#And long tail because of his infinity legs

[soleilceirinen]

Scaredy Cat | modern!Tommy Shelby x fem!Reader

Summary: your boyfriend and your cat don't get along, they hate each other. When you have to travel for work and there is no one else to take care of your cat except for Tommy, you can't help but worry. What will you find when you return?

Warning: mentions of past animal abuse (not anymore), the cat gets sick, Tommy swears as usual, etc. If some of this might trigger you, don't read. There are mentions of smut but no real smut.

A/N: English isn't my first language, sorry if there are mistakes!

Peaky Blinders Masterlist - Cillian Murphy Masterlist

Tommy was very good with horses. Sometimes, just to tease him, you liked to call him 'Horse Whisperer Tommy'. He didn't find it funny at all. The truth is that he didn't get along so well with cats. 

At least, this man was incapable of getting along with yours. And it was funny because most of the time he reminded you of an angry cat himself, the rest of the time too, being honest. Sometimes, when you were on the couch watching a movie with Tommy lying on your chest and you scratched the back of his head right where his hair was shorter, you would swear you could hear him purring, melting under your touch. 

Your cat liked to make things difficult. The first time Tommy stayed over at your house, the cat took the space on the bed between the two of you, making it clear which was her territory and that you were hers. Every time he tried to get closer to you he was met with an outstretched paw that pushed him to the opposite side of the bed. You thought it was funny, he not so much. When you woke up you found Tommy's suit jacket full of orange hairs, crumpled on the floor. To this day the jacket still had traces of cat hair.

Moreover, how could you forget the day when Tommy was working on his laptop from your house and the cat bit the corner of the screen? Needless to say, Tommy couldn't continue working on whatever he was doing, which pissed him off so much, because the device stopped working. Your cat spent the rest of the day with a satisfied expression on her round face.

The rest of the time, the poor creature just hissed at Tommy every time she saw him. Eventually, she ended up accepting that neither of them were going to disappear from your life. At least you hoped it wouldn't happen in a long time. 

From the bedroom you heard your boyfriend talking, his deep voice too low to understand his words. You assumed that he would be talking on the phone, always busy with work, even in his sleep he kept mumbling meaningless phrases. 

You headed to the kitchen, after a long day at work you couldn't wait any longer to have dinner. Your cat appeared out of nowhere and began to walk between your legs, creating infinity shapes and wrapping her long tail around your calf. You bent down to scratch her belly when she leaned on the floor in the middle of the kitchen.

"You're so cute," you said in a childish voice, earning a sideways glance from Thomas, full of resentment.

"Cute my balls," he spat.

The cat looked at you with her eyes wide open, as if she were asking you ‘did you hear what he said?’ You jumped to your feet and put your hands on your hips, looking at Tommy with a raised eyebrow. "May I know what's the matter with you?" 

“Your cat, Y/N,” he muttered, turning to you with his hand in front of his face. On the back of it was a deep cut, no, it was a scratch. "Look what the evil’s spawn has done to me."

You glanced at the cat one last time, she looked back at you and licked her paw innocently. Letting out a sigh, you took Tommy's hand in yours to inspect the wound.

"What have you done to make her do this?" you asked cautiously.

He responded with a huff. "Nothing. She came out of nowhere and jumped at me with her claws out."

You nodded in silence and began to disinfect his hand. Your cat was like that, she didn't like men. Actually, she only liked you. Sometimes you wondered if her bad attitude was due to her previous owners, who didn't treat her very well. The thought of someone mistreating your cat filled you with sadness as well as anger. Fucking bastards.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, to him and to her, a tinge of sadness in your voice which didn't go unnoticed to Tommy.

When you finished covering his scratch with a bandaid, Tommy grabbed you hand in his and gave it a loving squeeze before continuing placing the food on the dinner table. 

-

You had always liked animals, when you were little you weren’t allowed to have pets because your brother was allergic to them. So, the moment you got a job in the city and moved out on your own, the first thing you did was go to the nearest shelter to adopt a kitten.

That was the initial idea, to bring a small cat home and raise it. However, when you saw the sad eyes of the orange cat watching you from inside her cubicle, you had the feeling that you were predestined to end up together. She was already an adult cat at that time but that didn't matter to you.

At the shelter they briefly told you that her former owners, whoever they were, had mistreated her and left her abandoned, half dead in a garbage can. A homeless man searching through the trash found her and took her there, where she was taken care of until she luckily recovered. You couldn't be more grateful to that stranger who cared enough to rescue her. Unfortunately, two years had passed since then and no one had wanted to adopt her. 

She instantly won your heart. You took her home and named her Cat, like Holly Golightly's cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Plus, both of them looked alike. Of course, Tommy complained that it was a ridiculous name for a cat, similar as if he called one of his horses Horse.

-

A couple of weeks after the scratching incident with Tommy, you were notified that you had to travel to another city for a week on behalf of the company you worked for, which was great because it gave you the opportunity to explore new places. The disadvantage was that your cat was old and had to take a pill every day, for life. You didn't trust anyone to leave them in charge of such a task, but not going on the company trip would mean losing the opportunity to receive a promotion in the coming months. You didn't know what to do but you had an idea.

That night Tommy was going to visit you, so you would make him a suggestion.

After having dinner, Tommy and you started kissing passionately. Everything with him was very intense. His warm, calloused hands ran along your sides under your shirt, leaving a trail of goosebumps over your soft skin. Your fingertips scratched the shaved sides of his hair and he let out a moan, pressing his lips harder against yours, never breaking the contact. 

You were starting to feel his bulge growing against your crotch, so you moved your hips against him, enjoying the friction. Now you were the one who let out a moan of pleasure.

“Fuck,” he murmured, burying his face in your neck as he panted. "Can't you make her leave, or at least make her stop staring at me like that?"

You looked at him slightly confused, following his gaze to the cardboard box where Cat was lying with her head resting on the edge of it, watching you without blinking. It didn't matter how many beds you bought her, none could beat the cardboard box. Rolling your eyes, you placed a hand on your boyfriend's face and caressed his sharp cheekbone, trying to get him to focus on you again.

"Just ignore her. Look at me," you said softly, kissing his jaw.

Tommy pulled away from you and sat on the sofa, running a hand over his face. "I can't, love. She's looking at me, killing my mood." He shrugged, looking sick.

You sighed, mentally saying goodbye to any possibility of Tommy fucking the hell out of you. "How bold she is, daring to look down on the great Thomas Michael Shelby."

He gave you a wide eyed look before frowning. "Are you making fun of me? Hey, where do you think you're going? Taking the beast to another room?"

"I'm going to get some water."

Once in the kitchen you took a couple of deep breaths, gathering the courage to talk to him. It was your opportunity to convince him to stay with Cat. You returned to the living room and sat next to him, crossing your legs on the sofa.

"Tommy, do you remember my work trip?"

He looked at you with a blank face for a few seconds until a spark of knowledge shone at the back of his eyes. "Yes, you're going away for a week. Is that right?"

You nodded, biting your lip. "Can I ask you a favor?"

His expression changed to one of suspicion. Usually you didn't ask for things, you didn't hesitate, so he knew you were about to ask him to do something he wouldn't like.

"It depends".

"You have to come in the morning to feed Cat, but not too much because she eats it all and gets sick," Tommy opened his mouth to complain but you were faster, placing the palm of your hand over his lips before continuing. "At night you come back and give her the pill with a bit of soft food, you have to pay attention and make sure she has swallowed it, okay? Also,  change her water, because when she has it for more than a day she won’t drink it."

He gave you a small kiss on the palm of your hand. You removed it and looked at him through your lashes, expectantly.

"Anything else?" he asked, feigning boredom. You smiled. It had been very easy, you hadn't even had to convince him.

"Yes! You have to clean up her cat litter."

-

The day of your trip, you left everything ready so that when he arrived at night, Tommy would find things easily. 

He opened your apartment door and stuck his head in doubtfully, there was no sign of the furry little beast. He was having flashbacks to the last time he stayed over, when Cat started running around the house making weird noises as if she was possessed by Satan himself. Tommy still felt chills remembering how the cat jumped into the bedroom moving sideways with her tail twisted while she howled. You couldn’t stop laughing, used to see your cat doing that almost every day, but Tommy kept saying that he witnessed a demonic possession that night.

But at that moment there were no howls or strange noises. In fact, everything was quiet. One of those silences that he had experienced so many times in his life before. The kind of silence that does not bode well. Tommy squared his shoulders, he wasn't going to get carried away by his superstitious ideas. It was just a cat. He would come in, give her the pill and some water, and then he would leave. Fast and clean. 

As he approached the corner where the hallway turned to the left at a ninety-degree angle he stopped. Your cat liked to hide there before jumping like a lion hunting for its prey on Tommy's legs. He still had the scar from the last bite, he didn't want to take another one.

This time he was prepared. With a quick movement he stood on the next section of the hallway. But there was nothing. Frowning and feeling a bit ridiculous, Tommy walked through the house looking for the little beast until he found her lying on the sofa.

The cat was curled up in a ball, her head resting on the armrest. Only her green eyes moved following Tommy's movements as he approached her. She seemed kind of off and Tommy couldn't help but feel a tinge of empathy.

“Do you miss Y/N too?” he asked out loud. The cat blinked weakly. "This place feels weird without her around, huh?" 

Tommy didn't know what to expect, some kind of reaction or something. The cat remained still, staring at the wall. He gave her one last glance, shrugging and heading to the kitchen. You had placed a note on the refrigerator door with more instructions, attached with a magnet in a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower that Tommy brought you from Paris. 

He ran his fingertips over your handwriting, thinking. He was going to take you to France the next time you had holidays. The rest of the refrigerator was covered with polaroids of you smiling at the camera, the two of you together, you with your friends and family... and the cat.

'Ah yes, the cat.' Tommy remembered, turning around.

The food and water bowls were full, as if she hadn't touched them all day. That was strange, the feeling of something not going right increased. Grabbing a clean bowl, Tommy put some soft food in it and inserted the pill, completely camouflaged, before placing it on the floor in front of the sofa. 

"Eat," he indicated authoritatively. 

He was a man used to being obeyed in everything, everyone did except you. You were the only one who could handle him like a rag doll and he wouldn’t complain. There was no doubt that this cat was yours, she didn't even look at the food.

Tommy grunted, losing his patience. He grabbed the bowl with one hand and the cat with the other, pushing them together as much as he could. The animal did not resist, after a few minutes a third of the food was gone, including the pill, but she refused to swallow more. "As you wish," he murmured, leaving the remains of food next to the other bowls.

When he looked into the small laundry room where you had the cat's litter box, his heart skipped a beat. Everything was a mess, the floor was full of poop and vomit.

"Fucking hell," he muttered under his breath. Then he returned to the living room, ready to give the cat the reprimand of her life but stopped short. He hadn't noticed before but there were also traces of vomit on the living room floor. "Shit."

Just then his phone started ringing. Your name appeared on the screen. He cleared his throat and answered.

"Hello Tommy" your voice sounded happy although somewhat tired. "How are you doing, honey?"

"Good. I gave the pill to the beast, don't worry. Are you okay?" He spoke as fast as he could, trying to move the conversation away from the cat. 

"Yeah, it's a little boring you know, all day in meetings and now they want to go to have dinner but I don't feel like going. I haven't been able to call you all day, as you can see  I haven't stopped.” You let out a small laugh. ”Hey Tommy, thanks for taking care of Cat. It means a lot to me. I have to go, they came to pick me up. I love you!"

You hung up the call before he could say anything back. Leaving the phone on the coffee table, he walked into the balcony, feeling the cold wind against his skin.

Tommy leaned on the balustrade as he lit a cigarette, smoking slowly. You didn’t like him smoking inside the house, or smoking in general, but that was his problem and you couldn’t change it. This way the balcony became his territory. Once he finished, he went back inside, closing the door behind him. The last thing he needed was the cat jumping out the window. 

He started cleaning everything the best he could while debating whether to call you again and tell you everything, that something was wrong with your cat, or try to fix it on his own. Yes, he would do that better. Tommy was a man of resources, he wasn't going to ruin your trip and worry you if he could take care of it.

After making sure everything was clean and the cat had food and water, he left your house, relieved that he wouldn't have to spend another second alone with that animal. 

-

When he returned the next day and found both the food and water intact, he headed to the living room, where Cat was still lying in the same position as the day before. He felt his soul leaving his body. 

Tommy swallowed and sat on the couch next to the cat. He approached his hand slowly to touch her soft fur, expecting the cat to hiss like she always did when he got too close to her. That would mean everything was fine. But that didn’t happen, the feline's only reaction was shuddering and letting out a pitiful whimper so soft that if he hadn't been sitting next to her, Tommy wouldn't have heard it.

Shit, shit, shit. He covered his mouth with his hand, his brain working at maximum power. He had to do something. Being aware of how important that cat was to you, if something bad happened to her... he didn't even want to imagine your reaction. 

Without wasting another second, he dialed May Carleton’s number, the veterinarian who sometimes treated his horses. After explaining the situation, she told him to bring Cat into the clinic to take a look at her. Tommy picked up the cat in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, and held her to his chest like one does when cradling a baby. The poor thing let him do it, too weak to complain.

The drive from your house to the clinic was frantic, Tommy drove like a madman and once there he skipped the line in the waiting room, entering directly and leaving the bundle on the metal table. "Thomas, you can't sneak in like this," said May while putting on a pair of clean latex gloves.

"It's an emergency," he said, pointing to the metal table.

The vet's expression changed from annoyance to concern the moment she laid her eyes on the poor creature. "Okay, Thomas. I'll take over from here, why don't you wait outside?"

It turned out that she had eaten some plant that's poisonous to cats. This had caused her intestine and some other organs to inflame, or something like that. At least they had discovered it in time to help her.

The first thing Tommy did when he got back to your apartment was throwing away all the plants. The second thing was not taking his blue eyes off from Cat for a minute during the next three days.

-

At the end of the week you couldn’t wait any longer to go back home. You called Tommy several times but he didn't pick up the phone. Every time you had talked to him in the past few days he always told you that everything was going great. You had a hard time believing it. In about twenty minutes you’ll be home and you could finally hug your baby Cat and take a shower, in that order.

You stopped at the entrance of your home, leaving the suitcase and your shoes next to Tommy’s. He's here after all, you thought. The lights were off, all of them except for the one in the living room. You walked towards there and what you saw made your heart fill with love. 

Tommy was on the sofa, fast asleep. Curled against his side was Cat, sleeping too. She was holding Tommy’s hand between her paws. You covered your mouth with your hand, hiding your smile. They were too adorable. Never had you thought the day in which the two of them could get along would come. Seeing them sleeping together seemed like a dream. 

You took your phone and started taking pictures of them. The next week you would print one to put it on your fridge door, a new moment to remember.

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby #tommy shelby x y/n #modern!tommy shelby #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby fluff #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders au #peaky blinders modern!au #modern!au #soleilceirinen writes

[marriedtolike18fictionalmen]

Our Infinity of Stars

So I finally got the courage to post some of my writings again, feel free to dm me with any thoughts, edits, critiques, etc. or if you want to be tagged in future additions that will come soon! (a week or so?)

Enjoy!

Neteyam. My best friend, the man I had found myself falling into love with after we passed our iknimaya together. The man I couldn’t bear to look back at as I flew away from our clan, following my brother eastwards, towards our mother’s home. The Metkayina.

Powerful swimmers and warriors, although they opted out of the great war, choosing to stay safe in the maze that is the thousands of islands they call home. Where I will call home forevermore.

I chanced one last look over my shoulder and I saw Neteyam’s strong silhouette at the front of the crowd, his face painfully blank as his tail curled around his leg.

~ᐧ~

I land my large ikran, Syura, next to my brother’s smaller one. I hold my hands up in a non-threatening gesture as a crowd engulfs us, hands grabbing at our thin arms and pulling on our tails as we walk towards them. At my hiss of pain, Syura lands next to me, her large body shielding us as she ferociously hisses at the crowd. Screams ring out and weapons are grabbed in the moment it takes for me to make tsaheylu, “Mawey, Syura. We are guests in their home, behave yourself.” She instantly calms down, just as a large man, clearly the Olo'eyktan by the way the crowd parts, approaches.

Adib steps forward, apologizing for the intrusion and display of the ikran moments before. Understanding what he said through the link, Syura lets loose a string of curses aimed at him, not caring I could hear her through our bond. My laugh rings out in the silence as she huffs. 

“I apologize for my ikran,” She bares her fangs at me. “She doesn’t like others to speak for her.”

A woman marches up past the chief, what was his name? Tonowari? Doesn’t matter. This woman is clearly the Tsahik, her intricate clothing giving her away. “Who are you?” she demands, stopping a safe distance away from us.

“Our mother sent for us.” ‘Rina’s voice rang out from beside Adib. It was the first thing she’d said the entire day. Leaving Ateyo behind had been hard on her. 

“Eanayo, if you know her.” I added, and glanced around as a shock seemed to pass through the crowd. The woman’s ears fold back. 

“Children! There you are!” A musical voice rang out as a woman with features like mine stepped forward. “I was beginning to become afraid that Adib never told you I wished for you to come live with us! Y’know, your ikran is a lot larger than I imagined, Na’irani.” Her eyes seemed to dig into my soul, eyes exactly like mine. ‘Rina looked over at me, astonishment dancing across our matching features at her correct usage of my name. “What? Surprised I can tell you apart? You, Na'irani, have two stripes just along your cheekbones, she only has one larger one that seems like two because of the way it’s split. You may not remember me, dear, but I still remember you. And in any case, I was at the funeral. I saw you all there.”

Adib stepped forward into her embrace as I raked what little memory I had of the event a month ago, trying to remember seeing her there. As they embraced I regretted not going with him as he flew back and forth between the Omaticaya and the Metkayina for as long as he had an ikran, our mother knew him, not me or 'Rina.

“I’m sorry I never came to visit. There was just so much to do back in the forest. I couldn’t leave them high and dry for a month at a time like Adib did.” The apology pushed past my lips before I could stop it. 

My mother smiled, dimples appearing across her cheeks. “Oh, nonsense. I’m just glad you’re here now.” She went and started grabbing our things, “and I’m sorry about your father. I know we had our differences, especially about my coming back here and him staying back there, but I truly did care for him.” 

The crowd slowly dissipated, satisfied that they could find out more as we stayed with them. The three of us followed our mother, arms full of our belongings as she led us to a large hut on the ocean’s edge, split three ways. “I do hope you don’t mind sharing, I put up walls so you could have some more privacy, but couldn’t get three mauris all together.”

We set our stuff down, automatically taking the usual setup with Rina on the right, Adib in the middle, and me on the left. “It’s perfect, thank you.” I smiled at this woman I hoped to get to know now that I had the chance.

“Hello? I hope I’m not interrupting.” A tall boy around my age came around the mauri my mother identified as hers.

“No, no Ralak. Please come in!” Mother turned to us as Ralak introduced himself. “I’ve asked Ralak here to help teach you the ways of water, I wish I could myself but I must help with the little children, they have no other teacher but myself.”

Ralak grinned at something Adib said, clearly they will be friends. “I’ll give you guys some time to settle in, if you need any help, my mauri is just around the corner.” He politely excused himself to leave us be, and Mother did the same, adding something about giving us some breathing room before tonight’s banquet in honor of the latest wave of new adults freshly back from their Iknimayas.

~ᐧ~

That night, Mother helped us get dressed in the Metkayina clothes, Adib borrowing something of Ralak’s and Rina and I wearing some gifts courtesy of the clan.

“These are comfortable. Omatikaya clothes aren’t nearly this light.” Rina made small talk as Mother helped me pick out some appropriate accessories from her collection. We looked up to see her spin around in her fancier loincloth and a new top made of pearls and shells.

I grinned at our near-matching tops, and bragged about the waistbeads I had donned that matched my top. We bikered for a moment before agreeing that she gets to wear some beads in her hair, but we both donned our usual arm bands, hers a courting gift from Ateyo and mine a matching one with Neteyam, ones we made together a few moons ago, right after the war broke out again. 

At the dinner I fiddled with the beads of my armband, talking with a girl a few years younger than me. Tsireya, her name was. She was kind and pretty, the daughter of the Oleyektan. When I told her Ralak was to be teaching my siblings and I, she practically melted.

