#this is a story about indoctrination and how going after the faces of a corrupt system does nothing to stop the system as a whole

[bitchfitch]

Everything i write has a dash of Nightvale in it, but the prince and the hound has one of the most normal settings with very minimal absurdity or abstraction. Prince specifically is just such a caricature of himself that he just adds that vibe all on his own.

[zevranunderstander]

dragon age inquisition pissed me off because it had a good premise. or, it could have had a good premise, but like, they really made the worst choice for everything ever. for two games, mages were oppressed by the templars and now, with the end of dragon age 2, this turned into an actual civil war. the protagonist could have had the choice between 2 origins, mage or templar, and would have to navigate the conflict in a way with a band of people from both sides where the templars have to realize how they are actually in the wrong. this could have been a cool way to show how maybe templars are indoctrinated into a specific ideology, too and humanize them in a way that is not the “both sides have pros and cons” way.  or the story could have been about a mage underground who wants to join in the fight. they could have been really bold and told the story from the templar’s side, where you play as brutal enforcers of the law and are faced with how you are probably not a good person. but instead of anything interesting they chose a neutral, super-powerful, for some reason religious organization as the main characters. which, well, it could be worse, but it’s such an impersonal position in the conflict.

then, they decide to start the game with peace talks between both sides, which means that they skipped towards the end of the conflict and the game actually takes place in a stage of the war where the conflict isn’t all that extreme anymore. which, again, not the ideal choice, but that is still something you can tell a story with.

"at least dai is about the conflict they built up for two games, though, right?”

*well*, for one quest you can choose, if you want to side with the mages or the templars (in a situation where it makes NO sense to ask the templars) and sometimes you have encounters with hostile mage or templar npcs (like in all other dragon age games). Oh, and the side you don’t pick in that one choice, that really only serves as flavor and gives you *one* different quest, gets corrupted by some random demon man that crawled out of a DLC no one played and who for some reason is the villain in a game that should have been about the civil war happening right now.

the idea that there is a threat that forces mages and templars to work together, despite being mortal enemies right now could have been so interesting, too? the world is ending, but does that mean the mages have to go back into servitude because the templars refuse to work with them otherwise? you are the fucking inquisition, in this game there could have been a plotline about disbanding the templars. anyways, the plot isn’t really that the world-threatening evil guy forces both sides to find a solution to the conflict, the plot is that a world-threatening evil guy appears, while there happens to be a conflict off-screen (and sometimes, for flavor, even on-screen) the villains goals have NOTHING to with the civil war either. like, i didn’t even remember his actual motives, I had to google them.

The. villain. could. have. been. Anders. Imagine if it was Anders. Like, imagine that journey. You meet him in a dlc as a grey warden who believes in the good in people, somehow and you see him become more bitter and angry over the course of dragon age 2, where you play a full game watching him become the person that blows up a church and starts a civil war. and now he’s the villain of this game. Like, it’s lowkey ridiculous to me that he doesn’t even fucking appear onscreen. Like, you are telling me the guy who blew up a church for his rights just went into hiding instead of becoming the face of the mage rebellion, lmao, okay.

Even if they went with the setting of Inquisition and set the game after the peace talks, I would do it in a way where Anders led the mage rebellion for a while, gained a huge following, but now, as there are peace talks happening, Anders is seen as too extreme, by both the templars and his own people, because now that negotiations are happening they don’t want to be seen with the Guy That Literally Blew Up A Church. And like, the mage rebellion splits in two and is weaker than before and the templars want to use this weakness to continue the war without having to agree to a treaty. Anders then leads the more radical mage-rebellion group that doesn’t cave in at the first mention of peace talks and some of them are in it for the freedom, like Anders himself, and some are in it for revenge. And you are playing as someone who is supposed to deal with them. Like, I want to empathize that this shouldn’t be a game where you are unquestionably the Good Person in the conflict and I really would not want the final fight to be one where Anders goes full Abomination Mode™ as you fight him (and if that was an option that would be one of the worse endings for the game). Like. A game where you have to evaluate if you want the war to go on to support Anders’ side or if you want to end the war, despite the mages only making a fraction of the progress they could have made. Even if Anders wasn’t the villain there could have been a billion good villains. you know who would have been a great villain? Cullen! Cullen could have regretted siding with Hawke, after he lost everything and was thrown out of the templar order and now comes back as some unhinged mage-killer, literally i made that up in 2 seconds. The actual inquisition could have been the villain for all I care!

The plot of dai also fucking sucks and all quests except for Wicked Eyes And Wicked Hearts aren’t really that good and the gameplay sucks too etc. etc. but one thing i especially hate as a choice they made is the companions. yeah, they’re charming and cool, but NONE of them play an interesting role in the ongoing conflict the game keeps ignoring. the game really made a mage who is super pro-circles, a mage from a country where there are no circles and a guy who crawled out of the woods and has no opinion on circles that really matters your three mage companions. like, not a single rebel mage. and cullens writing just sucks, let’s be real, this man is never confronted with ANYTHING he ever did in his life and instead in this game, the writers want you to feel sorry for him due to a plot point they just made up? (also samson and cullen REALLY should have switched places in this game)

even aside from mages and templar characters. sera could have been the same person, but she’s super pro rebellion and actually doesn’t want the war to end until the mages have all the rights they deserve and that is the reason she clashes with the rest of the group so much. the iron bull could have been a mercenary who was hired to fight for the templars, but has second thoughts about it now. blackwall could have still been a deserter but a templar deserter. Varric of all people should be on one side or the other. Either he supports Anders and made up his mind that Anders was right or he completely denouces Anders and does not want his name associated with him at any cost. Instead, Varric writes books in this game and meets some girl no one cared about, while all of his friends are presumably fighting a in pretty drastic conflict.

and even the storyline they chose, the one that mainly focusses on lyrium, had so much potential and they, again, used 0% of it. first of all, you really can’t just end a game on the verge of a world-defining civil war and then start the next game like “actually, remember that one questline in the last game about a small statuette from the deep roads? THIS is what we will make the story about instead”, but even aside from that, red lyrium was absurdly scary in dragon age 2. da2 created so much horror with a tiny red lyrium statuette and dragon age inquisition asks the very relevant question of “what would happen if a generic demon man from a dlc no one bought would put this truly evil substance everywhere? like, everywhere all over the ground.” and the answer the game has to this question is pretty much “nothing, apparently”. like, the game evokes zero emotions with this, there is no real horror to what red lyrium does it’s for all intends an puposes a Stone That Turns People Evil™, and there is a guy who has an evil army of evil red lyrium zombies, which he made out of the armies of the (way more interesting) civil war that is going on. like, i genuinely find that choice offensive. they deadass took a better plot and made the characters into zombie soldiers for some RANDOM GUY, when they could have been having an actually interesting conflict.

i could go on about this forever, i just want to conclude that im super angry about this game

[tarajenkins]

I don't like canon Vauthry as a person - like he's tragic but he still serverly hurt people and cultist malicious messiah's are always on my yeet to the void list because there's no room for reason. (Everything about Forgiven Innocence is gross and I hate Vauthry transformed more than normal Vauthry) Vauthry original design also does body horror- like we have those hints he's not entirely human off the back. His height, the extra face on his breast, the way he seems more swollen than actually fat expecially compared to other heavy models like the Dulia or Gilgamesh. Like he dwarfs even the sineaters that's not normal. That said you make him kinda cute especially in your more human designs for him he looks cuddly. Your story for him is compelling too if there was more time in the game I may have liked him more. Also Vauthry looks less disgusting than innocence any day of the fucking week I hate that transformation so much everyone who simps for it is bad

There could have been more time in the writing of the Eulmore arc, if the writers had been more clever and hadn't used lazy tropes to phone it in. But Yoshida bodyshamed a cosplayer for their weight live onstage at Fanfest 2014, so while I was disappointed, I sure wasn't surprised. Square in general loves shitting on fat characters.

So here we are, with inexplicably overpowered grandpa (who died in a duty), the totally plot twist Lightwarden Of Kholusia, and the "perverted paradise" that actually made the 1% foot the tab for their employees, before being replaced by the much more benevolent capitalism. (◔_◔)

By all means Nonnie, you do you, but you should consider that Vauthry was the original victim of the "cult", as you put it. He had no chance of free will since before he was born. Tempering/Light corruption doesn't work like that, and Tempering/Light corruption has never made an exception for anyone else, including the Warrior Of Light, who had Hydaelyn's Blessing protecting them. Vauthry was bound to the instincts and will of a Lightwarden his entire life. Or, as Emet-Selch, the actual founder of the Eulmore "cult", stated:

"Those in your company will likewise turn to sin eaters, and in time you will succumb to your base instincts and hunt innocents to feast on their sweet, sweet aether."

You think that whole situation was bad for your WoL? A lot of players go on in great length how horrifying it was for theirs. Loads of High Drama and Existential Dread. How do you suppose it was for a child alone, surrounded by people who were only using him for their own ends? 

The Ascians were there to guide their creation to do their bidding the whole way, it seems. It would only make sense, why would Emet-Selch corrupt a baby for such a crucial role, then leave him to do whatever on his own? 

Then you had his father, the Former Mayor, who obviously made up a fanciful story of why his son was born as he was, framing all who oppose him as villains who seek to destroy the peace he brought between man and sin eater. That unfortunately included the Scions and their allies, although even Emet-Selch stated he was surprised Vauthry sent the Eulmoran Army after us. That does imply it wasn’t common for Vauthry to resort to violent behavior in the past, if he resorted to it at all. The Eulmorans themselves definitely weren’t afraid of him ‘til the very end. You already know everything else I have to say on that subject, right? ( ᐛ )b

But yeah. We're talking being indoctrinated into this from birth. For those who dismiss that, I'd love to hear how they expected a child to know what was real and what was not at that point, carefully isolated from any life outside his false destiny. (Seriously. If any of you who subscribe to this mindset are reading this, DM me. Anon is obviously on. I really do want to see where the train of thought is coming from.) For the “well Vauthry was a spoiled rich kid” crowd, I don’t want to hear it--there are a lot of “rich kids” in this game that you love. Alphinaud, Alisaie, Hildibrand, Nanamo, the noble kids of Ishgard, etc. Think harder than that. Vauthry had to be convinced he was doing good for the world. He had all the power in the world to not care. Yet he remained mayor of one settlement, when he could’ve been in control of all of Norvrandt if he had even a fraction of Emet-Selch’s tin pot dictator ambitions. 

He didn’t. He hoped to "vindicate his existence" as the "half sin eater" the Ascians made him, as G’raha later said. But he died in bewildered sorrow because he "kept the people safe!" from the “villains”, never understanding everything he was taught was a cruel lie.

He did terrible things in the time we saw him, but blaming him for Light corruption he never chose and a lifetime of brainwashing feels like blaming Thancred for the fate of the Waking Sands. Would any of it have happened were it not for Emet-Selch’s direct actions? No.

Also, while I appreciate the compliments, Nonnie, why is "cuddly" and other similar terms always and only ever used for fat characters, smh. The fanbase tries to make Dulia everyone's maiden aunt as it is.  

 ༼ﾉ ᐕ ༽ﾉ︵┻━┻

[robininthelabyrinth]

Hopefully I’m not too early but What if Jiang Fengmian went “they only asks for blood heirs” and gave Jiang Cheng up to the Wen Indoctrination Camp because he cannot bear Wei Wuxian going and possibly getting hurt. JC is very hurt by the blatant favouritism of his father but still went as his duty dictates. He somehow become close friends with Huaisang, MianMian, and Jin Zixuan. Please give me Jiang Cheng Protection Squad. MingCheng sort of happens? Thank you so much!

“…wow,” Nie Huaisang said when Jiang Cheng finished explaining. “That’s – that’s bullshit.”

Jiang Cheng flushed. Secretly, in his heart, he agreed a little bit with Nie Huaisang’s assessment, but at the same time he couldn’t just sit around while someone said things about his father…

“Before you say that I can’t say something like that, I’m not being cruel or dismissive, I’m describing the situation accurately using crude words,” Nie Huaisang said, holding up his hands. “It’s not the same.”

That…sounded wrong.

“Back me up here,” Nie Huaisang said to the others in their group. They’d been put into a single group by the Wen sect, all of them but Mianmian who’d snuck over by climbing a tree, and given a too-small, too-crowded tent to sleep in and a single fire pit to warm themselves. How that had let them to sitting by the fire and sharing stories of how they’d been sent here, Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure. “Sect Leader Jiang deciding that because the Wen sect only asked for blood heirs that he wouldn’t sent Wei-xiong here alongside Jiang-xiong because he might get hurt is a situation can be, and indeed must be, accurately described as being total bullshit, right?”

“…it kind of is,” Jin Zixuan said. “Sorry, Jiang Wanyin.”

“It definitely is,” Mianmian said, emboldened by her sect leader’s agreement. “Absolutely bullshit.”

Even Lan Wangji hummed. It was a pretty neutral sound, but it might be an affirmative hum.

Well, if everyone agreed…

Jiang Cheng’s shoulders went down a fraction from where they’d been hovering around his ears. 

“I wasn’t just taking it too personally?” he asked, seeking confirmation. “I mean, Father’s right – it doesn’t make sense to give the Wen sect two hostages when they’ve only asked for one, and there’s always the risk that Wei Wuxian would get hurt –”

“Your father should be concerned about whether you get hurt!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed, slapping the ground. “They don’t feed us, they make us work in the fields, and who knows what else…! When my brother heard about their request, he nearly killed the Wen sect’s messenger, he was so angry!”

“My mother was angry, too,” Jiang Cheng offered. “She and my father got into a big fight –”

Nie Huaisang jabbed a finger at him, rather rudely. “From the story you told, your mother only got really angry when she heard Wei Wuxian was staying behind.”

“…so?”

“There’s a difference between being upset over your son’s well-being and being upset that – that – that, I don’t know! That your favorite dog is losing the race!”

“My mother threw a vase at my father’s head when she heard that he’d agreed to send me here,” Jin Zixuan said quietly. He was actually a lot more tolerable without his retainers puffing him up and egging him on all the time, and having to work side-by-side in the fields had revealed that under the flash and arrogance there was an introverted boy who disliked dealing with people nearly as much as Jiang Cheng did. “Then she spent the next two days trying to find a way out of it, then hovered for the rest of the week before I left.”

“My father punched a wall,” Mianmian recalled. “Mother had to sit on him before he tried something crazy, like petitioning to remove me from the sect or something. Not that’d I’d ever have let Jin-gongzi come here alone, of course.”

“See?” Nie Huaiwang said, gesturing at them all. Lan Wangji hadn’t volunteered, but obviously no one would ask him, either; they’d all heard about the burning of the Cloud Recesses. No one had agreed to send him here. “Violence in response to an unreasonable request! Violence! Anything less is unacceptable!”

“You know, for the very first time, I think see your resemblance to the rest of the Nie sect?” Mianmian said, chin on her hand.

“You’re exaggerating,” Jiang Cheng said. “No, not about the resemblance, about – the other part. It’s not anywhere near as bad as you’re all making it out to be; Wei Wuxian’s always been my father’s favorite, and Mother’s always been angry about it. It’s not a big deal.”

“They should not compare you,” Lan Wangji said. He didn’t talk much, so everyone always listened when he did. “It is inappropriate.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t know what to do with that. He’d never not been compared to Wei Wuxian, not since he’d arrived at the Lotus Pier all those years ago…and maybe even before.

“Even Lan-er-gongzi agrees,” Nie Huaisang said, pulling his knees up and putting his chin on them with a pout. “It’s all bullshit, I’m telling you. I’m taking you back with me to the Nie sect when all this is over. If your parents want you back, they can come ask nicely.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jiang Cheng told him.

“You could come to Lanling if you prefer,” Jin Zixuan said, and Jiang Cheng turned to stare at him. “What? Your mother and mine are friends. It’d be fine. I wouldn’t – it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’m the heir of the Jiang sect,” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “I can’t not go back!”

“Don’t think of it as not going back,” Mianmian said. “Think of it as taking a long detour.”

“You’d like Qinghe,” Nie Huaisang put in. “My brother’s really cool. He gives great hugs.”

“I bet he does,” Mianmian muttered appreciatively.

“Gross, Mianmian.”

“He’s seventh on the list of most attractive male cultivators, and in my personal opinion should be a good few places higher up. Get used to it.”

“I don’t do hugs anyway,” Jiang Cheng interjected before he somehow got sold up the river – he knew how this sort of thing went. “Father doesn’t like them.”

“…your father hugged Wei Ying when he arrived at the Cloud Recesses to collect him,” Lan Wangji said neutrally.

“Fine. He doesn’t like them with me. Never did, not really, the whole time I was growing up…well, I mean, I guess he did sometimes when I was really young, before Wei Wuxian came...”

“Are you seriously saying your father hugs Wei Wuxian and not you?” Jin Zixuan asked. “And that he - he stopped hugging you when Wei Wuxian was there? Because that’s – that’s…”

“Bullshit?” Nie Huaisang suggested.

“Bullshit,” Jin Zixuan agreed with surprising vehemence.

“You’re exaggerating,” Jiang Cheng said.

“No,” Lan Wangji said.

“No, what? No they’re not exaggerating, no they’re not –”

“No. It is bullshit.”

“…did we just get a Lan to curse?” Mianmian asked, eyes wide. “I didn’t even know Lans were allowed to do that. Ever.”

“It is not a curse,” Lan Wangji said with dignity. “It is an accurate description of the situation.”

“Vindication,” Nie Huaisang hissed. How Jiang Cheng had missed that he was such a vicious little snake during their time at the Cloud Recesses, he had no idea, and judging by the amused expressions on everyone else’s faces, they felt much the same. “See, Jiang Cheng, this is why you –”

“Time to sleep,” Lan Wangji interrupted. His internal sense of time was more reliable than any clock when it came to sleeping and waking, and no one complained – if they stayed out much later than nine the Wen sect guards would come to accuse them of making trouble, and no one wanted to be labelled a trouble-maker.

Mianmian disappeared back over to the women’s camp – boring in comparison, according to her, but more likely she just wanted to keep her word about watching over Jin Zixuan – and the rest of them shuffled back to bed.

Some time later that night, when Jiang Cheng was lying in the middle of a pile of arms and legs he could no longer differentiate, he stared at the ceiling and asked quietly, “…is it really that bad?”

An arm looped around his waist tightened, and a foot lightly nudged him from the other direction.

“It’s not that it’s bad,” someone said, and their voice was so faint that he couldn’t tell which of the boys it was. “It’s that you deserve better.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t know what to say to that.

He continued not to know what to say the next day, but that was the day that they got forced to act as bait on a night-hunt into a giant lightless cave and Mianmian nearly got herself killed, followed very shortly by Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji for standing up for her.

Under normal circumstances, Jiang Cheng would think first about his sect and only later about everyone else, and he tried, really, but – well, the Wens were attacking anyway, and somehow it’s Nie Huaisang of all people who hisses, “Get Wen Chao!” and Jiang Cheng had, and for a moment there it looked like they were going to be okay.

And then they all got stuck in a cave with a corrupted Xuanwu.

Minus the Wens, which was at least something.

“There are fresh maple leaves on the water,” Lan Wangji said. “There must be a way in and out.”

