#I am full of many words and now you must all suffer the consequences | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

serendertothesquad · 3 months

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"Wordsville" and the Problem with Cash-Cow Copies

[note original day of creation was February 15, 2024. just...just for reference. trust me bro.]

Hello.

Tonight I am in a silly mood fueled by sleep deprivation.

That means you all get an introspective blog that I will complete within a week and then ask "why'd I write that?"

So here's what's on Seren's lovely table of discussion tonight...

Put...put away the glasses. You don't need your glasses. This is the highest-quality thing I can get.

But et voila. A little project in the works called Wordsville.

Now, at this point you might be asking why I'm referencing "cash-cow copies" in the title. And whoo-hoo...oooooh...well, I don't want to make this some kind of clickbait blog, so I might as well perfect the atomic bomb in five minutes and land it on you folks.

What if I were to tell you that this is a blatant, shameless, slap-a-digital-coat-on-it-and-call-it-a-day copy of Odd Squad?

Ahhh, see, now I have you intrigued. Hopefully. If you are, then peep down below and let me discuss things a little more in-depth for you non-believing hacks asking me if I'm borderline insane.

So to put things in perspective, allow me to explain what Wordsville is, starting with my own personal summary.

Wordsville is an up-and-coming episodic (not to be confused with serialized, that's a whole 'nother ballgame) TV series that is produced (and will later be distributed) by Sinking Ship Entertainment and is made with assistance from WNET, a PBS station located in New Jersey, and TVO Kids, PBS Kids's girlfriend from Canada that's definitely real.

It was announced back in October of last year with a press release from Kidscreen, which didn't give much info aside from the following blurb:

Wordsville stars two child detectives on the hunt for missing words that are causing chaos in their town.

Sounds a little familiar, don'tcha think? Two kid detectives, finding something missing...and that "something missing" is causing chaos where they live?

Oh, but if you think the similarities end there, then no. No the absolute fuck they do not. I've got my bathing suit on and God damn it if I'm not gonna jump all the way in the pool instead of dippin' my little toes in there.

Doing a little bit of digging reveals more tidbits from a casting call for the series. It's rather wordy (ayyyyyy I did a funy), so let's take it piece by piece and discuss accordingly.

Wordsville is a town populated entirely by kids

A town that is populated entirely by children? Now c'mon, surely that doesn't ring a be-

...Ah. Whaddya know. Yes it does.

And with the adults as useless and idiotic as they are, it might as well be a town full of solely children. Next question.

and it’s a place where words matter. A lot. Every kid citizen has a special connection to words. And that means that if something happens to a word, there are far-reaching consequences.

A special connection to words? Like how there are children who have a special connection to normalcy? Stopping, oh, I dunno, hypothetically speaking...

...oddness?

Okay okay, I'm reaching just a wee bit here, but you can't read this and not tell me it echoes the funny kids math show to some degree or another. If an odd thing happens to a person, the whole town suffers. You've seen it. I've seen it. It's been the basis for many an A and B-plot. Must I elaborate? Good, because I don't plan on it. Continuing.

If the Main Street Baker bakes delicious donuts and they all mysteriously disappear, nothing else in Wordsville can taste good until they are returned.

Town Baker walked so Main Street Baker can sprint while blowing their lungs out.

If the Town Doctor’s soothing medication gets swiped, the whole town gets uncontrollably itchy until the medicine-napper is uncovered.

Ignoring the incredibly dark implications of this as well as the implications of this shoddy knockoff town having only one single doctor...

Dr. O walked so the Town Doctor can sprint while blowing their lungs out...over their massive paycheck.

(I technically could have also put New Dr. O too, but I'd like to spring for iconic OG's here. New Dr. O is neither iconic nor an OG.)

And let me remind you that "Torontonians get uncontrollably itchy due to something odd" would, by technicality, classify as an odd problem. Because...I mean, y'know...the cause is something odd happening. Doing shit with words is odd. This needs absolutely no explaining.

If the Local Scientist does an experiment with electricity and all the lights in town go out, they won’t come back on until the experiment wrecker is revealed.

Yep, I've taken shots of every IPA I can. We nearly hit the main character quadfecta, if you discount Dr. "bro thinks she's part of the team" O. All they needed was a bit about a high governing body and we'd round out the quad squad in proper with Oprah!

There's also a sneaky lil' crumb in the form of that blurb relating to Oona, who did, indeed, experiment with electricity in one episode and wound up proving why she can never take up Crossfit.

Hmmmnnnnext!

In each crime, the episodic word disappears and can’t return until the mystery is solved. The impact of the missing word is felt all over town.

This is another one of those things that I gotta wrench a hammy for in terms of comparisons, because about the only thing I can reasonably compare Odd Squad to is the second sentence.

See, here's the thing. You get oddness that happens to a person. Oftentimes, that oddness spreads to other people, whether directly (in the form of diseases and disorders) or indirectly (like the Town Baker's cakes being split in half, which wouldn't please Torontonians poppin' in for a whole cake and eyeing the display to get a feel for one). In a sense, normalcy disappears and, well, it can't return until [insert partner pair here] solve the case. It's kinda the entire schtick of Odd Squad as a franchise. It's formulaic, just like how Wordsville's "words disappear and nothing can be normal until the word returns" schtick is formulaic.

Is it a stretch? Perhaps. Mileage may vary. I think it's a bit of a stretch, personally. But hey, I'm a grown adult critiquing a ripoff of a kids STEM show. I shouldn't be talking. But I didn't start this fandom nearly 10 years ago just to let Sinking Ship's piss-poor attempt at really capitalizing on one of their biggest franchises sliiiiiide right by me on a floor smooth enough where I'm falling on my ass every 10 seconds.

Luckily, best friends and partners Sage and Chase are on the case and run the only detective agency in town. These tech-savvy sleuths solve mysteries entirely virtually because their reading, listening and digital literacy skills are their greatest strengths. Sage and Chase always catch their culprit and make sure everything is right with the word.

Now where in the McFuck do I start with this one? The PAW Patrol catchphrase thrown in complete with shared name? The fact that there is only one detective agency in the entire town? The fact that Sage and Chase are best friends as well as work partners? Or the pun that made me actively cringe in a way I haven't felt since Whitney told James she wanted to go on the lake?

I mean...this is about Odd Squad, so...I guess the second one sounds most plausible.

But that doesn't need explaining either. There is only one detective agency in town. There is one Odd Squad precinct per city or per state.

No, neither does the third bit. I already referenced Olive and Otto above. You should know what's up.

(I've also read that blurb five times now and...well...we'll get to the digital stuff in a bit. That just needs a whole side-set of word vomit.)

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In my digging of this series -- which, well, wasn't all that much -- I managed to find a few blurbs on our two main characters. The casting call for them, funny enough, called for, and I will quote this exactly, "talent to look 9."

As in, they want the actors to physically look 9 years old.

Which puts that qualifier in the same ballpark as Odd Squad UK's "talent must be Canadian but live in the UK". But at least that prerequisite actually had a legitimate earnest reason behind it, which is that the production needed to be Canadian in a lot more than just the "Canadian prodco works on a British series" sense. Hiring kids who have to physically look 9 years old and will probably be yoted onto the street the second puberty hits them like a truck is a practice not even the most egregious bosses of family-owned-and-operated businesses could pull off.

But enough about the qualifiers. Let's get started on our character comparisons and civil cidiscussion! (Oh the irony...)

And remember this: the casting call was handled by Larissa Mair Casting, who previously did casting for Odd Squad. So that means there will be tinny lil' crumbs of bonus material for me to dissect and discuss! Huzzah! Aw God why can't this happen for Odd Squad UK...man, I'm gonna have to go into my sobbing corner...

First up, we have Sly Sleuth, originally referred to as "Sage" here. I'll also be referring to him as "Sage" in this blog.

Sage is a great detective; thoughtful, extremely logical, and talented at getting information out of people.

Thoughtful of others. Logical. And can wrench information out of suspects like a badass.

Yep, we got an Olive that got hit with an Olando-fied beam. (And because half of you don't know who Olando is: Sage is meant to be a male Olive. I hope that clears things up for you.)

What else?

Nothing related to vocabulary or literacy gets by this investigator. Suspects can underestimate Sage but that is always a mistake. Sage doesn’t scare easily and won’t take no for an answer, traits that make an excellent detective.

You could tell me this was how Olive was meant to be written in "My Better Half", word for word, and I would honestly believe you. Right down to asking, "Her name was Sage in pre-production?"

About the only place I can draw the line here is at Olive not scaring easily. We don't know Sage's backstory -- and once again, this is an episodic series, so don't expect much in the way of plot, backstory included -- but Olive, at least, has a legitimate reason for all the times she covers her ears at loud noises or sharply reacts to something startling.

The former is because of The Censor-Friendly Bullet Massacre of '15.

The latter is because Dalila Bela marched straight out of a viewing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and never looked back.

I...can't really say either applies to Sage. At least not yet. We'll have to see if Sinking Ship decides to bring Wordsville into its lil' multiverse that Odd Squad and Dino Dana and Endlings and Playdate already share.

Sage is also wise, which is why the name “Sage” is completely appropriate.

Sooooo does that mean his name is Sly because he's cunning like a fox?

Well then in other news, Olive is named such because she was inspired by the famous Law and Order character Olivia Benson. I have fifteen folders that back me right the hell up. Also I contacted Sinking Ship the other day, they explicitly told me.

No, no, but in all seriousness. Olive, too, is very wise. Historian buff, knows her shit about Odd Squad, doo-dah, doo-dah.

Anyway, next up we have Chase, who was renamed to "Gabby Gumshoe". (I'll be referring to her as Chase in this blog, as well.) Let's see what's on the chopping block for her in terms of our favorite food-loving, hella tall, crazy silly blorbo.

Chase is a fantastic detective, but is also goofy[,] funny, visually oriented, and, like the name suggests, loves the “chase”.

Now there's a man who got hit with a yassified beam, right there.

I'll leave it up to you folks whether you consider Otto to be "visually oriented". But in terms of "loving the chase"...yeah, I'd say that fits.

To lay it down: Otto is a rookie agent. Common sense would lead anyone to assume that he has an absolute blast solving odd cases and absorbing every bit of knowledge about Odd Squad that he possibly can. He finds out a villain's on the loose? He's right there, by Olive's side, workin' to catch 'em. He finds out oddness has run rampant throughout the town? He's right on that shit.

Chase, on the other hand, is someone I wouldn't call a rookie. It's made quite evident that she is, for all intents and purposes, seasoned. Seasoned enough that she manages to keep the detective agency she works for afloat and get approval from the others in Wordsville, Sage included. This, perhaps, is because she's not really meant to be an audience surrogate in the same way Otto is. Otto, at least for the first few episodes, serves as a way to ease the audience into Odd Squad and show them what the organization is and what they do without yoting them into it and leaving them asking "Where am I?" more times than a drunkard. Chase doesn't fill that role, because it could be argued that such a show like Wordsville doesn't really need an audience surrogate. Whether that's true, though, remains to be seen.

People tend to underestimate this investigator, but Chase often notices things like a chocolate stain when someone said they didn’t like chocolate or a squiggle of icing that turns out to be the antonym of the word they’re tracking.

Y' take Otto's...Otto's love of food...and y' put it in a gorl...and BAM you got a character.

...

That isn't a joke. It's dead-on serious. Even the casting call script pins Chase as a kid with a sweet tooth! It's just Otto but with a less diverse palate! Otto eats everything! This kid eats sweets! God sakes, give her some juice, make her Oprah, I don't give a shit, fucking hell I'm driving 50 minutes to Burger Ki-

Chase is also great with computers and incredibly artistic. A graphic note taker[,] Chase loves to draw, has a great eye for details, is a big fan of the “zoom in” function, and really enjoys creating animated re-enactments of Word Mysteries.

All right, we finally have somewhere we can draw the line.

No, not at being tech-literate. With being artistic.

Otto's artistic talent kind of varies throughout the franchise. In drawing on paper, he's pretty solid for an I-just-recently-turned-10-please-praise-me-year-old. In making paper airplanes, he's solid enough to take down a grown-ass man and rock his sunglasses when he's done for.

In computer drawing...well...if you can believe it, concepts like Ibispaint and Photoshop don't exist in the world of Odd Squad. (Okay, maaaaybe Photoshop does. I don't think it does. But it could be a good in-universe justification for it.)

We don't know Otto's digital artist merit because we never see him make any digital art. All of his art is solely non-digital. On Chase's side of things, she lives in an era where digital drawing is, like in real life, the norm. It's a contrast that might be one of the more glaring ones when it comes to comparing these two shows.

Now, as for the "creating animated re-enactments" schtick...if that isn't an excuse for Sinking Ship to work their animation magic after the Sandy Cheeks movie, then I honestly don't know what is. If you wanted to make the show animated, you could have made it animated. Would've been cheaper, too!

(And "Word Mysteries"...it's not as grating as Wild Kratts's "Wow Fact", but it's edging pretty close. I blame WNET. That's solely a PBS thing right there. TVO Kids would never.)

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So we've gotten the discussion about the two main characters out of the way. Now we can dive into the heartier meat. The kind where's it's purple on the inside but you still digest it anyway.

I'm talking, of course, about the sample scripts- script. Singular. There is one script. Uno.

Now, lemme give you a bit of a rundown: casting calls for Odd Squad -- really, most shows, but this is a blog about Odd Squad -- often come with sample scripts. This is so talents can read their parts aloud for the camera and have the tape submitted to the casting agency for consideration. Odd Squad in particular has had quite an interesting ride with sample scripts, from entire episode plots being adapted into final products (with a bit of tweaking) to characters having names different than what they're named in the final product (which is the case with both Sly and Gabby). They're nothing on the scale of ABC Me dropping episodes earlier than PBS or shorts getting dropped as an alleged April Fools prank, but they're pretty damn good crumbs to chew on.

The sample script starts out with Sage and Chase on, of course, a video call. (Sinking Ship made a Zoom reference once. Pray they do not make another by the name of a friendly drug called "Speed" or that term for peeing known as a "Whiz".) Chase explains that she just gave her office chair's wheels a tune-up, which, of course, makes her hungry. Hungry enough that she declares a "cookie break" and immediately takes out a ginormous cookie from hammerspace that just made the European bakery down the street from me start sobbing. (Look, they make good cookies. Giant cookies. Cookies I need two hands just to hold properly. Trust me, it's- it's massive.)

However, when she bites into the cookie, she finds that it tastes absolutely gross -- "not sweet, not even sour". While she ponders if her body has forcefully rejected one of the best sweet treats known to humankind, Sage begins to grow suspicious and asks if it's a Word Mystery they need to solve.

Which is, coincidentally enough, when the Main Street Baker calls in a fit of hysteria, explaining that their "delicious donuts" are gone. And because we can't take enough from Odd Squad, we get a bit of "literal humor" in the form of the donuts both being delicious (probably) and them spelling the word "delicious" prior to their disappearance. After Sage explains what "delicious" means as well as what synonyms are, it's shown that the culprit also struck other pastries, up to and including gingerbread people, which Sage absolutely takes personally because he's a kid of pure culture who gives a big "fuck you" to holiday-specific treats being enjoyed only during said holidays.

Chase, in true Otto fashion, decides to take more bites of her cookie and instantly regrets it. Sage, in true...well...Clint Eastwood fashion (I shit you not, that's literally what it says in the script), declares that they need to find the word "delicious" and fix the pastries.

And...yeah, that's about it. Like I said, there's really not much to go on with casting call sample scripts. Especially not ones from Larissa Mair.

My conclusive thoughts on it, you ask? Well...they can try to hide it, but all it's doing is enforcing my point. From the Main Street Baker having donuts missing similar to how the Town Baker had bagels missing in "Soundcheck", to Chase being an idiot who is obsessed with food the same way Otto is (right down to his willingness to drink Odd Todd's pickle juice when it tasted gross in "Bad Lemonade"!), even down to the "literal metaphor" kind of humor as it applies to singular words. Am I stretching? Perhaps. But these supposedly insignificant pieces are just part of the bigger picture, the larger issue at hand in this long-winded piece.

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The digital aspect of Wordsville is one of the ways they decided to put a twist on the precedent that Odd Squad set. And it's so blatant and in-your-face that it's on par with shoving a red flag in someone's eyes to blind them.

But here's the thing. The digital aspect been done. Amusingly enough, by the same company.

Lockdown is a show that fits right in with the others at the Shows-Made-During-the-COVID-Pandemic-About-the-COVID-Pandemic club. It was a way to capitalize on something in society that probably will never be relevant again until around 2050. Maybe even earlier than that, at the rate we're going.

I haven't seen it, so I can't speak much about it, but from my side of things it looks a lot like Unfriended if it took place during the pandemic and wasn't a horror movie and involved teens and not young adults/adults/I haven't seen the movie in many years bite me.

But the main difference between Lockdown and Wordsville, relevant to this editorial, is that Lockdown has a legitimate reason to be shot entirely on electronic devices. It's part of the plot. It works, I'm sure. For Wordsville, it makes no sense for the outline and isn't just limiting, but is downright insulting for something "rooted in the 21st century". It's good to be unique when making a show, but there's such a thing as trying too hard to be unique to the point where it's detrimental to your show's quality. Making the show be a digital-only angle isn't a smart move, especially for a detective procedural.

And if it's trying to differentiate itself from Odd Squad...well, do I got some bad news for you.

The show already did an entire Zoom parody in the span of an 11-minute episode.

And I still hate it with all the vitriol of an old woman who hates kids playing with beach balls in the yard pool. It sucks ass. It's entirely unneeded when you have three children sitting around the same table. I could vomit on you all day about it. But at least it's far more justified than Wordsville having its entire formula based on it. You can rip off a show without being limiting.

(don't. seriously. don't.)

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Before we get to the conclusion, I need to dive deep into Odd Squad's own popularity and explain it a little more beyond just little "trust me bro" tidbits.

If you've been following it for as long as I have, then it's no secret that Odd Squad is one of Sinking Ship's cash-cow franchises. You've got the main series, six different spinoffs, a live show, a book...and I didn't even provide a whole damn list! Point being, it's huge. It doesn't have many roots in pop culture, but from a certain angle, it is an absolutely massive franchise that continues to grow, even in spite of its controversies.

Unlike works such as SpongeBob or Bluey, Odd Squad isn't popular enough to get bonafide ripoffs. The formula is relatively easy to copy, and if anything there are shows that have a similar premise but aren't even close to ripoff territory (K.C. Undercover, for example). It's just that, for all the ripoffs people have done of shows and movies over the years, the motivation for industry bigwigs in taking Odd Squad and running with it just...isn't there. I can connect it to Disney or Dreamworks or Viacom all I want, but at best they have a vague awareness of it that only goes as far as "oh, that's a thing, I guess". At worst, they see it as a pile of shit that would never turn a decent profit.

It could be argued that Sinking Ship wasn't all too well-known in the entertainment sphere up until Odd Squad came around. Looking at their resume doesn't show all too much in the way of what's popular. This is Daniel Cook, Roll Play, Playdate...they don't stick in your head, right? Yeah, none of them stick in my head either. Odd Squad was their first big hit for them, something that really helped them gain ground as a company. It's the one that's pretty much linked with Sinking Ship in news articles. Like husband and wife, but for the TV industry.

But to Hollywood bigwigs, that means about as much as finding a stick on the ground. I guaran-goddamn-tee Bob Iger is not going to put his grubby little hands on the funny kids math franchise and twist the hell out of it. The only way that's happening is if you run "Odd Squad, but make it Disney" through an AI generator. (Which, for the record, I have not done. You can't really replicate Odd Squad characters in animation without making them look like they walked out of yet another Law and Order spinoff that's far more kid-friendly.)

However, even with Odd Squad's varying popularity, there are shows that go just a little beyond having a similar premise to it but don't dive into ripoff territory. Sort of like a next step up.

A long time ago, a few friends and I in an Odd Squad Discord server were discussing the show Numberjacks. You know, that show that Jacknjellify may or may not have used as inspiration for Four's design? Yeah, that's the bitch.

The show has a few similarities to Odd Squad. You've got the focus on math, a system for exiting the couch headquarters that's similar to the tube system, and even the existence of kid agents and incredibly odd villains, one of which, need I remind you, Twitter tried to make into a sexyman for all of two days to varying degrees of success.

I will admit, I haven't seen Numberjacks in several years. In fact, the last time I saw it was when it was brought up as an Odd Squad ripoff. If I recall correctly, the episode that I picked to watch on a whim was "Seaside Adventure", wherein a few numbers take a vacation and trouble occurs. Or something like that. I really can't remember many details.

One thing I do remember, though, is distinctly thinking that I could see the Odd Squad similarities, but...it's not a ripoff. The series premiered in 2006. By that point, Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman were off on their own ventures as they wrote for cartoons and other things. Thus, Odd Squad hadn't been birthed yet. If anything, Odd Squad took cues from Numberjacks, not the other way around -- but even with the existence of Odd Squad UK, we don't know that for sure. I don't even know how popular Numberjacks was in the UK. I'm a dumb lil' American, not a Daphne-Moon-esque English woman.

Since then, I haven't found anything that has come close to what Wordsville aims to accomplish. Granted, though, I have not looked very hard. I'm moreso keeping an eye on PBS to see if they're going to try and rip off Odd Squad rather than keeping an eye on any random B-lister studio. (And no, I'm not talking about WNET. They are a PBS station, but I'm referring to PBS as a whole entire network, not a sole affiliate.)

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So the question remains: is Wordsville an Odd Squad ripoff?

Yes. On multiple counts. Right down to the name inspo. Guilty as charged. Right to jail.

From it being for the 4-7 demo not unlike Odd Squad's own 4-8 demo, to Sage and Chase being referred to as "Word Detectives" in lieu of "agents", to it being a detective procedural not unlike Odd Squad and its spinoffs, to the synopsis of the show being described as having "a case rooted in a vocabulary lesson" similar to Odd Squad having episodes rooted in STEM lessons, to it actively encouraging the audience to solve mysteries along with Sage and Chase...to Sage and Chase having alliterative theme naming...

Yeah, safe to say, we've got ourselves a ripoff.

There's no denying that Odd Squad is a fantastic franchise. Even through all of its issues, including financial controversies, heavy criticism, and mistreatment from PBS, it has remained strong for nearly 10 years, and will stay strong for many more. Maybe one of these days, it will plant roots deeper into pop culture and become one hell of a phenomenon. We'll have to see.

But the fact that Sinking Ship Entertainment has to resort to borrowing a concept that is unique in its nature, a concept that has already been done, a concept that has been given life and creativity by the people who birthed it, and then try to pass it off as its own original IP is not a good look on them. It's been done similarly before with their other big franchise, Dino Dan -- key word being "similarly" because it's one show and three spinoffs focusing on different characters. That isn't the case with Wordsville, though.

