#Teenage boy who’s always been an outcast…just wanting to prove himself..

[shima-draws]

NOT THE KIERAN VILLAIN ARC I’M SO UPSETTI SPAGHETTI

#Wait. This feels. Familiar… #Teenage boy who’s always been an outcast…just wanting to prove himself.. #Just wanting to be acknowledged…and yet when he finally feels like he’s made a friend… #They unintentionally betray him…and that sets him off…and he can’t see past his own hurt and anger… #And then he betrays his friends BACK. And it’s a MESS. And he keeps SPIRALING #Yeah that’s REEAAALLL familiar #Sideeyes Varian #Anyway I just KNOW Kieran’s gonna get worse and it’s going to break my fucking heart. God DAMMIT #Might have to write a fix-it fic for this. Lmao #Shima speaks #Pokemon #Pokemon SV #Pokemon SV DLC #The Teal Mask #The Teal Mask spoilers #Pokemon spoilers #Kieran #Pokemon Kieran

[heliads]

Curiosities

You feel that life can be divided up into a select set of curiosities- rules by which you live and breathe, that explain away everything in your life as a mutant. You’re doing fine until a certain boy named Peter Maximoff throws everything into disarray.

masterlist

If you try hard enough, everything that happens to you can be sorted out into a list of curiosities. You’re not sure how long you’d been thinking about it this way, but it made enough sense if you really thought about it. Your life was different, ever-changing, and if you kept it locked away within the list of curiosities, you could get a handle on it long enough to peek through the chest of memories that would otherwise fly open and swallow you whole.

Curiosity #1: You were a mutant.

This in itself was relatively easy to explain. When you were about ten, maybe twelve, you started to show the first signs of your power. A faint stirring in the shade in the corner of the room, the fact that you were never afraid of the dark. You waved to your shadow with your left hand, it responded by moving the ankle on its right. By the time you were about fourteen, your powers had fully come into being: you were able to control the shadows. You could bring them into existence, spooling black fog around your fingers and forcing it to your will. 

Curiosity #2: Even among mutants, you were an outcast.

You had come to Professor Xavier’s school when the building itself was fairly uninhabited. Xavier understood you; but then again, he was able to look past the dark furrow of your brow and into the sunny spaces of your head; he could tell that you didn’t wish to hurt anybody. None of the other students shared that same gift, except perhaps Jean, but she didn’t particularly wish to go probing into your skull.

When the school was still new and lacking in students, you were able to grow and flourish as a mutant. The Professor taught you how to use your powers himself, and you had full reign over the grounds. Then, more students started to appear, and they took up more and more of Xavier’s time. Before long, he barely saw you at all.

The other students didn’t know what to make of you. They could understand mutants with cool, interesting powers, like Storm with her weather manipulation or Mystique with her ability to change forms. Furry, blue teachers were acceptable; you were not. They were afraid of how you could control the shadows, how you seemed part darkness yourself. They drew away from you, huddling in the hallways and not making eye contact when you walked by. Slowly, a hated nickname surfaced: Suffocator. They were terrified that you would reach out a hand, call the darkness to you, make it cover their mouth and nose and choke out all air from their desperate lungs. You hated it, but it didn’t matter. Suffocator you were, and suffocator you would always be.

One night, a few of the mutants your age were bored and wanted to throw a party. Someone, maybe Jubilee, had heard of this thing called a masquerade party on one of her trips to the mall or somewhere outside of the school. She was desperate to try it out, and so Xavier’s School had posters everywhere across campus advertising the party.

When you first heard of it, you weren’t planning on going. Nobody wanted you there, not the girl who lurked in the shadows and didn’t speak to anyone. Then you realized that everyone would be wearing a mask and intentionally disguising their identity- nobody would know who you were. It almost seemed too good to be true.

A few days later, the day of the masquerade party arrived. You had donned a sapphire blue mask, one that shimmered like the lake just outside the school when the sun crossed its waves. The glittering, twinkling sea would hide your face from those who would otherwise distrust you. You had glanced at yourself in the mirror before you went; you did not look like yourself. You smiled in satisfaction, and headed out.

The party was being held in one of the empty halls of the school, and you blended in seamlessly with the other mutants. You talked and laughed with them, and they had no idea that they were speaking with the girl they’d avoided just a few hours earlier. You found yourself smiling and having more fun than you’d had in months.

Then, you became aware of one student heading towards you. Tall, overbearing Natalie: she had always hated you for some unknown reason. She glanced once at the group of friends you were speaking with, then folded her arms across her chest. “Do you know who you’re talking to?” She said, and the group looked from her to you and shook their heads. Natalie donned a gleeful smirk. “That’s Y/N. I’m not sure you really want to be spending that much time with her.”

The group of mutants cast you fearful looks once they realize it’s you, and start to walk away. Natalie is the only one who remains, and she crosses the final few feet to stand in front of you. Her voice comes in a loud hiss that seems to echo around the room. “Suffocator.”

A blur of silver flashes around you, and then a boy suddenly appears in front of you. “Those are strong words for someone who can’t even figure out empathy. I mean, come on- yesterday someone was crying in front of you and it took you half an hour to figure out they were sad.” Natalie draws back, angry. “Rude, Maximoff! Hasn’t Xavier told you not to make fun of people’s powers? Empathy is hard.” The silver-haired boy laughs. “Not making fun of people’s powers? I think you’re the one who needs to work on that, not me.”

Natalie rolls her eyes, trying to hide her annoyance at the fact that she’s losing this argument. “Whatever. I’m bored of this already.” She stomps away to hang out with her other friends, leaving you to stare at the boy who’d suddenly come to your defense. Of all the mutants, why would it be Peter?

Curiosity #3: Peter Maximoff.

Nobody at Xavier’s school trusted you. Nobody, it seemed, except for Peter. Ever since that day, he’d been relentless in his task to befriend you. You’re not sure why- everyone else had given up on you long ago. It’s not like you didn’t want friends, or that you were that strange a person. You were like everyone else: happy, laughing, friendly. It’s just the threat of your powers, so strange and unnatural, that forced everyone else away.

But not him. No, Peter refused to let your powers daunt him in the slightest. He’d be there after class, walking nonchalantly beside you. It didn’t seem like a friendship borne of pity- no, he teased you and made the same jokes as he would with everyone else. He even called you Suffocator once, that dreaded nickname, although it didn’t have that same barb as it did before. Maybe that’s because the other students used it as a knife to stab at you before running away. Instead, Peter tossed it like a paper plane, letting it float through the air as the two of you laughed from a joke. He didn’t want anything more than friendship, and so the two of you hung out after class, fighting mock battles with your powers and enjoying the time to be two simple teenagers in the otherwise strange world of mutants.

Curiosity #4: The quiet.

You’re not sure when you notice the silence at first. It’s just another day, ordinary in its dullness. You’re in the back of the grounds, away from the large groups of people in an attempt to study for a test you have later. You look up, once, fishing for a sticky note to mark the end of the chapter, but your eyes stay searching even after your hands close around the pad of paper.

You can’t hear anything. Well, that’s not entirely true. The birds still chirp, although with odd hesitation, as if afraid to sing too loudly. The wind still rustles the trees, but slowly, as if trying not to be noticed. The everlasting din of the students, though, that is gone. You push your books into your bag, standing up quietly. Even the zip of your backpack seems to echo in the silence.

This is strange. What happened to make the air so tense, the students shut their mouths for once to stand together in quiet? You sling your backpack over your shoulder, heading quickly to the front of the school to see what the fuss (or lack of, rather) is about.

There’s nothing at the front of the school, either. In fact, there aren’t that many people there. The only mutants out are Jean, Peter, Storm, Scott, and Nightcrawler. You watch as Jean presses her fingers to her temples, sending out a message that you only now pick up in your head. Go inside now. Don’t look out. Get the Professor. It echoes on a loop inside your brain, appearing only now that you’re close enough to the sender.

You glance around you, searching for some trouble that would cause Jean to send out such a message. Then, you see it- three large armored trucks headed your way, military logos emblazoned on the sides. This sort of thing happens every few years or so- some military higher-up decides that the mutants are too dangerous to be kept alive, and they attempt to round up everyone at the school. Xavier is usually there to put a stop to it, but today he’s out in some big city doing official business, so he’s not here to protect you. In fact, the only ones here to protect you are yourselves.

You watch as the trucks roll closer. Once they reach the gate, they stop, and soldiers start to stream out of it. Storm shouts over to Jean. “Are we doing anything about this?” Jean nods, her hair flicking out behind her like tongues of flame. “We’re stopping them. They want a fight, I can hear it. That’s just what they’ll get.” She says, and the mutants around her prepare themselves for a battle.

Curiosity #5: You stay to fight.

Why are you still here? Jean told everyone who wasn’t one of Xavier’s hand picked team to go inside, and yet you’re still cracking your knuckles out in front of the school just like everyone else. Maybe it’s because you want a taste for just how much damage your powers can deal out, or maybe it’s because you finally have a chance to prove yourself to be a hero, to fight like the others and make a name for yourself as someone who’s in it to protect the other students, even if they wouldn’t protect her. Regardless of the reason, the outcome stays the same. You’re here to fight.

When the men start running forward, you realize with sickening dread that they’ve brought guns, and dangerous ones at that. You’re not sure why they thought they’d need military grade rifles at a school, but they’re out and loaded nonetheless. They raise them towards you, launching a volley of bullets, but you throw up your arms and a wall of shadow appears in between the mutants and the guns, blocking the bullets and forcing them to the ground.

Jean turns to you, amazed. “Actually, I think it would be better if you stayed with us.” You grin slightly at that, turning your attention back to the soldiers. You and the other mutants fight in unison, powers working together as fluidly as a well oiled machine. You seem to compliment them, understanding their hurried motions as if you’d been working with them your entire life. 

Before you know it, the soldiers are hurrying back to the armored trucks, gesturing frantically at the drivers to get them out of here before they are killed by a bunch of kids with magic powers. The mutants look happily amongst yourselves, proud that you’d managed to defend the school against the soldiers. Together, you’d protected everyone here.

The night is starting to grow late, and everyone is out on the grounds in celebration. It’s not everyday that a bunch of teenagers fight back against the military and win, you know. You idle near a group of mutants, red plastic cup in hand just like them. Something feels odd, and it takes you a moment to notice what it is. Nobody’s scared of you. There aren’t any students huddled together, looking at you through nervous eyes that flick away when you catch sight of them. No pointed fingers, no hushed whispers. Maybe you’ve finally been accepted as one of them.

Jean approaches from across the field, stopping at a group of mutants only a few feet away from you. She leans towards Storm, tapping her on the shoulder. “Scott, Peter, Kurt, and I are hanging out in another corner of the woods. You know, victory party and all that? Come with us.” Her voice is a low whisper, but you can’t help smiling at it. You wait for her to nod at you, to ask you the same question, but strangely enough, she just slings an arm around Storm’s shoulder and the two of them walk away into the woods, leaving you behind.

She saw you. You know she saw you- her eyes glanced over you before they left. Her eyes weren’t glinting with hatred, some ill-concealed malice or anything. This wasn’t a plot to intentionally leave you out, she just didn’t see you as someone to invite, even though you’d been a key part of that victory group she seems so keen to celebrate. The realization hits you like a ton of bricks- no matter how hard you try, how many times you fight to protect them, they will never see you as a friend. All because they don’t understand your powers.

Dazedly, you leave the grounds where the rest of the mutants are celebrating. You find some quiet corner of the woods, a place that’s tucked away where nobody will notice you. The ‘victory party’ is on the opposite side of the grounds, so you know that you don’t have to fear anyone accidentally stumbling across you.

You slide to the ground, leaning back against the sturdy trunk of one of the many trees that stand tall and proud around the school’s forest. You cover your face in your hands, feeling all of your emotions finally catch up with you. You wish you could prove yourself in some way, that your powers may physically be dark but that you weren’t a monster, but it doesn’t matter how hard you try. You’ll never be anything more than a villain to them.

Silent tears course down your cheeks. You don’t think you’ve ever felt more alone than this night, even when things seemed impossible. No matter how bad things were before, this night manages to take the cake. There’s a cracking sound behind you, and you wipe your tears away hurriedly as you realize someone’s walking up to you.

“What are you doing all alone? Don’t you know we’re celebrating?” It’s Peter. Of course it is. You turn to face him, hoping the darkness will obscure the puffiness in your eyes. “Guess I was just tired.” You plaster on a smile, praying that he’ll get bored and go rejoin the others, but no such luck. He plops down in the grass next to you, arms stretched back behind him.

“Why aren’t you with Jean and the rest?” He says, and you frown at him. “What do you mean?” You ask. Peter furrows his brow. “You know, the victory party. You were there when the soldiers attacked, and you saved our skins like a dozen times over. Why aren’t you with them?” You look at him, willing him to be observant for just this once. “I just didn’t feel like going.” Peter rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on. Stop being your dramatic little self and just come on. The rest will be happy to see you.” 

He extends an arm as if to drag you there himself. You sigh frustratedly. “Fine, Peter. I’m not being dramatic. I know there’s a party, and I also know that they very much do not want me there. I was there when Jean asked Storm to hang out with Scott, Kurt, and the rest. She knew I was there, she saw me, and she didn’t ask the same of me.” Your voice breaks off. “It’s pretty obvious that no one here wants me to be there. Hell, no one here wants me to be at this school at all, and the only one who can’t see that is you.”

Peter’s silent for a second, and you curse inwardly. Now you’ve gone and made Peter, the one person who’s been here for you, feel bad about himself. You wouldn’t be surprised if he just gets up and leaves now. But he doesn’t. In fact, a smile flashes across his face. “That’s because they’re idiots.” You look at him, confused. “What?” He laughs. “They’re idiots, and you’re an idiot for listening to them.” 

He gestures absentmindedly at you. “Y/N, you’ve got one of the coolest powers I’ve ever seen, and for what, so you can be sad about it? Are you really telling me you’d rather be an empath than control the shadows? That’s like, the neatest thing ever.” His words, spoken with such conviction, bring a laugh to your face as well. Peter’s eyes light up when he sees it. “See, there you go. Come on, let’s have some fun. We don’t need them if they’re being weird.”

Your laugh dies off quietly as you look back at him. “Why are you doing this? Why are you taking the time to make me feel better? You make fun of your own friends and rob convenience stores when you’re bored. Since when has Quicksilver gone this far out of his way to make somebody laugh?” Peter smiles at you, then leans forward. His lips are on yours, suddenly, his hand gently cupped against your cheek. Just as you’ve realized what’s happening, he’s back in his spot a few feet away again. He smirks at you. “That’s why.”

You laugh in spite of yourself. “That’s why. Well, I guess that’s an acceptable reason.” Peter smiles. “Only acceptable? That’s not the best thing I’ve heard, but I suppose it’ll be okay for now.” He stands up, offering a hand to you. You take it. “So, are you coming with me or not? I intend to cause all sorts of chaos.” You look over at him, laughter dancing in your eyes. “Of course I am.”

Curiosity #6: Peter Maximoff loves you. And you love him.

peter maximoff tag list @amourtentiaa​

#peter maximoff #peter maximoff imagine #peter maximoff x reader #peter maximoff imagines #peter maximoff oneshot #quicksilver #quicksilver imagine #quicksilver x reader #quicksilver imagines #quicksilver oneshot #xmen #xmen imagine #xmen x reader #xmen imagines #xmen oneshot #xmen peter maximoff

[faintingheroine]

I've been enjoying your character write-ups about Wuthering Heights, and I wanted to ask you what you thought of the fan theory that Heathcliff is Mr. Earnshaw's illegitimate son. The theory goes that he had a mistress in Liverpool who died, so he brought the resulting child home with him out of guilt or altruism. If Hindley figured it out, it would explain his determination to keep Heathcliff and Catherine apart. What do you think?

Sorry for taking weeks to answer this. I knew that this was going to be long so I was waiting for an opportune time to write it.

Sorry to possibly disappoint you, but I really dislike this theory, and here are some of the reasons why:

1) The whole story of Wuthering Heights is Heathcliff taking revenge on the power structures that separated him from Catherine. Catherine and Heathcliff were separated because Catherine was the daughter of a propertied man and the potential wife of an another while Heathcliff was a nobody with nothing. Heathcliff takes the properties of both Catherine’s father and her husband, thus taking revenge on the forces that separated them. If the primary cause of their separation was incest and not any sociological or economic reason then the whole plot of Wuthering Heights is meaningless. Incest factor will always be more important than social class. If this theory were true, Heathcliff wouldn’t be unable to be with Catherine because he didn’t own Thrushcross Grange, it would be because he was her brother, so it would be meaningless for him to own Thrushcross Grange as a way of revenge.

2) I’ve talked about this before, but I like the anonymity of Heathcliff. He could be anyone from anywhere. If he were the bastard child of Mr. Earnshaw this would just be a story of a sibling rivalry. The poignancy of Heathcliff being named after a dead Earnshaw kid or him relegating the status of Hareton Earnshaw whose name is written on the door of Wuthering Heights to that of himself would be gone.

3) Nobody in the story really perceives Heathcliff and Catherine as brother and sister. Sure, they grew up together so their love will always carry a pseudo-incestous tone for the reader. But nobody in the story is concerned about that. Nelly says to Catherine: “As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all!” She immediately perceives that Heathcliff could see Catherine as his love. Catherine imagines herself as “Catherine Heathcliff” as a teenager. Joseph complains to Hindley that Catherine is hanging out with boys, “boys” being Heathcliff and Edgar. Everyone sees Heathcliff as a potential partner of Catherine. The only instance of Heathcliff being perceived as Catherine’s brother is Edgar telling Catherine after Heathcliff’s return that: “The whole household need not witness the sight of (her) welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.” But then he immediately becomes jealous when he sees how affectionate Catherine and Heathcliff are with each other.

4) Mr. Earnshaw adopting Heathcliff is not unusual enough to warrant an explanation for me. Sure it is unusual. But Mr. Earnshaw is impulsive enough, authoritarian enough, eccentric enough, religious enough and kind enough that I can see him adopting a random starving boy for charity and then spoiling and loving him to take revenge on his family who were opposed to him adopting the child. This man is Catherine Earnshaw’s father.

(It’s also important to remember that Earnshaws are upper middle class farmers with a couple of servants, not an aristocratic or even a particularly genteel family living in a stately house. If Mr. Linton brought a street urchin to his house I would be more suspicious).

