#"building the future and keeping the past alive is one in the same ' is such a cool phrase gahh

[linkspooky]

Art credit: @/charscounterattack reposted with permission.

INVINCIBLE VS. MY HERO ACADEMIA: WHEN HEROES KILL

Whether or not heroes should kill people is a hotly debated topic in comics.

There are people who think heroes should never kill, and others who think heroes should kill more. One of the most famous comic book storylines "Under the Red Hood" has Red Hood / Jason Todd debate whether or not it was ethical for Bruce to keep letting the joker live even after the Joker killed Jaso, especially after the Joker killed Jason. If killing the Joker earlier to prevent all future deaths would have been justified. There are like a hundred DC Aus that are like "What if Batman and Superman just started killing people?"

In order to explore this question I'm going to explore two situations in different comics, Invincible and My Hero Academia when the hero, a very idealistic young hero kills someone for the first time.

LET HORI COOK

Storytelling, especially for serialized storytelling which comes out week by week instead of all at once works on the premise of drawing people in by promising that certain future developments and plot points are going to happen. Stories are all about creating expectations, building them, and then paying them off.

Here's an example: The Dabi is a Todoroki theory has existed pretty much since the training camp arc. Horikoshi wasn't in your face about the hints about Toya, but there was just enough hints to make the theory seem more and more plausible. Toya having the same fire quirk as Shoto / Endeavor. Toya mentioning both of them by name. Shoto's two other siblings getting revealed but not Toya. Toya saying that Hawks should have paid attention to him most of all. All of these little pieces came together until Toya finally revealed his identity on live TV in front of both Shoto and Endeavor.

This worked because not only did it give the audience just enough clues that they felt smart for figuring it out, and get invested in the idea of Toya as a Todoroki, it also was well-paced so it didn't seem like Horikoshi forgot about it unlike the traitor plot which went hundreds of chapters without being mentioned. If Toya was revealed to be a Todoroki at the training camp arc with no buildup, it wouldn't be as effective bcause we didn't have years of waiting and theorizing. If Todoroki was revealed to be some guy named Steve after all the hints, it also wouldn't be an effective reveal because there were hints dropped for Toya Todoroki, but there were no Steve hints so it'd feel like the author lied to us.

Themes are like this too. I tend to explain story themes by oversimplifying it as "Question, and answer." The story asks a question, it provides us an answer, and we can come up with our own answer as well. However, there's a middle part I'm skipping out on which is deliberation. Before you can come up with an answer, you obviously need to deliberate it, either by presenting arguments for or against, hearing outside opinions or just thinking things through.

In other words, you need to "Let things cook."

If Toya calling Shoto by his full name at the Training Camp Arc is when we're first asked "Is Toya a Todoroki?" or when the theories first started, then the long middle period between Training Camp Arc and the First War Arc is the deliberation. This is when the story not only added more hints to the idea that Toya was a Todoroki, but also set up why that reveal mattered. Endeavor wanted to atone for his past sins, but one of his victims was no longer alive. Endeavor begins to move on anyway and think he's finally made himself a good hero, but now Toya appears to flip up the reverse Uno Card.

So let's follow this basic formula, for how ideas get developed in My Hero Academia and just any good story.

Question / Introduction

Deliberation

Answer / Conclusion

My Hero Academia and Invincible explore similar themes in regards to heroism, generational trauma and how to be better than the previous generation in both Mark and Deku. I'm going to streamline their arcs down to one basic question for the sake of time. For both the question is:

Can I be a better hero than my Dad?

Deku and Mark might be two characters who cannot possibly seem to be more different, but you can actually list off a lot of similarities between them right away. Deku and Mark are both people who in a world oversaturated with superheroes spent most of their childhoods with no superpowers at all. Also, they were genetically supposed to inherit a quirk / viltrumite powers, but Deku was born quirkless, and Mark was an extremely late bloomer. They are also people who while being powerless civilians for most of their lives worship heroes. Deku collects so much All Might Merch he even stole some from Nighteye after he died, Mark attends comic conventions even after he becomes a superhero.

They also grew up worshipping one hero in particular who was essentially earth's strongest hero, for Mark it was his dad Omni-Man, for Deku it was All Might. They also both get the opportunity to train directly under their favorite hero immediately after they get their powers. At first this makes it seem like they've been given everything they've ever wanted. All Mark has ever wanted was to be a hero like his dad and make his father proud. Not only did Deku just want one person to tell him he could be a hero too even without a quirk, but his very idea of heroism is built around seeing All Might always save people with a smile.

However, both of them suddenly hit complication just when it seems like they've been given everything they've ever wanted. They are both confronted with the fact that their heroes are not who they expected them to be. They are overly idealistic heroes who have been dreaming of being heroes since childhood only to be hit with a much greyer reality. To the point where there innocence becomes a flaw in and of itself. The way they've been coddled and protected all of their lives leaves them completely unaware and unable to spot the grey areas in the world, or the people around them.

For Deku the moral greys exist in the villains around them. In MHA Society, villains are basically just bad guys in suits for the heroes to punch on television. They're seen as a faceless enemy, and there's very little in way of rehabilitation for villains once they're captured. Deku lived in a very black and white world before this point, and he's suddenly presented with the idea that his villains could be morally grey.

Deku's image of All Might is a hero who saves everyone with a smile, so he could never imagine that there are people who All Might has failed to save. He's never stopped to consider where villains came from, or if any of them might have legitimate reasons for their grievances.

This becomes a pretty central theme in MHA. It's first brought up here when Shigaraki talks about All Might acting as if there's no one he can't save. Twice brings it up again in his first backstory chapter, that the heroes only save the virtuous ones.

This is further enforced in the same overhaul arc with members who are loyal to Overhaul because they are society's trash who would have been thrown out otherwise. There is a group of people fiercley loyal to Overhaul who is a terrible boss, because he is the only person who would accept them.

In the War Arc this long running theme basically reaches a climax with the Hawks and Twice confrontation, where Hawks decides to try to offer Jin a chance to restart because he's deemed him "good" but he won't extend the same helping hand to the league who Hawks has determined as "bad." He then asks Jin to betray his friends in order to be saved, something that Jin rightfully calls out.

That Hawks only wants to save Jin because he's one of the good ones, and he's written off the rest of the league and left them for dead. Hawks choosing to divide between good and bad victims ad only save the one he personally thought was worthy of redemption, makes it impossible for him to save Twice who would never under any circumstances give up on the rest of the league.

Twice's death is a tragedy, but it also presents us a clear example of the failures of the previous generation. Even a hero who sincerely sympathized with a villain and wanted to help them start over wasn't able to help them because of this attitude of selectively picking and choosing who to save. If the heroes only save the innocent the I guess the lives of the guilty are worth less.

This is the questio Toga poses to Ochako, if the heroes killed Twice then are you going to kill me in order to stop me. This is the central subject of Shigaraki's speech to the heroes. That heroes and villains will never uderstand each other, because the entire hero system perpetuates itself on ignoring the needs of societal outcasts and rejects in form of the "innocent people" and those outcasts who aren't having their needs met eventually turn into villains who get systematically put down by heroes. Heroes and villains are incapable of understanding each other and breaking the cycle, because the entire system isn't built on helping people, but merely maintaining the idea that heroes are perfect, faultless saviors so normal people will feel secure, while the people the heroes have failed get swept under the rug so society can keep "functioning."

"You heroes hurt your own families just to help strangers. You heroes pretend to be society's guardians. For generations, you pretended not to see those you couldn't protect. That means your system's all rotten from the inside with maggots crawling out. It all builds up, little by little, over time. You've got the common trash, all too dependent on being protected, and the brave guardians who created the trash that needed coddling. It's a corrupt, vicious, cycle. Everythig I've witnessed, the whole system you've built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it. That's why I destroy. That's why I took power for myself. Simple enough, Yeah? I don't care if you don't understand. That's what makes us heroes and villains."

So if the starting question is: Can I be a better hero than my dad?

Then everything I've detailed above is deliberation. Here we have, ever since the training camp arc, this slowly built up idea of why All Might was a flawed hero in the end.

Mark has to face the fact that his father is a more morally grey person than he could ever imagine, whereas Deku has to face the fact that the villains are more morally grey in his world, and that makes the heroes look more flawed in comparison as well. The deliberation is all slowly bringing Deku to think over what Shigaraki asked him all the way in the beginning in there first meeting.

Were there ever people that the heroes couldn't save? If so then what are you supposed to do with the victims you can't save after they grow up? This is when Deku begins to start forming his own answer.

Deku hears the advice of both the other OFA users, and The Stinky Old Man (Gran Torino) that killing Shigaraki is the best option, but wants to explore other options.

Scenes like this clearly telegraph what the answer / conclusion Hori is leading us to to be. The same way that Toya is a Todoroki is foreshadowed long in advance, statements like "All for one is a power meant for saving, not killing" clearly set up Deku's Endgame. Deku's end goal is to find a way use his power to save Shigaraki rather than killing him. Everything else is just a matter of deliberation, Deku knows what his edgoal is but the chapters between then and the end of the manga is Deku having to figure out how exactly to save Shigaraki without killing him.

You Heroes Hurt Your Own Families Just to Help Strangers

Invincible is the story of Mark Grayson, the son of Omni Man / Nolan Grayson. He's been told all of his life that his father is a viltrumite, a race of benevolent aliens who send out people like Nolan to alien civilizations in order to uplift their entire civilization. Which is what led Nolan to come to earth and become Earth's greatest heroes.

This turns out to be a big fat lie when within 12 chapters Nolan not only slaughters the guardian's of the globe, but also has a confrontation with his son.

Mark has wanted to be just like his dad his entire life. Only to be slapped in the face with the realization he's known nothing about his dad his entire life, shown rather brilliantly by these panels where Nolan tries to have a normal father / son conversation with Mark while covered in blood.

Nolan isn't from a futuristic utopia but from a brutal, fascist space empire. He didn't come to earth to help bring it up, but to weaken its defenses and make it prime for conquering. He didn't have Mark out of love, but to produce another soldier for the viltrumite empire.

Mark's entire schtick is that he's invincible, but he's so inexperienced as a hero that he gets beat up constantly despite the fact he has the strongest power set in the series b/c he has viltrumite powers. However, not only does the series introduce moral greys by continually showing how Mark even with the best power set in the series constantly gets his ass kicked, it also challenges Mark's black and white thinking and hero worship of his father by showing him the kind of man his father really is.

Mark has wanted to be exactly like his father his entire life, but now that's suddenly a bad thing. His father is a morally reprehensible person and Mark is now a descendant of an alien race meant to conquer worlds. Not only is Mark confronted by who his father really is, but now everyone in Mark's life judges him by comparing him with his father.

Mark has to work with Cecil and be his on-call Superhero, both to be able to pay for college, and also to prove that he's not his dad. The unspoken part of the agreement is that Cecil gets to keep a leash on Mark and Mark has to prove that he'll never turn out like his father to earn Cecil's trust.

Cecil is automatically suspicious of him because if Mark were to turn evil, the planet would have no defenses against him just like it didn't have any for Omni Man. Mark's mother starts to drink and blames Mark for Omni-Man leaving in a drunken moment of weakness because of how much the information that Omni Man only regarded her as a pet affected her.

The comic even shows us that in most alternate universes, mark actually did make the decision to join his father's conquest, and this universe is one of the few exceptions. This is also where we're introduced to a major reoccuring antagonist in the comics, and also the main antagonist / final antagonist of season 2 of the cartoon Angstrom Levy.

Levy is someone who can jump between dimensions and has traveled to almost all of them collecting his alternate selves. He has witnessed for a fact that in most universes Mark sides with his father instead of fighting against him.

Levy enlists the clone bros to build a device that would combine the knowledge of his alternate selves into one individual. This device ends up breaking tragically (partially mark's fault, but levy himself made the decision to stop the machine in order to stop the clone bros from killing Mark). Levy's memories become confused as a result of the machine malfunctioning, and he can't tell the difference between himself and his alternate universe counterparts. This means that Levy now remembers several alternate universes where Mark did turn evil, and remembers them as if they happened to him.

It's better elaborated upon in this post:

The process by which Invincible has had to condense and consolidate the plot beats of the original comic, coupled with the opportunity it's granted the writers to tighten up and emphasize its themes on a second pass, has resulted in a newfound appreciation for how unbelievably fucking good Angstrom Levy's whole character concept is. What's that, Mark? Your main emotional crisis this season is your fear of turning out like your father? Here, have an archnemesis who's out to kill you because his memories were inadvertently overwritten with the lived experiences of hundreds of alternate versions of himself whose friends and families were slaughtered in worlds where you did, in fact, turn out exactly like your father. Because it turns out that that is in fact the multiversal norm. That you turn out like your father. And now you're left to wonder what set of arbitrary coinflips pulled you back from that abyss in this dimension, and whether your luck is going to continue to hold into the future.

Mark is not only hit with the revelation that his father isn't as good as he thought he was, but also while he's in a crisis about about whether or not he will turn out like his father, he learns the answer is yes, in several dimensions he turns out exactly like his father.

In My Hero Academia there are families like the Todoroki's who balance the difference between a hero's obligations to society, and a hero's obligation to society. However, that's a side plot where I'd argue that the main plot for Invincible and it's main focus is what Mark owes to the world as a hero, and what Mark owes to his family.

It's not just that Omniman is trying to invade earth for the Viltrumite empire. It's not just that he failed as a hero, but that he failed as a father. What makes Mark snap, is hearing Omniman call Debbie a pet. Until that point Mark was in denial and still trying to reason with his father.