Put it this way: it's a company ripping off not someone else's IP, like many other companies have done and continue to do. It's a company ripping off their own IP.

And really, it doesn't matter how it's done. Stealing is stealing. At the end of the day, all it shows is a complete lack of creativity and a complete craving for the almighty dollar. More so if it's a company stealing from themselves and passing it along as okay.

In spite of this, however, I am perfectly willing to give Wordsville a shot when it comes out. Not so much to see if it's good (though my curiosity is piqued), and definitely not to hate-watch (which has the opposite intended effect on a show or movie), but to see just how far Sinking Ship is willing to push the envelope in affirming viewers and industry buddies alike that this is not, by any and all accounts, a copy of Odd Squad. I want to spot similarities. I want to take whiskey shots until I can do a zoom-zoom to a hospital and then ask if they've got a bottle on board the rig. I want to give a full, I-watched-this-show-now-here-are-my-overall-final-thoughts addendum on the entire issue.

As of now, Wordsville has no narrow timeframe. All I know is that it's releasing this year, likely on TVO Kids in Canada. Whether PBS as a whole will adopt it into its roster -- and if anything, it'll be WNET-exclusive, otherwise we would've heard something about it at the TCA Winter Press Tour a few days back -- for American audiences remains yet to be seen. Rest assured, though, that I'll be keeping an eye on it and rushing to it as soon as the first episode drops. After that, I'll give a proper addendum so I can finally put this issue to bed. Along with myself. Revenge bedtime procrastination is a bitch.

Thanks for reading. This honestly started out as something silly, but then I became analytical. So you got a mix of both in this one. This may or may not be the norm. Day-by-day, y'know?

Seren out.

#seren speaks #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad #wordsville #sinking ship entertainment

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bi-bard · 1 year

Text

Make Your Good Love Known to Me - Dream of the Endless Imagine [The Sandman]

Title: Make Your Good Love Known to Me

Pairing: Dream of the Endless X Reader

Based On: As It Was

Word Count: 1,345 words

Warning(s): mention of kidnapping

Summary: Morpheus returning to the dream realm is accompanied by anxiety and uncertainty on many fronts. The only certainty is the love that (Y/n) holds for him after all these years. The goal now was to convince Morpheus of that.

Author's Note: I love how dramatic I can be when I write dialogue for this show.

WASTELAND, BABY! - HOZIER WRITING CHALLENGE MASTERLIST

--------------------------

I had been very hesitant to believe that Morpheus had gone missing.

After he had kissed me and promised to return to me, I refused to believe that anything would have been able to stop him from keeping his word.

However, as the consequences of the dream lord's absence began to show, I had no choice other than to accept the terrifying reality. I could not live in ignorance when the dreaming and waking worlds were suffering in such a way.

I did everything in my power to keep the realms running, but I was not Morpheus. I had nowhere near his power or honor. I was not an Endless. No great entity had any need or desire to visit or assist me.

I was thankful to not be alone.

Through all of it, I had Lucienne constantly by my side. She was the one being that I felt safe enough to confess my fears. I tried to show the realm that I had all the faith in their leader. But when it was just Lucienne and myself, I had no reason to hide my anxieties.

"More damage in the library," Lucienne said as she walked into the throne room.

I closed my eyes and sighed. It was a matter of time before I lost control of the realm. This was a natural consequence of the universe.

"I hope you are not losing hope," she added when she heard my sigh.

I turned around to face her. "I will confess that the hope is starting to feel more like an additional weight on my shoulders. I am caring for the realm, not just for myself."

She nodded at me. "Morpheus will return. We must have faith. You only have this burden to bear for a while longer-"

"I am not him, Lucienne," I cut her off. "My time here has granted me some power to hold this realm together, but I cannot stop it from crumbling forever. This realm was constructed for Morpheus, not me. He needs to come back. Or else everything we have done is pointless. All our time just wasted."

I never doubted that she had a full understanding of how worried and stressed I had been. She had never been anything other than kind to me. It was why I felt so much guilt for letting my fear and stress boil over into anger.

"I apologize," I said. "You have done nothing to deserve my outbursts."

"It is quite alright," she replied. "I miss him too."

"I know," I muttered.

I walked over and hugged her tightly.

"I will continue fighting for this realm as long as you do," I promised. "I will not walk away until you deem it necessary."

She hugged me back. "Morpheus will come home. I can feel it."

I nodded. I wanted to believe that as much as she did.

I clearly should have.

That was the only thought that crossed my mind as I stared at Morpheus across the room from me. I was certain that it was my mind attempting to trick me. Distract me from what I was meant to be doing.

But as the weight of the realm rolled off of my shoulders, I realized that this was real. He was real.

I ran forward, throwing my arms around him. He held me as close as he could.

"Morpheus."

"(Y/n)," he mumbled. "It has been too long."

"A century," I replied. I leaned back and cupped the sides of his face. "I almost lost count."

"I will never be able to express how sorry I am." his hands reached up and touched mine, pressing them harder against his skin.

"I have no need for your apologies. I am just relieved to have you back."

As a heavy sigh escaped me, tears filled my eyes.

My heart told me that this was going to be the moment that everything went back to the normal that I had not known in a hundred years.

That was not the case.

Morpheus seemed to avoid discussing the topic of his absence with me. He hid it well at first. With him going to gather his things again, I accepted his avoidance. However, when he made his way home again and still avoided our conversation, I knew that something was going on in his mind.

I knew that he would not talk to me if I did not force him to.

I found him staring at his large stained-glass windows. I remained silent as I walked up the stairs.

I refused to speak up until I was standing next to him.

"What are you hoping to see, my love," I asked.

"I am afraid that I have no answer," he replied. "Where do I begin in a situation such as this?"

"Looking for the lost dreams?"

"Yes."

"The Corinthian should not pose much difficulty," I said. "Chaos seems to follow just behind him."

"The waking world is composed of more chaos than you would ever believe."

I nodded.

A silence formed between us. It made my hands sweat and my chest feel tight. I craved nothing more than to know that I still had him. That the time away had not changed him so greatly that I lost his love.

"Morpheus," I finally let my voice be heard. "Why have you taken to avoiding me?"

He made no effort to look at me when I looked at him. He tensed for a moment.

"Morpheus..."

"My time away," he relented before I could beg for him to share his thoughts with me. "With all of the damage that it caused both this world and that of the waking, I have grown doubtful that none of that damage has reached you."

I furrowed my eyebrows.

"After a century, I would not be surprised if you did not feel as you once did," he continue. "You have no obligation to me."

"I know."

"You can leave if you so desire. I have no interest in forcing your company."

"I would never have stayed if I did not still love you, Morpheus," I turned to him fully. "Such a lie would do neither one of us any good. I am here because I love you. I stayed during your absence because I love you. My feelings have not changed, if anything, they have grown even stronger."

There were no words spoken for a few moments.

I took a deep breath as I moved closer to him.

I cupped the far side of his face, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. I heard a sigh come from him. I kissed his cheek again. And again. And I continued kissing him until he turned his head to mine. Our foreheads touched and we both stopped for a moment.

"I have never and will never stop loving you, Morpheus," I promised. "And I will spend as long as I must reminding you of that fact."

His eyes were closed, but I could tell that my words had sunk into his mind and heart. I could see how his shoulders relaxed and how his jaw seemed to unclench.

I was going to mumble more and more sweet nothings to him, but I was stopped when Morpheus leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.

I slowly kissed him back.

The love in my chest seemed to only grow.

I had spent so long without him that being with him again was almost overwhelming. Suffocating in the best way. As if I was losing room to breathe by simply getting to love him again.

I tried to follow his lips as he leaned back.

My eyes slowly opened to find him studying me.

"I love you," he whispered. Some great secret even after all this time.

"I love you too," I replied, feeling a fresh wave of tears prick my eyes.

He leaned in and kissed me again, pulling me as close to his body as he could.

Morpheus meant everything to me.

And I would spend an eternity showing him that.

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the-hem · 21 days

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The Contract in the Book of Mormon.

We know the Torah names a Contract between God and man within the first and last verses. Man will give up his savagery, God will shine His Grace upon us.

in the Book of Mormon, and offspring of the Torah, the same is true.

Fr. 1 Nephi 1:

1 I, Nephi, having been born of goodly cparents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

The Values in Gematria are:

a. I, Nephi, having been born of goodly cparents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless,

The Value in Gematria is 10590, יהטאֶפֶס, "the yacht of yehtapes", "the yacht will be caught."

b. having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

The Value in Gematria is 9891, טחטא‎‎, "thatched tahta", "thatched under."

and the final verse:

Moroni 10:34:

And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to arest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.

a. And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to arest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite,

The Value in Gematria is 6062, ו‎אֶפֶסו‎ב‎, "and ephesus,"

b. and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.

The Value in Gematria is 7133, זאג‎ג, and zagg, "and the glazier and the glass cutter."

"The Yacht used to sail to Ephesus, to the Promised Land, will be thatched, water repellant, protect the passengers from violence, [like the Ark] and lead them to full transparency with God."

A world without violence and sound government.

Mankind will serve God out of love not out of fear.

The Book of Genesis says God saw Himself in the surface of the deep then He became Himself over the course of the Seven Days. Humankind must sail across the same Sea, and see itself if it is to reach the other side. The Book of Mormon says the love of God should draw us there as if through a magnetic attraction, but we cannot surpass the Third Day, and end to violence and reach the Fourth Day, the Age of Reason. We refuse to witness the causes and effects of our behavior and live loveless lives.

Until we accept the consequences of our actions and reason like adult human beings who understand their surroundings comprehensively, we will remain adrift on a turbulent sea of fear.

The Book of Mormon promises those who read and follow it shall not suffer this fate and will see God.

For those in doubt, read Ether 8:

9 Now the daughter of Jared was exceedingly fair. And it came to pass that she did talk with her father, and said unto him: Whereby hath my father so much sorrow? Hath he not read the record which our fathers brought across the great deep? Behold, is there not an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory?

The daughter of Jared, which is Hebrew for the "descedants" is fair because she like her namesake, the government is "fair." Persons who believe in and trust the Words of Moses which were brought across the Sea first by God and then by Moses and to this country by the first Mormon Prophets again when America had an active slave trade all say the same things. "Hidden in these words are the path to utter freedom."

Cast them aside and grieve.

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unnervinghorror · 11 months

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We Drowned Because Of You

Triggerwarning: Death, Drowning, Corpses

Did you really think that I would just let you leave?

The young man froze. His eyes widened and his heart began to hammer against his chest. Sweat began to form on his forehead and slowly ran down his cheek and chin, from where it then dripped to the ground.

Did you truly believe that you are allowed to leave this city without paying for your sins?

Slowly, he turned his head to look over his shoulder, shaking like a leave in the storm as he stared into the darkness of the underground city. His eyes darted around, trying desperately to find the source of the words, the person this disembodied voice belonged to.

Much to his horror, however, all he saw were corpses. The people that drowned because of him. Of his mistake.

Of course you did. People of your caliber always do.

Desperately, he wiped around and pressed his back against the wooden surface of the soaked door that separated him from his freedom. Or at least what he believed to be. He was gasping, shaking violently, going through a full-blown panic attack. “W-Who are you?!”, he stuttered and wrapped his arms around himself as if it would protect him from his fate.

The voice laughed, the cruel sound echoing through the air so loudly that it almost shattered his eardrums.

Oh you mortals amuse me. You claim not to have a hivemind, yet you always ask me the same question.

The disembodied person chuckled deeply, and the low, icy sound sent shivers down his spine. His heart was now hammering so harshly against his rips that it physically hurt, and tears began to gather in the corners of his eyes. His terror was overwhelming, and it was only raising as the seconds went by.

But then, again… Since, it is your first time encountering me, I might answer the question as well as I am able to without shattering your feeble mind. Some call me the female devil, some call me the Demon Queen, other’s refer to me as the embodiment of pain and suffering. However…I, personally, have given myself the title “Author”.

He chocked, pressing his back so harshly against the split wood that splinters tore into his skin, causing him to bleed through his elegant shirt. “W-what do you want from me?!”, he whimpered, sounding low and pathetic. “W-what the fuck do you want from me?!!”

Once again, the stranger laughed.

Oh, there are many things I desire from you, besides your lungs and liver, of course. First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you. It is quite rare that a single human manages to ruthlessly murder over 100 people in less than an hour. It is an accomplishment only 12 people have reached before you, and I must admit, I am impressed.

The man coughed, doubling over as he fell to his knees. He heaved violently, sobbing, wailing. “I didn’t want this! I didn’t want this!! It was an accident, I didn’t KNOW…!!!”

Accident or not hardly matters, my friend. You are still responsible for their ending. You are still the cause of their painful passing. Of their screams muffled by their watery grave, of the agonizing pain that exploded in their lungs and head as they slowly lost consciousness. It was delightful to watch, a nice show while enjoying a hot cup of tea while sitting on my throne.

He took a deep breath once again, curling up into a ball as he began to cry like a baby, horrific guilt overcoming him in ways he could not describe.

He hadn’t wanted this. He never would have messed with that pump if he had known the consequences!

He didn’t want to kill them! He never wanted to kill ANYONE!!

And yet…here he was, standing before piles and piles of corpses of people that drowned. Because of him…

Oh, yes, It is because of you. It was all because of you. Every single man, woman and child you see lay before your eyes is rotting, decaying because of your foolishness.

“I’M SORRY!! I’M SO, SO SORRY!!!”

They saw you as their friend, as their ally, they let you roam around their home because they trusted you. And now, look at what remained of them. Reeking flesh, fluids and bones. Nothing more.

“I WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE IT IF I KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN!! PLEASE, FORGIVE ME!! PLEASE JUST FUCKING FORGIVE MEEEE!!!!”

It would only be fit if you would join them, wouldn’t it? A fair exchange for what you have done to them, wouldn’t it be? Painful, but fair.

He froze, all emotions suddenly fading at once, replaced by a bone crushing, blood-freezing panic. “W-what…?”

You understood. I am aware that your vision is faulty, but I do know that your ears are functioning very well. You will join them, my friend. Join them in their horrible fate.

“W-what?! No! NO, YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”

Oh, I already did.

Reality glitched in and out of existence, shattering and reforming in the split of a second. Suddenly, everything around him was filled with water. Icy, beautifully clear water. He saw everything. The floating plants, torn off the ground by the flood, the furniture that were raising from the houses through opened windows.

The people, who’s arms were reaching upwards, their eyes wide, their mouths agape, expressions of utter agony on their faces. The very last thing they felt.

The very last thing he would feel.

He screamed as his lungs began to ache, filling up with water instead of oxygen. He wailed and begged as he tried to swim to a surface he knew that didn’t exist, his survival instincts kicking in as he attempted to save himself from an inevitable death. The Author cackled.

Ah, look at you. You are reacting so very similar to the city’s inhabitants. But let me tell you, it is futile. You will die here, just like all of them did.

Cracking bones sounded as heads slowly turned towards him, rotting eyes staring at him lifelessly, some filled with maggots, who also drowned. Hands reached for him, grabbed his legs and forced him back down. He screeched soundlessly as they held him, their jaws dislocated and hanging from their faces. Voices were chanting, yelling frighteningly clear despite them all being under water.

We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you. We drowned because of you.

We drowned because of you.

They drowned because of you.

He could feel his consciousness fading.

They died because of your actions.

One of the corpses wrapped its fingers around his neck. He could feel the bone where the finger would have been.

And now, you will join them, and face the consequences of your actions.

Before he faded out completely, he saw a woman. A woman of rather small built, yet she looked more intimidating than any soldier or warrior he had ever come across.

Her skin was so pale that it almost appeared white, her hair long and dark brown, curling around her body, which was completely naked yet lacking any form of nipples or genitalia. Her mouth was pulled into a wicked smile, filled up with razor-sharp teeth that were flashing in the lights of the lanterns that were still functioning despite the city being flooded, and her eyes were just two black holes filled with long, red slit-pupils.

She rose her hand, and wiggled her fingers at him in an imitation of a wave, massive, hooked claws glistening brightly. She was mocking him, harshly, cruelly, and obviously enjoying every single second of it.

See you in hell, little bastard. The Author spoke, crossing her arms behind her back as she looked down on him with gleaming orbs. It is only going to get worse from here.

#horror #horror story #horror fiction #Universe: The Author #tw: death #tw: murder #tw: corpse #tw: drowning #unnerving #unnerving story #unnerving fiction

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laughingphoenixleader · 3 years

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Pairing: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla

Word count: no idea

A/N: This is my first fanfiction that I’m posting out in the world! This takes place an hour or two after the end of Star Wars Rebels Season 2 Episode 7: Wings of the Master. I found a fanart when surfing the internet for Kanera content (as one does) a few months ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since! I don’t know whose work the art is but I’ll paste it on here! If anyone knows who it’s by, please let me know :) the art isn’t mine, but all of the writing is! Obviously, Kanan isn’t blind yet in this fic like he is in the fanart. I hope anyone who reads this likes it!! I’m hoping to post more fanfiction in the future—I have three others in the works already! I’m open to any and all feedback!

Hera rubs her temple as she steps out of the promotion briefing. Her head buzzes with new intel, and plans zip through her mind like starships. She is honored and ecstatic about her promotion to Phoenix Leader. At the same time, though, she can already feel the new responsibility settling onto her shoulders, all of the lives that will soon be placed under her supervision weighing on her. Hera can and will take on all of the privileges and authority her new position grants her, and she fully intends to own it, too. Still, her heart is heavy.

Truthfully, she’s still struggling with the losses they suffered on the first attempt to deliver supplies to Ibaar. Hera had been so determined to complete that mission, to find the right ship to make it possible, that the grief and sensation of failure hadn’t caught up with her. She had made sure of that. There wasn’t time to be crippled by guilt and loss when there was a mission to complete. Now that the mission was over, however, she can feel the effects of the losses setting in.

Thoughts swirl through her mind as she continues to head down the hallway towards the bay where the Ghost is docked.

If I had just let us turn back—if I hadn’t told everyone to keep going—maybe Phoenix Leader and the people on the transport would have survived.

She’d made the wrong call. Hera can still hear the panic-filled voice crying out, “Captain Syndulla!” as the transport—and the people inside—were blasted into a thousand pieces. She’d let her determination blind her, and lives had been lost because of it.

Guilt pours into her, paralyzing her. She stops walking in the middle of the empty hallway and steps into a nearby alcove to process it all. If I make a mistake like that again, the consequences will be worse now that I have more responsibility. What if I let everyone down?

Her churning vortex of thoughts and feelings is interrupted by a pair of strong, green-clad arms embracing her from behind, and a deep, warm voice comes from above her. “How’s it going, Captain?”

Pleasure surges through her lekku. His timing is perfect.

The pleasant surprise washes all of the guilt, fear, and sadness away, at least for now. Hera lets out a little “hey” of protest as Kanan Jarrus pulls her nearly off her feet, but an irrepressible smile spreads over her face. She closes her eyes and turns her face towards his, relishing the warmth emanating from him and the way his presence soothes her. Hera places her hands on the arms that envelop her, returning the embrace through a gentle squeeze.

“Better now, love,” she tells him. He releases her slightly so that her feet are fully on the ground and places his chin on her shoulder, still holding her close.

“And you usually hate PDAs.”

“If I’m not mistaken, there’s no one in this hallway.”

“What would you have done if there were?”

Hera is silent for a moment, eyes still closed. “Nothing differently.”

She can feel him grin. “Great,” he replies. “Because there’s someone walking by now.”

Hera’s eyes fly open and search the hallway—which is still empty. She elbows him. “Kanan!”

A deep laugh vibrates out of his chest. She rolls her eyes, but allows herself to settle back into his embrace.

“Really, though,” Kanan says gently, all traces of mirth disappearing. The care in his voice sends another ripple of affection through her lekku. “How are you? I could tell you needed this.”

“And you were right,” Hera admits as he guides them down onto the alcove’s bench, arms still entwined around her. Normally, she’d break away now to explain what she was feeling, the thought of fellow rebels walking by and being made uncomfortable by their display of affection present in her mind. This time, however, she isn’t ready to move away from him. Besides, this isn’t a heavily trafficked hallway anyway. She does move to the side rather than sitting on his lap, though, her shoulder overlapping his. “It’s those people we lost the first time we went to Ibaar to deliver the supplies,” she begins, her voice heavy with returning guilt. “They died because of me.”

Kanan lifts his head from her shoulder, his aquamarine eyes staring seriously into hers. “Hera, no.”

“They told me they were taking heavy fire,” she continues, her voice growing more and more agitated. “They lost their forward deflectors, and I still told them to keep going. I should’ve told them to turn back.” A sound of frustration escapes her throat. “Why am I so stubborn? Why are they putting more people under my leadership after my decision led to several deaths?”

“Hera,” Kanan’s voice cuts through her hysteria, rich and deep and sure. “Everyone here knows that any mission could be their last.”

“I know that,” she responds, voice still thrumming with anguish. “But that doesn’t mean lives should be thrown away just because of one person’s inability to retreat!” She breaks her gaze from his, shaking her head and staring down at the floor. “I don’t deserve that promotion.”

Kanan gently lifts her head so that her eyes meet his again. “No one trusting someone with authority expects them to be perfect,” Kanan reminds her. “Everyone here has made a wrong call, has failed to complete a mission—which you didn’t, by the way—but that doesn’t mean they’re a failure. You weren’t treating anyone like they were expendable—your optimism led you not to give up. You were determined to get those supplies to those in need and refused to give up hope.” Tones similar to those he uses when teaching Ezra a lesson color his voice, though with considerably less frustration. “The only way to rise above your mistakes is to accept the lessons they teach and apply them in the future. Letting your mistakes destroy your faith in yourself isn’t going to help anyone.”

Hera listens intently, his sincerity like a bacta patch on a wound.

“Sato could hear all of the comms between you and Phoenix Squadron, and he didn’t demote you or chastise you. Clearly, he doesn’t blame you for the lives that were lost.” Kanan squeezes her tighter reassuringly. “No one does.”

His voice becomes harder, more insistent. “And of course you deserve the promotion.” He sounds offended at the thought of anyone suggesting otherwise. “You didn’t volunteer to leave the mission—you were committed to seeing it through. But when I volunteered you for the mission to Shantipole, you dove in—literally—and headed straight into a world that no ship is supposed to be able to escape from—but you did. You’d only flown that B-wing once before joining the battle, but you flew it like it was built for you. You’re the reason those supplies did get to those people. When I recommended your promotion, Sato didn’t waste a second before agreeing with me.”

