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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

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Bound Blood (Cassandra Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 1

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for blood, language, brief nudity. Later chapters will be M Warnings: Nah fam Summary: Local vampire finds out she can't kill soft human (because they're soulmates, baby), human becomes insufferable bastard, oops they fuck later. Soulmate AU where if one person gets injured, their soulmate feels the same amount of pain and receives a scar in the relevant area.

1: Sharing Is (Not) Caring

It’s not that you had expected to survive this- being locked in the dungeon of Castle Dimitrescu, waiting for the day you’re picked to be someone’s meal. Oh no, you had given up on surviving long ago, it was just that… well, you had hoped that someone with a softer touch would do you in. But here you were, too exhausted to cry, hanging naked in front of none other than Cassandra Dimitrescu. Her eyes were trailing you up and down, examining every inch of your skin, every flaw, every unique trait. It was like she was making a mental map of which parts of you would taste best. Goddamn, you wanted to spit in her face, or scream, or say something, anything that might make her feel even an ounce of what you had felt for weeks.

But you know that she’s already planning to kill you, and to make it painful. Why give her any more reason? Why dare her to find a worse way to end your life? There was no good answer, so you stayed still, just watched her move. Maybe if you looked bored enough she’d make it quick, just stab a knife in you and drink you up like a capri sun. Or, maybe, if you kept a straight face, she would admire your courage. Oh, how you longed for people to think of you kindly now, in your last moments, when dying clean and pretty was no longer an option.

Pulling a blade from some hidden sheathe, Cassandra approaches you with a wicked grin. There’s still blood on her lips from her last victim. Had they not sated her? Or had she been like this for some time? When she inevitably drank from you, how long would your blood remain on her lips? You weren’t sure that you wanted to know. In your mind, you picture her cleaning up as soon as she was done with you. It does not make you feel any better. Neither does the way she traces a finger across your chest, left to right, practicing for the incision to follow. She pauses to lick her lips, making direct eye contact as she does.

What happens next passes by so quickly that you don’t process any of it until the whole ordeal is over. The blade’s tip digs into your chest, just below your collarbone, before dragging along half the width of your torso. It hurts like hell, but you manage to keep your misery to yourself. But your pain is soon replaced with confusion; Cassandra screams, loud enough to echo throughout the basement, doubling over herself. In an instant her knife has clattered to the floor, forgotten. Instinct takes over your brain, the default programing kicking in, and you say something that fills you with instant regret.

“Are you okay?” Your voice is a bit quiet, and raw, worn out from lack of hydration. But it is enough, evidently, for Cassandra to hear. She’s rising back up and glaring at you, one hand clutching her chest. Something in her expression tells you that she thinks you’re mocking her. While that wasn’t technically the case, there was a part of you that found joy in this, watching your captor get a taste of their own medicine. The question left in your mind was why she was in pain. “I’ll take that as a no,” you said, again left with regret at your choices.

Now her hand is swiping at your face, nails cutting you open. Once more she hisses in pain, now clutching her head, shaking a little as she does. When she meets your gaze, you see that she’s more confused than anything. More than that, you see the marks on her face, knowing instantly that they match your own. Oh hell no, you thought, grimacing.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Cassandra growled through clenched teeth. Bouncing back and forth on her heels, she seems tense, unsure of how to process what’s happening. You feel the same way, desperately wanting to pretend that this doesn’t mean you’re her soulmate. Maybe the universe had just messed up, crossing some wires, or decided to pull a prank on the two of you. Either way it was better than the alternative. Eager to think about something else, you start considering your options. The first that comes to mind is ridiculous. Stupid, really. But would it amuse you? Absolutely.

“Not gonna lie, I feel better about the idea of you killing me now. Feel free to make it painful, darlin’, I won’t mind,” you snarked, lips curling up into a smirk. Oh boy was it satisfying to watch Cassandra’s response. One of her hands raises to smack you, only for her to freeze before releasing a torrent of swears. Hurting you meant hurting herself. “What’s the matter? Can’t handle a little aching? Haven’t you ever imagined what it’s like to be on the other side of things? Under the blade yourself, blood soaking your skin, eyes too dry for even a single tear? Poor thing,” you purred, tone as teasing as it could get. Apparently it’s aggravating enough for Cassandra to fight through the pain, as she slams her fist into your stomach, leaving both of you gasping for breath. “This is fun-” you pause to cough out a few drops of blood- “really, really fun. Hey, if you kill me, how bad do you think you’ll feel?”

Before Cassandra can react, either to speak or hurt you worse, the sound of approaching footsteps draws her attention. From where you hang you can’t see much, too many cells and hanging bodies blocking your vision. But your “soulmate” seemed to know who was coming. Her face scrunches up a little, and she adjusts her robes, trying to cover the mark on her chest. Had you not still been coughing, you would have sarcastically asked her how she intended to hide her face.

“What the hell is going on, Cassandra?” An unfamiliar voice asked. The footsteps grew louder, and faster, until the new figure stood in the same cell as you. Not even bothering to spare you a glance, she approaches Cassandra, reaching to examine her face. “Did a prisoner manage to get you? I’ve told you a thousand times-”

“Don’t fucking touch me, sis,” Cassandra snapped, pushing away her sister’s hand. Both of them are visibly tense, and for a moment they stand still, staring each other down. Then the sister (who you assume to be Bela, from things you’ve overheard recently) shifts her focus to you. Something tells you that she has no intentions of being gentle.

“Did you do this, you rotten little thing?” Bela questioned, glaring at you hard enough to send a shiver down your spine. But that doesn’t stop you from trying to have some more fun.

“Oh, of course I did! I rattled my chains real good, scared the shit out of her, made her fall on her own knife a few times. You know, like that one musical?” You must look insane as you speak, grin wide but face dripping with blood. If it unnerves Bela, she hides it well, though you doubt it does. As soon as you’re done poking fun she’s pulling out her sickle. Still grinning, you make eye contact with Cassandra, who realizes what’s happening a second too late. Then the two of you cry out in unison, as the blade carves into your shoulder. Instantly Bela pulls back, stunned, turning to her sister with genuine concern. “I might have lied. Rest assured though, it was for comedic purposes.”

