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mfpeace · 3 years

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@justbeingedgy @weird-colombian-gurl You asked me to elaborate on the "Ches already has a kid" theory in the notes of that one mf analysis post (which I really liked, go check it out!!), so that's why I'm making this one, cuz notes are a bit too restricting for what I want to talk about!

Though next time think twice before asking me to talk about something I'm interested in, because you never know when you're gonna wake up lovecraftian horrors!! :DDD you'll see what i mean when you press read more :))

So, I'll say it right now - this post is largely inspired by the second story highlight of this Instagram user (sorry, I don't know their name, only that their Instagram handle is dee_girl_metalfamilyfan), it's in Russian though, so keep that in mind

Alright, so I'll break this theory into two parts: the first one will be all about Ches, and the second will be about his potential child (spoiler: you might've seen her!)

Without any further ado, let's get to the Ches part:

1. The creators said that they're gonna explore Ches' character in the second season. Obviously, it doesn't mean anything on it's own, but just wait.

Dima: Let's talk about the second season a little. Of course, the seconds season will show development of the old characters, as well as new ones. That's in short. As you see, Ches looks a bit different here.

Alina: Yeah, we'll show a bit more about Ches at the ages of 18 to 20. His past. We'll reveal a bit more about his complex character, as much as it's possible.

(The source of the translation) Also I think they also said at one point that adult Ches will get some character development too? But that's probably a given, considering that we wouldn't see his youth if it wouldn't have affected him in the present, flashbacks without any relevance to the overall story don't sound so good

2. Not sure about this one (we don't know how much in character it was) but I can't not mention it.

Alina: Actually there was this one fanfic that I really liked. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was about Ches having a daughter, which is a cool topic. It was relatively in character and truly interesting. It’s great when people focus not just on sexual relationships of the characters, but also try to look at their development. That was a really interesting one. That’s it.

(UnityCon '19)

3. This one's a pretty big one, in my opinion. So, this is what they said on ArtWave '19:

Dima: Ches also has flaws.

Alina: [to Dima] Don’t spoil stuff.

Dima: His flaw is that he's very... irresponsible, let’s say.

So, maybe, just maybe, Ches does have a child but he, you know... left them? As the Instagram highlight from the beginning say: "he might be irresponsible enough to leave his child, and he's probably irresponsible enough not to use any contraception" (rephrased, not the exact quote)

4. Alright, so, the only mention of this one I can think of right now is the aforementioned Instagram highlight. The Metalfamilyfan says:

I contacted Korg/Корж, (admin of @ metal_yama [and I believe one of the organizers of the Metal Family Meetup in Moscow]) and she asked Alina on one of the meetups: "if Ches were to be a father, what kind of father would he be?"

And she said: "The kind of that would say "kid, look at that birdie over there!" an then he would run away"

Someone's words are not the perfect source, but they did tag Metal Yama and from what I know they didn't disagree with what the author of the page said. if anyone has anything to say about this (disprove or definitely prove what I said) feel free to do so in a reblog, notes, DMs, send me an anonymous ask, or in any other way you feel comfortable with

5. Ches has literally been through the same thing, and we know how important the theme of the cycle of abuse is in Metal Family (or, in this case, the cycle of neglect? Abandonment? Idk)

You managed to hide your PREGNANCY from me! AND you've been hiding the child from me for a whole year!

YES, because you would've insisted on aborting him!

AND NOW I'M INSISTING ON PUTTING HIM UP FOR ADOPTION! OR I'LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW!

6. Here we can see Ches with a blonde girl. Nothing too special, probably just a one time hook up. He doesn't seem to be interested in her, and she seems to be annoyed with him.

But wait...

What is this?

Like, it doesn't even matter if there's actually a punk/rock/whatever band named MOM or not, I just think it's pretty weird to put it in this particular drawing of Ches and this random woman who is implied to have slept with him. It's not integral to Ches' character as, for example, Korol i Shut is. It's just... there. For some reason.

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Alright, now, finally let's get to the second part of the theory: who is, exactly, his child?

The short answer is, according to this theory, her:

First, let me list every single instance of her appearing in canon (and by canon I mean everything made by the creators. Even with this definition of canon it's not much, I promise): The screenshot you can see above on the left (it's a screenshot from the second season and it appeared here), an instagram story posted by Alina (above, right), and two drawing with a lot of characters where you can spot the girl which I'm gonna call her PinkHair or PH for short, I'll mention them later I feel like I should mention this, comparing the sources of the images and the dates when they were posted, it's safe to assume that the screenshot in the classroom has the latest and final version of her design. The red hair most likely doesn't mean anything

1. Alright. So. we've seen Dee and PinkHair in a classroom together, so they're most likely related in some way, or at least they know each other. Their exact relationship doesn't matter here, because all that matters here is that they're related story-wise

Let's look at the first image. This is the banner of the main Metal Family channel. Ches is near Heavy (they get along quite well and I'm sure Heavy aspires to be like Ches in many ways), Dee (we can see his classmates/friends near him, they're all about his age), and we can see people related to Glam on the left side of the image (including Ches!), and Vicky's - on the right side (notice how the hell sign is also there)

Now, I'm not absolutely sure about this one, but it's still kind of weird - look at the image on the right (it's from ArtWave 2021 btw) - wouldn't it make more sense to put PinkHair near Dee? Also, Curiously enough, not only is she not close to Dee on this image, but she's also standing next to Ches.

Though this whole thing could be explained by art theory (too many small things in one corner of your drawing isn't great composition wise lol sorry PH) but I still can't quite skip this point

2. Remember the "MOM" lady? Fun fact, she has the exact same pearl earring that PinkHair has on the screenshot.

3. I'll put all similarities with her supposed parents in this point: Mother: * She's also pretty uh.. glam? for the lack of a better word? Or feminine in a traditional sense, yeah I think that's a better way to put it. Like colors they prefer to wear for example, and jewelry. Characters like that aren't common in Metal Family * She's gotta be a blonde. I can't imagine her being anything but blonde. If she manages to maintain that hair color as a brunette I'm just straight up assuming her character arc is gonna be killing God because these kind of people are capable of anything. I fear them with every fiber of my being. * I can't say for sure because of the shading, but it seems like they both have gray eyes, and she also has darker skin compared to most MF characters. Though, it's likely that Mom just applied a lot of fake tan Ches: * We know that Ches for sure has darker skin * AND grey eyes * There's also some possible personality similarities but I'm not sure if you can compare a child to a parent they've never really known in this way

That's about it, I suppose, I hope there isn't that many grammar mistakes and logically unfinished parts and whatnot in this post I forgot to edit lol x) I'm not sure how to end this post other than to remind you guys that almost all the points in this posts are inspired by the "тупая теория" highlight on the dee_girl_metalfamilyfan's Instagram page, so go check them out and subscribe, they post Dee x The Quest Girl fanart and and always credit the artists. Without them this post would be much, much shorter.

Thanks for reading this post, please feel free to let me know your thoughts on this post <3

#i tried to organize this but #yeah #also damn i hope PH's mother isn't in the same situation as Ches' :'(#at one point i misspelled parent in the context of ches as paren't and now i can't stop giggling like an idiot #these tags have completely different moods to them because I wrote them at different points in time btw #paren't #heh heh #metal family #metal family ches #metal family pinkhair #this seems like it's made up but if words end in ent or ant or something like that sometimes i automatically put an ' in without thinking

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strangefable · 3 years

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I was tagged for the newlywed game that’s going around. I think everyone’s been tagged already, and this is a long post, anyhow, so I’ll leave off tagging anyone. I loved seeing what others have done with these, but I decided to try something a little different and ran with the whole interview angle.

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Exclusive! Intimate Details from the Captain of the Unreliable and Her Scandalous Husband!

It’s a rare opportunity for a reporter to land a personal interview with the famed, yet elusive, captain of the Unreliable, better known as the Savior of Halcyon. It’s even rarer to be invited aboard the ship herself. You can imagine my nervousness upon receiving exactly such an assignment! (I wish to extend a hearty thank you to one former crew member for making the arrangements, however, they have asked to remain anonymous.)

The ship is smaller than you think, looming so large in our collective psyches as it does. It’s small and humble, but it shines with care and attention to detail. Orderly and neat, all things tidily kept in their place, all crew doing their jobs without hesitation and hardly the need for words between them. It runs like a well-oiled machine, exactly as the Plan would design!

I don’t recommend mentioning that to Captain Jameson, though. She didn’t much appreciate it when I tried. And the Vicar? I should say former vicar; he and the OSI are decidedly no longer aligned. He attempted to warn me, or at least I assume that’s what the angry glower must have meant, when I brought up the Plan with the captain.

Much has already been written of the actions and adventures of the captain and her crew which caused Halcyon such tumult and change, and I don’t wish to bore you, dear readers. But leave it to your intrepid reporter to uncover a new stone! For what follows is far more intimate than has ever been heard before! One might say I have a rather exclusive perspective on the captain and her husband...

Read on, if you dare!

I managed to speak with the captain alone in the ship’s galley while she was preparing dinner for her crew. She explained that it’s a standing condition of working for her, that everyone eats what she prepares. She says it with a fond smile, and judging by the commotion of her crew later, I can only assume it is a well-beloved tradition.

Later, I cornered the former vicar alone in his cabin with the same questions I asked the captain. What follows is their individual answers to questions most personal and revealing!

1. Who can outdrink the other?

Captain Jameson’s smile purses when I ask this. She looks both demure and smug, a feat of expression I do not feel fit to describe. Her eyes sparkle at me as she speaks. “I do. He ain’t no contest. Ain’t met many who can, so it ain’t his fault, particular.” She lets out a small laugh. “Might could say I’m a bit o’ an expert.”

Mr. DeSoto scowls when I ask him. “She cheats. Not only does she have years of experience as a bartender, she also has special talents unique to her awakening in Halcyon that grant her an unfair advantage.” However, when I asked him to elaborate, he refused most vehemently. The man can be quite convincing.

2. Who says “I love you” more?

The captain turns her face away, but not fast enough to hide the pink in her cheeks! “Ain’t no need for it. We know what we feel. An’ anyway, he’s better with them fancy words, but it ain’t no account. Words ain’t the only way o’ lettin’ someone know.” She is fidgeting with a spatula in her hand; were it a knife, I suspect I might not have had the courage to ask.

When I ask Mr. DeSoto, he gives me a smug smile with one eyebrow raised. “I suspect she avoided the question. The answer is me, if you’re only counting words, spoken or written. I deem such a narrow view rather small-minded, myself.” There is an air of menace and judgement in his eyes that I don’t feel quite ready to challenge, and so I quickly moved the conversation along.

3. Who has trouble sleeping alone?

A small laugh escapes Captain Jameson’s throat at this question. She pauses over the vegetables she’s cutting and bows her head. “Me. Got me some... ghosts, you might say. Haunt me worst at night. Doctor once called ‘em night terrors. I ain’t slept so good most o’ me life, until Max come along.” She is definitely blushing again as she continues. “He scares them ghosts right off so I can sleep.”

“She does.” There is a small smile on his lips, but the vicar’s eyes hold nothing so much as concern as he speaks. “But it is no longer anything to worry. She does not sleep alone any longer. I simply won’t allow it.” When I ask him if he never has to leave for even a night, he offers me a severe frown. When I ask if anyone else might stand in his stead, his fist clenches and I nearly run from the room at the intensity in his gaze. But the tension passes and he simply shakes his head. “No. Those are not options.” He steeples his hands together on the table before him. “I take my duties to my captain very seriously.” The look in his eyes stops me from asking for further comment on that.

4. Who swears more?

She laughs boldly at this question, tossing her head back and letting it loose. “Oh, aye, that’d be a hard one. We both cuss worse than sailors what ain’t seen shore leave in an age. Don’t you let ‘im fool you on that one. He’s taught me color ought to make me own da blush, and that man ain’t never did blush easy!” She gestures with the wooden spoon in her hand to punctuate her point.

He straightens his back and lifts his chin, high and haughty. “I assure you, I am nowhere near as colorful with my language as my captain.” He pauses. “Unless there is a sufficient reason.”

5. Who does more of the housework?

The captain gives a quick nod, answering without hesitation or reserve. “Oh, I do, but only on account o’ how it calms me. I leave the worst o’ it to SAM. Can’t leave ‘im out o’ his job when Parvati done so much on his upgradin’, but the smaller things?” She gives a slight shrug of her shoulders. “I find comfort in it. Maybe it only reminds me o’ home, but I ain’t much for being waited on, hand nor foot. Ain’t sit too right by me.” Her lips twitch into a playful smile. “Max ain’t much like how I get it done afore he can help sometimes.”

The vicar’s posture is stiff once again as he clears his throat. “She has a penchant for accomplishing more chores in a day than many might think suitable for a ship captain.” He glowers at me for several long moments. “I do what I can.” It almost sounds like an apology, but his tone is too haughty for it.

6. Who forgets their anniversary?

A blush creeps into her cheeks as she glances away from me. “Maybe it ain’t so easy to remember when you got more than a few dates, all jumbled in.” She rolls her shoulder and returns to the pan on the stove. “I do me best.”

A slow smile spreads across his face at the question. “I remember them all well enough for us both. She has larger concerns.” The smug air in his posture and his tone are triumphant.

7. Who steals the duvet in their sleep?

Captain Jameson lets out an undignified snort. “Ain’t no call for stealin’. The duvet’s mine. He jus’ uses me for his own.” She shrugs. “Works well enough for us both.”

The vicar refuses to meet my eyes. He clears his throat and folds his hands on the desk in front of him. “We are quite adequate at sharing it. I am more than content with our sleeping arrangements. However, I see no reason to divulge further.” When I mention what the captain said, he winces slightly. He clears his throat again. “Yes, well, she’s most comfortable sleeping on top of me.” I press further, asking him about his comfort. He turns a slight shade of pink. “As I said, I am content.”

8. Who keeps the other awake at night with their snoring?

“He might snore, but I ain’t never hear it.” The captain smiles. “‘M always asleep first. No idea how he manages it, but...” She gives half of a shrug. “I ain’t mind even if he does. Wouldn’t keep me up. Long as I can hear his heartbeat, that’s all that matters.” She turns away and focuses intensely on stirring the contents of a mixing bowl.

Mr. DeSoto steeples his fingers once again and fixes me with one of his stares I’m becoming familiar with. They feel what I imagine a sprat might sense in the presence of a primal. “I do not believe I like the implication of that question.” He pauses for several long moments. At one point, his lips twitch and I suspect he might divulge something interesting. Unfortunately, he seems to change his mind quickly. “Snoring is not an issue.”

9. Who finds stray animals and begs the other to let them keep them?

She whirls on me with sudden fury. “If you’re makin’ a crack about Felix, I’ll-” She stops when she sees me holding my hands up and the shocked expression on my face. She frowns and looks away. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with takin’ in them what needs it, if I can afford it. Person or animal, ain’t make no difference.” She glares hard at the pot on the stove as she stirs. “Ain’t care what Max has to say about it. No call for no beggin’. It’s my fucking ship.”

The look in his eyes is hesitant as he meets mine. He glances away. His jaw works and I follow his gaze. There are several singe marks on the rugs on the floor, and there’s a stack of books in the corner that look to be half charcoal. I look back to find him glaring at me. “She finds them, but there is no begging on her part, I assure you.” He refuses to elaborate no matter how I try to cajole.

10. Who usually makes dinner?

She turns her head over her shoulder slowly to glance meaningfully at me as she switches from stirring the pot to deftly maneuvering the pan over its heat source, flipping the contents within it with practiced ease. “I like cookin’ and ain’t mind doin’ the lion’s share. But we usually work together most nights. He likes helpin’.” A smile plays on her lips. “Even learnin’ pretty good, he is.” She glances at me once more. “He’d be here now if you ain’t asked different.”

After the captain’s answer, I must admit I felt some trepidation in asking this one of her husband. However, he merely grinned. “If she had her way, she’d do all the cooking all alone.” He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. “But I’m a stubborn man when it suits me. And being in the kitchen with that woman is its own kind of magic. She can’t chase me out, no matter how she might try.” He smirks. “Besides, if I help, I keep the rest of the crew out of the way.” His eyes twinkle just a little. “A man can’t always deny his own jealousy, I suppose.” I feel as though I’m missing a part of the joke, but I give him what I hope is a reassuring smile all the same.

11. Who plays their music out loud?

The captain gives me a confused expression. “Lord, you ain’t tell me people listen to them jingles on purpose, is you?” She shakes her head. “Ain’t no kind o’ music, none o’ it. Been pushing Udom on that point, an’ think I’m gettin’ ‘im somewhere. Though, really, it’s Nora who’s better at it. And them artists Phineas woke up, I’ve got hope for them.” She smiles. “Maybe one day I will play some real music again.” She turns back to me. “But them jingles? Never.” She flinches and shakes her head vehemently before returning her attention to the stove top.

The vicar sighs as he runs a hand through his hair. “The captain has banned corporate jingles from the ship entirely. I’ve lost what little taste I ever had for the OSI hymn.” He pauses and puts a finger to his lip for a second. “When her sister visits, they sometimes get to humming together.” Here, his expression softens more than I’ve yet seen it. “It’s really quite lovely.” The smile is small but the light in his eyes is gentle. Unexpected from a man who seems so hard. Perhaps this is a glimpse of the man as the captain sees him? The man who captured our Savior’s heart? Ah, but it is replaced in a flash with another harsh glare pointed at me as he accuses me of writing more than I ought. Again.

12. Who hogs the bathroom?

The captain turns her back to me sharply. I hear a stifled sound as she leans over the pot on the stove. Her shoulders shake slightly. It’s a moment or two before she turns to give me a look so stoic, she must have learned it from her husband. “He always says he only takes as long as he needs. I ain’t mind it unless the rest o’ the crew start complainin’. Mostly got the worst o’ it solved now, though.” She smiles softly. “I got me some ol’ Earth tricks, you might call ‘em. Archaic, but they work. An’ it means I can watch ‘im.” She ducks her head away. “Ain’t no crime, keepin’ him to my own self when I can.”

Mr. DeSoto’s back stiffens at this question. He does not meet my eyes. “I take only the necessary amount of time no matter what those upstarts might tell you. Youth has no understanding of careful hygiene. Certainly not spacer youth, at any rate.” He glances at a small, stuffed creature nestled on the bed. “Our daughter will learn better, if I have any influence in the matter.”

13. Who gives the most compliments?

The captain blushes and refuses to look at me or even to speak at all. She simply shakes her head no matter how many times I repeat the question.

The vicar’s smile is indulgent. “I do, much to her chagrin.” He raps his knuckles softly on the desk. “One day, she may even begin to believe them.”

14. Who usually starts/causes arguments between them?

“They’re always his fault, I ain’t care what he says! He’s a stubborn ol’ goat and he ain’t never-” She cuts herself off and darts her eyes away. She takes a deep breath before giving a curt nod. “He does.”

The vicar’s eyes narrow. “She does. She’s an indomitable woman.” His lips curve slightly. “It hardly matters who begins them. We are quite good at them, the both of us.” He lets out a small chuckle. “My wife is the sort of challenge a man needs in his life. I shall leave it at that.”

15. Who isn’t afraid to embarrass the other in public?

The captain freezes. Her back tenses and the stillness in her frame is more than a little disconcerting. She lets out a sudden breath when I ask if she’s all right. “I’m fine, ain’t nothin’.” She shakes her head to dislodge a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “If anyone’s embarrassin’, it’s me, though I ain’t try to, mind you.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Can’t help bein’ as I am, right enough.”

The vicar sits back and frowns. “I am sure she said she does. She’s quite wrong about the matter, but she’s a hard woman to convince out of an idea. There’s not the least embarrassing thing about her.” He lifts his chin. “I dare anyone to be more proud of their ship’s captain than I am of mine. And I defy anyone who should ever imply themselves more proud of their spouse than I am of mine.” The haughty tone in his voice barely conceals the anger beneath it. This is the defense of his captain I witnessed when I first arrived. It seems it is not at all an act, in my estimation. The man is ferocious in his defense of Captain Jameson.

16. Who gives the other cringeworthy pet names?

She shoots a glare over her shoulder in my direction. “Ain’t sure what that means, but I call him Vicar or Preacher on account o’ that’s what I always called him, and he mostly calls me Captain. Otherwise we jus’ use names. Got no call for nothin’ else.” She returns to her cooking without another word.

The vicar, too, bristles at the question. He is tense and his whole demeanor reeks with rigid formality. “I do not feel any desire to cringe at our preferred nomenclature. There can hardly be complaints about perfectly reasonable protocol.” The man can become decidedly prickly about the most surprising details.

17. Who fusses over the other when they get sick?

The captain laughs at this one. “Oh, that’s both of us, to be sure. Can’t neither o’ us stand it. We’re both terrible patients, too. Only makes it worse.” She continues laughing. “It’s just the way o’ us. Ain’t so bad. Gives us excuses for what we want, no how.” She shoots me a conspiratorial glance. “He’s definitely the worse patient, though.”

Mr. DeSoto glowers fiercely. “She is absolutely impossible when she’s ill. It takes my every effort, but I will not be persuaded to do less.” When I mention some of the captain’s response, he shifts about, lifting his chin and letting out several suffering huffs of air. “She is far worse! I have no choice but to fuss, else she’d only harm herself further! She never thinks of herself, and if she’s ill, it’s impossible to keep her safe, I-” He stops, clamping his jaw tightly shut. He glares at me, obviously realizing he’s saying more than he intended. Lucky for you, dear readers, that I am so quick with my datapad!

18. Who finds it impossible to stay angry at the other for long?

For this question, their answers are eerily similar. They both level me with a formidable glare and defiantly state “No comment.” I suspect them both quite capable of holding long grudges, and I would prefer not to be on the receiving end of one, so I move on quickly.

19. Who clings to the other for comfort when they’re sad or scared?

The captain lifts her shoulders to her neck. She’s putting the finishing touches on the meal she’s so diligently prepared, but her discomfort is entirely for my question. “That’d be me, though I ain’t proud o’ it.” She swallows hard. “The man makes me feel safer than anyone else ever did. I can’t seem to help myself.” She offers a small shrug before ducking away once more and concentrating on the last arrangements of the rather impressive meal she’s pieced together through our conversation. I must admit, I am eager to taste it myself!

Mr. DeSoto frowns at me. “I would prefer you had not asked her that.” His tone is flat. He stares at me for a long time. “There is no shame in it. I am grateful she trusts me with it and I will not break that trust, so I shall speak no further upon it.” The chilliness with which he greets me will not thaw one degree for the rest of my time aboard the ship after this.

20. Who is more ‘physically passionate’? (hugs, kisses, or maybe more…)

The captain grins wickedly. “Oh, we’re evenly matched.” She won’t elaborate, but the mischievous light in her eyes alludes to more than answer enough, I assure you, dear readers.

The vicar, too, remains similarly tight-lipped, but the fire is apparent in his eyes. “I have no complaints. I am a very satisfied man, but I am a gentleman and keep such details where they belong.”

The rest of the evening was an amiable one. The ship is filled with camaraderie and comfortable familiarity. The captain’s cooking is something even the finest chef’s of Byzantium would be hard pressed to compete against, I may happily report! As well, the captain and her husband remained close for the rest of my time aboard, and their answers here only convince me further that theirs is, indeed, quite different than the corporate contracts of old. The rumors of their marriage being unorthodox are well-founded.

