#I only found one use for it outside of its first section; though I assume it could be used on other floors to get inaccessible gems

[vonaegiremblem]

Luigi's Mansion 3 is really funny because 75% through the game you are forced to backtrack for a new ability that is literally completely optional after the first time that you are required to use it

#super mario bros #luigi #luigi's mansion 3 #I just beat the game; it was pretty fun #the character animations and environment variety are spectacular #and the game has just the right amount of jank #that being said; you think they'd use the super suck for; like; at least one boss fight? #I only found one use for it outside of its first section; though I assume it could be used on other floors to get inaccessible gems #I kinda thought you would use it in a final 'you've basically already won' phase against king boo #also kind of weird how boos are super de-emphasized #boos are also just completely optional after your first encounter

[theundertalenebulartheory]

WELL THE POWER AND INTERNET ARE STILL OUT IDK WHEN ITS COMING BACK AND THE NEW CHAPTER IS HAUNTING MEEEEE SO HERE IT IS YOU CAN HAVE IT IN TUNGLR FORMAT UNTIL THE POWER COMES BACK AND I CAN GET THE NEW CHAPTER UP ON AO3

Chapter 23: In Which We Go Camping Again And Nothing Catches On Fire This Time Except A Few Faces

((There will be a little Present Day Blurb in the Summary Section when this chapter goes up on AO3 as well as some End Of Chapter notes about how very normal I’m feeling about the Summer Newsletter))

You’d taken up journaling. There wasn’t, exactly, a whole lot you could do about the whole Time Travel thing. And whether or not you woke up one day or another you weren’t entirely sure you’d be able to tell the difference between the first and 50th time you’d lived a specific day.

But there was the thing about certain things just kindof existing in your knowledge bank that you kept coming back to. Which meant that you’d learned them in the first place.

Which brought you to the journal. Even if you didn’t exactly have a lot of confidence that *what* you wrote could be maintained from one timeline to the next (otherwise you assumed you’d be finding a paper trail of some kind lying conspicuously around the house) but if you could somehow internalize what you were writing about, then maybe... maybe you could at least start over with a bigger toolbox than what you’d had previously.

Along those same lines, you’d also taken Papyrus up on his offer to really start training you in earnest. There was so, so much to do. Bills to pay. Taxes to file. Portfolios to submit. But Papyrus made time for you, and you made time for him. And as you did, you started to notice things that you wondered if maybe you’d already noticed before.

Like the fact that reading was hard for him. And articulating some of his thoughts could be a bit of a challenge. There was that whole Junior Jumble thing too, and that particular bullet point got double underlined in your fancy new journal. He was just too smart for that to NOT mean something.

Paps wasn’t the only one under the microscope. Sans, too, was exhibiting some behaviors that you’d started to jot down on a page in your new book. First of all, the man couldn’t read a map to save his life. He just needed to BE there. Or have been there. But where he’d been and where he needed to go were almost two completely separate things. It was almost like whatever filing system his brain used for how to get to places was totally removed from the actual 3D space itself. You‘d even asked him one time if he was inside a new house, couldn’t he just estimate the distance between himself and a backyard just outside that he’d never been to before and shortcut there? Nope. Only places he’s been, or places he can, in any given moment, actively see. There was also the sarcasm, tone-deaf thing too. But that one got a question mark next to it in your notes. That one might have been more of a cultural difference... except that Papyrus was the most sassy and sarcastic person you knew. So the note stayed regardless.

You’d been taking other notes too. Notes about things you’d been learning from Muffet. Things you’d been learning on your own as you tried to do what Muffet explained and then messed it up horrifically. To your credit, though, the look on Papyrus’ face when you accidentally messed up his bullet pattern because you’d managed to create a funnel that caught and redirected every one of them was freaking hilarious.

Slightly less hilarious was the loss of HP when the far end of that funnel was connected to your soul and you took an entire field of bullets right in the chest all at once.

And so a note ended up in the journal. But as winter changed to spring and your university graduation drew nearer, you found yourself drawn to a date. An event, rather. Which is what you’d been looking for in your philosophical discussions with Sans. A landmark of some kind. And here it was.

A meteor shower.

You discussed it with Papyrus and Sans and the three of you decided that Sans needed the trip the most (in spite of what he argued to the contrary) and so the two of you would go together. Especially when the possibility of bringing everyone else along got brought up and both you And Papyrus suddenly got extremely cagey for no discernable reason and suddenly you very much wanted to stay home.

You didn’t.

But you were tempted. Papyrus decided to stay home though. There was something… something undeniably anxiety-inducing about the day that none of you could put your finger on. So Pap stayed. And you and Sans went to see the meteor shower.

Your old beater absolutely was Not going to make the trip, but you had an uncle with a truck that was willing to trade you vehicles for one weekend so you could go see the stars. You picked up Sans and his telescope from Toriel’s McMansion of a home at 4 AM Friday morning, noticing the way he eyed all the totes and bags in the truck bed somewhat disbelievingly. But he climbed in after securing the box for his telescope with some spare bungee cords and buckled up without verbally questioning it all too much.

“Alright, we’ve got road snacks in the center console, a little baby cooler on the back seat with drinks, and you’ve had all the pit-stops you’re going to need for a few hours?”

“ ‘m good.” His voice was extra low and graveled so early in the morning and you did your best to keep the effect that was having on you down to a minimum.

“Awesome. You’re totally ok to nap for a few hours, by the way, once we make it out of Ebbott. I’m way too hype for this trip to even be slightly sleepy so you go to sleep for a bit. It’s gonna be a solid 8 hours in the car even once we’re past the way station. Might as well nap for some of it.”

As if on queue he stifled a yawn, settling into the seat to get comfortable and adjusting the angle of the seat backing. “nah, i’m awake.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Super awake. At 4 AM. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“you’ve never met anyone as awake as I am right now.”

“Sure.”

Thankfully the waystation wasn’t busy at this time of the morning, and Sans was able to shortcut to the roof of the building without issue. You passed inspection with no issues, and Sans dropped through your roof to land easily in the passenger’s seat once you were rolling past it. You had a nice laugh about it together, but after that you didn’t even make it onto the freeway before he was softly snoring. It took a little station surfing, but soon enough there was a smooth jazz radio station to keep the road noise from being too distracting for him. This was a pretty big deal, and you didn’t want anyone to start the day off on a sour note. He was going out on a limb, doing a one-on-one trip with you after all of the soul-bond weirdness had finally started to settle down and your relationship friendship was finally starting to get easier again. The least you could do is make sure he started the day well rested.

It was funny though. What soft snoring sounds he was making for the first 20 or so minutes of the drive changed a little bit, smoothing out into almost soundless deep breathing after some time driving. You weren’t 100% sure how to feel about that, but you shrugged it off without taking it too much to heart. He stayed asleep until the sun was well over the horizon, the strategic way you’d arranged the sun visor to block the worst of the rays finally failing as the freeway turned in just the right direction to evade your best attempts to keep his face out of the sun.

Blearily, he came to, and you made sure to continue bobbing your head side-to-side along with the music even as there was motion in your periphery. You let him look around and rub his face on his own terms without calling attention to it, letting him decide when he was ready to engage with you. It took a minute, but not as long as you thought maybe it would take, before he finally yawned out loud and grumbled a little to himself. You finally peeked over at him, caught his eye, smiled, and kept driving.

“never took you for a smooth jazz type.”

“No?”

“nah.” His voice was still rough with sleep, and you reminded yourself silently that you REALLY needed to get a grip on yourself if you were going to survive the weekend.

“It’s nice to study to. Lo-fi, smooth jazz, instrumental covers of pop songs. It’s also nice to have on as background napping music.”

“…ah. you didn’t have to do that. i can sleep through anything.”

You hummed thoughtfully, switching the radio station to something a little less… well, a little more like something you would prefer to listen to for hours at a time. “Maybe. But you had to get up early. And you’re going to be up late.”

"hopefully. kindof hard to watch a meteor shower when its daytime.”

You rolled your eyes at him fondly and shook your head. “Alright, wise guy. I spy with my little eye something red.”

Between the car games you knew, songs on the radio that you liked, (a check-in phone call to alleviate some of the itching in the back of your brain) and the snacks, eight hours in the car flew by faster than you thought it would. You made it to the campsite just after noon, and even with Sans’ inexperience in the ways of Tent Poles you had a nice little campsite set up just in time for lunch. Your totes of pillows and blankets didn’t go into the tents, though. Not yet, anyways. Those you dumped out into the bed of the truck and made a lovely stargazing nest out of. There was a little nature walk and a stream to play in nearby your site that took up most of the afternoon, and by the time Sans had somehow soundly beaten you at ‘how many frogs can I catch’ (you had your suspicions that maybe some shortcuts and trickery had been involved, but you couldn’t be too mad about it when he smiled like that) it was time to stoke up a fire and cook dinner. You checked in with Papyrus again, and discovered that Toriel had started feeling apprehensive also and had started doing some gardening outside.

Regrettably, it turned out that Sans was the kind of heathen that liked his marshmallow burnt to a crisp even after you made him a perfectly golden-brown masterpiece of a mallow. But he seemed to have fun with the process, and really that was all that mattered. You did too, it had been years since you’d been camping (as far as you remembered). It brought back tons of great memories, some of which hadn’t been so great when you’d been going through them but made for hilarious stories now that you were older and time had smoothed the rough edges. Nothing actually terrible, of course. But plenty enough awkward and miserable that Sans actually fell out of his camp chair laughing as you really hammed up the retelling of the time that your parents had taken your family camping during ‘monsoon season’ and a microburst had chased the lot of you underneath the upside-down shell of your tent after the wind had snapped 100% of your tent poles.

Regaling him with stories of misadventures in camping as a kid ate away at the hours of the early evening, as did another check-in phonecall to Pap and Tori.

“you think that whatever might have happened in that past timeline... it was bad?” Sans asked as you hung up your fourth check-in phonecall of the night, firelight dancing over his bones.

You sighed and rubbed your hand over your face, knowing logically that you were clearly having some kind of mental breakdown over nothing at all but grateful that it wasn’t just you experiencing a bout of unexplainable anxiety tonight. “It’s got to be, right? Especially with Pap and Tori feeling it too. But we don’t know what it is. And that’s the tricky part, isn’t it? We don’t know if it’s some kind of earthquake that’s going to strike or if like... we did all come camping together before and Frisk fell and broke their leg. There’s just this feeling of... I just need to check on them. All of them. And if I don’t, then something bad might happen. And if it’s a feeling that extends to all of them, then that kindof feels... big, you know? Like it’s not just that I need to check on Papyrus, because if that’s the feeling I had then it would make sense that Papyrus was the one that something bad happened to. Right?”

Sans nodded, looking grimly down into the fire. “we can go back if you want to.”

“No,” you shook your head quickly and settled back into your folding chair. “I want to be here. And I know that they’ve all got each other. I think I just need to stop scratching the itch, you know? They’ll call if something happens. And if something happens, we can always jump right home. But we’re here, it’s a beautiful night, and I’m having fun. I want to see the meteor shower.”

“well... long time between now and then.”

You checked your watch and grinned. “Yeah, but the stars are pretty great even before it’s time for the meteor shower to really kick into gear. Actually, we’re probably far enough past sunset now to get started. Most of the light pollution should be gone now. Wanna see something cool?”

“sure.”

You winked at him as you stood up and grabbed the bucket of stream water, dousing the fire with a spectacular hiss.

The effect was almost instantaneous, as your bucket of water reduced the firepit to a smoking black ring, the sky above you burst into life. Your attention was on the ring of stones at first, checking for any glowing embers you might have missed (Smokey the Bear was NOT going to be disappointed in you tonight!) but you could hear the gasp next to you. And you remembered your first time coming out to one of these truly Dark Sky Zones. Your own father dumping water on the fire and the way you’d quite literally fallen over yourself trying to crane your neck far enough to take it all in.

Satisfied that you’d sufficiently soaked the coals, you carefully reached out to touch his shoulder to catch his attention. He tilted his head your direction a few degrees, but didn’t take his eyes off of the sky.

“Hey. Your eyes aren’t quite adjusted to the dark yet. Close your eyes for like… 20 seconds to let them adjust a little, then try again. I promise it’s worth it.”

“heh. seems… pretty worth it already. but… ok.”

He was loathe to peel his gaze away from the stars for even a second, but with some effort he eventually closed his eyes. With a near-giddy grin, you took his arm.

“Keep ‘em closed. No tricks. I’m just going to guide you towards the truck. It’ll be worth it. Just keep your eyes closed for a bit longer, and when we get to the truck don’t peek. Use the chance to get up into the truckbed as a chance for you eyes to adjust a little more. The dark blankets will help kindof… force your eyes to finish adjusting to the dark. Then you can look. Promise.”

You guided him expertly and carefully, in spite of his grumbling about it, back to the pickup truck and the blanket nest you’d built earlier in the day. He looked down just long enough to climb into it, but as soon as he was settled among the pillows his face was turned heaven-ward again. You settled in too, and finally let the weight of being the responsible host slide off of your shoulders enough to relax into the moment and gaze at the trillions of stars that made the sky glow like the very best and most impressive NASA satellite images available. But with a depth and grandeur that no photo could ever capture.

It was cool, of course. Grand and spectacular and majestic and poetic and whatnot. But… you couldn’t keep your head from lolling to the side so you could watch Sans.

His eye sockets had never been so wide. And his eye lights practically filled the whole space. They were so bright, too. Brighter than a whole handful of stars. Bright enough that you could almost see the rims of his sockets glowing with just how intensely he was focused on taking in absolutely every single detail. If you didn’t know any better, you’d guess he was having the equivalent of a religious experience as his gaze swept reverently across the Milky Way.

You let him be.

You kept watching him, but you did so silently. He’d never looked so relaxed in his life, nor had he ever looked so small. The usual softness to his figure held up by some kind of magic that gave him such a huggable shape day in and day out was completely abandoned and his clothing draped loosely over his bones in a way that showed off just how little mass he really actually had. You’d never actually seen his shirt fall into the gap between his pelvis and his ribs, even when he had been sleeping in the car. But his sleeves, his shirt, his shorts, everything draped over his bones and nothing more than his bones and he looked so, so small. So slight. Like a stiff breeze might blow him away. And you had to fight the urge to bundle him up in your arms and burrito him in a blanket just to make sure some bluejay didn’t grab him by the spine and fly off with him (hour of the night notwithstanding.)

After what felt like 30 minutes you watched him tug one of his mittens off and then lift his hand towards the heavens, reaching out for the stars. It was deeply endearing, and you grinned to yourself. That was one of the funny things about stargazing that you couldn’t anticipate just by looking at pictures of the stars. If you watched them, flat on your back, for long enough… you started to get a sense for depth. You could start to feel just how vast, like watching the sea stretch out all the way to the horizon, the expanse was. Incomprehensible though it was. And in that vastness… there was you. Little old you. Floating in the middle of all of it.

And since you were floating… couldn’t you just… you could almost just… if you could just reach a little further, then, maybe…

It was funny how such immeasurable intensity could mess with your head. Logically, of course, you knew you couldn’t. But your heart still wanted so desperately to believe that it was right there. And as you watched Sans reach, starlight glittering through the hole in his palm, you let your gaze follow the line of his hand heavenward again.

“Feels so close, doesn’t it? So close but so far.”

“… yeah.”

“Hey.”

“hm.”

“Just a fair warning,” you kept your voice low, so as not to disturb the moment, but you could feel his eyes slide over to you anyways. “Looking at this many stars all at once tends to make people wax philosophical. And being up late with someone tends to lead to really deep and personal conversations. So just like… a fair warning that you’re going to be really tempted to start talking about eternity and the multiverse theory and the insignificance of our existence and all that. Which I am totally down for. But if you’re not, this is your disclaimer now. This is the deep end of the pool, my guy.”

He huffed a laugh and shook his head, settling back into the pillows. “good to know.”

There really wasn’t anything like a sky bursting with stars on a cool and clear night. The Milky Way stretched the full length of it, well and truly glowing with life and energy. It had been years since you’d been out here, but the view was no less awe-inspiring than it was when you were half as tall and dozens of times more carefree. The memory was a gift you cherished, and the way it had molded your worldview couldn’t be bought with all the gold and silver under Mount Ebott. How many lives would be so different if more people could come out to a place like this and watch such a spectacular parade of stars and feel, profoundly, how small your place was in the cosmos every few years or so?

“I’m sorry.”

“… don’t be.”

“Someone needs to be. I can’t fathom how… a thousand years ago, this would have been what our ancestors would have seen every single night. How can you see something like this every single night and treat people like that? Put them under a mountain?”

“now who’s being all philosophical?”

“Oh, it’s me, for sure. That warning was for you in case you didn’t really want to share anything deep, but it was also a warning for you that I AM going to get all deep. Super deep.”

“that’s what she said.” You could hear the grin in his voice, and you were half tempted to sit up and wiggle your eyebrows at him, but you weren’t quite done admiring the view yet. You’d just started to notice a star moving a tiny bit faster than the other ones and you were suspecting maybe you were looking at a planet that you didn’t want to lose sight of just yet. Definitely not fast enough to be a satellite, but maybe a planet.

“Nice… Vaguely Related Side Note: Conceptually I understand the mechanics of how a strap-on works. But there’s also this little nagging voice in the back of my head that says,” at this point Sans started to crack up but you kept going undisturbed, “if you were actually to put one of those on… the specific location where the dildo would sit isn’t actually supported by any bone structure. The bone structure sits too low to actually provide support where you’d need it. Right? It’d be like strapping it onto your – Sans I’m being serious, stop giggling – strapping it onto your stomach. It’s all soft tissue right there! Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable?”

He managed to string something together in response, but it was nearly impossible to understand through his wheezing. Something about a harness and weight distribution and something called a ‘symphasis.’ “No, I GET the harness part, but still. Like… there’s going to be a concentrated amount of force on a non-reinforced part of your body. You gotta consider the pounds per square inch.”

His wheezing devolved into a deep and rolling laughter and he doubled over into a fetal position with the force of it. “i didn’t realize that this is what you meant when you said we were going to get deep,” he coughed and continued to giggle, barely holding onto his composure. “the harness has like… a plate. not a plate, what word am i looking for? a triangle. a patch. that’s not it either. a base. spreads out the surface area on the bone structure.”

“Ah, that would help.” You finally pulled your eyes away from the maybe-planet and watched his laughter fade into a smile, humor still working towards smoothing out the exhaustion usually carved into his face. You were really starting to get to know the subtle micro-expressions that tugged at his skeletal grin, and for once this one looked genuinely pleased with no reserved hints of worry or masking. “Glad to hear from the expert. I was really worried there. One less mystery of the universe to worry about now.”

He snorted, a strange sound without all the internal nasal structures that normally came with being human-shaped, but a close enough approximation to the sound that you could tell what he’d meant to do. “didn’t know you came star-gazing with a… sex-pert.”

“Better you than me,” you joked. “People get DEEPLY uncomfortable with people in public education having hobbies other than like… jigsaw puzzles and knitting. Gotta prepare for the next 30 years of G-rated fun only.”

“ok, but you and alphys killed that jigsaw the other night, though.”

“That is entirely beside the point,” you countered with a very put-upon frown. Sans just snickered, and you couldn’t help the urge to lean over and rest your head on his shoulder. This had been what you’d been wanting so badly when you invited him to come with you. Sure, the two of you had spent hours together debating the finer points of timeline shenanigans. But it really did seem to eat at him. If you had to hazard a guess, he was maybe even starting to show symptoms of depression. Not that you’d call him out on it, of course. But that didn’t mean you were just going to lay down and let the man just BE depressed either. So... you brought him camping. Some sunshine. Some fresh air. Change of scenery. And a sky full of stars to get lost under. An excuse to pull out his old telescope, ready and waiting for you just beside the pickup truck.

“My grandma could knit,” you mused out loud after a comfortable silence had settled between you. “She tried to teach all the grandkids how to do it. Emphasis on tried, anyways. I never could get it. She tried when I was like… seven? Bored out of my mind, couldn’t grasp the concept. Grandma loved to make dolls for her great grandkids. None of the boys ever really liked dolls so she actually went online and found these patterns to knit Transformers so they wouldn’t feel left out. What’s funny about that, though, is once she started making them then all the grandkids wanted one. Even ones who’d already gotten a regular doll. And then their friends wanted one. She thought about starting an online business before her health tanked. I still have mine in my closet. It’s cool.”

Sans shifted, and when you peeked over at him, he was looking at you with the corners of his smile falling a little bit downwards. “is she… uh…”

“Yeah. She passed on a couple of years ago.”

“sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Your eyes sparkled with the ability to parrot his own words back at him. The sparkle didn’t last, though, and you turned your eyes back to the stars. “She was really sick, and she hated wasting away. She was one week away from 100 years old. I kept telling everyone we needed to have an early party for her. 100 years is a pretty big deal. But… people were busy. It happens.”

“sounds like you two were close.”

“Oh, sure. I lived with her.” You put your hands behind your head and started looking for any constellations you could remember. The peak of the meteor shower wasn’t going to be until much, much later in the night. “One year after starting Uni is when Grandma’s health tanked. Everyone else either had families or stuff going on or was too young. They were going to put her in a home,” you caught yourself, identifying that Sans might not have the social context to know what that implied. So, you amended, “a, uh, a communal elderly living center that’s expensive as hell and has like... staff and nurses and stuff like that to take care of the old people’s needs. But it’s also… kindof famous for being the place you drop old people off and then abandon them until they die because you’re paying all this money for nurses and staff to take care of them. Just... shuck that responsibility off on someone else. Which sucks.”

“that’s... horrible. humans really do that?”

“Not everybody, for sure. But it’s not uncommon either. And to be fair, nobody in my family wanted that for her, but grandma needed help and nobody else was really in a great place to step up and do the 24/7 care thing that she needed. Which is part of the reason old people end up in those care centers in the first place. Everyone’s so poor and busy trying to get by that they literally can’t keep up with the level of care that a lot of really old people need. Even if it’s their own flesh-and-blood family. So… I... said I’d do it. I moved in just after finishing my second spring semester. Spent seven years doing 24/7 care for her. Meds, bathing, diapers, the whole bit. She got social security checks in the mail and a veterans check because of grandpa, and I used them to pay the bills and feed us both. Buy her meds and stuff. The aunts and uncles would come over sometimes but... not for very long. Fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. Then they’d be gone again for months.

“It was about… oh… maybe... Year 5 of just the two of us, barely any visitors ever, when Grandma met with the people managing her trust and included in her will a laughably low sale price for the house contingent upon her passing and first right of refusal for me. It was still more than I could really, actually afford, but… in today’s market? I couldn’t pass it up. I’d be the world’s biggest idiot to let that offer slip through my fingers, no matter how hard it was going to be to make it work.

“So, here I am. A decade behind all my peers. Just barely finishing my degree. Working 2 jobs that I get paid for and one that I don’t. I love Science Saturdays and it looked amazing on my resume, but doing a whole job for free really sucks while trying to maintain a scholarship. I’m glad it’s over and I’m finally a graduate. I thought about still doing it through the summer but... nah. I think that chapter of my life is done.”

“wait… you don’t get paid for that?”

“Nope. I don’t. 100% volunteer hours. Which… again, great resume builder. Great for getting experience with coordinating and managing and such. Great for building connections and networking and the like. No dinero, though. Nothin’ but pictures where my money used to be. The real money maker is the waitressing gig, but that comes and goes too. Did you know that most restaurants pay about $2 an hour and whatever you make in tips has to be reported to the IRS so you can get a year’s worth of taxes all billed at once on April 15th?”

“that’s messed up.”

“It is, but on the bright side I’ve gotten SO responsible with money. Budget game off the charts. Color-coded Excel spreadsheets and everything. Quicken could never.” He chuckled softly, but you could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Putting puzzle pieces together. Connecting dots. You braced for the inevitable pity or sympathy or whatever aww-that’s-so-sad sentiment might come out of him next.

“what keeps you going?”

You blinked at the Milky Way, surprised. It took a minute of thought, but eventually you said, “Spite.” He barked a laugh and you snickered along with him. “No, but really. Hope, probably. It’s just… got to get better. I don’t want to live like this forever. It has to end. Or… change, I guess. Not end. Gotta beat grandma’s record. I want… friends. TIME. Room to breathe. I want to take a fencing class. I want to learn another language. I want to paint again. I want to go dancing with friends and bake them cookies and have dumb inside jokes. I don’t want to be lonely until I die. There’s so much out there to see and do and learn and experience and I’m stuck with my nose to the grindstone and it’s got to mean something. I’m just holding onto that with a white-knuckled grip until my fingers bleed. The hope that it gets better. And if it won’t get better on its own then damn it, I’m going to make it get better.”

Sans shook his head. “perseverance.”

“Heh. Yeah. Funny how that works out. But that does leave me with some questions, though.”

“oh?”

He turned more fully to you, propping himself up on his elbow, and you matched his pose with a mischievous sparkle in your eye. “Absolutely. I mean, you use blue magic, right? Like a bright, sky-blue?”

“cyan.”

“Right, right,” you nodded. “I can’t quite remember what that one is though. Cyan stands for ‘cute,’ right?”

The glowing blush that erupted over his zygomatic arches was, indeed, cyan. And you waggled your eyebrows at his sputtering. “Yep. Definitely stands for cute.”

Sans laughed and rolled onto his back, ducking into the hood of his jacket to hide his embarrassment. “patience, actually.”

“Oh?” You chased after him, leaning over him and bracing an arm on the other side of his ribcage so you could grin down at his furious blush. “You know Pap would tell you patience is just a fancy word for laziness.”

Sans snickered, the blush fading a little now that you’d had the good grace to turn the conversation to safer topics. “probably. even if...”

“...if nothing could be further from the truth,” you answered along with him, matching his cadence, your eyebrows pinching together in confusion as the words sprang unbidden from your throat. A flash of a frown passed over Sans’ face, his eye lights constricting, but he shrugged it off after a moment of tension.

“guess we know I’ve said that before.”

“Or I have,” you offered, but he shook his head.

“nah. i've said it a few times. thought it a few times. that's a ‘me’ thing.”

You tilted your head to the side and tucked a few fingers into the mitten still holding onto the edge of his hood. You wanted to make sure he could feel your sincerity. “I believe it, too. You work really hard. I don’t know why you let Pap call you lazy all the time.”

Sans’ smile grew soft and fond, and his eye lights fuzzed at the edges. He held your eye for a moment longer before turning to the grand display overhead. “he’s not wrong. usually. he knows when i need a good pick-me-up. not that i'm very heavy. he's the best. i can see why you like him.”

You caught something unsaid in his comment. Well, a few things. Sans never had been very forthcoming with any kind of details about his mental or emotional health, so the pick-me-up comment and the deflecting joke about his weight was probably the closest you'd ever get to him admitting that he struggled with either of those things. But there’s some additional deflection and redirection in there too that makes you want to pin him down and hold his face in your hands and press your feelings for him directly into his soul so he knew, unequivocally, that he was important too. That it isn’t and never will be a competition. That you loved him, that you trusted him, that...

