#aka when he said he could protect her from them until she was like “its not enough. I need them dead” and he kinda just started to accept

[maddymoreau]

I read this interesting post:

https://www.tumblr.com/rocket-69/691648665881886720/its-sixxers-fallout-fallen-knight-let-me?source=share

That discusses how while Victor is a lovable character he's a product designed to lure Courier Six into New Vegas. This post got my brain juices flowing so bad I made Tumblr glitch with how much I tried writing in the tags. So I had to make my own post.

I find it EXTREMELY interesting how all the AIs Mr. House created while fun and lovable are also products.

Jane being a copy of Mr. House's favorite girl a starlet he dated before the Great War. She's designed to entertain him similarly to how the workers at Gomorrah "entertain" customers.

Jane: "Mr. House has a lot of needs, sugar. I take care of all of them, and a lady doesn't kiss and tell."

There's also an emotional aspect to the services she provides him.

If he wanted her just for sex he wouldn't have specifcally scanned her brain. He could've gotten anyone. While famous Jane wasn't even a star but a starlet. A young actress with aspirations to become a star.

While he might have liked Jane's personality which is why he picked her. Ultimately their relationship was a business transaction.

Raul: "She said they never, um... don't make me spell it out, boss. Anyway, she said all he wanted to do was scan her brain and make her dress up in different outfits."

Mr. House scanned her brain to create an artificial relationship (separate from the real Jane) designed to satisfy his needs post Great War. Mr. House had the technology to save the real Jane but chose not to.

A lot of people also seem misunderstand the reason why Mr. House doesn't have sex with Jane. It's because he physically COULDN'T.

Ignoring cut content. Mr. House was already attached to the machine keeping him alive. He's connected to an Electrode-studded command helmet on the day of the Great War.

It's how Mr. House protected New Vegas:

Raul: "I remember there were some weird stories about him, especially near the end." NEAR THE END.

Mr. House takes Jane's personality to the EXTREME. Designing her to stoke and inflate his ego by being able to only say positive things about him. Jane is a product designed to provide Mr. House a service all while managing his snow globe collection. She doesn't even respond when the player says goodbye to her.

Then there's Mr. Vegas who was an AI created before the Great War. A charming DJ for Radio New Vegas to play music but also spread the news.

Mr. House also did to the same to the tribes by turning them into The Strip AKA a money making product.

He molds people into exactly what HE wants for his benefit.

The BIGGEST example of this was Benny! However that didn't work because Benny is human. Benny had his own ambitions and desires.

Mr House: "I have to think that he found out about the Platinum Chip and mistakenly convinced himself that he could use it to his own ends."

Mr. House even flat out admits it to the player.

Mr. House: "Benny has led the Chairmen ever since I recruited his tribe seven years ago. Until his recent misbehavior, I'd planned to make him my protege. Maybe if I'd begun grooming him sooner, none of this would've happened..."

Protege meaning a person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced or influential person. He wanted to GUIDE Benny into a specific role. Which the player can even ask about.

Courier Six: "What use would you have for a protege?"

Mr. House: "To achieve my aims, I require a capable human agent to perform certain . . . tasks."

HE DOES THE SAME WITH COURIER SIX!!!

Testing them to see if they can get to New Vegas on their own.

This awesome post goes into more details about it:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/741007168343588864/veronicaroyce-it-always-bothered-me-that-mr?source=share

Mr. House even mentions you being a more-than-suitable replacement for the role he wanted Benny in.

ALSO during your first meeting with Mr. House this exchange can happen:

Courier: "Why the VIP treatment? I'm just a courier."

Mr. House: "Oh, don't be coy. You've been playing a high-stakes game ever since Victor dug you out of the ground. Don't be afraid to admit it."

DON'T BE AFRAID TO ADMIT IT. HE'S TEACHING YOU!!!! HE'S GUIDING YOU INTO THE ROLE HE WANTS!!!

Mr. House: "You see that you and I are of a different stripe, don't you? We don't have to dream that we're important. We are."

While Mr. House may act like he's above feelings and relationships. HE'S NOT!!!! It's why the player's karma can affect his ending SO MUCH!!!!

Another incredible post discussing it:

https://www.tumblr.com/maddymoreau/740922764666585088/veronicaroyce-something-i-think-a-lot-about-is?source=share

A lot of people think Mr. House is an idiot for picking Benny but people forget Benny's drive. Hell just rewatch the intro cutscene where he shoots Courier Six.

Mr. House being human is also WHY he picks Benny despite Swanks being far more loyal. Swanks is an unimaginative employee.

MR. HOUSE LIKE'S BENNY'S PERSONALITY. HE NOT STUPID HE KNOWS WHAT BENNY PERSONALITY IS LIKE!!!

Mr. House: "I have a certain tolerance for greed. I expect my business partners to be self-interested - but smarty so."

However he misjudged Benny and even admits it.

Mr. House: "Obviously, I miscalculated his drive for supremacy."

In the Yes Man ending we learn.

Yes Man: "I found some code snippets in one of Mr. House's databanks that will let me, um, reprogram my personality! To be a little more assertive, basically!"

Meaning while small Mr. House has programming to allow characters like Victor and Jane free will. He WON'T use it though because he wants the specific services and relationships they provide him.

HE'S A WEIRDO CONTROL FREAK WHO ACTS LIKE HE'S ABOVE HUMAN EMOTIONS BUT HE'S NOT AND I LOVE IT!!!!

In the ending with high good karma it even says: "Mr. house afforded him/her every luxury at his disposal in the Lucky 38, out of gratitude - and a quiet sense of pride for his choice in lieutenants."

Of course because of his ego (look at the obituary that appears when he dies) but GRATITUDE. Spoiling Courier Six with all the luxuries he can provide doesn't sound like a basic employee and employer relationship he likes to act like what they have is.

Mr. House: "In any case... this is an employer - employee relationship. I've given you an assignment, and the directions are clear."

If you want to take the G.E.C.K script notes into consideration they even says:

Mr. House: ''You know, I've had thousands of employees in my time. Few met my expectations, fewer still surpassed them.'' {You know, I never had much time for a family - if I did, you'd be the daughter/son I wish I'd had. Benny was almost like a son to me, but well...}

Courier Six being loyal to Mr. House means so much more to him then he'd ever want to admit. EVEN AT THE END OF THE GAME WHEN THE PLAYER HAS FINISHED THEIR WORK AT THE SECOND BATTLE OF HOOVER DAM HE AUTOMATICALLY GETS EXCITED DISCUSSING THEIR NEXT PLANS!!!!!

#Courier Six doing and being exactly what he wanted them to be allows Mr. House to feel comfortable with them. #I wanna ramble about this emotionally stunted 261 year old man HE'S SUCKS SO MUCH I LOVE IT *EXPLODES*!!!!! #Please correct me I'm wrong about anything or just talk about him with me akjdlfhnov; s #Anytime I make a long analysis post about a character I get nervous that I missed a detail that would contradict everything I wrote. #Fallout New Vegas #Mr. House #MadisonPlaysFalloutNewVegas #Long Text #MadisonHouse

[lightandheatao3]

The Bunker - Criminal Minds

Chapter 1: The Bunker

Summary: Spencer Reid wakes up in a locked bunker to find half the current BAU and two of its departed members unconscious on the floor. The old team is back together but the reunion is not what any of them would have wished for. An Unsub from their past has decided it's time they all stop keeping secrets, even if it means exposing them by force.

Hotch and Derek have been pulled back into a world they tried to escape. Emily, Rossi, and JJ are doing their best to keep it together. Spencer is falling apart.

AKA a found family is reunited and forced to go through the most nightmarish version of family therapy imaginable.

Set months after the end of Criminal Minds: Evolution. Evolution referenced, but not necessary to understand the story.

Read chapter 1 on AO3 or under the cut. All comments and reblogs are so appreciated <3

Chapter 2 link

Spencer cracked his eyes open, flinching from the white fluorescent light and blinking hard against the groggy, dull ache in his head.

His mouth was dry, body heavy. A familiar wake up. He reached his hand out blindly for the relief waiting on his bedside table.

No- wait.  

His lights are all yellow toned filament bulbs, not white fluorescents.

The smell was wrong. The dull electrical buzz in the air was louder, pitched higher.

His eyes shot open wide and he scrambled to his feet.

This wasn’t home.

He surveyed his surroundings, fighting the wave of dizziness that came with standing too abruptly.

“Oh no,” he said out loud. “Nonononono…”

The room was large and square and made entirely of concrete. Up the top a small vent, too high to reach and too small for a person to fit into. A heavy door with a double walled chamber for someone to put things into without having to interact with the person on the other side. The kind you would find in a maximum-security prison cell. The whole room felt like a prison cell, a place he’d hoped to never be again. At the back of the room a small en-suit that was completely stripped bare but for a metal toilet with no seat and a sink that was bolted into the wall. There was a door that could be shut, but there was a gap under it and a hole where a doorknob had clearly been removed.

A camera. There on the roof, drilled in and protected by a plexiglass dome, blinking its little red light at him. He stared at it for a moment, then closed his eyes.

He slowed his breathing. Now was not the time to fall apart. Not now. Not yet.

Not when there were 5 of his friends prone on the ground around him, unconscious as he had been only moments ago.

Each was laid out on a thin foam mattress, the kind with no seams or springs that could be fashioned into tools.

His first stop was the door. He knew before he tried it that it wasn’t going to open, but he had to make sure. As soon as that was confirmed, he turned his attention to the people in the room with him.

He rushed over to Emily first, rolling her onto her side and checking her pulse. It was slow, but steady. He looked around at the rest of them, noting the gentle rise and fall of their chests. All alive. He sighed audibly, clasping his hands together in thanks and relief for a split second before turning back to Emily.

He gently shook her, putting his hand on her cheek in what he hoped was a comforting way. His hands were shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the comedown. “Emily," he said gently. “Emily, it’s me, Spencer. Wake up Emily.”

After a few more repetitions her eyes fluttered, then opened. She looked up at him hazily. “Spencer?”

“Hi,” he said sadly, knowing there were only a second left until she realized the danger they were in and wanting to let her experience that second in peace.

She glanced behind him where JJ lay unconscious. He looked at her pupils. They were constricted, confirming his suspicions.

“Oh my god,” Emily gasped, her hand reaching up to clutch his shoulder. She leveraged herself against him to drag her way up into a sitting position. She rubbed at her eyes blearily, then opened them again and cast them around the entire room. “Fuck,” she breathed.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Her eyes snapped back to him. “Are you alright?” she asked urgently, looking him over. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “And I don’t know. I woke up a minute ago. I don’t remember how I got here. I think we were all drugged.”

She hummed in agreement. “Last thing I remember I was outside my apartment on the way home from the gym. I still feel a little out of it. God, Spencer, you look awful,” she said, putting a hand over his. “What did they do to you?”

“Same thing as you, most likely.” He looked away. “Emily, that’s Hotch over there,” he deflected. “And Derek.”

Emily looked to where he was pointing. Her expression was solemn, professionalism kicking in even in these dire circumstances. “Yeah. And no sign of Tara, Matt, or Luke. And no Penelope, thank God. Whoever did this, they’ve got a grudge against us that predates the others joining the BAU. Someone who met all of us but never had direct interaction with Penelope. This is good. If the others are free, they’ll find us.”

Spencer nodded in agreement. “This is someone with the skill to find Hotch in witness protection. If he wasn’t dead, I would have said it was Scratch. The logistics of kidnapping 6 highly trained federal agents takes an enormous amount of planning and ability. There are only handful of people we’ve encountered with the capacity to pull something like this off.”

She rubbed at her temples. Her eyes were losing the glassy sheen as the adrenaline counteracted the effects of the drugs. “I assume you tried the door?” He nodded. “I guess we should wake the others.”

No sooner than she said it, JJ stirred. They both crawled over to her. Her wake up process went much the same as Emily’s, but for the fact that the first thing she asked about was if her children were safe, before she’d come to enough to realize they had no way of knowing.

“Whoever this is likely targeted you while you were alone,” Spencer assured her. “It’s much safer to take a victim without witnesses, especially a victim who is trained to defend themselves and needs to be physically incapacitated.”

Next, they woke Rossi, who responded immediately by swearing up a storm and threatening to rip the head off whoever was responsible for this.

“Hey, Dave, it’s okay,” said JJ in a calming voice, even as she looked about to cry. “There’s nobody in here but us.”

He breathed. He nodded. He cursed again. He nodded again.

“At least I’m not alone this time,” he said with a world weariness that Spencer felt in his gut.

They had all been in situations like this before, but Rossi was barely recovered from the last time only a few months ago. Spencer still regret so deeply that he wasn’t there to help with Elias Voit.

“No, you’re not alone,” agreed Emily emphatically. “On that note, look who else is here,” she said.

“God fucking dammit,” cursed Rossi as his eyes swept over Derek and landed on Hotch.

Seeing Derek there was upsetting, but it wasn’t as jarring as Hotch’s presence. Derek still came along to the occasional social event, though less and less recently, as he was busy with the birth of his second child. Spencer personally still saw him once a month or so, though the past year their contact had been more limited to phone calls. They were all dreading having to watch him learn he’d been pulled into this nightmare, but if nothing else they could offer him the comfort of familiarity and camaraderie.

But Hotch… none of them had heard so much as a whisper from him in years. When he disappeared, he did so completely. It’s the kind of thing that would have wounded Spencer deeply under any other circumstances, but after everything Daniel Lewis aka Mr Scratch had put him through, he only ever hoped that Hotch had found every semblance of peace that life could give him. He’d missed him badly at times, but he would have rather they never meet again than have to meet like this.

They decided to wake Derek first.           

Rossi nearly got a fist in the face before Derek pieced together what was happening. Then, he put a fist directly into a concrete wall instead.

“I’m going to regret that when the drugs wear off,” he said sheepishly once he’d calmed down just a bit. “Whatever they dosed us with, they did not skimp. The comedown is gonna suck,” he said, side eyeing Spencer, who pretended not to notice.

The question and answer was the same as with the others. Do you remember anything about who took you? No. Has anyone tried the door? Yes. Derek threw a shoe at the camera for good measure, but of course it just bounced off the plexiglass and landed pathetically on the floor.

The bang of it hitting the concrete was enough to make Hotch finally stir. They all turned to face him, staring helplessly.

His hair was longer than Spencer had ever seen it. Still short, but more relaxed, skimming the bottom of his ears and starting to curl a little at the base of his neck. He was still lean, but some of the muscle had been replaced by fat. He looked just a little softer. Healthier. His face was peaceful. Spencer always remembered him looking tense, even in his sleep. His hair was streaked with grey but somehow this was the youngest Spencer had ever seen him look.

He stirred a little more, blinking at last.

Ah, there was the familiar tension creeping its way back across his face.

Rossi was the one who finally knelt down beside him. “Aaron? I’m so sorry my friend,” he said sadly as recognition flashed in Hotch’s eyes.

“I’m dreaming,” came the familiar voice. Spencer had missed that voice more than he'd known.

Hotch closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. He looked past Rossi at the rest of them. Spencer raised his hand in a polite greeting, then immediately felt like an idiot for doing so.

“I’m not dreaming,” he said, no trace of emotion in his voice.

“I’m afraid not,” Rossi confirmed.

Hotch fixed his eyes on Rossi again, pushing himself up so he was sitting against the wall. He looked like he was staring at a ghost, trying to figure where the projector was. “When did you get so old?” he said, reaching out a hand to Rossi’s face and poking at it.

Rossi grabbed the offending hand and clasped it between both of his. “Careful. You’re no spring chicken yourself,” he joked.

“No,” said Hotch, still expressionless. “Peter Lewis is dead. This isn’t my life anymore. He’s dead. They told me he died. I saw photos of the body.”

Spencer didn’t know that, but judging by Rossi’s lack of surprise, he pieced together that the older man had likely made sure the witness protection people had passed the photos along.

“Scratch is dead,” Rossi confirmed. “Whoever did this, it’s not him.”

“This. Isn’t. Real,” Hotch insisted, the first sign of emotion entering his voice in the form of hysteria as he pulled his hand away from Rossi and scrambled to his feet. “All of you stay away from me!” he yelled, looking at each of them in turn.

JJ grabbed onto Spencer’s arm. He flinched at first, then put an arm around her and gave what he hoped was a comforting squeeze. Derek took a step towards Hotch, but Emily held him back.

Hotch backed into the corner, looking at them like a caged animal. They were all caged animals now, Spencer supposed. An unfortunately familiar role.

“Hotch,” Spencer said, surprising himself by speaking. They all turned to look at him. He couldn’t back away now. “This is real. I’m so sorry this is happening to you, but Penelope and the rest of our team aren’t here, which means they are out there looking for us. I know it doesn’t feel real. We have all been drugged and you are probably still feeling the effects. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t real, but it is,” Spencer said kindly but emphatically.

“We’ll get out of this together,” said Emily. “It’s going to be okay.”

Hotch’s eyes were looking just a little clearer.

“Listen man, I know what you’re feeling. I got out, too, remember? I have a family and I don’t know if they’re alright. I’m right here with you. We’re all on your side. Do you believe me?” asked Derek, and this time Emily let him take a step forward.

 Hotch looked around at all of them again. He assessed them carefully. Then, he turned to the corner, putting his back to them and his hand over his face. It was the closest thing he could get to privacy and Spencer was suddenly grateful to have woken up first to process all of this without being watched.

Well, except for the camera.

They all looked at the floor and did their best to give Hotch space. It was almost a full minute before he finally tuned back around.

There was that stoic expression that Spencer remembered. All that youth and peace was gone from his face in an instant. Spencer hoped so badly that it wasn’t gone for good.

“What do we know?” asked Hotch, crossing his arms.

A moment of silence passed and Spencer wondered if the rest of them felt their hearts breaking into pieces at this cruel facsimile of a reunion.

“Why don’t we start with the last thing each of us remembers?” said Emily, stepping up beside Hotch and looking back at the rest of the room, two natural leaders doing what they do best.

Each of them recounted the details they knew before they woke up in this room.

They had been going about their lives, nothing special. The only common thread they could find was that each of them was alone when their memories stopped.

Derek had been at a picnic with his family and the last thing he remembered was leaving to use the park bathroom. Emily on her way back from the gym. JJ heading out to get groceries. Rossi walking home late from a bar.

“I was driving to work,” said Hotch shortly.

“We’re going to need more detail than that if we want to put together a timeline,” prompted Rossi. "Where do you work?"

Hotch pursed his lips. Spencer could see him strategizing in his head. He wasn’t back in their lives by choice. Spencer understood.

He didn’t get it back when Gideon left, but he got it now. Once you let people in the door, it can be impossible to fully extricate them. Hotch’s old life was filled with trauma he was trying to leave behind and the team were living representations of that past. Spencer couldn’t bring himself to be hurt by the other man’s reticence.

“A legal consultancy in a small town in Kentucky,” he said reluctantly, like divulging the smallest part of his personal life meant inviting the entire FBI right back into it.

“That’s an 8 hour drive,” said Derek. “No wonder you were so out of it compared to the rest of us. You must have been dosed multiple times to keep you under that long.”

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I’m still a bit foggy, if I’m being honest,” he admitted quietly. “What about you, Reid?”

Spencer blinked. “I feel fine.”

“No, I mean what’s the last thing you remember?”

Oh. Right. “I went to sleep in my apartment, then I woke up here,” he said honestly. It wasn’t important what he was doing before he went to sleep.

“Since we can be fairly confident whoever this is took Hotch first,” said Emily, “That probably means they got to you last, Spence. They hit all of us in one day. They must have known the BAU had a day off after closing the last case. They would have had to hit us quick to avoid raising alarms.”

“And the fact that we were all grabbed at different times indicates we’re likely dealing with a single Unsub. Someone highly organized and familiar with each of our routines.”

“The Unsub must have been planning this for a long time. Finding someone in witness protection, especially a former profiler, would take an incredible amount of skill or resources,” said Spence. “They stalked us, learned our routines, then used blitz attacks to stop us from being able to fight back.”

It didn’t take long for them to get into the flow. He felt his panic slipping away as his brain shifted into work mode. At some point they all went from standing to sitting in a circle on the floor.