Kanan’s words replace her guilt and grief with a swelling of gratitude and comfort. Hera won’t forget those who had died today. She’ll be more careful to see when a situation requires a retreat, but she won’t let her confidence in herself die. “Thank you, Kanan,” she tells him, her heart full. He places his forehead against hers, and they share a rare moment of contentment and peace, enjoying each other’s presence.

Hera reluctantly breaks the silence after a minute or so, lifting her forehead from his.“We should probably get back home,” she tells the Jedi. “I liked that B-wing, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting the kids wreck the Ghost.” Kanan’s flash of disappointment is so endearing. She lifts his chin reassuringly.

“It’ll be all right, fearless leader.”

Kanan unravels his arms from around her, replying indignantly, “Hey, no, you’re officially the leader now.” They’d had the argument many times, each insisting that the other is the leader of their crew. Hera always tells him that “captain of the ship” and “leader” are two different things.

Now she rolls her eyes, smiling, but doesn’t correct him this time.

“I guess it’s about time we get back, anyway,” Kanan continues before she changes her mind and decides to refute him. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten something?”

Hera’s brows knit as she attempts to remember. “Yeah, too long,” Kanan’s suspicions seem to have been confirmed. “Come on.” He takes her hand and pulls her up, out of the alcove, and into the hallway. They share a comfortable silence all the way back to the Ghost, which Hera now realizes Kanan must have left to come find her. Even more affection for him to rises in her at the realization.

When the cockpit opens, the two release each others’ hands and are greeted by a rush of cheers and pumping fists. Even Chopper waves his grasping arms and spins around in celebration.

“Go Hera!” Ezra yells.

“About time you got promoted,” Zeb grins.

“Congratulations, Hera,” Sabine tells her earnestly.

“Mom got promoted! Mom got promoted!” Chopper chants triumphantly.

Hera chuckles, heart overflowing with fondness for her crew. “All right, all right,” she tells them. “You’re going to make the rest of the ship think that something’s wrong.”

“Who cares?” Ezra says as he pulls everyone into a group hug. “Hera cares,” Kanan replies, but he puts one arm around her and another around Sabine. The hug is a little awkward, with Zeb being so much taller than Ezra and Sabine and Chopper standing in the middle of the circle, but in that moment, the crew feels truly united.

“Okay, I can’t stand Zeb’s smell anymore,” Ezra quips, stepping out of the circle. Chopper rolls over and smacks him with a grasping arm.

“Ow! You always do that!” The blue-haired boy zips into the cargo hold, trying to get away from Chopper, who continues whacking him as he pursues.

The rest of the family shares exasperated smiles.

Kanan nudges Hera forward, dropping his arms from hers and Sabine’s shoulders.

“Lead the way, Captain Hera,” he tells her, that crooked smile of his setting the inside of Hera aglow. “We’re all behind you.”

#kanan jarrus #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #sabine wren #swr #kanera #hera syndulla #kanan x hera #garazeb orrelios #chopper #c1 10p #wings of the master #Hera is the best pilot in the galaxy change my mind #space parents #space mom #space dad #space married #best couple ever #otp

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theamberwizard · 3 years

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i’ve been thinking about black widow and the red room recently, as one does, and i’ve got a lot of thoughts about the effects of the red room on widows who’ve escaped. couple things, just before i begin: i would recommend having watched black widow before this because there are implied (?) spoilers, i use way too fancy language while i write and i don’t have an editor cause this is mainly to catch her off guard, so, uh, whoops sorry

trigger warnings: TW: child abuse TW: restricted eating/starving yourself TW: dehumanization TW: death of a child

so yeah, enjoy my list of 10 personal headcanons about how the red room fucks you up on all the levels.

1) black widows cannot sleep in. like, they wake up at 5:00 am every day. it’s not a physical thing, at least not as far as they know, because they can negate that by just going to bed two hours or less before 5:00 am just from their lack of sleep. if, however, they go to sleep at a fairly normal hour they will, like clockwork, wake up at 5:00. this stems from them doing it every single day of their life since they got indoctrinated in the red room. if they didn’t wake up at 5:00 am ready for more training or missions, for any reason, they would be tortured. sometimes physically, sometimes mentally. eventually, all the widows would get that message. they still can’t shake it. because of that, natasha will often refuse to go to sleep at a normal hour, trying to force her body into submission, trying to rid herself of the painful memories that accompanied sleep and waking up afterwards. only clint knows why, because each day in that vent, natasha would snap up at 4:00 am. she had to explain to him that she just wasn’t accustomed to budapest time, and that actually, it was 5:00 am in russia.

2) for months after escaping the red room, widows practically cannot eat. in the red room, they were fed mushy messes of meals, filled with only the necessary nutrients that they absolutely had to have to survive. most widows can only get down one meal, maybe even a snack if they push it, until they throw it all up. they have to slowly eat slightly more each day for weeks until they can get down a normal intake of food. even then, it’s hard to push that, and every widow relapses into throwing up in those early stages. however, this isn’t normally a problem for most widows until a couple weeks into their life with freedom. that’s about the time that they make an acquaintance, who will eventually pluck up the courage to ask them why every time said friend will eat near the widow, the widow will lean over and whisper: “careful, that’s your whole ration today and i don’t want to do extra training.”

3) each “class” of widows had an extra mentor teacher in their early red room years. this was an older widow, someone who’d been falling behind in her recent missions, and with a look that the red room deemed “motherly”. their sole purpose was to be the person each widow got attached too, the parental figure. they were nice, they were helpful, they taught many different basic techniques. then, one day, the red room would have another older widow, (one already introduced to the children as the metaphorical “bad cop” of this scenario) come in and inform the mentor that she had failed her latest mission and proceed to, in front of thirty eleven year-olds, shoot the mentor. the mentor widow would not die that day- the red room refused to waste such a weapon- but the class of up incoming widows would be informed that she had. the official purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate to both the trainees and the trainer the consequences of failing a mission. the unofficial purpose? that would be the last psychological effects the mentor’s “death” would have upon the class, making them learn what happened to attachments in the red room. the day natasha’s class experienced this was the day she cut off all contact with her sister. the day yelena experiences this is the day she first another widow- because yelena killed that mentor with her own bare hands before the informant ever finished the announcement.

4) towards the start of the red room’s history, there were several attacks on the red room. the first ever attack was from a local police station who had been getting complaints of loud wailing, and, upon further investigation, realized what they were dealing with. they brought several other police and militia groups from nearby towns. the immediate action that was taken was to throw the littlest girls they had at the attackers. it stopped the police in their tracks, obviously, because you really don’t expect to come across thirty little girls while searching through a building of highly trained assassins. the red room then sent their fully trained widows and killed everyone. including the girls. the red room then found that footage from their cameras (because of fucking course they have cameras) and then showed it to the next batch of widows, just to show them how disposable they were.

5) yelena and natasha almost caused a whole fucking mutiny within the red room just because of their names. in the red room, you see, widows do not get names. they instead are bestowed with numbers, and even those are a twisted class ranking. they all wore little name tags with the numbers on them until came natasha and yelena came in. yelena, having just seen her mother get shot, complied almost immediately and was addressed as number 42. on the other side of that coin you have natasha, who had already been in the red room and remembered every gruesome detail, and went “fuck you my name is natalia.” upon hearing of this (word gets around fast in the red room. every girl must know they are being listened to at all times, and no secrets can be kept from the red room,) yelena too announced her name to the class.

6) this was met with blanching from every child in that class, because how on earth can you be called by a word? no, they thought, we are numbers, we are weapons, we are not people and we cannot have our own words, for we are not worthy. but secretly, internally, they wished for a name. slowly, they began piecing syllables together until they formed a coherent name, and for the first time in the red room’s long history, they didn’t have weapons. not anymore. they have two full classes of human little girls. the red room officials heard of this, obviously, and took to the only method they had now. violence. the classes were rid of the named girls, yet natasha and yelena were kept alive. they were kept alive to be ostracized, to be the girl the others pointed at and said “she’s the reason all my friends died.” they were kept alive so they could watch the carnage they had unwittingly caused just by saying their own names. and the worst part? well, the worst part was when the teachers accounted for those kills, and made them top of the class. yelena will never forget the day the teachers stood her and her sister up in front of all the widows-in-traning and told them what a good job they had done, how those tactics were sure to help them graduate. i mean, you’re practically a shoo-in if they rest of your class was killed by your school.

7) the red room could never fully stop the names, and so they decided to make a system, and the names would be the highest reward. they told the young, impressionable girls that while maybe outsiders such as natasha and yelena got names at birth, you had to earn them here. if you are to become a spy, you will take on the name of you very first official alias. if, instead, you become an assassin, you will take on the name of your very first official kill. of course, in reality, the widows couldn’t actually address each other with their new earned names, and instead used “team leader” or other such titles. but it became a small comfort for them, thinking of themselves in third person, with their very own names. in some small part they weren’t fully weapons anymore, no, they were people again. natasha took on the name natalia, because in her mind that life in ohio had been her first mission, even if she hadn’t known it. yelena took on yelena as well, but in her mind that little girl in ohio who was sitting in the backseat, caring only about which song they played, that girl had to have been yelena’s first true kill.

8) the names system worked well in the red room, but when you escaped it caused some serious problems. most would have to announce themselves to the russian government, saying they had been flying under the radar their whole life and never became registered. then, they’d give a non-russian name, and their whole ruse would fall apart. unfortunately, this was the least of their problems, because many a widow would someday meet a relative of their very first kill, and when they introduced themselves as the person they had killed all those years ago, the families and friends would often figure them out.

9) one of the biggest parts of the red room’s brainwashing was their little catchphrases they used. ironically, a lot of them were eerily close to boy scout mottos- “be prepared,” an iconic scout motto, versus “there is no safety, only preparedness,” the most frequently used phrase within the red room. when widows then escaped, the most small phrase could set them off. some unknowing widows even adopted little boys in their new lives, who often became boy scouts. the ensuing misery is something you can imagine yourself.

10) after clint helped natasha to escape, she immediately died her hair blond. clint asked why, of course, and she didn’t tell him. (what, you thought i’d have another cute clintasha moment? never.) this was partly because she hadn’t admitted it to herself, though, because natasha couldn’t remember her sister without remembering all the suffering that came with her.

11) when the widows were smaller, more susceptible to the conditioning, the red room would stage infiltrations. older widows, ones who were closer to retirement, would come in in different uniforms, sometimes the uniforms of UN officers or local police, sometimes different organizations, all different types. the most recent uniforms made yelena sick looking at them, because each time the older widows would pretend to be the avengers there would also be one pretending to be her sister. each time she saw the fake natasha she wanted to break that widow’s neck because that’s not how my sister tilts her head, you’re doing it all wrong. you should be doing it like this, you shouldn’t be doing it at all, i should be doing this, i know my sister. each time those exact thoughts went into her head, and each time all she really wanted was for her sister to be there, for natasha to do her little head tilt upon seeing yelena and take her hand and say “you’re safe now, i promise,” and for natasha to be telling the truth. the only problem was that deep down inside herself yelena knew that this could never actually happen while yelena was still in the red room, because while yelena was still in the red room she knew that she would look at natasha telling her she was safe and tell her in return that there was no safety, only preparedness, and then murder her sister in cold blood.

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violetlunette · 3 years

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Why Bakagou’s slapstick doesn’t work for me

Below is basically me saying why I don’t like Bakagou’s slapstick. This isn’t me calling anyone out, it's just a view of an opinion. If you find the angry porcupine funny I won’t judge you.

That being said, below does have anti-Bakugou elements and Bakugou Critical. If these bother you, I suggest you spend your time elsewhere.

Let’s get this out of the way; Comedy in itself is subjective to each person. Mineta is a perfect example; some people laugh at him along with his antics, while others don’t. Whether his actions may be funny to some, others who have suffered sexual harassment won’t laugh. (Personally, I don’t think the violence is harsh enough to make his antics funny, but more on that later.)

Nowadays, a lot of people don’t find physical violence funny. I am not one of those people. I love physical comedy—if it’s done right.

These are the official rules of slapstick comedy—Though they come from a mime school, so YMMV;

Pain without real consequences.

Editing to turn a situation more unrealistic.

Impossible situations.

Those are mime rules, but here’s mine;

The person that receives the pain must have done something to earn it.

The pain must be because of a direct action of the recipient.

Pain without real consequences. (We share this rule.)

There are a few exceptions, as I’ve seen nice characters get hit with slapstick, but because rule three is in play, I still laugh. Like with Courage the Cowardly Dog from the show of the same name. He is the sweetest and bravest thing, but he still suffers a lot of slapstick. Usually, though, the pain goes away right away, so most viewers laugh as it’s “pain without real consequence.” When the pain stays for more than a few scenes, it’s serious.

As I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t mind Mineta too much if he received more punishment for his perverted acts and said punishment was more cartoony violent. I recognize his character type as a typical anime trope and because their actions earn the violence, I laugh when they get their just desserts. When Kota kicked Mineta off the wall, I laughed. When Jiro stabbed his eye, I laughed. And so on. As a person, Mineta doesn’t connect to me (though there was potential), when it comes to his slapstick, I’m all for laughing. His pain is funny to me because it’s earned by actions he consciously makes and there’s no lasting damage. Better yet, no one ever just waves off his action as ‘that’s just Mineta.’ More often than not when he acts like a perv others call him out and react properly--usually.

A character I do like that suffers is Monoma. Most of the BNHA fandom hates him—mostly Bakagoustans—but I find his antics funny, as well as his pain. The reason Monoma’s pain is funny to me is simple; he acts like a jackass and is punished for it.

Monoma is Class-B’s Bakagou, but unlike Class-A they don’t ignore his actions. When he does something rude or annoying, Monoma is called out. They tell him straight out that what he's doing is NOT okay, and they don’t agree with him. If he continues, then Monoma is knocked out. Class-B even goes the extra mile and apologizes for him. They acknowledge that Monoma’s actions are wrong then they do something about it.

Now, to be fair most of the scenes played for comedy with Bakagou technically fit the slapstick rules;

Pain without real consequence- Debatable, but we don’t usually see any physical scars from his actions.

Editing to turn a situation unrealistic and impossible situations- During these scenes, Bakagou’s face gets cartoony as hell, and the way he causes pain isn't usually something we see in everyday life.

So, yeah, I can see why some people laugh at him as he follows the rules technically.

This is where the subjective comes in. Now just a reminder, this is all my opinion, therefore there will be a little pettiness. Ye have been warned.

First of all, Bakagou seldom receives punishment for his asshole tendencies. He can yell at people, insult them, and physically attack others, but no one does anything. Once in a while, we’ll get a “knock it off Bakugou” or Class A will be appalled, but that’s it. If Bakugou showed he was irritated by getting ignored, then maybe it would be funny. But no. He yells, he hurts someone, then it’s brushed aside.

Cartman of South Park fame is an asshole, but I can laugh at his actions as the narrative never says that his horrible actions are right. Even when he gets away with it the show states, “yeah, we know this is wrong, but so what?” Because of that I’m not annoyed with the story and can laugh. See, if the horrible action is at least somehow acknowledged in some way, I’m more likely to laugh.

There’s also the fact that the people Bakagou attacks usually have done nothing to earn his ire. Bakagou’s just being an asshole. (Monoma’s an exception, but again, his slapstick is funny.)

Izuku is the most common target of Bakagou’s tantrums and he NEVER does anything to deserve it. He’s just doing his own thing and Bakagou will get jealous before attacking, verbally or physically. And Izuku just takes it! Even when Izuku isn’t even talking to him, Bakagou will attack him!

“But more often than not, Izuku is okay, right? So wouldn’t the ‘Pain without real consequence’ rule come into play?” Not in this case. Why? Because of their history.

I don’t like to throw the word “abuse” around unless it fits. The reason for this is that it takes away its power and seriousness. I also believe that there’s a difference between being a jerk and an abuser. To me, in anime or cartoons at least, a dope-slap here and there isn’t abuse.

I have no idea about the full story and said story seems to be changing to manipulate views, but what’s clear is this; Bakagou bullied Izuku.

I’m not clear when bullying passes the line into abuse (please forgive my ignorance of this at this time), but whatever Bakagou did had traumatized Izuku. I won’t go into it here, but there are several posts out there that prove Bakagou’s actions left lasting mental and emotional wounds on Izuku that affect him and his actions throughout the story.

There’s too much unpleasant history between Izuku and Bakagou for the latter’s actions to the former to ever be entertaining. Bakagou bullied Izuku throughout their whole childhood and belittled him. After so long of Bakagou’s actions being played seriously, I’m supposed to see it as a joke now? Nuh-uh. No way. Nothing’s changed.

Bakagou still jokes about Izuku dying, belittles him, and attacks him whenever he gets a little attention. Just like he always did. Whatever development he may have got, Bakagou is still a brat who throws a tantrum when he’s not the focus.

The only difference is that instead of reacting to it, Izuku’s gotten used to it. He’s numb to it all. That’s not funny at all. It’s sad.

When Izuku was flinching, at least his body was instinctively trying to protect itself. In that subtle way, it was acknowledging that something was wrong. By not flinching, or doing anything to defend himself, Izuku is no longer acknowledging the actions are wrong. The worse thing about it? No one else is either.

Sure it wouldn’t be in character if Izuku yelled or fought back, but others in Class A could. They don’t even have to do anything major, just along the lines of what Class B does.

Another thing is that the people Bakagou yells at or attacks are people who won’t or can’t fight back. Izuku, Fuyumi (who has lived with an adult version of Bakagou all her life), and Shoto. Shoto is a little better because Bakagou never hurts him or bothers him and Shoto ignoring Bakagou’s tantrums leads to the latter getting annoyed which is kinda funny.

All that said, to me Bakagou’s antics always have been and always will be bullying, and they are NOT something I can laugh at.

However, as many others can this just proves that humor is subjective. Take everything I said with a grain of salt.

#bnha #mha #anti bakugou #bakugou critical #slapstick

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kungfuslipper · 2 years

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One thing that upsets me is the inherently toxic expectation in our western work culture that you will continue to work harder than you can reasonably work and continue to give your time and energy with no reprieve in sight. All the while — we have been raised in this culture — whoever works hardest will come out on top. I personally have had to work my ass off to take care of myself. My parents did what they could while I was too young to be employed, but after that it was all up to me. For someone like me: strong, smart enough, and healthy, this could be done. I got myself where I needed to go, all the while giving up bits of my health to get there. Our work culture requires us to sacrifice the best parts of ourselves to this machine, and now — being older, not as resilient, dealing with the pandemic healthcare shortages —the realization has sort of appeared that how hard I work really does not matter that much. My employer rewards us all the same for our efforts (which is to say, not enough). I have my values and will follow them, but I'm done with the delusion that hard work will be rewarded by someone else. It will not.

My health, time, and energy are only mine and from now on it's only me who gets to decide what to do with them.

Realizing I am not a machine has contributed to this. I struggle a lot lately with impaired cognitive function as a result of overworking and having inadequate sleep. I know this must affect many people and it sucks. For me it may also be a couple of head injuries, but I can't be sure what effect those have had. Anyway I deal with a lot of memory loss and confusion. All day every day I am like that one person you know who puts their keys in their pocket and then turns circles trying to find them. It is so bad it's no longer funny. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out where my things are, what word I am trying to recall, or what someone meant when they referenced X. Especially difficult is having an argument or conversation with someone you love and having no memory of a past event. It induces a low level constant shame and feeling of inadequacy which is very difficult to shake.

Nobody cares about these effects but me. My manager only really cares that the openings are covered. Honestly if there's a shortage, I'd rather struggle with less staff at work then call someone else in when they are supposed to be off. Changing people's hours is another big issue. Expecting people to get up in the middle of the night to help cover overnight shifts, asking people to stay at work until 11:30 pm when they work a day shift schedule. These things cause significant health and mood disruptions.

Trust me, I know and understand sacrifice. I have given many years of it. But at what point have you sacrificed enough? At what point do you say: no, I am not going to make myself suffer to ease someone else's day? How do we make these decisions? How do we change something that clearly does not work?

Choosing "sacrifice" is often a form of self abandonment. Many of us who grew up in a traumatic environment are all too familiar with this and easily fall into this trap. It feels like the right thing to do — what is expected. Can even make you feel good to hurt yourself for a larger cause.

Something that can give you meaning. But this is the wrong way to go if you need to understand and make your own meaning — if inhabiting and protecting yourself is essential to your healing. I do believe in sacrifice, but not the way I was taught. It's a very selfless thing, a sacred thing, and should only be attempted when you're in a very strong place, from a position of full agency and ability to accept and deal with the consequences.

I don't feel that most of us are in such a fortified position, especially these days. Anyway burnout is real and widespread, and each day I am struggling — but doing my best to handle the challenges.