Invincible is about two intersecting themes: Is Mark obligated to use his incredible powers to help make the world better? Can Mark be a good hero and a good family man?

While MHA has more far reaching societal implications in its themes and questions, Invincible is more specifically about the Grayson Family. It's generational trauma on a society level, vs generational trauma on an individual level. The way Nolan was raised on Viltrumite effects how he raised Mark causing their conflict, and Mark's conflict with his father effects most of his young adulthood when he's trying to figure out what person he wants to be (read: not his dad), but also the way he parents his daughter with Atom Eve.

Omni-man failed Mark as both a hero, and a father. Mark feels the need to overcompensate for what his father did the world and all those innocent people by acting as Cecil's lapdog and doing whatever Cecil tells him.

However, Mark is much more hurt by the personal betrayal than he lets on. It's not just that his father killed a bunch of innocent people, it's also that Mark's father failed as a father, abandoning both him and mom and choosing to be a viltrumite rather than being Mark's father. Mark's stated reason for wanting to be a hero post the omni-man reveal is to prove he's not like his dad to the world, and also make up for the innocent lives he failed to save. However, his unstated underlying reason is Mark is hurt and betrayed his father didn't put his family first, and this causes Mark to always put his family first.

This leads to two insecurities / narrative flaws. One, Mark is insecure about becoming like his father so he tries to prove he's nothing like him by being the most selfless, perfect hero possible. Two, Mark is hurt by being abandoned by his father and doesn't want to become a deadbeat like Nolan so he gets extremely overprotective of his own family.

These two things are obvious in conflict with one another: A hero has an obligation to the common good which sometimes means sacrificing time with your loved ones. However, being a good family man requires a level of selfishness that directly contradicts the selfless hero that Mark is pushing himself to be. In the comic the way Mark prioritizes his family and loved ones over the common good and justice is made even more obvious. His first instinct on seeing Omni-Man again isn't to call him out for being an awful father, but to hug him and ask him to come home. Mark is a distraught son first, and a hero second.

Mark has two flaws, his fear of being like his father makes him try too hard to be a perfect hero, and his trauma over losing his father makes him prioritize his family over being a hero. It's very much a having your cake and eating it too situation, oftentimes heroes make huge sacrifices for their personal lives in order to be heroes, that's basically a theme discussed in the comic with Nolan being absent for a lot of Mark's childhood, and why Mark's relationship with Amber fails.

The show also introduces us to the idea that Mark is so afraid of becoming like his father that he deliberately holds back his punches. Which is good when he's fighting earth villains, but bad when he's facing viltrumites who can only survive being disemboweled, but will also come to wipe out all life on earth if they're allowed to live. In the show it's directly mentioned that Mark is holding back, in the comic it's implied when we see how helpless Mark is in the fight against other viltrumites. Mark lacks the resolve to kill someone and when fighting a viltrumite, failing to put them down can have consequences because they are galactic conquerors who will not show you any mercy.

This all comes to a head in the Angstrom Levy fight where Mark makes his first kill on-screen when beforehand he'd never fought to kill before, and even held back against galaxy conquering aliens who were out to murder him and his dad.

However. before we begin that.

Should superheroes kill?

People often act like whether or not super heroes should kill their villains is a black and white topic, where it actually depends highly on context.

Batman’s an entire character is written around how he wants to redeem Gotham and save the city, most of his villains aren’t even sent to prison they’re sent to Arkham a facility that’s supposed to rehabilitee the mentally ill so they can rejoin society. Batman has decided it’s his place to stop crime, not his place to decide whether or not people have the right to live or redeem themselves.

Batman is also at risk for being just like his villains, that’s why he’s foils with Harvey Dent, someone who tried to prosecute people under the law who then snapped and went full violent mobster vigilante. Batman actually is at risk for walking the same path as Harvey if he decides murder is an option.

In X-Men 97, there was a character known as Rogue who dropped Simon Bolivar Trask off of a building in an act of vigilante justice. This action makes sense in context for several reasons. One Rogue was raised by Mystique and Destiny, is a former member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and began as a terrorist in the comics. She's not really a "moral highground" character like Batman. Two, Boliver Trask built a giant killer robot that resulted in the deaths of millions in Genosha which Rogue is a survivor of. Number three, Trask had no sympathetic reasons for building the genocide robot, he built the sentinels out of bigotry to wipe out mutants. He's not a victim in any way, he's an oppressor facing consequences for his actions.

Batman shooting Harvey Dent, his former best friend, a victim of severe mental illness and trauma that still has hope for recovery, and Rogue dropping the guy who made a genocide robot off of a building are both wildly different situations.

So in the context of MHA we have Shigaraki Tomura, a terrorist who's goal is to destroy japan enough that it will dismantle the hero system for good. Shigaraki Tomura is a ten year old child who lost control of his quirk and killed his family for mistake, he wandered for days in crowded city streets but not a single hero stopped to help him, then he was found by the main villain of the story and groomed for ten years into becoming his successor. Shigaraki is also surrounded by a group of societal outcasts who were failed by society in similiar ways, so Shigaraki knows he wasn't the only one failed by hero society and he starts to wage his war for their sake as much as his own.

In Invincible we have Angstrom Levy. Angstrom is not plotting mass murder the way that Shigaraki is. He is specifically only targetting Mark Grayson's family for revenge (at least the first time he showed up, the second time during the invincible war arc was different). Angstrom's revenge against Mark Grayson is misplaced, but to be fair the accident messed with his brain hardcore and he doesn't remember clearly what happened. He doesn't remember that he's the one who decided to stop the machine in order to help Mark. It's tragic. Angstrom also has the memories of like hundreds of different universes of evil Marks. Even though he's the victim of a tragic accident, he's also a victimizer in that he doesn't choose to just go after Mark, he deliberately picks Mark's family, his mother, and his infant little brother as a way of hurting Mark.

So both of these characters blur the line between villain and victim, but neither of them are like Trask in that they have no sympathetic motivation whatsoever. Shigaraki's actions don't come from bigotry, and he's not an oppressor. Trask was actually trying to do something good before his machine broke and his brains got scrambled, and now he wants personal revenge and to blame all his problems on Mark which is petty yes, but not on Trask's level of heartlessness.

So, there's a case that can be made here for both of them that there's room to save them. After all Mark and Deku aren't killers to begin with. Mark especially has an incredibly vested interest in not becoming a killer. Even if they don't explicitly go out of their way to save and redeem these two people, we're still at this point expecting the heroes to at least take down these two sympathetic figures non-lethally. Mark doesn't want to be like his dad and Deku has said explicitly he wants to save Shigaraki, and that OFA is a power for saving and not killing.

Also to sidestep this argument before people comment on my post with it.

What do you expect the heroes to just let a mass murderer live?

YES!

It happens in comics literally all the time.

Magneto, Wolverine, Jean Grey / Phoenix, Emma Scott, heck, OMNIMAN himself, all characters who have killed lots of people and all characters who get to live and even be on the heroes side. Of these three Jean Grey of all people has the highest body count.

Shonen Jump also has Vegeta. Have you ever heard of Vegeta? Most popular Shonen Rival of all time? Omni-man and Viltrumites are basically just Saiyans.

In real life they wouldn't let a mass murderer walk away but comics are not the same as real life. That's why characters are always punching dinosaurs all the time. Fun fact, if you were to try to punch a dinosaur in real life it would probably hurt your hand. I would advise against it. Dinosaurs are for the most part much stronger than human beings.

As I outlined above Shigaraki and Angstrom are different characters than Trask. They might all be murderers, but the first two have sympathetic elements and are humanized, they are victims of oppression (Angstrom's been killed by viltrumites in a whole bunch of worlds) whereas Trask is an oppressor.

So for both of these stories we are not expecting to see Deku and Mark kill their final villains (for the series and for this season). Deku because he's spent the final third of the series trying to work out a way to save the villains, and Mark because he doesn't want to turn out to be a violent murderer like his father so he's trying to be the most selfless, most perfect hero ever.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE STRONGER

So we finally reach the scenes in question and I thought I'd compare them without much commentary, just highlighting what happens without adding much spin.

So the final episode of Invincible Season 2 and Issue #33 of the comic is where Angstrom and Mark have it out. Angstrom appears in Mark's home and threatens his family. he brings up the comparison between Mark and his father right away. This is also something Angstrom has seen first hand by traveling to multiple universes where Mark has sided with his father.

In the cartoon he's a lot more confused because he's constantly remembering other universe's memories as if he were his own so he genuinely thinks he's taking down an evil viltrumite, in the comic he's being more petty and blaming Mark for his deformity (I think he doesn't remember that he was the one to take the helmet off by choice). In both versions he uses Mark's family as hostages to keep him from fighting back as he tries to send Markk to his death in several different realities.

Angstrom then ups the threat of violence from holding them hostage to threatening to kill them. In both the show and comic he brutally breaks Debbie's arm. Mark is sent through several more realities, only to discover that Debbie's arm is broken and lose his temper.

Mark and Angstrom's fist fight comes to an end, and while Mark has him on the ground he keeps hitting and hitting and hitting long after Angstrom stopped fighting back. Which is what prompts the famous "I thought you were stronger..."

Now, in this situation it looks pretty justifiable that Mark attacked Angstrom so aggressively,. it was self defense for one against a man trying to kill him and he only got truly aggressive after he saw his mother's arm get broken. Not only that he didn't intentionally kill Angstrom, you can argue he went too far in a case of clear self defense. Other people even tell Mark that this one isn't on him, including Cecil who compares Mark to his father the most.

Then, why is Mark so disturbed?

It's because this....

Is a deliberate parallel to this...

It's not just that Mark killed a man, it's that he killed a man by pounding on him relentlessly long after he'd stopped fighting back the exact same way his father did to him during their fight.

There's a difference between Mark say, fighting against a viltrumite and making a deliberate decision to kill them because of the danger that viltrumites represent to other people considering they are planet conquerors, and Mark killing this man because he lost his temper and couldn't control his own strength.

Mark spends the entire season trying to not be like his father, only to see first hand that he's capable of the exact same violence that his father is. The last episode of Season 2 summarizes this moment pretty perfectly in a montage of season 1 moments while Mark screams and breaks the sound barrier trying to push his viltrumite powers to their limits.

Mark: I'm strong enough and I can do this. It's all I've ever wanted for as long as I can remember. I want to do what you do. I want to be just like you. Omni-Man: You will be, son. You will. Mark screaming. Omni-Man: You'll outlast every single fragile being on this planet. You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away. Everyone and everything you know will be gone. Mark screaming. Cecil: You know who else said that to me? Mark: I'm not my dad. Mark screaming some more. KRegg: Your father will be execute and you can return to earth. You will assume the mission to prepare earth for our rule.

So not only is Mark hit with the realization that he's just as capable of being violent and angry as his father is. He also is being forced by the situation to become more violent out of pragmatism, because if he doesn't get strong enough to fight viltrumites then they're going to come to his planet and take everything.

Not only has Mark lost some of his innocence, he's also being forced to throw the rest of it away. It's why Mark drops out of college at the end of the season because any pretense of balancing between his human life and his duty as a hero is gone. He is basically forced to be a viltrumite full time now and will abandon any semblance of trying to live his own life for a very, very long time until his relationship with Eve starts to get serious.

Which is why a pretty justifiable murder in this context is presented as so bloody, gruesome and traumatizing an event for both the audience and Mark himself. We both know there's no coming back from this.

As for the death of main series villain Shigaraki Tomura, Deku ends up being forced to kill Shigaraki in a situation similiar to Mark. Though I will highlight one difference right away. Mark was trying to reason with Angstrom, but he was at no point like "I want to save Angstrom, he's a victim I want to find some other way of ending this bloody conflict between us." Mark just didn't intend to go so far as killing him.

Deku entered the fight with the explicit stated desire to save Shigaraki rather than killing him, which would make him different from the previous generation of heroes because he wouldn't turn a blind eye to society's faults and victims like Shigaraki accused him of.

Deku makes a journey into Shigaraki's mental landscape to find Tenko in a recreation of the memory of the day of his worst trauma. As Tenko's quirk activates, Deku attempts to grab the little boy's hands to comfort him.

Deku's "Why I am here" is markedly different from All Might's. Deku says the reason he wants to save others is to take their hands, comfort them and give them peace, whereas All Might as the strongest hero tried to keep peace by beating all the villains down. Deku's way to become the greatest hero once again, focuses heavily on saving others, and offering his hand to everyone without hesitation instead of picking and choosing who to save like previous generations.

Deku even says that he has to extend a helping hand to everyone because he's learning that the world is more complicated than he thought, he was ignorant to a lot of people's suffering, and he can't sweep their pain under the rug anymore.

For a moment Deku unconditionally extending a hand to Shimura Tenko even as his mental body begins to decay away wins over Shimura Tenko. Though Shigaraki also resists because much like Twice he doesn't want to abandon the rest of his friends even if it means he personally will be saved.

However, any attempts to save Shigaraki are interrupted by AFO suddenly appearing out of nowhere and taking control of Shigaraki's body yet again.

At this point Deku does exactly what Mark does, which is relentlessly punch Shigaraki's body to death in order to kill AFO along with Shigaraki. In some small defese Shigaraki was also there too punching AFO in his mental landscape so he was assisting Deku in defeating AFO he wasn't helpless the entire time.

But, basically we see the same scene happen with Mark.

A hero who does not wish to kill is forced by circumstance to kill a villain. In Deku's case it should be even more devastating because they explicitly went into the fight wanting to save Shigaraki and they believed their power was for saving and not killing.