5) Mr. Earnshaw initially perceives Heathcliff with a morbid curiosity. He says that they “must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil”. It’s like he is talking about a supernatural creature or an alien, not about a person with whose mother he had sex.

6) This does not really prove anything either way, but there is not a proof in the novel that Mr. Earnshaw went to Liverpool regularly. This might be the first time he went in a decade, he might go there every two months.

7) There isn’t really any proof that Heathcliff is one of the Earnshaws. Yes, this is a Victorian novel, but I think there would still be more subtle hints that this is the case if this were the author’s intention.

8) There’s too much emphasis on Heathcliff’s foreignness. This would be overkill if he is already a perpetual outcast and unsuitable for Catherine as a bastard child and her brother.

(Heathcliff also apparently doesn’t know English when he first arrives at Wuthering Heights. Wouldn’t he learn it from his mother if she were Mr. Earnshaw’s mistress?)

9) I don’t think that Hindley has a noble reason to keep Heathcliff and Catherine apart. He wants revenge on him because his father preferred him. He is the one who starts the cycle of vengeance. (Though of course I argued that Mr. Earnshaw himself had possible vengeful motives in preferring Heathcliff).

10) One of my favorite aspects of Wuthering Heights is the symmetry of the Earnshaw-Linton family tree. At first both the Earnshaws and the Lintons have a son and a daughter each. The Earnshaw daughter and the Linton son marry each other. The Earnshaw son and the Linton daughter marry nobodies Frances and Heathcliff. Earnshaw-Linton pairing has a daughter. The other two pairings have a son each. Earnshaw-Linton daughter marries both of her cousins in succession. Here’s a beautiful family tree done by @misskittygrimm that illustrates this perfect symmetry:

If Heathcliff were Earnshaw’s son, this symmetry would be gone. Catherine and Linton would be cousins from both sides. The perfect symmetry would be gone.

11) Wuthering Heights is a novel that is utterly uninterested in sexual sin. In an another novel Catherine would be an adulterous wife getting what is coming to her. Here she wills her death because she betrayed herself, her own heart. There is no implication of a sexual relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine after her marriage.

It would be banal to have the root cause of all this tragedy be adultery. It’s far more interesting and in keeping with the story’s spirit that the two families went to ruin because Mr. Earnshaw played the Good Samaritan. The failure of duty and charity.

Conclusion: There’s no concrete, absolute proof against this theory, but there is nothing for it either. And it totally goes against the story’s characterization, themes and general spirit.

#wuthering heights #i had some other versions of this post but i think this is the best incarnation yet

[sokkastyles]

I said that I wanted to make a post as a companion to this one about Azula focusing on Zuko, because both the Fire Nation siblings crave authenticity and I was thinking about this in terms of this conversation:

Zuko: Why didn't you tell those guys who we were?

Azula: I guess I was intrigued. I'm so used to people worshiping us.

Ty Lee: They should.

Azula: Yes, I know, and I love it. But, for once, I just wanted to see how people would treat us if they didn't know who we were.

This is during “The Beach” when Ty Lee and Mai are invited to a party by some FN teens and Azula invites herself and Zuko. The teens hilariously tell them that there will be “important people” at the party, not knowing that Azula and Zuko are the prince and princess of the Fire Nation. Zuko asks Azula why she didn’t tell them the truth and she says she wanted to be treated like a normal teenager, for once. In this episode we see Azula trying, and failing, to be the teenage girl she never got to be. 

Although Zuko and Azula both want to be seen and understood for who they really are, to embrace an identity that is authentic and real, and be seen and known by others on a level that is authentic and real, Zuko goes about it in a different way than Azula. Zuko’s search for his authentic self has led him to pursue the identity he’s been trying to get back to for three years, his identity as Prince of the Fire Nation. That’s why Zuko wonders why Azula didn’t just tell the boys who they were. If she did, surely they would want them at the party? They are, after all, the Prince and Princess.

Zuko also has a different relationship to his status as royalty not only because he’s been away from home for three years, but because he’s always been told that he wasn’t good enough, that he had to better, that he had to prove he was worthy of the title he was born with. Of course, it’s all built on a lie, the lie of noble birth, but it’s been so ingrained in Zuko (and Azula, but we’re talking about Zuko now) that at the beginning of the series, he was bitter and angry over what he felt he was entitled to that had been taken from him.

Zuko asking Azula why she didn’t just tell the boys who they really were echoes his revelation of his true name to the Earth Kingdom village in “Zuko Alone.”

Zuko: My name is Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne.

Old man: Liar! I heard of you! You're not a prince, you're an outcast! His own father burned and disowned him!

Here, Zuko’s announcement of who he is has the opposite effect than what he thought, as he failed to realize that the Earth Kingdom citizens he sought to protect would not look kindly on Fire Nation royalty. This shows Zuko’s desire to get back what he’s lost without a real understanding of his privilege and the crimes his nation has committed against the rest of the world. And the old man’s reaction also has the added bonus of reminding him that even whatever hollow meaning he could have taken from his title is ultimately meaningless, because his father banished him.

And thus, just like Azula, Zuko’s identity is fractured into multiples. The first one is Prince Zuko, heir to the throne. The second one is Zuko the disgraced, scarred, banished, exiled. 

There’s also a third which is further broken up into multiples: Blue Spirit, refugee, tea server, that exists in between the two.

Zuko’s narrative is about trying to reconcile these identities into an authentic self, and for much of the series, he is single-mindedly pursuing what he thinks represents his authentic self. That’s why when he finally goes back to the Fire Nation, he tries to be happy with his identity as prince, and embrace it as much as possible. He thinks that telling the guys at the party who he is will impress them (even though it didn’t work the first time), but once he gets there, he feels more out of place than ever.

What’s this? A shot of Zuko’s scar and a mirror, and a guy who represents the kind of guy Zuko could have been if he weren’t who he is? Zuko’s got everything he wanted here. He’s the prince of the Fire Nation, he’s got a girlfriend, his honor restored, and he’s back home, but instead of enjoying himself, he decides to be jealous of this guy. His existential confusion comes out as insecurity over his relationship with Mai, because he can never be sure if he can be himself with Mai, or if Mai even likes his true self. I mean, if he hadn’t agreed to go back to the Fire Nation, if he hadn’t become Prince Zuko again, he would not even have a relationship with her, as he would have been making the journey back as a prisoner.

Zuko’s inability to return to his former identity as prince of the Fire Nation is symbolically represented in his scar. He is permanently marked by the suffering he has undergone, and permanently changed as a result of his experiences. In “The Crossroads of Destiny,” Zuko almost was able to reconcile these two aspects of himself, and to choose for himself which one to embrace. When he meets Katara in the catacombs, he is confronted with what his identity as Prince of the Fire Nation, and the legacy of destruction that goes with it, means to her:

Katara: You're a terrible person! You know that? Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace! But what do you care? You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!

Zuko: You don't know what you're talking about!

Katara: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through!

Zuko, of course, objects to being characterized this way, and of course his relationship with his identity as the FIre Lord’s son is much more complicated than Katara knows, but she also is right that he has no idea of the suffering that his people have wrought upon the rest of the world. It’s when Katara brings up her personal loss of her mother, though, that he is able to empathize with her.

Katara: The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

Zuko: I'm sorry. That's something we have in common.

Speaking of mirrored images, Zuko throughout his journey has had his own self-image held up to him and examined through the mirror of other people, one of them being Song, the Earth Kingdom girl who empathized with him over his burn scar. Katara is another, someone who, like him, lost her mother as a child. There are two things here that are an essential part of Zuko’s journey, 1) experiencing the suffering of others which pulls him out of his own self-centered perception, and 2) having his own suffering validated by seeing and meeting other people who have suffered in the same way. Contrast this to the way Azula treats other people’s suffering as not entirely real, calling her brother and her friend’s revelations about themselves in “The Beach” performances while also denying that she cares about her own damaged relationship with her mother. Zuko’s realization that other people’s suffering is real and something he should care about goes hand in hand with realizing that he did not deserve to suffer in the ways that his family has made him suffer. It is Katara’s pain over her mother’s loss that reaffirms that Zuko’s loss of his mother was also real and causes Zuko to realize that he is free to choose his own identity.

Zuko: I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark.

Katara offering to heal the scar, although well-meaning, ironically sets Zuko back, because it reinforces the idea that the scar is a shameful part of his identity, something that marks him as Zuko the banished prince and separates him from becoming who he truly is. Katara connects with Zuko in a way that is authentic and real, but because Zuko cannot yet reconcile the dichotomy within himself, he ends up making the wrong decision underneath Ba Sing Se, and when Katara says during the fight that she thought he had changed, he tells her that he has, having made a decision about which identity to choose, although he still must take the final steps towards becoming whole by reconciling the two parts of himself personified by the “crossroads” in this episode.

But also essential to Zuko reconciling these two parts of himself is the development in season two of an identity that bridges gap between Prince Zuko and Zuko the banished. This is the Zuko that we see serving tea, working the kind of job that we might expect a normal teenager to work, and beginning to form a picture of himself that is surprisingly domestic. And even though he makes it clear to Iroh that this isn’t what he wants, it’s clear that some part of him craves this. Just as with Azula we see her wishful attempt to inhabit the role of normal teenage girl through going to a party and flirting with a boy, we see Zuko at possibly his most vulnerable and most “normal teenagery” when he is on his date with Jin. And even though it’s Iroh who pushes him to accept the date, we see Zuko reluctantly open up and genuinely enjoy himself.

However, Zuko still cannot experience true authenticity with Jin, as he must hide his Fire Nation identity. He does, however, covertly reveal his firebending to Jin, whose silent acceptance moves him ever so slightly towards an acceptance of his true self. This is ultimately too much for him, however, as once he accepts Jin’s acceptance and reciprocates her feelings he is overwhelmed and retreats, in part because he cannot reveal his true self to her for practical reasons and in part because he isn’t ready to do so on an emotional level.

It is also around this time in the narrative that Zuko sees another reflection of himself. His freeing of Appa is a huge blow to his self-perception, and this causes him to go into a fever during which he has several dreams that reveal parts of his identity or how he sees himself. The first is the image of himself on the Fire Lord throne, devoid of the scar but being controlled by two dragons with the voice of Azula and Iroh. And it’s after this dream that he looks in the mirror and sees himself as...

I’ve mostly seen this scene talked about in terms of Zuko and Aang’s narrative parallels and spiritual link, and it is significant for that reason, but it’s also a reflection of the choice Zuko must make about who he will be. If he is not defined by his identity as either Prince of the Fire Nation or his banishment, or his search for the Avatar, then who is he?

Zuko touching the scar upon waking to reaffirm that he is still himself shows us how much the scar has become a part of his identity. At the end of book two, he flirts with the idea of acceptance, and then with the offer of having it removed, and then when he goes back to the Fire Nation in early book three, he attempts to return to a point before the scar existed, before the fracturing of his identity, but finds that he cannot.

Zuko: During the meeting, I was the perfect prince. The son my father wanted. But I wasn't me.

By going to the war meeting, Zuko returns to the place of his original trauma and discovers that he cannot return to who he was before the fracturing of his identity, and that he, in fact, was never the “perfect prince” to begin with, that that person never existed.

What Zuko eventually comes to realize, through all of these experiences, and through returning to the home of his existence before the scar and finding it no longer a home, is that all of these identities are a part of him.

When he confronts his father on the Day of Black Sun, and then when he presents himself to the gaang, this is the first time that Zuko is being true to his authentic self, both by creating a more whole and positive identity and by accepting the trauma and guilt of his past and trying to atone. Therefore he’s able to create a more true identity and accept his place as Fire Lord without the cognitive dissonance that that identity brought him before.

#zuko #atla meta

[ibtk]

Book Review: THE SEVENTH MANSION by Maryse Meijer

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review though Edelweiss. Trigger warning for sexual assault, homophobia, violence against animals, and disturbing sexual content.)

-- 4.5 stars --

There is this person I love. And he’s not even a person.

After Xie's parents split and an environmental disaster sends his already precarious mental health spiraling, Xie and his father Erik relocate from California to an unnamed town in the rural south, in search of the proverbial fresh start.

At first, Xie is your garden-variety teenage outcast: melancholy. goth. vegan. an outsider. friendless. forgettable. Yet he's quickly "adopted" by the only other vegans in the school - girlfriends Jo and Leni, who together make up the entirety of FKK.

The group's animal rights activism slowly evolves from leafleting to direct action: the trio breaks into a local mink farm, freeing as many of its captives as they can. Xie is nabbed during the getaway, and suddenly he goes from "nobody" to "that freak who vandalized the Moore farm". Instead of silence and indifference, Xie is met by hostile sneers, gossip, and relentless bullying. He takes a leave of absence from high school, instead getting one-on-one tutoring at the local library. His parents are forced to pay restitution, and Xie's placed on probation.

Xie's only respite is nature: his burgeoning vegetable garden; the small but pristine forest behind his house; and, eventually, the mysterious light, nestled among the branches, that leads him to a tiny church - and his beloved. St. Pancratius, who was martyred in 304 A.D. and whose remains are on covert display in a one-room church in the middle of nowhere.

He traces the image with his finger. The story the same in every version: A boy on a road, refusing to lift his sword against the lamb, losing his head every time the story is told, again and again and again.

Still, all of this comes with a cost: loving nature, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, means saying goodbye to it one day. Relationships can be messy, even when they're with clean bones. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own shit that we're oblivious to what our loved ones are going through. Maybe your tutor shows up to work one day piss drunk and tells you about her abortion. Or your friends drag you to a backwoods meeting of environmental activists, where one of them sexually assaults you. Or you show up to a mass protest that is even more massive than you anticipated, and find you're unable to protect yourself, let alone the 55 billion+ land animals slaughtered for food every year in the US alone (animalclock.org).

The problem is too big, even when it's one of the smaller ones. The problem is impossible.

While disturbing, Xie's theft of a skeleton is not the worst crime he'll commit in his teen years. As FKK becomes involved with a local animal rights group, and Xie's sanctuary is threatened, he careens toward an inevitable (????) collision with the outside world, which neither understands him - nor cares to. (Fuck capitalism.)

THE SEVENTH MANSION is one weird-ass book; I mean, the main character has sex with a skeleton (!). This is certainly the wildest aspect of the story, but it's not alone. For example, take the narrative structure, which has a kind of stream-of-(Xie's)-consciousness vibe. Many of the sentences are fractured, even forced, as though we're pulling them from the depth's of Xie's tortured soul. His thoughts. Are broken. Up. Like this. Conversely, there are no chapters, and so many of the paragraphs are just huge, unbroken blocks of text - almost as though Meijer is framing Xie in opposition to the larger world around him.*

I suspect that THE SEVENTH MANSION is one of those love it or hate it dealios. Personally, I loved it, even as some parts proved excruciatingly unbearable to read.

I don't know whether Meijer is vegan, but she gets so much right; sometimes it felt like she was rooting around inside my head. I went vegetarian my freshman year of college (1996, not to date myself) and vegan about 9 years later. Reading Xie was like having a mirror held up to my own depressive, anxious, vegan psyche. One thing carnists probably don't realize about walking around this world as a vegan is: it takes a ton of mental work, of suppression and dissociation, just to get through the day.

Animal suffering is omnipresent, and largely accepted. From Carl's Jr. commercials to classroom trips to the zoo; leather car seats to team lunches at non-vegan restaurants, where you'll be forced to watch your coworkers and friends devour the corpse of a once-living creature - someone's mother, brother, or child - we are constantly forced to bear witness to the oppression of animals. Worse, to pretend as though it's of no consequence: just to get along, or because doing otherwise would quickly devour your time, your prospects, your relationships. To say that it's depressing is an understatement.

Whether Xie is living through the oil spill that finally made his world "snap," or gazing into the eyes of caged mink, I was right there with him, trying not to cry. Not to break. There's so much suffering in the world; if you try to take it all in, to truly understand its scope, it will swallow you whole.

Speaking of the oil spill, which was the impetus for Xie to go vegan - Meijer's description of this moment in Xie's life brought back so many memories. When I decided to stop eating meat, I was working at a local grocery store. Every now and again, they had an employee appreciation dinner (in lieu of a raise, natch), which basically consisted of all you can eat burgers and hot dogs in the break room. Everyone would stuff their faces, taking in as many free calories as possible. Not because they were hungry, but to get as much of a leg up on our cheap ass employer as possible. The sheer gluttony and waste of it all is what finally did it for me. No one needed to eat seven hamburgers in one night; we did because we could, because not doing so would be to lose out. The working class eating the chattel, and no one eating the rich.

Point being, that's a singular moment in my life that I'll never forget. It stands out in stark relief, right alongside the deaths of my husband and furkids (six dogs and one cat down and counting). If I close my eyes, I can almost transport myself back there, white starched shirt, demo table, 7PM Friday fatigue, and all.

The last time he ate meat he was twelve years old, after the spill: Xie was Alex then. Even miles from the beach, they could smell something off; at first they thought it was the sandwiches, ham pressed hot in the pockets of Erik’s windbreaker, but the closer they got to the beach the stronger the smell became, noxious, chemical. They parked at their usual spot, yellow tape blocking access to the beach beyond. A black ribbon flat against the horizon; that was the water. No trace of blue. On the rocks below the lot a half dozen pelicans huddled together. Coated from beak to foot in oil. Don’t touch them, his father said. Someone will come wash it off. But there was no one. The black sea lapping the sand. Those bewildered eyes. He watched as one of the birds collapsed, its head twisted sideways against its folded neck. His father pulled him away. The fire on the water burned for two weeks; the beach remained black for a year. Sea turtles, dolphins, whales, gulls, crabs, otters, fish, birds rolled up by the waves in the tens of thousands. Oil on meat on sand. No stopping it. Xie got headaches, bloody noses; he was always tired, couldn’t sleep. His mother standing in the doorway, Stop playing games, you’re fine. But his father was never angry. Scared of what he saw. Xie in the dark. Unable to make it from one room to another. The people who used to go to the beach just went somewhere else. Life as usual. Slumped in the backseat as his father fed gas into the truck he suddenly couldn’t stand it. Stopped standing it. He opened the back door, started walking. Alex, his father called, but he was not Alex anymore. He poured out all the milk in the house and fed the meat to the dogs next door and rode his bike everywhere.

So yeah, our circumstances may be different, but Xie's conversion sure hit me in the feels.

