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high-functioning-lokipath · 3 years

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Loki x Reader - Glorious Purpose - Words: 2,578

Based on this prompt:

Enemies-to-lovers, but instead of featuring a villain redemption arc, the heroic one is getting progressively more corrupt, unhinged and fucked up, and the one who was originally the clear-cut villain out of the two is just like "well mark me down as scared and horny"

You were a somewhat independent agent, but officially you worked with SHIELD. Fury had recruited you although you had yet to move back to New York to be closer to everything. At the moment, you were enjoying an extended stay in Europe. It had started with a small mission and you decided to vacation for a while, take a well deserved break.

"Champagne?" A waiter asked you. You nodded, taking a glass from his tray before he continued on. You'd managed to get yourself an invitation to a gala in Stuttgart and you weren't one to pass up free food and wine so you went. Your gaze floated across the room and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Everyone here had the same look: stuffy, stuck up, money coming out their-

"Pardon me," A man said. He walked up behind you, bumping into you accidentally.

"It's fine," You said automatically. Looking up at him, your eyes widened slightly. Now he was handsome. He smirked at you and you opened your mouth to say something but he turned away. Unfortunately, just as quickly as you had seen him and he had already gone. You wandered around for a few more minutes before the guest speaker walked out. You worked your way to the front of the crowd to listen to him. Even with your heels though you weren't tall enough to see over everyone. Suddenly you looked up, seeing movement on the stairs. For a moment you thought you'd see the man from earlier walking down. "Is he another guest speaker?" You wondered. Before you could get any closer to get a better view, you heard screaming. And then everyone started running. You finally elbowed your way to the front and saw the mysterious man walking away from the guest speaker who was now lying unconscious across the big fancy table. You ignored the speaker and chased after the dark-haired stranger. He had a dark smirk painted across his lips. Just before he walked outside, there was a bright glimmer around him and his sharp suit transformed into golden and leather armor. "A bit much," You thought with a silent chuckle. To get a better view, you transported yourself next to a small souvenir booth, watching as he approached the terrified crowd. Duplicates of his suddenly appeared around the edge of the crowd, including one only a few yards away from you.

"I said, KNEEL!" He yelled, slamming his scepter on the ground. The crowd immediately followed his orders. Your phone in your pocket buzzed and you discreetly checked it.

Are you still in Germany? - Fury

LOL I'm assuming you're heading my way. You should see this guy! 👑 - Y/N

Wait for the team, Y/N - Fury

…or what? 🙄😏 - Y/N

You pocketed your phone and walked out, skirting the crowd and making your way to the mystery man. The real one you assumed.

"Is not this simpler?" He started. "Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation." He spoke eloquently, not surprising you all that much considering his attire. Although his phrasing confused you slightly. It was as though he wasn't speaking to fellow humans. You supposed most men who considered themselves superior often did so though. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

"Not to men like you," You spoke up, having snuck up beside him. He smirked, walking towards you and towering over you.

"There are no men like me," He gloated. He reached out to grab you but you ducked and ran behind him. Whipping around he held his scepter out, pointing at you. "Let her be an example to you!" He yelled to the crowd. As he shot, the Captain dropped in. He stood in front of you and blocked the blast with his shield.

"I didn't need that, Steve," You hissed.

"Just shut up and help me," He replied. You rolled your eyes and teleported to a more strategic location before Mr. Gold and Leather noticed.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing," Steve said. You rolled your eyes.

"We get it, Steve, you're old!" You yelled. Sometimes Steve got on your nerves. The man turned to you but Natasha quickly distracted him. She was flying the quinjet above, aiming a machine gun at him. They continued fighting and you watched the movements of the stranger, looking for a weak spot.

Suddenly you hear loud rock music blasting over the PA. Just before Iron Man swoops in, the music preceding his actual appearance, you see your chance. "Over here, pretty boy," You call out, your smirk almost matching his. As he approaches you, you whip out one of your knives from your thigh holster, twirling it in your hand.

"Oo, feisty," He grins. He points his scepter at you, about to touch your chest with it, when you teleport behind him. In the split second of his confusion, you jump up, grabbing the horns of his helmet, and kick him in the back of his knees. He falls back and you duck out of the way, letting him land hard on his back on the ground. He lets out a huff as the wind gets knocked out of him and you quickly stand over him, planting a foot on his chest. You know he could throw you off easily but you're holding a knife to his throat as well so you take your chances.

"Your turn," You say. He holds his hands up, his armor glimmering once again before revealing a much simpler outfit. You shook your head, still confused as to where he was from. This clothing was obviously not bought at the local department store. Once the team had restrained him and loaded him into quinjet, you wandered over to him, watching him closely. Cap and Stark were passive aggressively talking off to the side, as if the stranger couldn't hear them. You shook your head and walked over, taking a seat next to him. "Hi," You said with a small smile. "What's your name?" He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"You do not know who I am?" He asked. You shook your head and chuckled.

"You're a well dressed man who apparently wants to take over the world. That's about all I know. Fury never tells me anything so I'm flying blind here."

"I am Loki of Asgard," He grinned. He was about to launch into his "Glorious purpose" speech, when thunder and lightning rattled loudly outside. Loki got a frightened look on his face, trying to look outside from his seat.

"Are you ok?" You asked. Loki's head whipped back to you, eyes staring into yours.

"I-no," He admitted, something in his eyes .

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?" Cap asked Loki.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," He said. As he spoke you finally figured it out.

"Your brother is Thor!" You exclaimed.

"Unfortunately," He replied as the God of Thunder himself landed on the roof of the plane. When Stark opened the back hatch and Thor landed inside, you frowned, nose scrunching in disgust.

"Oh my gosh what a himbo," You mumbled. Loki stared at you for a moment, eyebrows raised in surprise, and opened his mouth to say something but was swiftly yanked out of his seat by his brother.

You didn't see Loki again until the Helicarrier. Up until that day you'd never doubted Fury even though you didn't like working with others, but suddenly you weren't sure who to trust. Stark and Banner thought Fury was up to no good with the Tesseract and, while Steve didn't want to agree with them, he just confirmed their theory. You just helped him break into the storage room and we're staring at each other in shock.

"Weapons. Fury is making weapons. That lying-"

"Ok," You sighed, interrupting the Captain's exclamation. "Get this back to Tony. I'm going to check on something else. Meet back at the lab?" Steve nodded and headed out with the gun.

You stealthily made your way to Loki's cell. While you were mildly terrified, you needed to talk to him. When you walked in the room, you saw Natasha already there.

"There's not many people that can sneak up on me," Loki said, smirking as he turned to face her.

"But you figured I'd come."

"After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."

You listened as they talked, hiding in an unseen corner of the room. "I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out," Natasha said.

"Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter? Sao Paulo? The hospital fire? Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?" At this point Loki had stood from his seat across the cell and was slowly making his way, stalking, towards her. "This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer, pathetic! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers.You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!" Finally he slammed his fist against the glass, startling both you and Natasha. "I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you! Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear! And when he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!"

Natasha had backed away, shaking, eyes wide in terror. "You're a monster," She gasped.

"No," Loki chuckled darkly. "You brought the monster."

"So, Banner. That's your play," Natasha said, suddenly not crying or seemingly emotional at all. Loki was shocked. Natasha hurried out of the room, thanking Loki and talking hurriedly on her ear piece.

You quickly slipped out of your hiding place and hurried over to the cell. "What are you doing here?" Loki sneered.

"I have some questions," You said. He rolled his eyes and huffed. "Personal ones. This is for my own agenda."

"Fine, one question," He relented, smirking slightly. Loki fully expected you to still be trying to gather information from him.

"Look, I listened to your little speech there. I don't completely agree with you but you have a point. In some respects we're no better off than you," You said. Loki raised an eyebrow curiously, watching as you stood right against the glass, staring up at him confidently. "If I were to help you, what would be in it for me? I want an honest answer or at least a believable lie. Don't give me a "glorious purpose, bright lure of freedom" speech. Tell me something I can believe. What would you do if I helped you?"

"I can't promise you anything except your life. I promise I won't kill you. Now, if you're stupid enough get yourself killed-"

"I get it," You chuckled. Nodding you smiled at him. "I'll let you know." With that you left, leaving the God of Mischief to his thoughts.

When you rejoined the rest of the team in the Lab they were, unsurprisingly, arguing again. "I'm sorry, what were you lying?" Tony said, showing Fury the files he'd just hacked. Steve was standing next to the weapon, Fury was yelling, everyone was pointing fingers. You shook your head but saw your opportunity. In the commotion, no one was paying any attention to the scepter. You bit your lip nervously. You had to make a decision.

The entire Helicarrier was in chaos. It was nearly impossible to make your way to Loki's cell without being seen but you eventually made it. With so many agents running around you didn't want to risk teleporting and find yourself at the wrong end of their guns.

When you finally reached the cell you saw the door open and Loki standing in it. "No!" Thor yelled, running at him. You almost cried out to stop Thor but then you noticed movement from the other side of the glass cage. As Thor tumbled through Loki's illusion you grinned.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Loki asked Thor, locking him in the cell. Thor roars and slams Mjolnir on the glass which cracks under the impact. Both you and Loki are surprised, having thought the cell was indestructible. Loki walks over to the control panel slowly. "The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?" Before he can press the button, Agent Coulson shows up with one of the weapons you'd seen in storage.

"Move away, please," He says. "You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you wanna find out?"

As Phil was speaking you snuck up behind him. And just before he shot Loki you shoved the scepter into his back, stabbing him through. Pulling it back out you dropped him to the ground and grinned at Loki. 'Pity,' You thought. 'Phil always seemed to be such a nice guy.'

"Why did you do that?" Loki asked, staring at you in surprise. There was an odd look of terror and excitement on his face. "I didn't promise you anything."

"Yes you did," You said, walking up to him and handing him the scepter. "You promised me loyalty." The facade cracked for a moment, a soft smile slipping through. "And you're pretty."

"I like you!" Loki laughed, grabbing your waist and pulling you against him. "Shall we?" He asks, gesturing to the red button.

"Of course," You reply. Your hand hovers over it and you glance back at Thor who is in disbelief. "It's nothing personal, Thor," You say. "Or, actually," You look back at Loki and smile. "It definitely is." You press the button and air whooshes around you as it falls to the earth below.

"You're gonna lose," Coulson says weakly.

"Am I?" Loki asks, turning to look at him.

"It's in your nature."

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction," Phil replies.

"Not anymore," Loki sneers at him, holding you even tighter.

"So what are you gonna do about it?" You taunt. Suddenly you're both blasted out of the aircraft.

"So that's what it does."

You scream, closing your eyes and clinging to Loki as you both fall. "Calm down," Loki yells. Suddenly there's hard ground below you. As you open your eyes and reorient yourself you see it's actually hardwood.

"Where are we?" You ask.

"Stark Tower." Standing up you see the city skyline before you just outside the window. "It's about to begin," He says. "Are you still with me?"

"Yes," You reply immediately, taking his hand. He tilts your chin up and kisses you softly in contrast to his overall demeanor.

"We shall rule together then, my queen," He promises. You nod and kiss him again before you walk out to the balcony to wait for the inevitable arrival of the Avengers.

"Together."

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#loki oneshot #loki imagine #loki fanfic #loki #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki friggason #loki x y/n #loki x you

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jostepherjoestar · 4 years

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Bucci gang reacting to an s/o (also a member of the gang) with a humanoid stand that looks sinister and creepy/disfigured. Its ability is also scary but outside of battles, s/o's stand is actually a big sweetheart. Like for example bringing flowers and snacks for the boys, humming a song to cheer them up, or being sad if they and their master had a fight (since stands represents their master's soul). Please and thank you (remember to do self care and not to push yourself, m'kay ❤️)

Bucci gang s/o with a sinister looking stand who’s actually a big sweetheart

ok ok I did a thing and that thing is I wrote for Fugo *gasp*

Anyways this was so nice to do :) stay safe out there!! also narancia, giorno and fugo have platonic hc’s :)))

Bruno

Bruno has seen some shit ok, so when he saw your stand for the first time he didn’t really think anything of it. He knows it just you so he never feared your stand (but knowing full and well how powerful it is).

He got used to your stand so quickly that seeing it around the house never startled him. Maybe the first time your stand appeared out of nowhere, mostly because he didn’t expect to see anyone. But when he saw your stand holding a small box of chocolates, offering it to him a warm smile covered his face while he thanked you both, placing a gentle kiss on its cheek.

Sometimes on missions enemies get quite scared of your stand, you’ve gotten used to it but it still hurts to hear their insults. Bruno makes sure to make them pay with a few extra punches and zips, squeezing your hand afterwards while checking in to see if you’re ok.

He honestly loves every part of you, and your stand is just as important.

Abbacchio

Abbacchio has great respect for you and your stand. Because stands represent the users soul he finds it comforting that he isn’t the only one who has a more complicated inside.

He is however not really a fan of anyone bringing out their stand too much when it isn’t necessary, even in arguments when he knows he’s right and could easily prove you wrong by replaying the facts with Moody Blues, he doesn’t. Even though he’s at his most comfortable around you he still doesn’t like it.

But you persist and when you can see he needs a pick me up but you’re unfortunately a little busy, you use your stand to bring him cups of coffee or give him back scratches. He will purr like a cat while you do it, at least when no one else is around.

He knows you’re just trying to comfort him so he lets it happen. He’s never ever thought your stand was scary or unsettling, it’s just you.

Mista

Oh Mista... he’s still somewhat scared of your stand. He’s slowly getting used to it but he’s seen far too many horror movies with Narancia to be able to relax around your stand. He know’s it’s just you, he’s just... a bit of a wuss when it comes sinister looking things.

You’re basically training him to not be scared anymore. Whenever you want to do something nice for him you try and incorporate your stand. Even walking hand in hand with the three of you, Mista in the middle.

It’s during an intense battle that he sees how amazing your stand truly is. You looked focused and calculated while fighting, your stand tactfully making an end to the enemy. Practically displaying heart eyes as he kept staring at the both of you.

It finally clicked and since then he’s had no problems of being scared, he is kinda mad that horror movies don’t excite him that much anymore but a couple of pranks on him later with your stand and he’s back to enjoying them.

Narancia

Just like Mista he was scared of your stand in the beginning, but he’s honestly having a harder time getting it into his head that it’s just you and he shouldn’t be afraid. All those horror marathons did him no good.

You try the method of slowly introducing your stand more often, like taking walks together but he’s just too focused on the visuals. It hurts you that he’s having difficulties with it, your stand is such a big part of you.

When Narancia notices you getting sad or not bringing out your stand too often anymore he’s motivated to get over his own fear. He misses hanging out with you so he has to face that he has nothing to fear.

He’s trying his best for you. He doesn’t want to lose one of his best friends :((

Fugo

Now this one has finally found someone who’s had a similar experience. He wasn’t sure about you at first but after he saw your stand he felt an overwhelming amount of joy. Finally someone like him, people tend to fear his stand a lot and even avoid or make fun of it.

He was the first to complement your technique and curiously asked about your stand later that night. After you explained all it could do he felt even better about himself. Not in a smug way, more in a ‘I’m not alone’ way.

Like Bruno he also makes sure to land a few extra punches whenever an enemy insults your stand. Sometimes he can go a bit too far when his anger gets the best of him but you’ll quietly thank him after.

His face lights up whenever your stand brings over flowers or snacks, he genuinely loves how confident you are, making him feel braver as well.

Giorno

This guy is as unbothered as a rock by your stand. He sees beauty in all things, the concept of stands interest him very much so he sees your stand for what it is, an expression of the soul. He knows you’re strong and tactful, which he silently admires.

The three of you like to go outside at night and catch fireflies in the summertime. But if there’s none around Giorno will create a big cloud of them to dance around you.

Unbothered king right here.

#jjba x reader #jjba headcanons #jjba part 5 headcanons #bruno x reader #abbacchio x reader #narancia x reader #mista x reader #giorno x reader #fugo x reader #sfw #neutral pronouns #gender neutral reader #bucci gang

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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I am sincerely so confused as to why the Gods are not portrayed as the absolute hypocritical monsters they are? Light God punishes Salem for wanting Ozma back, yet bring him back anyway to unite humanity - which is exactly what Salem did, she just united humanity against them. And what's worse is that we know the Light God is coded as good because his power is the same as our main protagonist.

While I absolutely agree that the Gods'... well, everything should be acknowledged by the show, I think the current problem is that they're not portrayed as anything at all post-"The Lost Fable." It's not really a case of the show providing a depiction of the Gods I'm not inclined to agree with given what we saw in the flashback, there is no depiction, period. They don't exist as something that's driving the story right now which, at this point, amounts to near three whole volumes of lost content. The only time I can recall them coming up is during Maria's talk with Ruby, which is really just re-stating facts to lead Ruby to her epiphany: one Brother created the grimm, the other Brother destroyed the grimm, he did so with a magical light... and then Ruby has her aha! moment — "The God of Light... His eyes! Okay, where do we start?" Has the group mentioned them at all outside of this? Have they mentioned the vision? Nora brings up the possibility that someone other than Ozpin could defeat Salem, but that's it (and that was less a discussion and more a theory spoken half to herself that an angry Ren ignored). The characters, along with the audience, were given 20 minutes of non-stop backstory and none of it has had a single bit of impact on the group, outside of breaking their relationship with Ozpin, that is. It has provided no new insight into how to fight this war. No reflection on their lives or deaths. Not even a change in regards to whether they'll fight at all because despite the dejected atmosphere post-vision, no one actually grappled with walking away. The closest they got was at the farm and that negativity was, canonically, due to the Apathy, not any knowledge outside of the Salem immortality secret. That vision was treated like filler, despite nothing in those 20 minutes being insignificant. Where's Weiss' sympathy for Ozpin as a family abuse survivor? Where's Blake's horror at the Gods' oppression and genocide? Where's Jaune's hope at seeing Pyrrha again in some afterlife? Where's Ren's fear that they're fighting a hopeless battle? Even when he does express some of those views in Volume 8, none of it is explicitly connected to the supernatural movie they watched. He's concerned with Jaune's transcript from Volume 1, not the revelation that bringing these Relics together will summon beings who wiped out the first version of humanity. There's not even an acknowledgement that the Gods' choices are what led to Salem's creation, the current antagonist they're concerned with. (When they're not, of course, concerned with Ironwood instead — which just highlights the issue here.) It's not that RWBY is taking clearly horrible entities and trying to pass them off as good guys... it's that RWBY isn't engaging with those entities at all. The Gods showed up for one episode, Maria referenced them for a pep talk, and they've had no impact on the story since.