It felt ridiculous to think about, but Spencer couldn't help but be mildly self conscious being the only one of them in his pajamas, as he was taken in his sleep. He was just glad it was a cold night so he'd been wearing nice, full length ones and not boxers and a shirt or something to that affect. Derek, Emily and JJ were all dressed in comfortable day wear. Rossi and Hotch in suits. Hotch was interesting, though. Spencer had rarely seen him outside of a crisp black suit characteristic of an FBI agent. The one he wore now was navy with a striped tie. It looked good on him.

They put together a more detailed timeline and looked back on the past few months of their lives to discuss anything that could have possibly been out of the ordinary.

The more they talked, the less cagey Hotch was about his life. It was strange to learn more about the day to day he had been living in the years since they’d seen him.

None of them talked about their kids or partners beyond a simple acknowledgement of their existence. They were all acutely aware of the camera on the roof. Whoever was doing this didn’t need to know any more about their families than they already did.

Their phones had been taken and none of them had anything to write with, so they were relying on Spencer to catalogue and compile the information in his brain. He did just that, and after a couple hours they had what was likely a fairly reliable timeline, including geographical information.

Whoever was doing this, they were extremely organized, meticulous, and quick. Not one of them saw it coming. None of them could point to any strange interactions they had over the past months, any red flags, any signs of being followed.

When it came time for Spencer to recount the details of the last months of his life, the others stared at him intently. “I haven’t seen you in person in months,” said Derek. “You don’t look so great, pretty boy.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but the bunker we’re currently locked in isn’t making the rest of you look at your healthiest, either.”

“You know what I mean,” said Derek with an affectionate eyeroll.

“You know I was doing some classified work for the bureau. That’s why I couldn’t be there for what happened with Voit,” he said with an apologetic look to Rossi, who waved his hand dismissively. They had already been over this when Spencer first got back. He noticed Hotch raise a curious eyebrow. “I can’t talk about the work since we’re currently being recorded,” he said, nodding up at the camera. “Emily knows the details. It was nothing bad, just research that kept me out off the grid for a while. But if the Unsub could find Hotch in witness protection, then it’s possible they could have been tailing me for that long.”

“That finished months ago,” pointed out Emily. “What have you been doing while you’re on sabbatical?”

“A few guest lecture series at Virginia Tech and spending time with my mom, mostly. I just needed a break. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. I guess I’ve been a bit distracted. I haven’t seen or experienced anything unusual, though.”

“I hope your mom’s doing okay,” said JJ comfortingly, prompting the rest of them to nod sympathetically.

He just nodded back. She was doing fine, honestly, not that he’d been visiting as often as he should. Easier to let them assume she was the reason he had been absent.

“Why are you doing this?” said Hotch, standing up and looking directly at the camera once they realized none of them had any more details to share at this point. “What do you want from us? Tell us what it is and maybe we can give it to you.”

The camera blinked its red light at them, showing no care for their presence.

Hotch sighed. He looked down at them all helplessly. His eyes stopped short on Derek. He knelt down, staring at something on the side of his head. “What?” asked Derek, leaning away in concern at Hotch’s suddenly very close face.

“Hold still,” said Hotch. He waved Emily over, who shuffled round to his side. “Right… there,” he said, hovering a finger just behind Derek’s ear.

Her eyes widened. Hotch looked at her questioningly, then turned his own head and tucked his hair away so that she could see behind his ear.

“You have it too,” she said. She did the same as him and he checked her over. They looked at each other again and he nodded.

They all stared at them expectantly, though Spencer was pretty sure he knew what they were seeing.

“Puncture marks at the top of the neck, just behind the ear,” Emily explained. “That’s where we were injected.”

Spencer, Rossi and JJ all checked each other. Sure enough, same thing.

“That means we were likely attacked from behind,” said Derek.

“Do we know what we were drugged with?” said Hotch, shooting an almost imperceptible glance in Spencer’s direction.

His skin crawled at the way none of them wanted to look at him, to just come right out and say it. He didn’t particularly want to talk about it. Not really. But they always acted like the subject was poison and it made him feel like he had to walk on eggshells too. Like the reality of his life was harder for them to hear than it was for him to live.

“I am fairly confident it was some kind of opioid,” he said, careful to keep the irritation out of his voice.

JJ put her hand on his and he felt the irritation dissipate.

They cared about him. He knew that. It’s not as if they were wrong to worry. They had talked about it a little over the years, but not enough that it had stopped being awkward every time it came up.

“Are you certain?” asked Rossi. “Could have been a tranquilizer.”

“I’m certain,” said Spencer. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

Derek reached a foot across the circle and bumped it against Spencer’s knee in a supportive gesture, like saying ‘I’m here with you.’ Emily smiled at him softly, reassuringly.

“It could have been cut with something,” pointed out Hotch.

“The totality of the blackout indicates it may have been cut with a sedative of some kind, as a high enough dose of opioids to include that kind of memory loss reliably could be unsafe and none of us are suffering significant enough side effects to indicate that’s the case. Whoever did this knew exactly what dosage to use,” he explained. “But… I am quite sure it was predominantly an opioid.”

Of course he was sure.

“Jesus,” said JJ. “I’m sorry, Spence.”

“I don’t believe in fate but the universe does seem to have a strange way of conspiring to get you high,” deadpanned Emily.

Derek shot her a harsh look, but Spencer cracked a smile. “I think ‘an Unsub made me do it’ is going to start sounding like ‘a dog ate my homework’ to my sponsor,” he joked back, relief washing over him that they weren’t going to dance around it the entire time they were in here. Not that he’d spoken to his sponsor in more than a year. They didn’t need to know that.

The others smiled too. “You’ll be alright, kid,” said Rossi. “If you kept it together after Mexico, you’ll get through this.”

That would have been a comforting statement if not for the fact that it was completely false. It didn’t matter anyway. Penelope and the rest of the team would find them and get them out before any of this became an issue.

Or they wouldn’t. But he couldn’t think about that yet.

A crease sat deep between Hotch’s eyebrows. “Mexico?”

“You don’t know?” said Emily. “I just assumed you were across everything to do with the Scratch case.”

“No,” said Hotch. “I accepted proof of his death and told the liaison I didn’t want to know anything else.”

“It’s complicated,” said Rossi. “There were other players involved, but the short version is Reid was drugged and framed for murder. It wasn’t pretty.”

“We don’t need to go into the details,” said Spencer, oddly embarrassed at the idea of Hotch knowing just how prone to being victimized he apparently still is. He knew it wasn’t rational, given the things that had happened to Hotch and the fact that all of them were in this locked room as victims together.

Hotch looked at him. Spencer couldn’t read his expression at all. Eventually he just nodded and let it drop.

Before any of them could say another word, there was a banging at the door. The hatch on the other side of the door chamber opened.

Derek got to the door first, trying to rip the hatch on their side open. He shouted at the door “What do you want?! Talk to me! Just tell us what you want!”

There was no response.

The only thing they could see was a hand covered in a thick leather glove sliding a piece of paper in. It was a smaller hand than expected.

He continued pulling but the panel didn’t budge until the other one had closed completely. Derek stumbled backwards as the panel suddenly released.

“It’s soundproof,” Spencer said, despairing. “There was no sound of footsteps on the other side.”

Emily grabbed the note from the chamber. They all whipped around to watch her as she read the words aloud.

“Hello, old friends,” she started, all of them frozen in place and hanging off her every word. “I know you are wondering why you are here. It is simple. You dragged my secrets into the light and then put me in a cage. At first I wanted to get revenge. Then I watched you for a long time and I learned all about you and I learned that we are the same. I saw how you are suffering. How you are scared. All hiding. I remember when I had to hide. For so long I hid even from myself. Now, because of you, I am free. Even when I was in a cage, I was free, because I had no secrets anymore.

I want to give you the freedom you gave to me. Soon, you will not have secrets. You will see that in this room you cannot hide and that when there is nothing left to hide, you will be free.”

Emily looked up from the letter, meeting all of their eyes in turn. There was a painful lump in Spencer’s throat.

If he was being honest with himself, he knew it as soon as he woke up in this room and saw them all there. He knew they weren’t going to make it out in time. He knew the Unsub must have watched him closely enough to know what was going on with him. He knew he wasn’t making it out of this without all of them seeing him for exactly who he is.

Now, he thought, might be the time to fall apart.

#criminal minds fic #criminal minds #spencer reid #aaron hotchner #bau team #emily prentiss #jj jareau #derek morgan #david rossi #criminal minds evolution #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid angst #bau team as family #see a03 tags for warnings #this is a gen fic. spencer is bi but not with anyone on the team #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #but all the team feature and have their own stuff going on. its reid centric but its about all of them #hotch is gonna a have a whole thing as this progresses

[flashyourgreeneyesatme]

Sick as a dog. <Bradley Bradshaw x reader>

This is my first published piece of writing but my baby, Reese Withoutaspoon aka @greatbigshiningstar is sick with Covid, and I want to make her feel better even if I’m not where near her. Love you doll hope you can imagine Roost with this.

I hope you enjoy and anytime any one of you are sick just remember Bradley would buy you your favourite soup and cut your bread exactly the way you like it!

pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x (f)reader

word count: 1846

warnings: Mentions of feeling and being sick, Bradley’s awful dad jokes, way too many curse words and sexual references (if you really squint hard enough – haha hard)

summary: The reader is home sick from the flu she got from work (can be whatever job you want I’m not going to explicitly describe what job she does) and wants to just curl up and die. Will Rooster let her be alone? No! He protect. He attack. He’s got his baby’s back! Just a cute little drabble of Bradley looking after her.

Pain. Pain is all I could feel, coursing through my body and destroying everything in its path. It's like if you gave the basic flu weapons and said, 'have at it!'. Now all I can think about are cartoon germs with machine guns shooting at my immune system until there is nothing left to destroy. Now, I'm an averagely smart person I obviously know that they don't have weapons and aren't shooting me from the inside but right now if you told me to stand up straight and count to ten, I'd be doing the macarena and wouldn't even notice the difference. I go to cuddle my pillow until I realise, I'm not even in bed I'm in my car and have been since 3 pm. 4 hours in my car just sitting there. No music. No phone. Just sitting. When did I get home? How did I get home? Did I accidentally kill anyone on my way home? I guess we'll never know.

I decide that I need to go inside and curl up and live my life in a quarantine-like staycation where I will not be talking to anyone, my best friend will be my cold bathroom floor and kid's drowsy cough medicine because I only like the strawberry flavour and apparently adult medicine manufacturers thought Let's make it taste worse than their own vomit and make them take it 3-4 times a day. Yeah, no thanks I'm okay with my kiddie medication, maybe that's why I'm always asked for parenting advice by new mums in the pharmacy. By the time I actually am able to get my dead legs out of the car, it's been 27 minutes and I stumble into my shitty home like a newborn deer learning to walk. All because of Jaida from work.

That bitch Jaida can get the flu, have a few sniffles and get on with the day. But puts everyone else at risk. Like okay, Jaida you've got a good immune system we get it! She gets to continue her day whereas I am reenacting the exorcist when I even try to drink water.  How is it fair? I enjoy my job. I want to be at my job. I unscrew the top of the medicine bottle and simply drink it like it's an energy drink, the door to my bedroom opens and I just lay on the bed. 

Suddenly I hear the front door open once again. All this time I've been thinking about myself when I forget I share this shitty home with my amazing boyfriend who has such an important job and if he gets sick, what if he can't go out on a flight and countless people die because of it? Okay nope, he's not allowed near me it is decided I am going to reenact another film, Contagion. 

"Honey I'm home!" I hear the naval officer yell throughout the house. The silence is deafening in response. He starts whistling about as if his version of echolocation will be able to locate me within the house. I stand up to back myself against the door so he cannot enter which feels like the biggest task I've ever completed. I hear him try to push the bedroom door open and fail imminently. "Why are you up against the door? Are you naked? You know I don't mind it's nothing I haven't seen before." He goes to push against the door once again.

"I'm not naked. I'm sick." I weakly croak out just enough for him to hear.

"Okay? So are you going to let me in or?" His voice is laced with confusion, boy take a hint, I love you but not happening. 

"I'm not letting you in because if you get sick you might not be able to work and if you can't work then Mav might personally send firing jets to shoot me." He can tell there's a frown on my face even behind the oak door. By now I'm sitting on the floor leaning against the door because all my energy is drained. I hear Rooster's knees drop to the floor and look to see him looking through the gap at the bottom of the heavy door and hear a little giggle. "Fuck off it's not funny!" I can't help but laugh which causes my chest and throat to hurt more. "I'm dying of influenza in here and you're laughing about me. Some widow you'd make Bradshaw." Again a fucking giggle easily escapes that man's mouth. 

"Right then if you're dying might as well get some things I've been meaning to say for a long time but never had the courage to say." He sighs and sits with his back to the door as I am also doing. A light tension fills the air. "You're a stupid bitch and I hate you. You're ugly too." 

"Right now I want you to get sick you dickhead." I lightly hit the door soon realising that hurt my whole body more than I reckoned. 

"Then open the door all you have to do is open the door and let me get my karma." His voice sounds tempting. He's got that charm that could sell the internet to an elephant. Not sure if that makes sense but I'm feeling like dumbo on wine right now so I don't really mind if my idiom makes sense or not. That man knows exactly what he's doing. Is it reverse psychology or is it gaslighting either way it's super enticing. I push myself off the floor and open the door. "Ah, a hideous monster!" He yells as I open the door. Bradley sees the upset and frustration on my face and knows I'm about to slam this door in his face. "Wait no! I'm sorry!" Allowing him to walk into our shared bedroom felt illegal to me. I keep my distance from him baking away as far as I can go before hitting the bed that stood in the centre of the room. "Am I not allowed to be near you?" I shake my head in response. 

"I'm not getting you sick dude that would fucking suck! And you're a child when you're sick so I'm not willing to play nurse. Love you, not that much." Rooster puts his hands up in a surrender-like fashion and stays where he is. His dark brown eyes scan me up and down. "Stop looking at me like that." 

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a dying puppy." My lips form into a pout. 

"I want to look after you. That's all I want. I won't come near you I promise." His fingers form into a cross behind his back.

"And how do you propose that you can look after me without coming near me." I'm sceptical about his methods.

"Get into bed." A little smile forms on his face.

"I don't see how having sex is going to help bud." Scoffs pass his lips as he has given up with my bullshit. Before I can even process what is happening his long arms have been placed onto my shoulders and pushed my back onto the mattress. A small yelp escapes my lips. "I have no energy for this." I feel the mattress consume my weight as I sink in slowly but surely. 

"Get under the duvet and I'll be back." He's off! The room is suddenly quiet as I give in to his demands and get settled under the heavy duvet which I can't decide if it's too hot or too cold for it. The first noise I hear is the fumbling noise of the cupboards and then the slamming of them. Instead of Bradley coming back to the room the front door once again opens and closes. I want to get up and see where he has gone but this bed has grown more comfortable by the second and not to my recollection my eyes start to close and I doze off. 

I don't know how long it's been while I've been sleeping but I am slowly awoken by the smell of rich chicken wafting its way from the kitchen. My eyes slowly open and I am alerted by Bradley's figure standing in the doorway. My body does a small tense reaction to his terrifying stature. "Hey, sleepysauras. Temp check!" He works his way over to my still comatose body and sticks a thermometer into my mouth. A hmmm noise comes from my chest as I feel the cool plastic on my tongue. "Okay! 101*. You, little lady, have a fever."

"That's mean." My eyes roll around my head. 

"I made cheddar broccoli soup. Just for you. Because I love you!" I stick my middle finger up at him. His laughs fill the house as he goes to fetch the amazing-smelling soup from the kitchen. The soup enters the room before he does as he is holding it out at an arm's length. "So I don't have to come near you!" Weak fake laughs come from my mouth. The tray is set on my lap and the bread is cut my way. "Even though I'm pretty sure it's a felony I cut it horizontally because you're sick and I have to spoil you." I try not to break out into a smile and or cry because it is so stinking cute. "Now eat it up."

"Yes sir, Lieutenant Bradshaw, sir!" I give him a small salute. He goes to leave, "What you're not going to spoon-feed me as well?" He stops in his tracks and does a little 180* spin on the spot. The speed of his run could be considered inhuman, he could put the flash to shame. Instead of simply walking around the bed as a normal person would, Bradley leapfrogs over my side of the bed to his side. The metal spoon is lifted from the white ceramic bowl into his hands.

"I'm going to be honest with you I have already taster tested a lot of this soup. For your protection of course." My head shakes up and down in a mocking gesture.

"My hero!" Rooster's lips move closer to the spoon, which holds the cheddar broccoli soup, and lightly blows on it. Aeroplane-like noises advance from the aviator's lips as he spoon feeds me like a child. "It's nice." Dark brown eyes squint at my choice of words. "It's delicious, Gordon Ramsey would be proud!" Pride fills his expression as he seems very impressed with his amazing cooking. As I demolish the food in front of me my stomach churns only slightly enough to make me gag but not to be physically sick. Rooster goes white as a ghost in front of me, not very well-known fact is that Roost is a huge Emetophobic. Reassurance washes over his pale complexion as he realises I wasn't going to throw up.

My anxieties of not wanting to get him sick are gone as I open up the duvet for him to get underneath with me. He willingly does so and joins our bodies together. The warmth from his body and his arm wrapped around me sends me back to sleep. 

I hope you enjoyed!

#bradley bradshaw x reader #topgun #bradley bradshaw

[witchthewriter]

Could you do merlin headcanons for a scenario where reader has to go visit family far away and doesn't know how to ride a horse, so sir elyan is tasked with taking her, aka the classic trope-- there was only one horse.

𝐒𝐢𝐫 𝐄𝐥𝐲𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞

⤷female, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ

SFW (this will all be sfw, Elyan wouldn’t make a move on you until you were together.) 

⭑ As a good friend of the King’s fiance, you were always protected. Guinevere loved your company and never wanted you harmed or in danger. 

⭑ But your sister was getting married to a man who lived a few kingdoms away. And Guinevere didn’t want you traveling alone. 

⭑ You said you would be fine, but with the threat of Morgana, anyone from Camelot wasn’t safe outside its walls (and sometimes, in them.) 

⭑ Guinevere suggested Elyan, since she knew something you didn’t ... 

⭑ You woke from bed with a yawn, your stomach slightly churning with nerves. 

⭑ A light travel bag sat ready in the corner of your room, since you had packed eagerly as soon as you heard of your sister’s news. 

⭑ But it wasn’t just the journey ahead that had you nervous. It was the fact that you didn’t know how to ride horseback. Whenever you travelled, it was with a horse and cart, a few others with you as well. 

⭑ You left just as the sun rose, wanting to get to your sister as quickly as possible. 

⭑ Guinevere woke to see the two of you off, a smile on her lips but a firm warning. 

   “Keep safe, and come back whole.” She smiled at you and gave her brother a stern look. 

⭑Somehow your fears had been avoided because there had only been one horse waiting with Guinevere and Elyan. 

⭑ Elyan looked regal as he hooked a foot and swung himself onto a brown horse. His hand flung out towards you, helping you hoist yourself onto the horse’s back. 

⭑ You sat behind Elyan, a firm around his waist. 

⭑ You turned to see Guinevere waving, a curious look on her face. Shrugging it off, you turned to see Camelot flash before your eyes.  

⭑ The weather was cold, even in the sun it felt like your goosebumps would never disappear. Even while holding onto Elyan’s waist, his body heat wasn’t warm enough. 

⭑ You had been riding all day, and when the sky started to darken, Elyan said it was time to rest. Relief flooded your body; horseback riding was much more difficult than everyone let on. 

   “I’ll start the fire, can you find some branches?” Elyan had unpacked your bed rolls and tied the brown horse to a nearby tree. 

The fire was warm, and you couldn’t stop rotating like a pig on a stick. 

“Cold, aye?” Elyan smirked at you, his eyes reflecting the firelight. 

    “Very,” you responded, too tired for anything witty to spur. 

⭑ He patted the bed beside him

⭑ And you sat

⭑ He wrapped a blanket around your shoulder, “You’re safe with me y/n,” Elyan whispered after a while. 

    “I know,” you replied, moving closer to him 

⭑ You both sat like that for a while, watching the flames flicker and dance. You were warming by the minute. 

⭑ “Are you excited about the wedding?” Elyan asked casually, moving to the flask of water. 

    “I am actually, I haven’t seen my sister in a year.” The conversation wasn’t a forced one. You felt comfortable in each other’s presence. Like you had known one another for years. When really, you knew Elyan for only a few months. 