Meijer also does an excellent job capturing the heartbreak and urgency of Millennials and Gen Z. As tormented as I might have been in high school, at least I had the luxury of not thinking too much about climate change - at least until Al Gore came along. Xie and his peers, on the other hand, will bear the brunt of their predecessors' unchecked greed. Nowhere is this divide more eloquently laid bare than in Jo's post-march argument with Erik (who is likely around my age):

Didn’t you see how he just folded up out there? He can’t protect himself, he won’t. You don’t know what he was like, before we came here, okay, you didn’t watch him, lying in bed day after day, ready to cut his goddamn throat because of all this shit, this constant litany of doomsday statistics, he just takes it in and he can’t—he doesn’t know what to do with it, and you want to keep shoving it in his face, when it’s—it’s enough! Staring at Jo, who stares back. Look, whatever you’re afraid of, whatever he’s afraid of, it’s already happening, okay? And he knows it, he’s living it, and he wants to do something about it. If there was some other option, some fantasyland where everything is going to be fine as long as we bury our heads in the sand, then believe me, I’d take it. But there’s not. Not for me and not for Leni and not for Xie and if you think you can protect him by denying that then you’re just—wrong. I’m sorry. She holds Erik’s gaze; he nods, the first to look away.

My gods, that scene just cuts me to the bone. As bleak as things are now, I cannot imagine going through all this - climate change, COVID-19, a Trump presidency, Democratic ineptitude/complicity, *gesturing wildly* - as an adolescent. Their elders cut them down before they even started crawling.  

On a lighter note, Xie's scenes with his clueless mom and her equally clueless new husband (Jerry!) brought a(n admittedly wry) smile to my face. If I had a penny for every times this scene has played out in my life, I'd have enough cash monies to start my own animal sanctuary.

Don’t you want some vegetables, Xie? Jerry asks. I don’t eat animal products, Xie murmurs, and Jerry, confused, staring at the green beans, How is this— Butter, Xie interrupts. Butter is from milk, which is from cows, which are animals. Jerry blinks. Gosh, I didn’t even think of that. Sorry. Xie shrugs.

There's so much to obsess about here: I love Jo and Leni together, and their opposing circumstances just make the relationship so much more complex - and potentially fraught. Erik and tutor Karen (I wonder if the name choice was intentional?) are interesting supporting characters, and their relationships with Xie are so beautiful and nuanced; they both support him the best they know how.

Xie's interactions with his phantom lover are a little more confusing and difficult for me to comprehend. Perhaps P. represents Xie's inability to connect with the human world around him, or at least not as well as the more abstract, ephemeral natural world. Possibly P. is Xie's ideal human: one who would rather die than raise a finger against an animal (or one who cannot disappoint you by voicing their own opinions). Or maybe it's simpler than that, and Xie's hallucinations are just that: hallucinations. In any case, it made an already odd book absolutely bizarre, but in a good way, so I can't complain.

* This could just be because I was reading an early copy in need of further editing - but, seeing as how some formatting was already present, I think it was intentional. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3672191091

#books #book review #veganism #animal rights #Maryse Meijer #the seventh mansion #lgbtq #depression #anxiety #environment

[mobscene-london]

BASIC INFORMATION:

NAME: Jean Palfroix. AGE: 34. PLACE OF BIRTH: Paris, France. AFFILIATION: The French Organization. OCCUPATION: Commandant of Haringey. FACE CLAIM: Aldis Hodge. AVAILABILITY: TAKEN.

  BIOGRAPHY:

To say he’d had a rough upbringing felt like an understatement.

It seemed the only people who honestly thought Paris was some bright, beautiful dream were those who had never visited its suburbs. God forbid all those drugs, gang fights and arson attacks hurt the tourist pull, huh?

Maybe it was counter-intuitive to deal to the outcasts of French society when drugs were the very reason things had always been so shit for him and his little brother. If his father hadn’t been a violent fucking crack addict, maybe his kids would have had a better shot at turning things around. Jean knew he should’ve been averse; not wanting to put other children through what he had suffered from his parents whilst they were gagging for their next fix.

Too bad money trumped morals when you were dirt poor.

Thanks to the neglectful parents he despised, raising his little brother Eliott—and himself, for that matter—fell very much to him. Jean never really felt like a father figure, and the ideal didn’t mean all that much given that he’d never had one, but that didn’t stop Eliott from seeing him as one anyway. In school, they were inseparable. Eliott had a penchant for starting fights, but it was usually his brother that ended up finishing them. They were a formidable team, and soon enough, that translated to the streets where they would head in search of a second chance.

Everybody in the Parisian Banlieues had heard tales of the St. Clair family, and his teenage years hailed what the cités began to refer to as The Exodus. Those who were lucky enough to be spared dealing to their own left for the city proper to be utilized by the Commandants. What appealed most of all—and earned the favour of its lowest ranks—was that it wasn’t just a hunt for slave labour that they could treat like trash further down the line. They had as good a shot as the city boys at making something of themselves, and for Eliott in particular, that was a big fucking deal. There was no hope in Hell of getting anywhere if they stayed.

By the time he was nineteen, Jean and his best friend, JJ, had made their names as two of the most reliable, no-time-for-anyone’s-shit drug dealers in the area. Unfortunately, before his reputation could earn him the favour of the French Organization, however, he ended up getting his ass sent to jail for armed robbery. As if losing his freedom wasn’t enough, leaving his little brother of sixteen out on the streets alone filled him with fear. They were not kind, and if his absence meant he came to any harm, there was no way he could’ve ever forgiven himself.

Little did he know that the kid would prove more than capable of handling things.

It soon came to his attention that Eliott had done what he could not; attracted the attention of the French Organization. When life in prison started feeling a little easier than it had done before, he knew it was because the St. Clairs were extending gratitude for Eliott’s efforts in the only way he would’ve wanted; by keeping his big brother safe.

Of course, it earned Jean’s favour. And that was very much the point

As soon as he was finished serving his time, there was a job ready and waiting for him in Paris. Eliott had earned the trust of his new found family so quickly that Jean’s standing was solid by association before he’d arrived. Even if he’d by some miracle come to the conclusion that crime wasn’t worth his freedom whilst serving, there was no way he could decline after what they had done for him. After they had looked after his brother when he could not.

Much in the same way they had back home, the two brothers, alongside their best friends Thierry and JJ, found themselves back on the drug scene. It was what they knew best, and where they felt comfortable enough to excel. Working for the St. Clairs wasn’t always easy, but it was most certainly fair, and that wasn’t always a courtesy extended by suppliers. When Jean got pinched for a second time—this time to serve three years—the authorities had attempted to flip him for information on his new friends. Silence made things harder this time, but he would not cave, and for his loyalty, he was rewarded immensely.

It was the first time he’d felt as though he really had a family. There was no chance in Hell he would turn his back on them now.

Jean was leading a life he could never have dreamt of as a child. He had respect, ambition, and loyalty to something other than himself. He had legitimate goals that went beyond making it to the next day, for fuck’s sake. Even though he and Eliott were still immensely close, his little brother had gone off to take a Commandant’s position in the United States. Launceston was the city the Parisians seemed least interested in serving in, but only because it was so heavily contested that those in roles of leadership didn’t seem to last very long. Knowing how dangerous it was for his brother was something he had to learn to live with, but Jean was so proud of him that he supported any move that made him happy. Even if it meant Launceston.

So for his brother to lose his life in a fucking fist fight in Porto Velho? 

That fucked him up.

For all his years in prison, the Frenchman had never been as angry as he was when he found out Eliott had survived the bloodstained streets of the most hellish city on the face of the fucking planet only to die at the hands of an Italian in the British attempt at New Vegas. As much as he blamed the Auditores, though, the fact that Lara fucking Rutherford chose not to end the fight despite calls to do so made her complicit in his brother’s murder. Although he’d never paid much thought to leaving Paris, when he found out that the French were gearing up to take London from the Rutherford family as punishment for their many other indiscretions in Porto Velho, he couldn’t say no.

The promotion to Commandant was merely a bonus.

Jean might’ve been waiting years already but somebody, eventually, will pay for his brother’s unjust death.

For what it’s worth? He hopes it’s her.

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS:

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Not specified. FAMILY: Eliott Palfroix (younger brother, deceased) CONNECTIONS:

Thierry Vendroux: Best friend. Even though he was always closer with JJ growing up, since getting out of prison, it’s Thierry that has become his go-to person. Whilst he might’ve lost Eliott, he still finds some comfort in the fact he has another brother at his side. Without him, he’s sure that London would seem even more daunting. Jean also finds himself incredibly protective of Thierry; particularly as he, like Eliott, enjoys taking part in Lara’s fights.

Delphine St. Clair: Good friend. During their first proper meeting, he hadn’t realised who she was. Jean had spent the night drunkenly hitting on her, and she’d rewarded his efforts with a broken nose. It wasn’t until later that Thierry explained who she was. The next time they crossed paths he’d expected a frosty reception. To his surprise, however, Delphi had a sense of humour about what’d happened. The two have been good friends ever since, and their harsh banter is legendary amongst the bros.

Lara Rutherford: Enemy. Despite almost three years having passed since his brother’s death, Jean still holds onto all of the bitterness of losing him. Whilst he can’t get his hands on the Italian responsible for dealing the fatal blow, he’s hoping for the next best thing: the bitch who not only organized the fight to begin with, but refused to stop it despite knowing that things were going to end badly. Jean doesn’t care what it costs him, he’ll make sure she pays.

#french #commandant #jeanpalfroix #aldis hodge #mobadvent2020 #taken #takenm

[naerryn]

I Found You (Part Two)

Part One | Part Three

Who doesn’t shy away from getting onto their feet early in the morning one of these days witnessed a fascinating natural spectacular. The sun set late in the evening and rose sooner with every passing day, the chances of a picturesque sky formations increased significantly. Sometimes tender, then exciting again. A purple clouded sky was worth all the waiting for the first warm sun beams of summer.

And, on rare occasions, the citizens of Caledonia would catch a glimpse of their Guardian flying through the air.

I enjoyed the peaceful silence in the early hours of the day, when only a handful of busy farmers and shopkeepers would fill the tramped down streets. The warm breeze caressing my skin and tousled my hair and the black feathers of my strong wings.

Whenever I caught side of a group of children when I was on my way back to the palace, I would descend from my flying height in the colorful clouds and hurtle through the air, right above the top of their heads. I did it for their giggles, loving the sound of the cheerful laughter which never failed to put a smile on my face.

The exotic flowers of the court garden swayed back in forth when I landed on the freshly mowed grass, shaking out my wings and watched a single dark feather slip to the ground before I drew them back into a more convenient position.

“[Y/N]?”, the familiar voice of the youngest of the two princes rung through the air, audible out of breath and when I turned around to face him, I saw the teenage boy running towards me with rosy cheeks and a faint layer of sweat covering his forehead.

“Is everything alright?”, I called out to him as I rushed to meet him at the bottom edge of the meadow, taking a deep breath of relief when I watched him nod in respond.

It’s been over 20 years since the end of the War of the Roses, which was the last time the kingdom entered a battlefield. Not even when King Henry, or later King Stephan, called for their aid against the murderous beasts of the Moors, the wise rulers of Caledonia refused. With the growing isolation, since the alienate kingdoms declared a trade blockade, the royal family along with the citizens started to embrace and later even enjoyed their new role as outcasts.

And with the increasing sense of security, the King and Queen allowed me to become publicly known within the borders of our country. The best kept secret in the history of a nation, their guardian angel. I always enjoyed the little nickname the King and Queen gave me, so, during a phase of a lean harvest, they appointed me at the Guardian of Caledonia. I flew away into the distance, leaving the borders of my home land behind and came back with bags of exotic fruits and vegetables. We cultivated them, and to our nameless relief, the plants grew and we were finally able to still the hunger of a starving nation.

All of it felt so far away, but when my eyes remained on the heavy breathing Prince Edward, my stomach twisted into a tight knot and I impatiently waited for the teenage boy to compose himself. Strands of his caramel brown hair stuck against his forehead, his clothes slightly out of place. I can’t even remember the last time I saw the Prince running around like that. It must be years.

“A messenger from Ulstead arrived since you’ve been gone. Everyone is searching for you, [Y/N]. You’ll have to go to the throne room, quick.”, the olive-skinned looked at me with his large dark eyes, resembling his mother, a noblewoman of a foreign country, more and more with every passing year.

“I’ll leave at once.”, I swept a curtsy, making a haste to traverse the many crowded hallways to reach the throne room. On my way, I am reminded countless times that everyone, from the royal family over the guards up the the lowest member of the staff, were looking for me.

‘What could be of any importance, especially delivered from Ulstead, that everyone behaved like headless chickens?’, I wondered silently and a growing feeling of worry spread in the depth of my chest. ‘Their Prince is married to this long lost Princess, their child was born months ago. We’ve sent them letters. We’ve kept to ourselves for decades. What are they after?’

I walked around the corner to enter the hallway which led to a back entrance of the throne room, solely available for the royal family and staff. To my surprise, the Queen paced up and down along the closed door and once the sound of my steps reached her ears, she turned around on the spot and exhaled a loud, joyful squeak.

“[Y/N]!”, her black hair, which slowly turned grey, felt over her shoulders in soft waves and the high heels of her uncomfortable looking shoes created a steady rhythm as she ran into my arms and embraced me in a tight hug.

Her upper body was shaking when I wrapped my arms around her, first lightly, but soon the Queen felt like a lose leaf caught in a heavy autumn storm. She nudged her face against the crook of my neck and my bare skin slowly got wet. ‘For heaven’s sake! What made her cry?’

“Mum?”, I whispered against her ear as one of my hands gently rubbed her back. The convulsive sobbing of the woman, who raised me like I am her own flesh and blood, tailed off until she went silent in my arms, pulling herself away to take a close look at my face. Her hands rested on my shoulders.

“I am so happy for you.”, the Queen spoke hoarsely and I raised a hand to wipe off the tears from her cheeks. Her lips twisted into a weak smile, lips shaking as she tried to swallow down the sob in her throat. I had a hard time believing her words, the Queen acted completely strange and her behavior only added more questions then answering them.

“What is going on? Everyone’s acting rather odd today.”, I told her, feeling the soft tips of her fingers running through my hair as her eyes roamed over my anxious face.

Like she’s watching me for the first time.

“Go inside. Your father’s waiting for you.”

Or the last...

***

Bad news travel fast and before the set of the sun, it felt like even the most remote corners of Caledonia heard the word about the Battle of Ulstead and the return of the Dark Faries. About the open invitation to the Castle, with the sole purpose to attend a meeting with the Queen of the Moors.

I sat on the lowest step which led to the throne, my face hidden behind my hands while my elbows rested on my knees. ‘This can’t be true.’, I repeated over and over inside my head, paying no attention to the busy activities around me.

In front of me, not even an arm-length away, stood small delegate of two individuals. A male human with chocolate brown skin, accompanied by a woman with a pair of large horns along with colorful wings. The King, my foster father, introduced them as Captain Percival of the royal guards of Ulstead and Shrike, a Jungle Fae, who lived in the Moors.

Growing up with the fairy tales of the monsters living in the Moors, it felt like a hard punch right into my stomach when a faint voice inside my head slowly tried to make me realize that I am one of those monsters that parents tell their children about in scary bedtime stories.

Not an angel, but a monster. A Dark Fae.

The King offered the messengers a room to retire for the night, but Shrike made it clear she won’t move, not even a single step, until I would finally decide to look at her for longer then a split second.

“Conall should be here, he would know the right words.”, the Jungle Fae muttered to herself, stretching wings in an attempt to shake the slowly spreading tiredness out of them.

Slowly, a single red feather floated through the air and landed silently on the ground, right in front of my feet and through the small gasp between my fingers, my eyes felt on it.

Lowering my hands, I picked up the single feather and turned it from side to side, my fingertips carefully running over the soft surface and glanced over to my black wings.

“You’re a Forest Fae. Just like our Queen.”, I heard the female messenger say in a gentle tone. From the corner of my eyes, I saw her closing the distance between the two of us before she bend down on one knee.

Shrike silently thanked Maleficents wisdom to only sent one of the Dark Faes to Caledonia, not listening to Borras objections. He meant well, everyone did, but she shared her Queens opinion that one of them was prove enough to their story. Also, it gave her some long yearned time alone with Percival, who insisted to accompany her.

“I know, it’s a lot. But, please, give us a chance. All we want is a little bit of your time, so we can tell you our story. Your story. If you don’t like it, you can go back. No one will force you to stay.”, Shrike told her in a low voice and placed a hand on one of my shoulders, giving it a firm squeeze.

I met her dark brown eyes, her fallen out feather still in hands.

“Okay.”

(1613 Words)

***

Note: We’re getting closer to the first meeting of Y/N and the Dark Faries, which also means to a blooming romance. My question now is, who will be the one their heart desires? Will there be more then one suitor? Write me your opinion.

#maleficent #maleficent imagine #borra #borra maleficent #shrike #shrike maleficent #disney imagine #disney #dark fae #imagine #reader insert #princess aurora #prince philip #aurora

[dem-obscure-imagines]

A Half-Witch and a Handsome Goblin

Luke (Halloweentown) x Reader

Prompt: Hii^^ I was wondering if you could do a Luke x reader from Halloween town and the readers really shy and quiet please…Oh and I almost forgot sorry the younger version of luke

Note: Okay, so what I’m hearing is…friends to lovers au?? Childhood friends to teenage bf/gf au?? I think Y E S.

Warnings: None?

Word Count: 1.1k

Being a witch, well, a half witch, is more complicated than you might think. And you knew that better than most. Your mixed heritage had surely given you some trouble over the years. In the mortal world, usually, people didn’t know about your half-witch status, but in Halloweentown…yeesh.

This inevitably led to you becoming very quiet on your visits to Halloweentown, pulling into yourself. When your family eventually moved there, it only got worse. The other creatures in school would pick on you, calling you out on your halfling status. In fact, there was only one who was ever nice to you, a goblin named Luke. He was kind of outcast, too, waiting on a swift goblin puberty to change his features, elongate his ears, draw his nose into a point, in the way it usually changed goblins like him. But until then, he was convinced he must be the ugliest creature alive.

That was when Kalabar had stepped in, promising him good looks in exchange for his service, and god, did he deliver? Luke couldn’t stop looking at his reflection, admiring his human features. His small human nose, his flat human face. He was…handsome. Really handsome.

And unfortunately, it went to his head.

On the inside, somewhere, deep, deep down, you were sure that the sweet Luke you’d known since you moved there was still present, but God, was he buried deep?