As for the God of Light yeah, that coding is there, but in another series I would expect that to be the point. Meaning, you set up this binary view of the world for your protagonists — there are Good Guys, there are Bad Guys, and we know who is who because one is all scary black and summons grimm whereas the other is pretty white and bestows gifts! — only to slowly, over the course of the series, have them realize that real life doesn't work that way. That this binary doesn't exist. That Ruby's eyes are important because of how she chooses to use them, not because a being of seeming benevolence gave them to her. Problem is, that revelation should have started in Volume 6, with the characters realizing that Ozpin really is cursed and the nice looking God isn't actually any better than his brother. Now what do they do? Is Ruby comfortable using that power? Are they out to try and lift Ozpin's curse the way Light intended? Are the Gods their new enemies? A tool they'll use to stop Salem? Someone they're willing to forgive? There's the foundation here for a story about heroes not just getting the shock that Gods created them and their enemy, but that they're not necessarily a good thing to embrace either. They thought they were fighting a war where a Purely Evil Creature was attacking humanity. Now they realize it's a war where Salem was, in part, driven to this by creators who abandoned them and might, if the fancy strikes them, enslave or eradicate humanity 2.0 if they ever return. Well shit. How do we tackle that war? But, of course, that kind of story would require them thinking about, discussing, and planning around the Gods. Not ignoring their existence for three seasons.

Given RWBY's anime inspirations and the common theme of, "This being appears benevolent and I fight on their behalf but whoops they're actually awful haha now what?" in other stories, I don't think aligning Ruby's power with the God of Light is intrinsically a bad thing. It is, in fact, good setup for a later conflict. Problem is, absolutely nothing came of that revelation and now it's far too late. After focusing on Ozpin's secret instead, spending an undetermined amount of time doing basic Huntsmen stuff in Atlas, and now being fully immersed in a battle with Salem, having them suddenly go, "Oh yeah. There are Gods. What do we think about that?" is going to be... well, not great. Even if this island is precisely the God world that most fans expect, the group will only be tackling their existence because the plot is forcing them to, literally by "killing" them and trapping them so there's nothing else for them to focus on. The fandom has discussed at length the problem with making the cast almost purely reactive and this is just one more example. We established across Volumes 6-8 that they didn't actively care about the Gods. At all. Not what happened in the past, not what they might do in the future, not how they might impact this war. They were dismissed along with the rest of the vision, taking with it any opportunity to explore that revelation, or try to (mistakenly imo) paint the Gods as better than they were. It's just a non-starter atm. Trying to tackle that story now might still lead to some interesting ideas, but it can't patch the three Volume hole where that story should have started.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #rwby mymetas

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ga-yuu · 3 years

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~Kurama~Main Story Chapter 1~

I know there are not many who are a fan of Kurama, but I swear he’s an angel. Also WARNING!!! The whole route has sexual content, gore, violence, murder, torture, and also spooky horror scenes involving demons all the way through. Now that I’ve cleared everything, I don’t have to put warnings in every chapter.

——-PART 1——-

(I’m going to collect the mystical powers that are required to cancel my pact with Tamamo….and I will definitely open my own pharmacy!)

While thinking about my ordinary lovely life, I looked straight with all the courage I could muster.

Yoshino: “Please take care of me, everyone!”

Shigehira:”......You’re already being noisy.”

Yoshino: “So-Sorry.”

Morinaga: “I think it’s nice to be cheerful, right?”

Yoritomo: “After nearly getting killed, I agree. So as a newcomer to the Shogunate, you will be standing at the frontlines of tomorrow’s war.”

Yoshino: “Eh?”

Yoritomo-sama grins and places a hand on my right shoulder.

As soon as I was about to reply to the words in a hurry, Tamamo placed his hand on my left shoulder.

Tamamo: “Don’t underestimate the power of the woman who is bound to me. I’m sure she can take at least the head of an enemy general.”

Morinaga: “Pharmacists are strong these days, aren’t they?”

Yoshino: “No...you’re exaggerating...”

Kagetoki: “If you don’t meet our expectations, you will be flogged, imprisoned and torture, understood?”

Yoshino: “DON’T YOU DARE!”

I panicked and shouted, but----

(Huh? Why are everyone’s shoulders are shaking slightly...)

Yoritomo; “Not a bad reaction.”

Kagetoki: “Yeah, passable.”

Tamamo: “Are those glasses for decoration? We got a perfect reaction, no matter how you look at it.”

Morinaga: “Yeah, she’s so cheerful, honest, and cute. I have no words to say.”

Shigehira: “.....Sorry about that.”🠀(daily victim of these teasing adults)

(What’s with this flow?)

Yoshino: “Did you all just team up just to tease me?”

Yoritomo: “What are you talking about? Well, it’s half of that is true.”

Tamamo: “We were having a bit of fun. Forgive me, Yoshino.”

Yoshino: “How can Tamamo, blend in so easily....?”

(I don’t understand, he’s a newcomer to the Shogunate like me!)

Morinaga: “Aside from Tamamo’s appearance, he doesn’t sound too much like a demon when he’s talking like this.”

Kagetoki: “I’m not sure what it means to be a ‘demon’,”

Shigehira: “If you ask like that, maybe Kurama would be an example of how demons usually act...”

(Oh yeah...)

-----FLASHBACK------

Kurama: “That’s not the point! You’re the one who’s been taking advantage of an ordinary person. Just look at her. As I expected, she’s just a boring little puss.”

------FLASHBACK END-----

A shiver runs down my spine as I remember those red eyes with their out-of-the-world glow.

Yoshino: “I felt like I was looked down upon.”

Tamamo: “Exactly, He’s the most selfish and unreasonable of all the demons. The most annoying part is, he always challenges me because I’m equal to him, in terms of power.”

------Part 2-----

Tamamo: “He’s the most selfish and unreasonable of all the demons. The most annoying part is, he always challenges me because I’m equal to him, in terms of power.”

Yoshino: “He’s that powerful....”

I shiver a little as I feel the night wind grow colder.

(I know the fight is still a long way off and there’s no point dwelling on it now.)

Shigehira: “Why don’t you just go into the palace and get some sleep? Seeing you wander around the palace with dark circles under your eyes is going to be a hassle.”

Yoshino: “Wander...?”

Kagetoki: “As expected of the man who goes to bed early and gets up early, has a different mindset.”

Morinaga: “Yes, they say that sleeping early makes children grow faster.”

Shigehira: “You both, stop making fun of me!”

Yoshino: “Hehe....you all seem to be friendly with each other.”

Yoritomo: “Friendly...well, what can I say...”

Tamamo: “I envy you.”

Shigehira: “Bullshit!”

-----I’m going to live in the midst of all these personalities tomorrow.

(I don’t know what kind of day it will be.)

(If we’re going to live an unfamiliar life until we’ve achieved our goal, let’s make it a meaningful one.)

.....................................

A few days later-----

Tamamo: “Oh, where are you going, Yoshino?”

Yoshino: “Ah, Tamamo. Good morning.”

Early in the morning, I was walking down the corridor when I bumped into Tamamo.

Yoshino: “I’m thinking of going to the mountains outside of town to pick up some herbs.”

Tamamo: “Herbs? As long as we are under the protection of the Shogunate, I don’t think you need to work hard as pharmacist.”

(It’s true that there’s good food at every meal, the room is too comfortable, and it’s a heavenly life...but....)

Yoshino: “I’m uncomfortable living such a good life even though I haven’t done anything. I won’t use my fox powers until the battle, and I hope I can contribute as a pharmacist first.”

Tamamo: “I see. As the home of the samurai, a pharmacist would be of great value here. Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to ingratiate yourself with them on a regular basis?”

Yoshino: “No, I didn’t mean to do it that way.”

It is true, however, I hoped it would help him to fit in with the Shogunate.

Tamamo: “But it’s not easy picking herbs, is it? Why don’t I come with you to the mountains?”

Yoshino: “Eh?”

I was delighted by the unexpected offer but...

(Yikes, no matter how you look at it, mountain trails don’t suit Tamamo.)

Yoshino: “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. I’d like to go into town this afternoon. If you don’t mind, will you join me?”

Tamamo: “That’s an excellent suggestion. You can leave the guidance to me.”

------Part 3------

Yoshino: “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. I’d like to go into town this afternoon. If you don’t mind, will you join me?”

Tamamo: “That’s an excellent suggestion. You can leave the guidance to me.”

.............

I parted ways with the happy Tamamo and made my way to the outskirts of town.

Yoshino: “Okay! I wonder if this is enough.”

After gathering the necessary herbs, I take my basket and start walking along the mountain path.

After a while----

(The surroundings are getting foggy...)

(I have to be careful.)

At the same point, the temperature drops, and goosebumps appear on my arms.

Yoshino: “This is the direction I came, right?”

(I don’t know what it was, I can’t be sure of it but I have a bad feeling about it.)

I can feel the hair on the nape of my neck stand.

At that time, sudden anxiety attacks me....

There was a faint sound of wet earth being trodden on.

(eh?)

(Who is there?)

When I looked back, there was no one.

(Maybe it’s just my imagination.)

While convincing myself, I started walking fast.

(I can’t see my feet.)

At that time---

*tap tap tap tap tap tap tap*

Yoshino: “.......!”

I was sure I could hear it and it made my whole body go all hairy.

As I quickened my pace, the sound of footsteps followed behind me.

Yoshino: “.....Who is there?”

Voice: “Hehehehe...”

The sound of laughter coming from behind the fog gives me a strange chill.

Voice: “Who is there? Who is there? Hehehe...”

A voice with the lisp of a young child and the lisp of a grown woman imitated my words.

(What the hell is that.....?)

Voice: “Is there someone? Someone? Hehehehe.....Hehehe....”

Yoshino:” Go away!”

I raise my voice and I feel my legs trembling.

Unable to resist, my feet tangled as I ran and I nearly plowed over the bumps in the ground, obscured by the fog.

Voice: “Go away.....go away.....go away.....? I’m going catch you....”

Yoshino: “Kyaaa!”

I threw the basket at the voice and stood back on my feet and started running.

(Why is this demon....following me?)

I struggled to escape the sound of footsteps and laughter chasing me from behind.

Finally, when I can’t hear the voice anymore, I started breathing normally.

(Looks like I ended up in the deepest part of the mountains.)

Yoshino: “...I hate this. Why did this have to happen to me?”

(What should I do now?)

Rubbing the tears from my eyes, I walked on fearfully not wanting to go back.

Then a faint sound of water can be heard through the mist.

Yoshino: “Is there a river nearby?”

As I stared, I could see a faint spring through the slow-moving mist.

As we walked cautiously, a strong wind blew just ahead of me and it quickly lifted the mist.

(......! Someone’s there.)

-------Part 4------

As we walked cautiously, a strong wind blew just ahead of us and quickly lifted the mist.

(......! Someone’s there.)

This time I approached, squealing with relief at the sight of a definite figure.

Yoshino: “Excuse me! Um....”

------The first thing I saw was a jet-black spread of wings.

Droplets of morning light glisten from their glossy wet feathers.

(No way....)

The eyes of this person whose feet are immersed in the shallows and whose well-built body is generously exposed----

Those unforgettable glowing red eyes.

Kurama: “................”

Yoshino: “Karasu Tengu.....Kurama.”

It’s out of this world beautiful and for a moment my thoughts stopped.

Kurama: “----What an ‘unpleasant surprise.”

(Ah......)

His voice rang with contempt and my breath caught in my throat at the intimidation.

Kurama: “Who gave you the permission to be in my sight?”

(-----I have to run!)

I decided so and started running with my back towards him.

(I’m still wondering about the demon from earlier but there’s no time to get lost in other things!)

Kurama: “Stop right there!”

Yoshino: “Kyaa!”

An invisible blade gouges out the soil underfoot.

(It’s a wind blade!)

With a careless wave of his hand, Kurama let fear take over my movements.

The black feathers just flutter and splash once.

Kurama: “I said it was an unpleasant sight, but I didn’t give you the permission to run away. The only thing you are allowed to do is to answer my questions sincerely, without trembling like a fool.”

(I....must calm down, I have the power of the nine tail fox. But....)

I squeezed my fingertips which were hard as stone.

(I’m scared.)

(My legs are shaking even though I’ve been threatened only once.)

Kurama came out of the water quickly.

I tugged my sleeve in fear while thinking about how to get away from him.

Kurama: “Now.”

Every step he takes brings a cold sweat behind my neck.

My instincts told me that I was in the presence of a superhuman being.

Yoshino: “Ah!”

Kurama: “Little puss, why have you come to this mountain?”

He pulls me close and our breaths touch as he looks at me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Nothing.(+4/+4)

2. I don’t know.(+4/+4)

3. Please let go.(+4/+4)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yoshino: “For nothing....”

I shook my head, which had gone completely blank.

Kurama: “Only a lowly animal will move without a purpose.”

Yoshino: “Argh, I just came to pick some herbs, okay! What are you doing here?”

Kurama: “Don’t you see? I was having a bath.”

Yoshino: ‘Bath?......In the enemy’s territory?”

Kurama: “No matter where I am, I do what I want and whenever I want.”

------Part 5------

Kurama: “No matter where I am, I do what I want and whenever I want.”

(Eeehhhh)

Yoshino: “But you didn’t come here just for a dip....right?”

I asked him fearfully.

Kurama: “Of course, I’m here to see Tamamo.”

Yoshino: “Tamamo...”

Kurama: “I thought I would see how the nine-tail-fox was faring in the Shogunate. Since he’s spending so much time in vain, I might as well give him a light fight. But before I went to see him, I saw this nice spring and stopped by.”

(Going into enemy territory doesn’t seem to be something that makes Kurama nervous at all.)

(I wonder if demons have different senses from humans?)

Kurama scratched his wet hair annoyingly.

Despite this situation, my eyes are drawn to the picture-like gesture.

(What are you thinking? I want to know even if he’s an enemy.)

Yoshino: “Um....were you the one making those strange footsteps and voices? Did you do that to lure me here?”

Kurama: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

When Kurama was about to continue his words....

Yoshino: “.....! Wait.”

(That sound.)

*Tap*

The familiar sloppy sound of footsteps makes my shoulders quiver

*tap tap tap tap tap*

Kurama: “..................”

(At a time like this......)

Voice: “Found you!....Hehehehe, found you found you!”

Yoshino: “No.....way.....”

The hem of a red kimono and the feet of a pair of sandals loomed mysteriously out from under the mist.

The next moment....

(What the hell!?)

A plume of black smoke came from somewhere, tinting the mist.....

Demon: “Found you! Found you! Found you! Found you! “

Yoshino: “Kyaaa.....”

I can’t breathe properly because of the fear that crawls up from under my feet.

The outline of the huge demon distorted and stretched its arms wide towards us.

(No more.)

Kurama: “Don’t you dare interrupt me!.”

As I opened my eyes in despair, I heard a voice above me, which was the most sullen voice I’ve ever heard.

Demon: “Gyaaaaa!”

Yoshino: “Nghh.....”

The invisible wind blades sliced the limbs of the demon brutally.

The demon collapsed struggled violently on the ground in a black mass.

Kurama: “Crushed like a bug.”

(Why.)

I looked back, ducking my eyes against the strong wind blowing. Kurama pulls a fan from his waist and gives it a big flash.

Kurama: “I won’t allow a fly like you to interrupt me, so be ready for what’s coming to you.”

Chapter 2

#ikemen series #ikemen genjiden #ikemen genjiden kurama #ikemen mc #otome #cybird #cybird ikemen #cybird otome #main story translations

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moonctzeny · 4 years

Text

The Bet

au+trope+prompt game: coffee shop!au Mark + enemies to lovers + is that the best you can do?

pairing: mark lee + fem!reader

other members as background characters: lucas

genre: fluff (only some suggestive stuff)

word count: 3,796

warnings: slight objectification of reader, suggestive stuff, heavy making out, a boner, i guess a stockings kink

summary: “When you took that part time job as a barista at your local café, you only cared about grabbing your check while doing the least work possible. But when your supervisor, Mark Lee, keeps getting praised and winning ‘Employee Of The Month’, you offer a bet, to prove him that he’s no better than you. The outcome? Your relationship changing forever.”

a/n: hbd baby <3

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It started off as just a little part time job.

College life was not easy to cope with financially, and eating instant noodles for a week straight could only save you so much money. So when you saw the ‘Barista Wanted’ sign at the cafe that was just a block away from your house, you didn’t miss your chance for a few extra bucks. And that’s all that job would be for you. Doing the least work possible for the minimum wage you were given, if it wasn’t for him. Mark Lee.

Mark was sweet, honestly. He greeted you with a smile when you first came in and showed you around. He was a bit shy when he awkwardly stated that he was kind of like a supervisor there. But the way that the boss would go on and on about how great he was, every Monday morning, was starting to get annoying. So was his ability to always save your ass whenever you made a mess in front of your boss. So was his picture hanging in the “Employee Of The Month” frame right from across the bar. That kid won that title every.single.month. And no overtimes, sweeping or mopping from your part seemed to change your boss’s mind.

It all began when you and Lucas, another part-time worker whose shift started right after yours, were talking about whether you would make rent this month. Mark was sitting next to you, occupied with organizing some cups by size, but decided to chip in.

“Well”, he sighed “guess we’re just gonna have to eat the rich. Or take that pole dancing class you mentioned, Lucas.”

The taller boy found it funny, letting out his signature giggle and you would too, if Mark’s damn “Employee of the Month” picture wasn’t staring right into your soul, mocking you.

You rolled your eyes. “Not all of us are lucky enough to get that sweet I-love-kissing-the-boss’s-ass bonus every month, Lee”. Lucas whistled at your comment, used to your bickering but still very entertained.

“Careful how you speak to your supervisor, y/n or you’ll never get to be employee of the month”.

“Oh please”, you scoff “having extra keys to the back exit and cleaning the coffee machine twice a week? That’s wayyy too much responsibility”.

Sarcasm was dripping from your voice, but you were only half lying. You didn’t give a flying fuck for the position. You just wanted it because he had it. And that certain “he” was starting to get a little tired from your constant degradation. Mark smirked at you, but anger was evident on his expression.

“You should be thanking me, you know. At least you get to mooch off of my tips”.

Lucas yelled a drawn out “ooohhh” but you could barely hear him. Your eyes were piercing Mark’s, too busy keeping yourself from blurting out every profanity that came to your head in that moment. Instead, you took a deep breath.

“You think you make more tips than me?”, you asked calmly. Cockier than ever, the boy instantly replies with a “I know I do”, never breaking eye contact. This was your chance, you thought. The chance to prove yourself and shut him up for good.

“How about we make a little bet?”

Mark raised his bow-shaped brows, focusing his attention solely on you.

“Let’s put separate tip jars next to the cashing machine for the rest of the week. If I make more, you’ll convince the boss to remove that horrible frame for good”. He followed your eyes to his picture on the wall, and nodded.

“And when I win?”, he asked curiously and you chose to ignore his little play on words. You furrowed your brows, trying to think of a good motivation for him, as if his competitive nature wasn’t enough.

“OH! OH!” Lucas interrupted, “she can go on a date with that creepy friend of yours that always comes to the cafe to see her!”

Mark’s eyes instantly lit up at the idea. He handed out his pinky, looking to seal the deal with you.

“Bet’s on”, he said, with a seriousness that looked foreign on his cute features, and motioned to his pinky with his eyes, urging you to intertwine it with yours.

You sighed and walked away, muttering a “God, you are so lame”, but the next morning you came to work with a jar with your name written all pretty on it.