“I like you both,” you clarified instead, and the soft blush across his zygomatic arches returned. “I think you both are great, in your own ways. You’re... a pair. A matched set.”

Sans’ eye lights drifted back to meet your eyes, his expression shifting in the dark. There was something searching and vulnerable in it, so you continued. “You don’t have one without the other. Unless you want to be. But you’re both better when you’re together. You... complete each other. Even if you do drive each other crazy. Humans have a phrase... two sides to the same coin. You’re kindof like that.”

Sans huffed a little laugh and his head rolled into your joined hands. Acting on a whim, you slipped your fingers out of his grip and traced your fingers over his blush until you were cupping his cheek in your palm. Your thumb brushed over the pearlescent pseudo-bone, or whatever bone-like structure his magic was made out of, and he nuzzled into your hand with a sigh.

“Tell me about Patience magic? I want to know more about you.” Sans’ expression was impossibly soft already, but somehow he melted even more into the blanket nest at your prompt.

“heh. uh. alright." He wiggled a little to get comfortable, hands pillowing behind his head. “well. uh. you've probably figured this out, but the soul traits don’t totally match with the modern use of the word. meanings change over time. so patience magic is mostly about opportunity, really. waiting for just the right moment. knowing what the right moment even is.”

You grinned down at him. “Oooooh, so that’s why your comedic timing is so good.”

His lazy wink was so genuine and dazzling, you almost leaned in to kiss the humored crinkle at the corners of his mouth. But you didn’t. “it helps, yeah.”

You rested your head on your shoulder and your smile turned coy. “Is there anything else it helps with?”

His eye lights constricted a fraction, and he traded some of the humor in his smile for intensity. “a few things. opportunities are all over the place, you know. you just gotta know what you’re looking for.”

One of his hands came to rest on the forearm you were using to brace yourself over him. “And what is it that you’re looking for?”

He didn’t answer right away, his eye lights drifting through the endless sea of stars above you with a faraway pensiveness that silently stretched out between you like the blanket of nightfall. “it changes,” he finally murmured. “but i think these days it’s just, uh... the simple life. good friends. bad food. terrible jokes. home. belonging.”

You allowed your hand slide from his cheek down to rest on his ribcage instead, noticing not for the first time just how quiet and still he was without breath or heartbeat. It’s different. But different didn’t have to be negative. Different could be a positive thing too. “Does that mean you don’t feel like you’ve found it yet?”

His eye lights shifted to meet yours, and he winked again after a second of thought. “you don’t ever stop looking for terrible jokes. or bad food. or good friends.”

More unspoken words hiding between the lines. More half-truths and deflection. You’d be a little annoyed with it if you didn’t get the sense that there was something aching terribly in his soul that he was trying desperately to bury. You’d caught little flashes of that cavern in his chest here and there over the past few months of working together about the timeline problem, and you couldn’t help but feel profoundly sad that he’d carried that for so long. It had been years since monsters had come up to the surface. And he was still dealing with it.

So, he could have a little deflection. As a treat.

“I dunno, I think maybe you’ve already learned a lifetime’s worth of terrible jokes,” you teased. And Sans was all too eager to latch onto the ‘out’ you’d offered with both hands.

“no way. a guy can never have too many terrible jokes.”

“Nope. You have too many. How’s anybody supposed to surprise you with a new joke if you already know them all?”

“its not about whether it’s new or not. you can still get a guy with a classic. its about timing, remember? patience?”

Your grin stretched with promises of mischief as your eyes playfully half-lidded. You leaned into his space a little and shifted to cage him in with your arms on either side of him. “You always did like the classics.”

His smile faltered a little as he took in your new position over him and his eye lights constricted a little. “the, uh, kids are calling ‘em ‘vintage’ now.”

You nodded, leaning in a little more. “Vintage, Retro, Nostalgic is another one I’ve heard. I think I like ‘classic’ the best though.”

“yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.” You cupped his cheek again, and a quiet thrill rolled through your core at the way his eye lights were starting to dilate and fuzz at the edges. “Can I show you one of my favorite ‘classics’?”

He nodded, sockets wide with anticipation, and shifted to prop himself up on his elbows. His chin tilted up as you closed the distance between you and... redirected at the last second. The hand on his cheek held him still while you blew an impressively loud and wet raspberry on his smooth forehead and then dissolved into a fit of giggles, which only intensified as you caught the shocked, light-less void of his empty sockets staring back at you. It only took a second or two for his eye lights to blink back into existence, and he sat up as you collapsed on his lap laughing.

“what was that?” You tried to wheeze out an apology, but now Sans was shifting to cage you in with a mischeivous glint to his grin. “that’s it? that’s all you’ve got? oh boy. nobody challenges the legendary fart master like that and gets away with it.”

He sucked in a huge breath and smooshed his face into your neck, making you squeal even before anything had happened. But rather than the wet reverberation of a challenging raspberry, the perfect recreation of a squeaky-toy duck quack sounded. Two of them, actually. It was so startling and unexpected that you collapsed into his lap again, a new peal of laughter ringing out into the night.

“oh. uh. geez. wrong one. hang on. let me try again.”

Another huge breath of air, and this time he mashed his face against your cheek. An old-timey car horn AWOOGA’d and you could feel tears pricking at the corners of your eyes with how hard you were laughing. “well that’s just embarrassing. hold on, i got it this time.”

On and on he went, cycling through an entire soundboard’s worth of cartoon gag noises as he “tried” against a dozen different parts of your body until you had to cry ‘uncle’ for the stitch in your side and the way your ribcage was starting to ache. He watched you catch your breath, sweaty and tear-streaked mess that you were, with such fond adoration that it didn’t take long for you to be the one blushing furiously and wiggling deeper into the blanket nest to try to hide your face once your breathing had returned to normal again.

“hey.” You peeked up at him, face aching from the strain of laughing for 10 minutes straight but helpless against the magnetic pull of his easy smile.

“Hey.”

“i think i got one more in me.” He brushed a few strands of hair off of your forehead with a conspiratorial wink. “i’m pretty sure i’m gonna get it right this time.”

Backlit by a billion blazing stars, none of which could ever compare to the way his warm and bright eye lights glittered in the void of his crinkled eye sockets, how could you ever even think to say no? At your murmured assent, he leaned in one more time. A thin, malleable approximation of lips touched yours. You rose up on your elbows to meet him.

And the softest sound slipped between you. You tilted your head to the side to help guide him further in to the moment, and he met your movement with the tentative touch of his mittened hand against the base of your skull. Just as the ribcage your palm slipped across was new in its cool stillness, the lack of breath cascading over your cheeks worried the back of your mind right at about the juncture where his grip was tugging gently at your hair. You had to peek to make sure everything was alright, which was a bit of a feat to accomplish with how close your faces were pressed together. But his sockets were closed and loose, so far as you could tell, and your eyes slipped closed again at the soft sound of satisfaction that bubbled up from his chest.

You weren’t the only one to have the thought to check, though, and after a moment he pulled away to search your face, his eye lights bright and fuzzy. “your breathing tickles.”

You snickered, leaning in to nuzzle him tenderly. “Distracted much?”

“kinda!” He snickered in return and teasingly pinched your nose. You batted his hand away and pressed a kiss to his teeth.

“You like it.”

He leaned in, chasing after you with a low noise of disappointment when you pulled away. “dunno. might need to try it again.”

You hummed thoughtfully, pressing your forehead to his with a teasing smile. “Need more data before you can determine correlation or causation?”

“a good scientist… something something, c’mere~” It was maybe a little bit hard to kiss you while you were laughing, even with both of his hands cradling your face and pulling you back in to him, but Sans was grinning without complaint too. And you decided, then, that quite possibly your very favorite feeling in the world was the sensation of your smile dancing with his. And you two danced.

And danced.

As do all things, the silent song under the stars eventually faded and you peppered his face with little freckles of kisses before pestering him to set up the telescope. He told you the story of how he used to prank people underground with it while he pulled it out of its box and set it up, and he told you about the wishing stones he used to point it towards while finding something to point it towards in the new expanse of endless sky.

He actually whooped with excitement when he found Saturn, and the two of you spent nearly an hour taking turns looking at it through his telescope and talking about what you could see. What you couldn’t see. The icy moons and the satellites that had visited it. You had terrible cell reception but you managed to grab some articles from the internet, and you took turns reading them out loud to each other while looking at the planet. Sharing pictures and ideas and theories.

Sans had a blast pointing his telescope in every direction he could for another hour after that, but nothing had been quite as cool or exciting as being able to see Saturn and it’s rings. Flashes of light were beginning to streak across the sky more quickly than they had been in the hours prior. One every 10 minutes or so. And Sans, having satisfied his need for adventure for one night, finally put away the telescope and joined you in the nest again so you could watch for meteors.

You snuggled up to his side and he looped an arm around you, both of you feeling a lot more snuggly in the increasing cool of the midnight hour. His magic was back, now. Inexplicable softness to his form filling out his sleeves and his shirt again, making him extra snuggly to cuddle.

And if, between the flashes of light streaking across the sky, your lips wanted to cuddle too, then who were you to fight the siren song of his cheek and jaw?

Sans giggled as you tickled your way, with feather-light kisses, over his jawline until you met his teeth. He answered your bid for affection with one of his own, gently nuzzling you and pulling you closer so he could do so properly. A contented sigh ghosted over his face and he snorted, shaking his head at the tickling dance of breath rolling over his bones. It was adorable, and endearing, and you took his cheeks in your hands so you could kiss his forehead.

“Sans?”

“mmm?”

You kissed his forehead again, and then pulled away to search his hazy eye lights. “Is this ok?”

“mm?” The crests over his eye sockets knit together in confusion. “uh… yeah? why? ‘s something wrong?”

You nuzzled him again, but resisted the urge to follow it up with a kiss. “You we’re just… weirded out by the whole past-relationship-in-another-time thing. And you freaked out a little when I accidentally did the soul connection thing. I dunno. I just want to make sure this is something you want and not something I’m like… pressuring you into?”

He shook his head and buried his face into your hands further. “nah. it was weird at first. just… uh, nerves, i guess. cold feet. happened kinda fast. but i get it now.”

You tipped your head to the side and waited for him to continue. It took him a moment to think about things, and eventually he added, “it just, uh, was hard to wrap my head around. one day we were on equal footing, then the next it was like a switch flipped. i couldn’t get how you could just suddenly trust somebody so much. much less a guy like me. but the timelines, you know. it makes logical sense, but that still didn’t make it feel right. just, uh, took me a little time. to get it. get how it happened. and why. get how real it was for you. that it wasn’t just a fluke you’d forget too. since you didn’t forget, and since it was… is real for you. i dunno. guess… it started to grow on me. it’s nice. you’re nice. and being with you is nice. and it just keeps being nice. i want to be with you more, no matter if we spend five minutes or five hours together, and i think that means it might be worth giving all this a try. once i got that, then… everything else was just… easy. natural. it’s easy being with you, and i like how it makes me feel.”

You blushed as he spoke and ducked your head a little, but you still kept your hands on his face with a shy smile. When he was finished you touched your lips to his teeth, and sat up.

Touched your fingertips to your sternum.

And then… you pulled.

Sans’ eye lights vanished from his sockets as the intensity of color from your purple soul sucked the color right out of everything else around you. It floated between you, and your hand hovered underneath it instinctively even though it was perfectly happy to float there all by itself.

“You don’t have to. I don’t ever want you to feel pressured to do anything, ever, for any reason. But I trust you with my soul. I have for a while, now.”

Sans’ eye lights dropped to your soul, wide and fuzzy, and he wheezed a little. Coughed. Wheezed again. Then laughed, a boyish smile shyly playing across his face.

“really?”

You nodded, and he carefully slipped his mittens off. His bare phalanges cupped under your soul, and he looked at it with just as much reverence as he’d regarded the stars. His eyes flicked up to meet yours, and you nodded towards your soul to make sure he knew he had your express permission to touch, if he wanted to. His eye lights dropped back down to your soul and his hands inched a little closer, surrounding your soul so closely all it would take is the faintest movement for him to brush the surface.

But after a long moment, he relaxed his grip and his hands fell away. Sans sighed, leaning in but not touching.

“i want to. your soul is breathtaking. i want this. but… i… can’t do the same. it wouldn’t be fair to you. i want this, and i want to try this. us. being an ‘us’ instead of just a ‘you and i.’ but i can’t offer you this. my soul. yet. maybe… maybe ever. it’s… it’s complicated.”

His face scrunched with regret and disappointment, and his expression so vulnerably begged for understanding in the glow of your soul. You really wanted to leap across the space between you and crush him to your chest and pour into him every assurance that you didn’t care if he couldn’t do the same. Yet, or ever. That you still cared about him and loved him and wanted to share yourself with him. All of yourself. And that it was ok if he wasn’t there yet. Maybe… maybe in another time he could be ready. And maybe this was the only time you’d ever get, and that was ok too.

What you actually did was take his hands in yours and cup them around your soul again, but with your grip steady and firm under his phalanges and metacarpals keeping his hands from escaping. His eyes grew wide again as you brought his hands closer to the Purple Heart floating between you, stopping just before touching once again.

“I respect your decision,” you quietly responded. “But I need you to understand that I don’t ask for anything from you because I need it paid back. You don’t owe me anything. You never have, and you never will. You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for, but I’m not offering this with my fingers crossed that it’ll somehow change the power balance here. I’m offering because I love you. I’m offering because I want you to know me and know how much I trust you. No other reason. And if that changes your mind, I want you to know that tonight, or any other night, the offer is still open.”

Sans pulled in a shaky breath and let it slowly slide out from between his teeth. His eye lights were so impossibly huge in his sockets, so warm and fuzzy, you were half expecting to see a little moisture collecting in the corners. They slid down to look at your soul again, almost painfully vibrant in the inky night, and he sighed.

“not… not tonight. it hurts, how much i want to. but i wouldn’t feel right about it. maybe… soon, though. i just need to feel less, uh, like it’s going to change things if you can’t hold mine too. that’s just going to take some think time. it’s not you, it’s me. you know?”

You nodded again and gently released your hold on his hands, the pair of them falling away from your soul as it returned to your chest. You tugged him to you as you nestled back into the blankets again, your eyes adjusting to the dark over the next few minutes of comfortable silence. He settled under your arm, and the two of you fell asleep under the flashing streaks of falling stars.

#the nebular theory fic #fic update #chapter 23 #chapter update

[marauderundercover]

Taking Chances Chapter 4: Unexpected (Bonding)

Prev

AO3

Bruce Wayne felt lost. This wasn’t an unusual feeling for him, but he wasn’t particularly fond of the events that led to him feeling lost. First, he found out he had a daughter. Yet another child that he hadn’t known of their existence. Then, he acted as Batman. He researched the girl and found that her school situation was...less than ideal. As was the supervillain situation in Paris. The girl- his daughter- had been targeted several times. Sometimes the Akuma went after her from the start. Other times, she was unfortunate enough to be in its line of sight when it was on a rampage. Any way you looked at it, she was in danger. No, the biggest mistake in researching her came with the phone number for the bakery run by her parents. Two lovely people who had raised her and taught her right from wrong. Something he hadn’t done. Their phone call was what left him feeling lost. They hadn’t demanded that he stay away from his daughter- from Marinette. No, on the contrary, they thought it was a great idea for the two to bond. Especially once Bruce had mentioned his other children. 

“Marinette was distraught when the only information we could give her about her birth father was his name.” Sabine had said, adding to Bruce’s confusion. 

“You had my name but didn’t reach out?” Bruce asked, trying (and failing) to figure out the situation. 

“We didn’t have much to go on. Just your name and that you were American and worked in business. Bridgette didn’t give any specifics, and back then it didn’t really matter. I assumed Bruce Wayne was a common enough name, especially in the US.” Sabine replied simply. The rest of their conversation had gone similarly, with Bruce growing more and more lost until the end. They hadn’t even suggested a DNA test (though he was planning on asking Marinette, just so that they could be completely certain). They just wanted Marinette happy. Even if it meant meeting and bonding with the man who hadn’t known about her existence. 

---

Marinette Dupain Cheng was not having an easy week. No, her week was sucky. In fact it was beyond sucky, it was shitty. So many things were happening at the same time, and she was just grateful that she wasn’t currently in Paris, since she was certain she’d be akumatized. From being attacked by the Joker for simply looking like a Wayne, to meeting Batman who was just as angry in person, and then figuring out Bruce Wayne really was her dad and accidentally calling him Batman, to fighting an Akuma by herself (one that she could barely handle) and then to top it all off, Adrien is Chat Noir. And Adrien has a crush on her, as Marinette. And apparently has for at least a month. Oh and now he knows that she’s Ladybug and so last night was filled with her Chat Blanc nightmares all over again. The cherry on the top of this mess was the fact that the class was practically ignoring her. She was sure they weren’t doing it intentionally and that they were just kinda distracted by Lila’s tall tales of Gotham. Tales that include her dating one of Bruce Wayne’s sons. She wouldn’t clarify which one, which was probably for the best. They two closest to their age were 12 and 19. Neither a great option for the 15 year old Italian. A shrill ringing tugs Marinette out of her thoughts. Glancing down at the unknown number attempting to call her, Marinette silently prayed that this would turn her shitty week around. 

“Hello?” She answers, wincing slightly at the way her voice sounds after a night filled with screaming and crying from nightmares. 

“Is this Marinette Dupain Cheng?” A deep voice asks. Marinette frowns. 

“Um, yes?”

“Good. This is Bruce Wayne and well, I’m not sure how to-”

“You’re my dad.” She blurts out, face instantly heating up. “Oh crap, I mean, um-”

“Well yes. I do believe I may be your father. I was in contact with your parents earlier, to ask about boundaries and such. Your mother says that you had shown interest in meeting me and seeing how we’re similar?” He says, the question clear in his voice. Marinette opens her mouth to respond, then frowns. 

“Just like that? We’re gonna meet, just like that?” She asks, hoping that her distrustful tone doesn’t push the man away. 

“I’ll admit that I was going to ask if you would mind a paternity test. After speaking with your mother, I have no doubts, but I thought it might make you feel better. And of course, if you would prefer to just act as though I didn’t speak to your parents and go on with your trip, we can do that as well. I just- I was caught off guard, if I’m being honest.” Bruce Wayne- her father- says. 

“I’ll do it. I- I would like to get to know you. I can’t have a relationship with Bridgette, but if my parents are okay with it, I do want a relationship with you.” Marinette admits, holding her breath as she waits for an answer. There’s silence on the other end for a long moment, but just as Marinette’s about to apologize and tell him he can go and pretend she doesn’t exist, he answers. His voice a little softer this time. 

“I would like that.” 

---

The paternity test came out positive, to no one’s surprise. Bruce had given Marinette the option of meeting somewhere more public (like a restaurant or museum) to bond, or coming over to the manor. Not quite ready to deal with the possibility of paparazzi and the rumors (no matter how true they may be) that would stem from a public visit, Marinette agreed to going to the manor for dinner. Which is how she ended up sitting in silence in a town car with a man who seemed like he knew more than he was letting on. 

“So, you’re the one who raised Mr. Wayne?” Marinette asks, not quite ready to call the man “Dad” or any variation of the word. The man nods and she meets his eyes in the rearview mirror. 

“Indeed, Miss. I am Alfred Pennyworth.” The man, Monsieur Pennyworth, says calmly. She tries not to let the frustration that she feels building show on her face. She feels like she should know this man, like there’s something important that she’s just barely missing. 

“Have we met before?” Marinette finally asks, racking her brain as she tries to figure out why this man is so familiar to her. 

“I don’t believe so, Miss Dupain Cheng.” He says, and for the first time since meeting him, it doesn’t feel like he’s all knowing. Instead, it feels like he’s just as confused as she is. Drat. She opens her mouth to question him more, when the huge manor becomes visible in the distance. Eyes widening, Marinette forgets everything else and turns her attention to the beautiful architecture. The giant fence and metal gates do little to hide the massive house. Sections of the house rise above others, almost as if there are towers. Dozens of windows are visible, as is the giant fountain at the front of the house. Ripping her sketchbook out of her bag, Marinette immediately starts sketching out the ideas that attack her mind. Dresses and suits and skirts, all using the architecture in front of her for the basic shapes of the outfits. As the car goes past the gate and the gardens come into view, Marinette can’t hold back her shocked gasp. Shaped hedges and flowers, hundreds of different colored flowers, and trees and- it was beautiful. Almost too perfect. Like something that belonged in a movie. She jumps slightly as the car door is opened, Alfred standing on the other side with an eyebrow quirked up. Right. She was actually getting out of the car. And going into this massive house. And spending time with her biological- nope. She can’t do this. She can’t- 

“Miss Dupain Cheng, if it makes you feel any better, Master Bruce seems to have run into some traffic on his way back from the office. You’ll have a few minutes to gather your bearings inside before he arrives.” Alfred says softly. Relief washes over her and she nods, finally moving to get out of the car. 

“Thank you, Alfred.” She says, smiling at the man. He nods back at her before leading her up the steps to the door. He opens it and then steps back, allowing her to take a tentative step into the house. Her previous panic is pushed aside as she realizes the inside is just as gorgeous as the outside. Immediately turning back to her sketchbook, she tunes out the world around her and just stands in the foyer, scribbling furiously into her sketchbook. 

“Um, hi?” A voice says, making Marinette yelp and jump, eyes scanning her surroundings until they fall on a guy. A pretty tall guy. 

“Hi.” She says softly, also confused as to who this guy was. Not her- dad-biological father-other part of her DNA-father-Mr. Wayne- not anyone she had ever met, that’s for sure. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dick Grayson.” The man says, extending his hand, a smile on his face. Anyone else probably would have thought the smile was sincere, but Marinette had always been good at reading emotions. And she could tell that he was wary of her. Why would he- oh. Grayson. As in, Richard Grayson, as in this man was her brother. Or, well, maybe he wouldn’t want to be. Maybe he would think that she’s ridiculous or that she’s just here to get money or here to try and pull apart Mr. Wayne’s family or maybe he would think that she was trying to take his place and she would never but maybe he would hate her and- She takes in a deep breath, trying desperately to ground herself and wishing she’d taken up Adrien’s earlier offer of him coming with. 

“I’m Marinette. Marinette Dupain Cheng.” She finally says, reaching out and shaking his hand. He nods, obviously still confused. So Mr. Wayne hadn’t mentioned her. Did he hate her? Did he ask her here to have her sign a NDA? Did he not want anything to do with her? Of course he wouldn’t, he obviously already had a family. A family that he chose, not one that he had by accident. His name was on her birth certificate, surely he would have found her sooner if he actually wanted anything to do with her? He chose Dick Grayson to be his son. He wanted him. He didn’t want Marinette. He-

“Ah, Marinette. I see you’ve met Dick.” The last voice she needed to hear says calmly as he walks through the door. Marinette swallows back the thickness in her throat, the one that tells her the tears will be starting soon. 

“Uh, yes. Mr. Wayne. Um, hi.” She says, flinching slightly when he winces. What did she do wrong this time? Was he really going to tell her to take a hike? If he didn’t hate her before, he surely did now. 

“Bruce, what’s going-” Dick starts to ask but is cut off by screaming voices getting closer to them.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Demon Spawn?” 

“Not my fault your blocking skills are subpar, Todd.”

“Sub- you almost stabbed me, you little shit!”

“Almost, yes. But I didn’t. I’m sure Father will be pleased with my restraint.” 

“You little fu-” “Boys!” Mr. Wayne finally yells as the two screaming walk into view. Both freeze and the younger one’s eyes instantly fall on Marinette, narrowing as he takes a defensive position. 

“Another one, Bruce, really?” The older one asks, making Marinette flinch back. Of course. Two more of his sons-her brothers- who he chose. Another two that he wanted. Not like her, someone he was going to be forced to know. Unless he told her tonight that he never wanted to speak to her again and made her sign a paper saying that she would never contact him again and then they would never have to worry about seeing her again and- oh this is a lot. 

“What were you two doing?” Mr. Wayne finally asks, and that’s when Marinette sees the weapons in their hands. And the blood on the older man’s shirt. The man turns slightly so that that part of his shirt is hidden when he notices her staring. 

“Uh, bonding?” He says, not at all convincing. 

“Who is that, Father?” The younger boy asks, the utter distaste clear on both his face and in his tone. And this is it. This is where he’s going to say that she’s no one, she’s nothing, and then he’s going to make her sign that stupid piece of paper and the last chance she has at knowing one of her biological parents is going to fly out the window. Poof. And then she’ll be so embarrassed, she won’t be able to go back on the trip and then she’ll have to change her name but she can’t completely run away yet because of stupid Hawkmoth and-

“This is Marinette, my daughter.” Well that was unexpected.

Next

Tag List: @maribat-bdbwm @vixen-uchiha @stainedglassm @liquid-luck-00 @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @toodaloo-kangaroo

#maribat bruce wayne #maribat #maribat marinette dupain cheng #maribat adrien agreste #maribat adrienette #maribat bio dad bruce #maribat bio dad au #maribat bio dad! bruce wayne month 2021 #maribat batfam #mbdbwm2021 #day four bonding #ao3fic

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Here’s the transcript of an interview LB did a couple of weeks ago. Be prepared to be annoyed at her not knowing wtf she’s taking about but pretending she does especially in the Darkling and the decision to make Alina half Shu sections:

https://www.penfaulkner.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Literature-on-Screen-Shadow-and-Bone-Transcript.pdf

So there were a few bits in this interview that I want to talk about. I am going to shock you here and say there were actually parts of this interview where I agree with what LB says and gave me the tiniest bit of hope. But before you get too worried its the parts where she is talking about season 2 and her involvement in the show and writing process. Here is what she said when asked what her involvement in season 2 is:

With season two, I've been able to be a little bit more involved in casting, costumes, production design, meeting with directors.

Then I think I am going to step back. I'm not going to be as involved in reading the scripts. I think at this point, we are going to be diverging quite a bit more, and it's all I can say. I really cannot say more than that. I'm about to be descended upon by Netflix assassins. For me, there has to be a moment of saying, “This doesn't belong to me anymore.” The books are mine, they will always be on the shelves, and this has its own life now.

She also said something similar a little later in the interview when talking about changes between the books and the show and how she got negative reactions to saying the show was like an expensive fanfiction:

Which to me is like, "Why are you so mad about fanfiction? It's amazing, first of all. Second, all adaptation is fan fiction. That's what it is. All adaptation is fan fiction." To me, this is the way adaptation should work, where you keep the core and you keep the heart, but you're allowed to play. Otherwise, you cannot ask, I think, a group of smart writers, talented directors, amazing actors to simply transcribe. I don't think that's exciting for anyone.