⭑ The stars shone overhead, they twinkled and looked almost as if they were winking. 

⭑ Elyan pointed out constellations. showing you figurations that you didn’t know existed. 

⭑ Exhaustion soon took hold, and your eyelids couldn’t hold themselves open any longer. 

Your bedroll lay empty. 

⭑ Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed, and a body lay against you, firm and warm. 

⭑ Your eyes fluttered open to see an arm tucked underneath your own. A hand interlaced with yours. A blush bloomed on your cheeks. 

⭑ “Elyan,” you whispered, not quite knowing what to do. 

      “Mmmmm?” 

“I think we should get going,” you slide from him. Trying not to show your red face. 

⭑ The journey was only another day’s ride. And Elyan kept the same pace as the day before. 

⭑ It wasn’t until you reached the familiar woods that your stomach started to flip in anticipation. 

⭑ “I’ll be back when you send a raven,” Elyan stated. He had made conversation on the way, the same as yesterday. And the night’s events didn’t seem to affect him. 

⭑ “Oh-” you felt a bit disappointed. 

“I mean... you could stay?” 

#sir elyan #bbc merlin #bbc merlin headcanons #bbc merlin x reader #sir elyan x reader #sir elyan headcanons #headcanons #would include #sir gwaine #sir leon #gwaine #knights of the round table #camelot

[aspoonofsugar]

Considering how the boarbatusk summon represents Weiss’s Huntress side, it makes total sense we see Willow summon the same type of Grimm to defend Whitley! Do you think we’ll get to see more of Willow’s past as a Huntress, and do you have any theories yet as to how her summons may tie in and what allusions she could possibly come to present in the arcs of the Schneeblings?

Hi!

I have actually discussed Willow a little bit here and here.

In short:

1 - When it comes to Willow's giant Boarbatusk, I am not sure it hints to a possible past as a Huntress (even if it is still possible), but rather to her motherly instincts. After all, boars are known to be protective mothers, always ready to fight for their cubs. Throughout the years, Willow has instead failed to protect her children. She wants to, but can't find the strength to effectively oppose Jacques. However, in Dark she is able to act in order to protect Weiss and Whitley. Hence her true self aka a mama boar emerges as strong as ever.

2 -When it comes to Willow's allusion, in one of the 2 metas I suggest an analysis of her arc through the lens of The Six Swans. To be fair, it is a loosely allusion that fits thematically rather than plot-wise. The Six Swans is the story of a Queen that stays silent for 6 years in order to free her 6 brothers, who are stuck as swans. She must sew 6 shirts without laughing or talking. As a result her husband's mother accuses her of killing her 3 children and sentences her to death. In the end, though, she frees her brothers and defends herself, is reunited with her 3 children and the Evil Mother is killed. You can read Willow's passiveness as her keeping silent in front of Jacques's abuse towards herself and her 3 children. In the end, though, she finally stops her silence and stands up for her family.

That said, your ask had me realize Willow's Boarbatusk might have an additional meaning, which fits Weiss's Snowhite...

Willow is Snowhite's Hunter

The Hunter is told by the Evil Queen to kill Snowhite, but the man has pity of the girl and lets her go. Later on, he kills a boar and tells the Evil Queen its heart is actually Snowhite's. In short, he is a parental figure (he is symbolic of the Father), who wants to protect Snowhite, but is too weak to succeed. All he can do is to help the girl in an indirect way.

Willow fits to a T. She loves her children, but is incapable to protect them effectively. Even when Weiss returns, all Willow does is to share some information with her daughter. She could have stopped Jacques herself, but doesn't. She fails to act:

Weiss: I think Father may have done something. Something wrong. Willow: I thought we all simply assumed that at this point. Weiss: Yes, well, some of us are trying to do something about it.

However, throughout volume 8 she becomes more active until she fights with her Boarbatusk for Whitley's sake.

What does it mean? It means that Willow is being inspired by Weiss and is growing more into a Huntress. So, the point isn't if Willow was ever a Huntress (maybe she was! Not saying she wasn't :)), but that she is growing into one, just like her daughter. A person ready to risk her life for her loved ones.

All of this brings us to a cool idea I had thanks to you :D

So, if you have read some of my previous metas on Weiss's allusion (sorry they are so long :/), you know I think Weiss's summonings all represent a character from Snowhite.

The Boarbatusk is the Hunter:

The Arma Gigas is the Prince:

The Queen Lancer is the Queen:

All together they make Weiss, just like all the characters together make the story of Snowhite. Throughout her summonings, then Weiss grows more into herself. She polishes who she is and blossoms into a wonderful Snowhite of her own.

Still, this is just the first part of Weiss's story. After all, her arc is about reconciling who she is (Weiss) with her being part of her family (a Schnee). This is why her semblance has a double meaning:

It lets her project outside parts of herself

It is shared by all the members of her family

So, what happens after she integrates all her parts (Huntress, Knight and Queen)? Easy, she inspires her family members to grow more like her too. They blossom into Snowhite's characters, so that they can all be at Weiss's side. And so she realizes they are all important parts of who she is, as well. Like her summons...

So, we have:

Willow as the Hunter

As we have seen, Willow struggles with passiveness, like Weiss initially. However, in the darkest hour her inner Huntress comes out in the shape of a giant Boarbatusk.

Whitley as a Knight to be

Whitley's arc in volume 8 is literally Weiss's character development twice as fast :P He defrosts and starts using his resources to help others. Not only that, but his climatic moment in Dark is him killing the Hound with Nicholas's armour. (Yes, Willow helps, but Whitley has the idea). Just like his sister, he refuses the empty legacy he was handed (the decorative armour) and turns it into something useful (a weapon to save Weiss and her friends). Weiss starts her journey by killing an Arma Gigas, while Whitley starts his by breaking another one of his Grandfather's armours.

Winter as a Wonderful Queen

Winter is the Snow Queen (Winter Maiden), who is slowly warming up to grow more into a kind and open Queen like Weiss.

In short, Weiss's avatars are parts of who she is, but they are also linked to her family members, who are inspired by Weiss to grow into a specific role. All together they make our Weiss Schnee.

In the next volumes, it would be interesting to see the Schnee Family cements their positive developments. When it comes to Willow specifically, I think she needs to be there for her children, even more than before. Especially, I think she and Winter should have a moment of reconciliation and I would like if she were to mentor Weiss a little bit. Who knows? Maybe she knows something about their family semblance her daughters ignore.

If Willow ties into some other allusion or has some other minor one of her own, I don't know. Personally, I would like for the Schnees to have more Swans allusions :P I just like the idea, no deep reasoning here. Similarly, I would also love if the Christmas allusion they have were used more effectively. Like, can Weiss grow into Santa Klaus herself? And can Whitley be an elf (he has the right looks :P). Willow is a tree, so nothing can make me think she isn't meant to be Nicholas's little Christmas Tree.

And with this very fitting Christmas note, I close this ask :P

Merry Christmas, if you celebrate!

#rwby #willow schnee #weiss schnee #winter schnee #whitley schnee #asksfullofsugar #rwby meta #once upon an allusion #schnee family #schnee family asks in this time of the year are always a joy tbh #perfect timing #anonymous

[donanimee]

The Ending of BELLE, Hints of what might had happened to the brothers.

Honestly, this is something many of us has felt when we either left the cinema after watching this film. Its not that its that bad, and the songs and characters are really good and the story gives a good enough Beauty and the Beast bibe. And the A Million Miles Away scene its a masterpiece. But the thing that bothers and kinda ruins the vibe of the film its that ending did left most us with a terrifying and unsatisfied feeling. Especially with What happened to Dragon aka Kei and Angel aka Tomo after that.

I know they did felt rushed to the ending, but they could have at least included epilogue scenes in the credits like Ghilbi films and A Whisker Away. And even if some said tgat it was a bit realistic because What can a girl like Zuzu do in this situation besodes giving them support? But that doesnt mean they should leave that in the dark and the imagination of viewers ( either the dad was arrested or out into parenting and anger management classes, they confronted him and home, and Kei became an example of abuse survivors, even some say that the dad beated them to death while Zuzu was in the train back home) . Even in Wolf Children we saw what became of the siblings.

Even though i saw some things that might had a lead of small hints and theories of what might had happened to them.

1. The time that passed. I dont know much how social services work on Japan, but in the film said that when an abuse is reported they can't act or do something until 48 hours are up after the call. And seeing the time it probably took for Zuzu to get to the city and the rain of the scene, which might had either been morning or evening, and also that in wikipedia and some reviews said that she came back home the day after she protected the brothers,maybe she stayed with them when the 48 hours have passed and authorities could be contacted and act, especially since he had a phone.

2. The viral video: Something that my parents taught me its that what you put online its almost imposible to erase, and i dont think this case would have been an exception. Im not sure how the dad got the notification of that video, either the new video alert or a co worker, but even if he reported that video ( if THAT kind of videos can even be reported and especially if Hiroka used either her or an anonymous account) the damage was already done, and its most likely a bunch of people, maybe even some conected to authorities, saw the proof of his abuse and even IF it ended up blocked or deleted many must had already seen it and probably downloaded and either them or Hiro would probably reupload it and maybe even recognized him from the video Zuzu first saw them in when he pretended them to be a "happy" family. Anyway, his reputation its already been damaged and cannot be undone no matter what he do.

3. The patch in Zuzu's cheek: im not sure if this was something taken acccount of but Zuzu must had gotten patched up in the cheek she got scratch from by the dad and she must had gotten it somewhere. Im not sure if Zuzu had the age to have a card to buy it in a store, and if he had money she would have probably used it or had olny enough for the train ride. So there might be a chance that some authorities arrived and maybe did some first aid on her.

4. Kei's stronger courage and confidence: Many have said that he had already enough courage and that might never change things, but sometimes its not just about avoiding the storm but surviving and overcoming it. These two had tried speaking up to toher about what hapoened but it usually led to empty empathy, deaf ears, inaction, misjudgement, and them saying he had changed when he didnt. This kinda started to lead Ryu to the point of giving up ( on both other people and emotionally) and having a mental breakdown, which its probably why he became so violent, and the breaking point was when the castle got destroyed. But Belle/Zuzu's actions gave him the strenght he needed to get his confidence back, amd even if social services may or may not act and move them out, he said he will be stronger, maybe to the point of finally confronting his father without giving in into his, fear, fists and anger and maybe confronting him for his treatment and maybe even mention their grief over their mother's death, especially with the new side he saw of his father in the confrontation.

5. They now know the dad's "weakness": Tomo and Kei's dad is an example of bad coping mechanisms, his abuse and violent behavior probaly came from mourning the death of his wife, even though that its not an excuse for his mistreatment against his own children who were having the same grief and were the last things he had from her. Not to mention that he was a weasel by even pretending to be a good father in public while at home he was a complete different person. He was so terrible some even said he might be Justin's identity. He even dared to hurt Zuzu and blaming her of breaking their family apart when it was him doing it. But there is one thing i learned from Zuko's dad in the last airbender and AFO in My Hero Academia: their power doesnt come from their strenght or authority over others, but through their fear. Kei was the one who took the hits because Tomo couldnt and none had fought back their father, and if they did they probably still had fear visible and their saw and used this to overpower them. But Zuzu changed all that for him when for the first time someone didnt give in into or even reacted to his intimidating fist and anger and looked up to him without a glimpse of fear in her eyes. This is when we see him for who he truly is: not a invincible monster, but a weak amd broken coward who hurt others to deal with his own pain. This led him to have a breakdown and state of shock ( some even said he might even had a realization and tiny glimpse of possible redemotion, unlikely but it could) and it became too much for him that he run to the hills with his tail between his legs. We dont know if he was arrested or confronted by their new confident and strong children, but if it happened who knows how he could have reacted to it, sometimes people's reactions can surprise us you know. Most think he may had a last straw in temper but given his reaction there is also the possibility of him breaking down emotionally with how his power and fear over other is starting to fade away and with that video of abuse released he might had realized its all over for him. And if services do take action his wish of his children leaving might come true.

Even though a solid and comfirmed ending and epilogue would have been good in this film, so it wouldnt have to leave us with a bittersweet taste. in

#belle 2021 #ryuu to sobakasu no hime #belle movie #belle anime

[slytherinsnekxvii]

let's talk about lily evans and the marauders, aka moony, wormtail, padfoot and prongs. given that i didn't use their actual names, i think you can figure out where this is going. it's also long as hell, so. canon vs fanon, marauder edition, except snek is sleep deprived.

now, before we begin, i don't dislike the marauders. or lily, tbh. if I'm being perfectly, genuinely honest, i still go back and forth sometimes but they've been growing on me for a while now. the canon versions, at least. fanon does them real dirty, and that's part of why i'm writing this, because i'm genuinely tired of it. it's an injustice.

you can at least make excuses for james and lily, who were so undeveloped that jkr practically dropped a fill-in-the-blank sheet of character information in our laps, but sirius, remus and peter were around long enough for y'all to get real acquainted with them.

in canon, sirius black is an unhinged mf. genuinely. this isn't to say he's a bad guy, in fact, we see that he's still capable of doing good things, still capable of love, still capable of all the things that prove he's actually not bad at heart, just,,, severely traumatised and very steeped in negativity from his time with the dementors. what i'm saying is that this man is absolutely, no questions asked, no holds barred demented, and how could he not be? the guy sat wrongfully imprisoned in azkaban for twelve years, a good portion of which he spent as a dog in order to protect himself from the dementors. he certainly wasn't completely insane, but you cannot tell me that he was all there. he got out of azkaban fuelled almost solely by the intent to get revenge on pettigrew, tried to commit murder in front of three witnesses who were also children—one of whom was his godson—ate rats and was also malnourished, which i'm certain did not help the situation any. this man is off his goddamn rocker, and you know what? you love to see it. good for him.

oh, but, snek, that's what he's like as an adult. what about when they were at school? before azkaban? my guy, the reaction he has to grimmauld place is not the reaction of someone without trauma. i don't believe that walburga and orion were the type to physically abuse their children, but whatever happened in that house helped to fuck him up enough that he skipped the joke of part of practical joke, and pranked snape by telling him how to meet a werewolf that he knew would be fully transformed and dangerous to humans. more than that, the werewolf was remus, whom he's friends with, and who—best case scenario—would be facing a trial if james hadn't stepped in. you can say that maybe he didn't think about or understand the gravitas of his actions, but at the end of it, that's not how properly sane people react to people they dislike, and that's not how they treat their friends. if anything, it reads like he was in the middle of a breakdown and absolutely losing his shit and he wasn't thinking at all.

my guy went through some serious shit, and was in no way completely mentally stable. we can see pretty clearly that he's got a serious dark side to him that probably would have gone unbridled had he not disagreed with his family, and yet, fanon took one look at him and went, "teehee, uwu bad boi go vroom."

fanon said padfoot is a pretty boy with nice hair who is tastefully traumatised from his horribly abusive household. sirius rides his motorcycle and plays jokes and flirts with anything that moves, but he can do no real wrong and always comes back to his soft, bookish, chocolate-loving boyfriend remus, who will laugh about his lycanthropy and quietly disapprove but secretly laugh at his friends' antics while hiding his smile in his cardigan.

respectfully, what in the absolute fuck.

i'd put that meme in here if i could, the one that's like, "well done, you've broken _______ down to its bare essentials," but no. i can't bc it doesn't even apply. this isn't a meme, it's theseus' fucking ship.

fanon broke it down, and replaced the pieces one by one until we got to this point, where we need to sit down and ask ourselves, "is this even the same character?"

the answer is no, by the way. it isn't. when people talk about woobifying characters—you know, taking away every flaw they have, romanticising everything they do and making them only capable of doing good, wonderful, lovely things?—this is what we mean.

and it'd be one thing if it was just the one character, but, no. fanon went all in and made them all squeaky clean and boring, especially peter, who draws the shortest of the straws.

remus got fucked, too. not just because fanon insists on sticking him into a relationship with sirius. which, we'll tackle wolfstar in a bit, but that's not even the worst of it. here, we have yet another example of blatant, rampant woobifying. again, is he a bad person? no. we know he's a good guy, we know he's generally kind and well-mannered, we know that he wants to fo the right thing but hey, fun fact. did you know that you can be nice and a coward? did you know that you can be benevolent and good and kindly and have the greatest of intentions and still be shady as fuck? no? ask dumbledore. the man played people like chess pieces when he needed to, and he was a twinkly grandpa. these are things that can coexist.

teenage remus is a coward who, understandably, does not stand up to his friends, likely for fear of being ostracised, and doesn't uphold his prefect duties as he should and takes part in their bullying of snape as a result. he lets them romp with him in werewolf form while they are in their animagus forms and then, he lets them continue to do so even after they have multiple close calls, which, again, had anything happened, would have resulted in a trial in the best case scenario.

grownup remus is still a coward, he tells no one that sirius can move about the school in his animagus form despite wholeheartedly believing that he's a mass murderer, he tries to run out on his wife and unborn kid. he isn't deliberately making attempts to harm anyone, but he's content to sit back and let things happen to him and around him so he doesn't rock the boat, although he is capable of action, which we see when he is more than willing to help sirius merk pettigrew in the shack. he can be careless, he runs out to the shack knowing he hasn't taken his wolfsbane and ends up transforming in front of the students he, as a teacher, is meant to be protecting. of course, this doesn't negate his good qualities, it just bears repeating that his flaws do exist, and they're pretty serious.

fanon moony is always pleasant and kind and soft-spoken and bookish, and he always has to have his chocolate. he knows when to tell off his friends, and he'll do it, even if he's secretly amused by everything they do and laughs about it with his best friend, lily evans, who coincidentally spends all her time with them so he and sirius can go on double dates with james and lily and no one has to remember peter exists.

why. theseus' ship 2.0. does the actual character still exist or is this something entirely different thing bearing the same name?

as for peter, who needs peter pettigrew, the actual, legitimate, fourth marauder when you have lily evans? canon pettigrew is opportunistic as fuck. he's latching himself to the biggest bad on the block and he's going all in. for teenage peter, that was james and sirius, and for adult peter, that's voldemort. canon peter is good enough at transfiguration to master the animagus transformation, just like his friends, and he's good enough at potions to brew the potion that gives voldemort a body. and honestly, you can't say he wasn't brave. he could've run off somewhere and died, or changed his identity or something after he faked his death and framed sirius, but, no. he goes and resurrects voldemort. that's fucked up, yeah, but it happened and honestly, i respect that it. he stuck to his guns.

fanon wormtail is lucky if he exists beyond being a spineless sycophant for james and sirius, or an evil conniving little rat who's looking to toss his entire friend group to the wolves at eleven.

of course, this isn't meant to negate his bad qualities, he still murdered people and framed sirius and sold out the potters to die, but his good characteristics do exist, and james, sirius and remus genuinely were his friends.

and now, we get to lily and james.

we have hardly any information on either of them. they're a pair of cardboard cutouts that we can paint and stick flyers to and colour outside the lines however we want. we can do whatever the fuck, as long lily is brave and smart and somewhat kind and james is brave and willing to die for his family. we were essentially handed a pair of ocs.

and yet.

what little bits of canon we have are thrown out of the window regardless.

james is privileged and rich, and he throws hexes for fun. he's willing to hex lily when she disagrees with him, and then, he goes behind her back to continue hexing snape after she believes that he's stopped doing so. and that's all we know about him until he dies for his family at twenty-one years old. once again, say it with me: this does not negate his good qualities. he definitely had them, he took sirius in when sirius ran away from home, he became an animagus to keep remus company as a wolf, and he saved snape in the shack, thereby saving remus and sirius by extension. him having flaws does not make him a bad person.

fanon prongs is a feminist. he fights for equal rights for women everywhere, and he constantly treats his girlfriend, lily, like an absolute queen. he's the hottest boy in school and everyone claps when he walks through the halls. mcgonagall and dumbledore are always patting him on the back and making jokes with him. he has a built-in dark detector that helps him sense when someone is a evil and needs to he punished.

give me a break. the dude's cool and all, but was the gary stu treatment necessary?