You didn’t really have a strategy per se. In fact, you had completely forgotten about the bet, too busy preparing orders and running around. You were cleaning up for Lucas to take your place in the shift, when you felt Mark looking down at you from the other side of the counter that usually separated you from the costumers. “May I be of help, sir?”, you asked him mockingly, not bothering to spare him a glance.

“You should wear those white thigh highs. You look cute in them.”

“Huh? What?”, you ask in confusion, still cleaning the surface carefully.

“In your date with Jason”, he explained with a teasing tone in his voice, Jason being his ‘creepy friend’ as Lucas calls him. Why did he have to piss you off right when you were ready to go home?

You continued to ignore him, only muttering a “I’m not going on that date”, when you hear a clinging sound and finally look up at Mark.

“You sure?”

He was holding the two tip jars, swinging them around. To your horror, Mark’s had more than twice the money than yours.

“WHAT??” you let out and immediately regretted it when some costumers looked at you like you were crazy. You continued with a whispered yell, “How the fuck did that happen??”

Mark grinned at you and lifted his shoulders innocently, before walking away. He must have cheated by slipping in coins when you weren’t looking, that sly motherfucker.

That’s it, you decided, on Wednesday you were going to spy on his every move.

After watching him intently for the whole morning, you came to the conclusion that Mark had a way of making everybody like him. Whether it was him memorizing the regulars and their orders, or asking them if they knew some random Will Smith song about Miami, he was always the textbook example of an eager, smiley and pleasant barista. Even you smiled at the sight of him fumbling with the pen when two pretty girls gave him their names to write on the coffee cups. He flashed them a smile and mumbled an apology, and you watched as they cooed at him and left a very generous tip. You were almost convinced by his adorable act, when he turned around and winked your way.

Ugh, you hated Mark Lee.

You decided that making a better connection with the customers was the way to go. You weren’t the type to start a conversation about the weather out of the blue, nor did you know any Will Smith songs, so you decided on drawing a little doodle on the cup next to their names with every order. The younger ones thought it was a nice addition to their snapchat story, the older ones found you cute. And as they came back for a coffee refill, your jar started filling up as well. It wasn’t much but you were getting closer to reaching the 3/4 of Mark’s tips, so you were pretty happy with yourself.

You were drawing a little heart for a latte when you smelled his cologne. You felt his breath pushing away at the hairs that were sticking out from your ponytail at the nape of your neck. You hated how it sent a shiver to your spine, how it made your hands a little shaky and how the heart drawing turned out a little wonky.

Mark was your “enemy” and your supervisor and Mr. Annoyingly Perfect but Mark was also hot. You would never admit it, but you even had a little crush on him when you started working there. You might pull a disgusted face every time Lucas tells you that the solution to your constant bickering was to “just fuck already”, but you wondered whether it was his oblivion to your crush that made your little hatred towards him grow. And you’d be lying if you said that you never stared at his cute ass sticking out of his apron a second too long, or that it didn’t turn you on when he got pissed at the ice getting stuck in the blender.

So now that he was almost pressing against you from behind, closer than ever, you wouldn’t mind at all. That is if he didn’t open his god damn mouth.

“Really?”, he scoffed “Is that the best you can do?”

His tone was so condescending that it made you furious, pressing your nails in the paper cup, and you were surprised that the liquid didn’t spill everywhere. He gave you a victorious smirk from getting that reaction out of you, and you wanted to punch it right off of his face.

Oh, that meant war.

On Thursday morning, you walked in looking the best you’ve ever looked for a morning shift. You had your hair in pigtails, hair bands matching the color of your lowcut dress. Your lengthened the straps of your apron, your cleavage not leaving much to the imagination.

It was ridiculous, you thought, how many tips a push up bra can get you. It only took a couple customers for the word to spread and the horny men to line up at the cafe. You batted your eyelashes at them, the “Good morning, I’m here to serve you, how can I help you sir?”driving them nuts. You had to say it every time, shop’s policy, but now it sounded more suggestive than ever. You were disgusted by their gawking eyes and terrible attempts at flirting, but you had a goal.

And hell were you winning. You weren’t sure if it was your jar that was filling up at an amazing rate or your outfit, but that was the first time you ever saw Mark make a mistake in his orders. You swore you felt his gaze following you around all day, murmuring something to himself every time a customer asked him if the pretty girl could serve them instead.

It was the end of the shift, and you were happily chatting with Lucas as you were cleaning up the counter. He was doing a terrible job at keeping his eyes away from your chest, but when it came to someone as good looking as him, you really didn’t mind the attention. You took your apron off and started folding it neatly when Mark took your wrist and dragged you into the storage room.

He held a bunch of wrinkly paper towels in his hands. You noticed something was written with a pen messily on each of them.

“This is the seventh phone number that a dude has given me today”, he told you as he stared into your eyes, careful not to move his gaze any more south. It was your turn to mess with him.

“Well good for you”, you said with a smile, “Didn’t know you were so popular with men, Mark”

He closed his eyes, trying to control his temper, and shoved the towels towards you.

“They’re for you. They asked me to pass them to you. After the third guy I forgot what their names were but you can figure them out yourself”. You took them from him with a quiet “oh, thanks” and he sighed.

“You can’t come in here looking like that. This is a workplace.”

You looked at him with wide eyes and fake innocence. “Like what? What’s wrong with my outfit?”. His patience was running short.

“Why don’t you ask Lucas” he replied, with a tone that started to piss you off.

“If you can’t control your hormones like you’re some teenage boys, that’s not my prob-“ you start but he cuts you off. You had never seen him act so stern.

“We have a dress code. Maybe the boss can remind you, if you want”.

It was the first time Mark had actually pulled the supervisor card on you and you felt a little hurt by the coldness of his voice. You swear you saw a bit of instant regret in his eyes but you decided to leave the matter alone, and left the storage room after ostentatiously throwing the phone numbers in the bin next to the door.

Friday was the last day of the bet. You didn’t show up with a flashy outfit, because 1) you didn’t want to risk losing your job for a stupid bet and 2) because straight men were annoying and so were their pickup lines that you didn’t want to deal with. You did wear the white thigh highs Mark mentioned though, with a skirt whose length followed the dress code, just to tease him a little bit. You had never worn them in work before, but when you ran across Mark one day on your way home from a girls’ night out, both a little drunk and disoriented, he didn’t hide his admiration towards them.

He noticed right away when you walked in the café this afternoon. Fridays were the only days when you took the later shift instead of the morning one. You hated it because that meant having to work with Mark until closing, and due to his perfectionism you’d always be staying with him overtime, cleaning every inch of the place, and never participating in any Friday parties that your friends hosted.

You were a little worried that things would be awkward between you after your little argument yesterday, but when he pointed at your stockings and asked if you were “dressed up for the date already”, you knew he didn’t keep any hard feelings and neither did you. What you didn’t expect was his jar to be as full as yours, if not more.

You panicked, and took Lucas to the side, making him promise that he would tell you if he had cheated while you were gone or not. He shrugged.

“Sorry, pretty, no cheating. A high school visited the park across the street as a field trip. The girls went crazy over him. Pretty sure they spent all their allowance here”.

At that you dropped your shoulders in defeat and worked your shift with a pout on your face. You wouldn’t take the humiliation of losing the bet, especially after the little stunt you pulled on Thursday. The hours went by agonizingly slow, and the moment you were dreading finally came.

You turned the “Sorry, we’re closed” sign at the glass entrance door, as you were mopping the floor. All the costumers were gone, and your boss had left the keys to you and Mark, asking you to lock up instead as he had ‘an errand to run’. You wished that your coworker would somehow forget about your bet and spare you the embarrassment, but instead, he gave you a devilish side smirk and motioned you to come closer.

He emptied his jar first, and started counting out loud in front of you, insisting that you do it out together so as not to pull any “funny business”.

40 bucks. It wasn’t bad, it was good actually, and you groaned, now feeling more nervous than ever.

Mark on the other hand, relaxed his shoulders and happily started counting your tips this time. His smile started to wear off, though, as you did much better that he thought. You were neck-to-neck, figuratively and almost literally, as your heads nearly bumped together in deep concentration.

“37,38,39,40…41,42,43” he whispered out and you couldn’t believe your eyes.

You won. You actually won. You never had to see that stupid “Employee Of The Month” frame ever again and most importantly, you were finally better than Mark at something.

You let out a high-pitched squeal, jumping up and down excitedly on your spot, strikingly different that the boy next to you, who was frozen in place.

“I woooon” you teased him with a sing-song voice “and you looooost, loserrr”

It was an understatement to say that Mark was fuming.

“It’s not fair!” he yelled and pointed an accusing finger towards you. You rolled your eyes and walked further back, next to the counter with the coffee machines, happily swinging your hips.

“Don’t be a sore loser Mark, I won fair and square”

“I’m not a sore loser!”, he whines, “I was at a disadvantage!”

You raise an eyebrow and turn towards him, to see that he had taken a few steps at your direction. “Oh yeah? And what is that?”

“You’re hot!”, he groans and rubs his hands over his face. “Hell, I would die from a caffeine overdose if it meant seeing you with your little pigtails and that top and that smile, ready to ‘serve me, sir’”

You could feel your ears and cheeks turning on fire and you’d blame it on the flattery, but his horrible high-pitched impression of your voice was what made you too angry to fully process what he said.

You grabbed a syrup bottle from the counter behind you and pointed it towards his face.

“Ugh, Mark! You’re so annoying! Why do you always need to be the best at everything!”

You barged into him, squeezing the bottle over his face. With his quick reflexes he swiftly grabbed your hand, successfully immobilizing you, but you had already managed to get a big, fat line of syrup right across his lips.

In a moment of clarity, you stopped resisting and became aware of the position you and Mark were in. You had moved backwards as a result of your fight, the countertop digging in your lower back. His one hand was grabbing at your lifted arm by the wrist, the other resting on the marbled surface behind you in an effort to detain you. To top it all off, you stared at the mess you made on his lips, coupled by the unreadable look on his eyes.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, you thought. This is your supervisory/n! You know, the guy in charge when the boss is gone? The guy that you basically jumped because of a stupid bet? That you actually won? But will still get you fired?

You were getting ready to move away and profusely apologize to Mark, your eyes frantically moving from his eyes, to his lips, to his “Employee Of The Month” picture from across the room. He, however, stayed still, only releasing your wrist to now place his hand under your chin, forcing you to look at him.

“Clean this mess”, he demanded, in a tone you would have never expected from Mark, “immediately”

In the seconds that followed his demand, the tension between you two was thicker than the drizzle that still decorated his mouth. He came even closer, your noses only a centimeter apart, his fingers pressing on your face lightly.

You were worried whether you read the room wrong or not, because if you did, your next move would most certainly get you fired.

He could barely hear your whispered “here to serve you” before you finally closed the distance between you.

You pulled his bottom lip between your lips, your tongue shyly sweeping across it, collecting the syrup that was starting to dry into a sugary paste. He was soft like a cloud and tasted like caramel. You repeated the motion for his top lip when you felt him melt into your kiss. The moment was sweet like the taste in your mouth, but it changed as soon as you felt him grab the back of your thighs, lifting you on the top of the counter.

You matched his hunger by sucking on his bottom lip this time, determined to clean him up as best as you could. He moaned your name into the kiss, his fingertips digging in the inside of his favorite thigh highs. Your skirt had well ridden up, allowing him to pinch the fabric of one of them.

“These” he started, his lips now sucking on your neck, “almost cost me my supervisor’s position with all the messing up they made me do”

He let the elastic snap against your thigh, earning a small gasp from you and you decided to tease him a little.

“Is that so huh? Because I’m so hot? With my boobs and my pigtails and my willingness to serve?” you ask with a laugh, and you feel him smile against his deep kiss over your pulse, grabbing your legs to scoot your ass and pull you closer.

“Because you’ve been driving me crazy ever since you got this job. And because you look so fucking sexy when you’re mad”

His boldness made you desperate as you tangled your fingers in his hair and pulled him back up into a passionate kiss. It was sticky and hot and full of tongue, and you felt something poking on the inside of your thigh before a loud noise made you snap and pull away from each other in shock.

You looked at the floor to see a, thankfully not broken, but dismantled blender, that you must have pushed off the counter in the heat of the moment. You stare down at Mark as you both laugh at the situation, his hair messy and lips swollen and you know you definitely mirrored his look.

He cleared his throat. “Uhh, not that I don’t enjoy this, cause I really do, but if we keep at it Lucas is going to be the next Employee Of The Month, and not only is that ridiculous, but we would both basically lose our little bet”

You laughed at his comment and let your feet dangle awkwardly, your cheeks heating at the thought of what might have happened if you two had kept going.

“I’m sorry for being such a bitch about your framed picture” you said with a small voice, avoiding his gaze “you don’t have to take it down”

He smiled at your attempt at peace as he picked up the blender pieces and skillfully riveted them in place. Your eyes suddenly widened before adding, “I will NOT go on a date with your creepy friend though”

Mark giggled at that and shook his head before returning his eyes back at you. His cheeks were flushed a crimson red, deep in thought.

“How about me?” he blurted, “I mean, how about going on a date with me instead?”

You nodded your head, reaching a hand out to fix the messy locks out of his eyes.

“Yes. I think I’d love that”

#mark lee scenarios #nct scenarios #mark lee #mark lee fluff #nct fluff #mark lee birthday #nct au #nct 127 #superm

510 notes · View notes

arashikitten · 4 years

Text

Monkie Kid Soulmate Au

Thank you, MKD, for helping me create this monstrosity.

I noticed there weren’t any soulmate au’s for Monkie Kid yet so I decided to make one Myself!

In this au, there are three types of soulmate a person can have: the typical romantic soulmate, platonic soulmate (i.e. best friends, family, things of that nature), and enemy soulmates (rivals, nemesis, mortal enemies, things along that line). People can have multiple soulmates, and in fact it is very common for people to have three or more at any given point! It is also possible for someone to have only one or two types of soulmate: for example, someone who is asexual might only have platonic soulmates and/or enemy soulmates.

As for how one identifies their soulmate, a small mark/symbol will appear on the wrist, palm, or back of the person a year before they meet their soulmate in person, at which point the mark will take on color. The placement of the marks often determines the type of bond: a mark on the palm indicates a romantic bond, on the wrist indicates a platonic bond, and on the back indicates an enemy bond (that being said, there have been instances where this rule does not apply).

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the meat of this au!

Red Son is born with two soulmarks: A stylized, cartoon bull head, and a large, red and gold fan. They both appear on his back, and from a young age, he tries to ignore the possibility that his own parents may one day become his worst enemies. He grows up very close to DBK and Iron fan: he wants desperately to maintain a good relationship with them, and he ends up cutting off any sort of interaction with anyone else.

DBK gets sealed under the mountain, and Red’s world shatters. Both he and Iron fan grieve for a long time, and Red Son now feels even more alone.

So, he starts attempting to free his father from his prison under the mountain.

Fast forward about 300 years, to when MK is born without a single mark. He grows up and for ten years, his palms, wrists and back remain blank.

Then, about a month after his tenth birthday, a small, grey dragon appears, wrapped around his wrist, along with a grey cartoon pig wearing a chef’s hat (Pigsy) and a small cicada (Mr. Tang).

Six months later, MK gets kicked out of his home, living on the streets for five months until, late one night, Pigsy finds him in the alleyway next to the noodle shop (The small stylized monkey face on Pigsy’s wrist glows with color. He and Tang adopt Mk two weeks later.).

Mei walks into the shop about a month later, while Tang is telling MK a story from Journey to the West. All three of the soul marks on her wrist light up, and she and Mk become best friends over a game of Monkey mech.

Six years later, Red Son wakes up with a grey, stylized Monkey face on his palm, and a small dragon wrapped around his left wrist. He despises them both; he begins wearing finger-less gloves, if only so that he doesn’t have to see the grinning face of the Demon who sealed his father away staring up at him every day. Besides, he doesn’t need other soul mates: Once his father is free, Red Son’s family will be whole again, and they will rule the world with an iron fist (Note that at this point, Red is in complete denial that DBK and Iron fan could be his enemies: the fact that their marks showed up on his back indicates that they will become his worst enemies, so Red has spent his entire life trying desperately to ensure that doesn’t happen.). (He still fails in the end)

Mei and Mk both wake up that same morning with a new soulmark: A small, stylized flame that appears on Mk’s palm and on Mei’s wrist. They both gush to each other about it over a bowl of noodles, Mei is excited to get a new bestie while Mk is freaking out over the fact that he may have a boyfriend/girlfriend in a years time (Note: I 100% headcanon Mk as both gay and trans: but I like to think he struggled a bit more with his sexuality. At this point, Mk is still questioning it a bit, but by the time the events of episode one roll around, he’s pretty sure of his identity. Mei is ace, Red Son is Bi, Pigsy is Pan, and Mr. Tang is gay.). Mk also gains a small peach on his right wrist, and he and Mei speculate as to why only Mk got a second mark (Way up on Flower Fruit Mountain, Sun Wukong gains a new soul mark for the first time in 400 years. This prompts him to begin looking into possibly getting a successor).

Mei, Mk, Pigsy, and Mr. Tang also get two marks on their backs: a demon head and an iron fan. Mk and Mr. Tang, upon seeing what exactly the marks are, absolutely freak out. They both firmly believe that the marks represent DBK and Princess Iron fan, and the implication that two very powerful demons might be going after them in a year’s time is more than enough to scare the two. Pigsy and Mei are a bit more skeptical, citing that DBK and Iron fan are just myths, and even if they weren’t, DBK would still be trapped under the mountain by the Monkey King’s staff.

This only freaks the other two out more, as that carries the implication that DBK will be free to wreak havoc on the world in a year’s time. So, MK and Mr. Tang begin to delve even deeper into the lore surrounding DBK and Sun Wukong, desperately trying to prepare just in case (Sun Wukong actually happens to overhear one of these study sessions while he’s out searching for a successor, and is impressed by Mk’s knowledge of him. He decides to keep an eye on the kid, and eventually makes the choice to make him his successor.).

As the year progresses, MK gets three new enemy marks:a dark grey spider on his shoulder (It scares the hell out of MK the first time he sees it, and he smacks it multiple times before realizing that it’s not an actual spider. He then proceeds to panic even more when he realizes it’s a soulmark.), a more menacing version of Mk’s own soul mark that appears on his lower back (three guesses as to who that one belongs to), and finally, a pale grey skull right in the middle of Mk’s shoulder blades, larger than any other soulmark so far. With each new enemy mark, Mk becomes more and more nervous: Just what will happen to give him so many enemies?

Meanwhile, Red Son gains only one new mark: the same pale grey skull, right in between the fan and the bull head. This one worries Red Son the most: while he has never actually seen the white bone spirit, he’s heard several disturbing horror stories over the years, and the idea of becoming allies or gods forbid, enemies with the cruel creature makes the fire demon nervous.