“I can dive in and check it out if someone distracts the Xuanwu,” Jiang Cheng offered. When they stared at him, he shrugged. “I’m a good swimmer.”

“You’d better be an amazing swimmer,” Jin Zixuan said. “I don’t want to have to plan your funeral.”

“I don’t think we get funerals here,” Nie Huaisang put in. “So if you die, you’ll stink up the whole place and we’ll all be very upset. I mean, gross!”

Jiang Cheng had by this point gotten used to Nie Huaisang’s – Nie Huaisang-ness, but it couldn’t be denied that everyone was a lot less terrified after listening to Nie Huaisang complain about nonsense for a bit. So much so, in fact, that it abruptly occurred to Jiang Cheng that maybe Nie Huaisang was doing it on purpose which…he wasn’t sure what to do with, so he decided to just put out of his mind.

Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan put their heads together and eventually decided on each of them using a fire talisman as a distraction, alternating between them, while Jiang Cheng crept to the water and found a way out, which he reported back.

“Someone will need to stay behind as a distraction,” Lan Wangji said solemnly. His hands were clasped together, and Jiang Cheng knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“No way,” he said. “You’re not staying behind. If anything, I should; I’m the best swimmer, I might be able to get around it even if it’s not distracted.”

“You know where the exit is; it is better if you lead those going out.”

“A description will do the trick just as well,” Jiang Cheng argued. “And anyway, it’s not – it’s not as if I’ll be missed at home, the way all of you would be.”

They all glared at him, then, and he shrugged angrily.

“It’s true,” he said, and he could say it only because Wei Wuxian wasn’t there to stop him. He wouldn’t even think it, if Wei Wuxian was there; Wei Wuxian always knew when it was coming and interrupted him with a smile or a joke or something, and so the bitterness never got a chance to be let out. But he wasn’t here now, they were, and everyone else seemed to think it was all bullshit and maybe it was, okay, maybe it was. But it didn’t make it any less true. “My father has always said that Wei Wuxian understood the sect motto better than I did. He wouldn’t be upset at all if the sect went to him instead, and if I was dead or injured he’d probably just give him the Jiang surname in my honor or something. Let me be the one to stay.”

“Uh, question,” Nie Huaisang said. “Why does anyone have to stay? Can’t we just set up a trap or something?”

“A trap?” Jin Zixuan said. “What do you mean?”

Nie Huaisang shrugged and looked at Lan Wangji. “Do you know Chord Assassination?”

Lan Wangji blinked, surprised, but nodded.

“Okay, so, here’s the idea…”

It was an extremely stupid idea, based on using the chords as part of a pulley, some Wen sect soldiers and swords used as counterbalance weights, but as a distraction it worked pretty beautifully right up until the last moment when Jiang Cheng was helping Lan Wangji – whose leg was broken – swim through the water and the Xuanwu abruptly noticed that they were all going to leave and dashed after them, getting its head stuck in the exit hole they were using.

“Should we behead it or something?” Jin Zixuan asked, staring at the thrashing beast. “It can’t be allowed to hurt others.”

“Using what?” Mianmian asked, holding up a Wen sword in disdain. “These pieces of – well. These swords? It wouldn’t work.”

“I can still do Chord Assassination,” Lan Wangji said, and with all of them heaving together they were able to hold the string down tight enough to eventually cut the thing’s head off at the neck.

Nie Huaisang even used the opportunity to go pick out some sort of sword that was sticking out of the creature’s side, which he’d declared to be extremely ‘aesthetic’ if you looked at it from a certain perspective.

By that point, they were all exhausted, but no one wanted to stay a second longer in Qishan than they had to – especially since one of the small sect cultivators who’d wandered further away had seen Wens incoming – so Jiang Cheng put Lan Wangji, now totally exhausted, on his back and they all ran away.

“Come visit me in Qinghe sometime!” Nie Huaisang shouted, waving as the Nie sect disciples split off in a different direction. “I promised you some high-quality proper affection hugs from my da-ge, Jiang Cheng! Just you wait, you’ll see how good they are!”

(They are every bit as good as promised.)

[orderoftheavengers]

Scarlet Legilimens

House: Ravenclaw

Species: Human/phoenix hybrid (formerly human)

Blood Status: Pureblood

(Pointless) Wand: Cherry, 13 inches, phoenix feather  

(Pointless) Broom: Firebolt Supreme

Patronus: Red-billed firefinch

Specialty: Legilimency, Occlumency, Flying, Dark Arts, Wandless Magic

Sorting

Wanda Maximoff is a living example of how the traits of Ravenclaw House may be applied to the most heinous villainy, and the most self-sacrificing heroism. As a villain, she is crafty and manipulative; as a hero, clever and intuitive. Her fighting style, for good or evil, is always more sneaky and innovative than “bold.” Ironically, her mind is also her weakest point as well as her strongest, as poor Wanda continuously ends up as the manipulated as often as the manipulator. A born Legilimens, her abilities, strengths and flaws are all mind related.

Note the “cleverness” and “ready mind” mentioned by the Sorting Hat needn’t always come in the form of a bookish nerd, as Luna Lovegood, Sybil Trelawney, Profeesor Quirrel and Professor Lockheart are all Ravenclaw. Wanda may not spend her free time studying or watching the Discovery Channel, but she does spend much of it experimenting with her powers, and letting her imagination loose. When faced with unbearable loss, she wasn’t immediately able to face her grief head-on, like a Gryffindor; nor, as a corrupt Ministry leader lied, did she try to resurrect her lost lover; instead, she escaped into her own mind, imagining up an (almost) complete fictitious life for herself and Vision, in a matter of seconds, without even realizing she was doing it.

Wanda is capable of impressive courage, ambition and loyalty, to be sure; but all of those things have wavered, when her reality was turned upside-down. She shed years of indoctrination after reading Ultron’s mind and seeing the grim truth. (And yes, she can read a machine’s mind! That’s a Ravenclaw right there.)

Durmstrang Experiments

Wanda and her twin brother Pietro were born to wizarding parents, in the tiny European nation of Sokovia. Wanda was a born Legilimens, like Queenie Goldstein, able to peek into others’ minds without having to perform any spells. A poor family, their father made ends meet by enchanting posters and lobby cards of old Muggle sitcoms to play out entire episodes, which he then sold to Muggle-enthusiasts in the wizarding world. Their home was decimated by a spell invented by Tony Stark, who never intended for it to end up in the claws of banshee terrorists. The twins ended up in a crap Muggle orphanage, which only intensified their prejudices. By the time they entered Durmstrang, a school infamous for professors that supported Dark Magic and even Voldemort, they were ripe for indoctrination and radicalization.

Due to Wanda’s being a Legilimens, the twins were selected for a dangerous experiment by their headmaster Professor Beowulf Von Stucker. Using the Mind Stone, the twins were to be fused with their wands. Wanda’s first name suddenly became very appropriate, a la Remus Lupin. Wanda merged with her phoenix-feathered wand, transforming the born Legilimens into a powerful human/phoenix hybrid. Her telepathic powers were enhanced, and she gained many powers of a phoenix, including flight, inhuman strength for her levitation spells, and being nearly indestructible. Being part wand also made her able to do wandless magic with no effort. Pietro, meanwhile, was merged with his Veela-hair wand, making him a human/Veela hybrid, and gifting him with a Veela’s dancing speed and silvery hair.

(A very special thanks to AlasterBoneman for the idea about Wanda's wand being integrated into her body.) Order of the Avengers Wanda and Pietro are finishing up their first year when they cross paths with the Order of the Avengers, and they don't exactly make a good first impression. Their vitriol against the Avengers and Tony Stark makes very little sense, especially given that Wanda is a telepath, and should easily see they aren't the villains (not to mention how much she has in common with Natasha, whose life story Wanda personally digs up). But, the twins are still only about eleven, and kids that age can be pretty stupid. The Avengers trace Loki's confiscated broom-scepter to Durmstrang, where the dark wizards from the Order of Hydra are keeping it. Wanda, having recently studied with a Boggart, uses her Legillimency to make the Avengers relive their traumas. Tony's fear shows Wanda that he clearly wants to protect the world, and yet she makes the very un-Ravenclaw decision to keep pursuing "revenge." Her plan inadvertently leads to Tony and Bruce accidentally creating a dangerous and ear-bleedingly-irritating gargoyle named Ultron, who the twins personally work with. Wanda even shocks Bruce into green-wolf form, and sends him on a rampage through one of the dormitories at Durmstrang (but it's not her or Pietro's House, so she could care less). Finally, after much too long, she puts her mental powers to some use, and reads Ultron's mind. That's when she puts two and two together. By then, Ultron has unleashed an army of Cornish Pixies to levitate Durmstrang Castle miles into the air, planning to drop it in an explosion of magic that will alert the Muggles to the existence of wizards. Huddled in a swaying castle tower, she confesses her guilt to Hufflepuff Clint Barton. Clint invites her to redeem herself by joining the Avengers. Durmstrang is saved, but sadly, Pietro takes a killing curse for Clint and another first year. wrought with grief and guilt, wanda begins her second year of schooling at Hogwarts, where--after an unusually long time on the stool--she is sorted into Ravenclaw. Her lonely mood is raised slightly when she finds the attractive new Golem, Vision, hovering to the Ravenclaw table alongside her.

The Scarlet Witch Hunt

Perhaps living on her own for a while is what finally helps Wanda regain the confidence to think for herself. When Vision suggests that they both drop out of their respective schools and just run off together, she urges him against the idea. When Vision senses a disturbance in his Mind Stone, she inspects it for him, but reports, “I just feel you.”

They are interrupted by a rude crowd of Trolls under their window, calling for Wanda’s blood. She’s fine to ignore them, but Vision—ever the logical Ravenclaw—is compelled intellectually argue with the Trolls in his lady's honor.

“Wanda is a redemption-seeking-antihero like Tony, who she has not expressed any hatred for since the Ultron fiasco—not even during the whole ‘Civil War’ calamity! In fact, of everyone on Team Cap, she was the least awful to Tony! The only verbal exchange between them during the whole drunk Quidditch match was a brief pout about being 'locked in her room,' which she had no problem with until Hawkeye came and pressured her. She was literally the only person in the Squid prison not insulting him! And just a few minutes ago, when I wanted her to run away with me, she was telling me to keep my loyalties to Stark, and when the news reported him missing she was visibly scared for him! Seriously, where are you Trolls even getting that she still hates Tony?”

One Troll with particularly long horns shouts back, “Well what about that cleavage and slutty red leather? Tony Stark was never a slu—er, wait…”

Vision is now standing in the window frame, unbuttoning his fly.

“Vision?” Wanda asks nervously. “What are you doing?”

A glittering, purple stream poursd out from her boyfriend’s “better wand,” threatening to deface the crowd below.

“Vision no!” she cries, quickly containing the violet river in an energy ball.

Steady hand…    she carefully lifts the ball of glistening liquid higher and higher into the air. …Not gonna screw this one up—

“I say Wanda, is that a giant flying donut?” Vision asks curiously.

Wanda glances up, and there is indeed a gargantuan space donut in the night sky, coming right for them. The strange sight distracts her, causing her hand to slip—just as she’s levitating Visions liquids right over said donut.

This enchanted pastry is in fact the vessel of some of Thanos’s most vicious minions. And Wanda has just drenched them in Vision’s you-know-what.

While Wanda gasps behind her hand, Vision suggests, “Let’s go for a walk.”

On their way down the quiet lamp-lit streets, they are soon stopped by a group of Thanos’s putrid goblin children, currently slightly more putrid than usual.

A blue female goblin roars, “Now you’ve really succeeded in pissing us off!”

Before she can stop herself, Wanda blurts out, “Pissed off? Smells more to me like you ‘been pissed on!”

Somewhere, a boxing bell dings, and a badass wizard’s duel begins.

Just when Wanda and Vision are cornered, a train passes by, causing all parties to freeze dramatically for no apparent reason. Wanda tries to make her body move, to take this opportunity to blast her opponents, but some force has her glued in place, as low music hisses theatrically throughout the night. The train passes, to reveal a shadowy figure, posing heroically. Instead of shooting the figure with a hex, one of the goblins simply throws a spear, which the figure catches expertly. Wanda and Vision both know that there is only one person on the planet would could make an entrance with this much ham and cheese.

Steve Rogers dramatically stepped into the light, revealing his fluffy new beard, and the duel gets a bit more epic.

Oh Snap

In the wizarding nation of Wakanda, Black Panther’s brilliant sister Shuri does her damndest to save her fellow Ravenclaw, and safely remove the Infinity Stone from Vision’s forehead. Sadly, Thanos’s forces overwhelm her, and Wanda is forced to kill her lover--the last family she has left. Many would assume only a Gryffindor would have the resolve to do this, but a Ravenclaw’s wisdom and pragmatism can go a long way.

Ever the sadist, that purple f*ck Thanos uses the Time Stone to resurrect Vision and kill him again, in front of Wanda, and even has the gault "comfort" her in a patronizing manner.

And yet, she’s not so distraught when Thanos’s Dusting curse comes for her. It could be that she’s so despaired by now that she welcomes death. Or maybe the half-phoenix simply doesn’t react to dissolving into ash the same way other beings might…

…in any case, she is resurrected over the summer by Bruce Banner. Vision, sadly, isn’t. In her grief, Wanda accidently traps herself and the entire school of Hogwarts inside the Mirror of Erised, but that's another story entirely. 

Wand, Broom and Patronus

Cherry wood is associated with some of the most powerful and lethal wands.  Phoenix feather wands are considered to have the widest range of magic, and are among the post powerful, yet also the most difficult to tame. 

The red-billed firefinch is one of the few bird species where the females sport some red coloring. These birds are tiny and quiet, but very active. They are flexible about where they live and with whom; they can mix with other bird species, and can live in the wild or captivity, provided they always have plenty of space. Their nests are different from other birds', having a dome shape and being low in bushes. Not unlike the hidden fortress Wanda creates, to hide her family. These crafty birds also build mock-nests to fool predators.  

AN: This has undergone some changes in both the story and image, since the release of "WandaVision." If anyone is for any reason attached to Wanda's old broom, the previous version is saved in my Stash. I plan to reuse that fire design somewhere else, possibly for Harry's Firebolt in my more serious Potter art.

[curlymantis]

aaaa pls tell me stuff abt your ocs they're all so cool!! 🥺💚

Omg I finally finished answering this!!!!! 👀👀

Farcry 5: Zoë Seed!!

Omg that’s me 😏 she was an entomologist checking out the cool insects of Hope county and unfortunately for her she doesn’t believe in private property when it comes to discovering nature. One day chosen find her trespassing on John seeds property. They think she’s a spy for the resistance as she has a camera, binoculars etc. They take her to the main church (conveniently was a Sunday) once service is over shes handed over to the father and himself and John go through her camera. They only find insect pictures and omg wow she’s not a spy. She’s indoctrinated into the cult and ends up eventually becoming John’s right hand of god 😌🙏 sinners who happen to be an extra annoyance go to her where she makes them confess in whatever way possible. Or they die in the process, whoops 💅🏻 She’s polyamorous with all of the seed siblings including Faith cos like come on now let’s be real they all crave and need loving. However she’s married to John Seed because that baby boy is everything 😤❤️ She also likes to do cult posters and help write songs and sing them cos it’s fun as hell. She is closest with John and Faith Seed specifically out of the 4 Seeds. Other cultists are scared of her, or is it respect? Hmm who knows 😌 She also tortures sinners for fun and chases them around the forest making them as shit scared as possible. Oops 😏

The Magnus Archives: is my oc who is an Avatar of the eye and Rayn Porter is my oc who a avatar of the corruption. They both have the same last name as they are both the same person just if they had gone down different entity routes in their life. I’ll talk about Rose first! (I also have an avatar of the flesh and the vast but I haven’t worked on them yet or got them ‘fully fleshed out’ 😏

Rose Porter: avatar of the Eye, marked by the stranger, the spiral and the vast.

From an early age Rose always felt the need to watch people, to know, to understand. As she got older these feelings only became stronger and she begins to stalk people, not because she finds that person special for any particular reason they just happened to look to long at her and she saw them doing so. That just sets something off In her so now they must be followed, acknowledged, understood and scrutinised (me self projecting right into my ocs 😌). She found the Magnus institute one day as she started stalking Rosie. when she had seen the woman walking into a large glorious building she knew something was off, like the itching feeling you get, the feeling in your gut, the sensation of something important. She did not know what had over come her to walk in the building so quickly as that would ruin her chances of learning further about this person who dared make her feel so uncomfortable. But there she was. She was hired immediately of course as a librarian, then moving on the be an archival assistant, shocking to her. But obviously not to Elias Bouchard who knew just how useful her alignment to his almighty beholder. To say she had a crush on him would be an understatement. She can’t explain it. Some would call infatuation, some would call it chemistry, but smart ones say it’s because they are both devotees to the eye and she is in so much deeper than she has ever anticipated or even realises 👀

Rayn Porter: avatar of the corruption, marked by the flesh, the lonely and the stranger.

Rayn despises people (same queen 🙄) they put animals on a higher level of respect than humans. The corruption took ahold of them as a young child, they would always follow and play with cockroaches as a child. However their mother was to say the least an unempathetic, transphobic and cruel woman to say the least. Rayn was raised in a household full of scrutiny, hate and fear. Because of this had very little friends as the only social interaction they knew was their bitch ass mother they turned to the ‘pests’ of their home. Whether these were the slugs and snails in the basement of their home, or they were the cockroaches, house centipedes and rats that dwelled in their attic. They loved and appreciated them all, but their was still something deeper to it. A deep rot had started to form in Rayn and they hated their mother and family. They hated them for how they had cast them aside for not being female, they hated them for all the mistreatment they had faced as a child. The rot started small, a odd old smell that started to lurk around Rayn. Eventually others would notice the smell but would shrug it off as the smell would soon be covered by the smell of Rayns chain smoking. Then one day Rayn was staring in mirror poking at their face and squeezing. They found a sore on her face and squeezed it, pus comes out but something moves underneath. They squeeze harder and something wriggles forth, it’s a very small, juvenile cockroach, streaked slightly in something slimey. As you can imagine that fucked them up a bit, but they learnt to embrace it. Learnt to love that crawling away just underneath their skin are thousands of little legs connected to cockroach’s of many sizes. Sometimes if not managed roaches will find themselves sneaking out of nostrils, mouth and ears. Sometimes even out from behind her eyes. One way they feed the corruption is they set forth the filth at a selected location. All it takes is for them to place a cockroach down in a building and within a week there will be a infestation so strong causing the people in said building to be taken down with it. The Cockroaches will feed on those that they can over power and The Corruption always needs feeding... (Also just want to add cockroaches themselves aren’t actually dirty, they’re actually obsessive cleaners. the locations they live in are dirty)

Telltale Batman- Roz Traegers:

first encounter with John Doe (the eventually to be known Joker) was at the bar he frequented. They had never once seen him drink a drop of alcohol. He would order beer constantly for his alcoholic sure but never consume it himself. Aside from his alabaster white skin nothing about him seemed out of the ordinary to them. Well except the fact he liked to stare, a lot. You would constantly worry it’s because he was just judging you based on your appearance (a lot of people do) however John just likes to stare at people and found you interesting for some reason (cliches I know, but me and John Doe are basically the same person and I like to think he’d think I’m interesting). Roz has a great dislike towards the people John works with, they don’t appreciate how badly they treat him. Especially Harley. John is so obsessed with Harley and she treats him like absolute shit. Roz had a plan to get Harley arrested, however John found out and threatened to never speak to Roz again. Roz has a soft spot for Mr Freeze specifically from the gang also.

