#where he goes by everything one by one to show him (covertly) that it's all safe and nice and he doesn't have to do anything to deserve it

[ronnieannroyals1]

Hear me out though: Alastor goes missing for days he doesn't show up when the hotels being built, they know he's still alive because of Niffty and Husk's deal right, but at some point Rosie starts worrying for Alastor because they all saw what happened with Adam and Rosie goes to Charlie for help and like Charlie noticed he was gone. Picture Lucifier saying "Wheres that Radiohead friend of yours.", but charlie agrees to help and it turns out that Niffty has known where he was the whole time and takes the whole crew with them

AND ALASTOR IS A WRECK

Mans looks like hes been pacing for days on end he's bleeding out from a gaping wound on his chest from an angelic weapon THERES BLOOD EVERYWHERE the radio tower is so much more destroyed because of him destroying it and Husk is all like

"Woah, Boss." and he like walks in his path trying to stop and calm him down, but Alastor just keeps pacing and ignoring him well Niffty runs around cleaning and talking about what a mess hes made.

I want Alastor refusing to look at or speak to anyone and Charlie on her knees begging him to stop and let them talk to him as he just goes demon and destroyed the radio tower worse and worse. Vaggie thinks hes really lost it and Angel dust is kind of covertly worried.

Eventually Rosie steps in and shes the only one that can pull him out of it by literally grabbing him which scares everywhere because like no one touched Alastor. Like he pits a hand on people's shoulder, hugs Niffty, but no one really touches him first. Rosie just kind of grabs him and sits him down and they all try and help but he's sort of just shut down and no one can figure out why. Also he's still smiling the whole time, but it doesnt look real.

A break in his facade.

Eventually they just take him back to the hotel and fix him up and Alastor just pretends everything goes back to normal, but from then on their kind of a little closer, even if Alastor is drawn away more than usual.

Because they know his smile can be fake. They know he isn't just a ruthless bloody killer their for entertainment. They've seen his development.

And as much as Alastor hates to admit it, They know him better than he thinks.

[butterflydm]

2x8 - some thoughts this morning (mostly about rand)

The contrast for Rand between this and last season's finales.

Facing Ishamael alone in the dark vs alongside his friends in the light.

Going off by himself after the confrontation (with no one in Fal Dara being aware of his actions) vs being heralded by all of Falme.

Moiraine willing to kill him because she doesn't trust him not to fall to the dark vs being willing to do whatever it takes to support him because she does trust him.

And within this episode itself, we have Lanfear telling Rand she's the only one who cares about him (manipulative technique to try to keep Rand emotionally isolated and dependent on Lanfear) vs that beautiful ending of him being supported by all these people who genuinely care about him (and not the guy that he was 3000 years ago).

I loved the placement of where the heron is on Rand's palm. I always thought it was in the middle and it felt kinda awkward to me but it looked really good the way that they did it.

book spoilers through the shadow rising are below

I am sad that the /wot subreddit freaked out over Rand's power progression getting smoothed (just like they did last finale) because they were doing so much better for most of this season. Alas, sigh. /wotshow is somewhat better, at least.

But, yes, about Rand's power progression. One of the big things about book 4 is that Rand is desperate enough to learn the One Power that he is willing to use one of the Forsaken as a teacher. That means that Rand needs to not be a powerhouse badass. The books mostly handled it by powering Rand up at the end of each book and then depowering him back at the start of the next one, but a lot of that was buyer's remorse on Jordan's part, imo, as he realized he'd accidentally made Rand too strong for the next part of the story. If Rand had already had those big power moments from the books, then it would be jarring that Rand is desperate enough to let one of the Forsaken that close to him (especially after everything with Lanfear); this isn't a book so we can't get Rand's internal justifications for the choice. The viewers need to believe that Rand NEEDS Asmodean. We've seen that Rand has raw strength, but his control is shaky and he doesn't have anyone to learn from.

The show turning Rand's growth into something more steady is good, imo. Right now, even as untrained as he is, Rand can run circles around non-channelers without thinking about it (killing Turak and his entire squad), but he's unprepared for facing other channelers because he lacks finesse and control. So... he needs a teacher and Logain didn't work out.

Enter Lanfear's way of contacting Rand while not contacting him. This actually feels like a clever way to handle it -- that Lanfear might use Asmodean as her proxy to stay informed about Rand while covertly helping him out, since she's kinda in time-out right now.

Also -- I've had a thought about the plotline that Ingtar didn't get... what if it goes to someone else? Mostly, I am wondering this because Lanfear specifically said, "Light protect you, Rand al'Thor" at the end of the episode. There are none who walk so long in the dark that they cannot seek the light?

I've also had a thought about Siuan. I know there are a bunch of theories out there that basically boil down to "she wasn't acting the way she really feels in her heart" and most of them don't really do anything for me. I just don't feel like the evidence is there and Siuan's actions are reasoned out and clearly explained in the episode.

...and then we learned in this episode that Ishamael did not want Rand in Falme. Not yet.

So everything that Lanfear did in 2x7 was entirely of her own design. The only thing she did on Ishamael's behalf was deliver Mat to him. But she and Ishamael were not working together to bring Rand to Falme.

So I think that there's real potential that Ishamael has continued screwing with Siuan's dreams this season; because we can reasonably guess that he was the one who gave her the idea of Moiraine taking the Dragon to the Eye of the World, and we've seen both Ishamael and Lanfear playing around in TAR this season, and compared to the tiny bit we got about Compulsion, we have gotten a LOT of exposition about TAR and multiple scenes set there.

Rand believed that Ishamael wanted him in Falme, but he was wrong. Ishamael didn't think he was ready yet.

...but if Rand is locked up in the White Tower for months? Shielded from the One Power and helpless? Completely isolated from anyone he cares about? Maybe then making a deal with the Dark One would start looking a lot more tempting.

And all of sudden... we've got motive (Ishamael wants to break Rand emotionally), means and opportunity (TAR/dreams, which we know he has access to), which were things that were missing from the other theories that I've seen.

Briefly: the 'it was all a ruse by Siuan' theory lacks proper motive imo -- attempting to trick Rand in this way is just as likely to backfire and make him unwilling to ever trust Moiraine again and Moiraine should absolutely know that by now; and the 'Siuan is under compulsion' theory lacked proper opportunity because we saw how Siuan brushed Liandrin off in 2x6 and she's been traveling all season so Traveling or Skimming to find her in order to Compel her would be more difficult, for the same reason that Lanfear didn't Travel when she was trying to chase Rand in 2x5.

I am also thinking about how the various changes that the show made will affect some storylines in the future. Renna, Seta, and Suroth's early deaths definitely impact a storyline later on and I definitely want to unpack that at some point (did Suroth die? I will double-check when I do my rewatch).

I really want to talk about how much I deeply loved the choices they made with Mat's storyline but I think I want to do my rewatch first, because I'm pretty sure my brain blanked out for parts of it because I was so happy. Everything about Mat in this episode was just so beautiful.

But there has been so much Mat foreshadowing for Rhuidean and certain other future things that I do find it confusing when people say that the show is going to skip those things for him. Maybe the fact that Ishamael's 'past lives tea' was confirmed to be a lie will make some of those people think twice about their assumptions?

Oh! The glorious contrast of Ishamael, LTT's BFF in his past life, being the "betrayer of hope" and then Perrin giving Mat the Horn and telling him to take it to Rand, saying, "you're his only hope". That's so good, that's so tasty, I can't wait to dive into the Ishy-Mat compare-contrast.

I plan to write up a post about my thoughts about where we might go in s3, and I'll post that next week sometime. This weekend is for my rewatch and my deep dive, and I'm really looking forward to it. So much happened in the episode that I know there's a lot that I missed talking about last night.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Pursuer-distancer roles & attachment style in Utsukushii Kare, Part 1: Hira

Note: As I write this, only the first episode of season 2 has been released. This is based on season 1, episode 1 of season 2, and (sparingly) on translated bits of the novel that I’ve read. There seem to be some issues with the current subtitles so impressions could change as better fansubs come out or if streaming ones are improved. I’m watching the show on Viki so any quoted dialogue is from their subs.

I wrote about pursuer-distancer dynamics in this previous post. Now I’m going to dig deeper into how they play out in Utsukushii Kare. I recommend checking out the more detailed explanation of pursuer and distancer roles in that post, but I’ll give a super concentrated summary now as well.

So, a pursuer-distancer dynamic in a relationship occurs when one person takes on the role of emotionally pursuing while the other takes on the role of emotionally distancing. These roles are deeply interrelated—they rely on each other in order to work. It’s difficult to sit with the fact that we both crave intimacy and fear it/need some degree of independence. But that difficulty can be avoided if one person expresses all the need for closeness in a relationship while the other expresses all the need for independence. Neither of these strategies really work, but they are meant to fail, at least partially. It’s a “careful what you wish for” situation. If pursuers got all of the intimacy they seek, they’d be overloaded, and if distancers got all the space they asked for, they’d be lonely. Hence the part where they rely on one another to work, to help them fail in the ways they need to.

(Screenshot via MDL by ruiLIKK)

In many ways, Hira is the epitome of a pursuer. I think it’s what makes him fit the role of a seme so well despite constantly putting himself in a subservient position and even refusing direct overtures from Kiyoi. Like most pursuers, Hira seems to want closeness with the person he loves but his covert fears of intimacy and need for independence cause him to sabotage his own efforts. What’s less typical are some of the strategies he uses both to seek intimacy and covertly avoid it, as I’ll talk about more below. 

Pursuers are often people with a preoccupied (or “anxious”) attachment style. In Attachment in Psychotherapy, David Wallin describes preoccupied patients as people whose formative experiences taught them that the best way to get their needs met was by “mak[ing] their own distress too conspicuous to ignore.” This would make sense for Hira. His parents (portrayed more in the novels than the show) seem to be disengaged most of the time, but they spring into action when they get worried (a prime example is when they take him to see a medical provider about his stutter and buy him an expensive camera). By the time of the main story, he mostly seems to mask his distress so they’ll leave him alone. But at that point, those early experiences have already had their effect.

Hira’s experiences with peers have been uniformly terrible, and they are also a type of formative experience. As I’ve said, it’s commonplace to have a fear of intimacy as well as a desire for it. But Hira’s history with people his own age would definitely worsen his fears of being close to others. At the same time, these same negative experiences and the fears they’ve created have isolated him, making his need for intimacy even more acute. Like I said in my previous post, Hira is intensely ambivalent about intimacy. (So is Kiyoi, but that’ll have to wait for part 2.)

In his discussion of preoccupied attachment, Wallin goes on to say that the making-distress-conspicuous approach to getting needs met renders the preoccupied person “hypervigilant for actual or imagined signs that a relationship partner might be disapproving, withdrawn, or rejecting.” Yep, this is classic Hira.

As much as possible, Hira interprets everything that Kiyoi says or does negatively—as meaning that Kiyoi doesn’t love him, won’t stay with him, won’t meet his needs, and could never approve of him. If necessary, he’ll create a reason for concern out of nothing. 

When you see Kiyoi making this face and his hair starts billowing in a mysterious breeze, you’re inside Hira’s mind witnessing a complete fabrication. (Screenshot via MDL by doramasaurusrex)

At the same time, Hira definitely pursues Kiyoi. His relentless staring communicates his interest. He takes every opportunity to be around Kiyoi. When he gets to communicate with Kiyoi privately, he’s all compliments and reverence. His willingness to do whatever it takes to be near Kiyoi, even behave like a servant, is also a form of pursuit. But, like all pursuers, he has built-in safeguards against accidentally getting (too much of) the intimacy he wants but also fears:

First, he chose a seemingly unattainable object. When Hira first fell for Kiyoi, he wasn’t aware of all the reasons Kiyoi might actually be capable of returning his feelings. Even setting aside his negative bias, he had every rational reason to believe that Kiyoi was unlikely to ever love him back.

By the time it turns out that Kiyoi may not be completely out of his reach, Hira has had a chance to observe his distancing tendencies. Just choosing a distancer as a potential partner is a way of decreasing the risk that you’ll get more than you bargained for by pursuing them. 

Next, when Kiyoi builds a kind of friendship with him and even kisses him on graduation day, he changes his phone number. Perhaps he really is unaware that he can replace his submerged phone without changing his number. But personally, I really wonder if a part of him did this intentionally. At the very least, he could still have asked about keeping his number or tried to contact Kiyoi to give him the new one. He had real reason to hope Kiyoi might like him back (if nothing else, the kiss!) and whether by neglect or (on some level) intentionally, he made further contact impossible.

The most pervasive and destructive way that Hira sabotages his own efforts at intimacy with Kiyoi is through his distorted thoughts, including the biased interpretations and pure fabrications I mentioned above. He creates a narrative that says that:

Kiyoi is permanently superior to him, rendering him permanently out of reach

To whatever extent he does attain intimacy with Kiyoi, or even seek it, this is a kind of crime against nature (“touching a god”) that will undoubtedly cause some kind of unstoppable cosmic misfortune as a punishment,

Relatedly, any intimacy with Kiyoi can only be temporary.

This last factor leads me to one other thing I should mention. I was thinking about how I’d conceptualize Hira’s personality. I looked at my favorite book on the subject, Nancy McWilliams’s Psychoanalytic Diagnosis. I felt like I should check out the chapter on self-defeating/masochistic personality (note: not related to masochistic sexual practices!) but was reminded that people of that type are typically more resentful of what they see as undeserved suffering. Hira, on the other hand, perceives himself as completely deserving to suffer. So I looked at the chapter on depressive personality. The main defense depressive personalities use, McWilliams writes, is introjection: turning any hostile feelings inward toward the self. Much more like Hira. This is totally consistent with his pervasive sense of doom, hopelessness about improving his lot in life, and inability to take in positive comments about himself.

Of course, despite his self-sabotage, Hira does actually want to be close to Kiyoi. And he achieves that, in some ways. Pursuers do want intimacy, as their self-presentation suggests, they just tend to create conditions that decrease the chances they will get as much of it as they claim to want. So Hira sabotages his chances of getting his needs met. And every time he does get close to Kiyoi, he feels like he is adding to his list of crimes or the amount of suffering he’ll have to go through later to make up for any joy he feels. It’s like a form of emotional avoidance that dovetails with his behavioral avoidance.