Then, we get to the pilot. Red frees his father, MK gets the staff, and the chase across the city ensues. Red returns to the lair empty handed and bruised. He heads to his room to patch up, when he notices a small flare of bright, emerald green on his wrist. Pulling off the finger-less gloves, Red Son sees that the dragon is now a bright, glowing green. The mark on his palm has also taken on a color, bright reds mixing with vibrant golds as the colored monkey mark on his palm smiles up at him.

That’s when it clicks: The only two people he’d encountered today, aside from his mother and father, are the Noodle Boy and the mysterious person on the bike.

Red Son furiously vows that he will never, ever side with the Noodle boy, even if it kills him, and he will remain steadfastly loyal to his mother and father (From then on, he takes extra care to hide his palms and wrists from his parents, out of the intense fear that they will cast him out if they learn of who exactly the marks represent.) (it doesn’t work).

Meanwhile, Mk is freaking the fuck out. He can wield the Monkey King’s staff, he just saw one of the most powerful demons get freed from a 300+ year prison, confirming his theory that DBK and Iron fan are the two marks on his shoulder blades (Both of which, Mk notes, gained color that day, further confirming that they relate to DBK and Iron fan.), he got chased all over town by Red Son (who Mk recognizes from the myths), and to top it all off, the flame mark on his palm turned a bright, royal blue sometime between him leaving to deliver noodles, and him getting back to the shop, and the only other person that Mk encountered during that time that even remotely fits the mark is, you guessed it, Red Son.

Mk relays all of this to the gang, at which point Mei notices that the flame on her wrist has also turned bright blue, providing even further confirmation. Mk is very much bummed out by this, because out of all the people that could’ve been the fire on his palm, of course it had to be the demon who attempted to kill him.

Still, Mk pushes that to the side in favor of focusing on finding the Monkey King.

The pilot continues much in the same way as in canon, with one notable exception: When Iron Fan shows up on the gang’s way to Flower Fruit mountain, she sees the small blue flame on MK’s palm. Putting two and two together, she realizes that her son is soulbound to MK, and that this bond may eventually cause Red to turn on his parents, which is why Iron Fan and DBK begin to push him away in later episodes.

After that, things resume canon again: MK survives and gets to Flower Fruit Mountain, Wukong tells him that he chose Mk to be his successor (Which is when the peach mark on MK wrist gains color, and Mk proceeds to lose his entire shit over the fact that holy fuck, he’s soul bonded to Sun freaking Wukong. Wukong finds this both utterly hilarious and a little bit adorable.), the big fight between DBK and Mk happens, yada yada yada. The day is saved, and Mk goes home with his newfound powers.

Episode one is where we begin to see more long-term changes. By this point, both DBK and Iron fan know that their son is bound to the little thief, most likely romantically, and that their own blue flame mark is located on their backs, implying that Red Son will most likely turn against them in the near future. So, they start to distance themselves from him.

They send Red to take control of the weather station and defeat MK, something that both of them know will end in failure. Red Son is oblivious to this (not really) and gladly takes on the task, desperate to prove himself. And t first, it seems that Red is actually successful!

...Before Mk comes back with a new grip on his powers and absolutely destroys Red Son.

Red Son goes back to the lair, sparks still flying off of him, and on his way to his room, he overhears quiet conversation between his parents.

Curious, he quietly listens in, and finds out that not only do his parents know about the mark on his palm (How??? How did they find out???), but they are also planning on a way to get him “out of the picture”.

Red Son absolutely panics at this revelation, and begins to spiral into waves of self-loathing and intense anxiety. Now he is desperate to remain on his parent’s good side by any means necessary, and so he buries himself in plans and research on powerful artifacts that he can steal for his father.

While that’s going on, Mk meets the spider queen (The Spider on his shoulder becomes purple and green, and Mk spends three hours scrubbing at it in the shower that night), the whole clone thing happens, Mei gets her sword, and the calabash incident goes down (the main difference here is that when Mk hears that Red Son was also sealed away with his parents, Mk feels inexplicably upset about it: as much as he dislikes the fire demon, there’s still a small part of him that desperately wants them to be friends.). At this point, both Mk and Mei have kinda just accepted that the blue flame mark exists, and they don’t pay it too much attention, even if Mk kinda wants to know more about the hotheaded fire demon.

Then the race rolls around. At this point, Red is a nervous, paranoid wreck, his self esteem (which really wasn’t all that great to begin with) is deteriorating at a frightening speed, and he is desperate for a chance to prove to his parents that he is loyal, that he’s not worthless.

So when he hears that the winner of this year’s great wall race will receive a peach of immortality, he rushes to apply for it. He excitedly tells Iron Fan, fervently hoping that she’ll at least listen to him, only to be crushed when she dismisses him out of hand, saying that even if the peaches could do anything for them, it wouldn’t change all of Red Son’s failures in the past. Red Son, disheartened, still joins the race, and is absolutely furious when he sees that both Mk and Mei (When Red found out that she’s a descendant of one of the great dragons, he started calling her “Horse Girl” under the assumption that the dragon she is descended from was the dragon horse from Journey to the West) also entered. He starts arguing and bantering with them, and for just a moment, Red feels... content. Not happy, per se, but the constant anxiety and paranoia begins to lessen for a moment.

Then DBK and Iron fan show up, and Red Son goes silent. His back goes rigid, and his eyes glaze over a bit. Mei and Mk both take notice of the Fire demon’s sudden change in demeanor, and even though they still both think he’s a bit of a prick, they can’t help but be a bit concerned.

Mk is actually about to say something to Red when Jin and Yin hijack the commentator’s box, and the race starts.

The race goes mostly the same as in canon, with the main exeptions being that Red is far quieter and more focused, and Iron Fan’s taunts are much crueller and more demeaning.

Mei and Mk win, with Red Son getting second place. Instead of attempting to steal the peach trophy, Red Son just... watches them, looking almost broken as he watches the two celebrate. Mk, noticing the strange behavior, reaches out to ask if Red is ok (The reaction the fire demon had to his parents showing up set off all sorts of alarms in Mk’s head, because that had been exactly how he reacted back when he still lived with his parents.), only to be interrupted by DBK’s reemergence from the mountain.

Iron fan tells Red Son that they are leaving, and Mk immediately picks up on what’s going on. He calls out to Red just before Iron Fan’s winds whisk him away, and terrified look that the fire demon sends him confirms Mk’s suspicions.

That night, Mk comes up with a plan: He’s gonna get Red Son away from his parents, or die trying. The only other person who knows at first, is Mei: She also has Red Son’s soul mark, and while she’s not as keen on the fire demon as Mk is, she still doesn’t want him to have to deal with abusive parents.

While Mk is doing that, DBK and Iron Fan have fully leaned into the enemy role, disowning Red Son and keeping him locked away in the lair. Red just breaks down at this, and begins refusing to eat or move. All that time that he’d spent, desperately trying to maintain some sort of good relationship with his parents, for nothing. The only people that he could count on turned against him, and that loneliness hits him like a freight train.

The only thing that brings him comfort, oddly enough, are the soul marks on his left palm and wrist: he takes to rubbing them whenever he feels particularly bad. By now, his feelings toward Mk and Mei are much closer to something positive: they both seemed concerned about him after the race, and where that might’ve pissed him off a few months earlier, now it comforts him with the knowledge that at least someone out there gives a damn.

We get to episode 8, when Mk gets the skeleton key. Instead of Red Son being the one to steal the key, Iron fan is the one to do it, and she reveals her master plan:

She and DBK plan on releasing the White Bone Spirit from it’s prison, in order for it to possess Red Son so that both will be fully under their control.

Iron Fan gets away with the key, the White Bone Spirit possesses Red Son, and DBK and Iron Fan use him to wreck the entire city.

Mei and Mk do their best to avoid fighting Red Son: it feels so wrong every time they do clash, because they both know it’s not Red Son, they know he’s not the one in control, but it still hurts that they couldn’t get him out in time, that one of their soulmates is suffering like this.

The final straw comes a week after the initial possession.

Mk is forced to fight a possessed Red son to protect a badly injured Pigsy. Mk begs for Red to fight back, to break free, knowing that the continued possession is taking a toll on the demon’s body. Mei joins him, insisting that Red is stronger than this, that he needs to think about the people that care about him.

That is enough to allow Red to break through, just for a moment.

He steps back, tears streaming from his eyes as he brokenly whispers that if even his own parents can’t be bothered to care about someone as weak, as broken as he is, then who the hell would? Mei and Mk hate him, his parents disowned him, and it’s not like he really interacts with anyone else.

He is immediately taken by surprise when the two teens blurt out that even though they might’ve started out on opposite sides, that they never fully hated him. Mk in particular says that they were actually worried about Red Son after the race, that they were planning on getting him out before Iron fan stole the skeleton key, that they were still planning on helping him escape, that they really, actually care.

Red Son finally breaks free, and Mk seals the White Bone spirit away again. Mei and Mk beat the absolute crap out of DBK and Iron Fan, who end up escaping again.

They take Red to one of the few remaining hospitals, so he can recover from his possession, and they make sure to get him some serious therapy while they’re at it.

Red Son wakes up two days later to see Mei and Mk sitting by his hospital bed on either side of him, and they give him a warm smile when they see that he’s awake.

He cries for a bit as he realizes that it’s over. He’s free now, even if he doesn’t have anywhere to go anymore, and there are two people in the world who keep that blue flame close to their chest instead of turning their backs.

For the first time in over a year, Red doesn’t hide the marks on his wrist and palms.

After all, why should he from the ones who care for him the most?

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someobscurereference · 3 years

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is there any kind of horror au you prefer over the others? like, monster aus? general "something is after you and you are powerless" au? gorey aus? aus where the supernatural is never explained? enlighten me!

Oh! I love horror talk! Thanks for this question!

I love horror as a genre a lot, but I'm very picky about it. You can probably get a good idea of what sort of horror I like from some of the horror FE fics I've written and some very brief original horror I did in 2016, lol. (Also wrote a few horror fics back in my Che//ck Pl//ease days too, but I don't think there's much overlap in my readers then and now). (Mind the trigger warnings for those fics though!!)

If I had to describe my tastes, I think I'd say I like monster aus a lot! When I watch a movie or read a book, I often want the enemy to be a Creature. A thing the protagonist has to Fight and Potentially Win. I'm not very into psychological horror for various reasons (though I can make an exception depending on if the psychological horror is blended into an existing story I am already into. But I don't care for unreality or hallucinations very much, for example. I don't care for stories were the reveal is "Oops, You Were Just Crazy!" either, for ableist and unoriginal reasons) So if the reveal is the enemy is Yourself or Just Some Angry Human Guy, I'm often pretty disappointed by that. I want a Ghost or a Vampire or some Not Deer creature to be the thing the main characters must act against, not another human or the human mind.

tl;dr I'd like it if the source of the horror was not something I could randomly stumble upon in the street in my every day life (i.e. someone breaks into my apartment or tries to mug me, which are real fears I already have)

I also enjoy either happy or bittersweet endings to my horror a lot! (see: my horror FE fics). Although I also like tragedies when they're well written too (see: TMA, which I haven't finished but I've seen tons of art and spoilers and know almost 100% what happened. The story made it clear from the very beginning that This Is A Tragedy, so I didn't go in with different expectations, which I appreciated).

I do not mind gore! (see: my That Girl Is A Monster original series or NBC's Hannibal series). However, I don't want it to be used needlessly. I've seen some gore art that's done in neon colors that I've really liked, but I think the Saw movies and the like are torture porn and don't care for that. Don't be gross just for the sake of being gross. Do something with it.

I don't mind some things being left unexplained either! I think the best thing a horror writer can do is let the reader fill in some of the gaps themselves, whether in parts of the story or in the description of What Is The Monster, specifically? (see: Over the Garden Wall is not technically a horror series but has done a great job with keeping just enough of the story and The Beast's appearance/origin vague enough for the reader to fill in the gaps). That said, not Literally Everything should be left unexplained. If the story is just 100% confusing, then what's the point? It's a fine line to walk

I think an intrinsic part of horror is the feeling of Powerlessness, so I think that goes hand-in-hand with every type of horror, lol

#horror #my text #asks #i said i don't like when the villain is Just Some Guy or a human murderer but #there are exceptions to every rule #in terms of horror movies I like Hush which is literally just a guy trying to kill a deaf woman for 90 minutes #but i think it was well done and i liked the ending so it gets Approval in my book #i've watched a lot of very bad monster movies for the humor lol. but i genuinely do crave good horror #other examples of horror i enjoy are lacey carroll's comics. specifically 'a ladies cold hands' or 'his face all red'#the framing of Portal 2 as a ghost story #the first half of re7 before Ethan gets all powerful. in general i do not consider resident evil to be a horror series but #the first half of 7 and its trailer had very good horror points #the evil within series had a lot of potential if it wasnt so shitty lol #i don't like sci fi really but subnautica as a horror is fun #the haunting of bly manor and the haunting of hill house were also Very Nice #i think horror as a genre overlaps a lot with like. romance and love and many other things #so examining works in that framework is very interesting to me #also if it's not clear i do want my horror to be Gay

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demoisverysexy · 3 years

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An Open Letter to the Person who Blocked Me for Being Mormon

For context:

If you’re reading this, I hope it finds you well.

This letter is mostly for me, so I can get my feelings out. I’ve already talked about this with a few of my friends, and I’m feeling better than I was than when you blocked me. I’m still upset. Mostly because of general trends I see on tumblr of hatred for Mormons. A lot of it comes from ignorance and misunderstanding. Some of it comes from a place of genuine hurt that can’t go unaddressed. I don’t want to be dismissive of those who have faced trauma at the hands of my church. I am one of those people, and I know how deeply pain associated with my church can be. After our interaction, I felt that talking about it would help me process this.

Before I go on, I must be clear that this is not an attempt to get you to unblock me. As nice as it would be to be able to see your blog again – you’re very witty, and I enjoy your content! – I can live without it. This is more a response to the trend on tumblr specifically of hatred against Mormons, and assuming that they’re all bad people who are complicit in every single bad thing that the church does. You just happened to force me to be a little introspective about my church and my relation to it. Thank you for that.

First, however, I would like to clear up some misconceptions:

Your initial joke that prompted me to tell you I was a Mormon was a joke about Mormons and polygamy. The largest two organizations that can be classified as “Mormon,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Community of Christ (which incidentally allows for gay marriage and has female clergy, though I am of the LDS sect), both disavow polygamy. There are other, smaller offshoot Mormon groups who do still practice this, which is where horror stories of polygamists marrying teenagers arise. These people are also Mormons, though I wish they weren’t, in the same way that problematic Christian groups are Christian, though many Christians wish they weren’t.

I do recognize that mainstream Mormonism has been labeled as a cult by many people, though the reasons people provide generally don’t hold up. Often the proof that people provide of my church’s cult-like nature is to take note of corruption that can be found in almost every church. These issues – such as racism, homophobia, and misogyny, to name a few – while real and important to address do not a cult make. Sometimes the proof is to point towards practices that are demonized in my church, but are practiced in other religions with no comment, or even celebration. Other times people will point to their own experiences with toxic church congregations, and while those issues are very real, they are by no means universal. My experience growing up Mormon was a lucky one in many ways. I personally don’t think that most people who study my church from an academic vantage point would call it a cult. I would consult them on this matter. After all, someone in a cult is rather hard-pressed to be able to tell whether they are in one or not.

Another point often levied against Mormonism is how it leaves its queer members with religious trauma due to its homophobic teachings. I understand this well. I have experienced deep religious trauma associated with my political stances in favor of LGBTQ+ rights (though that wasn’t the whole story). I won’t go into detail about this right now, but suffice it to say, I had a very traumatic time on my mission that led me to a very dark place, and ended with me contemplating choices I would never be able to take back. I’m fine now of course, but I carry those memories with me.

So why would I stay despite all this? Is it because I’m brainwashed? You would have to ask a psychologist about that, but I would say probably not. I knew, and know now, that the ways I was being treated were unfair and wrong. I don’t have time to go point by point to address every grievance I or anyone else has with my church and explain my position on it, as much as I would like to clear the air once and for all on this topic so there is no misunderstanding. Here’s the reasoning that has kept me here so far:

I think that every person of faith must, at some point, deal with the problematic aspects of their church’s history and doctrine. This comes with the territory. Whether it be disturbing stories in scripture, imperialist tendencies, doctrines that chafe against us, or problematic leaders, no person of faith is exempt from wrestling with the history that accompanies their faith. I have studied my church’s history in depth. Many of the horror stories I heard were provably false. Many were true. Where does that leave me?

I believe that God is bigger and better than us. We make terrible, awful mistakes all the time. But I don’t think that makes God less willing to work with us. If anything, I think it means he wants to help us more. He wants to help us move past our histories and become better. My church has a long way to go in this regard. For too long we have been silent when it mattered, and people have been wounded by our silence. Or even the words we have said out loud! If you look at my Mormonism tag on my blog, you will see some examples of what I am talking about. I have been wounded by the things my church has said and not said. It hurts awfully, and I ache for those who have been wounded more deeply than I.

But at the same time, I cannot deny the healing my faith has brought me. Whatever problems my church has – and it has many, deep and pressing issues – it is because of my faith that I am the person I am today. I can draw a straight line from my religion to the positions I hold today. Because I am a Mormon, I became a Marxist. Because I am a Mormon, I became nonbinary. Because I am a Mormon, I became a leftist. I cannot ignore that my religion, flawed as it may be, has led me to where I stand now. I am at the intersection of the hurt and healing the church offers. It is a difficult line to walk. But I hope that in walking it, I can bring healing and love to those who hurt in the ways I do. To let them know that they are not alone, and that they have a friend who can help them wherever they choose to go.

Yes I am queer. Yes I am a Mormon. I am here because I am trying to fix things. If at some point in the future I realize that I cannot change things, perhaps I will leave. I hope it does not come to that. And things are changing. They have changed before, and they can change now. I am confident that my God is willing to lead my church where it needs to go. I hope I can help speed things along. We shall see.

But spreading unequivocal hatred and disdain for Mormons does not help those of us who are Mormon who are trying to fix things. Yes, those who have left Mormonism due to trauma need a safe place to be away from that, and acknowledging the church’s many faults can be helpful to those people. I myself have criticized my church quite vocally. But refusing to listen to the stories of those of us who choose to stay, telling others that we are evil or stupid or what have you, is also quite traumatic to us. We are people too, with thoughts and feelings. It is easy to dismiss us out of hand if you assume we aren’t.

I try to be open about my religion and political stances on my tumblr. See for yourself: It’s a mix of Mormonism, LGBTQ+ activism, Marxism, and pretty much every other leftist political position you can find. Along with all the furry stuff, of course. But despite all this, I am still terrified every time someone follows me to tell them I am Mormon. More than I am to tell them that I’m queer. Tumblr is not representative of how things work in the “real world,” of course, but I have received hatred for being a Mormon there as well. And it’s mostly other Christians. So on the one hand I’m hated by LGBTQ+ folks, on the other hand I’m hated by my church for being queer, and on the third hand (as apparently I have three hands), I am hated by other Christians. I do not face hatred to the same degree from other Christians. I saw it most on my mission. But still, it exists.