#slipper.txt #long text post #personal #work culture #stress #cognitive impairment #memory loss #mental health #life

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edenmemes · 3 years

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the witcher 3: wild hunt starters

including quotes from the dlcs hearts of stone & blood and wine

❝ you were always an unruly child. i adored that about you. ❞ ❝ mmm. yes. of course. the excuse you resort to when you’d rather not talk about something. ❞ ❝ how many have you killed? how many more might you still? ❞ ❝ you know who i am. and why i’m here. ❞ ❝ you're a madman and always have been. a cruel, cold-blooded killer. ❞ ❝ a man should frame his wishes carefully. it forestalls disappointment. ❞ ❝ no argument. you knew what you were signing up for. ❞ ❝ maybe once, in a different time...i’d have helped. ❞ ❝ don’t train alone, it only embeds your errors. ❞ ❝ wanna get drunk off my ass. and it’s gotta be on cheap wine. ❞ ❝ you’re a heartless bastard. ❞ ❝ try to trick me anyway, anyhow, you won’t go anywhere, you know that. ‘cause i’ll take your head off right where it meets your neck. ❞ ❝ sorry. i don’t want to talk about it. not now, at least. ❞ ❝ we are more like a family. we support each other and help each other survive tough moments. ❞ ❝ so how’s it feel to be the village witch? ❞ ❝ realize, please, that you were made for great things. ❞ ❝ folks say a curse has fallen on that place, a dark power brought down by the bestiality of the murders it beheld. ❞ ❝ so, now you’ve threatened me and all...are you in or are you not? ❞ ❝ i know it must sound foolish, but in the dream - well, it was all too real... ❞ ❝ we may not survive this. in fact, our chances are slim. ❞ ❝ it’s always been about you. only you. ❞ ❝ i remember finding your sense of humor both groan-worthy...and somehow endearing. ❞ ❝ kings die, realms fall, but magic endures. ❞ ❝ i detest banquets. vacuous conversation, food portions fit for a mouse, drinks that taste like piss... ❞ ❝ despite what you’ve heard, i don’t lunge at every monster i see, sword in hand. ❞ ❝ each day’s more dangerous than the last. ❞ ❝ it’s folks like you that restore my faith in humankind. ❞ ❝ my power lies in possessing knowledge, not sharing it. ❞ ❝ the rotten smell brings back childhood memories. ❞ ❝ awfully noble of you, showing so much concern for the needy. ❞ ❝ no need to thank me. always glad to save your ass. you’re welcome. ❞ ❝ i may be inhumanely beautiful, but i don’t have super human senses. ❞ ❝ anyone can be made to talk, even a corpse. one must simply know how. ❞ ❝ we’ve done the hardest part. only got the pleasant bits now. ❞ ❝ there are few causes worth saving. even fewer men. ❞ ❝ don’t treat me like a child. ❞ ❝ there’s strange men lurking outside the house. watching me. ❞ ❝ you must be careful what you wish for lest your wish be granted. for there are consequences. ❞ ❝ shall i be free of the suffering? the sadness? ❞ ❝ i wish to gaze into those eyes, eyes the devil would be proud to have. ❞ ❝ you were born with a great gift. and only you can decide how to use it. ❞ ❝ any other words of wisdom? or can we go? ❞ ❝ what i need is an ally. and something tells me i shall find none better than you. ❞ ❝ i can see no row can occur here without your participation. ❞ ❝ i and what concerns me have not been a concern of yours for some time now. ❞ ❝ if you’d not arrived in time, things might have ended considerably worse. ❞ ❝ if they can bleed, they can die. ❞ ❝ a man must display some madness from time to time --- it helps him feel alive. ❞ ❝ i was deeply troubled. you’ve no idea. ❞ ❝ done that so many times, but...it felt like our first kiss to me. ❞ ❝ don’t need to play tough on me. ❞ ❝ i've lost too many mates already. i won’t risk it, i can't. ❞ ❝ there’s just not enough of us. it’ll be a hard fight. ❞ ❝ in lonely woods, screams carry long. ❞ ❝ things used to be simpler. monsters were bad, humans good. now, everything’s all confused. ❞ ❝ as for your missteps --- i don't rightly see why i shouldn't laugh if they're amusing.. ❞ ❝ i’ve no gold to offer you in reward...but i shall be ever so grateful. ❞ ❝ if you’re scared, turn back. i’m gonna go on. ❞ ❝ if anything happens, i’ll defend you. ❞ ❝ once you say "i love you," a kiss has to taste differently. ❞ ❝ maybe we should sit? you look a bit dazed... ❞ ❝ drink it off, sleep it off, whatever it takes...just get yourself together and think things through. ❞ ❝ i shall join later, if it’s no trouble. i don’t yet feel strong enough to venture out. ❞ ❝ awake at last. you writhed like a squirrel caught in a snare. ❞ ❝ again you plan without even asking what i think! ❞ ❝ come to see how i’m feelin'? thanks, not bad. ❞ ❝ i remember that day quite well...there was a light drizzle, yet the cold tore right through you. ❞ ❝ you gotta keep your eyes peeled wide open. someone’s taken an interest in your work. ❞ ❝ oof...for a minute, i actually thought we were doomed. ❞ ❝ you shouldn’t worry yourself --- it tarnishes your beauty. ❞ ❝ i’d even embrace you...were you not covered in blood. ❞ ❝ guess i could’ve been someone worse...just a shame i had no choice. ❞ ❝ facts interest me. not fairytales. ❞ ❝ hm, odd smell. blend of alcohol, blood and monster stench. ❞ ❝ i’m old and i am wealthy. i may say what i please. ❞ ❝ now, be so kind and leave me to my thoughts. ❞ ❝ in your shoes i’d pack it up and go hide somewhere far away. ❞ ❝ forgive me, but that's the blatherin' of someone who clearly can't snap out of it after a tragic loss. ❞ ❝ that all you gotta say? i saved your life. ❞ ❝ i swear on all that is holy: we shall be together forever. ❞ ❝ think of me as part of the decor. ❞ ❝ anyone who’s bold enough to fight is already a hero. ❞ ❝ if this is a trap of some sort... ❞ ❝ you can count on me, you know? always. ❞ ❝ you don’t know how much it means...to have someone you can rely on in this fucking city. ❞ ❝ i know you. you have no heart. ❞ ❝ no room for friendship in this business. ❞ ❝ evil is evil. lesser, greater, middling, makes no difference. the degree is arbitrary, the definitions blurred. ❞ ❝ hands off, or i'll cut them off. ❞ ❝ i’ll need to clear my head first. after those deranged dreams, i feel it’s full of cobwebs. ❞ ❝ on your way? or will you stay longer? it’s far safer with you around... ❞ ❝ really sad story, but something’s not right. got a feeling you’re not telling me everything. ❞ ❝ gotta admit, there’s something about you. you’re...different. ❞ ❝ with each arrow i shoot, i think of my dad. he’d be proud, i think. ❞ ❝ i merely know when to indulge my pride, and when to swallow it. ❞ ❝ you were born to greatness. ❞ ❝ these’re dark, grim times. no room for knights pure of heart or happily-ever-afters. ❞ ❝ a life without liquor’s like loving without licking. ❞ ❝ my certainty i walk the right path grows strong as iron, firm as steel. ❞ ❝ few make me feel awkward, but in your presence, i feel anxiety, discomfort. ❞ ❝ some men have got good reason to fear their own shadows. ❞ ❝ some men cannot admit defeat. some keep fighting from beyond the grave. ❞ ❝ stare into their eyes, feast on their terror. then go in for the kill. ❞ ❝ forget not that you are a person right and honorable, devoted to doing good. ❞ ❝ ash shall fertilize the soil. by spring, the valley shall bloom once more. ❞ ❝ there’s lots of wraiths here. i hear them whispering every night. ❞ ❝ no one has the courage to face this threat! yet we must kill them, or sooner or later we will all die. ❞ ❝ you are a step away from losing your head. speak the truth and you might yet keep it. ❞ ❝ you carry within you the weight of a terrible tragedy. you are a good person, but lost. which is why you come across as grim. ❞ ❝ if i understand you correctly, you would rather help a monster than kill it? ❞ ❝ discouraged after a mere eight attempts? ❞ ❝ easier to pat someone on the back and hope things will work out than it is to face the truth. ❞ ❝ know that they can’t teach an old dog new tricks? ❞ ❝ my, you’ve grown beautiful. ❞ ❝ my swords a promise --- if i reach for it, heads will roll. ❞ ❝ one condition: no one dies. that clear? ❞ ❝ patience happens to be my weakness. so dispense with the dramatic pauses and talk. ❞ ❝ you proved today you can take care of yourself. ❞ ❝ you under the delusion you’ll complete your tasks, live happily ever after? ❞ ❝ i will not sit and twiddle my thumbs. i'm sick of waiting, sick of hiding! ❞ ❝ glad you know who i am. haven’t introduced yourself, though. ❞ ❝ i’ve seen a great deal --- cruelty, cynicism, greed. ❞ ❝ you tempt fate, because at heart you are unhappy. ❞ ❝ we had our chance, but...let it go. ❞ ❝ come now, you didn’t expect it to be that easy, did you? ❞ ❝ promise me one thing --- you’ll stop risking your life for others. ❞ ❝ instead of dwelling on the future, i’d rather live in the moment. ❞ ❝ i adore love stories. especially the ones that end happily ever after. ❞ ❝ we are drops of rain that together make a ferocious storm. ❞ ❝ the path to freedom is paved in blood, not ink. ❞ ❝ we’ll get our happy ending. one day. ❞ ❝ i’ll never forget what you did for me...and what we had together. ❞ ❝ don’t meddle in other people’s lives. ❞ ❝ i don’t get attached to places. just people. ❞ ❝ it’s dangerous, there are risks involved. understand that, don’t you? ❞ ❝ and here i hoped someone would finally take pity on me. ❞ ❝ seen a lot of dead in my time, but that must’ve been hard. ❞ ❝ air is strange...like dropping into a deep cellar on a hot day... ❞ ❝ wouldn’t carry a sword if i didn’t know how to use it. ❞ ❝ take it you didn't summon me to reminisce about the good old days, so... ❞ ❝ i was attacked --- had to defend myself. ❞ ❝ guards have never stopped me, you know that. ❞ ❝ treating the ill and wounded...it’s my calling. ❞ ❝ you think it’s enchanted? ❞ ❝ there are times when a woman should simply not explain her decision. ❞ ❝ won’t find too many comforts, but try to feel at home. ❞ ❝ i was looking for you...sometimes i thought you were just a step away. other times, i felt like i was going around in circles. ❞ ❝ i’ll remember you. always with a smile. ❞ ❝ i’d rather you not make anymore trouble --- for yourself, or us both. ❞ ❝ got the stench of corpes on you. ❞ ❝ you stood to gain --- that is why you saved me. ❞ ❝ sages invariably have hidden agendas. altruism is simply not part of their constitution. ❞ ❝ the gods have abandoned us. the mighty of this earth care not for our fate. ❞ ❝ is that admiration i hear in your voice? ❞ ❝ i started off heading in the opposite direction, but then turned around. ❞ ❝ i’m fed up. i won’t have others deciding for me behind my back. ❞ ❝ where’d you get this idea? what’s gotten into you? ❞ ❝ i don't expect you to commit now. think it over, what you've heard, what you feel. ❞ ❝ head torn clear off...takes incredible strength. ❞ ❝ desperate fathers have been known to do a lot to find their daughters. ❞ ❝ you cannot kill me. you know this... ❞ ❝ "i give you my heart”? what kind of spell is that? ❞ ❝ i’d go anywhere with you. ❞ ❝ why? because i am a woman? in a frock, rather than plate? i can take care of myself, i assure you. ❞ ❝ everything we discussed here, hope you’ll keep it to yourself. counting on it, in fact. ❞ ❝ trusted you once. won’t make that mistake again. ❞ ❝ shut up. i’ve heard enough of your bullshit. draw your weapon, let’s get this over with. ❞ ❝ exaggerating for effect, right? ❞ ❝ well, well...when cornered, you can bite. ❞ ❝ you cannot win...even if you kill me. ❞ ❝ you know i’m good at accomplishing the impossible. ❞ ❝ it’s nothing, really. you’d have done the same for me. ❞ ❝ you are not ready. you do not control your powers. ❞ ❝ you’re a tool in their hands, even if you don’t see it. ❞ ❝ i’d do anything for you, i would. you know that well. ❞ ❝ this is a land where the fantastic is normal, and the impossible occurs daily... ❞ ❝ know when a legend becomes a prophecy? when it gain believers. ❞ ❝ i thought you’d become a stranger to me. that i’d look at you and not feel a thing. but it’s not like that at all. nothing’s changed. ❞ ❝ to be honest, i just wanted to go on a walk with you. ❞ ❝ what i really want is to be with you, to...to be together and... ❞ ❝ this is not the kind of offer one refuses. ❞ ❝ despair devours you like maggots devour a corpse. ❞ ❝ before long every soul will kneel before you. ❞ ❝ i run into dilemmas all the time. situations where it's hard to judge, hard to know what's right, make a decision. this is not one of them. you disgust me. and deserve to die. ❞ ❝ you know me. i’m rare to praise, but when i do, it’s sincere. ❞ ❝ i'm not a thug for hire. ❞ ❝ i like being on adventures, sleeping under the stars, waking up with dew on my face. ❞ ❝ the dream's within reach now. i’m not about to let it go. ❞ ❝ unlike you, killing gives me no pleasure. ❞ ❝ can't speak for the world you inhabit, but in mine, nothing is ever black and white. ❞ ❝ you cannot possibly imagine how much i detest this place. ❞ ❝ stones you’ve got. but i didn’t think you’d have the stomach for a massacre. ❞ ❝ the dead man --- looked like a monster attacked him recently. ❞ ❝ finish all your business before you die. bid loved ones farewell. write your will. apologize to those you’ve wronged. otherwise, you’ll never truly leave this world. ❞ ❝ i've had nothing but nightmares lately. pretty horrible. ❞ ❝ i was wandering through the forest, breathing deep the air, and then i heard a strange sound, unsettling. ❞ ❝ had a few nice dreams. for example, in one we sat around a fire, drinking good wine, and all around people danced and laughed. ❞ ❝ they’re all dead! mountains of corpses. yet here i stand alone. all alone. ❞ ❝ this isn’t a game. men have died. ❞ ❝ if you wanna listen, listen, if not --- i'd rather you spared me your wit and throw me out now. ❞ ❝ you fed me, cared for me, had my wounds looked after. we're even now. ❞ ❝ you’ll return, you shall. our fates are bound. ❞ ❝ i’ve nothing left. not a fucking thing. ❞ ❝ i don’t question your abilities. i simply don’t trust you. ❞ ❝ what foolish things men sometimes do. ❞ ❝ dare harm me, and against you will rise all the powers of nature. ❞ ❝ did you destroy the evil powers? have you brought peace to my domain? ❞ ❝ well, perhaps i shall tell you about it one day. one day, but not today.. ❞ ❝ times like these, you never know what tomorrow will bring. ❞ ❝ you worry too much. what will be, will be. ❞ ❝ have you gone completely mad? we must leave here at once! ❞ ❝ time eats away at memories, distorts them. sometimes we only remember the good... sometimes only the bad. ❞ ❝ you don’t need magic to strip men of their humanity. i’ve seen plenty of examples. ❞ ❝ if i’m to choose between one evil and another, i’d rather not choose at all. ❞ ❝ see what i’ve got on my back? wolves fear it. kings do, too. ❞ ❝ i missed those awkward compliments of yours. ❞ ❝ sometimes i think it’s all too lovely to be true…that something’s bound to happen, another war or some other horror. ❞ ❝ took you a while. did you run into trouble? ❞ ❝ i just travel a lot. and i don't always happen upon such good and civil company. ❞ ❝ what can you know about saving the world, silly? ❞ ❝ done my share of fighting. wouldn't carry a sword if i didn't know to use it. ❞ ❝ all right, perhaps i wasn’t completely honest. ❞ ❝ ever thought this day would come? me and you...peace and quiet...bees buzzing, birds chirping. ❞ ❝ i detect a shadow of impatience in your face. ❞ ❝ took me a long time to find you. wasn't an easy road to travel. ❞ ❝ wipe that frown off your face, or i might think you don’t like me anymore. ❞ ❝ always believed attack was the best defense. ❞ ❝ once it’s all over, if we survive ... i wish to leave, go far away. and i’d like you to come with me. ❞ ❝ naturally, you suspect me of the worst. i don’t deserve that. ❞ ❝ we can fight another time, in another place, where the walls have no ears. ❞ ❝ once i was free...i shall be free once more. ❞ ❝ believe me...a tavern, mulled wine, our boots drying by the fire --- i’d like nothing better. ❞ ❝ prove it. kiss me. ❞ ❝ the prophecies do not lie...you cannot survive this struggle. ❞ ❝ i know you better than you think. ❞ ❝ you know me. nothing i like more than breaking rules. ❞ ❝ what’s happened? it’s so quiet, all of a sudden. ❞ ❝ thank you, for coming with me. ❞ ❝ i cannot do everything for you. use your head. ❞ ❝ i'm angry and tired. had to kill a lot of people along the way. ❞ ❝ we’ve come a long way, and i’d be damned if we’ve come to fail. ❞ ❝ i sense your pain. i see your fear. ❞ ❝ how’s this for an answer: kiss my ass. ❞ ❝ how many have you already killed? how many more might you still? ❞ ❝ i'm quite alive and extraordinarily well. better than i've ever been in this rotten life of mine. ❞ ❝ i like it when you smile. come here. everything will be all right. ❞ ❝ ugh. don’t fall in love with me. ❞ ❝ i don’t like you. in fact, i feel like slapping you. ❞ ❝ i'm too old to play the blushing bride...unless you ask nicely. ❞ ❝ that bit of my life --- forgotten it already. ❞ ❝ the world doesn’t need a hero. it needs a professional. ❞ ❝ next time you wonder why i’m so bitter...well, there's your answer. ❞ ❝ nothing wrong with having a drink in good company. ❞ ❝ i want you behind those rocks. and keep your mouth shut. ❞ ❝ nice of you to worry...but i've made my decision, and i won't change it. ❞ ❝ this is my story, not yours. you must let me finish telling it. ❞ ❝ after all that toil, i believe we deserve a bit of a rest. ❞ ❝ i was afraid you were dead. ❞ ❝ we’ve all some stain on our conscience. ❞ ❝ leaving the castle walls means certain death. ❞ ❝ right good jest. had us a laugh. now fuck off. ❞ ❝ i’ve heard about you. you bring trouble, or thus far have, always. ❞ ❝ ah, you’ve struck a raw nerve. memories of a time long past to which i’d rather not return now. ❞ ❝ we meet again. and it seems you need my help. again. ❞ ❝ got a relative i can talk to? someone - how do i say this - a smidgen less irritating? ❞ ❝ miss the target, you owe me fifty push-ups. hit it, you owe me twenty. ❞ ❝ oh. serious talk coming. ❞ ❝ i feel like one more lie'd be the last bitter drop in a chalice full of sorrow. ❞ ❝ romantic? thought we came here as friends. ❞ ❝ you’re hiding something. and that’s one thing i can’t stand. ❞ ❝ tell me, how do you do it? always manage to pull yourself together, focus, no matter what’s happening? ❞ ❝ i go wherever i please, whenever i please. ❞ ❝ uh oh. i know that look. ❞ ❝ sounds tempting. so tempting i don’t think i can refuse. ❞ ❝ so, what do you say to a moonlight ride on horseback...and dinner? ❞ ❝ perhaps...perhaps you’d stay just a bit longer? ❞ ❝ how are you feeling? sleep well? ❞ ❝ such a gloomy subject to broach... simply shouldn’t have. ❞