And with that, dear readers, I bid you adieu.

#the outer worlds #lore jameson #vicar max #maximillian desoto #lore and max #newlywed game #tag game

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fandom-scatteredthoughtsonpaper · 3 years

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Dark Obey Me AU Outline, Breakdown, Game Mechanic + Specifics, + Some Other Stuff

{Previous post}

Kickoff and Quick Summarization:

Leviathan won a new preliminary horror game with VR aspects from a contest to test the game out before its actual release and invited Mammon and Yuki (MC) to play. This experimental immersion becomes too realistic when Yuki's latent powers takes the experience of the game to new levels when the entire House of Lamentation is sucked into the virtualization. Yuki, now alone and confused to the rules of this blended world of reality and simulation, has to venture through the house and recover the brothers from the game's influence. The game seems a little rigged the more Yuki advanced, so is someone actually pulling strings off screen or is paranoia seeping in?

Type of AU:

Mirror Universe, Interactive AU (you can help build up the world of this event)

Potential tags:

Horror, Psychological, Bloody, Dark, Angsty, Possible Sexual Assault, Death Is Allowed, Bodily Harm

Brief (and Liable to Change) Explanation of How the Game Will Work:

-After the House of Lamentation is shifted and adapted into the game's world, the seven demon brothers are also adapted to the elements of the psychological horror genre and placed as progressively harder bosses that MC has to get through to advance the game and undo the effects of what happened.

-The brothers that MC has converted back to normal will stay on their side and aid them in rescuing the other mentally manipulated boys, some even serving as necessary requirements to further progress. They can roam around the house and their rooms can serve as a temporary safety spots, but MC has to be with them to ward off the game's influence from trying to appeal to their cardinal desires based on their sin they govern and controlling them again.

-MC can try to appeal to any brother at any time, but if they don't meet requirements the struggle will be a lot harder and the emotional toll will be more effective on the chosen brother. If MC fails to convert the brother, not only does the next attempt become tougher, but MC takes damage deemed appropriate by the game based on the sin of the brother.

-The only exception to this rule is Mammon. Mammon is basically the tutorial. He's a mandatory scripted event to teach MC how the gameplay will be, and how they'll make it further in the game.

-Each brother is equivalent as a boss. The only way to progress to the next milestone is to release the grip the game has on the brothers' minds, but it's not as simple as breaking a curse like MC can canonically do with their powers. MC has to make a connection to the altered version of the demons, and to reach that connection they have to tackle each brother's insecurities and issues. Not like resolve them entirely with a heartfelt speech, and voila, they're okay again, but really reach into their hearts and remind them that they're not what the game has turned them into, that they're more than their sins and valued individually by MC.

-Thus having the proper brother on MC's side makes that connection a lot easier when it comes to certain brothers. Once that connection has been made and the game has less control, then MC can use the pact they made in the real world as the final move to disconnect the hold the game has in the virtual world.

-Again, however, it's not as simple as a few deeply passionate words and the veils are lifted from the brothers' eyes. Certain items can be found in each bedroom that helps strengthen the pact to mean something aside from a vow between a human and a demon. Requirements are necessary for progress.

-The pacts MC has with the brothers is a key relevancy to progressing the game. Without trying to appeal positively to their insecurities/fears the game has a strong hold on their minds and the use of their pacts aren't as effective

Rundown of What I Mean:

Mammon is the first demon MC bonded with and that applies itself strongly to their connection and relationship, especially in this event. I might be biased here, and not to mention I'm trial and erroring the story with my MC, Yuki, but I believe Mammon has the strongest connection with MC because of how he feels for them, how empathetic he is, and how emotionally aware he can be.

Mammon governs greed and already easily succumbs to his wants in the real world, but as of now in the canon story, he's grown a bit away from his sin, because of his relationship with MC, like most of the boys have. He can put MC above his own desires, and that influence deals a lot with how MC saves him after he attacks them in their room.

Mammon wants to sell MC's body, bit by bit, blood, teeth, hair, organs, nails, etc., as a means to pull in some serious money in the black market. Greed completely takes over Mammon, and he has very little regard for MC's life. When MC tries to use their pact's powers on Mammon the first time not much is really done, because the connection wasn't made. However, being the tutorial, Mammon becomes less influenced quicker than the rest of his brothers. MC has to remind him he's not a total scumbag that loves only money while Mammon is choking them out. So time is of the essence, because MC is physically harmed in this reality and can die as well.

I'll have a rough draft of this scene up later to better explain the process.

So Basically:

MC has to find items or something meaningful to assist them in helping the brothers become aware while under the game's manipulation, and then making a connection to their actual selves that helps absolve the mind control before using the pacts MC has made to finalize the severance, although it's not totally gone.

How I Plan to Progress the Event (Susceptible to Change) and Suggestions That Have Been Implemented by Other People So Far:

-MC starts the event off at the Lord Demon's castle with Diavolo and Barbatos before returning to the HoL to play with Levi. Before MC leaves Barbatos gives them two coins and a cautionary warning [credit to @jinxed-rose ]

-The unstable powers of MC conflicts with the game and locks the HoL and its residents inside the virtual reality.

-The game treats the brothers as bosses and turns their worst qualities up to 11. The small glimpses of how we saw the brothers in the beginning of the game before warming up to the MC is how they're portrayed in the game. They're meaner, deadlier, and heavily warpped from their original selves.

-MC can physically be hurt and/or killed, so the more of the brothers they can rescue the easier the game will be to traverse.

-The brothers are ranked by the order of when they got a pact with MC. So the optional progression between the brothers would be Mammon, Levi, Beel, Asmo, Satan, Lucifer, and Belphie. The longer MC has been in a pact with the boys the easier it is to sway them out of their brainwashing, but it doesn't have to be in this order [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Another option of progress with the brothers can be psychological fortitude. What I mean by that is the boys' durability to withstand breaking down from their insecurities being provoked. So Mammon's biggest fear is MC getting hurt so he's automatically the first boss and Lucifer would be among the last to confront because he's mentally strongest and that's where the issues would lie. [credit to 13ineedpills13 on AO3]

-Levi is an optional boss that can be done early or late in the game, it doesn't really matter. If MC goes for Levi first, he'll be relatively easy to return to normal, but if MC doesn't get to him until later then he'll be a lot harder to help. If MC attempts to rescue the others before Levi and succeeds the game will make him aware of this. Levi will get more and more enveloped by envy and jealousy and his insecurities will worsen, making it harder to appeal to him. [credit to @sunshine-apprentice ]

-The reason Levi is an optional boss to go after at any time is because he has a mystery that reveals itself later as the event starts ramping up and big reveal towards the end. It's not really a secret if you read the notes on prior posts, but shhh. [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Lucifer is the assumed main person to look out for, because he is the elder, head of the house, and most powerful and sadistic. He watches from the shadows and sets up elaborate snares and ambushes to sike out and slowly breakdown MC. Beel is more frequent around Lucifer's bedroom.

Somewhat Established "Rules" of the Game:

-Each encounter with the brothers during the actual moments of fighting and struggling will be violent and dangerous. Injuries will be painful and won't magically heal after the fight is done. [credit to syvintri on AO3]

-Death is very much possible, but it's tough for the brothers to die. It's not that hard for MC though. So, perma-death is plausible, but it's evened out with the two coins MC gets from Barbatos.

-The end goal is in Levi's bedroom, but it won't be accessible until after the brothers have all been released from the grip of the video game.

-MC's room is the only actual safe room in the house, so it's basically the headquarters

-Beel is the guard that routinely patrols the hallways, but he can be lured away with food from an area for a bit of time

-Each brother's room has a way to help figure out how to un-brainwash the boys, but they are dangerous to go into

-Overcoming the boys' insecurities and sins are a key relevance in progressing the game

-Line up of the boys in order as bosses (potentially): Mammon, Asmodeus, Belphie, Beelzbub, Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan

Concerns and Questions:

There's still a lot of gaps and unfilled holes that I'm not entirely sure how to connect properly. Trying to figure out how to write the encounters between the brothers that are being manipulated and MC/the brothers rescued is going to be tricky. Making sure the boys' characterizations stay close to how they would be will be a challenge.

So my questions for you will help me figure out what people would like to see and also help me connect dots in the story and plot.

A matter to discuss, for instance, is what a comment said on AO3:

"I think them interacting in a proper manner storywise when they are brainwashed is impossible, and such a drag to read. They should only interact during battles, and after battles, as they go on and save the others."

How should I go about writing the progress of the story?

Should I write it like an actual fanfiction, all detailed and specific and going at a constant pace, or should I skip moments instead of writing every scene that could occur to stay fresh and steady-paced, or should I try to base the chapters like actual event lessons in-game where stuff happens briefly and isn't very long?

Or another comment:

"So maybe this is just me, but I think it'd actually be more horrifying if the 'game' wasn't perma-death. Especially if everyone remembered despite any sort of revives or resets and with in-game injuries actually being painful. There's a high potential for angst is all I'm saying. But I guess that lends itself better for a normal fic rather than a choose your own adventure thing"

How should I write the "fight" scenes?

Should they be brief yet detailed or meaty with the conflict as MC tries to resolve the situation before anyone gets too hurt oor would this be good moments for turmoil between the brothers to arise and brawls break out ooor... I don't know what else.

How would the angst and heavy trauma best be applied according to y'all?

What kind of angst would each brother go through as MC tries to rescue them?

Some other questions:

Is the line up of the brothers as bosses okay, or should they be reconfigured to make more sense? Should it be linked how psychologically weak to strong they are or how their sins correspond to the next?

What would they be like at their absolute worst? How far do you think they could dive into their sins if they didn't have morals?

How dangerous would the brothers be?

How would the game use each character's insecurities and fears as their driving point?

How would you like to see brothers interact with MC during the confrontation? Or with each other before/during/after?

If MC were to die what would be the best way to take them out that would really fuck up the boys and devastate the psyche? Any brother is liable to maim or hurt the MC, but which one(s) could actually kill them? Or if a brother took a hit meant for MC, who would be more inclined to step into the line of fire?

These aren't all the questions that I have knocking around in my head and stumping me, but they're the biggest ones. I would like to hear inputs from others, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't feel inclined to answer everything that I've listed. Those are just questions that I thought of and put on this post as examples of what I'm trying to figure out.

Finishing Off:

So yeah. That's the progress I've made so far, both on my own and from suggestions and opinions from other people.

I'd love to hear what y'all have in mind or would like to suggest or a take on a matter for any scenes, interactions, or whatever. Even if it's ideas of your own that relate to something that hasn't been brought up or mentioned, feel free to comment it or send me an ask.

Something this extensive will require a lot of thought and work to be done right, so that's why I had the notion of making this an interactive AU

So, if you're interested or wanna talk about the concept, hit me up! I'm dying just to ramble about potential stuff or read viewpoints about the brothers that you want to see happen or stances for whatever.

#obey me #obey me au #obey me dark au #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me levi #obey me beel #obey me lucifer #obey me leviathan #obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #jess writes

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heart-strong · 3 years

Text

An Ode To Science Beaker PJ’s- Spencer Reid x gn!Reader

gif credit to @0420-1102

Summary: gn!reader takes care of Spencer after coming home from being held captive by Tobias Hankel (season 2 episode 14 and 15). Reader and Spencer have been dating for two years.

A/N: YALL I think my fics are just going to be long because I love writing so much and I haven’t had writing inspiration in so long. Thank you for all the kind words about I Have a Fever, if you haven’t checked out my first Spencer/ Criminal Minds fic yet please do I’m so proud of it but heres this new one!

Also I mention this in my About me section but I’ll mention it here, I think Penelope and I are similar in that we call everyone “darling” just as a term of endearment, so penny calls reader darling that it.

This is also part one of a two-part set. I wanted to add a little more comfort but I loved the natural end to this without it. It is not written yet so I don’t know when it will be posted but I will link it here. when it is posted.

There is going to be smut in part two (An Ode to Golden Ratio PJs) and while there are still gender natural pronouns reader is going to have female anatomy. I’ve never written smut before and female anatomy is what I know from personal experience.

WC: 2.8k

TW: Regular cm stuff and topics covered in season 2 episode 14 and 15, (DID, dilaudid, self harm, abduction), talk and description of self harm but no relapse, any others let me know I’ll add it no question.

Again pt. 2 here

----

Spencer Reid and you had been dating since the two of you were set up on a sorta blind date by your mutual best friend Penelope Garcia. While you couldn’t possibly know everything that Spencer went through you had some idea from being Penny’s friend for years. Two years strong with Spencer and you felt like you were starting to know him better than his team.

It was Super Bowl Sunday and you were out with the team. The game was over and Spencer, Anderson, yourself, and a few other FBI agents you had just met that night were sharing a table. You are draped on Spencer’s shoulder watching him getting quizzed by Anderson when JJ walks by, she ruffles his hair and takes a phone call outside. You fix the curls out of Spencer’s eyes and kiss his cheek when he answers the question just in the nick of time.

And then there’s a case. The team was called to Georgia and everything was going well, or as well as a murder investigation can go when one night Spencer missed his usual phone call with you. He would check-in, at least a minute, letting you know he was okay. So you weren’t surprised when Penelope knocked on your door.

“Hi, darling. Um, I am going to go to Georgia and I wanted to tell you because, well because you and Spence. Somethings wrong. You may want to sit down.”

“What happened to him?” you motion Penelope into your apartment and to your couch.

“Well, uh, boy wonder and JJ were sent to a witness’s house to question him. But the witness well he was the unsub.”

“What?” you look at your best friend. You didn’t want to believe what you were thinking.

“Tobias Hankel, uh the uh unsub took Spencer. I am going because he is highly skilled with computers. I promise you, I will bring him back to you.”

“Okay, so what do we know? Do we know if he’s okay?”

“The team has a video feed on him. They can’t track him, so I’m going to go. That’s my specialty darling, I’ll get him back to you. The image we have of him is okay right now. He’s tied to a chair and clearly wounded but he is okay. The unsub has multiple personalities and one of his personalities is feeding him and giving him water.”

“Okay sounds good. You leaving now then?”

“Right now. I knew you needed to know before I left though. I love you darling stay strong for your boy wonder.” Penelope popped up off the couch as you rose and gave you a tight squeeze before floating out the door.

“Yeah okay. Love you too.” you followed and closed yourself out of the world.

It was another three days. Three days of not hearing from Spencer, but at least you knew why. He was being held captive. Three days of knowing your boyfriend was in pain and danger, a murderer holding him and streaming his whereabouts to his friends. No word from Spencer. No word from Penny. No word from no one.

Until you woke up to Derek Morgan calling you at 2:30 in the morning.

“Hello? Derek is everything okay?”

“(y/n),” it was Spencer. His voice was rough and scratchy and maybe a couple of octaves lower.

“Holy shit Spencer. You’re okay.”

“I’m safe. And I’m going to be with you as soon as possible baby. I just have to go to the hospital first.”

“Spencer Walter Reid come home to me as soon as humanly possible. I just need you.”

“We’re headed to the hospital now. It’s just bruising and a gash on my head.”

You heard the team behind him and just needed him. Safe in your arms, safe out of the field.

“Spence just come to my apartment when you get home and I can take care of you.” you hear Morgan wolf whistle from your words. “I’m glad he can make jokes right now, that helps me know you are fine.”

It was so early you tried to go back to sleep. But you couldn’t, finally getting out of your bed at five and making coffee. After trying to eat something you couldn’t stay still anymore you decided to do some chores. You were folding laundry and found a pajama set Spencer had left at your apartment, it was soft flannel and covered in little beakers. You noted the company on the tag and a hole in the knee showed how loved they were. You went to the store and got his favorite peppermint tea and snacks, making sure to make it feel somewhat homely for him, and finally returned home where you sat on your couch sewing up the knee waiting for him to come home to you.

It’s past 8 pm, you have the pajamas folded beside you and a movie playing on your tv when you hear movement on the other side of your door. The sound of a key and the doorknob moving pulls for your attention when Spencer walks into your apartment.

“Charming Boy, what are you doing?” you grab his bags since he was clearly in pain. “Where’s Derek?”

“He dropped me off?”

You immediately noticed that Spencer had downplayed his injuries. A black eye was forming on his sharp cheekbone and you looked to his hairline where there was medical tape assuming that was the gash he had mentioned on the phone and his wrists were red from the restraints Penelope mentioned. But he hadn’t let go of his side since he entered your apartment and it just elevated your terror when he yelped from you taking his bag. What in the world happened to him. “Spencer why didn’t you tell me?” you lowered the bags to the ground and took his free hand and cheek in your hand, trying to get him to look at you.

“I was taken and beaten up for days but I’m good. I’m with you.” he kissed you but it didn’t feel like the boy that left you a week ago.

You pulled back from the kiss and looked at him. His eyes were distant and avoided yours looking to his messenger bag on the floor. You kiss him on the nose and he plays along crinkling his nose but his eyes don’t move. He is still dazed and out of it when you pick up his bag and drag him to your room.

Spencer didn’t like therapy, after the L.D.S.K about a year ago you asked him if he wanted to talk to someone outside of the FBI. “ I know all the tricks, I can’t learn anything new from them.” and while you knew it was an unhealthy view you were not going to force him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

“Hey, Charming can you look at me?”

You had brought him to the side of the bed he would sleep on when he stayed the night and he was staring out the window with his messenger bag on his lap and was holding on to it like it was the only connection to the world. He looks up at you standing in front of him. But his gaze quickly moved to the window and moon and sky again. “I’ll be right back.”

You grab his pajama set from the couch, a couple of glasses of water and a first aid kit then return to him, he hadn’t moved. After setting the items on the bed and the water on your bedside table you sit by him. You brush away stray hairs off his forehead and place a kiss on his hair. He smells like chemicals and raw fish.

The Spencer scent of his shampoo and matching body wash that reminded you of Christmas and the spilled coffee lingering on his sweaters was overpowered. Gone. You could spend days wrapped up the cardigans he left behind but right now he was nowhere near that version, in a shirt that was clearly Derek’s as it fell off his collar bones.

“Hey Spence, do you want to take a shower?

“Do you want me to?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s just, you’ve been held by an unsub for three days,”

“Two days, 13 hours.”

“Okay, so about three days. Charming wouldn’t it make you feel better?”

“I can if you want me to.”

The short answers made you very uncomfortable. The words and avoidance of a shower were very non- Spencer, you wanted his rambling back. You wanted the boy that left you a week ago, but he wasn’t coming back, so you just wanted him to feel a little bit better. Safe.

“Spencer, can you tell me where your head is at right now?”

“My head is in the chair I was strapped to for 61 hours.”

“Can I ask you to elaborate on that Spencer?” you didn’t want to push him but no one had told you what happened to him during those days and you wanted to know everything after he showed up worse for wear to you. “Did they touch the spots that are off-limits Spence?”

Spencer Reid was the most beautiful, handsome, and attractive person you had ever met. After the one time you hung out with the team, it was a no-brainer for Penelope that she needed to set the two of you up. And now years of knowing him and getting to know him differently than his team the two of you were comfortable together. And you quickly learned things before the team. You had planned to go with Spencer to see his mom when he was given vacation time, but you weren’t given time off; you left your retail job a month later to pursue your dreams. And like his mom before the Fisher King case, the team didn’t know about his ‘off-limits spots’ and this spaced-out man sitting before you. You knew they definitely didn’t know about his off-limits spots because you learned about them when you were making out one night and untucked his shirt. His ribs, his stomach, and wrist were the hardest for him when unsubs taunted him. The restraints, the groping, the beatings. They were also the places he put all his frustration out when his anxieties were out of control. But it had been two years.

“Spencer, did you hear me?”

“Um well he, Tobias took his belt around my arm, a make-shift tourniquet, and drugged me. He hit me in the head.” he gestured to his forehead. “And when they found me, the team, one of his personalities had a knife to my wrists.”

“Oh, Charming. Can I see?” he nods and you take his hand and unbutton the cuff of his sleeve, and there it is. A clear bandage was tight to the skin covering a dozen of cuts next to light scars from Spencer’s own hand. You couldn’t help but think two years down the drain even though the marks weren’t from Spencer, they sure looked like it. “Okay, bathroom Charming boy.”

The two of you walked to the bathroom and while Spencer sat on the closed toilet lid you ran the bath. Going back to your room you grabbed the first aid kit and his pajamas.

“Do you need anything, want anything to eat or drink?”

“Do you have peppermint tea?”

“I got some for your visit, I can make you some while you relax. Anything else?”

“My shampoo and conditioner are in my go-bag. Not that I don’t like the scent of your stuff I just want mine.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, honey. Okay let me get those for you and then I can take your bandage off and we can clean it up.”

As you walk back into the bedroom Spencer yells “Actually it is better to cover wounds to help them heal properly.”

“I know Charming but I want to clean it and switch it to a new bandage. Better padding you know you were in a hospital and a plane with that one. Whoa,” Spencer was in the tub already and you were shocked to see him naked. A big bruise was wrapping around his rib cage. You had never seen your boyfriend in less than a button-up with the top three or four buttons undone. “Sorry, um I’ll go make something to eat and boil water.” you go to close the door.

“(y/n), wait.” his eyes were finally starting to come back in focus, “ Weren’t you going to help with this,” he places his arm on the lip of the tub.

“Sweetie, you’re, you are,” you are trying to look at his face and not the wounds or his collar bones or his chest or his below the water.

“Oh,” and just like that, his eyes unfocused.

“No Charming, it’s just, we’ve never been shirtless in front of each other.” you go to sit by the tub on the floor of your bathroom, grabbing his hand still limp on the lip of the tub. “Are you okay with this?”

“Yes, I’m okay, just can you not look at me like I’m different.” he looks at the arm and your hand holding it. “Just because my arm looks like this again.”

“Spencer, I didn’t look at you differently when you told me originally, I’m not going to look at you differently now. One sec,” you scoot on the tile and grab the first aid kit off the floor in the doorway where you dropped it. “Are you okay if I clean it and change the bandage?”

“Um, yeah, yeah you can, thank you.”

You grab his hand and put the kit in your lap. Grabbing an alcohol pad and running on the edge, and slowly but surely you get the bandage off his arm. You stand and get a washcloth off the shelf above the toilet and wet it with cool water.

By the time you finish bandaging his arm again the water Spencer was sitting in had gone cold and he is shivering.

“Can you make tea now and, um,” he looks down at his arm covered in new beige badges. Boring, but no one could see it anymore.

“Yes of course I can, um, I left a pair of pj’s on the bed you left them here.”

“Thank you.” he looked so small and scared in the tub.

You left thinking he was just bashful because he was in the tub and went and started a teapot. As you’re heating up a pot of water for mac and cheese you hear him padding into the kitchen.

“Do you feel a little better?”

“Definitely.” he sat at your kitchen table and you walked over to him. “Thank you for fixing my pajamas (y/n), I’m glad you had them. I thought I lost them, left them in a hotel on a case.”

“Yeah they were here, I can fix other clothes if you want.” you card your hands through his damp hair and twist his front fringe around your fingers.

“I would like that, thank you.” he closes his eyes as you comb through his hair and hold the back of his head. “Um, can we just have peanut butter and jelly, I just want to snuggle with you and I can’t wait for the water to boil.”

“That sounds perfect, do you still want tea?”

“Yes please.”