Take, for example, his thoughts (delivered in voiceover) while on his outing with Kiyoi in S2E1. “They say the amount of happiness one feels is predetermined. In that case I may have only misfortune in my future. Kiyoi might dump me. Kiyoi might hate me. Kiyoi might die before me. What should I do then?” I don’t know who “they” are supposed to be here, but this is not an idea I’ve ever encountered in any culture or religion, except maybe Calvinism or something. It seems like Hira has just seized on a somewhat random idea, but this idea feels true because of his self-defeating narrative. It comes as no surprise, then, that when Hira starts ruminating about these possible future misfortunes, he stops himself from experiencing closeness with Kiyoi in that moment—which does not go unnoticed by Kiyoi. “Don’t live in your own world,” he tells Hira. “We’re hanging out in this one.” It barely seems to register with Hira that Kiyoi looks irritated and hurt. Clearly, Hira’s distractibility and negativity when he’s trying to enjoy his company is painful to him. And again, he has managed not only to detract from his enjoyment of the closeness he has with Kiyoi, but also to sabotage the potential for closeness in the interaction he’s having with Kiyoi in the present.

(Screenshot via MDL by ruiLIKK)

It’s worth noting that a related kind of distorted perception seems to affect Hira in other situations where people are showing an interest in him romantically and/or sexually. Take his interaction with that model at the party in S2E1 for example. He’s extremely gullible when he believes her claim that the other attendees are angry with him and think he’s rude. And though he registers that she’s getting close to him and touching him in a way that makes him uncomfortable, he doesn’t seem to understand that she’s putting the moves on him or that she’s interested in him. He’s beyond surprised when Kiyoi shows him the piece of paper with her phone number that she slipped into his pocket.

Watching that scene, I asked myself if I had just failed to notice before that Hira had a profound lack of social awareness. But then I thought about where this had come up and where it hadn’t. Hira shows social awareness in other situations, like when he observes what goes on between the students in Shirota’s circle in high school. It seems he’s only this clueless when it comes to admitting others might like him. The same happened with Koyama, when Hira seemed unaware that they were on a date. Hira does lack social skills in a lot of ways, but his awareness isn’t that bad except in this area. The main issue seems to be that anyone being attracted to or interested in him is classified as “impossible.” This is how, in S1E6, he not only turned down Kiyoi offering to date him but managed not to remember it ever happened.

That’s it for now on Hira’s side of the equation. I have part 2, on Kiyoi, almost ready to post as well, so that should be up pretty soon. Edited to add: I forgot to include another side of Hira’s pursuing role in his relationship with Kiyoi: pursuing sexual intimacy specifically. We get new information about this aspect of Hira and Kiyoi’s relationship in S2E1 in a couple of scenes. In the opening scene, once Kiyoi is awake, Hira asks if he’s angry with him for being “too persistent” the previous day. We don’t know for certain what this persistence was about, but their mutual shyness about it and Hira’s reference to it being caused by Kiyoi’s cuteness suggest that he was hitting on Kiyoi. We don’t know the outcome of it, though. The other moment happens when, after the incident with the model stirs up Kiyoi’s possessiveness, he (bashfully) announces that he and Hira are going to “do it” that day (resulting in a huge grin from a surprised Hira). It’s interesting—and simultaneously endearing and strange—that on the one hand, he can just decide this for the two of them (assumably because Hira always jumps at the chance), which gives him an air of imperiousness, but on the other, that he’s so uncharacteristically shy about it. Both of these scenes are very consistent with Hira’s role as a pursuer. He seems less ambivalent about this type of closeness than others, but he also seems to respect for Kiyoi’s boundaries (”persistence” notwithstanding). Basically, he seems to be on board with being the one petitioning for sexual contact while Kiyoi acts as more of a gatekeeper.

[lilnasxvevo]

I’ve been playing with a modern AU for a few days where Wei Wuxian just. Goes off somewhere. For reasons I haven’t quite figured out yet. But one day he leaves a note that says, like, “I’m alive but I gotta go, please don’t look for me”

And then after several years (NOT sixteen though holy shit) he comes back, maybe because he needs help, maybe because whatever problem made him leave has been fixed, maybe he misses everyone too much, maybe someone died and he decided to come back for the funeral, idk.

And I only have snippets from there with varying levels of angst and comedy, such as:

-Jiang Cheng being the first person to see him and putting him in something that is more a wrestling hold than a hug because YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY FROM ME THIS TIME! WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU, ASSHOLE?

-Just a snippet where Wei Wuxian drives them somewhere and parks badly and Jiang Cheng snorts and says “God, you still park like an asshole,” and Wei Wuxian’s heart CLENCHES because he knows that’s one of Jiang Cheng’s weird ways of saying “I still remember everything I’ve ever learned about you, and that’s because I love you”

-Jiang Cheng assuming that Wei Wuxian hasn’t been COMPLETELY off the grid and has been keeping tabs on them somehow when this was not actually possible for Wei Wuxian to do, so after their unexpected (for Jiang Cheng) public reunion he says “Do you want to come back home with me? He’ll be glad to see you, to be able to confirm for himself that you’re—that you’re all right.” “He who?” “My…husband…?” “YOU GOT MARRIED? YOU LIKE MEN? YOU GOT MARRIED TO SOMEONE I KNOW???” and Jiang Cheng has to tell Wei Wuxian in public that he fell in love with and married Nie Huaisang while Wei Wuxian was gone and Wei Wuxian SCREAMS in public because Nie Huaisang has had a crush on Jiang Cheng since they were like 17 and GOOD FOR HIM!!! GOOD FOR HIM

-Jiang Cheng gets Wei Wuxian back to his apartment and covertly texts Jiang Yanli and she shows up and she and Wei Wuxian cry on each other for a VERY long time and she says “Don’t you EVER do that again” like 300000 times

-By the time it occurs to Nie Huaisang that someone really ought to text Lan Wangji (he doesn’t know if Wei Wuxian wants to see him or not, but he doesn’t care—Lan Wangji deserves to Know) it’s late enough at night that Nie Huaisang knows Lan Wangji will have turned his phone off and gone to bed, but he texts him anyway. Wei Wuxian sleeps there that night on their couch and at 5:20 in the morning is awoken by Lan Wangji POUNDING on the door. They stare at each other for a long moment because that’s who they are as people, then Wei Wuxian swallows and says, “I’m sorry,” and then Lan Wangji is giving him a borderline bone-crushing hug and he rejects the apology with a “No” and then just says “You’re back. You’re back, you’re back. You’re here,” and Wei Wuxian genuinely might be in danger of dehydration from the sheer amount of tears he has cried in the last 18 hours

[onchyart]

Top 5 scenes which showed exactly how crooked Will Graham is too.

*shaking your hand* you are in a right place, hop in, and I will tell you a story

put “top 5” anything in my ask and i will answer ok go

To summarize if you are dont want to read the whole thing: Will Graham's awfulness is not Hannibal's fault. Will was not seduced by evil, he got liberated by it. Do you ever had a friend that pretty alright on their own, but getting instantly 10 times worse when they are in a company, they want to impress? That's Will, and in a s3, he doesn't even need Hannibal around

I will start with 5, to show escalation

5. 01/07 Sorbet

-Seems to me he was humiliating someone. -Yeah, he was humiliating Jack. -Did it work? -I'd say it worked really well.

We can recall that their first eye-to-eye interaction (first episode) got warm and personal because Hannibal covertly mocked Jack's perception of Will as something delicate and special. Here, Will, smiling and having a great time while they are discussing one of Jack's great losses, how effectively Ripper got to him. No sympathy spared for their mutual friend. Petty cruelty on display 4. 02/09 Shiizakana

-Your psychiatrist came to visit me at the hospital before my trial. -Dr. Du Maurier. -She told me she believed me. -She knew there were others like me. Did you kill her?

Okay, what do you do with the person who bravely boosted your confidence in your own mind while everyone else is just given up on your side of the story? Sell them out to the most dangerous man you know ofc. And all of this because you don't feel like a special boy anymore. Unchecked jealousy +petty cruelty+ harming innocent (as far as he knows) person

3. 03/02 Secondo

-Are you here to take someone from him? -If I were like Hannibal… I would've killed you already. Cooked you… ate you… and fed what was left of you to him.That's what he would do. -You've given that some thought.

Will is indirectly threatening a woman, he doesn't know, who's help he wants and who is living alone, without any support. Chiyoh knows how to handle herself, but what he is doing is unnecessary cruel and has no meaning beyond making her uncomfortable and on edge. Plus, to show how well he knows Hannibal (and she doesn't). Once again, unchecked jealousy + petty cruelty+ harassing innocent (as far as he knows) person.

Intermission + honorable mentions (it's important for later):

Will is trying to shoot the guy that crawls from inside a horse, not for Peter or Hannibal, but for his own sick pleasure.

Will is listening to Bedelia talk about "whimsy and having Hannibal confused in a dream", just to try to wake him up and tell the truth about how he feels (codependency and all that). Taking Hannibal's side above anyone who is trying to catch him

Will, while cornered,w/o even looking at Jack, confessing, how he wanted to run away with Hannibal. He could phone Jack and ask him to wait, so they could be together against our guy. But no, Jack goes without a warning and nearly dies, because Will is more comfortable betraying him than a serial killer, they were trying to catch this whole time.

Will is telling Alana to fuck off from the house she is grieving in, because he is busy with his imaginary friends.

Will saying "Good for Jack" with disdain when Alana tells him about the state of his friend, who was trying to save him from getting his head open.

2. 03/11 ...And the Beast from the Sea

-Jack Crawford, fisher of men, watching my cork move against the current. You got me again. Hannibal told me where to find him.He knows. He knows who the Dragon is. He probably treated him.

Okay, we established that Will did everything to make Jack suspicious of him. And now he is getting caught red-handed, conspiring with his boy best friend, keeping important stuff to himself. And Will is enjoying it too, covertly mocking Jack to his face. While writing fanfiction in real time about Hannibal and the Dragon's relationship. People are dying, Will. Unchecked jealousy + petty cruelty.

1.03/12 The Number of the Beast is 666

-Unless you have a professional voice to legitimize what you're saying.

-Someone to hide the wire on the snare. Are you volunteering?

WIll is very entertained by the motion of Alana getting mutilated by the Dragon (he had frightening hallucination a sec before about this very thing but now, it's okay, apparently). He will fuck over anyone if it is suitable enough for his purposes. He needs a pet to lure Dragon out. Big time cruelty+ harming (very much) innocent person.

Conclusion: it was hard to compress the whole thing in a top 5, because as much as Will is trying to help save people, he willingly became a person, who will harm the ones he is closest to, if he can get away with it. In Hannibal's presence he felt liberated enough to say some wild stuff, but s3 showed us, that he doesn't really need his favorite psychiatrist, he just wants him and everyone else can kick rocks. So, he and Hannibal, at their cores, are the same, selfish, cruel, petty, insecure creatures, whom I love.

[autisticandroids]

yknow those episodes where a character's whole personality gets split into 3-5 different distinct separate bodies? what bodies would cas have? I feel like it'd just be a mess tbh, imagine 5 different castiels all of them loving dean to a certain extent but showing it VASTLY differently. one cas would literally want to murder the others lmao

okay so i don’t actually think this trope would be an effective tool for analyzing cas? he’s not conflicted enough in himself. he’s too impulsive, too singleminded, too uninhibited. like, in the end, cas always ends up doing whatever he wants. there aren’t multiple discrete voices vying for control, really, or rather, if there are, one is always significantly stronger than the others. like in the end cas will always end up eating raw meat off the floor, you know? he’ll do what he wants. if i was going to do personality splitting i’d do it to someone intensely internally conflicted, like dean.

however, because i’m in an essay writing mood today, i’ll answer a question slightly to the left of the one you asked. cas may not be internally conflicted, but he is intensely changeable. these two things are related, actually; the same impulsivity and singlemindedness that mean he doesn’t have a ton of internal conflict at any given time mean that different ideas sound good to him at different times, because he isn’t really thinking about, say, what future-him will think of them. and he’s not really trying to maintain an image or identity. he’s just doing what feels right at the time, which is very different at different times and in different situations.

anyway, that in mind, i think a lot about ways to bring together many alternate versions of cas which sort of correspond to different times in the show.

i have a fic in my head about a bunch of cas-es pulled from alternate timelines by some kind of spell. so this would be set during the widower arc because the basic impulse here is to show dean a very bad time. just absolutely put him through hell. also, all the alternate timelines are different because different stuff happened, not because cas made different choices, because if we’re torturing dean it has to be like 5x04, the changes in cas can’t be cas’ fault. they have to be dean’s or just like, the universe’s (which makes them dean’s).

so dean is trying to bring cas back, and he finds some kind of spell that can bring someone “from another world.” and he tries it because hey. can’t hurt to try. anyway i’ve thought a long time about different versions of cas i would put in this and here is what i have. in order of when the timeline split off.

- a cas who never raised dean from hell. think 14x13 “lebanon.” this one i’m not too sure about, like, this could be fun, but i don’t know if it’s different enough from the next one. like this castiel would have lived through the averted apocalypse and subsequent general fuckery that happened as an angelic footsoldier, which would actually be pretty interesting now that i think about it, especially since all that stuff would have gone down soooooooo differently without cas specifically for your average angel footsoldier. like cas has PERSONALLY caused more upheaval in heaven in twelve years of spn than there seems to have been in millennia. so he would be the point of view of a normal footsoldier from a totally other world.

- a cas who died mid season four, and is pulled out of the empty in 2017 by this spell. i’m not sure when this cas died. my thoughts are (1) killed in on the head of a pin by alistair, (2) killed during his torture in the rapture, or (3) simply never resurrected after lucifer rising. (3) makes the most sense, but that cas has already thrown away everything for dean. i prefer the idea of a cas who loves dean, is already on the brink of disobedience for him, but has not yet taken the plunge. both on the head of a pin and the rapture are great places for this, and they both have strengths and weaknesses. if he died in the rapture, he was killed by heaven, which is fundamentally more fun, but he was also really very much over the edge already. if he died in on the head of a pin, he wasn’t killed by heaven, but he is perfectly teetering on the brink of falling for dean. regardless of when he died, the purpose of this cas is to be horrified at all the various and myriad ways he has destroyed and corrupted himself for dean in the other timelines.