Yet, we don't get nearly as horrified a response from Deku.

However, instead Deku's final words are just about how he couldn't forgive Shigaraki and had to put a stop to him no matter what.

Even the way the scenes are presented to us are entirely different. Mark punches Angstrom in a wasteland a dry, dead place, until he's soaked in Angstrom's blood, and painted everything around him red. Once again, it's a visual callback to Mark's father beating him half to death, which was Mark's own lowest point.

Whereas, when Deku punches Shigaraki until he disintegrates not only is the violence or horror of Shigaraki's death not acknowledged, but it's played as a triumphant moment where the clouds clear from the sky and the stun starts shining.

In the cartoon Mark killing Angstrom leads to a total screaming breakdown where he has traumatic flashbacks of his dad beating him and pushes himself to break the sound barrier multiple times. It also leads him to making big life changes like dropping out of college to become a hero full time and giving up any pretense of having a normal life. As seen in a scene where he watches Amber from the sky, and is tempted to go down and greet her and just flies off, because Amber represents his connection to his humanity.

Also, Angstrom doesn't even die. He comes back way worse and that's how invinicble war arc starts.

In the aftermath of killing Shigaraki, Deku gets melancholy about not being able to save Shigaraki only to be reassured he did save him in the end. Only to be told by All Might that it's okay because he still saved Shigaraki's heart even if he killed him.

DEKU: "I couldn't save Tenko's life." "I reached out to his heart, and even though his hatred was crushed," "to the very end, Tenko" "was the leader of the League of Villains." ALL MIGHT: "Let me tell you this as someone who has had a near-death experience," "I think it's in the expression on his face at the end." "If there wasn't a crying boy there," "I think his heart was saved after all,"

People also try to convince mark that he did nothing wrong and that there was no helping what he did in a situation like that, but he doesn't let himself believe them.

The ending lines about the last episode of Season 2, are this:

Eve: I'm sorry Mark. It's not fair. You don't deserve this. Eve: You don't deserve this.

Which has a double meaning. Eve is just trying to comfort Mark, because arguably he shouldn't have to feel guilty for fighting in self defense. On the other hand what Mark hears is You don't deserve this in the context of Eve's feelings for him. An alternate timeline version of Eve confessed her love for Mark. Mark was about to bring it up but decided not to. At that moment as Eve embraces and comforts him, what Mark hears because of his own self loathing is that he doesn't deserve Eve comforting him, or her love for him.

Just to clarify I don't think that Mark is crying over Angstrom Levy specifically. In fact over time he's painted to be pathetic in his obsession with revenge, and what he amounts to is just wanting to blame everything on invincible when it was partially caused by his own actions.

However, it's inarguable that killing (or rather seemingly killing Angstrom) deeply impacted Mark and how he saw himself as a hero. It's less about Angstrom, and more about the loss of control, and the realization of how powerful his anger and hatred can get and what that means for him personally.

It also shows us where Mark's priorities lie. Mark wants to be a perfect hero and a perfect family man, and Invincible shows us he can't be both, his desire to protect his family leads him to staining his blood when he was trying so hard to be a good, selfless hero. This is all a part of a deliberate arc where Mark chooses more and more to value his family over being a hero. I'm not going to say whether or not it's the right choice, but it's a choice he makes, as a part of his character development where as he grows up and becomes a father his priorities change.

My point is that this moment has an impactful change on Mark, for arguably the rest of the comic.

Now my question is, with My Hero Academia will the death of Shigaraki Tomura, the series greatest villain and it's greatest victim have an equal impact on Deku's character that Levy's death did on Mark's?

#bnha 424 #bnha spoilers #invincible #mark grayson #deku #izuku midoriya #mha 424 #mha spoilers #omni man #bnha meta #mha meta

[fuku69420ballslicker]

My thoughts on metal gear solid are funny because its like "wow ...love how they dealt with the topic of carrying on legacies , media manipulation , criticizing people in power etc etc"bur when i sir down to do fanart for this god forsaken game its like "Solid snake is so bisexual and transmasc , very yaoipilled game"

#Mgs #Rambles #Like #I love big boss carrying put boss' legacy but in the end finding peace naive ...and just like continuing war #And how solid snake was like 'we can built out own future ” #And i know im mgs 1 the theme of being more than your dna is like #Said loud and clear in a speech #But it hits so diffeeenr seeing huey and big boss amd peace walker #People who ate relatives and rl similiar to otacon and snake #But chise competely diffeeenr paths .like yea its obvious . But just seeing the charactwes on screen ...and not being quiye the characters #You know ...and knowing the atrocifies theyll commit later #Anyways im rambling #Like theres no point to what im saying ...the game is neat #"building the future and keeping the past alive is one in the same ' is such a cool phrase gahh #Ok enough is wnough #No more gay nerd shit

[plankos]

building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing

#flash warning #cw flashing #please let me know if i should add any other tags for the flashing #art #fanart #raiden metal gear #solid snake #not ship art btw #metal gear solid 2 #mgs2 #metal gear solid 2: sons of liberty #raiden mgs

[shanieveh]

♪ ♡ ♫ — salut d'amour, op. 12 — ♫ ♡ ♪

— genshin men choosing you above everything and anything

KAEYA who always wanted to see where he came from, what he was, truly was. Choosing between mondstadt and his birth place conflicted his days, but you changed a lot of things. You made him believe in the future, not the past. You made him alive, like the past two decades were just him breathing. He no longer cared of some survivor, spies, or what he was, but what he is—what he will be. All he knew is that you were in his life and he can fight anything, even his lies.

SCARAMOUCHE's biggest longing in his life is a purpose for his existence, and in doing so he became a harbinger, a criminal and now a God. But when he first heard the way the akademiya treated you, he almost turned beserk— he left everything, his godhood, his dreams, his desires, because of you. No one will treat you like some mad scholar, a dog, and as he destroyed the entire building he knew who he did it for. Godhood is for fools, the feeling of passion and love that mortality was in his chest, and he accepted the feeling as it fueled his actions, as he destroyed Azar himself.

ZHONGLI wanted a peaceful life. And when he Osial came back to haunt Liyue he chose not to strike. But he was not planning to losing you. He lost everyone but not you. And as you struggle in ocean's grasp Morax once again came to be, once again saved Liyue, Zhongli once again saved the day. Returned to the same boring routine that tire his days. As the corrosion start wearing him out, atleast he can make you safe. Even if, this wasn't what he wanted, the rest he longed for, you were the person he needed.

DILUC would do anything for family. For his father's legacy. And when he went to snezhnaya to uncover the truth, he was so close, but news of your illness soon reached his ears. He gave up all he knew, all the plans and petty revenge. He went home. The fatui called him a coward, he really was. Diluc can't help but be with you through thick and thin. You recovered, you assured him. And in that he found peace, no longer to chase for the truth, but appreciate what he has now, and keep it in his heart. For that didn't require a delusion, it required only to love you.

ALHAITHAM proudly called him a feeble scholar who only cares about having a peaceful unnoticed life. But when you were deemed a failure by the akademiya and punished severly he was quick to make a revolution towards it. For the first time he showed no mercy. How dare they?! Alhaitham now a hero, now noticed, did not like a single compliment. But when you clapped for him, he smiled. For all that hardwork was for your happiness.

CHILDE likes to fight. He loves to win. And every argument he does so with you. He relishes in being right, and you being wrong. And then you crumble. You gave up. In that very moment he wished he lost, he was wrong, he wished he admitted it. He lost that smirk, that winning smile. He begged, he surrendered. Fighting with you was a tragedy he'll gladly lose over and over again. Even if he was right, even if you were wrong, he longs to lose when its with you.

#kaeya x you #kaeya x gender neutral reader #kaeya x reader #kaeya x y/n #scaramouche x you #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x y/n #scaramouche x gender neutral reader #zhongli x reader #zhongli x you #zhongli #diluc x you #diluc x reader #genshin diluc #diluc fluff #alhaitham x y/n #alhaitham x you #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham x gender neutral reader #childe x reader #childe x you #childe x traveler #childe #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin fluff #genshin imagines

[sabrgirl]

what to do when you've committed a sin

oftentimes when committing a sin, it can be very easy to fall into a state of hopelessness, extreme guilt, shame and anxiety. The Prophet ﷺ said that "regretting (a sin) is repentance" (Sunan Ibn Majah 4252), and this shows that guilt is a good thing - a feeling that comes along with regret that drives you forward to ensure you don't commit the same sin again.

however, letting guilt and shame consume you entirely to the point where you've lost hope in Allah's Mercy and in yourself and end up sitting in a place of despair is not productive. as long as you're alive, you can still make amends and do good deeds in the hope of attaining the Pleasure of Allah سُبْحَٰنَهُۥ وَتَعَٰلَىٰ .

here is a response I've already made to someone asking me how to let go of shame for past sins, but these are things you can do (in general, of course) but after making a mistake/sinning:

salat al-tawbah (the prayer of repentance) immediately this is the nawafil prayer for when one falls into sin and it is usually two raka'ats. pray this immediately after committing a sin with sincere repentance, putting that guilt into this prayer and weep and ask for forgiveness. regarding this prayer, the Prophet ﷺ has said “There is no slave of Allah who commits a sin then purifies himself well and stands and prays two rakahs, then asks Allah for forgiveness, but Allah will forgive him". (Hisn al-Muslim 140). subhanallah.

sadaqah ◦ give money to charity, create a sadaqah box if you do not already have one and put money inside to increase your good deeds over your bad ones. "Know they not that Allah is He who accepts repentance from His servants and takes their charity, and that Allah is He Who is Oft-Returning with compassion, and is Merciful?" (9:104) - Surah Taubah itself. ◦ if it is a repetitive sin, then say to yourself that every time you commit the sin, you have to put a certain fixed amount in. for example, £10 every time you do xyz and you must put it in every time. keep it at a high amount and it will help you in the future to stop, Insha'Allah.

constant dhikr ◦ i cannot even truly express in words the benefits of doing istighfar in a way that will truly sum it up. it washes away the sins of man to the point where his heart will be purified. it is so important to immerse yourself in doing istighfar day and night as it can protect you and Allah is always prepared to hear the cries of taubah from His people. not a single soul can claim that they can absolve themselves of sin on their own, as only Allah's Mercy can release a man of his sins. Prophets were well aware of this fact, so they also continually sought forgiveness of Allah. make it a plan to recite أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ (astagfirullah waatubu alaiyhi, I seek Allah's forgiveness and I turn to Him in repentance) 100 times daily ◦ i also love the app Azkar - it has morning, evening, sleep and waking up dhikr's that you can just recite while reading them on your phone that has the arabic, transliteration and translation. it is so easy for anyone to follow and so helpful in remembering Allah daily - i highly recommend everyone to download this app

make an action plan after committing the particular sin, make an action plan moving forwards of something you're going to do to seek the Pleasure of Allah and His forgiveness. for example, you tell yourself/Him that you will now wake up for tahajjud every morning for the next 2 weeks (and actually do it) and ask Allah to accept this as an apology and to have Mercy on you. that way, you can even build it as a habit and continue after.

nawafil (voluntary) prayers along with the fard prayers start praying voluntary prayers, like: - 4 raka'at's before asr prayer (The Prophet ﷺ said: "May Allah have mercy upon a man who prays four before Al-Asr." (at-Tirmidhi 430) - tahajjud - 2 raka'at's after the 2 raka'ats of sunnah after zuhr - duha prayer (after sunrise and before zuhr time) etc. doing these extra prayers on top of the obligatory 5 daily prayers will give you more blessings and help you weigh more on the righteous side of the scale

reading Qur'an daily with lengthy recitation this has so many blessings. it's a form of dhikr, the remembrance of Allah, and it helps you to gain His pleasure by doing so. make sure to also read it with translation if arabic is not your first language / a language you understand so that you can listen to what Allah سُبْحَٰنَهُۥ وَتَعَٰلَىٰ is saying and reflect and act on it too.

may Allah, Al-Ghafoor Ar-Raheem, forgive us all for our sins, accept our good deeds and have Mercy on us all, Allahumma Ameen.

#islam #muslim #qur'an #islamic #muslims #religion #forgiveness #sabr #righteousness #istighfar #sabrgirl #repentance #tawakkul #trust in allah #zikr #quran #allah #tasbeeh #islampost #islamic reminders #islamdaily #quran or hadiths #hadith #allahﷻ #la ilaha illa allah #prophet #jummah #jummah mubarak #jumu'ah #salah

[meowmeowriley]

Changes: A Poll-Fic

"Remember, you're not supposed to be here, so don't do anything stupid." Love you too, Price. The Captain had caved. He'd been begging to be part of this mission since they'd gotten the lead.

Soap reached up, rubbing his gloved fingers across the teeth of his mask. The mask he'd stolen from Ghost's room. Gaz had found him clutching it, dried mixture of tears and bile coating his cheeks, and forehead pressed to the porcelain throne. He'd been banned from drinking for the foreseeable future. That was the only stupid thing he'd done. Ghost wore a mask, Ghost only spoke when he had to, Ghost was hard on the rookies, and nobody questioned his mental state. But they did, didn't they? Well Soap didn't. And nobody needed to question Soap, he was fine.

"I wanna be like you when I grow up."

"You wanna be better than me, Johnny."

Well to be better than him, first he had to be more like him. So he'd donned Ghost's mask, to better embody the man's stoicism and presence. Definitely not as a way to hide his chapped cheeks and the bags under his eyes. He'd painted it red, wore a jaw print bandana. Different. Better. Yeah.