...oh, he needed to match fanon lily? right, right.

canon lily is a contradiction unto herself. she's supposedly a great friend, but since we see her at a point where they were already drifting apart, we see her putting little effort into keeping their friendship afloat. she victim blames based on rumours, she doesn't seem to care over much about what snape has to say about the people who have been tormenting him since day one. and she's justified, of course, she doesn't have to stick around. canon lily is a bit of hypocrite, she says that snape calls everyone of her birth mudblood, but then that begs the question why she still hangs around with him if that's the case. he calls her mudblood, she retaliates by calling him snivellus, and finishes up with a dig about his underwear, which, sure, it's kicking a man with a rusty spoon and pouring salt in the wound, but she's, again, justified. i get where she was coming from. and then, of course, she dies for her kid after marrying the guy who relentlessly bullied her quote-unquote best friend for their entire school careers. but, like i said, canon lily is, in many ways, a contradiction.

lily is basically a plot device. she pushes everyone's narrative but her own, and does little else.

of course, this trend would continue in fanon. fanon lily exists to be the perfect girl who gets really angry over the slightest injustice, and of course, she gets to be one half of one of the oldest enemies-to-lovers "it was just sexual tension" cliche pairings in the book. she's just,,, a mary sue. in so many fics, so many headcanons, she's just pettigrew's stand-in, a girl to form a gang with marlene, mary and dorcas—who happen to be more undeveloped ocs who also get the woobify mary sue treatment—to parallel the marauders. there is nothing compelling about her character when she's presented as a saint, and even less when she's supposedly the other moral compass for the marauders that doesn't actually work because she thinks that james is cute.

and this brings me to the next topic. jily. what, why, how. this was supposed to be a healthy, happy relationship that would have lasted in the long run? absolutely not. even for its time, i can't say that i see it lasting.

first of all, jkr presents james' crush on lily as just that: a crush. a mildly obsessive one, but a crush nonetheless, which she tries to liken to the pulling of pigtails. and then, we see that james' way of getting her to go out with him consists of blackmail, and when that doesn't work, he resorts to threatening her. this could have been set aside if he had actually, genuinely changed when they started spending more time together, but as we're told by sirius and remus, he didn't. he just got better at hiding what he was up to. and it has to be that he hid it, because if she knew, this further damages the character that she's set up to have and paints her out to be either unable to stand up to him or an enabler.

regardless, they get married. and while i have trouble believing that it was out of genuine love, there are scenarios that could make some semblance of sense. it's wartime, after all, and maybe lily is worried about her stability in the wizarding world, so why not marry into an established family whose son is already showing interest? or perhaps, she falls into the trap of every bad boy cliche ever, and she thinks to herself, well, i got him to be better then, maybe i can get him to do even better in the future. or maybe, she doesn't get into a relationship with him immediately and sees him on and off, until eventually, she accidentally gets pregnant and they scramble to have a shotgun wedding so as not to leave lily alone at nineteen with a baby. or maybe they marry each other because they're there and sure, neither of then is ready and they don't know what love even is but what else is there to do when there's a dark lord about? anyways, the point is, they get married.

and then what? if we count pottermore into canon, he goes on to further damage her relationship with petunia and vernon, to the point where she ends up crying. if we don't, she fades into the background enough that nobody has anything to say about her. she's harry's mum, she's james' wife, lily potter, she was kind and smart and brave and that's it. her agency is gone, anything else we have of her personality is gone.

jily just,,, wasn't built to last. and, yeah, this,,, this is a hill i'll die on.

same with wolfstar, honestly. there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work, but fanon has made it so fucking prevalent that it's literally everywhere no matter where you look.

first of all, i've said it before and i'll say it again. sirius is more likely to get with james that he is to ever end up in a relationship with remus. their chemistry is just,,, underdeveloped. net zero for a relationship.

secondly, sirius instigated the werewolf prank, and lupin would have paid the price for it. this could have been overlooked, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit guilty about any of it when it's brought up in poa. he could have been responsible for lupin losing the security of his place at hogwarts in the best case scenario, and in the worst case, his life. and he seems to look forward to full moons, even though they clearly aren't pleasant for remus, which,,, yeah, you're going to have fun, but like, maybe be concerned about the fact that your friend undergoes excruciating pain and it isn't a pleasant time for him? read the room, my g.

thirdly, they don't trust each other as much as fanon seems to think they do. they were both willing to believe each other the traitor before ever suspecting pettigrew. sirius thought remus gave away the potters, hell, he thought remus was a spy for voldemort, and remus was convinced that sirius was a mass murderer. neither of them needed to be convinced.

fourthly, maybe i'm reading too much into it, but like. sirius had money. remus had no money, since, yk, he was a werewolf and struggling for cash and still, sirius,,, did not leave him any money. i feel like if you had money to spare, you would give to your friend who is literally poor. but, again, maybe i'm reading too much into it and this isn't as valid a point as i think it is.

and ehh, the fifth reason is that it's,,, actually very much not the representation for the ltgbt community that fanon says it is but y'all aren't ready for that conversation.

anyways, just,,, even when you set the couple shit aside, the power dynamics between everyone here is fucked. like, james and sirius are clearly at the top of food chain calling the shots and egging each other on. then there's lily, who isn't even a marauder, but is always ever-so-slightly above remus but still not on their level, because, well. neither of them actually listen to her. remus is the novelty friend, the friend who's,,, alright, i guess, but you keep them around specifically because they're funny or they can dance or they have something that you can either show off to other people or keep as your little inside joke, your little secret, yk? and peter is just sort of there. like, yeah, he can do what we can but does that make him as good as we are? no. does he have a funny little something about him that we can exploit? nah. therefore he sits at the bottom. and like, yeah, james and sirius are on the same level, but james is yanking sirius' chain, not the other way around. anyways, like i said. power dynamic's fucked and it bothers me that we were given all of this, and fanon decided to take it all and throw it away so they could give us flamboyant!badboi!sirius black x softboi!motherhen!remus lupin going on double dates with feminist!trustfundbaby!james potter and saint!lily evans while ignoring peter pettiwho?

theseus' fucking ship, indeed.

anyways, this needed to be said. it might not make as much sense as i want it to, considering it's 4:12 in the morning as i'm posting this, after taking a break from writing to do some research and coming across way too much content about fanon marauders, but it's here and it still makes enough sense that you can read it and understand what i mean. and like, at the end of the day, you can go ahead and headcanon whatever you please, you can write fic and make art and do whatever you like, just,,, remember that they're exactly that. headcanons. stop presenting fanon as canon. please. i'm literally begging. we actually have evidence against it. just,,, acknowledge that they're headcanons and stop putting them forward as though they're able to fit into canon. please.

#harry potter #marauder fanon #canon vs fanon #lily evans #james potter #sirius black #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #the marauders #severus snape is mentioned a few times #but this isn't about him #i'm just #so sick of fanon #i need to like refilter my tags or smth bc istg i see more fanon marauder posts than i do anything else #anyways this is my take #and yeah it is 4:11 in the morning and i'm tired #i can't remember when i started this but yeah #point is i am so done #anti jily #anti wolfstar

[trinrose3]

I hear so many people talking about the Pandora’s box myth and ugh this one always gets me in a tizzy so let’s talk about it:

(first my head hurts really bad and I’m really tired so I’m sorry if I’m not coherent about this <3)

(I am also basing this on recollection as well as Virginia Hamilton’s retelling)

so this myth actually has a few interpretations as to what it means by “hope in the box”. 1) Hope is in the box as punishment for humanitys (aka pandoras) curiosity. 2) “Hope“ was not ACTUALLY Hope but rather a false sense of it so that Hope would remain pure and true amongst the people as new horrors were released upon them. 3) Hope LEFT with the monsters In the box in order to protect humans and the box remains empty. 4) Epmetheus and Pandora opened the box a second time and found hope in the box setting it free.

Some backstory on the myth of pandora that is pretty coherent amongst each version. Pandora was essentially the first human (or at least woman) and was created by the gods and was seemingly well loved by them, than again these are the gods we are speaking of. pandora, also meaning “alls gift“ was extremely well mannered, obedient, and innocent, but EXTREMELY curious. eventually she gets sent to Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus, who she married. One thing to not about Epimetheus is that unlike his brother he is not well known for his forethought and is not one to think ahead and switched his views and actions in a whim (his name is essentially afterthought poor guy </3). Pandora living up to her name and the trickery of the gods was a gift to grow the two brothers apart; though she was too good and poor Prometheus was too wise for this to work. Eventually one day when left unsupervised she finally managed to open the box and let out all evil into the world. how does this relate to the SMP besides the obvious name of the prison? There are a few set of characters that obviously relate to this but in multiple ways so it may get a bit confusing from here:

Sam: he was referred to as Daedalus and was obviously trapped in his own creation just like he was. Sam could also be in reference to Apollo who was only able to warn Pandora not to open the gift from Zeus. Apollo was also threatened with severe punishment if he either aided her or told her what was inside of it. He, along with Dream and Quackity (and other characters, perhaps egg lore but I’m gonna start looking like the crazy dude from its always sunny in Philadelphia if I go further with this) are also representations of evil trapped in it.

Dream: is obviously Zeus in this situation seeing as the one who created the box/the idea of it in the first place. BUT he was also the evil in the box which he stated so himself.

Tommy: pandora in the situation. Both are pawns for the gods, too curious, and trusting for their own good. AND KILLED AFTER OPENING SAID BOX! In some versions Pandora was called to the box by the voice of Hope which was trapped inside it as well which fits with him constantly trying to break back in.

Before I get into technoblade this can depend on your viewing of the myth but let’s mix versions 3 and 4 here. Pandora was obviously empty until Dream got put in and let’s say the first time it was opened was when Ghostbur was put in there. Ghostbur was a metaphor more than anything and instead of evil being released it could be seen as hope being taken away. Same thing with the death of Tommy seeing as he represents Pandora, the beacon of innocence and the double edged gift. Essentially this myth is a triple fold opening.

now where does this lead techno? I’m tempted to say he represents both brothers; obviously without the romantic relation with Pandora in this situation. In some versions (mainly 4) he also hears the Hope in the box or is at least tempted to hand it back to Pandora but doesn’t, and aids her in opening it a second time to find Hope. He’s obviously very wise but hes obviously a bit hypocritical. How does him getting trapped in with Dream relate to the myth? Hes also fucking Pandora in this myth. He opens the flood gates. He’s not innocent, far from it but he is obedient to his ideals and to what he thinks is right. He goes back and freed Dream to repay the favor yes but his main focus and ulterior motive was to find Hope.

He went to find Ranboo. Ranboo was the fucking Hope in the box. Only to be killed by monsters not initially found in the box but created by it.

But Hope came in more than one form in this version Of the story. Tubbo and Micheal are now safe in Technos commune along with Boo. I can’t say how far this domino effect will go but it seems that Hope is doing a pretty Good job so far. It never fully got rid of the evil in this world but it is able to keep it at bay so that the people could keep fighting and living. In a sense of a way Techno was a monster but was reformed (?) or is at least starting to be and he himself is also a representation of Hope.

I may have gonna a LITTLE too deep into this metaphor lol

#Dream smp #dream smp analysis #technoblade #tommyinnt #awesamdude #dreamwastaken

[thefanficmonster]

Rumors

Corpse Husband x Bimbo!Reader (Female)

Warnings: Mentions of Slut Shaming, Swearing

Genre: Fluff, Tiniest bit of Angst, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: When some rumors start floating around, every content creator does their best to either ignore them or defuse the situation. However, sometimes, the fans attempt to do the defusing themselves which only leads to a worse disaster. That’s the case for Corpse whose fans were quick to jump to his protection of some ‘false’ rumors.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! Thank you so much for your request, it was a joy to write. I’m sorry for how long it has taken me to complete and post the fic but here it finally is and I hope you enjoy reading it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it! Love, Vy ❤

Corpse cracks his knuckles, then his shoulders, then his collarbone, then the his neck. He clenches his jaw as he breathes steadily and rhythmically, trying to control an overwhelming wave of anger that he has never felt before. This is a situation he’s never had to deal with nor did he ever think he’d have to deal with and address on a fucking livestream on top of all, but here he is now, doing his best to count to ten and not go on a Twitter responding spree, calling people out on their bullshit. He wanted to do so, he still wants to, but he was stopped in his intentions and brought to a calm mindset where he was swayed into dealing with this the civil way and not by roasting the fuck out of any and every foul-mouthed person he’s seen on his Twitter timeline.

He can’t really guarantee and civility during the stream either, he’s aware his tolerance is as thin as a stretched out, old rubber band and is a slight tug away from snapping and allowing him to unleash hell on these people because of who he’s been seeing red these past few days. 

Let’s not risk a misunderstanding here - Corpse absolutely loves and adores his fans, but seeing this behavior from them is quite upsetting and disappointing. When he uses the terms like ‘assholes’, ‘jerks’ and ‘rude motherfuckers’ he isn’t referring to them. He knows they are good people, but are using the completely wrong tactic of defending him, not to mention he doesn’t even need defending. Even if he did, he’s more than capable of doing it on his own and not getting other people involved.

“Hello everyone, hope you’re doing well.“ He finally settles on saying, officially kicking off the stream. If there’s any indicator of the serious nature of this stream, it’s probably the lack of lo-fi and the lack of even attempted playfulness and cheeriness in his voice. That’s how you know shit isn’t to be messed around about. “I just realized I didn’t specify what I’ll be doing in the Tweet, but I’ll tell you now, so those who aren’t interested in the subject or want to steer clear of the drama can leave. However, I wouldn’t advise clicking off considering this will be an overall, how do I say this, rant, of sorts? It’s meant to knock some sense in the people who have been spreading hate for a specific person on all social media platforms she’s active on.“

The majority of the viewers are already familiar with the subject, some even guilty of spreading the hate Corpse mentioned, but there are a few that are completely clueless - the ones actually not interested in online drama, not just saying they ‘hate drama’. With those people in mind, Corpse takes to addressing the issue from its very beginning.

“So, for a month now, me and this streamer, who’s also a TikTok star, by the name of Y/N have been interacting a lot on social media. She’s an incredibly sweet girl that a lot of people have prejudice towards. She’s very misjudged and misunderstood because people see he solely as her content, if that makes sense. They only know she’s that streamer who wears revealing clothes on her streams and posts risqué pictures on her Instagram. Like, no.“ Corpse cannot even fully believe he has to address this and that slut-shaming people is still a thing in the twenty-first century. He closes his eyes for a moment, fist tightening and his knuckles turning white, “I don’t understand how so many people can be so shallow and just plain jerks towards her in general, but then again - this is especially for my fans, the members of my fandom - I don’t understand the need you guys feel to put Y/N down to defend me from some ridiculous rumors as if it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with people talking shit for attention or to get someone canceled.“ He sighs, reminding himself to slow his roll as to not confuse any viewers who still don’t know the full story, “Anyway, back to the timeline of events. So, considering we’ve never interacted before, all the replying to comments, retweeting, liking posts and whatever sparked some dating rumors. Isn’t that just fucking hilarious - you see two people interacting on social media and the first thing that comes to mind is that they’re in a romantic relationship. Where did the friendship go? Does no one value or consider friendships to be a valid type of human relation anymore?“ He runs a hand through his hair, making another pause to clear his mind and prevent his frustration from overflowing. He promised he wouldn’t lose his cool and would remain calm and collected, but the more he talks about it the tighter he clenches his fist and the faster his heartrate is. His neck and ears are red from the tension he feels all over, almost like he’s physically restraining a raging wild animal and not just his own thoughts and emotions.

There’s layers to his anger, the lower ones - aka the ones he’s yet to get to - will be a nightmarish test of his self-control, he already knows it. Judging by how much of a toll this rant has already taken on him, his patience and control growing thinner and thinner, he’s not sure how he’ll power through the last layers without his voice raising awfully high in volume and his fists searching for some object to punch. To an ignorant eye, his reaction would seem exaggerated and overboard, but little does that ignorant eye know...

“When some of my fans saw those rumors, they reacted very badly. It was quite disappointing to see. Guys, I appreciate you standing up for me even though you shouldn’t do that - I can defend myself, not that this was a matter I needed defending from to begin with. But just the way some of you went about it was horrifically wrong and quite upsetting, to me but especially to Y/N herself.“ He can feel it, the aggravation growing, bubbling up in his chest, “What I saw disgusted me, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. The things some of you were saying...I couldn’t believe you are in fact the same people who are my fans, my lovely fans who I’ve always thought so highly of. Never did I think you could be able of slut-shaming so vulgarly and grossly, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.“

He has every right to be upset - the things being said about Y/N were truly awful and a lot of things being said were meant to defend Corpse and defuse the rumors, doing so while stomping all over Y/N and her content. Rightfully so, many of her fans were outraged and quick to jump to her defense but were unfortunately outnumbered, leading Corpse to believe not many of her fans are actually real or as dedicated as his which only fueled his fury further.

Anyway, let’s take a look at Y/N’s point of view. Being a content creator for as long as she has, refusing to change her style no matter how many people disagreed and insulted her about it, she’s grown quite used to people spitting insults at her on every social media possible. It’s sad how throughout the majority of her content creating career she’s only had haters, creeps and fake fans watching her videos and streams. Rare are those in her fandom who’d actually stick up for her and defend her in ‘scandals’ such as this one. However, no amount of experience with dealing with hate could have prepared her for this outpour of some of the meanest shit she’s ever heard and been called in her life.

Y/N likes the content she makes, she’s comfortable in her skin and loves her body. She loves showing it off too and nor she nor anyone who wants that deserves to be shamed for who they are and what they do, especially when they aren’t hurting anyone and their content is still appropriate. People have always bashed her for all elements of who she is: her appearance, her clothing style, her streams, her gaming skills, her voice on occasion. She can count the instances when she’s received positive feedback on the fingers of her hands which would depress anyone else but not her. She’s always created content for her own amusement and entertainment so people’s opinions never really bothered her. Until now, until this very drama that has hit a specific nerve, an insecurity of hers she’s never talked about. The comments such as:

(Vy Speaking: Comments containing slut-shaming ahead, go to ### if you want to skip)

“Corpse would never date a slut like her“

“Corpse dating this thot? Please internet stop being ridiculous“

“Corpse ain’t a pimp, y’all need to chill“

“Even if they datin they gon break up soon - whore stays a whore“

###

bothered her far more than she’d like to admit. She has no one to open up about it either, she knows what she’ll get in response if she does - she’ll be told it’s her fault. Her fault because of the way she dresses, the way she talks and acts, because she chose this career to begin with. All her fault. The only person she can turn to she refuses to because she doesn’t want to be a bother - not after so many people confirmed her worries that she’s not good enough for him already anyway, the least she can do is avoid bothering him the best she can.

And that is exactly why this has upset Corpse so much.

“Here’s a little message specifically meant for those who claimed I’d never date someone like Y/N or specifically Y/N. You better listen carefully: Don’t you ever, and I mean EVER slut-shame my girlfriend or any other person ever. I cannot believe I have to explicitly remind you that your behavior isn’t ok. You should fucking know that your behavior isn’t right and that you’re a massive piece of shit for saying those awful things about others you judge solely on appearance and clothing. Does it surprise you that I am, in fact, dating Y/N? If you say yes for the reason you think she’s not good enough for me or that I deserve better, please get the fuck out of my fandom. No one disrespects my girl and gets away with it. That’s final!“

Though still under the influence of a flurry of negative emotions, overhearing Corpse literally telling people to exclude themselves from his fandom for being mean to her, Y/N’s taking a step towards emotional recovery knowing her boyfriend will always have her back. He’ll always be there to prove people wrong, defend her and stand by her. He’ll be there to catch her when the hate knocks her off her feet.

But most importantly: he’ll never ask her to change. Not her style, not her clothes, not her personality, nothing. He fell for her the way she is and for who she is, and he will never allow anyone to try to change her either. For someone who’s never had much support all her life, a single speck of support overpowers all the hate within the blink of an eye. Corpse will always be her knight in shining armor, the knight who defeated all the hateful demons by just entering her life. And though she’s still struggling with the ‘Am I good enough for someone so wonderful?’ and ‘He deserves better, doesn’t he?’ questions, with his hand holding hers, she’ll never let those doubts and insecurities overpower her.