The next thing you know the two sisters are shuffling away from you, Cassandra begrudgingly being dragged along by Bela. Though the younger of the two had been adamant about not receiving help, she now had little choice in the matter, skin searing from your blood bond. Even you are starting to breathe harder than you’d like.

“Was it something I said?” You barked, barely able to manage a fit of giggles between your coughing. Bela shoots you a glare over her shoulder, but quickly returns her attention to her sister. They talk, quickly, soft enough that you can only make out a few words here and there. It’s hard to make meaning from it, especially considering their vastly different tones. Cassandra is pure anger, gestures fast and wide, while Bela is oddly solemn, even regretful. When you finally catch a couple full sentences, things start to make a little more sense, though you wish they didn’t.

“We can kill them painlessly, in their sleep. That way you won’t have to suffer,” Bela whispered. She’s doing her best to comfort her sister, despite the tension in the room, gently patting her on the back. Briefly, you make eye contact with her. In that moment she looks equal parts executor and unwilling jury. But she looks away quickly, even shifting her angle to prevent it from happening again.

“No, fuck that, fuck this, I’m… I’m not killing them. Nobody is,” Cassandra growled, daring to emphasize her point by pushing Bela away. Now it’s her turn to look at you, brows furrowed, eyes betraying something more than just anger. Somehow it’s a million times worse than when she first came in. You strain yourself trying to look away, cursing the chains keeping you in place, resorting to closing your eyes and pretending none of this was real. “I don’t care what you think, Bela. They’re already my ‘meal’, might as well get what enjoyment out of this that I can.”

Again, footsteps echo through the basement. Tension locks your muscles in place, and your eyes are still clamped shut, to the point that you don’t realize your chains are being undone until you’ve hit the ground. Cursing under your breath, you finally open your eyes again. There’s blood on the floor, only some of it yours, and you’re suddenly aching for a bath. More than that, though, you’re praying for something to cover yourself with. Certainly Cassandra didn’t need to see everything, now that you weren’t a piece of meat for her to enjoy? As if reading your mind, the middle Dimitrescu daughter flings open a nearby cabinet, messily searching for something. Eventually she gives a hum of approval, then tosses a blanket in your direction.

“Put it on, dipshit, then follow me,” she snapped, already walking away. For a moment you’re tempted to stay there, sitting still, waiting to see how long it would take for her to notice. But one look from Bela sends the thought back to whatever crevice of your mind it crawled out of. So you’re moving, hastily, awkwardly wrapped in a somewhat itchy blanket. Other prisoners eye you as you pass, some shouting curses or even spitting at you. At first Cassandra takes no notice, or simply doesn’t care, but eventually the noise seems to irritate her. Turning back, she takes her sickle in hand and slams the handle into the bars of a cell. It’s loud, making you flinch, but gets everyone’s attention. “Next one to make a peep gets the blood eagle!”

“Is that, like, a sex thing?” The words leave your mouth before you can stop yourself. Laughter rings out around you from the few prisoners capable of it. Cassandra is seething again, looking about ready to kill you. Then she’s shifting into swarm mode, spreading out wide, insects barreling through half the occupied cells. A few cries escape the prisoners, as the flies take bites out of them, cutting a perfect balance between pain and (a lack of) lethality. They’d be suffering for days to come, every movement making their wounds ache. “Not a sex thing, got it,” you muttered to yourself, just as Cassandra reforms in front of you. This time she grabs the blanket you’re wrapped in, using it to tug you forward, sending you towards the exit.

“Shut up for five minutes and I might let you put on actual clothes,” she growled, keeping one hand on your back to guide you. The offer is the closest thing to kindness you’ve seen from her, and you have half a mind to do what she says. Would you actually manage to keep quiet for that long? Well, you were certainly looking forward to finding out...

#cassandra dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu x reader #resident evil: village #re8 village #*evil laughter*#i know I said this would have fluff #but it turned into humor oops #yes this will be the best trope #enemies to friends to lovers

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adam-banks2024 · 3 years

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Deja Vu

Part 1

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: Kind of angst for now, backstory, arguments, and extremely slow burn. Also future poly

He’s insufferable

He’s arrogant. He’s rude. He’s annoying.

He is insufferable.

And I have to deal with him.

Of all the people Mrs. Moore could have partnered me with, she just had to choose him. It’s not like we even put a show on in public, and it’s sad but, everybody knows about the feud between us that started four years ago.

I had just moved to town from three states over, and I didn’t know anyone my age. After a few weeks of summer went by of not knowing anyone, my dad convinced me to join the district’s hockey team. He told me that it was because he wanted me to make some friends, but I knew that he really just couldn’t afford to pay a babysitter. And my mother, well, she wasn’t in the picture. So I ended up having to go through the lost and found at six different ice rinks in Minnesota in order to get all of my equipment. At first, I was wary of the idea, but my dad said that it was kind of like shopping, so I agreed to go with him. Originally, we would have only had to search five rinks, but I couldn’t find any skates that were my size. After almost twelve hours of rummaging through sweaty pads and broken sticks, I had myself a full set of hockey gear.

Now I was on to the next challenge: How To Skate. I had been ice skating a couple of times before for birthday parties, but I’ve never been able to skate at the level that I had to in order to survive during an entire hockey game. I thought maybe it would just come to me naturally after attending a few practices. Until I did some research at the school library. Apparently, it takes a person at least two months to learn how to ice skate. But ignoring the negative, I decided to focus on the positive. ‘I could at least balance myself...and besides, I probably would be on the bench for every game...and just remember, you’re doing this for friends.’ These were the only three things that ran through my mind on the way to the ice rink. I was honestly terrified. I was scared that the other kids would make fun of me, or worse, ignore me. Well, maybe being made fun of is worse, but at least then they’d acknowledge me. I had to stop myself from thinking about that kinda stuff. I haven’t even attended a single hockey practice yet, and now I’ve added at least four more stressors into my life.

When my dad pulled up to the building, my stomach was tingling. My hands were clammy, and my eyebags had definitely seen better days. I wanted to run so fast away from this place, and not move at all at the same time.

“Nerves,” my dad said. He must’ve noticed from my frozen state in the backseat of his minivan. “You’ll do great! Just don’t break any bones.” He chuckled at the end in hopes that it would come off as a joke, but that is definitely not how it sounded.