That funny thing about that second statement about tv adaptions basically being fanfiction is I said it myself in a post a while back. It does seem like LB is more open to changes from her book and it also looks like she is not going to be as involved with the writing process for season 2, we also have heard in other interviews that they are going to be diverting away from the books in the next season, whether that is a good or bad thing is yet to be seen but I do think it is a good thing that LB is taking a step back from the show, as she herself said the books are hers and they will always be there so the show should be the show and it should be allowed to have a life of its own. I've said before but I prefer it with tv adaptions if they don't follow the books because to me that's more exciting than if I know exactly what is coming next, I like to be surprised.

Something else I learned from this interview is this:

Eric Heisserer, he is our showrunner on Shadow and Bone season one and in season two he'll be co-show running with Daegan Fryklind who is one of the wonderful writers from season one.

So from a google search I found out that Daegan was the writer for episode 6 and episode 8. Again whether its a good or bad thing that she'll now be co-running the show with Eric I don't know but it is still an interesting bit of information and I'll take any info I can get on season 2.

However whilst I was feeling optimistic about everything LB was saying about season 2 and was actually kind of impressed at how she seemed to have let go a bit and was happier with the idea of changes from the books than she seemed in the past, but she then said this:

Petra: Following on from that, actually, somebody is asking, and I know you've said that the story is going to diverge from the books in future seasons, do you – Let's assume this is a spoiler too but I'm going to ask it anyways, and you can tell me to get lost. Do you want the shows and the books to end in the same place, the same way?

Leigh: Yes I do. [laughs] Yes, I do. Look, I wrote the books the way I wrote them for a reason, and that – I haven't seen any sense that that is going to change at all, but there are certain things that I know if we get to move forward will change because we'll want to see these characters continue in their adventures. Also because there's a finality to some things that happen in the books that then is sort of undone in later books, I'm really being abstruse here, but I guess my point is there are certain things that are essential to me that stay the same and certain things that I don't care. You learn which things and, fortunately, I've been on the same page with the writers from moment one.

Just no, please no, no, no. This I just don't understand ok. LB and the showrunners/writers must be aware of how unpopular the ending of her books were right? I mean I've seen an interview where LB herself says that she was aware that the ending was controversial amongst fans and that many of them were angry at the ending. You could put up a good argument that it was the thing people hated the most about her original trilogy, the ending. So why on earth would she or the showrunners want to keep that ending? Like any part of it? I mean she says there are some things she doesn't care if they are changed and others she thinks are essential they keep and unfortunately I feel like it most likely Alina losing her powers that she wants to keep and that for me was the worst part of the ending. To be honest it kind of makes me really wary about continuing with the show because I don't want to get invested in the show just to be really let down by the ending. Also if that many book readers didn't like the ending what do they think is going to happen when the tv viewers see that ending, its likely going to be game of thrones 2.0.

As you predicted some of the things she said about the darkling and Alina being half Shu did annoy me. I feel like with Alina being half shu she just sort of glossed over the question which the interviewer brought up the critique that she had wished that they had explored Alina's Shu heritage outside of just the racism she faces and dive deeper into that which LB just basically said they will be exploring more about what it means for Alina to be Shu and Ravkan in season 2. I will say I do hope that they do cover more of the other cultures particularly the Shu culture as we got to know a little about the fjerdan culture through Matthias but we know very little about the Shu culture.

As for the darkling I am not going to go too much into it because its not really anything new I'm just resigned to the fact that LB and I are always going to have different opinions on his character and not to sound too harsh but I don't really care what her opinion or views are anymore. One thing I will point out though is this little tidbit:

Leigh: Look, there's never been a problem creating sympathy for the Darkling. This is a very beloved character, sometimes to my great frustration.

I mean this is nothing us darklinas didn't already know but the next time an anti says that LB never had a problem with people liking the darkling/darklina show them this interview where she openly admits that she found it frustrating. I do kind of feel for her I guess it must be frustrating to write a villain that you meant for everyone to hate only for them to become the most loved/popular character in your series.

#darklina #the darkling #answered #anti leigh bardugo

[aminiatureworld]

A Sea of Fragment VI

Word Count: 3.964

Warnings: Slight violence

Author’s Note: I’m back! This chapter was so enjoyable to write, I missed this series so much! Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Also yes I did see the 2.1 trailer. Scaramouche’s JP laugh my evil beloved.

After your little interlude of conversation with Scaramouche you had succumbed once more to the blinding heat that was enveloping you. Having little sense of the world around you, waking up to bits and pieces of movement only to be stolen away by the darkness again, you found yourself completely disoriented by the sight that greeted you when you finally woke up.

You were in a tent, that much was sure, though beyond that you weren’t really aware of much else. The bed that you were lying on, though slightly damp, was clean, and the top cover, which remained underneath you, was folded over neatly. There was a large table next to you, filled with what could only be medical equipment, as well as a dresser, a chair, and a bench, presumably there for medical purposes. However the high quality material of everything, the tent, the sheets, the pillow, made the whole room seem much too fancy to be a simple hospital tent.

You weren’t sure how long you lay there, too afraid to move in case the world started swimming again, when what could only be a medic walked in. The Fatui emblem was embroidered neatly above his breast pocket, but otherwise he seemed completely, almost unnervingly, normal. The only other thing of note was the Anemo vision strapped to his arm.

“Ah I see you’re awake. Good, I didn’t want to have to call the head medic in again, since she made it perfectly clear already that your case didn’t need her specific supervision. Still, when my lord Scaramouche came in shouting, she couldn’t very well say that, ignoring how banged up you were at the time.”

“Scaramouche was here?” You asked, head still slightly fuzzy.

It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise to hear that, after all you weren’t the one walking to the medical tent by yourself considering the state you were in. Still the image felt like an odd one. You figured he would’ve found someone else to do it for him. Letting this information rattle around in your mind you mutely listened as the medic asked you to hold out your arm for pulse checking, barely listening to his halfhearted small talk.

“Your pulse seems to be evening out a bit,” he finally said. “Good, you were going berserk for a little bit there. We even had to call in a healer, didn’t want you to die. Thankfully the healing seemed to help, my lord was saying something about your state being magic induced, and we were worried that there would be no effect.”

“Thank you for your concern,” you replied, knowing full well that this level of treatment was likely the result of being dragged in by a Harbinger. Still, you couldn’t help but feel somewhat grateful.

“It’s nothing. Better have you alive then a dead body on our hands after all.”

“Fair enough.”

“Still, you’ll have to take care. Your iron levels were also somewhat wonky, so we’re going to give you a week’s worth of pills for that. Come back in a week and if everything seems alright you’ll be good to go. Okay?”

“Alright.”

The medic nodded before walking out. Feeling still exhausted you flopped down on the bed. A breeze seemed to be blowing outside and a part of it came in through the slits in the tent. Letting the wind fan over you, you closed your eyes. Soon enough your thoughts swam into incoherence and you were dragged down into the realm of sleep.

 “My lord.”

Scaramouche jerked his head up from the papers he’d been half heartedly studying. Seeing the medic in front of him he immediately stretched himself up a little taller. At least this wasn’t something completely worthless.

“I assume you’re here to tell me about the condition of the person I left with you.”

“Yes, they have just woken up. Their vitals are no longer in critical condition, and they appear to be alert.”

“Good. That will be all.”

“Yes my lord.”

Scaramouche waited until the medic had left before letting his thoughts roam. You were awake, you were finally awake. Though he wanted to deny it, the relief that flooded through him made it all too apparent how worried the Harbinger had been. When you’d first woken up in his tent he had felt worried, yes, perhaps even slightly frantic. Still, he had assumed that that would be the end of it. You collapsing again had made his blood run cold in a way that rarely, if ever happened. He was Scaramouche after all. The Balladeer, the Harbinger who had no room for mercy in his heart, no time to worry about the lives of other people. After all, does the winter blizzard care about whose house it destroys? Certainly not, it only has to fulfill its goal. Yet he had cared about what was happening with you, even more than that, he’d been worried, perhaps even terrified.

Acknowledging these things left a bitter taste in Scaramouche’s mouth, but he wasn’t idiotic enough to try and deny it. Somehow you had managed to become noteworthy to him, important enough to draw such a reaction out of him. Was this some despicable side effect of your ability? No, it was unlikely. There was no use in looking for excuses or denials. What the Harbinger had to do now was figure out what to do with his predicament. He ought to crush it, to treat you as he would any other low-level lackey, he ought not to have brought you over to his personal section of the medical tents, should have had someone else carry you to the general wing. Those sorts of regrets were too late now however. He had acted out of pure panic, hadn’t even thought of the strict hierarchy that ruled all the lives of those who lived under the Tsaritsa.

Not did your aberrant status help, you who weren’t from Snezhnaya, who had no sense of authority, who had no true place amidst the Harbingers. You were merely there, a shadow that Scaramouche had hoped to command who had instead appeared to have manipulated him in some way.

Yet he couldn’t get rid of you, not now. You were still needed in some capacity, needed to tell him of the layout of the village, the location of the artifact, you had said it was a mirror. Besides, Scaramouche still wasn’t entirely sure whether or not Signora would want to inspect you, having brought you to Scaramouche’s attention in the first place. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility; Signora had a habit of going where she pleased, deriving satisfaction from the ability to draw irritation out of her fellow Harbingers. The mere idea of her sauntering in to inspect you brought a sour sort of taste to Scaramouche’s mouth. Now more than ever he loathed his coworker’s antics.

Still something had to be done, though what was still up in the air. Pondering this Scaramouche stood up. At the very least he ought to look after you, though whether this was tied into the emotions that roiled in him or simple logic he wasn’t yet sure of. At the very least there would certainly be more talking if he didn’t look on you than if he did. If there was anything that the Fatui loved it was erratic behavior. After all those who could be swayed into doing illogical things were certainly much easier to manipulate. No, better for him to make an appearance, to say that he was concerned you were on the verge of death which would have ruined his plans. This excuse in mind he stood up, urging his inner thoughts to silence as he walked out of the tent and into the afternoon sun.

The image he was greeted with upon entering your, or rather his, tent was all too reminiscent of how you had first looked in that forest where he had first met you. Face pale, a slight sheen of sweat visible on your brow, slicking your hair against your neck. Though your eyes had almost immediately snapped open upon hearing the voice of the medic they were unfocused, and for a moment it seemed as if you were squinting to make the Harbinger out.

It was a pathetic image of a person, and a mix of disgust, pity, and worry swept over Scaramouche. Silently hoping that he himself would never look so weak he sat on the only chair in the room, dismissing the medic with a wave of his hand, keeping his focus on you the whole time.

“So,” he began when you two were finally alone, “you have been saved from the teeth of death. If I had known the spectacle you were going to cause I would have never asked you to do such a thing.”

“Most visions don’t go that way,” you replied, voice husky and cracked from lack of use. “It was, it was because of the mirror.”

“You mentioned that before. This mirror, I presume it’s what we’re looking for.”

“I won’t look for it anymore,” your voice seemed to tremble slightly. “Even if my vision it was terrible. It warped the space around it, even from the future. If you were to get into the same room as it, were to try and touch it, I, I don’t know.”

“We must get a hold of it. If it is the Tsaritsa’s wish we would sacrifice a whole reserve for it.”

“How can you say such a thing?” you replied, voice quiet. The dispassionate tone sent a lance through Scaramouche, and for a moment he found himself unable to reply, knowing full well the answers he ought to be giving you, the total loyalty demanded by the archon he served.

“Still,” he finally continued, “you have showed me that you’re certainly not strong enough for this. From now on I will no longer provide you information about this mission, nor will I ask you to do anything to bring it about. All I need is a report about what you saw, if you wish you can write it yourself. There are other things that you would be better suited for.”

“What things? I don’t think you understand. I’m the only one who has seen what could happen, what seems very likely to happen based on the fragments that were lined up in front of me. The best outcome I saw was that you were unable to find it. The worst,” you took a deep breath in, “the worst outcome is that the village goes up in flames.”

“Ridiculous,” scoffed Scaramouche, feeling irritation rise up inside of him. “I thought you would be grateful to hear that you wouldn’t be required to look into the future again, instead you insult me, insult the Fatui.”

“I am glad that you aren’t going to try and force me into the future. I don’t think you could truly convince me to anyways, but I’d rather not fight about it. Still, I want to be there, to make sure that this doesn’t happen. I have to know what’s going on.”

“You don’t have to know anything. I don’t owe you information or position, you’re only here at my pleasure.”

“Yes! I am only here because you forced me to be here, only here because you asked me to do something I didn’t wish to do. And now you take the advice I give you and trample all over it! Why, why are you acting so irrational?”

“You’re the one acting irrational!” Scaramouche shot back, feeling a wave of panic shoot through him. The idea that you had managed to somehow divine the odd emotions that he was currently experiencing seemed unlikely, but that you could sense something was out of place was alarming. “I just need the report,” he pressed, feeling his voice raise in irritation, wanting this to be over.

As you stared at him, silence being your reply, the thoughts that whirled inside the Harbinger’s head seemed to get louder. Why was this suddenly so complicated? All Scaramouche’s career he had easily ordered his way around and over people. Deals were only made with other Harbingers, who quickly stepped aside to let the Balladeer do his duty. Never had someone simply refused his orders. The idea that you would do so, would turn down something so easy and to your benefit, was absolutely infuriating.

“I would like to rest a little more,” your voice finally broke through the thick silence. “I’m tired.”

“I would have gone a long time ago had you just listened to me,” Scaramouche pointed out.

“Please,” you shot him a look, “I’m not in the mood. I don’t want to fight either. I really don’t. It’s the last thing I want to do. I wanted to thank you in fact, for bringing me here rather than letting me lie on the ground or trying to slap me awake or something. But, but you just, you never listen. That’s what makes it so hard, what makes all of it so hard. You never listen so how, how are you ever supposed to hear me?”

The plaintive tone of your voice struck another blow, as Scaramouche found himself suddenly, suddenly what? He found himself leaning out of his chair, the urge to walk over to you so intense it seemed to steal the breath from his lungs. He wanted to do something, though what he wasn’t entirely sure of. To apologize? To demand? To scold? To, to console? What a stupid thing to do. Yet all these things he suddenly wanted to do. Of course he couldn’t do nay of these things, couldn’t push you any farther, couldn’t pull himself back. All he could do was lean forward, as if that might in some way convey what he was feeling.

“Is there something you want?” You asked.

“No,” Scaramouche stood up. “There is nothing more I wish to say to you.” What a lie that was.

Making his way over to the tent flap Scaramouche stopped. Quickly, almost in rebellion with his mind, he turned and walked over to you. Taking your wrist he pressed his fingers to it.

“Your pulse is still irregular,” he noted.

Spinning around and walking out of the tent the Harbinger fought the urge to scream at himself, scream for such an irrational act. Yet part of him wasn’t thinking about that at all, was instead marveling at how warm, how comfortable your hand had been in his own.

 It seemed like an hour had passed by the time your pulse managed to right itself, though surely only a few minutes must’ve passed. You held your wrist in your other hand, staring down at it, as if willing the scene that had just passed to reappear before you. What was that, what in Teyvat was that? You couldn’t make heads or tails of it, could barely acknowledge that it had indeed happened at all. Scaramouche, the Harbinger, the man who had only moments before been berating you, that Scaramouche had walked over to you and checked your pulse, held your hand in his, if only for a moment. It seemed laughable, seemed so surreal as to have been a dream, yet it had surely happened.

Of course maybe to him that had been a completely normal thing to do. After all, the medic had told you that your pulse had been irregular. Surely Scaramouche would have noticed that too. Perhaps his self-righteousness had caused him to want to make his own judgement on the state of your health. Still that didn’t stop your heart from leaping into your throat the moment it had happened, hadn’t stopped you from feeling like you were, for very different reasons than before.

You cradled your wrist, still able to feel the slight pressure his fingers had exerted on it, as if he had somehow branded you. His fingers had been surprisingly soft, not at all rough as you had expected it. Perhaps that was only natural, you knew that he sported no sword hilt, and there were no sharpening stones in his tent, meaning in all likelihood he was a catalyst user. Still, it was unexpected. His fingers had been surprisingly gentle, his palm with which he held your hand was soft and warm. You wondered for a moment what it would be like if he were to hold your hand properly. A small part of you wondered if you might yet do so in the future.

Almost immediately you shook yourself violently, willing those thoughts out of your head. Even now the idea of doing something so domestic, so intimate, with Scaramouche seemed odd, almost heretical. He was a Harbinger, a bloodthirsty man, one who evidently had no problem with a village going up in flames. And yet, and yet…

You sighed, lying back down on the bed. You should sleep, you were exhausted. Everything was going fast, oh so fast. You couldn’t keep up, couldn’t keep up with your feelings, with Scaramouche’s logic. All you wanted to do was block it out, to sleep. As you closed your eyes one final coherent thought floated through your head. He had, despite it all, not asked you to do it again.

 You never realized you were dreaming until about halfway through your dreams. Even then you had no power to stop them, they pulled you along, like a riptide, waiting to drag you down into their depths.

You weren’t exactly sure how you got into the village, the all too familiar landscape. It was hot, and your thoughts seemed to melting along with your legs, as you tried to run towards the now blazing rooftops, yet found yourself hardly moving. Yet you kept moving forward, intent on something, though on what you weren’t sure of. Something very important to be sure. If only you could reach it.

Reaching some sort of back you shinnied your way between the burning. The flames licked at your clothes and at you, but you couldn’t feel them, they certainly weren’t any hotter than the rest of you. In fact the only side effect that seemed to be happening was how close the walls were becoming, so much so that you were barely getting through. Still you kept going, and eventually you found yourself out of the seemingly endless tunnel.

There were a few men in the distance, men who seemed to be barreling towards. Unease spiked through you, somehow you knew that whatever happened they shouldn’t catch you. Yet another part of you dismissed them as no important enough. No, this wasn’t how you wanted it to go, there was something else. As you thought that they seemed to suddenly fade away, or perhaps it was that you had suddenly found yourself somewhere else.

Walking down this road that seemed so busy and so desolate you found yourself in field. Not questioning the black sky above you, the fact that there was a field in the middle of a tiny village, you approached a figure in the middle of the field. Somehow you already knew who it would be.

You had never really thought about the space that Scaramouche took up before. He was simply there, a man, a Harbinger, a person. Just there. Now however he seemed all too small, almost puny. His head was turned to the side, so much as to be unnatural. A slight dribble of blood pooled from his mouth, and his eyes stared with the glassy intensity of the dead, the kind of stare that would forever haunt. You seemed to float above him, high, high above. Yet you wanted to lower yourself, to shake him, to see if he was just pretending. Everything felt glassy and distant, like a play that you were part of but not actively participating in. Soon enough he’d pick himself off the ground and start yelling at you. Soon. Yet someone was wailing in the distance, and for once the voice seemed eerily familiar.

 You opened your eyes, at first seeing nothing before the cloth ceiling of the tent finally revealed itself to you. Lying there, not daring to sit up or roll over or do anything, you replayed your dream. Before it had seemed so distant, so disconnected from you. Now however it close, all too close. Your back was sticky with sweat, and the sudden heaving of your chest, cause panic to flood through your mind, revealed how truly shaken you were. You had seen Scaramouche dead before, had seen his fallen frame in your visions. It had been so different then however. Then he had just been a Harbinger, just been a demanding man. Now however he was, something. Something else.

All this time you had worried about your feelings for Scaramouche, worried that they were just some figment of imagination that stemmed from your visions of the future. Perhaps that was partly the truth, perhaps those visions had indeed provided the fuse for your emotions. Yet somehow you had lit them, or more aptly somehow Scaramouche had. The image of him lying there, dead on the ground, filled you with such distress that it seemed liable to drown you. Even if these feelings were somehow made up, the result of some imagined Scaramouche in the future, some need to line yourself up with some possible path, they were still real. Painfully so, if this was a sign of anything.

Finally sick of lying in one position you sat up. Though the tent was opaque enough you could see little bits of light through the slits of the tent, and the slightly warm air had the distinct feeling of it being at least midday. Standing up you made your way, somewhat hesitantly, over to the flap of the tent. You needed to see Scaramouche, if only to try and convince him again not to go through with such a ridiculous plan. You needed to make sure that your dream didn’t become a reality.

Walking through the tented hallway you quickly ran into the same medic as before, this time pushing a tray with food on it.

“Oh good you’re up,” he said, voice slightly bored. “Maybe you’ll be able to leave tomorrow then.”

“I need to talk to Scaramouche,” you said, words tumbling out and running into one another. “It’s something of the greatest urgency.”

“I’m sorry but my lord isn’t here.”

“Isn’t here? Then, he…”

“He went off on a mission, he said if you were ready to leave before he came back to move you back into your tent tomorrow and to wait until he returned for further instructions.”

“He’s gone?”

“Yes.” The medic replied, seemingly slightly impatient.

Turning around you fell right back onto the bed. Ruining the hospital corners you ripped the blanket over your head, willing it to block out all the light. You needed to get out, you needed to go find him. Somehow you knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Even if you wanted to you doubted the medics would cross Scaramouche’s orders to keep you here until tomorrow. Even more so you had no information on what exactly he had done, though you were almost positive that he had gone to the village. Even if he hadn’t though you had to go check, go make sure. What he was doing was madness, running into a situation without fully comprehending it, what in Teyvat was he thinking?

Anxiety welled up inside you, consuming any and all thoughts you might’ve had. In their place was fear, pure distilled fear. Fear for the Harbinger that you didn’t want to die, and fear for the future that might not come to pass after all.

#genshin impact #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin scaramouche #series #my writing

[jizzie]

who has the biggest base on empires smp? (as of july 1st, 2021)

a somewhat in-depth mathematical deep dive into empire smp’s bases

THE CONTEXT.

for the past two weeks or so, scott (also known as: scott smajor, smajor, smajor1995, dangthatsalongname, and branding nightmare) has been building up his second base, effectively taking down his starter house.

most of this building occured during his streams, where he often proclaimed that he thought he was building the “biggest base on the server.” when his third empires smp video came out on june 26, 2021, his titled said “The Biggest Base on the Server! - Minecraft Empires SMP - Ep.03.”

however, the day after, joel (aka smallishbeans) uploaded his fourth episode of empires smp, titled “Building My House! | Empires SMP | Ep.4 (1.17 Survival).” within this video, he claimed that he had the biggest house on the empires smp server. he even went as far as to trap an afk scott in a cage of stone, and writing out three signs asking scott to change the title of his recent video.

[Image Description: A zoomed in screenshot from Joel’s newest video. The screenshot was taken within Scott’s house. There are two walls shown and a birch floor. In the middle, there are three oak signs. Joel’s crosshair is on the middle sign.

The first sign says: “Hello Scott, please can you change your video title as”

The second sign says: “It says you have the biggest base. This is wrong. My base is bigger”

The third sign says: “Come have a look if you want. - Joel”]

so, that begs the question: who has the biggest base on the empires smp out of scott and joel?

THE SEMANTICS.

now, for the purposes of today’s adventure, we’re only going to be counting the volume within the base. this does not include windows, outside accents, bridges, gardens, walls, doorways, or anything else that is not within the confines of the base itself. floors and/or divides do not count towards the total, as they take up space and are not “easily moved.”

the only exception is balconies--the space on a balcony counts towards the total, though that space is counted differently. on enclosed balcony, i.e. a balcony that is surrounded by fences and has a roof-like structure that blocks out rain, all the space that fits between the fences, the roof, and the floor count.

on an open balcony, i.e. a balcony that only has fences and a floor, with no roof, only the two blocks of air on top of the floor and in between the fences count.

similarly, both of their bases are defined by their respective houses that they built during the episode. their farms, tents, bridges, and any other structure that they have built previous do not count towards the total.

i will be only using screenshots from their own videos, e.g., i will use scott’s video (published june 26, 2021) to find the volume of his base, and use joel’s video (published june 27, 2021) to find the volume of his base. anything that scott has added between his video and joel’s will not be counted, neither will anything that either of them created after the fact.

i will not be counting joel’s most recent video, titled “Pranking Lizzie, Interiors & Windmills! | Empires SMP | Ep.5 (1.17 Survival)”, because that was uploaded when i was writing this analysis. like, after i finished all my counting, but when i was writing this post. so, uh-

also, i am not counting anyone else’s bases within this experiment, though i do believe others have similarly sized bases. the other creators not a part of this post until they officially get involved in the ‘rivalry’

THE METHOD.

first of all, volume is calculated in minecraft blocks cubed. a typical ‘minecraft block’ is just a full block, like planks, logs, or stone. i’m not going to calculate this accurately (i.e. counting the space that the glass panes leave behind), mostly because i cannot be assed.

SMAJOR’S BASE.

the volume of smajor’s house, in theory, is relatively easy to find. because his house is just a right pentagonal prism, we can use the formula B*h to find the volume. B is the area of the ‘base’ (which, in this case, is the front/back of his house), and h is the depth of his house.

[Image Description: Two screenshots from Scott’s newest video. Both screenshots have lowered transparency, and are slightly dulled.

One screenshot is of the inside of his house, as he looks at the back. The floor is still grass, though the walls are up. There are dozens of arrows within the floor and towards the back of the wall. On top of the screenshot, someone has noted that there are 13 Minecraft blocks across the back of Scott’s house.

The second screenshot is from the outside of Scott’s house, as he looks up at it. The house appears to be finished. On top of the screenshot, someone has noted that there are 10 Minecraft blocks from the floor up to the start of the room. There is a red marking where the roof hits the wall.]

there are two parts that add up to B: the rectangular bit, and the roof. in these two screenshots, i’m finding the area of the rectangular bit.

the rectangular bit is 13 blocks across and 10 blocks wide.

[Image Description: A screenshot from Scott’s newest video, with lowered transparency and slightly dulled. It’s from Scott’s timelapse, taken up in the air. Scott isn’t finished building his house. One side of the roof is done, as well as all of the walls below and the two faces. 

There are various notations on the screenshot. A blue marking on the bottom counts 10 Minecraft blocks up. A block above that, a red marking notes that the roof, at its widest point, is 15 Minecraft blocks wide. Another red marking notes the slope of the room. An arrow points towards the top of the roof, saying “later adds on 3 blocks here”

To the right, there is a header saying “TO-SCALE MODEL:” Below, there is a pixel model of the front and back of Scott’s house, which are the same. There is a blue rectangular section on the bottom. On top, there is a red roof. There are 3 purple pixels on the top. Markings on the model show the measurements. A dotted line goes through the model, splitting it up into two sections: a rectangle on the bottom, and the roof on top.

Inside the rectangular section, someone has noted down “11 * 13 = 143 mb^2″ the “143 mb^2″ boxed in. Inside the roof section, someone has noted down “111 mb^2″

Below the screenshot, someone has handwritten “143 + 111 = 254 mb^2″]

the second part is the roof. the roof goes outwards for two blocks, and then goes back inwards. using this reference for the roof, the previous two screenshots for the bit underneath, and cross referencing them to find out where they meet, i created a to-scale model of it!

i found the area of the to-scale model, and B = 254 mb^2

[Image Description: A screenshot from Scott’s video, with lowered transparency and slightly dulled. The house isn’t finished--there’s only half of the side wall and the front detailing. The screenshot is taken from Scott’s timelapse, and is from the side of his base; only the side wall is visible.