Price had finally caved to Soap's insistence he be part of this OP, but issued his warnings. "I know you don't need to be told, but I'm saying it anyway." He'd warned. "They've had him for eight months. Torture changes people, he may not be the same."

Of course he wasn't going to be the fucking same. He didn't need to be the same, he just needed to be alive.

Ghost never really spoke about his past, only left little hints here and there, but Soap wasn't dumb. He'd been through it before. Ghost could handle the torture, and Soap could handle the aftermath.

"I'm fine." He finally answered. "It'll be by the books, Captain." As if anything they did was ever 'by the books.' Price accepted his answer, though he didn't look convinced. It was just the three of them, with Laswell listening in. Gaz was in charge of collecting data on the bio weapon that was rumored to be here, Soap was in charge of the search and rescue mission, and Price was overwatch as the two Sergeants made their way in.

The trio hopped out of the truck, and Price slapped the side, sending it away. Soap and Gaz nodded to one another before splitting up to approach the building from different angles. Price silently made his way to higher ground.

The trek was agonizing, moreso because Soap found himself feeling more impatient than usual. Every time he had to lay low and wait for a patrol to pass he could hear the sand slowly falling, trickling away in the hourglass that was the rest of Ghost's life.

"You sure know how to keep things interesting, Johnny." Ghost had smiled at him, rare that he didn't have his mask, but then again, who other than Soap would challenge the Ghost to strip poker? And who other than Soap would cheat be really really good at strip poker? So good as to force Ghost to choose between his pants and his mask, the last two articles of clothing he had on. Soap himself had only one sock, and his jumper on, choosing to doff his pants so he could keep access to the cards in his sleeves. The  unpleasant cold of the metal chair against his junk was worth it, just to see the surprising decision on Ghost's part to lose the mask and not the underwear.

"Aye, like to shake things up, Sir." He'd said with a wink as he laid yet another winning hand down, only slightly supplemented by his sleeve stash.

He was certainly always one to shake things up. Here he was, itching to shake that damn hourglass up. He'd shake it, flip it upside down, bash it over someone's head and stuff the sand down their fucking throat, if it meant he'd get more time with the enigmatic phantom that had haunted his mind since that shitshow in Mexico.

Price gave the signal, they crawled forward once more.

"This is takin' longer than a constipated snail takin' a shit." He grit out into comms once the coast was clear.

"Soap, while it's nice to hear your voice again, one more quip outta you and I'm pulling you. Watch it." Laswell had gotten the cold shoulder, she'd fed Ghost bad intel. He blamed her, he didn't, couldn't blame her. She was just as worried. Probably.

He just needed to get Ghost back. Repay his debt. Ghost had saved him back then, after all. That's what this was. An eye for an eye, but in a positive way. They were good for eachother. Fixed eachothers problems. Complimented one another, personality wise. That's all.

He crept into the building, silent and unnoticed.

They didn't have much on the layout, just the outer perimeter, so they were going in blind. That didn't bother Soap, he was thriving for the first time in months. He finally had something to do other than run the rookies into the ground.

He dodged patrols, picked off the ones he could get away with had to, using the knife he'd kicked so long ago after Ghost had left it behind.

He found some unlit stairs leading into a basement they hadn't known existed. If I were keeping an incredibly dangerous prisoner, now where would I keep him? Three sets of teeth, plastic, cloth and bone, were bared towards the darkness. He couldn't help it, he felt giddy. He tried to quell his excitement, didn't need to make any mistakes now.

He made his way, thankful for his NVG's as there were no lights, even after descending the stairs. The hallway he entered had doors along one side, nothing much in the rooms, but he cleared each one as he passed. No fuck ups.

Near the end, he found a door with seven locks. Suspicious. Good. Suspicious was good, here. The other doors had been wood, dry rotted and deteriorating, this one was metal.

His eyes itched. He flipped up his NVG's.

Curiously, whenever he blinked, Soap could've sworn he could see symbols on the door, but they'd disappear the longer he looked. He'd blink, a sickening yellow circle with lines and symbols within would appear just as he opened his eyes, but faded so quickly, he couldn't convince himself it had ever even been there. The harder he stared the more the door looked perfectly normal, if you ignored all the locks.

Many many thanks to @stuffireadandenjoy for brainstorming with me on how to make this poll fic work, and to @resident-idiot-simp for being my beta, as always ❤❤❤

#poll fic #choose your own adventure #ghoap #ghostsoap #soapghost #tumblr polls #call of duty #modern warfare #fanfic #fanfic wips #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #ao3 #cod mw2 #cyoa fic #cyoa poll

[vyl3tpwny]

Hi!! I wanted to drop a message saying that I love your music. Antonymph was vital in helping me embrace myself. It’s one of my favorite songs by you, actually. As a creative myself, a lot of your music resonates with me, so I find myself replaying the same albums over and over and over.

The Paradise Valley mixtape really hits home with me on a lot of things discussed in the booklet. The Fish Whisperer album is one of my comfort albums that I listen to when I need a push forward to create. “I’ve still got something to teach you” is genuinely such a comforting song for me.

Your music is deeply inspiring and I can’t wait to listen to the songs you make in the future. Thank you for speaking on the things I don’t see many people talk about, for making songs that cover such important topics.

Btw I’m deeply hyperfixated on the Vylet Pony lore now

thank u so much!

i talk about this a lot but i really enjoy writing music about everything. i didn't used to be like this, it's sort of a thing i developed over a long period of time. it's a fun thing experience something or think of something and realize i've never rlly heard a song that talks about it, at least in the capacity i want to. it's kind of a challenge, but it feels like being able to put a shorthand marker on complicated emotions and situations that people do experience but never think to actually find unity in. i'm rambling, but i love doing things that encapsulate that.

the vylet pony lore goes way deeper than i think most people realize too. the stories i've been writing and building off of range back quite literally to 2012. some of the issues i'm faced with though are that a lot of what i've written in the past is underdeveloped or completely unfocused in the ways i would be able to remedy now. building off of things from that time period is a struggle. my hope is to bring things together succinctly so i can keep it alive while also having freedom to do more full bodied ideas with the knowledge and experience i have now.

[jmdbjk]

Bangtan weekly report

I hope everyone is having a great day so far. It's been a busy week/weekend for Bangtan.

Hobi's Hope On The Street album dropped on Friday and I got my ass to Target first thing to get it!

The album is amazing, as I knew it would be. Hobi continues to amaze me. I'm struggling to find the right words to express how I feel about him. As I told my bestie, Hobi is the blood and bones of BTS. Namjoon might be the big brain lyricist, the leader and Yoongi might be the constant melody maker and realist, but Hobi makes the whole thing come alive and beat with movement.

The first two episodes of the HOTS docu-series were also amazing. To hear and see him delving so deeply into the thing that makes him who he is and therefore makes BTS what it is brought tears to my eyes.

The Hope On The Street Pop Up location in Seoul is an overwhelming success as were the parties that Hobi threw for fans in LA, Chicago and NYC.

Items from his Hybe studio are on display at the Seoul pop up event and merch that is available there might be the same that will be available on April 9 on Weverse Shop.

Neuron dance lessons were being conducted today and look like they are being filmed. Maybe they will end up in a future Bangtan Episode! If you'd like to see more of what's inside the pop up, you can view this thread on X.

(image from @ddaisyy94 on X)

Yoongi has entered the Nonsan Training Center, the same one where Namjoon and Tae did their basic training. Yoongi's basic training will last 3 weeks and then he will return to his alternate service assignment. He looks so good! (sarcasm)

And it was mentioned that Jin accompanied Yoongi on this day. Jin wasn't going to let Yoongi enter military basic training without having his only hyung in the group see him off.

Speaking of Jin, his Weverse post for March was 77 DAYS LEFT!

Jimin has made a scholarship available at the Department of Physical Therapy at Dongeui Science University in Busan. According to the information, Jimin made this donation prior to enlisting. Physical therapists are important in his and the members' lives to keep them healthy while performing at such high levels.

Taehyung was spotted at a soccer match in Chuncheon. He was with a group of fellow soldiers in uniform. However, also present were Manager-nim and several recognizable Hybe security guys. Interesting.

Namjoon shared some moments from his weekend with us. I will assume he is taking his proper holiday now that he's past the 100-day mark of enlistment. He visited Sorol Art Museum in Gangneung, he hugged the sky at a beach, smelled the cherry blossoms and was lurking in and about the Hybe building because he saw a banner from Army. It's possible the banner was installed by the owner of a nearby restaurant.

Hiding his beard stubble with hotteok:

Stopping to smell the flowers during his time off:

Hugging the sky at the beach:

And I can't leave my precious Kookie off this week's report. We don't know if he and Jimin have taken the vacation that is due them now that they've also passed the 100-day milestone of their enlistment. They've completed just over 20% of their obligation as of yesterday/today and tomorrow they will be promoted to Private First Class II.

We've seen more pics of Bam than of JK this year.

(photo from @holicare.barf on Instagram)

#bangtan weekly report #bammie! #jimin #jungkook #hobi #yoongi #jin #namjoon #taehyung #bts military service

[donnabenevientosimpingzone]

🔫

Can I have more Donna headcanons plz. I'm a lonely lesbian who loves fiction female Italians

Lmao I got plenty<3

- y’all probably know I interpret her pretty differently. She’s a lot stronger and independent than the normal but she’s still a super anxious and shy individual. She’s a beautiful paradox I cannot begin to describe.

- She’s high functioning depressed and autistic. On the surface she’s someone who has order and routine- who can handle being at meetings with others and talk to people as equals- but spend enough time with her and you’ll see that she will just lay in bed and not get out. That she thinks herself as smaller than others.

- Angie is a side of herself she’s stored away, the memories and personality Donna had with Claudia. In order to keep that final happiness, all those memories are stored in Angie and has influenced the doll to be the way she is.

- Donna has never experimented with her powers to know their full capabilities. Even the concept that she can cause nightmarish hallucinations to kill someone without raising a blade terrifies her.

- She has an accent that comes through when she’s tired or just not thinking about it. Sometimes it’s so heavy that even she’ll jump at the sound of her own voice.

- Cursed solely in Italian. Angie’s the one that says “fuck” and Donna can live through her.

- Donna cannot take full control of Angie, just heavily influence her- if Angie doesn’t want to do something then Donna can’t force her hand. It rarely happens though.

- On uncommon days she’ll walk through her woods around the manor with Angie. Her anxiety, esteem, and motivation must all line up but every time she doesn’t regret it and comes home with a sense of peace.

- A horrible fidget when she’s not aware of it. During meetings or talks or anything that her brain is running anxiety on- she’s still as stone. But at home, she’ll speak to Angie with her mind unable to focus on one thing. Her hands will play with her hair, tug at her dress, tap against a teacup- head swaying to watch strands of hair swish in and out of her vision- feet shuffling against the floor, picking at scabs or the peeling skin beneath her fingernails- just to name a few. You’d have to be very close to her to see any of it in action for yourself though.

- Existentially stuck in the past. Although she’s aware of the present and what the future may hold- she’s constantly thinking about the past, comparing it, using it to determine what person she is. Getting close to her is a difficult task when the past still haunts her and controls her.

- During episodes of breakdowns where she just does not want to live like this anymore, she’ll pick and pull at the Cadou infesting her eye. Cursing it for keeping her alive.

- Her anger manifests in two ways; a depressive self hatred that causes her to coil in on herself- where she feels guilty for being angry at all and tells herself over and over to just suck it up, it’s not a big deal- or an expressed destruction where she loses majority of control over her powers and dolls run rampant.

- Her sadness is a building cycle. She’ll get upset at something and cry, but absolutely hate herself for it and scold herself for being weak, which then makes her feel worse, and she’ll continue this cycle until she’s exhausted and just can’t cry anymore.

- She’s a mix of self loathing and self love. On one hand she will destroy any mirror she sees her reflection in and go days punishing herself for simply existing, but on the other hand she really does want to love herself. It manifests as a weird ball of complex feelings- she could be proud of an accomplishment but also feel shit that it isn’t the number one best accomplishment ever- and that she’s a fool for being happy about it. Yet she keeps it around, calling upon it as a comfort… even if at the same time it brings her pain.

- Simultaneously wants romance and affection but also absolutely terrified by it. She’ll read the books and let her creativity run wild, surprisingly a hopeless romantic, but if it’s even an inch close to her in reality- she’ll rather run.

- She’s on the autistic spectrum to mistake normal, platonic affection as romantic. Hell even if she doesn’t have feelings for that person- she’ll gaslight herself to “catch feelings.” In the past, she’s fucked up a relationship that way- becoming an aggressively toxic person for the attention, affection- wanting the person only for herself and herself only- and unknowingly manipulating them to fulfill that selfish, unconscious desire. She’s realized her mistake months after, and has become much more reserved and mindful because of it.

- A sponge for knowledge. She’s a big ole nerd, loves anything to do with science, has little mock research she’ll do with her own garden that’ll tickle her. While she herself is more on botany, Angie ends up soaking in more zoology, both of their knowledge combined is beyond impressive.

- She feels music very deeply in her heart. Doesn’t matter if it’s instrumentals or with lyrics, it resonates with her strongly and she has strong attachment to particular songs based on memories, feeling, and hope.

- Sleeps with some sort of noise- white noise, music, the rain- sleeping in complete silence unnerves her.

- Wakes up to Angie screaming in her face every morning. Wouldn’t have it any other way<3

- Angie eats and drinks in small amounts, the Cadou is still a parasite that needs substance, but since it’s a part of Donna’s Cadou- Donna can sometimes feel the effects of what Angie eats. Woman could be taking a stroll and suddenly taste dirt cuz Angie ate shit chasing a squirrel.