❝ such a gloomy subject to broach...i simply shouldn’t have --- not during our romantic dinner. ❞ ❝ got it. a bit of blackmail --- just your style. ❞ ❝ it’s the crack of dawn. where do you wanna go? ❞ ❝ shut up before you wake someone. last thing we need is a crowd. ❞ ❝ watch what you say. the trees have ears. ❞ ❝ no bow at hand, no spear. my sword was all i had. ❞ ❝ never expected you’d take such an interest in my private life. ❞ ❝ i’m special. always was the rare beauty. ❞ ❝ damn. been ages since we last saw each other. ❞ ❝ some charming orchards nearby. in bloom, even, so you almost can't smell the corpses. ❞ ❝ you know me. nothing i like more than breaking rules. ❞ ❝ man spends his whole life learning. ❞ ❝ if only i was as skilled with my words as i am with my blade. ❞ ❝ i wished to know what was going on in that head of yours. i thought perhaps i could help. ❞ ❝ i can tell something’s bothering you. ❞ ❝ dangerous times. each thinks five times before sticking their neck out. and i can’t blame them. ❞ ❝ now i care not in the slightest how you think or feel. ❞ ❝ i no longer know if i still hate you. ❞ ❝ i see how you look at me, and i see you wither. ❞ ❝ one last bit of advice --- find a new tavern. everyone here knows you. ❞ ❝ you won. no point bothering with ‘what ifs’. ❞ ❝ it’s time i took fate into my own hands. lived life anew...and truly, this time. ❞ ❝ ahh, 'cause you thought you'd killed me that time. surprise, sur-fucking-prise. ❞ ❝ who...who’s that? gods, i’m hallucinating. ❞ ❝ it’s no exaggeration to say i’ve never met a warrior like you in my life. you’re lithe as an eel and strong as a bear. ❞ ❝ i’ve a heart again, yet all it feels is grief, sadness and defeat. my life is a ruin. ❞ ❝ sought only to protect myself. in doing so, i put you in harm’s way. forgive me. ❞ ❝ there’s a charming grove nearby where kisses taste sweeter than anywhere else in the world. ❞ ❝ you’ve handled tougher situations. you’ll figure this one out. ❞ ❝ who you are and why you’ve come matter little. for you’ll not leave this place alive. ❞ ❝ i’m not panicking. just trying to be realistic. ❞ ❝ hahahahaha...i can’t believe you fell for that! ❞ ❝ i was actually going to recite an anthem praising your glory, but if you’re not in the mood... ❞ ❝ lying didn’t always come so easily to you. ❞ ❝ everyone wants to rule. i can do that better than any monarch. ❞ ❝ tell me what you want already, and make it quick. ❞ ❝ what a mess we made of it all...if i’d only known then how it would end... ❞ ❝ seems a faded dream now, but there were a time where i was happy. ❞ ❝ why’d you leave me? you claimed you loved me. ❞ ❝ never liked boats. not one bit. ❞ ❝ you must be mad. i’ve no intention to make things easier for you. ❞ ❝ i don’t wish to look at your face any longer than i must. ❞ ❝ please, no. i can’t stand spells. ❞ ❝ we agreed not to keep any secrets from one another. we promised. ❞ ❝ that i like! a man who boldly dares, damn the risks! ❞ ❝ i thought you bowed before no man. ❞ ❝ smile a bit wider. ...you were meant to smile, not bare your teeth. ❞ ❝ is that blood? have you hurt yourself? ❞ ❝ no reason to trouble the guards. i’ll go willingly. ❞ ❝ look at me. promise you’ll stay out of it. ❞ ❝ the minute we’re in trouble, you make me responsible for getting us out. ❞ ❝ they say they don’t fear the wrath of the gods. and you, do you fear it? ❞ ❝ i’ll let that pass. i know grief eats at your heart. ❞ ❝ we all lie sometimes. but lying to yourself is running away, whereas there’s really nowhere to run. ❞ ❝ don’t need your sympathy, just your help. ❞ ❝ your loss -- it must hurt, bad. but there wasn't anything we could do. ❞ ❝ i wish to leave, go far away. and i’d like you to come with me. ❞ ❝ i trust you have an explanation for this. a very good one. ❞ ❝ lot of bitterness in you. ❞ ❝ i assure you, you’re excellent at covering your tracks --- though not terribly subtle. but i’m even better at uncovering them. ❞ ❝ glad to see you happy...but i don’t think what we did was right. ❞ ❝ i look at you, and...and feel like i am exactly where i am supposed to be. at long last. ❞ ❝ i’m no coward. i'll not run this time. ❞ ❝ yes, i know you’ve trained with swords. but you’re still shit with them. ❞ ❝ how many innocents have you cut down? ❞ ❝ problem is, you’re not ordinary. you were born to greatness. ❞ ❝ not too late to surrender. ❞ ❝ men turn honest when they feel a blade at their throat. ❞ �� i'm not gonna drink. why dull my senses when i’m in such pleasant company? ❞ ❝ it’s bound to come in handy, and each time it does, you’ll think of me. ❞ ❝ lie still or you will bleed to death. ❞ ❝ your life is yours, exclusively. you choose who you are. ❞ ❝ for a minute there, was almost sure you’d leave me to die. ❞ ❝ there is never a second opportunity to make a first impression. ❞ ❝ it’s all because of that secretiveness of yours. ❞ ❝ plead the gods spare us, for without their favor we shall most certainly perish. ❞ ❝ i must say -- seen a lot, but nothing like this, never. ❞ ❝ you don’t look like you can get home on your own. i’ll walk you. ❞ ❝ all’s in the past, never to be restored. ❞ ❝ you know full well i never hold a grudge. i forgive you. ❞ ❝ the good gods sent you to me. ❞ ❝ and the guilt, the responsibility of all this, lies with me. ❞ ❝ you’ve only been here five minutes, and you’ve already managed to offend me twice. ❞ ❝ you will certainly fetch me a higher bounty alive. ❞ ❝ what's wrong with my beard? always thought it added to my dignity. ❞ ❝ if i’m to die today, i wish to look smashing for the occasion. ❞ ❝ i was stupid. stupidity costs a lot. ❞ ❝ even your humblest requests seem like threats. ❞ ❝ your motives do not interest me. only results. ❞ ❝ and you laughed, oh, how sweetly, how brightly you laughed! ❞ ❝ you don’t know how it is. to see someone you love die. because of you, for you. ❞ ❝ to have a scapegoat --- that’s the key. ❞ ❝ no need to fear me. ❞ ❝ sorry, but -- your life story? just not interested. ❞ ❝ with you...it was love at first sight. ❞ ❝ gotta understand. you don’t betray people like me. ❞ ❝ i struggled long to find a place where i’d feel safe, needed. until i finally arrived here. ❞ ❝ just don’t faint on me. ❞ ❝ could never be there for you everyday. but i’m happy to see you always. and today, i’m all yours. ❞ ❝ what others think...your image...that’s all you care about. ❞ ❝ in these foul times one must be wary, even of their friends. ❞ ❝ come on, don’t get angry - it’s not good for you.. ❞ ❝ so, apart from the sword play, you know potions and all that? ❞ ❝ i actually envy your sense of wonder --- common in children, and morons. ❞ ❝ a lot of misfortune for a small village. ❞ ❝ who are you? do you seek to hurt me as well? ❞ ❝ the hand that feeds can also strike its wayward wards. ❞ ❝ shh. eat now. we’ll speak once you’ve rested. ❞ ❝ brother has turned against brother, the land is soaked in blood. evil reigns stronger than ever before. ❞ ❝ good looking and clever. where’ve you been hiding? ❞ ❝ doesn’t bother you, having monsters for neighbours? ❞ ❝ stay here --- no matter what happens. ❞ ❝ i never told you this, but i’ve always felt it: i love you. ❞ ❝ listen to me this once -- don't take matters into your own hands. ❞ ❝ love these moments. the air before a battle -- nothing smells as sweet. ❞ ❝ they tried to get in through the main gate. i’m afraid they could succeed next time. ❞ ❝ too many claim you’re evil. ❞ ❝ why are you so eager to help strangers? sit your ass down or there’ll be misfortune. ❞ ❝ you'd never have managed without me, would you? come, now, admit it. ❞ ❝ for those who remain, death should never take precedence over life. ❞ ❝ thanks for coming. thanks for risking your life for me. ❞ ❝ don’t force me to speak of it. no more, please. ❞ ❝ when doubt plagues your mind, follow your instincts. should they steer you wrong and land you in muck, you'll land at peace with yourself. and that's most important. ❞ ❝ just know that i know you're here. one misstep, one error...you'll make a mistake, it's inevitable...i'll be the first to learn it. ❞ ❝ i do not know you. i’ve done you no harm. ❞ ❝ try not to panic...just doesn’t suit you. ❞ ❝ we’ve come a long way, and i’ll be damned if we’ve come to fail. ❞ ❝ had i known what would happen here, i'd never have come. ❞ ❝ i can say i’ve seen it all now. ❞ ❝ these scars have long yearned for your tender caress. ❞ ❝ i don’t fall victim to curses. i cast them. ❞ ❝ come outside. we can hold hands and stare at the sky. ❞ ❝ we’ll work well together --- i can see that already. ❞ ❝ from the first moment i set eyes upon you that fateful evening, my heart has only beaten for you. ❞ ❝ i trust you as much as you trust me --- not at all. ❞ ❝ you’ve gone all red in the face just for talking about it. ❞ ❝ wake up. it’s just a dream. wake up! ❞ ❝ i still don’t believe everything that happened. ❞ ❝ i never miss twice. ❞ ❝ bit too old to believe in bedtime stories, aren’t you? ❞ ❝ you humans have...unusual tastes. ❞ ❝ didn’t think it worthwhile to tell me, warn me of your plans? ❞ ❝ i think you will not attack one unarmed. ❞ ❝ the deeper i get into this, the more i gotta wonder...why’re you even helping me? ❞ ❝ to live in peace, we first must kill. ❞ ❝ at times fate muddles our path, and life turns toilsome, hard to bear. ❞ ❝ i fight for whoever’s paying the best. or whoever’s easier to rob. ❞ ❝ do not let my beauty distract your aim. ❞ ❝ i’ve seen what is to come, i know destruction approaches. ❞ ❝ the war awoke an ancient power. an evil one that feeds on bloodshed. ❞ ❝ guess you’re no stranger to fury, either. ❞ ❝ think i’m gonna fall for that? no chance, you’re wrong. ❞ ❝ gotta admit --- you do pretty well with a sword. ❞ ❝ you dare tell me to calm down?! you?! ❞ ❝ let's say i go about my business, and when there's coin to be earned, i don't readily turn it down. ❞ ❝ i wish to know the truth...be it sweet, be it painful, i wish to know. ❞ ❝ men, the polite ones at least, would call me a monster. ❞ ❝ even i grow ill at the sight of you. ❞ ❝ i’m going on a walk. or is that not allowed either? because i could break my leg? ❞ ❝ plan’s crazier than it is sane...but there’s an irrestistible charm to it. ❞ ❝ unbelievable! you said something romantic! you! ❞ ❝ we may not survive this. in fact, our chances are slim. ❞ ❝ if anything should happen to you... ❞ ❝ there’s not been a dark cloud yet that didn’t have a silver lining. ❞ ❝ those are some fresh lookin’ scars you’ve got there. ❞ ❝ no. no more about the battle. just hold me. and say something nice. ❞ ❝ stay. this is the only home we’ve ever had. ❞ ❝ you’re so charming when you try to be funny. ❞ ❝ not proud of it...yet i considered all the options and found none better. ❞ ❝ i look far different from when you last saw me. ❞ ❝ i admire your optimism. wish i shared it. ❞ ❝ and...try not to draw any attention to yourself. ❞ ❝ nightmares haunt our nights and days. folk sleepwalk from their homes, never to return. ❞ ❝ forgive me. it couldn’t be avoided. i truly am sorry. ❞ ❝ well i’ve departed, escaped, been forced to flee so many times…yet i always returned. you ought to be used to it by now. ❞ ❝ the human mind is as wild and unexplored a place as any land far beyond the sea. ❞ ❝ you think you’ve won. you are wrong. i can’t die. ❞ ❝ you’re something more. something more. ❞ ❝ barely nicked me, i’ll be fine. ❞ ❝ it’s just that i felt...stifled, in your shadow. i’d have suffocated had i stayed. ❞ ❝ come, don’t just stand there. i want a hug. ❞ ❝ it’s lovely here! i could stay forever. ❞ ❝ do what you will, but leave me out of this. ❞ ❝ we should end this discussion -- before i say something i'll regret. ❞ ❝ you all right? you’re as pale as death. ❞ ❝ let’s get back to the hut. i’ll protect you along the way. ❞ ❝ not to keen on talking about it, are you? ❞ ❝ it’s better to die than to live in the knowledge that you’ve done something that needs forgiveness. ❞ ❝ i was afraid you were dead. ❞ ❝ at times one must use reason, rather than blades. ❞ ❝ need some peace. gotta prepare. ❞ ❝ i suspected it might not be the best idea, but i was desperate, had no choice. ❞ ❝ so tell me how it happened. step by step. ❞ ❝ it was a bit of a lark, a jest. i meant to bring it all back, i swear. ❞ ❝ if i wanted to kill you, you'd be long dead by now. ❞ ❝ that is precisely one of the reasons why i abhor your world. your senseless brutality. ❞ ❝ i won’t let them take you, you know that? ❞ ❝ magic...childish hocus-pocus. it’s just not interesting. what i find fascinating are true tales of true human lives. ❞ ❝ save your praise for others. i couldn’t give a shit. ❞ ❝ well, well, i am impressed. doubted you still had it in you, frankly. ❞ ❝ i like you. don’t make me hurt you. ❞ ❝ you know very little can hurt you being immortal, so you take wild risks, chase extreme sensations. there comes a point you’ve done it all, and all seems boring and monotonous. ❞ ❝ with you i finally feel...harmony. a calm. feel like things are the way they're supposed to be. ❞ ❝ i'm afraid the dishwater’s as good as it gets in this establishment. ❞ ❝ sorry to take so long, but i had to deal with the guards. ❞ ❝ i’d never miss a chance to spend a pleasant evening with you. ❞ ❝ you know too much. yet one more reason why you must die. ❞ ❝ or perhaps you seek to trick me. ❞ ❝ if you acknowledge any gods...start praying, now. ❞ ❝ it’s very simple. you either deceived me...or not. ❞ ❝ i am known neither for my sense of humor nor for my patience. ❞ ❝ naturally, it would be easier with your help, but...you irritate me. ❞ ❝ love questions like that. am i holding up? what, my dick? ❞ ❝ we never hunt in these woods. not even if it means the whole village starves. ❞ ❝ we’re only ever the ones to know the truth about ourselves. ❞ ❝ you’re insolent because you believe i cannot afford to hurt you. and you’re right. ❞ ❝ i detest graveyards, especially wandering them alone. ❞ ❝ you know too much. you impede me too often. and i find your arrogance an annoyance. ❞ ❝ i know it’s wartime, but try not to be a hero, all right? ❞ ❝ i don’t know that i’ll make for engaging company. in truth, i rarely talk to men. ❞ ❝ you know...had a dream about you recently. ❞ ❝ i thought i could at least count on you to treat me seriously. ❞ ❝ don’t ask questions you know the answers to. it makes you look stupid. ❞ ❝ you’re nosy. starting to piss me off, you know? ❞ ❝ what did i do to deserve this? have i given you cause to doubt my intentions? ❞ ❝ don’t fret about me. i always get by somehow, right? ❞ ❝ i wanted to go with you --- that was my idea. ❞ ❝ i shan’t stray a step from your side. ❞ ❝ if that’s what it takes to save the world, it’s better to let that world die. ❞ ❝ what’s that supposed to mean? that a threat? ❞ ❝ i’m offering a great and true adventure, an experience like no other, the fate of only the chosen few. ❞ ❝ that’s like choosing between pestilence and the plague. ❞ ❝ what’s it matter? i only ever thought of you. ❞ ❝ did you know you’ve gained twenty-seven new scars since we’ve last saw each other? ❞ ❝ i need to know the details if you want me to get my hands dirty. ❞ ❝ don’t know you. go away. ❞ ❝ ever vigilant, even in your sleep. quite vampire-like, in fact. ❞ ❝ gotten used to people treating me like a freak, an outcast. ❞ ❝ we share a cause, then. just like the old days. ❞ ❝ ever considered becoming a burglar? skill like that’d come in awful handy. ❞ ❝ there’s never been a frown that couldn’t be turned upside down. ❞ ❝ honesty's an attribute of the truly brave --- and thus the privilege of the very few. ❞ ❝ you do not have a monopoly in altruism, my friend. ❞ ❝ great love demands great sacrifices. ❞ ❝ i believe it wise at times to share one’s secrets, unburden oneself to those one can trust. ❞ ❝ it would be nice from time to time if you could sit back and enjoy life, instead of going around solving everyone’s problems. ❞ ❝ we shall dance until the break of dawn! ❞ ❝ a man could lose his head for a lass like you. ❞ ❝ don’t have to come if you don’t want. wait here. ❞ ❝ never seen this side of you. ❞ ❝ i’m to kiss the ground you walk on, is that it? but you just did your duty. ❞ ❝ the day you give me a smile...that moment, that’s what i’m waiting for. ❞ ❝ i need a soul intelligent and clever, an individual who fears no dare. someone like you. ❞ ❝ if i was you i’d catch some shut-eye, not go on flapping my tongue. ❞ ❝ the plan is simple...which does not mean it will be easy to execute. ❞ ❝ sometimes you really get on my nerves, you know. ❞ ❝ you shall not turn on me, use what i say against me? you shall not tell anyone? ❞ ❝ gave you a chance. should’ve taken it. ❞ ❝ always better to do a bit more and even gain nothing by it, than to do too little and face regret. ❞ ❝ it’s lovely out here. the birds singing, the bees buzzing...blissful, really. ❞ ❝ what a lovely dress. the color suits you exquisitely. ❞ ❝ pretty fantastic tale. hard as hell to believe. ❞ ❝ it’s time you discovered my romantic side. ❞ ❝ you gotta understand the whole world doesn’t revolve around you. ❞ ❝ can you not see i am out of my mind with worry? ❞ ❝ every rose has its thorn, and there are no happy endings. ❞ ❝ pretty quick to reject help. why is that? ❞ ❝ don’t need to like each other. just gotta do our jobs. ❞ ❝ frankly, if i can do something for you, i'll do it, willingly. ❞ ❝ you were hired you kill me, were you not? ❞ ❝ what’s it like, going toe to toe with a monster? knowing you’ve only two options --- to kill or be killed? ❞ ❝ this place --- there’s evil here. death hangs in the air. ❞ ❝ intellect counts as much as strength. ❞ ❝ i run back inside, hasp the doors, and then i hear it --- someone whispering my name. ❞ ❝ you know i like you. unlike the rest of this lot, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. ❞ ❝ if you love somebody, set them free. ❞ ❝ if you hate me so deeply, why don’t you tell me to my face? ❞ ❝ i’m afraid you’d not realize which way the wind was blowing if you pissed straight into it. ❞ ❝ that was courageous. i'd never expect it from you. ❞ ❝ i am not easily impressed, but i must admit you have succeeded, my dear. ❞ ❝ kill me if you must. i’ve nothing to live for anyway. ❞ ❝ aren’t you an extraordinary beauty. ❞ ❝ never suspected you believed such things. ❞ ❝ wait...you want to go with me? out of the question. ❞ ❝ used to it. not the first time i’ve been hunted. ❞ ❝ enough of this hesitation, this fretting, these feelings of guilt! ❞ ❝ strange working with you. strange, but great. ❞ ❝ give me a moment. i must don something more appropiate and concealing. ❞ ❝ killing comes as naturally to me as blowing my nose. ❞ ❝ ...... another tale of a life compromised and ultimately claimed by greed and ambition. ❞ ❝ in the future, though, remember this --- i can look after myself ❞ ❝ you'd really worry about me if i went on alone? ❞ ❝ you have many merits. you merely hide them from the world very diligently. ❞ ❝ is it true virtue always trumps villainy? ❞ ❝ watch my movements. i’m spry as a cat and sly as a fox. ❞ ❝ ah, if only this could last forever. ❞ ❝ few i can rely on like i can on you. kinda hoping you think the same of me. ❞ ❝ you are angry at the whole world. you feel inferior, feel pain, though you mask this with confidence, arrogance, even. ❞ ❝ there exist worries for which there quite simply is no other medicine. ❞ ❝ your bones look thin, your breathing’s wheezy. afraid one punch might kill you. ❞ ❝ to love is to build a house of cards, or play a game of chess, but one word or ill-thought move and you must start it all afresh. ❞ ❝ i’m doing what i ever wanted to do, being who i wanted to be. i believe that’s one definition of happiness. ❞ ❝ you’ve not an ounce of refinement in you, have you? ❞ ❝ pain rules the body, but fear is born in the heart. ❞ ❝ either i get burned, or i’ll burn all else down. no other options. ❞ ❝ should you decide your sword is the sole solution, i shall not stand in your way. ❞ ❝ c’mon, come closer. ❞ ❝ would you prefer i treated you like the lying manipulater you are? ❞ ❝ i regret nothing. one lives but once. ❞ ❝ i just hope this tale has a happy ending. for me, for you. for everyone. ❞ ❝ just gonna go our seperate ways? no parting words? ❞ ❝ you still stand to be quite useful to me. ❞ ❝ i suppose you wanted to frighten me...alas, you didn’t in the least. after all, i’m a monster too, am i not? ❞ ❝ i trust no one. learned that long ago. ❞ ❝ it cannot be! you actually have a sense of humor. ❞ ❝ didn’t ask for a lecture on probability. need a simple answer --- yes or no. ❞ ❝ another word, and i shall spill even more blood. yours. ❞ ❝ you feel resentment, i understand, but we shall work through all the unfortunate matters of the past. ❞ ❝ stop playing dumb. i know everything...your plan. ❞ ❝ honestly can’t see what all those dames see in you --- you’re a stick in the mud. ❞ ❝ not showy, lovely location...perfect for romantic getaways. ❞ ❝ i hope you’re not upset i came like this, without warning... ❞ ❝ i’m still a long way from mastering anything. but i am trying. ❞ ❝ now i know how you do it. just annoy your opponents to death. ❞ ❝ word on the street is there’s a hefty bounty on your head. ❞ ❝ for a few days now i’ve been having dizzy spells. ❞ ❝ i’ve always had a way with ostensibly dangerous types. ❞ ❝ wound doesn’t look good. patch that up quick if i were you, before it starts festering. ❞ ❝ always seemed to me you were a very complicated creature, by nature. not one to resort to such simple methods like drinking your worries away. ❞ ❝ may i be honest? yes, i’m nervous. i really would prefer to just run off. ❞ ❝ father always said a wise man learns from others’ mistakes, so here i am, learning from his. ❞ ❝ ever since that horrid night...everything has changed. ❞ ❝ what’s wrong? afraid? gut feeling queasy? ❞ ❝ used to bother me, all your secrets...now i know if you have something to tell me, you’ll tell me. ❞ ❝ i so don’t feel like going anywhere. sit here a while longer? ❞ ❝ there’s something i’d like to know...how can you be so damned calm? ❞ ❝ my knees quake like a carnival rattle. ❞ ❝ honestly didn’t think this’d work. doubted anything would happen. ❞

#roleplay starters #roleplay meme #long post for ts /

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ladyeliot · 3 years

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I’ll fix it

Pairing: Tony Stark x Avenger Female Reader.

Summary: Everything changed the day Tony Stark felt your body fall apart in his hands, from then on a struggle to try to bring you back to him began.

Warnings: Angst, Mentions of death. Time travel.

Word count: 6283

A/N: Avengers Endgame. Some of the dialogue is taken from the film. Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Reader’s abilities: Master Martial Artist, experienced in espionage, talented Hacker.

There was a turning point in Tony Stark’s life, that moment when everything changed, when like ashes you scattered through space, when your body disappeared leaving motes of your essence in his hands.

The battle to save humanity was lost the moment the time stone, protected by Doctor Strange, found its way into Thanos’ Gauntlet, leaving only a single chance to deal with a successful end to the final battle. All of you present had led the fight with acuity, but there was little you could do, you knew that as you fell one by one. Your bodies lay in the ruins of the once superpowered planet, waiting for someone with the will to continue fighting death, Tony was the last one standing until Thanos managed to strip him of his own Iron Man suit, stabbing him in the side with the sword Tony had created with his nanonites. Something snapped inside you, causing the relentless pain in your joints to fade and you managed to get up, before the wizard offered him the last stone and Quill unsuccessfully tried to stop him before Thanos vanished.

“Tony,” you whispered awkwardly reaching out to him, wrapping your arms around his body.

The exhaustion was such that you both let yourselves fall and ended up sitting in the ashes of that place. You brought your faces close together, facing each other, letting them rest, feeling your connection again. The bruises showed what you had suffered, open wounds that allowed blood to spread freely over every part of your face. You had just lost too much, it was a break between before and after, but the one thing you couldn’t bear to lose was him. Tony covered his cut with the last of his remaining nanonites, expressing an inward groan of relief, allowing himself to think again about what had happened.

“Why would you do that?” he muttered pleadingly, looking at Strange, who stood a few feet away from you.

“We are in the endgame now.”

That had a meaning, only Vision’s name came to mind, he was the only one who could stop that, the one who possessed the last stone, the mind stone.

Little by little, the reunion of those present was the only thing that eased the pain, you were all there, none of you had suffered worse consequences. The silence of the planet made your skin crawl, warning that this could happen to the earth if the snapping were to happen. You and Tony stumbled to your feet, watching as Peter came to you.

“Something’s happening,” your gaze connected with Mantis who had just said those words.

You had never felt so much fear inside you, until you saw how his body seemed to extrapolate and turn into ashes that disappeared moments later. The mental and bodily blockade came over everyone present, the terror professing itself through their features. Tony’s fingers clung to your right arm, barely moving from where Mantis was before he vanished.

You all looked around anxiously, hoping to find some answer to the event that had just occurred, but you only saw Drax turning to ashes, joint by joint disappearing.

“Quill?” Drax looked at him as little by little his friend’s body parts dissolved.

“Steady, Quill,” with those words Tony increased the pressure of his fingers on your arm, showing his own insecurity.

“Aw, man,” Quill whispered before melting into the wind.

It had happened, no one could have stopped him, Thanos had gotten the five infinity stones and had done the snap. No one present had any idea how it had happened, but it was clear, your worst fears had been realised.

“Tony,” Strange muttered, causing the few of you present to focus your gaze on him. “There was no other way.”

And so it was that another one turned to ashes. But it wasn’t over yet.

“Mr. Stark?” Tony and you noticed that Peter was starting to wobble, your gazes were horrified at him. “I don’t feel so good…”

“You are all right,” Tony’s words sounded confident, but hid the fear he felt inside.

“I don’t know what’s – I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t–” Peter managed to reach you, falling into Tony’s arms, who wrapped his arms around him and pinned him to the ground. “I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please. Please, I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go…” his voice was broken with sobs. “I’m sorry.”

You walked away from the scene, holding your hands to your face as you watched your partner’s body disappear, leaving a void in its place. So, in that moment you realised that your terror was based on the loss of your loved ones, of your family that they had become, you were not afraid of disappearing, you were afraid of them disappearing. You staggered a few steps away, unable to come to terms with what you were witnessing at that very moment, although you didn’t have time either, as a faint tingling sensation appeared in your lower extremities.

“Tony…” a faint tone came from within you, but his reaction was immediate.

“No,” he said, standing up.