To my surprise, I was the first kid that had arrived. I didn’t know much about the team, but I did know that most of the other kids had been on it since they were five or six years old. I was almost the exact opposite, thirteen and just starting. I wasn’t really sure why I was the first person to arrive, and it only added to my nervousness.

I tried to brush it off as I saw someone outside in the parking lot leave a car holding a bag like you had. I could hear his muffled voice. “I’ll see you at six.” Whoever he was talking to must have responded because the boy spoke again, “yup, love you too.” A parent maybe. A mom? I could faintly make out a silhouette in the driver’s seat, but the glare from the sun blocked most of the car window.

Thank god someone else was here because at least now I knew that I was in the right place. But another problem arose. Now, different things were rushing through my head about what to say to the other boy. Should I make a joke, ask a question? Simply say ‘hello’? I didn’t know. So, I decided to settle on the most stupid thing anyone could ever say.

“Are you on the hockey team?” What kind of question is that? He has a bag, this time is cut out specifically for hickey practice, and he has a hockey stick with him. Why else would he be here?

He looked up from where he was walking and stared at me awkwardly. It was likely that he wouldn’t have even noticed me if I hadn’t said anything to him. But I did. Which I regretted.

“Oh, um, yeah.” He went to keep on walking but he stopped himself quickly. “Are you?”

I had to keep a laugh in because the boy looked genuinely confused. Or maybe I misjudged that for concern. Still, though, it sounded a bit hopeful. This kid was really hard to read. Either way, I was pretty sure that he thought I couldn’t play hockey.

“Yeah. My dad made me join to make some friends.”

Suddenly the boy’s demeanor changed. He seemed almost excited that there was a new kid on the team. “Well, I’ll be your first friend. My name’s Adam. Adam Banks. Walk and talk.” And then he started towards two big double doors.

My eyebrows rose at the sudden confidence, taken off guard, but at least he was being friendly. I adjusted your bags and followed right behind him. “So what’s it like here.”

He answered after struggling to open one of the doors, “Well it’s not so bad. It’s super cutthroat during the regular season but in the offseason, it’s pretty relaxed.” As I made myself around the outside of the rink, he kept rambling. “Especially during summer league. The kids who only play during that league have it nice. You’ll definitely survive.”

“Um, so what happens during the regular season?” The thought of angry yelling coaches wasn’t appealing to me, but I could make it work

Adam shrugged his bag up so it wouldn’t fall from his shoulder, “Well. Usually, coach yells at us, tells us that if we don’t win we’re failures, and everyone is constantly fighting to be a starter.” There was silence. “So that’s fun.” I just nodded my head, trying to take this all in. Adam didn’t say anything until he reached the locker room doors. Then he turned to me. “Yeah, but coach is a lot less lenient during summer because it doesn’t really matter for playoffs.”

I scoffed, “yeah, but I’ll eventually have to deal with him. Right?”

Adam’s expression flattened, “Wait, you’re doing winter league too?” He looked genuinely concerned, and now I was second-guessing joining hockey. If this boy didn’t think I could survive, then how could I? Even if I was just gonna sit on the bench, the way this kid was making it out to be was not sounding like the greatest way to make friends.

“Well, yeah. Is that bad?” I needed to hear him say it. Say that I should quit, or join dance, or something. Just so I could have an excuse to tell my dad in case the first day of practice goes awry.

He spoke fast, “Oh no, no. It’s just that--”

“That I’m not good enough…”

He didn’t say anything. Harsh. I was just trying to make a joke but, I guess that’s what he was really thinking. We stood in silence for a few more seconds, and then he finally thought of something to respond with.

“No. I just feel like you’ll get hurt… and, um.”

I started to laugh. I applaud Adam for trying to make it seem like he didn’t think I was bad, but he just couldn’t do it. “Don’t sweat it, I know I’m gonna be bad.” He started to laugh with me. “Hey, at least I’ll get abs out of it.”

He and I were actually pretty good friends for the most part. He was my first friend here in Minnesota. He taught me how to skate, and in turn, I offered him some sub-par jokes. He always used to laugh at my jokes even if they were awful. He was what I considered my best friend. He definitely wasn’t a best friend, I couldn’t confide in all of my secrets, and he couldn’t do the same to me, but Adam was the only kid I was friends with. We laughed hard, we fell on the ice together. He even told his mom that practices started to end later just so he could wait with me until my dad got off work and picked me up.

Not long after we bonded, I hato the ducks. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what happened. All my dad said to me was something about how the coach wasn’t that nice, and that he didn’t want me on his team. I didn’t really care since hockey wasn’t something that I cared about too much. So I said goodbye to Adam and explained that I had to go. I didn’t say anything about the coach-not-liking-me part because then I thought he’d feel bad for me.

“Yeah, I’m supposed to switch teams too, but I think my dads’ gonna see if I can stay on the team.” He spoke almost as if he was trying to convince himself. I thought it was a great idea to tell him why he had to go to the ducks.

“They don’t want you, Adam. Maybe if you go to the ducks, you’ll get a coach who appreciates you.” I didn’t know what was wrong with what I said to him until about a year later, but by the time I finished my sentence, he was fuming.

The situation afterward was a blur, and I can’t remember what all was said. I just remember Adam touching on the fact how I’m an awful hockey player, and that he only talked to me because he felt sorry for me. Now, if my old coach had told me that I was awful at hockey, I’d be completely fine. I already knew that, and coach is just...coach. But hearing it come from Adam? It wasn’t like he was just telling me how it is, he wanted to hurt me.

It took me two weeks to stop thinking about the situation constantly, and then it started to fade away. I never even told him the real reason why I told him what I did, but now I have to work on a history project with him. How am I gonna do that if I can’t even tell him the reason for our quarrel that we had three years ago? Let alone complete a whole project?

“The syllabus will be given tomorrow, and the deadline for this project will be written under the ‘AP History’ bulletin. You may get to work.”

I slumped out of my desk and started putting away my things that were on the table attachment. During this, I tried to think of what I was going to say when I went over to him. I almost decided on either trying to make a truce or just acting like he didn’t exist.