Someone has marked over the screenshot with a lime green pen. On the top right, someone has written “* coutning the inner wall only”. An arrow is drawn upwards from one side of the side wall. It says “wall starts here”. On the other side of the wall, there is another arrow that says “wall ends here”. In between the two arrows, someone has made tick marks indicating where the blocks are. On the bottom, someone has noted down “3-wide doorway” by the side entrance. Off to the bottom ride, it says “24 px deep”]

next, i used this screenshot to find the h of scott’s base! this was a bit harder because scott doesn’t show the bottom of his base until he’s already detailed it, but with the precise use of my Big Brain (and my wacom tablet), i counted that it was 24 pixels deep.

so, B * h = V = 254 * 24 = 6096 mc^3

but we AREN’T DONE YET

[Image Description: On the left, there are 3 screenshots from Scott’s newest video stacked vertically on top of each other. The first one is of the side doorway. Pink ticks mark the how many blocks wide and tall the doorway is. On the right of the first screenshot, there is a solid pixellated model of the doorway in the same pink. Inside the model, someone has written “18 mb^3″ in white. On the right of the model, someone has written “volume of the side door-way” in pink.

The next screenshot is taken from the inside of Scott’s base, showing the front doorway. Orange ticks mark how many blocks tall and wide the bottom section of the front doorway is. It is 8 blocks wide and 3 blocks tall. The bottom most screenshot is a picture from Scott’s timelapse, where half of the roof hasn’t been built yet. Someone has drawn lines on the building going horizontally, dividing the top section of the front doorway into three sections: one 3 block section on the bottom, and two 2 block sections on top. On the right of these two screenshots, there is a solid pixellated model of the front doorway, labelled accordingly, in orange. Inside the model, someone has written “39 mb^3″

Below the screenshots and the models, someone has written “6096 - 39 - 18 = Vi = 6039 mb^3]

see, scot also has two main doorways: one at the entrance and one on the right side. i used the first screenshot to find the volume of the side doorway, and the next two screenshots to find the volume of the front doorway.

(this is the part where i might be wrong--i couldn’t find a reliable reference for the the front doorway, so i had to use an extremely zoomed out version. the stripped spruce log section underneath the window is either 2 or 3 blocks tall. i assumed 3 based on the bottom most screenshot but like. i could be wrong)

anyway, the first doorway is 18 mb^3, and the second is 39 mc^3. so, the total final volume for scott’s base is 6039 mb^3.

JOEL’S BASE.

joel’s base, on the other hand, is genuinely fucking insane. like, seriously. what the fuck, joel. you couldn’t have made it harder for me to do my job (it does look amazing though and i love it so much)

so, instead of taking screenshots and calculating the volume of his base through those references, i decided to build a replica of joel’s base in my own creative world, and after fill it with sand. i could then count all the sand from his base and add it up to achieve a (somewhat accurate) volume for his base

[Image Description: An array of screenshots of a replica of Joel’s base, laid out in a three by two grid. Each is labelled with a black, comic-style font. The first screenshot is taken from the front of the replica from up in the air, and is labelled “FRONT.” The second screenshot, which is to the right of the first screenshot, is taken from the right of the replica from up in the air, and is labelled “RIGHT SIDE.” The third screenshot is taken from the back of the replica from jup in the air, and is labelled “BACK.” The fourth screenshot is taken from the left of the replica up in the air, and is labelled “LEFT SIDE.” The fifth screenshot is taken from the front of the base, and the player is on the ground. It is labelled “FRONT (FROM THE GROUND).” The last screenshot is taken from the inside of the base, looking towards the back. It is labelled “INTERIOR (FROM THE GROUND).”]

anyway, most of his base is relatively easy to copy. my replica is pictured above. there are two time lapses within his video that show his process of building his base. the first timelapse (4:59-5:54) is shot from the front of his base, and angled slightly downwards, and is where i got most of my references from. the second timelapse (9:48-9:55) is shot from the diagonally back left of his base, and is what i referenced for the back of my replica.

the roofs themselves are symmetrical: barring the roofs’ intersection, the blue and red roofs are the same the entire way around. this is why, even though i technically didn’t see the back of joel’s base, i knew what it looked like and could get an accurate replica of it.

the only problem is that he never showcases the base from the left. this means that the red and blue roof intersection on the left could be very wrong. the only reference i got for this part was a screenshot at 6:12 (pictured below). this only showcases the inside of the roof, and from bad lighting, but it’s better than nothing.

other than that, though, i’m. pretty sure my replica is accurate! 

[Image Description: A screenshot taken from Joel’s video, from approximately 6:12 in the video. Joel is inside his base, staring up at the red roof from the bottom. The floor is lit up by torches, but the details of the roof are barely visible in the darkness.]

next, i filled his entire base with sand. this was the most tedious part--never have i ever placed so much goddamn sand in minecraft. do not recommend, 0/10

i made sure that i filled the entire base by going into spectator mode! (i can’t fit the pics in here because, well, image limit. but i promise the entire build is full)

and, after 2 diamond shovels, two stacks of torches, a handful of night vision potions, here is how much sand i have:

[Image Description: Four screenshots, layed out in a two by two grid. The first three screenshots showcase the inside of three different double chests. They are all filled to the brim with stacks of sand. On the first screenshot, there are two notations, both in blue: one that notes out that there are 9 columns in a double chest, and another that notes that there are 6 rows in a double chest. The last screenshot is that of the interior of partially-full double chest, with 21 full stacks within it. Someone has noted down “21 stacks” in red.

Underneath the four screenshots, someone has written “number of stacks * 64 = Vt” in black. Beneath that, someone has written “there is 54 stacks in the full double chests” in blue. Beneath that, someone has written “( (54) (3) + 21) (64) = Vt,” in various colours. “(54)(3)” is in blue, while “21″ is in red. The rest is in black.

On the bottom, someone has written “Vt = 11,712 mb^3″]

the final total for joel’s base, as of july 1st, 2021, is 11,712 mb^3

THE CONCLUSION + TL;DR.

scott smajor’s title was not a lie, or at least not at the time. he had the biggest base on the server as of that upload. but soon after, joel created a base that was nearly two times scott’s, creating the bigger base out of the two of them.

so, yeah! joel has a bigger base than scott as of july 1st, 2021

this is because 11,712 mb^3 > 6039 mb^3

thank u and goodnight. send me any asks if u find anything wrong with this stupidly lost post, or if you want any progress pics! love y’all

#empires smp #smallishbeans #scott smajor #smajor1995 #smajor #dangthatsalongname #mcyt #why does scott have so many names 2021 #/ rania's rambles #/ mine #/ analysis #/ empires smp #/ mcyt #/ smajor1995 #/ smallishbeans #also!! didn't include this in the thing but the reason why it says 'july 1st' is bc joel uploaded his video on july 2nd #so july 1st is the last date where these numbers are accurate #:D #also i didn't proofread this bc it is Pretty Late #so hmu if there are any errors

[probably-haven]

Spoilers Galor ...... it is time.... for me to do what ive been considering for quite some time

this is my arguement... on why, whether romantically or platonically, i think you should ship or bro-ship,...... Childe.... and Albedo

HERE ME OUT I SWEAR PLEASE IT MAKES SENSE IN MY HEAD- JUST GIVE IT A CHANCE! rarepair shipping is painful- join me

OR DONT EVEN IF YOU DONT WANT TO GIVE THE SHIP A CHANCE I DO A LOT OF ANALYSIS ON ALBEDO AND CHILDE’S CHARACTERS INDIVIDUALLY, AS WELL AS THE FATUI, THEYRE METHODS, AND THE RELATION WITH MONDSTADT- AND OTHER STUFF- just- if you like reading different analysis-es of the game or ship material or anything- 

please just consider skimming it possibly- 

so for the first section of my argument, i will cover why this is a largely feasible possibility, so let’s set the stage

- Childe is from Snezhnaya, and he is shown to have a large amount of ties to his home, including but not limited to; his family, ice fishing, and just a large number of nostalgic references in his voice lines. 

- Because of this it’s a pretty common occurrence that he finds himself feeling homesick, as with many of the other Fatui.

- This is why he, like many of the other Fatui, so frequently visit and camp within Dragonspine, where the cold snowy atmosphere serves to remind them of home and the things they left behind.

- also in his birthday letter, it says he canonically visits Dragonspine, but explaining it this way gives it feeling 

- so considering that he would be in Dragonspine relatively often, and given the large number of Fatui camps in there regardless, it’s pretty clear he’d have heard of Albedo. So onto Albedo (unfortunately i wasnt there for his event so i dont have as much fuel, but it is what it is)

- there’s a few things that need to be asked first- It’s pretty clear that Albedo must have some interaction with the Fatui given the sheer number of them that camp in Dragonspine. Evidentially, he’s still alive so the question is why? and there’s a few possible explanations for this.

     - He just sneaks around a lot or avoids them (this i think is unlikely, as it would limit his actions while conducting experiments as well as the places where he’d be able to conduct them, which isn’t a big deal, but when there are other options I don’t think this is the one he’d pick)      - He just pulls a traveler and kills them (i don’t think he would do this except for as a last resort, he’s rather disconnected from any sense of empathy yes, but his time is better spent elsewhere. If it comes to that, it comes to that and he will, but he wouldn’t do it as his first option) (also i dont use geo characters much so idk how good he’d be at breaking their shields in this case)      - The Fatui don’t bother or attack him out of their own choice

- i think the third is the most likely, which sounds dumb but hear me out.��

- something that is stressed time and time again during the mondstadt archon quest is the fact that nobody wants to increase the always present strain on diplomatic relations between Mondstadt and Snezhnaya.      - Sure the Fatui do not care very much about this and have many ways to get around this. Signora attacking Venti (technically not a diplomat, and by disappearing she had plausible deniability; traveler’s words against her own, and really both traveler and Venti weren’t supposed to survive that, hence “leave no trace”), or the Fatui constantly attacking the traveler, (who’s canonically travelling alone with only Paimon, always on the move and encountering many unfamiliar dangers, not hard to clear up)      - However despite this, I still believe that Albedo’s safety(and by extent that of Sucrose and Timeus) on Dragonspine is maintained by a mixture of political agreement, situational convenience, and Albedo’s own actions

- its difficult for this to work but i believe it’s the most likely answer, combining all three possibilities that i mentioned above.  - Albedo is an official Knight of Favonius, so his death would cause a pretty dramatic commotion, and since he’s been in Dragonspine for as long as he has, if he was found dead outside of his lab- or suddenly disappeared, the first person to blame would be the Fatui.

- “But Flurp! what about the stuff you mentioned earlier, with Senora’s attack and the Fatui always going after the traveler?”

- context is key. The traveler is a traveler, and Venti was a necessity to achieve their goal. The traveler is also a huge threat to what they are trying to do, since the Fatui have probably heard of their accomplishments. Them attacking Venti was inevitable, no matter the strain it would cause. The fact that the traveler was there as well was merely coincidence in my opinion

- again “leave no trace” means the intent was that both the Traveller and Venti weren’t meant to survive. This is important because if the traveler disappeared, they would have vanished shortly after finishing what they had to do in mondstadt and thered be no reason to suspect anything had happened to them, just that they had moved onto Liyue. 

- Venti would pose risk, but again, the pros outweighed any risk it could have posed to their relations.

- with the Fatui regularly attacking the Traveler, again, that’s easy to clear up and would be difficult to pin on the Fatui, assuming how long it would take to realize they were gone (because despite helping so many people, its still natural to assume they’ve just travelled elsewhere)

- Albedo on the other hand, is technically a legal official, because of his high rank in the knights. He is also only ever really found in Dragonspine and Mondstadt the city. And he is well familiar with the dangers of Dragonspine, so if he were to die there it would be assumed to be either at the hands of the Fatui, or one of his own experiments.

- Thus attacking him is very high risk(unlike the traveler), and since he has nothing to do with their plans, low reward(unlike Venti). 

- So most likely he doesn’t needlessly interact with the Fatui, but should an experiment need to expand into the space of one of their camps, it’s likely he would need some kind of documentation to do so. At the same time, Albedo himself would also not be able to harm the Fatui who frequent the mountain. I TOOK WAY TO LONG TO EXPLAIN THAT UGGGGHHHHHHH anyways

- So set the stage, Childe is visiting Dragonspine, right? And he hears from whichever Fatui Camp he happens to stop in about the one Knight of Favonius that they keep seeing around Dragonspine, the one who just last week came to them with a stack of documents saying they would have to move their camp, it’s annoying but they have orders not to attack him. 

- and then there’s Childe, who’s been living in Liyue, surrounded by people who basically fear Dragonspine as if its some kind of deadzone, and he just assumed that for anyone not from Snezhnaya, thats exactly what it was. He assumed nobody but the Fatui would dare even visit there, let alone be there as frequently as whoever this person was. 

- And he’s got to be pretty important for there to be orders not to attack him, right?       - cue Childe’s unique brand of curiosity, so he asks more, apparently the fellow has a geo vision, and had been spotted taking down or even just lurking by a number of Dragonspine’s dangers as though it was merely routine       - cue flashback to when he first met the traveler, instantly hesitant, hostile, and potentially even afraid towards him as soon as he realized he was Fatui, even before revealing himself as a harbinger.

- so what was it about this guy that made him so convinced he could walk into a Fatui camp alone, order them around, and still walk out alive. Even Childe could admit how underhanded the Fatui were at times, their true orders could have been anything

- He’s not just going to leave now, no. So he asks more questions and figures out that they did at one point scout out his lab while the Knight was out, and give him the location. He’s a harbinger, what are they gonna say “sorry sir, can’t tell ya” no, these bitches see him with the same amount of fear they’d have for Dotorre or Scaramouche or La Signora or any of the others- you don’t just tell a harbinger “no”

- So anyways Childe decides to check it out 

- in the case that Albedo’s mid experiment in his lab when this happens, he’ll probably assume it’s a Knight, since the Fatui haven’t tried anything in quite some time and would just send off a quick “I am in the middle of an experiment right now, I would prefer not to be disturbed”      - and Childe would laugh at his voice because let’s be honest, he thinks of himself as a Chad and it just sounds “weak” to him, and then the scenario leads into what would happen even if he wasnt mid-experiment

and now a look into Albedo’s perspective

- let’s assume that the Knights heard about the Traveler’s role in what happened in Liyue, since it’s kind of common knowledge that Childe was the one who did it, and the traveler doesn’t exactly try to hide that he fought Childe. So considering how often the knights and the Fatui clash, and what happened with Signora, they would likely ask the traveler about it, in order to be better prepared, and for that same reason i feel like the traveler would tell them some of it. 

- so in this situation, it’s likely that Albedo would recognize him and likely know an amount of his combat abilities, and the thing with the fake seals of permission/Osial, but I don’t think the Traveler would have given told any more than that

- so here’s Albedo, surrounded by Fatui camps, knowing that he knows more about this Harbinger than the other thinks he does and assuming that Childe knows more about him himself, but just how much does he know.

- it’s the first time one of the Fatui has come to his lab in- he doesn’t know how long (other than the occasional instance of a wounded member risking the encounter in a moment of desperation. He’s observed that those who wield hydro have never been present in any of these instances, and are most likely designated as healers, but he isn’t in the best position to find out.)      - and the fact that the first Fatui to come to his camp(out of anything other than necessity) is a Harbinger, is certainly very off putting, as he knows that Childe most certainly has the ability to change the orders of the Fatui around him whose cooperation with him is something that he recognizes as very fragile

- and he knows it’s unlikely, in the back of his mind he keeps recalling that this specific Harbinger is the one who resurrected a dead god for the purpose of destroying a city (flashback to the famous “if I destroy Mondstadt” line) but he reminds himself that it’s highly improbable and thus illogical to jump to that conclusion, but he is nonetheless very on edge with Childe’s presence

- However, as with the rest of the Fatui, his hands are legally tied, and unless Childe moves to attack him, any move he makes would only serve to reflect on the rest of the knights

- As such neither would attack the other in this scenario, though Childe would very much want to, and Albedo would very much be prepared to.      - and both of these people are very observant (Albedo in the general sense and Childe in the ‘reading body language for combat’ sense) so both of them are completely aware of that, though Albedo would probably acknowledge that it may just be a result of his own paranoia

- However, unless Childe has orders otherwise, he tends to approach interactions with a more amiable attitude, extending his hand and introducing himself as “Childe,” less flamboyant than normal, because yes he’s extra, but not an idiot, he’s not gonna say “hey girlie, hold still” when the guy obviously has his hand tensed like that, “discretely” ready to reach for whats assumed to be a weapon, a melee one based on the position, sword or polearm probably

- Albedo, isn’t really one for pleasantries though, he has a number of things he still needs to do, and he does not want this Harbinger in or nearby his camp. “I’m aware” he says, giving his full attention, so as not to be caught off guard, and to get this over as quickly as possible. “I assume you have some purpose behind this visit. I am rather busy at the moment, so i would prefer that we keep this interaction brief.”

- and Childe is a little shit who still doesn’t know how to associate violence and hostility with any kind of bad vibes so he just laughs and holds up his hands “relax relax, I’m not here on business, no need to be on edge, right?”

- But Childe has a tendency while speaking to, knowingly or unknowingly, give his words a rather ominous tone. That and the fact that Albedo is in his lab, one of few places in Dragonspine where any misfortune that might befall him could be pinned on his own experiments keeps him from letting down his guard just yet. 

HOWEVER i cant do dialogue... and this isn’t technically a fanfiction so i can summarize-

- Childe is basically all like “so why the shit are you in dragonspine comrade? i thought yall hated it”

- and albedo is all “experiments and this is where my lab is, is ” but like- not key details cuz he isnt going to reveal stuff to the fatui

-and Childe basically be like “ why up here, isnt there other places,” cuz he legit doesn’t get it. He gets that his mindset isn’t the norm, so he’d assume Albedo would want to do anything to avoid Dragonspine and its dangers like what seems to be the norm for what most people hes interacted with have generally agreed

- and Albedo says some flowery words for like oh “In the pursuit of knowledge if one allows themselves to be dissuaded by potential dangers, then they will find it quite difficult to progress beyond that which is already known”

- which, is important cuz it reflects Childe’s mindset on getting stronger, so he’s like yeah, checks out, and being the extroverted shit he is, he has the guts to ask “aren’t you gonna ask why im in dragonspine?” or something because honestly he likes talking about himself, and thats a topic that doesnt have to do with the fatui so it’s an easy way to make conversation.

- and Albedo, who has by now slightly relaxed just enough to resume preparing the experiment he was preparing before Childe came in. and all passive aggressively is like “The same as the rest of the Fatui, most likely. Now if you don’t mind I do have a number of experiments to conduct and I’m afraid it can get rather dangerous, so it would be best that you take your leave now”

- and Childe gets the message that he’s essentially being told to fuck off but he’s also cheeky as shit and absolutely loves to test his luck so he’d be all “I thought you said not to be dissuaded by potential dangers” sounding all proud of himself for using the other’s words against him 

- and Albedo doesn’t have time for this so he just turns back towards Childe, same tone and same face as before, and repeats “it would best that you take your leave”

- Now Childe doesn’t see this as a challenge persay, but he sees how easily it can turn into one, and speaks the two cliche words “make me”

- but Albedo is also a little shit and just turns to resume his experiment, letting out a sigh “Stay if you’d like. I didn’t consider this possibility but I may have to request my lab be made off limits to the Fatui. A shame, I didn’t plan to return to Mondstadt for quite some time”

- and Childe, he’s decently smart- and he knows a number of things, 1 the other harbingers are gonna be pissed if they find out he caused more work for them again, 2 this individual is interesting and he very much wants the opportunity to fight them in the future, and 3 he’s not involved in politics and should Albedo follow through, the Harbingers wouldn’t give 2 shits if he asked them to try and get the change reversed.

- and so he leaves, but he’ll be back

- Albedo’s threat may have given him the upper hand for now, but it also served as a challenge he wouldn’t forget.       - of course it’s not really that big a deal though, just if he’s ever in Dragonspine again and there’s nothing nearby to kill, he’d keep it in mind, and hey, best case scenario he can get more information to contribute to the Fatui

OKAY

- so now that Childe is gone and Albedo is able to reflect on the interaction, at first he’s just relieved nothing bad happened

- within the following day he reflects once again, deciding that the Harbinger most likely wasn’t lying about his intentions, he truly did seem seem to merely have been curious as he had claimed

- in hindsight he also realizes that conversing with him may also allow him to confirm or deny a number of the theories he had on the Fatui, or perhaps raise more questions for him to look into that he had not yet considered... or at least it could as long as he was careful about how he asked.

- AND THUS there a few more meetings, many are purely conversational, each trying to get knowledge from the other while being fully aware that the other is trying to do the same      - not the type of battle Childe is used to, and it does get boring at times, but it’s all part of the game so he persists

- and eventually, as Albedo recognizes this as a regular thing, he begins enlisting Childe’s help in a number of experiments. Just figuring that since he’s doing an experiment and Childe is there regardless, it’s the most efficient option. That and it keeps the more dangerous questions to a minimum, often redirecting the questions towards alchemy, a much safer topic that he does not need to step so carefully around in order to discuss.

- There comes a point where Childe decides to point out the fact that Albedo most often has him help out with combat-requiring aspects of his experiments, and questions why

- Albedo, figuring it was obvious, reminds him of the conversation a few visits ago, where Childe mentioned his drive to get stronger, and(to requote) said that if he didn’t feel these opponents were sufficient to increase Childe’s strength, he could always bring in a couple Oceanids to fight. He then points out afterwards that ruin guards are a bit easier to fight with a bow

- Mixed responses from Childe including but not limited to      - quickly refusing in the language of hydro vision panic, followed quickly by      - oh, so he’s been trying to help this whole time, to-      - how the fuck would he bring Oceanids to Dragonspine, is that even possible?      - followed by curiosity

- and so he brings up the point that he’s never seen Albedo fight, which is a shame. “If you can’t take them down on your own just say so, no need to make excuses.” because heck yeah he’s going to taunt him, I mean this is Childe

- which of course Albedo returns with “If you want to see me in combat, follow your own advice” because of course, by now he knows about Childe’s combat obsession, like you don’t need to know him that long to figure it out, its kind of obvious. 

- but he recognizes the intention, so he finishes what he’s doing checking what he needs for his future plans before exiting the lab, Childe following behind him, eager to see his future opponent in action

- so albedo goes to a ruin guard/grader/hunter(one of those), because otherwise it’s hilichurls or abyss mages and he knows enough to be able to tell that’s not exactly the kind of opponent Childe meant, and he would prefer not to have the topic brought up again, if he knew how to avoid it.

- so Childe stands back and Albedo, who is well accustomed to having to defeat the enemies in Dragonspine in order to get components for his alchemy knows exactly how to kill this bitch cuz honestly, the number of these guys he’s probably killed for research purposes is astronomical, so it’s done rather quickly and methodically, as if just another part of routine, exactly the way that it had been described when Childe was first asking the Fatui at that one camp about the alchemist.

- And that interest/intrigue that had started in the side of Childe’s mind and grew over time into one of the reasons(tho not the main reason) that he would often go to Dragonspine... it multiplied exponentially

- cue a few more visits and a new turning point occurs

Klee

- Childe comes to visit, and upon arriving at the lab he sees a child

- cue Childe approaching again, amiable grin on is face “and who’s this young lady”       - because it’s literally canon that he’s good with kids

.....

- but Klee isn’t any kid

- and Klee was there for the briefing so she has just as much information on Childe as any of the other higher ranking knights      - and only that much information

- a short time later they’re cleaning up the scattered remains of what was Albedo’s last experiment, lucky that the explosion was set off near the entrance so the damage wasn’t too extensive

- “Please don’t tell Master Jean, Dodocco said he was sorry”

- Cue Childe’s “I’m not a bad guy... okay I’m kind of a bad guy” quote       - “but I mean no harm, I’m a friend of Albedo’s”

- and Albedo’s standing there like when I agree to that but he wants to see how this plays out

- and I’m really unfamiliar with Klee’s characterization, but you get the point Childe is canonically god at kids, he’s gonna learn that Klee’s basically Albedo’s little sister, Klee’s gonna get attached to him and remind him of his siblings back home, Childe’s interaction with Klee is basically what gets Albedo to start actually somewhat trusting Childe as opposed to just using him from a metaphorical distance and subtly helping in ways that wouldnt really negatively impact the knights

- and now that hes no longer actively distrustful his mind is more open to actually becoming attached, as he now begin to recognize that that which he initially believed to be mere manipulation tactics was actually just... Childe being genuine, or as genuine as a person can be in their situation

OKAY OKAY OKAY NOW THAT ALL THAT IS ESTABLISHED I CAN GET INTO THE DYNAMIC 

- so theres the obvious things i already mentioned, like their mutual extreme drive to improve in their respective fields that separates them from others, even within their own respective groups/organizations which already(to an extent) separate their members from most others

now lets talk about this point specifically

- both Childe and Albedo are capable of helping each other grow in their respective fields.

- two things that have the potential to cause Childe trouble and lessen his combat ability and the problems with his delusion and his foul legacy transformation

- these two things are things likely unlike anything that Albedo has been able to study before (tho delusions he might have some experience with- but it’s unlikely) and it would likely be able to expand his knowledge, were he given the opportunity to experiment them, while simultaneously helping childe improve his strength

HOWEVER

- both of them know just how fragile the relationship(whatever it is) between them is, how quickly tensions can shift and orders can change, so in order to protect both the other and themselves they both understand that actually going through with this wouldn’t truly be safe and both sides could get in trouble for it

- because no matter what they do there will always be a constantly present risk hanging over their heads, but ill come back to that

- Dragonspine      - in a lot of Albedo ships, the other character has to go through the effort of going to Dragonspine, which tends to serve as an obstacle for the relationship to be overcome (exception of sucrose and... idk do people ship him with Timeus? just in case, recognizing them both as potential exceptions)       - However, in the case of Childe, who legitimately enjoys coming to Dragonspine, he wouldn’t hesitate to visit Albedo      - with most it becomes “wow, i haven’t seen Albedo in a while, gee, i wish he’d come down the mountain, nonetheless i am a good lover so i shall make the harsh trek to see my beloved”      - with this bitch Childe tho it’s more like “oops, feelin’ homesick, Imma see how Albedo’s doing, hope he’s made progress, wonder if Klee will be there” or “Wow I haven’t seen Albedo in awhile. Finna finish up these fatui duties real quick and head over, if i say im checking on the Fatui stationed there, I dont even have to ask to go on leave” (he gets in trouble for not officially asking for a day off anyways)

-anywho, Childe is largely used to interacting with the Harbingers, who always seem to have some other secret second layered plan of sorts that he’s not always informed about (ex: him being intended to fail when he summoned Osial, but being kept in the dark about it), which conflicts with Childe’s relatively straight forward nature      - Albedo also possesses the potential to be similar, however he doesn’t often see the need for such things, preferring to be frank about his goals and expectations, so unlike with his fellow harbingers, Childe knows that when Albedo tells him something or asks something of him, what he’s being told is usually exactly what actually is true/intended. And if it’s not, Albedo is the kind of person to explain that it’s something he can’t tell him, which he understands, since he has his own share of things he cant share because of his Fatui alignment.