- possibly endverse cas, who would have died in 2014, but like s4 cas, would have been pulled from the afterlife by the spell. i’m not so sure on this one. we as a society love endverse cas but i dunno what purpose he would serve. maybe endverse cas didn’t die in 2014, and instead was imprisoned by lucifer, because, you know. he’s the only brother lucifer has left. so he is very excited to see dean alive and well, since his dean is dead, and, not being an angel, cas can’t bring him back. the purpose of this cas would be to horrify dean that cas loves him and needs him so much, and to disgust the other cas-es with his neediness.

- a cas who was in some way on better terms with dean during s6. maybe dean and cas ride off into the sunset together after swan song instead of dean going to live with lisa, maybe dean prayed to cas while he was with lisa because he missed him, who knows. either way, cas has dean’s help with the angel revolution in season six from the start, and never goes to crowley. the plan cas and dean come up with to beat raphael includes breaking into the cage and stealing the grace of michael and lucifer, freeing sam and adam in the process. incidentally, it also involves cas possessing dean, because if cas is gonna eat archangel grace to become more powerful, he’s going to need a stronger vessel. so cas and dean have a whole like. midam situation happening. they’re a double archangel together, and godstiel never happened so none of the other terrible apocalypses that stemmed from that happened, and everything is pretty cool where they’re from, and also they’re obviously uhhhhhh SOME kind of together. the purpose of this cas is to upset dean because this cas shows how much better everything could have been and how much better his and cas’ relationship could have been if dean had simply been more considerate of cas in s6, and also freak dean out with how uh. close. this dean and cas are.

- a godstiel who managed to swallow purgatory without swallowing the leviathans and remained god. he’s probably soooomewhat less scary and murdery than canonverse godstiel because no leviathans, so you know, not as many angel purges or massacres on earth. and he probably went and fixed sam’s wall within about three days because cas is prideful but he does NOT like it when dean is mad at him. so they did kiss and make up, and so this cas would have had dean to act as his morality chain. but he’s still very scary and godstiel. and also he refers to dean as “The Beloved” you know. his purpose is to freak everyone out, because he’s scary, but also, for the past cas-es, because he is a terrifying abomination that they could never imagine becoming, for the future cas-es, because he is a reminder of their worst selves, and for dean, because he is a reminder of how dangerous cas is, but also because he uh. obviously has some feelings about his dean. unclear if they are consummated or not.

- a cas who naomi never rescued from purgatory, and who stayed there. hasn't spoken to another being in half a decade, has not recovered from his emotionally destroyed state in purgatory in s8. believes at first that the spell is his dean rescuing him, and is crushed when he realizes he was wrong. like endverse cas, his purpose is to show dean how much cas needs him and depends on him emotionally, and how he (dean) is capable of destroying cas, as well as his guilt for leaving him in purgatory and how lucky he is that his cas got out. this is especially noteworthy since the guilt for leaving cas in purgatory is part of the reason dean is trying to get cas back.

- a cas who stayed human after season nine, and has built himself a small human life over the next four years. he has a job and an apartment and friends outside the winchesters and yes, he still goes hunting after work sometimes, and he's still in contact with dean, but he is also independent in a way no other version of cas has ever been. he exists to freak out dean because dean has never seen cas independent of him. he is also fairly bitter at dean since dean did kind of stop spending time with him when he was no longer useful, and our dean feels guilty for that.

- a cas who showed up twenty minutes later in 10x03, finding sam dead and dean gone, and had to chase down demon dean, and has now spent three years following demon dean around as his tragically adoring stalker, because he hasn't found a way to resurrect sam yet and he doesn't want to put dean through the demon cure until he can save sam because he doesn't want dean to experience that guilt, but he also adores dean and wants to keep an eye on him and keep him safe and also keep him from doing anything too heinous, so he just covertly follows him around the country and watches from a distance as he commits various murders and fucks his way through every local bar scene. and occasionally cas finds dean something to kill, when the mark gets hungry, and drops it in his path. his purpose is to freak dean out with the lengths cas would go for him, and the depths cas would sink to.

anyway. lebanon cas and season four cas are horrified and perhaps disgusted (lebanon cas more than s4 cas) by ALL of the later cas-es, and how far they’re fallen, all of it for dean. godstiel and archangel cas being abominations, endverse cas and s9 cas being fallen, even purgatory cas and demon dean’s cas for their total dependence on dean.

purgatory cas and endverse cas are just happy to see a dean, even if it’s not their dean. demon dean’s cas, too, in a way. he’s happy to see a dean who is still human, who he can still have as a friend.

human cas is pissed to see that he was right, that dean would have stuck by him if he’d still had his powers, that this version of dean is doing spells to try and bring his cas, who is still an angel, back, whereas he and his dean only see each other once every couple months.

everyone is terrified and disgusted by godstiel, as i said before.

they’re mostly kind of thrown by archangel cas. a lot of them are jealous. godstiel is furious because how dare anyone, even an alternate version of himself, take dean as a vessel (even if dean likes it). godstiel isn’t really there, though, he resisted the summoning and just sort of popped his head through to see what was going on, and he goes back to his own reality pretty fast without murdering anyone.

also to be clear dean has not at this point examined or acknowledged any feelings he may have about his cas besides “friendship,” nor has he wondered what feelings his cas may have for him. given how many of the cas-es were clearly in some kind of relationship with their dean (endverse cas, archangel cas) or just openly in love with their dean (godstiel, purgatory cas, demon dean’s cas), dean is forced to reevaluate the nature of his and cas’ relationship.

[the-sympathetic-villain]

A Life For A Life - Chapter 3

AO3 | First | Previous | Next | Masterpost

A/N: It took me a while to circle back to this one, but on the bright side, I’ve written ahead so the next two chapters or so should follow shortly after this one! :)

Prompt by @local-space-case: Prince Roman and his two loyal friends, Patton and Logan, are on the hunt for a dragon. Meanwhile, Dragonshifter!Janus  is just trying to find the right herbs to cure a sick/injured  Dragonshifter!Virgil. Bonus points for Anxciet and/or Protective Remus.

Word Count: 2006

Chapter warnings: Romantic relationships, Mentions of killing, Mentions of blood, Mentions of death/dying, Injuries, Poisoning (Let me know if you’d like me to add anything!)

---

    “By all standards, sire, I cannot recommend this course of action.” Logan stated, noting the frustration in the prince's eyes as he paced the cave's entrance. “There are far too many unknown variables involved here for me to conclude this is a safe course of action.”

    “We can't just leave now, Logan.” Roman growled through gritted teeth as he gestured to the dark opening into the earth. “The beast was ours to take.”

    “We are forbidden from entering the tunnels, my prince. They are far too dangerous.”

    Roman let out a groan, looking helplessly at Logan's stern expression. “This journey is meant to prove that I am worthy of ascending to the crown. What kind of king would I be if I turned tail and ran at the very first sign of trouble?”

    “A living one, Roman.” Logan sighed as gestured toward Roman. “This trial is not merely meant to challenge your physical strength but your wisdom as well. Your bravery is admirable, but your safety should be your first priority.”

    “You said yourself the beast is unlikely to keep moving for much longer.” Roman pleaded, moving towards Logan. “More than likely all we need to do is retrieve our trophy. I'd wager we'd be in and out in under an hour.”

    “I'm not so certain, your highness.” Logan whispered as he raised a finger to his jaw, pondering the situation. “Something has changed for the creature in the last stretch of the journey.”

    Roman paused. His gaze lingered on Logan for a moment before following the man's gaze to the trampled undergrowth leading to the cave. “What do you mean?”

    “At the last point where the creature has stopped to rest, blood had pooled on the ground.” Logan mused as he pointed to the trampled underbrush along their path. “I see no trace of blood here and I believe it is self-evident  it is unusual that the trail seemed to end there.”

    “How could that be?”

    “I am uncertain.” Logan let out a breath, straightening his glasses. “But to me, this indicates there is even more reason not to interfere with forces unknown.”

    Roman took in the look on Logan’s face for a moment before turning to the cave in frustration. “I know you’re right, but the beast cannot have healed itself. We may not know everything we are facing, but surely it is a simpler task than starting over.”

    “Your safety is paramount, Roman.” Logan's gaze dropped and he crossed his arm across his chest. “We have to act rationally.”

    “You have to be as disappointed as I am, Logan.” Roman interrupted with growing desperation. “Finding another feat to prove my worth could take weeks or months.”

    “I know.”

    “Logan—"

    “It is still preferable to witnessing your death, Prince Roman.”

     Roman paused. Logan's words felt ice-cold as the man’s empty stare remained trained on the ground.

    “I cannot lose you." Logan continued. His muscles went limp with surrender as his façade dropped. “That would be a far worse outcome than needing to remain patient for the right opportunity.”

    “Logan—” Roman dropped his voice to a whisper as he stepped toward the man. “—None of the feats that would satisfy the court of my competency are without risk.”

    “Everything we encounter above ground is a calculated risk,” Logan clung to his reasoning, even as it slipped through his fingers. “but the underground of the forest is home to the most dangerous creatures in the world. Magical creatures, Roman.”

    “Well, that’s why I have you, right?”

    Logan’s eyes tipped to meet Roman's soft smile and his resolution to stop the prince faltered.

    “If my strength fails, we still have your magic." Roman whispered with a smile. “Right. Lo?”

    Logan’s heart fluttered, weak to the adoring glimmer in Roman’s eye as the prince caught Logan’s waist.

   “I do believe it goes against the rules for me to help you accomplish your task.”

     “I'm not asking you to help me cheat,” Roman reassured him, raising a hand to Logan’s cheek. “but if events take a turn and I'm unable to complete my task, you can get us out safely. Right?”

     “You’re right. Strictly speaking, it is not against regulation for me to assist you in fleeing a failed task.”

     Roman let out a soft breath as Logan leaned into his hand. “Then what are we risking, aside from a chance for me to give you your ‘happily ever after' a bit sooner?”

    “Roman, your task is meant to be solitary.”

    “My task is meant to show that the country’s leadership is in capable hands.” Roman whispered bringing Logan’s knuckles to his lips. “You are my strength, Logan. I would have to be a fool to ignore that.”

    Logan felt a redness dust his cheeks as Roman’s fingers curled into his own.

   “You are my shining starlight and I am so deeply in love with you that the rest of the world looks dull in comparison.” Roman breathed as he admired the subtle beauty of Logan’s smile. “I want to shower you with affection from the moment you open your eyes until you fall asleep in my arms at night. Hiding behind formality—Not being allowed to court you until I finish this trial—It's tearing me apart.”

    “Roman, you are too good to me.” Logan whispered as the prince pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead.

     “I do believe we just covered that I am not able to be good enough to you.”

    Logan smiled at the prince’s chuckling. “That is not the issue. You are simply restricted by your position.”

   Roman smirked as he brushed Logan’s soft hair out of his eyes. “Does that mean you’ll allow me the opportunity to ease the burden of our restrictions?”

    “I'll follow you anywhere, Roman. If this is what you choose to do, you’ll have my support.”

    “Good,” Roman let out a breathy laugh as he peeked over Logan’s shoulder at Patton's exasperated expression. “I'd kiss you right now, but I do believe your brother may consider regicide if I do.”

    “No, my Cain instinct is much stronger than th—"

     “He wouldn’t—” Logan hissed, hushing Patton with a glare.

     Patton pursed his lips and stuck his tongue out at Logan.

     “Patton, I swear—”

     “Lo, relax.” Roman laughed, carefully catching Logan’s arm as he turned to scold Patton. “He's right. We have dragged him across half the countryside without considering his opinion.”

    “It is his job.”

    Roman grip on Logan’s softened as he glanced between Logan and Patton. “Job or not, Patton is more than an attendant. He's my future brother-in-law."

    Logan blinked at Roman before letting out a reluctant sigh and shifting his gaze to Patton.

    “You’re right.” Logan paused as Patton raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Patton, I’m sorry. This journey should have been a chance for you to know Roman outside of all the politics and I've been wasting that opportunity. Forgive me?”

     Patton smirked as Logan extended him a figurative olive branch. “Only if you accept that when I meet my future husband,  I get to be as disgustingly cute as you.”

    Logan couldn’t help but let out a sharp laugh and shaking his head. “Deal.”

    Instead of taking Logan’s hand Patton swept his older brother into a tight hug, squeezing around his waist. Logan relaxed as Patton hugged him tightly. His irritation melted away as his chest warmed  with the realization that he had the two people he loved most on either side of him.

    “Patton, this is going to be dangerous. If you want to wait for us here—”

    “Not a chance you’re leaving me behind now.” Patton whispered as he raised his head from Logan’s shoulder, covertly wiping away a tear that threatened to fall from his eye. “This is my last chance to torment you before I have to start calling you ‘your highness’. I have to make every minute count.”

    Logan smiled, glad to have Patton close as they started on the next leg of their journey. “You never have to change, Patton.”

    “Thanks, Lolo.”

    Roman smiled, stepping toward them as he gazed into the deep void of the cave opening. “Then, it's decided. The poison should be taking effect right about now. If we’re lucky, the beast will be dead by sundown and we'll be on out way home.”

---

    “Virgil!”

    Janus felt his heart drop as he stumbled to catch his lover’s arm. Virgil’s knees had buckled a half dozen times in the last hour and Janus was aching with the tension from the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

    “I don’t understand.  The bleeding’s stopped.” Janus let loose a string of draconic curses, feeling his scales burning with rage as he adjusted his arm to support Virgil. “Your condition should be improving—”

    Virgil’s lip curled in sympathy as he forced a raspy whisper past his aching throat. “Jan, you know why—”

    “Don’t speak.” Janus interrupted, immediately feeling regret twist in his stomach as Virgil’s grip tightened on his arm. His soft, fingertips felt cold on Janus' skin. “You need to save your energy.”