Vampyr: Rose Pine

works as an assistant to Camellia at the florist. Rose isn’t a very chatty person and has had quite a traumatic up bringing. Her mother, sister and father are all unfortunately deceased. Her father killed her mother, then sister, then Rose, then turned the knife on himself. Rose survived her injuries (hence the scar on her throat) and was put out into the adoption system. Roses father believed he had been doing his family a service by taking their lives before they could be claimed by Ekons. Roses father had been a vampire believer long before they had even breeched the city. Rose always waves hello to Jonathan Reid when she sees him galavanting around. He always waves back and occasionally they will exchange a conversation. One evening they exchange more than just brief chit chat when Jonathan is required to save her from a group of feral Skals. Rose is very badly injured from her encounter and Jonathan ends up having to change the sweet little florist he sees most evenings into a Ekon. Rose is also good friends with Charlotte Ashbury and Charlottes mother Elisabeth. I haven’t played Vampyr in a wee while, I want to get back into it soon so plan on adding more to her story.

Outlast: Rosie Porter

Rosie worked as a live in psychiatrist for those at mount massive asylum. She lives on the premises that way patient can be attended to at any time. Her experiences throughout life gives her empathy for those that are locked up, that the other guards and majority of other staff just don’t have. Rosie has always been able to empathise with those who would be considered ‘evil’ whether she empathised out of her own sick fascination or because of her heart hurting too much is another question. Rosies favourite patients are Eddie Gluskin and Chris Walker. She was hired after Jeremy Blaire forcibly admitted Chris Walker. Rosie is enamoured with Eddie and he knows it. Knows he has his little psychologist wrapped around his finger. However Eddie would be a hypocrite if he said he also wasn’t wrapped around her finger. Rosie is forcibly committed to the asylum by Jeremy Blaire they start Project Walrider on the patients. Rosie was against it and threatened to blow the whistle on the whole thing (dumb idea) and Jeremy uses her as the first female Walrider test subject. Rosie has engaged in an affair with her boss Jeremy Blaire when she first started working there. Due to their past ‘hands on’ relationship, Rosie is allowed more time with her patients and allowed to be alone with her patients. This has allowed for her to further her work with her patients, as they’re quite open when the know they aren’t being openly judged by the security staff.

Hannibal: Jessi Trees

is a forensic entomologist who works alongside Beverly, Jimmy and Brian analysing dead people n shit. Jessi first met Will Graham on the scene of a crime when they had both been called out. It was the mushroom killer from memory as the soil was packed with invertebrates filled with evidence. Will has just finished doing his whole ‘this is my design’ when Jessi walks up to him and stands quietly beside him, where they say: “These fuckers are filled with worms and I don’t know shit about worms” Will Graham turns and looks at them like what the fuck? Those are dead people. Jessi merely shrugs, smirks and walks off. Jessi can be described by a lot of people as ‘a cold person’ or ‘indifferent’ but passionate. They dehumanise the corpses they’re working with at that’s the only way they can get justice for them. If they get too caught up in all the sadness of it, they can’t move forward from it. Jessi has a crush on Will Graham and Beverly Katz. Jessi questions Will and Hannibals relationship quietly from the background but never really comments.

Bonus character!! Stardew Valley: Zoë

This bad ass came all the way from Zuzu city in need of a better and different life. They inherit their grandfathers old farm and get it up and running. The town is filled with wonderful, amazing people. But of course Zoë has to want to become close friends with the person who hates me everyone: Shane (they’re kindred spirits, Shane isn’t aware of this however because he seems to think he’s the only person who can suffer from substance abuse and sever depression haha.) Shane hates them of course until they keep harassing him and he reasilizes she’s a lot more screwed up than he was aware. Zoë is close friends with Shane (ends up marrying him one day), Linus (I would fucking die for him and anyone who’s cruel to him gets my foot in the butthole), Leah (they hang out frequently and like to paint in the forest together), Emily (I have a massive crush on Emily haha, she’s so similar to me it’s great), is also friends with Sam’s dad and Jodis husband Kent (Kent suffers from PTSD and I’ve developed a lot of my own techniques to help with my own PTSD so we help each other out. Also Jodi I’m stealing your husband, just kidding, unless). Zoë’s favourite animals on her farm are her blue chickens (raised by Shane) and her horse Aaron. Zoë’s favourite yearly event is the moonlight jellies festival!

[theleakypen]

first lines: fic-writers meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors!

I was tagged by @la-muerta! I've mostly been archiving my kissing fics on AO3 lately, so that's what these will be, probably. I'm going to skip the ones where the first line was given to me by another person, since those are not illustrative. I am also skipping my filks. XD

1. Terms of Care - in answer to the prompt: "wei wuxian & wen ning + forehead kisses"

“Ah, Wen Ning, come join me!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, waving Wen Ning over to his spot in the bunny clearing.

2. Not To Be Alone - in answer to the prompt: "jiang cheng/song lan - hating separation"

“I was in shock still, and I said such awful things… So I’m looking for him now, to apologise. To say: traveling with you is better than traveling without you.”

3. This One's Spicy - in answer to the prompt: "lan jingyi/lan sizhui - yi city"

Lan Jingyi was still making elaborate disgusted faces, scraping his teeth over his tongue and the like.

4. fell through the cracks, but we're okay - in answer to the prompt: "oyzz/a-qing, au where they meet when they're both alive"

“Excuse me, are there any powerful people around here? Powerful people who cultivate?”

5. All This Burning Sexual Tension - in answer to the prompt: "wei wuxian/wen qing + laughter"

“Qing jiějiě!” Wei Wuxian shouts, bursting into the mess. “Jiang Cheng has brought it to my attention that we need to work out the unbearable sexual tension between us.”

6. In the Officers' Baths - in answer to the prompt: "mu nihuang/xia dong - something fun and not sad"

“Jùnzhǔ!”

7. in this great golden tower - in answer to the prompt: "qin su/wen qing, koi tower"

Qin Su has never asked xiǎo-Qing about her past.

8. sharp words, soft hands - in answer to the prompt: "chengxuan after like a big battle or something and one of them is hurt and the other one is worried and expressing it through getting snappy?"

Jin Zixuan opens his mouth to speak when Jiang Wanyin strides into his tent, but before he can say anything, the Jiang sect leader snaps, “Don’t bother. I saw exactly how it happened. You’d think someone raised in the great Lanling Jin sect would have learned a modicum of tactics.”

9. corpse kiss - in answer to the prompt: "how about wn/jzx with the prompt “qiongqi path”" (content warning: this one is noncon)

There was no longer a flute playing, but Wen Ning was still rushing toward Jin Zixuan like a hurricane in human form.

10. Closed Fist, Warm Mouth - in answer to the prompt: "xianxuan, in the middle of an argument"

It was lucky that Jin Zixuan had stomped away from his entourage as well as from the Jiang contingent, because it meant that there was no one to stop Wei Wuxian from throwing a punch this time.

11. Growing Things - in answer to the prompt: "lan sizhui & ouyang zizhen (my underappreciated boi!), growing things"

The Baling gardens were one of Lan Sizhui’s favorite places.

12. what's left when revenge is over - in answer to the prompt: "Sisi/Nie Huaisang post Guanyin temple"

“It’s done, then,” Sisi says, standing behind Nie Huaisang and beginning to take his hair down.

13. a good bruise - in answer to the prompt: "chengqing, jiang-furen wen qing. after training disciples"

They have been married for just over a year, but it still somehow seems scandalous to Wen Qing that she gets to be here, in Sect Master Jiang’s own personal quarters, as he gets ready for his post-training bath; that she gets to pull at the ties on his outer robes, skim her fingers along his collarbones to feel him shiver, help him shrug off each successive layer of clothes until all that’s left between her and his sweat-slick skin are her own clothes.

14. why the hell not - in answer to the prompt: "wwx/nhs, burial mounds. why the hell not"

“Nie xiong, what the hell are you doing here?”

15. Rivers and Lakes, Towns and Cities - a prequel of my Songxiao Middle Earth AU, where the Elf Xiao Xingchen meets the Human Song Lan after leaving Baoshan Sanren's mountain (which is, like, an Asian equivalent of Rivendell)

Baoshan Sanren always said that the world west of the Mountain was full of corruption and iniquity, that the Western Elves were liars to a one, and that the gods they called the Valar were betrayers.

16. A Hundred Beautiful Things - The Untamed (TV) fandom, Jiang Yanli/Nie Huaisang political marriage set after the Qishan indoctrination arc.

It was an adjustment, to be sure.

17. Taste You In My Core - 魔道祖师/Mo Dao Zu Shi novel fandom, Nie Huaisang/Xiao Xingchen monster4monster porn with Eldritch Xiao Xingchen and Beast Nie Huaisang.

“Are you all right, gōngzǐ?" the young man asks, and Nie Huaisang does his best not to laugh.

18. A Fruitful Correspondence - The Untamed (TV) fandom, Lan Wangji is forcibly befriended by Jiang Yanli (and by extension Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng) during the time that Wei Wuxian and the Wens are holed up in the Burial Mounds.

Lan Wangji’s plan upon attending the wedding between Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli is to put in the bare minimum of appearances and then go home at the earliest opportunity.

19. Bored - Leverage (!!) fandom, in Season 2, Episode 1, Parker mentioned stealing the Hope Diamond and then putting it back. This is the story of that heist.

Planning the heist still carries the same thrill as it always does: scoping out guard rotations, evaluating the schematics for their new security system (laughable, even with the increased bandwidth to support a greater number of security cameras), visiting the museum as a paying guest… Parker loves this part, and it’s good to stretch her muscles in this way, relying on no one but herself.

20. Best Friends for Best Friends - The Untamed/MDZS fandom (could go with either canon) fic for Jin Ling's birthday featuring the Juniors quartet and a whole litter of puppies - this is an archived threadfic that was cleaned up and then thrown on AO3.

Jin Ling totally forgot about the "no pets at Cloud Recesses" rule, okay?

--

I've noticed that I tend to like to start with some kind of dialogue most frequently; otherwise, something to establish the POV character's interiority. The big exception is the Middle Earth fic where I was emulating Tolkien's narrator, somewhat.

I think of these twenty, my favorite opening line is probably either 7 or 16. They're so sparse, but still set up a lot.

Tagging @hunxi-guilai, @iamwestiec, @bladedweaponsandswishycoats, @shadaras, @withbroombefore, @vyther15, @vivisextion if y'all wanna play! If not, no worries ofc :3

[mythgirlimagines]

Seeing as how certain Anons loved the Condemnation of the Guilty talentswaps, I thought I’d try again! Let’s give a warm welcome to Myth, the Former Ultimate Barista!

——————————————————-

BACKSTORY AND TALENT 

For all of her life, Myth has been living in a coffee shop that doubles as her home, along with her parents and two older sisters. The coffee shop (known as Latte Love) happened to start out as a collaboration between the Ultimate Pastry Chef (Myth’s father) and the Ultimate Mixologist (Myth’s mother). Coincidently, Myth’s two older sisters happened to be Ultimates before her, thanks to the fame of Latte Love, with her older sister being the current Ultimate Pastry Chef and her other older sister being the Ultimate Tea Master. Latte Love is famous for its wide selections of both drinks and pastries to enjoy with your beverage of choice, but it was catapulted into pure stardom thanks to a particular skill that Myth has, apart from her general hospitality and drink-mixing skills: latte art. Because of Myth’s adorable and expertly-crafted latte art, the popularity of Latte Love exploded, particularly on social media. Myth is also known for her romantic advice to her customers, despite not being in a relationship herself, which led to a lot of her customers finding love.

——————————————————-

RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Drummer

Wyre is the well-known drummer of the emo-grunge-rock band “FOZZIL HUNT”, and is famous for their wild drum solos and their equally wild personality. Wyre and Myth have been the best of friends, ever since they were little, and not even their busy schedules can keep them apart. When Wyre isn’t booked with tours and concerts, they always come to Latte Love and orders their usual, knowing that Myth would prepare their order with that signature sweet smile of hers. Wyre has a bit of a complex and love-hate relationship with a certain confrontational rebellion leader, and Myth always tries to pair them up, much to their protests.

Outfit: A red bandana on her head, elaborate makeup, a black tank top with her band’s logo on the front that shows off her tattooed arms, blue Jean shorts with brown holsters to hold her drumsticks in, black boots.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Drill Sargent 

With a loud voice and a strict and heavily-concerned demeanor, Scar‘s personality makes her the perfect person to lead soldiers in their crusade for their country. Commonly regarded as a mother to her soldiers in tales of the battlefield, Scar yearns to hang up her uniform and go back to the good ol’ days of childhood leisure. Scar has a strict schedule, and always arrives at Latte Love by the time Myth turns the open sign. Scar seems to be enamored by the skittish and fanatic priest, and just seeing him makes her maternal instincts flair up. Despite finding Scar eccentric, Myth finds her stories fascinating, and tries to pair the sergeant and the priest.

Outfit: A tattered bandana version of her face mask, black sunglasses, a black tanktop with a camo jacket slung on her shoulders, dark green pants, boots from original design.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Fashion Designer

Having gotten his start working at his mother’s boutique, Fusion draws the design of the garments, while his mother makes the actual garments. Fusion originally went to Latte Love purely to both gorge himself on pastries and caffeine, and sketch the outfits of the customers that frequent Latte Love. But now, he has a new goal in mind: helping Myth with pairing up the customers. Myth considers Fusion one of her most frequent customers, and finds it amazing that this svelte and proper gentleman can eat his weight in food. Fusion and Myth have a mutual respect for each other, and consider each other “partners in matchmaking“.

Outfit: A blue and yellow striped vest over a red dress shirt and a yellow bow tie, white gloves that hide his work injuries, a tape measure tied around his neck and arms, pants, glasses and shoes from his original design, always holds a sketchbook.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Gunslinger

Growing up as a fan of old westerns and historical fiction, Fusion II is a master when it comes to gunmanship and is especially skilled when it comes to the quick draw. Every good cowgirl needs a saloon, and Fusion II quickly established Latte Love as her saloon. But as much as Fusion II tries to play up the ”cool and stoic cowgirl” stint, it’s kind of hard to do that when she’s a bi disaster attracted to the oddly-energetic and childish bed tester. Myth can sympathize with Fusion II’s bi hangups and, as much as Fusion II tries to deny it, the sarcastic gun master really appreciates the kindly barkeep’s company. 

Outfit: A silver cowboy hat, jacket from original design with a gold sheriff star pinned to the front, over a red flannel shirt and a blue bandana around her neck, blue jeans with a brown holster that houses her guns, steel-toed cowboy boots.

Just Anon, Ultimate Card Shark

Janon is a feared name in underground gambling tournaments, and for a good reason. With his unreadable face and his skill in the art of cheating and deception, Janon truly earned the epithet of “The Night Terror”. Gambling and lying seems to be the only two things that Janon really puts effort into doing, for he puts the upmost minimal effort into anything else. Janon regularly crashes at Latte Love and occupies one of the tables to take a snooze. Despite Janon claiming that he does it for snorts and giggles, Myth quickly found out the real reason: to check out the adorable delivery person that frequents the coffee shop.

Outfit: A white and pink fedora, mask from original design, a brown jacket with suit-themed pins, over a pink and black tie with a bunny pin, a black belt with a bunny buckle, brown pants, brown shoes.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Pinball Wizard

Known for her loud and eccentric fashion sense and her equally eccentric personality, Sparkle dominated pinball machine after pinball machine in every local, and even extralocal, arcade. Needless to say, Myth’s day instantly became weirder the very second Sparkle entered Latte Love and loudly announced her presence to everybody. But ever since Sparkle found out that her favorite mangaka frequents the cafe alongside their twin, Sparkle has frequented the cafe much more. Sparkle’s little celebrity crush on the mangaka didn’t go unnoticed by Myth, and she helps the loud wizard with vocalizing her feelings.

Outfit: A wizard hat and cloak that is colored with obnoxious 90’s-esque patterns, glasses and boots from original design.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Mangaka, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Thanatologist

With their shared penchant of the horrific and cursed, this fearsome duo go about their interests in completely different ways. While Wet Sock takes a more cold and scientific approach to their interest in the macabre, Egg takes their macabre mindset and uses it to create popular horror manga. While they are thought of as a bane to the wholesome atmosphere of Latte Love, two people actually look forward to the twin’s presence: Sparkle and Myth. Despite Wet Sock’s severe denial of their feelings, Wet Sock still continues to stick around Myth’s desk, and Myth eventually found out the reason why: Wet Sock is head-over-heels for her. 

Outfit: Both of them wear entirely black gakurans and glasses, but Egg has a pocket protector and ink-stained hands, and Wet Sock has a skull pin and dirt-stained hands.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Deliveryperson

From a young age, Curious has been working for a variety of companies as a door-to-door delivery person and is renowned for their punctuality and sweet smile. Curious is currently working under Latte Love, as its reliable coffee and pastry delivery person. Myth views Curious as a bit of a mystery. For example, she always gives Curious coffee to perk them up on night deliveries, but she never sees Curious actually drink the coffee. That, and she’s heavily concerned about the fact that a middle schooler is working full-time as a delivery person, and doesn’t seem to show any signs of being tired.

Outfit: An entirely green outfit consisting of a cap, polo shirt, pants and tennis shoes, with their hair in a small ponytail.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Revolutionary

Born in a corrupt and dirt-poor city, Nerd grew up yearning for the government to be overthrown by someone actually worthy of leading, such as himself for instance. After gathering up a cavalcade of followers with his cynical, yet rousing, speeches, Nerd organized a revolution and managed to overthrow the government of the town, and lead the citizens to a healthier and more productive life. Nerd pities Myth and sees her as “a slave to the grain”, whatever that means. And with a loud and violent man, Myth paired him up with an equally loud and violent lady. Nerd is currently trying to seduce Wyre with loud protest songs.

Outfit: Same outfit from his original design but with a ragged green cape, a red armband, and a red megaphone clipped to his belt.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Priest

As a person born under the creators of a creepy cult from the middle of nowhere, Eldritch has been forced to conduct the religious proceedings of the cult, ever since he became a teenager. Needless to say, Eldritch hasn’t exactly been raised correctly, for he doesn’t seem to trust anyone who isn’t in his cult, and yearns to indoctrinate others into his religion. Unfortunately for the paranoid priest, he has fallen in love with someone outside of his fate, a maternal drill sargaent, and he is currently awaiting his divine punishment from his deity. And that blasted barkeep isn’t helping matters either. 

Outfit: A black hooded cassock with oversized sleeves and a golden cross necklace, 

Dream Anon, Ultimate Bed Tester

One review from Dream is enough to make or break entire bed companies, and she takes her talent very seriously. Despite what her talent and clothes would suggest, Dream is very energetic, has trouble standing still, and her hyper attitude is quite contagious to boot. Ever since she happened upon the coffee shop run by the nice barista, she has found the coolest girl ever: an actual cowgirl! Dream thinks it‘s very funny to watch the sharpshooter get all flustered and blushy when Dream gets too close to her. Myth always looks forward to Dream’s daily visits and her energy is enough to brighten up Myth’s day.