@maat-the-prescriptive  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @itsminniekat  @hacker-ghost  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis  @waterlilypat  @idontknowwhatthisisfam  @evi-ka  @classyandfabulous00  @redperson58  @lilysdaydreams @solowheein  @mythicalamphitrite  @axen-gers  @luckygirl144  @nj01  @buddyemily   @the-albino-lioness  @stardream14  @gdhdkfnn  @nomadicgypsyy  @preciousskye  @fluffysuicideunicornsworld  @o-kaelin  @manacharlotte  @awkward-youtube-trash  @lolalee24  @bonky-beerns  @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian  @strawbrinkofdeath  @teenloves  @tams0527  @browneyespinkhair  @starstruckllamapuppy  @daisychains012  @y0ulooked  @tinytacosuitcaseflap @supernatural-is-my-only-life  @jula-pauline  @melodykitty  @just-that-bi-girl  @crazybutconfidentaf  @lowellshade @alphakees  @bellero  @weallneednamjesus  @starryhanji  @boiled-onionrings  @husherstan  @fockingwhore  @melaningoddessthings  @prettypastelpetals  @haleypearce  @godwhyamiawkward  @y-napotat  @daisychainyoonmin  @little-miss-rebel3  @free-wheelin-bi-sexual  @redmoon261 @darkacademic2  @wiseflamingoqueen  @into-the-end  @namikhai-i  @nastiablr  @thelittleplantlover  @mirktuan  @dont-hyuck @jjk-bunny  @vintagegothlover  @easygoingtheatre  @itsrandombooklover  @miiaivi  @emmybaybee  @befourgolden  @jjk-is-my-shit  @eternalteaaars  @spacebadgerx  @princesslunalight  @acequinn14  @samm48  @misselsbells06 @simp-lykawa  @fo-love  @marishimomura-blog  @therealglenncoco  @cinnamonbun332  @killtherandomness  @sanshinexxxsan  @fee-btheweeb  @press-lay  @cathleenpotgieter16  @jazzydoesstuff  @moonlxghtbay  @forestrain2000  @hyunjinhugs  @blood-of-fandoms  @lovellylies  @ukiyolixx  @simpforhpcharacters  @chrisdylan17  @parkerjisung  @pedernille  @theodonyous  @wineandionysus  @malfoystilinskii05  @morbid-x  @coryisagee  @jessewa26  @scoobydooluver97 @mindintheskies365  @raeanneinwonderland  @indecisive-empanada  @gluttonypalace  @loriane2503  @btsiguess-kpop  @khaoticbunny  @lucidlycactus  @smiithys  @rottenroyalebooks  @kpopgirlbtssvt  @fangirl-tc27  @fr0z3n-1  @notmesimpingfortechno  @shotarosleftpinky  @kunoi-chan  @idk-whats-wrong-with-me  @yikeroonie  @goldenstarofthunderclan  @poetry-and-tea  @ama-do-writing-stuff  @wishbonewolf  @emeraldxhope  @t0xick1tty  @kusuinko  @speakyourselfloveyourself  @sophia902103  @lo-manburg  @classsykittykat  @dmgama  @depressedpuppythatneedscoffee  @btsiguess-kpop  @akaashi-baby  @gun-jong-simp  @geschichtenfee  @yerapotato-wp  @browneyedgirl365  @thysagclub  @sparklycloudnight  @helloatomicshadow  @queentorresstuff @vtte @val-gal  @lucy-bunny17  @aaliyahh0  @katluckybear  @boyleanti  @straybids  @franchesca-791  @cosmicstorm19  @averyisbackinthetrashcan  @hisokaslefttiti

#corpse husband #corpse #corpse fanfic #corpse fic #corpse fluff #corpse fanfiction #corpse fandom #corpse x y/n #corpse x you #corpse x reader #corpse imagine #corpse imagines #corpse husband x y/n #corpse husband fanficiton #corpse husband fanfic #corpse husband x reader #corpse husband fluff #corpse husband fanfiction #corpse husband fic #corpse husband imagine #corpse simp #corpse husband is ruining my life #fic #fan #fanfic #fanfiction #fandom #fluff #request #requests open

[brackenfur]

au starting from lost stars/one non canon event mentioned but i cant stop thinking abt a scene where bramblestar slips up abt thinking abt killing firestar in sunset n how squirrel would react to that. this is a very quick drabble aka its not rly thought out or edited, i jsut needed to write and get it out somewhere ! i also cant rly definitively say that everything abt bramblestars version of events/what squirrelflight knew abt the foxtrap scene is canon-accurate since its been a minute since ive read tnp + that time period is extremely muddled in terms of which author writes it and what any cat outside of bramblestar ACTUALLY knows.

anyways tysm for reading <3

"i've sacrificed everything for this relationship, for you," bramblestar snaps, eyes that were at one moment dim and exhausted from his oncoming illness now alight with anger. "you don't even know how much pressure i was under all those years ago, after we got back together and i became deputy. i was dealing with my new position, with thunderclan's mistrust, with hawkfrost telling me to-" and he stops dead in his tracks, eyes widening just slightly as he realizes he let something slip.

squirrelflight blinks, deeply uncomfortable by his reaction. she knows that he and hawkfrost kept communicating after she and bramblestar got back together, and she knows to this day that hawkfrost never had good intentions - but there is something about the way bramblestar looks away from her, how his fur prickles along his spine, that makes her think there's more to this story.

"hawkfrost telling you to what?" she tries to keep up her bravado and confrontational tone so he doesn't detect how disturbed she's becoming, but her voice wavers. "what are you talking about?"

"nothing," he says too quickly, shaking his head. "it doesn't matter. i'm tired, squirrelflight; this leafbare is the worst i've seen, and i'm not feeling my best, either. you know that - i've been so sick, and-"

"yes, you are sick, and i've told you to rest," she reminds him, cutting him off. "and i'm sorry about that, but what are you talking about with hawkfrost?"

"i said it was nothing."

"it doesn't look like it was nothing."

bramblestar sets his jaw, shaking his head. "you know how he was. i was just going to say that he was just trying to pressure me to stop talking to you, that's it."

it doesn't feel like that was it. she has no love for hawkfrost and doesn't particularly care that he didn't like her much either - but bramblestar wouldn't be so upset and secretive about something that trivial. there's more.

"you're not telling me something," she says finally. "i know you - or, i mean, i think i know you. you're hiding something from me about hawkfrost, and i swear to starclan - we just had a conversation the other night about being truthful."

"i've always been truthful."

"it seems like you're not right now, though. i've laid out all of my secrets and told you every bad thing i've done - i've let the whole forest know my demons. not by choice, but what's done is done. there's something you're not telling me about hawkfrost - and don't tell me he didn't like me, we all know that. what was he telling you to do?"

he twitches his whiskers. "squirrelflight, you need to drop it."

this just makes her more angry. "i've told you everything i've done and you're always going on about how we need to stay truthful to each other to make this work - whatever it is, i'll listen to you about it. i know how hawkfrost was - did he want you to take over the forest, or something? i know he talked to mudclaw about things like that; he wasn't subtle about his plans to be tigerstar junior."

bramblestar looks deeply uncomfortable. "i didn't do what he wanted me to do, you know i didn't," he finally says after what seems like an hour; she blinks, unsure of what he's talking about.

"what do you mean? like...yeah, you didn't take over-"

"he wanted me to become thunderclan's leader. that's it. now, please, just drop it."

she frowns. she kind of expected that, but there's....a deep shame in his eyes, and she thinks there's an element to this story he's not saying. he's being evasive and private, and her heart begins to beat harder when she really, really thinks back on all those years ago.

a memory surfaces, one that she always thought about with pain and yet an underlying feeling of pride - for brambleclaw, for her mate, for saving her father....

it hits her then. she always thought that the foxtrap was brambleclaw's moment of undying loyalty to her father - stumbling upon hawkfrost about to kill firestar, and immediately jumping to his defense. that's always how he told it, anyways; he knew what hawkfrost wanted to do, and put an end to it.

but there were always these underlying moments that she couldn't quite place over the years - some type of underlying shame and embarrassment that she just chalked up to grief for his brother.

they look at each other, and she tries to keep calm. "when you found my father in the foxtrap," she says slowly. "did you think about letting hawkfrost kill him?"

bramblestar's beat of silence is all she needed to know; he immediately tries recovering it, though.

"squirrelflight, i would've never done that- hawkfrost and tigerstar were-"

"tigerstar? what does your father have to do with this?"

bramblestar is very quiet; she thinks that the world around them is completely silent as they stand in the middle of a snowy clearing. the cold usually heightens the sounds in the air, but in this moment all squirrelflight can hear is the thudding of her own heart.

bramblestar seems like he's trying to piece his thoughts together carefully; she forces herself to wait until he finally says: "i was never going to do it," he says, voice tight with emotion. "squirrelflight, i loved your father - you know that." she can barely hear him anymore as she finally grasps what exactly he's telling her. "my father and my brother- you've heard about how they are from lionblaze and ivypool and the others that went to the dark forest, how could i have- they were my family once, i thought that maybe-"

so that was his big secret, the one that he never meant for her to uncover. everything makes a little more sense now; the guilt and shame in bramblestar's eyes for those first seasons after hawkfrost's death whenever he'd look at firestar, the overcompensation bramblestar tried to preform as deputy. it wasn't because he felt like he allowed his brother to cause harm to firestar before saving him, it was-

"hawkfrost told you to kill firestar," she says softly, looking up at her mate. "but that- if it was just that, you would have told me, not lead me to believe that hawkfrost was the one who wanted to do it all along," she feels herself shaking as the shame begins to come back into bramblestar's expression. "you thought about, didn't you? about killing my father so you could become leader?"

bramblestar gives one moment of hesitation, and she shakes her head.

"i'm going to be sick," she says quickly, stepping away from him.

"i didn't hurt him. it wasn't-"

"this whole time, you've shamed me and made me feel like the worst cat that's been born because i kept a secret for my sister," she almost spits, her fur raising. "i don't know if i was morally right or wrong, i don't know what anyone else would do in my paws during that time - but you made me feel like i was worthless for a year because i protected leafpool, and now i finally get to know that you not only met up frequently with tigerstar but that you actually- you thought about killing my father. you thought about hurting firestar just so you could become leader."

ashfur's jibe all those years ago suddenly makes more sense - after the fire, the way he bumped into her with his shoulder and sneered you don't really even know your own mate, do you?

who knew that even after all this time after his death, ashfur still got the last laugh.

#srry mobile users if the read more doesnt work!! sometimes they do sometimes they dont #warrior cats #im....very stressed bc of whast going on w my family rn and my sis' dog but writing this helped take my mind off of things #i hope u enjoy its been awhile isnce i wrote LMAO #also srry if its ooc/not lining up w canon but honestly idgaf i Tried #writing tag #shark noises

[softrenjunnie]

the battle of hogwarts l pj

pairing: reader x jay

characters: boyfriend!jay, friend!jake, brother!sunghoon, chosen one!heeseung, death eaters, voldemort, other small characters

genre: hogwarts!au, angsty angst (maybe a little speck of fluff somewhere? but i wouldn’t bet on it)

word count: 4.1k

warnings: mentions of blood, wounds, pain, death, torture and broken bones; swear words; character death.

note: spoilers !!!! i reference/talk about a lot of the stuff that happens in the battle of hogwarts, aka spoilers from the “harry potter and the deathly hallows” book (and movies), but i mean it’s a different story so it’s not super spoilery? note that heeseung plays the part of harry potter here !!!! also, the ending is rlly bad and weird (just like many parts of this oop-) but also pretty open so i guess there could be a pt 2? if i ever get the inspiration to write it heh

“stupefy!”

you heard the voice from behind you and managed to leap to your side to avoid the spell just in time, letting the red light instead hit the wall in front of you. you turned around, and instantly noticed the death eater who was standing many meters away, his wand by his head and ready to strike. “petrificus totalus!”

“protego!”

the beams shooting from his wand met the shield yours had produced, blocking it and letting its light die out. closing the distance between you, he lunged forwards and kept casting a variety of spells, which you, with great difficulty, blocked. you couldn’t hold your protection much longer, it was getting too tough - so instead, you turned around and made a run for it. a green beam of light missed your head by only a few centimeters, as you turned around a corner and kept running. you knew he was following you, and you knew you couldn’t keep this up; just as he rounded the corner, you pointed your wand to the roof above of him. “bombarda maxima!” you tried your best to keep your voice as steady and strong as possible, despite your wild nerves. the spell worked; soon, the death eater lay buried underneath the heavy stones that had just fallen.

you let out a sigh as you determined that he wasn’t going to rise, but you remembered to not let down your guard. there were perhaps hundreds of others inside and around the castle, and you knew from this little incident that they weren’t afraid to attack. so as you ran ahead, on towards the great hall where you hoped to find the people you were looking for, it was with your wand raised high and your eyes listening for every small sound in your vicinity.

you had been taken aback at first when that death eater had arrived; you hadn’t expected to meet anyone the moment you stepped out of the room of requirement. you thought everyone ought to be in the great hall, or perhaps outside of the castle - not lurking around on the top floors of the building. but none of that was what was going through your mind at the moment. you were focused on finding-

“jake, watch out!” you could recognize his voice from miles away, and especially when he was calling out for his best friend, but you don’t think you’ve ever heard such desperation in his voice ever before. at the end of the hallway, you spotted him - jay’s wand was shooting rays of all colors as he leaped forward, shooting down the woman in black, long robes who had just a second ago had a good grip around jake’s neck. she lay still on the floor, and for a few moments the boys stand as if frozen, until jake crouches down next to her and declares that she’s still alive, just fainted, to which both boys seem to calm down for a second. that is, until a scream is heard from a bit away, and the both of them run to where it came from, out of sight from you.

you were surprised that you had stopped in your tracks to watch the scene ahead of you, and you shake yourself before starting to run forwards again. reaching the end of the hallway, you turn to the way jay and jake had just gone. through the big entrance to the great hall, your eyes scanned over your two friends who were helping a ravenclaw girl, who you recognized to have been in your charms last year, fight off two death eaters. sprinting towards them, you watched as the girl, who you now remembered is called yewon, got hit by a spell right in the stomach, launching her into the wall behind her with great force.

as the wizard cheered his own accomplishment and was left unfocused on the other students, jake used the opportunity to strike. “expelliarmus!” he yelled, and the death eater’s wand flew out of his grip and onto the floor, close to where jay was currently standing, fighting the other death eater. as jake stunned the wandless wizard, jay did something he shouldn’t have - he bowed down to pick up the wand from the floor, but in that exact moment, the witch in front of him aimed towards him and was surely about to jinx him-

“levicorpus!” you yelled with all your might, now only standing a few meters away from them both, and the witch too dropped her wand, now hanging in the air upside down. 

jay turned his head to where your voice had come from, and his jaw dropped once he saw your face. “y/n?!”

“petrificus totalus.” the witch now dropped down onto the floor, head first, and you almost felt bad for her for a moment before you started thinking about what she could’ve done to jay if you hadn’t jumped in.

“what are you doing here?” jay exclaimed, coming closer to you. “are you completely crazy?”

“a small 'thanks' would’ve been nice,” you scoffed, and before he had the opportunity to say anything else, you turned your head to where your former classmate had crashed into the wall, and spoke again. “yewon? are you still there?”

you didn’t hear an answer, and you ran over to where you suspected she was - and she was right by the wall, lying on the floor and sobbing as she held an arm to her chest.

“hey, are you alright?” you crouched down next to her, placing a hand on her trembling shoulder.

“my arm...” she managed to get out in-between sobs. “it hurts...”

when you looked at it, it wasn’t bleeding nor did it have any visible curses on the skin. you turned your head around to jake, who was now standing behind you. “do you think it’s broken?”

“likely. with that force, i’m surprised more isn’t,” he said, and you nodded agreeingly, pulling out your wand and tapping it to her forearm.

“brackium emendo.”

yewon gave out another cry, but this time it wasn't out of pain. “thank you! thank you so much-”

“y/n,” you heard jay’s stern voice from behind you and you turned around once again. his arms were crossed over his chest, and if you had been anyone else, you likely would’ve crumbled under his gaze. but you couldn’t, not now, there were much more important things to do, people were still screaming on the other side of the castle walls and- “please, can’t we talk?”

you stood up, dusting off your knees with your hands before speaking to jake. “make sure she’s okay, please? and pick up that witch’s wand from the floor, and make sure neither of the death eaters get up.” jake nodded at you, flashing you a small smile, before you walked over to where jay was now standing, two tables away from the others.

the great hall was completely empty now, except for the four of you and the two stunned death eaters, and the atmosphere was almost tranquil, even though there was a full-on war going on just a small distance away.

“what are you doing here?” he asked, the desperation clear in his voice. “i thought they made it clear that-”

“i didn’t get to choose what i wanted to do, i was just forced into the room of requirement like everyone else, and-” you took a deep breath. “of course, i escaped. did you really expect me to just follow the others?”

“yes, because you’re underage, y/n!”

“by two months,” you spat, having a hard time controlling your anger at jay’s stubbornness. “i’m two months too young to fight? that doesn’t make any sense, you know i’m better at charms than most of your classmates!”

he shook his head, his eyes wandering around the room. “they were the rules, y/n. i can’t believe you-”

“can’t believe what? that i would want to fight for my school? fight for my friends? fight for this world to not go under-” you let a few tears fall down your cheeks, and you weren’t sure if it was out of exhaustion, frustration, or despair; likely a combination of them all. but you didn’t bother wiping them away. “fight for you. did you expect that i would just sit at home, just hoping that my friends, family, and boyfriend would all survive? not knowing anything and not being able to affect it would’ve killed me, i think you know-”

you were cut off as he pushed his lips onto yours. your eyes fluttered closed instinctively, and your hand that wasn’t currently holding your wand went up to cup his cheek. he tasted of blood from a small cut on his bottom lip and you tasted of salt from your tears, but neither of you minded. kissing jay felt so familiar; it felt like you were home again. it felt like you were back in your common room with him like you’d been a year ago, when no war had been going on and no dark lord was preparing for his final battle. jay’s lips smoothed over yours with such ease and such softness that if you hadn’t been standing, you could’ve fallen asleep from it.

“hey guys,” jake’s voice made you jump into reality again, and you moved your hand from jay’s cheek to his chest to push him away from you far enough for your lips to part from his again. “i hate to be the one to interrupt your moment, but uh... we should really get going.”

you nodded towards him, before looking back over at jay again, who did not look like he had wanted to stop his previous actions, a tiny pout on his lips. now that you were standing so close to him, you could study his face; there were several smaller wounds all over it, and he winced slightly when you reached up to remove a small piece of glass that had been stuck in a cut below his right eye. you used your thumb to wipe away the blood which had leaked down from a bigger wound by his jaw. “episkey,” you whispered, watching as the skin melted together and soon looked as if nothing had ever happened to it.

there was a loud bang, and the glass of the windows behind the staff table shattered everywhere - and in through the hole ran at least a dozen new death eaters, followed by students, teachers, parents, and other adults who were fighting for your side. and amongst them, you spotted none other than your brother - sunghoon was dueling a death eater, whom you’d seen before in the newspapers, all alone, but as he struck the other wizard with a jinx that seemed to have an extreme force, the death eater flew and slammed into a wall just like yewon had done.

in the few moments that you had stood watching your brother, the people around you hadn’t stopped like you, but instead started helping out in battles. you instantly joined jay’s side again, helping him battle a tall and broad man whose wand was producing beams of light at a faster speed than you had ever seen before. “incarcerous!” jay roared, and ropes appeared out of thin air which wrapped around the death eater and held his limbs tightly together.

“good one,” you told him, and turned around to find someone else to help - but standing right behind you was none other than sunghoon. 

“jay, are you dumb?!” he screamed at the boy standing next to you. beads of sweat were rolling down his face and his dark eyes made him look of a mixture between exasperated and exhausted. “forcing my baby sister into a war?!”

“he didn’t force me, you idiot!” you frowned up at him, groaning. “i chose it myself. and what part of me is baby, sunghoon? i’m almost of age, start treating me like it!”