    “The game's up, Jan.” Virgil started forcefully, blinking up into Janus’ amber, slit-like eyes glowing faintly in the dark. “We got deeper into the mountain than I ever thought we would, but it’s time.”

    “Don’t you dare give up on m—”

    “I'm dying, Jan.” Virgil spat out, stopping Janus in his tracks. “I’m dying and I don't want to die running.”

    Janus felt a lump in his throat as his heart sank in his chest. “Virgil—”

    “If I’m not going to die in the open air, at least give me the dignity of dying in your arms.” Virgil pleaded, desperation clear in his voice. “Don’t let me die cold.”

    Janus head spun around as a loud, sound of rocks tumbling in the narrow twists of the caves behind them signaled their hunters closing in, a few minutes behind them at most.

    “Please, Jan.”

    The sound of Virgil’s broken voice made Janus weak. He couldn’t deny Virgil’s pleas, not when their last moments together may be approaching.

    “It's going to be okay, Virgil.”

    Janus' held Virgil close as his nostrils flared with a sudden heat. His lips curled into a snarl, face elongating into his more draconic features. His teeth hardened into sharpened points, stronger than steel. The bones of his ears stretched out over his shifting bones like webbing over a bat's wings. Finally, after a moment’s shift he could feel his wings extend behind him.

    The subtle stretch of his delicate wings gave him a momentary sense of relief as he curled his long tail around Virgil’s limp form. Though still in between his humanoid form and his true dragon form, he felt immediately more at ease with his body.

    “Hurry, please.”

    Virgil’s voice was barely audible over Janus breathing but he immediately locked on to  Virgil’s arm, covering his lover with his wing as a blazing, hot flame erupted from his throat. The bright light decorated the halls with moving flashes of orange and yellow dancing on the wall and when Janus finally pulled back a hot pile of glowing embers surrounded him and Virgil.

    “Virgil?” Janus whispered as he tipped his wing up to look down at Virgil.

    “It's perfect.”

    Janus bit back a sob as Virgil’s hand dropped from his chest.   He lowered them both to the ground, feeling his lover’s life leaving his body with each new breath. Orange light illuminated Janus’ face from the glowing embers below, dancing like gems in Janus’ glistening amber eyes.

    “I love you, Virgil.”

    “I love you to, Jan. You’re all I ever needed.”

    Janus’ tail curled around Virgil as he completed his transformation. His long talons dug into the ground as his body circled Virgil, creating a comfortable nest for his lover to rest in peace. He let out a long breath as he watched Virgil’s eyes close comfortably before his fully transformed dragon head turned toward the sound of the humans approaching.

---

General Taglist:

@justanotherhumanstuff @im-an-anxious-wreck @shadowyplaidpurseegg

A Life For A LIfe Taglist:

@arodynamic-enby @pixelated-pineapple @simplestoryteller @bloodymari-0666

[silverislander]

Ellie's marriage proposal to Dina hc..👀

AW MAN THAT'S SUPER CUTE OK,, under the cut, it’s a long one :D

ok we just know she’s gonna get ridiculously stressed over this.  it’s ellie, that’s just the way she is

even though she really shouldn’t be because she already kind of asked dina??... they’ve talked it over together before just to be sure they’re both ready and this is something they both want.  it’s the kind of thing that’s come along with the healthy boundaries they’re learning to set after ellie comes home from california

so she KNOWS it’ll be fine dina will say yes etc etc its FINE

but it has to be perfect.  and so she stresses.

somehow, the easier part is getting rings.  she considers looking for one on patrol, but she doesn’t even know where to start looking, so that’s out.  she asks around town if anyone has a spare, but no luck- what use is a piece of metal to carry around if it doesn’t have enough sentimental value to even keep?

in the end, she figures fuck it, she’ll make them.  joel left a couple woodworking books and enough tools/spare pieces to guess how this goes, and lots of people wore wood rings before the outbreak, right?  they’ll look cool and different

her first attempt is a disaster.  very lopsided, gave her two splinters when she tried hers on, looks like shimmer chewed on it.  fuck.  this might’ve been easier with ten fingers?

she enlists jesse’s dad’s help, who has just enough knowledge and talent to help her out, and he even scrounges up some scrap metal, so they’ll have proper, durable rings.  they’re plain silver, but ellie likes them better that way and she thinks dina will too.  no tiny bits to dent or fuck up while soldering

(he tells her the wood ones she was planning on probably would’ve chipped anyways and she is SO frustrated bc she spent a month making that stupid ring... imagine if she’d proposed and the fucking thing BROKE a month later.  dina would cry, she would cry, it would’ve been bad)

instead of trying to just ask dina what size she needs she just.  holds her hand even more than usual w her uninjured hand and tries to feel it out.  which is stupid and conspicuous and does not work, so she gives in

sends in jj, who is about 4 or 5, to take measurements and tells him it’s for a top secret mission, which isn’t a lie- she makes a point never to lie to him.  he tells dina he’s gonna make her a ring for crafts time at school, and she pretends not to notice when he “covertly” gives ellie the paper he wrote the numbers on

once she finally has her rings, she’s agonizing over how to ask her for almost two months.  it’s a miracle she was able to hide them for that long smh

she considers a lot of things for a perfect proposal time: date night, a trip outside jackson.  she’s seen a couple in movies happen in front of crowds, but the idea of doing that terrifies her, so she scraps it pretty fast (what if someone like seth fucks it up?  she doesn’t want to panic in public, what if that happens?  plus, she hates being watched and it would feel like such a phony show to her to wait until there’s an audience, she loves dina way more than to make a stupid stunt out of their relationship)

she almost proposes out of the blue on more than one morning just... watching dina wake up next to her.  or make breakfast with her hair all messy.  or play pretend with their son.  but she holds back and waits

it has to be perfect.

she doesn’t know loads about the world before the outbreak, and she’s never been a romance novel kind of person, but she knows you need a heartfelt declaration, some kind of big speech.  that’s always how it goes in the stories she knows!

problem is, she’s not great at speeches. or declarations.  or heartfelt, if she’s being honest.  everything she tries to write comes out so fucking cheesy and terrible, she just tosses every draft out

one night she gets so fed up with it that she entirely gives up and stomps off for her guitar instead to calm down, which helps very little since learning to play lefty has been incredibly frustrating for her, even if she’s almost at the point she was at before she lost her fingers

and it hits her that while those drafts were awful speeches... there are lots of salvageable bits that might just work as lyrics

the moment ends up finding her, as it often does.  it’s a little bit of all of her ideas in the end

they’re out on a picnic, all three of them, and while jj doesn’t know it, they’re not too far from the farmhouse they used to live in before.  the thoughts brought back by that house almost stop her for a minute, because she still doesn’t deserve any of this and anything could happen tomorrow, in a week, next year.  dina could still say no or change her mind, ellie could still spiral headfirst into another episode and not claw her way out this time

but it’s been a long, long time since she’s thought about the words that come into her head next: “we fight for every second we get to spend with each other.”

if they both died tomorrow, they’d still get to be engaged for a whole day.  that’s not nothing, right?

ellie takes some deep breaths, pulls her guitar into her lap and offers to play them a new song, written just for dina.

there’s no speech when she’s finished and definitely no fanfare or crowd to gather and watch them, just dina leaning in to kiss her on the cheek and jj clapping so hard he’s straining his face like little kids often do

so she pulls dina’s ring out of her pocket and just asks her, “marry me?”

(she says yes.  ellie wears hers on her middle finger to make sure it won’t fall off, which honestly always got more use than her ring finger anyways)

there is much more kissing from dina and many enthusiastic hugs from jj after that, but that’s the meat of it, and the hardest part for ellie is over.  now dina will be there to tell everyone they finally got engaged and do the talking for any followup questions.  she’s always been better at that

and dina does this with relish, the way she does everything ofc.  she shows off her ring and she’s all oh did you know my fiancee made this by the way??  my future WIFE who i love??

ellie is a MESS over it every time.  shes standing there bright red trying desperately to turn invisible while dina is telling half the bar how talented and hot she is and how that’s HER wife did you know that 😌

but really, somehow, it was perfect in the end

so there was no reason to stress at all

which she totally knew the whole time.

[writingforyuh]

Hi! How are you? First of all, I would like to tell you that my native language is not English, so I hope you can understand if I make a mistake writing this :( so, what I came here for is to request a Bucky Barnes x Male reader where the reader has the power of Mystique from x-men, I guess you know who I'm talking about haha, maybe it can be about the first time they met, they can be partners or enemies, I don't know, I trust you'll do something good, thanks for read xoxo

a/n: so... the first thing i want to say its sorry; you, my dear anon, gave me a damn good idea, but it is so good, soo goooood, that i think that i didn't something on the deserved level. But anyways, i hope you like it, this one was a bit complicated to do, so it may be not so good. Also, from now on, in my stories, i will be naming our reader(you). 'Cause for me, it's strange not to use a name or nickname sometimes, and i'll not use y/n or relateds, not that i don't like, i read a lot of fics with y/n, it's just that i don't want to use. On this one, i used Mystique's name, Raven. I also discovered that i can't center the txt when it's a reply like this one. I'm wheeping fandom: marvel/captain america/the falcon and the winter soldier too(?) words: 1.880 words/10.311 characters warnings: idk shapeshifting?, a tad fluff in the end, fight

Bucky Barnes x Male!Mystique!Reader

"The way you are"

As you walk away through the sidewalk, you shapeshift into a black woman, your blue skin turning brown, your yellow eyes turning green, your body changing to fit the appearance you want. In a mere second, the transformation it's done. Your clothes and ravenous hair are the only things that stay the same. You are going to a Japanese restaurant to pay a visit to a friend. Honestly, it's not exactly a restaurant, but you quite like the place. It's the only one place you feel secure enough to turn into something close to what you look. Though today you will be going with another look. Arriving at the place, which luckily wasn't so crowded today, you take a seat, waiting for your friend, who is the attendant, Leah. She is the only one who knows about your power and actual appearance. It was a dangerous decision to tell her about it, although you don't regret doing it. When she looks at you, you blink, so she knows that it's you. Before going to you, she passes on the kitchen and takes a plate full of sushi and other things and offers to you, on the house. You accept though you insisted on paying for all that. Leah ever treats you like you are special or something. You'll never admit that you like it despite all the refuses. She makes you feel... normal.

"So, how was the investigation today?" Leah asks, closing the distance through the counter You sigh, trying to hide things of Leah it's almost impossible, "Well, from what I discovered, the guy I'm after, that Ruin, works alone. I paid a visit to his former workmate-," "You paid a visit?" she interrupts you. "I... may or may not have invaded his house and gently asked about his old friend?" "Gently asked?" Leah raises an eyebrow for you, "Well, and then?" "Then, he said that he never heard that name or anything related for almost two years. What proves my theory that Ruin is working alone," you explain. "That's good," she states, surprised, "and you have an idea of where it's his hideout?" "Actually, no. But I heard some strange things about that famous club on the south that links with my guy," you explain, showing her a photo of the place on the phone. "That's Noapte Senina. You never heard about it?" "Why would I-" you stop yourself when Leah frantically passes his palm like cutting close to her neck.

The person who entered the establishment sits on the chair near you, and he isn't alone. Yuri is with him. The elderly sit on the chair next to the guy. Your friend walks away to serve customers, not before winking at you. As she goes, you gaze at that strange man: short brown hair, blue eyes, a bulky body, and a leather glove on the left hand. You never saw that guy here, yet he and Yuri seem good friends. In the middle of it, your eyes encounter his. A slight smile is now on his lips, one that makes your face burn a bit. You look away, regretting that eye contact. It's undeniable that he's handsome.

"You should ask her out," you almost choke with one sushi when Yuri said that.

Though you could shapeshift your body and everything that it covers, you still a man. However, the problem is not that he is a guy, but that he doesn't know that you are also one.

He says something to Yuri before turning to you, "I'm sorry for him, I... uh, you can call me Bucky." "Don't worry about it," you clear your throat, recovering your composure, "I'm Raven." "It's a... good name," he tries a compliment. That takes a chuckle of you, "Well, thanks. Bucky's not a bad name too." This time he let a giggle out, and damn... what a smile.

You two stay chatting for a while. Bucky is an unusual person, and come on! The man is so damn handsome, and being honest, you wanted to have more time with him, but you couldn't, you shouldn't.

"I need to go. But, it was nice to meet you, Bucky," you smile at him. At first, Bucky's expression seems to upsets, but as fast it seems, his serious countenance comes back, "It was… nice to meet you too." As you get up, you blink for Leah. She covertly nods to you. "Oh, look, wait!" It's Bucky's voice who's at you, "I... wanna know... ahm, we... if we maybe could see each other again?" You feel a twinge in your heart, and still, that doesn't stop you from doing what is necessary, for the sake of both, "I think that this won't."

...

It's late-night already. You didn't tell Leah about what you were planning to do tonight. You are with that same appearance as before, but now wearing a crop top with jogger pants, the most normal, the better. You read those big and bright letters: Noapte Senina. The place's full. There's loud music that's echoing the whole space. People everywhere, dancing, drinking, or just vibing along with the rhythm. You take a seat on the counter and ask for something not too strong to drink. While waiting, you run your eyes through the crowd of strangers, searching for your prey. The barman man brings your drink. You silently thank him with a nod. Taking a sip, you feel something that tastes like strawberry. It's better than you thought. You take another sup before trying another time to search for your target. Leaning against a wall with two women under his arms, a man probably in his mid-40s with an eye patch, "There you are..." you murmur. In a single gulp, you finish your drink. On your feet, pretending that you are dancing, you swiftly pass through the people on the way. Then out of nowhere, someone suddenly appears in front of you. You don't have time to figure a way of dodging, so you bump in.