Outfit: A pink sleeping mask, a blue hoodie with a fluffy hood and a pink swirly pattern over a black t-shirt with a pink heart on the front, black and white pajama shorts, white socks and pink slippers, hair that reaches her mid-back. 

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Samurai

Before meeting Iris, Myth thought that samurai became extinct a long time ago. You would not believe Myth‘s disbelief of an actual samurai heiress not only existing in the modern day, but also eating at her cafe and actually liking the food. Just like with Fusion, Iris chose to help Myth out in her matchmaking endeavors, for she actually has romantic experience and can offer the patrons advice. While initially in disbelief that a middle schooler could have more romantic game than her, she decided to let the clumsy yet earnest samurai work her relationship magic, and it actually worked half of the time, much to Myth’s astonishment.

Outfit: A blue kimono with a yellow galaxy-like pattern all over, a silver katana sheath, white socks and brown geta sandals.

Purple Anon, Ultimate Statistical Analyst

Whenever Fusion gives his order out to Myth, he always adds candy to his order for somebody named “Purple”. When asked who Purple is or why she never eats or drinks at Latte Love, Fusion claims that Purple is really shy and never really leaves her house. However, Purple still manages to be an indirect assistant to Myth, Fusion and Iris’s matchmaking endeavors. Whenever any of the matchmakers have an idea, Fusion will text the idea to Purple, to get a statistical analysis on the success of the plan. Myth is truly grateful to Purple, for saving her chocolate-dipped bacon from failed plans, even though the two never met.

Outfit: A black jacket over a purple turtleneck and a red and black striped tie, skirt, stockings and shoes from original design, mid-back length hair in a ponytail and black fake glasses.

 This series centers around Myth’s matchmaking misadventures, as she works hard to stir up romance between the eccentric customers of her coffee shop, along with the help of Fusion, Purple and Iris. Successful results may vary. Basically a Coffee Shop AU!

 ——————————————————

APPEARANCE 

Barista!Myth wears thick and square-rimmed glasses and her long hair in twin braids with a green hairband on top. As for her clothing, Myth wears a brown apron with Latte Love’s logo on the front, over a green turtleneck sweater, brown pants and black slip-on shoes.

 ——————————————————

PERSONALITY

Barista!Myth carries herself with a calming and extroverted personality. However, Barista!Myth is a very low-energy extrovert, and is very content with just watching and conversing with people from behind her front desk. A lot of her younger customers compare her to a kind, patient and caring mom, and she’s just the person to talk to, if you want advice. Barista!Myth has a surprisingly amazing memory, and just by looking at her regulars, she can remember their name and their usual. Barista!Myth retains her love of matchmaking and terrible puns from Romantic!Myth.

——————————————————-

I hope you like this talentswap and don’t mind the rarepairs! If you don’t like the ships, let me know! Have a sweet week, everyanon!

-Fusion Anon

---

I love this!!

[shanie-the-toyaddict]

"Close Quarters and Fake Steak" from Part 2 of Into the Horizon

A full chapter of Zowens from Part 2 of my story. The only real context you need to know here is that "Mara'Monto" means Deathmatch and "sa Heig'on a Manu" is The Arena of Fighting (the gladiator fighting circuit they've both been forced into fighting for.) Everything else I think you can pick up from within the chapter itself. Oh, and sorry for the alien language. It's a thing. It isn't necessary to know exact translations as it's written to only be understood as much as Kevin does. (Third Person Limited Shifting is a hell of a trip) Anyway, this if for my darling@zayneeac's birthday. Happy birthday, darling. Here's to many many more. Enjoy.

Kevin hadn’t intended to fall in love.

Fighting as a team again hadn’t been nearly as difficult as he’d expected. Far from it, he found it exhilarating. He’d always known that he was meant to fight with Sami forever and even the distant future in the 9th Era or Period of those dinosaur bastards fell under the category of “forever.” The only thing that Kevin never would have predicted was the environment where they’d be spending that forever. He’d pictured a marvelous main event sunset at WrestleMania, not some deathmatch pit in a science fiction nightmare.

And yet, they were surviving. Somehow, against all the odds, they were a team again and God it was just like old times. The way they moved in sync hadn’t changed much from their days as a tag team on Earth, although the fighting style was completely different. They won most of their matches, and the ones that they didn’t win were exhibition fights or Gontzos.

Gontzo. Mara’Gontzo, Mara’Monto, sa Heig’on a la bullshit language. Holy fuck did he hate Gorosian. He was trying to learn it but the notion of indoctrinating himself into the society of his captors wasn’t remotely appealing. When he’d taught himself English, it was on his terms. Having the Gorosian’s pisstastic, apostrophe-laden nonsense shoved down his throat offended him on levels he couldn’t express to them if he were permitted. Mainly because he didn’t speak the fucking language. But he still took the lessons and tried a little (very little) if for no other reason than Sami was fascinated about learning the language and attending the sessions with him meant more time they could spend together.

Although, since becoming a team again, they’d been spending all their time together anyway, so it really didn’t matter. Honestly, as much as he loved Sami, the guy could grate on you, and maybe skipping the classes would give him a moment of relief from Sami’s endless curiosity.

Whatever. He knew he wouldn’t stop going. Sami was the one thing keeping him sane in the Arena. Kevin was miserable as all hell, but every time Sami learned something new, his eyes would light up just enough that it stoked the minuscule remaining flame of Kevin’s soul. He hated himself and what the Arena made him do, but every spark of happiness that Sami felt, Kevin felt too.

And frankly, those sparks were all he lived for anymore.

At least they were doing great in the BattleRing.

When they started their run as a team, all their matches were two on one, which you would think would benefit them, but naturally, the Heig’on just loved to make everything difficult. Rather than one standard Manu opponent, they were pitted against anything from giants to ferocious beasts. Even their training had proved little use when facing down some unholy six-legged blend between a rhinoceros, a lion, and an elephant. They had to adapt quickly, and thankfully they did. Even more thankfully, their stint as strictly beast fighters was mercifully short as, once the crowd got behind them, they started to face off against other tag teams. After that happened, there was no stopping them. True, Kevin was always the one to strike the killing blow, but they made it work. Tag teams were unheard of in the Arena before them, at least, that’s what he figured. The years of developed chemistry between him and Sami meant that they could get in each other’s heads on a level their opponents could never dream of. There were still fights where they had to battle monsters, but even then, once they got the hang of fighting the various demon-beasts from across the galaxy, they had no trouble winning.

They were a nearly unstoppable team and with their new winnings, came new privileges. So many privileges. They were called Man’Yokulae in Gorosian and they usually involved some level of comfort or entertainment. But the best privilege of all was that they finally had names. Well, sort of. They weren’t their real names, but whatever powers of the universe threw them into that pit had a sense of humor because their designations in Gorosian both ended in something similar to their real names. 59 translated to Kae’do, and 63 was Zev’ii. It was close enough to KO and Sami that he could deal with them, and he’d requested their names as Kaydo and Zehvee. The names were granted, and finally they were able to use actual pronouns for a change.

Although, Sami wasn’t nearly as fond of calling Kevin “Kaydo” as he was being called “Zehvee” and usually just called Kevin “Kae”. Kevin didn’t care, as long as they didn’t have to speak French. Sooner or later their habit of speaking en français would come back to bite them, so any time they didn’t have to use their native tongue was beneficial.

There were other privileges as well, but being a proper noun was by far the best. He wouldn’t say they were well off though, but whomever their mysterious benefactor was had made them comfortable. They had their own room now, cramped but private. Perhaps a bit too much of both, as Kevin could no longer escape Sami when he was sick of him. And that meant that when he wanted peace and quiet, there was usually none to be found. Far from it, Kevin was slowly being driven insane by Sami’s ceaseless questions.

One day, while resting after a mid-day Gontzo fight, Sami was laying on their bed (because of course, the assholes had only given them one bed) and staring at the ceiling. Kevin was quietly attempting to read an ebook he’d been given to pass the time. The tablet was programmed with a translator, but it was a bit like trying to read a foreign novel filtered through Google Translate. Still, he managed well enough and it helped stave off the boredom. It was a story about some noble rebels standing in defiance against the corrupt Government. It was poorly written and reeked of propaganda, but it was better than making small talk with Sami.

And yet, Sami kept trying

Sami was laying on their bed, playing a small handheld block game that he’d earned. It somewhat reminded Kevin of those old, grey-brick Game Boys, if the Game Boy only played the originally included Tetris game. Sami usually played his game with the sound off, and the room was blissfully quiet, when Sami just had to go and ruin it with yet another question.

“How do the time scoops work?” he chirped from his spot on the bed.

“How do what?” Kevin asked.

Sami popped up from the bed to sit on the edge, putting the game down.

“The time scoops. Those machines that brought us here. That’s what they call them, right? How do they work? All the different aliens around here. Do they have different scoops for different aliens? I can’t imagine a Gorosian fitting comfortably in the pods we arrived in. I know you said they only work one way, but why? Why can’t you go back in them? What’s the hang-up?”

“Just accept that you can’t,” Kevin replied, trying to brush him off.

Sami shook his head, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “No, it’s just, you’d think time travel would work in both directions. If you can use the devices to pull something into the future, why can’t you use it to shove something into the past?”

“They’re called scoops,” Kevin replied gruffly, “you don’t scoop something backward. Scooping is for removal. From what I understand, without a pod at the other end, you can’t go backward.”

Sami looked sad at the response, dropping his hands into his lap.

“Besides,” Kevin added, “I told you what happened to Earth. The world was already a dumpster fire when we left, and it never got any better. If you went back, you’d just be caught in the same apocalyptic hell as everyone else. All those people, back there on Earth? They’re dead. All of them. Humanity burned, Zehvee. This place is shit but at least we’re alive.”

Sami stared at the floor and his voice was quiet as he replied, “I’d rather have died on earth with them. I hate this place. I hate hurting people just to survive. The arena sucks.”

“Yeah, yeah it does.”

There was a pause before Sami’s voice picked up once more.

“But how do the crowds work?” he asked. “They aren’t actually in the compound; how do we see and hear them like they’re live? What kind of technology does that involve?”

Kevin groaned and threw up his hands in frustration. At that rate, Sami’s questions were going to end him long before some Heig’on fighter did.

But Kevin had nowhere to go; he couldn’t escape. Regardless of how pissed he got, they were together almost constantly. In the events of their inevitable arguments, the close quarters and lack of alternative entertainment forced them to reconcile quickly. It led to far fewer arguments, knowing that they couldn’t escape each other, although if Kevin was being honest, it wasn’t because he wasn’t frustrated, just that he had to watch Sami be in pain over their disagreements, something he’d always managed to avoid when they were rivals in the WWE.

And, somewhere along the way, something changed.

If Kevin had to pick a day or moment, it was after something that happened in the mealhall one day. They weren’t scheduled for a fight that day, so they just trained for several hours before spending some time in their quarters. When it was time for dinner, they were escorted to the mealhall. Sami was excited, he’d done well in an exhibition fight the previous day, knocking out both opponents himself. Of course, Kevin had let him do so, exhibition fights were becoming less frequent for them and Sami shone best when the fight didn’t involve murder, so Kevin had feigned injury to drive Sami to perform harder. He’d stepped up to the challenge and was told he’d be receiving a treat the following day at mealtime.

Kevin laughed. “It’s probably just a different flavor of grey pudding, or maybe a different color. Hey, maybe you’ll get orange pudding, to match your hair!”

Sami just glared at him and said nothing, and when they headed for the mealhall, Sami was excited for whatever he had earned.

He grew even more excited when they turned into the meal hall and Sami saw his favorite Orbaka helper working the food table again.

She, at least Kevin was pretty sure the alien was female, was designated Orbaka-10014. She was of a species that Kevin learned was called “Jakkan” and she was quite attractive, all things considered. She had pale, pearly skin with eyes that, while resembling somewhat human eyes, were a touch too large. Her lips were a royal purple shade, and she had a nose-shaped feature between her eyes and mouth that even Kevin admitted was cute, although there were three “nostrils” rather than two. However, her most prominent feature was how she didn’t have hair. Instead, traveling down the back of her head, neck, and back were two thin black tendrils, about three inches apiece, with small spherical ends on them. Overall, she resembled something out of Star Wars and the rest of her kind had very similar appearances. Jakkans in general, Kevin had decided were probably the most visually appealing aliens he’d seen since arriving in Hell, and if he had to pick the best of them, it’d probably be her.

But Sami… if Kevin had to guess, Sami had a crush on her. He kept trying to flirt with her, something that always seemed impossible due to communication issues. Kevin had learned long ago that everyone they encountered had universal translators, but they didn’t work the same with every species, and whatever algorithm was used to translate English to Jakka was spotty at best. Also, despite his efforts, she never seemed to enjoy seeing him. She always smiled, but it was never a friendly smile, and Kevin was beginning to wonder if smiling meant the same thing on the Jakkan planet. It still didn’t stop Sami from trying, and as he grabbed his tray and headed for the food table, he was looking quite happy.

“Hi, again,” he said cheerfully to the Orbaka, a wide smile on his face. “You look nice today.”

10014 squinted her eyes.

“Friendly?” she asked, not understanding his comment.

Sami raised his eyebrows, nodding. “Well, I’m trying to be, anyway. How have you been?”

“Beans?”

“No, I mean your day. How has your day been going so far?”

“Distance? I have never left Heig’on compound in three revolutions.”

Kevin couldn’t help but be amused as Sami shook his head. He wondered if he should suggest Gorosian as an alternative, but to him, watching Sami struggle with flirting was too priceless to disrupt, so he said nothing.

Sami tried again. “No I mean, how have you been feeling?”

That, she seemed to grasp a bit more and she replied “I understand. I am… alive. Not dead yet, which is preferred.”

Sami smiled again. “Good to hear. So, what’s my surprise?”

Kevin watched as she smiled again, that same miserable version she always used with Sami.

“Trophy?” she returned. “You have won no trophy.”

“No,” Sami replied, “My surprise. My gift. I was told I’d earned something.”

Her smile fell flat and was replaced by confusion once more. As she stood there, trying to understand his meaning, a guard behind her made a loud grunting noise.

They were holding up the process too much.

10014 huffed a bit, her three nostrils puffing out as she scooped the (still) grey pudding into Sami’s bowl.

“Urn?” she told him, “Those perished in Heig’on do not in urns. Incinerated only.”

Sami sighed and dropped his tray against the table in frustration. Kevin, deciding to step in, put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“His privilege,” he spoke up.

Still no sign of understanding.

Kevin thought for a moment before deciding to give in and try the other approach. It would probably ruin his fun in the long run, but Sami deserved whatever gift was coming to him and he wasn’t about to let him go without. Wracking his brain to pull out the little bit of Gorosian he’d absorbed, he tried to parse together a sentence.

“Rio Man’Yokulae do Tor’ooq’toan,“ he said. He was certain he was messing it up, and his belief was confirmed when he saw Sami look away, his hand over his mouth to suppress the laughter.

Still, it seemed to get the job done and 10014’s eyes widened, and she made a sound of understanding, an oddly joyful scowl crossing her face.

“Yes!” she said enthusiastically, “Earned reward!”

She stuck her spoon into the pot of foodstuff and headed into the back room.

“See,” Kevin told Sami, “You just need to know how to talk to them.”

Sami was still choking on suppressed laughter.

Kevin shook his head.

Fine. I’ll bite.

“All right, Mr. Quad-Lingual, how bad did I do?” he asked, although he really didn’t want to know.

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Sami replied with a grin. “Well, you called me a trans woman and referred to yesterday as ‘the before time’ but at least you got your point across.”

“Jesus. I hate it here.”

Before Sami could respond, the Orbaka returned with a small plastic cup with dark liquid in it.

“SolTerra bean beverage,” Orbaka-10014 chirped, holding the cup out to Sami.

Sami looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on him. It was his turn to go wide-eyed as he exclaimed, “Wait, coffee? There’s coffee here?!”

The Orbaka moved the cup a bit closer to Sami who gladly accepted it, not even putting it on his tray. He looked down at it, before commenting, “Black, hm? I guess I don’t get any kind of soy or sweetener.”

The Jakkan just stood there looking perplexed, replying, “Added sweet? Coffee not meant as sweet. Bads flavor.”

Sami shrugged and gave a warm smile to the alien woman, saying, “Still, it’s nice to have.”

He paused before adding in Gorosian, “Hintoq’ho Gyntviana Roa”

The Orbaka’s eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed a shade of violet.

The guard behind them grunted again, this time louder and angrier.

The Orbaka’s shock disappeared, followed by a quick “Yo’Vaa’Dan” as she served Kevin his food. More of the same as usual. God, he hated the grey pudding. But, with the guard getting angry, Kevin knew they needed to be moving along and he gently nudged Sami’s foot with his own.

“Right,” Sami said, moving and, taking their trays they both headed for their assigned seats. Midway there, Sami took a sip of his coffee. Immediately, he stopped in his tracks, so abruptly that Kevin nearly plowed into him.

“Shit,” Kevin swore. He took a moment to readjust his food on the tray and moved to stand beside Sami, looking for what the hold up was. Sami was standing there, staring at the cup of coffee with the most disgusted look on his face as though he was about to retch on Kevin’s boot.

Kevin couldn’t help but smile. “Not good?” he asked.

Sami’s face un-contorted, transforming into a look of determination and he held out his tray to Kevin.

“Kae,” he remarked, “would you mind taking my tray with you to our table. I need to… um… go water that plant over there…”

Sami motioned towards a potted, tree-like plant in the corner that was standing unattended. Kevin fought valiantly to suppress the snorted laughter that was trying to erupt from him, instead silently taking his tray across his forearm and doing the same with Sami’s on the opposite side. With both trays balanced, he silently headed for his table, making sure to keep an eye on what Sami was doing. He sat down, trying to be discrete, and as he sat there he watched Sami casually make his way over to the plant. After checking to make sure nobody was watching, Sami turned his back to the plant and, without even looking at it, dumped the cup of coffee behind him into the dirt. After the cup was empty, he returned to where Kevin was and sat down across from him.

Kevin was unable to hold back the laughter anymore, nearly choking on his efforts to do so (as well as that damn pudding).

He swallowed his mouthful and asked, “That bad, huh?”

Picking up his spoon and digging into his bowl of slop, Sami just shrugged. “I guess I should have known better. I can’t imagine them having coffee plantations here.”

“No, probably not,” Kevin agreed. “Hey, out of curiosity, what did you say that made her blush like that?”

Swallowing a spoonful, his friend replied, “Oh not much. I said thank you.”

“Uh-huh. And? I knew that much, what was the second part?”

The redhead turned sheepish. “I might have called her beautiful as well.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “God you’re hopeless.”

They both got quiet after that, focusing on their meals, until, after about five minutes, KO happened to glance back up at the plant Sami had “watered”.

It was starting to wilt.

Kevin had to suppress another laugh, an action that he wasn’t getting any better with over time. Sami heard him and, following his line of sight, also noticed the plant in distress.