He was slouched in his desk, pencil in hand, avoiding eye contact with me. As I sat down my stuff on an empty desk near him, his words startled me. “So, 50/50?”

I just stared at him. For some reason, my brain could not process what Adam had just said. It took a solid four seconds for me to respond. “I don’t understand.”

Adam’s eyebrows rose while his eyes rolled, “Of course you don’t.”

I scoffed, “What, you’re just gonna say some numbers and you think I’m gonna understand what you’re trying to say?”

He was leaning forward in his desk now, “Well you seemed to be doing well in calculus, so, yes.” A small, mocking smile was now gracing his face.

I took in a deep breath to try and refrain from spewing whatever profanities came to mind. “Look, can we just set aside whatever this is so we can do this project?” He crossed his arms in response. “C’mon, I can’t afford to get a bad grade.” Still no response. If his goal was to ruin my life, he sure was on the right path.

“What do I get out of it?”

The audacity.

“I’m just saying. I’ll be fine with one bad grade, so what exactly is the payoff for tolerating...you?”

So there was a shiny glimmer of hope, but it would definitely come at a cost. “Anything. Anything you want. Just please, tolerate me.”

He brought a hand to his chin, acting like he was pondering his choice, “but will it really be anything?”

“Oh my god, you are so annoying.”

“Watch it.” His voice was stern.

“Okay, okay. Sorry. But yes, anything. You name it.”

Did he even know what he wanted? Or was he just trying to play this out? Either way, I’m about to have a conniption if we don’t start working on this project soon.

We sat in silence for what felt like forever. Of course, Adam had to change his thinking position almost every second, until he decided on what he wanted. “Okay, here’s the deal. I help you get your precious little A, and you have to get me a date with Charlie.”

#the mighty ducks #the mighty ducks imagine #the mighty ducks x reader #mighty ducks #mighty ducks imagine #mighty ducks x reader #adam banks #adam banks imagine #adam banks x reader

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presumenothing · 4 years

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so that pokeani fic? yeah i finished it. also on AO3

“Gou? You awake?”

Ash’s voice wakes Gou from the half-doze he’d fallen into; he stifles a yawn as he leans to peer blearily over the edge of the top bunk. “Yeah. Why?”

It’s hard to tell for sure in the nighttime gloom, but even though Ash’s gaze is directed upwards Gou is oddly certain that he isn’t looking at him.

Which is pretty unusual, especially when Ash had been the one to start talking first and there aren’t exactly many pokemon around to distract him, but that’s nothing compared to what he says next. “How much do you trust Professor Cerise and the others?”

“Wha–” Gou startles completely awake at that.

No matter how hard he rubs at his eyes, though, he can’t seem to rearrange the words into a shape that makes sense – or better yet, reveal this as some weird dream that he’s having.

“He’s a Professor, and Chloe’s dad,” Gou says slowly, trying to piece together an answer to a question he can’t even begin to understand, but the words fall short into a silence that’s not unlike every single time Ash has said something incomprehensible to anyone but him and Pikachu.

And Ash definitely looks mystified now, one arm still curled around a sleeping Pikachu as he frowns vaguely at Gou. It’s a novelty, being on the other end of this situation, but Gou finds that it’s not one that he’s enjoying at all.

Flopping back down on the bed, Gou blinks up at the ceiling: okay, so he’s clearly missed something fundamental to the question. Time to backtrack.

“Why’d you ask?” Gou questions in turn. If he can understand that, then maybe…

“What Chrysa and Ren were talking about just now – you heard it too, right?” Ash says instead, leaving Gou to scramble in the wake of the non-answer. “About the whole bond phenomenon thing.”

Gou winces despite himself; talking about is putting it mildly, really. The two research assistants had gone from planning upcoming studies in Kalos to loudly disagreeing over some witness reports of an unnamed trainer exhibiting the bond phenomenon with their Greninja. It’d clearly been a well-trodden argument between them: Ren had been adamant that it was genuine, while Chrysa remained skeptical, citing the convenient lack of properly documented evidence, and honestly Gou is inclined to agree with h–

–no, wait.

Thoughts screeching to a halt, Gou backtracks again, this time putting Kalos together with Ash’s improbable aptitude at making friends (faster than Gou can even catch a pokemon), and nearly sends himself careening over the edge of the top bunk as he sticks his head out again to stare at Ash.

“Don’t tell me you know who that trainer is?” The words come out in a near-yelp, though Gou manages to keep it down almost belatedly at the sight of Pikachu’s still-snoozing form.

“…I guess you could say that, yeah,” Ash answers after a beat, a strange expression playing across his face, and if it’d been literally anyone else Gou would’ve said that they were exaggerating, maybe playing up the most passing of acquaintances just to brag.

His experience with Ash so far suggests that the exact opposite is likely to be true here, and it’s only further evidenced by the sheepish look he gives Gou now. “It just kinda happened, y’know? I did say that I travelled around Kalos for quite a bit.”

One of these days, Gou thinks, he needs to come up with an appropriate (so probably pokemon-related) metaphor to explain to Ash how astronomically unlikely the stuff that “just happens” to him is.

For now Gou decides to just accept that Ash had somehow run into a trainer whose existence might as well be legend, and backtracks yet again. “What does that got to do with how much I trust them, though?”

This time the pause stretches out, long enough that Gou almost wants to check if Ash had fallen asleep instead.

But Gou’s also well-aware by now that Ash is a restless if deep sleeper, like he can’t stop being on the move even when at rest, and right now the other boy is far too still for that.

So Gou waits. Catching pokemon has given him plenty of practice in patience, at least.

“The last time someone took notice of… what that trainer and Greninja could do,” Ash eventually says, “some really bad stuff happened.”

It might be the first real answer he’s gotten so far, but to Gou it feels like his world has just turned on its end. For Ash, who runs towards potentially-lethal pokemon moves and a dozen other dangers like he can’t even imagine getting hurt, to call whatever happened really bad –

Gou doesn’t know what to think.

He’s still trying to figure that out when Pikachu, who must’ve stirred awake at some point without him noticing, slips out from under Ash’s arm to nudge up firmly against his chin.

Ash laughs, and it’s like lifting away a cloud cover Gou hadn’t even realised was there. “I’m fine, Pikachu. Go back to sleep, you trained real hard today.”