"Ouch, I'm sorry. I didn't see you-" your voice fades when seeing in who you bumped in, "B-Bucky?!" "Raven?" his eyes widens. "I-I... what are you doing here?!" "I am... trying out this "club" thing," the brunette rubs the back of his neck, "but, well, I thought that we wouldn't see each other again." His word makes you redden, "This is only a co-coincidence, bu-but yet, I'm still doing something important, and if you excuse me," you say, walking over him. "Please wait," he grabs your wrist, "I-" "Bucky, let me go, now!" you demand. "Please just hear me!"

Even a plea won't work. You slide your hand through his glove, freeing yourself.

"Dammit! Raven!" he shouts.

You only ignore, walking away from him. Probably it's a good idea to shape into a different appearance, but there are too many people here that could notice. You take a deep breath and shale your shake your head before looking for Ruin again...

"FUCK!" you curse.

The man isn't in the same place as before. Frantically searching for him, your eyes catch a glimpse of his face. He entered the toilet, the male one. As you walk to the same as his, you lower your head. With your present look - a feminine one - someone could think something strange, but come on! It's the 21st century! Do people still care about these types of things? As you enter, it's evident that there's only one door closed. You look one last time to the entrance, confirming that no one is coming. You are ready to kick the Ruin's door on.

"Wait! Raven!" Bucky screams.

The brunette's eyes widen when the door collides with you, pinning you into the wall.

"Ohoho, so I really was being spied! I thought that Ramirez was only being a coward when he said that someone was hunting me, but look what we have here! You two are from the FBI?" Ruin asks. His voice's heavy, somewhat matching with him. Bucky doesn't say anything but rushes on the man, eyes on fire. He aims a left jab at the other's face. Ruin evades, kneeing the abdomen of the brunette, which throws him backward.

"HA! That's all you've-"

Before he can finish, you, recovered from the earlier impact, swing your body upwards, then scissors your legs around the Ruin's head, spins around his body, and rotate your legs downwards, take downing him. His head hits the ground directly, passing him out. With the rest of your energy, you handcuff him. A trembled gasp escapes of you.

"Wow..." Bucky's notably amazed by what you did. "Why did you follow me?!" you scream in your knees, panting, "Why did I follow you? Why you came after this man? You knew that he's a dangerous criminal?" He shouts back. "That's exactly why I came after him! That's what I do!" "What? You are a vigilant?" his mocking tone enrages you. "What if I-" An enormous pain progresses throughout your whole body. You passed too much time transformed. "Raven? What happened?" He lifts himself, running to your side, "Sam! I need support here, Now!"

You need to go back to your natural form, but how would you do that now? You force your body the best you can to maintain your shape.

Bucky puts you in his arms, "Raven, what's happening?!" desperation on his voice.

You tried your best to preclude that. However, you needed to do that. Your body slowly regains its blue color. Your eyes recover their yellow tone. The only thing that stays the same it's your ravenous hair and clothes. Simple as that.

"I'm... sorry..." you slowly say.

Bucky's eyes widen. The only thing you can do is think how disgusted he would be to see your pure form, how he would feel cheated by you. It wouldn't be a surprise for you. But that won't happen. You only feel Bucky's arms around you, hugging you tight.

"Please... don't scare me out this way..." his voice muffled in your neck. That puts you in a mess of red, "What... are you... do-" "I don't know too... I just... wanna hold you..." he intermits, "On the moment I saw you, I felt something strange and I-" This time you cut him off, pushing yourself away from the embrace, "Bucky, I'm strange! I'm fucking blue! I'm not even a woman! I'm a damn aberration, and I fucking tricked you!" your voice burning your throat. "You are saying that you are different and that you are a man? So what? I'm also a man and have a vibranium arm," he takes his left glove, showing his vibranium hand. "C'mon, Bucky... this'... completely different," you lowered your eyes, you couldn't look at his now.

Bucky has a strange power over you. How someone you barely know can mess with you this way?

"It's not. I don't care about your color or anything. I... think I like you... the way you are," one of the brunette's hand in on your wrist again, but this time it's a gentle and soft touch. the other lifts your face, so he could look in your eyes.

Bucky's now in a blush too. There's a grin on his face. For the first time in years, he feels that something good may happen in his life, and it is you.

[shelobussy]

I know you talk abou st*cky in the interracial ships stuff, but can we talk about st*ny? Iron husbands is literally right there, but I also always sees Rhodey as Tonys moral support only. And ik Tony is very shippable with most characters, but the fact his ship is Rhodey is one of the lowest ships in ao3 (ironstrange, winteriron and god forbid stark*r all had more fics in ao3).. It's pretty telling this side also has racism problems...

I'll go ahead and answer this here, but letting y'all know that I do have a marvel sideblog if you want to hit me up there (@themarvelarchives).

Hey, I'm going to ramble for a good minute.

So after I posted my very incoherent, controversial take on St*cky vs SamBucky, there were a ton of ppl who came onto anon saying that St*cky shippers were racist. I think I only answered a few, but y'all were pretty insistent on it. I personally have not observed that St*cky shippers are so I'm not calling anyone out on that side of the fandom for that.

I also did not call out anyone on this side of the fandom bc that's not what my meta was about. I think I mentioned maybe once or twice in the whole post that there was underlying racist in the fandom, but since you asked, we can talk about it here.

Covert Bigotry In Fandom Spaces.

To understand what's going on in the MCU, we have to first look at what I call "woke-queer" fandom.

So "Woke-Queer" Spaces is the phenomenon where certain fandom members like to call ppl out on their bigotry, while covertly harboring their own queerphobia/racism/etc. An example of this that we're all familiar with is TERFS and how they like to claim that they are progressive and woke, while also claiming that trans women are fake and trans men are sexist.

How this translates to fandom, however, is the hypocrisy that is cancellation and callout culture.

For example, Supernatural in particular is a fandom that likes to call out the writers on their homophobia and racism, and yet, somehow, the fandom is chalk full of homophobia and racism. If you want to read more about this, here is a truly excellent article from the perspective of a queer woman of color.

Moving on, I've also talked in a previous meta post, on the internalized acephobia that exploded in 2019 after Good Omens was released. Rather than reiterate everything I said in that post, I'll just leave it at this: the controversy in the Good Omens fandom can be summed up by the fact that queer audiences are claiming that Ineffable Husbands is the wrong kind of queer. The hypocrisy oozes off the screen, doesn't it?

A final way this viably translates to fandom, is in how the Doctor Who fandom evolved over time.

So Steven Moffat takes over as head writer and showrunner in 2010. It's a new series, a new Doctor, a new Tardis, and new branding. He steps up the action, changes the color grating, and raises the stakes. Women are sexier, the Doctor is smarter (and more of an asshole, but that's another meta post), and every companion comes with their own impossible mystery that makes them Special™.

Series 5-10 got tons of woke points for having lesbian characters, an episode where the Doctor is homoerotic with James Corden, and an underlying trans narrative with the Master's reincarnation. What a lot of people forget, however, is that his series was incredibly sexiest, incredibly lesbian/biphobic, and basically turned the Doctor into everyone's fantasy sex-object.

This, unfortunately, brought out the worst of the fandom. There was RTD Era vs Moffat Era wars exploding in certain corners, TenxRose shippers vs ElevenxRiver shippers.

What does this have to do with covert racism in fandom cultures though?

Hnnngng ok, so back in RTD era's we get Martha Jones, the Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show. Except for the fact, of course, that she is written to be in love with the doctor. She's a brilliant character--smart, sassy, flawed, funny, flirtatious--and her entire plotline is reduced down to a school-girl crush on a white man.

She doesn't do well with fans, they scrap her after one season.

We move on to Donna Noble (The Other Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show) and RTD's era ends with them scraping her too and regenerating David Tennant's Doctor.

It will be five more series (not seasons, SERIES) until Doctor Who will have another black companion--who gets extra points for being gay--only to fall victim to "bury your gays" at the end of the season (but not really bc no one stays dead on Doctor Who).

The fandom's reception of Martha Jones was historically bad. The comparisons to her predecessor, Rose Tyler, were rampant and everyone was finding a reason to hate her.

The fandom's reception to Bill Potts was also historically bad, as everyone was screaming that she was being written for more "woke points" and that they wanted Clara back.

Fandom has a historically bad reputation of being problematic and, I would argue, the majority of it has to do with these toxic undertones of bigotry that slip under the radar. "Woke-queer" spaces, as I call them, are these instances above where spaces that claim to be inclusive of gender/orientation/race are covertly bigoted.

Marvel and Cancelling

Now is an excellent time to talk about the MCU.

Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson) has recently come under a lot of criticism from fandom members for shutting down shipper speculation.

"The idea of two guys being friends and loving each other in 2021 is a problem because of the exploitation of homosexuality. [...] something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves."

I can't find the rest of the quote, but Mackie goes on further to say that it was important to him to portray "a sensitive, masculine figure" without insinuating that there was romance involved.

Woke culture lost it's shit. Everyone was suddenly claiming that Mackie was calling them exploitative for shipping a gay ship as a queer audience, which could not have been further from the case.

Mackie actually makes some very excellent points in that sensitivity is not gay/queer. Woke culture loves to rag on Toxic Masculinity, but the minute someone plays a character who is loving and sensitive with no queer narrative in mind, they are immediately canceled.

What Am I On About

Okay, let's actually address what your ask was about, Nonnie. You pointed out--rather truthfully--that it is unfair to call-out racism on one side of the fandom, while ignoring it on the other side.

Well, I've gone back through my St*cky vs. SamBucky analysis (which is incoherent at best, I apologize for that) and I see maybe once instance where I called out fandom members for being racist. Here's what I had to say about racism:

"[...] Iron Husbands is a rarepair, probably because it’s an interracial ship."

"[there is] nothing wrong with shipping two white men, but it does become a problem when you ignore/bash POC/interracial ships to the determinant of your own white ship."

And then there was the post you brought up where I addressed interracial ships in the fandom. That one is probably more relevant to this topic, to be honest, as I actually addressed fandom racism there. I assume that your reason for bringing up Stony is because it's a ship that is more relevant to my side of the fandom, HOWEVER, the reason I highlighted Stucky instead was because I was comparing the fact that they've both been around the same amount of time and are relationships that feature the protagonist and their best friend.

You brought up St*ny in the ask, however, so I'm going to talk about St*ny for a minute.

As someone who never has nor will ship St*ny, it never even occurred to me that some of the problem behind the Iron Husbands tag being so small is because everyone ships the white, boring ship. You brought up a very valid point, but because I was never in that part of the fandom, I can't really speak to any possible underlying racism there, besides what I've already said above.

I would be interested in hearing a St*ony shipper or ex-St*ony shippers thought on this, but sadly I don't know any. If you have any more thoughts regarding this, Nonnie, pls drop back into my inbox.

You do make some excellent points in this ask though, and I would like to talk about racism on my side of the fandom.

So back to Mackie and his Twitter cancellation. Notice that Disney made him address the rumors and not his co-star, Sebastian Stan. Anthony Mackie is put on blast and made to answer fan demands and receives backlash, while Sebastian Stan gets to fly under the rader. This is not, by the way, a criticism of Stan, but instead of the blatant racism Disney has been displaying over the past few years.

How this ties in with the rest of my post has to do with my "woke-queer" spaces bit. The outcry across the MCU fandom over Mackie was swift and unforgiving. He was cancelled on charges of homophobia and bigotry--all the while these same fans turn a blind eye to any queer interpretation of other interracial ships and discourse in their own fandom.

The racism that I'm speaking about, of course, is an almost passive racism. Of course if you don't ship a specific ship for reasons other than their race, it's perfectly fine. It's okay not to ship Iron Husbands or SamBucky or any other interracial fandom ships. However, the distinct lack of shippers in the fandom IS telling because there are people who would ship that exact ship if not for the fact that one of men is black.

I don't have much more to say about this except to thank you for bringing it up and for listening to my long rambling post.

(Feel free to bug me about Tony Stark, MCU ships, MCU Meta and anything you want to talk me about on this blog and @themarvelarchives.)

[unohanadaydreams]

Okay I’m mentally prepared to ramble about the Hell Arc. No panels, just words.

The first blurb is definitely Ukitake speaking and I’d like to think it’s hiding some bitterness and regret, since he’s in hell, but you know I’m not gonna hold on to hope that it’s anything deep.

Orihime being resigned to laundry as well as just NOT knowing where her son is??? I’m sorry the same Orihime that can sense Ichigo like it’s her fucking job? But y’know uwu it’s okay to be a housewife and this is definitely Kubo showing off his depth of feminist theory and not shoving Orihime in the background bc wife clean and cook and nothing else ooga booga.

Kon as a babysitter is horrifying. The implication that they’ve kept him as a teddy bear for all these years is even more so. Like damn you can’t ask Urahara for ONE gigai after you saved the world, Ichigo? Hope youre paying him a living wage for helping you navigate the terrible twos. Tbh I think it would’ve been better to have a new sidekick and for Kon to be working for Urahara now.

Okay I do think the kid sending souls to Hell on accident is pretty funny. But also it’s definitely Kubo forgetting that Orihime is in the picture and Kazui is not Ichigo. He has more than Isshin; he has Orihime as his mom. He has someone who cares very much that he’s still in his bed and is someone he would talk to about uuuuh sending ppl through a portal. I know women are a different species and are incredibly hard to grasp because of that so it’s okay Kubo.

Ichika being taught by Ikkaku and to a lesser extent Yumichika is very good. Love that enough to gloss over my disappointment at Rukia not teaching her. I just know Byakuya is probably a lil bitter about it too. Rukongai rats 1 Noble clan 0

Booooo Kubo, get off the stage. Pointing out Orihime is at home doing laundry does not fix that she’s there. If she’s not gonna stop Kazui from doing whatever the fuck she might as well be eating bad ramen too.

MAYURI MY BELOVED. You’re so right, king, Urahara is a tasteless capitalist unlike you, who fully commits to the too-organic technological horrors the Seireitei deserves.

Did Kubo forget how to draw Rangiku? Why the fuck is her face so moe. Some of the women look pretty off in the face over all but with Rangiku it’s jarring. I know her face got more moe somewhere in tybw arc but jfc it’s worse here.

I find it hard to believe that Shunsui would stick to a tradition that demands all lieutenants be away and in the human world all at once but maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about anything nowadays. Depression is leading the Gotei 13 now.