You’d never seen him look at you like that before, it broke you to contemplate his watery eyes and fully dilated pupils, expressing desperation, being unable to do anything about it to stop it.

“I…” your voice trailed off.

“I got you, I got you,” his voice was broken, but rigid. “I- I promise I’ll fix this, I’ll fix this.”

You could feel his arms around your body with intensity, the warmth of his body reaching yours, but it was only an instant before you stopped feeling everything and disintegrated into ashes in his hands.

The secular emptiness came a few seconds later to Tony, it was the moment when he understood what had happened and what it meant. He belonged to that 50% of the population that had a second chance, but you were that 50% that had turned to dust from one instant to the next. A feeling indescribable to his mind invaded every inch of his body, he was lost, looking around him, hoping that it was all a nightmare from which he could wake up, but it was clear that he was living in real life, because you were not the only one who disappeared. Completely shattered, he walked through the ruins looking for an answer, some sign to hold on to, to tell him what to do, but it never came.

Time became his enemy, what happened made him realise that every step without you is a moment of his life lost. First it was days, then weeks, then months, then years, he spent a long period of time working against the clock, looking for a way to solve what happened, to come back to you. Thousands of ideas were discarded without coming to a definitive conclusion that could counteract the effects of the snap. Tony knew that if he gave up it would mean losing you forever, the life you had imagined so many times, which you never got to because of the countless missions and obstacles along the way. You were almost on the verge of touching it with your fingers once, after all that happened in Sokovia and the signing of agreements you opted to embrace the simple life, but Thanos and the stones came along and shattered your lives.

Tony had converted the cabin he built for you and didn’t have time to show you, into his own lair. He spent the hours locked away, barely sleeping, at least for the first four years, then he declined, until one day, the light seemed to brighten and his old companions appeared, offering him one last chance to get what he was looking for.

“Now, we know what it sounds like…” Scott was leaning against the wooden porch.

“Tony, after everything you’ve seen, is anything really impossible?” Steve looked at him with concern, Tony’s appearance had deteriorated over the years. He looked exhausted and full of unresolved doubts.

“I must say I sometimes miss this foolish optimism,” he grimaced, a grimace resembling a smile. “Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?” his tone rose. “In Layman’s terms, it means you’re not coming home.” he paused. “What do you think I’ve been doing for these five years? Do you think I haven’t thought about it already?”

“I came back,” Scott interjected.

“No, you accidentally survived,” Tony cut him off. “It’s a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a…. What do you call it?”

“A time heist?” said Scott smiling nonchalantly.

“Yeah, a time heist. Of course,” Tony frowned putting his index finger to his lips. “Why didn’t we think of this before? Oh, because it’s laughable? Because it’s a pipedream?”

“When did you give up?” cut Steve off with rudeness in his tone of voice. “When did you give up? When did you give her up?”

Those were the words that made Tony rise from his seat, tilt his face to one side and force his facial expression.

“You have no idea,” she approached him, pointing her index finger at him. “Where have you been for these five years? Creating an armada of joint therapy groups? Has that helped?”

“Tony…” Natasha interjected, but he barely paid attention.

“While you were out here with your army of crybabies I was out here, day after night trying to find a solution to undo this mess we’ve created,” Tony paused, clenched his jaw and sighed deeply. “So don’t come to me now and say I’ve given it all up for lost.”

It was clear that Steve knew how to set Tony’s mind in motion, he knew where it hurt and how he could reignite their old friendship, it only took him naming you for him when the group left to pick up on every loose end he had created over those last few years.

It was hours of thought processes, of proposing to himself the quantum possibilities that could work, but more importantly the consequences, what could happen and what number of percentages existed to bring you all back. It didn’t take him long to come up with a way out, completely illogical to anyone except those who were as crazy as he was. So it was that after all this time he arrived at the New Avengers facility.

“Why the long face?” the car stopped in front of Steve. “Let me guess, it turned him into a baby.”

“Among other things,” Steve shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and looked straight ahead. “What are you doing here?”

“Not giving her up,” Tony shrugged and got out of the car, introducing himself to Steve, who smiled. “Mind you, I don’t plan to participate in any of your open tears.”

That opened a process of slow reconstruction of the events of the past years. It opened wounds, showed the aftermath, but also reunited all the Avengers who had managed to survive Thanos’ snap. The important thing is that there were enough Pym particles for a round trip for everyone present. But the important thing was to find out where the stones were located depending on the time.

They were fortunate, or rather lucky, that three of the stones met at one point in their own history in New York City, precisely during the Chitauri invasion. That was bound to cause a bitter memory for Tony, but it suddenly changed when he found out what it meant, he would go back there, he would do that mission, and you would be there. You were there when in 2012 the Avengers faced the invasion in New York, it was your first mission, when you were all recruited, when you met for the first time.

“Okay, we have a plan,” Steve reported after he had organised the teams. All eyes were focused on a screen showing the stones and their location. “Six stones, three teams, one shot.”

It was clear that what they were about to face was something completely new, none of them had had time to perhaps acquire the necessary skills to tackle this new job, new mission. It was back to the past, at least they had the advantage of knowing what the future held, of knowing what would be in store for them if they failed to succeed in their tasks.

“Five years ago, we lost.” Steve began a speech to his colleagues positioned in circles on the starting platform. “All of us. We lost friends… We lost family… We lost a part of ourselves,” Steve and Tony’s eyes met. “Today, we have a chance to take it all back.” he paused slightly. “You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get them back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. But it doesn’t mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we’re gonna win,” silence filled the room.“Whatever it takes. Good luck.”

After those words, which were encouraging for all the events that were to follow, a space loop embraced each of them, transporting them through time and space, rendering their matter insignificant. Their bodies separated between space cavities transporting them to the right time.

Tony, along with Bruce, Steve and Scott, appeared in an alleyway in New York City in 2012. The smell of dust and molten iron wafted into their nasal cavities. Everything around him was in ruins, the great skyscrapers looked like they were part of a film of the earth’s extinction, it reminded him of some of his worst fears, but it didn’t distract him because he knew how it was going to end.

“We all have our tasks,” Steve informed them, looking around at an overturned car. “Two stones on the outskirts, one in the centre. Keep a low profile,” he shifted his gaze to Tony, who nodded, raising his hands. “Keep an eye on the time.”

Given the orders the group made a point of dispersing, but Steve held Tony’s arm for a second, focusing his gaze on him.

“Are you going to be all right?” His blue eyes showed concern, including his voice as well.

“Of course,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve been through this once, I can do it again.”

With that said, Tony attached the Iron Man suit to his body and disappeared from the scene. Although his statement exuded self-assurance, he seemed to crumble a little when he reached the top of the Chrysler Building, finding himself in front of Stark Tower. His android vision allowed him to take in the scene taking place on the top floor of his old Tower. There stood the group of Avengers, surrounding Loki, holding him back, he knew that moment as if he had lived it only yesterday, but what almost made his heart stop was to find your figure there. The thrusters of his suit brought him closer to the Tower, accessing the interior through one of the open windows and keeping himself hidden behind some sculptures.

The suit disappeared from his body, becoming Tony Stark again, it was almost unheard of for him, there you were, as if time had never passed. His steps were slow, but he seemed to be completely lost, watching your every move, as if he had no job to do, and his only mission was to watch you. He could not escape the hundreds of memories that came back to him, he even felt guilty about numerous things he had said, done, or not said and done.

“Alright, who gets the wand?” you said holding up Loki’s sceptre.

Your words at that moment came to 2023 Tony with a wide smile, to hear your voice so close to him again and not through any electronic device made a lump form in his throat.

“Are you all right, dude?” Scott cut the moment short.

Tony realised at that very moment that Scott had been on his right shoulder the entire time, a fact that brought all his senses back into focus on the scene he was reliving. The lift opened, ushering in the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who were actually Hydra, but none of you knew it at the time.

“All right, you’re up, little buddy. There’s our stone,” Tony whispered to Scott.

“All right,” Scott took up position on his partner’s shoulder. “Flick me.”

There Scott’s mission began, and he made his way to the Tony of the past to join him. The scene on the top floor of Stark Tower continued as if nothing strange was going on.

“You got it?” you asked the past Tony, watching as he put the tesseract into the briefcase.

“Yep,” he replied, closing the case and looking at you with a half smile.

“By the way, how about that drink afterwards Miss Y/L/N?”

“Interesting that you can think of a drink Mr. Stark,” you said crossing your arms over your chest.

“Oh, when I buy someone a drink I’m not just thinking about drinking,” he winked at you to which you narrowed your eyes and headed towards the lift with the other companions. “Is that a yes?”

“Well I try,” muttered the Tony of the present to himself, who inevitably couldn’t hold back a smile as he saw with his own eyes that moment and your way of rejecting it, for it was the beginning of too many things. So, as you all disappeared down the lift he too made his way to his new assigned position.

“ Okay, Cap, I got our scepter in the elevator just passing the 80th floor,” he informed Steve over the intercom. “I’ll head down the hall.”

Steve had his mission, to get the sceptre by pretending to be a Hydra agent in front of those who really were and were now guarding the briefcase. Meanwhile, Tony took over one of the security uniforms of the Shield agents, to impersonate one of them and get the briefcase that had the tesseract inside that was now in the possession of the former Tony.

The avengers arrived at the lobby, Scott in thumb size’, that’s what Tony liked to call him, had to get inside the reactor of his victim to produce a small shock, and so everyone would focus their gaze on the old Tony, while the one from 2023 got hold of the briefcase, but things didn’t go as planned.

“I’m looking forward to going to Shawarma Palace,” Tony was standing next to you, “We could take it as our first date, what do you think?”

“Interesting,” you said, barely looking at him but with a slight smile on your face, “It’ll be great to say that genius billionaire Tony Stark asked me out for shawarma on our first date.”

“You forgot about philanthropist and Playboy,” he added, raising an eyebrow.“So that’s… Oh, Mr. Secretary!”

The conversation with Shield’s superior began, it was the ideal time where Scott had the opportunity to carry out his mission, for the tesseract was disappearing at that moment, and it would be tricky to access it again.

“All right, move it, Stuart Little. Things are getting dicey up here. Let’s go,” Tony informed Scott over the intercom.

It looked like everything was going down the drain, as Scott was in trouble for giving him a cardiac arrhythmia, however, everyone was stunned when at that moment Tony’s body stopped, and then began to convulse and fall to the ground. Your expression suddenly changed, as did the others.

“Tony?” you asked, dropping down beside Tony, worried about what was happening to him.

“Medics!” exclaimed the Tony Stark of 2023, taking in the scene. “You guys, some help!”

“Talk to me,” you said grabbing his face, which was completely flushed since he couldn’t breathe.

“Aw, she’s worried,” the present Tony muttered to himself.

“Is that the machine in your chest?” Thor, who was standing next to him, asked.

Meanwhile Scott, who had emerged from the reactor in the chest of the Tony of the past, pushed hard on the briefcase so that the Tony of the future could take it in his hands and go in search of a way out, but in that instant the Hulk suddenly appeared knocking Tony down, opening the briefcase, making the tesseract fly out and land at the feet of Loki who took it in his hands and disappeared.

“Come on Tony breathe,” you said looking at Thor hoping he would do something about it.

“I’ll try something, but I don’t know if it will work,” Thor brought his hammer to Tony’s chest, specifically the reactor and offered him a small shock, bringing the air back into his lungs. “Yes!”

“Whew, that worked a treat,” he said between gasps, looking at both of us. “Dude, that was crazy,” he thought. “The case.”

“Uhh, the case is…” Thor looked around.

“Where is the case?” you asked getting up trying to intercept him with your gaze.

“Where is Loki?” exclaimed Thor. “Loki!”

Meanwhile, ten meters away from the scene, the Tony from the future was completely knocked to the ground, after the Hulk knocked him down.

“Oh, we blew it,” Tony said without barely getting up, listening to all the conversation you had a few feet away.

The Tony of the future got up and opted to walk through the door leading to the stairs before anyone noticed him, for due to the Hulk’s untimely and shocking appearance, there were hardly any people left in the hall, apart from the Avengers and the Shield agents, of which he was undercover. However, as he was walking down a long corridor on the third floor, something stopped him.

“Excuse me agent,” your voice appeared as if it were an apparition behind him, causing him to stop his steps. “I must ask you to stay in the hall, we need to question everyone present in case we find evidence of what just happened.”

This was completely new, Tony hadn’t experienced it, he didn’t know what was going to happen or how he would best act on this occasion, but he knew that if he turned around you would most likely recognise him, as the black helmet and goggles barely covered his face, leaving the lower part of his face uncovered. At the same time, you kept a SIG Sauer P226 in your hand just at hip level, waiting at all times to watch the reactions of the man in front of you.

“Of course,” said Tony, changing his tone of voice slightly, making it deeper than usual, but still he just kept his position, his back to you.

“Could you turn around and come with me?” you asked with a frown, brushing your fingers over the gun and feeling a bad feeling inside you, for there was something that didn’t sit right with you.

Tony took a deep breath and lowered his face, there were a thousand ideas running through his mind right now, he didn’t know which one was worse than the last, so he connected several pieces and took one that would produce some personal gain, for worse than they were already, perhaps, things couldn’t get any worse.

“Are you sure?”

Slowly Tony’s body turned 180 degrees to face you. His features were obvious, his brown eyes accompanied by honey-coloured flecks, his beard so neatly trimmed, and those full lips, all 100% Tony Stark. But it was obvious to you that this was a trap, Loki had disappeared and you were aware of his every ability to deceive, after all he was the master of mischief. You didn’t stop for a moment to take the gun in your hands and point it firmly in his face, you had a clean shot.

“Loki…” you whispered frowning and squinting one eye to improve your aim.

“Not exactly,” Tony held up his hands retreating back a step, but showing no nervousness at all at the situation. “God, how I resent you mistaking me for him.”

It was at that precise moment, when he had you two metres away pointing a gun to his head, that he realised how long those five years had been, five years without being able to look at your face, without hearing your voice, without your caresses, without your kisses… for which he would die in those moments of your gunshot. He found himself with his hands raised, his body totally paralysed and his lips half-open, in love with you. You were not really the woman he had left behind, it was 2012 and many of your features were changed, but it was you.

“Where is the tesseract?” you asked, bringing him back to his senses. “What have you done with it?”

“That’s what I want to know,” he replied casually and slowly lowered his hands, knowing that bullet wasn’t going to be fired at him.

Tony’s mind worked fast, he was quick in his thoughts and in his actions, although sometimes that could get him into serious trouble because of the consequences of his actions, so he had no idea what he was doing at that moment, because his whole body was begging him to have a meeting with you and so he did. Now it was time to figure out where to go with the situation, but Tony was not a great planner, he flowed with time.

“By the way, did you get rid of that damn FBI agent yet? What was his name?” Tony knew how to test you to make you realise he wasn’t Loki. “Ah yes, Agent Chatter, god, how I hated him. I would have loved to see you spill champagne all over his scalp.”

“How do you… How do you know that?” your voice sounded gruff, but quizzical at the same time, even though you had no intention of conversing with him you were curious as to how the hell he had found out that information, as Tony was the only one who called Matthew ‘Agent Chatter’.

“You told me,” he said taking a step towards you, closing the distance, causing you to back away. “I told you, I’m not Loki.”

“I’ve never told anyone what happened with Matthew,” your breath hitched as you realised you didn’t understand what was going on.

“Well, you haven’t really told me yet,” he narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to one side.

You remained thoughtful for a couple of seconds. “I know exactly what you’re doing,” you tightened your grip on the gun, your hands beginning to sweat. “Your mind games aren’t going to work on me.

The moment was complex to explain, Tony had hundreds of possibilities to offer you in that moment and for you to discover that it wasn’t Loki in front of you, he knew how he could deal with the situation, but he wanted you to be the one to figure it out for yourself. He was playing with fire, he knew better than anyone how space-time worked, but he had an ace up his sleeve, an ace that Steve was carrying at that moment and he would use it later.

Tony slowly brought his hands to his face, causing you to fix your aim again with his moments, you feared what he might do next, for anything was to be expected with Loki, but Tony merely removed his helmet and goggles, dropping them to the ground exposing his full face to you.

A strange feeling came over your body, it was obviously a familiar face, you had spent numerous hours with Tony Stark in the previous weeks, but it wasn’t really your Tony standing before you. The features looked aged, more wrinkles were in the key parts of his face, grey hair was showing through his hair and also in his beard. Concentrating on analysing each of his features made you soften your grip on the gun.

"It’s me,” he murmured, making another attempt to move towards you, and succeeded, bringing the barrel of the gun down on his chest, clattering against his reactor. He gingerly reached out his arm, reaching up to your face and brushing aside a lock of your hair. “I can’t explain too much, but…”

“Tony?” a new voice joined your encounter, snapping you out of your abstraction. “What are you doing?”

Again you put distance between you and Tony, wary of what had just happened and rather guilty for letting yourself be bamboozled by Loki. You looked at the Captain who was coming from the far end of that long hallway and was just now standing metres away from you.

“It’s not Tony, Captain, it’s one of Loki’s tricks,” you explained without looking away from Tony who was looking at Steve a little guilty about the situation that had been created. “Captain, warn the others, inform them that we have Loki on the third floor of the west wing.”

“I. Am. Not. Loki,” Tony qualified each of his words somewhat irritated that you still believed it was Loki. “Can you tell her Cap?”

“Tony, what the hell are you doing?” Steve used a gruff tone, now the one who sounded irritated was him, as he was unaware of where Tony’s plans were headed.

“Shit,” Tony whispered turning his gaze towards him.“When they put that serum in your veins they offered you the gift of inopportunity, didn’t they?”

For you everything was much more confusing, your quick analysis of the situation and the two figures that stood before you had many gaps of information. You knew those guys, you had spent more hours of your life with them than with your family, you had studied them, you had analysed them and really that Steve and Tony that were before you were not the same guys, and there was only one Loki, both could not be Loki, at least within your logic, although with Loki anything goes. But what you realised was that the captain was holding the sceptre, why was the captain holding the sceptre right now?

“I’m sorry Tony, but we have to go,” he repeated firmly, which brought you back to reality.

“I don’t think either of you are going anywhere,” you quickly pulled a new pistol from the back of your suit, two guns for two people standing in front of you.

That elicited a sigh of disgust from Steve, who raised his hands, raising the sceptre in one hand and the shield in the other, halting his stride in his tracks.

“What was your bright idea Tony?” he asked seriously.

“I don’t know Cap, you know I like to improvise,” he shrugged his shoulders without taking his eyes off you, raising his hands and giving you a wide and warm smile, which didn’t affect you at all.

“Great, so improvise if you don’t want me to,” Steve sentenced him without moving from his position.

“She’s mine,” Tony slowly brought his hand to his chest, where he offered himself a couple of taps and the armour ran over every millimetre of him, covering his limbs.

Was Loki really capable of that? Confusion engulfed you, it had all your senses alert, your mind asking a hundred questions you couldn’t answer. But if it’s not any of them Loki who are they?

Tony looked at Steve’s sceptre, that was the only key way out he could think of, but since he had laid all his cards on the table, he wasn’t going to leave without doing one thing first, so he started to close the gap with you.

“If you take one more step…” you began to say, backing down the long corridor of Stark Tower.

“Honey, surely my 2012 self would punch me if he knew his 2023 self was going to do what I’m about to do,” he started to approach you which made you stand on guard, “since I’d take all the credit away from him, because he won’t do it for another two years or so, but…” between the words and his approach you blocked and pulled the trigger of the gun pointed at him, causing the bullet to hit and fall to the ground. “Hey! That hurt, well, not physically, but you just hurt my feelings.”

“Don’t come any closer…” you muttered, aiming both pistols at Iron Man’s armour.

Your gesture was profoundly in vain, as your footsteps stopped and Tony was close enough to grab the pistols tightly and wrestle them out of your hands, throwing them into the distance, unable for you to avoid. At that exact moment, Iron Man’s suit disappeared, allowing you to look at him again, much closer than the first time. You didn’t know if it was a mind game, but you could almost feel a strange connection between your gazes, the way he looked at you as if he wanted to tell you something, as if he was hiding a long way in them.

“God, I’d almost forgotten what your face…” Tony’s words were inconclusive, but he voiced a smile at the end of them.

What? you wanted to ask out loud, it was so strange, so incomprehensible to you that you were almost terrified at that moment. His eyes looked at you as if they had known you all your life, as if you had lived too many moments together to remember them all, and you just wanted to ask him about it, but you did not. Tony’s arm was around your waist before you could even react and he pulled you close to him, his lips firmly against yours. For Tony it was one of the best sensations of his life, every limb seemed to fill with energy, his skin bristled, he placed his other hand on your back preventing you from fleeing if you had any intention of doing so. He felt your body scent envelop him again after so many years away from you and it brought a lump to his throat. He didn’t want to separate from you, he couldn’t separate from you, he was terrified inside, he could hardly move his lips, for he feared you would run away if he did.

On your part it was something completely unexpected that you didn’t know how to carry out, it seemed that your common sense was lost somewhere, as if it had extrapolated from your body and didn’t act. Your eyes remained open for the first few seconds, observing the nothingness, but when you felt his second hand on your back to bring you closer to him, they closed very slowly, as if you expected to receive an answer from this act to your numerous doubts. You held still, with no intention of separating yourself from him. You wouldn’t deny that you hadn’t thought about what it would be like to kiss Tony Stark, but that wasn’t the Tony Stark you knew.

It was time that decided when to end it, Tony’s face was the one that put distance, but his minus was still glued to your back. He leaned his forehead against yours, exposing his ragged breath against your face.

“Who are you?” you whispered against his lips without opening your eyes yet.

Tony pulled back a few inches, opened his eyes and brought his hands to your face analysing every facial feature before him, running his thumb over your cheeks and lips.

“I promise I’ll fix it,” he whispered feeling himself. “It’ll be all right.”

“What… What will be alright?” your hesitation felt present in your words, it was incomprehensible what he was saying.

“I…” began Tony.

As if the breath stopped in your lungs, you took one last exhale before everything went dark and you hips surrendered in Tony’s arms. The tip of the sceptre had grazed your body causing you to enter a deep sleep from which when you awoke you would possibly think that everything you had experienced was a dream, or that it was really Loki who was playing with you.

“It would have been rather more gentlemanly of you to let me do it,” Tony looked at Steve spitefully as he held your body in his hands.

A fearful sigh escaped Tony’s lips as he carefully laid your body on the floor and ran his palm over his face, facing a voice that told him he couldn’t leave.

“Tony, we can’t leave any loose ends,” Steve whispered as he watched Tony continue to hold you in his arms. “I know how much you want to get back to her. So the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you’ll be reunited,” Steve rested his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “By the way, where do you have the tesseract?”