“He’s gorgeous, right? Like, how does someone be that perfect and cute!” her eyes were far away as she twirled a piece of her wavy hair that was just long enough to cover her shoulder blades. 

“Y’know, you remind me of someone back home. Lo’ak. He’s about your age too.” I was hit with a sudden pang of longing for his little quips that never failed to make the entire room laugh.

Tsireya and I continued talking, and we made plans that tomorrow she would show me around the clan and introduce me to all her friends, as long as I help her gather some fruits. She hated climbing the tall trees the fruit sat at the top of, but I could scale the tree in seconds, it was nothing compared to the forest trees that were so vast that one could comfortably sleep on one of the higher branches and not worry of falling.

~ᐧ~

As the sun set the next day, I returned to my mauri, cheeks and belly sore from the laughter I experienced that day, Rina and Tsireya by my side and Adib and his new best friend sparred down at the beach. Apparently Ralak wanted nothing more than to learn hand to hand combat, and Adib was willing to teach him.

“You taught him the basics? Guess I’m gonna have to help you both out.” At Adib’s offended expression I laughed, “Oh, please. We all know you can’t spar for shit. That poor boy is gonna get his ass handed to him if he ever goes against someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“He’s not that bad.” A deep voice rumbled from the entrance to the hut. I turned to see Ralak walking in, a bowl of fruits in hand. He held up the bowl before setting it down in the makeshift circle we had made in the 'living room' of the mauri “Although I’d like to see how good you are if you think he’s bad.”

“I am not bad! Maybe not as good as you, oh great Rani, but not all of us can be both a knowledgeable tsakarem and a good warrior.” Adib’s expression soured as he started to pout. “In any case, I’m the one who helped you master your beloved bow and arrow.”

Everyone dissolved into laughter as we glared at each other, smirks playing on our lips as we joked.

~ᐧ~

Five years had passed since we came to the Metkayina. Life continued in this way, my siblings and I assimilating into the culture of the Metkayina people gracefully. I made friends with many of the girls my age, and maybe started something briefly with Ralak after he taught my siblings and I the way of water. That didn’t last long.

“It was mutual! We just didn’t work out as a couple, friends are more of our thing.” I tried explaining again to my group as they rolled their eyes. 

“You had the most desirable man in the clan, yet you decided to be “just friends”? There is no way.” Ninat squeaked out, much to the mirth of the entire group.

“Not everyone is hopelessly and endlessly in love with him! Especially not me.” I shot back, everyone again laughing as Ninat rolled her eyes with a pout.

“What’s so funny?” I heard someone call out from behind, and as I turned to greet them, a shower of water fell on my head. “Ralak! What the hell?” I cried, wiping the water from my face. I shoved his chest as he sat down, grinning over at me.

“You never answered my question.” he prodded.

I rolled my eyes, “If you really must know, we were talking about your hopeless, undying love for me, and how I completely shattered your heart, and gave every other girl in the clan hope by friendzoning you.” Ralak’s face twisted into a look of confusion and slight terror.

“Okay, sorry I asked.” He settled onto his arms as Adib plopped down in-between us, a large hickey proudly displayed on his neck.

“First off, how dare you assault my eyes with that hideous thing, secondly, why is it so bad, like it has bite marks, are you dating a girl or a vampire?” Adib stuck his tongue out at me, scrunching his face up.

“Oh shut up, no need to be sour because you aren’t getting any now that you broke up with my best friend.” He leaned closer to me, shaking his head so the water in his loose curls splashed across my face again. “With that said, can you please fix it?” He practically purred the last part, I shoved him away, again wiping off my face. 

Glaring at them, I said, “The both of you are the worst." I turn to Adib. "I’ll heal you just so I don’t have to deal with that hideous thing anymore.” They both grinned, Adib falling into a position similar to Ralak’s, resting his weight on his arms as he tilted his face up to the sky to present his neck to me.

I dug in my bag and pulled out a balm I made of dapophet and a mixture of other roots. I applied it to the area, biting back a grin at his hisses of pain and lifting a brow at his glare. “Adib! Stop fidgeting so much, even a child could sit still while I do this.” I chided him, shaking my head at his childish behavior. I finished quickly, dropping a kiss on his cheek as I stood up, motioning for Rina to follow me. “We promised the Tsahik we’d gather some supplies for her, see you guys around!''I explained to the group. A chorus of goodbyes were thrown over shoulders as we walked away, heading into the sandy forest to gather some roots and leaves Tsahik Ronal asked for. 

After we returned, the Tsahik apologetically asked us to go back and get one more thing. “We are almost out of haldi root, if I’d have known before I would have asked then. You wouldn’t mind going and filing these baskets?” She handed us two small baskets that I had woven the moon before. Lightly teasing her, we agreed and Rina quickly went to our mauri to grab some extra daggers for the tough roots.

The Tsahik turned to me after Rina’s back had retreated far enough. “Ralak was asking after you again. I think you should rethink your reje-”

I cut her off. “No. I will not marry him.” I whipped around as Tsahik Ronal’s long fingers gripped my thinner arm, I had been dreading this conversation.

“You refused Aonung. I understood. He is still a child despite his age.” She hissed, eyes narrowing. “But Ralak? He is a great man, he passed his iknimaya three moons ago, and has yet to choose a woman because he is awaiting your acceptance of his courting.” Ronal’s hand tightened around my arm yet again, her eyes narrowing as she scanned my face.

I pulled away from her grasp. “Ralak is a fine man, yes. A good hunter, a strong warrior, a kind soul.” I sighed. “But I do not love him. Nor do I love Aonung or Ro’rin, nor any of the others!”

Ronal sat down across the hut from me as I finished my rant. I went and kneeled next to her. “I am eternally grateful to you for allowing me to train under you as tsakarem. I truly am, but I can’t marry any of these men.”

Ronal’s face softened as she looked into my eyes and saw the unspoken truth I held deep inside my soul. “You long for someone in your birth clan.” It was not a question, nor did it require for an answer.

I straightened up as 'Rina’s footsteps drew closer. She peeked her head inside as I stood back up. “Ready to go?” Her smile fixed my soured mood, and I nodded, not sparing a glance back to the Tsahik.

#avatar 2 #avatar way of water #neteyam #neteyam sully #first post #neteyam sully x OC #Na'irani x neteyam

[puckwritesstuff]

The new AU where Vali is a sorcercer is so cute! How would the Avengers and other people that knows Dr. Strange react to him being fatherly to Vali?

This is going to be an "everyone survived Infinity War/Endgame" AU because I needed Tony to be the one reacting to this. Hope that's good with you all.

Thank you for the ask!

---

Tony walked into the conference room at Avengers HQ to see Váli sitting at the table. Crayons were scattered all around her and her legs, not long enough to reach the floor, swung under the chair.

“Um, hi,” he said.

Váli looked up.

“Hi, Mr. Stark,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Váli looked back at her coloring as she spoke.

“Mama and Papa are busy with Uncle Fandral and Nari’s on a date with Morgan,” Váli said. “So, Master Dr. Strange said he could watch me.”

Tony blinked.

“Sorry, your brother’s on a date with who?” he said.

Before Váli could respond, Strange walked into the room.

“This would be so much easier if he could just learn to use a phone,” he muttered. “Okay, Váli, I think I’m done here.”

Váli jumped up from her chair with the drawing she was working on and rushed over to him.

“I drew Yggdrasil!” she said. “Look!”

“Doctor,” Tony said.

Strange paused. “Afternoon, Stark.”

“You’re not looking!” Váli said.

Strange looked at the drawing.

“It’s very nice, Váli,” he said. “Are we ready to pack up?”

“That’s Ratatoskr and Níðhöggr,” she said, pointing to a squirrel and snake on the tree. “The burned branch is where Asgard used to be, and that’s Grandfather Odin hanging there!”

She pointed to a stick figure hangman coming off the black colored branch, wearing an eyepatch and a long, gray beard.

“I see,” Strange said. “But we need to pack up now, okay?”

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Váli said.

Strange sighed. “Fine. But then we need to leave.”

Váli put the drawing down on the table and rushed off to find the bathroom. Tony was doing everything not to burst out laughing. Strange shot him a look.

“She seems to be a handful,” Tony said.

“She is a very promising student of the Mystic Arts and—”

“No, I get it,” Tony said. “Thor told us all about how you’re going to stop the end of the world by teaching some card tricks to a princess.”

“How long has it been since someone called you an arrogant jackass?” Strange asked.

“At least a week,” Tony said. “You might want to watch your language around the kid though, they hear way more than you think.”

“Okay, look—”

Before Strange could make a real objection, the alarms went off. The screen at the end of the room lit up to show a CNN broadcast of New York City. A large, many tentacled beast was climbing up the sheer glass of One World Trade Center, its single eye darting around as it looked over Manhattan.

“Shuma-Gorath,” Strange said.

“We’ve got this,” Tony said. “We’ll call Wong, you deal with Little Red.”

“Wong’s exorcising Dormammu out of Mordo right now,” Strange said. “Not exactly something he can stop in the middle of. You need me, and Váli will be just fine.”

Tony sighed. “I get that the kid’s Asgardian, but she’s still just a kid.”

“Except she’s not just a kid,” Strange said.

Váli ran back into the room.

“I didn’t do it!” she said.

“We’re going on a field trip,” Strange said. “You’re gonna need your game face.”

Váli nodded and taking a deep breath, she shifted into a wolf, already full sized, with red Asgardian armor on. She looked up at Strange, her tail wagging.

Tony blinked.

“All right, let’s suit up,” he said.

#prompt #fanfiction #vali #doctor strange #tony stark #logyn #Love Duty and Glorious Purpose fic #LDGP Sorcerer Vali AU

[spoocyshrub]

Oddworld Fan Species: The Banshriek

Tekkno, Tilly and her children, along with Tilly's Nanny are all a species I had created for Oddworld. Since the first introduction of Tekkno, and now with the intro of his older sister Tilly and her family, I've compiled a little thing of facts and info about the Banshriek for you guys. I'm removing the "About the species" page from Tekkno's bio page and it will now be kept on this post.

Banshrieks are sapient limbless lizards that inhabit the cavernous underground networks beneath Scrabania. They used to live above the underground back in the days before the Schism. When the Glukkons began their take over of Oddworld and ravaging the resources, the banshrieks were chased underground and that is where they stayed to this day. It is incredibly rare to see them come up from the underground, but they will leave to seek sources of food. They will then retreat back to the underground once they have eaten their fill. There exist some banshrieks who never hunt and rely on traders for their food. They are natural enemies of Scrabs. In a fight, a banshriek normally wins. Their methods are non-fatal. If a scrab wins, the banshriek will often be torn apart.

Banshrieks have their own cities beneath the underground and the biggest one is the capital of Orebrook. Orebrook houses the leader of the banshrieks and is the location of their massive museum of history and lore. I based Orebrook off an old piece of official concept art from Munch’s Oddysee. Possibly of the location of Ma’Spa

Banshrieks do not have a queen system. Their females all produce the same number of eggs and they do not rely on a queen to keep the population alive. Leadership tends to fall onto females because of their longevity, but males can take over the duty. They are run by a Lord and Lady system instead of chiefs or queens. Instead of monarchy systems, they run with a democracy system. Leaders are appointed by votes. They can be impeached if they do not live up to standards and replaced. A Lord or Lady who has been appointed will serve for the remainder of their life, or if a vote is called to have them replaced due to incompetent leadership.

Images of banshrieks have been seen within Mudokon story stones and scrolls, such as telling the story of Seraphim and Lebone. Their symbol for rebirth is either a banshriek in a circle or the infinity symbol where the banshriek is consuming their own tail. Similar to the ouroboros symbol.

Banshrieks are reptiles and come in 2 types. Legless, and limbless. Limbless Banshrieks are the most common. They have no arms and legs. Legless banshrieks are the least common. They have a set of arms with three fingers: a pinky, thumb, and pointer/middle finger. Each finger having a single, white, talon-like claw. They have 2 fan-like frills on their head. One on each side of their face. The frills will flare over their face to increase the distance and power of their shriek. They use it for echolocation or a defense mechanism. They will often use their scream to trip foes or stun them so they can make an escape. As a last resort, a banshriek will scream so loud that they can render a foe permanently deaf by bursting their ear drums. They have 2 eyelids. an outer one and an inner film-like eyelid that they will close over their eye while they burrow under the sands of Scrabania. They can also close their nostrils while burrowing as well. They are capable of swimming. They have a forked tongue which aids with identifying scents.

Unlike most reptiles, they can survive well in both hot and cold environments. While they have sharpened teeth, they are omnivores. They eat fish, insects, nuts, vegetables, fruit, and tubers. They also eat meat and eggs, but the law of the banshriek is “If it doesn’t speak the common tongue, it is fair game. If it speaks the common tongue, your freedom revoked.” Eating the eggs and meat of other sapient races is punishable. They will send you to Orebrook to serve a long time to life in a high security prison.

Banshrieks don’t have much when it comes to visible sexual dimorphism. Females and Males tend to look the same. Usually you tell a male and a female apart by their voices, but mistakes still happen. Banshrieks go by mating systems. Their partners are “mates” while their spouses are “Binding mates.” Proposals are done depending on the type of Banshriek. Limbless banshrieks will present a gemstone to the female. Legless banshrieks wear “Binding bands” on their pointer finger. Silver for the husband. Gold for the wife. In the event of same sex marriage. Limbless partners exchange gemstones to each other. Legless ones have binding bands of both silver and gold.

The banshriek was my take on the concept of banshees. A mythological ghost that could kill or inflict fatal curses upon others with their scream. I like to work real life creatures, Mythical creatures or folklore, or some references to religions into Oddworld.

#Oddworld #Oddworld Fan Species #banshrieks #Long post

[saratogaroadwrites]

For King and Country (81/122)

For King and Country | saratogaroad rating: T total wordcount:  280,466 characters: Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, Roland Crane, Aranella, Batu, Tani, Lofty, Leander Aristidies, Bracken Meadows relationships: Roland Crane & Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, Aranella & Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, Roland Crane & Aranella, Batu & Tani, Batu & Evan, Tani & Evan, Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum & Lofty, Rolander other tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Mother-Son Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Place Slowly Becomes Home People Slowly Become Family, Found Family, For Want of A Nail warnings: none

Pulled from his world by mysterious powers, former president Roland Crane finds himself caught in the middle of a coup meant to take the life of the young King Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum. Joining forces with Aranella, the pair of them set out to aid Evan in making his dream of a kingdom where everyone can live happily ever after a reality.

But the road to peace is a long and treacherous one and there is no promise of success in a world where darkness spreads ever thicker with each passing day. If they are to stand a chance, they must stand together, for king and for country.

(A retelling.)

=

“Well, what about the Infinity?” Tani asked, tugging her half of the blanket tight around her shoulders. “It goes with the Eternity, doesn’t it?”

“It’s practically the same word,” Evan said around the hair tie he was holding between his teeth. He fought to gather his hair in the buffeting winds, sitting on his corner of the blanket to keep it from flying away. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to name two ships almost the same thing!”

“Sure it is!” Tani beamed, “The city’s Evermore, the boat’s the Eternity, and the ship’s the Infinity!” She nodded firmly. “It’s settled!”

“It is not!” Evan protested. He moved to gesture at her, only to growl low in his throat as he lost the ponytail he had been pulling his hair into. Spirits, he needed a haircut! “And why are you naming the ship?”

“Because you named the last one!”

“And what’re you two up to?”

Roland! Evan leaned back, nearly going upside down to look behind him. From this vantage point, Roland’s fond smile looked more like a frown, but his eyes were too warm for him to be frowning. He seemed content; Evan was relieved to see that. Things had been too tense with President Vector aboard for their first ever test flight.

“We’re going over names for the—” Losing his balance, Evan fell backwards with an “oof”. “Ship. Ow.”

Despite being dragged halfway down with him, Tani burst into a fit of giggles.

“We’re not naming it the Ow, silly!” She reached over and took his hand, hauling him back up as if he weighed nothing at all. Another gust of wind tugged at the blanket, but Roland tucked it back around his shoulders before he could so much as shudder. Evan smiled gratefully as Tani continued, “That’s even dumber than keeping it as the Zippelin, or whatever Vector called it.” She rolled her eyes. “And I thought the Boss had a big head.”

“Batu isn’t the one who welded a solid gold cast of his face to the bow of his skimmer,” Roland said sarcastically, dropping down to sit beside them. He crossed his legs and rested an elbow on his knee, propping his chin in the palm of one hand. “I don’t think we have to worry about his ego becoming a problem.”

“I don’t think that Batu really has an ego problem,” Evan said lightly, pulling another hair tie from his arms band to try again. Scrunching up his nose he said lightly, “He certainly got over his listening problem after Nella started to travel with us, remember?”

Tani burst out laughing again. Even Roland had to chuckle a bit, though he said nothing as he reached forward, plucking the hair tie out from between Evan’s fingers and wordlessly pulling his hair into a low tail. Another burst of gratitude pushed away the chill.

“So,” Roland said as Tani began to settle down, “Not having too much luck with the names, huh?”

“No,” Evan said, shaking his head. The low tail brushed against his neck. “Tani keeps insisting on the Infinity, but I think that sounds far too much like the Eternity.” He made a face. “Why would we name two ships nearly the exact same thing?”

“It does keep with a theme,” Roland said, his eyes glimmering with amusement as Tani burst out “Exactly!”, her volume making Evan’s ears go flat to his skull. “But Evan’s got a point, too. Pulling out the thesaurus to name the fleet’s not exactly the best option, either.”

“Oh, fine.” Tani huffed, bottom lip sticking out a little. “If you’re so full of bright ideas, you name the thing. Ships did get names from where you’re from, right?”

For a second, the world seemed to stop. Evan and Roland shared a heartbeat long look, but where Evan nearly choked on the sharpness of his inhale, Roland barely blinked.

“In Dell? Of course they do.”

“Flippin’ heck!” Tani flopped onto her back, dragging the shared blanket—and a yelping Evan—down with her. “Will you just drop that already? We all know it’s not true!”

Anything Evan would have said to that died in his throat as Tani turned a very unimpressed look on them both. He realized that she wouldn’t believe any lie they could have told her, which left them only one option. Somehow not a nervous wreck, Roland sighed through his nose.

“How do you figure?” He asked.

“Uh, it’s obvious?” Tani pushed herself onto her elbows, unfurling the fingers of one hand as she spoke. “You don’t sound like Evan or Miss Nella, you don’t talk like Evan or Miss Nella, and you know way too much of that science stuff in Broadleaf to be from anywhere else!” She dropped back down with a ‘whoof’ of displaced air. “Worst kept secret in the world if you ask me.”

“Or two of them.” Roland sighed. He turned to Evan and smiled ruefully. “Guess you were right, Evan. There really wasn’t much point to that cover story.”

Evan prided himself on not letting his proud reaction show. He’d known the truth would come out sooner or later! What was the point of lying to their family about it? He nodded firmly. Tani sat back up.

“Hang on—two of them?” She asked. “You don’t mean two worlds, do you?” She looked between the two of them. “You’re pulling my leg again.”

“We aren’t.” Evan shook his head. “I know it’s hard to believe, but Roland really is from another world.” He smiled sheepishly. “You know, like the story?”

“I know the story!” Tani burst out, getting to her knees, “But doesn’t that mean that you’re somebody’s Soul Mate? People from other worlds are always somebody’s Soul Mate and—” She stopped suddenly, dropping back down. “Oh. You are, aren’t you? You’re…Doloran’s Soul Mate.”

“Yeah,” Roland said. He rubbed his shoulder with his free hand. “We had our suspicions, but…what happened in Broadleaf pretty much confirmed it.”

“Blimey…” Tani breathed. “Does anyone else know about any of this? Besides Evan and Miss Nella, I mean.”

“Well…” Evan sat back on his hands. “I’m fairly sure that everyone knows about Soul Mates, but being from another world…” He looked at Roland, who shrugged.

“Batu’s figured it out. Leander might have guessed by now, and Bracken’s putting it together.” He smiled ruefully. “I haven’t told anyone, but it’s hard to keep secrets from your family.”