“Pi pika, pikapi,” answers Pikachu, sounding… reproachful? Concerned? Gou can’t really tell, not like Ash can, but either way he agrees with the sentiment.

Ash gives an exaggerated groan. “Don’t you even start,” he grumbles, but he’s already curling his other hand up even as he says it, and Pikachu settles with a pleased pikaaa as Ash begins running fingers through its fur.

Gou doesn’t miss the residual tension in either of their postures, though, if only because he knows to look for it right now, and that decides the answer for him. “That’s exactly what being a research fellow is all about, though!”

Ash goes back to looking confused. “Huh?”

“Gathering data, and drawing your own conclusions from that,” Gou explains, and hopes to Mew (or whoever else might be listening) that this is the right answer – or not the wrong one, at least. “Regardless of whether I trust them, you should observe and figure it out for yourself, then decide what to tell them based on that. That’s how research works!”

“The power of science, huh?” Ash says, grinning, and Pikachu snickers even as Gou blinks in puzzlement. “Thanks for the advice, Gou.”

“Anytime,” Gou answers around a massive yawn, eyelids already drooping closed as he lies back down. “G’night, Ash.”

He’s asleep almost before he hears Ash’s reply, but it’s long enough for him to realise that Ash has known him pretty much as long as he’s known Professor Cerise and the rest.

But for some strange and wonderful reason, Ash… trusts him enough, apparently, to tell him this much when he hadn’t said a word to the others earlier.

It’s a nice feeling to have, Gou finds himself thinking.

(He falls asleep with a smile on his face.)

gou, the next day: besides, shouldn’t you ask them first before you say anything? your trainer friend, i mean

ash: um wha- oh yeah of course!! haha, ha,,,

pikachu: *looks into the camera like it’s on the office*

#pokeani #pokemon #pokemon ns #pokemon 2019 #trainer go #ash ketchum #fanfiction #mine #once again...... hello new fandom #for the third time(?) this year #gotta love that multifandom life

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currantlee · 3 years

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Language: English Rating: Teen and Up Audiences (T) / P16 Warnings: Heavy topics Fandom: Kingdom Hearts Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Sora, Roxas, Xion (mentioned) Relationships: Sora & Roxas Words: 4,312 Chapter: 1/2 Chapter Summary: The best part about birthday parties is that everyone gets to share the happiness. So when Roxas isn’t feeling well, Sora takes it upon himself to check up on him Beta: @theeeveetamer Notes: Written for the 19th Anniversary of the Kingdom Hearts series. I’ll admit I haven’t really done the “happy” part justice though. Other Platforms: -

Sora had expected all the usual things returning home. The sun burning on his skin, the sound and smell of the sea, his mother demanding an explanation, not actually feeling at home on Destiny Islands anymore, being told to rest some more…

If he was completely honest though, Sora didn’t actually know what he had been expecting. He hadn’t really thought about it… The most important thing was that he was back home safely.

The one thing he definitely hadn’t been expecting though was a party.

So this was why Kairi had curled her hair… He turned to her in confusion, but seeing her smile so brightly in what surely was expectation of his joy made him turn to Riku instead. He didn’t want to disappoint her.

He scratched his head in a bit of embarrassment. “Uhm… You really didn’t have to organize a welcome-back-party for me…” It wasn’t like he deserved one anyways. Not after all the worries he had caused them, and after everything he had done in the past year.

His best friend chuckled lightly in response. “Do you even know what day today is?”

“The day after… Uhm… Yesterday?”, Sora offered, glancing at Kairi in a search for help. Gosh, out of all the things he could have said, it had to be the dumbest… He was absolutely clueless about what there, so he just stayed silent when Kairi shook her head.

Luckily, Riku took over before his silence could become even more awkward. “It’s the twenty-eighth of March.”

Oh… Oh! That meant…

“Happy birthday!��, everyone shouted in unison.

---

It was supposed to be a joyful day for everyone involved. The thing Sora loved most about birthday parties was that everyone involved got to share the happiness. As such, he always tried to make sure that everyone felt comfortable at his own birthday parties, regardless of whether it was a surprise party or an expected one.

So when Xion told him that Roxas wasn’t feeling that well, Sora insisted on checking up on him, even though she mentioned that he wanted to be alone. He made sure to grab some ice cream before he went to look for Roxas.

It didn’t take Sora very long to find him. He wasn’t really hiding somewhere, but even if he had been Sora knew all of the best spots from hours of playing hide and seek on the Play Island with Riku and Kairi back when they were kids.

Sora found him was sitting under the paopu fruit tree, back leaning against its trunk, legs drawn close to his chest and chin resting on his knees. He was staring at some undefined, distant point, apparently lost in thought.

Sora knew that if he just walked up to Roxas and sat down, it would probably startle him. Therefore he approached him more slowly. He also tried to be more quiet than he usually would be, while also not avoiding noise completely.

Only when Roxas turned to him, looking a bit surprised, he finally addressed him.

“Hey Roxas, you alright?”

Roxas sighed in response. “Shouldn’t you be with your friends?”

Sora sighed as he slowly walked up to him. He wasn’t sure if Roxas was comfortable with being so close, so he wanted to make sure to not pressure him. But to his surprise, Roxas lightly patted the space besides him and nodded. Sora took the invitation and sat down.

“Xion said you’re not feeling well,” he explained. “I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay.”

Roxas didn’t give him an answer to that – he just let out a sigh and turned away again.

But Sora wasn’t about to give up that easily. He carefully placed a hand on Roxas’ shoulder – feeling the texture of his jacket and not feeling it at the same time, like through a glove, was a sensation he’d probably never get used to. “Can I do anything to make you feel a bit better?”

Roxas shook his head in response. “No.”

Sora wasn’t sure whether Roxas’ honesty was an expression of trust or just how he was as a person – but either way, it impressed him. He didn’t even know Roxas that well, since they never really had a chance to get to know each other properly…

“Please, don’t worry about me,” Roxas added quickly. “This is your party, I don’t want to be the one ruining it for you.”

Sora knew that feeling, perhaps way too well. He hated to burden his friends with his worries too, even though he knew that, to some extent, that’s what friends were for. “Is that why you didn’t say anything to Xion? Because you also don’t want to ruin the party for her?”