- Protective of the remaining eye. The Cadou took away the sight in the eye it infects so Donna has learned to deal with challenged depth perception. She’ll often reach for things too far right or left if she ever got full vision back.

- Silent walker without even meaning to be. She also somehow manages to silently run (if she is on the unique occasion to jog through the woods).

- Doesn’t sweat easily. Her body is already naturally pretty cold so any form of workout will need to be pretty long/intense for her to start sweating.

- She is aware her body (especially at the ends) is pretty cold. She refuses to give anyone hand shakes because she’s secretly Elsa and will freeze yo’ ass.

- Angie jokes that Donna stands in the sun to photosynthesize, rather than to warm herself up like some kinda sunbathing lizard.

- Surprisingly very warm during the winter, Donna’s an ice pack in the summer and a heat pack in the winter.

- No she doesn’t know why either wheeze.

- On the few occasions she’s free from her anxieties- Donna is quite chaotic. She used to be the prankster of the family and still has part of that alive within her- Angie especially has to be the victim of said pranks (but she loves it no matter how loudly she complains)

- Doesn’t like to have pictures of herself taken, but Donna does have a rare few in-the-moment photos she adores.

#ask #resident evil village #resident evil #donna beneviento #headcannons

[xreaderbooks]

Always (2)

Pair: Azriel x Reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: Language (?) and angst

Summary: Y/n takes some time to reflect on the decision she needs to make and confronts Azriel.

A/N: Ask and you shall receive, I tagged those of you who asked for a part 2. Let me know what you think &lt;3

Also available on Wattpad and AO3

Masterlist - Part 1

You were gone. No one had heard from you for a whole 2 weeks and to say they were confused was an understatement. One second you were laughing along with them, wine drunk with Azriel by your side helping you stay steady enough to watch the stars fall, and the next you had given them no sign of life. Azriel could feel from the bond that you were in fact alive, you just needed your space and so that was what he told the others.

He left out the part that he had royally fucked up in his delivery but you hadn't given him the chance to explain himself, you had always known when something was wrong and as closed off as he might be, you were the only one who could read him like a book.

You closed yourself off in your apartment, and when you were in need of fresh air you went out for a walk by the sidra, you tried out new places that were opening up around Velaris. Everything and anything to keep your mind off of him no matter how much you needed to way out your options.

You were engaged. To Eris of all fae. Eris was your sister's fiancee once upon a time too, not that you wanted him in the first place. You couldn't help but think that Mor's tragic history was now your plot line.

You and Eris worked together to infiltrate Keir's secrets in the court of nightmares, your father trusted him and because you allowed yourself to be under his control, the result was your betrothal to the heir of the Autumn Court. It worked in everyone's favor, though when you had told the rest of your family it had not gone over so well. Mor couldn't be in the same room as you- much less you and Eris- for months.

Eventually, you had opened up on the advantages it would serve, Eris was already allied with the night court privately now no one in the court of nightmares could suspect your deception. It was a whole twisted mess of double-crossings.

You and Eris teamed up as a couple pretending to be spying on the inner circle and feeding false information to the enemy while in reality, you were spying on your father, giving Rhysand everything. It was enough to give you a headache. Now adding Azriel into the mix- Would ruin everything you worked so hard to build.

All these years of faking your loyalty and devotion to your father with everything he has done to you and your sister so that you can be the eyes and ears in places your high lord cannot, the one goal in your ruse was to be free of him without breaking what you built. Eris was the way to do that, he was technically on your side and you've spoken of the past, he was a handsome male that could please you just fine.

It didn't matter that he wasn't the one you wanted because, for all you knew at the time, the one you longed for's heart, beat for someone else.

You had never known Azriel to be selfish but lately, he had made it a new habit that you weren't so sure about. How dare he? How dare he do this to you!

The audacity of this man! Azriel would cost you everything and you would pay for it, willingly. He hadn't needed to speak for you to know what he wanted from you.

What you would have given to have him reach for you the way he did that night. The way you pined for him, in your 500 years of living your heart beat for no other male. Fae, Illyrian, both, human, even High Lord at one point. No one could compare to Azriel. Your mind, body, and soul were are his. However, it was time you gave up your unofficial claim on him he wasn't yours nor you his- or so you thought.

Nothing would become of this childish infatuation you grew accustomed to. And so you worked to keep your thoughts on your future without him, a future you knew where Azriel would find someone who would love him.

A century later and here you were, clutching your chest to keep from the panic crawling up your throat.

If only this had happened sooner-

Before it got so messy before you accepted Eris' proposal and appeared before your father claimed your hand. He so eagerly accepted, his hunger for power clear in his eyes, so blind for it that he's unaware of the upper hand you and your soon-to-be husband have.

If only he had loved you when you didn't have all these responsibilities that a relationship- mateship with him would tear down.

After a week of shutting yourself out, you spoke to Eris. He knew all about your feelings for Azriel and though he was jealous, you were his- at the time. When you told him you needed to speak to him he already knew. He gave you one last kiss before making a smartass remark about how he'd be there when you got bored.

You didn't know how you were going to deal with your father just yet but you would clean up one mess at a time.

Days later you finally gathered up the courage to speak to him. It was almost dusk when you had opened up the bond and willed him to come to you. The wind brought him to the middle of your sitting room within a minute.

His head was bent, he looked like a little boy who was caught in the pantry. You sighed and took his hand leading him to your couch and pushing down his broad shoulders for him to sit in the middle. His brows furrowed in confusion as you backed away and intertwined your fingers.

"I am going to talk and you are going to listen," Your eyes flickered between both of his hazel ones. "Got it?"

He nodded eagerly, though he wouldn't meet your gaze.

"I cannot accept the bond-" From your side of the link, you felt his heart clench, "Not yet at least. I need to know this is real Az."

You could tell he wanted to speak but you knew that he wouldn't, not until you've said your peace. Tears begin to well up at how hard it was to say this out loud, "I will always love you. More than you will ever know Azriel, but I will not be a replacement for all the women you could not have. For all, I've known you never showed the slightest bit of interest in me prior to Starfall. Now I'm going to ask you- and I want the truth Az- Do you want this?"

His eyes were glossed over as he looked up at you through his lashes, "Do you want me?" Your voice broke.

He stood from his place on your couch, sauntering over to you, and he reached a hand out. Fingertips softly brushed fallen strands of your hair from your face, behind your ear, tracing a finger from your ear to your jaw. Slowly and painfully he dragged his finger to the tip of your chin forcing your eyes to meet his and you are weak.

"I have been so blind Y/n," He whispers.

"That's not an answer," You shake your head, and he drops his hand. Your voice was like stone though your nerves were on fire, "Do you love me Azriel?"

"I love you, Y/n L/n."

You wanted so badly to believe him. The thought of the mating bond forcing him to make him feel this way made you sick. "What about Elain?"

Azriel winced but spoke cooly, "An infatuation that is over and done."

"And Mor?"

"I loved her," Your stomach turned. "But the love I had for her, in that way, is gone and it does not compare to how I feel for you. The bond does nothing but intensify the love I have for you, the love that I have hidden away long ago."

"How am I supposed to believe that?" You scoff. "You forget that I've been there Az, throughout everything. You are not shy with your love, I should know, I've seen the way you love."

He shakes his head in denial, "I love you Y/n."

"What happens if one day Mor decides she loves you?" Something you knew would never actually happen but you needed to know.

"I love you-"

"Azriel-"

"I love you."

You playfully push him away from you, "You can't keep saying that when you have nothing to back it up with." He takes a hold of your waist with one hand and grabs the back of your neck, attaching his lips to yours. He kisses you with an intensity you've never felt from any other male, you melt into the kiss wrapping your arm around his shoulder and running your hands through his hair. Your body was pressed against his, adding heat to a situation you weren't sure you wanted to add to. His lips were intoxicating, you didn't want to stop but your mind wouldn't stop thinking about all the unanswered questions.

You broke away from the kiss, pushing him an arm's length away. "You said I talked too much."

He barked out a laugh, "What?"

"You told me that a couple of years ago," He took a step toward you but your arm held strong.

"I love you Y/n."

"I snore-"

"No you don't," Azriel snorted and removed your hand from his shoulder, bringing you into him with an arm. He pressed kisses up and down your neck, "I thought you wanted me to prove my love and here you are trying to give me reasons not to love you."

Azriel added his tongue to his kisses and began to suck on one spot in particular that had your knees weak.

"You said it yourself that I'm too much for you."

He paused his attack on your neck holding your face in his large hands, "Because I love you and you deserve better. Besides, I've dealt with you for well over two centuries I think I can deal with you for the rest of my life."

"I need you to prove it."

"I'll prove it to you for as long as I live," Azriel bent his neck down to press a chaste kiss to your lips.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Taglist: @mulansaucey - @jadepearsonn - @benbarnes-supremacy - @seppys-return-to-madness - @azriel-luvr - @marina468 - @zealousballoonfox

#azriel x reader #azriel x y/n #azriel x you #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #eris vanserra x reader #eris x reader #eris x azriel #azriel x morrigans sister reader #acotar x reader #acotar imagines #mor acotar #elain archeron

[syncopatedid]

So what if I told you that Lu Guang has been living on "borrowed time" with Cheng Xiaoshi as far back as the very first episode in season 1?

Tl;dr thoughts and other sidetracks below the cut:

One: Xiaoshi lamenting to Lu Guang if "high-fiving" was the only way for them to maintain contact with each other when he dives.

If they had been at this gig for a long time, surely Xiaoshi would have already known this (or at the very least, have experimented other methods, maybe, if he suspected they could go about it another way?) That is not to say that the two of them hadn't been running a legit photo studio business prior to this (definitely feels longer), but the fact that Xiaoshi questions this did come across as being unusual to me, unless it was something "fairly recent" to him, and he was still slowly getting the hang of it. But a much stronger evidence would be:

Two: The rules set by Lu Guang as a condition of their partnership, specifically the second and third rule: to "change nothing", and "let the past and future be". Would Lu Guang have been so insistent on imposing such restrictions on Xiaoshi, had he not already experienced losing Xiaoshi once and wanted to rein Xiaoshi in from acting on his own? And why did Lu Guang feel the need to do so?

-------- Sidetrack thoughts #1: Was Xiaoshi even aware of his powers before Lu Guang came into the picture, or did it only manifest when Lu Guang entered his life? As evident in episodes involving the police, it suggests that in this universe, ability users are an abnormality and not public knowledge; they fall under urban lore and internet rumors, with whispers about a "photo studio run by a witch who can perform magic".

Did Xiaoshi accidentally jump into a photo one day and freak out, only for Lu Guang to assure him by outing his own abilities? (I can't see Lu Guang willingly volunteering that information to Xiaoshi unless something had forced his hand, esp given the above assumption it's not knowledge a layman should possess.) --------

I feel, the reason why Lu Guang holds Xiaoshi so vehemently to the rules would make sense if we consider that Lu Guang sees Xiaoshi as an "unpredictable node".

As far back as S1e3, we can tell that Lu Guang was able to "see" far ahead enough in the timeline that Xiaoshi had leaped into, to know if the future of that timeline had been altered or not. Example: little changes that Xiaoshi did (making a slam dunk) were inconsequential enough that Lu Guang could tell Xiaoshi it's fine, and the future remains relatively unaffected. But Xiaoshi changing a "key node" in that timeline (helping the losing team win), had drastically altered it to the point that Lu Guang tells Xiaoshi he doesn't know what's going to happen next. Why? Because the timeline had already branched out into a parallel universe, so to speak. And no longer holding on to the photo of the "right" universe - a new universe that Xiaoshi had inadvertently just created - meant Lu Guang no longer had the power of foresight.

Getting back to Lu Guang's real predicament, I suspect Lu Guang has been living in a timeline where he is unable to "see" Xiaoshi's future because he hasn't known a future where Xiaoshi has been alive for this long.

Just because Lu Guang is now in a timeline where Xiaoshi didn't die before 0913, it doesn't mean Xiaoshi is safe in the present universe - the same thing happened with Emma; while she didn't die in the hands of a kidnapper, she still died by falling off a building. And that's why Lu Guang has been rather protective of keeping Xiaoshi out of trouble, but I also speculate hard, that he doesn't want to further "destabilize" the current timeline and create more obvious time ripples that will draw attention to them, because... Lu Guang knows Xiaoshi should not have lived, and that they're being hunted.

Xiaoshi, the "abnormality" who is causing all the splits in time due to his unpredictable nature, would make the absolute antithesis to the new antagonist, who seeks to merge all the universes into one single unchanged ending. -------------------------- Sidetrack Thoughts #2: Since when was Lu Guang able to time travel on his own anyway?? My personal hunch: his time leap abilities were not his own, but from Cheng Xiaoshi of the parallel universe where he died. The scene before Lu Guang jumped back in time showed bloodstains on his shirt, suggesting that he had contact with Xiaoshi prior. This would mirror what we saw between Xixi and Qiao Ling, with Xixi's powers being transferred over to Qiao Ling through contact, and Qiao Ling briefly able to see all the memories of the people she had previously read.

If ^ proves to be true, what does that mean?