Evan couldn’t help but smile. It was too early to hope, but maybe Roland saying that aloud meant that he would tell the others soon. Frowning pensively, Tani crossed her arms over her chest.

“So why haven’t you said anything before? You’ve been keeping this a secret since you got here, right?”

“I didn’t have a way to prove it,” Roland said simply, twisting his arms band back and forth on his wrist. “I still don’t. Would you have believed me if I just came out and said it?”

“Well, I—” Tani looked away. “…I guess I wouldn’t have. It is kinda unbelievable.”

Unless people dropped into your room during a thunderstorm, Evan thought, struggling to hold back a laugh. Clearing his throat, he looked to his friend.

“Does this…change anything, Tani?” He asked warily. Tani blinked, then drew back as if stung.

“What? Why would it change anything?!” She gestured wildly; Evan had to lean back or risk getting bopped on the nose. “He’s still Roland, isn’t he?” She looked at Roland. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t be.” Roland shrugged one shoulder. “But I think Evan means our not telling you. It’s a pretty big secret to be keeping from people you say you trust.”

“Well, yeah,” Tani grumbled, “And I’m kinda annoyed about that now that you mention it, but…you had your reasons, yeah? And it’s like you said,” She shrugged up to her ears. “Without proof, it’s one tall tale. Easier if you really were just from Dell, yeah?”

Evan heaved a huge sigh of relief. Roland, for his part, just smiled.

“Tell me about it. Anyway,” He cleared his throat. The two teens sat up at attention, Tani pulling the blanket back around her shoulders. “To answer your first question, ships where I’m from tended to get named after important figures or cities.” His eyes slid sideways to Evan, a teasing smile taking root. “If we wanted to go that route, we could name this ship after Evan.”

That was—there was no way—no!

“Please don’t!” Evan buried his face in both hands, cheeks hot against his palms. “I don’t want to get a big head like President Vector!”

“Ha!” Tani pounced, slinging her arms around him in a sideways hug. They both rocked with the motion and would have fallen to the deck had Roland not steadied them. “Like that’ll ever happen! You’re too much of a humble button to get that big a head just by naming a ship after you.” Gently tweaking an ear, she grinned at him. “But I bet you’re coming around to calling her the Infinity now, huh?”

Evan grumbled. “Maybe a little.”

Tani’s answering smile could have eclipsed the sun.

Quietly, and only to himself, Evan admitted that he really would like to see that smile again.

This time, when his cheeks flushed hot and red, it was for an entirely different reason.

#nnk2 #ni no kuni 2 #nnk2 fic #!fic #fic: for king and country

[jah-dev]

Blackstar by David Bowie

It’s as bonkers as you’d expect. 

First, the background. Space Oddity, released in 1969, was Bowies first real hit (Sadly, the Laughing Gnome didn’t get a lot of traction). In the song Tom is an astronaut whose capsule has malfunctioned in orbit, essentially stranding him in space. Most of it centres around him realising he isn’t making it back and trying to come to terms with his fate. It ends on a somewhat bleak note: Mission Control loses contact with the capsule prematurely, and they don’t seem to know why. Have the communication systems failed? Has Tom re-entered the atmosphere? Has he killed himself? Or did he somehow modify his little ship to leave orbit entirely and set himself on a journey into infinity? It seems to end on the suggestion any of these could have occurred.

Fast forward ten years. The Scary Monsters album is Bowies first venture into hard rock, and it’s a banger. (He would return to rock around nine years later with Tin Machine; he later described his Eighties journey as ‘two hard ends with a soft bit in the middle’). 

The first track, Ashes to Ashes, looks a lot like the next chapter in the story of Tom. He strolls along a beach in a fantastical costume while an Albert Einstein type seems to be explaining something at length to him. Is the beach somewhere else in the cosmos? Who or what is walking along with him? Is it only happening in his mind?

We then see Tom sitting in some kind of control chair pondering his fate aloud, while someone in the background washes dishes and carries out other mundane chores. This can be interpreted as the ships autonomous systems keeping him alive, whether he wants them to or not. At the end of the video we see Tom wired up to all these tubes and wires, keeping him in some kind of stasis, neither alive nor dead.  How can he still be alive after over a decade in space? Did he encounter someone else out there? Did they decide to modify his ship so that he could continue on his voyage of discovery out amongst the unknown? Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem too happy about it. He sings of wanting to take an axe to the ships systems (the ‘ice’) and returning to Earth. In the previous chapter he made the fateful decision that, rather than die uselessly in orbit, he would fire all the attitude rockets at once and thrust himself out into deep space, to be the first, possibly only, emissary to the cosmos. In so doing he would be transformed into a kind of artifact. If civilisation back on Earth ended, if humanity itself came to an end, his ship and his remains would endure, out amongst the infinite.

Perhaps he now regrets the decision. Because whatever he encountered out there changed him such that he cannot now die, yet nor is he really alive. All he can do is continue on the voyage, wherever it takes him.

Meanwhile back on Earth Tom has become somewhat of a cult hero: we see a group of people standing around a funeral pyre which they seem to have erected in his memory, singing his praises. As time goes on the cult will slowly grow as his name passes into legend. 

Fast forward to 2016, the end of the saga. 

It is tens of thousands of years in the future. Humanity’s descendants worship artefacts of the ancient space age, such as a mysterious helmet within which lies the bejewelled skull of a long dead astronaut. These people look human but they have tails and their form of worship seems to involve leaping up and down in unison. This is contrasted with a preacher standing in what may be the ruins of a church, brandishing a book with a black star motif on it. (The five pointed star can be viewed as a symbol of the human being: a head with arms and legs outstretched, DaVinciesque). This is interspersed with images of an astronaut falling into a silhouetted star, his body slowly elongating under the immense gravitational pull. 

We can perhaps piece together what happened. The ‘Black Star’ of this chapter refers to the immense black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, whose gravitational well weaves together a hundred million stars. Major Tom travelled all the way to the centre of the galaxy, into a region no living being had gone before, and catalogued everything he saw and experienced along the way. Eventually he was drawn into the black hole, but rather than being pulled in completely, at the last second he saw a way out: he modified his course such that he could use its gravity to slingshot him around it entirely, and put him back on a course for Earth! Whether or not he succeeded and made it back to the mother planet we cannot say. Yet if the helmeted skull is anything to go by, something of him made it home. And maybe also some of the data he gathered out there. Perhaps the information is all in the Black Star book held aloft by the preacher man. Perhaps they have transformed his findings into a religion, and his ships log is now their bible. But the blindfolded man with buttons for eyes could mean that they have descended into a rigid dogma. It could be that we are looking at two separate religious sects: one has hold of the Major Tom holy relics including his skull, and the other has kept the information of what he found out there to itself.

So in the end Major Tom achieved what he set out to do: he has been transformed into a shrine, a memory of a departed civilisation, its last remnant. Though not perhaps the way he originally intended. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

[bingbongwraith]

Merman Wraith sketch for Mermay!

#Dead by Daylight #The Wraith #Philip Ojomo #DBD The Wraith #I wanted to color this before I uploaded but then I got slammed with a ton of art projects and I'm exhausted #I was gonna color him kinda grey with some whitish stripes and perhaps some paint too. #The fins on his sides maybe brown because they're kinda like the pouches on his belt #And long tail because of his infinity legs #HOpefully I can color this sometime. He's fun! #[Art] #[Chrono]

[wayward-lives]

Steeb would almost trip over Alpine on a daily basis. I say this as a cat owner that fears waking up in the morning.

While I unfortunately do not own a cat I own two dogs and can attest to this very rational fear

So imagine: Steve and Bucky are living in total domestic bliss after the events of Infinity War and the subsequent bringing-back of all the dusted because Endgame never happened and the world is better for it

They’ve got a nice, spacious apartment in Brooklyn, a big fluffy bed, a giant bathtub, more clothes and self-care products than you can count

They’re probably having sex at least twice a day because those super libidos sure are something

One day Steve comes back from hanging out with Sam or something and he finds Bucky in the kitchen

The sink’s full of bubbly water so at first Steve thinks that Bucky’s just doing the dishes, but then he sees this tiny little ball of fur among the bubbles

Once he actually focuses he can also hear these ridiculously loud yowls and muttered curses coming from Bucky

What the fuck is happening

Bucky notices him (finally) and holds out this dripping wet thing with a giant grin on his face

“I found her in the dumpster. Isn’t she cute?”

She is very much not cute. She is the ugliest cat Steve has ever seen and she’s attempting to skin Bucky alive with her claws, apparently unaware that the arm she’s attacking is not flesh

She would also probably fit in Steve’s palm

Of course, when Bucky asks if they can keep her and gives Steve those big blue eyes there’s no way Steve could actually say no, is there?

That is how Steve Rogers finds himself the reluctant father of an angry little hairball of a cat

(bucky can see the family resemblance)

After Bucky’s dried the cat out Steve can see that no, it wasn’t just because she was wet and covered in dirt, she’s just a really ugly cat

She’s got one leg that’s shorter than the rest, her tail’s all rough and hairless, she’s got a weirdly long face, a lazy eye, and her ears are much too big for her head

Bucky seems to have gone blind, because he thinks that she’s the cutest thing ever

Bucky ends up naming her Alpine because of her soft white fur (”just like snow on mountains, Stevie, isn’t it sweet?”) and Steve secretly agrees that yes, that is the perfect name for the cat, as she is cold and has no soul

It becomes very much clear that while Alpine absolutely adores Bucky, she likes Steve about as much as Steve likes her, and she makes it very much clear

Not through normal cat ways of running off and hissing, no; Alpine is apparently a little ugly mastermind and has figured out how to get Steve in trouble while being a completely innocent party

She is not innocent

Her favourite trick is placing herself in the perfect place to be trodden on, especially in the early mornings when Steve’s still half-asleep

She’ll position herself right in his path and let out a very loud, very pathetic yowl when he inevitably stepped on her tail

Sometimes he doesn’t even touch her and she yowls anyway, because she’s evil and wants to be the favourite

 Bucky always tells Steve off for not watching where he’s going, then spends the next ten minutes at least crooning over his little princess

Steve is not jealous of a cat, shut up Sam

Apparently they sleep with their door open now, because what if Alpine gets lonely during the night, Stevie?

Steve is terrified that the cat will try and suffocate him in his sleep

The amount of times that she’s started yowling as soon as Steve’s about to get laid is unbelievable and not at all a coincidence

Of course, when Bucky hears her he’ll always stop what they’re doing and go check on her, because he’s a sweetheart and loves that cat even if Steve can’t stand it

But then the day comes when Bucky has to go away for a bit - he’s retired, like Steve, but he needs to go to Wakanda for a checkup and Steve can’t go with him, because then who will look after Alpine, Stevie?

Also because Steve’s got an important Thing coming up that he can’t miss

The first day Bucky’s gone Alpine paces in front of the door for a few hours, crying quite pitifully

Steve calls her a drama queen and then goes to curl up in bed all day because he is an Adult and he is allowed to miss his husband

Steve secretly doesn’t mind it as much as he usually does when Alpine curls up at the foot of the bed

The next day Steve must be really missing human interaction because he finds himself talking to the cat

She doesn’t listen to him; she just gobbles up her fancy cat breakfast that Bucky insists on buying for her and makes these little nomnomnomnom noises that aren’t at all cute, no siree

She tries to trip him up on his way to the couch, and then she decides to sit next to him as he watches TV

He doesn’t protest when she stretches out on the bed that night

When Bucky gets back a week later, he comes in to find his giant husband asleep on the couch that’s way too small for him, with the tiny little white cat lying on his chest and looking like there’s no place she’d rather be

Okay, so maybe the cat isn’t so bad

She still tries to trip Steve over though

#this got away from me a bit #oh well #enjoy this little headcanon nonnie #anon #asks #stucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #marvel #fanfic

[popopretty]

Hi! Sorry to bother you! First, thank you for all your hard work with the translations !! I would like to ask if is there any information about Chuuya's wings and the rings around him in the last chapter of Stormbringer when he decides to use Corruption? I want to draw the scene but I'm not sure about the details. Thank you if you answer! Love your blog <3

Hi,

Sorry it took so long for me to answer this. I saw the ask but couldn’t find time during the week to check the novel to get the answer. In the end, I decided that I would just translate a small part before and after that scene so you can get a better overview for your art. I am sorry if you have got the answers from someone else already. Also, this part has a short inner convo between Chuuya and Verlaine that I like a lot so I do want more people to read it :)

Feel free to retranslate if you want. Please note that I am not native in either Japanese nor English and may make some mistakes though. Thank you so much.

SPOILERS AHEAD

[CODE;04]

Chuuya was floating in the sky, lonely, with his whole body bleeding.

His body was almost at its limit. Because on top of Guivre’s attacks, the powerful gravity that he generated was too much for a delicate human body to withstand. Bruises, dislocations, torn muscles, and broken bones. He was literally just using gravity to support his body and somehow maintain a decent shape.

That figure was more lonely than anyone else in this world.

Those eyes moved. They turned to another lonely figure - The Demonic Beast Guivre.

Chuuya fell forward. And just like that, he accelerated forward. He leaped into the air and plunged into Guivre’s chest as if he was being sucked in by it. He hit it. 

The attack went through the gravitational guard of the beast’s outer skin, and reached the turbidity of time inside. A violent dark wave immediately rushed in and snatched Chuuya’s body away, trying to tear it into pieces.

Arahabaki roared. He squeezed his two hands, creating a black hole. It rotated, and after swallowing up the muddy stream, became huge and brought out a giant photon sphere. The two gigantic forces voided each other one after another. A storm of heat, vacuum and time raged around Chuuya.

Chuuya was watching that in his faint and disappearing consciousness. When he opened the “gate”, he had already handed over the control of his body to Arahabaki. The only thing he could do was to observe the battle. But even that consciousness was nothing more than a spark of light that seemed to be fading away in the midst of the clash between the God and the Demon that was beyond human comprehension.

The black space let out a scream. It sounded like the voice of someone crying out. The voice of the loneliest someone on earth. A voice that seemed to be lost in the black torrent of hatred. But with the energy being consumed by Arahabaki’s photon sphere, that voice finally reached Chuuya’s ears.

“End this already.”, said the voice.

“This beast speaks for my emotions. Why giving birth to me, when I should never have been born in the first place? I am a pitiful soul who holds onto a question that has no answers, hating on my own existence and only getting a sense of my own life by means of assassination.”

“End it, brother. With your own two hands. End this lonely soul who couldn’t believe in this world, who couldn’t believe in human, like you.”

“I know.” Chuuya replied in his consciousness that was about to be blown away.

“You couldn’t bear the loneliness. That’s why you came to Japan. But that is not a bad thing. It’s just that your roll of dice happened to come out bad. It just happened that your dice came up with the lonely “one”, and mine came up differently. I got a side that was blessed with friends. That’s all. Even if our positions were reversed, it would not have been strange at all.”

“Moreover, it’s not just hatred that you have. You actually doesn’t want to hate. That’s why you showed me your memories. You showed me the way to destroy the Demonic Beast of Guivre. Isn’t that right, Verlaine?”

Beyond the storm of the swirling dark torrent, someone’s light was glowing like a shooting star.

Chuuya’s “gate” opened further. The rotating black hole grew even bigger. The photon sphere was now huge enough to overwhelm the space. From Chuuya’s back, a black gravity “control stick” emerged, one on each side. Those were the tails of the beast of Arahabaki. The manifestation of the divine beast burning in black. But it looked just like a pair of wings sprouting from Chuuya’s back.

“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Chuuya, now with the wings, shouted and raised his two hands upward. With that as a signal, the rotating black hole suddenly became huge. The photon sphere shone like a supernova, and cut the body of the giant beast in half from the inside.

The flattened and crushed black hole which was even larger than the giant beast, together with the photon sphere that was circling and shining around it; they lit up the Yokohama’s night and burnt deeply into the eyes of people.

“That is Arahabaki... Chuuya’s real form?” Dazai who was watching this from the ground, muttered in a voice that sounded like he was delirious from the heat.

Chuuya’s raised arms. The horizontal photon sphere that illuminated the ground. The burning black wings on that back. Chuuya’s face with his eyes closed. The incarnation of a raging God. The black divine beast. 

The Demonic Beast collapsed and was suck into that photon sphere. That was like a process of a positive infinity being cancelled out by a negative infinity. The huge body broke down, its flesh turned into snow-like particles and drifted down to the centre of the photon sphere like gently dancing powder. With the flow of time inside the high gravity area being slower, from the outside, the destruction appeared to be terribly slow, even graceful.

The giant beast was not crying. It just opened its mouth and stood still silently as if accepting its fate. The photon sphere generated from its body engulfed its chest and its waist, then its arms and its legs, and finally shallowed its head. There was not a single sound. A tranquil disappearance. The death of a terribly quiet night that somehow went so well with the moonlight.

Eventually, even the photon sphere reached the end of its life. The rotating black hole collapsed while emitting heat rays. The smaller it become, the more heat it generated, and finally the black hole itself became a giant ball of light containing heat rays. It became a second sun, illuminating the night before finally quietly and gently disappearing.  

After losing his strength, Chuuya drifted in the air for a few seconds, then lost the black wings on his back and slowly fell.

Dazai caught his body.

From the spot where Dazai touched, the nullification skill was activated.　The self-contradictory skill supporting the energy of the singular point receded, and the output of the singular point decreased. Eventually, it converged and the "gate” closed. The red imprints disappeared from Chuya’s whole body. Eventually, the gravitational field disappeared and the complete silence was restored.

“Good job, Chuuya.“ Dazai chuckled, looking at the Chuuya he was holding in his arms. "I forgot to bring my ink pen, so I’ll spare you from having your face scribbled.”

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #storm bringer #nakahara chuuya #dazai osamu #skk #spoilers

[beau-draws-and-cries]

Late Night Demonics - Hunter Clawthorne AU Oneshot

Summary: Hunter is still adapting to the little demon sharing the bedroom with him

Tags: Hunter clawthorne au, king clawthorne, the owl house, fluff

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33452722

"Psst. Hunter. Hunter. Hunter." King baped him on the face. 

"What!" Hunter said, annoyed by being woken up when he was almost dozing off. The small demon was on his chest, holding one of the plushies Eda gave to him, with those big yellow and pink eyes seemingly staring into his soul "What do you want??? Stop baping me!"

"I, huh, need to go to the bathroom." He muttered, like he was ashamed of asking for it.

"You know where the bathroom is." Hunter said, a bit dry, trying to get into a comfortable position again. 

King looked between the door and Hunter, whimpering a bit, and when Hunter closed his eyes, King baped him on the face again.

"I really, really, really need to go." Now he got sad eyes on, begging something without words, the said eyes slightly glowing into the dim light. Hunter groaned, it looked like he had no choice. He slowly got up, and King went to the floor, near Hunter's leg. 

On the corridor, Hunter was already really annoyed and it got worse when something cracked on the house and King hugged his leg tightly, closing his eyes and whining. When he looked down to King to yell for him to let go of him, something hit Hunter like a truck. That was an actual demon child. Small, scared, needing comfort. He could talk like he knew about stuff and like he lived a long life before being this small child, but King was a 4 years old or so that still was scared of the dark and other stuff, and needed help to stop being scared and just…. Go to the bathroom.  

"Hey, huh, that sound is Hooty snoring. The walls are kinda alive so sometimes the whole house breathes. It freaked me out a lot when I moved here because it seemed like the house would fall apart with me inside. But after you get used to, it's kinda soothing." Hunter calmed him down, remembering that that was how Eda explained it to him on the second week he spent there.

"Really?" The house breathed again, making him scared, but not as much as before, looking around instead of hiding his face into Hunter's leg.

"See? Not scary at all. Just old Hooty-hoot doing his… stuff." They kept walking down the corridor, and finally got into the bathroom. King quickly used it, feeling brave enough to close the door while at it (which Hunter thanked), and then Hunter helped him to reach the sink and wash his paws.

"Every time you come here, wash your paws well. You can get sick and get other people sick if you don't."

King nodded, doing as he was told, and was put on the floor again. They walked half of the corridor when Hunter scooped him up, seeing that his small, short legs were getting tired, and after all, the fur and bone didn't feel that bad against his skin, unlike other witches' skin (one of the reasons he hated the playground. The kids would keep hugging him and touching without asking. And for some reason it always felt sticky and made Hunter want to cry and throw up at the same time), so he could stand it brushing on his arms.