Roxas sighed. “Yes,” he openly admitted.

“You know, I think she’d be less concerned if you talked to her…”

“I don’t need a lecture from you,” Roxas cut him off a bit roughly. “I can handle myself just fine…”

Sora backed off a bit at that. “Sorry. I just thought I’d go and see if you need anything, really.”

Roxas’ expression actually softened a bit at that. “There is nothing you can do right now, I think. Just leave me alone, I’ll be fine.”

He actually smiled when he said that, but it wasn’t a happy smile. There was melancholy in it, and he actually looked a little bit lonely.

Sora didn’t know if he should really leave him alone like this… On the other hand, it was like Xion said: no one could – or should – force him to talk about whatever was upsetting him.

So he just asked: “You sure?”

Roxas nodded. “It’s okay,” he said. “I like being alone, sometimes.”

“Alright,” Sora said and got up again. “But please tell me if you need somethi-…”

The ice cream package he had grabbed from one of the enchanted buckets containing the food earlier tumbled to the ground. Sora had almost forgotten about it. He had thought that maybe this might do some good for Roxas’ mood as well. Hopefully it hadn’t melted yet…

Roxas face lit up when he saw the packaging. “You… You brought me some ice cream?”

Sora bashfully scratched the back of his head and nodded. “Yeah, I thought it would cheer you up a little! Sorry, I kinda forgot that I still had it…” How could he actually be this dumb?

But Roxas didn’t seem to mind. He just chuckled. “Thank you.”

… He was smiling. Actually, genuinely smiling this time. No underlying melancholy, no looking lonely. Huh. Maybe that little mishap had managed to cheer him up a little bit after all. Perhaps it was a good thing that Sora could be a bit forgetful sometimes.

“No problem,” Sora grinned. “Just tell me if you need anything else, okay?”

Roxas nodded in response, while already ripping the packaging off the popsicle. It was a bit melted already, but that was to be expected.

It was good to see that Roxas was a bit better now. Hopefully, he’d soon join the others again. Sora smiled as he turned to do exactly that.

“This whole birthday thing…”, Roxas suddenly said. “It just reminds me…”

“Huh?” Sora turned around in surprise. Could Roxas possibly have changed his mind? If so, then he was of course going to listen, but he had seemed very adamant about it before. Maybe he was just thinking aloud or talking to himself?

“You were born seventeen years ago,” Roxas mused quietly. “But I was… Created… Almost three years ago.”

Oh. So that was what this was all about…

Admittedly, Sora had never thought about it like that. To him, Roxas had been his own person ever since he’d first learned of his existence. And even though most other people shared this view by now, that didn’t change the fact that initially everyone had only regarded Roxas as a different version of Sora, or even a part of him. He hadn’t even been treated like the independent personality he was, but like a replacement for someone else, or even worse, like a tool.

In addition to this, he didn’t enter this realm like… Well, like most other people. Seeing as Roxas’ biological age matched Ven’s from the moment he first came into existence, he had never had a real childhood. From what Sora had heard about Roxas, he had lacked a lot of abilities at first, and was still lacking a lot of the knowledge the others naturally had.

That also meant…

Sora thought about his own childhood memories for a second. Racing with Riku on the beach, painting the walls of the Secret Place with Kairi, making plans for the raft that ended up starting their entire adventure… He had seen so many worlds, experienced so many things, met so many people, made so many memories – and yet, his childhood memories were his most precious ones.

His heart ached when he realized that Roxas didn’t have any of that. Aside from maybe some of Sora’s own memories that he knew weren’t his own… Sora didn’t really know about that part.

He went back and knelt down next to him. “I’m sorry, Roxas.”

Roxas shook his head. “It’s not because of you,” he said. “It’s just that except for Xion and Naminé, all of the others…” He let out a heavy sigh. “I’m not… It just feels like all of this isn’t real, Sora.”

Sora watched as one of Roxas’ hands curled into a fist.

“I don’t want to feel that way. After all, that’s exactly what they wanted me to feel like… I don’t want to give them that satisfaction, even though most of them are gone now.” He laughed bitterly. “Funny, huh? Even now, that I’m not bound anymore, I still can’t be free. Why does this have to haunt me all the damn time… Why can’t I just shut it down…”

Sora carefully placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. Roxas was panting now, perhaps a result of getting emotionally worked up and trying not to shout.

“The heart isn’t always logical,” Sora tried to explain. “Contradicting yourself sometimes is part of having one, especially when it comes to feelings.”

“Is that why it is so difficult to understand sometimes?”

“Probably,” Sora replied. “But you don’t always have to understand it, you know?” After all, why should anyone try to understand something that was impossible to grasp? It was only a waste of energy, energy that was better spent elsewhere.

Roxas shook his head. “Maybe that works for you,” he said. “But you’ve always had a heart. I haven’t.”

“You had Ven’s heart,” Sora argued.

“That’s not the same.” Roxas retorted. “The emotions I felt? At least in the beginning, they were still his. I don’t know when I started having my own, but… That doesn’t change the fact that it weren’t mine.” A heavy sigh escaped him. “Who knows. Maybe they still aren’t mine…”

“Why shouldn’t they be?”

“Because my entire life, everything about me, is a lie,” Roxas hissed. “My surname? Something Naminé and I made up. Childhood memories? I have none of my own! Every time someone asks I have to tell them a story, and I’m not even sure it happened like I’m telling it! My birthday? I was never born in the first place!”

Sora didn’t know how to respond. He tried to understand, but he probably couldn’t. After all, he had everything Roxas mentioned – or in other words: everything Roxas didn’t have.

Regardless of that, Soras heart ached. Roxas deserved so much better than having all of this come back to haunt him again and again. Distantly, he wondered if that would ever stop, if his former Nobody could ever truly feel like somebody. He really hoped he could. Roxas deserved as much.

“The diary I kept during my Organization days and my passport say that I’m… Born,” Roxas pronounced that word with a good portion of spite in his tone, “on the second of September, but…” He didn’t finish whatever he had been about to say. Instead, he averted his gaze back to the horizon and took a bite from the ice cream.

Sora flinched when he did that. He never understood how people were able to do that – it hurt him to just look at someone doing it.