It’s not a Bleach surprise attack unless a woman is grievously injured right off the bat.

That being said, I do enjoy the two new lieutenants. The hakama shorts are a Choice but they work somehow. Also a zanpakuto being on nails is fun.

Kira and Akon ❤️ I’m glad Kubo retconned the novels so Kira could make his entrance in a hoodie and black tabi. Hope he gets more depressing and bitter moments tho. Also Akon having so much panel space…..I’ll never recover.

Hell Szayel is so fucking horny which is astounding considering like everything he did was a sex joke in Hueco Mundo arc. His sex appeal has aged like fine wine. Also pure comedy that Ichigo can only ask who he is. If only Uryu were there 😔

So did they have ceremonies for Gin and Kaname because if not then???? Like I understand it’s impossible to make this gel 100% bc its not based on anything other than wanting characters to come back as cool demons and is actively working against previous canon but c’mon. They would’ve noticed before this when no ceremony for Gin and Kaname was held and their reishi haunted everyone via molasses rain drops.

That being said, I love love love the concept of characters coming up from Hell with not holes within them but outside them. They do not need to consume others to feel completion, they are consumed to the point of wanting to fill others. Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you see what you’ve done? Don’t you long to fill that hole inside of you, too? All it takes is dying to reach that nirvana of knowing who you are and what you feel in swirling completion. Even fallen, the fruit of knowledge is divine.

I want Ukitake to say he’s glad Shunsui lived to his face while looking so heartbroken that he didn’t get to live too. I want these two to cry across from one another with a flashback to their idyllic youth. I want it *grabby hands*

Sosuke Aizen has disappeared as in dead? Or are they counting ‘out of Seireitei’ as disappeared. Honestly 50/50 whether he’ll have a form of cameo. On one hand he’s incredibly popular, on the other hand Kubo was floundering with him during tybw so I can’t imagine he gives a shit to bring him back.

As far as new lore for hell butterflies goes, I guess we’ll see how interesting it gets but I highly doubt it’s going to get a lot of thought.

With the way Kazui is smiling, it makes me wonder if someone taught him about the shrine and sending souls to hell. Does he recognize the door? Is Kubo implying that Ukitake has had contact with Kazui? I mean, it would make a LOT of sense considering the fish he was riding, the ritual he knows. It would also make sense why the soul reaper badge was highlighted; Ukitake has been around in some capacity before officially being stomped to hell???

Definitely me thinking too much about it but also there’s no way Kazui just knows this shit without someone from Hell telling him about it even covertly.

This entire arc set up definitely seems like it’ll bring some worthwhile angst and maybe some moments for the more unexplored characters if characters like Akon getting screen time is any education.

Overall not hoping for anything other than good Hell designs and seeing characters do things.

If I don’t see Kenpachi with his beefy titties out I will be disappointed. That’s my bare minimum.

[strawberry1212]

How Run On subverts the noble idiocy trope

Another week, another amazing two episodes from Run On!! This drama really hasn’t let me down, and I want to go into detail about one specific aspect I really like, before quickly reviewing the last two episodes as a whole.

One thing that really bothers me w Kdramas--and Kdrama fans will be familiar with this--is the noble idiocy trope. And this is a trope that is pretty uniquely Asian, I think because of a cultural tendency to put quiet sacrifice on a pedestal. In Japanese, we call in 我慢 (gaman). The trope has traditionally manifested in “rich guy parents threaten poor girl that she’s ruining his future, poor girl breaks up with rich guy “for his good”” or the same trope setting, but “rich guy breaks up with poor girl so that his parents won’t bully her.” Another very common version of this trope is the tangent to the Dying Sick Girl/Guy trope, where the sick person doesn’t tell the healthy person so that they may live on happily without them.

The issue with this trope is multifold. First, it is disrespectful. It is most respectful to tell the whole truth to a person, and let them make decisions about their own future. It is not your call to make decisions on behalf of them, pretending to know what is best for them. At it’s core, I think it’s honestly super rude and it feels like you don’t trust their judgement, and see them as a child, rather than a romantic partner.

Second, it drags on angst for no reason. It’s yet another thing that could be solved with a very quick conversation, but isn’t. I don’t know why show writers do not seem to get this, but as an audience it is simply boring, because the emotional tension is all false. It’s not like there’s actually any deep conflict, it’s just a misunderstanding.

It also upholds the romantic drama/romcom promise of The One True Perfect Love. Making it out as if the person is lying/hurting/breaking up for the good of the other person, allows for conflict, without ruining the fantasy that there could be no motive for the character’s actions other than The One True Perfect Love. It is in fact the overwhelming force of this One True Perfect Love that is destroying itself (hurting someone for their benefit, because you just love them so much), and there is no need for the writers to actually come up with other character motivations, flaws, etc.

And in the face of this, Run On completely departs to create an actual multi-dimensional, realistic conflict for the leads (and I am building on some of the thought’s written in this amazing blog post). It was absolutely painful to watch them (maybe?) break up at the end of the last episode, but the conflict was not rooted in some lame misunderstanding that could be cleared up with a conversation. And it was not their unrealistic, undying, all consuming love for each other that was the only motive to their actions.

Of course they want what is best for each other (especially Seongyeom, as it’s his dad that caused the problem, so of course he feels bad), but their relationship is also new, and the dad being a creepy and unethical snooper is an immense pressure on a new relationship that were realistically expressed. The lines I liked most were actually Mijoo’s, where she says “Must I continue seeing him at the expense of myself?...Why must I continue wearing shoes that don’t fit me?” Referencing an earlier scene where she gives him a book on self-love, and shows him the chapter that says “don’t wear shoes that don’t fit you.” Meaning, in the same way she wants him to learn to love himself, she also doesn’t want to sacrifice her own self-love for the benefit of dating him. And she goes onto say, “I am precious to myself, so I want to give up [on their relationship]...you said it was ok, to say a mistake.”

There’s quite a lot to unpack there, but I like how she is being honest about her emotions, but also aware that her words right now are emotionally charged and might not reflect her real thoughts, (”you said it was ok, to say a mistake”). But more importantly, her clearly stated motives are that she is important to herself. She values herself. It is not some noble idiocy that is motivating her to break up with him for his good or for the greater good--it is for herself. And that is so refreshing, in the Kdrama world where everything has to be done sacrificially in the name of romantic love, and self-love is covertly seen as selfish/conceited. I actually don’t know if I’ve even heard an Asian drama character ever even voice that they are precious/important to themselves, and will set boundaries accordingly. AHHHHH I love this drama so much...even in the heart wrenching break up scene where I was yelling “No! No! Noooo!” to the computer, it still managed to break stereotypes.

Some final thoughts on these two episodes: THE SECOND LEAD COUPLE FINALLY GOT TOGETHER!! Omg. My friend and I watching the drama together (check out her blog @dreamctz) replayed that scene so many times. Their banter about what she should call him (him wanting to graduate early so that she would stop calling him “haksaeng”/student) was just *chef’s kiss*. And are we going to talk about how Seongyeom’s dad literally said he thought it was too bad he couldn’t HIT MIJOO!! WTFFFFF. That gremlin can catch these hands before he so much as TOUCHES my queen Mijoo. Also Shin Saekyoung’s acting in this was really superb in this episode, just wanted to point that out.

Also! because I was talking about this with my friend, there’s an extension called Language Learning with Netflix that allows you to see the Korean CC, English translation, and when you hover your mouse over the Korean, you can see the definition/meaning of each word and save vocab words! Just thought it was a super cool extension--I use it when rewatching old shows I love! It only works w dramas that already have Korean CC, which Run On does, so excuse me while I rewatch my favorite scenes until next week :))

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Birthday

Summary: could you do a hs losers x reader where the readers new to town and hates her bday bc each year her past friends and family had always forgotten or did nothing so when richie finds out her bdays coming up he tells the losers and they all plan a special surprise party and richie saves up and gets her something super special and the losers r all like wow he’s never gotten anyone anything like this b4 so she finds out that he likes her or something so it’s like the best bday she’s ever had

Richie bikes swiftly passed you, faster than he usually does, which can only mean he’s trying to surpass you. You barely refrain from flipping him the bird in public, as you too throw your weight into peddling. It’s no use, Richie is more athletic than you by a long shot, and he’s been practicing with Eddie for track. You’ll never be able to catch up with him with no viable effort.

‘You asshole,’ you yell out to him, noticing an elder woman pledging through her yard too late to stop your exclamation. She regards the both of you with malcontent, stabbing her hark too brutally in the soil of her allotment for it to be a coincidence.

‘Not my fault your short legs can’t reach the peddles.’

You growl, lifting up from your saddle to race faster, but Richie sees you do it and does nothing but laugh.

Any other time you might give him hell for it, but today, you are in no mood to indulge in Richie’s escapades.

It’s your birthday, and while for most that equalizes a fun day stacked with presents and cake, to you it stands for a day full of misery.

Your birthday is cursed. And no, that is not you being dramatic. At your ninth birthday, your cake got slammed into floor, therefor ruing the gift your parents had been working on for weeks, and which was their only present.

At age ten, you fell off your brand new bike into a ravine and had to go to the hospital to get eleven stitches. On your fourteenth birthday, you and your parents got into such a huge fight they send you up to your room and forbad you from sneaking down at any point in the day.

There are more examples to back up your claim for the terrible birthdays, but you have tried to desperately block them all out, so you won’t rehash them.

That’s why your so peeved that Richie is forcing you to the quarry.

‘If you could tell me where I’m supposed to be going to bet u could find a short cut and be there faster than you.’

‘Nice try Dora, I’m not telling you anything. It’s a surprise.’

‘Alright, I get two attempts. If I can’t guess where we’re going, I’ll do your homework for a week.’

‘And if you do guess it?’

‘Then you owe me a favor and no matter for what reason I cash it in, you don’t get to complain.’

‘Fine, bring it miss know it all.’ Richie slows down to slide next to you, the wind picking up as the two of you descend down the mountain. His smile is mischievous and cheeky, probably too confident to think you’ll be able to reckon the spot he has in mind.

If only he knew that you had limited the possibilities to two places, the exact amount of guess you were granted.

‘Hm, are we going to the arcade?’ Your first theory is. Richie doesn’t have anything on him right now, except pennies that have been rinkeling inside his pockets the entire bike ride, the only thing he needs to go to the arcade.

Richie smirks, and shakes his head. ‘Try one my dear, may I say that the odds aren’t in your favor right now?’

His impressive ego in the way he taunts you with the right answer fuels your desire to be right. ‘Are we going to the Barrens?’ You sing, smiling wide as Richie’s shrinks.

‘Eh, no?’ He says, but he sounds petulant. ‘Fuck this shit, what gave it away?’

‘A girl never reveals her secrets’, you say covertly, forgetting momentarily about the agitating day. You suspect that might have been Richie’s intention.

It’s not like the Barrens is such a stretch in the first place, the losers and you have made that place your own, but you do hypothesize that he may have planned something special for you.

Your theory turns out to be true, as you can spot a long table at the end of the dirt path you and Richie are currently riding on to get to the clubhouse. The table is stacked with a variety of candies, your favorite, drinks that are sweet enough to rot your teeth, something Richie should be more aware off - having a dad who is a dentist-, and a giant cake with eight candles on. Each one representing a loser.

You say nothing as you approach, in a sneaky way torturing Richie a bit more before revealing that you’re at the verge of tears of this nice gesture. Richie slows down his speed by dragging his shoes along the dirt, glances darting nervously towards your face.

‘I know you said no parties, but how else was I supposed to show off my rocking dance moves?’

‘Do you mean the moves you make that look like you’re dying?’ Stan chides, him and the rest of the losers rolling up behind you two. They’re all walking next to their bikes, and Bill’s hands are smudges with cake residue he somehow missed while cleaning up. They didn’t want to be here before you and ruin the ‘surprise’, but it’s clear everyone has worked hard to organize this for you.

‘Fuck you Stan the man, the color green doesn’t fit you.’

‘Happy’, Bev grounds out, leveling Richie with one look, the way only Bev can, and then address you. ‘Birthday.’ She hugs you despite you still holding your bike, and you let it clatter to the ground with a loud bang.

‘Thanks Bev.’

‘Happy Birthday’, the other losers also call out, because there’s just too many of them for each to wait their turn.

‘We hope you don’t mind we don’t have any presents, we spend basically all of it getting ingredients for the cake, which we had to redo- twice.’

They don’t offer any other explanation about why the cake had to be remade two times, but by Eddie’s scowl you can fill in the blanks.

‘No, honestly, this is already too much.’ It is too much, but their efforts are so kind and heartwarming that you have to bit back a happy squall. No one has ever bothered to organize anything for your birthday, whether it be purchasing a two dollar present or even ordering a cake, but these people that you had met less then a year ago were willing to scramble together all the money they could, just so they could turn your day special. Thank god for moving to Derry.

For the first time in years, your birthday has brought smiles and laughter, and no tears and weeping moods.

‘Nonsense my dearest young lady, this is but a blip on our radar, a speck of dust on the tv, nothing compared too-‘

‘Can we please cut the cake now? Before something else goes wrong with it?’ Eddie glowers, refuting to wait for an affirmative.

‘Don’t forget the candles,’ Ben says as he follows Eddie to the table. You’re about to join them, when a hand on your wrists stops you.

‘Hey, Y/N? You really don’t mind this right? I know you said you didn’t want anything but I know how nice it is be caught off guard with something like this.’ Richie rubs the back of his head as if that makes him see any less anxious. It’s incredible how smart someone can be while simultaneously also being so dense.

‘Richie’, you say as you smile, unable to hide it any longer. ‘It’s amazing, thank you so much. If there is any way I can repay you I’ll do that. I’m really happy with this.’

‘That’s good, not that I was worried about it, who isn’t a fan of everything I do?’

Rolling your eyes only spurs Richie on, but it’s become an automatic response now, you can’t help but do it.

‘Oh, I almost forgot. I did get you another gift. Two actually, if you count my huge dong as one.’

‘Gross Richie, why do you always have to add something sexual to everything?’