That Lu Guang is unable to time leap UNLESS Cheng Xiaoshi dies. He does not have the ability to do so on his own. This also means that for as long as Cheng Xiaoshi is alive, Lu Guang will not have the means to time leap on his own or dive back into the past. Which brings me to:

Sidetrack thoughts #3: This image makes me reallllllllly wonder if Lu Guang had already gone back in time to save Xiaoshi multiple times, which would make Lu Guang wanting to stabilize the current timeline even more valid and tragic. ---------------

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Frankly, such stories seem destined to head down the tragic/bittersweet end. Either: 1) Lu Guang dies so that Xiaoshi may live; 2) Xiaoshi dies anyway; (bonus 2.5: It's a combi of both; Guang tries to die to save Xiaoshi, but Xiaoshi pulls an "uno reverse" card on him and still dies as he was meant to, this time making Lu Guang promise not to try and save him again.) 3) Nobody dies, but they end up being apart. Lu Guang OR Xiaoshi discovers that in order for the both of them to survive, he would need to go further back in time to reset the past so that they never cross paths in the first place. This would mean one would likely forget the other entirely, and they would become nothing more than passing strangers. I kind of hope if it's headed for tragedy, that this option will be picked over the other two because I find death for melodrama too contrived a plot, but also FML. But what if... there is an option 4? A possibility for an actual good end where they can all be happy together and nobody dies? I'd like to think that if they could give others their happy end then surely they'd be able to find a way to happiness themselves! One such end-game could be them defeating the bad guy and branching out into a new universe yet again, but forever losing their abilities and stuck living in that timeline (where abilities do not exist) for the rest of their lives, no longer able to return to the time they had jumped from or knowing what their future will entail. But it's fine, they'll make it work because they have each other, 完结. cue ED and everybody claps, believing that perhaps they are now happily living in our universe.

And that's all the TL;DR for the day. Thanks for listening and enjoy your timeline!

#Link Click #shi guang dai li ren #时光代理人 #Cheng Xiaoshi #Lu Guang #*thinks too much about cartoon plots* #I hate that this show is so messy that it's hard to keep a linear thought #The mind keeps wanting to jump topics because there's just too many things to keep track of #I also do not have the strength to go rewatch the series I'm not sure I have enough patience to sit through all that filler #I like to keep a tidy ship and so my thoughts all go here #So many questions so little time! #*synco has re-entered the chat!* #I will probably reread this tomorrow to see if it makes sense but it is 12:35am

[chimielie]

little by little, we'll meet in the middle

summary: Oikawa x F!Reader (slight/past Iwaizumi x Reader). You and Oikawa are two moons - now that you've been pulled into each other's orbits, you can't seem to pull away. Even when you probably should. Sequel to Honeybee.

word count: 1k

cw: one mention of unhealthy eating practices. weird past-life-soulmateism. Yearning.

a/n: this is a part two, so i recommend reading in order to sort of understand the love triangle/knight x king/past life bullshit that's happening here, but honestly i don't know how much it'll help. it's a little bit of a the raven cycle au, but not quite? happy birthday IDIOT @ oikawa tooru. i love u or whatever

Your hands are calloused: at the base of the fingers and the web of the thumb. You brush a careful touch over the inside of Oikawa’s wrist, sweeping your thumb over his pulse point. Checking that he’s still alive. Warm touch and pulsing heart persisting.

You let go when he shifts the car into parking gear, pulling with both hands on the parking brake. It’s an old car, and only as reliable as its owner. 

He tries not to think about the combined delicacy and roughness of your hands, tries not to add another scrap of evidence to the pile that says he saw you first and he saw you true. It’s a pointless collection, like so many of his little passion projects. He couldn’t help building it, his jealous hoard of the moments where you were his and his alone. Guiltily, each brick had been laid and mortared from the moment he’d watched his best friend fall (clumsy and boyish, in a way he so rarely allowed himself to be) in love with you.

Even now, when Iwaizumi’s eyes are far from the both of you, even now that you are technically unburdened by belonging, the stiff line of duty is in your back and his vision. He keeps his eyes carefully away from you; if he looks at you for too long, his tongue finds words that shouldn’t be said. 

Your posture is as straight as the pines surrounding you, picking at the sandwiches you burned for lunch. Prosciutto and melted cheese you’d found unlabeled in the fridge, the crusts literally rimmed black, still a little warm to the touch even all the way into the blue mountains.

It’s a little fuck-you to him. He had called and said come on a drive with me. And you had fought him, snapped that you were in the middle of making lunch. Make me some, too, then, he had said indifferently, I haven’t eaten anything yet today. And you had been waiting at the curb, standing up straight with one hand shading your face and the other holding a bag of sandwiches. 

“Where are we going?” You asked, sliding into the passenger seat, stowing the sandwiches between you. This carefully curated space is present, always, a barrier never let down by both of you at the same time. 

“Nowhere,” he shrugged, kicking the car into gear. “Anywhere.”

The long-unused backroads are exactly in-between. Blue-green trees block out the sky, ushering in a soft not-quite night in the middle of the day, blurring that hard line. 

“They’re burnt,” you say, shoving the food into his hands. Three extras, just for him, because you worry about the way he gets distracted, gets obsessed, forgets to eat. Three burnt sandwiches, because you want to show him that love isn’t going to soften you, that whatever past you may have had (knight; king; lifetimes ago) your future doesn’t involve cooking at home while he rules the court. You wear your principals like you once wore gleaming metal armor.

He sees it in flashes. Reaching out, palms open. Hands calloused by the grip of your sword. A chalice, lifted to your lips, helmet removed and hair loose. Voice strong and sure, swearing fealty (voice soft, warning him of impropriety. Of the dangers of consorting with peasants). 

Lips, dry and still as he swallowed your fears.

“I don’t mind,” he says, and you look away from him. Everything feels raw and too real.

“What do you want to do for your birthday?” You say, because you don’t know what to do with his vulnerability. With-your-friends Oikawa is so different from talking-to-adults Oikawa is so different from just-your-Tooru. He’s water, slipping through your fingers even as he’s still rising around you, threatening to swallow you whole. 

He knows what you’re doing, too, because he knows that the boys are planning a surprise party away from his family, that you’re not supposed to snitch on the plan but would in a second if he pushed. You can’t lie to him.

He worries that the corollary is true: That he can’t lie to you. That you see him for what he is. 

He gives you a wry smile, telling you that he’s playing your game. “I want to go to the moon.” He’s been saying it since he was five, even when it stopped being true and became a tradition he was locked into.

“Of course you only want what you can’t have,” you laugh, and the words don’t lodge as painfully as he thought they might. “I can give you a star, Tooru, is that enough?”

“I guess,” he gives a prissy shake of the shoulders. “I could accept a promise.”

You don’t laugh, like he’d planned for. Instead, when he looks over at you next, you’re looking at him with an expression like—the sunset, honey melting over the horizon. Warm.

Oikawa shivers.

“I can give you that,” you say, voice small in your throat. He feels wildly unmoored in time, slipping between this life and the last; this love and the last; doom and destiny, woven together in a single thread. His head is heavy. Outside, the trees block sheets of misty rain. “Can that be enough?”

Your face is serious when he looks at you (can’t look at you too long, can’t let it show on his face), but your eyes shine. You’re looking at him—he feels dizzy with it—like he’s the sun. Like he’s a king.

You wrap gentle fingers around his wrist and tug him closer. The world is quiet, here, with you. His and his alone.

You keep your eyes steady on his, chin lifted in determination, always ready to fight. He runs a finger over the back of your hand, the one holding him. You don’t look at his mouth and you don’t let go.

He knows what you want because he wants it, too.

He lifts both of your hands and puts your palm over the lower half of your face. The center of the universe is your mouth. You stay still while he positions you, not even surprised; you know him.

Slow: he leans in, presses his lips to the back of your hand. Your eyes shut; he watches you as he lingers. The barrier hasn't been knocked down, yet, but this is him laying siege.

“A promise,” he says against your skin. “Is all I need.”

#haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #hq!! x reader #oikawa x reader #oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa toru x reader #oikawa tōru x reader #oikawa angst #oikawa fluff #haikyuu!! angst #haikyuu!! fluff #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst #haikyuu!! x reader angst #haikyuu!! x reader fluff #hq x reader angst #hq x reader fluff

[oswinsdolma]

not a day goes by when i don't think about the parallels between the scene where arthur gives merlin his mother's sigil and the ending when he gives gwen the royal seal, because it's just so representative of their different roles in the narrative, and who they are to arthur; he loved both merlin and gwen dearly, but in different ways.

arthur's relationship with gwen is an interesting one, and i think is probably more demonstrative of character growth within the show than any other. when arthur and gwen first fell in love, they were children, but as all children do, they grew up, going from boy and girl to king and queen. their character arcs are intrinsically intertwined, arthur realising the need for kindness whereas gwen became more confident in herself and came out of her shell, and as they grew, so did the kingdom, fruit pollinated by the best in both of them. as a result, gwen was arthur's love, but she was also his wife and queen, as he was her husband and king, their love becoming synonymous with the prosperity of the state, on both a literal and figurative level. when arthur gave gwen the seal, therefore, he passed on a legacy kept very much alive by the love that existed within them both, and it is stronger for it. in essence, gwen comes to represent arthur's tangible legacy; the people, the castle walls and the good he did for the people, and in his death, she keeps alive the parts of him that were most worth saving under the seal that once belonged to him. this is made particularly pongiant in light of the fact that arthur's trust in gwen was something condemned by uther, and there is a sort of triumphant irony in the fact that their love was not what destroyed the kingdom, but kept it alive. when uther passed on the throne, he did so out of reluctant obligation, clinging onto power as a parasite in arthur's memory that is slowly gnawed away. in inheriting the sigil, gwen provides resolution to this discordant, unfinished cadence, completing the circle and bringing the kingdom to where it was always meant to be.

yet with merlin... while gwen embodies the arthur that is remembered, merlin represents the arthur that never was; while she received the key to a kingdom to finish building, merlin was given proof of a memory that never really existed. furthermore, if gwen and arthur's love resolves the cadence of uther's selfish isolation, we can start to see the patterns of how merlin's translates from ygraine's. because if you think about it, arthur almost loved merlin in the same way he loved his mother. merlin was his friend, his confidant and the person who knew him best in the world, but ultimately, he only ever saw a version of him, a half truth, veiled by secrecy and aborted confessions, which were ironically borne from the actions and prejudices of his father. arthur loved his mother unequivocally, but the tragedy of their relationship is that it existed only as borrowed memories from those who loved her before him, his idea of her founded only on dreams and the space in his soul he left behind. but then you take this and apply it to merlin: when arthur died, it was in the anticipation of a future that could have been built, but was cut down before its time, forced to take root in intangible hopes for a future that might never come. as the centuries passed, arthur became not a king, but a legend, more metaphor than person for anyone but merlin, the sole survivor of an almost entirely fabricated past. in a slightly fucked up way, i suppose arthur giving merlin ygraine's sigil almost foreshadows the ending, with arthur passing on the legacy of a love borne of absence to the only one who will survive long enough to carry it. yes amongst this tragedy, there is that eternal motif of hope, because unlike arthur, merlin does remember, and not only that, but he waits. as gwen resolved the legacy of uther, merlin did the same of ygraine, turning the tragedy of what never was into something that still could be.

and the most beautiful thing about this is that it's all symbiotic: gwen could not have built camelot were it not for the love shared between merlin and arthur, and merlin could not have founded a legend were it not for the foundation laid by the marriage of his best friends. they are all elements of a web of stories, suspended in fragile dreams that need each other to be kept alive, but they endure nonetheless, propelled by an insatiable love of one another kept in perfect balance, because there was no other way for the story to go, and no other version of the world that could ever have been.

#this has been brewing for a couple of days and i've only just found the words to articulate it #once again i'm posting gone midnight so apologies if this is shit #terrible midnight analysis #i promise i'll post some happy analysis some day... #merlin #bbc merlin #merlin meta

[24-7-testing]

For The People Who Are Still Alive...

Hey Portal Friends and Followers,

I hope you're all doing well! Lately, I've had something on my mind that I think it's time to share with you all. Over the past year or so, my life has taken some significant turns! Major events have included graduating from college, starting my career in Design Engineering, and getting married! Life has been an exciting roller coaster, and I'm enjoying all the fun new things.

However, among all the changes, I've also been contemplating my relationship with the Portal games and the Portal Fandom. Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been active on this blog for quite a while. The Testing Queue still goes out daily but, beyond that, I haven't been sharing new artwork or engaging as much. My YouTube channel, where I used to make Portal videos and build robots and props, has been on a long hiatus too. Everything Portal-related in my life just doesn’t seem as captivating as it used to be.

These days, when I think about Portal and all the things I used to do in the fandom, it conjures a strange feeling in me. On one hand, I still hold the story and characters dear, and I fondly remember all the fantastic fanart, interactions, and stories that I’ve seen as part of the fandom. But on the other hand, the fervor and eagerness I once had seem to have softened. It's like my passion has transformed from being a passionate superfan to a calmer and more passive enthusiast.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of transition in their fandom journey? If so, I'd love to hear how you dealt with it and any insights or suggestions you might have for me. Feel free to reply or DM.

These feelings have left me with a dilemma: what to do with my blog. I don't want to abandon it or delete it, but even refilling my queue is starting to feel tiresome. Plus, without active effort I'll eventually run out of posts to queue from my archive, so maintaining the queue alone is only a temporary solution. I've been toying with the idea of inviting someone who’s more active in the fandom to become a Moderator for the blog and keep it alive with fresh content, but I'm still uncertain about this option. If you have any feedback on that idea, please reply or DM.

So that's where I stand now. My life has taken me in a new direction and, while I still love Portal, I don't have the same time and energy to invest in the fandom as before. I'm eager to find a way to keep this blog alive in a way that feels authentic and will keep the content you all followed for going for the foreseeable future.