“Is it… Is it because you feel like that date is just made up too?”

“Like everything else about myself,” Roxas nodded. “At least when it comes to maintaining world order.”

Oh yeah, world order… Sora truly hated that concept from time to time. He often found it hard to not constantly rave about all the amazing things he had seen on his travels to everyone he met on his travels – after all, it was just far to exciting to not share with someone.

But Sora understood why it existed.

Truth be told, Sora had always had a hard time not talking about exciting things. Whenever he had seen a fantastical new movie as a kid, or read a new comic that amazed him, he would always talk nineteen to the dozen about it to either his friends on the islands or his parents. They all had a hard time following him.

Sora had fortunately realized this soon enough, and since he didn’t like to be a burden to his friends and family like that, he had learned to explain things in a manner that was more comprehensive to someone who didn’t know what he was talking about. That sometimes included leaving certain details out or explaining things in a much different manner than they actually happened in the movie. He had found that those tactics came in handy when trying to keep world order as well.

“You know,” Sora said, “it’s always a balancing act to keep world order. We all leave out details or change parts of our story whenever we tell someone who doesn’t know about the Keyblades or other worlds. Sometimes, we even have to make up stuff as well.”

After all, if they did tell the truth, they would probably get labelled crazy or dangerous in most worlds. Even if that didn’t happen, it had the potential to cause much more trouble.

And thinking about it some more…

“Honestly, everyone does it from time to time, even completely normal people who don’t wield Keyblades. Even though they do it for different reasons,” Sora continued. “You’re not so different from everyone else in that regard, Roxas.”

“Fair point,” Roxas murmured. “Still… Normal people are born. And they usually know when.”

“Well, it’s not like you don’t know the day you first came into existence,” Sora pointed out.

“That’s not the same!”

“You’re right. It isn’t exactly the same,” Sora replied. “But it’s the closest thing to a birth date you have. Besides, you know the exact date. So that is definitely real.” Just as real as Roxas himself was, and just as real as his emotions were – and Sora was pretty sure those were just as real as his own.

“If I was a normal person, I wouldn’t even need to pick the closest thing to a real birthday though,” Roxas argued.

Sora shook his head. “You know who is a ‘normal’,” he made air quotes as he phrased that, “person and still doesn’t know on which day she was born?”

“Now you’re making things up…”

“I swear I’m not!”

Roxas didn’t respond to that. Instead, he just looked at Sora, still somewhat sceptically, but also with a bit of curiosity in his expression.

“Kairi.”

She had only been a child when she had fallen from the sky all those years ago. Her memories of her home world were foggy, now and back then. All she had remembered was her name, that she was from another world, and that she had never even heard of the Destiny Islands before.

“We’ve always celebrated it on the twelfth of August,” Sora elaborated further. “That’s the day when she appeared here. Besides, I’m pretty sure Ven doesn’t know his actual birthday either.”

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows. Was he thinking about it?

“Maybe you should talk to one of them, if that makes you feel more comfortable,” Sora suggested.

But Roxas shook his head. “They won’t understand it either,” he argued. “Honestly, I think none of you can really understand…”

“Maybe they don’t have to understand everything to help you.”

“Still.” Roxas let out a heavy sigh. “They… All of you at least have something to build your identities on! Me? Xion? Naminé? We have to look for it, but the more I find, the more I question if all of this is even real, if all of this is even truly mine! Even my body was made in a…”

Now Sora was the one averting his gaze. Yes, he knew exactly what Roxas meant, at least with the latter thing… But he wasn’t going to bring that up now. This was about Roxas, not about him.

“Sorry,” Roxas said. “I didn’t mean to remind you…”

“It’s fine,” Sora interrupted him. “I just… Kinda don’t want to talk about it to be honest.”

“That’s okay.”

Sora turned to Roxas in surprise. He wasn’t… Angry about that? Sora had kind of expected to be condemned for that – after all, he had kind of made him talk, even though Roxas initially hadn’t wanted to.

But Roxas just smiled. “I think you might feel better if you do though.”

Probably. But Sora didn’t want to bother his friends with this. They wouldn’t understand… Well, Roxas, Xion and Naminé maybe would, but Sora didn’t want to stir up any more old memories for them, especially now that Roxas was already upset.

So he just shook his head. “It’s fine, I can handle it.” He had come here to help Roxas with his problems, not to load all of his own problems onto him after all. It would be unfair… Besides, Sora didn’t want Roxas to think that he had to help him now because he had ruined the party for him – which was why Roxas hadn’t wanted to talk in the first place.

“You know, I think I can handle it too,” Roxas argued. “If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have offered it. And I know I feel a bit better after talking to you.”

Sora sighed. “You won’t…” He cut himself off. No. That was exactly what Roxas had been trying to tell him earlier, and Sora had tried anyways.

“I don’t know how to explain this,” he finally admitted. Even though they were in a similar situation regarding this.

“Maybe I don’t have to understand everything to help you,” Roxas answered, echoing what Sora had told him earlier. “Besides, I can ask questions, you know?”

He had a point with that, Sora had to admit… Actually, starting out with a question didn’t seem like the worst idea.

“Have you… Ever felt like your body isn’t really yours, Roxas?”

Sora wasn’t really sure about that part. Perhaps Roxas knew that feeling, since he had been about to say that his body had been made in a lab – but it was just as possible that he had only used this as an argument when overthinking his feeling about being not real. Sora just hoped that he wasn’t bringing any negative thoughts or memories back…

“Depends on what exactly you mean by that.” Roxas responded after a while. “If you mean knowing that your body was made in a lab, that it technically isn’t the same as everyone else’s is… Then yeah, I know how that feels.”

Honestly, Sora was fine with that. It wasn’t like they could have smuggled his body out of Quadratum too. Getting his heart out, past the borders of the different realities and back into the Realm of Light, had been difficult enough. At this point, he was just glad to be back with his friends.

“I mean it more like… Are you getting weird sensations sometimes?”, Sora asked more quietly. “Like… As if you’re feeling things that aren’t really there?”

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows. “What?”

He probably thought Sora was crazy now and maybe he wasn’t even wrong with that. Even Sora himself sometimes didn’t know whether he was still sane.