“either way, you can’t be here! you have to get back to the room of requirement!”

you shook your head and took a step closer to him. “in case you haven’t noticed, they’re fighting in here. if we don’t help out soon, we will all be dead. i’d rather die helping out than die arguing about this!”

you walked past him and raised your wand, ready to strike at a witch jake was taking on at the moment, but sunghoon grabbed your arm and pulled you back. you were about to shake him off and complain when he pulled you into a hug. holding you close, he muttered, “i can’t lose you. please, please, take care. never battle alone.” you squeezed him back and nodded into his chest, before pulling away from him. you heard how he told jay to protect you, and the two of them were just about to hug when a red light missed the tops of their heads by just a few centimeters, almost as if it was a signal that you all needed to get back to the war.

you and jay took on one death eater each, throwing spells and shooting colored jets through the air as quickly as you could. but after stunning your opponent, and helping jay do the same to his, you overlooked the room and realized just how many people there were. it was extremely crowded, with injured people crying for help while lying on the floor and voldemort’s helpers assaulting other wizards and witches with both their wands and their bodies. it was overwhelming, there were too many of them, how would you ever win this? your breath became uneven, and you felt like you weren’t getting any air. your head was spinning, and the ground felt like it was shaking below you - it likely was, to be honest - and you couldn’t stay in your place a second longer.

you turned around slowly, before moving towards the opening of the main hall and looked for the best place to go. to your left, your defense against the dark arts teacher was fighting two robed, tall men all by himself, though he seemed to have no problem doing so; to your right, the hallway was empty, so that’s where you went. you found a hole in the wall a bit away, and you could almost hear the fresh air of the night calling for you, so you climbed out through it. instantly, your lungs were filled with the cold air, making you close your eyes in satisfaction and sit down on the ground, relaxing fully. you instantly felt better, and you felt like you wouldn’t have to be out here for a lot longer before you could back inside, just-

“look at who we have here,” said a female voice from beside you, and you opened your eyes and flew up to stand on the stone debris from what had formerly been the wall. you recognized her instantly - she was one of voldemort’s most faithful followers, and you had read about her and her escape from azkaban in the newspapers before. “isn’t it the little mudblood who’s been helping lee heeseung in his plans against the dark lord?” you raised your wand to attack, but she was quicker. “expelliarmus!” your wand flew up into the air and landed right by her feet. you didn’t even bother trying to fetch it, you knew it would be to no avail. “tell me where the boy is hiding, and i shall spare your life.”

“i don’t know!” you cried out.

she raised her eyebrows. “hmm. maybe this will make you remember. crucio!”

you had never experienced pain like this in your life. you crashed down onto the ground, unable to control anything in your body. the pain was obliterating, intense, all-consuming. you screamed, but you couldn’t hear yourself, all your senses being dulled out by the pain. 

and suddenly, she broke off the curse, though your muscles were still throbbing from the curse. “do you know where he is now, then?” she sneered.

“no-” just as you had managed to whimperingly utter the word, she flicked her wand once again. the second hit of the spell felt a lot like the first, but this time she held it for much longer. your bones were on fire, a million knives were pushing into your skin, boiling water was being poured over your body, your head was about to explode-

the relief you felt when she stopped the curse for the second time was indescribable. high-pitched, horrifying laughs were flowing from the death eater’s mouth before she once again spoke. “i think you know now.”

you wanted to slap the grin off her dark lips, but you had no energy to even stand up. instead, you gathered your last bits of power, and said, “i don’t. and even if i had known, i wouldn’t have told you.”

she chuckled, before shaking her head at you. “you silly girl... you deserve this.”

the third time the spell hit you, it was much worse than the other two times; she must’ve gone extremely angry by now. it felt as if you were in space, there was no air for you to breathe. your lungs weren’t working properly. you wished to do anything to make this extreme pain go away, anything... even disappear or... die...

though it had felt like an eternity for you, there were only a few moments after she’d cursed you that the curse was interrupted once again. you couldn’t even look up; you were curled into a ball on the ground, eyes shut tight, wishing that everything would just be over...

soon, there was a shuffle beside you, and soon a hand lay on your shoulder, shaking it gently. “y/n? are you alive? please, be alive...”

by now, you were just barely breathing; it was too hard, it took too much energy from you and you already had very little left.

“hey, it’s all fine now,” a voice told you, as a hand caressed your cheek. “she’s gone. you’ll be fine. please, just-” the voice paused, and when it returned, you could tell that the person by you had turned around and was now yelling towards the entrance of the castle. “jake! get some water, quick!”

you were too exhausted to listen clearly to his voice and try to recognize it, but from his wording, you could easily tell who it was. slowly, you opened your eyes, looking up at jay who sat crouched next to you. he had more bruises and wounds all over his face now than he had had when you had left him, and he was looking down at you with eyes of such panic that you’d never seen before. “fuck, y/n,” he mumbled. “you can’t just go off like that. do you realize how-”

he stopped in his tracks when you reached up with a hand to thread your fingers through his hair, pushing his fringe back and out of his eyes. “i’m fine.”

“a-are you sure?”

you nodded slowly at him, closing your eyes once again and letting your arm fall to your side. “i just need to...rest a bit...” jay let out a sigh of relief, and his hand went from your shoulder and up to your face, letting his thumb wipe away a few tears that you hadn’t noticed shedding. “what happened to her?” you hummed, voice low.

“oh, you didn’t hear it?” you furrowed your eyebrows. “i stunned her at first, but then voldemort spoke over the grounds and told his forces to retreat, to give us one hour to treat to everyone’s wounds and to say our goodbyes to those who are leaving us. he said that heeseung has an hour to give himself in, or else the war is on again.” 

you were surprised that you hadn't heard voldemort's voice, but then again, you even now had to put in all your force to hear jay properly. you looked up at him. “he’s not going to, is he?” you questioned, to which jay merely shrugged. “he can’t, that’s-”

“y/n, are you okay?! someone told me what happened,” said jake as he came up to you two, an empty plastic bottle in his hand. “i only found this, it’s empty, i know, but i mean you can always-”

“aguamenti,” jay said to cut off his friend’s rambling, filling the bottle quickly before handing it to you. thanking them both, you sat up straight, although every muscle and every ligament in your body screamed as you did, and drank a couple of sips.

deciding that you wouldn’t get anything done sitting there all night, you put away the bottle and pressed your hands into the ground, trying to push yourself up, but instantly failed. jay saw your struggling and bolted up, offering his hand down to you and helping you stand up once you took it in yours. “how’s your balance?” jake asked as you froze for a few seconds when you were trying to figure out if you were blacking out due to the stinging feeling in your head or due to your blood pressure dropping from standing up too quickly.

“not good enough,” you chuckled. “will you guys help me?” they both nodded, and soon they were by your sides, letting you throw your arms across their shoulders to steady you.

as you walked into the castle again through the hole you had come out from a while ago, you couldn’t help but to think about what jay had said earlier. say our goodbyes to those who are leaving us... he made it seem like there are many who were too injured to bring back. there couldn’t be a lot, could there?

“where is heeseung?” you asked, moving your head between them to look at their faces. “he knows we are fighting, right? he can’t give up!”

jake stopped in his tracks, which made you jump back too even though you all were just a few meters from the main hall by now, and he gave jay a very specific look. “you haven’t told her, have you?”

jay rubbed his hand that wasn’t holding you up against the back of his neck. “i- i haven’t found a good moment to do it!”

“wha-” was all you could let out before jake spoke again.

“and you think this is a good moment?!” he almost yelled, shaking his head at jay.

“i don’t think we’ll find a better one, nor that we have any choice,” jay groaned, and just as your confusion and frustration of not being allowed into the conversation peaked, someone ran into your view.

“oh my god, y/n!” cried yewon, running up to you. “i’m so sorry for your loss, i wish there was something i could’ve done-”

and that’s when it hit you. you realized what jay and jake had been referring to, but you refused to believe it. she must’ve been confused, it can’t have been true, nothing was wrong-

you pulled away your arms from the boys and ignored their calls of your name when you sprinted forwards, past yewon and into the hall. you pushed away your thoughts of your aching muscles and how it was likely unwise to do this; nothing was more important right now than making it all the way to where the dead bodies lay in the middle of the room. they had removed the tables by now, and people were gathering in groups around the wizards and witches on the floor, though you couldn’t see anything other than the one body you were aiming towards. and as you reached him, the world turned black.

“sunghoon,” you whispered, crouching down to the floor and shaking him by his shoulders. “please, sunghoon. you’re not dead, you can’t die, not now, you...” before you knew it, your sobs were uncontrollable, your face buried in his dusty cloak. this couldn’t be real. there was no way. “wake up... i beg of you...”

you felt someone sit down next to you, and then a hand on your back. you instantly turned around and threw yourself into jay’s embrace, crying out loud. your hands clutched at the material covering his chest and once again you had trouble breathing, your breaths unnaturally short and rapid. jay held your trembling body to him as tightly as he could, hoping that if you felt that he was there with you he’d be able to hold you down in reality, to make sure your mind wasn’t floating away. 

but as time passed, and you started realizing that sunghoon wouldn't come back, your sorrow turned into something else. vengefulness. they weren't getting away with this. 

#enhypen #iland #i-land #Jay #park jay #soft hours #fluff #angst #enhypen angst #jay angst #enhypen scenario #jay scenario #enhypen imagine #jay imagine #enhypen drabble #enhypen blurb #enhypen romance #hogwarts au #hogwarts!au #enhypen Harry Potter au

[robininthelabyrinth]

Beautifully Spent

aka Five Times Lan Qiren Left The Lan Sect Behind

- Chapter 2 -

A/N: As a note, each of these chapters is a separate story with a different point of divergence from canon timeline.

When Lan Wangji was six years old, and Lan Xichen nine, their mother died, breaking their hearts. Even Lan Qiren, who had never liked He Kexin and might have even hated her for having ruined all his dreams of travel, felt her absence keenly – he kept thinking of her at odd times, a matter of irrepressible habit. I should tell her about this next week, he would think as he watched his nephews accomplish something, or, upon receiving an offer to go night-hunting, We can’t go because we wouldn’t be able to make it back in time for the monthly visit, and then he’d abruptly remember she was dead and there would be no more monthly visits.

One time, sitting and watching Lan Wangji carefully practice his calligraphy during the time that would normally have been their monthly visit, he even found himself inexplicably wiping tears out of his eyes. It had been a struggle, but they’d finally gotten Lan Wangji to stop going to her door, ignoring snow and chill to wait there as if simply willing it would allow the door to open again, but he remained overly quiet, even quieter than he’d been before, the loss hurting him deeply, and seeing him hurt had hurt Lan Qiren. He tried to be subtle about it, to hide his abrupt display of emotionality, but before he knew it, Lan Wangji had come over to stand by his side, his little hands holding his own, earnestly mumbling, “Don’t cry, shufu, it’ll be all right” in an echo of what Lan Qiren had been trying so ineffectually to say to him.

“Yes,” he said, wiping harder, and ultimately giving up entirely and letting the tears stream down his cheeks, hiding his face entirely behind one of his sleeves. Lan Xichen found them at some point and curled up into Lan Qiren’s other side, tears starting to slowly seep down his own face; trying to hold back their strange shared grief was like trying to stop the tide. “It will be all right, eventually. I promise.”

He had made that promise too soon, it seemed: less than a week later, one of the elders remarked that it was time for Lan Xichen to take up some of the duties of running a sect.

“What?” Lan Qiren asked, blinking. “You’re joking. He’s nine.”

“He’s the future sect leader,” the elder said, and his gaze was cold. “Never forget, Teacher Lan, that although you fill the role now, you are only a custodian in his name.”

“That’s not the point I was making,” Lan Qiren said, frustrated; he had never been very good with words or with people. “Of course he will inherit the position, given time. But he is not even old enough for his own sword, and years away from night-hunting – why would you burden him with sect business? He’s far too young.”

“He is at exactly the right age to begin. How else can we ensure that he will not fall into the failings of his father or the crimes of his mother?”

“He is a child,” Lan Qiren stressed, wondering what he was missing. “We can only teach him to the best of our abilities, and hope that he does well with it; there’s nothing else that can be done.”

The elder shook his head. “We cannot take the risk of another generation of disaster. He must be trained, and trained now, trained well. If we do not take action, it may be too late, and he will be ruined.”

As you were, he didn’t say, but Lan Qiren felt keenly the burn of humiliation. He had never lived up to their expectations the way his brother had, and then his brother had gone and failed them all, too.

“What exactly are you thinking?” he asked, trying to dismiss the feeling of foreboding in his belly. An introduction to the burdens Lan Xichen would eventually face would not be so far amiss – a shichen a week of helping to transcribe simple letters, perhaps, or running errands, the sort of thing a boy could do and not be bored; that wouldn’t be too bad.

That wasn’t what they had in mind at all.

They wanted Lan Xichen to start tackling political problems at once, forcing him to make real decisions, deal with paperwork, and then also three times the usual lessons in sword and music, all the skills he would need to have. And all this, of course, on top of his regular lessons –

“We can assist, of course,” one of the elders said to the others, ignoring Lan Qiren’s aghast expression entirely. “But the sooner he grows accustomed to the work, the sooner he can step up –”

“You’ll crush him!” Lan Qiren exclaimed, interrupting, and he never interrupted the elders. “He’s a child, and a child who just lost his mother at that – how can you even suggest this? He would have no time to study in depth rather than shallowly, no time to think, to become his own person –”

“We will polish him into a perfect jade,” an elder said. “Him, and the younger one, too. What more do they need than to be of service to the sect?”

It wasn’t that Lan Qiren disagreed that service to their sect was the highest good, or that scholarly and martial pursuits were of the highest caliber, far more important than aimless play. He was a teacher, a strict one, and the sect rules accorded with his understanding: Learning comes first. But at the same time, there was learning and then there was learning – he was a teacher who cared for his students’ well-being, too. He knew that the approach proposed would not polish Lan Xichen into a jade but mold him instead, brutally pruning away any part of him that did not accord with the elders’ wishes.

It was just what they’d done to Lan Qiren the moment he became acting sect leader, after all.

They’d loaded him up with responsibilities until he’d nearly worked himself sick, refused to grant him the slightest freedom to travel even in a small and supervised manner, and they’d tried to force him to recant even those few things he did enjoy – composing music, teaching children. If he hadn’t already been as old as he was when it started, he wouldn’t have had the strength of will or determination to preserve even those few little things of his own…

“He should move into the hanshi soon,” another elder agreed. “If we expect him to take on the responsibilities of an adult, he should be treated as one.”

“Agreed. The sooner he disengages from messing around with his peers, the better. They will only distract him from what he needs to do.”

“I do not agree with this,” Lan Qiren said. “I am his guardian and his teacher. I do not agree.”

“I’m disappointed in you, Qiren,” one of the elders said, and Lan Qiren felt an automatic wash of shame, instinctive and ingrained after all these years. “You took the sect leader position with the knowledge that it would not truly be yours, and now you wish to preserve your personal power longer?”

I never wanted the position, which offers only power in exchange for its brutal demands! I still don’t want it! But to put it onto a child, any child, much less my own nephew who I love – how could I agree to that?

“You must not be selfish, as your brother was,” another elder scolded him, and normally Lan Qiren would be the first to agree. Being like his brother was his worst fear, and one he would do anything to avoid – but at the moment, the reminder felt wrong, as if they were using it as a tool to manipulate him rather than expressing what they really thought. “Do not cling to power and authority, after all. You cannot and must not steal what belongs to your nephews, Qiren. Never forget your place.”

Lan Qiren stared at him mutely. His place?

He had never been selfish. He had sacrificed everything – he had been filial and loyal, obedient to his elders, and they had taken everything from him, just as they planned to do to the two children that had been entrusted to his care. The only difference was that Lan Qiren had been allowed to live freely for a little while, and even that freedom was only because the elders had utterly ignored him in favor of his more talented brother, who had been protected by the love of his powerful father; for his nephews, who were all but orphaned and left only in his inferior care, there was no such defense.

This time, it was clear that the elders meant to rectify the situation – this time, they wouldn’t even leave Lan Wangji his childhood, let alone Lan Xichen.

They would hollow them out and leave them as little more than puppets, blindly obeying the rules without having the time to contemplate their meaning. They would squeeze out every moment of every day, turning each endless shichen into a joyless burden, transforming the rules into little more than a yoke to chain them – his nephews wouldn’t be Lan, who chose willingly to obey because they loved the rules and loved their sect and wanted to give everything for it. They would be little better than slaves.

Perhaps, Lan Qiren thought suddenly, it was not his selfishness that the elders were constantly seeking to correct. Perhaps it was their own.

He tried, first and foremost, to argue with them, but they did not listen to him. They had never listened to him, not from the first moment he had yielded to their wishes over his own desires and allowed himself to be trapped in the Cloud Recesses as the new sect leader. No – it was even older than that, from even before then, from as far back as when he had been small and helpless and crying out for help in his own way, not even knowing what was happening to him and why…

They had always turned their faces away.

Lan Qiren had tried his best to please them, and had failed. He’d thought the blame lay with him, but now he wasn’t so sure – now he thought that it didn’t matter what he did, that he never would.

Lan Qiren’s nephews were the ones who were small and helpless now, and unlike the elders that should have watched over him, he would not turn away.

The plan he hatched was ruthless in the extreme, but there was nothing else he could think of in his desperation. The Lan sect had always been very secretive, in its own way, keeping outsiders from knowing their personal business; although everyone within the sect knew that it was the elders who held all the real power, even if they disdained the work of it and left much of that for Lan Qiren to accomplish, from the outside it appeared as though Lan Qiren were sect leader, invested with all the powers of one.

To be a sect leader, in their day and age, was to be a tyrant.

No need to look at Wen Ruohan, the chief example of this trend, a man who made his sect kneel and touch their heads to the floor upon hearing that he was coming. It was enough to look instead at the Jiang sect, whose sect leader Jiang Fengmian whiled away his days waiting for his old lover to write, ignoring his wife despite her maternal family’s power and influence within his territory. Look at the Jin sect, where Jin Guangshan bedded every prostitute and poor young lady within range, surrounded by a cloud of rumors regarding whether he’d bothered to get all of them to consent – rumors there might be, but no one dared to make any trouble for him over it without actual proof. Look at Lao Nie, whose sect, elders and all, sighed and shook their heads over his excessive fondness for dangerous people, but could take no action to stop him.

Look at Lan Qiren’s father, who had spoiled one child into madness and neglected the other into near despair, and had trained his whole sect to accept it as a given. Lan Qiren was working to repair that damage, to lead by example, but it was a hard upward struggle – rot might start at the head, and healing, too, but the healing was harder than the rotting.

A sect leader, in short, was a tyrant.

And as far as the world was concerned, Lan Qiren was the sect leader.

Lan Qiren bided his time until the next discussion conference. It hurt him to wait, seeing poor Lan Xichen get stretched thin under his new duties and constantly reminded to keep a serene smile on his face throughout, seeing poor Lan Wangji so stressed at his brother’s misery and his own amplified lessons that he'd started biting people again, but he knew it was necessary. A discussion conference meant outsiders, and outsiders meant not losing face; it was the one time that Lan Qiren was actually treated as a sect leader by all around him, the one time no one would gainsay anything he said, even if they would later tear strips off of him in private.

It was his only chance.

"I have an announcement," he said mildly, presiding over the large gathering that marked the conclusion of the discussion conference. His Lan sect was the host of this conference, and he was accordingly seated at the head of the room, equal with the other Great Sects but given additional deference in view of the location - it was easy for his voice to carry, despite his quiet tone, and all the sects turned towards him to listen. They were probably expecting something anodyne, some additional prize or information about the weather to keep in mind as they departed. "I have decided that my Lan sect's ties to the rest of the cultivation world have grown stale, seeing each other as we do only at these times and the common people only on night hunts. As a result, in my authority as Sect Leader Lan, I intend to make a journey throughout the various sects, taking along my nephews to introduce them to your families. In my absence, the Cloud Recesses will be managed by my cousin, Lan Yueheng -"

Talk exploded in the whole audience, furious and loud, all but his own Lan sect which was calm and stone-faced as always, though of course that was only their pride and concern for face overwhelming their shock. Poor Lan Yueheng was the exception, of course, his jaw dropping open like a weight dropped from a great height until his neighbors noticed and elbowed him in the side to make him stop - Lan Qiren mentally apologized for not having warned his cousin up front. He hadn't dared to risk it. 

" - and accordingly I will be leaving alongside the rest of you at the conclusion of this conference," he concluded, for once relieved that his voice never varied far from a monotone; he sounded cool and calm and in control, and like he hadn't noticed the way his sect elders were trying to strangle him with their gaze even as the maintained decorum. "Our first destination is the Nie sect's Unclean Realm, with Lao Nie as our host."

Lan Qiren hadn't warned Lao Nie, either, but he knew him well, and to his relief hadn't misjudged him - the other man didn't spare so much as a moment to blink in surprise, instead grinning broadly at the other sect leaders.