“Interesting question…”

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wesimpforxiao · 3 years

Text

Say My Name and I’ll Be There: 6.1

Twenty-four hours, thirty minutes, ten seconds and counting. Xiao continued to pace outside of Dawn Winery in complete silence. He still hadn't heard a single word from you, and he had stayed awake all night. Not really a sacrifice since he pulled all-nighters frequently, but his hopes were crushed when his long night was filled with nothing but silence.

Inside, Aether approached Diluc rather quickly with Paimon in tow. "How would you like to kill Fatui?"

"I beg your pardon?" Diluc set his glass of grape juice on his desk. He had been busy with mapping the next wine delivery route when they suddenly barged through his doors. He kind of wished they had the kindness to knock, but the desperate glints in their eyes caught him off guard.

"We said, how would you like to kill the Fatui?" Paimon crossed her arms.

"We need to infiltrate Snezhnaya. They took her."

"'Her?'" Diluc raised a brow, already annoyed by the vagueness of their requests.

"Ugh, the same girl from yesterday! Who earned her cryo vision! She was taken last night at your tavern! Didn't you see us all run out?" Paimon's brows furrowed impatiently.

"We need to infiltrate Snezhnaya," Aether repeated and took a step forward. "We can't do it without you on our team."

"Hold on," Diluc waved a hand to silence them. "We can't just infiltrate a foreign country. There are laws and regulations you have to--"

"That's why we came to you!" Paimon yelled. "If anyone can get us in there, it's you and your underground connections!"

"You hate the Fatui more than anything," Aether continued. "Will you help us?"

Diluc thought for a moment while he traced the rim of his glass with his index finger. "We can't recklessly barge into enemy territory. I'll see what intel I can gather. Wait here."

Xiao burst through the doors almost as if he had seen a ghost--actually, that would be an inaccurate metaphor since he's quite experienced with the spirits of the dead. No matter. He burst through the doors as pale as a sheet. "I hear her."

..................................................

You glared at the third plate of food that sat upon the stool Childe left in your cell. You had refused to eat the prior two meals while he was in the cell with you. He had your cuffs unlocked so you could eat, but you refused to move from your place against the wall. Cooked fish, some sort of vegetable, and white rice. They were treating you well. You were needed alive and healthy, after all, but you weren't hungry. And since Childe had finally left you alone, well, that gave you the chance to talk to the only person you could.

Xiao. Xiao! The thought of startling him brought a thin smile to your lips. I wonder if I scared you...I'm safe--well, as safe as I can be at the moment. I miss you... Your smile faded. But I cannot call for you. It's too dangerous; I'm sure they already have a way to capture you. Now that I know you're always listening, it's nice to talk like this. Less lonely.

Something clinked against the outer cell door, and it opened. Childe and one of the harbingers you saw yesterday entered. The latter held a strange white-and-gray mask that obscured everything besides part of his right cheek and lips. His bluish-white hair almost seemed to brighten the small room from how light it was.

"It's a sign of disrespect if you refuse to eat the food provided for you," Childe commented once he saw that your plate was yet again untouched. "We're treating you with more hospitality than our prisoners, after all."

"This is still imprisonment. Screw off," you brought your knees to your chest as if your legs served to protect you from their stares.

"Ah, yes," the other harbinger picked the plate up and placed it at your feet. "My test subject needs to eat. I suggest you do it by your own will before I see to it myself."

"You might want to listen to him." Childe was warning you, but not out of consideration for you.

"Go to hell!" You threw the plate at the new harbinger since he was closest, and covered his tidy suit in food. The white rice mostly clung to the fabric. Thank the archons that your shoulder was healed and your arm could be put to good use now.

"Listen here, you little--" The man grabbed you by the collar and lifted you like you weighed nothing until your feet dangled above the ground. "I don't have the patience of the Tsaritsa's war dog. I do things quite differently, and you are under my jurisdiction now. See to it that you follow my orders to the tee, or I can make things very unpleasant here on out." He dropped you to the floor and exited the cell.

Childe gave you a look of 'I told you so' as he followed suite.

...............................................

What day is it? Your hazy mind stared at the opposite wall. You lazily traced figure-eights over your tattered jeans. Approximately twenty-one meals were served--and wasted-- so maybe it was day seven? A full week of sitting in this barren room?

A few days of no nutrition were of no consequence to you; you were a light eater anyway. But by day five you were beginning to get dizzy from your voluntary starvation. You slept most of the day. The slightest of movements made the world spin around you. Thoughts of giving in and digging into the meals crossed your mind several times.

I will not falter. They will not get what they need from me. I'll starve before they can have me, you gave yourself the pep talk over and over again. The hours that were filled with zero social interaction drove you mad; you'd either talk to yourself, or to Xiao, who you only hoped could still hear you and maybe even reply in his own mind. It was a shame the conversation couldn't go both ways.

"I miss you," you murmured a breath. "If I get out of this, would you like to go eat almond tofu with me?"

Childe entered quietly, and knelt in front of you after giving your full plate the side-eye. "This little hunger strike of yours needs to stop. You need to eat." You didn't answer, and he let out a small sigh. "Il Dottore finished his set-up this morning. I'm sure he'll be ready to take you from under my watch by tomorrow at the latest." He sat down now, and examined you carefully.

I didn't think we'd break her this quickly, he thought. Such a stubborn personality reduced to this pathetic heap of a woman. A slim smile spread across his lips when he realized how much he loved watching you break under the pressure.

"Leave," you breathed.

"You're smarter than I thought, you know." Childe placed his chin on the hand that was propped up on his leg. "If you really thought he had a chance at defeating us, you would have called for Xiao by now. You've isolated yourself from the only person that caught your eye."

That's what you think, you scoffed. I've been talking to him this whole damn time.

"Or have you been praying to him?" Childe's eyes narrowed and the grin on his lips only widened. The small glance you sent him validated his question. "You're telling me that this great and mighty adeptus has heard your suffering, and has yet to do a single thing about it? Are you really sure he's reliable? Oh, ojou-chan," he clicked his tongue and shook his head at you. "He won't neglect his duties to protect Liyue to come save you."

"You don't know him like I do," a bit of fighting spirit entered your hoarse voice, and your eyes began to glow.

"Oh, but I do. An ancient yaksha that's at least half the age of Morax himself, falling in love with a human girl? Is that what you're expecting from him?" The words cut deeper than his blade had cut through your shoulder. "You really believe such a hardened soul could learn to love in as quickly as a single human lifetime? Ojou-chan, open your eyes. He does not care for you, and he couldn't even if he tried. Look around you, ojou-chan. You're still here, in this dark cell, and he's where? In Mondstat? Liyue? He doesn't seem to care all too much about you."

"That's because I told him to stay away," you growled, eyes shining brighter. You curled your fists and prepared to strike him if he had the audacity to continue spewing nonsense. "You know, you have your entire life to be a jerk. Why don't you take today off?"

"Even if he did save you, there's no future with him. You will continue to chase after the illusion of love with him for the rest of your life, only to die alone with your youth wasted. Even if you escaped, you would be on the run for your entire life, hiding away from the preying eyes of the Fatui. Is that worth an escape, if you can no longer truly live?

"You're better off working with us, following Dottore's orders, and gaining the trust of the Tsaritsa. You can make a life for yourself here if you decide to survive. But out there," he pointed toward the cell door. "Out there, you will not live."

"You know, your ass must be pretty jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth!" You yelled as he exited the cell. Your plate collided with the door right as it closed. Hot tears stained your cheeks once you were left alone.

He's only trying to break you into submission, you soothed yourself as you hugged your legs. They felt thinner than usual. He's just trying to break me. But why do his words...make me feel so upset? You buried your face into your knees. Maybe he's right.

......................................................

"So the guard schedules all overlap? There's no way in?" Paimon looked over the scattered notes on Diluc's table. Most of them held ineligible scribbles on them, and she furrowed her brows because of it.

"This was all you were able to gather in a week?" Aether pulled at his hair and sighed heavily.

"Not many are willing to oppose the Fatui," said Diluc. "It took all my resources to get this much. We don't know the interior layout of the castle other than the main exits and entrances. But I did manage to find us a caravan that leaves at dawn tomorrow."

"Finally!" Paimon huffed. "Something useful!"

"I am sorry I haven't been of use to you all," Zhongli bowed his head in a sincere apology. "It has been years since I've last seen Snezhnaya and the cryo archon." You meant a great deal to the group, and Zhongli probably took your abduction the hardest since he could not intervene with the Tsaritsa and her plans.

"At least we finally have enough of a foundation to squeeze out a plan!"

"Have you heard from her at all today, Xia--?" Aether interrupted himself. "Are...you okay?"

All eyes turned to antisocial yaksha that stood at the back of the room. It was a small thing the traveler had noticed, but it was significant enough that it totally contradicted everything Xiao was.

He was crying.

First, you asked to eat with him when this was all over. Then an overwhelming sense of dread and helplessness flooded his mind like a tsunami. A single tear rolled down his cheek and he hastily wiped it away. A tear?

"Stay out of my way," he disappeared from the room and manifested outside. What was this unfamiliar clenching in his chest? This clenching in his throat? The way his hands tingled and his eyes stung? The afternoon sun seemed to worsen it.

"Xiao," a deep voice spoke behind him, and he turned to face it. Zhongli placed a large hand on the yaksha's head and closed his eyes for a moment. When he released his grip, he too, felt the same pain in his chest.

"She's in pain," the yaksha murmured. "Every day she grows weaker. Her strength, it...diminishes." While it was a blessing to know you were alive, it was also a curse. He could hear the uncertainty in your voice when you prayed, and the way you hesitate to speak to him each passing day. The centuries of hardened walls blocking the yaksha from emotion grew weaker the more you did.

"Your bond has grown," the archon explained the physical and mental phenomena Xiao was being put through. "You feel her emotions, just as she feels yours."

"Rid me of them," Xiao ordered. "I have no need for the emotions of a human."

"She is no longer the only one that holds human emotions. You care for her deeply, do you not?" No answer. Blank stare. "I'm certain you've contemplated and understood my words in Qingce Village by now." Zhongli's eyes followed the ascending path of two cranes flying overhead. "You wish to rescue her, even though Liyue requires your protection? You're worried I won't grant your request?"

"...Yes."

"Worry no longer; it is granted. But be warned, Guardian Yaksha, emotions cannot be permanently ignored. They will rise to the forefront sooner or later," his gaze returned to Xiao's. "You best be sure to share them before they fall on the ears of an early grave."

#xiao x reader #genshin impact #xiao genshin impact #genshin impact xiao #genshin imagines #xiao #xiao fanfiction

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starleska · 3 years

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when Logic twists: an analysis of Logan, cognitive distortions, and a future Side

spoilers ahead! this is a little deep-dive into some foreshadowing in the latest Sanders Sides episode, and what i believe the team are going for in terms of Logan’s arc. just some thoughts i had after the episode - i hope you enjoy, and would love to hear your thoughts too :) tw for discussion around mental illness, trauma, abuse, intrusive thoughts, therapy, etc.

so, we all know that Thomas does a marvellous job portraying difficulties with mental health. he uses interactions between his Sides to carve out fun stories that dramatise the the internal struggles which come with facing complex situations, including those which arise from your specific history and mental illnesses. the writing behind Sanders Sides often uses consideration of real symptoms and therapeutic techniques in order to impart useful advice to the audience who may be struggling with similar issues. with all of this in mind, i thoroughly believe that a good chunk of you are correct about this new Side (foreshadowed in Logan’s eyes) being Wrath, or some variant of Stress or Anger, and here’s why:

Logan is the side of Thomas which is constantly needing to pick up the slack. not only does he spend a good deal of his time de-escalating conflict between the other Sides, he is constantly letting his own dreams (and consequently, needs) fall by the wayside to comfort, validate and assist Thomas' overall desires. we even literally see him benched during the court case with Janus - his input is considered unimportant unless he is deemed as the voice of reason. with this understanding, Logan is viewed by the other Sides as a Side who doesn’t need help. He’s Logic, so they believe he always knows what is appropriate, and how to control himself - or even that he doesn’t need to control himself at all. yet i don’t believe this to be the case, and i think ‘Working THROUGH Intrusive Thoughts’ foreshadows this in an intriguing way: by utilising the dynamic between Logan and Remus. for context, i am speaking as an individual who suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), a form of PTSD. whilst the Thomas we know in the Sanders Sides universe is of course somewhat sanitised and simplified for the easier imparting of moral lessons, we know that this Thomas suffers from issues with intrusive thoughts, low self-esteem, and high anxiety. whether or not these can all be attributed to an underlying condition is irrelevant, but what is intriguing is whether these symptoms are being exacerbated by traumatic, triggering or otherwise stressful events affecting Thomas’ life - which, based on the direction ‘Working THROUGH Intrusive Thoughts’ went (using the relationship with Nico as a conduit), i think is true. when you experience a number of traumatic events or an acute amount of stress, your Logic can become faulty. let’s think about Logan not as a super-genius who just knows what is the correct thing to do all of the time: his knowledge comes from a bank of information and experiences, which he constantly uses to provide a ‘rational’ stance next to the more ‘emotional’ traits of each Side. yet Logic relies on evidence in order to build up this ‘rationality’. let’s think about a scenario wherein you are told every day by someone that you are ugly. now, if this occurred later in life, your Logic might have already rationalised that this is not the case - that you are beautiful just as you are, that this person is seeking to hurt you, that they are projecting, etc. your Logic would make those reasonable counterpoints based on past experience. however, if you were told by multiple people throughout your life, every day, that you are ugly - say, from caregivers, or close friends - you would internalise ‘i am ugly’ as part of that internal Logic. in the first scenario, you would be able to accurately evaluate the thought, ‘i am ugly’ as a cognitive distortion. however, in the latter scenario, you may be unable to, because you have this bank of ‘evidence’ that other people perceive this as reality. even if those people are abusers, or have an ulterior motive, the notion will be internalised and become your reality - so your Logic will say, ‘i am ugly, based on all of the evidence.’ i find this interesting because in this latest episode, they specifically had Logan call attention to cognitive distortions. we must remember that Logan is a part of Thomas. this is Thomas attempting to rationalise with himself, to implement mindfulness and CBT techniques which he knows to be successful, because they have worked in the past and he has it on scientific authority that they help with intrusive thoughts. but this leads us to a question: what happens when you experience so many traumatic events, or so much stress, that your Logic turns against you and begins to validate your intrusive thoughts? imagine for a moment Logan’s awesome rational power - but levied in support of all of Thomas’ deepest fears. in my own experience with CPTSD, a horribly thorny mental trap is the one you fall into when you start down the path of ‘i must be a horrible person, just like they said. i must have deserved everything done to me. look at all of the evidence.’ these thoughts often appear rational due to the intense nature of the sufferer’s pain, particularly if that pain is repeated or prolonged. i believe that Logan’s outburst, paired with Thomas’ fretting over not receiving a call back from Nico, are supposed to represent the building stages of this mental trap. such thoughts are difficult to emerge from, but they become even more difficult to deal with when met with a powerful emotion: Rage. if you have cause to think thoughts of the ‘i am a disgusting human being’ variety thanks to trauma, stress or similar negative events, often there is a good deal of pent-up Rage stored alongside. justifiable Rage, one might say - it certainly feels so in the mind of someone who has suffered so terribly. if one is prone to hating themselves, feeling inadequate or other fertile breeding ground for intrusive thoughts, they may also sometimes snap into the opposite extreme - becoming infuriated by everything that has happened to them, and that they are still needing to deal with yet more pain in the present. this is something i have suffered from personally: when mixed with trauma, it is equal parts emotional dysregulation, and being triggered by something. you might be enRaged by the idea that you were ever ‘passive’ as a victim of something terrible, and want to ‘fight back’. in other words, the emotional state of your Rage will feel justified - and this can cause you to engage in some deeply destructive behaviours. this is why i believe this new Dark Side will be Rage (or an equivalent). Logan’s ‘STOP IGNORING ME!’ speaks of a breaking point brought on by years of fixing other people’s problems, only to receive very little in return. there’s a misconception that people who are ‘good’ at handling stress or fixing other people’s problems (i.e., not showing much of the strain) are simply less stressed as a whole, and therefore should be saddled with yet more stress. Logan’s screaming at Remus, and Remus’ delight at Logan’s response, shows us that Logan is exhausted from all of the hard work that he’s had to do in order to fight Thomas’ intrusive thoughts and cognitive distortions, alongside the massive amount of stress in his life. likewise, by giving into his impulsivity and opening up more opportunities for further stress, Thomas has allowed Logan - and his Logic - to become vulnerable to Remus and intrusive thoughts. Logan may have successfully been able to dispel the intrusive thoughts which had no basis in reality (for instance, a murderer hiding in Thomas’ closet) - but what happens if Thomas is given validation for an intrusive thought? in other words - what if Logan feels he has reason to listen to Remus? i believe this Rage has been simmering within Thomas for a long time, and his debut is going to be explosive. there are lots of ways this debut could be written; some have theorised that Logic and Rage will be a kind of antithesis to the Creativitwins, wherein the two are fused as Thomas has internalised his Rage as having a Logical root. this would have Rage not as a separate side, but a kind of version or alternate mindset for Logan, a bit like how he was when in Virgil’s room. i would not be surprised at all for this episode to include both Remus and Janus - Remus, revelling in the intrusive thoughts which Logan/Rage is now allowing to fly free, and Janus, delighting in Logan/Rage’s validation of destructive behaviours, which may well include Deceit. i could also see Virgil being drawn in by this irresistible combination of Anxiety-fuelling thoughts - intrusive thoughts inspiring inadequacy, Deceit inspiring fear of being found out, and the terror of Logic being twisted to validate every fear Virgil has ever had for Thomas. you know when someone has hurt you really badly, and so in your head you come up with countless (awful, unrealistic, hurtful) ways to ‘get back at them’? that’s what i think the next Sanders Sides episode is going to be like. of course, like Anxiety, Intrusive Thoughts and Deceit, Rage will have his uses too. i believe, if any of this theorising is correct, that the next Sanders Sides episode will follow a narrative discussing if Rage is justified when one is hurt to a massive extreme, and what Logic can one follow when it backs up every destructive impulse. are you being Logical if you are full of Rage? basically, i think Logan (influenced by a breaking point and giving over to Rage) is going to do everything in his power to be destructive, under the idea that it is the only Logical thing to do. i believe he will fall to the horrific power of cognitive distortions and mental illness, and that the other Sides will need to use their strengths to bring him back. anyway, that’s all my thoughts! my apologies for any inaccuracies, or if anything in here was upsetting. i’d love to hear what you think about this, and your own theories! :D take care 💏

#sanders sides #sanders sides spoilers #logan sanders #remus sanders #thomas sanders #starleskatalks

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dreamrecorder · 3 years

Text

Until then, we will find each other again. <||>

fluff & angst drabble, reincarnation au, modern au

| Xiao x Reader | Diluc x Reader |

Note: I'm sorry that I can't put the cut thingy bcos im writing in mobile. Once I get ahold of my laptop I'll put the cut thingy. Happy reading^^ i swear these were supposed to be short but welp

Xiao

Notes: Immortal companion* - Just think of someone immortal from the game. This is also a different take from Venti's and Zhongli's because I honestly think Xiao is so done with immortality and its consequences.

Suicide implicitly mentioned.**

Xiao is mourning for the passing of his immortal companion*, making him the last immortal to walk the world. Now, it is he, who last remains from a time of gods and monsters. Each passing of a mutual, he witnessed. They deemed it was their time to move on, for humanity has succeeded to bring fate into their own two hands. The world no longer needed them.

Xiao has already suffered loss way before the Archon War. Yet, he never expressed the emotion of grief for he needed to be strong lest the world will eat him alive. However, this passing made his heart of glass, chip a little, then shattering the whole thing altogether. Or perhaps, it was already chipped away and too fragile because of the losses that has culminated in his immortal life.

Now, he lays on the roof of a building of what used to be Wangshu Inn. He was trying hard not to break down again. By doing so, he merely cursed fate over and over again. Yet, to no avail, the man exploded in tears once more, too tired from all the pain and loss suffered from millenias.

Then... there's you. You who uttered the words, "Until then, we will find each other again."

With all sincerity he can muster, he wanted to believe those words. He wanted to believe in you. That's why he stayed. Yet... the pain he feels heavily overweighs his faith in you.

He just wants to... end it all.

"I just want to disappear..."

No one heard him utter those words, only the wind. And the wind- just as once the Anemo Archon had said, carries the words one thinks no one can hear.

It came like a whisper, yet loud and clear. Then all of a sudden, the memories of your previous life flashed before your eyes. You dropped the book you were holding and held your temples at the incoming migraine.

"Are you alright?" You friends asked in worry, looking for any visible signs of pain aside from your clenched eyes and your frowning expression.

You could only groan as a reply and your friends waited for you to take your time to recollect yourself.

Who... Whose voice? You knew this voice... But who?

You finally removed your hands and opened your eyes.

"I- I have to go... Go without me." Was all you said before leaving your friends in the dust who looked at your way with confusion.

Who? Many questions riddled your mind. And with all these unanswered, worry and anxiety grew in your heart. Tears began to swell in your eyes, worsening your headache.

This is not about you! You have to look for... something! Someone! Just-

"Dear gods, please please don't you dare fucking take him..."

You sprinted around the area, following and listening to that now faint whisper under the night. The whispers only became clearer and louder when you approached a building which used to be an inn.

The moment you stepped foot within the building, the lone whisper became mixed with more words which did not lift your heart.

Fuck.

With pure adrenaline, you opted to use the stairs instead of the damn elevator. You have finally reached the door leading to the rooftop, and at that point, the whispers became screams. However, when your hand grasped the handle, the voice in the wind stopped. You opened the door at full to be met by the back of the man who stands at the railing.

Xiao...?

Xiao..

Xiao.

"Xiao!"

At the call of his name by a familiar voice, his head whipped to its direction. But he shall not be fooled.

"You... you're not real."

The words along with lifeless eyes stabbed you.

"It's me, Xiao! Y/n! Don't do this! I'm sorry I took so long! But I'm here now! Just as I had promised!"

Your heart was beating against your ribcage. You had to prove you were real. But how?

"You're just an illusion made by my heart."

"Xiao, please! Fuck I'm really sorry! But please you don't have to do this... I... I remember everything, Xiao... All those times we battled in the war. Those times we shared almond tofu. The times we smiled, cried, laughed, and fought...

I remember everything..."

For each word you uttered, you grew confident in your memories. For each word, you took a step closer. For each word, you saw life coming back to the man you love.

"So please... Come back..."

At the final word, you released all your sincerity, genuity, and adoration for him. And finally, your hands took purchase in his (while trying so hard not to shed any tear for his sake).