If any of you have encouraging words, suggestions, ideas, or thoughts, I'm all ears! Your support has meant the world to me, whether you've followed 24-7-testing since its inception in 2016 or if you just followed a few days ago. Please don’t be shy about replying or DMing me. I'm genuinely grateful for each one of you!

Rock On Portal Fandom!

- 24-7-testing

#24-7-testing rambles #aperture science #aperture laboratories #portal #portal 2 #portal fandom #life events

[tblsomedoodles]

As the floor fell form beneath him, Leo exchanged one last desperate look at the boy next to him before his feet fell beneath him and darkness consumed his vision. He felt someone grab at his shell, hear the disting sound of a zipping as Casey tried to stop their fall only for the hook not to find a grip and the two of them to collapse, rubble slamming in top of them. The past thing Leo saw before the rubble buries him was his own hand pushing the kid out of the way.

He drifted, lost in a swirling vortex of images as they flashed by his eyes too quickly to see and disembodied voices jumbled together, unclear in their context. It swirled and jumbled together. One image showed Mikey and Donnie being turned knto kraang, the sound of Leo telling Casey Jr to close the portal, the image of his brothers being blown from the top of the ship, the sound of him begging Raph to snap out of some sort of mind control. He saw Raph kill him... and then he saw the kraang beating him as they were both trapped, claiming he had ruined everything.

He isn't sure how long he'd slept, as he groaned. Coughing, he tried to stand, hissing at the aches and pain as he shoved a broken signpost off his shell.

"Casey!" He called out, worried as he fell over, hand going to his plastron. Leaning back, he tried again.

"Casey, you okay?"

Rubble moved as Casey shoved it off of him, groaning. Seeing the boy alive, Leo immediately activated his comm, trying to reach Donnie and Mikey. No answer. The sound of the dirt and rubble shifting told Leo the future kid was approaching as he took stock of his injuries.

"What the heck was that!?"

Judging by the tone, Leo doesn't thing itz the crazy kraang monster the kid his future self cared so much about was talking about.

"Some kind of freaky kraang monster..." he tried to divert the attention anyways, struggling to stand. It didn't work as Casey snapped back at him, asking just what he was trying to do and why he didn't listen.

"I... I was trying to get us into the building."

"Well that sure worked well, didn't it!" Casey grunted. It didn't work out well at all, Leo thought.

"How could it have gone so wrong..." he groaned out loud, flinching as Casey snapped back,

"YOU WEREN'T LISTENING TO YOUR TEAM!"

"I'm supposed to be the greatest ninja who ever lived... you said that-"

"I was wrong." Casey sighed, "You're arrogant! You're impulsive! And every decision you make could cost someone their life!!"

"That's not-" Leo gasped out before he could stop himself. He turned away, biting his thumb to keep himself from admitting the one thing he swore not to. He knew that it was risky, he knows his decisions will probably get everyone killed, he'll he knows this all too well. Things are just... they're going way too fast! Casey even said Raph hadn't been captured in the original timeline which means everyone is going so much worst, so much faster, and there's nothing Leo can do!! He turns away, not wanting Casey to see his face.

Casey follows, continuing his rant as he throws out the biggest bombshell,

"Do you want to know what REALLY happens to everyone int he future!?"

'They die, and it's all my fault!' Leo thought the same time Casey says the damning words,

"They die! Everyone DIES fighting the Kraang!"

Leo was staring, unsweing in front of him as the memories of countless dreams, countless visions washed over him. Thw horror that what he saw was true and real silencing him. Casey continued,

"The world needs Master Leonardo, and all we got is THIS guy!"

As if to prove his point, Casey tossed something down. A picture, the very same one that had started this whole mess. The one Leo had seen countless times in his dreams. If floated down, landing at his feet. He saw more than felt his hand reach down to pick it up, staring at the faces of his friends and family, back in a happier time. A time that likely won't even come to pass now because he screwed up so badly. He heard Casey stalk out, trying to dig himself out of the hole.

Leo didn't move, staring silently at tbe photo. He had failed, he knew from the very beginning he would. Time Travel his ass, he was a goddamn Doom Prophet who saw the Kraang destroying the world a hundred times in his dreams, why did he think that jsut because one kid had shown up that he'd be able to change things! That he could ever stop it! He should have just done what he'd been thinking of the moment he had the first dream and run off, Pops would have just put Raph back in charge and nobody would have to deal with hsi screw ups destroying the world!

It wouldn't have helped anyways.

Thinking back on it, he was out white awhile. He's surprised he didn't have a vision... or... did he...

OOh poor Leo! He is going through so much right then and it's so confusing! That poor kid needs a break!

Thank you! This was so cool! I loved it! : )

#asks #tmnt #rottmnt #seer twins au #ficlet

[rhaenella]

You & Me - Rhys Montrose x Reader - Part 12

Part 11 | Part 13

Summary: What happens when reader assassin is tasked with killing the possible future mayor of London; Rhys Montrose. Politician by day, Eat the Rich Killer by night. But he isn’t the only person wearing different masks. 

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Violence, murder, immoral sociopathic behaviour, mentions of alcoholism, drug abuse and neglect, (eventual) smut

Word count: 4.6k

A/N: at the end.

Song: Beautiful Crime – Tamer  

You focused on Rhys’ steady grip on your neck, letting the moment linger. You’d closed your eyes when he’d spoken those words, but when you opened them again it was like his eyes were staring directly into your soul. It still felt strange and unnatural to allow it, but the apprehension and nervousness you’d felt for letting Rhys see you, all of you, slowly started to diminish with each passing second.

His promise had made it feel like you were hit by lightning, the intensity nevertheless managing to settle a profound aching in your chest. The way Rhys was seemingly attuned to your feelings and thoughts, able to give you the comfort you hadn’t known you’d longed for… Was this what Claire had meant? What it would feel like to open up and let someone explore the deepest parts of you? A relationship based on shared understanding? You never would’ve thought it was possible — for yourself at least.

You felt a strange urge to crawl inside of the darkest crevices of his soul and let his shadows consume you whole. You were craving that sense of familiarity, now also combined with a sense of protection. Like he would keep you safe as long as you were with him, being your truest and honest self. Making it clear that he would accept every part of you if only you’d do the same. 

You leaned back, your eyes moving over the planes of his face, taking note of every crease and mole. His full lips were slightly parted, glistening in the soft lighting. You fought the urge to lean back in and fully close the distance between you. This insane juxtaposition of how he could calm your nerves with a single touch, yet simultaneously make it feel like you were burning alive in your own skin was something you’d never felt before with anyone else in your life. Not even during the most passionate lovemaking you’d ever had. 

The realisation of you linking your current thoughts about Rhys with that made you startle yourself out of this trance. You leaned farther back in your seat, Rhys’ fingers brushing past your neck as he let you go. It was his turn to let his eyes freely roam, sitting back as well. The light twinkling in his blue eyes told you he was well aware of the effect he had on you. Oh, fuck him. 

But you weren’t doing that. Not right now anyway. Everything you had just exposed about yourself was entirely too emotional. You weren’t going to mix that with this. Whatever the hell this was.

Rhys chose that moment to take a sip of his wine, making your eyes strain towards the bobble in his throat when he swallowed. The action made you grit your teeth hard, mentally slapping yourself in the face. You reached for the bottle of wine and the spare glass Rhys had correctly anticipated would be needed tonight. You poured yourself an enthusiastic amount before turning towards Rhys to refill his glass.

“Thank you, kindly.” 

You hummed in response, not meeting his eyes. Much of this building tension between you remained unsaid and for now you’d like to keep it that way. The intensity of your moment did slowly start to ease off a little. Even so, the patches of skin where Rhys had held you were still tingling, nerve endings alight. 

It meant one simple thing, you needed to switch tracks for a minute — distracting yourself from the intense whirlwind of emotions, and evidently impulsive desires, inside of you.

“Why don’t you tell me a secret,” you backtracked, circling the rim of your wineglass. 

Rhys didn’t seem surprised by your abrupt change of subject. You hadn’t really responded to him, but he hadn’t taken it as a rejection. Because it wasn’t. Again, he understood. It was a lot to take in. You’d never had someone willing to fight for you as adamantly as Rhys clearly would. Even if that meant supporting you in your inner fight with yourself. He didn’t have to pick a side because there wasn’t one to choose. There was only you. And he would embrace all of you — the beautiful and the ugly. Although in Rhys’ eyes, your supposed ugly side was really quite wonderful. 

“That would be only fair, wouldn’t it?” 

“Exactly. So,” you sat up a little straighter, completely shaking off the earlier tension. “How many people have you actually killed?”

“Ah, you want to compare body count,” Rhys smirked. You slightly narrowed your eyes at his plain sexual innuendo. You knew what he was doing.

“Just answer the bloody question, Rhys.”

He took another generous sip of his wine before inclining his head. “All right.”

Rhys lifted his hands, melodramatically using his fingers to count the number of individuals whose lives he had ended. His mouth silently formed the numbers' syllables following his count. You shook your head at him which made him pause, the corners of his mouth turning into another smirk. 

“Let me focus if you want an answer.”

“Oh, please, don’t let me interrupt your theatrics.” 

Rhys’ smirk turned into an actual laugh before he solemnly continued with trying to recollect the trail of death and destruction he had left behind.

“Eight,” Rhys ultimately declared. “Possibly nine. Never bothered to check if he survived.” 

You quickly did the math. It would mean that Rhys had killed at least four other people before the Eat The Rich killings had started. You’d expected as much. There was no way in hell those well-thought-out serial killings were someone’s first. They usually tended to be a bit messier. You suppressed a smile when Rhys admitted not even a second later that that had also been the case for him. “My first,” he chuckled. “Fuck, I did a piss poor job.”

Rhys looked at you, absentmindedly nursing on his wine for a moment. You referred to your earliest tactics with him, keeping quiet to let him expose as much of himself as possible. He seemed to clock it as well, setting down his wine with an amused little air.

“You probably know of the ‘minor’ violent tendencies I openly entertained during my formative years,” Rhys continued, using air quotations. “Well, let’s just say that back when I was still in Lewisham, after one particular nasty bar fight, I couldn’t let it go. I followed the wanker in my car, hitting him on a badly lighted road going sixty miles per hour. I’m pretty sure the impact broke every single bone in his body.” 

Rhys shrugged, smacking his lips. “Still no clue what his name was.”

You shifted in your seat to not-so gingerly sip your wine — bloody hell, it was really fucking good by the way. The action made Rhys look at you. He tried gauging your reaction but you once again held no judgment against him. You had a distinct feeling that Rhys had never spoken these confessions out loud before, so you simply listened, just as he’d listened to your darkest secrets. Besides, this insight into Rhys was what you desperately longed for. You weren’t going to interrupt him now. 

“Then, let’s see,” Rhys contemplated. “Nicky. Back at Oxford. He was about to accuse me of cheating. Definitely couldn’t let that happen. With my background I had to prove myself and I couldn’t let this little shit stain my reputation.”

You realised that this was the first calculated murder he ever committed. And it was very similar to the reasonings of his latest kills. You also couldn’t help but be slightly amused by the fact that both your first actual murders took place during uni. Not for the same reasons, but nevertheless close in circumstances and age.

“Ms. Wilson,” Rhys sneeringly spoke the name of another one of his victims. “She worked for the largest publishing house in London and stubbornly refused to publish my book. Said it was a story already told in ten-fold and then some. That a man’s shit childhood would never sell. Pity she never lived to see how utterly wrong she’d been.”

How wrong this Ms. Wilson had been indeed. Rhys’ memoir had gained him his fame and firm basis to build his political career onto. He was even nominated for this year’s prestigious Baillie Gifford prize. 

“She’d likely roll over in her grave,” you snorted.

“Oh, most definitely,” Rhys agreed, swiftly finishing his second glass.

He turned to pour the remainder of the bottle in his glass and your nearly finished one. You gave him a sideways glance as he stood up from the bar stool and walked the short distance to his wine rack to pick out another bottle. Right. It was going to be one of those nights.

“Lastly, Matthews,” Rhys said when he sat back down. “That old fart was under the impression I wouldn’t be capable of taking on anyone or anything in London’s political spheres. He tried to push me out, so therefore I decided to push him off the top floor of his office on Lombard Street.”

Rhys swirled the wine in his glass a couple of times. “And you know the rest,” he said, implying the serial killings of his Oxford ‘friends’. 

There was a definite pattern detectable in his kills. He would kill anyone who dared to stand in his way. It didn’t matter what kind of position they held, how important they were, or how difficult it would be to get away with it. Rhys didn’t blink an eye, opting to get his way with whatever means possible. You couldn’t deny that it was a little inspiring. Sure, your kills ranged from unknown bastards to high level bankers and diplomats, but as Rhys had cleverly pointed out before, it was never you deciding that their lives should end. Rhys did as he pleased, showing you how he embraced his inner darkness to the fullest extent. And how you could do the same.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” you started, chewing your lip. “But all the people you’ve killed were solely for the purpose of clearing a path to place yourself in a higher position of power? Like you’re currently doing with the Eat The Rich victims and Lockwood on your quest to becoming mayor?” 

Rhys’ blue eyes sparkled. “Sounds invigorating, doesn’t it?”

Of course he saw straight through you. Knowing damn well you admired his brazenness and inner conviction to take what he wanted, something you were still trying to come to terms with doing for yourself. Be that as it may, he couldn’t keep up this charade forever — simply disposing of anyone standing in his way. One day it would become unmanageable and frankly, impossible to cover up.

“Rhys, you can’t simply murder your way into office.”

“Why not? I’d say that’s really for the voters to decide,” he replied merrily.