He walked back into the bedroom, putting King into his bed and tucking him in, then laying down on his own bed.

"Night night." King said.

"Night night, little guy." Hunter answered.

"When I get back my powers, I will be remembering this." He said, again telling that story of his powers being stolen with his crown.

"Thank you, King. I would be honored." Hunter played along, smiling. Some minutes passed and Hunter felt something climbing his bed, getting on his chest "Need to go to the bathroom again?" 

"I can't sleep."

"Oh. Well, I am kinda awake too. Huh, have you ever read Demonics: a detailed encyclopedia?" 

"No! What is that?" 

"It's a book I checked in from the library a while ago. It's very interesting, but I never had an actual demon to read it with me." Hunter smiled at him, and got up to get the book in his wardrobe. After sitting on the bed, he lit up his bedside light and King cuddled up in his arms, looking at the book "Do you wanna choose a chapter or can we start from the beginning?"

"I wanna start from the beginning!" King said, excited. Hunter did so, starting to read the introduction for him, and at some point King stopped him "How do you know this is written there?"

"Oh, huh, I read the words on the page. Those formed by the little letters."

"What letter is that?" King pointed to a number 5.

"That's a number. They're used for counting things. Its name is number five. Here, let me show you the numbers. There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine. There's also the zero that means nothing. Then you can mix and match to form bigger numbers." He skipped to the last page of the encyclopedia "Like the number 867." 

"That's a lot of numbers." King said, amazed.

"Yea, and those are the meanings." Hunter proceeded to show the numbers but now with his hands, closing the hands to show zero. King seemed to be interested, tail waving lightly "Then we got twenty, thirty, fourty… and we go on and on and on and on because numbers are infinite."

"What does infinity means?" King asked, raising his small fingers (claws?) To try to count them.

"It means that something never ends."

"Woah, that's so cool! I hope this book never ends."

"Sorry buddy, but we got only like, 820 pages worth of content. But after we're done with this one, we can get another book at the library."

"And then it will be infinite?"

"Well, no." Hunter said, scratching King's head "But there's a whole lot of books, and it would take a very long time to read all of them. It would look infinite for us." 

King closed his eyes, getting comfier into Hunter arms. After sometime like this, he opened his eyes again, pointing at a letter B on the page.

"What is this letter?"

"It's the letter B. Boiling Isles starts with a B."

"Ohh. So all words start with letters?"

"Yes, all words, like my name or yours."

"And which letter is the first on my name?"

Hunter looked on the page for a K, and got a piece of paper and pen from the drawer. He pointed at a letter K.

"It starts with this letter." He then wrote it on paper "Then there's an I. Can you copy the letter I am pointing at the paper?" He handed the pen, and King nodded, making a shaky I after the K "And now there's an N." He pointed at the N, and waited until King copied it "And then a G. K-I-N-G. King. That is your name."

King cheered, asking for another piece of paper and writing his name over and over. After he got tired of writing the same thing, he cuddled up on Hunter's lap again.

"Can we continue the book?" 

"Sure thing, King." Hunter nodded, continuing to read the book for the small demon, until eventually both fell asleep.

#hunter clawthorne au #king clawthorne #hunter toh #hunter golden guard #the owl house

[freeseafirefly]

Soulmates (RinHaru fic)

Set after the All-Japan Invitational. Albert invites Haru to hang out, and Haru drags Rin along. Rin is stuck with two mackerel obsessed introverts and has to communicate between them. Except he doesn't really need to, not when they get along so well regardless of the language barrier.

Canon compliant, pre-relationship. A bit of angst and cracky fluff. Albert is a dork. So is Haru. Rin is a drama queen. Will be 2 parts (probably? maybe 3).

Read on AO3

Part 1

“Why don’t you get your AC fixed?” Rin whines as he sprawls on the wooden floor, limbs slack from racing all morning, glistening with fresh sweat after their short walk from the pool. He looks a lot like the eleven-year-old boy Haruka met at a tournament, panting on the poolside tiles and goggling at him while pretending he’s not. The scorching afternoon sun breaking through the shutters casts burning stripes across his skin, laser-beam red where they touch his hair.

“I had no time for that. It dries up the air anyway,” Haruka says and flicks on the fan. Ignoring Rin’s grunting about his water obsession, he pulls his T-shirt off over his head and walks over to the fridge. There were some sodas left since Asahi’s visit about a month ago.

Rin follows his example, rising to peel off his T-shirt and dropping back down, this time closer to the fan. “Ah, the steaming hell aka the Japanese summer… I surely didn’t miss that.”

Haruka scowls. It’s Rin’s fault he wanted to race him so bad today; Rin’s fault he came second yesterday on their 100 meter free race; and it is definitely not Haru’s fault that it is winter now in Australia, a divine chilly winter Rin will mention ever so often, only worsening his own suffering.

Haruka throws a can at him. Rin catches it with “Hey, how am I supposed to open it now?” but cringes as soon as he sees the neon-bright fruit mix printed on the side. “Whatever, it’s better like this anyway…” he mutters, pressing it to his neck. His Adam’s Apple bobs as he lets out a satisfied moan.

“Go take a cold shower,” Haruka says.

“I just did.”

“Wanna go back to the pool?”

“Not agaaain. I swear I reek of chlorine even though we took like a dozen showers today.”

Haruka flops down beside him and pops his soda open. He swallows a You smell of your fancy toilet water along with the gulp of the icy liquid, for a moment feeling blissful. Until the acid sweetness assaults his receptors all at once. Choking, he puts the poisonous drink down.

The humming of the fan almost drowns out Rin’s quiet chuckle Told ya so but not the cicadas going mad in the tiny park between the apartment blocks. Somehow, the relentless chirping sound makes the heat even thicker.

“Want water instead?” Haru offers.

“Nah. Too much water. Water everywhere. Even the air is water,” Rin complains, rolling his can up his cheek and pressing it to his forehead.

His eyelids flutter shut as a streak of the sun that is beginning to descend on the west crawls slowly up his nose, illuminating the normally unnoticeable freckles. Rin scrunches up his nose and shifts a bit away from it, a bit closer to Haru. The skin on his chest is glittering with the tiniest beads of sweat, goosebumps popping up every now and then as the fan sends a thick wave of air their way. His small nipples harden underneath the chilly caress, dark-pink against his pale skin. His shoulders are broader now, his pecs even more prominent.

Haruka stirs to stretch his legs out. There is a buzzing strain in his body but not the kind he could stretch away; not even from swimming. He should have made plans, come up with something to spend their first day off. He really didn’t have time, though. It was a spur of the moment exchange in Asahi sister’s cafe: “Want to sleep over tomorrow?"—"Sure” when they finished their celebration dinner with the rest of the gang and were about to part.

Haruka just felt a sudden urge. The dinner wasn’t enough. Their long car drive for the high school Nationals and back hadn’t been enough either. There was still a lot they had to catch up on. To talk about. To do. Haruka didn’t know what, though. And that was exactly the problem. He had Rin all to himself for another 24 hours, and he didn’t know what to make from it.

Rin hasn’t been helpful either, so uncharacteristically lacking plans and urgent things to do and new sights to show him, seemingly content with just spending an ordinary day together as if they were going to hang out like this regularly, as if they did it countless times.

They did, but in Iwatobi; in their high school days, before they left on their own journeys, before they changed—once again—apart from each other.

Haruka leans back. The wood presses hard into his elbows. He sinks down until he’s lying flat on his back beside Rin. Takes a long breath, wishing the strain away. Closes his eyes. Rin’s perfume, unfamiliar yet similar to his usual kind of breezy and a bit spicy, carried over on the musky scent of his body—not too strong, totally familiar—transports him to the Sydney beach. Foaming waves and salty wind and seagulls squawking. Sparkling blue infinity. Haruka wonders if it’s him who is reeking of chlorine instead, but he can’t smell himself this close to Rin. Rin who is the same Rin from elementary school and at the same time not. He has changed, indeed, and at the same time he hasn’t. He is too much and too not enough. It doesn’t make sense; Rin doesn’t make sense.

Except he does, somehow. Maybe enough for Haru to give him that something he has been keeping in his closet since last autumn.

Or maybe not. He has the rest of the day to figure that out.

…This morning, Rin rang his doorbell with the first licks of dawn on the rooftops across the street, in that annoying impatient way of his that once shook Haru from his nightmare and sent flying to the other side of the ocean. Haruka, a night owl he was, complained all the way to the pool as Rin literally dragged him through the chilly morning shadows, his grip strengthened by unshakable resolve. “We are racing now! I’ll show you those milliseconds were just a fluke!”

“You’re taking advantage,” Haru mumbled, his tongue still numb from sleep. “’m not even awake.”

“You’re not fooling anyone here, I know you only need to touch the water to grow a tail!”

“No I don’t. It was just a weird dream of yours.”

Rin stumbled a bit. “You’re really out of it in the morning,” he muttered, his cheeks red. “I meant figuratively.”

…Of course, Rin was right about him touching the water, though figuratively. And of course Haruka won all of their races, even if Rin insisted they tied in one of them and another one didn’t even count, since Haru suddenly started to laugh on the starting block at the way Rin routinely snapped his goggles strap, to fucking laugh like a weirdo, according to Rin, and thus treacherously ruined his focus before the dive.

Haru was just amused that some things never changed. He felt giddy and lightheaded and a little bit childish having Rin by his side, finally having Rin by his side again.

They were completely spent by noon, and had to make it home in the midst of the deadliest heat after finishing their katsu curry in the sports complex diner (it never had mackerel on the menu.) There was nothing interesting in Haruka’s neighborhood to drop by. Maybe they should have taken a ride somewhere. But Haruka had never been good at these things, like coming up with the ideas of where to go and how to spend time with someone, and Rin’s focus was still on swimming, national team, can you fucking believe we made it??, world championships, medals. Maybe cooking, too. He wouldn’t shut up about proving his skills and his recipes superiority to Haru as soon as they had a chance.

Well. That is at least something.

Haruka cracks an eye open. “Let’s go to the supermarket to fetch something for dinner.”

…Because there is an echoing void in his fridge: Haruka hasn’t been home enough recently to keep something edible there.

The idea doesn’t seem to bring Rin back to his usual energetic self, though. He just says absentmindedly, “Yeah, whatever, I need some AC right now or I’ll melt down and ruin your floor.”

This is when Haruka’s phone buzzes and bursts into a loud rendition of the default ringtone, startling them both.

“Huh? So that thing of yours can actually ring?” Rin arches an eyebrow curiously, propped on his elbows.

Haruka tsks at him—he did pick up Rin’s rare calls, except for the weeks in the training camp after racing Albert, which Rin was still salty about—and crosses the room to fish the phone from the bottom of his bag. The number is unknown. Probably a spam call, but there is a chance someone from the National team wants to contact him about the upcoming training, so he answers it.

“Hi! It’s Albert.“

"Eh?” Of course, Haruka recognizes him immediately, but the idea of hearing the Swedish swimmer on his phone seems rather surreal. “Oh. Hello,” he answers awkwardly in English.

Rin shoots him a bewildered glance and rolls over to sit up.

“Some guy from your team gave me your number. Congrats on your win yesterday! It was amazing. Even through the screen, I could feel how free you were in that race.”

Haru frowns at himself; he has been sure he made quite a progress in English but as always, a real conversation with a real human proves him wrong. It takes him a moment before the meaning sinks in.

“Ah. Thank you.”

Haruka feels a pleasant tingling spreading all over his skin. It’s not like him to get flustered at someone praising him, but Albert has been on his mind ever since they raced. A blinding light of the global level. A goal to reach. A wall to overcome. A shy guy who had trouble dealing with Japanese specifics on every corner but learned in no time.

Just as he had learned how to swim, probably. A powerful, untamed freestyle.

Albert continues, in his casual fluent manner but a bit faster than Haru heard him speak before, “I somehow managed to escape from my coach and ditched Ralph at some traditional Japanese spa, since I’m not really into hot water. How do you not get lost in this city? I wondered if you could show me around and we could have some amazing Japanese mackerel again.”

Haru catches some words, like spa and city and japanese and mackerel, but Albert sounds hasty, as if he's a bit nervous, and Haru’s brain fails to quickly connect the words together. It’s strange. He didn’t struggle to understand Albert before. Maybe because they were doing something those times, actions backing up the words. Or maybe because in the corner of his vision, Rin keeps staring at him questioningly which is kinda distracting.

Oh. Rin.

Exerting an effort to pronounce the words as good as he can, Haruka asks, "Sorry… can you repeat?”

Albert agrees with the same easy kindness that never leaves his voice just like his smile permanently hides in his eyes, “Sure. So, I was saying…”

Haru quickly turns on the speaker mode so that Rin can hear, and sends him an expectant look. Rin frowns at first, confused, and when Haruka mouths Albert Wahlander his eyes go round. By the end of Albert’s talk, his face smoothens quickly back to normal. Bored even.

“So, basically, he’s inviting you on a date.”

“Eh…? Seriously, Rin.”

“Whatever, just say ok”, Rin sighs, clearly pissed.

“But we—”

“Didn’t have plans anyway.” And he adds in a heated whisper, “Oh come on, it’s the fastest guy in the freaking world, Haru.”

Haruka catches a fiery glint in Rin’s eyes before the latter averts his gaze.

Better than a supermarket, he concludes.

“Uhm, ok,” Haruka utters in full voice. And squints at Rin, who has found a sudden resolve to open the dangerous can and is dramatically pouring the fizzing liquid into his throat. “Do you mindo ifu I take a… furendo with me?” he adds.

“Sure, I’m fine with it! Does he love mackerel, too?”

~

Tbc. The next part will be from Rin's POV. Poor baby.

#free! #free! fanfiction #rinharu #harurin #rin matsuoka #haruka nanase #albert volandel

[crispychrissy]

Here are my thoughts/questions/theories about the finale of Falcon & The Winter Soldier and going forward in the MCU:

1) We all know that there was some kind of virus subplot that had to be rewritten due to Covid happening, so while some of the plot might be hard to follow or not make sense, I think overall this series was fantastic. The Flag Smashers, in my opinion, probably lost some of their dangerousness with this rewrite which is why, compared to Zemo, they don't really feel like they have the same threat level as him.

2) Sharon Carter is the Power Broker (even though she didn't expressly say it, she didn't deny it and it seems like she is). She was never confirmed dusted with the snap. She went on the lam at the end of Civil War, but 2 years pass between that and the events of Infinity War. There is a chance that she survived the snap and had been living in Madripoor (nobody could get in contact with her because she'd been hiding, similar to how Scott was assumed dusted), and either took over for the Power Broker because nobody knew who he was, or she killed him and took over for him. No way she built that kind of criminal empire in just 6 months.

3) I would have loved it if while Karli was dying in Sam's arms, she leaned up and whispered to him that Sharon was the Power Broker, setting up a season 2 where Bucky and Sam chase after Sharon.

4) Sam's Captain America outfit is FANTASTIC, and very close in design to his comic book counterpart. The fact that Bucky made sure the Wakandan designers included Red Wing makes me chuckle. The wings must have some kind of neural interface or advanced control system because during a lot of those flight and fight sequences, they almost appeared to be a part of his body, like how an actual bird would use them. A+ design.

5) I don't think wrapping up everything with a neat bow was the point of this series, as much as people wanted it to be. The Marvel universe is just that... a universe. With lots of people and storylines. But, that being said, there was a lot of character exploration and development. Sam and Bucky had their heart to heart, Flag Smashers were defeated, Isaiah got the recognition he deserved, John Walker got a beat down and had his title revoked (and ran to Val with his tail between his twitchy ass legs), and Sam took the shield. The angsty parts got their resolutions, but they also left the door open to explore other people besides the title characters.

6) John Walker... his story arc is confusing and I feel like there's some holes in there that might have come from the rewrites. Whatever PTSD he had before the serum was amplified after he took it, and stuff like that doesn't just disappear. All of the twitching and anger issues... he's a time bomb waiting to explode, just like how he did when he killed Nico. So yeah, Val made him USAgent, gave him a new identity that's his own, but he's still unhinged. He's going to be used as a weapon by Val and whatever agency she works with/for, just like how Bucky was used as a weapon for Hydra.

7) I love that they showed Bucky going back to tell Nakajima what happened to his son. The raw emotion on his face, finally confronting his past deeds as the Winter Soldier, and giving someone the answer they've so desperately wanted even though it meant likely losing one of the few friends he had. Bucky was making amends by trying to fix the things that occurred because of what he did as the Winter Soldier out of his own guilt, instead of being selfless and admitting to those directly affected what he did.

8) There are some parallels between Bucky and Walker. Bucky saved Steve from the river in CA: TWS without really knowing why, and I think John Walker saved that truck from going over the edge without really knowing why either, almost like it was a gut instinct. He may have questionable morals, but he still has some kind of morals deep inside that serum hazed brain of his from when he was a solider. Walker even dropped the shield to grab the truck, just like how Steve dropped the shield on the helicarrier.

9) Isaiah Bradley finally getting the recognition he deserves... absolutely touching, and a long time coming. Just because Isaiah wanted to remain dead doesn't mean he should be given the attention and respect he deserves for what he did.

10) Is Bucky living with Sam now? Have the Wilson's adopted him? Is this a true Uncle Buck situation? Will a (hopefully happening) season 2 have a Sarah and Bucky romance to annoy the shit out of Sam with?

#f&ws spoilers #finale #theories #questions #bucky barnes #sharon carter #sam wilson

[capsiclecevans]

“i need a place to stay”

Warnings: mentions of cheating. Summary: Chris has always been your best friend, your shoulder to cry on, could he be something more when you finally find out that your boyfriend has been cheating on you with one of his work colleagues? Chris is your first point of call when your world implodes and you need somewhere to stay. Word Count: 2k  Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader\

⭐︎ ashleigh’s masterlist ⭐︎ | ☾ ashleigh’s taglist ☽

*:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

Your day had been going great. You had a very productive day at work, you met with the girls and had a lovely dinner and was currently on the way back to yours and your boyfriend’s shared apartment to spend the rest of the evening together curled up on the couch watching a film. You hummed along to the radio as you drove, smiling to yourself as the song reminded you of your best friend, Chris. You had been friends ever since you were both young, since you were in his brother’s class and he was part of the package deal when it came to befriending Scott, but eventually it was you and Chris that became closer. 

Even when Chris became Captain America, everyone’s favourite superhero, he stayed loyal to you and was still just Chris to you. You knew him better than anyone else in the world. You had known him before his life became so crazy and you knew that he was grateful that he had that relationship with you still. Whenever he was anxious about anything, you were still the one he would text or call, because no matter what, you both knew that you would alway answer him in his time of need. That’s what friends were for. 

You smiled to yourself when you see your boyfriend’s car parked in his parking spot outside your apartment building, parking your car next to his gently. He was home and hopefully he had picked a film for you both to watch. 

You both had been a little distant with each other recently, he had been busy at work, as had you and Chris was back in town so you had been spending a fair bit of time with him since you hadn’t seen him in so long. It was like you were reuniting with family you hadn’t seen in years. It had only been 6 months or so, since Chris had been filming Infinity War and Endgame back to back so he had been in Atlanta and had obviously taken Dodger with him. 

You make your way up to your apartment slowly, humming the rest of the song from the radio to yourself as you take the steps as quickly as you can before unlocking your front door. 

You frown when you don’t see your boyfriend in the front room or attached kitchen, setting your work bag on the couch slowly, looking round the room a little confused before walking to your shared bedroom to see if he was in there. 

What happened next was a blur, seeing him on top of someone from his workplace, both naked. In your bed. A screaming match took place with you throwing essentials into a small suitcase and bag so you can get out of there quickly, you could come back for everything else when he is at work and you had calmed down. You storming out as quickly as you could, your now ex-boyfriend trying to follow you quickly as he pulled some clothes back on as he tried to explain what was happening. You cried as you drove away, only one place in mind that you know you could stay, even though you were scared to tell them what has happened. 

*:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

After driving round town for a few hours, trying to gain sense of what had happened back at your apartment. Trying to get the image out of your head as you drive to Chris’ house, you needed face him sooner or later, especially since you hadn’t replied to his texts since you left work, which would make him worry. You always replied to him within 20 minutes of him texting you. It has been over 3 hours since you last texted him. 