You kiss the top of his head, his hair finally smelling like Spencer. Your home. And as you let go you don’t feel that sinking feeling you usually do when walking away from Spencer. He joins you at the counter and pulls out two knives. You grab the bread slices and the two of you make sandwiches. When the kettle shouts you grab two cups and tea bags from the box and pour out water. Spencer grabs the plate with the sandwiches and follows you to your bedroom.

Once there you set the cups down and grab your phone and turn on some quiet music. When you turn around Spencer is already under the blankets and honest to god nibbling on his sandwich. You go to your closet to get your own pajama set, granted not as cute as your boyfriends, and join him.

“How are you feeling?” Spencer asks.

“I am so happy that you are here. Can I kiss your silly face?”

“Please do.”

You launch at him. Your flannel-clad legs wrap around Spencer’s hips. His hands go to your hair as his tongue starts to brush your lower lip and you open your mouth to accept his tongue. Pulling away from his mouth, his beautiful, talented, and oh so addictive mouth, you look to him as long lashes flutter open his big brown eyes you’re hit by a train.

“Move in with me?”

———

Update (May 2, 2021)

Part two here it is nsfw

#criminal minds #ssa derek morgan #ssa emily prentiss #ssa hotchner #ssa jennifer jareau #ssa rossi #ssa dr spencer reid #mental health #spencer reid fic #gn!reader #spencer x reader #criminal minds fic #fanfiction #spencer fanfic #my work

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morkofday · 3 years

Text

#10YearPromise - pingxie blabberings

bc i wasn’t able to answer these questions throughout the week (as i’ve been traveling around while being extremely busy), i decided to just collect all of my answers under one post! i never tire talking about pingxie so this was extremely enjoyable ♥ am also practicing some very shameless self promo in this so be prepared!

thank you for @laireshi for organizing this event (i take it’s you alone? am not sure, sorry for my laziness) and being amazing in general ^^ i won’t be able to join as i am still very busy and summer is always pure chaos for me, so i can only hope that other ppl have fun! if you are not aware of 10 Year Promise Pingxie Exchange, you can find the original announcement post here. join in if you have the time and inspiration ^^

and then to my answers which i will be placing under the cut bc i don’t want to flood anyone’s dash with me going bonkers over these two idiots. enjoy tho if you decide to read this :’D ♥

I. What made you ship pingxie?

Back when I got into Reboot bc of ZYL (as has happened to many ppl probably) and then saw stuff about pingxie once I started going through that drama’s tag on tumblr, my first thought about them was that they had to be a crack ship. The way Reboot portrays them as well as their actors and their huuuge age difference affected this a lot, and I was actually cackling at them bc all their moments in Reboot made me just go “oh, socialist brotherhood at its best” in my head. But then I finished watching Reboot’s 1st season (as the 2nd one wasn’t out yet) and started reading some fics. I learned more about them and the canon storyline. I learned how damn devoted they are to each other, and after that, many moments in Reboot gained new meaning in my eyes. So, I think what made me ship pingxie was a mix of Reboot (especially the hallucination moment where Xiaoge dies and Wu Xie loses it bc that’s my jam as I later on became to notice) and then the amazing fics I dug out during that time. After that the love grew stronger as I watched the other dramas, and these days I’m a lost cause. I feel like I spend most of my awake time thinking about these two and their love. They are amazing. I cry rivers for them.

II. Which pingxie version is your favorite?

After finding pingxie, I fell in love with them properly during TLT2. There is just something about that stage of their relationship for me, the stage where both of them are still very tentative about everything but they have deep down accepted that they’re tied now. Wu Xie is figuring out so many things, coming to terms with being betrayed by his uncle and slowly realizing that something bigger is going on behind the scenes. Meanwhile, Xiaoge is learning how to trust Wu Xie and how to accept that he cannot leave this naïve boy behind. It feels very fragile, and I have so many emotions about TLT2 bc of this. Xiaoge is so soft and feels very multilayered. Wu Xie is still his naïve self but is slowly gaining some sharper edges as he comes to face the cruel world. I like how Cheng Yi and Hou Minghao have portrayed this dynamic. Also, TLT2 is just very extra with all the pingxie scenes, who would be able to resist loving them? So, I have to admit that my favorite pingxie is these two, tho Ultimate Note comes very, very close.

III. What’s your favorite pingxie headcanon?

Headcanons are a bit hard for me as I don’t know enough of the canon. I have not read the novels so most of the story I’ve just patched together from all the bits I’ve read from somewhere (here, on twt, in fics) and through the scenes the dramas have shown me. I feel like the whole world is lowkey made of headcanons for me :’D But hmm, my favorite pingxie headcanon… I’d say there are two and then one bonus bc it’s more a Wu Xie related headcanon than just pingxie. The first one is that the pingxie confession happens after the Bronze Gate. It feels like the only moment when they’re both ready for such a thing. I’d say Xiaoge comes to realize his own feelings a lot earlier and he might tell something to unconscious Wu Xie before leaving for ten years, but he will not actually leave Wu Xie with such a burden. He doesn’t want to ask anything when it sounds like he doesn’t even believe that Wu Xie will be willing to wait for him, and I’d say that for him, his feelings are going to be fine even if Wu Xie never learns about them. He might even wish that Wu Xie never learns about them bc he’s not able to promise much as an immortal and amnesiac being (he outlives Wu Xie, most likely forgets him). For Wu Xie however, I’d say he needs time. He really is way too naïve and I’d say that he needs those ten years to realize that he’s in love with his best friend. I dunno who confesses first after Xiaoge returns but I think that only after that decade their relationship is “mature” enough to hold the weight of a confession (even if I also love to play around with the thought of them getting together during the events of Ultimate Note bc that drama offered many good chances for that). Another headcanon for me is that Xiaoge will find a way to die when Wu Xie does. After learning about them more, I feel like Reboot implies this too. Xiaoge is very accepting of Wu Xie’s death but in the last moments, when he really thinks that this is going to be it for Wu Xie, he hesitates. We see a spark of desperation there, and I’ve come to think that his initial plan, the plan he came up with once he got that call from Wu Xie and knew he would join Wu Xie on his last adventure, was to see this through for Wu Xie’s sake and then leave and die alone. I don’t know how much there would be left for Zhang Qiling after Wu Xie is gone. I feel like this is also what Wu Xie fears. But would he really resent Xiaoge for joining him in death after living such a long and hard life? I’d say no and I’d say that even Pangzi accepts this as one of the most likely outcomes. The bonus one then feels very personal to me. I don’t usually talk about this bc I feel so unsure of even mentioning this but I’ve seen others with similar thoughts so am sharing! I’ve never before gotten any vibes about a character’s sexuality in a drama I’ve watched but Reboot Wu Xie looked at me once in the eye and all I could hear was my brain yelling “asexual”. So, that is just my personal headcanon for Wu Xie. He’s ace and proud of it. He can flirt etc. but sex makes him go naah. He doesn’t need it or want it. He can appreciate beauty and hot ppl without wanting to sleep with them and I think his relationship with Xiaoge fits very well into this. I don’t have any personal experiences with being ace but I feel like Wu Xie has read the name once, shrugged and gone, “guess that’s me” and continued on with his life. He’s badass like that and I love him for it. (take a very relevant meme lol from this post)

IV. What’s the ideal pingxie date?

Ah, christ. I dunno if I’ve ever thought about them going on a date? In the middle of tomb raiding, hospital trips and fighting against powers bigger than themselves, I’ve rarely seen any time for them to do something like that lol. But after Ultimate Note, I’ve thought about star gazing a lot. Just them, the infinite night sky and some lonely hilltop. They would probably take a blanket with them, huddle together and talk about things in hushed voices. Wu Xie would go on a ramble about all the constellations and their meanings and mythology behind them and Xiaoge would just nod at him and watch Wu Xie talking. Maybe he would offer some tidbits in the middle of the rambling, making Wu Xie smile brightly. It would be relaxing and comfortable and loving. They would make out a lil bit. Would maybe lie down and play with each other’s hair. All their worries would feel insignificant. Wu Xie would fall asleep for a moment and Xiaoge would wake him up with a kiss to get him moving again so that they don’t need to sleep on the cold ground. They would return home and drink something warm and then go to sleep, cuddled together and happy. relevant edit x

V. What’s your favorite pingxie getting together scenario?

I guess I already talked about this a bit but let me elaborate then! As said, I’d see it happening after the Bronze Gate. I am not sure if it would be right away (they’re both going through so much trauma at that point) or if it would happen after Reboot (maybe we would still need Wu Xie almost dying for them to get their shit together), but I’d say it happens in a rush either way. It’s one of those “I have to tell you something before it’s too late” -type of moments. Or one of those “Bc I love you, you idiot!” -type of moments. I feel like I keep thinking that maybe Wu Xie would have to confess first bc as said, Xiaoge wouldn’t like to burden Wu Xie with his feelings when there’s so little he can give in the sense of normalcy. But then again, I have written a oneshot where Xiaoge is the first one to confess and that always feels better for me. That at some point Xiaoge feels secure enough to tell Wu Xie about his own feelings. That he feels confident and comfortable enough to say it out loud while still expecting nothing in return bc he knows that Wu Xie won’t abandon him either way. But no matter how that happens, I always see it as this dam breaking. The emotions finally become too strong. Something happens that reminds them that life is too short. Something happens that makes them finally talk it out and ah, Pangzi can finally take a break, what a joy

VI. What’s your favorite pingxie moment?

Every adaptation has its own good moments so let me make a list (like I saw someone else do too):

The Lost Tomb:

Xiaoge rescues Wu Xie from the shibie

Wu Xie worrying over unconscious Xiaoge plus taking care of him in the hotel room

The Pingxie MomentTM aka Xiaoge saving Wu Xie from falling and then cradling the boy to his chest while thumb rubbing his shoulder

The Lost Tomb 2:

Xiaoge revealed to be Baldie and Wu Xie yelling at him about it

Lowkey the whole underwater tomb arc bc holy shit that’s gay

Wu Xie losing it when Xiaoge doesn’t come up from the underwater tomb, diving after him and then almost dying himself + Pangzi getting angry at him for being stupid

pingxie ft. magical skype in the bronze tree cave (and Xiaoge being emo about the 1000yo warrior guy right before that)

Xiaoge rescuing Wu Xie from drowning (they shared air, you cannot convince me otherwise) + Wu Xie giving Xiaoge his watch in the hospital (relevant edits x x)

Wu Xie’s face when he sees Zhang Buxun in the coffin bc I love pain :)

Xiaoge not shooting Wu Xie despite not remembering him in the mountain village

Wu Xie grabbing Xiaoge’s jacket after being kidnapped and the Iron Triangle reunites in that old Chen guy’s cabin, asking, “Is that you?” from Xiaoge to make sure that he remembers again while looking like the biggest puppy (relevant edit x)

also some relevant memes x

Ultimate Note:

The hand over mouth reunion in the Golmud Sanatorium

“Xiaoge will ignore anyone else but you”

Xiaoge pretending he isn’t Losing ItTM throughout the whole time Wu Xie is in the Devil’s City with A-Ning

more hand over mouth with the gigantic snake

“The goddess has ascended”

Wu Xie protecting Xiaoge after he returns from the jade meteorite

“Do you remember me?” “Wu Xie.”

Wu Xie promising to help Xiaoge find his memories no matter what bc Xiaoge’s business is Wu Xie’s business

“Maybe you can return home with a wife today.” Wu Xie: proceeds to stare at Xiaoge, horrified

“Take me home.”

The sword gifting scene (especially Xiaoge denying the possibility of him killing Wu Xie or them harming each other, relevant edits x x)

other relevant edits for ultimate note x x

Reboot:

Wu Xie telling Xiaoge about his sickness and then Xiaoge coming back and promising to join Wu Xie on his trip (relevant edit x)

the death hallucination bc am a masochist

Wu Xie’s death dream where Xiaoge calls to him but then accepts his choice to move forward bc am a masochist pt. 2

pingxie reunion in the Thunder City forest where Xiaoge saves Wu Xie & co. from the poisonous gas

the moment in Thunder City where Wu Xie sits outside at night, eating the peanuts Pangzi gave him and then notices Xiaoge, offering him the peanuts and smiling

when Xiaoge leaves for the last time and then gets reunited with healed Wu Xie against all odds

the train scene and their softest smiles to each other

Time Raiders:

Wu Xie being the best bean and just wanting to befriend this mysterious man while seeing right under his skin and making Xiaoge baffled and fall in love in approximately 0.5 seconds

Xiaoge, catch! *proceeds to save only Wu Xie when they fall into that shibie horror chamber*

Xiaoge’s desperation to save Wu Xie from the crumbling ground

their death waltz at the end of the movie plus Xiaoge’s sacrifice

+ Sand Sea:

“Don’t you dare call him Xiaoge!”

Wu Xie offering his friends and then himself as comfort to Li Cu when he’s scared while smiling very softly at the memory of Xiaoge

“But isn’t his surname Wu?” Hei Xiazi: You have seen nothing yet, you sweet summer child

Wu Xie talking about Xiaoge’s past in the temple (aka the Tibetan Sea Flower story bc I just adore how pretty they’ve made those scenes)

VII. What is the best gift Wu Xie and Xiaoge could give each other?

I haven’t really thought about this type of stuff either bc we have already seen a ton of gifts being exchanged! I love the watch Wu Xie gives to Xiaoge in TLT2 as mentioned (it’s so silly but also so sweet) and I love it that Wu Xie gifts Xiaoge with a new sword in Ultimate Note. Also, I feel like I can count the food Wu Xie leaves for Xiaoge in Ultimate Note and that one moment where Xiaoge offers his knife for Wu Xie as a “pen”. They would give anything for each other as long as the other asked (which they never do) so I dunno what type of gift would matter the most. As it’s so hard to say, let me talk about one more headcanon that I’ve been thinking about ever since the infamous Bazaar photoshoot for Ultimate Note/XYL & ZSX. So, we see them having matching rings and necklaces in that photoshoot. I think jewelry would be kind of difficult for Xiaoge to wear when he needs to fight, as jewelry could be a hindrance in that type of situation But my brain won’t shut up about “pingxie married!!!” when I ask this question from it. To be honest, I do not see pingxie getting married in the traditional sense. They don’t need something like that after everything they’ve gone through. But I like to play around with the thought of promise rings. Just them exchanging rings for fun, for their own sakes, to have something concrete that reminds them of their promise to each other and of their feelings. Maybe even Xiaoge could wear that ring under his gloves idk. But am a sucker for that thought so my answer to this is then simply: a ring. relevant edits x x

if you read this far, thank you so much! I hope this gave you something and thank you once more for organizing this and allowing everyone to share their love for pingxie ^^ ♥

#10yearpromise #pingxie #dmbj #yes i ramble without any purpose #yes i love them a normal amount :)#thank you for organizing this!!#and sorry for coming at you like this #i hope you don't mind #am wishing you luck with the event!!#and hoping everyone has fun #i hope everything in this post #works like it's supposed to #bc oh boy did i struggle

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gaysofzaun · 4 years

Text

So @dinahdarling and @witchertrashbag made a post about Jaskier and Vesemir and there was another post about Jaskier in Kaer Morhen being an absolute slut for Witcher’s, and Vesemir’s casting was announced which either inspired it or just fanned the flames and I started to bullshit in the tags of one of my posts and found out there was a tag limit…

which turned into me this half head canon half story mess about Geralt bringing Jaskier to Kaer Morhen after he finds Ciri but before they confess any feelings…

this is an incoherent mess and not at all what i normally write but I couldn’t get the idea of it out of my head and I’m writing another serious geraskier fic so i need it out and here we are, we’re dying like men in this Chili’s tonight

....

Jaskier flirts with Vesemir as soon as he sets eyes on the older Witcher, he gets that cheeky smile like a cat that’s spotted a dish of cream. Vesemir, the old bastard, just chuckles, good natured. The old Witcher finds the bard absolutely charming and to the shock of everyone in Kaer Morhen, Vesemir flirts right back.

It sets a precedent for their relationship. Jaskier flirts, lays it on real thick, and Vesemir gives it right back. He likes to listen to Jaskier sing older songs, historical ballads and such and Jaskier loves to hear Vesemir’s stories.

“He’s much more eloquent than you are darling.” Jaskier tells him after the first week, transcribing his notes on sheets of spare parchment he’d filched from the library, already more comfortable in a castle full of witchers than he has any business being. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, he is! When I ask him to elaborate he does so in more that’s two syllables!”

He listens with rapt attention and Vesemir enjoys the feeling of those bright blue eyes.

Makes him feel young again he says, while Lambert pukes exaggeratedly over his shoulder.

Jaskier and Eskel fuck after the first month.

Geralt‘s out for morning meditation with Ciri and Vesemir and on his way down to the courtyard he sees jaskier slip out Eskel‘s door looking sleep warmed and ruffled, love bites all along his neck and chest and thighs.

Eskel’s a biter and Jaskier writes a drinking song about it.

and Geralt feels… funny about it, he can’t concentrate enough to slip into a meditative state, he’s jittery. Ciri asks him if he’s ok, he doesn’t know

he has to excuse himself when Eskel finally joins them looking so satisfied and loose and smirking into the middle distance and Geralt’s chest floods with … something vicious. It happens so suddenly he shocks himself out of it and doesn’t really know what happened

When it happens again, they’re all getting drunk over a big roast hog that geralt and eskel hunted in the valley to mark the changing of the seasons (minus Ciri, but Eskel and Lambert let her have sips of their ale when they think Geralt isn't looking) when Jaskier and Lambert disappear for a bit

Geralt looks up from his conversation with Vesemir and they‘re gone and he just stops and goes a little cold in his gut, then there they are

Lambert looks extremely satisfied, eyes lidded, unhurried, and jaskier’s looking very smug indeed and then and then the little shit looks fondly irritated when lambert fucking whispers something in his ear.

It’s too low for Geralt to hear, but it must be funny because Jaskier just smacks him playfully and Lambert laughs and Geralt wants to break everything. Then Ciri is asking him if he’s ok and Jaskier looks over at him and there’s concern in those blue eyes.

Geralt is not ok

it all comes to a head when Lambert says some dumb shit in the training yard. It’s harmlessly cocky. Just Lambert being Lambert.

Jaskier is fucking lounging on the ruins of the crumbling wall above the yard, long lines warming in the sun and loose shirts with plunging necklines to reveal the beginnings of his chest hair.

It’s distracting. Geralt tries not to look at him too hard.

He’s plucking through a new song, trying different lines and tunes over and over in different ways. The familiar sound is pleasant, it helps him focus on his movements as he demonstrates his footwork for Ciri as he spars with the two witchers and Lambert says something, too low for Ciri to hear, but Geralt can hear him just fine, about shutting the bard up for a little bit , something about using that pretty mouth for other things

and eskel, fucking eskel, makes that low appreciative ’mhmm’ noise and geralt goes fucking feral, suddenly it’s not training, that ugly feeling is back, the one that makes him want to break things and he’s got a sword in his hand, adrenaline high. He nearly slices lambert open before Vesemir‘s grabbing him and shoving him and shouting at him to take a fucking walk

meanwhile ciri is just standing there with the dummy and her wooden sword, eyes wide, grip slack. Jaskier‘s playing has stopped, the bard is looking at him with his blue eyes wide with shock and concern, Lambert’s yelling, asking him what his problem is and Eskel is just staring at him, with that knowing look, and it’s too much.

He storms off. Jaskier, inevitably, follows and Geralt ,inevitably, says some terrible things,

but unlike with the dragon and Yen, there isn’t a monologue about how much he hates Jaskier. Geralt is very aware that he very much doesn’t hate the bard, but there are feelings clawing at his chest and lodged in his throat that he doesn’t know what to do with. Doesn’t know who they’re directed at or why, just that it settles at the sound of Jaskier’s voice and he’s a little more focused

Jaskier however is a man on a mission and he intends to get to the bottom of all this emotional constipation and get the brute to express his feelings. He pokes and prods and pulls at Geralt until the poor Witcher is a stammering and confused ball of frustration and anger and poorly phrased feelings.

“Are you angry?”

“Yes! …No… I don’t know.”

“Well you’re clearly worked up about something, you nearly tore Lambert’s head off. So what is it?”

At the mention of Lambert that blind, directionless Something flares again, Geralt sneers, “You worried I bruised your toys?”

“My toys?”

“Don’t worry, little bird, Witcher’s heal quickly. He’ll be back in working order for you by tonight.”

“Working order? Geralt, what are you talking about?”

There’s some implied slut shaming (Jaskier: Excuse me, I do NOT fuck every man and woman I see! Geralt: Not for lack of trying! Jaskier: SOO?!WHY DO YOU CARE WHERE I STICK MY DICK? Geralt: CAUSE IT ALWAYS ENDS UP WITH ME HAVING TO CLEAN UP YOUR MESS!), Geralt expresses an acute frustration with the cut of Jaskier’s shirt collars, and implied regret of ever bringing Jaskier to Kaer Morhen,

“Well then why did you bring me here in the first place if you hate me and my slutty slutty shirts that damn much!?”

“I don’t hate you Jaskier, I brought you because I-“

And the truth hits him a split second before he can stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth. Geralt nearly chokes on his spit he stops talking so fast. His face goes red and,,,

Oh no

no that wont do at all.

Without a word he turns on his heel and flees,

He spends the rest of the day out in the valley with Roach trying to get himself under control.

When he comes back it’s to Vesemir standing arms cross in front of the entrance to the keep. He warns him, the whole of Kaer Morhen, and the Rock trolls that live in the caves below, heard his argument with the bard. They all agree, Geralt is being, as Lambert put it, ‘a big warty Cyclops dick’ and he needs to ’unclench and get his colossal bag of issues under control before he fucking kills one of us’. Also Lambert‘s words.

Geralt doesn’t say anything. Vesemir just sighs “You better prepare one hell of an apology, Wolf.” and leads him inside.

Everyone is settling in for dinner. It was Lambert’s turn to cook so the entire keep smells like garlic and spices (every Witcher has a hobby, something to occupy them in between monster hunts. Geralt likes card games, Vesemir likes to collect rare coins, Eskel likes to knit, and Lambert likes to cook).

They all look up when he comes in. Eskel is quiet, he has that knowing look in his eye. Lambert glares, “Welcome back, sour puss, your little tantrum ruin your appetite?”

Geralt has his customary ‘eat my ass Lambert’ on the tip of his tongue, but he pauses, looks at Ciri who looks at him reproachfully from Jaskier’s other side. Jaskier looks up at him with those blue eyes and Geralt feels something settle in his gut.

He knows he’ll be forgiven, but he cannot take that for granted. Vesemir is right. He better give the bard one hell of an apology. And then never fucking do that shit again.

He looks back at Lambert.

“Smells good.” and he takes the empty seat on Jaskier’s left.

It’s as close to an apology that Geralt and Lambert will ever get between them, and the other Witcher wont admit it, but the compliments on his food make him feel all tingly inside.

Later, when Jaskier, Ciri, and Vesemir are all asleep, the boys break out the Mahakaman Spirit and drink it straight from the bottle. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

“You know.” It’s not a question.

Eskel shrugs and takes another drink, “Didn’t before today. Don’t think you did either. I’ll admit I had my suspicions, you guys act like an old married couple, but he seemed pretty convinced you didn’t have feelings for him. If I’d known before I wouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Lambert snorts, he’s starting to slur his words. “I not. Get your shit together Geralt, cause if you don’t fuck him I will… again.”