“Ah hell,” his friend muttered, before grabbing the cup of water off Kevin’s tray, standing, and leaving.

“Hey!” Kevin cried out as he took the cup away, “Dammit Zehvee!”

Sami wasn’t listening, nor was he trying to be inconspicuous this time. He strode over to the plant and, bending over, distributed the water around the soil in the pot.

Naturally, a guard noticed, and Kevin let out a worried sigh as the guard headed over to where Sami was. He strained his ears to hear the conversation, but they were a bit too far away. He just turned his eyes down toward the table, an almost instinctive action in the face of possible trouble, and waiting until Sami returned to his seat. When he did, his friend let out a satisfied hum.

Kevin was a bit surprised at that and, his eyes still on his food, asked in a hushed, low tone, “You get bitched at?”

“Nah,” Sami said, totally undisturbed as he returned the empty water cup to Kevin’s tray, “he just told me that there’s Orbaka that tend to the plants and that I shouldn’t bother with them. I’m fine. Thanks for the water, though. It’s looking better already.”

Kevin looked up at Sami. His smile was so warm and infectious, and as he looked behind his friend, he realized Sami was right. The tree did look better.

Sami was still smiling. The misery and steel-walled prison they were in, forced to fight for the amusement of slavemasters and bloodthirsty sadists, and Sami was concerned with a damn plant. He couldn’t help but return the smile and as he sat there, basking in the glow that his friend always seemed to have around him, the walls of his heart began to crumble, broken down by cinnamon curls and hazel eyes.

After that, it was only a matter of time before Kevin loved him completely. TBC

[boogiewrites]

Never Break the Chain

Part 1 of 5

Characters: Javier Peña x OFC

Summary: The story follows the moments in their relationship in which things change, carrying the story of their romance from being young and in love in Texas at age 18 to the modern Narcos timeline. We follow Esme on her rise to being a top thief and Javier Peña's rise in the ranks. We see how their paths inevitably intersect in Columbia and how they handle coming face to face after a faked death and decades apart. It's dramatic, it's a cop loving a criminal and them being torn between their ways of life and their love. There's a happy ending among the angst.

Warnings/Tags: Argument, Heartbreak, Young love, faked death. 

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

The air was as still and silent as a hot Texas summer night could be. The buzz of the insects and the rustle and call of the nocturnal animals felt familiar to Esme and were a white noise that made her feel she was home. The moon was high and bright, illuminating the rushing and recently risen river below her. Summer storms had made their way through, a brief break to the smothering heat and filling the formerly waning river bed. It made for a great day on these rare summer occurrences, floating about lazily and working on her tan, drinks were plentiful between friends and you could let any stress you had floated down the river after you left. As she gripped the old iron railing of the backroad bridge, feeling the failing paint flaking under her anxious hands, she knew those golden days of youth and summer were falling behind her now. The river would take her trouble away tonight, but in the morning a whole new set would emerge in their place. Even so, this is what she wanted, deep down she knew the conversation she was about to have wasn’t going to be one with a happy ending, and she’d prepared for that. Still, until she heard the words from his lips herself, that last bit of naivete she had left would hope against hope that this night wouldn’t end in tears.

Her upbringing with a single mother, no stability that she could recall, and inheriting her mother’s reputation, only doing what she had to make a living, she knew there were no happy endings. Being a striking Latin woman, hell, a woman at all was enough to teach her the authorities in place were corrupt and broken. She’d been born a criminal they’d said. It was first said the moment she opened her eyes. “Look at this little one, a thief.” her father had said. “Esmeralda we’ll call her, as she’s already stolen emeralds for her eyes.” Her father hadn’t come from a line of fortune-tellers that she was aware of, but he’d unknowingly planted the seed that would grow to become her destiny. One filled with heartbreaking choices and world view shattering experiences she would be told she was strong for overcoming. She didn’t think anyone needed to be applauded for being strong. It came from being broken and filling the gaps with something that couldn’t be torn apart again. Her so-called strength was just the glaringly apparent failures of the power structures in place. And she knew the only way to get ahead, to move from outside their oppressive shadow was to beat them at their own game.

The boy on his way to convince her to not follow her dreams didn’t know that yet. He had his delusions and she wasn’t sure she had the heart to take them away from him. Things wouldn’t always work out, he wasn’t going to save anyone, let alone her. But if you asked her, she didn’t need saving.

The hiss of drying raining on the asphalt under the tires of his muscle car didn’t help distract him from where he was headed. Every rendezvous with her up to this point had been nothing but a flip in his stomach and tension in his balls. Where yearning and excitement once lay there was only dread and uncertainty. He was young, he was full of confidence and despite the chronic bad attitude and bloody knuckles, he kept he still thought he could make her stay. He wouldn’t lose her. He couldn’t. She loved him she’d said. That meant something to an 18-year-old boy still deep in his first love and soon to be last heartbreak. The flashes of running from the cops, late nights spent in the back seat of his car, some laying together next to the dashboard light with the radio creating a soundtrack to their youth unknowingly. He gulps, recalling the way she looked at him when they were alone. They were all burned into his mind and they would be there for many years to come. He couldn’t help but remember the first time he saw her, walking into an abandoned house the local kids used for parties. They held the same beer in their hands, locked eyes that held the hunger of teenage lust. Her in cut-offs and a bikini top, deep brown from the summer sun, bouncy black hair in waves falling down her shoulders and framing a heart-shaped face with eyes greener than he’d ever seen.

They were both attractive and rebellious, it took nothing to make them like each other. They were quick to go to bed, and he was quick to fall with for her independent nature, and his desire to protect her quickly fell in behind. She wasn’t like any other girl he’d met, and he thought it was a compliment. But as the lust faded, love grew in its place, seeing what hardships she faced and trying his damnedest to save her from them. He rode in on his steel horse and swept her away despite her insistence she didn’t need it. But when he spoke softly and touched her the same in the sweat-soaked leather seats, naked and vulnerable by both clothes and emotions, she couldn’t help but cry and let him hold her, both sharing their fears. Their biggest in their lives at that time was simply losing the other.

The familiar sound of his car didn’t help ease the knot in her stomach like it used to. She sighed deeply, letting the headlights fall upon her as he pulled up the bridge. No one ever said chasing your dreams would be easy.

“Hey sweetheart.” his smooth voice, soft only for her, flooded her ears as they closed the space between them instinctively. Her heart ached as he wrapped his scabbed hands around her waist, one rough palm to her cheek as if he were assuring he had her full attention.

“Hola, Javi.” she whispers against his lips. He does as he has before, pretending things are fine for as long as he can. Talking sweet and pushing back her hair, kisses to her temples like he always did when she was emotional. It was inevitable his lips would find their way through the small talk to her neck. And they did. “You know you can’t fuck your way out of this conversation.” she smiles, taking her hands to direct his face to look at hers.

“Worth a shot..” he nods with his signature cockiness she no longer found annoying but endearing. A dangerous feeling indeed.

He looks her over, hands gentle but firm as he ran them over her arms and sides, mapping her out in movements that would drive him to drink later on.

“I know your answer, mi Amor, I see it in your eyes. Just say it so we can move on.”

“Don’t make me Esme.” it wasn’t begging but there was a desperation to his furrowed brow as he looked down and finally met her eyes. “I told you what I have to do. I can’t stay here. I can’t be this girl anymore.”

“I don’t wanna lose you, baby, please.” There was the begging. The desperation was in those almost black-brown eyes as they glassed over, the lump in his throat growing by the second.

“You cannot go be part of a system that wants to enslave me. We can’t be together in this world, Javi. You KNOW this. You can’t be the cop and I the criminal. No way works. One of us ends up in jail...or worse.”

“You’re talkin' like you wanna kill me now all the sudden.”

“Never.” she holds his face with a veil of anger in her eyes. “I love you, Javier. I always will. But you are a weakness. You are the only man that knows me. The only man that could best me. And that is because I love you. I have to be who I am, I am a criminal and you are going to go off and be a part of what wants to keep oppressing people like me? Just because we are trying to get ahead? To make a life for ourselves because your government has failed its people? We can’t be together if you do this.”

“You don’t have to go off and do all this crazy shit, Esme. You’ve been reading too many books, baby, you don’t have to go off and steal and con. You could stay here. With me. Where you belong.”

“And do WHAT exactly? You want me to...work in an office? Be a cashier at the grocery store for the rest of my life? You want me miserable? That’s selfish and you know it. I’m not something you get to control, I’m not keeping myself small for you no matter how much I may love you. That’s a fate worse than death for a woman like me.”

“Not any part of you wants that? A simple life? With a good man? Have a few kids...a house. Just...be happy?”

“You are not stupid Javi, stop asking stupid questions. You know me better than anyone and you know that is not me. I will grow bored and loathsome, I would end up hating you and my choices and we would end up hating each other. I would rather us be in love in our memories than hate you in reality.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. Because I see it every day. In the women that glare at me when I walk down the street. The jealousy...they look down on me saying I am trash but it’s because they wish they had what I have. Drive, ambition, fucking OPTIONS. Those women are trapped by their decisions and I will be too if I stay.”

“You think staying with me is being trapped?”

“It is not you, Javi. It is what you will become. I love this..this Javier right now. But you be indoctrinated. You’ll change into someone else and I am not willing to change for you. I’m sorry.”

“I knew I shouldn't've let you hang out with those damn hippies…”

“This is all me Javi. This is no one else. You are the one being fed lies of being a good guy among the bad, that you can save everyone. It’s a lie. I do not want to tell you this because I know it’s your dream to help but mi Amor ...it is not real.”

“And I don’t think your dream is real! I think it’s a lot of horse shit.”

She stands in silence looking at him, his hands on his hips defensively. “Then we agree.” she nods. “Goodbye, Javi. I love you. Always.” she begins to turn and knows before she feels his hand around her arm that it would happen.

“Don't leave Esme you’re the only good thing I got.” he shakes her by the shoulders.

“And if you don’t think I feel the same you’re mistaken.” she almost spits out. “I do not WANT to leave. But to become what I must I have to. And I’m sorry it has to be this way. But it does.”

“If you leave I’ll find you. You know I will. I’m not gonna let you go. I can’t.” he chokes out.

“I know.” she sighs. “Which is why I must take such a drastic measure. To me... staying is a fate worse than death. I know you would find me.” she chuckles and he looks at her with wet confused eyes. “You are my weakness, Javier. You are the only man I know that could ever find me. Ever best me at my own game. And you will not stop looking for me.”

“I never would.” he whispers.

“Which is why I'm so sorry. So.... so sorry mi Amor.” she begins to cry and kisses him, pressing against him hard, his back hitting up against his car and a muffled struggle to embrace one another ensues.

There’s a swift movement and click. Javi’s head jerks to look down, arm tugging against the cuffs she’d just slipped on him and through his vehicle door. “I’m sorry Javi. I am.” she says as his anger grows.

“ESME?!” he barks. “Let me GO! Are you fuckin’ CRAZY?”

“Maybe.” she sighs and walks a few paces away, to the railing of the bridge, looking down at the water. ‘There is only one way you will let me go Javi. I cannot have you being my weakness, or my capture, or my pursuer. I would spend my life looking over my shoulder.”

“What the FUCK are you talking about?!” his voice breaks, a shout scaring the animals in the brush nearby.

She stands on the railing, wind through her hair and a feeling of true freedom being just outside her grasp. She hears him struggling behind her, the desperate grunts and whimpers, his words and shouts join the shite noise of the water as she closes her eyes. She turns only her head to meet his wild eyes one last time, a snapshot in her mind to carry with her into her new life. “I love you, Javier Pena. Never doubt that. I’ll see you in the next life.”

And with that, she was gone. Over the railing as Javi screamed until he was hoarse, his wrist fractures and bruised from the force of trying to free himself. It would break him, and he would be born into a new life. Just like her.

She knew it was drastic, but the only way she would be able to escape not only his love of her but of hers for him. He had to think she was dead.

@likedovesinthewnd @jaegeeeeer @biharryjames @ladamari68​ @past-romantic​ @weliketomoveit 

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

Rose Puppetry Ch4: Rose Red

Summary:

A century ago or so, Atlas set out to conquer the world.  Penny was built to be a spy, an infiltrator meant to find weaknesses in Vale’s defenses before the invasion.

She did.  Then she fell in love.  And rebelled against the kingdom that had created her.

Ch1.  Ch2.  Ch3.

.

Let us step away from the scene of a heartbroken mechanical girl as she learns of the fate that has befallen her love.  Allow our attention to attend to events so long ago now they risk becoming history.  Perhaps, to some, they already are.  But the significance of these events should not be diminished or overlooked merely because of the time that has passed since their occurrence.  For they shine out like a beacon star, guiding weary travelers home and igniting hope in their hearts.

The Kingdom of Vale is ruled by a kind and just king.  One whose compassion is known throughout his own and every other kingdom.  Some would consider his Royal Majesty, Ozpin, weak, for the softness of his heart.  The wiser are able to recognize the guile behind his gaze.  They know Ozpin’s kindness comes not from the naïveté of someone born into a comfortable and luxurious life, but from continuously choosing, after seeing the horrors of the world, to do everything in his power to make it better.

One of the greatest accomplishments of Ozpin’s reign, future texts will claim, is the establishment of his Huntsman Academy.  It is not, as most would assume, an institute of military indoctrination like similar-appearing schools established in every single Atlas-controlled territory.  The Huntsman Academy does not require its graduates to swear everlasting and unyielding loyalty to its patron royal.  All it asks of them is that they should consider going out into the world and lending a hand whenever and wherever they are able.

Though not every single Huntsman or Huntress has chosen to align themselves with such noble goals, enough have that the public perception of the academy’s graduates has become one of legendary heroes.  Enough of that perception is true that, when the first overtures of invasion and war spread across Remnant from Atlas, it was those same Huntsmen and Huntresses who willingly rose to come to the aid of their besieged neighbors.

Children in Vale have grown up on stories told of their brave protectors.  Of course, the grizzlier details of how the battles go are kept away from their innocent ears.  They’ll learn soon enough, the adults murmur amongst themselves.  Let the young keep their purity for as long as they can.

Ruby Rose, in a way, was one such child.  One of her earliest memories is sitting on her Uncle Qrow’s lap, clutching an expanse of silky white fabric in her small, chubby fists, and listening to him tell the tale of the most daring huntress who ever lived, her mother, Summer Rose.  Like other children her age, Ruby was awed by the story given to her.  Unlike them, she wouldn’t be so innocent by the end.  For it wasn’t just a story, it was also a reason why her mother never came back home.

Ruby was never alone for long in that regard.  As war crept closer to Vale’s borders, more and more of Ruby’s peers came to have tales of brave parents who never returned too.  Her school even started a program for those orphaned or displaced.  That’s how Ruby came to know her childhood friends, Ren and Nora.

Nothing she heard, however, could dissuade Ruby from her dream of following in Summer Rose’s footsteps.  She told everyone she came across how she would become a hero, one who would save people and come back home.  Not many believed her, but none could bring themselves to try and extinguish the small, flickering fire they saw within her.  Such a hopeful thing was rare, and had to be protected.

It came to be that Ruby gained a reputation long before she was ever to be allowed near a battlefield.  During her initiation to the Huntsman Academy, she stepped in front of one of her classmates, a young heir to the renown Arc family, Jaune, and defended him from bullies who thought him unworthy of upholding his family title.  Rather than taking up a sword or a rifle, the commonest of weapons chosen among her peers, Ruby chose a scythe, one she crafted herself, to fight with.  Most scoffed at that, or her perpetually cheerful demeanor.  They called her brazen attitude, hubris, and her determination, silliness born of inexperience.

Then, they saw her fight.  Saw the swift ruthlessness of her attacks.  Only the most stubborn would refuse to change their minds about Ruby Rose.

Ruby could never bring herself to actually wear her mother’s old, white cloak—the only relic of the parent she never got the chance to know.  Rather she commissioned one similar to it in all but one detail.  Hers was ruby red.  Others would make jokes about the cloak and the blood of her enemies, but never Ruby.  For all she could be considered a brutal fighter, she was never a heartless one.

It is this attribute that made Ozpin take notice of her.  He had seen many brilliant fighters pass through his academy before Ruby, but he found not many would reach a genuine hand out and help their defeated opponents stand up again.  More than that, even less could inspire a spark of hope in those around them quite like she could.

Ozpin observed Ruby from afar all during her academy years.  A plan began to form in his head of what he could do with her, but he did not wish to impose it on her.  The ability to choose is something he regarded too highly to take away from another.  So, he waited, and watched.  When Ruby graduated, and fully came into her own, that’s when he approached her.

War hadn’t come to Vale yet, but it was going to.  Ozpin had attempted prevention with peaceful overtures, but he knew they wouldn’t last for long.  It was time to make preparations for his people.

It is said, once upon a time, there existed four great Relics in the world, one in each kingdom, of untold power.  Not many believe the tales anymore.  Years have passed without sighting or word of such great devices.  If they truly exist, people wonder, why haven’t the kingdoms’ monarchs used them to save them from Atlas?

In truth, attempts were made.

The rulers of Mistral regularly sought guidance from the Lamp of Knowledge.  It is what they learned from asking it questions that most aided them in forging their treaty with Atlas.  Though they kept war from their doorstep, they now live in constant fear of it returning.  They have used up all three of their questions and have to wait a hundred years to have another three.

The last Vacuan King rode into battle against Atlas with the Sword of Destruction firmly held aloft in his hand.  He cut down innumerable automated foes with its power.  For a time, it was believed he and the sword would single-handedly push back the invaders.  But utter Annihilation proves tricky to control, and there are rumors that the destruction of Vacuo’s oasis may not have been completely done by Atlesian hand.

The Staff of Creation was once the prized possession of Atlas.  The only reason it did not remain so was the actions of a simple soul.  An assistant in the palace’s kitchen, with the aid of his family, stole the staff and smuggled it out of the kingdom.  No one in Atlas or Mantle knows where Oscar Pine went, but they do know what happened to his family at the hands of Hazel Rainhart, for refusing to give his plans up.

Ozpin remembers the day Oscar came to him clearly.  The worry and fear in the young boy’s face.  The knowledge of everything he had given up to get such a powerful relic away from where it, or at least what remains of it, would be abused and corrupted weighing down on him.  Ozpin had done his best to help Oscar, but there are some wounds that no stranger can help heal.  The only thing he’d truly been able to do was swear he’d protect what remains of the Staff of Creation from further harm.  And so he had done his best.

The Staff’s condition continued to deteriorate with each passing day.  Ozpin couldn’t say he knew exactly what the General King of Atlas had done to it.  How he’d managed to split its crystal, or what he’d done with the missing part.  Ozpin only could know of the results, the broken state of the relic in his kingdom that did not truly belong there.

For the first time of his reign, Ozpin consulted Vale’s relic, the Crown of Choice, in the hopes it could help him understand the best course of action.  It didn’t.  The Crown simply showed Ozpin the decision he already knew he was going to make.

He could not repair the Staff of Creation.  Not without recovering its missing piece from whatever fate had befallen it.  What Ozpin could do was reforge its remains into something new.  A final act of creation by the broken relic, and a mechanical device known as the Silver Eye was born.