You were downtown, people watching and reading, just sitting there quietly, minding your own business and memorizing spells. It was then that the handsome goblin boy struck, sitting down next to you. Your familiar, a black cat named Jade for her green eyes, hissed at him and you looked up to see who had wandered over.

“Hey, Luke.” You greeted him casually before going back to reading.

“That’s it? Well, gee, I thought I’d get a warmer welcome from the prettiest witch in town.” He smirked, leaning back against the bench.

“What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have some townies to torment?”

“Ouch.” He held a hand to his chest. “Come on, (Y/N), we were friends once, weren’t we?”

“Yeah, and you were actually a nice guy once, weren’t you?” You slammed your book shut and stood up from your bench.

“Woah, hey now, what do you mean? I’m still me! I’m just handsome now.”

“Yeah, and I saw you bullying Ethan yesterday. I thought you of all people would understand how shitty that is, but here we are.”

“It’s not like that—”

“Whatever.” You scooped up Jade, stroking her behind the ears. “You know how I feel about bullies. If you ever decide to be yourself again, look me up.”

You left him standing there, dumbstruck as he watched you walk up the street, and something inside him deflating. Sure, his deal with Kalabar had granted him the good looks he’d always wanted, but if it had cost you, was it really worth it?

***

“Um…hey, (Y/N)…”

It had been a few days since Kalabar’s attempt to take over the world. You hadn’t seen Luke since it all went down. In fact, you’d been hiding out after the whole thing, not wanting to get caught in the middle of a magic fight. But, you’d answered the door to find a very goblin-faced, inhuman Luke, a sheepish look in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

“I…I came to say I’m sorry. I was such a jerk for no reason, and I can’t even blame Kalabar for it. He made me handsome, and I let it get to my head. But…even when I was good-looking, I never…well, I never stood a chance with you.”

You were quiet for a long time, just staring at him. It’d been so long since you’d seen his real face, his real, actual face, that you’d almost forgotten what your best friend looked like. And now, here he was in all of his glory, confessing his naïve young thirteen-year-old love to you.

“You…like me?”

“Uh…y-yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I do. I don’t expect you to like me back or—”

You leaned in and kissed him, shutting him up pretty well. When you stopped, he looked at you with wide eyes, cheeks flushed completely red. You pulled him in for a tight hug.

“I missed you, you know.”

“Yeah…” he sighed, pulling you tighter against him. “I missed you too.”

***

“Mmm, something smells good.”

It was years later. You and Luke were now in high school, and had been dating since that fateful day after Halloween when you’d finally gotten your best friend back. At this point, he had a key to your house, so he never had to knock anymore. It wasn’t any surprise he’d just wandered in unannounced.

“Come try this.” You motioned to the bowl you were stirring, beckoning him over. He hung his bright orange jacket on the dining room chair and walked up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. Luke rested his chin on your shoulder, his fluffy orange hair tickling your neck.

“It’s not going to turn me into a frog, is it?” He teased, kissing your cheek.

“Probably not.” You shrugged, holding up a metal spoon full of cookie dough. “Worth risking it?”

“For your world-famous cookie dough? Absolutely.” He grabbed the spoon. “Mmmmmmmm…What did I do to deserve you?”

“Just got lucky, I guess.”

“You could say that again.” He released you from his grip and grabbed a couple of spoons, helping you put the cookies on the tray.

“You know, I read something the other day that I thought was interesting.”

“And that would be…?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, so I figured I’d turn to a reliable source. Is it true that you get distracted by shiny things?”

“Yes.” He replied, chuckling to himself. “Yeah. A lot. I wasn’t really like this when I was younger. I dunno…I think it happened when I was…well, it was after we started dating, but before my nose started to come to a point.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” He laughed, determined to prove a point. “Ever notice how I ever get distracted by your hands when you’re wearing a bunch of rings? Or…or when you wear dangly earrings, I can never stop looking at them.”

“That’s actually adorable.” You giggled, watching as his cheeks flushed red.

“Just another perk of being your handsome goblin prince.”

You stood up on your toes and kissed his cheek. “My handsome goblin prince indeed.”

“And you’re sure you wouldn’t have some, I dunno, average-looking warlock guy instead.”

“Positive.” You set down your spoons and wrapped your arms around his waist, resting your head against his chest. “I’ll take my favorite goblin boy over some air-headed warlock any day.”

#luke #luke x reader #luke imagine #luke the goblin #halloweentown #halloweentown imagine

[officialthiamlibrary]

Do you guys have any long slow burn AU fics to rec?

We sure have! 😊 Enjoy!

(Please not that this list only contains stories over 30k.)

Anchors by @thiamlife

Liam Dunbar has had enough of being out of control. So he decides to shut his wolf off for awhile… the only problem is it could end up getting him killed.

Theo Raeken had never been good with feelings. But he can’t fathom the idea of losing the little beta. So he makes it his personal mission to help Liam find his way back to the supernatural. Lines will be crossed and there may be no coming back from it.

[NR / 42.2k / complete]

Vargary by @lovelylittlegrim

Liam is worried everything will go to shit once the elder pack members leave Beacon Hills.

It does, of course, but he has Mason and Corey there to help him out.

He also, surprisingly, has Theo Raeken.

[TeenUp / 38.5k / wip]

Just too good to be true by @raekentheoryarchive

Liam has the worst luck when it comes to girls. Things just keep crashing and burning. Mason tries to convince him that maybe it’s time to come out, to date a guy instead, but his best friend won’t hear it. So he and Corey decide to find him the ultimate date, someone who’s exactly his type—snarky, tendency to punch people, and tough enough to put up with their volatile friend. Bad boy Theo Raeken is the perfect fit, despite his murky past and caustic personality. And the fact that he won’t do it for free. What could go wrong? // 10 Things I Hate About You AU.

[TeenUp / 56.2k / complete]

Midnight into morning coffee by @pettigrace

In an anger fit, Liam slashes his social studies teacher's tires. Enter Theo, who is an enigma surrounded by rumours, saving him. In return, he just wants Liam to pay his lunch. Easy, right? Liam would have never guessed the lane he starts walking by accepting the deal.

[TeenUp / 138.5k / wip]

On the same side by @teen-wolf-af

Liam is an FBI agent. Theo is an untouchable drug lord. There's a chase, some grudging trust, and finally the falling in love. It may seem unlikely, but in the end, they find themselves on the same side.

[TeenUp / 101.7k / complete]

Compared to the moon by @flyde

Theo Raeken is back in Beacon Hills. He is an outcast in a world where people show their true colors as actual colors beneath their skin, because Theo himself is a blank page. Joining the lacrosse team, he hopes for one last shot at finding a real place to belong. But things don´t start off too great, especially not between him and the team captain, Liam Dunbar.

[Explicit / 143.8k / complete]

Desolate by @glitter-cake20

Liam involuntarily becomes an Alpha. He refuses accept the new wolf and instead runs away, leaving Beacon Hills behind, and takes to a small cabin in the Colorado mountains for refuge, mostly from himself. He subdues the alpha wolf in him... Until one day when he has absolutely no choice but to let it out.

[Explicit / 60k / complete]

I can't not love you by @raekentheoryarchive

Liam's a little lost in life. His latest relationship has fizzled out, his best friends are about to be married, and he’s rapidly realizing he doesn’t want to be the best man without a date. So, inspired by their tale of rekindled romance, he decides to track down all his exes and figure out which one was right for him all along. The problem is that several have been out of contact for years, and he has no idea where they are. The solution? His promiscuous, struggling musician neighbor Theo, who happens to have dabbled in the police academy long enough to be good at digging up dirt and finding people. But time is running out, the wedding countdown clock ticking ever closer, and if Theo can stop flirting with him for maybe five seconds and find his former flames, he might have a shot at this. || What’s Your Number AU.

[TeenUp / 48.6k / complete]

Wilful Entrapment by @RedCoral

Theo looked at him from head to toe in the dingy bar they were at, his expression thoughtful and deadly serious as he said, "So tell me Liam. Are you sure you're not a parking ticket? Because you've got fine written all over you."

Liam laughed so hard, he almost fell from the barstool. "Oh my God. Is that what you're going with?"

"Did you know people are more likely to laugh at the jokes of people they're attracted to?"

[TeenUp / 41.9k / complete]

Tougher Than The Rest by @glitter-cake20

Theo is horribly self conscious about his body, but a pair of blue eyes sees him for what he truly is.

[Explicit / 44.1k / complete]

The Last Of Us by @raeken_09

A bizzare fungal infection breaks out all over the world, causing people to lose their minds and turn into infected monsters. The remainder of civilisation was quarintined in cities while soldiers kept a close watch on who goes in and out. The McCall Pack is fractured when it proved that the bites of the Infected were deadly to werecreatures. After a careless night out to just be normal teenagers Liam and Mason are bitten. So why does Liam live to see te morning?

[Mature / 50.3k / complete]

Vacancy Signs by @lovelylittlegrim

Theo and Liam are in Manhattan negotiating a pack allyship when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, the two of them have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

[Explicit / 89.6k / wip]

Just like a tattoo, I'll always have you. by @mmmwddd

The pack has just defeated the Ghost Riders and for now everything is fine. At least until Liam’s sixteenth birthday when his soulmark shows up with a name that he was not expecting.

[NR / 31.4k / complete]

Happiness is a four-letter word by @glitter-cake20

Liam goes out looking for trouble, instead he finds the beginning of a road that could change everything for him.

[Explicit / 93.4k / complete]

Highway to Hope by @flyde

Theo has been obsessed with this youtube guy who posts videos of himself singing in his car. Watching every video there is of Liam, Theo finds himself falling in love. When Liam's songs get more and more sad and dark, Theo starts worrying. The shadows beneath Liam's eyes get darker in every new clip, his voice huskier, his driving a little too fast, a little too reckless. Paying close attention, reading between the lines, Theo can tell Liam is not okay. And then the catastrophe happens.

[Mature / 41.4k / complete]

Scepticism by @sweetest_thiam

Everyone told Liam to avoid the kid in the hallway, but that scrutinizing gaze was just too tempting.

[TeenUp / 50.9k / wip]

Red by @extrasteps and @ajp-37

Theo returns from hell but has lost all of his powers, including his chimera status, making him completely human. He also has a red string of fate wrapped around his left wrist, connecting him to Liam, the one who brought him back. When Malia attacks him, she nearly kills him, and Liam and Lydia step in, all but forcing Scott to bite him and make him a werewolf. Making Theo pack, and the growing connection between him and Liam, changes the whole outcome of season 6.

[Explicit / 134.1k / wip]

We Who Wait by @wolfenboyb

Liam is the son of a local preacher struggling to get good grades, to fit in, to live up to his father's expectations. Every spare moment is spent at the church or school, much to his best friend's annoyance. So when Mason drags Liam out to an underground all-ages punk rock show he's thrown into a world that frightens and excites him. Especially when he meets Theo, the pink haired, in-everyones-face vocalist that gives no fucks and causes trouble where ever he can. And he has a close eye on the preacher's son.

[TeenUp / 83.3k / wip]

The boy I shouldn't want to love by @dan13la-blog-blog

Liam comes back to Beacon Hills after years, when his mother decides to get remarried. His big shock is finding out that his new step-father's son is the same guy that back then in elementary school used to bully him, making his life a literal hell...

[Mature / 161.6k / wip]

#thiam #officialthiamlibrary #thiam fanfic #fic recs #slow burn #long stories #mod: janna #otlansweredask

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

Hiccup + Astrid Relationship - Analysis + Thoughts

It’s no secret that I am a hardcore Hiccstrid shipper - my username is literally Hiccstrid-related in the most obvious way. I’ve been thinking a lot about their relationship, and how it developed over the course of the movies and television show, and I wanted to write all my thoughts/analysis in one place.

This ended up WAY longer than I thought it would, but I’m aware that people don’t want their dashboards clogged with it, so it’s under a “read more”.

Spoilers for all three HTTYD movies, Riders of Berk, Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge under the cut!

I think what I love the most about Hiccup and Astrid’s relationship is how it progressed so healthily and naturally.

Let’s go back to the very beginning of the first movie; Hiccup is seen as an outcast in the village, a social pariah, the Chief’s “little disappointment”. Astrid is the ideal Viking - she’s strong, beautiful, handy with an axe and brave. We see that Hiccup basically has a very big crush on her, is in awe of her and who she is - or, at least, who he thinks she is. It’s very much akin to a fanboy crush. On Astrid’s side, it’s almost-indifference - she doesn’t pay him much attention or associate herself with him, perhaps because her family name is already mocked due to her uncle “freezing” in front of the Flightmare, and associating with Hiccup (the village disappointment) would definitely have made her life more difficult. Having said that, she doesn’t bully him like the other teenagers do, nor does she stop them from doing it to him - she tries to keep neutral for the most part.

Fast forward to dragon training. Suddenly Hiccup is showing surprising skill in the arena - and Astrid is mad because she was supposed to be top of the class, because earning the right to kill the Monstrous Nightmare would prove that she’s Viking enough, it would bring pride to her family. Suddenly Hiccup is taking over, and it frustrates her because NEVER has he shown any kind of skill with dragons before - it feels like everything she’s been working for since she was old enough to hold an axe is being swept away because of him. It’s infuriating, even more so because he acts weird about it and sneaks off every day, like he has a secret.

America Ferrera: In the first film, she was thinking: ‘Who is this guy? Why should he get to be the Chief of Berk when I’ve worked hard my whole life?’

And then there’s the Romantic Flight - and this changes something. Suddenly she starts to see a whole new perspective on things, on dragons - and, importantly, on Hiccup. He’s the one who shows her all of this new stuff from the back of a dragon he trained, and that’s when she starts to have some admiration for him in turn. From that point onwards, having been shown a new perspective on everything, she relaxes and is more friendly to him.

Over the course of the three TV shows, we get to see them actually get to know each other - they’re friends (despite the few kisses as teens). We see that Astrid respects Hiccup as a leader, and that in turn he trusts her to be in charge when he’s not around. They definitely care about each other and worry over each other more than the other teens when in danger.

And here’s where the relationship really becomes beautiful - them actually really getting to know each other.

Astrid no longer sees Hiccup as a nuisance or a runt or even weaker than herself - she grows and has respect for him. She loosens up a little, starts allowing herself to have fun. More importantly, Hiccup stops seeing Astrid as a prize to be won or a goddess/angel. That fanboy crush fades into actual feelings for who she actually is. It’s no longer “Astrid is every Viking boy’s dream girl” but “Astrid is brave, loyal, I can trust her, she has a good heart” etc. He sees her bond with Stormfly, that she’s willing to risk her life for what is right, for these creatures that need their help. But she’s also not going to blindly follow him - they can banter and fondly tease each other without worrying they’ll offend the other, because they have a friendship forming.

Hiccup never stops wanting to be with Astrid - now it’s just more “I actually love her for who she is” and less “she’s awesome and the best Viking” kind of thing. It’s not just “she’s pretty and every guy’s dream girl”, it’s the fact he actually knows her and likes her for who she actually is as opposed to some projection his mind has of her. He sees her as an actual human being - and he loves her for who she is.

Their relationship only grows stronger through the years, probably because they already have their friendship as a foundation for their romance. They know each other’s limits, they know what makes the other uncomfortable, and they respect each other’s boundaries. Any issues that they have in their relationship are solved near the beginning of their romance; they make it clear that they don’t want their romance affecting their work as Dragon Riders, or how they interact with everyone else. When they run into a bump with Astrid feeling like Hiccup doesn’t care, like she’s invisible, they end up talking it out like adults. She apologizes for overreacting, and he apologizes for taking her for granted - because they both recognize that there’s no one person to blame, it takes two to make the relationship work.

By the second movie, it’s clear that they’ve gone past both the honeymoon and the rocky stage; Hiccup lets her help him with the map, Astrid gives him reassurance that what he’s searching for isn’t out in the unexplored world but inside of him - because he doesn’t need to prove himself, not to her, she knows who he is and she loves him for both the good and the bad. Astrid comforts him when his father is killed, even though she’s mourning the death of her Chief too, and is supportive when Hiccup has to step up and be Chief - she knows he can do it, that he will be a good Chief in his own way. 

America Ferrera: But this time she’s his number one supporter because she sees that he’s special and totally capable of leadership. he is a partner in his adventure.

America Ferrera: They’re both incredibly independent spirits and very independent in their own rights, but are incredibly supportive of one another. Astrid is Hiccup’s number one defender and champion but also her own leader in her own right.

The third film just proves it even more. Both of them seem to know that one day they’ll be married - they’ve been together for years - but Astrid especially knows now is not the time. She knows that Hiccup relies on Toothless, she doesn’t get mad about it but she knows that so long as he’s so focused on Toothless, it’s pointless to try and compete. In a deleted scene she even says that she’s not opposed to the idea of marrying him, but she doesn’t want to get married for the sake of getting married - it has to be the right time, and that time isn’t now. “He thinks he’s nothing without Toothless” she tells Valka, and she recognizes Hiccup’s reliance on Toothless. She doesn’t want to replace Toothless - no one can do that - but she finds her own way to support Hiccup when he needs it most. She takes him to the Hidden World, and is visibly concerned when Hiccup is upset - they both see that Toothless is where he belongs. She doesn’t need to say anything sometimes, she just knows she has to be there for him - she doesn’t resent him for that, she just knows that this is difficult for him because of how much he relies on Toothless, how much of his own value he attributes to the Night Fury.

As Valka says, “he’ll listen to you” - and he does. It’s Astrid who inspires him in both the first and third movies to act. “What are you gonna do about it?” “Ehh...Probably something stupid”. She doesn’t just think Hiccup is valuable because he rides a Night Fury or because he’s the Chief - “I was the first to believe in you, and I have watched you doubt whether you’re worthy ever since” - she loves him for him, not for a dragon or title.

Perhaps the most interesting part of her speech on the cliff is when she admits that “I’m the person I am today because of you - I’ve never told you that but it’s true”. She’s not just saying that to make him feel better or to stroke his ego, it’s the truth. Because of Hiccup, she rode on Toothless and saw that everything she previously thought about dragons was wrong; because of Hiccup, she learned to train and befriend Stormfly (who she has such a close bond with to the point where she was willing to get herself poisoned by a Slitherwing to save her). Because of Hiccup, she’s no longer solely focused on being the ultimate Viking warrior - there’s a softer side to her that was always there but he brought out. 

Cate Blanchett: They’re absolute equals. They're competitors, they challenge one another, but they’re also able to be gentle with one another and tell the truth to one another.