Eskel nods with more enthusiasm than is really necessary considering the circumstances and Geralt doesn’t slam his head down on the table but it’s a near thing. Instead he just sighs and pours himself another drink.

Geralt get’s his shit together. Not that night,, but eventually.

That night, bolstered by a few more bottles and Eskel and Lambert’s encouragement, Geralt makes it all the way to Jaskier’s door before loosing his nerve and realizing that maybe stumbling drunk and dumb into the bard’s bed chambers in the middle of the night isn’t the best way to start an apology.

So he just goes to bed.

He asks Ciri the next day, or more Ciri volunteers her opinion. They’re in the library, pouring over books pulled for them by Vesemir (the old Witcher took one look at Geralt and the others battling their hang overs at the kitchen table and declared today an exercise in theory), detailing the different subspecies of Drowners when she brings it up.

“So, have you apologized to Jaskier yet?” She catches him by surprise in the middle of an explanation about the effectiveness of the Axii and Igni signs when fighting Drowners. He pauses.

“Not yet. He always sleeps past breakfast.”

“Are you going to?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know... Why are you so interested?”

“I don’t like it when you two fight. It doesn’t happen a lot,, but when it does Jaskier only sings sad songs and it makes everyone else sad.” A pause, “Plus, I have nothing better to do, nothing interesting ever happens around here.”

Geralt laughs at that, “Witcher training that boring to you?”

She gives the comically large book in front of her a pointed look ,”Yes.”

After a few more questions and answers and rapid fire quizzes on the differences between mucknixers and drowned dead, Ciri speaks up again,

“Take him on a picnic, bards love picnics.”

She says it with the kind of finality that only children can muster that Geralt can only nod and they start planning.

Geralt apologizes before dinner, pulls Jaskier aside and asks for his forgiveness. “You already had it Geralt, you knew that.” And he takes Jaskier out to finish dinner atop one of the high towers in the keep with a bottle of erveluce under his arm. He and Ciri had cut their studying short and spent the afternoon dodging Vesemir to set up the picnic before hand. In retrospect it was a very good exercise in stealth and evasion.

There are candles and an old tapestry they found draped across the stones. It’s disgustingly romantic. Jaskier calls him on it. Geralt is embarrassed, but he stammers out his apology and his confession without too much interruption.

“I’m sorry I called your shirt slutty… I don’t think it’s slutty… it’s a nice shirt.”

“Thank you , Geralt. I appreciate how hard that must have been for-”

“And I don’t hate you… I brought you to Kaer Morhen because…. Because… you were the first person I thought of when… I wanted you here… with me… I.. love you, Jaskier. Been shit at showing it but I do, have for a long time, and I… don’t… want you … sleeping with anyone else anymore. Just… just me.”

And then Jaskier jumps his bones. The end.

Lambert is only a little jealous.

#witcher #geraskier #geralt/jaskier #jaskier/eskel #jaskier/lambert #jaskier/vesemir #the witcher #give that bitch a picnic #bitches love picnics

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aceandart · 4 years

Note

Hey! I read your recent post and it read differently to a lot of posts under the destiel tag as of now. Personally, I’ve seen the first 5 seasons (watched it about 5 yrs ago), but haven’t been caught up to date on any of the recent stuff other than the Destiel apocalypse that’s happening right now. Could you explain the following?

“...mostly being this show is a misogynistic racist homophobic consent issue-ridden pile of bad writing “.

I was contemplating returning to the show and tuning in for the missing seasons, but what you said about it has now placed me on the fence. Could you elaborate and advise?

Thank you so much! I appreciate seeing an honest post that doesn’t sugar-coat or overlook bad writing/negative characteristics of a show!! :)

[re this]

Hi!

Well, I feel like the finale probably took care of any fence-sitting you were doing (and sorry I couldn't reply sooner), but actually my answer wasn't going to change even if the finale was okay (good, imo, was always a stretch): No, I personally would not recommend watching this show. and while my answer is mostly because of the things I am going to list to answer the rest of this question, I was also going to say - you dropped the show in s5 and that was five years ago? Whatever caused you to drop it in the first place, it probably got a lot worse. (It literally doesn't even matter what your major grievance was, they have since doubled, tripled down in terms of how bad it was.) Trying to marathon through ten seasons (20-23 episodes long each) is hard; trying to marathon through all of that to get something without a satisfactory ending is a lot of emotional labor for no payout. It's not just that this is a bad show (though it really, really is, on every level); it's that you have already tried it, you tried arguably the better seasons of it, and you still didn't want to stick to it. By the nature of how tumblr works, it can make anything look so much better than it is, just because in general the people you see hyping it up *like* the product, have decided to devote their fandom time to it, are highlighting the choicest parts of it. spn was always about the potential around the edges, the story fans made of it; the actual product was always secondary to the could have, should have beens, and this gets truer the later into the show you get. I'm not saying there weren't some great episodes, some great scenes, and even some great mini-arcs, but it was a drop in the bucket to everything else. and I'm positing this answer on the idea that you are asking because you want to watch the show, and not because you want to use the show as a supplemental for your fandom experience, but if it is the latter, I'll just say I'm currently heavily involved in reading fanfic for a fandom I've never actually watched a whole episode for, and while I'm probably missing some context I'm still highly enjoying it. fandom, honestly, so often becomes so much more than the bones we build it on. and if you want a little more, catch some "greatest hits" videos or catch up on just some of the “must-see” episodes and save yourself from having to watch all the moments in-between, because there are a lot more of them than the good parts. very few shows improve as they age out, and before the nov 5th resurgence if you weren't already following spn blogs, likely the main spn meme you were coming across was the annual 'salt and burn this dead horse' that went out after each season renewal. the tl;dr answer is really, it's not worth it. (to be honest, at the end of the day, despite the sheer amount of time, energy, and words I've put into this fandom over the years, and I put in a lot, I didn't actually like the majority of the show. so, you know, grain of salt on my opinion. then again, you left it seasons before I did.) That said, buckle up, cause now I'm gonna tell you why:

Literally, The Shitty Writing

I feel like the finale speaks for this point by itself, but before I get into all the "problematic" bad writing spn does, I want to talk about the fact that the writers are also just fundamentally bad at the craft of writing.

continuity errors. they’d change their lore/creature ability to fit their plot. (the reapers esp got the end of that bad stick.) the characters will often forget (monster-slaying) solutions that worked before (holy wood, yarrow, christo, creative approaches like exorcisms on recording, spells to remove angels from their vessels, bullet with a devil’s trap, etc). the writers forgot their own timeline more than once. the random retcons they'd do. sometimes it would also lead to plot holes.

which, speaking of, they had plenty of

there's also things that don't count as plot holes but are very large missed opportunities (ex: Dean spends a year in Purgatory and no one recognizes him? he doesn't bring up his daughter?)

I don't even know what this one would fall under, but if a character wasn't right in front of them, they would forget that character's existence. not just Adam (though that was a big one), but there were so many secondary characters that even in places it would make sense to mention them, much less bring them around, they didn't. or because they would not expand their main character list, characters who should have been around a lot more than they were (*cough* Cas, but that's an easy one, I'm also talking about characters like Kevin) would have these huge gaps between episodes that didn't make sense

they don't really have character development. this isn't to say the brothers don't change, they do, but at the same time the characters face the exact same (internal) arguments over and over again, never resolving or growing from them; they just have more examples when they think about them and it gets worse and more unhealthy because of the new weight added to it. the problem with their brothers only format, and the problem with their biphobia but more on that later, is that Dean wasn't actually allowed to grow out of his John Winchester's son role, to let himself be comfortable (and dare to be happy) with himself because that meant changing the story into something they didn't like and/or didn't know how to do. at the same time, allowing Sam to grow meant breaking the Brothers Only format, because as the show stated multiple times, Sam's happy ending did not involve hunting.

and with that, they sometimes flattened the characters so badly they became caricatures more than anything else. hell there's a whole season where Dean goes evil, and people had a hard time realizing it, which was not because it was a subtle slow descent but because shitty pacing, uneven (and contradictory) episodes, previous actions that weren't written as being evil but were the the exact same thing as when he was evil that were supposed to be "signs", and how they chose to represent that evil meant it was really hard to figure out that was what they were doing and not just writing Dean as more of an asshole than they previously were. (he's not evil, he's just a prick.) and I don't mean I had trouble telling, I mean fandom as a whole had major arguments about it, much less the general viewing public.

the series finale put a definite end to the idea they would follow through on even one of their main series themes (family don't end in blood, free will vs destiny, always keep fighting, etc), but this was something they would build up to addressing and then just anti-climatically let fizzle out in multiple seasons. character and relationship themes (not just destiel but the brothers co/counter-dependency, the importance of found family, Dean's growth from Daddy's Blunt Little Instrument and Sam's acceptance that he deserves better/agency in his own life, etc) would be built and broken down in an effort to drag the question out into another season. it wasn't two steps forward, one step back, it was a reboot.

their filler vs arc episode ratios: there's nothing wrong with the Monster of the Week format as a stylistic choice, but this show

a) would kill its own plot momentum to focus on MotW episodes. [part of this is the general spn problem they created of constantly trying to one-up their season's Big Bad, which I understand but also means one episode they are going against The Most Powerful Being in Existence (for the Fifth Time) and then rather than focus on that world-ending threat, they hunt vampires for like six episodes straight. they had a very bad balance where rather than continuously weave the larger arc into the season, or at least build characters and relationships, they'd jam it all around the season premiere, finale, and mid-season finale/premiere episodes, and then all the rest was just, bullshit cases where nothing got resolved or had a lesson stick around for the next episode, making them very skippable. also more on this under the homophobia section]

b) the filler episodes contradicted themselves and the main plot all the time.

c) sometimes they focused so much on making the b-plot a mirror they forgot to write a coherent a-plot. also: sometimes they focused so much on making the b-plot a mirror they forgot to write a coherent b-plot.

I cringed my way through more than one episode of dialogue

the recycled plots

more on this in the next sections, but either they didn't notice, actively didn't care, or purposefully chose to overtly and subtly imply or state a bunch of really fucked up things, and then never address them at all

speaking of never addressing anything, I realize this is a fandom vs canon battle in general, but so many things get swept under the rug as they move on to the next issue (ex: Dean put an angel in Sam's body to "heal him", violating his consent and exasperating his issue with telling what reality is - a huge issue from previous season - and once the Mark of Cain story really took over the subject gets dropped.)

death is so cheap on this show. and I don't just mean that the revolving doorway of resurrections means it's hard to get worked up about a death because (as long as the character was a white man and especially the brothers) there was a high chance they'd be back, and I don't just mean that their Murder Is the First, Last, and Best Solution to Any Issue, Ever means the faceless and not so faceless hoards of villains, monsters, and humans who get caught up in it are just hand waved as one of those things (they have ways of saving vessels and the later into the show the less likely they are to even try), but that there was no point in investing in (esp non-white, male) secondary characters because chances were they'd be dead pretty fast. I'm honestly shocked characters like Jody (who actually at one point was in the middle of being killed off on-screen and then we didn't see her for eight episodes, so we assumed she was dead) made it until the end.

(speaking of dead characters though, what was with the habit of bringing them back constantly? just don't kill them in the first place! create new ones and let those ones stick around instead!)

when they can't use death as their solution, the other answer the writers fall back on is Deus Ex Machina

buckleming were a writing duo who had their own bingo cards that included things like shitty pacing, OOC-ness, flat one-liners, etc, and the question wasn't if you'd get bingo, it was a question of how often you got it during their episodes. at some point throughout the show, it became hard to tell what was a buckleming episode and what was just another episode in the season. aka the writing quality went WAY DOWN as a whole

you know the tv trope Idiot Ball? or Idiot Plot? spn should have it's own page for both.

they constantly break viewer's trust, which is the basic tenet of what not to do when it comes to telling a story. (again, not just destiel, though the queerbaiting is a major part of it because it happened all the time to avoid actually answering that question.) when a writer violates their character's or story's core identity for a 'twist', it needs to have been carefully built so that it's a surprise to the viewer, not a betrayal. (you may not have seen it coming, but when you look back you can see the groundwork.) these writers, every time, chose the "shocking" choice regardless of how much they need to break canon or character to do so. their twists are either obvious, and/or they don't make sense with the rest of their story/lore of the show, and the viewer is left feeling stupid for believing they have more respect for the audience/characters than they do.

I realize this is pretty subjective, but huge swaths of it are just boring. fandom made the experience of watching it interesting, not the show itself.

and yet, for all of that, the quality of writing (while painful to have to sit through) was not the worst thing about it.

(note for the following: I stopped watching after s11, but I'm sure some if not all of these are still relevant until the very end)

Misogyny and Consent Issues: Is There a Limit? Signs Point to No

there is honestly so much under this topic I don't even know where to start. i'm going to focus on patterns rather than specific incidences, because otherwise I'll be writing this for a week, but just know I can easily provide examples of all of these because this is literally what I spent years writing meta on.

female characters were more likely to die quicker/earlier (esp vs other other male characters with similar reoccurring roles/characterizations), stay dead, and die often at the hands of their loved ones and/or in Stranger Danger situations. they died for man!pain. they died for fodder. they died as a sacrifice. they were turned into love interests (whether that was their original role or not) and then killed. they were put in mortal danger and then not given resolution for several episodes (Schrödinger's death.) they died in ways we've seen male characters survive. their deaths - the violence enacted on them - was constantly, consistently sexualized, and the camera lingered.

when it came to villains the show would go out of its way to kill the female one first, or act like she's the more pressing issue so that the male character could hang around longer (and honestly by male character I often mean specifically Crowley and the season's female villain. not only that but they'd often break canon to kill off a female character, and break canon to save Crowley/a male character)

when you compare the treatment of reoccurring female characters vs male characters who occupied either similar roles or characterizations, female characters were often punished and/or treated poorly for the same attitude and/or actions of their compared male character, who often got not just a (free) pass, but more screen time, dialogue, and development

they have more than once used the story line of underage girl seducing a grown man. (it was a whole season arc even.) this is esp galling when you find out about crew member Jim Michaels, who sexually harassed and assaulted (minor) fans

(btw, not the only crew/cast member to do so! and still be invited to cons!)

Dean Winchester (who is narratively treated as the moral judgement for the show) has blamed more than one rape victim for their assault/trauma. they often get abused (or outright killed) for stopping their abuser.

Dean is ok with flirting with/leering at barely legal teenage girls. already sketchy when he's 26, really gross when he's in his mid/late thirties

speaking of Dean. based on past personal experience I'm going to say up front people do not like me saying this, but that doesn't mean what I'm saying is wrong or even based on interpretations: Dean has more than one relationship that if it isn't rape, falls under extreme dubious consent.

there's actually a lot of rape (or "extreme dubious consent") and assault/molestation, both shown and mentioned: Cas and April, the cases were men take away free will and then have sex with the women (Ben Edlund was one of the better writers of series and even he did this a couple of times), Crowley orgy (and demon sex in general), random women in some episodes, Sam and meta!Gen, Becky and Sam, Sam and Lucifer, Dean and Alastair, several monsters (like the siren) and their victims, male characters secretly watching female characters undress/be naked, and so on. Dean was often attacked sexually by men, Sam by women. most of this is never addressed, never treated like what it is, and/or is made into a joke

and there's even more rape jokes beyond that, sub-sections: prison, vessels/demons, angel possession, sex work, childhood abuse, monster of the week, sexuality, etc. huge chunks if not whole episodes were devoted to making what amounted to a rape joke.

often ignored non-sexual consent (esp Dean’s actions, including a lot of mind-wiping and violations of body autonomy)

everything about Sam and body autonomy - he is frequently violated (multiple characters have possessed him; he is fed demon blood); how he feels unclean, how he feels disconnected from his own body, how he often is forced to act outside of his control and then blamed for those decisions

actually, Cas goes through that a lot too; he is trained, brainwashed, and forced to do things without his consent, and goes through major depressive episodes because of it

this show has a pattern of girls who are kidnapped, (sexually abused), raised in isolation, and expected to develop some perfect moral compass of acceptable behavior and were then killed off when they didn't. meanwhile, male characters get fourth, fifth chances.

female characters (and I'm talking about ones with speaking roles, who play an actual part in the plot, who are sometimes in multiple episodes) are more likely to be unnamed or given no last name

are you a Mother on spn (as in, that's your role)? you're either fridged for man!pain or abusive or both

it rarely could pass the bechdel test (including in s9 don't believe those fandom lies), and that's including episodes that focused on female characters. if the test included that the characters have to be named, that (small) number probably gets cut in half. if that test included both women are alive at the end...

female monsters prove they deserve to live by killing off their family to prove they're the "good kind" (this is not necessary for male monster characters)

female characters are not allowed to get vengeance

they took the Virgin vs Whore dynamic (and that that's all women are), and devoted a whole episode to it, but in general it underlines of ton of interactions, esp with regards to Dean and women. {I actually never got around to writing it, but women tended to fall into four main classifications on this show, though overlap definitely allowed: Victim [sub-categories: Fodder, (Dean) Mirror, Mother], Love Interest, Sex Object, and Villain/Obstacle. very few female characters were either allowed to outgrow their category or didn't start in one.}

we see the male characters assault female characters but it's okay because [insert supernatural reason here], ignoring that whatever explanations for why it's being allowed, we are still visually being shown this violence against women, and often from our "heroes" (the women are then tossed away from the narrative after the violence and again, their aftermath gets regulated to off-screen who cares)

female characters were only allowed to be "so badass"; female hunters often fought female monsters or they lost/got regulated to the sidelines in battles. this gets even more contrasted as a male character/hunter will often do a nod about how "badass" she is, even as she is very easily beaten.

the whorepobia of this show

had a tendency to strip female characters down to their underwear/make them nude before torturing them, and then adding sexualized torture on top of that

outside of actor injuries affecting this (like one of them broke his arm so he had a sling for a few episodes), female characters are often more likely to visually carry the bruises/violence of violent incidences much longer than male characters

gratuitous filming shots of breasts, asses

the use of the words: bitch, skank, whore, slut; the play on words they do so they can say "pussy"

taking female myths/figures and reducing them to a cheap, sexist storyline (Amazons, Artemis, Lilith, Eve, witches - who are only allowed to live/be "good" if they're men, and are otherwise in league with demons/are evil and lose)

they often kept a character but switched out her actress; helps with the disposable feeling

how they treat women's ages (ex: Jody is not allowed to be a love interest to Sam because she's older than him/calling Dean 'kiddo'. ex: Rowena is played by a woman fifteen years younger than Crowley's actor. ex: Amara being one of the oldest things in existence but still having to age her way up.)

their treatment of teenage girls, ranging from how they sexualized them to expecting them to save themselves to treating them like they are grown adults and not children to the way they kept killing the ones who posted selfies to the fact the pr more than once used the tag "teenage girls - the scariest thing ever" for Claire's episodes

actions and lasting legacies by female characters often got erased or passed on to male characters instead

it's a time honored tradition to treat certain monsters as metaphors for things. specifically for spn, they often use werewolves and vampires for sexual assault. (not the first to do so, not the last to do so.) however, that part of it gets textually glossed over, or treated as a joke, more often than not

and for all the patterns I talk about above, there's plenty of other one-off examples of misogyny/sexism or consent issues/rape culture this show did. like that time a grown man sniffed the bra of a dead teenage girl. not for any reason, just because it was there and that's what dudes do, apparently.

Racism: All the Flavors(+ Bonus Sexism)

when you compare the treatment of reoccurring white characters vs characters of color who occupied either similar roles or characterizations, characters of color were often punished and/or treated poorly for the same attitude and/or actions of their compared white character, who often got not just a (free) pass, but more screen time, dialogue, and development.

usually Black men but in general men of color:

a) got humiliated (often using feminization or infantilization) before their death

b) had a more violent death; had a death that visually echoed racism (lynching, shot in the back, etc)

c) often used (racialized) rhetoric that in the real world is used against them

d) often filmed in ways to highlight their physicality, to portray them animalistically, to dehumanize them

e) even when victims, will add context to make them partially responsible for their death

characters of color were the villains or antagonists, very rarely "good guys"

this was a very white show, and while I'm speaking about speaking roles, reoccurring characters, and characters who get their own arcs, I'm also talking about background characters

using lore from groups they should not have and/or turned creatures into racist caricatures

having white actors play characters they shouldn't have

heavily depended on stereotypes for their characters of color

the treatment (esp narrative empathy level) of white angels vs angels of color. again, screen time and character development differences between the two

a summary of (East) Asian woman on this show: fetishized porn/sexualized, “tiger mom”, Yoko Ono/The Girlfriend, monster. they were often silent or had no dialogue. microaggressions (usually spoken by Dean) were leveled at them.

antisemitism (styne issue, erasure of the Judah Initiative, Lilith, the golem)

like the sexism, just had random racist lines or visuals throughout the show (and sometimes those came in the absence of who should be there); some groups literally did not have enough characters to make a pattern, which is why this section looks a lot shorter than it really is

like for ex, I'm trying to stick with patterns but seriously, they put a Black woman in a dog collar and said her white boyfriend was her master/that she belonged to him

the ignorance of how white privilege worked to make them palatable

the replacement and/or elevation of a white character over a character of color (Lisa over Cassie, Bobby over Missouri, Charlie over Kevin in terms of how they were treated under Found Family, etc)

how they treated non-Christian Gods: easily killed, evil, weak. they often repackaged them into a Christian framework and made them lesser than.