The Silver Eye did not function like the relics.  The only way its power could be used was if it were bonded to a person.  Someone chosen and deemed worthy of the monumental task of protecting and preserving life.  Ozpin made the choice, and he chose Ruby to be its guardian.  She accepted.

Tragically, Ruby, to the present day, has not gotten the chance to use the Silver Eye.  It was successfully bonded to her and turned her pale blue eyes the most brilliant of silvers.  Yet, before she could full understand it, her girlfriend’s past caught up to her and stole them both away.

Ruby knew who Penny was before she came to Vale.  On the night they admitted their love, Penny told her everything about where she came from and what her mission was in Vale.  Ruby held Penny as she admitted that what she was meant for and what she wanted to be were two entirely separate things.  Ruby promised Penny she loved her regardless.  She would help her.  They would forge a new future together.

The chance was stolen from them.

Later, Ruby wouldn’t really remember the attack itself.  Her recollections of the event, and most of the time directly following it, would come to be vague and murky at best.  The one thing that would come back to her would be being forced to kneel before the General King, as he gazed down at her like a prize.

Long had Ironwood desired to have one of the Huntsmen or Huntresses of Vale.  What better weapon was there, he thought, than one plucked directly from the enemy itself?  What had a better chance of outsmarting Vale’s forces than one of their own?  Of course, she would need some convincing, but that was hardly an issue.

Once upon a time, Ironwood had sliced off the hand of the King of Vacuo and stolen the Sword of Destruction from its failing grasp.  His kingdom may have lost their original relic, but that hardly mattered to the General King.  Not when he’d gained something that could aid his kingdom’s conquest far more than it.

And Ironwood’s scientists had been successful in manipulating the powers of Destruction.  Watts, in particular, was able to augment soldiers considerably with the dark substance the sword provided them.  Controlling their newfound Grimm forces did prove difficult.  Until the forging of the Salem Device, that is.  A mysterious, dark, twisted crown that afforded them such an ability as to command the forces of Destruction.

It was never really a question of if they’d transform Ruby, their prized, prisoner huntress, into one of these denizens, so much as it was a matter of when.  And so, soon after her capture, Ruby Rose was lowered into one of the deep, dark Pools of Annihilation, and Destruction consumed every inch of her it could.

But, it should be known, Destruction could not consume all of her.

For even then, unknown to the Atlesians who watched her transformation, the Silver Eye remained with Ruby.

It is slowly beginning to wake up.

[thebestpersonherelovesbucky]

Blood is Thicker Than Water

Summary: Steve Rogers is a vampire slayer. Bucky Barnes is a vampire. They’re not meant to be no matter how hard they want to change that.

Characters: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Word Count: 4.5k

Tags: angst, blood, mention of past abuse, pining, star-crossed lovers, boys in love, ambiguous ending

written for @captain-rogers-beard​‘s  Flex Your Writing Muscles Challenge June 9th prompt

Prompt: Vampires

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long, slayer.” 

Steve glances up from his beer, his heartbeat picking up at the sudden company. All the noise in the bar probably isn’t enough to cover the sound of it either so no doubt Bucky can hear it with those perfect ears of his. 

He tries to avert his gaze but can’t. He never can. Bucky is just so striking in every way. Five years ago, when Steve first laid eyes on him, he thought he’d been carved out of his own dreams. He’d never seen anyone like him. Long, lean limbs. Those lips the color of sin against his smooth, alabaster skin. Fluffy hair the color of a fawn and twice as soft. And his eyes. Good God, his eyes.

Steve had tried to dismiss them as gray. Just the color of a dreary day before it storms. But the more Steve’s seen them, the more he looks into them, the more he needs to acknowledge how wrong he’d been.

They aren’t gray. They’re silver, though, really, neither word does them justice. They are so solid, so bright, the exact lustrous color of a polished shard of a precious gem, and when Steve looks closer like he does just now, he sees the swirls of glittering onyx black and tinges of blue at the edges.

“You always keep me waiting,” Steve says, hoping to keep his voice even. “What else is new?”

Bucky’s mouth curves up in an amused grin as he helps himself to the seat across from Steve. 

“Is that a turn of phrase,” he asks, “or are you really asking?”

He wasn’t asking, but now that Bucky brought it to his attention, Steve does want to know. 

“It’s been two months,” Steve says. “What’ve you been up to?” 

Before responding, Bucky pulls a flask out from beneath the folds of his overcoat, adjusting his silk cravat so that he doesn’t suffer the horror of having anything out of place. Always so impeccably dressed no matter how outdated some of it might be. 

A touch of a more romantic time in history, Bucky always says. I can’t blame the world for losing its taste, but that doesn’t mean I have to.

Steve can’t help watching as Bucky takes a sip. A hard lump lodges itself in his throat when a bright red sheen left itself on Bucky’s lips. As if knowing Steve’s watching, Bucky makes a slow, sensual show of licking away the remnants.

“Want some then, slayer?”

Steve forces himself to look away. He tries to clear that lump but catching himself locked in Bucky’s gaze again doesn’t help with that. Bucky smirks. 

“I’ve kept busy,” Bucky finally answers the question at hand. “Teaching, actually.”

“Teaching?”

“Mhm.” Bucky nods. “Artistic Representation of the Underworld, The Bible as Literature, and War, Lit, and Politics of the Italian Renaissance. Took over for a few professors at the university when they suddenly needed some…time off.”

Time off. That probably means Bucky made a very convincing suggestion. A simple whisper in their ear that now would be a perfect time for a vacation. Very hard to resist the suggestive power of a vampire, especially when unaware of it. 

Taking a handful of peanuts, Steve chuckles with a shake of his head. He unshells one of the nuts and pops it into his mouth.

“All things you have personal experience with.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I’m not that old, slayer. I was not around for anything written in the Bible.” 

Steve doesn’t know Bucky’s exact age. In fact, he’s not even sure Bucky knows his exact age anymore. He does know that he was around for the Renaissance and shows up in a few, more obscure, paintings from the era. 

“And you, Steven?” Bucky asks. “What sort of trouble have you been getting yourself into lately?”

“None.”

Eyebrows arching, Bucky clicks his tongue in that knowing sort of way and Steve shrinks into his shoulders. He knows that look. Knows he’s done something that’s about to get him scolded.

“No?” Bucky says, and waits for Steve to amend his answer but, for the life of him, Steve can’t think of what answer he’s looking for. “Then what’s this I hear about you jumping out of a glass elevator?” 

“You know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that.” When Steve doesn’t say anything else, Bucky huffs. “Would you care to share why you jumped from forty stories?”

This accusation makes Steve wince. Yes, he did jump out of a glass elevator, and from a very high height, but he did have a good reason.

“I was surrounded,” Steve argues, “by vampires. What’d you want me to do, let them–”

The growl in the back of Bucky’s throat cuts him off and Steve snaps his mouth shut. 

“Are you being a smartass, Steven?”

“N-no, Bucky.”

“Good,” Bucky grumbles. “Why were you there in the first place?”

Steve scoffs. The answer to that is obvious and Bucky already knows it. It’s painted beneath the skin of Steve’s forearm. 

It is in our blood, to slay every last one

“You know why I was there,” Steve whispers. “I had to be there.”

“Killing more of my brethren?” Bucky asks. “More monsters like me?”

Eyes dropping to the table, Steve’s brow furrows and he slowly shakes his head. 

“I don’t think you’re a monster, you know that.” Steve looks through his lashes to see that Bucky’s crossed his arms. Still waiting for an answer to his more pressing question. “I wasn’t there hunting. I was there doing research.” 

Bucky’s head tilts slightly to the side. “Research at a public building?”

“That’s right. I got wind that there was a Hydra Coven there.”

This makes Bucky fall back against his seat with a more understanding, if not surprised, look on his face. He drums his fingers across the table, those manicured nails tap, tap, tapping as he does. 

“I see.” He’s dropped his gaze. Seeing things Steve can’t. A time before all this. Before he knew Steve. Before they were a them. “And did you find him?”

“No. But his War Dog was there. Gives me reason to think he’s in town, too.” Steve twists his lips. “I guess you still won’t tell me where he is.”

“You guessed correctly.” 

“You’re impossible.”

Bucky sighs and peers up through thick lashes. That look makes Steve’s heart pound even harder. So innocent and anything but at the same time. 

“Steve,” he says, softly, “you’ve got to stop this. You’re going to get hurt.”  

“I’m a slayer,” Steve mutters. “It’s my job.”

Slayers have been around almost as long as the vampires they hunt. People born with the innate ability, the strength, the speed, to hunt the hunters. They joined forces to hunt together under one banner they called the Black Rose for the same sole purpose, pursuit, calling.

Generations have continued their sacred mission: kill all vampires. They’ve handed down one message: despise all vampires. They valued one truth above all others: all vampires are evil. 

Each new generation is taught the arduous and painstaking art of slaying at a young age. Steve, like all slayers before him, had these three absolutes instilled in him ever since a vampire killed his mother when he was just three-years-old. 

But Sarah Rogers, a slayer like him, hadn’t been part of the Roses, he learned later. Sarah Rogers, like Steve after her, defected. Became a traitor. Wanted to raise her son full of tolerance and acceptance. And would have, had she not been killed. 

Of course, the Roses took him in after her death and never spoke a word of this, indoctrinating him into their way of life. 

Vampires, he believed, were vicious bullies who preyed on the weak. They murdered and maimed for the thrill of it. They were mindless animals that didn’t care about the pain and grief they left behind. 

A belief that changed drastically ten years ago when Steve had been sent to Romania–how so very cliché–in search of a particularly nasty coven. Only when he surprised them in a predawn attack, Steve didn’t find a coven of monsters. He found a family, the matriarch and sire willing to die if Steve promised to spare the others. 

Steve couldn’t bring himself to kill them. Any of them. It wouldn’t’ve been right. He hadn’t gone back to the Black Rose after that. If he did, and if he told them when he’d found and done and now believed--that maybe not all vampires were the monsters they thought--they’d just brand him a traitor. Which they did anyway, eventually. When they found out what he’d been doing.

The inner workings of the underground vampire world are just as convoluted and corrupt as any human governing force, including the Black Rose. Steve had been raised and taught to fight injustice. He didn’t like bullies. To him, it didn’t matter what they were or where they came from.

Vampire or human, they all deserve someone to fight for them against oppression and persecution. 

For the Roses, however, life is black and white. Good versus evil. Right and wrong. Vampires, to them, are a blight on humanity. Something unnatural. They refuse to see what Steve had come to discover that night all those years ago. Steve isn’t so sure they weren’t the ones actually responsible for his mother’s death.

Plenty of vampires are content to just live their lives. They hold jobs. Go to school. Have homes. Families. Friends. They don’t all kill those they fed from. In fact, most don’t.

Other slayers have joined Steve and his cause. So have vampires. Enough that they could officially call themselves a team. People who know of their existence like to call them the Avengers. A bit much, in Steve’s opinion, but who is he to argue on such matters.

“Steve,” Bucky murmurs, reaching across the table to place his hand over Steve’s wrist. His skin is slightly cold to the touch. “You don’t have to keep doing this. I’m okay.” 

Jaw tightening, Steve turns his hand enough to lace their fingers. Across from him, Bucky’s gaze lifts to meet his. 

“I do have to,” Steve replies. “He needs to pay for what he did to you.”

That last part is just a slip of the tongue. Steve doesn’t mean to say it. He does mean it. With all his heart. But his dedication isn’t meant to be reserved only for Bucky. In this, though, he can’t help it. Not after what’s happened.

Taking his hand back, Bucky drops his gaze to the table and sighs, his countenance vastly different than when he first sat with Steve.

“But he’s my sire.” 

Bucky says this softly. Almost to himself even though Steve knows he’s meant to hear it. There’s a part of him--albeit a very small part--that sympathizes. He doesn’t understand, and unless he’s ever turned himself, he won’t ever. 

It’s a strange relationship, the one between a sire and their vampires. The bond between them is said to be unbreakable except by death. Steve’s seen just how wonderful that bond can be. The protectiveness and companionship and love. 

But he’s also seen the abuse it can lead to as well. The mistreatment. The manipulation. The loss of free will. Steve has witnessed vampires forced to do horrible things they’d never do all because their sire took control of their mind. 

The same way Bucky’s did last year.

And many times before they met. 

“I don’t care,” Steve mutters through clenched teeth. “He hurt you.” 

As if this means absolutely nothing to Bucky, he shrugs and takes another swig from his flask with a shake of his head.

“He’s my sire, Steve,” he says in a way that makes Steve’s stomach turn, a way that suggests it’s simply okay to be hurt by his sire based solely on the fact that he’s his sire. “It wasn’t the first time. It probably won’t be the last. Definitely not a reason for you to be throwing yourself out of an elevator.”

“Bucky--”

“Because you do realize that you’re neither immortal nor invincible,” he reprimands. “My blood gives you strength but you still have limits.”

He did have limits. Not many, but some. Bucky’s blood gave him strength. It gave him speed. It gave him heightened abilities altogether. But, just as Bucky said, it neither made him immortal nor invincible. 

The only reason Steve ever consumed vampire blood in the first place was out of pure necessity. Without it, he’d’ve died. Bucky saved his life the day they met. 

Steve clears his throat and tugs on the neck of his sweater. He knows what Bucky’s doing. That he wants to change the subject. 

“You saved me once,” Steve says. “Why won’t you let me do the same for you?”

“By allowing you to kill my sire?” 

“He’s cruel, Bucky. He is manipulative and vindictive.” Steve’s jaw stiffens. “He’s the monster.”

Bucky blinks. A smirk curves up one side of his mouth. “Do you expect an argument?”

 “Then why do you always defend him?” 

“He’s my sire,” Bucky says again. “I don’t expect you to understand.” 

It’s unusual, the way Bucky both hates and loves his sire. He’s never physically tried to stop Steve from killing him yet he still defends him. 

“I wish I did.” 

Steve shakes his head. He’s not exactly lying. He does wish he could understand. If he did, maybe it would make this easier.  

“Why don’t we just get down to business, shall we?” Bucky asks. “You did have your reasons for wanting to meet with me tonight, I assume.”

Of course, he has a reason. He always does. One more than any other. Steve wants to see Bucky, always. If he ever decides to join him by his side, to stay with him and the Avengers, it’ll be the happiest day of Steve’s life.

Until then, Steve can only remain satisfied with the small doses a year he gets. When Bucky agrees to meet with him. Sometimes overnight. Sometimes a little longer. And Steve knows, with absolute certainty, that he’s safe. 

 ~~

Bucky believes Steve when he says he wishes he understood. To be honest, Bucky wishes he understood the bond between him and his sire as well. It’s a physical presence. A constant reminder that he feels all the time. His heart may not actually beat any longer but that tie he feels to his sire is close. It gets weaker when they’re apart. When they’ve not seen each other in some time, but it’s still there. Just…dulled.  

It’s always there, though. 

A tether that binds them together. 

Or a chain that Bucky is incapable of breaking. 

It’s warped, the way he feels about his sire, and he knows it, but he also knows it’s the same for most vampires. He has no love for the man. He won’t particularly care if Steve does kill him. In fact, he’s sort of hoping he will. Bucky just can’t bring himself to take an active part in seeing it happen. 

“What is it you’d like to know?” Bucky asks. “Aside from where my sire is.” 

Without another word on the subject of sires, Steve sets a manila folder down on the table and pushes it in Bucky’s direction. Bucky opens it. Finds pictures of a vampire in a prominent role of the human’s government. He smirks. 

“Senator Stern, huh?”

“Did you know?”

“Only that he was a vampire.” Which Steve undoubtedly knew as well. “Is he Hydra?”  

“According to new intell, yeah.”

This presents something of a problem. While the Black Rose wants to eliminate all vampires, Hydra wants to enslave humanity. With an agent of the Hydra Coven so high in the government, there’s no telling how far they’ve infiltrated. 

“Okay, well.” Bucky slides the folder back to Steve. “I’ll find out what I can. In the meantime, have you had any luck with the Roses?”

The first time Bucky Barnes ever saw Steve Rogers, Steve had been lying in a pool of his own blood. The scent of it had caught Bucky’s attention when he’d been walking down the midnight streets of London. He followed it. Found the infamous slayer that had defected from the Black Rose. Bucky knew him on sight. Most vampires did. 

Steve had already lost too much blood to be turned that night, so Bucky did the next best thing he could think of short of trying to get him to a hospital before he died. He probably could have gotten him to a doctor, but if he survived that way then questions would have been asked. Suspicions raised. Police called. A world of trouble for both of them. 

So Bucky cradled the slayer in his arms, hoped he didn’t cause him too much extra pain--by the way he tensed and gasped and cried out, Bucky’s hope was for naught--and bit his own wrist. He held it to Steve’s lips. Steve shook his head and mustered up enough strength to push the offer away.

“N-no…” he groaned. Dangerously pale and trembling all over and dripping in perspiration. “I don’t wanna be--”

“Relax, slayer,” Bucky said. “This won’t turn you, only save your life.” 

That was Bucky’s first brush with Steve’s stubbornness. When he brought his wrist, blood dripping out of the bite, back to Steve’s mouth, he shoved it away again. Bucky scoffed.

“Don’t be ridiculous, slayer,” he scolded. “Just drink.” Eyes drifting up to meet his, Steve whimpered when he tried to move. “C’mon, now, you’re in pain and you’re going to die. Let me save you. You’ll be no worse for wear when you come to next, I promise.” 

Bucky could see the conflict that waged through him then. Steve didn’t want to die. He also wasn’t sure about accepting help from a stranger vampire and in such a manner. No doubt he heard all sorts of rumors about what it meant to drink a vampire’s blood. 

Some were completely convinced that consuming vampire blood would turn them. Which was wrong. Without their venom to complete the process, it wouldn’t happen. Some thought it would make a human their slave. If that’s ever happened in the history of ever, Bucky wasn’t aware of it. Some said it would kill a human outright. That one made no sense. There didn’t seem to be any point in killing a human by having one drink blood when feeding from one would do the job a lot quicker. 

This time, when Bucky lifted his wrist again, Steve took it and drank. 

And drank.

And drank.

He drank until he moaned against Bucky’s cold skin and shivered pleasantly in his arms and finally collapsed. Not out of fatigue or weakness. From the rush. The adrenaline and overwhelming sensitivity caused by Bucky’s blood spilling into his veins. Something similar to when Bucky was turned, though not nearly as intense. 

The next time Steve opened his eyes, he stared up at Bucky with lust and hunger in his eyes. Another feeling Bucky knew. When he first woke up in his sire’s bed, all he wanted to do was fuck. Then fuck again. And fuck some more. 

Steve wanted to as well. Even begged him. They did fuck, eventually. Not that first day. Not when Steve only wanted it because of the rush of endorphins and increased hormones. 

They will again, Bucky hopes. 

“No more than you have,” Steve replies. “It’s black or white with them. They don’t see any of the gray.”

“But they leave you alone?”

Steve shrugs. “For the most part.”

He’s unconcerned with them, Bucky knows, except for when they might do harm to a coven simply minding their own business. Because according to the Black Rose, they’re all monsters. 

When Steve doesn’t say anything else and doesn’t indicate that he has any other news he needs to share, Bucky taps his hands at the edge of the table and pushes away. He can’t just sit around waiting for the slayer he’s in love with all day.  