- there is going to be an interaction where at some point Childe is rambling about his family back home, and Albedo questions him about what they look like, a few days later handing him a surprisingly accurate drawing of his siblings      - “I did have to try to check appearance with the traveler but unfortunately they weren’t in Mondstadt, do I do hope there aren’t too many inaccuracies”      - Homeboy doesn’t cry(probably) but he gets really fucking close      - cue socially isolated Alchemist boy misunderstanding and trying to apologize, which Childe responds to by just hugging him- because both of these boys are touch starved and honestly they fucking need it. 

- and now that Childe knows Albedo doesn’t actually have a significant boundary on physical affection, as with most Childe ships... it happens a lot

- headcanon that Childe tends to just lean/rest his head on things like a dog.  - additional headcanon that Albedo tends to have a need to keep his hands busy at all times     - so just cue the scene where Albedo is working on experiments as usual, Childe watching from behind with his head rested on his shoulder and Albedo just absentmindedly playing with his hair with one hand while the other continues with his work

- also talking with Albedo gives Childe a a lot of harmless fun facts and he loves rubbing it in they’re faces when he gets to correct one of the other harbingers on something because of this

- Albedo does also have a tendency to overthink things though, and Childe’s more straight forward mindset gives a new perspective that helps him work around issues more often than he would have expected

- Also Albedo’s love language is totally words of affirmation (i will die on this hill, he doesn’t even realize he does it probably). So he wouldn’t hesitate to sincerely thank or praise Childe whenever he helps or does something good. And Childe is a Fatui, most of the praise he gets is from the subordinates who admire him yes, but also lowkey highkey fear him, and especially after all of Liyue knows he summoned Osial basically, he is pretty damn starved for affirmation and praise and wouldn’t even notice just how much until Albedo gave that to him.      - like Childe is over here melting into a puddle of fluff and Albedo probably wouldn’t even realize what he’s doing, he’s just stating his observations out loud

- Childe and Albedo making a pinkie promise, Childe does the little Snezhnayan chant, and Albedo’s gaze just shifts slowly towards the nearby frozen lake in intense concern

- They go ice fishing with Klee who introduces Childe to fish blasting and it’s a whole new world of possibilities now. Albedo has many regrets.

- the harbingers have all basically figured it out by now and are concerned about security but mostly they just mock him for it      - the Fatui stationed in Dragonspine however, probably know because 1 they’ve seen Childe with Albedo almost every time he visits, and Childe brags about it regularly           - at this point a majority of them ship it and needless to say Albedo’s risk of death via Fatui has gone down significantly, and it’s had a surprisingly positive benefit on relations between the knights and Fatui overall

- the Knights took a bit longer to catch on, since Albedo isn’t exactly in Mondstadt all that often, but it’s the city of freedom, what are they gonna do? say no? again, they are concerned about security risks, but trust Albedo to recognize what should be withheld.

- also its canon that Childe enjoys cooking, and Albedo has a line about like... let me look it up rq- It’s his “Least Favorite Food” line which talks about how he doesn’t eat at restaurants cuz he has a small appetite and doesn’t want to waste food, which is unfortunate cuz then he has to spend time making his own food      - idk its kind of small but i just saw it and thought it was kind of a cute detail

- Childe is a chaotic bean and we love him for it      - on the other hand Albedo is more calm and patient, able to put up with this, and realistically, he has enough experience with Klee to not accidentally put him out or down or otherwise dampen his natural personality...... it’s just when the two of them get together that Albedo experiences true fear.

- Albedo: I have an idea for an experiment but the Jean has suggested that the risk is- - Childe: you should do it! - Albedo: -that the risk is too great and has disallowed me from continuing it - Childe: Oh? well she can’t tell me not to it, now can she?  - Both: *mutual gremlin noises*

anyway... im probs gonna add more to this later.... I’m just really bad at coming up with ship dynamics- so my main point in this is to get people to realize that it possible and that it could work- because there is... nearly 0 material on it- and i just think it has the potential to be so wonderful but I do not have the potential to make it that way. Like it has the potential for so many different dynamics and iconic moments and theres so many reasonable ways they could meet and just so many possibilities and im just really hoping to show the ship to more people because, y’know, it’s rare and i want them to suffer from the lack of content too, because I’m just a kind person like that.

i would have put it under a cut if i could, but i have no idea how to do that so... apologies...

#genshin impact #rarepair #genshin ships #childe x albedo #chibedo #chilbedo #idk theres no ship name for them #genshin analysis #genshin lore #genshin albedo #genshin childe #genshin fatui #genshin mondstadt #mondstadt #genshin dragonspine #dragonspine #genshin headcanons #genshin hcs #genshin fanfic #genshin imagines #genshin harbingers

[givemethatgold]

Fix’er Upper Pt. 5

Pairing: Frankie Morales x F!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of past abusive relationship, swearing, past drug use, alcohol

Word Count: 1.8k

Notes:

Parts ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR

Your injury, and consequential recovery time, couldn’t have come at a better time. The harvest was done and the apples had to rest before being pressed, which meant Frankie was now free to start working on your home. The work didn’t often require more than two hands so the days found you doing menial tasks being his gopher.

“You know,” Frankie had had to explain to you, “Go’fer this, go’fer that.”

This mainly consisted of you passing him tools while he was swearing under his breath in the attic, or groaning after rapping his knuckles under the sink, or white-faced and clinging to the weathervane on the roof. 

You had discovered Frankie’s sweet tooth on the first day of renovations, not noticing until after he’d left for the day that more than half the cookies you’d baked that morning were already gone. Making sure he was kept happy, you had a new treat ready for when he walked in the door. 

He was a coffee drinker though, and while you owned a coffee press you had never actually used it yourself, preferring tea leaves for your dose of caffeine. You’d tried, the first morning, to make a cup for him. You even googled How to Make a Cup of Coffee? to make sure you didn’t fuck it up. 

You could laugh about it now, but the look on Frankie’s face after he’d taken his first sip made you worry you had poisoned him. He had spat the black sludge out and handed you back the mug with a look of bewildered disgust. Apparently, you needed to grind the beans first, who knew?

An efficient, if not quite comfortable, rhythm had been forged between the two of you over the past week and a half. Frankie would arrive at nine in the morning, scarf down half a dozen treats while discussing the day’s projects. You would run to town in his truck (yours was still at the autobody shop awaiting parts) and buy any supplies that would be needed while he set up the worksites and organized the tools that would be required.

You had added popping into the local café for a large coffee for Frankie and a red rooibos latte with almond milk for yourself. The first couple of days you had bought him a brownie too but stopped after he’d only half-finished the first one and mumbled through the crumbs in his mouth that yours were better. It only took you three days before the owner had your order ready for you before you even walked in the door, five days before you noticed the sidelong glances the little old ladies were giving each other as you walked out.

Small towns, you thought to yourself, rolling your eyes, had the unique benefit and downfall of everyone knowing everyone else’s business. They’d quit with the hardly-concealed smirks if they knew how awkward working with Frankie was becoming.

You had been sure, in the immediate aftermath of waking up in Frankie’s arms while his truck sat in your driveway, that he was never going to speak to you again. The two of you and hopped out and began explaining away whatever conclusions Jacquie and Mark had made. Then Frankie, without even looking in your general direction, told Jacquie to get you inside and have your wrist looked at. 

To his credit, he had taken care of everything regarding your truck for you. The tow truck came and hauled it to the yard, Frankie had commandeered the inspection report and, after calling them out on trying to swindle you into buying unnecessary parts, had ordered what was needed and paid. 

You had, naturally, argued against this but you both knew you weren’t in a position to afford it. Frankie shut down your arguments gracefully, and broke his apparent vow of silence, with a gruff “I’m just doing it so I can drive my damn truck without you changing the radio station.” The absolute charmer.

It was your damn house, though, so you decided you'd talk as much as you wanted and it would be up to him to interact. Either that or you had music blaring from the radio, never playing his favourite country station purely out of spite. 

Never quite sure if he was listening or not, you rambled on about anything and everything. You explained your vision for the house and the plans you had for a greenhouse in the yard. Memories from your childhood were described in great detail, as were embarrassing stories from your year in college. Baking tips, waxing poetic about your love for sunflowers, interesting animal facts, you'd even downloaded a Word of the Day App and made a game of fitting the words into your daily uninterrupted monologues.

It took three days for Frankie to break.

You had been reminiscing about your trip to Disneyland as a child when he abruptly cut in, voice muffled due to the nails being held between his lips.

"You never talk about it."

You assumed he was referring to the little all-day nap you’d shared in his truck, as it had yet to be spoken of, but were taken aback by the slight accusatory tone.

"Talk about what?"

He took so long to reply, you started to think that he had interrupted purely to shut you up. The silence demanded an explanation though, so you kept your mouth shut and waited.

Clambering down from the attic, where he had been strengthening the trusses throughout the sagging section of roof, Frankie pinned you with his gaze and softly repeated himself.

"You never talk about it. The time in your life when you were married." He must have seen your hackles rise because he quickly set down the hammer and held his hands up in a placating wave.

"You still haven't answered my question about being in the army," was your quick response, finished with an ever-so-mature, "so there."

With a resigned sigh, Frankie twisted his hat around backward and scrubbed his hands across his face. "Come on" -waving you towards the patio doors- "these kinds of conversations require fresh air and a drink."

Reluctantly you followed him outside but rather than sinking down onto the porch swing you opted to lean against the post facing it. Opening two ciders, which you now had free access to, you handed one to Frankie and watched him over the top of the bottle.

Half of your drink was gone and your mind had wandered to greenhouse and flower garden placement before Frankie spoke again. His voice low and quiet catching you by surprise.

"Yeah," he broke the silence with another ragged sigh, "I, uh, I served. Started in the Air Force, worked my way up to Special Tactics Squadron. Made enough noise there to get recruited to Delta Force."

"Oh, fuck," your exclamation was soft with shock "you've seen some shit then." Blast your runaway mouth and its inability to wait for your brain to catch up before blurting out your inner thoughts. "I'm sorry!-"

"No, it's okay" Frankie interrupted, trying to reassure you and remove the horrified look that had come across your face. 

"No, no, that was totally uncalled for. Brad, my um, my husband, he was a Marine. He hated talking about it, said no one liked talking about it. I should have known."

"It's not that," Frankie reassured you again, "You were the first person to ever ask me about it, in all the time I've lived here. Just took me by surprise."

Leaning over in the swing, Frankie pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and handed you a photo from inside it. Five men beamed up at you. You could recognize them from a few of the photos that had rested on Frankie's mantle, they looked older in this one.

"Tell me about them?" you asked, knowing that most of the request was due to curiosity but a small part of you hoped that if you kept him talking you could avoid the subject of your marriage.

The sun was beginning to set and you'd long moved inside to eat dinner by the time Frankie was done sharing. It must have been cathartic, you mused, for him to bare this much about himself. He had never looked more relaxed in all the time you'd known him, which wasn't saying much and it could just as easily been due to the amount of alcohol thrumming through his system.

The room fell into a companionable silence, each of you digesting the information that had been revealed. You were in awe of the fact that, despite the life of violence he had witnessed, Frankie still maintained his humanity. Even after a messy divorce and lost custody battle, Frankie continued to choose the path of healing. He was clean, was fighting for shared custody of his daughter again, running his own business, and still had found time to endear himself into the town's hearts.

Frankie was, for all his sharp edges and gruff words, a sweetheart.

It put into stark comparison how Brad had reacted to the lemons life had served him. Born into an upper-middle-class home, the only son, doted on by his parents, Brad had been raised into a life where every door was open to him. Despite this, or maybe because of it, he had grown hateful of those weaker than him. He was controlling but had just the right amount of charm to pass it off as caring.

"I've met men like that," 

You nearly jumped out of your skin from surprise. Looking at Frankie with wide-eyed shock you wondered again what the hell was in the cider. This was the second time you'd poured your heart out to a virtual stranger, but this time you hadn't even realized you'd started speaking your thoughts aloud. 

Squaring your shoulders and holding Frankie's gaze you continued, almost challenging him to find someone worse than Brad had been.

"He made me quit college because he said he wanted to start a family. Then berated me and acted like it was all my fault every time the pregnancy test came back negative. You know what that asshole did?" Tears were threatening to fall but you held on to Frankie's gaze, "He had gotten a vasectomy months earlier. I didn't find out about it until after he died; going through paperwork that had been stored in his desk."

Frankie was up on his feet now, pacing around the kitchen island, too distraught to keep still. How could anyone be so cruel? Let alone be so cruel to someone as sweet and pure as you. He hated seeing you cry but knowing you weren't receptive to people being in your personal space, wasn't sure how to comfort you. 

Acting on pure instinct he grabbed the kettle and started preparing you some tea, not allowing himself to ruminate how he knew which flavour you preferred. Setting your favourite pottery mug in front of you, along with the little honey pot, he also decided to grab the fluffy throw blanket off your couch. 

"I get it now," he thought to himself offhandedly, "why women have so many fuckin' blankets and pillows in every room."

Placing the throw around your shoulders he was preparing to say goodnight and let you have some peace but was stilled by your hand reaching up and covering his.

"Please. Stay."

Part SIX

If you want to be tagged please send an ask! Replies get lost

TAGS:  @rebelliouscat @pedro4ever @speakerforthedead0 @yespolkadotkitty @ilikechocolatemilkh @weirdowithnobeardo @pedro-pastel @disgruntledspacedad @a-skov @trash-dino-5000 @reader-s-cantina @pascal-rascal424 @alberta-sunrise @pascal-rascal424 @bts17army @sarahjkl82-blog @grogusmum @radiowallet @vonschweetz @greeneyedblondie44 @diaryofkali @cassandras-nest @silverstarsandsuns @haapeaness

#Fix'er Upper #Frankie Morales x you #Frankie Morales x F!reader #Frankie Catfish Morales x you #Frankie Catfish Morales x reader #Frankie x reader #Frankie x you #Catfish x reader #Catfish x you #Triple Frontier fanfiction #Frankie Morales Fanfiction

[puff-poff]

The Culture of the Demon World

One part of The Promised Neverland that I always wanted to learn more about was the demons and their culture. Demons are a whole new race with their own language, religions, traditions, food, and history, and I want to learn more about their society. So, I decided to do a bit of research on a few specific aspects of the demon world. After writing everything down and connecting the pieces while trying to remain true to canon, I finally have something clear enough to share with you all.

Without further ado, I present to you my analysis of demon culture.

Part One: Clothing Just like in real life, the clothing demons wear depends on their social status and wealth. The middle and lower-class demons wear loose, flowing clothes with wide collars and sleeves. They most likely do this just in case they aren’t able to eat human meat and maintain their form; baggy clothes won’t tear if the demons start to degenerate. This is why the wealthy demons wear tighter clothing. Tight-fitting outfits show that you can afford plenty of human meat and that you aren’t worried about degenerating.

Many demons, both poor and rich, wear long, layered clothing, but it’s hard to tell if this is a societal standard or a byproduct of cold weather. Almost all of the demons we see are wearing long-sleeved tops and ankle-length bottoms, as well as a jacket, shawl, cape, or scarf. However, the feet and hands are almost always uncovered.

A major part of demon clothing is, of course, their masks. This extra page explains the styles and functionality of the Goldy Pond demon’s masks:

Like the rest of their clothing, wealth plays a part in demon’s masks as well. Detailed masks with large horns, like Luce’s, are worn by rich demons who want to flaunt their wealth, while lower-class demons wear simple, paneled masks with short horns. Demons who want a more functional mask might choose one without horns so they don’t get in their way. The aristocrat demons also have a unifying feature between their territory’s masks to differentiate themselves from the leaders of other territories. Whether or not your mask shows your mouth appears to be a personal preference since Legravalima, Mujika, Sonju, Awla, and Mawla all have uncovered mouths despite the character’s drastic differences.

Another detail I would like to point out is the material of the masks. Most demon masks are likely made of a material similar to clay, but there are a few demons with special masks that appear to be made out of something else. Nous and Nouma, for example, have athletic masks coated with shiny material that’s probably similar to polyester. However, it was Legravalima and Sonju’s masks that interested me the most. Legravalima’s mask is smooth, glossy, and seemingly made out of metal. A metallic mask is likely a sign of royal status and immense wealth. This explains why Sonju had a metallic mask as a child, and why he doesn’t have one now. When he was a prince, Sonju wore a shiny mask with a design similar to Legravalima’s. After running away with Mujika, he grew out of his mask and now wears a clay one of the same design.

This might just be the art style of the series changing over time, but I also find it interesting that Sonju’s mask suddenly becomes glossy in chapter 156 during the battle at the royal capital. It’s his first time stepping foot in the palace since he ran away, and it’s as if his mask is suggesting that returning to the palace has given Sonju his royal status back.

Part Two: Architecture In many ways, the architecture in the demon world reminds me of places like the Sant Francesc Church in Spain and Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. As time goes on, old buildings are expanded and improved with modern additions to accommodate the changing world. This can be seen in the paradise hideout, where a newer building was constructed next to the original settlement.

The old, traditional demon buildings are made of clay and other types of stones. They don’t appear to have many windows, and the few windows they do have are holes without window panes. Many of the older buildings were carved out of mountains or trees, or at least rest atop a mountain with steps carved into the side. This traditional style of demon architecture is similar to old Pueblo architecture and adobe homes.

The newer demon architecture likely came into style sometime before Goldy Pond was built, seeing as Goldy Pond has buildings similar to those in modern demon villages. It resembles the European Tudor style with its grid window panes, timber frames, and sloped roofs. The walls were probably made using the wattle and daub technique and painted white or cream. Some of the buildings have stone foundations, but unlike the old style of architecture, the stones are laid like bricks. Buildings made using the new style of architecture also have shutters, awnings, and Juliet balconies.

This picture of the royal capital’s streets perfectly shows the mixing of the old and new architectural styles:

Here, you can see the original clay buildings with the balconies, awnings, and wooden frames of the new style added on. The buildings in the foreground have open windows while the ones further back have grid panes. One of the structures on the right is built in the style of the older demon homes, but it uses modern stone bricks and balconies. This blend of architecture helps show the development of the demon society through the years.

Part Three: Food Human meat is the most important food in demon culture since it’s what keeps the majority of demons from degenerating. I won’t be talking a lot about the farms and human meat in this post since it’s already been explored by the manga and people smarter than me. If you want to read more about demons and human meat, I recommend this post by the-silliest-idiot and this translation of the fanbook, particularly the Q&A sections.

As explained in the manga, the appearance of demons changes depending on the type of meat they eat. The aristocrat demons eat human meat, Parvus eats monkey meat, and the demon horse Sonju rides eats horse meat. As explained in the fanbook, humanoid demons will lose their human appearance if they don’t eat human meat, but monkey demons like Parvus can retain their appearance for a while. To keep themselves from degenerating or changing forms, humanoid demons don’t eat a lot of meat other than the human meat from the farms. When the demons do eat other meats, they eat bugs, fish, and birds, probably because those animals are difficult to change into.

While it’s unclear if demons eat the plants in the forest, we know that there are plenty of edible berries, nuts, fungi, and other plants that the human escapees eat during their travels. Demons also have a variety of fruits, vegetables, and nuts that they grow and harvest. In just these two panels, we can see that the demons have their own versions of pears, hazelnuts, pineapples, kiwi, and mangos (the mangos seem to be popular in the royal capital).

All demons, regardless of wealth or social status, appear to have equal access to all food except human meat. Lower-class demons get low-quality meat, but the same berries and nuts being sold at street markets are present in the Tifari offering.

Part Four: Language Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to decode the old demon language. In the words of the fanbook, “Sugita created demon god's name, but every other text from the demon language that appeared afterward was Posuka's creation.” The language was made up by Posuka, and I’m not sure if there’s enough dialogue to translate a full alphabet. The old demon language looks like a combination of Japanese and Enochian, but that’s all I can gather from it. It’s also unclear if the language has a written form. 

However, the old demon language isn’t used anymore. The language died out for two major reasons; a general lack of knowledge and to separate language from the old faith. The aristocratic demons know the language well enough, but we don’t see many commoner demons speaking it. The modern demon society writes in English, as shown by the signs at Goldy Pond, and it’s likely that they also speak English despite the story being written in Japanese. There's also a chance that the demons speak Old English since the promise was forged during medieval times. If this is true, then the aristocrats and heads of the farms could have a more modern accent because they often talk to people from the human world.

Part Five: The Arts Sadly, we don't know much about art in the demon world. The promise was made around the 11th century, so art in the demon world is likely reflective of that time. I can only assume they have their own literature, art movements, and music, but it's mostly speculation. One thing I noticed is that the demon world has a lot of embroideries, whether it be on the edges of a cape or banners inside the palace. This fits with my theory of medieval Europe-inspired art and languages. During medieval times, top layer garments such as coats and cloaks were commonly embroidered along the hemline and cuffs. This kind of embroidered clothing is worn by many demons throughout the series.

Banners, tapestries, and flags were also commonly created by artists during medieval times. Lines of flags are seen throughout the demon world, and a few buildings in the capital have banners hanging outside. The palace has a few banners of its own, though they're fancier than the ones in the capital streets.

Damask fabric is another example of demon artistry being influenced by medieval Europe. Damask is a reversible fabric created by weaving. The royal demons seem to have jumped on the damask train before the promise was sealed because it can be found in many places throughout the palace. Most notably, Legravalima's dress is partially made of damask, though the silhouette is very different from that of a medieval damask evening gown. Damask was commonly used to make curtains as well, like the ones draped around the Tifari offering.

We don’t know much about literature in the demon world. The books we see were written in the human world and sent to the farms, but surely the demons have their own books and stories. Seeing as the rest of the arts in the demon world were inspired by medieval Europe, I can only assume that their books, fables, and plays are as well. Much of medieval literature was based on religion and chivalry. There were also many fables and myths derived from old stories and religious texts. Demon children probably read many stories about the Evil Blooded, the runaway prince, and heroic knights who protect the demons from harm. There likely are many stories written in the old demon language as well. Similar to Latin and Old English in the Middle Ages, the old demon language was probably the main written language until the 11th century, when the demons began using English as a primary language.

I imagine that Anglo Saxon, Byzantine, and Norman (ha get it) art heavily inspired art in the demon world. The palace is likely covered in tapestries and murals depicting historic events. Metal and tilework were probably once a major part of demon artistry, but the practices died out over time. Instead, many demon artists practice painting and embroidery. Pieces of art in the demon world would be very vibrant and colorful, especially the works displayed in the palace.

When it comes to music in the demon world, there isn’t much to go off of. We know that the farms have access to instruments and sheet music because of Leslie and Nat. Barbara also sings a Japanese children’s song in chapter 113. Unfortunately, we don’t get much information about music in the demon world outside of the farms. I assume that demons primarily play string instruments and piano because of their long fingers. They also have more fingers than humans, meaning they can make a variety of chords that humans can’t. More fingers also allow demons to add more strings to their instruments. Even though it’s possible that demons have their own special instruments, we know that they also have human instruments like cellos, trumpets, and pianos.

Conclusion: There’s a lot more I wish I could talk about (mainly the elements of culture), but I’m stopping for now so this doesn’t get any longer. Feel free to correct me or add on anything I missed. If you made it this far, thank you for reading this incredibly long analysis of demon culture and I hope you have a great day.

#am I reading into this too much? yeah #the promised neverland #the promised neverland manga spoilers #tpn #yakusuko no neverland #ynn

[writing-red]

The Daughter of the Dog | 1

Fred Weasley x SirusBlacksDaughter!Reader

Summary: That fateful night that would wrongfully land him in Azkaban Sirius Black left his three-year-old daughter at the door of her godfather, Remus Lupin. Now as she enters her fifth year at Hogwarts she is a-fronted by her peers and their outward fear of her presence.

Warnings: bullying, cussing, slow burn relationship, bullying, asshole teachers (Snape.)

Word Count: 4.3k

A/N: If y’all like this I’ll continue on with this :)

chapter one, chapter two

“Remus you can’t make me go to school this year. Everyone there already hates me, and now that dad is all over the Daily Prophet, it’ll all just be worse,” you made your case to your godfather for the hundredth time this summer since your father had broken out of Azkaban.

“Y/n, you have friends who will have your back,” Remus said, he felt terrible, and he knew you were right, but he also knew how important it was for you to be at Hogwarts. “I’ll be there, and Dumbledore and McGonagall will make sure nothing happens.”

“Gryffindor’s aren’t as nice as you think they are,” you retorted. “And I do not have friends, that’s a joke. Everyone despises me, even some of my bloody professors hate me,” you were particularly referencing Snape who’d had it out for you since your name had been called for sorting your first year.

“That’s impossible, of course, you have friends, what about the twins?” he asked, and you ignored him. It was true that you were close with Fred and George, but you felt that virtually everyone other than those two Weasley’s hated you.

“I’m glad you, dad, and Uncle James were just so popular when you went to school, and everyone just bloody loved you, but it isn’t the same for me,” you said, finally deciding you were done with the argument and storming upstairs, you knew that Remus wasn’t going to budge about his decision, but you’d put up as much of a stink as you could, and being that September 1st was only a week away you figured your case had failed.

Remus let you storm out, you were fifteen, and he understood that you were going through a lot. Not only were you a teenager and dealing with all of the joys of puberty, but you were the daughter of an assumed murderer, which couldn’t make school much fun. He could only imagine the ways your peers used that to torment you. He couldn’t forget the minuscule things James and Sirius would agonize Severus Snape over when they had been in school. On top of all that, twelve years ago, your father had left you on Remus’ doorstep with a note on your forehead that read:

‘Peter rated out James and Lily, I’m going to Godrics Hollow, if anything happens, take care of Y/n, she doesn’t have anyone else.’

He was right, your mother had died at the hands of Lucius Malfoy before your first birthday, and her parents had died long ago, Sirius didn’t want you anywhere near his parents, neither Sirius nor your mother had living siblings, and Remus was your only named Godparent. You grew up with both of your parents, and all of your family ripped away from you. You had been left only with good memories of the man the world was trying to tell you was evil and a note you had used as evidence of his innocence.

Despite everything, Remus didn’t mind having you around in the least, you were a carbon copy of your parents, just an absolute firecracker, and he loved you just as much as your parents had. While he anticipated his situation to be a problem it wasn’t, as whenever necessary, Molly Weasley would take you in for however long Remus needed. However, your third year, you took a page out of your father’s book, and while at school, you learned how to become an animagus on your own, so that when you returned home that summer, you were able to stay with your godfather though all of his sessions, and help. Remus found as you grew up that you took care of him as much as he took care of you, he was eternally grateful to have you in his life. Now, with everything going on in your life and all the trauma you had ensued, he couldn’t blame you for lashing out. He just wished he could be of more help.