As you arrive at Chris’ and look up at his house, you bite your lip nervous, tears welling up in your eyes again as you begin to regret your decision to come here instead of driving straight to your parent’s house. That was over a 45 minute drive away now and it was getting late, you didn’t have the energy to make that drive, not tonight, you might make that drive tomorrow if you couldn’t face Chris in the morning. You begin to imagine the look that Chris’ face will hold when he answers the door to you at almost 10pm, worry and confusion will be the top two emotions for sure. 

You only knock twice before Chris is nearly pulling the door off its hinges to see if it is you. He sighs a little in relief seeing that it is you and that you are at least safe, but then he frowns when he sees the tears in your eyes and the tear stains that are on your cheeks. 

“I-I need a place to stay…” You say nervously, before Chris could even ask if you were okay, or what was going on. Dodger was whining a little at Chris’ feet, trying to get passed him to see you, greet you happily as he always did as he loved you almost as much as he loved Chris and his stuffed lion. Chris doesn’t hesitate to nod quickly, opening the door wider for you to step inside. He takes your suitcase and handbag from you gently, biting his lip and taking them up to the guest room with no questions, catching on that you probably need a few moments alone to greet Dodger before you have him asking what happened and why you need a place to stay. 

You slowly remove your coat and shoes before following Dodger through to the couch, biting your lip as you make yourself comfortable. Chris had always said that you were welcome here whenever you needed a friend and to never feel uncomfortable when you were here, at his house. Dodger curls up with you gently on the couch as you tuck your legs underneath you, finally wiping the tear stains off of your cheeks. As you do this, you glance round the room, the TV was on with a basketball game playing, and Chris had a bottle of beer open on the coffee table. His phone was next to the bottle of beer, unlocked with your contact open, like he was going to try and reach you again before you knocked on his door. 

“Hey…” Chris says softly as he walks in, sitting down next to you slowly, not wanting to startle you in anyway as he could tell you were lost in your thoughts. “What’s happened?” He asks softly. 

“He has been cheating on me…” You say and look up at Chris, just by admitting that your ex-boyfriend is a scumbag brought tears to your eyes. Four years down the drain because he couldn’t stay loyal and keep it in his pants. 

“What…” Chris says in shock, before he could register that he should feel angry for you, but you needed him to be calm now, you needed your friend. He couldn’t believe it, you and your boyfriend seemed happy, that you were solid and he thought that soon enough you would have an engagement ring on your left hand soon enough. Not that he wasn’t sad about that, he was more relieved as even though you were happy, Chris was not. He was completely in love with you, he had wanted to tell you before he started filming for The Winter Soldier, at his birthday party, but you had brought your boyfriend as a date. This had shocked Chris as you never mentioned to him that you were dating someone, now four years later you were finally done with the scumbag. 

“I don’t know how long for, but I walked in on him and her, in my own bed…” You explain, tearing up gently, looking at your hands gently. 

Chris frowns and wraps his arms round you tightly, kissing your head to calm you down slowly. “It’s going to be okay…you can stay here for as long as you need too…” He whispers into your hair, letting you cry against his chest. He rubbed your back comfortingly, knowing that you just needed to be held right now. Dodger came and sat in front of you both, waiting patiently while his tail wagged behind him a little, head tilted to the side before he eventually went and laid in is bed with his stuffed lion. 

“Are you sure?” You ask and looks up at Chris gently. He responds with a soft smile and a nod, you don’t push any further because he was the one you knew you could always count on. 

*:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

You slowly walk back down the stairs to the couch after Chris had told you to have a relaxing shower and get into comfortable clothes, not caring how late it was or if you both stayed up all night. You needed him so he would be there. He was in the kitchen, making you both a hot chocolate, his beer thrown away from the spot it was sitting when you first arrived at his house. 

You sit back down on the couch and Dodger joins you this time, his head resting on your lap in a comforting way, you smile a little before scratching behind his ears, just the way he likes it. 

“Now I could get used to this view…” Chris says as he walks through with two large mugs of hot chocolate, setting them on the coffee table as you feel your cheeks blush lightly. Chris was such a sweet guy and before you had gotten together with your boyfriend you always had a crush on him. You never acted on it though, you didn’t think he would have wanted to have you in the spotlight, you were his little secret that he was able to keep from the press and his fans. You were like a comfort blanket for him when he needed you. 

“Are you sure you don’t mind me staying with you?” You ask and looks up from Dodger to Chris gently, a small smile on your face as you do. 

“Dodge and I will not mind one bit…plus I kinda uh…” He starts to say as he sits down before shaking his head gently. “Never mind, now isn’t the best time to tell you this, don’t worry…” He says before sitting back against the cushions, sighing before rubbing his face lightly. 

“Tell me what?” You ask, fully turning yourself to look at the man child you knew so well, but right now he looked scared, fragile. 

“That, I am happy you left him, because you can now be with me…” He says in an outburst before looking down at the floor, sighing to himself and rubbing his face gently. “I have been in love with you before I became Captain America, before filming for Winter Soldier started but I didn’t get my chance because you had fallen for someone else and you were happy…” Chris says, his voice soft and gentle before he looks at you nervously, he had just poured out his heart to you on the same day you had broken up with your boyfriend of 4 years. 

“Y-you’re in love with me?” You ask a little shocked before taking a deep breath, a wide smile coming onto your face before you blush and look down. “It’s a good thing that I have been feeling the same way recently then, isn’t it?” You say before reaching over and stroking his cheek. You are pulled into his lap as he gives you a bone crushing hug, your lips eventually finding each others happily. You finally felt loved again, as you hadn’t felt this love and warmth from your ex-boyfriend for a few months, which could possibly be because he was giving all his love to the girl he was cheating on you with. Now though, you are living every one of Chris’ female fan’s dreams by kissing him and being the one he has fallen in love with. 

“Its a good thing that I came here first for a place to stay then…” You whisper when you pull away from the kiss slowly, a cheeky smile playing at your lips. Your comment makes Chris laugh as he cuddles you closer, pressing a kiss to your head before you both settle down to watch a film together before heading up to bed. 

*:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

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[littleabriel-blog]

My Problem with Loki

Loki is a character beloved by many people. He has been for a decade now, although some people who read comics before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing were fans of him long before the first Thor came out. Over the years since his appearance in that movie the character has gone through a lot of changes, evolving from a villain to an anti-hero both in the MCU and in the comics, the latter even killing off his original incarnation to reincarnate him in a younger body resembling Tom Hiddleston in the hopes that the comics could capitalize on his popularity in order to sell more books. That move, unfortunately, did not bear fruit, with Loki’s solo series being canceled after only five issues. However, Loki remained popular in the movies, so much so that when he was killed off in Infinity War, people were pissed.

As a result of his enduring popularity, Kevin Feige and company decided to give Loki his own solo series on Disney+ when the decision was made to create a string of MCU tie-in shows to supplement the movies, and boost subscription numbers to Disney’s new streaming service. Fans of the character rejoiced. Finally, our favorite character was going to be in the spotlight, and not be merely a supporting character for Thor and hopefully not a butt monkey for the Avengers like he was in the third act of the movie of the same name. WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier had previously had well-received and successful debuts on that same platform, and it was hoped that Loki would do the same. Loki turned out to be the most successful of the Disney+ MCU shows that have come out so far, scoring highest in the ratings. As of this writing, it holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDb.

Those numbers, however, don’t reflect the entire audience and there were a lot of people who were not altogether happy with the product we received. Many people who had been hardcore fans of Loki since Tom Hiddleston first put on the horned helmet were not pleased, myself included.  

The show wasn’t all bad. It did set up the multiverse, introduced Kang, introduced Mobius. The special effects were outstanding, a lot of the gags were hilarious, and we did get some character development from Loki before the spotlight fell away from him and he became all about panting after the real main character...more on that in a few.  

So many things, however, were wrong.  

If you liked the show, thought it was perfect, and were a fan of the romance, that’s perfectly fine. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion on a work of fiction. Everyone has their interpretations, everyone has their likes and dislikes, and there is nothing wrong with liking the show. There is also nothing wrong with not liking the show. This is a concept that people on both sides of the debate fail to understand, and I have witnessed flame wars, harassment from individuals on both sides, harassment of creators on social media from both sides, and various bits of biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other assorted types of phobias on display. I have seen people accuse people who have different opinions on the show than them of “not being a true Loki fan” and stating that people who have certain interpretations of the character don’t “truly know Loki”.

I’m not here to do that, and I assure you, if you liked the show, that’s fine. You’re allowed to. I’m allowed to not like it, and I’m allowed to explained why I didn’t like it just as you’re allowed to explain why you did. As long as both of us are being respectful, expressing an opinion is good. There is expressing an opinion and offering constructive criticism, however, and then there is namecalling, trolling, and having a tantrum and accusing someone of being “aggressive” when they don’t share the same opinion you do.

There is a huge difference between saying “I find the character of Sylvie to be problematic, and here is why” and “I think fans of Sylvie are sick and need therapy”, and people need to learn the difference between the two. Unfortunately, you have people who have become very protective of their favorite characters and tend to take any criticism leveled at said characters personally. It’s basically “You don’t like them? Well then you don’t like me, and since you don’t like me, I don’t like you.” Which is, frankly, a dangerous mentality to have. We are talking about fictional characters, not real people, and there is no need to jump to the defense of someone who does not exist. It is those people who tend to demonstrate that they have unstable personalities and immaturity, and they are the ones I have started blocking on Twitter because, being an adult woman, I don’t have the patience to deal with immature nonsense like that.

So, if you read this and then decide you want to hunt me down to give me a piece of your mind, tell me that I’m not a “true” fan of Loki, and accuse me of whatever, don’t bother. This piece isn’t here for that. It’s here because I wanted to compile my thoughts and feelings in a way that would better for me to articulate. It’s more or less a venting mechanism, purely for my benefit. If someone else gets something out of it, fine. If the creators of the show happen to see it, which is very unlikely because A) I’m not exactly going to push it onto them on their social media to get them to read it and B) they already get bombarded with tons of opinions on the show on a daily basis and aren’t going to care about one more voice added to the mix, even one who has basically compiled a novel, then alright.

And it is a novel, because I have a lot to say about Loki. I have been a huge fan of the character since long before Tom Hiddleston began playing him. My first encounter with Marvel’s Loki came in the form of the X-Men comics, specifically The Asgardian Wars run. It’s available in trade, and you should check it out. I read that run when I was around 10 years old, and I enjoyed Loki as the bad guy in the two stories that make up the collection. The first has him creating a special wish fountain that has a monkey’s paw effect in that it imbues mortals with special gifts and powers, and has the potential to make Earth a better place, but at the cost of killing every magical person and being on Earth. The X-Men and Alpha Flight find out about this after a plane piloted by the wife of one of the X-Men happens to crash in the general location the fountain is located. The two teams go to investigate, Shaman and Snowbird who are both magical beings begin dying, it’s discovered Loki created the fountain in order to score brownie points with The Ones Who Sit Above In Shadow (a pantheon of deities who are basically the Gods to the Asgardians), and after a lengthy battle Loki is defeated, he shuts down the fountain under pressure from The Ones, and slinks back to Asgard with tail between his legs.

In the second story, set after the heroes of Earth had helped Asgard defeat Surtur, Loki’s attention is caught by Storm, who at the time was depowered. He kidnaps her and brings her to Asgard intending to use her to replace Thor as the Goddess of the Storm, and use her as a pawn to, what else, conquer Asgard and seize the throne.  

I really enjoyed Loki then, and felt sorry that he never appeared in any other X-Men story, not even in an issue of the New Mutants, and that team boasted an actual Valkyrie (Danielle Moonstar) as one of its members. I was a kid at the time and read pretty much exclusively X-Men since those were the books my father purchased for me. I never felt right about asking him for other books since we were a family with money struggles and I didn’t want to be more of a burden by requesting Thor or Avengers comics--that, and I just didn’t find Thor or the Avengers all that interesting at the time, a sentiment shared by a lot of people until the first Iron Man made us actually care about Tony Stark. I wouldn’t have an opportunity to start reading more comics featuring Loki until I was an adult and able to visit comic book stores on my own. I read several runs that featured him as a character, including Ragnarok, the Broxton, OK run where Loki first appeared as a woman, Dark Reign, and finally Siege. I also went back and read Walt Simonson’s legendary run on The Mighty Thor, which I highly recommend.  

Suffice it to say, I’ve been a fan of the character for a long time, and in fact when Tom Hiddleston was cast in the role for Thor, I remember thinking that he was too young. But then I figured it was Hollywood, of course they’re going to deage Loki so that he appears closer in age to his adopted brother in contrast to the comics pre-Siege where Loki was often drawn to look like he was as old as Odin and therefore could be Thor’s uncle or even father as opposed to brother.  

Over the years I grew to enjoy the MCU’s version of the character, enjoy Tom Hiddleston in the role, and like most other people was greatly saddened by his death in Infinity War. Like other fans, I looked forward to his solo series and had high hopes for it. Hopes that were, unfortunately, dashed.

It Was Rushed

In the MCU, it took Loki years to go from troubled young god, to villain, to ambivalent ally, to anti-hero, to hero. Literally, years. Months had passed between the end of Thor and the beginning of Avengers during which Loki endured who-knows-what at the hands of Thanos. We don’t know exactly what still. The Loki series didn’t answer that, I guess because they didn’t want to devote precious screentime to an interesting backstory for what was supposed to be the main character when they could focus on something else instead. That something else will be elaborated on.

In Episode 1, Loki is still the villain from Avengers, something he would have remained as into The Dark World. It would take him being in Asgard’s prisons for a year and then him accidentally getting his adopted mother Frigga killed in order for him to begin to do a heel-face turn. From this, we can clearly see that a transition from ax-crazy bad guy to anti-hero is not going to happen overnight. For this person I shall call Ragnarok Loki, it was a process that took time. He suffered a complete mental breakdown while in Asgard’s prison, a fragile emotional state that was compounded by the anger and massive guilt he felt at Frigga’s death.  

Even after that, he still hadn’t completely abandoned his villainous ways. At the end of The Dark World we find out that after faking his supposed death earlier in the movie, Loki has assumed Odin’s form and taken his place on Asgard’s throne. In Ragnarok, Loki is still sitting on the throne in Odin’s form, and shows no indication at all that he feels any remorse for giving his adopted father amnesia, stripping away his magic, and abandoning him on Earth to whatever fate he might meet. Loki remains a selfish bastard throughout Ragnarok until the third act, after Thor had treated him to a taste of his own medicine by sticking a taser on him and then giving him a speech about becoming predictable and complacent.  

Loki’s arc was one that spanned four movies and six years, since in-universe there were a couple of years between The Dark World and Ragnarok. That meant that his character development took actual time and was realistic. It was one of the things that drew people to the character, the fact that he had a very relatable and believable redemption arc.

Compare that to Episode 1. In less than a day he goes from being the Loki that we saw in Avengers, batshit crazy, selfish, callous, and untrusting, to making personal confessions to a man he had just met only a couple hours previously and agreeing to help the organization that had arrested, stripped, imprisoned, tried, and almost executed him.

What?

I will give the show this: In Episode 2, he shows that he’s still up to his old tricks when he feeds Mobius and the agents all that horsecrap about how a Loki works in the Ren Faire tent, and then revealing that he plans to take over the TVA when he confronts his variant in the futuristic Wal-Mart. The weeping confession to Mobius, that I can’t really get over. How do you go from haughty, arrogant, and “trust is for children and dogs”, to “I don’t enjoy hurting people” in just a couple of hours? The show never indicated that it was a manipulation tactic on Loki’s part. Instead, we were basically told to believe that they became friends just that fast. That emotionally stunted and closed-off Loki made a connection with another person in a matter of hours. Makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mobius and feel he makes a good foil for Loki. I hope to see more of him in the future. I just have a tough time finding their friendship all that believable.

This would not be the only relationship in the show that happened too fast that we were forced to just buy, which leads me to Sylvie.

She’s the variant that the TVA had been hunting, that Mobius recruited Loki to help capture. And while I normally hate it when people ascribe a certain label onto a new female character because reasons (ones that are usually misogynistic), I think it fits rather well in Sylvie’s case.

Enter The Mary Sue

Mary Sue is a term that gets thrown around a lot. To sum up the meaning in very simple terms, it refers to a character who is too perfect to be believable. Mary Sues are often author-self inserts in fiction, they’re usually the love interest for at least one male hero and it’s usually the male hero the author will admit to having a crush on, their scenes usually are presented much more descriptively than those of the other characters, the story will revolve around them often at the expense of the development and plots for the other characters of the story, and they’re presented as beautiful, powerful, intelligent, beautiful, special, strong, beautiful, and desirable. Yes, beautiful is on the list more than once, and it’s deliberate.

The term comes from an old Star Trek parody fanfic, and while it is usually applied to original characters in fan fiction, the term has been used to describe characters in canon media as well. Some examples of characters who have been described as Mary Sues would include Bella from the Twilight books, Felicity from the show Arrow, Jaenelle Angelline from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewel novels, Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood, Rey from the last Star Wars trilogy, and Jean Grey from the X-Men comics. Note I do not necessarily agree that those characters are Mary Sues, I have merely heard these characters referred to as Mary Sues, and when I look at them objectively I can kind of see where the accusations come from. Some other terms that can apply are Creator’s Pet and of course Author Self-Insert. Not all Mary Sues are Author Self-Inserts, but a lot of them are. Also, not all characters who can be labeled Mary Sues are female, though they often are. The male version of a Mary Sue is called a Marty Stu, and a couple of characters I’ve seen get ascribed that label include Harry Potter, Daemon Sadi from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewel novels, Edward from Twilight, and Red Hulk from Marvel Comics. Even Batman and Wolverine haven’t been immune from the Marty Stu stamp, although you can argue that it does apply in their cases especially depending on who’s writing them. Sometimes it is painfully obvious they are author self-inserts...the aforementioned Bella is a good example. Others, you can only speculate on. And while there are theories going around that Sylvie is someone’s self-insert, we don’t have definitive proof of that.

There are good arguments, however, for her being labeled a Mary Sue and Creator’s Pet.

First are her powers. In the show we are told that Sylvie taught herself magic, especially her ability to “enchant”, the power to get into the minds of others and manipulate them. The fact that she taught herself would indicate that her education and skill in using magic should be lacking, right? She should not be as good as, say, someone who learned magic from his foster mother who herself was taught by Asgardian witches?

Yet in the show, Sylvie not only runs circles around Loki magically wise, she even teaches him a few tricks. This is startlingly in contrast to the comics. Loki’s Sylvie is partially based on the character Sylvie Lushton from the Young Avengers, a bad guy who was once a normal girl whom Loki imbued with powers before his death at the hands of the Sentry during the events of 2010’s Siege storyline. In the comics, Loki not only gave Sylvie her powers, but he was the one who taught her how to use them. Now, of course things in the MCU are not going to follow the way things are in the comics. MCU Loki is nowhere near as old as comics Loki and has so far not demonstrated the ability to give other beings powers. And MCU Sylvie is a composite of Sylvie Lushton and Lady Loki, which is also problematic, but we’ll get to that.

But the point is that Sylvie had no training. Her magic is some improvised slapped-together stuff that at best she picked up here and there and at worst she just pulled out of her ass. Now, knowing that, we’re supposed to buy that she can mop the floor magically wise with someone who was formally trained by a sorceress? And that furthermore, she can school him as well?

To make up for her lack of experience and knowledge, Loki is nerfed. Power wise and intellectually wise, he is nerfed. In Thor and Avengers Loki is smart, well-spoken, and a master manipulator. At one point he is able to turn all of the Avengers against one another, and while his magic has never been anywhere near the level it was at in the comics pre-Siege (after his resurrection, he was powered down and is currently nowhere near the powerhouse he had been prior to 2011) he was able to pull off some impressive displays of skill nonetheless. Shape shifting, illusion casting, it was a good repertoire.  