Bi/Homophobia, Queerbaiting, and Using Fans

they butchered Charlie. they killed her, they killed her in a way that involved leaving behind plot, characters, and logic to do so, they killed her and used the violence of it for "shock," they butchered her and stuck her in a bathtub. the guy who wrote Charlie in every other episode (Robbie Thompson, one of the better writers of the show) didn't write her last episode (assumption: because he wouldn't) and then he arguably left the show over her death. at one of the cons (comic-con?) the cast literally turned their backs when a fan questioned Carver (the showrunner) about what he did because they wanted no part of it. there was a mass exodus of fandom after they killed her (and another portion actually hung around because they got destiel queerbaited to stick out the rest of the season, and then they left.) she was un-apologetically queer, she was found family, she was widely popular, and they killed her for no reason at all. they didn't just Bury The Gay (their only reoccurring one), they salted and burnt the ground

they spent over a decade queerbaiting Destiel. they built queerbaiting destiel into the structure of the show: season opening/first couple of episodes whetted the appetite, which they then backed away from (usually removing Cas from Dean's physical area) and around this time they'd usually have some kind of heterosexual love interest, then mid-season they'd have some room to be together and share feelings, Cas would again disappear but this time they'd have some bi!Dean thrown in to keep you going, a few episodes before the end they'd have a major connection moment (I need you, I love you), and then the season would end with something to keep destiel fans occupied with during summer. it was never a trajectory, it was a cycle; just enough for plausible deniability but more than enough for fans to believe in. they had whole seasons where the b-plot were mirrors for destiel. they tried to sell DVDs by promising destiel cut scenes. they'd remove Cas from huge chunks of episodes just because they didn't want destiel interacting in the same physical space. they filmed them (I'm talking camera angles, physical positioning, etc) romantically. (and sometimes, someone on crew/the network would accidentally reveal how not-fucking-happening destiel would be, and then backtrack when they realized fandom’s uproar.)

a) Dean was only allowed to care so much for Cas, the narrative would only give him so much room to mourn/miss him. (Sam too.) it's beyond my general complaint that the writers/bros lose all interest in a character if they are not right in front of them (if they even cared when they were), but specifically they will spend episodes talking about how Cas is family, how much they care, and then because Dean and Cas cannot share the screen they come up with asinine reasons to remove Cas, which means Dean/the bros do not help him on his issues, and he is cast adrift until they need him, a push/pull of show vs tell with contradictory answers but made a lot of Cas/Destiel fans argue Cas deserved better.

b) they also devoted seasons to the (subtextual) love triangle of Dean/Cas/Crowley. (I wish I was fucking kidding)

c) "you construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men": the way they use violence to supplement affection (which is actually a larger pattern with Dean and his loved ones in general, but specifically the show is willing to show - multiple times - Dean and Cas being violent (often with an arguably sexualized filming to it) in conjunction with or as replacement for expressing their care.) other side of this: hugging/physical affection outside of the shoulder/hand thing is reserved for escaping or coming back from death, if then (and it took seasons and a few deaths to even get that.)

d) "buddy"

that time Dean was allowed to be textually attracted to his mother and a literal dog (who was visually made to be very clearly a girl dog), but his attraction to men always stays subtextual and/or treated as a joke

they spent the whole show queerbaiting bi!Dean. aside comments, checking out other guys, getting flustered by men he finds attractive, metaphors, mirror characters, the heterosexual overcompensation [which is different from but comes from a similar place of the macho compensation to counteract how he gets sexualized/feminized], everything with Cas and how they play that relationship romantically and with sexual attraction, the character development that led to his relaxation of his macho compensation coinciding with increasing subtextual readings of his bisexuality (and domesticity), the inspiration for his name/character is bi, his relationship to Charlie and the pattern of fictive kinship, etc etc.

why are angels straight???? why do they have gender???? (why are they interested in sex???) minus the queerbaiting of destiel, they spent a lot of seasons pushing Cas into a heterosexual box. other angels were often pushed into heterosexual boxes too. (or left in subtext and then killed.) closest we got to playing with gender was Raphael and maybe Hannah, and at least with Raphael it was not without its issues. (also: both dead.)

random transphobic lines

homosexuality was often treated like a joke/punchline. queer characters/scenes were often treated like a joke/punchline.

outside of Charlie, queer characters were small, two-bit roles, extremely rare, and often killed

how they treated and showcased fandom space and esp queer fans in-show (much less how they treated them in real life), comes from a deeply sexist and homophobic place

The Show Was 328 Episodes Long And the thing is, these are the four big categories, but it's not like this is it. The show flip-flops on calling John an abusive parent/that the bros are childhood abuse survivors. The show doesn't even really call out when Dean is being abusive to Sam, and the way they always, always go back to the Brothers Only format means they are often ignoring or straight-up forgetting the unhealthy aspects of their relationship. The show ignores how their trauma builds (and all the things that happen because of it), disconnecting the current issues with the ones that came before. The way they flip flop on monster morality and never address what the winchester bros do to people who happen to be monsters but aren't evil (or definitely aren't as evil as they are). How violence is always the answer. How the "saving people'' part of hunting got dropped the later the show goes on, and red shirt vessels/hosts die in droves. Depending on how you view it, the way they treat alcoholism and addiction. The ableism. The line between the narrative's opinion on acceptable violence and not is inconsistent and dependent on how much they like the character doing the violence vs who the violence is being done to. Etc.

(The above lists are definitely missing stuff. I haven't done anything in this fandom in like four years, I've forgotten a lot.) I'm not saying people didn't enjoy this show. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy (parts of) this show. I'm saying whether you are basing it on things like writing craft or things like 'social justice issues', this show is bad. It is of poor quality. I really don't know how to explain the hold it has on people, how a show can be charismatic, how fandom was able to squeeze so much out of so little, but that's probably what's got you attracted into the idea of watching it again. If you're thinking of watching it because you want a coherent, well done story, look elsewhere. The finale was the literal last straw, not the only one.

#spn #fandom stuff #inbox and admin stuff #//#also this focuses on canon #(and ok a little abt the cast/crew)#(though among other things not mentioned is how actors of color and actresses got treated re cons & crew demographics)#however fandom has it's own fucking list and I can come for them at any time too #anyway that was a very nice ask #and if you want actual details about any of these I could provide #but I wanted to stick with patterns because I feel like that says more than the individual things they do #of which there are legion #anyway a summary of what I and many other people have discussed over the years about how much this show sucks #////#i really do get the urge though #one of my mutuals makes s15 destiel sound good #but fool me once shame on you and fool me 50x fuck you spn #//////#this is long (you asked a very wordy person) but tbh I've written longer meta #and oh man back in the day this thing would have been full of links that would have taken you to other metas #///////#eta: fucked up my formatting I had to add a) because bullet points wont indent

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youarejesting · 4 years

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BTS365 Prompts.week 29

[Full Masterlist] [Prompt Masterlist] [Tag yourself here]

Please tag me in your work if you use my prompts. I want to see your work. Ever your Jester. Tell me your birthday and I will tag you on your special day!

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July 16th - 22nd

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Kim Seokjin - lonely

You and Kim Seokjin were neighbours and best friends since you could remember. He was nerdy, laughed a little too loudly and made lame jokes. No one really wanted to be friends with him. But you spent hours with him playing in each other’s back yards and giggling over his dumb puns.

Middle school you were both kind of in each other's company and you had to admit not only were his jokes getting better they were seriously growing on you.

You went into high school and people liked Seokjin. He often was swept away by you at lunch by yourself. You got a scholarship to study two years abroad and learnt so much while away. By the time you came back from the break you were going into your senior year of high school. Seokjin has been at a party the night you returned home so he didn’t get to see you. You were trying to spot him as you entered the classroom and stood at the front.

“Class we have a new student” the teacher gestured “would you like to introduce yourself?”

“Ah I am Y/n” you smiled

“Damn she is hot” you didn’t see him in the class but that didn’t stop you from looking.

“Sorry I am late, I got caught sneaking bread from the cafeteria” Seokjin laughed and you knew it was him.

You looked at him shocked, after class you went to approach him but you were stopped by a group of girls.

“Listen, we are the Seokjin fan club, he doesn’t talk to girls and if he did get in line” you pushed past them and grinned.

“Hey Jin I think you are living in a bubble” you called out and he stopped turning around looking you up and down.

“Unbeliebubble!”

Min Yoongi - simplicity

“This is too complicated, we need something simple, something easy to sing at a concert after all the others I can’t take another dance number, my poor heart will give out,” Yoongi complained from the floor the others were stretching between songs and you searched the song on your phone and hit play dimming the lights.

“Alright?” You smiled and the small music box style song played through the room. It was a ten hour loop of music box ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’, you rolled up your clean towel and placed it under Yoongi's head.

“You got an half an hour to sleep, use it wisely” you spoke but his soft breathing had already taken over. He was out like a light.

Jung Hoseok - Embrace

Embarrassment didn’t even come close to how you felt. It was an easy mistake, you walked into the wrong room. But you must be thinking, well that’s not exactly embarrassing. Did I forget to mention you walked into the wrong room of a hotel. If that wasn’t enough you got into bed without even turning on the light too exhausted from your late flight. It wasn’t until in your days you tried to hug one of the warm pillows, it smelt amazing. But that pillow squealed, flailing and you were hit in the face repeatedly. Retreating from the bed you were blinded by the light.

“What are you doing in my room?” You hissed, grabbing the phone and called the front desk and he was frozen shaking, pulling on his shirt, trying to wake up fast enough to translate what you were saying. He started laughing and sat on the bed running a hand through his hair as the security came in, his and yours.

“It’s okay, it was a misunderstanding, the man at the front desk must have given you the wrong key, we are truly ashamed of our service and this mix up.

“Hoseok?” Namjoon asked “Sir, what is going on?”

“They gave us the same key, I climbed in bed with your friend. A simple mistake, I apologize for making a fuss” Your head was swimming, feeling lethargic from your flights and business.

“I have called the front desk, they are going to bring you another key ma’am truly we are sorry?”

The phone rang and you could barely stand on your feet. “What do you mean there are no more rooms available?”

“I don’t care where I sleep, I am just tired please, I will sleep in the hall if I have to. I am dead on my feet?”

“We can share a room?” Namjoon said, “She is tired, we will give her this room for the evening.”

“I don’t care anymore…” You fell, not even conscious to feel if you had hit the ground honestly it felt like you were floating in mid air. The sunlight woke you with its warmth, you were on the bed alone. It felt like maybe it was all an elaborate dream, you stepped out and saw everything as it should be not a trace of any intruders.

Except a note on the hall table by the door, “I am so sorry, I wacked you in the face. If you are awake, I would like to buy you some coffee as an apology?” You looked up at the mirror and saw a small swollen bump on your cheek and laughed hysterically.

Kim Namjoon - Pandemonium [Full story] Mature themes warnings on post but SFW.

If you search the word Pandemonium it literally translates to ‘abode of all demons (or hell)’. Which in basic terms meant home of demons, a name quite fitting for the place of residence for Kim Namjoon as he was in fact a demon. He appeared human of course and very handsome a man must attract his food.

Tonight's meal was you. Unbeknownst to this fact you danced to the music feeling the music pulsing through your body, each heavy bass note shook your heart in such a way it felt dangerous. You had only been to the club a handful of times but you loved it. Sipping your lemonade and dancing to the music.

It was always a wonderful experience. Even the nights where things didn’t exactly go as planned were still enjoyable. You could ignore other people's decisions, you were here for one thing and one thing alone and that was to dance. You saw him every night and watched him dance with all the girls and guys until he took someone home.

You remember the first time you saw him dancing, his hands on another man's waist, and a sinful feeling passed through you, but you pushed the thoughts away, as you pushed your way through the crowd. Splashing your face with cold water in the bathroom listening to a gaggle of women chatting through the door to their friend who was vomiting.

For weeks whenever you closed your eyes you could see his gazing across the dance floor. You were scared to go back. His first and only attempt to dance ended quickly and when you had turned to face him, he almost seemed disgusted pulling his hands from your body and apologizing before leaving.

Were you not his type, did he not like what he saw when he came close to you. You were confused and a little hurt but that feeling passed and you soon got used to the odd man, he would sometimes catch your gaze and you grew braver and braver to look him in the eyes. Taking a break from your dancing to order a lemonade, you noticed him dancing with a woman very intimately his hands wandering over her curves.

As if he could feel your gaze he looked up and gave you a sly grin, in the multi colored strobe lights he looked horrific. Teeth appearing sharp and his eyes reflected light strangely like you might see an animal's eyes reflect. You coughed up your drink and turned away a hand on your chest trying to clear the liquids you had inhaled.

You saw him in the reflection of the bar as he walked the woman out, you felt a sort of longing, what would happen if you followed him out. Again you reprimanded yourself for such thoughts, you knew he wouldn’t even be interested in you, it was obvious because you saw him almost every night and he never approached you.

“Stay away from that Namjoon?” the bartender said softly “Those who go with him never return”

Things started to get weird when the paper published an article about people turning up dead. You didn’t know what possessed you to look, perhaps just morbid curiosity. But you looked. It struck you through the chest, each of them were faces you recognized because of him.

You shivered and stayed away from the club for a while too scared to find out if it was true. Did the bartender know. It was a month or two later and a friend's birthday and you were in the club once more. There was no sign of him so perhaps everything was going to be okay, everyone drank and danced, you sat and minded drinks and purses with your lemonade.

You saw him dancing and sat up, how did you not notice him walk in. This wasn’t important, what was important was he was dancing with your best friend Yoonji. She was smiling while he whispered in her ear and his eyes met yours and you could see the surprise in his eyes. He froze and you contemplated taking your friends home. You picked up the bags and raced over, “Hey guys, Yoonji I think we should all head home” You said turning from your friends group to look over your best friends shoulder at him.

Park Jimin - gummy worm

You left the boss’ office and stormed to your desk pulling open the top draw and diving your hand into a bag of extremely sour gummy worms. Your friend Seokjin laughed, “What did the boss say now?”

“Eunji is on maternity leave, so we have a new team member, she left us in the biggest time of the year, how selfish can she be?”

“She was the size of an actual house, the biggest time of her year, it’s not like she could help it.” Seokjin laughed “but I understand a new person is stressful, so who is she?”

“He.” You scoffed

“I’m sorry what?”

“Yeah the new team member is a he, the boss’ nephew?” You sighed

“The one he boasts about at the christmas party, the really bro gym rat hetero one”

“I hope he knows makeup, or I am livid?”

“No the other nephew is the bro gym rat, I wouldn’t exactly call myself hetero, I like to keep my options open and as for makeup well…” You turned looking him up and down, he was a snack, freakishly sexy long legs that seemed to move smooth and slow like he was walking around a stripper pole. He looked at you with his sharp grey eyes adorning a beautiful orange eyeshadow. He looked you up and down and saw the bag of sour gummy worms.

Without words you extended the bag and he took one popping it in his mouth, his tongue poking out and swiping some of the powder from his plump strawberry glossed lips. “I’d like to think I have some knowledge of make up, I use products daily”

“I am Jin.” Seokjin laughed watching you “And my drooling friend is Y/n”

“An absolute pleasure” He gently cupped your chin helping you to close your mouth and wiping the powder from the corner of your mouth. “I enjoy sour things too”

Kim Taehyung - Customers

Taehyung was standing at the check out, it was his first day and he grinned at you readjusting the ‘Trainee’ pin on his shirt with a grin. He was proud and you took him through the ropes trying to teach him how to work the till and touch screen and searching overriding items. You also taught him how to use the PA machine and effective bagging techniques. It took awhile but he was actually getting really good, everyday he called for you less and made less mistakes.

Your opinion of him changed from annoying and incompetent to a kind of cute with eccentric thoughts floating around his head coleague. It was your day off but you had to run to the store, you were dressed horribly hair a mess, no make up. The trip was unplanned but when you got your period with absolutely no supplies you decided to rush to the store hoping to grab some things and leave.

What you didn’t expect was to get him. Where were all the female staff. “Hey, Y/n!” He waved to you and finished serving the customer bowing his head as they left. You placed your things on the counter and he smiled at you.

“Look” He called for your attention, reluctantly you looked up. He was grinning a huge square smile and pointing at the finely polished badge. “It has my name on it in both Korean and Chinese, see Steel Kim, Big Tae and Be successful hyung”

You smiled at how happy he was with his new badge, how much he loved working in such a mundane job.

“Taehyung your shift is complete once you finish, shut down your till and you are free to go. I will count it for you and take over.” The supervisor smiled as he walked past.

“Ah you are a customer” Taehyung seemed to realize he was still working, giving you an apologetic smile, “Good morning, how are you?”

“I am okay” You said, shuffling your feet, your stomach cramping. He noticed the items and frowned you paid wordlessly and went to the staff room to use the bathroom.

When you stepped out, Taehyung stood there with a bag in his hands. “I got you these, I thought they might help and was wondering if you wanted a ride home?”

“I am okay, Taehyung,” You said, wincing at the sharp pain in your side.

“Listen, I want to drive you home, you look like you are in pain” He said and pulled you over to the bench that sat outside the toilets and he opened a pack of disposable heat packs and smiled, “Lift your shirt I will put them on for you”

You blushed but complied with his request as he put two on your tummy and smiled “Anywhere else?” You lifted your shirt and he placed them on your lower back. Relaxing with the warmth you looked at Taehyung, features softening. “You look more comfortable, let me drive you home?”

He walked you to your door carrying your groceries and he smiled “I brought you some snacks and medicine hoping it would help”

“Do you want to watch a movie with me?”

“Sure” he beamed

Jeon Jungkook - yellow

Jungkook's first university party and it was a traffic light party, the rules were if your single wear green if you were taken wear red if you were complicated or unsure wear yellow. He dressed in yellow unsure if he was looking for someone or not.

He saw you dressed in yellow, standing in the backyard trying to get away from the loud noise and stench of alcohol. You were funny and sweet, Jungkook found himself completely taken by you. The way you spoke and danced the way you giggled the way you squeezed his bicep and made a declaration that you were sure he works out.

He was modest, not wanting to appear full of himself, and he felt his heart flutter. The night was ruined however when a man dressed in yellow appeared slinging his arm around you. “Hey man, what’s your name?”

“Jungkook?”

“Cool, I am Taehyung?” He smiled, dropping the words he didn’t want to hear. “y/n’s boyfriend”

“Oh I am sorry to bother you?”

“No dude, you are cute and we are in an open relationship so like if you are interested maybe the three of us could grab some coffee” he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Jungkook raises an eyebrow. There was something about this handsome blonde man that kept jungkook intrigued.

Soon he was dancing with you, with Taehyung with both of you, and honestly he loved it, he loved the attention of both you and your boyfriend. “Okay sure, let’s get coffee”

You looked up and giggled, his eyes were wide with wonder and his grin was adorable. Taehyung matched him with his own adorable grin and you threw your arms around the two makes shoulders making them crouch from the height difference “let’s go boys I can go something to drink”

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sunsetcurve · 4 years

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THE POST FINALE HENRY DANGER OPINIONS TAG:

thank you for the tag @chenryhart , @ginger--binger , and @henryhearts ! (i used eliza’s version because it had more questions lol)

Who was your overall favourite member of Team Danger and why? i will never be able to decide between charlotte and henry (it’s called being bisexual). i relate to charlotte a lot, and she’s a role model for me; she’s smart, she’s bold, she knows what she wants and i really love her for it. henry, on the other hand—there are moments when i’ve disliked him but i’ve watched him grow up, i’ve watched him be a hero for so long and i do still admire him a lot. he’s brave and loyal and he cares so much about people, like i’ll honestly just be soft for him forever.

Who was your favourite non-team danger character and why? gonna have to go with bose and mika (who count, right?) because they’re both so pure and enthusiastic and i can’t wait to see more of them

Who was your favourite villain and why? definitely twitler. i think he was the only villain that had actual motivation, and he was definitely the least cringey of all of them. he set up high stakes and challenged team danger a lot.

What were your top five favourite Henry Danger episodes of all time and why? ooh, good one. okay i think the finale is my all-time favorite. it just really was the culmination of the core of this show and there were so many amazing moments between all the characters. the actors and writers delivered so hard. second would have to be back to the danger because that episode was solid start to finish. i love the high-stakes episodes, and the time travel was a really cool aspect. third would probably be the three-parter, because again, i love the high stakes episodes, and that one really brought it. fourth would be broken armed and dangerous because it was completely hilarious. and fifth would probably have to be either double o danger, because i loved getting to see them all dressed up and undercover and joss moss was awesome, or i dream of danger because it was charlotte centric and also chenry. honorable mention to danger games entirely because of that scene where all four game shakers fall in love with henry at once.

What were your top five least favourite Henry Danger episodes of all time and why? not a fan of henry’s birthday because i can’t watch it without getting incredibly pissed; like it’s a well-made episode i just get really upset while watching it. i hated man of the house because the whole ray trying to get with henry’s mom made me suuuper uncomfortable. i did not like one henry three girls because the cheating plot was not it for me, or sick and wired for the same reason as henry’s birthday, and also because that was definitely the episode where dad!ray started to disappear. and captain mom because...nope.

What was your favourite running gag and why? oh god i have so many that i made a full post about this. the hmm thing was awesome, especially the fact that they acknowledged it. i also love the “piper has a license—established” joke

What was your favourite one-off throw away gag and why? gonna steal @henryhearts answer here and say the cat universe that respected charlotte; also bringing back the bro song from the musical that one time.

What episode, which character and which duo made you laugh the most? episode would definitely be broken armed and dangerous. laugh after laugh. the arm fashion show? the part where henry’s like “i’m plum-tuckered!”? the sign language interpreter? peak. character would be henry because i LOVE the way he reacts to stuff, like when he does his little *hand clasp* “there is something wrong with you” or like “dude, dude, dude, dude, dude—”. duo would probably be ray and henry because bose was right, their banter is hilarious.

What episode, which character and which duo made you the most emotional? episode would be the finale, and i feel like i don’t have to explain myself there. character would also be henry, like, the whole “i was thirteen!” thing and the fact that he’s given so much to this makes me want to cry sometimes. duo would be chenry because they’ve been together since the beginning and i have way too many feelings about them.

How would you rank each season from 1 to 5, one being the best and five being the worst? this is difficult, because i think season 5 is my favorite overall because of it had so many solid episodes and high stakes and good plots, but there were also sooo many things i didn’t like. still! i think it takes the top spot. after that would be season 2, just because it was really fun and fresh and in that stage where they’d started to figure things out as a show but weren’t getting cocky just yet. then probably season 3, then 1, then 4, because that season didn’t really have anything that stood out to me besides back to the danger.

Who was your favourite duo in the show (romantic or non-romantic)? chenry, but hensper and chasper were both very close seconds

What was your favourite Henry and Ray moment/episode? blimp scene and i don’t think it’s necessary for me to elaborate

What was your favourite Chenry moment/episode? toss up between the lion scene in idod and the time jerker because of “this is for you, char” and the hug at the end

What was your favourite Hensper moment/episode? when jasper found out oh my god. that was SO good. also love muffin and “as henry’s best friend...and soulmate”

What was your favourite Chensper moment/episode? oh god The Scene in the finale when henry is telling char to get out of there and she’s not leaving him and jasper has to carry her out and it just shows how much they all care for each other. and the fact that they all went to dystopia together!

If you could go back and change one element of the show, what would it be? RESPECT. CHARLOTTE. PERIOD. (i would change a lot of ray’s character as a whole, especially season 4/5 tbh)

If you could say one thing to each main character in the pilot, what would it be? i would tell the trio to stick together, appreciate each other, and don’t forget to be kids. i would tell ray not to bring a 13 year old kid who doesn’t have powers into this.

If you could say one thing to each main character in the finale, what would it be? i’m proud of you

Were you satisfied with the finale? What part was your favourite and what part was your least favourite? yes. i think overall there are always going to be things they could have handled better. but i’m happy with the way it ended. i think it’s fitting and wonderful and i felt good. favorite part would be the entire part in the finale with henry arguing with ray about who’s going to go down and later with char and jasper for them to leave. partially because i’m a glutton for angst, but also because the actors put so much into it and it was a real display of emotion and feels, and it showed henry’s selflessness and heroic nature so plainly. least favorite was the fact that char never got an apology from ray.

What would your ideal Henry danger spin off look like? dystopia!!!!!!!! the trio fighting crime in dystopia but it’s pg-13 and also they’re falling in love. also they sometimes come back to visit ray and mentor the danger force kids.

Where do you personally see the characters 10 years from now? What are they doing, who are they with, where are they in their lives - what do you think happened to them? Most importantly, are they happy? i think the trio is going to be living and fighting crime together for a while. char runs a charity on the side, jasper does photography, and henry is a botanist. but they’re first and foremost a team. piper runs a media company and ray and schwoz are being parents to the DF kids. they all still have thanksgivings together and yes, they’re all very happy.

What was your favourite part of the show and why did it initially draw you in? so i watched the thundermans right before this, and the whole reason i got into it was because i love anything superhero related but i wanted something lighthearted instead of my usual gritty dctv shows. i stayed for the humor and because the kids were cute, and yeah i did develop a crush on henry as the seasons went on. sue me.