(Incidentally, Evangelicals, who you seem to have problems with, and perhaps rightly so, though I have not done a study of the matter myself, largely despise Mormons, from what I have heard. Something to consider.)

I want allies. I want help. I want understanding. If I am to push back against bigotry in my church, I need your help. I need everyone’s help. Fighting bigotry wherever we see it is a worthy pursuit, I think. And if we can succeed, we can make the world a better, safer happier place. I want to fight off the ghosts that haunt my church. You don’t have to fight them with me, but I would appreciate it if I could have your support. It would make my job much easier.

We aren’t enemies. At least, I don’t think you’re my enemy. We both have been hurt by homophobia and bigotry. We live in a capitalist hellscape where police brutality and racism are on the rise. Fascism is looming over the political backdrop, along with the ongoing threat of ecological disaster. I think we would be better off helping each other than going after each other. I ask that you please listen to us when we say you are hurting us. The Mormons you blocked knowingly followed you, an openly queer person who calls out racism and bigotry and pedophilia. Yet you assume we are in favor of those things. Someone can at once be part of an institution while recognizing it’s flaws. (Aren’t we both Americans? Why not move if we hate it so much?) And perhaps we have used the “No true Scotsman” fallacy to justify why we stay. I don’t believe I have. I don’t feel I need to.

I hope that you consider what I’ve said here. I hope we can work together. And I hope that no matter what, you find peace wherever you end up.

Yours truly,

Demo Argenti

#religion #leftism #mormonism #LGBTQ stuff #marxism #racism #misogyny #feminism #homophobia #queerstake #shouting into the void #ok to rb

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mengyan · 4 years

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Sooo i saw you review someones carulia fic befpre so uh heres mine, if i could have some pointers?🥺For context; its supposed to be an angst to fluff comcerning how Carmen & Jules make up following the ACME interruption..

Carmen POV:

The rain relented for no one, not even for those who were in mourning. It was a single drop and a million all at once, thundering down in sheets ftom a confident stormy sky. Carmen Sandiego shivered, the tiny droplets assaulting every shred of skin she had dared to leave exposed.

Her red-brunette hair was drenched a shade darker, now existing as a thick, sopping mass glued to the back of her feverish neck. Carmen’s cheeks were ice cold and slick with water, aside from two thin trails of tears with fading heat.

That was one plus side of being out in the storm, she supposed. It was easy to cry in the rain.

In Carmen’s hands were an arrangement of Peonies and Hydrangeas, the water hammering at their petals. They had been Shadowsan’s suggestion and she took it, because, how the hell would she know what kind of flowers Dexter Wolfe preferred?

The makeshift grave had been Shadowsan’s idea, too. Apparently it would give her closure. Carmen admitted it did, to some extent, help to have some way to mourn her late father. But the fact that she knew his body wasn’t anywhere near his headstone dulled any respite it might have provided.

They had chosen a grave in Poiters, France. It was the only place the team frequented aside from San Diego, and it held the only funeral home that agreed to not ask questions about birth and death records.

Team red hadn’t visited the place in months what with her falling out with Julia and ACME, until today. It was the anniversary of his death, after all.

Carmen’s hands quivered as she lowered the flowers to the wet earth. Tension pulsed in her veins with a thousand emotions flooding through her. She was so, so angry! At the world, at Shadowsan, at Chief, at everyone for taking away what could’ve been a beautiful life with family she now knew nothing of.

She wanted to hurt someone, to scream. And so she did. A guttural roar escaped Carmen’s rouged lips, disappearing into the night. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her erratic breathing. When she looked down, she realized she had crushed the flowers.

Not caring anymore, Carmen plopped down against the headstone, the mud squelching beneath her. Tears began to flow beyond her control and she let them, for once allowing herself to truly feel all the hurt she kept pent up inside in favor of her suave exterior.

Her fingers dug into the earth, and she flung a fistful of mud into the rain. Carmen was tired of running from everything, tired of chasing her past, tired of hiding from the people she cared about.

Maybe the earth’ll open up and swallow me, she mused. Or better yet, maybe I’ll get struck by lightning.

Carmen sighed, moving her back to rest against her father’s grave. “Oh, dad.” She whispered softly. “I’m so sorry.”

The lady in red began to relax despite the rain, curling up in a fetal position and feeling sorry for herself. It wasn’t like Zack, Ivy, Player, and Shadowsan were here to see her so vulnerable, after all.

The sound of two feet approaching caught her attention, their light tread a very familiar sound.

No. It couldn’t be-

The lady in red looked up, her hair strewn haphazardly and her eyes red from crying all while every inch of her body was drenched.

“Miss Sandiego?” There stood Julia Argent with a sky blue umbrella, a mix of horror and concern painted over her delicate features.

“How many times have I told you Carmen is fine?” Carmen whispered as usual, only this time the flirty playfulness was amiss. Her voice was hoarse and raspy, not a sliver of emotion present as she stared dead ahead, right through Julia.

“I’m.....sorry.” The petite woman replied, stressing the underlying meaning.

“What are you doing here, Agent Argent?” Carmen asked tiredly, refusing to call her Jules any longer.

Julia flinched, as if the missing nickname was like a blow to the gut. “Please, you don’t have to be so formal. But, um, I live here, remember? So I think I I should be ask you that.”

“I was just passing through.” The lady in red stood, refusing to meet the other woman’s eyss.

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere but here.” Carmen said coldly. She couldn’t believe she had ever been stupid enough to begin to trust Julia, much less begin to fall for her. “It’s a long walk to the train station.”

For once, she thought she had someone who believed in her, someone who was on her side wholeheartedly.....and yet...

Stockholm.

“Carmen, you won’t be able to find your way in this weather.” Julia said tentatively, pity filling her beautiful doe eyes to the brim. “Please, um, my apartment isn’t far from here. You can stay until the rain calms down.”

A dark, humorless laugh escaped the Latina’s lips. “What, do all you ACME agents bunk in the same place or something?”

“Excuse me?“

“So they’re waiting for me then,” Carmen continued, her anger and feelings of betrayal peeking into a tirade. “I bet they all have they’re guns propped up at the door already in place. I think I’ll pass, Jules.“

Carmen spit her nickname out like some vile insult she was hurtling at an enemy.

Julia sucked in a sharp breath, sadness touching her features. “Carmen,“ The petite woman began, pleading “I know you won’t forgive me for what happened in Stockholm, but I promise you I didn’t know.“ She paused, waiting for some form of acknowledgement, no response. “I-I told Chief to back off and let me talk to you, she-she said it was okay! I had no idea they were moving in. Please, please Believe me.”

“Oh yeah?“ The woman in red whispered, her voice barely audible over the downpour. “And what if I don’t?“

...

And thats all i have sooo far---

AIJSIDKDKJDKFJDJJSJDFJ OKAY THIS IS LATE BC I WAS NOT IN THE EMOTIONAL HEADSPACE TO DECONSTRUCT THIS BUT. ANON HOW DARE YOU? I AM IN IMMEASURABLE PAIN

i’ll just add notes as i go, thank you for allowing me to read this and offer pointers :D

your descriptions are so good omg!! i love the first sentence SO much?? “the rain relented for no one, not even for those who were in mourning” PHEWWW that’s poetry

i’d say the only thing about the following descriptions is that you don’t have to describe everything, if that makes sense? like, you can leave it as just “a stormy sky” for example. descriptions are amazing, but too much of anything can be harder to read and get your point across!

“it was easy to cry in the rain” anon WHO let you hurt me like this!!!

i feel like if i look up those flowers i will cry so i’m not going to but. shadowsan knowing what flowers to bring is just.... help i’m in pain

NOT THE GRAVE BEING IN POITIERS GOD GIVE ME STRENGTH

instead of “so, so, angry” you can say furious, and replace the exclamation mark with a period. it makes it more solid (if that’s the right word...?)

it’s probably a tumblr formatting thing but italicize the words when it’s her inner thoughts for better distinction!

CARMEN RECOGNIZING JULIA’S FOOTSTEPS

“a mix of horror and concern painted over her delicate features” i’m in LOVE with this wording??

REFUSING TO CALL HER JULES ANY LONGER@,#)&()&)&&)&:&:; LORDDDD

NOT THE. NOT FUCKING STOCKHOLM ANON?? me: brings it up 24/7 and then me when anyone else brings it up: WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

THE ANGST IS KILLING ME

side note, don’t refer to characters by their race/ethnicity, go with the thief, lady in red, the other girl etc

probably a typo but **their instead of they’re!

“AND WHAT IF I DON’T?” I AM INCONSOLABLE ANON I AM SO SCARED TO READ THE FULL THING WHEN YOU’RE DONE BUT I ALSO CAN’T WAIT AHHHHH THIS ANGST IS SOOO GOOD

thanks again for the submission 🥺💕 i hope my notes were okay!! this was such an emotional journey to read and now i’m going to be fueled by stockholm angst all day when writing <3

#asking carmen #gun mention #death mention

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firerose · 3 years

Text

Angstpril day 28- The day her love died

also on ao3

This is my last fic before I have to take a long writing break ( I have exams), So feedback would be very great :)

Hazel loved winning the war games. The Cohorts allies and enemies alike stood around her cheering and congratulating each other.

It made her happy to see them like this, so joyful after the giant war.

Dakota her Centurian colleague patted her back appreciatively.

“Good fighting out there Levesque.“, He complimented with pride in his voice.

Hazel could not suppress her smile.

Dakota was one of the Romans who took wargames a bit too seriously.

“ Thanks, you weren‘t bad either!“, She told him with a very stern tone.

Thomas rosewood, the Centurian of the first cohort walked up to them with a mocking grin.“You know you will never lose the wargames as long as Frank‘s Praetor right?“, He asked looking at Hazel with playful anger.

She felt her cheeks heating up.

She knew about the theories that the first and second cohort had made up to justify the many victories the fifth cohort won since they had started war games again. One of the popular ones was that they just lost because they did not want to hurt the Praetors girlfriend.“ My relationship with Frank has absolutely nothing to do with your fighting skills. Maybe Fortuna just isn‘t at your side for once.“, She explained reasonably.

Thoma‘s opened his mouths speechless at her words. He hadn‘t expected that she would use his godly mother against him.

Hazel felt satisfied and turned to look for her boyfriend.

Frank eyes wandered the crowd in search of Hazel. Reyna and Jason were busy with yet another talk about old times. Jason had come to Camp two days ago to talk about temple designs but he had most of the time just talked to his old friends especially Reyna.

He spotted Hazel walking towards him through the masses and quickened his steps.

He got slowed down a bit by all the people that wanted to talk to him but he did not mind.

Frank enjoyed giving them compliments or just having small talks with them.

That gave him the feeling that he was just another one of them and not one of their rulers. He suddenly felt a grasp on his arm.

When he turned his head he saw Alice a twelve-year-old shy member of the fifth cohort, smiling at him gratefully.“Thanks for training Praetor Zhang. It was a great help.“ She said softly and Frank felt moved.

“No problem and I already told you that you can call me Frank.“, He responded hoping that all of the younger demigods would learn that someday.

Alice wrapped one arm around him and leaned onto his chest but Frank did not complain. He had a soft spot for new Campers especially the ones who came with little confidence, like Alice.

“I‘m sorry it‘s just that you did so many impressing things! You are a great Praetor!“.Alice whispered and Frank felt thankfulness washing over him.“Sadly your Praetorship ends here.“, She told him with the same sweet voice.

Frank had barely time to process her words when he felt a sharp pain stabbing right into his chest.

He gasped in pain, his hand grasping the shaft of the dagger that had been pushed into his heart. Alice still held it with her small hand. He tried to back away, tried to breathe but all his body allowed was pain. He already felt his world fading and so his eyes met Hazels one last time. He did not want to leave her so soon. He had imagined a long happy life with her but as always fate was cruel.

The last thing he registered before darkness overtook him was Alice ripping out the dagger and Hazel screaming.

Hazel saw Frank fall, she saw the bloodred dagger in Alice's hand and yet she still did not want to believe it.

Alice had been her friend, almost like a little sister. She had come to Hazel with her doubts and Hazel had always cheered her up.

This girl could not have killed Frank, she could never hurt a fly.

There were shocked gasps around her as her friends had noticed what had happened.

“Nooo!“, Reyna yelled in fury and stormed towards Alice her weapon raised and Jason close behind her his blue eyes as hard as hers. Dozens of others followed their example and a terrible suspicion hit Hazel. What if this girl hadn‘t been who she claimed she was. What if this all had been a trick and the others had figured it out?

She looked at Frank‘s motionless body on the ground and the pain in her heart quickly turned to anger.

Whoever this girl was she was going to pay.

Hazel yelled out her despair and started running, ready to impale her boyfriends killer with her sword. Alice simply smiled at her attackers and with a wave of her hand they were all thrown back, crashing down on the hard ground.

The demigods who hadn‘t attacked stepped back in horror as they started to realize that the monster maybe was more than they could handle.

Hazel‘s whole body ached from the impact and when she tried to face her enemy again, a blinding white light forced her to close her eyes.

When she opened them again her mouth opened in horror. A woman had replaced Alice, a woman that Hazel knew and that she had hoped to never see again.

She had golden hair that was braided in an ancient Greek style, her black robes mirrored her dark eyes that were full of hate.

No, she could not be here, was trapped in her maze, she could not be here.

“Pasiphae?“, Hazel asked her voice trembling in fear as she, rose to her feet. Jason who got up next to her gave her a shocked glance.

“ Of course my dear you. Did you think I would stay in that hole you threw me in?“, The sorceress mocked amused.

Hazel felt tears forming in her eyes.

Yes, she had thought that had trapped Pasiphae forever, that she had kept her from harming anyone. She had wanted a peaceful life so much that she had not focussed on potential threats.

Now Frank had paid the price for her weakness, for her naivety.“You should have stayed there. I will send you back to the fields of punishment for what you did! Frank was a good, kind person and you murdered him like a coward!“, Reyna spat but Hazel stood close enough to see the girls shimmering eyes.

She had loved Frank too, not like a partner but like a brother.

Her words were meant for Pasiphae but Hazel felt them burning into her heart.

Frank had been a good person, that was why she had fallen in love with him and now he was gone. He would never kiss her again, would never smile at her again.

Her gaze wandered to him. His face was turned away from her and she felt the urge to turn him just to see his soft brown eyes.

Pasiphae gave Reyna a pitiful look.“ Don‘t be foolish. I‘m the most powerful with who walked this earth and you are just a pathetic child of a minor goddess.“, She tuned to Hazel the sadism in her eyes making Hazel‘s gut fill with dread,

“But murdering your sweet boyfriend was not that satisfying to me my dear. I have many cruel spells mind if I try them on your friend?“, She asked and her hand went up in flames.

Some of the Campers screamed, the younger ones clinging onto the older ones.

Hazel felt guilt as she saw them. Pasiphae was only here because of her, if any of them got hurt it was her fault.

“You will not hurt any of them !“, Hazel demanded as loud as she could. Pasiphae did not seem intimidated by her.“Well then have a good night daughter of Pluto. I will enjoy watching you suffer.“, Pasiphae mused and then disappeared in a blast of hot white flames.

The Campers were in too much shock to move but Hazel took her chance. She ran to Franks side and kneeled next to him. Her hands were shaking as she gently touched him. He was still warm, maybe just maybe there was still a chance.

“ Frank?“, She asked softly a part of her told her that it was pointless, that he was dead but the denial was a strong emotion.

She gripped his shoulders and turned him around so she could see his face. She was hoping for closed eyes, for a sign of his shallow breath.

Instead, she was greeted with two cold eyes whose light had died already.

Hazel flinched as if someone had hit her and that was how she felt.

“No…..No please…no.“ She muttered over and over again her throat filling with sobs.

She couldn‘t lose him. She had only known him for six months, they deserved more time.

„Come back to me Frank please come back.“, She pleaded and tears fell onto his face as she leaned over him. He did not react, of course, he only stared at her and the eyes that she had loved so much already haunted her.

“You can‘t die like this! After everything we went through…please you can‘t…….“ Hazel begged her sobs finally breaking out of her. She collapsed over Frank‘s body, corpse and buried her face into his chest like that would close the bloodied stab wound.

She suddenly felt arms wrapping around her and even though they were gentle she felt panic rising in her.

“NO, LET ME GO!“ She yelled as she was gently pulled away.

She pressed her lips on Frank‘s, a last desperate attempt to feel his warmth again but again there was nothing only darkness and she felt the dark rising inside her as well.

“It‘s okay Hazel I‘m here … it‘s okay.“, Jason told her softly while he slowly leaned her onto his chest for comfort. Reyna and Dakota joined him sitting down to tell Hazel soft words that they knew were not working.

Hazel did not resist anymore, she was too weak. She let herself sink against Jason closing her eyes to block out the cruel reality that she now lived in. Her heart was broken and in between all her grief, the sweetness that so many people loved was washed away by a deep hatred.

No one noticed that change until Hazel opened her eyes opened again hours later.

They looked empty, dead just like Frank‘s like he had taken Hazel‘s light to the underworld.

Dakota searched them for the sarcastic girl had joked with only hours ago but the longer he searched the more he realized that she was dead.

Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang both had lost their lives that night and when Hazel finally spoke again her tone was hard and her words were a desire for revenge.

"I will find Pasiphae and I will kill her.“

@chaos-company @qperseusjackson-jasongrace @emilydaughterofapollo @fictionalnormalcy

#angstpril2021 #the light died in their eyes #Percy Jackson #heroes of olympus #dark hazel #ao3 #fanfiction #major character death #day25

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like-rain-or-confetti · 3 years

Text

Nineteen Years Prior (Draco Malfoy x Reader)

You watched the sea of people hurry around platform nine and three quarters. Few amongst the strangers were ghosts of familiar faces, older, more experienced. All different people from which they had first been when coming here nineteen years prior.

You couldn’t help but smile fondly as though recalling a memory. In someways it was, with only a few minor details changed. Some would have thought that aging or losing friends and family wasn’t so miniscule and shouldn't be dismissed. From your perspective it was. The pain of loss, aging and moving on with life. It was all apart of the story. You stood alone on that platform. Without a family of your own, yet it wasn’t sad. It was enough to be witness to your friends. Your gaze stopped at Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny. You recognised them instantly.

Hermione kissed her daughters forehead, pulling her in close. Meanwhile, Harry fixed his sons shoe lace. His son said something, distracting him from the task. Your eyes returned to find another familiar face. Draco Malfoy’s hair was slicked back just as it had been in the first few years of Hogwarts and just as blonde. The boy he was looking down at with a soft smirk had to have been his son as he too had the Malfoy blonde hair that every Malfoy seemed to inherit. He led his son closer to his mother to enveloped the boy in a hug. He acknowledged Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny. Tension was still apparent but it seemed more on Draco’s side in terms of guilt. What could he have said after everything that had happened nine-teen years prior? Draco looked away from his family and caught sight of you across the platform. His eyes widened, smirk vanishing. He looked shocked to see you and you couldn’t help but smile in amusement. Nevertheless, you waved at him as you continued to smile at him. He shifted slightly, seemingly uncomfortable before giving you a discreet nod. You weren’t too surprised. Rumours spread about the Malfoy’s after the Battle of Hogwarts and they shut out themselves in shame. Draco cut contact with everyone. No one heard from the family, only the rumours about them. You never caught any detail of those rumours, only that they existed. Then again, such stories never made it to Hogwarts, only students ever kept them alive and even then, they were barely a rare whisper.