"It's me."

...

"Y/n...?"

You beamed at him and finally, Xiao's eyes were now shining in clarity, and of course, life and love.

Diluc has been reincarnated many times, yet still has not found you. Through his reincarnated forms, he alternated between travelling and staying in Mondstadt. The former done in order to find you. The latter done in the chance you would find him there.

Diluc

For the first time in his many lifetimes, his current form surprised him. When he reached 'sixteen', his memories resurfaced and the realization sank in. His appearance ended just as how he looked in his first ever lifetime. The only difference was the length of his hair. He even ended up being reincarnated in the Ragnvindr Family along with inheriting the winery business.

To put it bluntly, walking within the old yet maintained Ragnvindr Mansion was a memory lane. However, the moment of reminiscence only gave him a heavy heart, for within these halls used to be filled with your laughter.

In this very same spot where he currently stands, is where you uttered your last words.

"Until then, we will find each other again."

Walking aimlessly around the mansion, he thinks about those long, long years without you. Must be fate so cruel? Making him search far and wide, when in the end fate does not want you to return to him? The man clenched his fists, and in anger, punched the nearby wall.

He expected a bursting kind of pain to come, yet what came was a dull throb on his knuckles. Yet this is not only what he had not expected. He did not expect for the wall to respond with a resounding hollowness.

A hidden corridor? Room? When had the family installed this?

Curiosity held him and began kicking the hollow wall without hesitation. What secrets does it hide from all these years, he shall know. Once the wall opened up for him to fit, he entered with a lit phone in hand at extreme brightness.

Again, what he saw, he had not expected. What he saw both filled and emptied his heart simultaneously. What he saw was a painting of you and him, together in a moment of shared happiness.

"Dilu-" His mother called which snapped out of his trance. His head snapped at her direction and saw her eyes fill with solemness.

"I didn't mean to-"

His mother hushed him with a gentle smile and entered the room to stand alongside him.

"You know," his mother began, "I always believed in the fantasy that had been once in our world. Lord Barbatos, the other Archons, the Twins that saved our world, Visions, and... reincarnation. I always believed in them.

The moment I saw your features when you were born, I knew you were the reincarnation of the Uncrowned King of Mondstadt... So I named you after him because I knew your memories would resurface someday. I knew the day would come when my son will no longer be my son. Because when that day comes, all I would see in your eyes is a long unspoken wisdom and pain that will replace your innocence free from battles and war."

Diluc was surprised, yet kept his emotions to himself. He understood what his mother was pointing at. "Is... Is this why this picture is hidden?"

His mother nodded solemnly. "Perhaps, I was afraid and scared about when the day I spoke of will take place. That's why I ordered this painting be hidden. I knew this painting of you and Lady Y/n will unlock your memories sooner, but I didn't want that."

For once in his lifetimes, his heart softened with love. The kind of love that assures you that someone cares for you. Never in his reincarnated lifetimes, had he experienced this feeling. All those years, he was just... lost in the feelings and thoughts of not being with you.

The man stepped towards his mother with hesitation to which he instantly erased. He hugged his mother with a soft spoken voice saying these words.

"I will always be your son and you will always be my mother. That will never change. I may be 'older' than you, but please do remember that I would not have grown to who am I today without your guidance. For that, I deeply thank you for taking care of me...

I love you, Mom."

With his words, his mother burst into light tears accompanied by a smile. "Don't make me cry, I'm going to wrinkle." Diluc laughed at the comment. After a loving moment, the two separated yet his mother still held onto his arms.

"You've grown so much... I guess little birds do leave the nest someday."

"It wouldn't be possible without you."

His mother looked at him with a proud gaze, "Go. Find her. If memory serves right, I might have seen someone like her dwell everyday in the local library."

The man released his breath he never knew he was holding. Diluc hugged his mom again with a peck on her cheek. He then let go and began to exit the room with haste.

"Once I come home, I will tell you everything. Venti, Morax, the Twin Travelers, the Archons, and Visions. I will tell you everything."

With a rush, Diluc was now out of sight. Yet, the Madam Ragnvindr was not saddened. Her heart swelled for her son whose eyes are finally, once more lit with happiness. However, who's Venti?

A/n: welp truth be told diluc's story took an unexpected turn lol. It's either I'm going to leave this like that or continue it. Take your pick by commenting because I'm actually fine with either options haha happy reading <3

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #diluc genshin impact #diluc #diluc ragnvindr #xiao genshin impact #xiao #diluc x reader #xiao x reader #genshin imagines

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prodtrouver · 2 years

Text

Times of Boredom ➳✯ KANG TAEHYUN

➳✯ most of the time, keeping time proper gets so boring, it makes you want to break it.

➳✯ 1080 words

Bored. Bored. Bored… There is nothing else you could do other than watch the time rifts all over again.

Different people doing something different at the same time. Portals of different dimensions were scattered around you. It is the only thing your eyes have been staring at since forever, and all it does is make you bored.

Stuck in such a world where you are supposed to be a watcher of rifts, it surely is boring. Sat on the floor made of brass, you played with your staff that resembled a clock’s arm.

“Pft- got nothing better to do, hm…” You turned your gaze to one of the time rifts. 5 boys played around the tree, all full of bliss and laughter. You chuckled, suddenly tempted to mess with the innocent children.

Your actions may have some limitations, but your mischief does not. It goes well with your time; limitless.

Quite excited already, you opened the time rift widely. The black and yellow border surrounded the portal. Your mischievous smile greeted the 5 boys, who stopped playing just to look at you. Their bewildered expressions did not fail to make you laugh.

“Look at you! How adorable,” you laughed at them while they went from bewildered to nervous… You mean, they are supposed to be.

A random person came from nowhere but a rift. They are not supposed to know such things exist, yet here you are, showing them just because of boredom. They all looked so innocent, so small- it was hard for you to let them go.

“Well, well, well, look who we have here!” You rushed to one of them. The boy immediately halted at your sudden actions. You leaned down to face the boy closer.

Your eyes - one brown and the other looked like a ball of gold… How is that possible? You don’t look like a human, yet you don’t look like a monster either.

“My, oh my… if it isn’t the director of time, Ministro Kang Taehyun!” You could tell their nervous expressions returned to surprised ones. Now, so many questions ran through their minds. Who and what are you?

“Did I not tell you to stop your mischievous acts!?” Your smile faltered when you heard the familiar deep voice come from behind you. “When will you learn that your actions have consequences, yn!?”

You got on your feet, happy to see the one and only director and fellow timekeeper, Kang Taehyun. You turned around to face the man. His brown and gold outfit slightly matched yours and he looked annoyed, but that was expected.

“I was bored~” you sang. Apparently, this brought even more stress for the male. Keeping everything steady in time was already stressful, now you keep adding up. He glares at you, but to his unfortunate avail, you kept your cheerful demeanor. Why must you do this every time he is away?

“We are going back. We cannot mess with time, yn! You know this already as a timekeeper.” Taehyun made his way to you, yet he was pushed back. You returned time to how it was seconds before. He was back to where he stood before. Again, he kept his glare at you.

“Why won’t you return alone? I’m having my fun here and you’re ruining it.” If there was another thing that Taehyun dislikes about you, it’s how you are always so happy about it.

You mess up time? You’re happy. Watch another suffer in time? Smiling. Get scolded by him? You’re enjoying it. Why must you make his job harder than it already is? Simple! Because it’s fun! It’s one way to cure your boredom.

“I am not returning without you! You are such a nuisance! Return with me or I’ll punish you for a decade.” Taehyun pointed his staff, which is very similar to yours, at you. You tilted your head, confused and annoyed at why he was still trying.

Does he realize you can make a decade long to a mere second? Why must he make having fun difficult?

“Come on now, my timekeeper Taehyun! Have some fun, will ya? All that watching and keeping time proper is boring. I do nothing but watch millions of time rifts and that’s it.” Annoyingly, your voice got deeper at the end of your sentence.

Your words hit him like a bullet. For the first time, he saw your smile falter. The male kept quiet.

“At least, you get to talk to people! At least, you get to do other things than keep an eye out for improper time. Unless touched, there is nothing wrong with time-” he cuts you off.

“And that is what you are doing right now. You are making the time of this world improper by coming here.” He argued. He expected you to argue back, however, that wasn’t what he got. You just laughed.

“Because I am having fun! How many times do I have to repeat myself? It’s boring just watching all that time rifts! Anyway, look at this!” You take the hands of the younger Kang Taehyun and pull him closer to you. “It’s you!”

Taehyun’s expression got darker, but you didn’t care. You kept your smile only to annoy him more.

“Isn’t he adorable? Unfortunately, he will become like you, a very boring person.” You turned to face the younger. “Don’t become like him, okay? You can have fun as well!”

Suddenly, you felt Taehyun grab your hand. “That is enough.”

“Oh my, oh my! Kang Taehyun has gone rogue! Are you finally angry? Will you give me a punishment that lasts an eternity?” You leaned closer and closer to his face.

It was only until then your faces were centimeters away from each other. You stared, with a grin, at Taehyun’s glistening eyes of confusion.

“Is your patience for me running out?” You laughed while Taehyun only looked taken back. “Say little one, why won’t we go on an adventure?” You turned to the younger Taehyun.

“Yn, don’t you dare-” you ignored him.

“Let’s have fun, shall we?” You pulled him closer to you as we opened another time rift. The child let out a gasp, his hand immediately grabbed onto your coat. You turned to Taehyun, your mischievous smile still resting on your lips.

“Catch us if you can!” With that, you and the younger Taehyun fell into the time rift in the ground that you opened.

Before he could catch both of you, the time rift closed.

#txt aus #txt ff #txt imagines #txt scenarios #txt imagine #txt drabbles #txt #taehyun ff #taehyu aus #taehyun imagines #taehyun drabblws #kang taehyun imagines #kang taehyun scenarios #kang taehyun aus #tomororrow x together aus #tomorrow x together imagines #tomorrow x together ffs

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lovecanbesostrange · 3 years

Text

Okay, for the poor people on the Ruby Lucas Harem Discord suffering because of this ask (x) on konako’s tumblr that lead to things (including this fanart x), I have this wild scene out of context.

Mary Margaret was sitting at her desk, updating her chemistry flashcards. Ruby was sitting on her bed cross-legged staring at her laptop screen, waiting for this English essay to write itself.

“Ugh,” Ruby groaned and let herself fall backwards. Out of habit she put her hands to her face, but winced when her fingers touched the band aid over her eyebrow. It’s been five days.

A knock on the door made them both turn. They usually could tell who it was by the exact sound of the knock. Like Charming had one hard knock followed by two quick ones or Mulan knocked four times in a specific rhythm. So whoever this was, was more than unexpected. Ruby drew in a sharp breath. She had heard back from the police yesterday that there would be no criminal charges, but they both knew something else would arise from this.

Mary Margaret looked at her, then turned her chair to fully face the door and Ruby got back up again. “Come in.”

“Hallo. Good, you’re here.”

“Mom!” Mary Margaret was up in a second and gave her mother a hug. “I didn’t know you’d be coming.”

Eva hugged her back, but despite the smile on her face, her voice already made them realize this was not a fun surprise visit. “I didn’t know I would be here today either.” The hug ended and she stepped into the room, her gaze landing on Ruby. “I got some news last night and suddenly I was in my car this morning.”

Mary Margaret glanced at the clock. It was a twelve hours drive with good traffic, so Eva must’ve gotten behind the wheel around 4am.

“Hi…” Ruby busied herself closing her laptop and didn’t look up.

“Honey,” Eva stroked Mary Margaret’s hair, “would you mind giving us the room? I want to talk to Ruby.”

“Sure.” Mary Margaret glanced between the two and then grabbed her things from the desk. “I’m down the hall in the common area.” When she passed Eva she whispered: “Don’t be too harsh on her, please.”

That made Eva smile. Her daughter knew exactly why she was here, but she looked out for her friend. These girls always had each other’s back and knowing they were loyal like that, dragging each other out of trouble, was certainly a good thing.

Eva took the vacant chair and rolled herself over a bit towards Ruby’s bed. “So.”

Ruby slowly looked up. Eva took in the bandaid and she could see a faint red line indicating that her lip must have been busted. Trying to hide one hand with the other was a giveaway that her knuckles were bruised as well. Eva had to breathe slowly. A part of her wanted to grab Ruby by the shoulders and shake the whole story out of her. She wanted to yell about irresponsibilties, the futility of violence and all the consequences physical assault could come with. The bigger part of her wanted to cradle her like the 9 year old she sometimes still saw, who confessed to lying about her home address, as if not having loving parents was her personal failing.

“I was at dinner with friends last night and suddenly got asked if I heard about the ruckus on campus. I was really surprised when I was shown this tiny article about a football player beating up another student. And it took me two phone calls to find out it was you.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruby murmured towards the blanket she was sitting on, playing with the seam of her sweatpants.

“For what?” Eva tried to keep her voice as neutral as possible. She had felt every emotion during the long drive and had played out many versions of this conversation. But sitting in this room she realized none of those would work.

Ruby furrowed her brows and finally looked up. “Beating up that guy, of course?” It was a bit more of a question than a statement. The question had rattled her. There was so much to be sorry for though. The beating, losing her temper at all, making Regina worry that night already, not doing so great in classes lately, clinging to Snow, making her team suffer… oh, wait. “Also for not calling… I guess…”

The board said that her mother, Anita, would be notified of this by mail. That was her home address, her contact, but maybe this was why Eva was here. The Blanchards had always cared, but now she was in college, she wasn’t a kid anymore, she had to do these things by herself. But maybe, just maybe they should have called. “I shouldn’t have put this on Snow alone… she should’ve talked to you…”

“Ruby, no.” Eva got up and sat down on the bed, gesturing Ruby to scoot over next to her. “Sure, I’m disappointed-”

The word stung and Ruby interjected immediately. “I’m sorry. I messed up, but I promise Snow wasn’t even there and I won’t-”

“Stop!” Eva took Ruby’s hands, now seeing the bruises already turning yellow, showing the passage of time already. “I am disappointed you didn’t call. And I’m glad to hear Mary wasn’t involved, but I wanted to know anyway. Because of you. I care about you. And this is serious. I know…” She paused and slowed down, knowing the next thing would hurt, but after all these years, Eva needed to say it out loud. “I know your mom doesn’t take good care of you, I know you feel like she doesn’t care at all and I honestly don’t know if she does. But I do. I am not your mother, but I care.”

The dam broke and Ruby started to cry. Eva took her into her arms and immediately Ruby clung to her. It was weird that Eva had seen the aftermath of Ruby crying quite a few times over the years, but rarely had she shed tears in front of her. Maybe Eva should have made her before, pushed her a little bit towards that to hammer it home that she cared and that she would be there for her. Just the same she had hugged Mary Margaret after break-ups, over bruised knees, bad grades, and other bad news.

“I’m sorry for everything”, Ruby got out between sobs. Her tears stained Eva’s blouse already. “I didn’t mean to… I don’t want to hurt people… I swear I want to be good.”

There was more, but it was hard to decipher it all and Eva let her cry, rubbing circles on her back. Getting the full story would take time, that was for sure. All she could do now was to reassure Ruby. “I know you’re good, you just made a mistake. People make mistakes.”

Eva looked over Ruby’s shoulder and saw her pinboard. A few pictures were on it and she immediately recognized one taken the time she and Leopold had taken the girls to Six Flags. They had ridden all the rollercoasters until they were practically green in the face. It had also been the day she had seen Ruby at her most carefree. There was one photo of Ruby with her Grandmother, a woman Eva had met only once. Anita was nowhere to be found on the wall.

A group shot looked nice. Eva recognized David from the pictures Mary Margaret had sent her, but couldn’t even guess who the others were. It was a bit sad living too far away to meet all these people, because she had made it a point to know Mary Margaret’s friends in school by face and name. Mulan, Belle, August, Robin, Jasmin, Anna, Aurora… so many names. She smiled at the picture in the corner that showed Ruby in her team uniform, helmet in hand. A candid shot, her elbow resting on the shoulder of another girl. Or maybe it was young woman now.

Eva turned a bit to catch a glimpse of Mary Margaret’s pinboard. Cluttered with far more pictures, flyers and notes. They shared a room, they had shared the most parts of their lives for the past 11 years and yet there still was such a noticeable difference.

Ruby started to calm down and when she let go, Eva leaned forward to get tissues out of her bag. “Can you tell me your version of the story now? All I know is that you were provoked and sent a boy to the hospital. The article said something about questionable self-defense.”

“There are no criminal charges,” Ruby said after blowing her nose. “He said something to my friend. Insulted her. And he wouldn’t stop, calling her… the c-word… and when he touched me, I lost it.”

“He was in the hospital,” she prompted.

“For a broken arm.” A pause. “A broken nose.” Ruby looked at Eva again. “He lost a tooth. And has some more bruises than I do. He was on the ground fast…”

Eva put a hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “I have no problem believing you would defend any of your friends like that. But you must have hit him pretty hard.” Ruby nodded, the shame was visible. “Tell me the truth. Has this happened before? Because what I can’t believe is that you would pound someone when he’s already down. Something else is going on and I want to know if that will happen again.”

Ruby pressed her palms against the mattress and slid away a bit. Eva could hear - and even see - her breathing pick up. This was almost all the confirmation she needed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Has it happened before, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

Silence fell.

Eva closed her eyes. This was the thing she had feared. Because either Ruby had lost it very big time and the paper didn’t cover the big scoop behind it. Or something had been going on and she had been blind to it. And she needed to hear this from Ruby herself either way.

“When?”

“Back in high school… it was… at junior prom…”

Eva scrambled her brain. She remembered Mary Margaret having a date and giving her one more motherly talk about safe sex that had left her daughter bright red in the face. She also remembered that date bringing her home even before curfew and that Mary Margaret had been not very talkative that night. She had sworn nothing bad had happened with him and Eva only suspected that they’d had a stupid teen argument. There was nothing too remarkable about that. Had she seen Ruby the next day? She couldn’t recall.

While she was thinking, Ruby went on hesitantly. “This boy Peter had asked me out… from the hockey team… but it… it was all a prank… some of those guys wanted to like… set me up for a joke… and... “ She quickly glanced up and right back down again. “It wasn’t as bad, he had bruises and a swollen eye. Snow was there to stop me and we all agreed to not tell anyone. I apologized to him though. And it all… it was… like now… just more… it wasn’t just Whale being a dick to my friend, it’s… everything is so much sometimes and I explode.”

This was less surprising to hear than Eva cared to admit. “Have you ever hurt somebody with intention?”

Ruby shook her head. Her voice was broken. “One time… but only one time… I shoved Snow… I swear it was only once… I yelled at her and shoved her and the second I had done that… I apologized immediately and I never ever intended to hurt anybody.” She looked at Eva again. “Least of all her. I swear.” For this she held eye contact as long as she could.

Eva reached out touching her hand that was clenched around the edge of the mattress. “Thank you for being honest.”

There were a lot of details Eva wanted to know about, but this had been hard enough on Ruby. And now they had time to figure things out. But she had revealed a bright spot. “No criminal charges, you said?”

Ruby nodded. “The police seem very uninterested. And any civil things… well, I need to worry about what the board decides. My… friend said her family will keep things on the down-low.” She squirmed a bit.

“Who is this friend?”

“Regina Mills.”

“Mills? Oh.” Of all the people to get in a fight for, this was probably the luckiest choice. Although it didn’t sit right with Eva that there might be things going to circumvent what law dictated. But she also knew that worse people got away with far worse behavior and Ruby deserved to have one strike with minimal consequences. Even if this was technically her second. “I have looked up a few therapists in town already. I nee-”

“I’m seeing the campus therapist already. But I blew off a few appointments and I get that I shouldn’t.” Eva looked over at Mary Margaret’s bed at that. “Yes, Snow made me. She went with me the first time even.”

“What else are you girls keeping from me?” That came out more judgmental than she meant to. “I know you’re growing up, but you’re still kids to me. I always thought you knew you can come to me with problems.”

“Sorry.”

Eva scooted closer again and put her arm around Ruby’s shoulder. “Enough with the apologies. I know you’re a good kid. I remember you kept Mary from starting to smoke, so that’s something.”

“You know about that?” Ruby looked at her bewildered.

“I am a mom after all and some things I do pick up. You didn’t like it, because you’re an athlete, right?”

“Yeah, it’s super shitty for your lungs and I told her it was uncool.”

Eva laughed. “Wish that would work on Leo and his cigars. But thanks for that. I know you two look out for each other. But I will have to chew out my daughter for keeping a few too many secrets.” Ruby tensed up a bit. “What? Something else I need to know?”

“No…” She dragged the syllable out, dragging her toes over the floor.

“Ruby, I just said you can tell me. That is all I want from you, the truth. And we can work anything out from there.”

“But… what if…” She crossed her arms in front of chest, bracing herself. “What if… I’m not who you think I am?”

“You’re Ruby Lucas. You’re the best friend of my daughter, almost more like a sister. You worked your butt off to get here and you work hard to be the best version of you. I know you even send some of that money home you make at the gas station. Because you care so much about people you love, like your grandmother. I know you are a good person, even though you keep way too much inside. But we can work on that now.” She gave Ruby a kiss on the head, like she would with Mary Margaret. “What could be so bad about you?”

“I’m… I think… I’m gay.” Ruby breathed out that last word and was one tense muscle in Eva’s half embrace.

Eva looked at the pinboard again. The picture with Ruby smiling while leaning on the other girl. It clicked. On top of everything else, this secret had weighed Ruby down. She sure had enough reasons to be angry at the world already. This wasn’t something Eva had prepared for, so she just brought around her other arm to pull Ruby closer. “I want you to be happy and in love.” Finally she felt Ruby breathe in again.

((I just have to stop myself here. This could go on and on and on and on otherwise. Because I already know Eva is gonna take them out to dinner, insisting on meeting David. She gets a hotel room nearby. Of course Snow offers to let her sleep in the dorm but “Honey, that’s kind, but no. So much no to sleeping in a dorm bed.” And she freshens up a bit and passes a book store, where her eye is caught by a pride display and she gets a bracelet with a tiny rainbow flag, two actually, she wears one and gives the other to Ruby, because well, she doesn’t know exactly what to say, but this will definitely not make her think less of her!! Eva is the silent MVP of the story.))

#gender mix football AU #(where nobody gives a fuck about football)#Ruby Lucas #(sorry for spamming the tag - come to the server to yell at me about it)#this fic would be 100k words at this point already - sorry I don't have actual writing stamina for that #konako #somehow it's her fault - and the demons circling her inbox #lazylaziel #if only you knew what you started... even though it's so far removed by now... sorry #$!#RRCAU

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