You didn’t argue with Remus about going to school again, and on August 31st, you begrudgingly packed up your trunk in anticipation of your journey to Hogwarts. You and Remus lived in a house you had inherited from your mother in Burford, West Oxfordshire, it was far enough outside town to be safe for Remus, and it was protected with old magic as it had been in your family for centuries. Being that it’s only over an hour-long drive to London, Remus usually drove you to King’s Cross, but since he was going with you to Hogwarts this year, you both took an early train to London, arriving in perfect time to catch the Hogwarts Express.

When you boarded the train, you split ways with Remus as you were due in the prefect compartment so that you could do your rounds. Prefect duty was another thing you were dreading this year, you were sure that no one would be willing to listen to you considering your situation, and you genuinely had no clue why Professor McGonagall wanted you as a prefect anyways.

During your round, you found that your assumptions were correct, no one would listen to you, and you only found yourself getting angry every time you noticed a copy of the Daily Prophet with your father’s mugshot on the cover. He hadn’t aided in the murder of your Uncle James and Aunt Lily, he hadn’t a reason to, James had been his best friend. Not only that, but nobody knew half the story you and Remus knew, but of course, no one wanted to listen to you, and the only evidence you had was the note he had left on your forehead, which was, of course, deemed unreliable. You were sure Peter was out there somewhere, and you were optimistic that if you could find him, you would be able to clear your father’s name, but you had no clue where you could start.

You past by the compartment Harry, Ron, and Hermione frequented to find your godfather sleeping in the corner, that man did love his naps, although you were curious why they had chosen to sit in a compartment with a sleeping professor in it, but you brushed it off. The three had a knack for making odd decisions that never failed to land them into trouble of some sort.

You continued walking down the corridor, keeping to yourself, not finding anyone to be breaking any severe rules. You had decided that as a prefect, your policy would be that if it wasn’t happening in front of you, you wouldn’t report it. After experiencing Percy Weasley’s tyrannical rain, the last thing you wanted was to subject other students to such tyranny. You remained in your thoughts till you passed by Draco Malfoy’s compartment, where the door was wide open.

“Oi! Black!” You heard Malfoy yell as you approached his compartment. “Surprised, they let you come this year considering your murderer father is loose.”

You elected to ignore him and continue walking, biting back the insults you wanted so badly to throw back.

“Or I guess you’re nothing like your father, more the chicken type like your pathetic moth-”

You swung around, resisting the urge the pull your wand out and land a nasty jinx on the prick, “You’re one to speak Malfoy, considering your father is a cowardly murderer who hides behind money and lies. Now, if you want to lose another twenty points from Slytherin before we even arrive at Hogwarts, I suggest you keep running your mouth,” you said without breaking a sweat, silence from Malfoy and his posse following. “I thought so,” you said before continuing on your round.

You made it to the end of the train and turned around to do your final walkthrough you intended to stop into the section Remus was in and see if he had awoken. As you walked down the corridor, you noted the cold fog that rolled alongside the train, the ride to Hogwarts was rarely this cold. As you approached the compartment door, the train came to a screeching halt, and you were thrown up against the door, startling its occupants. You hurried to your feet and entered as Harry Potter opened the door.

“What’s going on?” Ron Weasley asked. You stood back against the door as the lights in the train flickered out.

“I know just as much as you do,” you said, trying your best to push aside any fear.

From his seat, Harry was giving you a weird look. Meanwhile, Ron pressed himself against the window that had begun frosting.

“Ouch, Ron, that was my foot,” Hermione complained.

Ron ignored his clumsiness, concerned with whatever he saw outside the train, “There’s something moving out there.”

With that, the lights turned on and then off again, the train rocking and ice encapsulating the carriage. No longer trusting your own legs, you rushed to take a seat on the bench Harry and Remus were on, though you kept your distance, still grimly aware of the rumours that had been flying around the train regarding your father. Although, your thoughts were stopped as the train halted again, and your breath turned to ice.

“Bloody hell! What’s happening?” Ron cried.

All of your heads turned to the carriage’s door as a lanky robed creature with a hand like that of a skeleton’s slowly eased opened the door. As it approached, you could feel nothing but true sadness echo through your body and mind. It was a coldness you felt would never leave you. The thing you recognized as a dementor entered, looming off of the ground and ignoring everything but you and Harry. The dementor paused as if unsure of which one of you was worth its time. Discerning what was happening and uncertain of what else to do, you rose to your feet to act as a barrier between Harry and the dementor. As a result of your action, and your misery now clear to the creature, it started to feed off of you. At some point, you saw a blast of bright light, but the second it and the dementor disappeared, your fainted, falling to the floor.

“Y/n, Harry?” you heard Hermione’s voice as your eyes flickered open. “Professor are they going to be alright?”

You rose to a seated position to find yourself lying on the floor, Harry on the bench above you, Ron crunched in his corner, a very concerned Hermione Granger hovering over you, and Remus ready with a bit of chocolate as always.

“Here, eat this, it’ll help,” he said as he offered you and Harry the chocolate which you graciously took.

“What was that thing that came?” Harry asked.

“It was a dementor, one of the guards of Azkaban,” He explained to Harry before looking at you, “It’s gone now,” he assured before turning back to Harry to finish answering his question. “It was searching the train for Sirius Black.”

You swallowed your bite of the chocolate quite loudly, uncomfortable with the information at hand.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a little word with the driver,” Remus rose, leaving the chocolate bar with you. “Eat, you’ll feel better.” Remus assured Harry before leaving and heading to the front of the train.

You broke the chocolate bar in half and gave it to Harry, “It does help.”

“Harry fainted just after you did,” Hermione explained. You had quickly noticed before fainting that the dementor didn’t affect Ron or Hermione half as much as it had you and Harry.

“What exactly happened?” Harry asked as he took a bite of the chocolate.

“Well, after Y/n fainted, you went rigid, we thought you were having- well a fit or something,” Ron explained.

“Dementors feed on feelings of depression and despair,” you explained.

“Is that why-”

“You felt like you could never be happy again?” you finished Ron’s thought and nodded. “Exactly.”

“But someone was screaming,” Harry said, the memory alive in his eyes. “A woman.”

“No one was screaming, Harry,” said Hermione.

“I heard screaming too,” you said, looking over at him. A silence settled over the carriage once more, causing the reality of your parentage to come crashing over you yet again. You shakily rose to your feet, not exactly well just yet. “I should be going- prefect, duty- let me know if you need anything else.” And before anyone could protest, you were out of the compartment and walking back down the train corridor.

Before you could very much think about it, you entered Fred and George’s compartment, quite unsure of where else you might have been welcome.

“Y/n!” The twins chimed when you entered.

“Sit,” Fred started

“Yeah,” George said.

“We’ve got a question for you,” they finished together.

“A question, for me? Now, what would that be?” You asked as you squeezed onto the bench in between the two despite the empty one just across from you. Although, you assumed Lee Jordan had been sitting there and was just off to use the loo as his bag was up above that spot.

“We’ll show you, but you’ve got to promise us you won’t show anybody,” George said as he pulled something out of his pocket.

“Anybody,” Fred echoed.

“I won’t show anybody, promise,” You spoke in the same playfully serious tone as the twins while George placed a blank piece of folded parchment onto your lap.

Fred placed the tip of his wand onto the map but caught your eye and held eye contact with you as he said, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” winking at you as he finished.

Before you maroon lines and lettering unfurled, curling onto the parchment.

‘The Marauders Map’

A smile found its way onto your face as you realized what was before you. Your eyes lighting up as they followed the script that started to write out names you recognized instantly.

‘Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot & Prongs are proud to present,’

Your smile widened, you knew exactly what this was. Remus had told you plenty of stories of his and your fathers’ school antics, and the Marauders Map was often mentioned.

“Now, Black,” said George.

“That smile seems to say something,” said Fred.

“We’ve got a feeling,” they continued in unison. “That you know who created this masterpiece.”

You looked up at the two of them, your smile not at all lost. “What’s it to you?” you asked. Of course, you knew, but you loved messing around with them.

“Pure curiosity,” Fred smirked.

“Even if I do know who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are, why should I tell you two?” You asked.

“Because you looove Fred,” George said, and you shot him a glare that easily could have killed him right where he sat. “Because we’re your favorite people at Hogwarts?” He said, quick to edit his sentence.

“Alright, but I want you to let me in on all of your pranks this year. Think about the benefits of having a prefect on your side,” you said, then smoothly leaning forward to allow the twins to deliberate in peace. They caught on in a matter of seconds.

“She’s not wrong,” started Fred, and he rested back against the seat.

“And she’s quite smart,” continued George, following his twin.

“And she has information we want.”

“And you do love her,” George teased his twin.

“And we can trust her,” Fred added in an attempt to ignore George’s jab at his long-standing crush.

“Alright then,” the twins said in harmony, and you all resumed your previous positions. “Who is it?” They asked you.

“Peter Pettigrew,” you started. “Remus Lupin, James Potter,” they breathed in, obviously not having expected to hear the name of Harry’s dad. “And Sirius Black.” You said, your chest swelling with pride.

“Your dad!” started Fred excitedly

“Was a marauder?” They asked at once, and you nodded.

“Well, that makes you pranking royalty,” George said and mocked a bow.

“I would say it does, now I am excited to be working with you two gentlemen this year.”

“We are honored to be in your presence, oh Queen of the Pranks,” Fred got off of his seat and turned to give you a proper bow, prompting another giggle from you, which you didn’t notice Fred blush bright red.

“Boys we have some work to do,” you said, offering your hand as you had seen Queens do before to Fred. He took your hand and gently placed a kiss on it, this time causing a soft blush to rise to your cheeks.

Your train ride continued to be full of playful banter between the four of you, the boys full of questions about your dad’s time at Hogwarts, and you were excited to answer them as best you could. Although in the end, you couldn’t help but be entirely grateful that Fred and George hadn’t written you off along with the rest of the school, even more thankful that they hadn’t also written off your dad. When you arrived at the school, you shared a carriage with the twins, Lee Jordan, and Angelina Johnson, none of whom seemed bothered by your presence. It appeared for the moment that this year wouldn’t be too bad. You expected to resume your spot on the quidditch team as a chaser along with those before you, and the pranks you had already begun planning with the twins occupied your mind.

“Welcome! Welcome to another year at Hogwarts!” Dumbledore caught the school’s attention as he assumed his place at the post at the top of the hall. “I have a few things to say before we become befuddled by our excellent feast. First, I’m pleased to welcome Professor R. J. Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Good luck, you, Professor.”

At this, the twins turned their eyes from Dumbledore to you, clearly asking if that was the Lupin you had said to be Moony of the Marauders, to which you confirmed with one nod.

“Wicked,” they said in unison, and you winked at them.

“As some of you may know, Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher for many years, has decided to retire in order to spend more time with his remaining limbs. Fortunately, I’m delighted to announce that his place will be taken by none other than our own Rubeus Hagrid!”

You, along with few others who knew and appreciated Hagrid, applauded at this news as Hagrid rose from his seat and jovially waved at the school, although he nearly toppled the staff table, sending goblets over the side of the table.

“Finally, on a more disquieting note, at the request of the Ministry of Magic Hogwarts will, until further notice, play host to the Dementors of Azkaban. Now, whilst I’ve been assured until such a time as Sirius Black is captured.”

Whispers filled the Great Hall as you swallowed the nerves that rose in your throat as best you could

“Well we’ve got his daughter right over there. Why don’t we just give ’em her! She’s probably a murderer herself!” You heard a boy from the Slytherin table yell quite violently. His idea was supported by a few cheers from those around him and a girl who was sitting next to him following up.

“Yeah, how are we supposed to know she isn’t scheming to sneak in her murderous father to kill us all!” The girl yelled, and you could only feel yourself sinking into the bench as every Hogwarts student’s eyes were now on you.

“Oi! Pucey, watch it, or I’ll hex your ear off!” George quickly stood and yelled in your defense.

“That! Is quite enough!” Dumbledore boomed. “I will not have Miss Black questioned or judged for her being here. Anyone who wishes to contest this may bring it up directly with me.”

With that, Dumbledore continued on with his speech in particular regard to the presence of the dementors, but his words respecting you did nothing to ease the anxiety boiling in the pit of your stomach. At this point, you were wondering why you hadn’t followed in your mum’s steps and gone to Beauxbatons.

“Are you alright?” Fred asked, noting the color that had drained from your face.

“I’m fine,” you muttered.

Fred could tell you weren’t fine, and why should you be? He could feel the hostile looks coming from every corner of the room, some even coming from the professor’s table. He wanted to help in any way he could, and he knew that the most he could do is have your back for the time being.

When Dumbledore finally called this year’s feast to an end, you rose to your feet as Percy had asked you and Robert Greene, the other fifth year Gryffindor prefect, to walk the first years back to the common room.

You rose to your feet, “Your darling brother has decided I’ll be escorting the first years back to the common room, so I’ll see you back there after?” You honestly did not want to be left alone tonight and was hoping to spend more time with the twins.

“We’ll find a good spot by the fire,” George said, and you smiled at him, grateful.

You left and rounded up the first years, some of whom had no clue who you were and some who were clearly afraid of you and clung to the front of the line where Percy and Robert were. But you brushed it off. It wasn’t half as bad as Pucey calling you a murderer in front of the entire school. The walk didn’t last long, and Percy capitalized the whole thing to flaunt his power over the eleven-year-olds allowing you to remain silent and with your thoughts. You split when you made it to the common room, sure that Percy was so wrapped up in his spiel that he wouldn’t miss you.

“Black!” George wailed. “We’ve missed you dearly.”

“How could you dare to leave us for so long?” Fred cried, and you giggled at their antics, sitting on the couch next to Fred.

“I’m very, incredibly, sorry for the time I have spent away but do know that you were each on my heart and in my thoughts the entire time we were apart,” you joined in, causing Fred to laugh, which brought a shade of pink to your cheeks, recently you found how his laugh made the butterflies in your stomach ruffle their wings.

“Anyone else wanna know why Dumbledore’s let a murderer’s daughter live in our dorm?” you heard Seamus Finnigan say loudly enough for the entire common room to hear. “It makes me feel unsafe I don’t know about you.”

“Yeah if he comes to Hogwarts, this’ll be the first place he comes.”

You sharply rose to your feet and turned to face Finnigan, “Actually you’re right Finnigan, I’ve been in contact with my dad, who has been in Azkaban my entire life, planning to come to a school and kill a bunch of children. I am so so bummed you’ve found out my plan. So everyone keeps an eye open while you’re sleeping. I might just appear over your bed in the middle of the night, ready to murder you.”

As you were speaking, Fred and George stood to defend you. Meanwhile, Seamus’s face fell white with fear at your words.

“Anyways aren’t you meant to be a Gryffindor, Finnigan, aren’t you meant to be brave? Because speaking behind people’s backs is about the most cowardly thing someone can do,” you said, anger rising in you. Although, you did not notice Professor McGonagall enter as you were talking.

“She deserves to be here just as much as the rest of you,” Fred boomed to the now silent common room.

“Good evening, everyone,” McGonagall cut in. “I was planning to come up tonight to ensure that Miss Black was being respected as a peer and as a prefect although that clearly hasn’t happened,” she said, shooting a look at Seamus Finnigan. “As she just said, it is expected that you as Gryffindors conduct yourselves with bravery and with understanding for your peers. Should any of you feel that you do not have to listen to or that you are above Y/n because of her parentage, you can come to me for a detention. I will not permit any intolerance of her presence. Is that understood?”

A few people started slowly nodding, causing the rest of your housemates to nod in understanding of what Professor McGonagall had to say.

“Good, now I will be taking ten points from our house for Mr. Finnigan’s comments,” a groan fell over the room, “You shall also be meeting me for detention in my office tomorrow night at seven. However, ten points to Miss Black and ten points to Mr. Weasley for standing up for oneself and for one’s friends.” With that, Professor McGonagall left, leaving the Gryffindors in silence.

“Go about your nights,” Percy called to the house, and everyone dispersed, although you heard the drama start to circulate, no matter what McGonagall said, you knew that you would never escape the judgement of your peers.

“Merlin, and classes haven’t even started yet,” you huffed as you collapsed back onto the couch next to Fred.

“We’ve got your back, Y/n,” Fred said as he put a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“Promise,” you implored.

“Promise,” he assured.

chapter two

#Sirius Black's daughter #au #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley fanfiction #Sirius Black #Harry Potter #harry potter au #daughter of the dog

[mageofseven]

Hi I just recently discovered your blog and I’m in love with your writing! I have a little request if you don’t mind. The brothers (and undateables I’d you want to) finding MC bruised and beaten and later discovering they got into a fight with another demon. Thank you in advance if you decide to write this!

Awww thank you so much! I might end up doing the Undateables in another post, but I'll just stick to the Brothers for this one.

And thanks for requesting 😊

TWs: violence, vague s*xual assault

Spoiler warning: 1st year spoilers in Lucifer's and vaguely in Belphie's section

~

Lucifer:

Was checking out the area under Diavolo's orders.

Apparently there have been some people sneaking around in the old Colosseum and normal methods to keep other demons away from the historical landmark have been futile.

That and word has made it's way that some criminals have been using the place to secretly make dealings

So when he got there, he had expected to find some such people lurking around

Instead he found MC on the ground in the center, bruised and bleeding with their arm bent in a very concerning way.

He rushed up to them, calling their name and checking them for signs of life.

Honestly, the man was having major flashbacks to the day he lost his sister.

This was exactly where Lilith fell and Lucifer had to watch his sister, all broken and in pain until Diavolo came and he had to make the deal that changed everything

The deal that eventually led to MC's existence

Yet here they were now, in exactly the same place and state and the demon couldn't help but break down for a minute with panic he tried so hard to conceal.

The human let out a groan and the man could only sigh in relief.

"MC, oh thank the Devil..."

"Luce...?"

"You'll be alright." He promised. "I'll take you over to have Simeon heal you."

Despite the internal panic and flashbacks of such a traumatic event, he still handled the situation well.

Once MC was all healed up, he asked them what happened.

Apparently, they found a note that someone had stuffed in their school bag, asking for them to meet at the Colosseum.

They thought it was weird, but curiosity had gotten the better of them so they went and were attacked while exploring the ancient building.

The demon had meant to kill her, but sensed Lucifer approaching so they dropped the human and ran for it.

Ends up getting as much info from them about the attacker as he can.

Even if MC doesn't want the demon to die for what they did, they get no say in the matter.

Because of their status as exchange student, this attack is a political issue and the consequences Lord Diavolo warned his people about originally must be put into play.

Politics aside though, Lucifer would never let any being who hurt MC get away with it.

Becomes a lot stricter with what they can and cannot do

Like, they're not even allowed to go for a walk around the block without either him or his brothers accompanying them.

Even changes up their class schedule to make sure they have at least one of his brothers with them per class and they even have to walk MC to their next one.

Any arguments about this from MC or the brothers fall on deaf ears.

He will never let anyone lay a hand on them again.

Mammon:

School day had ended and he was on his way to pick MC up from their class.

Since Lucifer decided the day they came that he was responsible for their safety, he always had to do stuff like this.

He was late today though since his teacher held him back after class.

Blah blah F on the test, blahh blah summer school, blaah blahh blaaaah. Whatever man; he wasn't listening

And because of them, he was late. So much so that when he arrived at the human's classroom, they weren't there.

Lowkey panicked.

Shit. Shit shit shit, where'd they go???

Practically runs in the halls trying to find them

Knows Lucifer will have his head for this if he can't track 'em down.

Ends up hearing some kind of ruckus in the courtyard

And finds a big group of students forming a circle and chanting "Fight!"

"Oh yell!" Is momentarily distracted from his problem and joins the group. "Fight! Fight! Fight--."

Oh shit. That's his human in the circle!

Mammon's brain just started buffering as he watched MC dodge and weave, even getting some good hits in. The second brother was actually pretty impressed.

The lower demon in the fight eventually lost his footing and fell to the ground, giving an opening for MC to give a big kick between his legs and the demon let out a shrill scream. His green skin started smoking and changed to grey as it hardened and suddenly seemed more like stone than a person.

The circle of students started cheering and Mammon's jaw practically hit the floor.

Holy shit, the human did it!

MC fell the ground, panting heavily and bruised from head to toe.

Mammon finally rushed up to them.

"Damn, MC! You're gonna give me a heart attack!"

All of a sudden, some students started running and others just quickly jumped back, revealing Lucifer and Diavolo.

....yep, he's dead.

The two older demons started asking MC questions as they caught their breath and Mammon tried to sneak away.

Lucifer grabbed his brother by his jacket, but otherwise paid him no mind as MC told their tale.

Apparently this demon that sits behind them in their Devildom History class had been giving them crap for a while; calling them names and pushing them around. Today they even started touching them in places that made them wanna break the demon's hand.

MC snapped and told them such. The demon only grinned. Honestly, he was probably waiting for them to say that.

From there, he dragged them out by their hair and the rest is rather obvious.

Diavolo had some of his men carry the demon away. Apparently, the stone-like skin is defense mechanism, essentially the equivalent of a turtle hiding in their shells for that sub-race of demon.

The prince assured MC that the demon will be dealt with and tasked Lucifer with getting them healed up.

Mammon was hung upside down from the roof for a few hours for letting this happen, but MC was patched up and okay in the end.

Leviathan:

He usually buys all of his otaku stuff off of Akuzon

But occasionally, he likes to go out and by manga at this store downtown.

It's a once in a blue moon sort of thing, but he still does it

MC felt like taking a walk so they joined him

The two explored the shop as Levi fanboyed about seemingly every other series he passed.

The otaku had already started a pile of manga he planned to buy.

He didn't even notice when MC left his side until he approached the counter to pay

Boy just assumes you bailed on him at first and sinks into self-loathing mode

Until he heard a scream from outside.

He abandoned his manga and raced out, just in time to see another demon run for it and MC leaning against the building.

Their right arm was bleeding from the holes and claw marks made into it.

The third brother started freaking out and rushed them home, even leaving his books there.

When they get back, Lucifer patches them up with a first aid kit and a little bit of a potion.

MC explains how they were shopping with Levi when all of a sudden they saw Beel outside the store waving at them

She went out to talk to him, but then suddenly, it wasn't Beel anymore.

Apparently, it was a shapeshifting demon and, since they specifically choose Beel's form to take, Lucifer assumed that they must have been watching them for a while and planning this attack. They likely chose Beel because they knew he was someone MC would let their guard around.

Levi felt like crap for letting them get hurt, but MC said it was their fault for being tricked.

Lucifer decided it was both their faults and gave them both a long lecture

Satan:

The fourth brother invited MC out for coffee

The blonde actually really likes the atmosphere of coffee shops and wanted to share it with them

The two ordered their coffee and sat at their table while talking about books. He recently read a book on artic fauna from the human world and was comparing the information he read with their own knowledge

It was a very relaxing experience like most of MC's quality with Satan.

Before the two of left, MC had to stop in the restroom.

That demon waited patiently for the human at their table, but when almost ten minutes went by, he became a bit annoyed and puzzled.

Not wanting to be rude, but also ready to leave, Satan approached the bathroom door

He paused mid knock when her heard a low growl followed by a cry from MC

Now in his demon form, the blonde kicked the door off its hinges. It wasn't locked or anything, but the man was super pissed.

Found a demon pressing MC, who had a gash in their head, against the opposite wall

'An eye for an eye' is more or less the philosophy he followed here, or rather, a head for a head.

He took the demon and slammed his head into another wall over and over again.

MC had to run up and tell him to stop after the other demon passed out.

They left the demon on the floor of the bathroom and Satan, with his arms around MC to keep them close, headed back to House of Lamentation

The human didn't want the other brothers to see them like this and worry so Satan snuck them into his room and went to get the first aid kit.

It was quiet between the two as he patched them up.

"I'm sorry for scaring you." He said as he finished with their stitches. "Seeing you hurt like that just made my blood boil. They deserved it, but you shouldn't have had to watch."

"It's okay... thank you for saving me."

The two spent the rest of the night huddled together in his room, reading and just settling down from the incident.

Asmodeus:

Shopping trip!

Asmo was a bit too enthusiastic about it, but that's part of why MC was all too willing to go

He mainly just wanted to see MC in cute outfits, but also bought a few for himself

Any self-consciousness MC might feel on her own is long gone when they spend time with him. He's always hyping them up and complimenting them and overall making them feel beautiful.

Time spent with Asmo is always a good time and well spent.

The fifth brother does actually leave their side for a bit after they found someone hot to flirt with

MC didn't mind and just let the Avatar of Lust do his thing as they continued to look through the racks.

At some point a very good looking demon approached them and started flirting with them

It became obvious that this dude was one of Asmo's demons, another demon of lust

Even with this in mind though, their attention really did make the human feel special, even if they probably said such sweet words to everyone

MC underestimated the demon, thinking that just because Asmo wasn't the aggressive sort that the demons under him wouldn't be either

Ends up following him out of the store and makes out with him against the wall of the building

They didn't understand why they were doing this, but the human's mind had been feeling foggy for a while now.

Suddenly, MC's whole body started to feel heavy and they were so dizzy that their vision was just a blur

Ends up passing out and waking up a few minutes later to Asmo crying as he stood over them and begging them to wake up

"Azzy?"

The man threw his arms around them.

Finds out that the fifth brother went looking for them when he saw that they weren't in the store anymore. He came outside just in time to see one of his underlings try to suck their soul out of their body.

As soon as they heard their superior's voice though, they dropped the human and ran.

The two went straight home and Asmo was extra clingy with them for the rest of the day.

Beelzebub:

The two of them went together to Madam Screams since they were both craving sweets.

Beel was really hungering for a cherry pit pie (though of course he planned on order other things as well) while MC was really hankering for some chocodevil cake.

The two happily got in line to pick out their treats, but MC stepped out to get a clearer view of the case with all of the treats to see if they wanted anything different instead.

Ends up getting attacked by a famished, minor demon of gluttony and slammed down on the glass case containing the sweets.

Beel jumped into gear; he changed into his demon form and threw the other demon off of them.

During the skirmish, the two ended up breaking down a wall and crushing three tables.

When the fight ended, the big guy rushed up to MC to make sure they're okay.

The human was bleeding and had a lot of glass shards embedded in their back and arms.

Though worried, the sweet boy keeps himself together and carefully takes out the bigger shards.

Rushes them home, treats forgotten.

Once home, Lucifer is the one who gets the rest of the glass out of their back and cleans up their wounds.

Beel stays by their side and lets them squeeze their hand when Luce's clean up hurts too much.

Luce gives his younger brother a lecture for all the stuff he had broken back at Madam Screams, but is surprisingly lenient with him.

The older brother didn't say it (and honestly, he should have), but he was proud of his brother for stepping up and protecting MC, but at the same time, expected nothing less from him.

Yeah, Lucifer will likely get sent the bill, but MC's safety is more important.

Belphegor:

Belphie had fallen asleep during class; no surprise there.