‘It’s my game babe, love it or leave it. Anyway, here is the gift if you want it. If you don’t that’s fine too.’

‘Don’t get all shy on me now Rich’, you tease as your bump your arm into his while grabbing the package. ‘I’ve just gotten used to your antics.’

The package isn’t heavy, but it also isn’t light. It’s wrapped in enough layer that you can’t feel what’s inside of it just by holding it, but that was probably Richie’s intention. That or he is simply horrible at wrapping up.

While you carefully peel off each layer, you begin to speculate on what it could be. It could be a gag gift, but Richie looked sincere, and his eyes behind his glasses are magnified in true anticipation, a gag gift wouldn’t illicit that response.

As soon as the final layer is detached, you gasp, armored by the actual gift. It’s a blue bracelet, covered in butterfly pattering. You once mentioned having a similar one as a kid that you loved but lost one day while playing outside and had been sad about for weeks.

You can’t believe Richie had kept it in his mind, and had gone out to look for it.

‘Richie… I don’t even know what to say right now.’ You exclaim, squeezing the bracelet in your hand tightly, a blush covering your face. Richie’s mimics yours. ‘Thank you’, you say while reaching out to him and kissing him on the cheek. Richie face burns a brighter red.

‘Yeah… glad to be of service.’ His mind is ball parks away, and he is left dazed.

‘Come on Y/N, it’s time for you to blow out the candles.’

You go easily, letting your hand linger around Richie’s, deciding mentally that you’ll do it tonight before you go home. Your birthday has already been better than anything you could have imagined, and maybe it has one more miracle left to give. If Richie says yes to your question about going on a date, then this will truly have been the best birthday you have every had. By the love struck expression Richie is walking around with, you have an inkling as to what his response might be.

You blow out your candles, but you don’t need to make a wish. You already have everything you could possibly want.

----

‘Off course that asshole buys her a gift, but never returns the money I loaned him so long ago. I’m not a fucking bank.’

‘I think it’s cute.’

‘No, Eddie is right, I’m also waiting on my refund.’

‘It’s adorable he bought her something, he really can’t hide his crush anymore.’

[tomorrowsdrama]

So the costumes in rebel princess are obviously beautiful and incredibly detailed.  But I love that the costuming also informs us about a character’s social standing and for some characters, their state of mind as well.  Or in Song Huaien’s case, how far into the dark side he’s gone.  He’s really the inspiration for this post.  As I was re-watching some of the early episodes while waiting for the new subs (shhh, I know I’m unhealthily obsessed with this drama), I noticed not only how drastically his costuming/hair has changed, but also that he’s pretty much a mirror of whoever he chooses to follow at the moment.  Cheng’s very own Single White Female without the obsessive craziness, if you will.  Delusional?  Sure.  But not quite crazy.

But first, let’s talk about the clothing of the noble class.  I’m sorry for this thesis that I’m going to inflict on everyone that no one asked for.  I’ve joked about the long trains on Awu/the nobles’ clothing before, but it’s clear that they are a sign of high status and wealth.  The higher ranked/wealthier you are, the longer your train is it seems.  Also, just in general, the nobles’ outfits usually include an abundance/overflowing of luxe silky and billowy material.  See:

And the nobles can afford to have such styles of clothing not just monetarily, but also lifestyle wise.  To put it bluntly, the nobles don’t have to do shit in their lives so they can afford to drag long trains of expensive fabric back and forth in their huge manors/the palace.  These clothes aren’t for functionality, but for beauty/showing off your wealth (whether intentionally or not).  If they need to go anywhere, they have comfy carriages to travel in instead of walking long distances.  If they need something?  That’s what servants are for.  I mean, just imagine how cumbersome it is to move around with such huge billowy sleeves and six feet of cloth dragging behind your ass.  You don’t have to imagine, just look at this scene where Daddy Wang visits Prime Minister Wen in prison (oh, how I regret taking this time for granted and condemning Daddy Wang for imprisoning that old fool):

Look at how his train drags over the threshold of the prison door.  Daddy Wang literally has to lift his train and throw it over a bench in order to sit down.  

The higher your status, the less physical activity you have to partake in a.k.a. the more useless you are, so it should come as no surprise that the longest train I’ve seen so far in the drama belongs to none other than our Useless Mopey Teenager Zitan:

The clothing choices are pretty deliberate, because whenever a character needs to do something more than just sit around enjoying tea (or wine if you’re Awu), they are given clothes that are more practical for moving around. Like the outfit Awu wore when she chased after her dad:

It’s much shorter than her usual garb and she’s wearing simple black pants underneath which makes horse riding and chasing after a traitorous father much more manageable.

What’s interesting is seeing the opposite happen with Hu Yao.  Hu Yao is usually in very practical and simple clothing since unlike the rest of the nobles in the capital, she has to fight against invaders and protect Cheng.  But when she goes to meet our Emo Emperor Zitan, of course she has to be dressed up in a big frou frou dress that makes it hard to walk:

It highlights just how impractical this type of extravagant clothing is for any kind of life other than a noble’s.  Hu Yao can barely walk without tripping over her own dress, let alone fight.  Also what the hell is that giant bow?

Now let’s talk about Daddy Wang’s clothes.  So before he gets exiled for attempting a coup, Daddy Wang was arguably the most powerful man in court.  He was the head of the Wangs, the most influential noble family in Cheng.  The past 10 empresses of the empire were daughters of the Wang clan, and his sister, the current empress, listened to whatever he said (for the most part).  Also his nephew wass the crown prince and easily manipulated.  He’s also wealthy AF so his status and wealth was apparent in his clothing.

Look at the sheen on that fabric and all that intricate embroidery work!  But then of course, he gets exiled and understandably has to put on some more humble clothing:

Simple, unembellished clothing made of coarse fabric that can withstand moving through the fields and rough terrain while you covertly make your way towards your disappointment of a son.  What really sticks out to me though, is his wardrobe choice after he reunites with the turnip.  Instead of going back to the lavish and ornate clothing he used to wear, he opts for an understated gray and black outfit with no long train in sight:

Turnip obviously can afford to put his dad in fancier clothing.  I mean look at the gaudy over-embroidered monstrosity that he’s wearing.  But it makes sense that Daddy Wang has now opted for something a bit more subdued and modest.  He’s been defeated once and is no longer the powerful prime minister he used to be.  Also, the Wangs do not hold as much clout as they used to because 1) empress has gone mad; 2) potato emperor is dead; and 3) the official head of the Wangs is now...Turnip.  

But make no mistake, his clothes may be simpler than before, but they’re still made out of very nice materials. He is after all, still Daddy Wang.  And Wang will rise again if he can help it! 

Next we have the seagull.  Ugh, yuck, gross, I hate her.  Anyway, now that I’ve gotten the bad taste out of my mouth...So for the majority of the drama we see her in light pastel colored clothing with little to no make up as if to imply that she’s a sweet, innocent thing:

She’s also usually pretty covered up.  But then she becomes Concubine Su (ugh) and all of a sudden she’s in bold colors, wearing red lipstick, and most noticeably, gotten very breast-y

Man, did Seagull make a wrong turn and accidentally stumble onto the set of The Empress of China?  She’s definitely got the tackiness to fit in with them.  This drastic shift in styling is clearly to signal to the audience that Seagull is now a seductress ready to do whatever it takes to hold onto that magical flute and never let go.  Also, whereas before she was a snake hiding in the grass, now it’s all out in the open (at least to the Wangs) just like her bosom.

Look, she even gets her own long train to reflect just how useless she is.

And finally, we have Song Huaien, Cheng’s very own Single White Female who molds himself to whoever he happens to follow and takes on their personality and principals (or lack thereof).

In the beginning, he is stuck to Xiao Qi’s side like a shadow, dresses similar to him, and even wears his hair like him.  He’s like the kid brother who copies everything his cooler older brother does because he looks up to him. 

Notably, he’s the only one in the Ningshuo crew who wears his hair down with a half bun, just like Xiao Qi.  Hu Guanglie (RIP best bro) is XQ’s oldest friend and literally devoted his life to him, but he’s also his own man and did not need to copy XQ.  He never wanted to be him, he only wanted to serve him. 

If you didn’t pay attention, you wouldn’t be able to tell who’s who.

When you follow a brave, honorable general who’s sex on legs, you too will be a brave, honorable and sexy general.  Song Huaien never looked better than when he tried to emulate Xiao Qi.

Interestingly, when Song Huaien goes off with Awu and starts to fall for her, he also starts to incorporate some color into his previously all-black wardrobe.  I guess spring arrived in his heart even though it was the cold winter:

Hm, now I’m starting to wonder if a part of his crush on Awu wasn’t influenced by his desire to be like XQ a little bit.  And then, sigh, he starts to get tempted by the riches of the capital city and the internal shift in his character is materialized externally through how he wears his hair in his first appearance in court:

This is the first time we’ve seen him wear his hair in any style other than the usual loose half bun.  And of course, his top knot conforms and fits in with how the rest of the ministers wear their hair.  Now contrast that with Xiao Qi who only wore his hair in a top knot once:

and then promptly went back to his usual hair style:

Sure, he looked good with the top knot (when does he never look good), but it wasn’t him.  Unlike Song Huaien, XQ is secure in himself and knows who he is.  He is not easily swayed or corrupted.  That is why he is able to remain just like how he always has been, internally and externally.

The next change we see in Song’s appearance is his armor.  Now that he is Count Suyi, his armor is noticeably more ornate.  Unlike XQ’s armor, which remains pretty much the same barebones armor we’ve seen since the beginning, Song’s gets fancier and fancier as he gets more lured in by the nicer things in life.

At this point, his hair is still down like before.  But then the next time we see him after his wedding, his hair style is changed into a high ponytail:

Which is a very good look, don’t get me wrong, but it is again another physical representation of the change happening in Song internally.  It’s kind of a weird limbo he’s in because it’s not completely a top knot, but it’s definitely neater and closer to a top knot than his previous hairstyle.  At this stage, Song hasn’t completely crossed over to the dark side quite yet.  He’s still kind of wavering and going back and forth.  So a high ponytail that is a shift from his prior hairstyle but not quite the same as the nobles’ hairstyle makes sense.  He keeps this look for a while and even momentarily goes back to his less fancy self while dealing with the floods away from the capital.  That is, until he joins hands (or is it roots?) with Turnip and it’s all downhill from there, character-wise and also appearance-wise.

First, we have this very ill-advised mustache and goatee which mimics the same facial hair Turnip all of sudden started sporting:

Matching facial hair to commemorate their entry onto the shit list, perhaps?  Anyway, turns out facial hair isn’t for everyone, including Song Huaien.  But this isn’t even the worst of it.  As Song Huaien continues his descent into being a greedy, spineless, puppet for Turnip (HIM of all people! or should I say, of all root vegetables?), he gets uglier and uglier.  I mean:

He looks downright haggard and as if he aged 20 years overnight.  Notably though, he looks exactly like the rest of the useless ministers in court.  He has definitely lost the sheen, vigor, and hotness that he once had when he was following XQ.  It’s as if the ugly inside is reflected on the outside as well.

I guess when you follow a weaselly coward like Turnip, you too will turn into a weaselly coward.  Oh Song Huaien, Song Huaien.  What a disappointment you turned out to be, you dumb, greedy bastard.   

[winter-fox-queen]

We All Deserve a Fairy Tale

Summary:  Small press author falls in love with the adorableness that is Frankie.  It’s written in the first person.  Right now it is gender neutral -- I am not writing it that way intentionally, so later chapters might change.  

I already wrote chapter two.  We’ll see how this goes.  I need some fluff...this is meet cute fluff with some first-person snark.

Chapter one:  In Which Our Heroes Meet

The worst thing about being a small press author was sitting at signings.

OK, maybe not the worst, I had to admit to myself as I straightened again, letting my phone fall to my lap as I smiled in the direction of the door, but close to it.  Especially since I’d magically picked the worst day, dismal, a little cool, rainy and just generally not the kind of day to inspire people to leave their house.  Especially not to leave their house to come to an obscure murder mystery author’s book signing.  

And the nearly empty book store proved it.

The guy who came in was pretty to look at, at least.  Sharp nose, kind brown eyes, coffee-colored curls peeking out from under a worn baseball cap.  Everything about him was comfortably worn, even the tan coat he self consciously shrugged off and put over his arm.  He smiled at me briefly and wandered the store.

Ok, lovely thing. What do you like to read?  Probably not romantic suspense, like the three books that lined up neatly on my table.

He picked up a C.J. Box, I nodded approvingly.  He’d make a nice Joe Pickett,  I thought, mentally putting C.J. Box’s main series character into the pretty stranger’s body.  He looked like a competent game warden who managed to survive an awful lot of scrapes by dint of luck.  He skipped over the latest hardcover.  Waits for the paperback.  Good to know.

“If you like those books, you might like the Longmire series,”  I suggest, not too loudly, but the store was quiet enough.  

He looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there.  That’s just awesome for the ego.  “Thanks,” he said and I wanted to figure out how to make him talk more.  There was so much – his inflection, the depth and tone of his voice.  I wondered if I could pay him to read one of my books.  Not to sell.  Just so I could listen to him.

“Look under J for Johnson. Craig.”

He smiled at me briefly, again, and turned away.

OK, I decided as that thought finished crossing my mind, I am living too much in my fictional dream world, and I need to get a damned grip.  Just as I turned my attention to the opening door, I saw him kneel down to pull one of the books off the shelf.  Better at selling other people’s books than my own.

Miracle of miracles, a lady walked close and I said, brightly, “What do you like to read?”

She stopped.  “I like Nora Roberts…”

“So you probably read J.D. Robb?”  I held out the first book in my series.  She took it, and flipped it over to read the back. This was half the battle.  Sixty percent of the time, I get them to hold the book, they buy it.

My books weren’t really like J.D. Robb’s, but it was close enough to act as a hook.  I described the book to her, and she bought it.  I got her to spell her name for me, and I wrote my name, the date, and thanked her profusely as I slipped a bookmark in with details about how to get more.  She went over to the cash register to buy the book…always a relief to see, as at least once I knew someone had gotten the book signed, wandered off and hid it in the store.