Like Valka said in the deleted scene, “you bring out the best in each other” - Hiccup’s own mother recognizes that Astrid also has a positive effect on her son. No one else could have convinced him to do something crazy like get the rest of the gang to ride on dragons to defeat the Red Death, no one else could have inspired him on that cliff to come up with the plan of having everyone wearing the wings to soar through the air. In Race to the Edge, he even tells her straight out “I couldn’t have done any of this without you - not the dragon riders or the Edge”. If Astrid hadn’t been there to talk him through his darker/uncertain moments, he perhaps would have just stood there and been lost. A lot of Hiccup’s development is due to two people: Toothless and Astrid. Without the two of them, he wouldn’t be the Chief we see him as in the last film. Hiccup has the ideas - Astrid inspires him to develop and use them.

Jay Baruchel: They complement each other, y’know? Hiccup is 'reason' and Astrid is 'action'.

When Hiccup makes that final decision to let the dragons go, neither of them need to say anything to each other - they both look at each other and know. Astrid is the first one to undo her dragon’s saddle, to show that she will follow him and trust his decision. She stands by his side and supports him when he has just one leg, both before and while watching the dragons fly away.

And then there’s the wedding, of course. There seems to be only slight hesitation from Astrid, and that hesitation seems to be “I want to be sure he’s certain he’s ready” - and he is, by Thor, he is. You can see her little nod and wide smile as she takes his hands, as if silently saying “yeah, let’s do this - we’re ready”.

The look on his face when she takes his offered hands is full of pure love and adoration for her. It’s like he’s thinking “I am the luckiest man in the world”.

^Hes so in love, bless him

This relationship is about 6 years in the making, give or take (since we don’t really know how long it took to build New Berk - it seems like they maybe got married a few months after the dragons left). They’ve known each other most of their lives even before being in a relationship, even before being friends. There’s a trust and love betwen them that can’t be disputed. And here is the culmination of those 6-or-so-years - the two of them maturing as adults, taking that step together as they rule over their people, as they continue to try to build a better world without their dragons, one that will hopefully make it safe for dragons to return someday. When they kiss as husband and wife, he takes her face in his hand, and you can see the love and passion between them even in that simple kiss - it’s the start of their new lives together. It’s that air of “finally”.

Speaking of kisses, you can see the dynamic between them as it develops through the little touches and kisses, through every action.

In the first movie, Astrid has a little habit of punching or hitting Hiccup - and no, that’s not okay, but it was in no way to control or abuse him. She does it when he’s being weird in the cove, and then for lying to her. In the cove after flying Toothless, she punches him on the shoulder - but it’s not violent, it’s half-hearted, because she kisses his cheek immediately after. She also has a habit of doing it to the other dragon riders, so it’s not to control Hiccup or anything like that. To add, it’s obvious that young Vikings like to be rough - like Ruff and Tuff hitting each other.

“It’s not violence, it’s communication” — Astrid says this to Fishlegs in Riders/Defenders of Berk. Again, I’m not saying it’s okay to go around punching or hitting people, but I think it offers some insight into why she does it. Astrid isn’t comfortable with being open with her emotions at first, especially in regards to her growing feelings for Hiccup, and so I think for her that’s her way of saying “I kinda like him but I’m scared to admit it” or something. It’s like Ron and Hermione always bickering in Harry Potter, because there’s romantic tension that neither of them want to admit to. For her, I don’t think romance is something she’s comfortable with - it’s always been training and proving herself, and she wouldn’t have had time for thinking or wanting relationships since she wanted to be a shield-maiden/the best Viking warrior to prove herself/restore her family name.

Relating back to the above point, Astrid’s little punches/hits only seem to happen when they’re younger - as they get older, she stops completely. I think that’s because she matured and became more comfortable with expressing her feelings for Hiccup as well as in general.

In HTTYD2, she gives Hiccup an affectionate weak punch that activates the spring coil in his suit. His annoyance isn’t from being hit, but from the fact she’ll wear out the spring coil - that flight suit is pretty thick, to add, so I don’t think it particularly hurt him. The second time is not a punch or hit but her pressing the button intentionally. He’s not even that annoyed about it since he pulls her in for an intense kiss afterwards.

To my memory, she doesn’t once hit Hiccup in the third film. Any touches between them are softer, more care behind them

They do play-wrestle a little on the cliff, and that is started by Hiccup, who pulls her onto him after she makes a joke about Snotlout marrying his mum.

She tries to get away, laughing as he holds her/perhaps tickles her, and he says “no you’re not getting away!” - which is when she grins, grabs his wrist/arm and twists it behind his back until he yields and says “you win!”. After that, they briefly cuddle up to each other (“you knew what you were getting into” “uh-huh, right”) It’s purely all affectionate and loving, no harm done. They definitely seem comfortable to play-wrestle and tease each other.

Towards the end, Hiccup and Astrid rest their heads against each other, in this really beautiful moment where they don’t need to talk - the intimacy is obvious. You can also see him with his arm around her as she helps him stand without his prosthetic; they’re both close and comfortable, with her hand against his chest and his hand on her wrist, holding her close.

When they get married, Hiccup holds out his hands for her to take. He doesn’t just grab her hands, he gives her the decision - she can take his hands and marry him, or she’s fully able to turn around and say “I don’t think I’m ready”. Granted, it’s a bit late given that it’s a wedding ceremony and the whole of the village is watching, but he’s giving her that moment anyway - a last chance to back out. He’s giving her the choice to take his hands and get married once and for all. It makes it seem so much more mutual, in a way, like they’re both making that decision. Again, it’s just a nicer, more consenting action than just grabbing her hands in his own.

And yeah, she takes his hand - they’re in this together. She gives him that nod, a final little way of saying “yeah you dork, of course I’m going to marry you, I’m here, aren’t I?”

What’s also interesting about Hiccup and Astrid is that Hiccup definitely grows more comfortable with initiating, and he grows more comfortable with showing affection; you’ll see him taking Astrid’s hand, touching her arm, intitiating kisses, etc.

Speaking of kisses...

At first, Astrid initiates all the kisses. The two in the first film, Snoggletog, the one after the Thawfest games etc. These are all before their romance even properly starts. The kisses in the first film especially have her grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him in - not that he seems to mind that much.

Their first kiss in RTTE is more both of them leaning in at the same time - a mutual action to seal their newfound status as boyfriend/girlfriend.

In the early days of their relationship in RTTE, Astrid is the one who initiates kisses, and then it’s Hiccup who reciprocates - I think this reflects how their early relationship is, with Hiccup still being a little uncertain about it and waiting for Astrid to take the lead since he doesn’t want to push her or make her do anything she doesn’t want to at first. It also relates back to the fact that Astrid is more sure of herself, more confident, and more likely to take action whilst Hiccup thinks about things first

While she initiates, he always reciprocates - he’s clearly happy that she is kissing him, he’s just not ready to initiate it himself at first because he’s not as confident yet.

But then Hiccup grows more confident as the series progresses; he kisses her head or touches her slightly more and more. In Mi Amore Wing, it’s Hiccup who initiates a kiss and pulls Astrid towards him. Again, in the King of Dragons Part 2 (the series finale), it’s Hiccup who pulls Astrid back to him before she can run off and he kisses her - and she’s happy to let him do it.

In HTTYD 2, Astrid first gives Hiccup a kiss on the cheek; slightly later, Hiccup presses a kiss to the side of her head. Finally, towards the end, it’s Hiccup who reaches for Astrid, pulls her to him, and kisses her in front of everyone.

Finally, in HTTYD3, Hiccup initiates both of the cheek/side of the head kisses. First, when he’s making Toothless’ new tail and he pecks the side of her head after saying “it’s just until he brings her back”. Then there’s the side kiss on the cliff after she says “that’s the Hiccup I know”. He’s so much more sure of himself, so comfortable with their relationship, now as opposed to how it was in the first film/RoB/DoB

Finally, the wedding kiss. That’s another one where they both go in for it - the two of them lean in and meet halfway. It’s symbolic of how a marriage should work, both of them meeting in the middle and neither of them doing all the work. It’s a kiss that seals the deal, one that represents the beginning of their new life together, and how they will support each other in their marriage.

I love that they’re not afraid to disagree with one another - Astrid will not blindly follow Hiccup if she’s uncertain about one of his ideas, she will discuss it with him, and if all else fails, she’ll go with him to make sure he doesn’t get himself into danger. Astrid doesn’t stroke his ego or lie to him - on two separate occasions, she agrees that he’s messed up whilst he’s self-pitying himself; first in “Guardians of Vanaheim in RTTE:

Hiccup: This was a really bad decision, Astrid. Really, really bad.

Astrid: Yeah, you’re probably right.

Hiccup:...Well, you’re not supposed to just agree with me like that. You’re supposed to tell me I did the right thing in a tough situation.

Astrid: I could tell you that but it wouldn’t be the truth. And you know that.

Hiccup: Yeah, I guess I do.

She could have easily lied to him to make him feel better - but they respect each other enough to be honest with one another. Astrid instead reassures him in a much better way:

Astrid: Hiccup, you make a hundred decisions every day, they aren’t all gonna be correct. What’s important is that you keep making decisions, that after you fail, you move forward.

Another example is in HTTYD3, after Grimmel has captured Toothless and taken all the dragons captive. On the cliff, as Hiccup paces and Astrid approaches him, she tells him the truth again:

Hiccup: I shouldn't have dragged you out there. He wouldn't have flown me back. She wouldn't have followed.

Astrid: Yep.

Hiccup: Aah! I feel like the same screw up I was before I met Toothless.

Astrid: I can see that.

Hiccup: Are you just gonna stand there and agree with everything?

Astrid: Well, you're right. You're back to where you started. But I was the first to believe in you. And I have watched you doubt whether you're worthy ever since. But you know what... I am the person I am today because of you. I never told you that, but it's true. You are the bravest, most stubborn, most determined... knucklehead I know. Toothless didn't give you that, Hiccup. He just made it--

Hiccup: Easier.

Astrid: And now it's gonna be a lot harder. So... what are you gonna do about it?

Hiccup: Probably something stupid.

Astrid: That's the Hiccup I know.

Again, she could have easily said “no it’s not your fault, babe” but she knew that that would have gotten them nowhere. She’s not necessarily saying it IS his fault - her “yep” is more in the vein of “I’m gonna let you rant it out and agree with you until you’re ready to listen”. She’s not particularly serious when she says it either - before she can get through to him, it’s that he’s pacing about frustrated, feeling both angry and sorry at/for himself, and she knows that he needs to get it out of his system/snap out of it before she can attempt to get through to him.

Everything about their relationship - from little touches to kisses, to supporting each other etc - has such a natural progression that also reflects how they both develop as individuals. This series has such themes of growing up and maturing, and I love that the film-makers put so much effort into reflecting their growth as individuals and a couple.

And just because I like to keep posts nice and cheerful, I leave you all with this gem:

#hiccstrid #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #httyd #how to train your dragon #httyd 2 #httyd 3 #how to train your dragon 2 #how to train your dragon 3 #jay baruchel #race to the edge #defenders of berk #riders of berk #dreamworks #dean deblois #america ferrera #ASSCUP THOUGH

[elopez7228]

Scenic Route 31/47

Read on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268208/chapters/43229774 

Start over : https://elopez7228.tumblr.com/post/620919089893933056/scenic-route-0147

***

King con. He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve the title.

Just last night he’d been the happiest man alive, watching her return his kisses and share his desires, or better yet, take the initiative. He had been betrayed by his most loyal followers and forced to forfeit his position at FORCE. He was screwed.

Lord, he’d been screwed ever since she came into his life.

Her and no one else.

He would have sold his empire for her. Never in his life had he wanted someone so badly. He had realized in a matter of hours that he had never truly been in love before.

Before Rey.

Idiot. Now what? What was he suppose to do with this grand revelation when he couldn’t resist fucking things up when he had the chance?

It dawned on him that Syed had been right all along: Rey was nothing more than a diversion act set up by Earth Soldiers. He should have known. She was too real, too uncomplicated and disinterested in his past as Leia Skywalker’s un-prodigal son to ever be a part of their hippie cult. Had she been a true believer, she would have reacted differently to him.

Even the bottom-feeders in Leia’s organization knew who Kylo Ren was. They would never be able to play the part convincingly in his presence—either they would try to get back at him for undermining their glorious leader, or they would bend over backwards for him because they wouldn’t dare displease Leia by hurting her son.

But Rey? She threw the playbook out the window. She laughed in the face of them all, be it FORCE, or Earth Soldiers, Leia Skywalker or Kylo Ren. She only ever had eyes for Ben Solo.

The thought made him stop in his tracks. No one had ever wanted Ben Solo before.

Not his own mother, who saw his likely unplanned birth as nothing but a complication in her promising military career (perhaps why she left him with faceless nannies for eight months of the year) and certainly not his rakish father, who could never relate to his soft-spoken, taciturn son. The man only had an appetite for speed and dirty jokes, which Ben found equally unappealing.

His fellow boys on the base were no better. They constantly made fun of his bad posture and  lanky frame, if not his unmasculine passion for calligraphy which was too far from their fanboy worship of Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And then you had the girls. Lord, the girls. With his too-big ears and elongated nose they happily christened him “rat face”, shoving him deeper into his self-imposed solitude.

Worst of all was his uncle, who Ben lived with after turning thirteen and losing his father. Luke worked at the FORCE headquarters in San Francisco where he became obsessed with carrying on his father Anakin Skywalker’s legacy—a grand ambition for the future of the family enterprise that was also forced upon his new intern-nephew. But Ben never liked the projects they designed for him, not that they ever bothered to stop and ask him for his opinion anyway.

Year after year, silence after silence, the anger accumulated. A deep, unvoiced rage against the whole world, against himself. He hated his own ugliness, his shyness, and his parents’ apathetic disdain. He was always an outcast, never able to make friends or fit in.

Just thinking about the atrocity of his childhood and teenage years was making him chew the inside of his cheek raw. He had spent years trying to please the people around him, in vain.

His life changed the day he enrolled in Harvard and began going by the name Kylo Ren.

His mother hardly had the means to pay for his education there. Even less could be said for his uncle, who in his lunacy had managed to get kicked off of FORCE’s board of directors after staging an internal coup. Luke was facing a defamation lawsuit from the president, Snoke, and had nothing to offer his freshly-graduated nephew.

In fact, the way Luke and Leia put it, Ben wasn’t talented enough to attend an Ivy League school. They didn’t even try to pull strings to get him hired at FORCE. Ben couldn’t help but feel that they saw him as little more than a culmination of both of their failures in life.

FORCE was rife with corruption now, they told him. An apple with worms, etcetera, etcetera.

And then they declared that the family enterprise, founded by very his own grandparents, Anakin and Padmé Skywalker, was barred to him forever? When did he become so despised and useless that he was denied a place at the table when it came to his own heritage, his own fucking bloodline?

It was then that Snoke reached out, unexpectedly. In the name of maintaining the family business and keeping the Skywalker name in the game, he offered Ben a privately funded scholarship to attend university. His mother had pushed him to refuse the offer.

Truly, she had been unbearable. Finally there stood a genuinely lucrative opportunity for him to take and she demanded he refuse it? What for? What did she have to offer in return? Nothing. Not a single alternative to humor him with other than a measly “trust me”.

And with that, he was willing to take a chance on that scholarship.

Ben managed to ace all the entrance exams, despite his hatred for standardized testing and the nagging feeling that he hadn’t done well enough.

Maybe he was finally learning to believe in himself?

In his eagerness to leave the past behind, he began calling himself Kylo Ren. New name, clean slate.

Kylo Ren was everything that Ben Solo wasn’t. He was muscular and popular with the girls. He aced his classes easily and all but owned the campus scene. For the first time in his life he had enough confidence to play his music, drink, smoke, and not care what his mother thought of him.

Not that she thought any better of him, of course. All complaints as usual. His new name was ridiculous, his longer hair was unruly, and he only worked out to impress others. Furthermore, his cigarettes smelled terrible, his music sounded worse, and could he please date girls who were a little more respectable?

So he stopped visiting her entirely. He was never the son she wanted, anyway. It was time to stop pretending.

It was at about the same time that she established her own environmental awareness initiative, named after one of Padmé Skywalker’s utopian projects, and declared war on FORCE.

The newly rebranded First Order Capital and Resource Extraction office, still helmed by Snoke, reached out to him once more. After college he could have a future there: money, a senior position with near-total freedom, and a seat at the proverbial family table. He could restore the legacy of his grandfather.

After ten years of searching, he thought he had finally found his place—standing to Snoke’s right, taking on Luke and Leia who were no doubt envious of his success.

That, was before Rey came into the picture.

With her arrival, Kylo Ren was tossed aside like an empty shell.

She rejected him and his unrestrained passions—she barely wanted him to begin with.

She only respected Ben Solo while having nothing but disdain for Kylo Ren and he...fuck, he was actually okay with that. It only made her more appealing.

The sound of a car horn forced him out of his reveries. He looked up to find Shakti behind the wheel.

He got into the car and immediately lit a cigarette. Shakti said nothing. When he’d texted her to come find him at the intersection of 89 and Carbella in Gadiner at 4 AM, she obeyed.

But Ben could see her staring out of the corner of his eye. He relented.

“What?”

“New look?” Shakti grinned, pointing with her chin in his direction.

It took him a second, as he touched his head to find the braid still intact. Time to get rid of that, before the other Knights assumed he went into the woods last night to play dress up.

And yet he found himself reluctant to do so, when it was his only remaining evidence that the night spent with Rey was real. That she had touched him, and cared for him, with tenderness and good intentions. If he undid it another piece would disappear into the void, nothing but a dream.

It had been hours and he could still taste her on his lips. She was right. He had made bad choices and now he had to face the consequences.

Why had he tried to find the chip in the dog collar when things were going so well?

Easy. Because he was sure it would be there. As soon as he realized she wasn’t an acolyte—at least, a willing one—he suspected she was a mule. Hand-picked for the job by his mother. Yes, she would be able to muddy the waters without ever having to lie.

Leia always had a certain knack for casting; she was unrivaled in the art of picking and choosing who to manipulate next. And who better to trust with the actual cargo than the dog, in case the girl proved incompetent? Knowing Rey, she could have easily lost an envelope, or her bag, or her phone...hell, the Millennium Falcon too. She could have just left it to rot when Syed started chasing her. But who in their right mind would abandon a defenseless puppy?