In Episode 3, however...well, he does use teleportation to some impressive affect during his fight with Sylvie, but he still doesn’t get the upperhand. And he should. Loki is a better trained fighter, better trained in sorcery, and realistically should have at the least managed to incapacitate his variant. He doesn’t however, because the moment he meets Sylvie his IQ drops about 20 points. He falls easily for her tricks, makes laughable plans, gets drunk and draws too much attention when he knows that is a bad idea, and manages to get them both stuck on a moon that will soon be dust courtesy of the rogue planet about to crash into it. Loki has made some blunders in the various MCU movies he’s been in, mostly due to his own arrogance and tendency to underestimate his foes, but he’s not that stupid. In fact, in The Dark World he screams at Thor and calls him an idiot for drawing attention to themselves by hijacking an elven ship and crashing into every column and statue within a fifty-foot radius.

Where exactly is that smart, calculating, more careful Loki we know from the films? He’s been transformed and dumbed down, in an attempt to prop Sylvie up. It’s a tired trope, making the male character a dumbass in order to make the female character look good. Well, I should say male-presenting and female-presenting characters in this case, but their supposed gender fluidity really is not represented well and it’s completely contradicted later on, but we’ll get to that.

Anyway, making the male character stupid in order to make the female character look better by comparison is not empowering. It’s insulting. It implies that women are not smart or capable enough to meet men on equal footing, that the only way we can shine is not by virtue of our own strengths, but merely by making us look better than the men.

She doesn’t just outshine Loki intellectually and power wise, she outshines him period. The show from Episode 3 on becomes about Sylvie. She is the show’s main focus, and Loki? He’s relegated to the role of supporting character in the series that’s named after him. Supporting character, and love interest. From Episode 3 on, the show might as well be called Sylvie.

Now, some people will say that since Sylvie is a Loki, the show was indeed focusing on Loki. The problem is, the show is very inconsistent as to whether or not Sylvie really is a Loki or a different person entirely. I will explain more later, but the writers seem to change Sylvie’s identity to suit whatever narrative they want to present to the audience, including the pre-Pixar Disney romance they foist upon us.

The Romance, and why some find it gross

One major characteristic of the Mary Sue is that she always draws the romantic and sexual interest of the main male character, who may or may not be a Marty Stu himself. Oftentimes he’s not, and Loki does not fit the criteria of a Marty Stu by any stretch of the imagination. These romances always happen fast with little to no buildup. There is no what writers of romance call “slow burn”, it’s just throw Mary at the male character, hook them up, and get the audience to buy it. Basically, it’s reminiscent of the romance stories in the Classical Era Disney animated films. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella all fall madly in love with their princes within minutes of meeting them. There’s no getting to know each other, there is no preamble, there is no slow courtship, no real drama to speak of. It’s basically Love At First Sight or True Love. This trend continues even into the Disney Renaissance. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel is willing to make a deal with a witch to give up her fins for a prince she hasn’t even spoken to yet. He doesn’t even know she exists, and she leaves her home and family behind, gives up her voice, all for a mere shot at hooking up with him.

That’s not love, that’s lust. That’s hormones overruling your brain, and it’s an insulting trope, one that feminists have railed against for years. Disney has made a little progress. The movie Frozen took the mickey out of the Love At First Sight/True Love trope with the song “Love Is An Open Door” and the prince Anna wanting to marry turning out to be a major sleazebag who just wants to use her, but we still only have three Disney princesses (Elsa, Moana, and Merida) who have never had love interests and two (Anna and Rapunzel) whose love stories come close to being slow burns, out of 12 official Princesses. There’s still a long way to go, and boy is there a major step backwards in Loki.  

In Episode 3, Loki fights Sylvie and they end up on Lamentis 1. Sylvie spends a good portion of the time insulting and trying to kill Loki, and Loki finds himself having to defend himself from her. That changes once they get on the train going to the Arc. After sneaking aboard the train using a disguise and a flimsy story, the two Lokis sit in a booth, where Loki proceeds to drink champagne. It is then that, out of nowhere, the conversation shifts from how Sylvie learned her powers to the topic of love.

Why? Why would you bring that up in conversation with someone who was doing her best to kill you a couple hours prior?

Then Loki makes things worse by asking Sylvie if she has a beau waiting for her. Why? It doesn’t make sense. The two of you are at each other’s throats, she’s done her best to kill you, neither of you trusts the other, and, completely out of left field, you decide to basically ask “So...are you single?”

Now, enemies to lovers is a trope that can work when done right. Typically, it’s a very subtle, slow progression that the audience witnesses over time in a novel, movie or television series. Weeks and even months will go by in the narrative during which the two people go from wanting each other dead to developing feelings for one another. There’s usually a “will they, won’t they period” that lasts for some time that’s full of teases and flirting before the couple does hook up and gives the audience the resolution. Done in this way, enemies to lovers can work.

This...this is not the right way to do enemies to lovers. Within a couple of hours Loki and Sylvie go from hatred and doing their damnedest to stabbing one another in the backs, to having a connection that causes a nexus event?

By the way, that nexus event makes no sense. In Episode 2, it is established that it is impossible to create a nexus event in an apocalypse. It is why Sylvie was able to avoid capture by the TVA for so long. In fact, just minutes prior to the two of them almost dying in Episode 4, Sylvie flat-out says that she figured out that she needed to hide in apocalypses because she discovered she didn’t create a nexus event when she hid in them.

Now the two of them are able to create a nexus event in the midst of an apocalypse? Why? Their “connection” isn’t going to lead to any consequences...they were about to die. No one else need never have known about the “moment” the two of them shared. It’s very confusing and the only purpose it really serves is to paint Loki and Sylvie as soulmates, which doesn’t make sense in the context of the show. The concept of soulmates is that for every person, there is someone out there they are predestined to be with. Loki is a show that, at the core of it, is about rejecting predestination and embracing free will. In that context, the idea of soulmates is ludicrous and contradictory to the message that we make our own destiny. This is why True Love is unrealistic, and I hate to break it to you romantics out there, but Love At First sight does not exist.

Infatuation At First Sight exists, but that is not Love, no matter what your hormones are telling you. Love takes time to evolve, and it takes work to maintain. It sure as hell doesn’t happen after less than 12 hours of knowing each other, during which a huge chunk of time was devoted to trying to manipulate, outsmart, and murder the person you’re supposedly in love with. No one falls in love in less than 12 hours, period, unless it’s a Classical Era Disney animated movie. They basically turned Loki into a big Disney Romance trope. I have a very hard time buying that Loki, who we have established is emotionally stunted and closed off, would form a love connection in just a few hours, especially with someone who was doing her best to murder him in that timespan.

That is not the only reason this relationship is problematic. The term “Selfcest” has been thrown around, and a lot of defenders of this particular ship claim that the term was very recently made up in social media for the sole purpose of badmouthing this particular romance. That is not the case. Selfcest is a term that has existed among fiction writers for years, it’s just that more people have recently become aware of it thanks to this show. The trope has been used and referred to in various works of fiction, especially in fantasy and science fiction where cloning, alternative universes, and magic occur. A lot of the insults I get from people who can’t stand that I don’t like the romance basically go along the lines of saying selfcest doesn’t exist. No, it doesn’t...in reality. But this isn’t reality, is it? It’s fiction. It’s a fictional world where such a thing could be possible, and even in works where it’s not possible it’s often alluded to.

In A Song Of Ice And Fire, we have the infamous twincest relationship going on between Cersei and Jamie Lannister, and it is heavily implied that sleeping with her brother is the closest that Cersei can get to banging herself and that is why she does it. Jamie is basically everything she feels she should have been and was denied due to being born a woman. In fact, in later books when he reunites with her after having been away from King’s Landing for over a year, during which time he’s grown a beard and shaved his head, Cersei no longer finds him as attractive since they no longer look as much alike.

And with advances in cloning, selfcest might be possible in the future. We already have sex robots, and people with money are capable of making those robots look like themselves. There is nothing stopping them from doing it.

Knowing all of this, the argument of “selfcest doesn’t exist!” falls flat. And it especially falls flat when you’re referring to a fictional universe where a large purple man once killed off half the population of said universe with a snap of his fingers, where scientists turn into giant green monsters, the Norse gods not only exist but regularly interact with people on Earth, and there’s such a thing as a Sorcerer Supreme.

As I have said, the show has been rather inconsistent in stating what exactly Sylvie’s identity is. One moment, we are told Sylvie is a Loki and that she and Loki are the same person. Mobius says it, Kang says it multiple times, Judge Renslayer says it, the director and the writers state it in interviews. But then in the next breath, they contradict it by saying that she’s not a Loki, she’s Sylvie and a different person.  

You can’t have it both ways. Which is it? Either she’s a Loki, or she’s not. The narrative is very confusing and it changes depending on how they want us to see Sylvie, especially in relation to her romance with Loki. It’s so much easier to avoid the selfcest/incest accusations when you can say they are different people. But then they say they’re the same person. Make up your minds!

Since the show first established that Sylvie is a Loki, I’m going with that. Especially since we saw a bit of her backstory. She grew up in Asgard as a member of the royal family, which means she had Odin as a father, Frigga as mother, and Thor as brother. She may or may not have the same DNA as Loki. We never got confirmation either way, and there are people who argue that they don’t to which I have to ask: How do you know? The show never tells us! “Oh, well, there’s Alligator Loki, are you going to say he has the same DNA as well?” Well, we are never told how exactly Alligator Loki came to be. Is he actually an alligator, or is he Loki who somehow got permanently stuck when he shapeshifted? People tend to forget that he can do that. Ragnarok established that he can turn into a snake, and a deleted scene actually had the childhood story go that Loki turned into a rug to cover a hole in the ground and then dumped Thor into it. There is the scene where Doctor Strange drops Loki through a portal, and Thor is left poking at a business card, and it is clear that for a moment he thinks that Loki turned into that. We know Loki can shapeshift, so Alligator Loki can very well have the same DNA. We just don’t know, because the show never explains it for the same reason the show cut out the scenes with Throg fighting Loki...to devote more screentime to Sylki.

Even if they don’t have the same DNA, it’s still established that they are the same person, they have the same family, they’re both the God/dess of Mischief, and even Sylvie herself acknowledges that she is a Loki despite the fact that she changed her name. So selfcest very much applies here, and a good argument can be made that selfcest is the ultimate in incest...after all, there isn’t anyone else you’re more related to than yourself. It is very understandable, therefore, that a lot of people would be very, very uncomfortable with such a relationship. Having the same DNA would merely be the icing on the very gross cake.

Furthermore, just because selfcest does not exist in reality does not mean someone can’t find the concept distasteful. “It’s not real!” “It’s just fiction!” Yes, and people are allowed to have their own feelings and opinions on fiction. If they find the idea of selfcest hard to stomach, that’s their prerogative and you really have no right to tell them they are wrong for feeling that way. They should not have to justify to anyone why they feel that way either. No one owes you an explanation for why they find real world incest or cannibalism distasteful, so they don’t owe you an explanation for this.

“Well, of course Loki would fall for himself...he’s a narcissist!” Is he though? Is he really? Having dealt with my fair share of narcissists in my life, I have to wonder if the fans who say that, along with the writers, know what a narcissist really is.

Is Loki a narcissist?

Bringing up Cersei Lannister again, the novels she appears in establishes that she is an extreme narcissist. She sleeps with her twin brother because it’s the closest she can come to sleeping with herself, and she desires to do that because she is a narcissist. A narcissist is someone whose personality is defined by an inflated sense of self-importance, troubled relationships, lack of empathy for others, and an excessive deep-seated need for attention and admiration. It’s a very simplistic definition, and there are plenty of YouTube videos devoted to delving into narcissists into more depth, as well as videos on how to cope with the aftermath of abuse at the hands of narcissists. Narcissists are so devoted to themselves that they ignore the needs and the feelings of those in their lives, which often results in abusive behavior. There are entire support groups that exist for victims of narcissists.

At first glance, one can see why some might consider Loki a narcissist. He does engage in some pretty selfish behavior, he goes to great lengths to get attention, his relationships to his family are indeed fraught with drama, and he seems to have a pretty overinflated ego. He even goes so far as to write a play featuring himself as the central character, and build a giant golden statue of himself after taking over Asgard in the guise of Odin. But really, is his ego truly that big? Or he is overcompensating for his self-hatred and self-disgust?

Loki suffered quite the emotional blow when he found out his true heritage, a revelation that shook him to his very core. Of course, his relationship with his father suffered as a result...the man lied to him for his entire life. Their relationship really was not that great even before that since Odin found it easier to relate to Thor, who was more like him in personality, than to Loki, who was more cerebral and quieter. Loki’s relationship to Frigga fared much better. He’s quick to forgive her involvement in covering up the truth about his parentage, and it is obvious that they are close. Even his relationship with Thor prior to the events of the movie is not all that bad, the two brothers are affectionate and playful, and when Loki interrupts Thor’s coronation, it’s not just for the sake of creating trouble, but to postpone Thor taking the crown for another little while because he is not fit to rule. At the time Thor had yet to go through his character development arc on Earth and he was still an overly arrogant, bloodthirsty, elitist douchebag, so Loki really had a good point.

A true narcissist would have done what Loki did just for the sake of making life difficult for Thor. Also, he would have done it because he wanted the throne. Loki states repeatedly that he never wanted to rule. A true narcissist would have been all smiles about taking the throne instead of being reluctant about it as Loki was when Frigga handed him Gungnir.

Throughout the films, and in the first episode of the series, we see that Loki does indeed love his family and is capable of feeling guilt over the things that he does to them, intentionally or not. Narcissists typically don’t feel remorse. As far as they are concerned, they are perfect and can do no wrong, so they have nothing to feel bad about. If they hurt you, it’s because you deserved it. You shouldn’t have provoked their ire.

Loki feels bad for getting Frigga killed, and then later on Odin. Then he is in tears when Odin dies, and later at the mere thought of never seeing Thor again when the two brothers talk in an elevator on Sakaar. Those are not the actions of someone who is incapable of loving anyone but himself, as I’ve seen so many people claim about him. And the fact that he sacrificed himself to save his brother also kind of kills the whole “narcissist” narrative.

In Episode 1, Loki breaks down and confesses to Mobius that he doesn’t like hurting people. He does it because it’s part of the façade, and admits that he sees himself as weak. A few episodes later, he admits to a memory illusion Sif that he craves attention “because I’m a narcissist” and admits to being afraid of being alone. That is far more self-reflection than a typical narcissist is capable of in my experience. As I said, narcissists tend to think they are perfect. A true narcissist would never admit to having any flaws, and sure as hell would never admit that they are a narcissist. As far as the true narcissist is concerned, if you find them flawed in any way, that’s on you. The narcissist has no need for self-reflection because they honestly see nothing wrong with themselves, and believe that they don’t need to change...it’s everyone else who does.

A good real-life example from my past is a former friend I’ll call D. D was a self-proclaimed brat who was quite proud of the fact that she could be difficult to be in a relationship with and tended to go through men like tissue paper. She was demanding, self-centered, extremely jealous, manipulative, and prone to wild mood swings. She could and did go from zero to insane at the drop of a hat. In the time I knew her, she left a string of burnt guys behind, and according to her it was because they just weren’t man enough to handle her. She also left behind a string of broken former friends, to the point where there really needed to be a support group for former friends of D who suddenly had her turn them into Public Enemy Number 1 when they either started taking attention away from D, or...well, that was it really. As I said, she was a very jealous person and had a chronic need to be the center of attention, especially if there were men around. Anyway, instead of working on herself to become less self-involved, self-absorbed, and more empathetic, she double downed on her abrasiveness and constant need for attention until she finally wore the poor man down and he either ghosted her or outright dumped her. She never broke up with them, preferring to keep them around for as long as they were willing in order to toy with them as a cat does with a mouse.  I tried to talk to her about her horrible behavior, but instead of taking my constructive criticism and maybe using it to make some needed changes, she completely turned on me and did her best to make my life hell until I finally cut her out of it. I learned two things: Narcissists don’t want help because they don’t feel they need it and they are never going to change as a result, and never, ever try to confront a narcissist. It’ll only end badly.  

A more famous example? Former US President Donald Trump. I won’t get into that, because really all you need to do is perform a quick Google search to see what all he’s done and witness his narcissism on full display. But really, place him side by side with Loki. Do you see any similarities at all? Maybe on the surface, but when you go deeper...no. Loki is not a narcissist. He’s capable of deep self-reflection, owns his faults, is capable of loving others, and feels remorse. I would argue that anyone who says he is a narcissist, either does not know the character, or hasn’t ever actually dealt with a narcissist in real life, to which I can only say: Lucky you.  

I honestly would argue that calling Loki a narcissist is actually doing a disservice to victims of abuse from actual narcissists.

What about Sylvie? Well, in contrast to Loki who does show remorse while Mobius is playing that “This Is Your Life” reel for him, Sylvie shows no remorse or regret. She knows that the TVA agents she kills are as much victims as she is. They are innocent variants who were kidnapped from Earth and forced to work for the TVA after having their memories wiped. She knows this, yet the first time we see her she burns a bunch of TVA agents alive, and she just stands there watching as they scream in agony. In the next episode she says right out that she’s “having some fun” while possessing the body of C-90 and murdering more agents. She is not at all sorry about doing what she did, and we’re supposed to be understanding since she was kidnapped as a child. Okay, but the entire TVA didn’t do that. The agents she kills didn’t personally kidnap her. The only one we see who was directly involved in that is Renslayer. Sylvie “did what she had to do”, fine. But she doesn’t feel bad about it, at all. The flashback to her as a child takes great pains to try to show us what a good person she is when she cries out “Help him!” as another prisoner is being beaten, but I guess she grew out of it.

We don’t know if Sylvie has any other narcissistic traits besides lack of remorse because, well, the show really doesn’t do much to show her personality. Other than killing people, trying to kill Loki, and then flirting with Loki, we just don’t really see much to her. It’s another trait of a Mary Sue. Mary Sues often have bland, one-dimensional personalities. After all, their only purpose is usually to serve as love interests for one or more male characters. Mary Sues break the “show, don’t tell” rule by having the other characters verbally inform us about their traits, usually while singing their praises, but we don’t actually see those traits in the Mary Sue herself.

Loki calls Sylvie “amazing”, but how amazing is she, really? She kills people she knows are victims, she endangers the timeline just to sneak into the TVA, and then she kills Kang despite knowing that there is a very good chance that doing so could unleash something far, far worse than him. Then again, it doesn’t have to make sense when you’re pushing an unwanted and unasked for romance on an audience who was expecting a scifi show, not a romance.

I have spoken in a few places about this. Romance is fine, but in a show that blatantly places itself in the scifi genre, it really should only be the background, not center stage. When I expressed this opinion, I got accused of being dismissive of an essential part of the human experience. Well, first of all, congratulations: You just invalidated the existence of people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums, not to mention people who are celibate by choice. Second, that is why we have the romance genre. To tell stories centered around romance. I like romance, I read romance novels, and I sometimes write romantic fiction. But there are some places where it just is not appropriate.

There are people who say that adding romance makes things more interesting. Nope, in those cases it’s just a smokescreen, something used to hide plot holes and distract us from just how empty the story really is. Writers like to say that if you need a romance to make things more interesting, then you really don’t have much of a story in the first place. And sadly, Loki does have some plot holes. The nexus event on Lamentis is a good example, and the romance is definitely used to distract us from that. People were so focused on “oh wow, they’re having a moment, they’re soulmates!” that they didn’t think “waitaminute...didn’t they say that nexus events can’t occur in apocalypses?”

We really did not need a romance in Loki. Period. It was unnecessary, it was distracting, a lot of people found it disturbing, and it actively hurt a marginalized group.

Loki Is A Queer Icon!...maybe

I am not going to say that the relationship between Loki and Sylvie is not a bisexual one. A bisexual relationship is a bisexual relationship regardless of whether or not the person the bisexual person is with is the opposite sex. Saying otherwise is biphobic. Biphobic people in both the straight and the queer communities have been excluding bisexual people who happen to be in opposite sex relationships for years because apparently one stops being bisexual once they get into a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. This is horseshit. I’ve been in relationships with CIS men, did I stop being attracted to other men, women, nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and other genderqueer people? No. No, I didn’t, because while I was entangled, I was not dead. Heterosexual people don’t stop being attracted to other members of the opposite sex when they are in relationships, it’s no different with queer people.