You had shared many classes with Draco as well as Hermione, Ron and Harry. Much like them, you and Draco got off on the wrong foot. In fact, you were enemies for the first three years.

With every year, Draco Malfoy had become more and more insufferable, or at least that’s how it seemed. Although whether it was being accustomed to his antics or the desire for a change of scenery with some fresh air, an example would have been in Hagrid’s class. You thought he was doing pretty well. Draco, on the other hand, was insistent on mocking Hagrid through out, making it very known that he didn’t have the seal of Malfoy approval. “Right you lot, less chatter, form a group over there and open your books at page forty-nine.” Hagrid ordered. A few looked down at their books, Draco and yourself included, in slight confusion. "and how exactly do we do that!?" Draco snapped. "Just stroke the spine, of course! Goodness me." Hagrid called back. You looked down are your book. "I didn't see that coming." You mumbled to yourself. Draco turned his head to look at you before running his fingers down the spine of the book.

Seeing Harry with Buckbeak was amazing, although you couldn’t help but feel a little jealous, wishing it were you. Although Draco wasn’t so impressed. Your jaw dropped when Draco stormed up to Buckbeak, all the while antagonizing the creature. In retaliation for being too close, Buckbeak immediately stood upon hind legs before tearing into Malfoys arm. Next thing you knew, Draco was whimpering, cursing Hagrid and 'his bloody chicken'.

You saw him in Lupin's Class, arm now bandaged up and in a sling. He leaned against a pillar as everyone waited for Lupin's next instructions. "You alright?" You asked quietly as you turned your head to Malfoy. Draco looked surprised you had said anything. His eyes darting to you. He hadn't even noticed you had been standing beside him. "Yeah." Draco said gruffly. "Figured I'd ask that one looked like it hurt." You responded. "It did, bloody chicken nearly took my arm off." You weren't sure if Draco was being dramatic, it certainly didn't look that close. However, you didn't really know Draco enough to know if he was the type of exaggerate.

Draco was surprised, just as his face had shown before morphing back into a scowl. He almost didn't answer your question but was so dumbfounded, he did anyway. Not even Crabbe or Goyle had asked him if he was feeling alright today. You had been the first and you were one of the last he'd think would ever think to ask. Then you surprised him again by actually keeping the conversation going. Draco had two options, tell you to shove off or actually take the conversation. Before he could make the decision, once again he had already responded.

As Lupin began his lesson, you heard Draco mutter to Crabbe. "This class is ridiculous." "Alright! Everyone line up!" Lupin called out as the class suddenly scurried into one line. Everyone pushed and shoved into a line. Neville started and the Boggart twisted and turned into Professor Snape. Within seconds of Neville's cry "Ridiculous!", he wore what resembled the very outfit he had just described his grandmother to have worn. For Ron, a large spider that was suddenly on roller skates. Pavarti, a snake that became a clown before it could strike. For each, down the line, the Boggart morphed into their worst nightmare before turning into something utterly ridiculous. Much like the spell had been named. You couldn't help but shiver when your turn came along.

You looked to Professor Lupin before the Boggart would morph. "How do I do it again?" You swallowed hard, your mind drawing blank at the thought of what the Boggart could turn into. "Other than the spell, what do I do?" The Boggart began to twist, morphing into your own fear. "Think about what would make it funny." Lupin said calmly with a reassuring look. The Boggart stretched, tall and thin, morphing into a man in a suit and bowler hat. He had no hair but it was the only defining feature you could make out. He never had a face. His arms longer than they should have been as well as his legs. You only ever saw his silhouette. You knew the figure well. Usually children feared the monster under their bed or hiding anywhere else. Your monster never hid. He stayed in the dark and there were many terrible nights you awoke to him at the bottom of your bed. That man had haunted your nightmares for so long that you had made up stories about him, even when very young. He had a wife with a neck that was so weak it couldn't hold up her head. The two had a son who looked to be nine years old at most. Due to his mother's weak neck, her son had weak legs. They had never worked since birth and were lifeless. It meant the boy had a solid tight grip that you had felt in your sleep before, the pain being enough to wake you. Since then, you looked at the boys hands that were gripped upon his wheelchair. You knew if there was more than one Boggart, you'd face the whole family that haunted you. However the tall man was the one who never left you alone.

You heard the discomfort in your classmates from behind you but didn't dare take your mind off of it. His movements were stiff, like he had to fight himself to move his own legs. His steps were small, his dress shoes clicking against the stone flooring. His knees lifting higher than necessary with each step, mimicking walking as if each step he took was his first. Just as he always had. His upper half was rigid and unmoving, making his movements even more unsettling. To your horror, the man head begun to reach out and that was when you snapped out of your frozen state. "Ridiculous!" You cried out. The man reeled back and his hat grew in size. It became to big for his head and covered his face. The man swiped at the air, unable to see. The scene gradually became amusing as suddenly the lack of vision seemed to render the man useless and unable to stay up, falling over himself and unable to stand up straight as though he had completely lost his balance. You felt relief rush through you as a few of the class chuckled, including Lupin. "Excellent! Goyle! You next!"

When class was over you realised the only person your had your next class with was Malfoy himself. You sighed, unable to stop the sinking feeling in your chest at the likelihood that you'd be his next target. Yet Professor Flitwick's class was surprisingly calm, even when you were paired with Malfoy. "Is there a reason you have a stupid look on your face?" Or perhaps it wasn't so peaceful but rather peaceful as it can be around Draco Malfoy. You shook your head. "Just thinking about how we've went from Lupin's class to this class. Dealt with Boggart's and now we're in charms? Seems a little-" "Ridiculous." Draco said flatly. "Charms is pointless. First year stuff. Hardly worthwhile of a whole class in my opinion." You nodded. "Especially after a Boggart." You agreed, it was rather comical how such a light hearted class was unintentionally put after a challenging one. "I thought yours was a dementor." You admitted. Draco scoffed. "Why would I be afraid of a dementor?" You shrugged. "They aren't the most pleasant of creatures. It was a grim reaper right?" Draco said nothing but nodded once, not meeting your eyes. He had a fear of death. "What was yours?" He asked much to your surprise. "You'll think it's dumb." You warned him. "Of course, I will. It's coming from you. Tell me anyway." Draco responded. "Thanks, Malfoy." You said with sarcasm and Draco's impatient glare told you to get on with it. "I'm prone to nightmares. I don't really get them here but I do at home. I think it's because the house is so old and creepy that my mind goes wild. That man the Boggart turned into has been around for a long as I can remember. He always stood at the dark corners of my room or the foot of my bed. Just a nightmare. I haven't a clue where he came from." You shrugged. Without warning, Draco sneered at his quill rolling it off his desk before reaching for another students quill. Plucking it from their desk like nothing ever happened and began to write in his book. The student beside him looked for his lost quill, noticing the one of the floor and assumed it was his, swiftly swooping down to reach for it. "Did you...did you just take that?" You asked in disbelief. "No, I borrowed it." Draco responded with a slight furrow in his brow. "Yeah right, you totally stole that!" "Are you an idiot? I just told you I borrowed it!" Draco said sharply. "Okay, do you intent to give it back?" Draco didn't respond and you hummed in satisfaction.

After that it was a matter of convenience for you both to claim you were enemies. Although, it was apparent that you weren't. Whilst not quite friends, hatred wasn't present, even on the days you didn't get on. It really shouldn't have been much of a surprise that Professor Slughorn paired both you and Draco Malfoy for potions class. Draco sent you an eye roll and a sneer whilst you looked utterly bored by the reaction. You moved to him, of course, because Draco Malfoy didn't move for anybody.

Slughorn put a piece of paper on the desk in front of you making the two of you lean over the desk. He made it clear that whilst these potions were harmless, "Alihotsy Draught? What's that again?" You furrowed your brow at the paper with the given potion the two of you were to create. "Alihotsy as in the plant." Draco scoffed. "Are you an idiot? It's a potion that causes uncontrollable laughter." "Shame, just when I thought I'd be lucky enough to get a jaw binder spell for you." You responded pointedly. Draco scoffed again. "You should know better than speak that way to your superiors." You turned to stare at him in the eye. "Do you really want to play that game right now?" Draco ignored that question. "You're wasting time. The sooner we do this the more decent potions we'll make in the future...more useful ones. Also we're testing this on you." "Me!? Why me!?" "Because I said so." Draco left no room to argue. "I’ll cut this. What does it say to do next?"

When the potion was done, there was a sweet aroma that came off of it. A smell that reminded of sweets and oddly enough childhood. Although you couldn't pinpoint just what made such a description come to mind. It was a purple bubbling liquid with an opaque purple smoke rising from the small cauldron. You grimaced, knowing you'd have to drink it. Whilst it wouldn't be the worst outcome if the potion was correct, if it was wrong then who knew what would happen. You generally just didn't want to be on the receiving end of potions. Draco handed you a small vial of the potion of which you were reluctant to accept but did so. Suddenly a different smell intruded into your nostrils. You felt very dizzy suddenly. You swayed slightly and immediately Draco steadied you with one hand, covering his nose and mouth with the other. "Blaise! Get that away!" Blaise looked up at the two of you before pulling the potion further from the two of you. "Don't think we should have used that much-" You didn't catch the rest of what Blaise said to Crabbe as Draco tugged you firmly. "Hey, are you okay?" You nodded, blinking past the now fading dizziness. "Yeah. Sorry, I don't know what happened." "It's their potion." Draco nodded towards Crabbe and Blaise. "Are you going to faint?" You shook your head. "No, no, I'm fine now." You looked down at the vial in your hand once more. "It's a small amount so it shouldn't last very long." Draco said. Although you were unsure if he was informing you or trying to subtly make you feel better as your unease was very clear. You sighed. "I hate potions." You mumbled to yourself before tipping back the vial into your mouth.

It was as sweet as it smelled. Not the most unpleasant tastes by definitely too much if in larger amounts. If anyone were to drink it, it would not be on it's own. You hummed slightly with a smile. Although you had no idea why. Gradually, you had begun to giggle until it was completely uncontrolled laughter. It was safe to say the potion worked. Professor Slughorn strode up to your table, double checking the potion you had created. "Ah, I see your efforts have been a success!! Excellent work you two!" He praised both you and Draco. Whilst Draco would have usually felt pride in the praise, something else had him distracted. Or at least, that was until you were crouched down, clothing the desk in hysterical laughter. Slughorn seemed to somewhat have sympathy despite his own poorly hidden amusement at your state. "What are you doing!?" Draco asked, looking at you now on the floor. You couldn't stop laughing long enough to tell him coherently that you couldn't stop laughing and it was really beginning to hurt. "Have this, it'll clear the effects within moments." Professor Slughorn handed Draco the small vial, nodding towards you as he figured it highly unlikely you'd be able to take it yourself.

Somehow the sight of you was the most uplifting thing Draco had experienced in days. You looked absolutely ridiculous and your laughter was more contagious than he'd have liked to have admit. "Don't...laugh...at me!" You said in breathless laughter which only made Draco chuckle a little more. "I can't help it." Draco crouched down. "Stay still! How am I supposed to give you this whilst you squirm around like that!" Even then, he couldn't be completely annoyed at you. He was certain you didn't even realise that you had made him laugh. Something he very much needed as of late. "Swallow it! Swallow it! If you spit that out, you'll be stuck like this." Draco said hurriedly. Eventually you were able to and as assured, your laughter subsided, leaving you coughing. You took a breath, giving him a small smile. Draco smirked although his stare in you remained, lingering longer than usual.

Draco seemed to grow more hostile yet isolated. His group of friends always behind him as usual but you couldn’t help but notice that it took him longer to notice them. Furthermore, it seemed more difficult for his friends to retain his attention. You noticed but didn’t ask. Not that you had high chances of a response. It seemed better to think that unless Draco approached you, keep out of his way. You got on with him better than your other friends did.

As the year continued, it seemed Slughorn was more interested in Hermione, Harry and Ron. As a matter of fact, it seemed the three grew closer, the more Harry grew suspicious that Draco was a death eater, the more Hermione and Ron seemed to develop a tension between them. You weren’t oblivious to the tension, even if they were. It was no big surprise that the two liked each other. You figured it was only a matter of time before they realised. Whilst they were at Slughorn’s get together - an invite you didn’t receive- you were asked to deliver a book from Professor McGonagall. Once you had done so, you were eager to get back to your dorm, not wanting to be caught wandering the halls.

As fate might have it, you nearly collided into both Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape as you turned a corner. Luckily you halted before you could walk into the two. You couldn’t help but notice how alarmed the two looked but before you could think anything of it Professor Snape spoke up. “What do you think you are doing wandering the halls at this hour?” Snape demanded icily. “I-I’m sorry, Professor.” You said hurriedly. “Professor McGonagall asked that I return a book for her. She permitted me specifically. I was on my way back to my dorm now.” Snape eyed you with skepticism. “I trust you two can both find your way back to your appropriate dorms without delay.” Snape said somewhat dryly before turning on his heel and marching back down the hall, leaving both you and Draco.

You exhaled as soon as he was out of earshot. “I thought he was about to rip my head off.” Draco seemed to lightly smirk at your statement. “He probably would have, if it wasn’t for that.” Draco gestured behind him. “You were at Slughorn’s party?” You raised an eyebrow as the two of you began to walk in the opposite direction. “No!” Draco said with disgust. “I was crashing it.” “Why?” You asked unable to hold back a smile. “I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.” He replied. “Well? Are we missing out?” You asked. Draco scoffed. “We’re the lucky ones.” Draco did a double take. ”Weren’t you invited?” It was his turn to ask. You shook your head. “No. Too pureblood to even dream of getting an invite.” You gave him a playful smile. “Disgusting...” Draco said to himself, thinking of the group that were in attendance. “You look great though.” “Thanks.” Draco smirked.

You did a double take when you found Draco, alone, reading a book. You hurried up to him. “Hey, can I sit with you? I promise I wont bother you.” Draco’s gaze lifting to you. He rolled his eyes. “Fine. What’s up with you?” “I’m hiding from Harry, Ron and Hermione.” “Finally seeing how pathetic they are? Come to your senses?” You sent Draco an unimpressed look. “Ron took a love potion when he and Lavender were previously all over each other. I don’t even want to talk about that. If i have to hear “Ron-Ron” one more time i will hunt own a dementor and make it kill me.” Draco couldn’t help but chuckle but continued to listen to your rant. “Hermione is almost heart broken and Harry wasn’t quick enough to the idea i had. Run like hell and hope it all blows over.” Draco crinkled his nose in disgust. “Weasley under a love potion?” “It’s weird.” You responded. Draco paused. “Lavender who?” “Lavender Brown.” You responded. “Oh...her.” He said and you nodded slowly in slight dismay. “I mean, get me some fire whiskey and maybe i could stomach it a little longer but I beg of you don’t make me go back there.” Draco chuckled. “I won’t.” He leaned into your side slightly. “Who was the love potion for?” “Harry.” You said flatly. “From who?” “Romilda Vane.” Draco burst out laughing. “Draco, shush! I’m not even supposed to tell you this!” “Tell me more!” Draco laughed.

You shook your head at him in disapproval but the smile was still clear on your face. The atmosphere surprisingly light and peaceful considering who you were spending time with. "How have you been?" You asked. His smile faltered slightly. "I've been fine. Busy." You nodded. "Yeah, I haven't seen you around as much. Dare I say it, it's weird without you." Draco smirked. "Miss me?" "I wouldn't go that far." You smirked back before you let out a laugh. The two of you stared into each other's eyes. You forgot the world in that moment. It was just you and him in the peaceful quiet...and he didn't even think to ruin it which was always a plus. It was also short lived in the end. Whilst the time with him had you convinced that perhaps you could consider him a friend. You couldn't help the slight flutter in your chest from seeing this side to Draco. A much preferable one.

The next time you saw him, he was hurrying around the corner and nearly collided into you. Before you said anything, you noticed that Draco was most certainly not okay. Immediately, you were worried and jumped into action. Draco looked ill, his face pale but his eyes wide in terror. "Are you okay?" You asked him caught off guard. His breathing quickened, not far from hyperventilating. "Hey. Hey. What's wrong? Come with me right?" You grabbed Draco by the wrist pulling him along. You knew something was very wrong as he allowed it without even as much of a protest or sly comment. You left him to a quiet and peaceful part of the castle. "Here, take a breath." You said rubbing his upper arms and looked into his eyes for any sign of pain or injury. Draco swallowed hard, trembling slightly. "Look at me." You coaxed him. "You are okay. Just breathe for a second yeah? Are you hurt?" After meeting your gaze, Draco shook his head. You visibly looked relieved. "Okay, good. Now deep breaths. Take your time. No one can see you here."

Any other time, Draco would have taken your kindness as insufferable but now, now he was more than thankful for it. Even if he didn't really want to be around anyone. Regardless it surprised him to see you so concerned when usually you could be dismissive of him, even send him a piercing glare when he made comments about you, Harry, Hermione and Ron.

You were even more thrown off guard when tears slid down his face silently. "Hey. What's wrong? What do you need?" Draco wasn't sure what he needed. Ideally an escape from his task that the Dark Lord had given him. Some reassurance that he wasn't a terrible person for what he had just done to Katie. He didn't know what he needed and yet in his silence you seemed to have an idea. You pulled him into a hug. A hug hadn't been something Draco considered would help yet much to his surprise, your hold on him was very comforting. Much to your own surprise, you felt Draco's trembling arms hug you back. You held him tightly.

"You're going to be fine." You said to him quietly. "Whatever is going on, you'll pull through." You stayed like that for roughly five minutes. Suddenly, he abruptly pulled back, wiping his eyes. "Not one word of this, (L/N)." You heard Draco grumble, refusing to meet your eyes before storming off. You didn't follow. Only watching him go in concern and confusion.

Later, you heard that Harry and Draco had gotten into a fight. Harry told you what he had done. Everything happening so fast that he hadn't realised what was happening until it had happened. You demanded to know where he got such a spell, at the very same time Hermione did. Suddenly the book Harry clutched and kept with him at all times didn't seem so much as a cheat sheet- it was a weapon. "For enemies?" You ground out as you stared at Harry. "I didn't know what it did and he attacked me! I'm not proud of it, I just don't understand what that kind of spell is doing in there!" "Listen, I get where you're coming from. You've had your suspicions of Malfoy and its not like you were best buds from the beginning but do you really want to be the person who fires off dangerous spells like that?" You said.

It was true, whilst you were furious Harry had done it and the stupidity it took to use a spell that you didn't know what it did, you understood Harry's predicament. Much like many situations, everyone could regret what they did in hindsight.