It was a stroke of genius.

That morning, it had been time to see if he was right, if he had correctly predicted the end of his mother’s master plan. To see if he was as clever as she never gave him credit for.

He’d tried to resist the urge. He really did. He’d kissed Rey and hoped to drift back to sleep with her. But it was no use, he had to know.

And so he got up, silent as a shadow, to dress in the clothes that were scattered on the ground outside. Thinking back, it was the other evidence of their moonlit  tryst. He found her keys in her bag and opened the car door.

BB8 was so happy to be out that she forgot Luke’s instructions to attack Ben on sight. The only thing she did was relive herself in the bushes.

In one smooth motion, he had grabbed her collar, easily finding the metal latch of the hidden compartment that popped open right there and—

And that’s when he saw her standing there.

In hindsight, he knew right then and there that there was no fixing this. Nothing he could say or do that would make her believe that he hadn’t meant to do anything other than confirm a hunch. He’d been caught like an idiot with his hand in the cookie jar, hours after promising to be honest with her.

There was no way he was getting her back now. She slipped through his fingers like water, gone forever.

A hard bargain for one microSD chip.

Her love was worth more. He wouldn’t have admitted a few days ago, but after Syed and Skylar’s betrayal, after Snoke and Hux and the endless blackmail? It was over. FORCE had turned against him, so swiftly and violently that it left him breathless. Like it did to Luke. And his grandfather.

But the girl, Rey, had been there for him.

And even as she screamed at him in rage, even as she claimed deception—she had proven him right too. The mule, the secret, the dog. All of it.

She had started out innocently enough, a tourist on holiday. But by moving the chip on purpose she had become a willing accomplice.

That alone was enough to make her the enemy. But did Ben still have a side here?

Syed had managed to turn Skylar against him in impressively short order. What had she promised him in return? Money, or sex, maybe both?

Had she managed to turn the rest of them too? Maybe there was no one left to trust, and he was alone again. A total reject, a pariah, Leia’s failure of a son.

Looking at Shakti behind the wheel, it was impossible to tell. She didn’t seem any different but Syed could have tried to manipulate her regardless. The two women were never close despite working on the same team, Syed’s brutal tendencies often clashing with Shakti’s militaristic discipline.

He could see it clearly now: Syed and Skylar’s mission had been Ben himself.

The other knights would reveal their cards in time.

And as for Snoke and Hux...nothing was certain. They could have very well asked Syed to dispose of him. But knowing her, the attack was likely more of a personal choice. She wanted him to give up Rey’s location, making Rey the final target. The fact that Syed and Skylar got to beat him up in the process was just icing on the cake.

Maybe he still had a shot at redemption here, if he played his cards right. The list of tasks was endless.

The only thing he was absolutely sure of was that Rey had a couple of very competent assassins on her trail. After last night, they would stop at nothing to get back at her.

He had to warn her...he had to stop them.

His deceptively prim metropolitan belle had proven to be far more resourceful than he expected, but she was still no match for two Knights of Ren.

Decision made, he took out his phone.

Shakti was right beside him as he made the call, but that no longer mattered. Either she was with him and she was going to understand the stakes in a matter of time, or she was against him and he would personally ensure that she wouldn’t tell a soul.

Rey didn’t answer, it went straight to voicemail.

“Rey, it’s Ben. I know you don’t want to talk but hear me out. Syed and Skylar are tracking you and they won’t stop after what happed last night. You have to go to the police, you’re in imminent danger. Call me, I—“ he hesitated, his voice breaking.

Should he say it?

“I’m an ungrateful bastard and I’m sorry. I love you.”

Next to him, Shakti turned red. She glanced away as best she could to hide it.

Mentally, he added another item to the list: maintaining control of his team after just having revealed his greatest weakness. After Rey, there would be nothing left of Kylo Ren.

#reylo #fanfiction #Modern AU #Scenic Route

[redrobin-detective]

I think one reason I’m so attached to the Core Four aka Tim, Cassie, Bart and Kon is because throughout their whole runs, they were always the outcasts. They earned the League’s and the world’s respect but these kids were clearly not exactly what their mentors wanted and they knew it. They weren’t like the sidekicks that came before them and they were always held to much higher standards. Because of this, I think they became one of the closest set of Titans. Yeah, the original Five are pretty tight but the kids who started YJ and eventually reformed the Teen Titans knew for a while all they had was each other.

Tim Drake was Robin III, he not only was following in Golden Boy, Dick Grayson’s footsteps, you know? the original sidekick that all teen sidekicks were modeled after but Jason Todd, Batman’s kid who died in the line of duty. Those were some shoes to fill, not to mention Bruce really didn’t want Tim there at first, afraid he’d endanger another child and also afraid of opening himself up to love again after the loss of his son. He had to work twice as hard as the others to prove himself worthy and he was probably still worried of losing his cape if he didn’t meet Batman’s expectations. His friends became a safe haven bc not only was he allowed to relax a little without worrying about being good enough but, to them, he was Robin without question. 

Conner was forcibly inserted into Superman’s life, a clone born of Lex Luthor using Clark’s DNA without consent. We all give Supes shit for being weird with Kon but it IS a weird situation. Kon was biologically 15/16 but only a few months old. He had knowledge but no experience, instincts but no sense. He, like Tim, wanted to live up to this monumental legacy he’d been born into which was hard when none of the other Supers really wanted him there. He tried to be bigger, badder, more grown up to show how worthy he was when in reality he was acting pretty childishly. He just wanted to be accepted, cloned alien test tube baby and all. The team gave him somewhere to belong, gave him a purpose in life and helped him learn who Conner Kent, Kon-El was beyond Luthor or Superman wanted him to be. Even when he earned his right to wear the S shield, he never stopped being an outsider. Except of course with his buds. 

Cassie wasn’t born an Amazon, she wasn’t immortal or a trained fighter or filled with an awe inspiring grace like Diana or Donna. Those two woman were monuments of peace and justice and a fierce warrior spirit. Cassie was the daughter of a single mother who stumbled into heroism by being the daughter/granddaughter (depending on the version) of Zeus. She wasn’t a calming example, a shining pillar, she was a teenage girl who liked crop tops and cargo boots and unresolved anger issues she worked out with her fists. She was silly and petty and very human compared to the godlike Amazons. Diana tried to mold her, to teach her to be like her and Donna but Cassie refused to bend even though she wanted to be that person, she just couldn’t. Hanging with a bunch of boys only brought out her aggressive tomboy nature, to Diana’s dismay, but she found kindred spirits who don’t mind that she wasn’t exactly a saint but appreciated that she was funny as hell and had a wicked right hook. 

Bart Allen was never in anyone’s plan. He was a whirlwind speedster kid from the future, claiming to be Barry Allen’s grandson. He was overly energetic, childlike from growing up too quickly (literally), quirky, and refused to slow down to cater to slow people. Managing him was a nightmare and Bart didn’t make it easy. He was shuffled around, he trained with and bonded with Max Mercury only to be sent to the Garricks when Max disappeared. It was clear no one knew what to do with Impulse. He was probably put on YJ to burn off some energy but he ended up fining people like him, unwanted outcasts of the big heroes and finally, finally, he had a reason to stop running, to slow down to interact with normal people. Suddenly it became important for him to live up to the Flash name, to hone his speed because he might be able to outrun baddies but his friends couldn’t. He kept twisting his personality to try and be what the Flashes wanted but his pals told him that they love him as he was. 

There were plenty of other members of Young Justice and the reformed Teen Titans, even people who also were outcasts. But these four were in the unique position of growing up together as the second/third kids of Big Name Heroes. Not good enough for the Justice League, they made themselves a little home with each other that not even death, retirement, fights or mentors were ever able to shake. 

#young just us #tim drake #bart allen #conner kent #cassie sandsmark #I have.... such strong feelings about the reject kids of heroes #they were ALL the imperfect/unwanted castoffs of Big Heroes #YJ really hits this home but it carries over in TT #they bonded so hard because they were all in the same boat #they went through HELL but they made it out because they had each other #and because they loved one another enough not to compromise themselves

[danaty-consolation]

ATARU MOROBOSHI THE MISUNDERSTOOD  PROTAGONIST

So, months ago I promised @artistefish to make an Analysis about Ataru Moroboshi, the first Rumic protagonist that is most often hated, so I will try to explain why he is one of the best protagonists at that time and why people misunderstand him by hating him as if he were happosai.

1.The difference of Ataru Moroboshi between Manga and Anime:

Ataru Moroboshi is a perverted boy, is part of his character an I won’t say that he’s an angel because he is a teenager and he commits errors or mistakes like any normal human being.

In the first episode on the Anime, we see him as a perverted boy who looks at the girls runs or sees a woman and drools, then he gets hit’s by the ball and is seen as a bufoon , then cherry tells him that he’s ugly and he beats the crap out of the old monk.

And we see the first scene of his face being this

Handsome, right?

Now let’s see the manga version of his character; Ataru just had been slapped by his girlfriend Shinobu, just because he saw another woman for one second and then he begins sulking about it.

What difference in personality, right?

The boy is still a pervert since he, later on, hits on lum the same way he does in the anime but the passing is different because we see him actually struggling to catch lum, the boy wants to finally be something besides the unluckiest boy and he knows how the other people see him, he’s not blind.

In the manga, we see him an intelligent person, on the first chapter when he tears Lum’s upper part of her bikini and later on sees how this could be a great opportunity for him to win using it, but lum doesn’t give in, so he begins to accept his fate, by him being a future outcast because he believes he will lose.

His character is more believable in the manga, being a pervert is a part of him sure, but that doesn’t represent him as a whole person.

In the manga when he was in a relationship with Shinobu, it was clear that he may be a pervert but he cared for Shinobu a lot, he protected her  from the mirror demon, we can actually see him being protective with the girl he likes, also he tells Lum in a clear way that he cares for Shinobu and not her meanwhile in the anime feels kinda awkward because he always looks another woman or does something pervert and Shinobu hits him, you  literally can’t say if Ataru is really serious about her as a romantic partner, he is more with her because she is his girlfriend or because he’s attracted to her.

In the manga he’s more honest about how he feels, he gets serious, you can see him not acting like an idiot all the time.

I will prove my point with the best example of the difference between Ataru’s character in the manga and Anime  because I want to explain more points about him:

In the anime, the fans of Lum invite the two of them to eat, then Ataru explain how Lum was the person who ruined his life and his girl’s hunting, how his relationship with Shinobu went downhill and then Lum in all seriousness asks..

And Ataru responds

by being rude.

And then Lum cleans his mouth because it was dirty and Ataru looks at the other way and tell her he can do it himself.

I disliked him a lot in this part, I disliked anime Ataru actions, he was so rude to Lum!

meanwhile, in the manga, they are normally chatting in the classroom and Lum says that she’s worried to leave him alone since he would do stupid things and then he responds “you can’t stop me from doing stupid things anyway!”, he knows that he does stupid things and doesn’t try to make himself look better from his behavior like in the anime version, then the ring sounds and he says to Lum to go since she wasn’t part of the classroom yet.

He tells her the same thing but he doesn’t shove her away.

Do you see my point?

In the anime except for the ovas and the movie that represented the final act of the series, Ataru character actually gets worse in girl hunting and he becomes a bigger pervert, there are exceptions in some episodes but sadly that is the image he has in the anime part so I can see people that had only watched the anime could dislike him so much,

Meanwhile in the manga he becomes more open,  his girl hunting begins to descend drastically, he’s still a pervert with girls but he isn’t so annoying like in the anime, he is more interesting and more like a protagonist.

2.Ataru’s personality.

People think low of Ataru, he’s really unlucky because of the date he was born,  but he’s still optimistic, he always tries to show that what kind of person he really is but he’s so used to being seen as a let down, he’s so used to being called an idiot that he doesn’t even care anymore.

Now his perverted side;  he’s a boy who has a lot of hormones doesn’t help his image, he makes mistakes and he likes women a lot sure, that’s one of his flaws but he is also insecure as heck,  Mendo made Shinobu fall in love with him because he was a better and rich version of himself, the girl he liked a lot at the time, he says bitterly that Shinobu lied to him and that is true, when Mendo arrived she became all hearts and love to him, breaking Ataru’s heart while he was trying his best to get away from Lum, people often criticize Ataru while Shinobu was also at fault.

His way of getting affection is by girl hunting, his so-called friends use him to be closer to Lum, so he really doesn’t have any close friends (in the anime we see more clearly how his friends treat him horribly and hit him, but Ataru still calls them friends because he doesn’t have any friends besides them) his own family looks down at him, the only one who has truly seen who he is, was Lum.

He’s always rejected, he’s so used to be the person people see him for, he acts like that because he even liked it at first but then as the pages go on, he matures and begins to be more sure about his own person, the tag of “obnoxious  girl hunting boy” isn’t his whole character anymore.

He begins to open up to Lum, he sees how much she really loves him and cares for him, sure he still thinks his freedom is important but we can see how he begins to not care about that freedom  like the beginning, it just became a routine to mess up with the girl he loves, to put the facade that he doesn’t care for her when he really does.

Ataru expresses himself with his actions, he is used to verbally lie, to hide how he really feels so he won’t get hurt or be mocked.

Ataru is strong sure but he also is emotionally fragile, he only shows this fragility only to her because he knows she won’t judge him, he has cried two times and I will forever be thankful that Rumiko gave us boys that show fragility by crying.

Lum is a strong and she is unfaced of what he says because she knows he doesn’t mean it, oh but when Ataru does actually something to hurt Lum is another story, he never wants to hurt her emotionally,  he even cried when he accidentally hit her in the head with a thing, making her forget his language.

Ataru has often shown in the series his good morals by protecting a strange worm, when he tried to help a girl with an umbrella curse, the scene with the ghost girl who had a crush on him, how he helped her to pass away.

His life is a crazy mess, accidents, and aliens but even with all the bad stuff fate throws at him he smiles and he tries his best to enjoy his life with his own  way while he matures.

An extra 

3. “Ataru Moroboshi is not as handsome as the other male protagonists”

Listen I need to put this point because I have seen people say that and I have to put it clear: the series Anime version made Ataru look like an idiot for most of the series, there was only one episode when he looked like his manga self.

The movie called the final chapter and the ovas are the exceptions because they changed the director, thank god.

(image made by: @lamotrijane)

But in the manga? his looks improve because let’s not forget that it was Rumiko’s first series.

This is Godai in the first chapter of the manga of Maison Ikkoku

Her style was like that back then, so yeah.

 And now let’s see Ataru’s  appearance in the last chapter of the manga:

Ataru may not be as handsome as the other Rumic boys, but he is good looking.

#rumic world #urusei yatsura #ataru moroboshi #uy #character analysis #i hopes this clear things!

[katedoesfics]

Please review the fic summaries below, then answer the question in the poll :)

[original fiction] Chasing Skies:

At sixteen years old, Sky was feeling the fresh wounds from her recent break-up with her high school love, but found comfort in an older friend who had always been there for her. But when things between them go further than she ever imagined, Sky finds herself a new world of pain, torn between right and wrong and her new feelings of love.

[original fiction]  The Zodiac Chronicles:

When the universe comes under attack, the fate of Earth lies in the hands of twelve unlikely people with connections to the mythical zodiac.

[original fiction]  Calliope:

As a witch created for evil, Calliope should not have felt guilty for her attacks against the people of Librona. But when she escapes her master's control, she finds herself in the midst of an age long war, and she is being hunted: hunted by the master she escaped, and hunted by a kingdom seeking revenge. But an unlikely camaraderie shows her that not everything is as it seems... 

[original fiction] The Anitaeon:

The Anitæon are an alien-like species of humans that have walked among us since the dawn of the human race. For centuries, they lived quiet, yet remarkable lives, intervening in our history as we know it. But a string of unexplained deaths and disappearances have led Keisha to believe that a war among the Anitæon has only just begun. If she cannot stop her brothers and sisters, the human race will fall.

[The Sims 3] Criminal:

Kari was good at her job. Damn good. The only thing is, her job wasn’t exactly something one would call a career. Her payments came only if she did what she was told, and always in cash, never leaving a paper trail. Such was the life of Sunset Valley’s biggest criminals. Caught up in her own personal affairs, however, Kari eventually escaped to Bridgeport in an attempt to start a new life for herself, only to be caught up once more on the wrong side of the law. Will she succeed and become the city’s most infamous criminal? Or will she realize that there’s more to life than crime? And what is she willing to give up to get what she wants? 

[The Sims 4] StrangerVille:

Jayson was NOT a conspiracy theorist. He moved to the remote, desert town of StrangerVille as it seemed as quiet and unremarkable as he was. It didn’t take long, however, before he got wind of the rumors about the recently abandoned lab to the north of the town, just on the outskirts of the desert. And though he chalked it all up to bored nonsense, he quickly came to realize there was much more about StrangerVille than he thought. 

Ikigai: [Legend of Zelda | Ocarina of Time / Twilight Princess]

Link had always been like a brother to Saria, helping her own brother, Mido, raise her since she was six years old. While Mido still treated her like a child in her teenage years, Link always took her problems - like her recent high school heart break - seriously, never chiding her. But one fateful night, their sibling-like relationship took a drastic turn, and Saria quickly found herself in a new world of love, lust, and heart break. 

The Lost Hero: [The Legend of Zelda | Breath of the Wild}

A Hylian boy living among the Gerudo, Dahvi always knew he didn't belong, despite the fact that he was raised like every other Gerudo child. So when the day came for him to go out on his own, he was eager to explore the vast kingdom of Hyrule for himself. But he would soon learn that the kingdom held many secretes, including secrets to his own identity. 

Honey & Vinegar: [Stardew Valley]

Pip was always the odd fairy out. They did not enjoy living in the forests and they did not particularly excel in magic. In fact, if it weren’t for their purple body and glittery wings, Pip couldn’t have been less of a fairy, which made leaving the protection of Stardew Valley a seemingly easy decision. But, the truth was, living amongst the judgmental humans in the city was just as challenging. If it wasn’t the purple skin and wings that turned people away, it was Pip’s awkward and rather introverted personality. And when Pip wasn’t saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, they were tripping over their own two feet and making the worst of any situation.

So when Rasmodius asked Pip to return to Stardew Valley, Pip was less than enthusiastic to return as the outcast fairy, but eager to have a chance to leave the city which was no better for them. That is, until Rasmodius came to Pip with a proposition: to help him return Pelican Town to the town it once was. And that only meant that Pip would have to prove their worth as a member of the community, working with the Junimos, the humans they were afraid of, and the other fairies left in the valley to save the town from turning into a metropolitan.