So, stop saying that Loki and Sylvie are not a bisexual relationship. You’re not doing us any favors at all, and in fact you’re only helping the biphobes who want to kick us out of Pride and other queer spaces for daring to date members of the opposite sex.

I will address the “Bit of both” line however. In Episode 3, Loki has that response to Sylvie’s questioning about whether there had been any would-be princesses or princes in his life. Again, a conversation that comes out of nowhere. She stated outright that she didn’t trust him, clearly wanted him dead, and now she’s asking if he’s single. Whatever.

Anyway, people went nuts when Loki answered “A bit of both”. It was confirmation that Loki was bisexual, it was celebrated on social media...and it is really biphobic and Kate Herron, who is bisexual herself, really should have known better.

Biphobic people have long tried to sow division between the bi and trans communities (unsurprisingly, biphobia and transphobia tend to go hand-in-hand) by saying that the concept of being bisexual is transphobic. “Bi” means two, ergo bisexual people are only attracted to two genders, specifically CIS men and CIS women. It never occurs to anyone that the “two genders” a bisexual person could be attracted to could be, say, women (and yes, I include trans women in that, since they are in fact women, get over it) and non-binary people, or agender and gender-fluid people, it’s always CIS men and CIS women. This despite the fact that the definition of bisexual has been “attraction to more than one gender” since long before the Bisexual Manifesto was put out in 1990.

Some people have tried to remedy this by adopting the moniker of “pansexual” instead, which A) is basically reinforcing what biphobes are saying about bisexuals and creating even more division and B) doesn’t just mean “attraction to trans people as well, I’m not transphobic, I promise!” “Pansexual” is not interchangeable with “bisexual”. Pansexual is attraction to all genders. Bisexual means attraction to more than one gender, but not necessarily to all genders. You can have a bisexual person, for instance, who is attracted to all genders except for men. If you are attracted to more than one gender, but not to all genders, you are bisexual, and labeling yourself pansexual is lying and basically caving in to the biphobes.

I’m not trying to police what people call themselves...if you want to use the two terms interchangeably, if you want to call yourself bisexual, or pansexual, it’s fine. But just evaluate the reasons why. Are you calling yourself pansexual because you really think you can be, or are you just calling yourself that out of fear of being labeled transphobic? The latter, in my opinion, is not a really good reason, and it only helps deliver the biphobic message that bisexual people are transphobic.

So, by saying “a bit of both”, Loki is really helping to reinforce that biphobic assertion that bisexual people are attracted just to CIS men and CIS women. It’s disappointing, but it is Disney so I suppose that is the best we can expect for now. It just shows that Disney really has a long way to go.

What’s more problematic is the supposed genderfluid representation. Now, I am a CIS woman. As such, I feel unqualified to really say that the representation is shitty and fluidphobic. However, if I’m not qualified to say that it is, then Kate Herron and the writers are unqualified to say that it isn’t. Rule of thumb: If members of a marginalized group are telling you that you did a poor job of representing them and that you are being transphobic or fluidphobic, instead of ignoring and dismissing their concerns like a good portion of the population already does, it’s a really good idea to listen to what they are saying and learn how you can do better.

There have been some genderfluid and trans people who expressed that they liked the show, and good for them. But I have seen a lot of very valid criticisms and concerns from genderfluid and trans people about the representation on the show, and I think they really should be listened to. Kate, you and I are queer, but we are still CIS women. Ergo, we have no say in whether or not the way you attempted to present Loki’s gender fluidity is transphobic. If genderfluid people say it’s fluidphobic or trans people say it’s transphobic, then it is indeed fluidphobic/transphobic. To say otherwise is gaslighting a marginalized community who already faces gaslighting on a daily basis.

I will touch on a couple of things.

First, in Episode 5, Loki asks a bunch of his variants if they have ever encountered a female version of themselves, a question that is met with varying levels of incredulousness and even disgust. If Loki was truly genderfluid, this question wouldn’t have been asked. Genderfluid means the person shifts genders along the spectrum. Loki does this in the comics. Comicbook Loki switches between masculine and feminine presenting on the drop of a dime, especially in his current incarnation. Loki in the MCU we are told is also genderfluid, and should also be able to hop along the gender spectrum on a whim. There should not be a “female variant” therefore, since they are all the same gender. There could be a female presenting variant, but that is not the same thing. They would still be all genderfluid in that case. Also, Sylvie’s nexus event would not have been “being born the Goddess of Mischief”. Okay, the show never actually says that is the nexus event that led to her being arrested, but it heavily implies it. If Sylvie is a Loki, and as a Loki is genderfluid, her being the “Goddess” of Mischief should never have been an issue since they can change genders anyway.

Second, making Lady Loki a separate person is problematic. A lot of genderfluid people felt that this move invalidated their identity by basically showing that the same person cannot indeed be different genders along the spectrum. I don’t feel I’m totally qualified to really get into this. I will just say that if you’re going to write a genderfluid character, maybe at least get an actual genderfluid person to advise in the writing room.

Third, there is a transphobic movement called trans exclusionary radical feminism. You might have heard of it. Unfortunately, it is a very widespread movement that has done a lot of harm to the trans community, successfully blocking funding to organizations that help trans people, blocking laws that would benefit trans people, and the movement includes celebrities like Graham Linehan and JK Rowling.

One of the weapons they like to use against trans women is the concept of “autogynephilia”. It is basically the sexual fetish of becoming aroused from thinking of oneself as a woman.  Many, many of these transphobic “feminists” love to say that trans women are merely men who have this particular sexual fetish.

It’s bullshit of course. Maybe there is a small segment of the male population that has that fetish, but trans women are not included in that. For trans women, things like dressing as women, changing their names, having state and federal issued IDs that say they are female, and being able to use the restrooms and change rooms that match the gender they actually are as opposed to the one they were assigned at birth is not a matter of sexual arousal. It’s a matter of making their external realities match their internal ones. It’s a matter of validation of their identities as women. Sexual gratification has nothing to do with it.

Now, Loki is not trans, but genderfluid people do tend to fall under the trans umbrella. We have Loki, a supposedly genderfluid individual and masculine presenting, falling head over heels in love with a feminine presenting version of himself. Maybe it’s just me, but it just seems like a form of autogynephilia to me.

Way to go, Kate...you just gave the TERFs more ammo.

One more note: At one point, Kate tweeted a list of the different Loki emojis, and “jokingly” included #FiretruckLoki with an emoji of a firetruck. Kate, you do realize that a “joke” transphobes love to harp on is that they can identify as an attack helicopter, right?

It’s his way of learning self-love!

That is not how you learn self-love.

First, the people who are making this argument often contradict themselves by then saying that Sylvie is a different person. Again, make up your minds. Either Sylvie is the same person as Loki, or she’s not. You can’t have it both ways, and you can’t continue to change the narrative to fit whatever it is you want to shove down the audience’s throats.

Second, romantic love and self-love are two different things entirely. Loki isn’t feeling self-love with Sylvie, he’s feeling romantic love. That’s not learning self-love. That's narcissism, and it’s character regression in his case. He’s supposed to be evolving past being a self-centered, egotistical shitweasel, and falling in love with a variant of himself makes him, as Mobius put it, “a seismic narcissist”. It’s not character development.  

Third, this argument tends to come in the same breath as saying that Loki is a narcissist so of course he would fall for a variant of himself. If Loki is a narcissist though, why would he need to learn self-love? Narcissists already love themselves, that is the very definition of the word. If Loki needs to learn self-love, that would imply that he actually hates himself, which is the opposite of narcissism. Again, the writers and the fans who make these arguments when they feel the need to defend this relationship need to make up their minds. Either he’s a narcissist and therefore already loves himself too much, or he hates himself and needs to learn to love himself. It’s once again changing the narrative to fill a plothole.  

Fourth, the whole learning self-love and trust narrative is completely thrown out the window in Episode 6 when Sylvie decides to toy with Loki’s emotions, using his feelings for her against him by kissing him as a distraction so she could grab Kang’s temp pad and toss Loki back to the TVA. To Sylvie, her revenge was more important than the bond she had with him. The move basically set Loki’s progress back several steps. What little progress he made anyway.

TL:DR, is there hope for Season 2?

Whew, this went on for a while, didn’t it? Told you I had a lot to say.

As I have said, if you liked the first season of Loki and think I am completely full of shit, that’s fine and it’s your prerogative. More power to you.  

But, and this is a huge but, that does not give you the right to harass and bully people who did not like it.

I have witnessed horrible things from both sides of the now split Loki fandom on social media. Harassment and even death threats towards the creators. Telling people who don’t like the Loki and Sylvie relationship that they need to drink bleach. Homophobic attacks. Gatekeeping.  

There’s constructive criticism and sharing your opinions, and then there is...this.

Both sides need to chill.

Anyway.

Even though Kate Herron has left the show, Michael Waldron is still the showrunner and as such I am not altogether optimistic for Season 2. I would like to see more emphasis on Loki himself for that season. Yes, it’s a novel thought, wanting a show that is called Loki to actually be about Loki, but here we are.

I would like to see actual character development in Loki rather than the old “true love transforms bad boy and conquers all” trope. There is a reason Disney has started to abandon that trope in their animated movies. They’ve been getting dragged about it for decades.

If Sylvie must return, there needs to be some actual consistency surrounding her character. The show needs to decide if she is a Loki or not and stick with whichever one they decide. And seriously, no more romance. Frankly, after what she pulled in Episode 6, I will be severely disappointed if the writers have Loki crawling back to her. That would make him pathetic, and Loki deserves better.

Really, Loki does not need a romance, period. He’s too emotionally immature, he has a lot of character growth to go through, and a romance would do nothing but be a distraction and an impediment to that growth. Anyone who got married too young can confirm that it is important to learn more about yourself and figure yourself out before you even think of getting involved with another person, who should not be your whole world. The Loki and Sylvie romance was reminding me of Classic Disney in another not-good way in that the two of them, especially on Loki’s side, were starting to revolve around one another and that does not make for a healthy relationship. Again, turning Loki into a Disney Prince (or, seeing as how he’s supposed to be genderfluid, Princess). Stop it.

Again, the romance was a smokescreen. It was a distraction from just how thin the plot was. Please, for the love of G-d, give more focus to the actual plot.

Do some research and talk to some psychologists for healthy ways Loki can “learn self-love" and develop as a character. If Ragnarok Loki can do it without relying on a romance with a variant with himself, then surely TVA Loki can pull it off.

Speaking of talking to people, listen to the concerns of the trans and genderfluid fans. Listen, talk to them, maybe get a couple in the writer’s room. CIS people should not write genderfluid people, and this season is a good example of why.

Please remember that Loki is not an idiot. Yes, he has pulled some fast ones and hasn’t been the greatest planner, but he is not downright stupid like he was in season 1.

And...really that’s all I have. As I have said, this thesis really wasn’t about making suggestions to the creators because I seriously doubt they will ever even see this. This was more less me screaming into the void, venting because I was that upset about what I saw as character assassination happening to one of my favorite characters. Keeping all of this in was proving to be bad for my blood pressure.  

I am attached to the character, have been for years. Loki is just one character in the MCU who I love, who I want to see done right. I had been looking forward to his solo series for a very long time, and the disappointment I felt was something that I just couldn’t keep in. I kept my mouth shut when they killed off Tony Stark for no reason other than that Ronnie Downey, Jr. didn't want to renew his contract. I didn’t say anything at the Russo Brothers’ “happy ending” for Steve Rogers, even though I feel it made no sense and is a massive plot hole.  

What they did to Loki, however...I couldn’t keep silent.

#loki series negativity #anti sylki

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Insurrection.”

Hope ou guys like this one and how it turned out. I am super excited to write the aftermath of all of this tomorrow, so stick around for that obviously :)

Have a great day. 

“Adam, Damnit Adam, wake up!” The man lay on the floor of the shuttle head tilted back mouth open, fast asleep. Krill didn’t mind him sleeping, but there was one problem.

The life support.

This shuttle was clearly only meant for short detours in space, probably to one of those passing space stations or satellites. Krill would have flown the ship himself, but it turned out that his armspan wasn’t wide enough to break both beams of light at the same time. Either way he could only move the ship forward, away from any help, or in useless circles.

Overhead, a low rumbling was the siren for the ship.

“Commander, please wake up.”

The man didn’t move, his chest and stomach moving up and down slowly in his sleep, an unnatural sleep.

Krill turned to look around the shuttle, trying to find anything he could use to wake the man, but no luck, he could find nothing. The ship was a wasteland of useful tools, and he was suffering.

He had just moved to the front of the ship, and was trying to reach the two beams of light, without any luck, when there was a bright flash of light before him in the darkness. With a yelp, he staggered back and tripped onto the floor holding his arms out to block the horrifically burning light before him. When the light did not abate, he rolled onto his side and hid his face against the floor.

He wasn’t sure what was happening.

Had someone found them? Was there an explosion of some sort?

What was going on.

Finally the light subsided and he was able to lift his arms, still reeling from the blast of luminance that had poured down on him.

Looking out the window.

He froze in awe, surprise, and shock.

The Space dragon stared back at him, its massive head arching up into infinity, its great solar-sale wings spread around it.

Behind him, Commander Vir moaned, and krill turned to look as the man pushed himself to his hands and knees and then lifted his head. 

***

“Deus”

Commander Vir sat on the floor of the shuttle in astonishment.

“I….. its… you.”

The dragon dipped it’s head just slightly curling through the air like a massive ribbon spun through the air.

“What are you doing here.” HE asked taking to his feet and walking over to the viewing window.”

The dragon did not answer, but spun in a tight circle.

“Well…. I. I don't know how you got here, but look, we are running out of air and desperately need to get back home. I would owe you forever if you helped us.”

Adam couldn’t hear anything of course, and even the inside of his head was quiet, but, somehow, he got the sense that the creature was laughing. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but he definitely hoped that it was laughing with him and not at him.

“You will need to hold on.” 

IT was the last thing the dragon said before racing out with the end of it’s tail, wrapping tightly around the ship, and then spinning in a tight circle.

Krill and Adam ended up plastered together against the far wall with the sudden acceleration.

And then came a bright flash of light, and they were gone.

***

They had been found out.

Of course, Sunny had expected as much. She didn’t imagine that a bunch of brightly colored butterfly burg, imprisoned for 400 years would go unnoticed by the rest of the hive, but there it was.

They knew that something was going on, and had begun pulling back towards the throne room to protect the queen. Luckily for her and her people, the shock troopers had managed to surround most of the large pockets of Burg fighters and were holding them off OF course, that did not stop everyone from making it back, and Sunny and the others were forced to dewal with an increased flux of burg as they retreated back down the tunnels.

She tried her best not to kill too many of them, but there was really no other choice when they got in her way.

On any other day she would have been happy to run them all through with great prejudice, but she was keenly aware of the burg king lurking at the back of their group, and didn’t want to ruin diplomatic relations before they even started.

Hijan was somewhere on the other side of the throne room, with the egg, waiting for her cue.

Sunny and the others were almost there, and ready for whatever was to come.

Behind her, Cannon Ramirez and Thomas covered the burg king, Thomas having all the luck of his brother and being covered in a thick layer of blue icor from the Burg he had helped to Kill. 

THe man wasn’t as good as the marines, but he had enthusiasm.

She still couldn’t stand how much he looked like Adam, and his death brought bitter emotions rising into her throat.

She choked them back down spinning her spear behind her back as she crouched on the floor, one knee planted and waiting.

They were there for a good half hour before she gave the signal, and the group of them began to move forward.

The doors to the throne room were well protected, but, sending Ramirez around to one side as a second distraction, she watched as they were drawn away by his yelling voice and the gunfire. He would be fine seeing that the king had given them inside information on the layout of the palace, not that she would call this place much of a palace (more like a cesspool) but to each their own.

But together, the remaining group of them hurried forward towards the open door, cracking it open with only a slight rumble, and sneaking into the shadows behind a tall line of stalagmites rising from the floor in front of them.

Cannon and Thomas stacked up behind her as she pressed herself against the wall.

Looking around the room, sunny made a face of absolute disgust.

She could see, by way of delicate beams of light trickling form vents high above, and in that way she could see the throne room, covered in slimy moss, gelatinous ooze of a creamy white substance.

Some of it, held what she could only assume to be eggs, though that confused her considering the burg king told her the egg room was down the hall in the other direction.

“What has she done.” The king whispered in disgust.

Sunny was glad to hear it because she wasn’t entirely sure what she would have to think of him if this was the normal state of things.

It wasn’t just the slime and the thin beams of wan yellow light, but the floor was covered in refuse, mostly molted skin in great slippery sheats, and discarded food. From the edges of the room, the floor roze up into a sort of high hillock where the queen sat now.

Adam came unbidden to her mind again as she thought about what he might say of the sight.

Either: Jabba the Hutt called, he wants his body back, or something along those lines.

“Jeez.” Thomas whispered form her left, “Jabba the HUtt called, and he wants his girlfriend back.”

Sunny glowered down at him, and he went silent. Only Adam was allowed to make horrible star wars references.

Granted she had no doubt that Thomas had been forced into watching them with his little brother, but still it was Adam’s thing, no one else cared enough for it to count.

“What is happening.” THe queen demanded, and Sunny cringed again at the gelatinous way her voice spilled from her open mouth.

She only hoped the king was right when he said that the queen wasn’t supposed to look like that because if he was lying than they had the ugliest empress on the face of the universe. And just below her, there stood ranks of the royal guard. The biggest baddest, ugliest burg to go right along with her, with their massive mandibles and thick trunk-like legs.

“In position.” She whispered over her line 

And Hijan came back with a slow on and off of her mic, so she wouldn’t have to speak.

Sunny motioned the others off, and together they spread out in a wide circle keeping to the shadow and slowly surrounding the room.

That was Sunny’s cue.

With a deep breath, she stepped out into the light of the cave, hoping that everyone else was in position.

As soon as she appeared there was a sharp hiss as the burg drew up. The queen gurgled, “What are you doing here!” She demanded 

Sunny watched all the eyes turn to her, and planned on keeping them there as long as she could, “I am here to offer you terms of surrender. Either you step down peacefully as queen of the burg, or we remove you.” She lifted her spear, “The hard way.”

The queen gurgled some more, “You will not threaten me! Not when you are alone, and my guards still stand.”

There was a sharp hiss as the burg drew forward their weapons held ready.

“I am warning you now.” Sunny said, “One last time. You cannot win this fight. Better to live than to die in your own juices.”

That only made the queen more angry and she screeched, “Kill her!”

Sunny dove to the side just as sever projectiles of light energy shot through the spot where she had been.

The burg guards charged her, but not all of them made it more than a few steps before they were taken from behind.

Cannon appeared from the darkness spearing one through the back and caving in the skull of another with a brutal backhand to the face.

Hijan’s soldiers did the same, appearing out of the darkness and taking the distracted burg by storm.

Sunny continued rolling until she was behind a rock, and then unpredictably came out from above slamming into two of the guards with her spear. They hit the ground and she dispatched one before rolling away.

Someone screamed from the other side of the room, and she turned to watch as Thomas charged down from the top of the cave and straight towards the Burg, he shot one in the face before slipping on the slime and ending up on his back. A burg tried crawling over him, its weapon raised, but then thomas spat straight into its open mouth.

The reaction was immediate and grotesque as it fell to the ground clutching at its face.

Thomas stood, and with a huge grin, he ran around the room chasing after burg, and if he wasn’t shooting at them, he had turned himself into a spitting cobra.

Hijan appeared from behind a rock, the new egg cradled in one of her lower arms like a football.

Sunny ran a burg through with her spear.

Atop her pedestal the queen was screaming for her guards.

They tried to get close, but the burg were fighting ferociously, and more of them seemed to be appearing by the second, spilling from holes in the ground and up onto the surface.

Sunny yelled orders from where she stood.

They weren’t getting any closer.

Hijan was overrun for a moment but managed to break out, holding the egg up and away from grasping hands.

“Over here!” Someone shouted, and Hijan turned her head to find Ramirez not too far away, his hands raised.

She lobbed the egg underhand without a second thought, and Ramirez dived forward to catch it hitting the stone hard and then rolling behind a rock with the egg tucked to his chest.

The burg chased after him, but Hijan took out a few of their number.