You shot him a look and he just beamed at you, his playful eyes conveying nothing but pure innocence. You scoffed, shaking your head at him but also not being able to keep the smile from your face. 

“Is that who’s next on your list, then? That right-wing arsehole who just announced his candidacy?” You asked curiously. 

The news had broken when you were still at the hospital. The headline had simply read Newly Announced Mayoral Candidate. At first you’d assumed it was Rhys. But it wasn’t.

“What? Atkinson?” Rhys spoke his name in disgust. “Well, I don’t know. Depends on what we’ll do with Lockwood. He’s first on my list.”

“I thought we weren’t discussing work,” you said, taking another sip of your wine. Rhys mimicked your movement, hiding his amused smile as he pressed his lips to the rim of his wineglass.

“You brought it up,” he playfully accused. 

But something in the way his eyes shone in the low lighting told you that Rhys desperately longed for this — to plan a kill and see it through, together. It reminded you of another man’s desperation you’d been able to discern rather clearly. It was a completely different type of desperation, nevertheless resulting in the same thing — the death of another human being.

“How about we just stop circling around it. Tom Lockwood. What have you found out? I know you haven’t been twiddling your thumbs these past few days.”

Rhys could only grin in answer to your statement, which inadvertently confirmed your suspicions. You knew he would cave. 

“He’s anxious. Keeps moving around,” Rhys noted. “I tracked him to Edinburgh the day we got back to London. Next, he flew to Paris for a meeting. And now he’s in Prague, supposedly meeting with the highest-ranking suits of his Eastern European branches.”

You furrowed your brows. “The man is always travelling. Bouncing around the globe without a single care for the climate. How is this any different?”

“I said ‘supposedly’, didn’t I?” 

“You think he’s there for other business than meeting with those suits?” You questioned, not following where this notion came from. 

“Lockwood’s new deals for opening up three more cancer spreading factories in Hungary and Serbia have already been struck a month ago, back here in London. So, why does Lockwood feel the need to go there now?”

Rhys looked at you inquisitively, waiting for you to make up your own mind about the situation. You slowly but surely started to understand where he was going with this.

“He’s in hiding,” you concluded. “Using this meeting as an excuse to be out of the country. But why?”

“That is the question, my dearest.”

You thought back to your meetings with Lockwood. Specifically the last one, when he had provided you with Rhys’ name after you’d just gotten back from Canada, had felt… different. That out of character desperation for you to get this hit done quickly. Even going as far as to issue a bloody deadline. Rhys’ watchful eye clearly caught the lightbulb going on in your head.

“Care to elaborate on the conclusion your delightfully intelligent brain just reached?” He asked. 

A smirk found its way onto your lips whilst you viciously ignored the way his oblique compliment had caused a warmth to spread through you. 

“Lockwood was desperate to have you killed. Almost like he was in a rush. He put me on a fucking clock,” you huffed.

“And that is unusual for him?”

“Oh, yes. I make it perfectly clear to all my clients that I’ll get the job done, but on my own terms. They provide me with a name and I will take care of everything else. That’s the deal. Lockwood knows that,” you explained. “But this time he was nervous. He even lost his temper.”

“What did he say exactly?” Rhys asked, his body unconsciously leaning closer to yours as he was now on high alert.

Your forefinger slid over your wineglass’ stem and you focused on the deep red colour of the delicious vino, trying to remember Lockwood’s exact words. You closed your eyes in concentration when you slowly started to repeat what Lockwood had said to you a week ago in that dilapidated building.

“He’d called the situation dire. Expressing how he didn’t have time, which meant that I wouldn’t have more time to get the job done. He offered to pay me three times my regular fee,” you reopened your eyes, meeting Rhys’ steady gaze. “I told him I would do it for five.”

Rhys’ lips curled into a devilish smile, unmistakably approving of your exploitative tactics. 

“Do you know what this means, Y/N?” His voice was low and supporting an undertone of a malicious type of excitement. 

“We can use this to our advantage to lure him back into the country. To trap that tosser and finally rid London of the vermin who continuously prevails to subjugate our lovely city.”

Our city. It made your nerves twitch with anticipation. You were helpless to resist returning his wicked grin, lifting your wineglass into the air. Rhys eyed you mirthfully, mirroring your movement without any objection. 

“Let’s drink to that,” you said, accentuating your toast with the clinking of your glasses.

––

It was well past midnight and you failed to recollect the amount of alcohol Rhys had consumed. Or you for that matter. You and Rhys were sitting side by side on the floor in the living room, leaning back against the couch. An empty bottle of Merlot stood on the coffee table next to you. Essentially, you were both silently basking in the exhilaration of preparing Lockwood’s demise.

When Rhys had asked you what your process was for organising a hit, you’d wordlessly pointed at the floor. For a moment he’d regarded you in quiet amazement before wondering out loud why you didn’t just use the wall or a large whiteboard. You shot him a bashful smile, it did seem a little ridiculous. But you liked to sprawl out all of your research including printed-out papers, notes, pictures and whatnot. And in the midst of that, you’d be sitting there plotting your next kill. It probably looked like absolute chaos to an outsider, only you being able to see the underlying structure. You explained to Rhys how it helped you with formulating a plan by being in the middle of all the information you gathered on your target. Submerging yourself in their lives so to speak. To be able to truly prepare to go up in smoke and take them out. Rhys had nodded then, a thoughtful smile lingering on his lips. 

Which was how you found yourselves sitting in one of those all too familiar piles a few hours later. However, this time you weren’t on your own, having another body present in the middle of the disarray of newspaper articles and timeline drawings that you’d connected to locations on a multitude of different maps containing differing scales.

You’d come up with a plan, a good one — a solid one. It would go into fruition the moment Lockwood would step one foot back into the country. 

Just like with Roald, you and Rhys worked together seamlessly, complementing each other brilliantly on different ideas and how to translate those into an actual feasible strategy. As you were pouring over Lockwood’s movements, cross-referencing them with the timeline you’d set up as well as his texts to Kate, you frequently found yourselves uncharacteristically giggling like two little schoolgirls. Despite the fact that there was nothing innocent about this. Really, it was a rather sadistic discussion on how to effectively make one of the most prominent figures in the world disappear. 

Truly, you blamed the wine for your behaviour. Your murderous banter probably partially due to the alcohol now coursing freely through both of your systems. Although you weren’t technically drunk at that point. Yet.

Still, you were almost inebriated enough to actually believe the poor attempt at blame-shifting.

Besides coming up with a plan to kill Lockwood and be done with him once and for all, you’d also tentatively asked Rhys what his exact intentions for Jonathan were. Rhys hadn’t just been holding down the fort in keeping an eye on Lockwood these past few days, he’d also seen to the problematic American. Keeping Jonathan busy, sending him text messages that had him spinning around in circles long enough so he wouldn’t be able to tell where the end or beginning was located. It was essentially all a massive distraction that would buy you and Rhys some time to get the affairs in order that would ultimately have Jonathan back the fuck off. 

You’d asked Rhys why he didn’t simply get on with it and kill the professor, to be done with all of this nonsense. For starters because Jonathan would still be lecturing your sister once she was back on her feet. 

Rhys had explained to you how he figured if at one point all was going to hell, Jonathan would be the perfect fall guy to pin everything on. He ensured you that he had enough dirt on Jonathan and his previous life as Joe that would keep him occupied and at bay for now. But soon that wouldn’t be enough. Which was when you suggested organising a little surprise for Kate’s new boyfriend the moment Lockwood’s body would cease drawing breath. The dark and eager look that you shared didn’t require another word on the matter.

You spent the last hour finalising the details, but mostly your conversation had slowly but surely started to stray away from its intended course. You’d brushed the surface on a number of other entirely different topics such as politics, literature and even who you were betting your money on would win this season’s Bake Off. You didn’t see eye to eye on that one, which had resulted in Rhys wagering actual money on the man who was obviously not going to win according to you. Somewhere in the back of your mind you recalled how Rhys had lived through some minor gambling issues, his greedy handshake as you placed your bets was therefore not entirely surprising. 

Again, you told yourself your behaviour was thanks to the alcohol. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with your ability to bring out each other’s goofiness, or your rather poor taste for reality tv.

But thinking about Rhys’ gambling habits, the entire life that he’d lived with all of the violence shadowing him wherever he went — it made you wonder where it had come from. Yes, he'd had a shit childhood. You did, too. But it seemed different with him. Was it just because you were two different people? Would it eventually come down to that centuries old debate on nature versus nurture?

You leaned back against the couch, propping up your right arm for support when you fully turned your body towards Rhys. His eyes slid over your frame, lingering momentarily before they found their way back to meet your gaze. You slumped a little, resting your head in your right hand. Noticing the change in your stance, Rhys imitated your pose and serious expression, raising his eyebrows questioningly. 

The extent and degree of seriousness of your conversations could switch very rapidly. However, those shifts had up to this point felt decidedly natural. Hopefully your next question would thus not be too much of a right hook.

“Tell me something,” you whispered. “Why do you truly resort to these, rather violent, solutions to your problems?”

“I’ve already disclosed one secret tonight. It’s greedy to ask for more, Y/N,” Rhys deflected jokingly. 

He could use his exceptional deflection skills all he wanted but you wouldn’t let him back out now. Not so easily. Not when you’d already given him a substantial glimpse into your most vulnerable thoughts and feelings. 

“Don’t try to put this on me. You know you owe me at least twice that for what I told you.”

The playfulness left his features and he broke eye contact with you. Rhys sat back up straight again. He knew he would lose this argument, and he knew that you knew it, too.

Rhys was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to best broach the subject. His eyes turned inwards as he focused on a place somewhere over your shoulder. That same stony and detached expression he’d worn when killing Roald had returned. But now it seemed even more grim. 

“I don’t believe people are born with a monster carved inside of them. Cruelty and violence edged into their brains from the moment the embryo grows into a babe. How that can all happen inside the safety of a mother’s womb,” Rhys began. 

You studied him closely, trying to assess where he was going with this. But you weren’t and could never be prepared for what he said next.

“My mother saw it differently,” Rhys said with a strained and slightly mournful smile. “I was supposed to have a brother. He was born six minutes after me. Dead.”

At that, you also lifted your head back up, your eyes slightly widening at the shocking revelation. That most certainly hadn’t been part of his memoir. 

“And for reasons only privy to the almighty himself, my mother blamed me for it. In her eyes, I’d been the cause of my brother’s death in her bloody womb,” he said, cold eyes flickering to yours.

“I’ve always wanted to lash out at the one person who took everything from me. Someone who was supposed to unconditionally love the only child she had left, but instead chose to burden it with all of her guilt and shame.”

His gaze was empty, not a single emotion discernible. Yet you knew with certainty that behind the blank facade a storm was raging. A storm that felt all too familiar. You wanted to reach out to him but something held you back. Rhys clenched his jaw, the corners of his mouth turning downwards. 

“But I didn’t. Instead, I unleashed my suppressed anger and pain on others. And by the time she’d passed away of cancer,” Rhys divulged, the creases in his forehead becoming even more prominent. “Well, I didn’t lie or exceedingly stretch the truth about that part of the book. It really was a turning point.”

“Heartbreak is always the catalyst for a new path,” you recited.

“Ah, so you did read it. That is definitely a boost for my ego,” Rhys grinned but it didn’t reach his eyes.

You glanced around the room, taking note of his possessions — his books and collected art, and realised how they all outwardly reflected a small piece of the man sitting beside you. But the secret he’d just shared with you went much and much deeper than any of that. Rhys had without a doubt honoured your request of levelling the playing field between your shared vulnerabilities. It briefly made you wonder if you’d seen more of Rhys’ soul in a single evening than his ex-wife had in the years they were married. You didn’t have to ask, privately already knowing the answer.

“I kept turning right around, going back to getting trollied and punching people again. Until I decided enough was enough,” Rhys declared, continuing his life’s story. 

“You sought to take back control,” you deduced.

“Exactly,” Rhys nodded. 

“Like I said, she took everything from me and I will never be able to make her pay for that. So, I’ve opted to convert that resentful energy into something productive — to take what I want and deserve,” he said, staring meaningfully into your eyes.

“To achieve greater things than she could’ve ever envisioned for me when she’d tell me I would never amount to anything.”

You noticed the vein in his neck pulse slightly. The look of determination present on his face further emphasising his concluding remark.

“And you know what’s funny,” Rhys chuckled, making you raise a single eyebrow. “I always pictured my ambitious future with a single person standing on that stage commanding the room and every damned soul in it — myself,” he revealed. “Even back when I was still married.”

Rhys canted his head and considered you for a moment. You could almost physically feel his intense stare on you. It was like a magnet trying to pull you closer to its north-seeking pole.

“But when I met you, that changed,” Rhys breathed, shifting closer to you, evidently also powerless to ignore the invisible draw between you. 

“I no longer see myself up there alone,” he murmured, the light in his half-lidded eyes returning as he unabashedly glanced down at your lips. “It’s you and me. Standing side by side on top of the bloody world. No one able to stop us.”

––––

A/N: aaaand that concludes my creativity on Rhys’ tragic backstory :’) Now that these two have finally had their honest chat (encouraged by some booze), we’ll be moving on from the emotional drama. Get ready, because next chapter we are diving back into action. 

#rhys montrose x reader #rhys montrose x female reader #rhys montrose fanfic #rhys montrose fic #rhys montrose #you netflix #you season 4 #you season 4 canon divergence #jonathan moore #joe goldberg #goldrose #ed speleers #rhys montrose x original female character #on ao3 #you and me