“You’re leaving?” Steve asks when he stands. “Already?”

“Did you have more business to discuss?”

Years of practice make it easy to keep the sacrifice out of Bucky’s voice. It sits there, though. Right in his throat. But he knows better. Knows better than to want what he can’t truly have. He’s a vampire. Steve is a slayer. They are eternal enemies no matter what shifts between them. It’s natural. The natural order of things. 

How they feel about each other--or how Bucky feels about Steve, anyway--doesn’t change generations of beliefs. Even if Steve does love him, which Bucky suspects he might in his own way, they don’t work. Bucky’s life is eternal. Steve’s life, while prolonged by his slayer blood, is finite. Steve has no desire to be turned. Bucky has no desire to be without a mate his entire existence. 

Together, they make two halves that will never be a whole. 

“N-no,” Steve says, just above a whisper. “Not really. But…when will I see you again?”

“Sooner I suppose,” Bucky tells him, “rather than later. I’ll be around.” He walks away from the table then, about to disappear in the crowded bar. Bucky waves over his shoulder just before he’s swallowed by the throng of humans. “Au revoir, slayer.” 

People part for him. An instinct. A chill that runs up their spine. A shiver that runs down their limbs. A sinking feeling that runs through their bellies. 

As an apex predator, however, one right look--a smile, a beckon, a reach--his prey would follow him almost every time. Bucky hasn’t fed on warm blood for quite a while, choosing, instead, to buy it from those who collected and bottled it.

So as not to give in to temptation--too many bodies in one place made the scent of blood hard to resist--Bucky hurries outside. The second he’s out the door, he lights a cigarette. He isn’t exactly sure why he still smokes. It gets nothing out of it other than the comforting and familiar rise and fall of his chest as he breathes it in. Then again, it won’t harm him either, so he reckons there’s no point in giving it up either. 

It’s snowing tonight. Soft, gentle flakes that glide out of the thick clouds above and glisten in the moonlight. Bucky’s feet don’t make prints in the bit of snow that’s settled softly on the ground. Other prints are there. People. Together. All sharing their loneliness in the company of others. Not like Bucky, who walks alone, not even able to leave his mark behind. 

Unlike his sire, Bucky misses Steve when they’re apart. This has nothing to do with any physical link between them. Despite the bit of Bucky’s blood that runs through Steve’s veins, it’s just an ache within him. If Steve chose to walk away and never meet again, Bucky’s unbeating heart would break, but there’d be nothing he could do about it. He wouldn’t either, even if he could. 

Bucky knows all too well what it means to have his mind wiped and new images placed within it. To be at the total mercy and control of another. It’s one sin he’d rather not tick off. If there truly is some sort of afterlife for him, he’d rather not be totally corrupted.

Still, he wants to be near Steve, but knows it’s a fool’s errand to chase such a desire so he doesn’t. Regardless of Steve’s beliefs, Bucky knows what he is. He’s a monster. And monsters don’t get happy endings.

Cigarette between his lips, Bucky sighs, and heads for the end of the block. Before he gets there, he can hear the unmistakable sound snow crunching under the snow. An instant after his ears make out the sound, his nose recognizes the scent. He can’t help the way his mouth tugs itself into a smile.

“What are you doing, slayer?” he asks, turning as he does. “I thought you said--”

“I lied.” 

Steve doesn’t pause. He doesn’t hesitate. He captures Bucky’s face between those strong, slayer hands, and kisses him. He kisses him like this kiss will have the passion and love to drown out all the voices that try to destroy them.  

Eyes still closed when Steve inches away--leaving his brow against Bucky’s--Bucky breathes him in. That sweet, sunshine that radiates from his every being. The warmth of his touch. The sound of his heart beating...thump thump thump. 

Steve is breathless and panting. Bucky is not, though, he remembers such a sensation. The way the world could so easily take his breath away when he was alive. Alive in an entirely different way. 

“Stay with me,” Steve whispers. “Please. Please, don’t leave me, Bucky.”

If Bucky’s heart could beat, it’d be trying to break free from its prison he’s locked it in beneath his ribs. Bursting from his chest to declare to the entire world how much he loves this man and the world would kneel before them in wonder and awe. 

But Bucky lives in a world rooted in reality, while Steve--Steve and his dizzying optimism and ideals and warmth--lives in one rooted in fantasy. They don’t belong together. They are nothing but two hearts forever out of beat. 

Over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky can see the trail of footprints he left in the snow.

One set of footprints. 

“I can’t.”

Bucky remembers crying. He can feel it deep within his gut--a hurricane rushing through his chest and up his throat, even though no rain can no longer fall. 

“You can.” Steve, forehead still against Bucky’s nods. “All you have to do is say yes.” 

A tear does slide down Steve’s cheek. He understands the enormity of such a request. The sacrifice. The struggle. The risk. 

“Please, don’t, Steve,” Bucky says. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do. I do know. I’m asking for forever with you.” 

Gaze lifting to meet his, Bucky brushes a thumb at the corner of Steve’s mouth. Steve, eyes closing, kisses the finger before Bucky takes it away. 

“Forever is a long time, slayer.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “And I want to spend it with you.” 

Bucky breaks away from Steve and all his kindness and tenderness and all the peace he holds out in offering. He shakes his head and begins to walk away, leaving Steve and his confession hanging in the air to crystalize and crash to the ground. Before any shattering can happen, he pauses. Catches his breath which does not really catch for he has no real need to breathe. But he pauses and catches his breath nonetheless. 

He goes no further. He doesn’t go back. Instead, Bucky stands there, holds his hand out, and waits. Steve’s fingers slide between his and they walk hand-in-hand. To where, Bucky’s not sure. Toward forever, maybe. Whatever that may be. If it can be at all.

As they do, Bucky glances over his shoulder. Sees in the snow only one set of footprints beside the empty spot where his should be. 

“What is it?” Steve asks. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Bucky whispers as he turns to face forward again. “Nothing at all.”

And they say no more than that as they walk together into the all-consuming night of their forever.

[gothic-safari-clown]

The Mind’s Power Over the Body

Part 9: Explanation

Story summary: They only ever had each other. It had been that way since high school, ever since Elianna transferred to dreary Arlen and took Jonathan under her wing. They go separate ways for college, and when they're reunited at Arkham Asylum professionally, Elianna comes to find that they've both changed during their time separated. Can she look past the promise of danger and stay by Jonathan's side as they slide further and further into the darkness while she grapples to come to terms with the truth about herself? Can she accept what needs to be done in order to hold onto the only person who holds any meaning in her life? This is a very self-indulgent AU that draws from several different canons of the DCU and ignoring others, starting in the Batman Begins Nolanverse. This will follow the plot of the movie, although the timeline has been very slightly tweaked.

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight

Word count: 2469

Between her newfound acceptance of her less-than-moral tendencies and her freshly organized office, Elianna had finally been able to find peace for the day as she finished plugging all of her notes into the computer. Cognitively she knew (and had even told several patients in the past) that seeking revenge was unhealthy and detrimental to the healing process, especially if the outcome could get the exactor arrested. But God was the prospect of it attractive.

I don't think God has anything to do with any of this.

She wrapped up the rest of her work fairly quickly, still mulling over the unethicacy of admitting patients with common phobias, finally deciding to overlook the fallacies if it meant that she wouldn't be attacked again any time soon, and gathered her purse and her suitcase before making her way to Jonathan's office after a glance over her map of the facility.

On her way, Elianna suddenly found herself wrapped in the embrace of something blonde and very shrill. "Harley?"

"I'm so sorry that I didn't check on you sooner!" El laughed and gently pried her friend off of her.

"It's okay; I'm alright." She assured with a warm smile. She barely knew Harley. How sweet of her to be so worried.

"Like hell you are, look at your forehead!" Without thinking, El lifted her hand to touch the bandaid, which was only partially covered by her hair.

"To be honest, I forgot about it. But the fact that I only needed a bandaid and not a hospital bracelet means something, I think."

"Yeah, I guess so." Harley pouted and linked her arm with Elianna's, starting to walk her in the direction she had been going before she stopped her. "I was really worried about you, y'know, and nobody expected you back today. I mean, you must be traumatized! Any signs of PTSD?"

"Not yet, but I'm trying not to dwell on it. I mean, I came here for a fresh start (not technically a lie), and as far as I'm concerned, this was just the city officially indoctrinating me as a Gothamite." Harley snorted and shook her head.

"Alright, however you want to look at it, I guess. Look, I gotta run; I just couldn't let you go without making sure you're okay. You're sure you don't need anything?"

"Not at the moment, but if I need anything, I'll keep you in mind." El stopped walking again to give the blonde a tight squeeze, which she returned readily.

"Alright, honey, say hi to Doctor Crane for me," Harley finished with a kiss on her cheek and then seemed to vanish before Elianna had a chance to say anything else.

Upon reaching Jonathan's office, she knocked and waited for him to buzz her in, and her original greeting died in her throat as she entered.

"Why do you get a bigger office than me?" She asked, looking around the space. It was still messy, just like his home office, but the chaos seemed more organized.

"Because I've worked here longer, come help me with this stack, will you?" He sighed and pushed said stack to the other side of the desk from him. El nodded and sat in front of it, taking the top file off. "Just read me the most recent notes inside, and I'll type it up." They set to work straight away, finally getting each computerized file updated after an hour or so. Jonathan stretched his back as they stood up, and El noticed that he still seemed irritated by whatever her name was from the DA's office.

"You okay? I can drive home if you want." He let out a short, humorless "ha!"

"Under no circumstances do you get to drive my car. You drive like Scarecrow."

"Wh-you let him drive but not me?" He shook his head.

"Not a chance, but he likes it when you drive, and that's enough of a deterrent for me." El rolled her eyes, but it was sound reasoning, she supposed.

"Fine, but you have to make dinner again."

"Well, the difference is that with me behind the wheel, we'll actually make it home to enjoy dinner." He replied offhandedly, snapping his briefcase closed and walking with her to the door.

"Okay, I get it, find a new joke, will you?" Her light irritation seemed to amuse him, and she muttered something about, "never should have taught you about humor," as he held open the door for her.

Once back at Jonathan's apartment, El wasted no time getting into the shower and changing into pajamas. She still had so many questions about his involvement in the underworld, and being comfortable acted as her preliminary strike against what would doubtlessly be a less than fun conversation.

When she returned to the living room, Jonathan hadn't bothered to change out of his work clothes, and it appeared that he had been trying in vain to tidy his desk the entire time. El left him to it and continued to the kitchen in search of something to snack on.

"You jealous of my clean office yet?" She called as she pilfered through his pantry. Her friend had had a weakness for goldfish ever since she had introduced them to him, as silly as it sounded. I know they're in here somewhere...aha!

"Hardly; I just misplaced something." He replied distractedly as she walked back in with the entire carton. "If you finish that, you're buying me more."

"Deal. So, why don't you put that on pause until after we talk about everything else?" El asked as she walked next to him and leaned back against the desk, and he stopped shuffling through his papers.

"Where do you want to start?" El thought for a moment before pulling him over to the couch so that they could sit and set the carton between them.

"Why don't you tell me how you...came into the life of organized crime?" She asked slowly, unsure of how to go about asking. Was that the right way to refer to the situation?

"There's a man, Ra's Al Gul," El was taken aback by the intense name—this really was very serious. "He contacted Falcone a while ago to find someone to make a compound that can help him purge Gotham. Falcone found me because of my specialty in phobias and recruited me to the cause. He assumed that I would be easily corrupted, working at Arkham and all." He reached into the carton for a handful of goldfish. "I guess he was right."

"O-okay, and that's why you developed the toxin in the first place." He nodded. "And this Ra's Al Gul character, he's the one shipping what you need into Gotham, what is it?"

"It's this little blue flower from Bhutan. It grows in the mountains. There's a natural chemical in it that reacts to being broken down that causes vivid hallucinations by hijacking the amygdala and creating a powerful fear response. He uses it for some...initiation process for his organization."

"So you studied it and found a way to work it into a serum." He nodded again, still slowly working through his handful of the little crackers, and suddenly something clicked in Elianna's brain. "My patients." He looked at her, his face impassive. "The ones with the anxiety disorders, there isn't actually anything wrong, is there? You admitted them to study the effects."

"Yes, I've been microdosing them with different strains of the toxin to study the results."

"Well, how do you keep them from ratting you out? I mean, if I'm working with some of them, then that means other doctors are too."

"I've made it clear to all of them that if they point the finger at me that I'll give them a full dosage. It's not like the administration would find any of my research if they cared to look anyway; it's all here." Elianna laughed incredulously.

"You really do have everything figured out, don't you? Sneaky bastard."

"I'm going to choose to assume that was a compliment." There was a quiet pause while El thought over everything she had learned in such a short space of time.

"Why does Ra's Al Gul want to target Gotham?" Jonathan half shrugged in response.

"Something about the corrupt elite, the thinks that by weeding it out, it can allow humanity to heal."

"He thinks he can fix humanity by taking out one lousy city?" She asked before another thought hit her. "Hold on, you're one of the corrupt elite, aren't you? That goes against his whole plan. Why are you helping him if you're in his crosshairs?" At this, Jonathan shook his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I agreed to do this because if I didn't, they could find someone else to, and as long as I continue with the project, I've been promised a way out of the city safely. This has been in motion for long enough that I work directly for Ra's Al Gul now. Falcone is just involved in handling the shipments; they sneak it in with other drugs."

"Well...shit, you get to leave the city so that you don't get caught up in the...the chaos, what about me?" She had a moment of self-awareness for the selfishness of her concern, which was easily brushed off (much to her own surprise), and she did not want to get caught up in the attack on the city. Jonathan turned his head to look at her, almost offended that she had even asked.

"I'm going to take you with me. I thought that would go without saying." He shifted his whole body to face her. "Like I said this morning, I do terrible things, but I wouldn't abandon you do that any more than you would to me, especially now. I told you everything; now you're involved."

El nodded in relief. All of her questions answered, she returned to thinking about how much she should have been disturbed by the situation. Her best friend was involved in a plot to bring down an entire city, and she had been more concerned about her own safety than she had been about the innocent people living there.

Then again, why should she be worried? Everything, everyone, for her entire adult life had been just like high school in Arlen where the strong and privileged had punched downward at the weak for fun, and the weak were pushed to do bad things to get by. Was it not kinder to eliminate the city where it was all overlooked? Kinder to provide the weak with an out from subjugation with a choice that they didn't need to make? To exact revenge on their tormentors?

Really, she thought, if you think about it, the only difference between them and the two of us is that we have the chance to do something about it. So why shouldn't we?

Life in Gotham had already been so much more exciting than she had hoped for, and the promise of more in store filled her with anticipation. Why had she chosen to go so far away from Jonathan in the first place?

"Well then," she moved the carton onto the coffee table and laid across the newly empty space to put her head in her friend's lap and looked up at him. "What's the plan for Zsasz?" The littlest hint of a smile appeared on his face.

"You're looking forward to it now, aren't you?"

"He deserves it." The condemnation flew from her mouth without a second thought.

"He does, but are you sure you can do it?"

"Yes. I want to do it. And if I can't, that won't change. Even if you have to do it for me, it'll be done, and so long as one of us does it and no one else, I'll be satisfied with the outcome." Jonathan found himself feeling proud of his friend, and Scarecrow echoed the sentiment; the straw man was really starting to like her for the first time.

"Well said."

"I thought so too." El smiled at him, suddenly remembering once again her mysterious savior. "Oh!" She sat up quickly, turning to face him again. "The parking lot the other night, Zsasz; there was someone else there."

"What do you mean, there was a witness?" Elianna shook her head.

"No, it was after I fell, when I got up again and I was running to my car there was someone else there, he-" she paused to decide how to tell what had happened. "It seemed like he flew over my head, I don't know where he came from, but he went after Zsasz. I saw him for a seconds before I left, he was dressed in all black, and his face was covered. I thought that he would take care of Zsasz, but it seems like the police detained him, so I don't know what happened."

Jonathan thought for a moment, analyzing the information. "Well, even if whoever it was incapacitated Zsasz and called the police, it's unlikely that they would broadcast that on the media." EL nodded in agreement.

"I wonder what his motivation was and how he happened to be there." She spoke aloud, but more to herself than to Jonathan. "If he hadn't shown up, I don't think I would have made it."

"Well, it's definitely strange, I'll give you that." Jonathan sighed. "Something we'll have to keep an eye on. If a vigilante is gearing up to take out criminals, then we'll have to be prepared for it."

"Yeah." The apartment was silent as the pair thought over what would happen if anything they were planning on doing was discovered. "I knew Gotham would give me some excitement." She finally said lightly, to which Jonathan scoffed.

"Yeah, you could call it that. Is...there anything else you may have forgotten than you need to tell me?" El thought back for a moment, fighting a chill as she forced herself to remember anything.

"No, that's it." He nodded.

"Good."

"Yeah." They both paused for another moment before El spoke again, looking to change the subject. "Now go make dinner before I'm forced to finish your goldfish; I'm starving."

"Yes, ma'am," Jonathan stood, taking the carton back into the kitchen with him. "How do you feel about pasta tonight?"

[beshert-bh]

My journey to/with Judaism

***This is a super long post, it’s the FULL story, not a brief overview, but it would mean the WORLD to me if you read it***

Upbringing: very much Not Jewish™️

I was born into a Catholic family. I have a goyish last name. I was baptized as an infant, and my parents took me to church each week as a kid.

In kindergarten — back when I still went to a secular private school — one of my best friends was Jewish. He told me all about the traditions his family did...told me all about the kippahs they wear, and how they had their own game called dreidel for this holiday they celebrated, called Hanukkah. (Of course this convo was at a basic-kindergarten-level of knowledge.) When I came home from school I was fascinated with Hanukkah, (this is cringey to admit but my 5-year-old self tried to integrate the traditions together and so in order to do this I drew up a “Christmas dreidel” complete with Santa Claus’ face on one side, a present on another side...you get it)

And that is when I was promptly put in “parochial” schools. I went to Catholic school from 1st grade to 12th grade. I went through Holy Communion and Confirmation like all the other kids did. My elementary soccer team’s mascot was an Angel. My high school’s mascot was a Crusader. Our high school was located on Rome Avenue. I went to a Catholic youth conference. I considered becoming a nun because I was single all throughout high school.

Growing up, around Christmastime we would always travel to visit my grandma, and she would always say we’re “German Jewish” — but I would write her off. In my mind, I was like, Yeah ok like 1%? .....It felt like my grandma was acting like one of those white people who takes a DNA test and says, “Look! We’re 1% African!” So I would dismiss her and remind her how we’re Catholics and she would drop the subject.

Falling away from Xtianity: my first 2 years of college

My freshman year I changed — politically — as I was only conservative in high school because of the ‘pro-life’ agenda being shoved down my throat. I really aligned more with liberal and leftist policies and views, though. Once I became open to new political ideology, I began to question my theological beliefs.

I always had a strong connection to God. My whole life. But I struggled with connecting to Jesus, Mary, the saints, and so on. So obviously my freshman year of college I began to fall away from Catholicism.

You see, Catholics are “bad at the Bible” as I like to say. Other Christians do a better job of teaching and analyzing the writings. They actually require school-aged children to memorize Scripture passages. Catholics mostly just teach the same stuff over and over. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, blah blah blah. Catechism, liturgical calendar, blah blah blah. Parts of the mass, fruits of the spirit, blah blah blah.

