nails he dug his own fucking grave and he DESERVES TO SUFFER there is no fucking m*rvel let's meow meow this guy bs. this is not l*ki this is not w*rd this is a fucking killer. this is a guy who sisko hits on the head with a pipe and says AND THAT IS WHY YOU'RE NOT EVIL??? we joke about speaking truth to power but jesus fucking christ sisko shouted it at power from the ground with a broken fucking arm and a phaser pointed at his head

it's just such a good job at making such a complex fucking villain without him needing a redemption or a sad little wet cat phase. it's so refreshing. sisko literally said damn sometimes i forget people really are evil but there it is. i hit evil on the head with a pipe and told him to get fucked

and by the way.......the fact that avery brooks did do little outside of ds9 is a fucking crime because good lord that man can ACT. the fact that he didn't win that vintage hot guy scifi poll is fucking unforgivable. not only is he hot but he is out-acting everybody else on that show by MILES except for perhaps nana visitor whomst he is only out-acting for like maybe one mile. he's running fucking circles around them. he should have been an a-lister. sisko is so cool and badass and sexy and i had never even HEARD of him until i was like halfway through tng. again i say: unforgiveable!!!!!

LIKE. HE FEARS NO EVIL BECAUSE HE IS THE EVILLEST MOTHERFUCKER IN THE VALLEY. YES HE IS. HE HITS EVIL ON THE HEAD WITH A PIPE. HE TELLS EVIL YOU'RE A BAD PERSON AND YOU DESERVE THE SUFFERING. god. god!!!!!!!!

okay. i'm calm. i'm normal. ds9 GOOD.

TONIGHT: voy's "message in a bottle" and ds9's "who mourns for morn?" rip morn :(

#personal #star trek blogging #voy lb #ds9 lb

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