"No! Of course not." Harry said rubbing his forehead in stress. "You're sure? That Malfoy did that to Katie?" You asked him. "I think his response confirmed it." Harry said flatly. You nodded. "Okay." You hugged him. "I'm not going to give you hell over something I already know you're putting yourself through.

At seven in the evening, you waited outside the Slytherin common room. You couldn't just walk in and since you hadn't seen Draco, it was likely he was inside. Much to your relief, Blaise was heading back to the common room. "Zabini!" You called out, stopping him in his tracks and he turned to you. He looked confused as to why you were around and even more so why you wanted him. You gestured for him to come over and almost reluctantly he did. As though you were playing a trick on him. "If you see Draco in there, can you tell him that I'm looking for him? I need to talk to him." You asked. Blaise looked unconvinced, uncertain why a friend of Harry Potter would want to speak to Draco Malfoy. "Please." You said quietly with a pleading look. He exhaled, a war clearly in his mind as he turned away and headed into the Slytherin common room. There was a chance both Zabini and Malfoy would ignore you but you stayed put on the chances that Blaise would tell Draco and Draco would come out and see you.

Five minutes later you Draco emerged, looking around and locking eyes with you. He looked fine, tired if anything but seemed to be completely unharmed. "What?" He asked sharply. "Move over here so no one over hears." You said cautiously, eyeing the Slytherin students passing the two of you. Draco looked almost impatient as he tugged you further down the hall and out of prying ear shot. "What?" He asked pointedly. "I heard what happened today. Harry told me things and-" "Potter must be relishing the victory but he'll get what's coming to him!" Draco snapped. "Draco, I know about Katie. Harry told me." You said quickly. Draco didn't seem surprised, annoyed if anything. "Of course he did, but neither of you know a damn thing." Draco sneered. "Draco, stop. I'm not here to pick a fight. I'm here to ask if you're okay." You responded and this time a flicker of surprise flashed in his eyes, his rigid composure had begun to relax. "You what?" "Harry hurt you." You said softly. "He hurt you bad and I had to come by and see if you were okay." Draco relaxed, taking a breath. "I'm fine. Tired but I'm fine." "Was that why you were upset earlier?" You whispered. "Because of Katie...?" Draco swallowed hard, looking down momentarily and you knew the answer immediately. "Draco, I don't know what's going on at home and I don't want to make assumptions about you. Believe it or not. I just want you to know that...regardless of everything, I consider you a friend and I'm here for you." Draco tried his best to remain composed and was mostly successful if it wasn't completely obvious that is what he was trying to do. "I can't tell you what the truth is or what's a lie but thanks for being there for me. As weird as it is." You cracked a smile. "Glad it's both of us that find this weird." Draco gave you a small smile in response. "You're a good friend, (Y/N)." He said quietly. "I mean it, I'm here for you." You assured him. "I'm just glad to hear you're okay. Did Madame Pomfrey heal you?" "I can't tell you." He said quietly. You nodded. "Fair enough, it doesn't matter. As long as you're okay... I'll leave you alone now." You took a step back. Draco nodded. "Don't let Filch catch you. Go back to your dorm." He smirked slightly. "Draco Malfoy, do not manifest Filch on me!" You called back.

You had no idea what was coming, the Great Hall was destroyed and you just so happened to be out of the dorms. A cold tight grip grabbed your hand. Draco quickly dragged you down the corridors wearing all black, no longer wearing his uniform. "Draco? What's going on!?" "You can't be here! Not now!" Draco said hurriedly. "What do you mean?" You asked. He eventually took you to Crabbe and Goyle. "Malfoy? What the hell?" Crabbe began but Draco cut him off. "Take them to Gryffindor commons, if you don't, I'll crucio you into next week!" Before the two could comply you spoke up again. "Draco, what is it!?" You asked hurriedly. He stared into your eyes. "Were you really my friend?" Draco asked. You nodded, fear in your eyes. You grew more frightened, the more he dodged the question. Draco said nothing more. Sending a pointed look to Crabbe and Goyle. Immediately after that he watched you go, with a lingering stare.

You only saw Draco a handful of times after that. He didn't return that year, neither did Hermione, Harry and Ron. It made you very lonely, although Neville and Luna were quick to change that. Perhaps it was easier to think that Draco was just a friend back then. Although the time without him told you otherwise. Those lingering looks always resonated with you after he had gone. Friends don't look at each other for that long, do they? Ironically, it was easier to forget your feelings when he was around. When he wasn't, you missed him and thought of him constantly. By the time you had acknowledged your feelings for Draco Malfoy, it had been too late. You never stopped believing that Draco wasn’t the cruel death eater he was ‘destined’ to be. You saw more of him and were determined to see that through to the end.

Perhaps it would have been easier for Draco to see you again after all of these years if he hadn't found your lifeless body back in the Battle of Hogwarts. Perhaps he couldn't stomach looking at you knowing that you never made it out that day of the battle. Although nevertheless you smiled at him from across the platform. If he took anything from it, you wanted him to know his old friend didn't blame him one bit.

Draco sprinted towards your lifeless body, falling to his knees and scooping you up. "(Y/N)!? (Y/N)! It's me!" Draco said hurriedly, shaking you lightly. Your wand rolled out of your hand as realisation sunk in. You weren't breathing. Draco shook his head, tears in his eyes. "No! (Y/N), please!" He hugged you to him. "I'm so sorry." He cried before tearing himself from you and running off.

Draco looked up from his son and wife to the place you stood. Your pleasant smile still in place. A man walked past you and by the time he was out of his line of sight between you both, you were gone. No evidence you had ever been there. Harry, Hermione and Ron didn't seem to catch sight of you even once. He gave a small smile to his son as Astoria said her farewells. Whilst at first, seeing you filled with unease, he couldn't help but feel comforted knowing you were okay in the end.

#harry potter #platform 9¾ #Draco Malfoy #reader #hogwarts #one shot #oneshot

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oldadastra · 5 years

Text

Letter to Lucasfilm

So, I’ve written a letter to Lucasfilm. It could be better, but this is what came out this afternoon. I hope others who are writing will share what they are putting into the mail. I was trying to be concise, but it still ran to several pages. Find it in its entirety below the cut:

***

Lucasfilm, Ltd. Attn: Fan Mail PO Box 29901 San Francisco, CA 94129-0901

December 30, 2019

Lucasfilm/Disney:

I am writing to express my anger, shock, disappointment and deep sadness with the final installment of the Star Wars saga, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

I was ten in 1977 when the original film was released and have loved Star Wars ever since. I was thrilled by the reopening of the saga in The Force Awakens, and delighted by the excellent script, rich visual storytelling, nuanced character development, and thematic direction of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.

Disney took on a sacred trust when it acquired Lucasfilm. Star Wars is deeply important to many people, and if you couldn’t do justice to the characters and themes of the saga, I’d argue that you had no business being involved in these stories. There is so much Disney/Lucasfilm got wrong in Rise of Skywalker, I’m struggling to gather my thoughts or express them coherently, but here goes:

Ben Solo. You created the most compelling character in the new trilogy by destroying the happy ending of the original trilogy. I was willing to go along on the ride Abrams and Kasdan began in The Force Awakens, because the fate of Ben Solo felt like it mattered. The questions raised in the new films: the nature of good and evil, the degree to which one’s family legacy defines a person, whether a one can atone for past sins; all of it felt alive and urgent in the person of Ben, a character I loved like one of my own children from the moment we so traumatically met him in The Force Awakens. His story was the beating heart of the new trilogy. His story is the one that mattered. His life was the one to be saved.

Ben solo was never an exposition device, cool villain, or disposable baddie to me. He was Han and Leia’s only child; loved, targeted, broken, lost.

The Rise of Skywalker redeems Ben Solo in the final act of the film, only to destroy him. Was it always your plan to kill the last Skywalker in the final installment of this story, to render the overarching message of all nine films as tragedy? If so, I wish I’d known this was your intent; I would never have engaged with these stories and made an emotional investment in them. If tragedy was your goal, that was certainly your choice to make, but I’d argue that you owed it to the audience and the cast to do a better job of it.

For example: You give us evidence that Han and Leia’s child was targeted by evil old men from before his birth. It’s a disturbingly explicit allegory of grooming and child abuse.

You give Ben Solo a backstory which implies he is guilty of vile, Anakin-style crimes against other young people, coding him as a school shooter, and then chose to exonerate him of this crime in a comic book, where the general audience will never know he was innocent. It’s a form of character assassination.

You consigned Ben Solo to the darkness for almost the entirety of three films, then denied him his voice in the final acts of his own story. “Ow?” The only words the redeemed Ben Solo will ever speak. Apalling.

You brought back Palpatine for this film (arguably rendering the message of the first six films meaningless), identified the Emperor as Ben’s tormentor all along, then denied Ben the opportunity to fight his enemy in the final act of the film. Rise of Skywalker literally throws Ben Solo into a pit, and forces him to climb out alone and unaided while Rey is whispered to by “all the jedi,” offering her words of encouragement. It’s grotesque.

I’m getting lost in rage and sadness again here, so let me just say that even if you inexplicably didn’t care about the last Skywalker in the Skywalker saga, you have done a grave disservice to Adam Driver in your treatment of his character in this these films. Perhaps you’ve heard of Driver’s non-profit organization, Arts in the Armed Forces? He’s deeply committed to the importance of stories as a way to make meaning out of the inexpressible. Did he really sign on to this project thinking that the final message of his character would be to say that even if you are able to come back from the darkness, your final act must be to die? That imperfect children don’t deserve compassion, forgiveness, life? You owe Mr. Driver an apology, but you can never really atone for what you’ve done to him.

You ended a nine-film, forty-two year saga with all the Skywalkers dead, and a Palpatine the last one standing. You spent three films tormenting Han and Leia’s child, only to kill him in the final act. What you did to Ben Solo (and frankly to us, who loved him) feels more like a horror story than anything else. In my dreams, I walk right into your offices and flip over tables.

There’s a lot more I could accuse Rise of Skywalker of bungling, but I assume you are hearing this feedback from others besides me, so I will summarize:

Rey Palpatine. Was is all about the midiclorians after all? By making her Palpatine’s granddaughter, you deny Rey everything that made her special; you deny her agency, and you negate the beautiful message I thought you were trying to communicate in the first two films with Rey Nobody: that the force belongs to us all, and that anyone can be a hero

The erasure of Rose Tico. It’s difficult to interpret this as anything but a capitulation to a loud, racist, and misogynist element of the fandom. It’s a very bad look, Disney. Please pay attention to the message you are sending.

Character development in general and a truly horrible ending: Rey goes back into her child-like costume, Ben Solo spent much of the film forced back into his stupid mask. Ben disappears at the end with no one to mourn him. Rey ends the film alone in a desert wasteland.

Rise of Skywalker is the most bleak, hopeless, and depressing Star Wars film ever made. As days go by, it’s becoming clear that it was also poorly written and edited. These stories matter to us, and we pay close attention to them. Disrespect us at your peril.

I don’t expect anyone will ever read this missive, or care at all about what an old shepherd on a mountainside thought about the execution of your multi-billion dollar movies. This is a personal exercise in catharsis as much as anything.

But here are a few notes in a language you might understand. I made some quick calculations about how much money I’ve spent on Star Wars over the past four years, and I’m sharing that with you now.

Movie tickets: I’m one of those people who sees movies I love more than once (I saw Empire Strikes Back eighty-one times in the theater!). I saw The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi at least ten times each. I’m not counting the cost of tickets for my extended family, whom I brought along to a number of screenings, or tickets for birthday party guests we treated to these movies. My teenaged daughter came along for all the screenings I am including, so I calculate I spent about $360 on tickets. We also bought tickets to Rogue One and Solo, so it was actually more, but you get the idea.

Books, tie-ins, DVDs, merchandise: I invested in The Art of the Force Awakens and The Art of the Last Jedi books, as well as at least one SW Visual Dictionary. I bought DVDs of the films of course, and CDs of John Williams’ beautiful scores. I bought and read a number of books; Boodline and the Leia novel, The Force Awakens novelization and Junior novelization, Aftermath, and a couple others whose titles escape me. At least seven action figures. Toy light sabers for me and my daughter. Posters. T Shirts. I know I’m not remembering everything, but it adds up to an expenditure of at least $347 in books and other Star Wars merchandise.

Star Wars Celebration: I splurged on passes for my daughter and I to attend Star Wars Celebration in Chicago this past spring. It cost me about $400, and a last-minute family emergency meant we were unable to attend, but the tickets were non-refundable, so it was money I spent on Star Wars nonetheless.

Total: $1,107

A laughably small amount to you guys, I’m sure. Perhaps a contrast is useful:

Total amount I have spent (tickets for my daughter and I on opening night) on Rise of Skywalker: $22.

Total amount I plan to spend on Disney Lucasfilm merchandise in the future: $0

I invested quite a lot of my time in Star Wars over the past four years. I’ve written thousands of words in essays, appreciations and analyses (mostly on Tumblr), where I amassed a modest following of just over a thousand people. I’m sure I occasionally bored my friends and family by going on and on about Star Wars. This kind of ‘work’ has no dollar value of course. I will say that it was great fun while it lasted, though I feel foolish in retrospect, remembering all the times I came to your defense, arguing that the saga was in good hands, that you had a plan; that you were going to tell a good story.

Sadly, I don’t think you can fix the damage you’ve done to the Galaxy Far Far Away with The Rise of Skywalker. You made this film, made your choices, and put it out into the world. I have no control over where you go from here, but as a person who has loved Star Wars since I was a child, I beg you to take some time to reflect before making another Star Wars film.

You’ve broken so many hearts. Mine was one.

Andrea ____

...my full name and address, blah blah, I live in Vermont

#letters to lucasfilm #Lucasfilm #tros #reylo #ben solo #tros grief #hit them in the wallet #disney lucasfilm

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rex101111 · 5 years

Note

Eri meets the Doomslayer, and Rewinds Daisy's rabbit foot charm back to her living state.

(there was no way to answer this seriously so I went for broke)

Eri has had her fair share of confusing days. More than once she would sit down on her couch at the end of a particularly hectic 24 hours and wonder what she just went through.

Today would trump them all.

It started out simple enough, as all days do, with her accompanying Ochako and Izuku on a shopping trip. They bought her clothes and ice cream and overall she was having fun on an easy Saturday afternoon. They decided to go to the park for a short walk to end the day quietly.

And then a red portal opened up, shortly followed by hideous monsters pouring out looking to eat people.

The next few moments were a blur of action, Izuku and Ochako herding her to safety while fighting off the monsters before they could close their (far too many) teeth on any passing civilian. They were like something out of a nightmare, or one of those album covers in Mr. Fumi’s room, red skined with protruding horns and glowing eyes, screaming hellishly as they swarmed everyone around them.

If she were anyone else Eri might have been overwhelmed by the horror of it all, but considering what she had already gone through in her short time on earth this sort of life-death situation merely unnerved her rather than terrify.

And the day wasn’t quite done being weird just yet.

As Izuku and Ochako were busy fighting off the monsters, another portal opened up, blue instead of red, and a person walked out. He was tall, burly, and covered head to toe in green, futuristic armor. He took a few heavy steps, his metal boots cracking the pavement, before he launched himself towards one of the bigger monsters, grabbing one its black horns and pulling it’s head back to a painful angle.

With one firm yank the neck snapped like a dry twig, and the armored man quickly moved on to the next, pulling out, seemingly from nowhere, a double-barreled shotgun and shooting the nearest monsters in the chest. The gory chunks that were once an enemy didn’t even hit the ground before he turned around and sliced another in half with a wrist mounted blade.

Eri was reminded of a movie her and Uncle Kacchan watched a few months ago with her guardians’ knowledge, about an alien in a forest hunting people down. It was an old one...hunter? Something like that.

(She wondered if this guy also had a squid face...)

Izuku and Ochako, along with some of the other heroes he came by to help, were transfixed for a quick moment by the display. Barring the frankly disturbing efficiency this man employed as he cut a swathe through the demons, and what else could they be, he was leaving any one without red skin and sharp teeth well enough alone, so he seemed to be on their side.

A few people with mutant quirks gave him a wide berth, just in case.

Soon they joined him, beating down the demons as they poured from the portal, a few of the more vicious heroes, Miruko who had recently returned to active duty after acclimating to her new prosthetic arm for example, followed the new arrival in massacring them.

The man in green armor even throw a pistol to one gun toting hero, who used it to pop a demon’s head off with one precise shot of blue energy.

Eri, along with the rest of civilians ducking away from the action, was starting to think she should have brought popcorn. The demons seemed to stand little chance against the shotgun wielder on his own, much less with the help he was getting from the heroes, so they started to relax.

But the demons weren’t quite done yet.

The red portal doubled in size of a sudden, and from it stepped out the largest demon so far. It stood nearly as tall as a house, with curled black horns adorning its cow like head. One leg and one arm each was mechanical, the arm being a massive canon of some kind.

The massive demon raised it canon arm straight at the armored man, ignoring everything else, snarling in some distorted language that made Eri’s ears hurt to hear.

The man rushed straight at the giant monster, pulling out some sort of assault weapon mid charge and emptying its magazine as he ran closer. A few heroes distracted the beast with attacks of their own, giving the man in the green armor time to close the distance.

He climbed on the demon quickly, grabbing one horn while extending the blade under his wrist, before quickly stabbing the beast right between its eyes, causing it to roar out in pain. It flailed wildly trying to get him off as he continued his stabbing, crying out and roaring in anger and desperation.

With the last of its strength, the beast somehow managed to dislodge the warrior, smacking him away with its canon arm and into a nearby try, cracking the armor clean open.

As the demon fell dead, the portal closed and left the park in chaos.

And the one who helped them laying motionless on the ground, bleeding from a chest wound.

Eri got to her feet faster than her mind could keep up, rushing over to the wounded man before even any of the heroes, putting her hands on his wound. In the midst of the blood she saw a rabbit’s foot on a neck chain, which made her laugh nervously, “Guess we’re all a little lucky today huh?”

“Eri! Ochako called out, coming closer to them both. “Sweetheart it’s not safe!”

“He’s hurt!” Eri answered while keeping her eyes on his wound, her horn starting to glow. “He needs help now, I can do it...” She had gotten significantly better at managing her powers, only reversing things minutes and seconds instead of just erasing them completely. A minute is all she would need for this. “I got you mister, just give me a second...”

The man groaned in pain from behind his helmet, but otherwise made no move to stop her or said a word, which worried Eri some, but she kept on. Her horn glowing brighter and brighter.

“Eri...” She could her Deku behind her with Ochako, but he didn’t move to stop her so she simply kept on her task, not noticing that she was grabbing the rabbit’s foot as she was activating her quirk.

When she gathered as much force as she thought she needed, she pushed her power into the wound, willing it to reverse and heal, just like she did with Deku.

A bright light filled the park, the man in the armor flinching violently for a quick moment before settling with a sigh of relief.

When the light cleared, his wound was gone...but something else took it’s place.