The rest of the students left the room when class ended, but the seventh brother continued to sleep at his desk.

MC found his sleeping face cute and didn't want to wake the demon

So instead, they hung around the classroom, waiting for the Avatar of Sloth to awake; the school day was over and the classroom wasn't going to be used for anything else so they thought there'd be no harm in hanging around.

Sadly, they were wrong.

Another student, a jerk from their Seductive Speechcraft class had waited for them to leave the classroom in order to harass them, but when they didn't come out, he came in.

Eventually had them backed up against the wall and forcing their hand up their shirt, causing the human to yelp.

He tried covering their mouth with his other hand, but MC bit them, angering the demon and leading them to putting their hands around their throat as he yelled at them.

The entire time, the minor demon never saw the Avatar of Sloth sleeping at his desk.

Big mistake.

Belphie woke up and saw the scene before him, turning into his demon form real quick.

Didn't hesitate to grab a hold of the bastard and make him let go of MC, who was now gasping for much needed air.

The seventh brother used his miasma aura to weaken the demon as he was now the one doing the choking with the lower demon.

MC covered their face and cried in their corner on the floor.

It was too similar to That Night™️ and the human was bordering on panic attack because of it.

Once the minor demon passed out, Belphie turned and saw MC crying on the floor.

He rushed up to them, but stopped once MC started screaming and begging for him to stay back.

That look in their eyes... it was the same fearful look he remembered from That Night™️

And it killed Belphie inside because he never wanted them to be scared of him ever again.

He waited for the human to calm down and, with their permission, slowly approached them.

He wanted to hug them, but was afraid that they'd just be reminded of it even more so he held back.

Surprising him, the human hugged him instead.

He held them tight for as long as they needed and started to notice the bruises forming on their neck

The two went home after that and reported the incident to Lucifer before Belphie dragged MC with him for a nap.

He chose Beel and his' room since he knew the attic would probably be too much for them right now.

Cuddled close to them and apologized for all of it. For falling asleep and leaving them defenseless. For the other demon's attack. For scarying them. Above all, that he was sorry for That Night™️

~

Masterlist

#obey me #obey me otome #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me mc

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Face the Darkness

Prompt 2 for @greenfiredragonfly's Angstember prompts-- "Go. But I'm not Leaving." This time I've gone for some War in Heaven angst! Technically a slight AU as you'll see in the end, but I'm assuming most of the rest works out as in canon.

--

The Fortress trembled as the ground shifted once more, cracks splitting the desiccated plain in an ever more complex spider web. Solid stone walls vibrated, pouring streams of crushed stone from every corner of the ceiling. The air was thick with dust. Already the loyal forces of Heaven had withdrawn to the distant hills to watch, silent and impassive.

The War had ended. The Fortress of Lucifer had begun its Fall.

The first of the four watchtowers collapsed, shattering across blasted plain. From the wreckage crawled the rebellious angels, bodies already twisting into more animalistic shapes: talons and fangs, scales and gills, rotten flesh and oozing sores.

Outside the walls patrolled guards in solid plate armor wielding swords and spears and whips; in an instant, they descended on the few who had escaped, driving them back towards the gates, towards their fate. More beings inside fought and screamed, clawing at the guards only to be pushed back again and again. Voices raised, accusations shouted at soldiers, at leaders, at God Herself.

The guards were not of the heavenly legions. When Lucifer’s last army was routed, he had declared that all of his rebels would share in his punishment. Those who kept the frightened masses in check had been promised prominent positions as the Lords of their new domain, while the would-be deserters risked punishments more gruesome than anything the enemy had done.

Still, they tried.

Some few managed to pass the final ring of guards, to strike out across the plain that moved and reformed under their feet, cracks and crevices opening wide, whole sections of land suddenly dissolving, raining down into the realm of darkness.

They fled, running across uncertain ground, leaping treacherous drops, praying for forgiveness with every breath, holding out their arms to the loyal armies, beseeching their friends to intercede, to stay the Hand of Judgment.

Those who reached the hills and were welcomed into the protection of Heaven found themselves restored, their flesh returned to normal, bodies untwisted, souls pardoned.

The rest… well, they reached their final destination a little sooner than the rest.

One angel stood alone on a watchtower, eyes scanning the chaos below through a shifting curtain of bright red hair.

The scuff of a footstep, barely audible above the screams. The angel turned slightly—a single glance back—just enough for a glimpse of familiar white feathers.

“Shouldn’t be here,” the angel said, turning back to the destruction.

“Neither should you.”

“This again?” A twist of lips, too bitter to be called a smile. “You’ve already told me what you think. Eons and eons ago.”

“And I haven’t changed my mind.”

The angel clutched at the stone parapet, or tried to; it fell apart, sending another rain of dust towards the frightened crowd below. “And, what, you’re here to offer me salvation? Take my confession and determine if I’m worthy? Enact vengeance for all those I’ve destroyed?”

“My dear friend. I’m here to save you.”

Briefly, there were tears in the angel’s eyes; but already those eyes were changing, restructuring into a new shape. “Don’t deserve it.”

“I say you do.” A soft hand landed on the angel’s shoulder, offering a squeeze of comfort. “There is no wickedness in you. No cruelty. Even at the height of the War’s atrocities, you never lost your kindness. You are only here because you were manipulated by Lucifer, caught in his lies. That is no judgment on you. He could just as easily have swayed me, or Gabriel, or anyone else.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?” With a rumble louder than any thunder, the ground below fractured once more. The fortress rose and fell, another tower crumbling to a chorus of screams. “Come, we don’t have time.”

“What must I do?” The first angel didn’t move, but the second breathed a sigh of relief at the question.

“Cross the plain, no more than that. If you reach the other side, if someone is willing to intercede on your behalf, you will be forgiven.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, my dear, oh, it’s so simple. I will be beside you every step of the way, to guide you, to keep you safe. You can’t possibly fail.”

The angel nodded, still looking down into the broken courtyard. “Tell me this: why me? You could save anyone. Why me?”

A brief, shocked silence. “That’s—why would I…? Because I love you.”

“And what about them?” Down below the future Lords of Darkness moved through the crowds, grabbing weeping angels by the jaw or the neck, inspecting them, claiming their favorites. Torments would begin soon, pains that would become familiar to them all. “They were tricked by Lucifer, the same as me.” One pale, scruffy creature grabbed a trembling, crying being by the hair, dragging them towards a dark door. “Do they deserve this fate because they don’t have the love of a Guardian?”

Flinching, the pale figure pulled back towards the shadows. “That isn’t fair.” Little more than a whisper. “You know they don’t. But I can’t save them. Only you.”

With a deep, shaking breath, the angel finally turned, eyes now glinting gold, pupils stretching into lines. “No. You can’t save me. Not if I don’t want to be saved.”

“What are you talking about?” Hazel eyes shining like earthlight as the darkness closed in. “How can you not—”

“How can I go back? Tell me that! How can I ignore the things I learned? Not everything Lucifer said was a lie, that’s why he was so successful. How can I be happy when I’ve seen things for what they truly are?” In a softer voice: “How can I follow a God who would throw so many away just because they’re unloved?” A sob shook those narrow shoulders, but no tears fell. Never again. “If there’s a way, please, tell me. Because I can’t—”

The entire plain rippled like a wave. Another tower fell, and the one they stood on tilted perilously.

“Dearest, we can talk about this later. We need to go now.”

“Go.” The angel turned back to the courtyard. “But I’m not leaving.”

“No!” The Guardian hauled the angel back, as if ready to fly them both to safety or be destroyed trying. “Don’t—you can’t! Don’t you understand what’s happening? What it all means?”

“Better than you!” The angel turned with a furious growl. “I’ve spent countless ages among them already. I know what they’re like, I know what they’ll do to us, and I don’t want that. But I can’t go back.” Narrow hands reached out, clutching the other’s elbows. “Aziraphale, please understand. I can’t go back. Not with… everything I know…”

They embraced, the Guardian blinking back tears. “You could… you could ask God to take your memories. It would be as if you’d never…”

“I can’t.”

“Not… not even for me?”

“I would forget you, too.”

“But I’ll remember.” Aziraphale leaned back, eyes pleading. “And I will still love you. Nothing will change that.”

“But I will change.” The angel scowled again, though this time not from anger but from the desperate search for words. “It’s… not the memories themselves. I might lose them anyway. I’ve already lost my name; I’m losing my form. I’m Falling. And whatever Falling does to me, whatever I become, I will still be me. But. But to willinglygive up the knowledge I’ve earned. To turn my back on it… I wouldn’t be me anymore.”

The next tremor started, and didn’t end.

“I don’t understand,” Aziraphale wailed. “But I don’t have to. If… if this will make you happy…”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again.” One last desperate embrace as the surrounding plain began to crumble. “It’s time. Go.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Aziraphale!” But the Guardian only held the angel tighter. “You—you can’t Fall!”

“I do not believe I will. God knows Her own.”

The outer walls vanished, tumbling into the nothing below, bringing wave after wave of bodies with them. “No, She’ll just rip you out of my arms at the cruelest possible moment.”

“Where you see cruelty, I see kindness. Every second with you is a blessing.”

“Aziraphale!”

“Quiet, love. I’m praying.”

The ground shook, lurched, dropped away—

The Fortress and all within it Fell—

All except two angels, wrapped in each other’s arms. Held aloft by Aziraphale’s wings, they did not Fall but meandered gently downwards.

“What?” The nameless angel looked around in confusion. “How…?”

“I told you. Kindness.” Aziraphale’s eyes were closed. “I asked Her for a few more minutes with you. And a chance to spare you from some of the darkness you must face. I know you don’t think you deserve it, but I think you do. And in the end, that is what mattered.”

“Aziraphale…” Quite without meaning to, the angel smiled in wonder. “I love you.”

When the Guardian’s eyes opened, the tears rolled upwards, leaving a trail of droplets back to Heaven. “I love you, too. And it was worth any price to see you smile again.”

“Price? Wait, what price?”

“All my memories of you.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes. I was quite happy to exchange them to buy you these few minutes of peace and a guarantee that we will meet again. Though I’m afraid after that, things will be up to you.” Aziraphale’s incongruous smile began to fade. “What is it?”

“I… I just… I told you I wouldn’t… and then you…” Golden eyes drifted, staring into the suffocating darkness on every side. “What must you think of me?”

“I think you are the most wonderful being in all Creation. I wish for you to be you, in whatever way feels most genuine, as an angel or… otherwise.” Far below, the Fortress ruins came into view, lit by a strange blue glow. “I think you will have a hard enough time ahead of you without such complicated regrets. And I think,” another tear floating upward, glowing like a distant star, “I truly think, this way things will work out for the best.”

“You’ll forget me! Forget us! Everything we ever talked about, or… or…”

“But you’ll remember.” A gentle kiss on the forehead. “And I will still love you. Nothing will change that.”

The Fortress had landed in a boiling pool of sulfur. Aziraphale carefully set the former angel down on solid ground, a safe distance from the edge, then immediately began to float upwards again.

“Wait!” Desperately clinging to those soft hands, the last bit of comfort in the entire realm. “Don’t go!”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t belong down here anymore than you belong Upstairs. We will meet again in the world to come.”

“But what if… without your memories… you’re different? More like the others?”

“Oh.” For the first time since the Fall, Aziraphale looked troubled. “I suppose you… may see some changes you don’t like…”

“No, not that. I’m not going to love you any less. But… you’ll think I’m just another Enemy.”

“Nonsense. I love you, dear boy. And I have the opportunity to fall in love all over again.” The upward pull began to draw their fingers apart. “Only, I don’t know how long that will take, so… be patient?”

“Aziraphale…”

“Take care of yourself, love.” Their grip on each other failed and Aziraphale drifted away, rising faster and faster. “I will see you again! I promise!”

“Aziraphale!”

Silence, broken only by the stirring of creatures rising from the sulfur and slinking into the shadows.

Hands still warm from the loving touch of an angel, the demon turned to face the darkness.

#good omens prime #good omens angst #angel crowley #angst #angstember2021 #prompt challenge #ineffable husbands #good omens #aziraphale and crowley #aziraphale #crowley #war in heaven #amnesia #my writing #is it too sad #it might be

[dwellordream]

“To understand what friendship between women was, we must first understand what it was not. Before turning to the ways in which female friendship illustrated the play of the Victorian gender system, we must develop grounds for distinguishing it from other relationships between women. This is a detour, for the subject of this chapter is female friendship; erotic desire and marriage between women are the focus of subsequent sections. But friendship, erotic infatuation, and female marriage have so often been conflated, and women’s relationships so commonly understood as essentially ambiguous, that the detour is a necessary one. 

The language of Victorian friendship was so ardent, the public face of female marriage so amicable, the comparisons between female friendship and marriage between men and women so constant, that it is no simple task to distinguish female friends from female lovers or female couples. The question “did they have sex?” is the first one on people’s lips today when confronted with a claim that women in the past were lovers—and it is almost always unanswerable. If firsthand testimony about sex is the standard for defining a relationship as sexual, then most Victorians never had sex. Scholars have yet to determine whether Thomas Carlyle was impotent; when, if ever, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor consummated their relationship; or if Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick, whose diaries recorded their experiments with fetishes, cross-dressing, and bootlicking, also had genital intercourse.

Just as one can read hundreds of Victorian letters, diaries, and memoirs without finding a single mention of menstruation or excretion, one rarely finds even oblique references to sex between husband and wife. Men and women were equally reticent about sexual activity inside and outside of marriage. In a journal that described her courtship and wedding in detail, Lady Knightley dispatched the first weeks of wedded life in two lines: “Rainald and I entered on our new life in our own home. May God bless it to us” (173). Elizabeth Butler, whose autobiography included “a little sketch of [her] rather romantic meeting” with the man who became her husband, was similarly and typically laconic about a transition defined by sexual intercourse: “June 11 of that year, 1877, was my wedding day.” 

The lack of reliable evidence of sexual activity becomes less problematic, however, if we realize that sex matters because of the social relationships it creates and concentrate on those relationships. In Victorian England, sex was assumed to be part of marriage, but could also drop out of marriage without destroying a bond never defined by sex alone. The diaries and correspondence of Anne Lister and Charlotte Cushman provide solid evidence that nineteenth-century women had genital contact and orgasms with other women, but even more importantly, they demonstrate that sex created different kinds of connections. The fleeting encounters Lister had with women she met abroad were very different from the illicit but sustained affair Cushman had with a much younger woman who became her daughter-in-law. 

Those types of affairs were in turn worlds apart from the relationships with women that Lister and Cushman called marriages, a term that did not simply mean the relationships were sexual but also connoted shared households, mingled property, and assumptions about exclusivity and durability. We can best understand what kinds of relationships women had with each other not by hunting for evidence of sex, which even if we find it will not explain much, but rather by anchoring women’s own statements about their relationships in a larger context. 

The context I provide here is the complex linguistic field of lifewriting, which brings into focus two types of relationships often confused with friendship, indeed often called friendship, but significantly different from it: 1) unrequited passion and obsessive infatuation; and 2) life partnerships, which some Victorians described as marriages between women. The most famous and best-documented example of a Victorian woman’s avowed but unreciprocated passion for another woman is Edith Simcox’s lifelong love for George Eliot, which has made her a staple figure in histories of lesbianism.

Simcox (1844–1901) was a trade-union organizer and professional writer who regularly contributed book reviews to the periodical press and published fiction and nonfiction, including a study of women’s property ownership in ancient societies, discussed in chapter 5. From 1876 to 1900, Simcox kept a journal in a locked book that surfaced in 1930. Simcox gave her life story a title, The Autobiography of a Shirtmaker, that foregrounded her successful work as a labor activist, but its actual content focused on what Simcox called “the lovepassion of her life,” her longing for George Eliot as an unattainable, idealized beloved whom she called “my goddess” or, even more reverently, “Her.”

Simcox knowingly embraced a love that could not be returned, though she was aware of reciprocated, consummated sexual love between women. Her diary alludes to a “lovers’ quarrel” among three women she knew (61) and mentions her own rejection of a woman who “professed a feeling for me different from what she had ever had for any one, it might make her happiness if I could return it” (159). Tellingly, though twentieth-century scholars often refer to Simcox euphemistically as Eliot’s devoted “friend,” Simcox rarely used the term, and modeled herself instead on a courtly lover made all the more devoted by the one-sidedness of her passion. Simcox defined her diary as an “acta diurna amoris,” a daily act of love, and aspired to keep it with a constancy that would mirror her total absorption in Eliot (3). 

After bringing Eliot two valentines in February 1878, Simcox wrote: “Yesterday I went to see her, and have been in a calm glow of happiness since:—for no special reason, only that to have been near her happens to have that effect on me. . . . I did nothing but make reckless love to her . . . I had told her of my ambition to be allowed to lie silently at her feet as she pursued her occupations” (25). George Lewes, the companion whom Eliot’s friends referred to as her husband, was present at most of these scenes, and he and Eliot tolerated and even enjoyed Simcox’s attentions, which they consciously construed as loverlike. 

During a conversation about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love poems, Sonnets from the Portugese, Eliot told Simcox “she wished my letters could be printed in the same veiled way— ‘the Newest Heloise,’” thus situating Simcox’s missives to her in the tradition of amatory literature (39). In private, Simcox indulged fantasies of a more sensual connection, reflecting on a persistent “love that made the longing and molded the caress,” and recalling how “[i]n thinking of her, kisses used to form themselves instinctively on my lips—I seldom failed to kiss her a good night in thought” (136). 

In trying to define her love for Eliot, Simcox significantly refused to be content with one paradigm; instead, she accumulated analogies, comparing her love for Eliot to both “[m]arried love and passionate friendship” (60). Like a medieval ascetic, Simcox eroticized her lack of sexual fulfillment, arguing that her love was even more powerful than friendship or marriage because, in resigning herself to living “widowed of perfect joy,” she had felt “sharp flames consuming what was left . . . of selfish lust” (60).

In an unsent 1880 letter to Eliot, Simcox again found herself unable to select only one category to explain her love: “Do you see darling that I can only love you three lawful ways, idolatrously as Frater the Virgin Mary, in romance wise as Petrarch, Laura, or with a child’s fondness for the mother” (120). By implication, Simcox also suggested that there would be an unlawful way to love Eliot—as an adulterer who would usurp the uxurious role already occupied by Lewes. She concluded by explaining that her relationship with Eliot was too unequal to be a friendship (120). 

In the absence of the sociological and scientific shorthand provided by sexology or a codified subculture, and in the absence of a genuinely shared life that could be represented by a common history or joint possessions, women like Simcox represented their unrequited sexual desire for other women by extravagantly combining incompatible terms such as mother, lover, sister, friend, wife, and idol. Other women deployed similar rhetorical techniques of intensification and accumulation to express sexual loves that were not equally felt and did not lead to long-term partnerships. 

At age twenty, Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912), one of England’s first female doctors and an activist who helped open medical education to women, met philanthropist Octavia Hill (1838–1912). In a biography of Jex-Blake written in 1918 that still adhered to Victorian rhetorical conventions, Margaret Todd called her subject’s relationship with Hill a “friendship” but qualified it as one that made “the deepest impression . . . of any in the whole of her life.” Jex-Blake considered the degree of love she felt for women to be unusual, writing around 1858, “I believe I love women too much ever to love a man” (78). 

During a brief relationship that Hill soon broke off, the two women may have been sexually involved, but even so their feelings were never evenly matched. During the period when the women were closest, Hill reduced their bond to mere chumminess by calling herself and Jex-Blake “great companions” (85). By contrast, Jex-Blake was in awe of Hill and described her as both child and mother, roles often eroticized for Victorians, writing in her diary of “My dear loving strong child . . . I do love and reverence her” (85). Even after the relationship ended, Jex-Blake thought of Hill as her lifelong spouse, referring twenty years later to the “fanciful faithfulness” she maintained for her first love, to whom she left “the whole of her little property” in repeated wills (94). 

Like Simcox, Jex-Blake used intensified language to underscore the uniqueness of her emotions. When she described inviting Hill on a vacation that included a visit to Llangollen, a site made famous by the female couple who had lived there together, Jex-Blake wrote of her “heart beating like a hammer” (85) and then described Hill’s response: “She sunk her head on my lap silently, raised it in tears, then such a kiss!” (86). Female friends often exchanged kisses, but Jex-Blake’s account took the kiss out of the realm of friendship into one of heightened sensation. Although it was common for female friends to love each other and write gushingly about it, Simcox and Jex-Blake also wrote of feeling uncommon, different from the general run of women. 

Simcox identified closely with men and Jex-Blake felt unable to love men as most women did; both were extraordinarily autonomous, professionally successful, and self-conscious about the significance of their love for women. Other women also had intense erotic relationships that went beyond friendship, but were less self-conscious about those relationships, which they rarely saw as needing special explanation, and which usually lasted years or months rather than a lifetime. An example of outright insouciance about a deeply felt erotic fascination between women is found in the journals of Margaret Leicester Warren, written in the 1870s and published for private circulation in 1924. 

Little is known about Warren, who was born in 1847 and led the life of a typical upper-middle-class lady, attending church, studying drawing and music, and marrying a man in 1875. Her diary attests to a fondness for triangulated relationships that included an adolescent crush on her newlywed sister and her sister’s husband, and a brief, tumultuous engagement to a male cousin whose mother was the dramatic center of Warren’s intense emotions. In 1872, when Warren was twenty-five, she began to write incessantly about a distant cousin named Edith Leycester in entries that reveled in the experience of succumbing to another woman’s glamour: “Edith looked very beautiful and as usual I fell in love with her....Tonight Edith took me into her room. . . . She is like an enchanted princess. There is some charm or spell that has been thrown over her.”

 Numerous similar entries recorded an infatuation that combined daily familiarity with reverent mystification of a sophisticated and self-dramatizing woman. Warren’s fascination with Edith lasted several years. Unlike Simcox and Jex-Blake, Warren never self-consciously reflected that her feelings for Edith differed from conventional friendship, but like them, Warren ascribed an intensity, exclusivity, and volatility to her feelings for Edith absent from most accounts of female friendship. Indeed, Warren rarely referred to Edith as a friend when she wrote of her desire to see Edith every day and recorded their many exchanges of confidences, poetry, and gifts. 

Warren fetishized and idealized Edith, was fixated on her presence and absence, and used superlatives to describe the feelings she inspired. Within months of meeting Edith, most of Warren’s entries consisted of detailed reenactments of their daily visits and the emotions generated by each parting and reunion: “Edith was charming tonight and I was happier with her than I have ever been. She looked beautiful” (287). Warren created an erotic aura around Edith through the very act of writing about her, through a liberal use of adverbs and adjectives, and by infusing her friend’s most ordinary actions with dramatic implications. 

Describing how Edith invited her to visit her country home, for example, Warren wrote, “Edith came in and threw herself down on the chair and said quietly and gently ‘come to Toft!’” (291). Although Warren got along well with Edith’s rarely present husband, Rafe, she relished being alone with her and described the awkward, jealous scenes that took place whenever she had to share Edith with other women (362, 369). Warren found ways to dwell on the details of Edith’s beauty through references to fashion and contemporary art. Like many diarists, Warren had an almost novelistic capacity to observe and characterize people in terms of prevailing aesthetic forms. 

She described Edith with flowers in her hair, looking like a pre-Raphaelite painting, and recorded her desire to make images of Edith: “I sd. like to paint her. . . . It wd. make a good ‘golden witch’ a beautiful Enchantress” (290–91). A ride with Edith inspired Warren to pen another impassioned tableau: “All the way there in the brougham I looked at Edith’s beautiful profile, the lamp light shining on it, and the wind blowing her hair about—her face also, all lit up with enthusiasm and tenderness as she leant forward to Rafe and told him a long story . . . I . . . only thought how grand she was” (369–70). 

Shared confidences about Warren’s broken engagement to their male cousin became another medium for cultivating the women’s special intimacy. By assuring Warren that she did not side with the jilted fiance´, Edith declared an autonomous interest in her: “‘I wanted you to come here because— because I like you.’ She was sitting at her easel and never looking at me as she spoke for I was standing behind her, but when she said ‘because I like you,’ she looked backwards up at me with such an honest, soft, beautiful expression that any distrust I had still left of her trueness melted up into a cinder” (290). 

Just as Warren heightened her relationship with Edith by writing about it so effusively and at such length, the two women elevated it by coyly discussing what their interactions and feelings meant. Before one of her many departures from London, Edith asked Warren: “‘[A]re you sorry I am going? . . . How curious—why are you sorry?’ Then I told her a little of all she had done for me . . . how much life and pleasure and interest she had put into my life, and she said nothing but she just put out her hand and laid it on my hand and that from her means a great deal more than 100 things from anyone else” (293). Edith’s gesture drew on the repertory of friendship, but in the private theater of her journal, Warren transformed the touch of a hand into a uniquely meaningful clasp. 

This is not to say the relationship was one-sided. If Warren’s diary reports the two women’s interactions with any degree of accuracy, it is clear that both enjoyed creating an atmosphere of pent-up longing. Edith fed Warren’s infatuation with provocative questions and a skill for setting scenes: “She asked what things I cared for now? And I said with truth, for nothing— except seeing her” (303). Three days later, just before another of Edith’s departures, Warren paid a call: When tea was over, the dusk had begun and I . . . sat . . . at the open window. . . . By and bye Edith came and sat near me. . . . The room inside was nearly dark, but outside it was brilliant May moonlight. . . . Edith sat there ready to go, looking very pale and very sad with the light on her face. . . . We did not talk much. She asked me to go to the party tonight and to think of her at 11. . . . She said goodbye and she kissed me, for the first time. (303–4) 

Warren is exquisitely sensitive to every element that connotes eroticism: a darkened room, physical proximity, complicit silence, a romantic demand that the beloved remain present in her lover’s mind even when absent, a kiss whose uniqueness—“for the first time”—suggests a beginning. Any one of these actions would have been unremarkable between female friends, but comparison with other women’s diaries shows how distinctive it was for Warren to list so many gestures within one entry, without defining and therefore restricting their meaning. Warren’s attitude also distinguishes her emotions from those articulated by women who took their love for women in a more conjugal or sexual direction. Her journals combine exhaustive attention to the beloved with a pervasive indifference to interrogating what that fascination might mean. 

Never classified as friendship or love, Warren’s feelings for Edith had the advantages and limits of remaining in the realm of suggestion, where they could expand infinitely without ever being realized or checked. Women who consummated a mutual love and consolidated it by forming a conjugal household were less likely to leave records of their most impassioned moods and deeds than those whose love went unrequited or undefined. Indeed, women in what were sometimes called “female marriages” (a term I discuss further in chapter 5) used lifewriting to claim the privilege of privacy accorded to opposite-sex spouses. 

Like the lifewritings of women married to men, those of women in female marriages assumed intimacy and interdependence rather than displaying it, and folded their sexual bond into a social one. They described shared households and networks of acquaintances who recognized and thus legitimated the women’s coupledom, liberally using words such as “always,” “never,” and “every” to convey an iterated, daily familiarity more typical of spouses than friends. 