So since I was already doubting Catholicism, its corrupt leadership, and its mindless traditions.... I thought maaaaybeeee I would find purpose, truth, clarity, etc. in plain-old Christianity. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The other Christian churches I went to baptized people (which is a BIG LIFE DECISION) on the spot. For example if a newcomer felt on a whim that they wanted to be baptized, the church would do it right then & there. No learning, no planning or preparing, that was it. They promoted blind faith and circular thinking. I began to realize these were both normal attitudes and cognitive patterns within any and every Christian community that I encountered.

Even the Christians who exhibited curiosity mostly just asked questions in order to be able to understand, and then accept, the doctrine as truth. Questions never ever challenged anything.

Oh and let’s throw in the fact that I’m bisexual. Homophobia, transphobia, biphobia (and more) are rampant in the church. So needless to say, with all my observations about the lack of logical thinking in the church (and considering my sexual orientation) I fell away. I stopped going to church unless my family made me when I was home from college.

Enter stage right: Judaism

In retrospect I happened to have a lot of friends in my sorority and my favorite fraternity on campus who were Jewish (the frat happened to be a traditionally-Jewish one). Thought nothing of it at the time. Fast forward to junior year when I met this cute guy on Tinder. He’s now my boyfriend and we’ve been dating for over a year. He didn’t tell me this on Tinder, but when we went on our first date, he revealed that he’s Jewish and wanted to make sure that’s something I was ok with. Clearly I had no problem with that. I wasn’t too into Christianity anymore but I still identified as one (and I was still surrounded by Christian friends in my sorority) so I told him I was Christian/raised Catholic and asked hypothetically if he would be comfortable with a “both” family. He said yes.

We started dating during an October, so of course Hanukkah came up soon. There was a mega challah bake at our local Chabad, which he took me to, and we had a blast. From then on I decided I wanted to show him how supportive I was of his Jewishness. (The last girl he dated dumped him after 3 months BECAUSE he was Jewish... so I felt that I needed to be supportive)

We started going to shabbat services and dinner every week. We did Hanukkah together (we bought our first menorah together, he taught me how to spin a dreidel, his mom bought me Hanukkah socks...lol). At some point in our relationship I told him I may have Jewish ancestry from my grandma but it’s distant and my whole extended family is Christian so it really wouldn’t even matter. I don’t remember when I had that conversation with him.

Eventually, after another few months of Shabbat services and Shabbat dinners, Pesach came around.

We went to the first seder together. The second seder is what changed everything.

Deciding to convert

At first I wasn’t sure if I belonged at this second seder. My boyfriend had always brought me to every event. I had never attended anything alone at Chabad before. But I went anyway. Throughout the night I felt increasingly comfortable. I had never felt more like I was a *part of something* than I did at this seder.

I sat near a friend who I recognized. (He knows I’m raised Catholic.) Then he & his friends welcomed me. We all took turns reading from the Haggadah, we drank the four cups of wine together, and we laughed together as I had maror for the first time.

Then the familiar faces left to go home, and one of them even went to another table to sit with his other friends whom he hadn’t had a chance to see yet that night. Naturally I thought I was alone again. I almost left, but something tugged at my heart to stay until the very end of the second seder. Something told me to keep going and keep taking in this wonderful experience.

The rest of the night consisted of many songs (most likely prayers, in retrospect) I did not know. Everyone stood to sing and we all clapped to the rhythm. I knew none of the words but I still clapped along, alone at my own table. Then one of the boys — the one who had been sitting with my friends and I earlier — motioned at me to come over and join his other friends. I approached this new table full of people I’d never met, feeling awkward as ever, and they not only hoisted me up to stand on the table with them as they chanted, but they also included me in their dance circle. (no, I don’t think it was the Hora, we just spun around over and over. lol.)

This was the first night I felt at home with Judaism. Going through the Jewish history with the Haggadah, remembering the important occurrences and symbolizing them with various foods, ending the night by being welcomed into the community... it was transformative. After attending shabbat services for months and learning about Jewish values, it changed something in me when I observed Pesach for the first time last year. I knew this path would be right for me. I felt as if my soul had found where it belonged. The Jewish history, traditions, beliefs, and customs resonated with me. It all just... made sense.

I told my boyfriend I wanted to convert. I wrote three pages of reasons. But I sat on the idea of converting and did nothing for a while. I did do some more research on Judaism, though, as I continued to attend services each week.

The exploration stage

I began to actually research on my own time. If converting was something I was genuinely considering, it was high time I began actively learning as much as I could possibly learn. It was time to dive deeper than just attending the weekly services and googling the proper greetings for Jewish holidays.

I started digging deeper into Judaism and Christianity so I could compare and contrast the two. I needed to understand the similarities and differences. And BOY are they different. That was surprising at first, but the more I learned about Judaism, the more I loved how different it was from the Christianity I was indoctrinated into.

Not only are the values and teachings of each religion vastly different, but the Tanakh (which is “The Old Testsment” in Christian Bibles) actually contradicts:

The entire “New Testament”

The gospel books specifically

The Pauline letters specifically

How did I realize this? Some bible study of my own, but mostly through online research. And, of course, I would have gotten nowhere without the help of Rabbi Tovia Singer and his YouTube videos. He debunks everything there is to debunk about Christianity.

Here were some things I came across when researching:

It confused me how the four Gospels didn’t align (like, major parts of the story did not align at all...and supposedly they’re divinely inspired...but they don’t even corroborate one another?)

It confused me how the psalms we sang in church were worded completely different from the true wording in the Bible (essentially the Christian church is taking tehillim and altering it to benefit Christian dogma and Christian rhetoric.)

It confused me how we read in the Bible that Jews are ‘God’s chosen people’ and yet in every Catholic Church, every Sunday, there is a Pauline letter being read which depicts proselytization of Jews, as if Jews are lost and need Christians to save them. As if Jews would go to hell if they fail to accept Jesus.

It confused me why we would pray to Mary and the saints, because praying is worship, and worshipping anyone but God themself is idolatry.

It confused me why Christians make, sell, and use graven images. Idolatry. Again.

It confused me why Christians give absolute power to humans. For example, if you crawl up the same steps (Scala Santa) that Jesus supposedly crawled up before he died, you automatically get “saved” because *some old men who have no divine power* said so (they have a term for this and it’s called “plenary indulgence” lol).

It confused me why Jesus was believed to be the messiah considering he had to have biologically been from the line of Joseph. Wasn’t Jesus supposedly conceived without any help from Joseph? Wouldn’t that render Jesus, uh, not messiah by default? Even if he was from Joseph’s blood, he still did not complete all the tasks moshiach is supposed to fulfill. And even if he DID fulfill all the tasks required of moshiach... we still would not worship a messiah as he is human and not GOD.

These were all new thoughts I developed this past year between Pesach and Yom Kippur. New questions that challenged everything I thought I knew. It was like teaching a child 2+2≠22 but rather 2+2=4.

Hillel

This fall, after the High Holy Days, my boyfriend began attending shabbat dinners at a rabbi’s home. His new rav lives in the community and it’s exclusive to be invited, so I never imposed. We do Shabbos separately now (with some exceptions, we do it together sometimes).

I continued to go to Chabad with one of my friends who knew I wanted to convert. But one month, she couldn’t come at all, and I felt a little judged there anyway.

So I began going to Hillel a few months ago. And I honestly have found a home there.

From Hillel’s Springboard Fellow reaching out to me and taking me out for coffee to get to know me... to running into my sorority & fraternity friends at every Hillel event (shabbat or otherwise)... From getting included in various clubs like the women empowerment group and the mental health inclusivity group... to being the only college student to participate in Mitzvah Day (hosted by Hillel) with the elderly and the local Girl Scout troop... I feel truly welcome. I’ve started to attend every week. I even talked briefly with the rabbi about having Jewish lineage and wanting to convert.

Discovering new information

I went home to be with family during Thanksgiving break. My grandma flew in so she was there when I got home. She stayed with us from then until New Years (and she’s actually moving in with us next year.)

Of course, now I have a Jewish boyfriend, Jewish friends, and I’ve done extensive research on Judaism. So this time I had background knowledge when she inevitably said... “You know, we’re German Jewish!”

I inquired a little. I asked her what she meant. How is she Jewish? I know my uncle took a DNA test this year and came back part Ashkenazi. But I needed a deeper explanation than DNA.

She revealed to me that her mom’s mom was Jewish. We believe she married a Christian man. Together they had my great-grandmother, who I believe was Christian. She had my grandma, who had my dad, who had me.

And I immediately felt like that changed things. At first I was (internally) like, Now I definitely need to convert! But then I was like, Wait, does this make me Jewish? Am I Jewish-ish? ...Can you be considered Jewish if you’re only ethnically Jewish but not raised Jewishly? ...Can you be Jewish if your dad is your only Jewish parent? ...Can you be Jewish if your dad never had a bris or a bar mitzvah?

I joined a bunch of Jewbook groups, began learning the Hebrew calendar & holiday schedule, and found some folks who assist with Jewish genealogy. They did some digging for me and apparently I descend from the Rothschild family. THE Rothschild family.

Who is a Jew? Who “counts”?

This is something I’ve been muddling over.

At Hillel, at my school at least, most people are pretty Reform. They’re very liberal with their definitions of Judaism (they believe in patrilineal descent and not only matrilineal descent).

They accept me and see me as actually Jewish ...and the ones who don’t... they at least see me as Jewish-adjacent, an “honorary Jew” or an “ally to the Jewish people”.

My boyfriend, however, still sees me as Not Jewish.™️ (For context he’s Reform but he’s trying to become as observant as possible) I know he only thinks this was because of how we began our relationship and because of how I was raised. But I’m very confused here.

Do I count?

Do I not?

Do I count *enough* but still need to go through a formal conversion process?

So...now what?

I don’t know how to navigate this odd journey but I have felt for a while that I have a Jewish neshama and I feel a strong need to affirm it. I just don’t know how or what is appropriate. Do I learn Hebrew? Sign up for a trip to Israel/Germany/Poland? Put up a mezuzah? Or go toward the other end of the scale, and head down a path of a formal conversion/reaffirmation process?

Thank you in advance for your responses and thanks for reading. 🤎

[padawanlost]

Why people think Jedi way is not the right way? I mean why they say Jedi are corrupted?

Becausethat’s what was portrayed on screen? I mean, the OT jedi were put on a pedestaland the fandom ate it up, as it was supposed to. At that point, that was all wehad. So when the PT deconstructed the “myth of the Jedi” and exposed then asflawed heroes, a lot of fans had trouble conciliating the two ideas and so theyturned on the prequels and its fans. George made it pretty clear (with the storyand in interviews) that he wanted the prequels to portray how democracies fall,and how *everyone* plays a role in it. And, for that to be possible, the Jedihad to be fallible.

It’s not aslight on the Jedi. it’s a necessity of the plot. If they had been theseperfect god-like do-gooders the fandom wants them to be, then pretty much allthe narrative would stop making sense. If they had been perfect, the plot wouldnot have ever moved forward. Also, it’s important to keep in mind, acknowledgingthe Jedi made mistakes and talking about them doesn’t mean people are “antis” ornegating their roles as “the good guys” of the story (like some hardcore jedifans would want you to believe).

Why people think Jedi way is not theright way?

Experience. On paper, it’s lovely butonce you acknowledge the reality of how the Order operated, you start to seethe cracks. Not being overwhelmed and controlled by hate and anger is a goodthing. Living without ever experiencing anger or hate is unachievable and unhealthy.Instead of saying “don’t become obsessed with love”, they said “don’t love”.That’s why so many people criticize what the Jedi Order became. Their ideologyis considered harmful because it denies human nature and punishes those who can’tregulate or hide their emotions. Not only they say “don’t love” they ostracizethose who fail to live by their impossible standards.

And that’s without going into howthey went about putting their Code into practice. People also have a troublewith them removing children from their families during early infancy to keepthem from bonding with their biological families, and everything related tothat practice (indoctrination).

Anakin is the living proof the Jediway is not the right way. All we have to do is look at how a sweet, lovinglittle boy became an anxious and troubled young man after 10 years of their “perfect”teachings. I’m not saying they would harm everyone, but the Jedi way – asportrayed on screen and on the EU – can be terrifying, especially for those whostruggle with mental illnesses.

why theysay Jedi are corrupted?

before weget into this, let’s keep in mind that corruption is more than embezzling moneyor bribing officials. Corruption is dishonesty, it’s failing to live by society’srules and our own rules. Have you ever stole something from work or school? Haveyou ever cheated on a test? That’s corruption too.

In the Jedi’scase, they corrupted themselves when they, by choice, failed to perform theirduties. The Jedi Order maintained its status by promising to defend theRepublic and all its citizens. When they failed to act on that promise andstill claimed the rewards that function provided, they became corrupt. They wereno longer providing the service they promised they would but they still werecollecting the rewards of that position.

Theycorrupted themselves when they failed to stop slavery; when they allowed therampant corruption in the Senate to go unquestioned, when they failed to investigateclaims about criminal activities; when they caused mass starvation; when theyrefused to return missing children to their parents; when supported untrustworthypoliticians to maintain their own political status; when deployed children intowar zones; when they refused to send any kind of help to protect people fromcriminal activities; when they expelled their own members without a properinvestigation or trial; when they put political prisoners in secret prisonswithout trial, investigation, legal council, visitation or change of parole;when they allowed themselves to become militarized; when they played a role inthe enslavement of clones; and when they lied and withheld information from theSenate.

These areall examples of the Jedi council putting what *they* thought was right abovethe law and above their own initial role in the Republic. It’s them breakingtheir promise to the Republic. Palpatine kept pushing them into making terribledecisions, and to keep their position, they wielded, thus, they corruptedthemselves. Ahsoka’s trial is a perfect example of this. All the evidence was circumstantialand they were not entirely sure she was guilty but because of the politicalpressure they were under, they expelled her and forced a 16 years old to face apotential death penalty by herself. That’s corruption. That’s putting your own interestsabove the interest of the greater good. It’s doing harm to keep your status.

Anakin’srelationship with Palpatine is another great example: it was forbidden forpadawans to leave the Temple with a Jedi companion, especially to spend alonetime with a political. But, the moment Palpatine used his influence, theywielded even though Palpatine had no legal claim over Anakin. But, becausepleasing the Chancellor was more important than keeping tradition, the ruleswere broken. It is another example of them forsaking their own rules and traditionfor political gain.

Look, I’vesaid this a thousand times before but I’ll say again because I’ll always getpegged as a Jedi-hater: none of this means the Jedi are evil, that we hate themor that they deserved their fate. It means they are flawed, as interesting charactersshould be. Again, it’s a slight on the Jedi. It’s a praise for the narrative.It turned something that was black/white, something that could go stale veryquickly, into something that’s colorful and vibrant and still keep usinterested 20 years later. The Jedi being flawed and corrupted is a good thing.It means, George, Filoni and everyone writing for SW did their research andunderstand how politics, people and societies work. It shows Star Wars is morethan laser swords and cool ships, that it has depth and value beyond it’svisual and technological achievements. And, of course, it makes the charactersmore relatable.  

[nellygwyn]

Sneaking this God stuff in without telling me! Turns out, Aslan, with his rightful kingliness and infinite wisdom and forgiveness shtick, and willingness to sacrifice himself for sinful Edmund, was Jesus! The Pevensies were his disciples, Edmund a bit of a Judas, and the White Witch was the Devil. And Narnia's heaven! Ger' out of it! Though, eventually, my rage subsided. It was still a very, very good story, after all. As were all the others. The Magician's Nephew, the one with the magic rings and the hero, Diggory's dying mother miraculously restored to health (as building your own fantasy world allows) by Narnian fruit, was written after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but forms a prequel to it. Prince Caspian is the Lion's sequel, written by Lewis while the Lion was still going through the process of acceptance of publication in 1949-50 and, according to Lewis from a letter to an American reader, is about 'the restoration of the true religion after a corruption.'

For oblivious me, it was simply an even more potent rendering of and deeper immersion in the Narnian landscape. The Pevensies return to the magical kingdom to find that hundreds of years have passed, civil war is dividing the kingdom and the old Narnians (the many dwarves, centaurs, talking animals, the dryads and hamadryads that once animated the trees, and other creatures) are in hiding. The children must lead the rebels against their Telmarine conquerors. The warp and weft of Narnian life is seen up close in even more gorgeously imagined detail than in the previous books. Lucy, awake one night in the thick forest that has grown up since she was last in Narnia, feels that the trees are almost awake and if she just knows the right thing to say, they will come to Narnian life once more. It mirrored exactly how I felt about reading and about reading Lewis in particular. I was so close. If I could just read the words on the page one more time, bring one more ounce of love to the story they told, I could animate them too. The flimsy barriers of time, space and immateriality would finally fall and Narnia would spring up all around me and I would be there at last. Alas, it never quite happened. Nevertheless, despite this betrayal, Prince Caspian remains my favourite of the Narnia stories, although if you ever confront me, I will deny it to the ends of the earth because my first loyalty must always be to my dad and the piece of his heart he handed to me with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third to be published in 1952, finishes Prince Caspian's story with his quest to find the seven Lords of Narnia who were banished when Miraz took the throne. It's too good. In fact, on the days when Prince Caspian isn't my favourite, this is (unless it's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which, let's face it, it always is. Even when it's Prince Caspian, yes). The Silver Chair is great but has none of the Pevensie quartet in it so must, regretfully, be relegated to the second tier of favourites wherein also languishes The Horse and His Boy, fifth to be published in 1954 and the third in reading, which is to say, in Narnian chronological order, because it has no children or animals from the real world at all and goes far too nearly the full Tolkien for my comfort. And then, of course, The Last Battle.

For anyone worried, like Mine Hostess, about their children being secretly indoctrinated into Christianity, let me just say this: no child ever has, or will be, converted to Christianity through reading about Cair Paravel, Aslan, naiads, dryads, hamadryads, fauns and all the rest. If they notice it all, they're far more likely to be narked than anything else, and they probably won't notice it. They are relatively literal creatures. At most, they will spend a few days tapping the backs of wardrobes hopefully (yes, I did. Well, only the old wooden one in the spare room. All the others in the house were white, melamine covered chipboard which was inimical to mood). But they are unlikely to go up to the nearest cleric and say 'I'm looking for a saviour analogous to a benevolent lion who died on a stone table to free his people from tyranny. Do you have anyone who might do?". The tale of Lucy Pevensie discovering the secret world behind the wardrobe door is a story about courage, loyalty, generosity, sacrifice and nobility versus greed, conceit, arrogance and betrayal. You can call the former Christian virtues, or you can just call them virtues, let the kids concentrate on the self-renewing Turkish delight, magically unerring bows and hybrid man-beasts, and relax. I should've told my interlockinger over at the Radio Times that she could probably relax about the snobbery, too. Just because Lewis refers to 'whatever grapes your people may have' doesn't mean the modern child feels crushed beneath the weight of interwar class distinctions. They haven't even noticed! There's a Bacchanalian rite going on at the time, for a start. Sanitised for the children's consumption but still, trees are dancing.

~ Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading // Lucy Mangan