What was your favourite part of the fandom and why did it initially draw you in? the people are so! freaking! supportive! i made some really amazing friends through this fandom, and everyone is sooo talented and kind and just unproblematic as hell. i love it.

Describe your overall emotions/feelings regarding the show being over and the show in general, looking back on it as a whole, with one quote from the show. the iconic “feels good”

If you were able to add one scene in the finale, what would you add? charlotte getting a goddamn apology and some recognition. also i would’ve liked to see the in-between of the blimp crash and the funeral, aka henry reuniting with ray, jasper, and char after they all thought he was dead

Favorite outfit/hair style? i LOVED the trio’s looks in the epilogue. char’s outfits every single episode? their looks in double o danger. piper and henry’s sister twister outfits were also very cute. for each character: i like char’s braids, henry with the curly hair he had in the finale, jasper in a crop top, ray’s bangs and blazer, and that one time schwoz was in a leotard and tutu.

Least favorite character? mine would be jake hart, and i feel like that’s another one of those things that doesn’t need an explanation

one twist: add one question at the end for the next person to answer! tag at least two people so this spreads around!

i’m tagging @bitchmilsky @cactus-con @rorythevambire @bijerbear @mychenrymadness and anyone else who wants to do it!

#henry danger #hd spoilers #hd tag game #hd

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peace-coast-island · 4 years

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Diary of a Junebug

At the Drumbeats Festival!

Guess which camp had the honor of hosting the Drumbeats Festival? Actually, it was kind of a last minute thing. Sunny’s camp was originally going to do it but scheduling conflicts happened and since my camp’s the nearest, they decided to move it here. First the Happy Floral Festival and now this? It’s been a lucky year!

So for the past week Isabelle, Katie, Daisy Jane, and I have been working hard to get things ready for the festivities. Since we’ve had experience with the Happy Floral Festival, preparation was a lot less daunting this time around. I’ll admit, it was tight, but we managed to get it done.

Because things were a bit hectic due to last minute changes, we had help from some of the performers who arrived early. To my surprise, there were some familiar faces at the festival. One of them happens to be Hawk, the last of the BFF Squad who finally made it to the camp! His sister Paloma is one of the performers along with her partner Phoebe in a duo called Lo-Pheebs, which is a play on lo-fi. What a cool name! I’ve only met Paloma a handful of times and she’s always fun to hang around with. Phoebe perfectly compliments her in personality as they’re chill and laid back while Paloma’s enthusiastic and playfully aggressive.

Another familiar face were the Thornton bros. Ever since the entourage officially disbanded I haven’t seen much of Josh and Lake, and even less of Demetri. Shortly after leaving the entourage, Josh became Lo-Pheeb’s manager, which was unexpected but turned out to be a good fit for him. Meanwhile Lake’s been focusing on his acting career as well as trying to become an influencer and Demetri’s studying at Seashore Path while working at Kitchen Cove on the weekends. In short, they’ve all been super busy to the point that they rarely saw each other anymore, which was surprising to me as all three are super close.

The Drumbeats Festival is a music festival where all kinds of artists come together to perform. It has an indie, folk rock, lo-fi vibe that makes you feel chill and pumped up at the same time. I wasn’t familiar with many of the artists so it was great listening to and discovering new music. Lo-Pheebs is definitely on top of my list of new artists to check out!

Lo-Pheebs became a thing over a year ago, shortly after Paloma’s band Out of Sight disbanded. She met Phoebe while on tour a few years back and they became friends, later partners. Lake was the one who suggested Josh become their manager because he felt that his brother needed someone to boss around that wasn’t him or Demetri. Josh is the type of guy who can go a little overboard when it comes to being supportive, something his brothers know all too well. Paloma’s similar in that way too so that’s why they get along so well. At least Phoebe’s there to balance them out as they’re good at handling conflict and helping others see the bigger picture, something that Josh and Paloma admit they’re working on.

This year was supposed to be a busy one for Lo-Pheebs as they were finally breaking into the charts. The festival was actually their first performance in months as they decided to take some time off touring after finishing a major one earlier this year. Josh had to leave abruptly towards the end of their last tour when Lake was badly hurt while on vacation. Also, in between tour stops, Paloma was helping Hawk in Crescent Moon and Phoebe had their own family stuff to deal with. So with everything being so hectic, the duo decided to postpone their next tour and focus on studio work, resulting in their first EP, Bring Down the Beats.

Now that Lake’s almost fully recovered, Josh is slowly getting back into the swing of things. It’s good to see Lake again, especially since he almost died in a freak accident. So naturally his brothers are a bit overprotective of him, making sure that he doesn’t exert himself and such. He can’t run around and explore with his bros, but he’s perfectly content hanging around the camp and taking pics to post online. Honestly, I’m surprised that he doesn’t have more followers.

Hawk and Demetri are an unlikely duo I never saw coming. In a way, they’re kinda like Paloma and Phoebe - the enthusiastic and easily excited one and the chill and quiet one. They’re both into computers and tech stuff - Demetri’s a self taught hacker and Hawk likes to build stuff. Them building something together is either genius or dangerous - let’s be honest, if anyone were to accidentally build a killer robot, it’ll probably be them. Still, I’m interested in a collaboration between the two just to see what they can come up with.

In between setting up for the festival, we also took the time to hang out at the camp. Hawk was going to meet up with Paloma and Phoebe at the festival so when he heard that it was being moved to the camp, he decided to drop by early. So Paloma, Phoebe, Josh, Lake, and Demetri tagged along as they too wanted to help out and spend a couple days at the camp. When we weren’t doing festival prep, we went fishing, bug catching, swimming, cloud gazing, seashell hunting, and foraging - all the fun outdoorsy stuff that one does while camping. It was also a good way to wind back from the stress of setting up a festival, which we definitely needed.

The Drumbeats Festival was a blast! Like I said, I’ve discovered a bunch of new artists to check out. I also learned a lot about drums, which was unexpected, but now that I think about it, the festival is called Drumbeats for a reason. Who knew that drums can be so interesting? Some of the stands are interactive - not only you learn about different kinds of drums, you also get to play with them!

There’s nothing more perfect than a fun festival under a starry night. Hawk says he’s been into constellations lately, especially now that he has a newfound appreciation for them after spending a couple months out in space. It’s cute seeing him and Celeste gush over stars and galaxies!

We got to see the Starstruck Nebula, something that only shows up once in a blue moon so that was super amazing! The books were right, words can’t accurately describe how it looks. The closest I can come up with is like a rainbow kaleidoscope made up of stardust and flames, which probably doesn’t make sense now that I think about it. Now I can cross off another thing from my bucket list!

While messing around with drum tracks, Josh and I got to talking about the future. By that, we mean Hawk, Paloma, Lake, and their significant others. Paloma’s with Phoebe, Hawk with Kat, and now Lake and Tom are a thing. According to Josh, it was kinda a will they, won’t they relationship - though it was a surprise that they ended up together. Lake did say his near death experience caused him reevaluate some things and they spent a lot of time together while he was recovering so it makes sense.

As for Hawk and Kat, there’s been talk of an engagement in the near future. AJ, Elara, and Micah have mentioned it - Micah being fully convinced that a conversation he overheard between his sister and dad has to do with Kat seeking advice on proposing. Devi, Leyla, Tulippa, Misty, and DT have speculated on it as well. So far, nothing from Kat and Hawk themselves so it’s still all up in the air. Let’s just say that when one of them finally pops the question, we’ve got the champagne bottles ready.

Josh also talked a bit about Lake’s ordeal and how it shook him and his brothers up. For a while, before the accident, things were rocky between the two brothers. Most of the time it was minor, petty disagreements, usually involving one of Josh’s schemes gone wrong. They still don’t always see eye to eye, but things were really bad around the time between the entourage disbanding and the accident. And in the middle of all that was Demetri, who was trying to keep the peace as he hates it when his brothers fight, especially when they try to drag him into the conflict.

When everything came to a crashing halt, Josh had to come to terms with some hard truths. The main ones being that he can’t fix everything and that sometimes it’s not okay. Being the oldest and having practically raised his brothers by himself, he’s super protective of them. So it’s understandable why Lake and Demetri sometimes feel smothered by him. He’s been working on giving his bros space and their bond has grown stronger since then.

I’ll admit, sometimes while catching up with Josh I wonder if this is the same guy I met at Rave’s party (it was a weird time and no, I will not elaborate), but not in a bad way. Of course, he’s still the same happy go lucky, playful, and easily excitable goofball we all know and love - now with a touch of emotional maturity. He and his brothers don’t always have it easy so it’s good to hear that things are getting better. Seeing the three of them together not only reminds me of their close bond - something I always admired about them - but also how much they’ve been through.

I’m glad that Josh is finally able to find some peace for himself. Being out on the road with Lo-Pheebs really helped him find a purpose outside of his bros and in return, Lake and Demetri can live their own lives without worrying about leaving Josh behind.

After having a busy week, there’s nothing more rewarding than a night full of fun festivities! On a side note, Lo-Pheebs is on the roster for Concert in the Stars, so the camp will be a stop on their tour, which is set to begin in a couple months. Lake and I are making plans for him and his brothers to spend a weekend at the camp during an event. Also, Hawk and I are also making plans for a BFF Squad camping adventure. So there’s a lot to look forward to in the future.

#animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #Diary of a Junebug #headcanon ramble

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degenerate-perturbation · 4 years

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Chapters: 13/? Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

After Yvanne had gone, Loriel sat for a while on their—just hers, now—bed, listening. The elaborate system of sense-crystals was now mostly defunct, but only mostly. She could almost feel Yvanne leave her life, out the door and down the stairs, through the corridors and passageways and to the stables. She felt, rather than heard, the explosion of the front gate, that indicated Yvanne’s final departure from even her imagined sight.

If she knew her at all, if she had ever known her, Yvanne would run all night. And she would never see her again.

Once she was certain Yvanne was beyond her reach, Loriel rose and dressed. She drank the rest of the water, and moved the chair Yvanne had slept in back to its proper place in the corner. She combed her hair and washed her face in the basin.

The whole time she thought— it was for the best.

The floor was littered with empty potion bottles; these she gathered up for washing and reuse. She was forever breaking glassware in her lab, and it was always handy to have replacements.

It was always going to be like this.

She was surprised to find how little sadness she felt. This ending was, if anything, perfectly predictable. All this time she’d been waiting for the inevitable to happen, and finally she’d realized that she didn’t need to let it happen to her. She didn’t have to be the type of person that things happened to anymore. She could make them happen herself.

It couldn’t have been any other way.

She couldn’t imagine herself spending much time in the bedroom anymore. The cot she had in her lab wasn’t too uncomfortable; she could sleep there. But she didn’t quite feel like leaving yet.

With the area around the bed cleared, she wandered over to the desk. She capped the inkwell, cleaned the pen, cleared away the parchment. Then she noticed the dust. Yvanne used to use the desk almost nightly, but she supposed that lately she’d been lapsed in her duties as acting Warden-Commander. No wonder. Yvanne had outgrown that shell long ago.

She gave the room a good magically-assisted dusting. The burst of wind magic knocked one of the decorative figurines off the mantlepiece, and she let it fall and smash on the ground. She didn’t know why. She’d liked that one.

Really, this was good for the both of them. It was no good for Loriel to shirk her duties as Commander as entirely as she had. She’d need to go back to handling more and more of them. She’d done so before—she would do it again.

It couldn’t have happened any other way. She knew that. She accepted it in her heart. And really, she felt perfectly serene.

After all. It was always going to have come to this.

Loriel sat in the high-backed wooden chair behind the desk and exhaled slowly.

Then she put her head down on the desk and sobbed.

She didn’t stop until well past daybreak.

—

Someone was knocking on the door. Loriel raised her head blearily from the desk. Her face felt sticky and puffy and itchy, and her head throbbed. She hadn’t been asleep, exactly, but there were only so many hours in a day that one could cry before one simply ran out of tears. For a long time she’d simply lain her head in her arms and mourned.

She would get over it. She would. She had to believe that she would. But first she would mourn.

But there was still someone knocking on the door.

A flash of irritation surged through her. Didn’t people in this damn Keep know not to bother her?

“Commander?” came the worried voice. Sigrun.

What did she want? Since when did Sigrun ever sound so concerned for her? For a split second, Loriel considered answering. What if it was something important? Yvanne was gone now. There was nobody to handle an emergency, if one did crop up.

But the thought of being seen by anybody in the state that she was in, puffy-eyed and splotchy, proved unbearable. Loriel stayed silent until Sigrun went away. She did not let out the breath that she was holding until she heard the Legionnaire’s receding footsteps.

Only then did she realize that when Sigrun had said Commander, she had meant Yvanne.

Of course. She was the one people saw every day, and the one who had suddenly disappeared in the night. Did any of them even remember that Loriel was still here?

She wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. She hadn’t made much of an effort to remind them.

Her stomach growled. How long had it been since she’d eaten? No wonder she was starting to feel so lightheaded. She cursed her inability to sustain herself on magic alone, and resolved to learn how before she proceeded with her research. She’d have to; without anybody bringing her food, she was liable to starve to death.

There would be a lot of things she would have to change. Every time she thought of one, the misery rose up in her again. Already she was tired of tears. How long was this going to go on for? Her heart lay so heavy in her chest that it took palpable effort not to collapse on the nearest surface and let darkness take her.

What had she done? How was she going to manage herself, let alone the entire Keep? Vaguely she was aware that there must have been so many things that Yvanne had been taking care of that Loriel had no idea about, things Loriel wouldn’t know about until months later when they blew up in her face.

Her eyes fell back to the desk, smooth and huge and oaken. She'd been so pleased with it when she’d first arrived here and realized that it was hers, after years of working on pathetic student desks in the circle. Now it crouched in the center of the room like a carnivorous beast, ready to snatch her hand off if she approached it.

No, she realized. It was no good. She’d never sort things out. What she really needed to do was promote somebody to Yvanne’s old post and make them handle it. Nathaniel Howe, perhaps. He was responsible, wasn't he? It didn’t even have to be him. It could be anybody, really. She didn't care who.

But in order to go out there and promote somebody, she would have to submit to the ordeal of being perceived, and she could hardly do that in her current state. She didn't even know any spells that might have helped. Her magic only ever made things worse; that’s what it was for. Yvanne was always the one who had spells that made things better.

Perhaps—if she could just keep it together for a few hours—

Her stomach growled again, and when she tried to stand her head spun.

No, she couldn’t wait a few hours. She was going to have to go out there.

She combed her hair again, cursorily, splashed water on her face, and looked at herself in the disc of polished copper. She looked horrible. Pathetic.

She bit her lip, hesitating with her hand an inch away from the doorknob, and then let herself out.

—

In the end she proved too great a coward. Not three steps out her door, she turned herself invisible. She needed to face the Keep, but she’d do it on her own terms, when she was ready. They would perceive her then, and not before.

She drifted through the passageways, a ghost in her own castle. It wasn’t long until she saw somebody, though not anyone she recognized. The stairways were narrow enough here that she had to wait for the young man to pass before moving on. If he had any clue she was there, he didn’t let on.

Varel, she thought, she had to find Seneschal Varel, he always knew exactly how to take care of things. Then she remembered that he was dead—he had been dead for years. Who had been his replacement? Garavel? Garahel? Something like that. She didn’t remember his face, but the Seneschal always wore a little pin featuring a winged quill design.

She had to wander an embarrassingly long time before she found him, in his own private office—much shabbier than her own—and then only because she caught another Warden leaving just as she arrived. She entered invisibly just as the door closed, then realized she’d landed herself in an awkward situation. The Seneschal was settling down to read something, his brow creased in worry.

Suppressing a sigh, she knocked on his door, from the inside. “Yes?” he said distractedly, apparently not noticing that the knock had come from the wrong side of the door.

She turned visible again, hands clasped primly behind her back. To Garahel’s credit, he suppressed most of his shock, and only jerked a little bit.

“C-Commander?” he said.

“Yes,” said Loriel. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“No, not at all,” he lied. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Warden Amell has vacated her post. I will need someone to replace her.”

His eyes widened. “Vacated her post?”

“Yes,” said Loriel, and didn’t elaborate. “Take whatever steps you need to take to promote Warden Howe to her position.”

“Warden Howe? Ser, er—”

She pierced him with an icy look. She was growing tired of his stammering.“Yes, Seneschal?”

“I’m afraid that Warden Howe has been posted away from the Keep for months now.”

“Oh. I see.” She felt her face flare in embarrassment. Had Yvanne ever mentioned that? Had Loriel simply not listened, or forgotten?

“I could of course recall him—”

“No, that won’t be necessary. If Howe is not available it will have to be somebody else. Please provide me with a list of suitable candidates for the position. When can you get it to me?”

“I—well—there are a great many qualified wardens—”

“When, Garahel?”

“Give me until tomorrow.”

“Good. That’s all.” She turned to go, then stopped. “One more thing. Have the kitchens send meals to my chambers, twice a day. Otherwise, I am not to be disturbed.”

“Of course, ser.” He took a breath. “If I may, ser, there may be a great deal of confusion among the men regarding Comman— acting Commander Amell’s sudden departure. It may be a good idea to formally address the Keep, let everyone know what has happened.”

“Very well,” she managed. “Have everyone assemble in the great hall in an hour’s time and I will address them.”

“It will be done, ser.” He saluted her. “Commander, if I may ask, forgive me if it is not my place—is everything alright?”

She looked at him. “You’re right,” she said, “It isn’t your place.”

With that out of the way, she went to the kitchens, invisible again, feeling foolish and angry with herself. She’d panicked when she’d agreed to address the Keep. She cursed her perennial inability to simply say no to a request the whole way to the kitchens.

On her way to the lower levels she finally spotted a set of familiar faces. Sigrun pacing in a little circle, Velanna with her forehead leaned against the wall.

“I’m not sure what to make of it.” Sigrun bit her lip, worried. “I already tried the door…”

“Maybe we should just break it down, then,” said Velanna.

“I’m not risking that! What if she’s in there? That’s a good way to get my soul sucked out.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” snapped Velanna, although she didn’t look so sure.

Me, Loriel thought, they meant me. Is that really what they thought of her? Hot anger bloomed in her gut like coal.

“I trust Amell. It will become clear soon.”

Sigrun sighed. “I hope you’re right…”

Velanna’s ear twitched as Loriel glided past, and for a moment Loriel thought she’d been caught—although caught doing what, she couldn’t say. But after a moment Velanna went back to her conversation.

The kitchens weren’t busy. A girl was washing dishes and whistling tunelessly. Loriel didn’t have the patience to deal with her.

“Leave the room,” she commanded. “ Forget you saw me.”

The serving girl’s eyes went blank as the dish she was washing slipped from her fingers. She left the room with her hands still dripping.

“And close the door behind you,” Loriel added irritably.

Funny how guilty she’d felt the first time she’d used blood magic to take someone’s mind. She’d been so intolerably scrupulous then. How had anyone ever put up with her?

Only then did it occur to her that it might have been a good idea to ask—or “ask”—someone to prepare her a meal. Loriel wasn’t sure how old she was, but she suspected that she was now closer to thirty than twenty, and she still had no idea how to cook. But right then she was hungry enough that she was ready to eat whatever was on hand and unlikely to poison her.

How inconvenient, how wretched and disgusting, that she still had base needs like this. She would have to work on eliminating them.

Having eaten, and tasted nothing, she went to go find Varel—no, not Varel, it was Garahel now, she needed to remember that. She didn’t need to look long. He had done as she’d asked, and gathered what certainly looked like most of the Wardens of Vigil’s Keep in the Great Hall. She was no longer invisible, and a few people noticed her as she approached. Gasps and murmurs spread out from her like ripples.

Maker, this was awkward.

She raised a hand, and as one the hall fell silent. “Good—” Evening? Morning? Afternoon? What time was it? “—day, Wardens of Vigil’s Keep.” Her voice was soft, too soft, but the hall was silent, straining to hear her in the huge chamber. “I appear today to inform you all that there have been some changes at the highest level of command. Warden Amell has stepped down from her post, and will no longer be functioning in the role of acting Warden-Commander.”

She cleared her throat. “As such, a position has opened up in the ranks. If anyone wishes to be considered for promotion, they should submit their names to Seneschal Garahel by the end of the day.”

“But what’s happened to Amell?” somebody called out. She didn’t quite catch who it had been. She had to stop herself from glaring in their direction.

“She has departed the Keep, on my orders,” said Loriel. “She is pursuing secret business. I can speak no further of it.”

“When will she return?” That had been an elven woman near the front.

“I can speak no further of it,” Loriel repeated.

A great deal of murmuring broke out at this. She could tell they weren’t quite buying it. Well, she didn’t care.

She felt that she ought to have said something encouraging. Something to reassure them that nothing untoward was happening and that nothing was changing, which was true, even if the mood in the room didn’t seem to reflect that. But nothing came to mind. The world hadn’t ended, she reminded herself. It only felt like it did.

So after a sufficient pause, she said, “That is all. You are dismissed,” and departed. She managed to leave the room in a dignified manner, slow and regal, but the moment she was away from public eye, she rendered herself invisible again, and darted back into her office before anyone tried to talk to her.

—

The next day Garahel delivered the list of names to be considered for promotion. She scanned it, looking for names she recognized, and found none.

“I suppose you’ll want to conduct interviews—” Garahel began.

“No,” Loriel said dispassionately. She read the name at the top of the list. “I’ve made my choice. Promote Tevva Gondrin.”

“Er, that’s Tevye, ser.”

“Is it? You should work on your handwriting.”

“Of course, ser. Sorry, ser.” He hesitated, then barrelled on, “Ser, while Tevye is a fine warden, I’m not sure...that is to say, are you certain that you don’t want to—”

“Yes, Garahel, I’m quite certain,” said Loriel. “Go and tell Tevye the good news. Dismissed.”

Garahel departed, hopefully not to bother her again for a long time. She breathed slightly easier, now that it was done.

With the one thing she needed to take care of done with, she was left to brood.

Her mind was perfectly at peace, tranquil in the knowledge that she had done the right thing. But her body wanted to cry its heart out and didn’t much care what her mind had concluded.

I did the right thing, she thought, again and again. Because she had to have done. Because the alternative, that she had done it for nothing, was too horrible to contemplate.

Loriel had little memory of the next few days. Her head was too full of fog to work, and being in the lab only filled her with guilt for not working. Neither could she stand to be in the bedroom, soaked as it was in grief and memory.

So she spent most of her time invisible, wandering the Keep.

It counted as work, she told herself. She was keeping a finger on the pulse of her fortress. She had to be the Commander again, that meant she had to know what was going on.

The mood in the Keep regarding the situation in general, and Loriel in particular, was not...particularly optimistic.

On one occasion she chanced upon the three remaining original Wardens sitting together. Loriel never would have thought to see Sigrun and Velanna so at ease with Oghren of all people—but then, she hadn’t even known Nathaniel was gone. What did she know about any of these people, anymore?

“I’m telling you, something weird is going on,” Sigrun said. “She wouldn’t just leave.”

“I think it’s fairly obvious what’s going on,” Velanna snorted. “Oghren understands.”

Oghren grunted and quaffed.

“I just feel so bad for her,” Sigrun said. “She must be a mess. Didn’t you see her barely holding it together during the announcement? I think she’d been crying…”

“Obviously she was crying,” said Velanna. “Wouldn’t you be crying?”