Martha Vicinus’s Intimate Friends cites many nineteenth-century women who described their relationships with other women as marriages, and Magnus Hirschfeld’s magisterial, international study of The Homosexuality of Men and Women (1914) noted that same sex couples often created “marriage-like associations characterized by the exclusivity and long duration of the relationships, the living together and the common household, the sharing of every interest, and often the existence of legitimate community property.” 

Sexual relationships of all stripes were most acceptable when their sexual nature was least visible as such but was instead manifested in terms of marital acts such as cohabitation, fidelity, financial solidarity, and adherence to middle-class norms of respectability. Because friendship between women was so clearly defined and prized, one way to acknowledge a female couple’s existence while respecting their privacy was to call women who were in effect married to each other “friends.” Given that “friends” was used to describe women who were lovers and women who were not, how can we tell when “friends” means more than just friends? 

…There are many instances of published writing acknowledging marital relationships between women by calling them friendships. Victorian women in female couples were not automatically subject to the exposure and scandal visited on opposite-sex couples who stepped outside the bounds of respectable sexual behavior. Instead, many female couples enjoyed both the right to privacy associated with marriage and the public privileges accorded to female friendship. The Halifax Guardian obituary of Anne Lister in 1840 recognized her longstanding spousal relationship with Anne Walker by calling her Lister’s “friend and companion,” a gratuitously compound phrase.

Emily Faithfull, whom we will encounter again in chapter 6, was a feminist with a long history of female lovers. An 1894 article entitled “An Afternoon Tea with Miss Emily Faithfull” described her home in Manchester, decorated by “Miss Charlotte Robinson,” whom Faithfull readily disclosed “shares house with me.”80 Faithfull left all her property to Robinson in a will that called her “my beloved friend” whose “countless services” and “affectionate tenderness and care . . . made the last few years of my life the happiest I ever spent.” To call one woman another’s superlative friend was not to disavow their marital relationship but to proclaim it in the language of the day.”

- Sharon Marcus, “Friendship and the Play of the System.” in Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England

#victorian #sexuality #history #sharon marcus #between women

[acaiis]

The Existence of Capitalism in Skyword Sword and How it Makes No Sense Contextually

First off, before I begin, I would like to make it clear that this is not meant to be a a post to bring politics into Zelda; it is my analysis of the information we are given about Skyloft and subsequent questioning of a lot of different canonical aspects. This also won't contain any major spoilers for Skyward Sword, as this is viewed almost entirely from a world-building perspective. Continued beneath the cut (because this is a monstrous post)

The Canon Economy In game, the citizens of Skyloft rely on a monetary system of trade, i.e. using money to purchase goods. This in and of itself works fine for the game, but I'll get into later why it's not very well founded later on. We see that the Skyloftians have to pay for necessities such as food in game. Seeing as this isn't something that carries much weight story-wise, it's hard to find lots of information, but it can be asssumed that Skyloft operates on a typical "use money to purchase goods" system. Furthermore, the only large source of food we see in game (pumpkin island), appears to be owned privately. Patrons must pay to consume pumpkin soup. This indicates that other islands with the means for producing food may also be owned privately, though these theoretical islands do not exist canonically. Most of this will become relevant as this post goes on; for now it offers contextual knowledge. The Money Problem

Across the Zelda franchise, Rupees act as the main currency. It is not stated anywhere how or where Rupees are created, so there's a few potential routes.

1.) Rupees are mined from the earth.

In the very first installation of the franchise, rupees are referred to as Rubies by the game manual. Rubies being used to refer to them implies that they may share similar properties -- so from here we can assume that rupees are some sort of gemstone that are mined from the earth and made into money. If you're thinking, "but money is made out of paper, why would they use gemstones?", then I will direct you to the historical use of silver and gold as currency. 2.) Rupees are created magically.

In game, rupees can be obtained in an eclectic variety of methods. Killing monsters, cutting grass, and so on and so forth. This could imply that they are generated by some outside force at seemingly random. This particular theory is the weakest of the three.

3.) Rupees are formed via living organisms.

Hear me out. Seeing as a potential drop of enemies is rupees, the creation of rupees is not explicitly stated, and they're not so common that they're essentially worthless, one could assume that, similar to pearls, rupees are created by living organisms. This would explain why they are dropped sometimes by enemies, and even why you find them in the grass (outside of the minish) -- if a monster dies, the rupee(s) could be left behind in the grass and so forth. When taken in the context of Skyloft, the theoretical origin of rupees that makes the most sense at a first glance is the second one -- there are few monsters on Skyloft, which rules out no. 3, and seeing as they have very limited ground to work with, mining is out of the question. However, when we look at the option of magical origins, it starts to break down -- they can't exactly disperse any excess money, as they are extremely limited in who they can trade with, and if money just keeps showing up out of nowhere the economy will inevitably undergo inflation, which wouldn't be good for anyone. So, this leaves us with a limited supply of rupees on Skyloft, following either theory 1 or 3.

The problem here is that they live on a floating island, and frequently travel between multiple of these islands. If, say, one was to drop something off the edge, we know that it would be as good as lost canonically -- they cannot reach the surface, and therefore have no method of retrieving any objects lost in this manner.

In my initial ramble about this, the example I used was this: Young children clearly exist on Skyloft, and typically children enjoy playing with things and imitating their parents. I'm sure most people have had an experience in which a young child has either destroyed or lost money. If there's one toddler that has the idea to start chucking money over the edge, they could potentially even wreck the economy depending on the current finite amount of rupees available on Skyloft and the amount of which is being thrown off. Basically, the economy of Skyloft could be wrecked by a child.

They could potentially use something other than rupees as money, but options here are pretty much nonexistent -- what would they use? The amount of resources they'd have to use to produce money simply wouldn't make sense, seeing as they have limited resources -- which brings us to our next section.

Limited Resources

To add to the dubious monetary system of Skyloft, we have the very clearly limited resources. They live on floating islands. In the sky. With no access to the greater world below. They have very limited room for production. Even with the small canonical population of Skyloft (we're strongly going to assume that the npcs present in SkSw are not the extent of the sky's population, however, because otherwise they'd be competing with the lines of the european royalty), managing food would be a large and very important undertaking. In order to keep myself going a rant worthy of its own post, I won't be going too into depth on how they would make use of the land for survival. All that is needed to know is that food is very much limited and also, obviously, essential for survival.

When looking at an isolated community like this, food would likely be the most important part of life on Skyloft. If food isn't available, you die. Given that it is so important to have food in this situation, it would be a reasonable assumption to have a community in which everyone works to ensure the production of food. With these circumstances, the private ownership (for profit) of gardens is both unrealistic and extremely unethical. Farmers could charge a premium for food, making themselves extremely wealthy, and everyone else would be forced to pay these rates in order to survive.

Summary of Canonical Issues

Basically, we have this community in which resources are vastly limited, obtaining replacements for lost money is more-or-less out of the question, and the community would likely be all working together for the collective benefit of said community. In this context, having both money and capitalism make very little sense, and capitalism on its own is horribly unethical.

Potential Solutions

The full scope of world-building solutions to the "look at it wrong and it crumbles" situation of Skyloft gets into far more than the economy, and this post particularly was spawned from a conversation about Skyloftian food production. This will be pretty much a summary, but if I get around to making a separate post for the food and resources of Skyloft, I'll link it here and reblog this with a link as well. Anyways.

The conclusion I eventually came to falls into socialism. There's not really a central government on Skyloft, so production would be in the hands of the community at large. They would all be working for the benefit of one another and continued survival of their civilization, and seeing how essential food is, wages wouldn't really be a factor either -- you garden, or you die. This eliminates the need for money, as essential goods can be obtained via working for them and contributing to the community. Outside of essentials, any luxury items could be obtained through the trade of items or skill, which would make sense. Someone who is, for example, a woodcarver, could want silk from a weaver. Instead of paying in money, which wouldn't serve any purpose outside of luxury items, they could instead carve something for the weaver. This continues to promote the learning and use of specialized skillsets while avoiding the money conundrum. Plus, seeing as Skyloft would likely be tightly knit as a community, it fits far nicer than charging your neighbor ridiculous prices.

Also, as a bonus thought, Rupees would probably just be seen as gemstones on Skyloft. They could be used by craftsman or as decoration. I'm at a loss as to how to end this post, because I pretty much summed up the bulk of everything I could without going on wild tangents, so I leave you with this:

#long post #skyward sword #skyward sword worldbuilding #skyward sword anaylsis #analyzing video games #my mom poked her head into my room like halfway through and thought it was a school assignment and asked how the essay was coming #i didn't have the heart to let her know that her kid is ranting about the unethicality of capitalism in a fictional world in a video game #essay #casey gone feral #essays theories and worldbuilding #worldbuilding #i need a tag for posts like these #uhhhhhhh #zelda worldbuilding #zelda analysis #questioning canon #questioning things that were clearly meant to not be questioned #i blame faye /lh #ask me about how this affects my take on Sky #or don't i'll probably ramble about it at some point anyways #zelda theory #i guess technically sorta #caseyworldbuildsandetc

[bisexualcrowley]

Undercover

Pairing: Harry Hart x Fem! reader

Summary: While doing surveillance at a gala, Y/n and Harry's identities are threatened to be uncovered and they take to a rather intimate method of hiding their faces

Content/warnings: smutty themes? nsfw, fluffy stuff, cursing, suggestive themes, semi-public foreplay/teasing, making out, Merlin’s still alive bc i want him to be

Word count: 3,729

“A Gala. In the middle of winter, this means I might have to fight in heels, is this really necessary Merlin?” Y/n sighed, glancing out at the light drifting of snow that had begun to flutter down from the sky. Its not that she had anything against winter, the woman mused to herself, just that it makes this sort of work so much more difficult. 

The year had been tough enough already, having lost Harry to Valentine, getting Harry back, the whole issue with the Golden Circle, and the constant stress was getting to Y/n, the smallest thing now able to piss her off, and unfortunately for her, this latest mission seemed to be more than a small thing. “C’mon Y/n, i know we all could use some rest but this is important, the target is threatening to release catastrophic amounts of classified government information. I’m not asking you to be on the front line here, I just need you and Galahad on the sidelines, more as surveillance and backup than anything else.”

Y/n had been less than impressed with Merlin’s words, wanting to stay as far away as possible from field work until she had gotten a decent amount of sleep, but her ears perked up at the mention of her best friend and previous partner at Kingsman.

“You’re letting Harry in the field again?”

She asked, surprised at the man’s words. “I thought you said he wasn’t ready yet, after the problems he had while working alongside the American agents.

“Not fully, as i said, the two of you will just be keeping tabs on him from the crowd, not making contact unless absolutely necessary.” Merlin must have picked up on Y/n’s eagerness to work alongside Harry again and allowed himself a slight smile as he spoke, sliding the paperwork across the table to the younger agent. “This place is fancy, i mean really fancy, you’re gonna want to look your very best. Go over his papers today and be here dressed and ready at 20:30 tomorrow. And I mean it, y/n, be dressed to kill, in more than just the metaphoric sense”

Most of her annoyance having melted away at the mention of Harry, Y/n agreed, taking the papers and shaking Merlin’s hand before turning on her heel and jogging down the hall of the Kingsman offices, hoping to find her friend. Luckily Y/n didn’t need to search far, finding him in the actual tailor section of the building being fit for a tuxedo.

Y/n caught Harry’s eye in the mirror in front of him and she shot him a grin, leaning casually against the door frame. “Lookin’ good, Galahad. Excited to be headin’ back into it?” She asked, affection shining in her smile at the sight of Harry Hart suiting up for battle once again. 

It was no secret among many of the Kingsman agents that Y/n had fallen hard for the man, her feelings becoming clear to them when Harry was shot as she had broken down in tears at the news despite being one of Kingsman’s toughest agents, however she did manage to keep the secret from Harry himself, terrified of losing the relationship they already had by revealing her feelings only to find that they weren’t reciprocated. 

Eggsy and Merlin, of course, had required a fair amount of bribery to be convinced to keep their mouths shut, finding the whole situation more than amusing and wanting nothing more than to spill the beans to Harry, whom they were fully convinced shared y/n’s feelings. Y/n didn’t crack though, and eventually the men had settled on the childish teasing of Y/n and placing bets on who would make the first move. Eggsy had put 50 pounds on Y/n cracking first, but Merlin put his money on Harry, having said something about Eggsy underestimating the woman.

At the moment, despite her refusal to share her feelings with Harry, Y/n feared that Eggsy was going to be the one to win the wager as she felt her heart beat faster at the happy smile Harry had offered her in return.  “Looking forward to be working alongside you again, Y/n, it’s been lonely without my partner”

Y/n felt her face heat up at the compliment, but determined not to let her resolve fail she once again held back the words she wanted so badly to tell her friend, instead choosing to push herself off the doorframe and saunter over to Harry’s position in the center of the room.  “So... A gala. Haven’t done one of these together in ages, have we.”  Y/n’s hand came to rest on Harry’s shoulder, still not having broken their eye contact through the mirror. “It has been a while, although luckily, I never forgot how to dance”

Y/n’s confident exterior faltered at his words, tilting her head to the side and eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “We have to dance?” She asked, voice coming out far quieter than she had hoped. Harry let out a very ungentlemanly laugh at her shock, turning his gaze from the mirror to meet his friend’s eyes properly. “I’d assume Merlin didn’t tell you for this very reason, y/n” He chuckled. “We’d stick out too much, standing in the middle of a ballroom. To draw the least amount of attention to our position, we’re gonna have to dance”

Y/n froze for a moment, weighing her options. On one hand, she thought, I’m dancing with Harry. On the other hand, i’m dancing. In public. What a terrifying thought, i should just tell Merlin i won’t do it. But if i don’t do it, i don’t dance with Harry. 

She squinted slightly, fighting herself for which option was better, but in the end decided that the upside of pretending to be Harry’s date outweighed the negatives in the situation, and after another moment of hesitation, Y/n nodded, nervously drumming her fingers on the man’s shoulder.

“Alright then. If we’re gonna dance, we’re gonna do it right. I’m gonna go find a dress, i guess. See you tomorrow, Galahad” Y/n breathed, a hint of humor making it’s way into her words as she went on, which to her luck Harry picked up on, and replied with an exaggerated salute, earning him a giggle and smile from Y/n before she slung on a coat and took off again.

Lucky for her the London streets were nearly empty, most seeking cover from the bitter cold within the comfort of their homes, and the trip to her own home was quick for Y/n. Almost immediately upon arriving, she threw open the doors of her closet, flicking through hanger after hanger of clothes that Merlin would be less than happy about her wearing to such a prestigious event. It appeared that luck was still on her side, however, as Y/n paused, pulling out a dress previously hidden behind a thick winter coat.  It was beautiful, a slim gown of deep green velvet with a loose, plunging neckline and thin black straps with a shimmering gold woven throughout, and y/n smiled, knowing it would be perfect for the following night.

The next day passed quickly, Y/n having to study the target’s file, shower, do her hair and makeup, fit a variety of concealed weaponry on her person, and what felt to her like a million other things, and it felt like no time at all before she found herself outside the Kingsman Tailor shop, glittering heels clicking along the icy sidewalk leading up to the building. Y/n reached for the door handle, shivering slightly in the cold but was met with the door swinging open in her face, Merlin staring down at her with Eggsy, Tequila and Harry behind him. 

“Y/n, you’re late, c’mon, there’s a car waiting in the back, c’mon lets go” Merlin ushered her along, the group rounding the building to find a black towncar waiting in the alley. It took a bit of maneuvering to fit everyone into the vehicle, coats bunching up in the small space, but eventually the group situated themselves in a somewhat comfortable fashion, and they were off.

The drive was longer than Y/n had expected, but no time was spent relaxing, having found herself rather distracted by her body being pressed against a very well dressed Harry, the cramped space forcing her leg to shift up onto Harry’s so that she was sitting partially on his lap, a position that had the both of them blushing furiously and Tequila chuckling from Harry’s left. 

Hoping to distract from the uncomfortable and unfortunately mildly arousing way she was seated, Y/n leaned forward to peer past Harry and raised an eyebrow at the American agent, who in return mimicked her expression, which brought a mix of annoyance and amusement to the still blushing woman.  “Mind if i ask why Harry was forced into the middle seat? Last time i checked, i’d fit a fair bit better” Y/n asked, Harry humming in agreement with her statement.

“Why, you wanna sit on my lap instead?” Tequila smirked, earning a snort of laughter from Eggsy and Merlin in the front seat and a glare from Y/n, where Harry shifted uncomfortably and blushed harder.

Y/n’s snapped back, but her retort was cut short at the feeling of the car slowing to a stop and Merlin leaning over the drivers seat to run over the night’s details one last time. 

The plan went smoothly from then, Eggsy and Tequila positioning themselves near the main doorways and Merlin settling himself behind a computer, leaving Harry and Y/n to shed their coats and make their way further into the ballroom. A string quartet was set in the middle of the north wall, playing what y/n recognized immediately to be a slower rendition of the seal lullaby, and she fought the urge to twirl around a couple times, instead smoothing out her dress and holding out a hand to Harry.

“Well Mr. Hart, may i have this dance?” Y/n spoke calmly, careful to avoid appearing overly enthusiastic so as not to draw unnecessary attention to the pair, but the warmth shining in her eyes was undisguisable to Harry, who took her arm with a smile and led her to their position in the ballroom.

The image of the two Kingsman agents settling into a graceful mix of a waltz and a simple slow dance was reflected off the marble floors, creating what would have been a beautiful photo had there been a photographer near them and y/n relished in the moment, hand clasped with Harry’s, his hand pulling her waist to his as they swayed to the music.

Harry caught Y/n’s eye as he caught her after a spin, a grin breaking through his character that made her heart flutter. The song slowed to it’s end and the couple for the night paused, the taller figure dipping y/n and freezing, their faces inches apart. Y/n felt her breath hitch in her chest, heart pounding at the intimate position they had paused in.

Her eyes met Harry’s again, the latter panting slightly, his pupil dilated and face flushed red, and dear god it turned Y/n on. Biting her tongue to hold back what would have been a rather humiliating moan, she rested her weight into Harry’s arms, allowing herself a second to catch her breath. As the next song began, Harry shook himself out of whatever state he was in and pulled y/n back up against him, resuming the dance like nothing had happened. Y/n, still flustered, tried to distract herself by shooting a glance towards their target, who had moved from lingering by the side entrance to scanning the crowd from a nearby refreshment table.  As the song reached a peak Harry spun y/n around again, but this time around her heel caught on the seam of her dress and she stumbled, accidentally turning away from her partner. Quickly righting herself, Y/n returned to her previous stance, but not before making brief yet intense eye contact with the man they were watching.  “Shit... Merlin do you have eyes on the target? I might have just fucked us over” Y/n’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper, eyes blown wide with horror at the prospect of ruining Harry’s first real taste of action since the Golden Circle incident.

“Hang on, hang on, don’t abort mission yet” Merlin muttered through her earpiece, y/n hearing the clacking of keys as the older agent fussed with the security cameras

“Fuckin hell, Galahad, Y/n, he’s coming your way. Hold your position, we don’t blow your cover unless we’re 100% sure he knows who you are. Keep dancing, but don’t let him see your face” 

Merlin’s voice cut across the earpiece again, and by the way y/n felt Harry's shoulders tense she knew he heard the message too.

“Shit, what do we do?” she hissed back, watching her partner risk a glance to the left and finding the target moving smoothly through the crowd, eyes set on the couple.

“Keep dancing, stay inconspicuous for as long as possible, if we’re lucky he’ll just pass on by. Now i’ll say it again, don’t let him see your bloody faces.” Merlin’s voice was low, and Y/n couldn’t stop the nervous feeling they caused from setting in as she watched the man grow nearer out of the corner of her eye.

“Merlin i don’t know what you expect us to do here if it’s so imperative we don’t move from this spot, we can’t just-”

Y/n tuned out Harry’s urgent whispers as a solution came to mind, eyes widening at the ridiculousness her own mind had come up with, but not seeing a better solution she shushed him, placing a finger over his lips.

Harry looked confused but went along with it, cocking an eyebrow in silent questioning and giving her shoulder a soft squeeze as the man drew closer, nearly close enough to get a good look at the pair, and y/n knew she had to make her move.  With a quick whisper of “forgive me for this Harry”, Y/n brought her hands up to cup her friend’s face and pulled him into a kiss. Harry froze momentarily, his jaw tensing in shock before he followed her lead and returned the kiss, their lips moving against each others perfectly in sync and y/n couldn’t keep herself from sighing into the kiss, unconsciously pressing her body closer to his. 

Harry deepened the kiss, his hands moving to thread through her hair and a vague thought reminded Y/n he was just helping to conceal her face, but it was shoved quickly to the back of her mind with a particularly passionate movement from Harry which she met enthusiastically. Her hands inched upwards to tug at his perfectly styled hair, which earned Y/n a low moan against her lips, and she pressed closer again, unconsciously slipping her leg between Harry’s. She felt his cock twitch against her thigh and all thoughts of what they were there to do flew out the window, one hand clasping at the collar of his tuxedo’s jacket and the other cupping his cheek, pulling his face down to her own.

Feeling bold, Y/n made a move to nip at Harry’s lower lip but before she had the chance, they were interrupted by a more than amused Eggsy clearing his throat beside her.  The pair flinched in surprise and pulled quickly out of the heated embrace, leaving Y/n wiping speared lipstick from her face and fixing disheveled hair, Harry somewhat discretely adjusting his clothing to hide the now quite sizable bulge in his trousers with a deep blush across his cheeks and Eggsy watching from the side, eyes tearing up from the effort of holding in his laughter.

“Merlin says good thinkin’, Y/n. The two’ve you were a bit busy to notice but Tequila got the guy, he went down nice n’ quiet, we’re supposed to get to the car as soon as possible” Eggsy had a shit eating grin plastered across his face as he spoke, which only got wider when Y/n gave Harry an awkward smile, which he returned briefly before shoving his hands in his pockets and staring down at his shoes.

Snickering, Eggsy escorted the pair through the crowded room and through a series of side doors, which after a seemingly unnecessary number of hallways led to a back exit where the towncar that had brought them to the gala was waiting. Dreading what was sure to be an uncomfortable conversation with Harry, y/n winced at the thought of how inappropriate her actions towards her friend were, and she moved to open the passenger side door but was stopped by Eggsy once again, who flung open the door and threw himself in next to Merlin, who quite to her displeasure shared Eggsy’s smirk. 

Y/n’s eyes locked with his, silently pleading to switch seats but her weak attempt proved to be in vain as Eggsy winked and pointed over his shoulder to the back of the car, where Harry was already seated.  Y/n glared at Merlin but didn’t argue, and took a deep breath before sliding into the car, which to her luck was no longer so cramped due to the third agent having stayed behind with the target. The space was still smaller than she would have wished, but the cover of darkness provided a touch of comfort that y/n was endlessly grateful for. 

Shadows crossed across her legs as the car rolled into gear, Merlin driving out of the alley and beginning the long journey back to the Kingsman headquarters. Y/n sighed, leaning her head against the window and closing her eyes, hoping the cold glass against her skin would help to drown out her racing thoughts.

Much to her dismay, however, they had been traveling for less than ten minutes when Eggsy turned around, leaning over his chair with the same wicked smile stretched across his face as he had worn before.

“So, you two had some fun t’night, didntcha?” Merlin let out a snort of laughter from beside him, Eggsy nodding his head suggestively between the pair in the backseat. Too tired to come up with a snarky reply, y/n simply rolled her eyes at Eggsy, and went back to working up the nerve to say something to the uncharacteristically silent figure seated beside her.

The realization that Harry was rarely this quiet around y/n outweighed her fear of confrontation, concern for her friend pulling her focus from Eggsy to the older man, and she turned to face him.  Harry was sitting stiffly, hands clasped in his lap and head straight forward, but he must have been watching y/n out of the corner of his eye, as he looked to the side to meet her eyes when she turned from her position by the window to look up at him. 

In that moment, the car was silent aside from the low rumble of the engine, the tension between the two growing from tolerable to an absolute peak, hanging thickly in the air between their bodies.  It was thick enough, apparently for Eggsy to pick up on it, and with a chuckle about “giving you two some privacy”, he pressed a button beside his seat that caused a black divider to come up behind him, separating the front from the back of the car and leaving Y/n and Harry in silence.

Both Harry and Y/n stayed frozen in place, faces turned to each other and her eyes locked on his. Hesitantly, y/n placed a hand on Harry’s knee, a motion that years of friendship had taught him meant she had a lot to say, but didn’t yet know how to say it, and Harry nodded, the silent exchange sharing more than words would be able to.

“...I... I’m sorry, Harry, i shouldn’t have...” Y/n’s voice was low, barely above a whisper as she spoke, trailing off as the words caught in her throat. 

"No, y/n, it was my mistake, i just...” Harry's voice faltered as well, fingers coming up to fuss nervously with the strap of his eyepatch, a habit y/n had noticed Harry picked up when he felt flustered.

Neither of them knew what had happened; one moment they were sitting in silence, y/n’s hand on his knee and tension high, and the next moment y/n found herself being pulled into Harry’s lap, her hands once again tugging at his hair as they met again in a heated kiss.  Her dress had hiked up to her hips at this point, allowing Y/n to straddle her lover properly, and this time she didn’t hesitate to grind down against him, Harry’s hands coming to grip her smooth hips as she rubbed her barely covered sex along the bulge in his trousers, both letting out groans of pleasure at the friction.

Harry’s fingers trailed down y/n’s body as they made out like horny teenagers in the backseat, moving from her hair down to cup her covered breast, and down further to trace along the slick fabric of her panties. Y/n whimpered at the touch and moved to return the favor, her own hand coming to palm at his cock through his pants, at which Harry gasped and yanked her down onto his lap once again, hips thrusting up to grind against y/n’s cunt.

She moaned against his mouth once again, pulling away for just long enough to strip off Harry’s coat and unbutton his shirt before returning to her position on his lap. The two were so caught up in the moment that they didn’t notice the car pulling up to the curb and stopping, however they did take notice to the door flying open and the flash of a camera, followed by Eggsy’s delighted voice and a deep laugh from Merlin.  Embarrassed, y/n quickly tugged her dress back into place and slid out of the car, holding out a hand for Harry to take as he climbed out, looking as red faced as y/n felt.

“Go on, buggers, we took you to Galahad’s place. I’ll find out who won the bet tomorrow, go have some fuckin’ fun.” Eggsy laughed at their dumbfounded expressions at his words, but chose not to respond, instead returning to his seat beside Merlin who drove off a few seconds later, leaving two very sexually frustrated agents on the sidewalk. 

“Well then... Wanna take this inside?”

#harry hart smut #kingsman smut #kingsman imagine #kingsman fluff #harry hart x reader #harry hart imagine #harry hart fluff #wlm imagine #fanfic #oneshot #kingsman the golden circle #kingsman harry