The pretty stranger came over as I was covertly making sure the woman bought my book, cleared his throat nervously as he picked up one of my books.  

“I see you grabbed the first Longmire.”

He had a way of smiling like he was uncertain of its welcome.  It made me want to make him laugh, made me want to pet him gently.  

“I liked the TV series,” he said.

“I like the books better,” I admitted.  Though when I read the books, the actors from the show were acting it all out in my mind.

“Always,”  he said, turning back to my book.  He placed his future purchases on the table so he could open to the front page and read it.  This part always makes me squirm, but it was a thousand times worse.  I relined up my pens and squared up my bookmarks.

“OK.  Wow.”  He nodded. “Can I get this one?”

I gave him a  wry grin.  “I’d be grateful.”

He grinned back, and I took the book from him.  

“What’s your name, honey?”

“Frankie.”

There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but I settled on scribbling, “To Frankie, may your dreams be realized.”  Then I signed and dated it.  

He took it, looked at the inscription, and gave me a more genuine smile.  “Thanks,” he said, and stepped back.  It was a weird moment, fragile and glass-like, while we both searched for something to say.

“I’ll take you over here when you’re done!” the chirpy shop clerk said, and he looked at her, nodded. “Thanks again.”  He said to me.

“Hey, that’s my line!” I grinned at him, and tried to play it cool as he paid for his books.  He was five steps from the front door when I realized I hadn’t given him anything…no business card, no bookmarks.  If he had one of those, he’d have a way to reach out.  To say hello, your book was awesome.  Or not.

My brain froze, and the door opened and closed before I could think of anything to say.

Fuck.

I leaned on my hand, played with my phone.  Three whole book sales.  Three more hours of boring horror to go.  Ah, my life of fame and glory.

I let myself daydream about Frankie.  I wondered if he was a Franklin or a Francisco.  I hoped it was the latter.  He looked a bit like a Francisco…

I let myself get bummed. I wrote fairy tales.  I mean, they weren’t, not genre-wise, but I wrote stories where people fell in love and adored each other and everything would eventually be wonderful and the bad guys were stopped and the main characters all lived happily ever after.  And I could not even properly flirt with a cute guy.

And then, the door opened again.

[jwillowwolf]

Magic and Miracles - Chapter 11

Sanders Sides Big Bang fic, Chapter 11!

< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >| Masterlist

Summary: He sighed in relief only to tense up when he noticed the expression on Logan’s face.

“What happened?”

“We need a miracle.”

Warning/s: food mention, minor violence.

Characters: Logan, Virgil, OCs, Roman, Remy, Remus, Patton, Janus.

Tag List: @theimprobabledreamersworld @remy-please-come-back

Read on AO3

11 | Danger Unknown

Once Virgil and Logan returned to the room, Virgil made a request not to be disturbed and they put up a magical barrier to keep anyone from using enchanted items or spells to spy on them. The group was sitting in the living area, with the tv turned off, and trying to come up with a plan of action, or at least a logical theory as to what is happening. So basically, they were stuck with no idea as to what was going on or what their next move should be.

Logan frowned. “Could these events be connected? Virgil’s parents and grandmother both being essentially missing.”

Remy shrugged. “Possibly. Right now though we’re just guessing.”

“I think that our next move is more obvious than we think,” Remus declared. “We need to find Virgil’s grandmother.”

Roman nodded. “But where to start?”

Remus shrugged. “Her room?”

“Whether she’s there or not though, they’ll have guards stationed there to keep up the ‘she’s sick and quarantined’ charade.” Janus pointed out.

“Oh! What if we use the teleportation spell?” Patton proposed.

“Would that even work in this realm?” Willow wondered. “And what if they have some kind of magic barrier like we have here?”

“Virgil, is there anyone who you would trust to tell you the truth about what’s happening? The best thing we can do is find a reliable source to inform us what’s going on.” Remy said.

Virgil sighed. “The Earl was my grandmother’s closest advisor, and I don’t think we can trust him at all.”

“What about the reporters? You said they give news to the people of this realm, so surely they would have some information,” Logan reasoned.

Virgil perked up. “I don’t know how reliable they’d be, but I guess that’s a start. We’d need to comb through the news channels on TV.”

“Ooh, I can do that. I figured out how to use the remote properly,” Patton proudly stated.

“I could do some reconnaissance. Like covertly listening in on what people say to each other,” Willow suggested.

“I can help keep you hidden while you’re doing that,” Janus added.

“Roman and I could also do some covert reconnaissance. Our hearing isn’t as good as Willow’s but it’s still pretty sharp,” Remus stated.

Virgil nodded. “Alright, Pat can look into what’s on the news while Remus, Roman, Janus and Willow act as our spy teams. Logan and I have left the room before, so we can go out again and try to see my grandmother or at least fake that we’re doing that to see how well her room is being guarded.”

Remy frowned. “Hang on kids. If there is something going on, I would like to get us out of here as soon as possible. You shouldn’t be getting too deep into stuff like this.”

“It’s dangerous, but we knew this was going to be risky when we agreed to it. And, really, this might be our safest option considering how the Earl was trying to convince Virgil to go back home.” Logan noted.

Remy sighed. “If you really need to check in on the queen, then I may know a spell that can help. But it’s difficult for normal mages to cast.”

The group exchanged curious glances. “What is it?”

“Mind linking,” Remy stated. “It’s a high-level spell that can allow a person to link their consciousness to someone else. You can’t do a full connection unless two people are doing the spell with each other, but there’s a way to use the spell to specifically disconnect one’s consciousness for a time in order to find other minds in the space around you. Aka this building. The spell goes through all kinds of loopholes and can work even inside or through magical barriers, but the caster needs a proficiency in mind magic…”

“So, theoretically, I could cast the spell?” Virgil asked.

“Yes, but another rule is you can’t cast the spell onto yourself.”

“You could cast it onto me though,” Logan said.

“I was actually thinking I could take the spell,” Remy declared.

“I think Logan should do this. If Pat’s watching the news, the twins, Janus, and Willow are out spying, and I’m maintaining this spell, then it would probably be a good idea to have someone checking news sites online, and we don’t have time to teach Logan about the internet,” Virgil pointed out.

“Inter-net? Is it some kind of magical net you catch information with?” Roman asked.

“Like I said, we don’t have time to introduce you guys to it. Maybe later though.”

Remy sighed. “Alright. But we’re going to need to go into full detail with this plan…”

The team did plan things out as best they could. Virgil explained to the spy team how to navigate the building. After that, Roman, Remus, Janus and Willow went to the elevator, casting invisibility spells on themselves that would make it so only they could see/detect each other, then went their separate ways.

Meanwhile, Remy showed Patton which channels were for the news and gave Logan the instructions for the Mind spell. Pat made notes on everything that was being said on TV in a small black notebook and once Remy finished instructing Logan he found a tablet to use the internet on.

“Remember, I’m only able to keep this up for five minutes, then you’ll be pulled back into your body,” Virgil said. “You know where to go?”

Logan nodded. “I’ll be fine, Virge. We can both pull this off.”

Virgil nodded. “Okay. You might want to lie down then.”

Logan laid down and closed his eyes as the spell was cast. He could feel as the magic flowed through his body like a gentle wave washing over the shore. For a moment he thought that the spell had failed since nothing else changed, but then he sat up and opened his eyes only to realise that he was outside of his own body. More specifically, he was floating just above his body like a ghost.

He felt suddenly excited at this discovery. It was like he was now a ghost completely disconnected from his physical form. A glance over to Virgil however reminded him of the current urgency of his mission. He was watching Logan’s body with a particular concern. Right now he had no idea what was happening to Logan and it was worrying him a great deal.

Logan wanted to reassure him in some way, but this form wouldn’t really be able to do that, so instead, he focused on finishing his task so that when Virgil pulled him back he would have some useful information. He floated up to the ceiling and then phased through it like it was nothing more than a cloud of fog. He navigated his way literally through the building quickly until he came to the hall outside of the queen’s bedroom.

There were indeed a pair of guards outside the door, but no one else seemed to be on this floor. Logan phased through the door and looked around if anyone was there. The room was lavishly decorated in silver and lavender tones, with a pair of ornate wardrobes on either side of a large vanity table, a wall to wall bookshelf, and a large king-sized bed. In the bed, someone was laying down.

On closer inspection, Logan found that the someone was a fae woman with long tresses of silver hair that was spread out all over her pillows. She looked weak and sickly, with cold sweat on her forehead. Logan reached out to touch her so he could hopefully see into her mind when a voice from behind him said.

“Hello.”

Logan whipped around to find the spirit of the woman in the bed standing behind him. “Gah!”

“Oh, sorry darling, I didn’t mean to scare you there. You came looking for me, right?”

“Queen Valeria?”

“The one and only!” The woman said with a smile before her face turned serious. “You’re my grandson’s friend. Correct?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Then I need you to get him out of here. Immediately. Tell my son what’s going on here so that he can save the rest of this world before it’s too late for the others. I won’t last long enough to see him again...”

“I- no, your majesty I don’t really know what is happening but I’m sure that Virgil will not leave if you’re going to-- to die.”

“Child, there is no way to save me. All of you need to go to Nico and explain to him that Earl Ynclementia has overthrown me. Then he’ll know what to do next once my powers transfer to him.”

“Ma’am… Prince Nico and King Thomas have both disappeared. They were attacked by an unknown spellcaster during a meeting and no one knows what’s happened to them or where they vanished to.”

Valeria paled. “No… then Ynclementia’s plan was successful. That’s just all the more reason for you to get Virgil out of here. If he receives my powers then… it all will fall to him…”

Logan felt a lump in his stomach at the realisation of what she meant. With his parents gone and his grandmother dying, Virgil would be forced to take rulership over both humans and fae. Except the fae realm has been stolen by the earl, and if Virgil reveals his heritage without his parents support, then lord knows what might happen.

The people could rise against him in fear. Dethrone or even kill him. Even if he were completely accepted as half-fae, they could still try to take away his throne on the excuse he was underaged and possibly didn’t have the necessary training to rule in his fathers’ steads.

“Your majesty, there must be something we can do. If you’re here outside of your body then surely there’s still time to heal you.”

“Dear, I don’t have much time left. The spell I’m using to keep myself alive will be gone soon enough. Nothing but a miracle could save me now. Please, my only wish is that Virgil is safe. Take him home and… tell him to destroy the porthole. Right now, I’m using a spell to keep Ynclementia here, but once I’m gone he will try to take over your realm as well. That cannot happen.”

“No, there has to be something. There has to be a way to save you.”

“As I said, nothing but a miracle could do that.”

Logan looked down at his feet sorrowfully, then an idea struck him. “A-a miracle. Like the mythical creature, Miracle?”

Valeria gave a short laugh. “I doubt there are any of those just walking around in your realm, much less this one.”

“But if we found one, it could save you?”

“Well, they’re supposed to have boundless knowledge of the universe, so possibly. But it’s impossible to find one. Please just… just get Virgil away. Right now he’s going to need good friends more than ever.”

Valeria stared sorrowfully at the painting above her door. Only now Logan noticed it. A large portrait of Valeria, Thomas, Nico, Tanya, Dune and Virgil, all together smiling happily. If the queen died now then Virgil really would need friends. His fathers were completely missing and neither Tanya nor Dune could leave the forest. In the castle, facing the duties of ruling a kingdom, Virgil would be completely alone.

Logan couldn’t let that happen.

He tried to say more to Valeria but he felt that his soul was being pulled back. As his vision faded he heard Valeria say one more time, “Take him home.”

Barely a blink and a breath later, his consciousness returned and Logan found himself back in his body, with Virgil staring at him in concern. He sighed in relief only to tense up when he noticed the expression on Logan’s face.

“What happened?”

“We need a miracle.”

Virgil tugged on his hood. “Is it that bad?”

“No, well, what I mean- ugh, do you remember Remus’s dream?”

“That one about the giant bagel?”

“No, the recurring one. That one that started on our vacation.”

“Oh, the nightmare.”

“Yes, that. To save the person, we needed to find the miracle that time left behind, right?”

“I’m with you so far.”

“I think that that dream was very literal…”

An hour later, the group was reunited and once again stuck thinking of what to do next. Logan explained everything that happened with Valeria, leaving Virgil terribly distressed, and then the spy team returned with the news that Ynclementia planned to use them as hostages since the plans to get rid of Virgil’s parents and assassinate Virgil ‘failed’.

“Assassinate me?”

Willow nodded. “That’s what a rockslide was. The agent Ynclementia sent must have believed they killed you then went off to get your parents.”

“And now Ynclementia thinks both plans failed so he needs you as a hostage to use against your fathers.” Janus sighed.

“The news isn’t giving me any hope either,” Remy stated. “It seems that they’ve… erased the queen. Like she or any of your family never existed. They’ve made it look like Earl Imbecile has always been in power and no one is speaking up about it.”

Patton nodded. “From what I’ve seen on TV they’re scared to even talk about him. Whenever they refer to anything he’s done or is doing, they have this terrible fear in their eyes.”

“Then it isn’t like they’ve been brainwashed or anything. They’ve been traumatized.” Roman theorised.

Remus chewed on her fingernails. “We need to get out of here.”

“Well, it’s not like we can just walk out of the place.” Janus declared. “They would lock us up for real if they caught us.”

“A porthole,” Willow said. “We can use a porthole to get ourselves back to the realm porthole and go home.”

“You pointed out earlier that kind of magic might not work in this realm.” Roman reminded them.

“Well, yeah, but how many successful spells have we used now?”

“Okay true.”

The group used a porthole to get themselves back to the realm porthole, then went through the second porthole and found Tanya, Dune, and a few other pixies waiting for them. Tanya looked at Virgil with a worried expression. She could already tell that something had gone wrong.

“Virgil?”

“...We need to close the porthole.”

---

A/N: thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this. I'll be posting two chapters a day until the full fic is up, so if you want to be tagged, you can just ask.

I'd love to hear what you thought about the chapter if you wouldn't mind commenting. Thanks again for reading! Here's hoping you have a magical day 💜