Sunny hissed in pain as a blade cut her along the upper right arm, spinning her spear back and thrusting it forward into the chest of her attacker.

They were being pushed back towards the doors as more and more of them filtered up from the ground. Thomas stood on a rock and was spitting down onto the crowd indiscriminately as he had no need to aim.

Sunny snarled in frustration, still they were losing.

And then there came a plaintive cry of pain. It wasn’t very loud, but it made the room turn and look up to where the queen sat covered in blue as her own lifeblood trickled down her front, and over her stood the burg King, his magnificent kaleidoscope wings glittering like stained glass in a single shaft of sun. In one hand he held a sharpened blade, and as they watched he drew it even more forcibly across the queen’s throat.

Or at least the part below her face.

She flailed for a moment and then wriggled and then flopped wetly to the ground at his feet.

The room was silent.

And then an uproar.

“QUICK, THE EGG.” He bellowed. Ramirez had rolled out from behind a rock and raised his hand trying to figure out where to place it, a sea of burg between him and the burg king.

***

The orbital ring of the Burg home planet was awash with chaos. Debris was littered everywhere and it was taking all the maneuvering skill of the pilots not to destroy their ships on a ton of stell rocketing around the planet at thousands of miles an hour.

The burg fleet and the combined GA fleet were locked in combat. The GA fleet bigger and more powerful, the burg smaller but more nimble.

One of the Celzex light cruisers had been separated from the main body of the GA fleet and was being harried from all sides by diveboming burg ships. Their weapons were to slow to manuver and fire at the burg. And each beam took minutes to charge.

Outside their shields were being slowly worn down, the once glowing blue energy a patchwork of holes and tears frayed and fuzzy at the edges where the energy was attempting to seal them back up.

But it was no use.

The ship rocked as an incoming burg attack hit them broadside.

“Left deck compromised.”

The Celzex leader cursed.

They weren’t gong to win this one, and he knew it. Their weapons were, ironically, too powerful to be used on such small opponents.

The ship rocked again and another deck decompressed, leaving more and more of the Celzex to die a painful death.

It was almost over now.

And then all blackness was lit by a bright beam of white light. The rocking in theis ship stopped suddenly as everyone within visible radius was blinded.

When the fleet looked up, and the light abated, they stopped in awe as the massive space dragon uncurled itself from it’s tight ring.

WIth one sharp flick, its tial lashed out sending a projectile roring onto the battlefield.

The Celzex stopped in awe as the alien ship roared from the darkness and (using powerful unknown energy weapons) Sliced straight through one of the burg cruisers. IT made a tight turn flying with the skill and dexterity of a complete madman as it made quick work of the remaining burg which surrounded the Celzex ship.

The great dragon flicked it’s tial once again.

There was a flash of light, and one of the burg ships went spinning off into blackness, shedding metal and material in all directions.

The alien ship cut around dodging through the debris, and though it was smaller than any ship there, it made quick work of what was left.

Behind it, the great beast spread its wings wide as the shuttle hurtled towards the surface of the planet.

***

The Egg left Ramirez's hand spinning up into the air in a great slow arc. But at the last moment his foot slipped on a slime pile and the tips of his fingers brushed over the surface, minutely changing the course of the ball to go spinning high and away from its intended target.

Sunny watched in despair and shock, but then, the roaring of an engine, and a burst of light, maverick came plowing through one of the holes in the ceiling with her jetpack, grabbing the egg from the air and spinning in a tight circle to deposit it in the hands of the burg ing who was slowly being advanced on by the burg royal guard

As soon as the egg came in contact with his hands, he raised it high over his head, and with a sharp crack, broke the outer shell.

Two halves of the egg fall to the ground, and he was left holding a small wriggling maggot with large dark eyes.

“Behold, your new queen!” The room grew very still and ver silent for a moment. For a second, Sunny thought that they had failed and the burg were going to pick up where they had left off, but suddenly a burg in the first row lowered to her knees bowing her head, and slowly, with her demonstration, came the others, dropping to the ground and bowing their heads.

“And as caretaker of our new queen, it is my duty to stand in for her until she is old enough to speak for herself, and with that I order you to call off the attack.”

There was a pause among the ranks before one of them lifted her head, “We cannot.”

“And why is that.” “We are the queens guard and loyal to her in all forms, but the others are loyal to the ideals she place upon them.”

“Then you will help us in our fight. If you cannot convince them then they must be destroyed.”

They bowed again and took to their feet.

Their leader began to give orders, and Sunny was surprised to find herself in the center of a tide of burg as they spill their way out through the cavern.

Those who did not surrender were destroyed as the Burg kin had promised.

Those who did not wish to fight the army spilling out around them fled outward from the caves and onto the open battlefield of grass and stone.

Sunny came with them her spear flashing in the light overhead as she cut through those who would not yield.

Their numbers were dwindling.

Shock troopers spilled in from all directions to help.

Sunny ran her spear through the chest of one of the burg and turned searching for another target.

A radio went off to her side.

“Shock 1, come in! Do you copy!”

The human shock trooper lifted his hand and keyed the radio, “Yeah go ahead.”

“We have an alien ship inbound to your position. Sir there is a dragon and a-”

“Slow down what is this about a dragon.”

Just then a dark spot appeared up above in the sky with little trails of exhaust streaming out beom behind it.

The last burg were falling on the field before them.

Sunny finished off one last body, letting it fall to the ground at her feet.

There was one more shape now, a black dot on the horizon retreating into the distance.

Sunny drew back hr spear.

And that is when the shape plunged from the sky and slammed right into the retreating burg.

ITs body vanished and a spray of blue engulfed the front of the alien ship, which now covered the moldering body underneath.

The battleground went silent.

There was a sharp hiss and a billow of smoke as the door popped open.

A silhouette stepped down onto the dirt.

“Is it just me, or do I have perfect timing.”

Sunny’s spear clattered from her hands onto the stone. The smoke billowed away, and a figure came stumbling from the smoke coughing and waving a hand.

“Damnit, i think I might have pushed her a little too hard.” Said Commander Adam Vir

“I’m gonna fucking kill him.” 

***

The stone was nice and warm beneath his feet, great mountains of stone and grass rising up on either side of him. He took  breath of deep fresh air as Krill stumbled out behind him looking as sick as a Vrul could look.

A soft breeze tugged at his bare chest and arms.

Before him, an entier army stood in shock and awe.

He scanned over the crowd falling on familiar faces as he went. He was surprised at some of them. Hijan and the Sentinel, Ramirez, Maverick, Cannon. 

His eyes passed down the line meeting finally with familiar orbs of gold. They stood there for a second, staring at each other from across the smoking field of corpses, and then a shout. HE turned his head just in time to be plowed into by another figure, dirty and covered in blue sludge.

“ADAM!” “Thomas!” he could hardly believe his eyes, as his older brother squeezed him tight and picked him up off the ground in his enthusiasm, arms pinned to his side.

The two of them spun in a circle as Thomas laughed and pitched into the grass.

“You’re alive! I can’t believe it! You’re alive!”

IT was his cue that broke the silence, and an uproar followed them as other feet pounded across the open plane. He was hauled to his feet by Ramirez and crushed in a hug so tight it may well have broken his spine.

Maverick punched him in the arm so hard it should have left a bruise, and Hijan and the other Drev chanted and raised their spears for him.

But his eyes still searched for another figure, one he found lurking at the back of the crowd

She stood there spear in hand held held high.

Silent.

He managed to slip out of someone’s arms and  duck over to where she was, slipping out of the crowd unnoticed while they tried to figure out where he was.

HE stopped before her suddenly not sure of what to say.

She looked at him.

And he stared back.

“It’s good to see you.” he finally said lamely.

She was quiet for a moment, her golden eyes boring into his face. She raised hr spear, and for a moment he thought she was going to run him through, but the blade stopped inches from his neck, “If you ever do that to me again, I WILL kill you.”

He raised his hands going cross eyed as he stared down at the spearhead, “Sunny, if it means saving your life, I would do it again.” The speartip winked in the light between them.

And then he smiled, pushed it aside and moved forward quickly.

She seemed surprised as he quickly and discreetly stretched up on his toes and pulled her closer.

Their foreheads touched for a second before he drew back hand still on her shoulder, “Though, this does mean I at least owe you dinner.”

She snorted, “Oh you owe me a lot more than that.”

“Maybe I do.”

[ushiwakaa]

𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐀𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐄

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 : you’re a pre-med student working the closing shift at your part-time job when you find an injured gangster by the dumpster.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 : ushijima wakatoshi x gn!reader

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 : fluff

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 : gun induced injury, ( potentially ) graphic description of said injury

𝐚/𝐧 : sometimes idk if i do this fic thing right !! anyway !! this is dedicated to the brave captains of my ushijima harem , @from-left-to-write​ and @bubbleteaa​ 

While your parents give you what they can, it’s barely enough to pay tuition and living expenses while you’re off at school. Picking up a part-time job gives you some pocket money and something to take your mind off of studying.

The coffee shop you work part-time at is a tiny, yet bustling spot in the heart of the financial district. As one of the few university students that work there, you get the privilege of working morning shifts. This means, you plaster on your brightest smile at six in the morning to laugh kindly with business men who deign to pick up their own coffee and grouchy interns who are dissatisfied with getting their boss’.

On instinct, you smile brightly at the chime of the door.

“Good morning, Washijo-san! How are you?”

The regular at your store was grumpy old thing with a stubby nose and bushy brows. His suits were befitting of his location: impeccably pressed. While he appeared to be perpetually unhappy, you knew that was a lie. You swore to all your coworkers that there was a heart underneath his gruffness.

The elderly gentleman gives an endearing huff, ignoring your question. “Small black.”

You don’t let it deter you as you beam at the man. “Anything else, Washijo-san?”

“Ushijima—” the man grunts— “do you want anything?”

The man on his left silently shakes his head.

“That’s all.”

“Coming right up!” You chime.

Washijo hands you crisp bill — significantly more than his total. When you hand him the change, as he does with every visit, he promptly dumps it into the tip jar. Your heart jumps in guilt but, as a struggling student, you swallow your tongue.

“Thank you!”

Washijo waves you off flippantly as he takes a seat. In his stead, the young man waits stoically by the counter. As you ready the man's coffee, you watch his companion from the corner of your eye.

While you had many questions for the old man, the most interesting mystery of all was the string of bodyguards who followed his every whim. While you’d gotten used to the anxiously eager Goshiki and his oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, your interest was piqued by latest guard by his side. He was strong jawed with a stern look to him — broad shouldered and serious. Like his boss, his well-tailored suit was befitting of the bankers in the area.

“Ushijima-kun, right?”

His eyes are far more intense than you anticipate. Lightning runs up your spine when he raises his head. He nods.

A second is lost on you as you try to compose yourself. “Um… Do you work with Washijo-san?”

“He’s my boss.”

Your heart almost stops. His voice is a deep timber, gravelly from lack of use. His words leave a resounding echo in your ears despite the low volume.

…Is this love? The dopey grin on your face grows.

“You must work around here then!”

He nods.

“Very nice!” You place the steaming cup of coffee on the serving counter before wiping your hands on your apron. “It’s a great place to walk around during your lunch break. Before I got a job here, I worked at the hospital around the corner. I could never decide where to go for lunch.”

Reaching for the coffee, he asks, “Why did you leave the hospital for a coffee shop?”

“It was just a summer internship program!” You reply as you begin plating a pair of sugar cookies. “I’m studying pre-med, actually.”

He gives a hum and you place the cookies in front of him. He frowns.

“We didn’t order those.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It was a feeble attempt to balance out the ridiculous amount the elderly man had supplied to your tip jar over the last year. “You should come by with Washijo-san more often, though! It’s nice to see new faces.”

—

It’s sort of like speaking a curse aloud. You don’t see Washijo, or the young man for a handful of weeks after that. While your tip jar remains fairly healthy thanks to your charming customer service, you do miss the endearing demeanour of the grouchy old man.

Shamefully, you can’t say that you don’t hope to see Ushijima, though. While you don’t share the same rapport with him yet, you would like to. There was something endearing about his quiet personality. He was like a sleeping volcano. There was something hidden just below the surface.

Without noticing, you find yourself grinning into the pages of your anatomy textbook.

After cleaning steadily throughout the night — all you have to do at this point is empty the pastry case and take out the trash. With nothing else to do, of course you spend your free time studying. It’s a boring way to pass the time, but it trickles away quickly.

The clock uneventfully strikes one and you flip the welcome sign.

As you’re looking out of the glass, watching a cat cross the sheet — two men run past the storefront, one taunts their tail with a daunting tune barely muffled through the glass. It sends a shiver up your spine.

Quickly, you lock the door before retreating further into the store.

You definitely prefer morning shifts, but with the younger part-timers out of school for the time being — you had no choice but to pick up the closings for fairness sake.

A sigh escapes your lips as you lament your tragic life as a university student. You push open the back door with your shoulder, lugging along a large garbage bag. It’s a struggle with your weak arms, but you manage to heft it into the garbage dump in the back alley.

As you give yourself a congratulatory pat on the back, you find yourself jumping six feet into the air.

Tucked behind the dumpster is a man, his long legs barely hidden behind the length of the trash heap. While you’d really like to run back inside, shut off the lights and lock up for the night, your morality wins.

“Are you okay?” You ask, coming to his side.

He groans in response.

“Do you think you can stand?”

He shakes his head.

You help him into the back of the store and lead him to sit at your makeshift break table. In the light, you can finally see his face.

“Ushijima-kun,” you gasp, kneeling at his side.

You can see two bright spots of poppy-red blossom into the white of his dress shirt. You stiffen your gasp with the sleeve of your sweater before inspecting his wound. The buttons of his shirt come undone with a touch of your nimble fingers. You swallow back a second gasp. Though you saw a hint of his wounds through the poplin fabric, you’re not ready to stare directly at the angry pucker of red skin in his red pectoral.

“I—” you pull away, patting at your pockets in search of your phone— “I need to call the ambulance. This… This is more than I can handle. Well, actually this is — this is entirely more than I know how to handle but—”

You’re startled out of your panic by the warmth of his touch on your arm. He says nothing to you but shakes his head instead.

“No ambulance,” he appeals.

Your hands drop to your sides. “Okay. No ambulance.”

When you move to your feet, he tights his grip on your sleeve. His sharp eyes, previously wary, watch you desperately.

“I’m just going to wash my hands.”

His grip goes lax.

With the first aid kit hung on the wall and your mediocre knowledge of dressing a gunshot wound, you do your best to treat his wounds. You’ve yet to learn how to clean a gunshot wound specifically but you’ve always been good at guessing games. Applying what you know from the pdfs you stole off the online library: you clean, you dress, and you bandage.

When the silence of it all gets unbearable, you croak, “You know. This isn’t what I meant when I told you to come by more often.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“It’s okay,” you reply, disinfecting the wound. You offer an apologetic smile when he winces. “I’m just glad to see you, really. I haven’t seen you in weeks.” A weak laugh escapes you. “I mean, you and Washijo-san, obviously. He’s one of my favourite regulars. I was worried.” You can’t seem to look away from the gunshot. “I mean… I guess it was for good reason.”

He says nothing, lulling the two of you into another bout of silence. You mask your disappointment as you move away from him — reaching for a dressing pack in the first aid kit. As steadily as you can, you apply the dressing to his chest wound.

Perhaps you’re distracted by his chiselled pectorals, or maybe you’re exhausted past the capabilities that your brain can handle at one in the morning — regardless, your startled gaze meets his intensity when he grunts.

For an infinity confined within the limits of second, you can feel his heart beat within his chest.

“This is an occupational hazard.”

They’ve said that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but here you are: silent in an aftershock.

“…This?”

He stares at you for a hard moment. “This.”

“Getting… Shot?”

“Yes. Similar to how an athlete expect injuries, I too expect injuries.”

Your lips press into a frown. “I don’t know many people who would take a bullet for their job.”

“As I mentioned, this is an—”

“Occupational hazard,” you cut him off with a roll of your eyes. “I heard. I guess this means that finding men hiding in my trash is also an occupational hazard.” As you fix him with your sternest glare, you simultaneously smooth down his dressing. “Should I expect more injured men outside my store at one in the morning? Because you should know that I rarely close and I should really pass along the message.”

He has the sense to look embarassed but it doesn’t look quite right on him.

“I couldn’t go anywhere else.” Then, quietly, he adds, “I hoped it would be you.”

A list of places come to mind, but rather than chew him out, you fix him with a stare. You stare at him until you’re sure he can see the questions overflowing from your ears. One glaring question stands above the rest, but for some reason, you can’t manage to ask it. Instead, you stand, putting a comfortable distance between you two.

“Do you want a cookie? I forgot to empty the pastry display.”

—

Other than a handful of students huddled on the couch in the back corner of the café, the store is virtually empty in the last fifteen minutes to close. After that encounter with Ushijima ( who a couple weeks later grunted and said, “Call me Wakatoshi.” ), you began to pick up closing shifts more often. While Washijo lamented this fact to your manager, you decided you liked having Wakatoshi walk you home after your shift more than the tips. 

As you doodle absently in the margin of your textbook, the café door slams open. Wakatoshi isn’t usually so flamboyant, but you’ve learned to control yourself when startled.You look at the clock pointedly, then at your boyfriend. 

“Toshi,” you whine, “you’re — oh. What happened to Tendou?”

The redheaded man hangs limply, upright only thanks to your boyfriend’s support.

“I — believe it or not — got shot!” In spite of his pale face, he’s scarily gleeful.

“Crazy,” you cheer weakly, coming to support him on his other side. “Why don’t you tell me more about it in the back.”

On noticing the injured redhead, the group hightail it out of the store — leaving behind their dirtied plates and mugs. 

“Have a good night!” You call after them.

Tendou rolls his head back. “Have a good night~!”

Over his head, you give your boyfriend a pointed look. He meets your look. While his eyes still smoulder, you can see the tiredness in his movements as well. You give a sigh. 

Biting the bullet, you decide not to chew out your boyfriend for letting his injured friend bleed allover you freshly swept store. Instead, you apply the same care to Tendou as you do when you do when treating your boyfriend.

“You’re better at this than Shirabu,” he says with a contented sigh, munching on the sugar cookie you had set aside for Wakatoshi.

You smile at the compliment. “Thanks, Tendou. Really, I’m still in school though.”

“Don’t diminish your talents,” Wakatoshi proclaims, pausing in his sweeping.

You give him a glare. Without a word, he continues. 

“Rest here for a bit, okay, Tendou? I just need to finish closing up the store and then we’ll figure out what to do after.”

Tendou’s already humming under his breath as you walk back to the front. Wakatoshi, apparently finished sweeping, is behind the counter taking out the trash. He stops when he sees you, coming to your side. Immediately you pout.

“I’m sorry for bringing Tendou.” When your pout doesn’t go away, he takes matters into his own hands and draws you carefully into his chest. “I know it was supposed to be just us, but—”

You sigh. “It’s okay, Toshi. I’m not mad.”

While you’re still encircled in his arms, he pulls away to peer at your face. “You aren’t? You look mad. And, you’re not saying anything. That is an indicator that you’re not okay—”

“I’m upset because that could’ve been you, Toshi. You’re still healing from your last injury. You’re in absolutely no shape to be getting in more fights!”

You smack him lightly on his chest but he quickly catches your wrist. You try again and he catches you, again. You glare at him. He stares at you. You wind back your leg. Before you get a chance to kick him, he wraps his arms around you and hoists you off the ground.

You gasp, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Put me down!”

Rather than listening to you, he hugs you tighter. 

“Babe!” 

Now, he’s walking.

“Toshi!”

When he releases you, the both of you fall into the worn pleather of the back corner couch. The fall is sudden enough to surprise you out of your anger. Still, encaged in his arms, you look up at your boyfriend moodily. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

The gentleness of his words relax you and all you can hear is his heartbeat. 

“I know it’s an occupational hazard, but I can’t help but worry about you.”

His hand moves from your waist to gently pat your hair. “Thank you for caring about me.”

You melt in his arms — there’s something beautiful his softness. 

“Toshi?” You murmur, squirming in his arms to look into his eyes. “You know I love you, right?” 

He gives you a gentle smile, leaning in to give you a soft peck on the lips. “I love you too, baby.” 

—

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