“I guess it was bound to happen eventually,” Sigrun said, and sighed. “Geez, I’m going to miss her...who else is going to bring me new books? I hope she’s happier now, wherever she’s gone.”

Oh, thought Loriel. They think she left me.

A petty part of her wanted to turn visible right then and there and set things straight. She had her pride. Yvanne hadn’t left her. She had left Yvanne. Or anyway, had told her to go, which was the same thing.

“Maybe I should try going up there…”

“Don’t offer her your pity,” Velanna snapped. “I wouldn’t want it, if it were me.”

Despite herself, Loriel felt a rush of gratitude. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand it if Sigrun tried to comfort her. She didn’t need comfort. She was going to get over this. She was going to be fine.

It was exactly why she couldn’t go out unless she concealed herself. If she did they would be kind to her, and she couldn’t think of anything in the world she deserved or wanted less.

Having heard that, she returned to her chambers. A cold meal was waiting in the dumbwaiter. She ate it, didn’t taste it, and then fell asleep at the desk. She almost always slept there now, with her head resting on her folded arms. She was used to it. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand getting into the bed.

When she wasn’t wandering the halls she sat in her room. Mostly she stared out the window. Sometimes her breath would hitch and she would have to cover her eyes from the world for a while.

Sometimes she would pick through the belongings in the place. The plan had been to take anything that had been Yvanne’s and put it in a chest and lock it and never look inside it ever again. But that rapidly became nonviable, because everything in here was Yvanne’s.

Yvanne had filled this room with things to make it a home—the tapestries of capering forest animals, the scented candles, the knick-knacks on the mantelpiece. Mementos from their travels stood upon every surface and hung on every wall. No square inch of this room existed without Yvanne’s imprint on it.

Yvanne had built this Keep, had shepherded its people, had protected it with blood and spirit. And Loriel had driven her from it.

Perhaps she just hadn’t wanted her to have it.

The thought filled her with so much self disgust that she resolved never to think it again.

—

Perhaps a week into her wallowing, Velanna broke through her door.

Loriel had been reading a book. She had no idea of its title, or author, or even vaguely what it was about. But she’d been reading it all afternoon and was deeply annoyed to be interrupted.

“I thought I locked that door,” she said flatly.

Velanna sniffed disdainfully, as though a lock could possibly matter to one of her talents.

Loriel sighed, exhaling harshly through her nostrils. “What do you want, Velanna?”

Velanna looked around the room. The broken things littering the floor. The piles of empty, dirty dishes, several days worth of them, even though getting rid of them was as simple as just putting them back in the dumbwaiter.

“Amell’s really gone, then.”

“Yes,” Loriel said, strained. “Is that all you had to say? Get out.”

Velanna did not get out. She took several steps around the room, surveying. The heavy curtains. The perfectly made, untouched bedclothes.

“Why did she really leave?”

“That is none of your concern.” Loriel rose. “I am ordering you to get out.”

“Left you, did she?”

Loriel had had enough. She slammed her fist on the table. “That is not what happened, not that it is any of your business. Frankly, how dare you come in here and say such things to me? I am your commanding officer, or have you forgotten? I told her to go.”

Velanna watched her impassively. If she was startled by her outburst she didn’t show it.

“And anyway, it was inevitable.” Loriel's hand gripped the edge of the desk. “It was always going to happen this way. I always knew it. I’m not...it was always…”

The steel went out of her spine, and she found herself lowering herself back into the high-backed commander’s chair. She covered her eyes with her hands and to her horror, felt her breath hitch.

Loriel had always been an easy crier. It didn’t take much; the tears always seemed to lurk just under her surface. But she always did it in private. As long as she could remember, the only living person who had ever seen her cry had been Yvanne. Now she was doing it in front of a woman who hated and disdained her, simply because she was too weak to prevent herself from doing so.

“No,” Velanna said. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to fall apart."

The incredible boldness of this statement was enough to startle Loriel out of her spiral of misery. "W-what?"

"What is wrong with you? You’re better than this.”

Am I? Loriel thought cynically. She supposed she understood how somebody might get that impression. But it wasn’t true. She wasn’t better than this, and she never had been.

Velanna snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Hey! Cut that out! You’re being pathetic. And you might be a rude and faithless round-ear with no respect for your people, but one thing you aren’t is pathetic. So cut it out!”

“I’m not—”

“You are!” Velanna said furiously. “You are wallowing.”

The word echoed through the room.

“I know,” Loriel said. It came out quiet, though she ought to have been angry.

“You are engaging in behavior that is beneath you.”

Loriel sighed. “Yes. I know. I just…” She swallowed. “I really loved her.”

She was expecting mockery. But instead Velanna went quiet, her shoulders slumping. Then she dragged over a chair, and sat in it. Yvanne had sat in that chair not so long ago, sitting vigil over Loriel’s unconscious body the way she’d so often done for her when they were children. Now she never would again.

“The Dalish have a saying,” Velanna said, uncharacteristically gentle. “A bird may love a fish. But where would they build a home together?”

Loriel had the vaguest notion that Velanna was, in some way, talking about herself. That it may have had something to do with Nathaniel’s departure, whenever that had been. But Loriel had no intention of asking her about it. Yvanne would have hated not knowing (this thought was a knife in her heart), but Loriel let it lie.

Perhaps that was why they were able to come to this accord.

“I know,” she said quietly. Then, “I told her to go. I was the one who understood.”

Velanna nodded tersely, like she understood, too. A great part of Loriel wanted to deny this—how could Velanna possibly understand, how could anybody understand the depths of her love and the enormity of the sacrifice she had made?—but a greater part only wanted to accept what she’d been given: absolution.

“Right,” said Velanna. “So are you going to stay in here and mope for the rest of your life?”

“No. That is not my intent.”

“Because my sister threw away her life for what you’re doing. If you waste her gift…”

“I don’t intend to do that.”

“Good,” said Velanna. “Good.”

She began to reach out, as though to touch Loiel in comfort. But thankfully before she got anywhere close, reconsidered.

Velanna nodded tersely, rose, and had the decency not to offer anything further. She left without a word of comfort or respect.

And Loriel...felt better. What Velanna had said was exactly what she needed. She was being pathetic. She was wallowing. Not just mourning, but reveling in sorrow, drowning herself in it on purpose.

In another life she might have permitted herself such indulgences, but s he had an important job to do. It was high time that she get back to it.

First thing first—she couldn’t stay in this room, not for one moment longer. She would have her office in another chamber, one where she could still access her hidden lab easily. Trivial to accomplish, with some expertly applied earth spells.

She gathered all her things. Depressingly, it didn’t amount to much, but at least it meant she wouldn’t need to spend much time moving. As she closed the door to her and Yvanne’s former bedchamber, she hesitated, and chanced to look back.

We had a cottage in the woods. There were crow’s feet around your eyes and grey in your hair. We were happy.

But those were a child’s things. It had never been possible. It was never going to have been true.

She slammed the door closed, locked and barred it, and with a careful fire spell, melted the key to slag. That part of her life was over. She was ready to let it go.

Of course she still loved Yvanne. She would love her until, and unless, she died. But she could not live with her. She was beginning to suspect that she could not live with anyone.

That was the way of things, perhaps. Whether or not Loriel had ever been built to be fit for the world, this was the way she had grown. The way she had been obliged to grow. There would be no changing that.

She accepted it. She could live with it. She could move on from it, forward into the future she would build with her two hands, with her blood and with her spirit.

It would be a better world, the one that she would build.

But she did not intend to love again.

#dragon age #femslash #dragon age: awakening #amell #surana #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

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unpredictably-raichu · 5 years

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An ask blog needs asks to generate content but can't do that without asks... so how would a new (or recently revived) ask blog get the people's attention?

Oh, oh, yes! Advice time! :D I’ve been in the ask community for a little while now, so here are some things I’ve gathered over time for when you’re getting started (I’ll be assuming yours is a Pokémon ask blog, since you’re asking this to one).

Keep in mind this is long af and a bit detailed (though it’s only the first part that is long). If you’re interested in a in-detail guide, click ‘read more’ (which I would be very thankful for, I wrote all this shit for you after all, fam).

Here’s a little summarized version as a TL;DR for everyone else:

#1: keep your blog clean. If it’s about Pokémon, it’s about Pokémon; if it’s about Sonic, it’s about Sonic; if it’s about trees, it’s about goddamn trees, so no rebloging random puppy pictures or funny videos here, leave that for your personal blog, not your ask blog. Also try to keep all the out of character crap to a minimum.

#2: Have reference pages for your characters available. That’s actually a minimum requirement. An ask hints page would be useful too, but that’s optional.

#3: Have a tagging system to make everything easier to navigate.

#4 [OPTIONAL]: Give your blog a theme. Make it pretty, make it yours, and for the love of God, deactivate the god damn infinite scrolling.

#5: Tags are your friends. Tag your first post with “signal boost”, “first post”, and/or “intro post”. Tag every Pokémon that appears in your posts, including that one barely visible Caterpie in the background. Tag all your posts as “Pokémon ask blog” or “Pokeaskblog”. Tag. Tag everything. Tags are your friends if you want to be seen. Tags. Tags are. Your. Friends.

#6: Interact with other blogs. Like crazy. You are sure to be noticed when you’re freaking everywhere. Don’t forget to be nice tho. And don’t bully or harass people, for fuck’s sake.

#7: Take a chair, sit over there, get comfortable and be Patient. Like really freaking patient. Wait for months if necessary, but asks will come eventually.

#8: Have fun. That’s the whole point. Talk to people, make some shitposts, engage in silliness, and draw those magical pocket monsters that can shoot lasers out of their asses and we all love. It’s fun.

And that’s it. There’s not much else I can say, so I hope this is helpful! :D

Here’s the detailed thing:

Step #1: Organize your blog

It doesn’t seem like something that important, but believe me, it really is. Nothing turns me away from a blog faster than it being messy af and full of random, unrelated stuff. In order to keep your blog all tidy and pretty you can:

a) Refrain from reblogging anything unrelated. (If your blog is a sideblog, skip this one): You can reblog that video of that one adorable otter in your personal blog, but if your ask blog is about, say, Pokémon, don’t reblog anything that isn’t Pokémon related. If you want to go even further than that, only reblog things that are directly related to your blog, like mentions, fanart, or rp responses, instead of some random Squirtle GIF.

b) Have info pages/references of your characters available: By this I mean having specific pages containing information about your characters, including a visual reference, if possible. Reference pages are very important, since they allow people to quickly get to know a character and make interaction easier. They can contain information as simple and basic as their name, species, moves, etc. to more elaborated things, like occupation (if they have one), personality, or a brief summary of their past story/origin (unless you want that to be revealed as the story progresses in your blog or through an ask).

If you don’t know how to make a page, >here’s an easy tutorial.

b.2) Having an “ask hints” helps a lot when trying to receive asks, since it’ll help people who want to interact but aren’t sure of what they should ask. You can have general hints or individual hints for all the characters.

c) Have a tagging system: Having your posts clearly labeled makes it a lot easier for anyone who wanters through your blog to find the specific content they’re looking for. Here are three basic tags that make your blog easier to look through:

#OOC: “out of character”, for everything happening, well, out of character. Maybe an announcement, a shitpost, a question directed a the mod, etc. Try to keep ooc things to a minimum.

#IC: “In character”, exactly what it says on the tin. Use this for answered asks towards the characters, plot posts, rp interactions and responses, ect.

#[Character’ name]: Tag the characters that appear in a post, for anyone who wants to look through asks with one specific character in them.

Tags help a lot for getting your blog noticed. We will talk more about this ahead.

d) [OPTIONAL] Have a nice theme: This isn’t obligatory, but giving your blog a theme will make it look better and more ‘professional’. Here are some blogs that give really good, free themes/codes for Tumblr:

https://glenthemes.tumblr.com/

https://yukoki.tumblr.com/

https://zuvia.tumblr.com/thms

https://strawberryjeon.tumblr.com/tagged/themes

https://felinum.tumblr.com/tagged/theme

http://hellolittlered.org/themes/type/tumblr/

https://magnusthemes.tumblr.com/mythemes

http://dianthus-s.tumblr.com/themes

https://raiidens.tumblr.com/tagged/themesbyraiidens

https://yeolithm.com/portfolio

These are just some, but there are many, many others out there. Look for a theme that fits your tastes or your blog’s atmosphere, and customize it! You can even use this blog’s theme! However, make sure to not use overly saturated colors that make it painful to look at, it- kind of defeats the point. You can Google ‘color palletes’ if you need help with that.

NOTE: If you don’t know how to install a Tumblr theme, >here’s a simple tutorial

NOTE#2: Sometimes Tumblr might not let you install a specific theme and shows you an error message that says that it can’t be installed because it is “making a reference to non- https directions” or something like that, which didn’t use to happen before. >Here’s a tutorial on how to fix it, it’s quite simple, actually.

NOTE#3: For an ask/rp blog, I recommend a theme with one column, and that shows tags and captions, like the one in this blog.

If you’ve got any question about installing or customizing a theme, you can ask me, and I’ll see how I can help!

Step #2: Tags help you to be found

Be sure to use tags in your favor. Here are some things that have helped me a lot:

a) If you’re starting a Pokémon blog, tag every Pokémon that appears in your posts; that way, people looking through the tag of that specific Pokémon will be able to see your posts.

b) Again, if it’s a Pokémon blog, tag your posts as “Pokémon ask blog” or “Pokeaskblog” (or both), people looking for pokeaskblogs to follow usually look though these tags regularly.

c) Tag your first post/posts or intro as “Signal boost” and “First post”. There are blogs in the Pokémon community that look for posts tagged like this and reblog them to give them a ‘boost’, which helps a lot when you want to be seen. I’m not sure how many of these are still active, though, but you won’t lose anything from trying.

Step #3: Interact with other blogs like a madman

Send lots of asks! Interact with other blogs! Follow even more blogs! Send fanart and nice messages! Reblog/Like those posts of people looking for new blogs to follow! Some people will find you through someone else’s answered ask, some people will notice you’re following and will check you out, some people will see you in a like or a reblog, and overall there are higher chances of being seen when you are everywhere and interact with everyone (also, it’s really fun to just interact with other nice people over here).

Just make sure to be nice.

Step #4: Be patient. P a t i e n t. I’m serious.

If you think you’ll get lots of followers in a matter of a couple days then start forgetting about it. It took me two weeks to get my first ask at asktheweirdpichu, and a week and a half to get one here. And they were both spam. I cried. Two years later (holy heck has it really been that long?) I’ve got so many asks accumulated that I’m starting to think I should just fake my death and end my suffering (I’m joking, I love every single ask I get and get excited every time I get a new one).

It will take a while, but you’ll see that after enough time you’ll get noticed more and more, so don’t give up, you’ll get there.

Step #5: Don’t forget to have fun.

Make some friends, have some silly interactions, make some shitposts at 3 am, draw someone’s character and watch them shoot effusive love at you, enjoy your favorite blogs. That’s what all this is about.

And that is all! I hope it was useful! :D

#hornyspacesnakes #OOC #Blog tutorial #Ask blog tips #Mod #DL #answered #not raichu

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cero-blast · 5 years

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Your post about Gin "messing with people's heads" makes me think, doesn't this also apply to Ulquiorra? He also psychologically tortured Inoue, don't you think it's hypocritical to say Gin's actions don't nullify the bad things he did, but say that UH is good/not toxic? I'm not trying to hate on you, I don't ship anything in Bleach, I just wanted to know why Gin is considered a bad inexcusable guy but Ulquiorra's relationship with Inoue is glorified?

This will get… really long. I’m genuinely sorry it’s this long.

I never said Ulqiorra did nothing wrong (though it’s fair to say I didn’t happen to specifically point it out), or that UH is a ship with many positive feelings associated to it. That would be… an interesting take. I hope you don’t think I think that. But I also need you to understand that I don’t base my taste in ships on what I desire/consider healthy in real life. They exist in the context of the canon — not interchangeable with reality considering the existence of superpowers, ghosts, semi-human creatures and time warping — and that’s where it ends for me. Applying the dynamics in my ships to any situation other than the precise one of Bleach’s canon would make them fundamentally different.

I’ve wanted to mention this about Ulquiorra for a while now and I’ll take the occasion to do so. It’s a mistake to put him in the same framework as a human or shinigami. (The latter two also have their differences but based on observation shinigami seem to behave in a much more human-like manner compared to hollows/arrancars.) He’s practically incapable of understanding what empathy is or find any good reason not to hurt other people, which is why it’s surprising when he manages to grasp even a shred of the concept right before dying. Hollows are born from experiencing such severe pain that it distorts their whole ‘essence’, so something has gone terribly wrong with them emotionally by definition, whether they evolve to arrancar form or not. Ulquiorra’s aspect of death, his ‘theme’, is emptiness — characterized by complete neutrality towards everything. Since a person with a healthy mindset tends to focus on danger and negative events, neutrality often comes across as immoral for being equally conceding towards moral right and moral wrong. The point is, Ulquiorra’s motivations for provoking Inoue had nothing to do with him taking joy in causing pain to her. In fact, it’s hinted he’s not even fully aware he’s doing it, like the scene where he tells Inoue he’d laugh at her friends’ foolishness in her place. He’s unaffected by most things AND has difficulty placing himself in others’ perspective, which results in him assuming everyone around him would be unaffected. The only thing that factored into him doing just about anything was curiosity, the need to fill the void, however you want to put it. If a human or shinigami behaved the same way he did around Inoue, it would come across in a vastly different way and I’m not sure it would even interest me as a ship. Ulquiorra is not only a hollow, but a hollow with a particular impediment in understanding how others feel, and this is an integral part of him as a character, of his interactions, of UH, of anything regarding him. I know it’s funny as a fandom meme to act as if he were human, but he’s NOT and this needs to be kept in mind.

This applies to any arrancar or espada, really. It’s tempting to judge them on the same basis as enemies who are closer to humanity, mainly because of their appearance and intellect. But this is the trick itself the narrative plays, a progression that has been present in Bleach since the start: it created a human/monster (shinigami/hollow here) dichotomy, then spent the longest arc deconstructing it by blurring the lines between the two. It doesn’t matter how smart and eloquent the espada manage to get, the only productive way of interpreting them is as people who are missing a very core part of their personality, so someone severely psychologically ill. (I say this as someone who has their own problems, before it gets misinterpreted as condescension.) Should this absolve them from punishment? Bleach says a very clear no. They almost all get killed by shinigami, in Ulquiorra’s case Ichigo specifically — Ichigo, who, by his own admission, empathized with everyone he fought and even gets angry at Yammy for speaking ill of Ulquiorra after his death. (I don’t want to start arguing about how he was in hollow state when he defeated him. He would have killed Ulquiorra either way if he continued to stand in the way of protecting his friends.)

In summary, the espada aren’t human. Ulquiorra isn’t human. It’s unrealistic to expect him to behave like a human. You’re free to pick who you want to have compassion for among Bleach’s positive and negative characters and if you decide Ulquiorra is irredeemable in your opinion, that’s fine — many characters would agree. But at the very least it can be objectively said that Bleach spends a lot of time presenting ‘evil’ characters’ perspectives as nuanced and explicable instead of writing them off. It gives the audience a choice in the matter. A core message of the entire story is that we’re subjective and maybe we’ll never manage to see the world the same way as someone else, but that’s fine and it doesn’t make us all that different; hollows can become *almost* shinigami, shinigami can become *almost* hollows, and they both have ways to relate to one another while retaining the insurmountable differences and even fighting and killing each other.

Now, onto Gin. First off, you seem to be under the impression that I don’t like him as a character. That couldn’t be further from the truth; I only said it in the tags because I figured saying it in the post would have sounded like making excuses, which is not what the post was about. I don’t know if I would call him a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person. All I know is that I really enjoyed him as a character and I could see how he evoked sympathy — in the tragic way antagonists do when they get some sort of redemption. I noticed it’s a common tool in fiction to make an impact on the audience, I suppose because we’re happier when we see ‘bad people getting fixed’ rather than someone already good doing more good things. It’s a Prodigal Son type of thing; can be argued about but it definitely makes an impact.

Gin is a quintessential ‘mysterious type’; he has a long-running plan that he executes throughout almost his entire life without ever consulting with anyone (an important detail). He had a hypothesis on what would be the most effective way to kill Aizen and constructed a convoluted plan based on it — a plan where the ends would have justified the means in many, many situations, and that required causing problems to a lot of people. He had, however, no certainty that what he was doing would lead to the desired results (which it then didn’t…). A lot of his provocation was a means to create a certain image of himself and there’s a big question of where to draw the line there, whether all of that was absolutely necessary. Leaving to Hueco Mundo and technical demonstrations of loyalty were, sure, but mocking Rukia on her way to being executed? He considered keeping everything a secret a prerequisite for things to work out — presumably because if he talked to anyone, Aizen could have noticed — but was it, really? Many of his actions were based on his personal judgement on what would and wouldn’t have ruined the façade, subjective and hunch-based since he didn’t know the outcome for sure.

Gin isn’t inexcusable, but I noticed a lack of emphasis on the damage his actions caused among fans, both because of the chronological order of the story and his affiliation with the protagonists’ side. Because the last thing he did was a good thing, that’s what he’s remembered by, without taking into account the sum total of his interactions with others. He posited himself as vicious until the last moment and did so consciously. Ulquiorra had a very, very gradual progression in the way he talked to Inoue, which doesn’t make it less rude and traumatic, but there’s a difference between him showing up and telling her she ‘has no rights’ and later taking an active interest in her views on the Heart. It would be equally reductive to interpret him by his last moment and nothing else, but all he did before led to that moment progressively, while Gin’s was a very abrupt twist.

My post was a comment on psychology on the most basic, technical level, not a moral judgement. The two are separate in the way we process trauma and that’s exactly what I find interesting. Having strong negative emotions associated to a memory (what I think Kira, Hinamori, Hitsugaya or Rangiku could have had with Gin’s betrayal) creates a very subconscious reaction that can hardly be fixed by suddenly finding out it was necessary for a positive cause, which is why healing from trauma requires years of therapy. Because *in that moment* you didn’t have that knowledge, the pain remains in your memory and it’s not a matter of logical reasoning. Now, I’m not saying Ulquiorra’s interactions with Inoue were numerous or productive enough to properly process the trauma he caused her — the canon info is ambivalent on how comfortable Inoue was around him towards the end of her captivity because there’s both scenes like the famous slapping one *and* her seeming more light-hearted towards Ulquiorra in Unmasked, plus no one has any idea of which came before which. All things considered, I think repeated discussion and an attempt at mutual understanding does a better job at elaborating something traumatic than one single piece of information on why what traumatized you was justified. And note that the *only reason* the understanding between Ulquiorra and Inoue could have been mutual is because Inoue was exceptionally patient, empathetic and willing to face discomfort, way beyond the base level or what should be expected from anyone. Even if it was a *small amount* of *not very productive* discussion, it’s better than one act in my opinion (which most of the people who had some sort of issue with Gin didn’t even directly witness). Which of them is *morally worse* depends on how you draw the lines and define morality and that’s not something I feel qualified to decide.