Days of Hyrule: [Legend of Zelda | Breath of the Wild Soap Opera]

Kidnappings, murder, affairs, and double agents are just a regular occurrence in the day to day lives of the people of Hyrule.

A Legend of Zelda soap opera spoofy fic/screenplay featuring Breath of the Wild characters and a somewhat relative plot line.

Just as ridiculous as it sounds. Not really a serious fic/writing. Just have some fun with it and laugh at all the soap opera cliches - I’ve included as many as I possibly could think of!

#fic #fics #fanfic #fanfics #fiction #poll #survey #loz #botw #legend of zelda #stardew valley #ts3 #ts4 #the sims #the sims 3 #the sims 4 #original fiction #fantasy #scifi #angst #romance

[jordan202]

My Boys: Beyond the Horizon - Chapter 10

hey guys, sorry for the long wait with this one.

This chapter focuses mostly on Megan and a situation that I think will ultimately serve to add a lot of personal growth to her. As a teenager, she is just uncovering the world and being challenged is a big, important part of the process of self discovery IMO.

It also has a cute Omelia moment that I just couldn't resist not adding. Cute bubbly Omelia flirting just makes my heart very happy.

As usual thank you @jia911 for proofreading and @bluebelle18 for being the JD to my Megan and always challenging me to do better.

My Boys: Beyond the Horizon – Chapter Ten

JD looked away from the music sheet. For the third time in less than five minutes, he caught blue eyes intensely staring at him. Just like it’d happened in all previous times, Megan looked away quickly, too embarrassed to be caught in the act.

For the past hour, they had been quietly sitting facing each other inside the music classroom. Every now and then, their teacher Mrs. Julian would walk by and ask if they needed any help, but Megan would quickly and politely refuse it, only to immediately go back to studying her own sheets.

But since she couldn’t seem to stop stealing a peek at him every ten minutes, JD could tell she was probably making a big effort to continuously stay in his presence without saying a word.

“You can just ask me, you know,” he decided to break the silence, instantly regaining her attention.

Megan turned her eyes up to meet his, mortified that she hadn’t held back the urge to look at the guy, especially because he’d caught her doing it every single time. Trying not to think about that, the teenage debated with herself whether or not to accept his suggestion. It would be too much of an obvious lie if she said there was nothing she wanted to ask. Megan was usually very good at reading people and she took pride in having a good intuition. Everything JD had showed so far had led her to think he was a terrible person and yet, for the past two days she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what he’d said in the school hall.

Sighing with resignation, the girl gave in, finally voicing the doubt that had been bothering her ever since.

“Were you really upset about what I said that day at Steve’s party?” she asked carefully, unaware of how adorable she looked when she frowned like that. In her mind, JD wasn’t really the kind of guy who cared about anyone or anything. So the fact that he had openly pointed out he thought she had accused him unjustly could only mean that… well… maybe he had actually been bothered by it?

JD successfully hid his surprise with the question. He lazily tapped a pencil on the sheet while thinking about an answer. He had never been one to lie and usually, the consequences of his excessive honesty didn’t bother him. But for some reason, that annoying girl looked so vulnerable and legitimately concerned with her widened blue eyes that he caught himself measuring his words not to come out too aggressive.

“I guess I was,” he replied sincerely. “You weren’t very fair to me,” the boy added, instantly noticing how she turned her chin up very proudly.

“You treated my friend like garbage!” Megan hissed, the fair skin on her face instantly flushing as made eye contact with him. “What was I supposed to think, that you-”

“Wait, what?” JD unceremoniously interrupted her, “how did I treat her like garbage?” the boy frowned heavily. “Only because I told her I didn’t want to be with her?”

At the same the boy admired Megan’s loyalty to Marianne and understood why she’d take her friend’s side in the messy situation, JD was also aware that the girl probably had been told about relationship only through her friend’s point of view.

Megan went silent for a few seconds. She knew Marianne was no saint and often idealized things too much, but it still didn’t justify JD doing things such as taking the girl’s virginity and then openly ignoring her days after.

“You were horrible to her,” Megan said, noticing a few people around had turned their heads to look because she’d just raised her voice.

“Because I treated her with honesty and truth?” JD replied unaffectedly.

Megan narrowed her eyes, suddenly not as compelled to give him a chance to talk. Did he seriously think he had actually been anything resembling nice to Marianne?

Megan had been there. She had witnessed firsthand how the guy had mostly ignored her friend. After what she’d heard about it and the alarming energy she’d felt in his presence, it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

There had been so many rumors… The girl thought back about the day she’d seen him for the first time. Claire had come up with absurd tales about his past and Megan had quickly dismissed them, judging the stories too ludicrous to be true. Over time, however, she’d come to wonder if Claire wasn’t right after all. Megan had never heard or seen anything remotely positive about the boy sitting right in front of her. He was cold, uncaring and absolutely selfish, exactly the kind of person she didn’t want to be around.

And yet, the shadow sparkling in his emerald green eyes made her question whether he was really being truthful or if he was just very good at manipulating people.

Well, not her, Megan decided. There was simply no way he could possibly charm her into believing he was worthy of her time or energy. Not after everything he’d showed. People often teased her about the way she couldn’t see an outcast and not reach out. This was probably just her nature tricking her into thinking she could somehow rescue that estranged boy from his own awful manners. It really was better to stay away and simply focus on the music work she had to do.

Restlessly fighting the urge to find out more and end her agonizing doubts, Megan couldn’t help herself. He’d said she could just ask him. On an impulse, the girl fired the first question that came to mind.

“Did you really take a knife to your old school?”

Megan raised her eyes and met his, immediately regretting having touched such an alarming subject. It had been bothering her ever since the day Claire had whispered that in her ear over the summer. Megan wished she had controlled her impulsivity a little better.

“Yes.”

His direct answer sent a shiver that ran up the girl’s spine.

So, there she had it… Megan had been brave enough to ask and looking into his eyes, she realized that JD really wasn’t lying. His voice had sounded so serious, there were no traces of playfulness in it. Nothing that made her think he felt sorry for doing what he’d just admitted either.

How did JD have the nerve to do such an inconsequent, horrible thing like that and openly confess it without even trying to justify why he’d done it?

“I don’t know how you sleep at night,” the girl whispered in alarm, more to herself than to him, but the boy caught up on her remark.

“I have a clean conscience, thank you for your concern,” JD replied in an ironic, dangerously low tone.

Megan noticed on his expression that his mood had gone from bored to suddenly very irritated. She could tell by the way his jaw was clenched that something she’d said had really gotten to him. And instead of making her feel satisfied, the realization made her feel strangely… agitated?

It didn’t matter, Megan thought. He had just admitted the worst and she was the one who had the right to be angry, not him. Her curiosity about his sudden mood change wasn’t enough to make her want to speak to the boy again.

For the following hour, Megan tried to devote her attention to the music sheet, not really sure how she should work as a team with JD, since after their brief dialogue he had simply pulled out what she later realized was a football playbook and remained focused on it for sixty whole minutes, completely ignoring the subject of the class they were in.

Even though rationally Megan had already decided that the best thing to do was to simply stay away, by the time class was over, she found herself waiting for the other students to leave the room so she could finally speak to him about the subject that had been bothering her. The girl had all the facts, she knew what JD had done. But what she couldn’t figure out was his motivation… And that was consuming her.

“Okay, so…” she started hesitantly, hoping to hold his attention. JD still looked like he was angry, but at least he had stayed back to listen. “Do you really, honestly believe you treated Marianne with respect and honesty?”

Megan could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t expecting her question. She wondered if his surprise also had to do with the patient tone she was using. It occurred to her just now that this was probably the first time they were talking without shouting at each other or making accusations, but rather calmly and politely holding a conversation where both people involved could take their turn to speak.

JD stood at a distance, carefully examining her face. Megan realized he was probably trying to see if she was being serious or setting him up.

“Look, none of us happy with it, but we are music partners now… At least until Mrs. Julian changes her mind about it, what I hope happens soon,” the girl explained, looking into his eyes. “If we sit together without saying a word for two hours like we did today, it’s obvious she is not going to cave,” Megan wisely pointed out. She was well aware the teacher expected JD to make progress in music class and more than that, after the little scene they had made in their previous class, it was very likely the teacher kept them together at least until they proved that they could work as a team. “And to be honest, I think it’s a horrible prospect to sit here in silence hating each other for the entire semester,” the teenager added with a half-hearted smile. She didn’t like him and they didn’t have to be friends, but at least they should be partners to actually work their assignments or else they’d be at risk for getting a bad grade like their teacher had kindly reminded them.  “You think that I judged you without hearing your side of the story,” Megan finally got to the point, seeing on his face that he was intrigued. “I will never know if you don’t tell me.”

JD’s first impulse was to tell her that it made no difference whatsoever if he explained to her his point of view. In fact, he wanted to say that he couldn’t care less what she thought. But before he could control, he heard himself taking part in the conversation.

“Does it really matter?”

Megan didn’t know why, but something in his defensive tone let her know she was being tested.

“Yes,” she responded to his doubt with security. JD had accused her of being unfair to him. Megan seriously doubted he could somehow justify his nasty behavior, especially when it concerned her friend, but since they were going to have to work together, she was kind of hoping he at least had a conscience or something that resembled a redeeming quality.

JD seemed to ponder whether or not to take that conversation forward but ultimately took a deep breath, slowly letting it out to finally answer her question.

“I never made your friend any promises,” he explained. “I was very honest with her, from the start.” On his first week in Seattle, his grandmother’s neighbor had introduced him to her granddaughter and after finding out they were going to the same school, the girl had quickly supposed they could spend time together. “We talked and hung out for a few days since I didn’t really know anyone in town yet…” Megan knew he was telling the truth because it was exactly what her friend had told her. “Marianne was the one who asked me out,” he added, looking Megan deeply in the eyes. “I told her I wasn’t looking for a relationship, I told her I didn’t want anything serious, with her or anyone else,” JD recalled, thinking about the disappointment in the girl’s eyes after he said the words, “it was obvious it wasn’t what she truly wanted but she told me it was fine. That we could just keep it casual and fun.”

“But still you…” Megan tried to think of words to express her discontentment with the situation, noticing he had stopped talking to give her the chance to speak her mind. “How is that being nice to her? You knew she was at risk for getting hurt and still you accepted to keep it going when it was obvious she was going to have her heart broken.”

“I never lied to her,” JD raised his eyebrows as if Megan was accusing him of something that didn’t make sense. “She is nice and I enjoyed going out with her, but to me that was it, I was clear about that. When Marianne started to act like it was more than it really was,” JD added, thinking about how clingy the girl had become, calling him and showing up when he was hanging out with his friends, “that’s when I had to be firm with her. So I ended it,” JD wished he had stopped talking then, but against his will, the words kept firing from his mouth. “How is that being disrespectful, exactly?”

“But you…” Megan sighed heavily. The scenario he was exposing didn’t surprise her that much, because it’d become obvious from the start to anyone who was paying closer attention that Marianne had been more involved with their brief relationship than JD had ever seemed to be. Megan remembered seeing how excited her friend always was whenever he was around, and how his façade often gave the opposite impression. When Megan had first seen the guy, he and Marianne had already been together for a few weeks. The girl supposed it was just when things had started to progress differently for each part involved.

But that wasn’t what bothered Megan the most, though. Even though she supposed JD could have been a little nicer on his attempts to stop Marianne’s advances, what had really annoyed the teenage girl was the fact that he had slept with her friend and then treated her like the moment had had absolutely no significance.

Just like Marianne, Megan was also inexperienced when it came to sex. And she just knew that if she’d lost her virginity to the guy she was in love with and he had coldly cast her aside only days after, she would have been devastated.

And very, very angry. Which was why she could relate to her friend’s plight at the moment.

Megan didn’t want to bring up the topic to discuss with him though because she believed she had no place exposing her friend’s personal life like that. Megan had known Marianne for a while now, and they were close. The girl recalled the way her friend had naively imagined that just because she was in love with the guy, JD would treat her the way she deserved to be treated. But he had ended things with her right after her first time, breaking her heart in the process.

“But I what?” JD rolled his eyes, impatiently. Why had he been stupid enough to even consider that the little hothead proudly standing up to him could somehow be any different from everyone else? “Stop looking for reasons to hate me, Megan. You probably heard things about me, decided I am this big villain and now you are desperately trying to hold onto that concept. I get it,” he raised his hands and added before turning around to walk away, “I know you are a spoiled little princess who’s used to having your way but it’s clear on your face you know that you know I did the right thing by being honest with your friend about the way I felt. But believe what you want to believe, I don’t care.”

Megan watched as he left the room. She knew she probably shouldn’t care. The guy was a rude, selfish human being who obviously didn’t care about anyone’s feelings.

“Yeah… I know you don’t… But you just had to sleep with her first, right?”

He still had his back turned to her, but Megan could hear his impatient sigh. He stopped walking and after a while of hesitation, finally turned around to look at her.

“What?” he impatiently asked.

“Before you decided to gallantly offer her your honesty, I mean,” Megan asked with a mix sarcasm and disapproval.  “You just had to take her to bed and make her feel humiliated to be ignored afterwards, right?”

Megan knew she should be furious. She knew she should hate how he’d called her spoiled. But they had exchanged so many indelicacies for the past few weeks that it didn’t even bother her nearly as much as his unfeeling attitude towards her friend did.

“I didn’t lie to her to have sex with her,” JD rolled his eyes, censoring himself for not having already walked away like he normally would. “Marianne told me herself she thought we should do it,” he added, looking at Megan with a loathing scowl. “You are so full of yourself, aren’t you?” he asked in a low tone. “So much that you think you’re doing your friend a big favor by fighting her own battles for her when you’re really just labeling her as unfit to make her own decisions,” JD fired, seeing the look of shock on Megan’s face at his accusations. “You think you’re helping Marianne but you are not. How are you respecting her, really?” he leaned over the girl, looking straight into her eyes. “How are you being respectful if you encourage Marianne to act like I somehow owe her anything just because we had sex? She wanted it, I wanted it and we did it. Then I didn’t want it anymore because she was suffocating me after. I never made her any promises, I never signed a contract… On the contrary. I said I wasn’t looking for anything serious.”

“She was hoping that if she slept with you that would make you want to be with her, you stupid jerk!” Megan read the situation clearly now. “Is that really so hard to see?” she asked with a mix or irony and fury. “Couldn’t you just have gone for someone who wasn’t blindly seduced by your stupid act?”

JD took a deep breath, determined not to fight with her again.

“Marianne is a big girl, Megan. Don’t coddle her and act like she was a victim to her own decisions,” he looked into her eyes, seeing his words were infuriating her. “Of course I saw she was into me more than I was with her. But from the moment I told her I wasn’t interested in being her boyfriend and she agreed to keep it casual, why should I be blamed because she didn’t keep her word?”

“Because she didn’t know any better and you should have!” Megan furiously strode towards him, proudly standing up to the guy who annoyingly seemed to have an answer for every one of her arguments. “She was in love with you, how did you ever consider she could have had her better judgment at the time?”

JD saw the rosy color on her cheeks as she defied him, visibly worked up.

“You know… Have you ever thought that maybe you spent all this time convincing yourself and everyone else that Marianne was somehow a victim to me, but in reality, it’s you who constantly sees her as the victim?” JD raised his eyebrows suggestively. Megan had done something amazing by standing up for her friend when she was visibly in a fragile state, but up to this day the girl still seemed determined to apparently bring justice to a situation she wasn’t really directly involved. “As the poor girl who deserves your help and can’t speak for herself?” he added, taking Megan by surprise again. “Yeah, I figured you haven’t,” the boy answered his own question after seeing the look on her face, taking satisfaction in feeling like he’d won that battle against that daring hotheaded girl. “You are not helping Marianne by shielding her from things. Instead you should be helping her stand up for herself if she really thinks I screwed up.”

Megan was alarmed by her own silence. What he was saying was absolutely despicable. It wasn’t true, she knew. She indeed had stepped up for her friend the day of the party, but only because JD had put her in a horrible situation. And even though Megan was well aware she’d had all the best intentions, his accusation still got her thinking. Because it didn’t prevent the girl from drowning in guilt for the way she really felt sorry for Marianne.

Maybe she just had felt too sorry?

Could it really be? Had Megan really acted like a super protective friend, shielding Marianne at all costs and perhaps only contributing to the girl’s already low self-esteem?

No way, Megan realized, swallowing hard. Perhaps on the long run, Marianne would be able to fight her own battles, but right now, she was still too fragile. And Megan was only doing for her friend what she would have liked to have someone doing for her had she been in Marianne’s shoes.

Maybe that was why it bothered Megan so much?

Just like Marianne, she didn’t have a lot of experience. Megan didn’t like to admit it very much, but that bothered her. When it came to relationships with boys, she felt too exposed and vulnerable. And because of it, she could totally empathize with her friend at the moment. One day, Marianne might be fit to defend herself. Until that day came, Megan would make damn sure no one abused her fragility like that dumb jock had just done.

Megan had done what she’d done with the best intentions. She didn’t regret it.

“Still, you walked away and told her nothing had happened,” the girl recovered from the blow, absolutely determined not to let him walk away feeling like he was right. “You’re an asshole and nothing you say can change that. I was there. I saw it.”

JD saw the spark of fury in her eyes and he could tell she was fighting an internal battle. Instinctively, he realized that his words had deeply messed with her, enough to make her rethink her own attitude. But it was the way that her fiery, hot approach had been replaced by a broken, hurt speech that really got to him.

It felt like all of a sudden, an uncomfortable feeling made him sick to the stomach and he didn’t even understand why. JD had seen girls act much worse when faced with his honesty before. Hell, he’d even seen them cry and it still, it hardly ever bothered him. Girls cried for no reason and they had an awful tendency of taking advantage of their fragility to get what they wanted.

But now, the impulsive girl with fiery blue eyes proudly stood her ground, apparently too caught up with her own emotions to remember his presence. JD also went silent as he thought about what Megan had said. It made sense, he knew. He wasn’t a hypocrite to think everything he did was justifiable. Sometimes, for reasons he couldn’t explain, his behavior tended to really hurt people. Enough that he avoided getting close to them as much as he could.

Maybe he should have exploded at Megan like that. But at the same time, it had unexpectedly bothered him that the girl whose loyal manners he’d admired and who he had initially believed to actually be different from everyone else had obviously jumped to conclusions about him without even giving him the benefit of the doubt.