Eri blinked owlishly at the small brown rabbit, twitching it’s nose calmly as it sat next to the armored man regaining his bearings after being healed. The man checked his armor and his weapons, sweeping his sights to see heroes and civilians alike to see what he’ll do now that the demons were dead.

A deep grunt sounded from his helmet as he nodded a brief thank you to Eri before he began to sit up...only to freeze at the sight of the rabbit, who had hopped closer to him as he moved away, staring up at him with it’s dark eyes.

They stared at each other like that for a moment, before another sound escaped from the green helmet, “D-Daisy?” The voice sounded hoarse, like he hadn’t spoken a word to anyone for years, and seemed to wobble, like he was on the verge of crying. “Daisy, is that you?”

The rabbit, Daisy, answered by hopping closer to him, and putting her front paws on on his leg armor, twitching its nose and bouncing lightly in place.

The man ripped his helmet off, revealing a buzz cut and a chiseled face (for some reason Eri could only think of the word generic to describe it) stretched in a weepy grin. “Daisy!” He cried out in joy and wrapped the rabbit up in his arms, spinning it around as he laughed in relief. “Daisy! My little Daisy! I thought you were gone forever! Oh I’m so glad to see you again!”

If Eri hadn’t watched this man systematically rip and tear about four dozen demons a few minutes ago, she would have called this display adorable.

“You!” He turned to her with the same grin, holding Daisy up to his face to nuzzle. “Thank you for this, you have no idea how much this means to me.” He put one, heavy armored hand on her shoulder, his voice serious and humble despite the ferocity of his actions from before. “How can I ever repay you?”

“O-Oh! No don’t worry!” She waved him off with a blush. “It’s okay I’m gonna be a hero when I grow up!” She grinned widely at him before turning to look at Izuku and Ochako behind her. “Doing stuff like this is only natural!”

A let out a pleased laugh. “Well said!” He got to his feet, picking up his helmet with his free hand while the other was still holding Daisy up. “Keep that up and you’ll be a hero in no time.”

He began walking away, another blue portal opening for him. He took a step towards it, before he was stopped by Izuku putting a hand on his shoulder. “Wait! You’re just going to leave?” He pointed towards the corpses of the demons littering the park, blue and orange blood staining the grass. “What if those things come back?”

“Don’t worry.” He waved the concern off easily, putting his helmet back on. “I’ll make sure they stay away.” Something in his voice changed, growing deeper and more deranged. “They knew not to mess with the Doom Slayer.” His voice went right back to the friendly tone as he waved goodbye. “Have a nice day!”

And just as soon as he arrived, the “Doom Slayer” vanished back into the portal with his pet rabbit, leaving everyone one shocked and flatfooted in his wake.

After a few seconds of silence, Eri tugged on Izuku’s pant leg. “Hey, Deku?”

He shook his head to regain his balance, smiling down at her. “Yeah Eri?”

“Can I get a pet rabbit?”

“...We’ll ask Aizawa back at the dorms, okay?”

#my hero academia #Doom #Eri (bnha)#this was lame I apologize #but this was such a fun idea #chapelseed #answers

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fightmeyeats · 5 years

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Let’s Make it That Deep: Thinking about the Surveillance State, Racial Politics, and Humanity in Terminator: Dark Fate

This week I watched Terminator: Dark Fate, which carries forward from the second Terminator film, Terminator: Judgement Day (1991), wisely ignoring everything that happened in movies 3-5. Dark Fate is set in the year 2020 and follows Dani Ramos, humanity’s new hope to survive the future robot apocalypse, as she, Grace (an augmented human from the future), Sarah Connor, and Carl (a T-800 model terminator) fight against a Rev-9 sent back in time to kill Dani. Overall, to quote my sibling, the movie “isn’t a literary masterpiece,” but it is fairly enjoyable--especially if you’re thirsting over the main leads. However, because I have a feral academic-garbage brain I also wanted to spend some time unpacking what I saw as the film’s three major discourses: surveillance/technological inevitability, race politics, and human exceptionalism. These are fraught discourses, often represented in contradictory and confusing ways over the course of the film, but I think it is generative to sit with them and to try to work out what messages are intentionally and/or unintentionally being conveyed through the movie, as well as what the potentials and limitations of these messages might be.

Spoilers ahead.

i. Surveillance & Technological Inevitability

Before getting into the content of the film, one thing which may be useful to consider is how the movie previews shown in the theater before the start of the movie contextualize reception and engagement with the actual story Terminator: Dark Fate tells. There were quite a few trailers before the movie--enough so that one patron a few seats down in my row loudly commented “is the movie going to start now or what??” as yet another trailer started playing, the majority of which were either for war or horror movies. The two in particular I am interested in discussing are The King’s Man (2020) and Midway (2019), and the way that they both glorify and justify the imperialist/security state. The King’s Man trailer, for example, positions the titular agency as being an “independent intelligence agency” which essentially is able to actively “protect” people while governments fall short. In between clips from the film, title cards read "witness the rise...of the civilized," a shockingly open and yet seemingly unconscious connection between the King’s Man narrative and British colonialism/imperialism. Immediately following this trailer is one for Midway, a WWII moving centering on the aircraft carrier USS Midway immediately after the events of Pearl Harbor, which a character in the trailer calls “the greatest intelligence failure in the history of the US”. The reason why these trailers are important to keep in mind is because they implicitly respond to some of the anxieties articulated in Terminator; if Terminator films speak to fears of technology and surveillance, these trailers argue that really technology, surveillance, and military power are all important aspects of “civilized” nations, necessary for security and safety.

This actually ties in immediately to the opening of Terminator: Dark Fate, and the death of John Connor which can be interpreted, in one sense, as a failure of surveillance. This actually specifically made me think of Inderpal Grewal’s article “Security Moms,” and the rise of the neoliberal female citizen subject as an agent of security through motherhood in the post 9/11 U.S. The “security mom, essentially, is a “conceptualization of women as mothers seeking to protect their innocent children - a figure that is not so new in the history of modern nationalisms, or even American nationalisms and racism” (Grewal 27). Much like the King’s Man trailer suggestion that private intelligence is better suited to save lives than governmentalized intelligence, “neoliberalism suggests that the state is unable to provide security and thus it disavows its ability to protect all citizens”--only in here, it is the figure of the mother rather than a private agency which becomes the new and better fitted agent of surveillance, always watching for enemies in order to protect their children (Grewal 28). In a voice over, Sarah Connor tells us that she “saved three billion people but [she] couldn’t save [her] son”; a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) model Terminator which had been sent back before Skynet was destroyed and continued carrying out orders “from a future that never happened” walks right past Sarah and shoots John. While Sarah leaps in to action after she recognizes the threat, she is unable to stop the T-800 from killing her son in seconds. This might actually be a key difference between Sarah Connor and Grewal’s “security mom”: while security moms are a largely a post-9/11 construction of neoliberal/nationalist motherhood, Sarah Connor was a successful security mom in 1991, constantly vigilant and constantly surveilling her surroundings for concealed enemies who could kill her son. In the post-9/11 era, Sarah Connor’s belief that the apocalypse has been averted causes her to believe that she and her son are safe, resulting in inadequate surveillance/vigilance and her son’s death. Much like the framing of Pearl Harbor in the Midway trailer and 9/11 in real life, disasters happen because of failures to appropriately surveil.

Technological state surveillance itself is reflected in strange ways in the film, which seems to be at once critiquing and accepting constant surveillance. Sarah Connor keeps her cell phone in a chip bag to avoid being tracked and tells Grace and Dani that they will not last without her help because they are not aware of the constant surveillance occurring at every traffic light, every store, every gas station, etc--information the Rev-9 terminator chasing Dani will certainly have access to. Terminator: Dark Fate expresses fears of technological abuse/control and surveillance, but constantly frames these fears as the failure of the government to control these technologies--the threat isn’t what the government will do or is doing with these technologies, but rather that these technologies are uncontrollable or might be used by enemy agents. While one could argue that the fear being expressed here is actually a critique of the existence of surveillance technologies--that technologies exist for a reason and will do what they are programmed to do--this framing overwhelmingly still imagines a kind of governmental neutrality, where the threat is the located exclusively in the technology itself, not in those creating and using it. Here I also want to emphasize that while in Judgement Day there’s a deeper critique of the military industrial complex and the role of private corporations, in Dark Fate it appears to be the government alone engaged in constant surveillance and the technologies which result in the robot apocalypse, with the role of capitalism largely obscured from the connection between the new evil AI, Legion. In this same vein, while it seems that Legion is built as a weapon by the government, but we do not even explicitly know which government--again, the threat isn’t government construction of Legion (although Sarah does comment “they never learn”) but rather the technology itself.

In the original movies, Skynet was a defensive surveillance software--but this is no longer science fiction; as Edward Snowden revealed/confirmed in 2013, constant mass surveillance is a real thing, and there are real ways people can avoid it (using VPNs, encryption, covering webcams, anti-facial recognition makeup (called CV dazzle), wearing disguises, etc). Despite this, and despite Sarah Connor’s awareness of constant surveillance, the characters don’t do much to avoid surveillance and just as Sarah originally predicted, the Rev-9 easily tracks them through governmental surveillance apparatuses. In the same way, surveillance and the technological abuse/carelessness which bring about the robot apocalypse are largely imagined inevitable. While there is a constant argument for agency and the idea that people can and must make choices in the present moment that determine the future, nothing is done to disrupt surveillance in the present moment, and the future seems to be unstoppable. While we can certainly think about the switch from Skynet to Legion, and the way this articulates a different set of social concerns and anxieties in 2019 than in the late 80s/early 90s, stopping Skynet delays but does not prevent what seems to be, from a material standpoint, the same future. In this same vein, when Grace dies so that Dani can use her power source to destroy the Rev-9, Grace tells Dani “we both knew I wasn’t coming back”; this frames her death as predetermined and fixed. Similarly, at the end of the film Sarah tells Dani she will help her to “prepare”, implicitly suggesting that the future cannot be prevented--further legitimizing the reading of the Skynet to Legion switch as an inability to meaningfully change the future. This brings us to the line used both in Judgement Day and Dark Fate: “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves”. While this line seems to suggest that we have agency and can make choices that change the future, the inability to actually enact change might instead lead to a counter reading of the line: is it that we make fate, or that the fate we get is the one we “deserve”?

ii. Race (& Gender) Politics

There’s actually quite a bit to think about in terms of the racial politics of Terminator: Dark Fate. One the one hand, we can certainly think about the underlying savior discourse and the transition of this role from a white man to a Mexican woman. There is some fairly heavy handed Christian symbolism involved in John Connor as the white male hero—John’s initials parallel him to Jesus Christ, and Sarah comments “let her play Mother Mary for a while” when she thinks Dani has become the new target because a son Dani will someday give birth to will be the new savior of humanity. Sarah also comments that Dani isn’t the threat, it’s her womb. I want to go two directions on this comment: first, while it of course turns out that Dani is the hero herself, the idea of Latinx wombs as a threat is intricately tied to U.S. immigration policies and histories of eugenics, with the imagined threat being to the preservation of the (white) nation, so to here articulate the idea of Latinx reproduction as a kind of weapon to protect humanity is to offer something very different from a discourse of salvation through white reproduction/motherhood. Second, this line offers a kind of meta commentary on the way the previous movies claimed John as the savior (despite Sarah’s own heroism) to convince viewers that Dark Fate is more politically aware than previous Terminator movies, since Dani is the one destined to save the world (which of course ties back into my previous discussion of the unresolved tension between fate and agency), not her son and not a white man.

Moving beyond the switch in hero, one of the main things I want us to consider in thinking about the racial politics of Dark Fate is the question of collateral damage: while it’s nothing unusual to see large amounts of collateral damage in the background of an action movie, here this damage seems to be located exclusively in the Global South (specifically Mexico). Most (but not all) of the destruction is disassociated from individual people--for example, in one scene the Rev-9 drives a bulldozer down the wrong side of a freeway, crushing or crashing into numerous cars which obviously have people inside, even though we do not see most of them. Scenes of damage or interactions between populations and the Rev-9 in the U.S. do not result in death the same way that they do in Mexico/along the border. When the Rev-9 is knocked off of a plane after take off and crashes into a backyard in Texas, for example, he picks himself up and apologizes to the white people barbecuing in the yard for destroying their shed before continuing on his way. Similarly, when he flies over a military base which is actively attacking him, he ignores them and continues his pursuit of Dani without fighting back. While in both of these cases, one might argue that this is connected to the Rev-9’s obsession with fulfilling his mission without needing to kill anyone who is not actually preventing him from reaching Dani, a) this is a work of fiction so someone decided that the Rev-9 could fulfill his mission with minimal collateral damage in some spaces but not others, and b) in the final fight at the dam, the workers simply disappear when the fighting begins, removing them from any risk of becoming collateral damage.

Although there are action scenes throughout the movie, the last scene to involve mass violence against background characters is in the detention center. Before I get into the discussion of collateral damage/background character death at the detention center, I want to start by discussing border crossing and the representation of the detention center more broadly. There are some ways in which Dark Fate does attempt to address the violence involved in detention centers and U.S. immigration policy, but overwhelmingly it falls short. One of the ways we see this is in the actual crossing of the border and the way that it’s not particularly difficult or dangerous for Dani, Grace, and Sarah to cross. Certain popularized images of border crossing are deployed in ways which might suggest this is an authentic look at what it means to cross borders without documents (Dani, Grace, and Sarah ride on the top of a train with other migrants, which I suspect draws from the documentary Which Way Home, and Dani’s uncle, a Coyote, helps them cross the desert and enter the U.S. through a tunnel under the border wall), however the way these images are used as a shorthand undermines the danger undertaken/violence experienced by real undocumented migrants as the result of U.S. border policy. Riding the freight trains, called El tren de la muerte or La Bestia (the Death Train or The Beast) in real life, is highly dangerous and many people are killed or suffer serious and long term injuries as a result, and although we are told that Dani’s uncle is a good Coyote who gets people across safely (and he is of course helping his own niece), crossing the desert is extremely dangerous and many people die. Representing this crossing in maybe 10 minutes of screen time makes it seem easy and safe, obscuring the very real dangers faced by migrants in real life. Similarly, in the detention center border patrol agents are represented as apathetic but not particularly violent/dangerous, and the depictions of the cages migrants are kept in do not come close to reflecting the overcrowding experienced by the people who are being imprisoned in detention centers in real life. Furthermore, the imprisoned migrants do not have speaking roles and become non-agentive; the real suffering of undocumented migrants becomes nothing more than a setting, offering no significant or useful critique of U.S. border policies/politics. This brings us back to that question of collateral damage in the detention center. After Grace breaks out of the medical room she was being held in, she unlocks all of the cages and detained migrants begin to flee; although I have seen this described in some places online as her “freeing” them, escaping migrants become a distraction which aids in Dani, Sarah, and Grace’s actual escape from the detention center and the Rev-9 which has caught up with them. While most of the violence is enacted on border patrol agents rather than migrants (which is good), the Rev-9 does kill/harm some of the migrants who block his path as they attempt to escape, and the only border patrol agent we can identify as a speaking character to be killed is the Black woman who was pointedly apathetic to Dani’s pleas for help during the intake process. Most, if not all, of the other border patrol agents with speaking lines at the detention center are white, and seem to be framed as almost more sympathetic; the medical personnel fixing Grace’s wounds, for example, notices the metal interlaid in her body and are horrified by “what’s been done to her,” viewing her as a victim to be sympathized with. While one of the guards insists “we call them detainees” when Grace escapes from her handcuffs and demands to know where the prisoners are being kept, which offers an attempted commentary on the linguistic obscuration of violence and white apathy, we again must come back to the fact that the white medical guard is left unharmed while the Black guard is very pointedly killed.

We might push back on this overall interpretation by thinking about the ways that in real life people of color can become complicit in systems of white supremacy which will ultimately harm them while continuing to overwhelmingly protect white citizens, as well as the way that the Global South so frequently is a site of collateral damage, and experiences the displaced violence of the Global North. However, what I want us to think about is that this kind of intervention is useless when it is left latent, and overall only feeds into the constant racialized violence which plays out in movies and television programming. Furthermore, I want us to think about James Cameron’s comment about Judgement Day when he said that the T-1000 looked like an LAPD officer because “the Terminator films are...about us losing touch with our own humanity and becoming machines, which allows us to kill and brutalize each other. Cops think of all non-cops as less than they are”. While some have argued that Dark Fate picks up this legacy by making border patrol the villains, and the Rev-9 does clearly represent a military/border patrol kind of threat, the Rev-9 is also always a person of color. The base appearance, played by Gabriel Luna, is a man of color, and every single person it transforms itself to look like (which we are told kills the person being copied) is also a person of color. Because of this, there is a way in which the critique of border patrol is divorced from white supremacy and people of color become part of what is imagined as the threat.

iii. Thinking About Humanity

Finally, this ties into the discussion of humanity and the idea of human exceptionalism and purity articulated throughout Dark Fate. As with much of what I have previously talked about, this is a frequently contradictory kind of discourse which simultaneously broadens and constrains the idea of what “humanity” is/means. One example of this is the way in which augments and terminators that grow a conscious queer the boundary between “human” and “machine.” When Sarah demands they shoot Carl in the face to see what he “really is,” Dani insists “I don’t really care what he is”; through this there seems to be, on some level, an articulation that there’s more to being “human” than literally being a human being. Furthermore, these characters are queer in multiple dimensions--Grace is a very butch, very queer feeling character, and while I don’t want to say that the reformed murderous robot said Ace Rights, Carl’s character does push back against the heteronormative coital imperative by through his relationship to Elisa and his adopted son Mateo, which offers a model of meaningful romantic partnership and family commitment which does not involve biological reproduction or sexual intimacy. However, despite these queer potentials, we are constantly pushed back towards a privileging of “human” through frequent assertions that Grace is human (not a machine, just augmented), that augmentation is unstable (Grace’s frequent metabolic crashes and dependence on a cocktail of medication to keep herself going), and Carl only has the approximation of a conscious and cannot love the way humans do. Furthermore, Carl and Grace both die, suggesting that this queering of the human/machine boundary is untenable.

So what does “humanity” mean in Dark Fate? Ultimately, it seems to mean protecting the vulnerable and being willing to sacrifice yourself to do it. During the final confrontation between Dani, Sarah, Grace, and Carl, the Rev-9 says “I know she’s a stranger, why not let me have her”; Sarah responds: “Because we’re not machines you metal motherfucker”. While I obviously think the film offers a confused message on agency and that we need to be critical of the racial politics of the film, this ties into what I think (or what I would like to think) the movie hoped to say about border patrol and detention centers: we need to do better by refugees and undocumented migrants. It doesn’t matter whether we know someone, whether we imagine they are deserving or undeserving, what it might or might not cost us to do the right thing; we can choose, in this moment, whether or not we step up and fight against the detention of undocumented migrants, whether we resist ICE, whether we advocate for refugees. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

#terminator dark fate #terminator #dark fate #critical race theory #neoliberalism #essay #review #spoilers #i am white #as always i wrote this in one mad go & will fix any errors as i find them #also as always pls feel free to respond & engage

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