So, in the end;Ulquiorra:-working towards enemy goals overtly-motivated by curiosity, which can be considered self-oriented-gradual improvement-not fully conscious of the emotional impact of his actions-Inoue considers him an ambivalent presence but “Isn’t afraid”, in her words-half-succeeded, as in: failed the goal of killing Ichigo but sated his curiosity

Gin:-working towards enemy goals on the surface and soul society goals covertly-motivated by attachment to Rangiku and/or revenge, less self-oriented but still focused on close acquaintances -long-running façade of being a terrible person followed by a sudden twist towards the good side-completely aware of everything he’s doing, plan laid out hundreds of years in advance-Gotei 13 don’t interact with Gin throughout HM arc, consider the traitors a lost cause-failed to kill Aizen

Instead of this encyclopedia I could have just written “Gin isn’t irredeemable, I just said he did bad things before”, but I thought too much about it. And I might go through spelling mistakes once I wake up.

#anon #ask #long post

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fulcrumahsokaamidala · 5 years

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Saturday Spectacular #11

Happy Saturday!!! So this is me thanking awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and all the time they put into their fics. ♥️ I want to recommend spectacular fanfic stories I read this week! ♥️ They are posted in the order I read them. All posts will be tagged #saturday spectacular fic rec

Felicity of Themiscyra by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Years ago, Donna Smoak left the island of Themiscyra and her sister Queen Hippolyta behind to live in man’s world. She never told Felicity the truth about where she came from. As a result of the Undertaking, Felicity discovers some of her Amazonian abilities and makes an interesting new friend: Diana Prince.

“Time for a story” Drabble Series by @smkkbert | Arrow | WIP

Summary: This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. It started as a drabble series, but developed more and more into a full domestic AU.

All At Sea by @realityisoverrated-fic | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Oliver joins Felicity and Tommy aboard the Sunnybrook. They say that they've forgiven him for leaving them, but he's never felt so alone.

I Miss You and I love You by @oliversmuse | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Oliver has to return to Earth 1 on a mission for the Monitor. He convinces him to give him one hour to check on Felicity and Mia but he cannot let them know he is there. While outside playing Mia see's a man that looks like her Daddy watching Felicity through the window and approaches him. This is their conversation and shows how a parent and a child's love is never-ending.

| ONE | (Oliver The Footballer) by @someonesaidcake | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Felicity Smoak had a plan; to save enough money to kick her monotonous job and start up the company of her dreams. She made good plans, solid plans, attainable plans. He was never part of her plan. His name was Oliver Queen, the reclusive Brazilian football star with a broken smile and a story to tell He’d never planned on her either.

Semper Fidelis by @oliversmuse | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Oliver Queen is a member of the Bravo Squad, a team that specializes in search and rescue, covert infantry and translating foreign documents. He is known as one of the best and even though he is one of the youngest recruits he advances quickly. While serving he meets Lance Corporal Felicity Smoak, a young woman with skills in hand to hand combat. Despite the fact they butt heads they fall in love and soon start to talk about a future together. However, when her plane disappears on a mission in China and she is presumed dead, Bravo Squad searches frantically for her, only to find her plane and her bloody dog tags. Five years later Oliver runs into “Megan” at a coffee shop near that gym he has been running with his friends. She has lost her memory from the plane accident but has had dreams of Oliver and the Bravo Squad. With the help of his friends and team mates, can he help her reclaim her past and fall for him once again?

Providence by @so-caffeinated | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not. Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she’ll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move… And her life. Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart.

(i want to) save that light by @callistawolf | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if one little thing changed in the history of Arrow? What if, instead of going to Laurel’s apartment after discovering the extent of Merlyn’s plans for the Glades, Oliver stayed at the foundry and talked to Felicity instead? This series of short vignettes explores some of the ripple-effect changes that could take place throughout the next season as a result of this one, fortuitous change.

Alpha by @oliversmuse | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Oliver Queen was a powerful vampire that was captured by a group experimenting on hybrids. Turned into a hybrid that is half vampire and half wolf he is strong, fast and deadly. While in captivity he meets Dr. Felicity Smoak a hermatologist who is called in to monitor his feedings. All Oliver wants is to be free, away from the experiments and being in a cage, and strangely he feels he can trust Dr. Smoak. There is also an unspoken attraction between them that is forbidden. Can he convince her to set him free or will her attraction to him tempt her to keep him close?

Find Some Peace by @smoaking-greenarrow | Arrow | WIP

Summary: In Star City 2040, William recognizes that something about the future feels off. Believing that things can’t get worse than a world without superheroes (or their parents being together), William and Mia travel back in time to find answers.

and we’re somehow caught up in a web of lies by inlovewithimpossibility | Arrow | WIP

Summary: After their encounter with the Count and Moira’s release from prison, Thanksgiving is upon the residents of Starling City but when an article arises in the gossip magazines that throws both Oliver and Felicity under scrutiny, the two of them somehow find themselves caught up in the most elaborate lie they’ve told. What was supposed to be a relaxing week at the Queen cabin in New Hampshire for Oliver and a week celebrating Hanukkah and Thanksgiving alone for Felicity turns into a week at the cabin of acting, the Queen women and bubbling not-so-platonic feelings.

Did I Forget to Mention That My Dad is a Supervillain? by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Felicity told Oliver about her father, she wasn’t lying per se. She wasn’t completely honest either. It’s just that ‘my dad left us’ sounded better than the truth.

Or: A Series of one shots in which Felicity’s dad is a supervillain and we see how Oliver and the team finds out.

Artemis by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When the Queen’s Gambit sank, two people were stranded on Lian Yu. Five years later, four came back.

Daughter of the Demon by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if in 1988 while traveling through Las Vegas Ra’s al Ghul bumps into a nice waitress named Donna Smoak and they have one-night stand together? A little bundle of joy named Felicity Smoak is the result. In 2014, the Demon Head becomes aware of his youngest daughter’s existence.

The Ravager by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Slade Wilson’s plan for revenge against Oliver took time, money and no shortage of lives to pull together. His plan didn’t anticipate Felicity Smoak. How will his plan change now that his lost-lost daughter is working with the very man he’s trying to destroy?

The Daughter That Was Left by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Before the Gambit, Oliver Queen met QC intern Felicity Smoak. When he boarded the Gambit, he left something behind. Now, five long years later someone is waiting for him.

Paging Dr. Smoak by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Oliver Queen gets into a car accident, he meets Dr. Felicity Smoak. He had no idea how much a chance meeting would change his life.

I Scream But No Sound Comes out by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Oliver returns from Lian Yu after five years, he comes back different. What happened there damaged more than just his body. How will his friends and family deal with this new Oliver?

#saturday spectacular fic rec #weekly fic recs

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wistfulcynic · 5 years

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Their Way By Moonlight: The First Encounter (Chapter 2)

a/n: A new chapter! Quicker than expected. I might do shorter chapters with more frequent updates. Thanks to everyone who’s reading!

Summary: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time the Saviour is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from her son and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Hook are soulmates, working together within their shared dreams to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from the clutches of evil yet again. (Alternate 3B, set in the What Dreams May Come universe)

Rating: A hard M

Tagging: @teamhook @wellhellotragic @rouhn @kmomof4 @resident-of-storybrooke @darkcolinodonorgasm @jennjenn615 @tiganasummertree @let-it-raines @bonbonpirate @thejollyroger-writer

Anyone wishing to be added to or dropped from this tag list, please let me know!

Read it on AO3

The First Encounter:

They crossed the town line at just after ten thirty that morning. The sign was just as they remembered it, rising up on their right from the unfamiliarly dense forest. They held their breaths as it passed, waiting for an explosion, a crash, a flash of light. A barrier keeping them out. But there was nothing, and they exhaled in unison, exchanging bright grins, relaxing as they cruised on through the forest. That forest was… troubling, thought the man, taking proper notice of it for the first time only once they had crossed the line. It looked otherworldly, in a very exact sense of that word. This forest did not belong to this realm, to this land where magic was so scarce it was relegated to tales of fantasy. It sent a prickle crawling up the back of the man’s neck, a prickle with which he was all too familiar. That prickle had saved his life on many an occasion, and it did not come upon him without good reason. He smiled at the boy, not wishing to alarm him, and made a mental note to explore the forest as soon as he could.

He wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it. Perhaps she thought it unimportant. Or more worryingly, perhaps she hadn’t noticed.

Soon the buildings of the town began to appear around them, both familiar and different, as is the way of things we know well but haven’t seen in a long while. More than two years had passed since they had stepped foot in this place, and while the man had not spent sufficient time there to have any real grasp of what may have changed or remained the same, the boy had called it home for the first eleven years of his life.

“Anything stand out to you, lad?” asked the man.

“No…” the boy sounded uncertain. “It looks like I remember, but also… not? Like it’s right, but something’s off.”

“That’s probably to be expected, if our theories are correct,” said the man.

“Yeah…”

“Do you see anything you think is cause for concern?”

“Not yet.”

They drove slowly along the main street. More slowly than necessary, perhaps, but the man was very conscious of the posted speed limit. The last thing he needed was to attract the attention of law enforcement by speeding, he thought. He would surely attract quite enough of it just by existing in this place. He had learnt a great deal over the past year about remaining inconspicuous, not an easy lesson for a man for whom reputation and renown had once been everything, but he knew that even with his newfound knack of blending in he would not be able to help standing out in a place like this. It was too small, too infrequently visited, and once the upright hero-types took notice of him they would naturally be suspicious. They always were. There was just something about him that triggered the ire of the morally sound.

He had no idea why that might be.

Their navigational device directed them off the main thoroughfare and towards the water, down a quiet street to a building whose sturdy, square design and tall windows loudly proclaimed its industrual origins. Constructed of pale brown brick with a double row of darker bricks delineating each of its three storeys and with oddly elaborate decoration along its roof and cornices, the building was both entirely typical of what the man now knew was the industrial aesthetic of the 1930s, and also markedly different.

Ordinary yet not, he thought. Like everything in this town.

“Wow!” cried the boy, leaping from the truck and running to the door, his concerns forgotten as he was swept up in enthusiasm. “This is great! This’ll be perfect, don’t you think? Dad?”

“Aye, lad, it will certainly suffice,” the man agreed. Perhaps a bit too close to the docks for his personal taste, he thought with a very familiar pang, but the space was bright and the building had character, and he was already picturing what he wished to do with it. The ground floor for the shop, the one above for storage and an office. The top one would serve as their residence. He could picture it all in his mind’s eye, and despite himself he began to feel excited. It was a bloody relief to finally be doing something, after months of plotting. “Come, help me unload.”

Together they detatched the tarpaulin that had been secured over the bed of the truck, revealing stacks of cardboard boxes and planks of wood wrapped in bubbled plastic. These they began to transfer into the main room of the building, stacking the boxes in a corner then assembling the planks into tall, wide bookshelves which they arranged artfully throughout the room.

“We’ll need more,” said the man, surveying the results of their efforts with satisfaction. He tapped on his own small communication device —set to buzz and not to beep— making notes of what they had done and what they would need. “But this is a solid beginning. Would you mind getting on the book and placing an order for more shelving, and also ask them to deliver that inventory we have on hold?”

The boy nodded eagerly, too excited even to correct his terminology (“Why can’t you just say laptop? I know you know that’s what it’s called.” “It looks like a book, it opens like a book. It even says ‘Book’ right there upon the front, love,” “That’s the brand name, babe,” “Which only serves to emphasize how it is effectively an electronic book.”), and pulled a square, flat item from the leather satchel, placing it on a table before him and flipping it open. He sat down and began to tap energetically upon it, faster than the man could ever hope to do, even with all his practice. There were some things that just worked better when you had two hands.

“Can we get that sofa too? The leather one? It would look great over there under that window, and people like to have a place to sit.”

“Aye, go on then, lad. I believe you’re right.”

The boy tapped for a few moments longer, then shut the book with a satisfied click. “All done,” he said. “It should be here the day after tomorrow.”

“Excellent.” The man looked around for further tasks, but the appeared to have come to a natural stopping point.

“What time is it?” asked the boy. “I’m starving.”

“Aye, me too.” The man consulted his device. “It’s half past one. Let’s get a bit settled in upstairs then we’ll go rustle up some sustenance.”

They hauled the suitcase up the winding stairs along with several of the boxes. The third floor was one large, open space, airy and full of light from the wide windows. Kitchen units lined the wall on one side, and another corner had been walled off to form a toilet and bathing area. Along the wall opposite the door were two beds, each with a table alongside it and a chest of drawers. The beds were separated by a freestanding wooden divider, and each had a thick, heavy curtain strung between that divider and the wall, that if drawn would separate the sleeping space from the main living area and afford some privacy. Not a great deal of privacy, to be sure, but after weeks of living in each other’s pockets, they were both relieved to have at least some. At the centre of the room sat a generous sofa and a cabinet upon which sat a large, flat television. The floor was old, scarred wood, with colourful rugs scattered upon it, and the walls were the same bare brick of the building’s exterior.

“Cool,” said the boy. “I want that bed.”

The man allowed him to drag the suitcase over to the bed of his choice. “Put your clothes away neatly,” he said firmly. “We can leave the boxes until later.”

“Yes, Dad,” sighed the boy, opening the suitcase and beginning to pull clothing from inside it, tossing it onto the bed. The man retrieved his own clothing from the suitcase and took it over to the other sleeping space, arranging the trousers and underthings neatly in the chest of drawers and hanging the shirts on the metal bar attached to the wooden divider, which had clearly been installed for that purpose, and already had empty hangers waiting.

“Hang up your shirts, lad,” he called, conscious of the boy’s propensity for shoving everything at once into the same drawer. “And use a separate drawer for your undergarments.”

“I am, jeez,” came the grumbling response.

A few moments later the man went to inspect the boy’s efforts, and finding them satisfactory clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“What do you say to some lunch, then, eh?”

The boy looked suddenly apprehensive as he grasped the full import of that question, but he nodded. “Might as well,” he said.

They opted to walk, though the day was still damp and grey, to give themselves time to prepare and brace against what was coming. All too soon they arrived. The diner was achingly familiar to both, just as they remembered yet with the same air of not quite that pervaded the very air of this place. They walked slowly through the outdoor seating area then paused for a moment, just outside the door, letting the memories wash over them.

“Ready, lad?” asked the man in a hearty voice.

“Yeah.” The boy squared his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

The bell jangled as they opened the door and every eye in the place turned upon them. The man nodded to the room at large, placing a steadying hand on the boy’s shoulder as the tense moment stretched on. Finally the eyes began to turn away, and they relaxed.

The place was packed, every booth and table occupied, so they headed for the stools at the counter. The man sat down but the boy hesitated.

“I— think I’ll go to the bathroom first,” he said.

The man sensed he needed a moment alone, and nodded. “Shall I order for you?”

“Yeah, I’ll have a grilled ch—” he broke off. “A burger,” he amended. “I’ll have a burger. And fries.”

The man nodded his understanding and a minute or two later placed their order with the stern-faced, grey-haired woman behind the counter. She recorded it on a small notepad, then looked up and indicated something behind him with a nod of her head. “Booth’s just opened up back there, if you’d like it.”

“Aye, thanks.”

He stood, turning to move towards the offered booth when a female figure emerged suddenly from the rear door, colliding forcefully with him. His breath stalled in his throat as her familiar scent assailed him and her hair flew up to brush his face in a silky caress. Automatically he reached out and caught her in a steadying grip, fighting with every fiber of his being against the urge to pull her tightly into a fierce embrace and just hold her, just breathe her in, just feel the comfort of her body against his, solid and whole and real.

“Whoa, I’m sorry,” she laughed, stepping back and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Wasn’t watching where I was going, there.” She looked up at him and the laughter faded from her face as their eyes met. He watched as her eyebrows snapped together and suspicion clouded her expression. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice cool and with no recognition whatsoever in her eyes.

The man had tried to prepare himself for this, they both had, but it still shattered his heart. Those eyes he’d last seen smiling into his, hazy and replete and brimming with love, were now sharp and assessing as they raked over him.

He summoned a smile from somewhere deep within, the polite, innocuous one he’d practiced meticulously in front of the mirror in New York until it was flawless, displaying no touch of warmth or humour, not a hint of provocation or innuendo. Not a hint of who he really was. “Killian Jones,” he replied, relieved that his voice was calm and steady. He held out his hand, ignoring the memories that engulfed him of the first time he’d introduced himself to her, spitting his name at her feet, all challenge and defiance, without the proffered handshake in that instance as his had been unfortunately tied to a tree. He’d wanted her even then, he recalled; even consumed with the need to avenge his lost love he’d been impressed by her toughness, intrigued by her defenses. Enticed by her beauty.

She hesitated a moment before placing her hand in his, giving it one quick shake then pulling back abruptly, forcefully, her scowl deepening. He glanced down in time to see her clench her fist against her thigh, her knuckles white. Killian knew her well enough to read the meaning behind the gesture and the excessive reaction to a simple handshake, and he felt a faint flutter of relief. She still felt the spark between them, even in her current state. There was hope.

“I’m Emma Swan,” she said tightly. “Sheriff of Storybrooke.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sheriff.” He kept his voice neutral, disinterested, the voice of a perfectly innocent, ordinary citizen going about his business.

“Hmmm. And what are you doing in my town, Killian Jones?”

“Moving to it, Sheriff Swan. I’ve purchased the old cannery on the harbour road. Planning to turn it into a bookshop.”

“A bookshop?” she repeated, unconsciously attempting to mimic his accent. “In Storybrooke.”

“Indeed.”

‘Hmmm,” she said again.

“You think the endeavour unwise?” he queried. “Do Storybrooke residents not read?” He should let it go, he knew. It was too early to engage with her like this, but he had never been able to resist challenging her, and he didn’t want her to leave.

“Well, yeah, of course we read, it’s just we have the library.” She had her hands stuffed into the back pockets of her jeans, but her body was unconsciously angled towards him. He took a risk and stepped closer.

“Aye, and a fine one it is too,” he replied, “but my bookshop will specialise in rare volumes, ones not easily found in even the most comprehensive public libraries.”

“And you think we’ll need these rare volumes?” She leaned even closer, close enough for him to count the dark lashes that framed her green eyes.

“I have it on excellent authority that you will find them most useful.” His voice was a low rumble, every muscle in his body rigid with the effort of holding himself back, of not threading his fingers through that damned spun-gold hair and pulling her mouth to his, kissing her as he hadn’t done in more than a year. The air between them grew thick with tension and Killian tried frantically to think of something to say to break it, before he snapped and did something unforgivable.

“Dad?” He released the breath he’d been holding and turned to see the boy standing in the rear doorway, eyes fixed on Emma Swan, his young face full of the same yearning sadness that Killian felt in his own heart.

Emma followed his gaze. “Who’s this?” she asked, looking back at Killian and missing the boy’s pained wince at her casual question.

“My son. Henry,” he replied. “Come over, lad, and meet the sheriff, Emma Swan.”

“Henry Jones, eh?” said, with a small smile. “Not Junior?”

“No,” replied Henry, his own smile tentative but quivering with hope. “Just Henry Jones. My dad hadn’t seen those movies when he named me.”

“Does he at least call you Indy?” Emma was smiling now, and her eyes had warmed.

“No, and he won’t let me wear the costume either, not even at Halloween,” said Henry indignantly. This was true. Killian may have been new to this realm and to parenting, but he was a man equipped with abundant common sense and one not easily manipulated, even by wide-eyed pleading.

“I offered to buy you the ridiculous hat, and I’m sure the sheriff would agree that a bullwhip is not a wise accessory for a thirteen year old,” protested Killian.

“I have to back up your dad here, kid,” laughed Emma.

“That’s what everyone says,” grumbled Henry, just as the waitress —Ruby, he seemed to recall— delivered their food to the booth they’d yet to sit in.

“I believe our meal has arrived. Henry, why don’t you get started, I’d like just another quick word with the sheriff.”

“Sure, Dad. Nice to meet you, Sheriff Swan.” For a second Killian thought Henry would throw his arms around Emma, but the boy resisted, instead holding out his hand. Emma shook it solemnly. “Nice to meet you too, Indy, I mean Henry,” she said, and the boy beamed.

“Cute kid,” remarked Emma, as Henry slid into the booth and attacked his burger.

“Aye.”

“How dumb did you feel when you realised you’d accidentally named him after a movie character?”

“It couldn’t be helped,” said Killian. “He’s named for his grandfather. On his mother’s side.” Another truth, if not precisely the truth it appeared to be.

“And his mother is…?” She attempted to sound casual, but Emma had never been great at subtlety.

“Gone,” he replied gruffly. “For some time now.”

She looked repentant. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”

“It’s not a secret, and if we’re to live here you’ll naturally want to know about us. We hope to become active and involved members of your community, if you’ll permit it.” He smiled his bland smile again. “It will take a week or so to get the shop set up, but once we’re open I hope you’ll come by and take a look. I have a knack for helping people find books they’ll enjoy reading.”

“That sounds nice, actually. The old cannery, you said?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll remember that.” She smiled at him, the familiar, warm smile he loved so much, and for a moment his mask slipped and he knew that every one of his feelings were laid bare on his face. Emma recoiled, her walls slamming back into place with an almost audible thud. “But now I think you’d better eat your lunch before it gets cold,” she said, as he silently cursed his weakness. He’d never had any restraint around her.

“Aye—” he bit back the ‘love’ with effort. “Nice meeting you, Sheriff.”

“And you.”

He watched her until she disappeared through the front door, then slid into the booth across from Henry.

“She seemed all right,” Henry said. His mouth was full of burger, but Killian felt too emotionally drained to chastise him. “Like herself, even though she doesn’t know us. Maybe this won’t be so bad.”

Killian couldn’t agree. Emma may have retained her sense of humour and her love of Indiana Jones, but she wasn’t herself. She didn’t know them, and she didn’t love them, and beyond that there was just something off about her. It was to be expected, and he had expected it, but that didn’t make it hurt less.

“Maybe not,” he said, to appease the lad, and Henry grinned.

Despite his turmoil he managed to eat his lunch. He was hungry after the morning’s labour, and breakfast seemed ages ago. After they finished he allowed Henry to order a milkshake, even taking a few sips himself, amusing the lad with his exaggerated grimace at the excessive sweetness of the concoction, and they left the diner laughing, feeling relatively cheerful, all things considered. The worst was over, he thought. He’d seen her, and she was fine. As fine as she could be, given the circumstances. Their plan was underway and soon she’d be herself again. He merely needed to be patient, and he was a very patient man.

Henry skipped on ahead and Killian, distracted by the boy, turned out of the diner’s outdoor gate only to collide once more with slender limbs and silky hair.

Really? he wanted to snarl. Again?

The fates had always enjoyed mocking him, but this seemed excessive.

“We’ve got to stop running into each other like this,” said Emma, and he managed a smile at the mild joke.

“Indeed—” he began, when his attention was caught by the tall, slender man behind her. A very familiar tall, slender man. One who inspired nearly as much hatred in Killian as Rumplestiltskin himself. His face wanted to twist into a feral snarl, his hand wanted to ball into a fist. He wished fiercely for his hook, imagined sinking it into the man’s neck and ripping out his throat, even as he forced his features to remain calm and his body relaxed.

“Oh, babe,” Emma was saying, and Killian had a brief and terrible moment of confusion, thinking she was speaking to him. But her eyes were on the monster behind her and the words she spoke ripped Killian open more viciously than his hook ever could. “This is Killian Jones, he just moved here,” she said. “Killian, this is my husband, Walsh.”

#cs ff #canon divergence #alternative 3b #captain swan #captain cobra #cursed storybrooke #their path by moonlight #profdanglaisstuff

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