He really thought Megan might have been different... How stupid of him, JD figured. After so many years of people making assumptions about him, he had grown used to it. It didn’t bother him anymore and JD should have known better by now. Why would Megan be any different? She was in the most comfortable place, surrounded by people who really seemed to love and admire her. Why on Earth would she ever have a reason to think her opinion might have been biased, or that maybe, there might be a different version to a story than the one she wanted to believe in?

Girls like Megan were too used to having things done their way. They had the world on a string and more than enough people willing to give them absolutely everything they wanted. Like her boyfriend, for example, JD thought with a scoff. The guy pretty much worshipped the ground she walked on and if he was trying to hide that, he was doing an awful job so far.

Yes, he really shouldn’t care. Megan was too spoiled for own good. She was probably one of those girls who deemed her opinion as the absolute truth, without even bothering to fact check first. JD knew her kind. They were high maintenance and abused the effect they had on guys to manipulate them into doing what they wanted. He was better off as further away from her as possible.

But still… JD couldn’t really ignore the fact that that small brave girl had stood up to him to defend her friend in a way he’d never seen anyone do before. So even though Megan was probably self-centered and obnoxious, he had to admit she at least was a loyal friend.

People were usually intimidated by him, he had long ago noticed that. Yet Megan Hunt had been more than willing to let him have it. At first, he had been impressed and even satisfied. After watching her from a distance and seeing the way she was kind and generous to her friends, JD had to admit that had been how he expected her to be different. But then as Megan had obviously made up her mind about him based on something as despicable as rumors – and judging by her question about the knife she had heard them - JD had to confess he’d felt rather disappointed… But mostly at himself, for having high expectations of her in the first place.

Turning around after giving up making sense of the entire thing, JD hesitated one more time.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he advised her.

Megan noticed the way he calmly stood with his hands inside his pockets. His emerald green eyes stared into her with such intensity that Megan felt like he was baring her soul.

“I still think you’re a jackass for the way you treated my friend but...” Megan bit her lower lip, taking one step in his direction. “It was wrong of me to call you out in front of everyone like that,” she admitted, letting out a heavy sigh. Even though the girl still though JD deserved the scrutiny for the way he’d treated Marianne, there had been several ways she could have handled it. Ways that didn’t involve humiliating him in front of their peers and openly making fun of him for things she didn’t even know might have personally touched a wound. Truth was, Megan didn’t know the guy. And she wasn’t interested in being friends with him. But that didn’t give her the right to treat him in a way she didn’t want anyone to be treated. “I was angry with you that you had hurt my friend and I fought fire with fire. That wasn’t very nice of me,” she belatedly realized. A mistake didn’t justify another. It didn’t matter if she thought JD owed Marianne an apology or not. She knew she was only responsible for her own actions. “I am sorry for the way I talked to you… and for the horrible things I said.”

Megan had seen him surprised a few times that afternoon, but just as she apologized, for the first time she thought the boy looked lost, as if he really didn’t know what to say. And that impacted her, because so far, JD always knew what to say.

The boy recovered from the unexpected action and held the Megan’s gaze, studying her expression to see if she really meant it, almost as if he couldn’t believe it. That went against everything he had decided she was. The way he had categorized her and made up his mind about the girl had just been unexpectedly challenged by her heartfelt apology.

“Okay,” it was the only thing he could mutter in response. She was still looking into his eyes and JD didn’t notice how hard he was trying not to break that contact.

It was the first time Megan saw him with his guard low, seemingly unsure of what to do. JD always looked confident and on top of his game, but now he looked more confused than she’d ever seen. Taking advantage of the situation to try to understand the guy a little more, Megan kept looking into his eyes, trying to break past his defenses. Her skills at figuring people out didn’t seem to work so well with him and that really bothered her.

“I have to go to practice now,” he said, finally breaking eye contact with the girl after what it felt like forever.

“Oh, right, football,” Megan reacted a little too quickly, instantly being brought back to reality as well. “Right. And I have to go to French class.”

The girl noticed as he nodded his head affirmatively, looking as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there. JD looked very uncomfortable. She was still trying to make sense of why things had gotten so awkward all of a sudden when, from across the hall, she heard his voice.

“Hey, Megan?”

The girl interrupted her thoughts to look up and once again meet his gaze.

“I didn’t know until it was too late,” JD sighed heavily, hating that he had the urge to tell her that, especially when he’d already decided he didn’t care what she thought. It was beside her point, but he still felt compelled to share the truth, unaware of how important what he was about to say was. “I didn’t know it was her first time,” he explained after seeing the confusion on the girl’s face. Instantly, Megan picked up on the fact he was speaking about Marianne and she was taken absolutely aback by the confession when JD added, “if she’d told me, I wouldn’t have gone forward with it.”

Before Megan could so much as open her mouth to reply, JD had already disappeared through the halls, leaving her only with several new doubts.

.

“Hey, Maggie,” Amelia asked for her best friend’s attention with a teasing voice. “Do you see that handsome man over there?” she pointed to the tall man with her eyes. “He’s into me.”

The two surgeons were standing next to the nurse station, both updating charts. Amelia had spoken loud enough so that only the two women and the guy approaching them could hear it.

Maggie chuckled with amusement at the same time Amelia received a look of pretend reprimand from her husband.

“What?” she openly flirted with him, biting her lower lip in a very tempting way, “I just called you handsome,” she pointed out. “You have no reason to look at me like that.”

“Right,” Owen tried to keep a serious face but was having a hard time containing the smile that insisted on forming on his lips.

“You’re into me,” Amelia insisted, absolutely determined to pester him.

Owen noticed she kept staring at him as if undressing him with her eyes.

“I am married to you,” he reminded her with his usual practicality.

“So?” Amelia blinked repeatedly as she approached him just enough to be able to whisper in his ear. “Have I told you that you look very hot with that tie?”

“What is it this time?” Maggie asked without taking her eyes off her chart. She and Amelia had been friends for years and she had grown used to the neurosurgeon’s playful ways. “What is she after?”

“Christmas bonus for her department,” Owen answered unaffectedly while checking lab results for the patient he was about to take to the OR. Even though they still had a few months before Christmas, he’d already notified his employees that whichever department showed the best performance during the semester would be granted a bonus check to invest in research at the end of the year.

“You know what I think,” Amelia shamelessly kept her act. She was kidding and they both knew it. As long as she didn’t resort to anything unprofessional such as speaking about their private life in front of colleagues or patients – and Amelia never did – she knew Owen enjoyed their playful banter as much as she did.  “I think that Dr. Hunt is very interested in Neurosurgery.”

“I am sure he is,” Owen finally looked up to meet her flirtatious gaze and couldn’t contain his laughter. Amelia was playing games with her words. Owen decided to believe she was talking about their son and he could see her sneaky, witty bribery. Sometimes, he could tell his wife was more interested in playing and winning a challenge than in the actual reward. This was one of the cases.

“Maggie, don’t you think we owe it to the younger generations to make sure they get a good education?” Amelia asked her friend without breaking eye contact with Owen. It was now a game and whoever looked away first would lose.

“I think Tom would be much better off if he pursued a career in cardiothoracics,” Maggie affirmed with conviction.

“You know what I think?” Owen stared into his wife’s eyes, making a herculean effort to keep a straight face. She wouldn’t stop tempting him and he could see her intentions so clearly that it made him want to be alone with her, just so he could kiss away that wicked smile off her lips. “I think Dr. Shepherd here has way too much free time on her hands. Maybe she should go back to work.”

“You know what I think?” Amelia failed at her resolution not to laugh and finally stopped with the silly act, having way too much fun with the conversation, “I think you’re pretty cute.”

“Thank you, Dr. Shepherd,” Owen’s voice sounded serious but his smile and the look on his face translated just what he wanted to say to her.

Amelia saw his loving expression and watched as her husband walked away. Before the elevator doors closed, Owen looked in her direction one more time and the moment their eyes met, both surgeons exchanged a happy, genuine smile.

“You guys are so annoying,” Maggie teased with a sigh, looking from the elevator to her best friend. Owen and Amelia had one of the happiest and nicest relationships she’d ever seen and Maggie felt nothing but proud of her friend for it. “By the way, how are things with Tommy?”

“They’re better,” Amelia shared. Earlier that week, Owen had had an important conversation with their son and Thomas already seemed to be a little more comfortable in his shoes at work. “We haven’t had the chance to sit down and discuss it yet but from what little Owen has been able to tell me, I think Tom really needed that talk.”

“Good,” Maggie was glad to heart it. Thomas was her godson and even though she loved all of Amelia’s kids, she had always felt a special connection to the boy. “He’s rotating in my service next week.”

“Don’t contaminate my son with your nasty specialty, please,” Amelia smiled mischievously.

“I can’t make any promises,” Maggie laughed along. “And how is that thing with Megan and the new boyfriend?” the cardiothoracic surgeon asked with interest. Her daughter and Megan had grown up best friends all their lives and both girls were very close to their mothers. “Claire told me she is dating one of the guys in their group. Has she told Owen yet?”

“Not yet,” Amelia confessed with a lighthearted tone. “Meg is taking him to Lucas’ game on Saturday but she is going to introduce him to her dad and the boys as one of her friends,” Amelia shared. She was the only one in the house who knew about her daughter’s plan and honestly, she considered it a wise idea. If Owen and her sons met Megan’s boyfriend without the heavy weight of what the position meant, maybe they would be able to form a little less biased opinion of the guy before the Hunt boys crucified him, which would invariably happen as soon as Megan told her father and brothers about their real relationship status. “I actually have plans to pick up Megan from school tomorrow. She asked me to go the market with her to buy lobster or something like that… For some reason she is cooking dinner every night this week,” Amelia looked up and met her friend’s eyes. “I think she is really trying to soften Owen before Saturday.”

Maggie had fun with the plot.

“Are you sure she is really your kid?” the cardiothoracic surgeon asked with playful sarcasm. Amelia laughed, agreeing with head. Her daughter had the same sneaky manners as she. “Well, I guess as long as Megan is happy, neither Owen nor the boys have any right to meddle,” Maggie pointed out.

“Agreed,” Amelia replied with heartfelt contentment. “Now, who is going to help me convince them of that? Because that’s a whole different story.”

Maggie stopped what she was doing and processed the question for a moment.

“Good point…” the surgeon added, glad she wasn’t in Amelia’s shoes. “I honestly have no idea.”

 --

next chapter finally brings the answer to the question of “what the hell happened to Lucas, Emily and Amelia five years ago?”

#omelia #owen hunt #amelia shepherd #greysanatomy #myboys #myboysfanfiction #omeliafanfics #omeliafic #amenff

[unabashedly-here]

I am reopening my requests for these prompts! Please specify what character you want with which movie quote! Also, if you have any suggestions, send them to me with a character.

Aladdin 🐒

_______ , _______ , (he's/she's) our man. If (he/she) can't do it, GREAT!

Do you trust me?

She thinks the monkey is the sultan.

If you wanna court the lady, you gotta be a sharp shooter.

Wake up and smell the hummus.

I’m history! No, I’m mythology! Nah, I don’t care what I am!

Will not break! Will- it broke.

(She's/He’s) smart, fun. The hair, the eyes. Anything. Pick a feature.

First, that fez and vest combo is much too third century. These patches. What are we trying to say? Beggar? No. Let's work with me here.

Tangled 🌞

Person A: Don't freak out! / Person B: Freak out? Who's freaking out? I’m just very interested in your hair and the magical qualities it possesses. How long has it been doing that?

Frankly, I'm too scared to ask about the frog.

That's part man-smell, and the other part is really bad man-smell. I don't know why, but overall it just smells like the color brown. Your thoughts?

Viola! We'll part ways as unlikely friends

I hope you're here to apologize.

Person A: Who's that? / Person B: They don't like me. / Person A: Who's that? / Person B: They don't like me either. / Person A: Who's that?!  / Person B: Let's just assume for the moment that everyone in here doesn't like me!

Well, that's the good part I guess. You get to go find a new dream.

Go. Live your dream. (...) Your dream stinks. I was talking to them.

Frying pans... who knew right?

Lion King 🐯

I know what I have to do. But going back means I'll have to face my past. I've been running from it for so long.

Let me get this straight. You know her. She knows you. But she wants to kill him. And everybody's okay with this? Did I miss something?!

Oh, I shall have to practice my curtsy.

Person A: Gee. He looks blue. Person B: I'd say dirty. Person A: No, no, no. I mean he's depressed.

No, no, no. Amateur. Lie down before you hurt yourself.

Temper, temper. I wouldn't dream of challenging you.

Good idea. (...) HEY!

Ah, you're an outcast! That's great. So are we.

Why should I believe you? Everything you ever told me was a lie.

Peter Pan  🌌

I hereby banish you forever. (...) Well, for a week then.

(Girls/Boys) talk too much!

Oh... well, I think (she's/he’s) lovely.

Nobody calls ___ a coward and lives!

You can't stick it on with soap,____ It needs sewing. 

And sooner or later, ____, people have to grow up.

A jealous (female/male) can be tricked into anything.

Don't you understand, ____? You mean more to me than anything in this whole world!

Little Mermaid 🐬

Oh, you really delight in these sadistic strain on my blood pressure don't you.

Hm. Teenagers. They think they know everything. You give them an inch, they swim all over you.

I'm sixteen years old. I'm not a child anymore.

____, listen to me. The human world is a mess.

I'm surrounded by amateurs. You want something done, you've got to do it yourself.

Have I ever been wrong? I mean when it's important!

So much for true love!

____, if I may say, far better than any dream (girl/boy) is one of flesh and blood. One warm, and caring, and right before your eyes.

You are hopeless, child. You know that. Completely hopeless.

Cinderella 👗

A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep.

So this is love. So this is what makes life divine.

Oh, that clock! Old killjoy. I hear you. "Come on, get up," you say, "Time to start another day." Even he orders me around.

Good Heavens, child! You can't go in that.

Now, remember, your blood pressure!

I don't think you're half trying.

There must be something good about him.

After all, I suppose it would be frightfully dull, and-and-and boring, and-and completely... Completely wonderful.

Frozen ❄️

You hesitated.

Some people are worth melting for. Just maybe not right this second.

Oh, look at that. I’ve been impaled.

I’ll distract them while you run.(…) Because I love you, ____, I insist you run. (…) Why aren’t you running?

Whoa. Now that’s ice. I might cry.

I love it! I could kiss you! I could. I mean, I’d like to. I. May I? We me? I mean, may we? Wait, what?

(She’ll/He’ll) die on their own. I can live with that.

Person A: You almost set me on fire! / Person B: But I didn’t!

Moana 🌊

Are you just trying to get me to talk about myself? Because if you are... I will gladly do so.

Um... what? I said help me! And wrecking my ____? Not helping!

If you start singing, I'm gonna throw up.

Aah! That is disgusting! What is wrong with you?

Sometimes who we wish we were, what we wish we could do, is just not meant to be.

Whatever just happened... blame it on the pig.

They took one look and they decided... that they did not want me.

I'm not killing myself so you can prove something you're not. It chose wrong.

Snow White 🍎

Rags cannot hide (her/his) gentle grace.

There’s dirty work afoot.

(She/He) don’t know, (she/he) never tried.

I'm awfully sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you.

(She’s/He’s) beautiful. Just like a angel!

Now, make a wish, and take a bite.

We are standing by a wishing well.

There's nobody like (her/him).

Sleeping Beauty 💗💙

You know, sometimes I don't think (she’s/he’s) really very happy.

Well, I'm really not supposed to speak to strangers, but we've met before.

It can only do good, dear, to bring joy and happiness.

Why do they still treat me like a child?

Oh, they're hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil.

Oh... I just love happy endings.

(She/He) always ruins your nicest flowers.

I warn you,___. This means war!

Tarzan 🐵

Person A: I know everything. Now, where have you been? / Person B: I thought you knew everything.

Now, you stay away from me. Like a very good wild man.

Put me down! Put me down! (…) No, pick me up, pick me up, pick me up!

Thaaaaat's IT! I've had it with you and your emotional constipation!

What is this world coming to? (punch) Oh, by Jove. Don't know my own strength.

Oh, with the face and the eyes... All right! All right! But you'd better not make me do anything stupid.

What about bacteria?

It can't get any worse, can it? Obviously, it can.

Hercules 💪🏻

Person A: Aren’t you … a damsel in distress? / Person B: I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day.

Well, you know how men are. They think "No" means "Yes" and "Get lost" means "Take me, I'm yours.” (…) Don't worry, maybe Shorty here can explain it to ya.

Person A: ___, when I’m with you, I don’t feel so alone.  / Person B: Sometimes it’s better to be alone.  / Person A: What do you mean? / Person B: Nobody can hurt you.

For a true hero isn't measured by the size of his strength, but by the strength of his heart.

Fabulous party. You know, I haven't seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself.

WHAAAT?... Okay, fine, fine. I'm cool. I'm fine.

People do crazy things... when they're in love.

Rule number 95: concentrate. (…) Rule number 96: aim!

The Emperor's New Groove 🐪

Person A: Uh-oh.  /  Person B: Don’t tell me. We’re about to go over a huge waterfall. /  Person A: Yep.  / Person B: Sharp rocks at the bottom? /  Person A: Most likely.  / Person B: Bring it on.

It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say!

Make my potatoes a salad.

We've been through this. It's a harp, and you know it.

Pull the lever, ___! (…) Wrong lever!

Oh, it's not the first time I was tossed out of a window, and it won't be the last. What can I say? I'm a rebel.

Well, ya got me. By all accounts, it doesn't make sense.

Is that my voice? Is that my voice? Oh, well.

Mulan 🐉

My little baby, off to destroy people.

What? What do you mean you're not lucky? You lied to me? What are you, a sheep?

Oooh! All right, that's it! Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family! Make a note of this: dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow.

No fightin', play nice with the other kids, unless, of course, one of the other kids wanna fight, then you have to kick the other kid's butt.

Yeah, the only girl who'd love him is his mother.

Um... You... You fight good.

I think the question is, who are you! We're in a war, man! There's no time for stupid questions!

You missed! How could you miss? (She/He) was three feet from you!

#disney prompts #disney #peter parker imagine #barry allen imagine #remus lupin imagine #harry potter imagine #marvel imagine #dc imagine #newt scamander imagine #newt imagine #peter pan imagine #teen wolf imagine #peter parker imagines #tom holland imagines #oliver wood imagine