"You bet you are," he laughed, his voice booming and loud. "And don't think I'll let you leave so quickly, Qiren - not until your nephews are best friends with my sons, and not until you've had a chance to work your magic on my sect's younger generation and turn them from little beasts into proper gentlemen!"

Lan Qiren barely resisted rolling his eyes - he still didn't know who it was that had come up with the nonsense about him being able to turn the most hopeless waste into a gentleman, but it was rank exaggeration. But to his surprise, the first person to respond was the head of one of the more distant small sects, Baling Ouyang, a young man with an excitable temperament; he leapt up to his feet and exclaimed, "Will he really? Sect Leader Lan, I insist you visit my Ouyang sect next, if you haven't made firm plans - I scarcely recognized my little hellion nephews after a season in your care, all grown up, careful in thought and action, compassionate and upright...and no more pranks!"

Another exaggeration. The Ouyang twins had been troublesome only at the start, until Lan Qiren realized that what they longed for most was recognition as separate beings rather than a collective whole; as soon as he'd treated them with respect, and showed them how to act in return, they'd taken to his lessons like a desert to water. 

"Sect Leader Lan's skill in teaching is very well known," Sect Leader Yao said, always first to speak after his friend from the Ouyang sect. "You'll really come to our sects to do it, rather than our children to the Cloud Recesses? And you won't charge, of course...?"

"Naturally no," Lan Qiren said, a little puzzled by their enthusiasm. Was it so expensive to send children to the Cloud Recesses? He’d never charged for his lessons, although he supposed there was the cost of travel and maintenance to the standard preferred by students, and of course guest gifts were customary, although he never made any demands. "I would be your guest, and enjoying your hospitality – room and board would be more than sufficient…"

"In that case, you should come to Pingyang next -"

"No, Yueyang!" someone else called, and before Lan Qiren knew exactly what was happening, the sect leaders were arguing over who he should visit first. The most enthusiastic were the ones whose children he had taught already, but the others were quick to catch up, loathe to miss out on what they perceived to be a good deal - even Wen Ruohan, never one to lose out to others when it came to something perceived of as desirable, extended an offer with a smug, snake-like smile. 

Lan Qiren provisionally accepted all the offers with a growing sense of relief: with such public acceptance, the Lan sect would lose more face by refusing to let him go than in allowing his unorthodox action. It was just as he has hoped, and more successful than he'd dared to dream; the other sects had fixated on his teaching skills and in doing so had ignored the strangeness of a sect leader taking his heirs and all but running away from home. 

That relief carried him through to the end of the meeting, when everyone divided up to pack up their things, and Lan Qiren returned to the inner parts of his sect to do the same.

"What are you thinking?" one of the elders demanded the second they were alone. "Have you gone mad?"

"Did you see the reception of my idea?" Lan Qiren replied, hiding the giddiness of relief under a facade of calm. "The sect will benefit greatly from the connections we will make."

"That's no answer!"

Lan Qiren was a filial child; even if they were wrong, he would not tell the elders so to their faces. Instead he only bowed deeply and said, "What's done is done. I need to get ready, and quickly; it would be embarrassing if we weren't prepared."

Of course, he'd already packed everything he thought he'd need, determined to take Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji with him no matter what - it was only luck that his plan had worked as well as it had, allowing him to pretend to some move of subtle strategic genius rather than a retreat out of desperation. Still, he needed to go through the motions.

"Fine," another elder spat out, although their demeanor made it clear that it wasn't fine at all. "But did you have to announce that the provisional leader was Lan Yueheng? He's completely unfit!"

By which they meant that he wouldn't listen to them - that he was brash and lacked tact, said what he thought and cared for nothing but his experiments, his wife, and his children. Out of all of Lan Qiren’s cousins, he was the most thick-faced, shameless to the extreme, essentially immune to criticism or guilt. 

That was, of course, exactly why Lan Qiren had picked him.

"He's good at math and accounting, and at arranging provisioning," Lan Qiren said, picking the more acceptable reason. "That's the key responsibility left over, isn't it? Everything else, I can do through correspondence."

The reassurance that Lan Qiren would still be doing his duty to the sect - would still be accountable to them - helped settle some ruffled feathers. It wouldn't be pleasant to try to do the work of sect leader from abroad, Lan Qiren knew; it would mean a lot of sleepless nights slaving away by candlelight, with no support from any aides, bearing all the weight himself. No doubt the elders knew it too, and figured that he'd soon enough lose interest in what he heard them calling, in hushed voices where they thought he could not hear, his "little show of rebellion".

Lan Qiren didn't care. The sooner they left, the better the chances that the elders would continue to be deceived into thinking that Lan Qiren was doing all this for his own sake - some last stab at achieving his long forgotten dreams, doomed to inevitable disappointment - instead of what it really was, which was freedom for his nephews. They couldn't be assigned work or classes from a distance; their education would be wholly in Lan Qiren’s hands.

He'd take a thousand sleepless nights of overwork if it meant they got to be children a little longer.

"Are we really going to the Unclean Realm?" Lan Wangji lisped, looking even more rosy-cheeked and excited than usual. "Will – will Nie-gongzi will be there?"

"Yes, Mingjue-xiong will be there," Lan Xichen said, and grinned at Lan Qiren over his brother’s head. He looked more carefree than he had in...possibly years, and Lan Qiren briefly regretted how long it had taken him to do this. "Since you like him so much."

Lan Wangji turned bright red at once.

"Both of the Nie boys will be there," Lan Qiren said. "The younger one is closer to your age, Wangji. You can get to know him as well."

Lan Qiren went next to the library pavilion, looking for books on their sect rules - he might not trust his sect elders, but he loved his sect, loved their rules and traditions, and he wanted his nephews to love it, too. He wanted them to see the Cloud Recesses as a refuge, as a haven - not a burden.

He would give his nephews the freedom he'd longed for, and when they were older...when they were older, more resilient, more sure of who they were, he would bring them back and he would ensure that they obtained their rightful inheritance. In full, not in part - Lan Xichen would be a real sect leader, not a puppet for the elders, taught only to be pleasant and yielding and to perform well with his cultivation, swordsmanship and music only for the purpose of impressing outsiders. Lan Wangji would be his brother’s right hand, would love and respect him and be loved and respected in turn.

Maybe, Lan Qiren thought to himself, amused, they would even find some compatible child on their way and one day return to bring them home as a dao companion.

He couldn't wait to find out.

#mdzs #lan qiren #lan xichen #lan wangji #sect leader nie #my fic #my fics #beautifully spent

[gemma-collins-ily]

Jesper with s/o who really knows how to kick ass (aka sis was trained by someone)

Jesper with a Trained S/O

a/n - I love the pairing of Jesper and the pet name honey too much aaah. Also this was written over two nights when I was half asleep so forgive me if it isn't top notch xoxo 💗💝

Warnings: fighting, poison, bruises/cuts but no real mentions of blood or anything

so

Kaz obviously employed you because of how amazing you are at any type of combat

but when asked the specific reason, he had only responded with a cryptic answer that gave the Crows nothing

"They're an asset to the team. Just as all of you are."

you would train at extremely early hours of the morning, often seen jogging back up the stairs to your room drenched in sweat right when others first awoke

but no one knew what you were actually doing

until Inej caught you in the training room in the Slat, practically beating a punching bag

the funny thing was, you didn't look as though you were a street fighter, one who had developed their own adapted technique that would get them by in a scrap

your punches were calculated, muscles flexing in just the right way and stature perfect

it was the ideal stance for a real fight in a ring

she didn't say anything and instead decided to get up just a little earlier each day in order to observe you

she was caught when she let the door creak accidentally, but instead of kicking her out of the room you only offered to leave so she could use it

she refused and said she'd rather watch you

and she did from then on, you having no protest or apparent problem with it

sometimes, you'd go up against Inej and circle each other warily, not daring to underestimate the other

you had only been on a few low level heists with the Crows at that point, Kaz mercifully easing you into the work

but it was noticed by Nina that whenever it was necessary to run and hide, you could sprint with full stamina and hardly break a sweat unless it was done for a long amount of time

she also noticed your heart rate barely raised

she brought it up once

"Ugh, (Y/N), I'm so jealous, you literally must be super-human, how are you so energised?"

this was said through panting breaths as she bent to rest her hands on her knees, much like the others were doing

this meant in turn it wasn't really registered by anyone

only you

you didn't really mind people knowing you were trained in combat, but didn't flaunt it or let anyone know without them finding out

you would act casually when found out, downplaying your skills

everything was a threat in the Barrel, and saying one wrong thing near one wrong person could cost you your head

you hadn't stiffened when Nina said that, only nodding and grinning, leaning against the wall with your hands in your pockets yet not saying anything verbally

you knew how to play the game and in order to do that, you had to let them subconsciously dismiss the very idea itself

Albert Einstein iq I'm telling you

psychology at its very core

you know

so

it's all forgotten until they see your skills put to use on a heist

if you've watched now you see me 2 and watched the spectacular card sequence, the next part is basically that

your tactful hand at cards could beat Kaz Brekker himself

on the heist, you know one of Kaz's sacred backup plans

only one, mind you

so, it's like the card sequence

you're all going in as guests but you and Kaz will shoot the card with the information between you and your separate searches

"Hands the other way, ma'am."

Your hands flew the opposite way, palms now facing the guard as the card was quickly flipped between your fingers, and with a single, efficient flick of the wrist Kaz had it in his possession.

"Alright, on your way you go."

Jesper had only seen because he was stationed behind you, otherwise he never would have known it was so seamless

Nina told them later that kind of thing seemed to be a regular occurrence as your heart rate had been completely average

showing how confident you are, go bestie

it was true

you and Kaz had trained for that heist often however barely for any length of time at all

the best part for you was that you had been checking how noticeable it was and flipping the card back and forth between you in meetings

Jesper's eyes had widened comically when he observed the whole thing and his jaw dropped

you laughed as you stepped past and kissed his jaw, making it close promptly as he chased after you, desperate for answers

your cards can also be poisoned

and in another heist they doubted you

because they had seen you help pull something off but not use any as a weapon

you were motioned by Kaz to appear innocent until another signal was given, one of which only you and Inej had been paying attention to and so understood

but after you hissed at Jesper out of the corner of your mouth, he stayed subdued too

you remained eerily silent as they pushed you against the wall and searched your pockets

the cards were brought out and ridiculed, even if you had cleverly concealed knives, now you knew how you would kill these men

after the go ahead was given, you burst into action, swooping downward and catching the man holding you off guard

you collected the cards and grinned as you stepped back, now the front most Crow in your little pyramid formation at the end of the street

"And what are they gonna do?"

A malicious glint appeared in your eye as Jesper tapped your shoulder, thinking you had backed yourself into a corner here.

but then, your hand flew out and struck one clean in the eye, making them wail and drop to their knees as you flung another card, swiping a man's cheek

they did not fall until a minute later, that minute consisting of you whipping cards at them and Jesper tugging on your sleeve

he'd do that a lot, before he knew of your training and maybe after too

it wasn't that he thought you couldn't handle yourself, just that he wanted to protect you in any way possible

so pulling you behind him was a knee jerk reaction, desiring to save his loved one from any possible threat or danger

he would do anything for you, let a bullet pierce his chest, a dagger land in his throat, as long as you emerged okay

it was only later, when you got Kaz to pick up the cards, saying it would be easier to wash them with a cloth than learn how to balance the slightly differing weight of a new pack

you made Kaz do it because he had leather protection and knew of the poison darkening the edges of the cards to an inky black

they were kept in a special and specific packet so there was no possible way of you being hurt unless you were completely careless

that was completely unable to happen because you were wary enough to know what to do and what not to

but Jesper still insisted you left them in his coat after he found out, wanting you to be totally risk free

"What if you're not with me? How will I use my weapons?"

"Well, my darling, that will not be the case," he paused to snicker at his unintentional joke about the container then continued, "because Kaz will absolutely keep us together at all times."

You hummed thoughtfully, "How do you know that?"

There was an immediate answer, no moment of hesitation from your sharpshooter, "He simply can't handle how fantastically amazing I am on his own, knowing I am far superior and so will continue to pair us together to avoid having to face that foe."

"Jes, honey, he could partner you with Inej or Nina or Matthias, you know that, right?"

He was stumped and his mouth opened before closing once more.

the cards were still not handed back though

don't worry, new ones were purchased after Jesper insisted on 'clinging' to the other pack like a lifeline, according to Kaz

he did find out about this after you saved his ass in a fight with them

he was so mad, not that you'd defied him but that you had put yourself in danger with the cards

but after Inej pointed out he had to trust you at some moment in time, he softened

because how could you think he didn't trust you?

he didn't ever want you to have to answer that question and set about trying to rectify the situation

you received breakfast in bed and apology cuddles

"I trust you."

It was the mantra he had been repeating for days and you smiled as your hand came to rest upon his jawline.

"I know, darling. I know."

You were met with a soft kiss to your collarbone as his head dipped to fall into the crook of your neck, wrapping his arms around your waist in a tight but gentle hug.

He hummed before continuing, "Just wanted to make sure, honey."

the cards were left wordlessly on your bedside table, drawing a small sated smile from your lips

after he came to terms with the fact that you were a Dreg, a Crow, someone who would be targeted because you were entwined with him, he became just a little overprotective

not that you minded

just reassuring him often you were okay and he was too

after Wylan came along, you politely requested to know if he could make some kind of thing that would make the cards easier to collect

he came up with the idea of a magnetic substance that could be brushed over the centre of the cards, meaning if you kept one in your hand and waved it over the others, there would be no time delay in which you would have to pick them up

again

the added weight, even such a small increment, affected the momentum needed and angle necessary

for days, you were flinging your cards at a wall, barely stopping to eat, wanting to be useful

Jesper dragged you back to bed several times in the early mornings with coaxing syllables and sweet words, promises on how you would get it right tomorrow

"Sweetheart, just come back to bed. Wait a few hours and try again. You're so close to getting this. I just know it."

As you wrapped yourself in the comforter his hand came to stroke your cheek, "There you go, see, you were looking half asleep on your feet, doing yourself no good anyway, lovely. Or those cards."

when witnessing your physical combat skills, Jesper would let a surprised chuckle fall, not fully in control of himself

watching you flip an enemy who had underestimated you over your shoulder never got old

neither did seeing your boot swivel slightly on their chest as you proved just how skilled you were

awww such pure and innocent love

"Don't think I won't beat you in a fight again, Lion. Or there won't be another opportunity for you to."

"That's my partner!"

"Alright Jes, bit much but thanks for hyping me up."

Just as you turned and both of you were about to walk away, a cold and clammy hand clamped over your ankle and you instantaneously recoiled.

Then, before Jesper or the Dime Lion knew what was happening, your fist connected with his stomach, hand coming up to cover your false and exaggerated yawn.

"So cool." Was whispered from your sharpshooter as you stalked off, boots clicking on the gravel pavement.

he had forced you into a chair, begging you to let him take care of your now bruising knuckles and you begrudgingly agreed

"Wasn't so bad, huh?"

"Don't push it." Was the joking response as his arm slung over your waist, and his thumbs brushed over the bandage he had applied so carefully as his hand covered the one you had let hang at your hip.

"Wouldn't dream of it, darling. Don't have the foggiest why you would assume such of me."

if you ever couldn't handle the entire situation and obtained an injury, Jesper would stay by your side

when a minor one, like a small gash on your forehead appeared, he would insist on personally caring for it

and if major, he would hold your hand, allowing you to squeeze it as hard as you wanted when the pain became too much

the same went for the other way round, you giggling at bandages wrapped all around his head like a bandana

but only after you knew he was alright

if tears filled your eyes, caused by relief, his thumb would come up to brush them away and slightly pull the corners of your mouth into a weak and wavering smile

"I'm alright. I'm okay, honey, you just remember that."

the both of you would press gentle goodnight kisses to each others foreheads or lips, forgetting a bruise or cut

this would end in frantic apologies and inevitable laughter when you kept speaking over one another

basically, Jesper thinks you're so badass, amazing and fantastic, reminding you just how highly he regards you everyday

you will protect him and he will protect you, no matter what

#jesper fahey x reader #jesper fahey x you #jesper fahey fics #jesper fahey fluff #jesper fahey #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone x you #shadow and bone fic #shadow and bone fanfiction #shadow and bone #grishaverse x reader #grishaverse x you #grishaverse fic #grishaverse #jesper fahey headcanons

[aspoonofsugar]

Penny’s Final Word

Cinder might have had the final word of the volume and that is a meta for another time. Still, there is another character who got to have another important final word:

Penny: Let me choose this one thing.

Penny’s arc has always been about self-actualization and escaping objectification.

She was created to be a weapon and everything was decided for her by basically... everyone:

Both enemies and loved ones alike ended up choosing for her multiple times, so it is fitting that Penny herself is the one who has the last word about herself. She makes the final choice that decides how her life should end and what her legacy should be.

At the same time, Penny’s final choice and sacrifice perfectly tie together all the major themes explored in the Atlas arc.

This analysis will try to explore her arc and to show how it is central to everything the Atlas volumes wanted to convey.

PENNY AND HER FAIRIES

What makes a person a person and not something else?

This is a key question in Penny’s story and it can’t be answered without addressing who her Blue Fairy is.

Is it Fria?

Or Ambrosius?

The answer is neither and both. These two characters are definately references to the Blue Fairy, but they are not the ones who make Penny feel human. The one who does is ironically a red fairy:

You saw my soul Through the nuts and bolts You're the friend I can trust Helped me see I'm not just a machine

It is Ruby’s aknowledgement of Penny’s personhood that makes Penny feel alive.

So, what about Fria and Ambrosius? What is their role?

Fria chooses Penny as the next Winter Maiden. This is a powerful moment thematically because it is an aknowledgement of Penny’s humanity. She has always been a real girl, a Maiden at Heart, hence she can be given the powers and protect them.

Ambrosius removes Penny’s robotic parts and makes the “real” Penny come to the surface:

Ambrosius: Okay, but if I take the robot parts out of her, that would leave...

Blake: Penny. The girl who's always been there underneath it.

Penny’s new body is human because Penny has always been human and has always wanted to feel human.

In short, these two moments are moments of recognition of Penny’s humanity. She becomes a human both in soul (Fria) and body (Ambrosius). In particular, she has always had a human soul and this is why it can be tied to the power of the Maiden. When it comes to her body, she aquires a human one because her new appearance is nothing, but a mirror of her soul.

Still, even if these two moments are both meaningful, they are also moments where Penny receives something passively. They are aknowledgements of Penny’s humanity yes, but Penny wants more. She wants personhood aka to live as her own person.

To truly become a person one must be able to make their own choices. And interestingly, Penny’s free will is linked to both moments with her two blue fairies.

Ambrosius’s magic does not simply give Penny a human body, but it gives her back her freedom. Not only that, but it makes it impossible hacking her ever again.

Fria’s interaction with Penny is more complicated.

First of all, Fria does not impose the power on Penny, but asks her to make a choice:

Fria: Penny. Are you the one?

Penny: I…

And Penny does so in a sense, but it is gray. Penny is given no time to think about this choice, differently from both Winter and Pyrrha. It is something imposed on her by the events:

Penny: But taking the Maiden power was the only way to stop--

Moreover, it is something she very clearly does not want:

Penny: I was the protector of Mantle, but now, I am much more than that, and I wish I was not.

In short, Penny’s interaction with Fria is a recognition of her humanity, but also a duty imposed on her by external occurrences.

It is not what Penny herself wants. To truly be human, instead, Penny should make her own choices and be given the chance to pursue what she wants.

Still, what does she truly wishes for?

PENNY AND HER JIMINY CRICKETS

Penny’s wish is made obvious since her first appearance:

Penny: "You called me 'friend'! Am I really your friend?"

Ruby: "Uuuum... Y-Yeah, sure! Why not?"

My wish came true That day that you appeared And called me friend

She wants friends to the point that Ruby’s awkward aknowledgement of their friendship is enough to make Penny completely loyal to the other girl.

At the same time, there are many Jimini Crickets that go in the way of Penny’s wish for friendship:

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much; he just worries a lot.

(...)

Penny: I... was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn't my father...

Both Ironwood’s high expectations and Pietro’s overprotectiveness make so that she is not free to enjoy her own life as she wants.

She arrives to the point that she comes up with a plan to stay at Beacon with her new friends:

Penny: Ruby, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about. I want to stay at Beacon.

Ruby: Penny, they'll never let you do that.

Penny: I know, but I have a plan.

However, we never discover what this plan is:

This does not happen by chance and Penny’s plan is not a dropped plot-point. It is symbolic of how her agency is completely negated. She is objectified to the point that her story is interrupted before she can take any action. It is a meta-way to comment her character and her major struggle.

Penny’s first death is more than a murder. It is a way to refuse Penny’s personhood and agency:

Ruby:  And Penny… was killed… just to make a statement.

She is used as a symbol of Atlas’s shady research. Penny’s own self is forgotten in the chaos that follows.

The same thing happens in Atlas as well:

Ruby: I don't think Robyn was their target. Salem's goal has always been to divide us. I think Penny was exactly where they wanted her, just like at the Vytal Festival.

This time she is not framed as a victim, but as a perpetrator and used as the symbol of an authoritarian regime.

Her enemies’ objectification of Penny is made clear in many ways:

Cinder: I have come too far to be stopped by some toy!

Cinder: You’re just a tool to be used!

Salem:  Although he remains in captivity, it seems that he has worked with Ironwood to gain some control over the puppet masquerading as the Winter Maiden.

And Watts’s virus is just the culmination of it. It is the embodyment of the Jiminy Cricket trying to overwrite what Penny wants.

At the same time, though, Penny’s enemies are not the only ones who try to control her:

Pietro: I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.

Penny: But dad… I am trying to.

Penny’s loved ones have tried to protect her all along. However, this wish of protection ends up going in the way of what she really wants:

I've been combat-ready since The day dad made me Now I'll fight for something more Might sound wholesome, But strangely I've got friends Fighting for

What Penny wants is to fight together and for her friends. She does not want her life to be considered less than others’. Still, she does not even want it to be put before others’:

Cinder: I don’t serve anyone. And you wouldn’t either, if you weren't built that way.

Penny: That is not…I choose to fight for people who care about me.

In short, it is as Maria says:

Maria: Don’t you think Penny has had enough people telling her what to do?

PENNY AND BEING A REAL GIRL

At its root, Penny’s struggle has always been this:

Penny: I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do and the things I want to do. Is that normal?

She wants to reconcile her duty and her personal wishes.

It is her duty to accept the power of the Maiden and to protect it.

It is her wish to live with her friends and to protect them.

These two things end up coming into conflict multiple times:

Penny: And after the launch, I’ll return to help you all with the evacuation.

Pietro: About that, Penny. When Amity goes up, I think you should be on it with Maria and I.

Penny: But they need me here. Right?

Ruby: Well, if you stay far out of Salem’s reach, then she can’t open the vault. She can’t get to the relic. So...

Weiss: Maybe it is for the best?

Until the finale where Penny makes a specific choice:

Weiss: Penny, no!

If Penny were to act as the perfect Maiden, she would have just gone to Vacuo with the staff. In this way she could have protected both the relic and the power. Even if Cinder had ended up killing all her friends, Salem would have still lost.

However, Penny decides not to act as a Maiden, but as a friend:

Penny: You wouldn’t know anything about friends.

Even the reason why Cinder manages to mortally wound her is because Penny is worried about Jaune and Weiss and gets distracted for a second:

However, it is specifically in the moment of her death that Penny is able to make a choice to reconcile both who she is and what she has to do.

She chooses to protect the power:

Penny: She can’t get the staff..and the power.

And to save a friend:

Penny: I thought of you. And here we are.

Winter would have died without the Maiden powers and the same can be said about the people stranded in Vacuo. Penny saves all by choosing to be the one in control of her death.

Her choice is extremely powerful thematically and it ties together all the themes explored in these last two volumes.

1) It is a choice about trust:

Penny: Trust me.

Winter: Thank you for trusting me with this.

Penny asks to be trusted and chooses to trust as well. After all, this is what friendship is all about:

Attached but not By strings

It is a choice that uses the motif of “the part of you” in two different ways.

2)  Becoming a part of someone else can be seen as a reference to the process of grieving, which is one of the themes explored in this volume:

Grieving means to come to terms with your loss, to accept your feelings for the people who are gone and also their contradictions:

Robyn: Clover was a lot of things. You respected him, but I gotta tell ya, I think you’re the better Huntsman.

Vine: Then perhaps Clover was wrong too.

The lost ones will be missed regardless:

Harriet: Don't you dare! Clover was... He was...

Vine: ...Important to you.

Still, once you manage to finally grieve, you’ll realize the other person has become a part of you:

It does not matter if Qrow’s semblance has evolved, if it is a part of Clover’s power having stayed attached to the pin, both or if it is Clover looking out for them.

What’s important is that Clover will keep on living inside Qrow because Qrow will never forget him or what Clover has taught him:

Clover: You shouldn't do that, you know.

Qrow: Don't worry, I-I gave that up.

Clover: I meant deflect a compliment. Those kids wouldn't be where they are without you. You've had more of an effect on them than you realize.

Qrow should love himself. Only in this way he can stop being a self-fulfilling curse. Only in this way he can start looking at his own life with hope and wish for good luck.

Similarly, Penny won’t be forgotten and her legacy will live through Winter:

Penny: She's… gone.

Winter: No. She's a part of you now.

Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.

3) Penny becomes a part of Winter because Winter is finally able to do this:

Winter: But yes Penny, we must still acknowledge our personal feelings, wrestle with them. It ensures us that we're on the right path. It's what makes us human.

Winter is the one who taught Penny this, but it is obvious that through volume 7 and 8 she has avoided to face her feelings for both her family and Ironwood. By the end of volume 8, however, she is finally able to accept her emotions. She can finally follow her heart. Penny becoming “a part of her” is symbolic of this. As a matter of fact their dynamic has always been about Winter acting as “the mind” and Penny being “the heart”.

Symbolically they integrate because they both are becoming their own person even if in different ways.

Winter becomes her own person because she rejects this mentality:

Winter: Penny. The general is making hard choices so we don't have to.

Penny becomes her own person because she is finally in control of herself and her destiny. Moreover, she is able to do for Winter what Ruby has done for her:

Winter: No, Penny, you were always the real Maiden at heart. I was just a machine. Just… following orders.

Penny: You’re my friend.

She affirms Winter’s personhood and in this way she affirms her own as well.

In other words, this version of Pinocchio does not end with the protagonist being transformed into a real boy by the Blue Fairy, but with Penny transforming Winter in the Blue Fairy:

So “becoming fully human” in RWBY means to do this:

Qrow:  This last great creation would be given the power to both create and destroy. It would be given the gift of knowledge, so that it could learn about itself and the world around it. And most importantly, it would be given the power to choose, to have free will to take everything it had learned and decide which path to follow - the path of light or the path of darkness. And that is how Humanity came to be.

It is about gaining knowledge, like Penny does about feelings and relationships, loving life and accepting death. Finally, it is about making a choice, even if it is painful.

This is because being human is not always simple. It can be hard:

But I found that humanity It came with sacrifice

Having a human soul means you have a duty to do the right thing out of your own free will, like Fria’s gift showed.

Having a human body means you can experience the warmth of a hug:

But it also means you can be mortally wounded:

This is Ambrosius’s teaching.

Still, it was worth it all for Penny because she got the chance to meet friends and to feel alive:

An answered prayer A chance to Share the world To be a girl Who fin'lly felt alive

This is why her second death can be juxtaposed to her first one. Both times she was killed by Cinder. However, the first time she was used as a pawn in Cinder’s plan. This time instead she is not letting herself be controlled and she negates Cinder what she really wants out of her own free will.

In conclusion, there is this phrase by Jean-Paul Sartre:

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

And I think it sums up Penny’s story perfectly.

Penny does not choose to be born a robot or to be used as a weapon. She is objectified in multiple ways...

Still, she manages to make something amazing out of herself.

#rwby #rwby vol8 #penny polendina #rwby meta #rwby spoilers #my meta #qrow branwen #even if only a little

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Mia Deserved Better: An Analysis of RE8's Themes/Symbolism

Foreword: I would like to thank @lepusrufus for posting about both Mia and Miranda, and at one point directly saying that Mia deserved better, which is a large part of what caused me to start examining her role in the canon story. Now, I will say that this post, like some of my previous explorations of Village (such as my attempt to determine Donna's age), will not be the best organized. My ADHD makes such things rather difficult for me. However, I have tried more than usual, and have broken up this "essay" into several distinct sections. Still, I am worried that my thoughts will not be as concise or coherent as they were inside my head.

Under read-more for length and spoilers for RE8: Village.

Introduction:

Village is, inarguably, about parenthood. Is it a horror game? Yes. Is it also science fiction? Also yes. But is it still, at its core, a story, and therefore contains imagery, symbolism, and themes? Yes. Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with Mia deserving better. My proposal is as follows: While Village is overall about parenthood, it is more about motherhood than fatherhood. Furthermore, Mia's background + actions from the previous game tie her story directly with Mother Miranda's, making their potential interactions massively important to the story... and could have served the theme beautifully. The missed potential in her involvement in the story is honestly a little bit absurd.

Now, let's examine each of the Four Lords + their sections, as the beginning of analyzing the game's theme.

Lady Dimitrescu + Castle:

Ah, perhaps the clearest (albeit unimportant) bits of theme within the whole game. We are immediately presented with another parent, with three daughters she loves very, very much. Initially they work as a team to capture Ethan, easily overpowering him. When they do split up, each still has dialogue regarding their family members. Each of the daughters expresses a desire to be like their mother/make their mother proud. Lady Dimitrescu herself gets very upset every time one of her daughters perishes, and delivers some important dialogue about this in her final confrontation with Ethan.

To paraphrase, Lady D says that Ethan has done something unforgiveable, caused damage that can never heal, and deserves to die before his daughter. That last part is interesting, in the sense that Lady D seems to believe that outlasting your own child is a fate so terrible that she would not wish it upon anyone, including the person who killed her daughters.

Throughout her dialogue and actions, Lady D serves as an important figure of a living mother. What do I mean by that? Well, the only other mothers we see in game are Mia and Miranda. The former doesn't show up until almost the end of the game (seeing as the "Mia" at the start is not actually the real Mia), while the latter does not have a living child, and her behavior has (presumably) changed quite a bit since that loss. As Ethan goes through Castle Dimitrescu, he watches (he causes) Lady D to go through what Miranda did all those decades ago. When we see her loss, when we experience her loss, it is something we connect with, even comparing it (as Lady D does) to Ethan's loss of Rose.

For the more visual side of symbolism, we can turn to Lady Dimitrescu herself. She is very tall, is visibly older than the majority of the Village cast, and has a fairly classic (old-school) motherly look. Everything about her reinforces her position as an example of a mother, especially when she's with her daughters and becomes such a strong figure of protection. Her height allows her to seem the caretaker for her children, even though they are scary/intimidating in their own right.

Donna Beneviento + Waterfall House:

Yes, the baby/fetus/monstrosity is part of this. No, it is not the only bit of thematic work in this section of the game.

To begin, you can find out that Donna is officially the adopted daughter of Mother Miranda. Her birth parents are dead, implied to be from especially tragic causes (more than is the norm when it comes to "orphan making"), and she has suffered greatly from it. We see that she has been seemingly neglected by Miranda, and is incredibly isolated. The tragedy of her loss, along with the consequences presented by it, are something to keep in mind further down the road, when we inevitably deal with Ethan's own death.

One of the consequences of the environment Donna was raised in is, arguably, her reliance on Angie. While interpretations of their exact relationship (aka how much control Donna actually has at any given point) vary, the two very clearly have something akin to a mother/daughter vibe. Alternatively an older sister/younger sister sort of thing. This shows in the way that Donna holds/carries Angie, as well as the contrast in their demeanors. Moreso, the fact that Donna gave a part of herself to create Angie is almost enough to make the symbolism nonnegotiable.

We also see that Donna has a strong understanding of family/family dynamics, through the way that she uses her powers to manipulate Ethan. She dissects his connections to Mia and Rose, taunts him with the lengths he's willing to go to save his child, then shows him a grotesque version of parenthood: The aforementioned fetus monster. Does the monster represent Ethan's fears, or Donna's?

What if the monster is how Donna sees herself, in some way, perhaps thinking that it's her fault her parents died? Bit of a stretch, but it's not a keystone of my theory, so I'm just throwing it out there. We could, however, go a step further and ask ourselves if Donna has noticed the way Miranda neglects her, and the fetus monster is how Donna thinks Miranda sees her. A baby, true, but grotesque, so terribly imperfect compared to her "real daughter" (Eva, obvs).

Regardless, the monster presents an ugly side of parenthood. It shows us the blood, the hunger (with the way it repeatedly attempts to swallow Ethan whole), the wailing. If Lady D shows us the love of parenthood, the bond, Donna in turn shows us the hate, the misery. Everything that one must endure to reap the rewards of family.

Lastly, we get one last bit of symbolism with Donna's death: We play a game with Angie. A childhood classic, hide and seek. Ethan chases her down repeatedly, stabbing away, seemingly only hurting the doll. But what happens when he kills Angie? It turns out that he killed Donna. You kill the child, you kill the parent. A reinforcement of the connection that comes with parenthood, along with another notch in Ethan's family-murdering belt (not saying that he's the "true antagonist" or anything, just keeping track for one of my later points).

Moreau + The Reservoir

Let's get the worst possibility out of the way: Moreau, weakest and sickest of the four lords, lives in a reservoir, where he is relatively safe. To defeat him, you have to drain the water, forcing him onto dry(ish) land. Paired with the main ideas of his section (which I will detail after this nightmare), one could theorize that he's meant to represent birth itself. Again, he's safe in his ("womb") water, and becomes vulnerable when he leaves (like a fragile newborn). Kinda gross, in my opinion, and also not a strong enough connection for me to care much about. It was merely an interesting (albeit horrifying) enough thought that I felt it warranted sharing.

Moving on to the big stuff with Moreau: He's a baby. Evidence: Whiny, has difficulty moving around, struggles to adapt to his growth, throws up a bunch, loves his mother very much, cries for his mother when he's in trouble, etc. Although Mother Miranda does not care for him, he clearly cares for her, and plays yet another role of an abandoned child (like Donna). Without Miranda there to protect him, he perishes terribly, crying out for someone who does not care to answer.

Hearing him cry out for Miranda, over and over, only for her to continue ignoring him is a key piece in the build-up to our confrontation between Ethan and Miranda. The game, in many ways, centers around the comparison between the two. In my humble opinion, Mia should have been involved in this comparison, as opposed to supplying the solution to the result of said comparison. Yes, I know that was a lot of words that don't mean much yet, but trust me, I'm getting there.

Heisenberg + The Factory

Ironically, of the four lords, Heisenberg is the most similar to Mother Miranda. In his massive factory, he is alone except for his numerous experiments, the results of decades of playing God. In comparison to Ethan + Mia, Heisenberg represents artificial parentage, or more accurately, the artificial creation of "life". While the others Lords also performed experiments, they used living subjects. Heisenberg instead chose to use corpses, which he then "brought back to life" with cybernetics + his powers, a somewhat futuristic version of Dr. Frankenstein.

Together, Miranda and him show a rotten side of parenthood (whereas Donna + Moreau showed us the uglier side of the children themselves). To put it simply, they are bad parents. They throw their "children"/experiments into the fray, uncaring, using them as pawns for their own greater gain. The most important part of this is that Heisenberg offers to "help" Ethan: By using Rose as a weapon. In his act of refusal, Ethan demonstrates one of several important distinctions between himself and Mother Miranda. Where she is willing to use her "children" (read: lives that she is responsible for) as tools, he is not.

Miscellaneous Symbolism/Imagery:

The old hag is one of my favorite parts of Village. She's seemingly nuts, has a crazy old lady laugh, wears bones that make soothing bone noises when she moves, and she draws lots of symbols in the dirt. If you look closely (I can provide screenshots if anyone desires, but it will take a bit of work to get them onto my computer), she's drawing one of the most iconic images in the titular village: The winged unborn. This symbol acts as the key you build up after every fight with a Lord, understandably called the Unborn Key (which turns into the Winged Unborn Key). Whether this counts as foreshadowing towards the hag's identity reveal is technically irrelevant, but I like to think it does.

In essence, you build up the key, this depiction of an infant, to progress in the game. The more wings it gains, the closer you are to your goal of rescuing your child.

The cadou itself is very clearly fetus-shaped. Furthermore, the only place within the human body that we know it ever gets implanted is in the "tummy" (thanks Moreau), aka roughly where someone's womb is/would be. Every infected person we see presumably had the Cadou implanted there (though I think it would be interesting if implanting it in different spots caused different mutations. of course, that is a discussion for another day). To become immortal, you have to "bear" a "child". Does it get more direct than that?

Mother Miranda gained her immortality in part for her grief at the loss of her child. She embodied the despair that Lady D spoke of, becoming an eternal source of anguish. Just as the loss of a child is a wound that lasts forever, so too would Miranda last forever (well, until Ethan comes along).

Mia is a loving mother, who puts up with the BSAA making her move across the world, deals with the complications of having a mold husband and mold baby, and has proved herself (see her section in RE7) to be an immense badass. Previously I had forgotten that, and even embarrassed myself in the comments of another person's post by implying she wasn't a tough, ass-kicking machine. Y'all remember feral Mia? People talk about "poor Ethan's arms", but sometimes we forget that Mia was one of the people who did a number on them. Furthermore, she's one of the only living people (from outside the village) to have any connections (pun intended) to Mother Miranda. They worked together, although possibly not directly, on Evelyn. If anyone in Village has a chance of really understanding Miranda's plight, or knowing the truth behind it, it would be Mia. Yet we don't see them interact a single time. Which leads me to the next section...

Conclusion On Theme + Missed Potential:

Okay, okay, so it's pretty obvious at this point that, as previously stated, the game's theme is parenthood. Every section has its symbolism, the story is very obviously about a man trying to rescue his daughter, etc, etc, but what's the point? Is there a lesson, or a more focused interpretation of the central theme? Let's take one last step back, and focus on something I've mentioned a few times now: The comparison between Ethan and Mother Miranda.

Recurring dialogue from Ethan, Alcina, and Mother Miranda all point towards the developers acknowledging that the characters are similar, but there's nowhere near as much conversation about it as I would like. Several times we have the antagonists ask Ethan how he's so willing to kill someone else's child, or prevent them from (essentially) doing what he's doing (aka saving his daughter). While Ethan responds with a mix of "well you started it" and "aghhh fuck-a-you, bitch", there's a much more solid, unspoken difference: Mother Miranda sends her underlings to kill, so that she may revive her daughter. Ethan kills (read: does the work himself) to get his daughter. The difference is much bigger, and more important, at the end of the game, when we realize just how far it goes. Ethan dies to save his daughter. Time and time again Mother Miranda has killed others for her work, but in the end she is stopped when someone willingly dies to stop her.

Where does Mia come in? Mia, the badass mother, the one who once worked alongside Mother Miranda, should have been the nail in the coffin. She is the one who survives, who lives on to raise Rose, she is the silent solution to Ethan's sacrifice. Miranda, you fool, what could you have accomplished if you had held onto your makeshift family? Through Mia (and Chris, to a lesser degree), his "loss" becomes a victory. There's a certain poetic justice that comes with Rose's full family being instrumental in saving her, when Miranda so readily spurned her own family.

Mia could have had an actual conversation with Miranda, their history giving the latter a reason to actually listen. I'm not saying that Miranda would have changed her mind/plans, but the conversation would have been a well-needed contrast to Ethan's "arggg what the fuck is happening, I only have two reactions to things. agg fuck you". Additionally, I feel that Mia (who was captured and had to endure who-knows-what) deserves the opportunity to be the one who points out Miranda's mistakes, who delivers the final "fuck you" to her. More than that, she's the one at the end who can say that hey, maybe she can understand some of what Miranda did. Was there anything her and Ethan wouldn't have done to save Rose? As much as Ethan is a foil to Miranda, Mia could (and should) have played a similar role.

When so much of the story and symbolism revolves around Miranda's experience as a mother, it only would have been fair to shine a light on her equivalent. Her better.

There's more I wanted to say/feel like I didn't properly get across, and I might add more to this at some point, but it's 5:40 AM right now, and I'm starting to feel like my brain is slowing down, so... Feel free to reblog/comment and add your own thoughts!

#mother miranda #mia winters #ethan winters #rosemary winters #resident evil: village #re8 village #god what do I tag this as