Spending that last year in Quadratum, isolated and without anyone to interact with or a possibility for escape, had taken a toll on him. Yozora and his team hardly counted, seeing as they were the ones who had caused him the most trouble during his time there.

… Sora had done… Quite a few things he had thought he’d never do… Or at least he hoped he wouldn’t have.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on the tension that action caused rather than the resurfacing memories. Those things he did – he could never undo them ever again. They would probably haunt him forever.

He lowered his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m probably just crazy…”

Roxas shook his head. “Vex-… Even says that it’s almost impossible to tell a Replica apart from a normal human body, but there are some differences,” he explained. Apparently he still hadn’t gotten used to calling the former Organization member by his real name. “Maybe it has to do with those?”

“I don’t know,” Sora confessed. “Have you ever felt like you’re wearing gloves despite not wearing any, and that sensation kind of overlaps with the sensation of what you’re actually touching?”

That was likely not what Roxas had been expecting. His expression changed from a concerned one to an outright shocked one. “You should definitely check in with Even. That’s not normal, Sora, at least in my experience.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be, it’s probably just that your Replica needs a few adjustments.” He gave him a smile that was probably supposed to be encouraging, but it couldn’t disguise the worried look in his eyes. “Trust me, that happened to us too.”

“But what if it’s not about that? What if there is something wrong with me instead?”

Perhaps he was turning this into a far bigger deal than what it actually was, but after everything that had happened in the last year…. Sora was seriously scared that some dark part of him was taking over permanently and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Being in Kairi’s heart for a while had been soothing, like taking a long nap in the warm sun. But even that couldn’t fully undo the damage that had already been done.

“If that’s the case, then we’ll find another way to help you.”

Sora lifted his head to look at Roxas in surprise. He just said that… Totally casual, but with confidence, like there was no problem in the first place.

“What if you can’t?”, Sora whispered. “I might be here again, but… What if I’m still lost forever?”

Roxas shook his head. “There is always a way.” He gave him another encouraging smile. “That’s something I’ve learned from you. You always insisted that I had a right to exist, even when you were told that it was impossible for the both of us to exist next to each other.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, Sora had to give him that. But this was an entirely different situation! Roxas may have been a Nobody when he first came into existence, but he had never been potentially lost to the darkness like Sora was. Roxas hadn’t done all, if any, of the things Sora had done over the past year.

… In moments like these… Sora wondered if it would have been better if he had just died. If not after abusing the Power of Waking to save Kairi, then in Quadratum. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to live anymore, in fact he was glad to be alive still, see his friends again, but… If he had died, he wouldn’t have to live with those feelings. That was just a thought that crossed his mind sometimes, starting when he was still in Quadratum.

“You never gave up on me,” Roxas said as he gently placed his hand on Sora’s shoulder, who almost forgot about the strange feeling of heavy fabric that deafened the sensation. “Don’t you dare give up on yourself, Sora.”

“I…” He sobbed as his vision became blurry.

Roxas… Was right.

“Sora, it’s okay…”

Before Roxas could say any more, Sora pulled him into an impulsive hug. He didn’t really know what he was doing… It happened before he could think about it.

“Thank you!”

Roxas didn’t react immediately, and for a short moment, Sora feared that he had pushed him out of his comfort zone – but then, he felt two hands on his back. “You’re welcome,” Roxas said. “And… Thank you too.”

“No… No big deal.” Sora still couldn’t hold the sobs back. But he didn’t even try to not cry this time around. It was okay.

They sat together in silence for a while after resolving the hug, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

Sora still felt a bit guilty. He had come to comfort Roxas after all – but in the end, Roxas had ended up comforting him instead, even though he knew he probably didn’t need to. After all, it was like he had said: he could always say no.

So it was probably okay… Or at least, it would be.

He was back with his friends now. Whether he was messed up or not, with them on his side, he would heal over time. As long as he didn’t give up on himself – there was always a way. His mind already knew that, and his heart would hopefully soon follow up.

“Come on.”

“Huh?” Sora hadn’t yet noticed that Roxas had stood up. Now he was offering him his hand, as well as another encouraging smile.

“The others are waiting.”

#Kingdom Hearts #KH Fanfiction #*sigh*#... I didn't do the happy part in happy birthday justice #I'm sorry #Sora #Roxas #Angst #Hurt/Comfort #Heavy topics #Fanwork #Fanfiction #Long Post #Re:Birth #Currantlee writing #Currantlee completed #Currantlee completed Story #Currantlee completed KH Fanfic

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nomolosk · 4 years

Text

Snapshots (AU Yeah August 2020)

read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655623/chapters/62626303

Day 8- Secret Dating

Marinette had no idea what she was doing or even what was going on. One moment she was convinced that she’d gravely offended Gabriel Agreste, who had rudely fallen on top of her while she was sleeping the night before, and the next she’s feeling disoriented and confused because the man she thought was Gabriel Agreste actually turned out to be his son, Adrien Agreste.

Marinette really felt like that was something she should have known. Why didn’t she know that before? Adrien was a public figure! His face was all over billboards on a regular basis! He featured in every Gabriel magazine, and his ads were in most other magazines as well. She should have been able to recognize him, or even remember that Gabriel had a son, and she should have noticed that the man last night looked too young to be Gabriel himself. She remembered all of that as soon as the man introduced himself properly, so why hadn’t she remembered it before?

On top of that confusion, was the fact that not only was he not offended by last night’s mistake, he was the same hot model from the cafe! Marinette knew she was scatterbrained sometimes, but surely even she couldn’t forget something like that!

Something was definitely rotten in the state of Denmark. Or Paris, at any rate. And it was probably due to some kind of akuma. This one, though, was apparently very subtle. Marinette continued to make small talk with this unfairly hot and inexplicably interested model while she tried to sort out what was going on and how she really felt. The manipulation of her own emotions wasn’t entirely out of the picture if there was an akuma involved. Then someone else called his name and annoyance and distaste flitted over his face before he smoothed out his expression into something polite.

The woman who’d called his name was probably another model, someone he worked with- she was tall and beautiful and projected an air of, not just confidence, but possessiveness. She latched onto Adrien’s arm as if she was a cat, and he was a scratching post. Marinette’s eyes flicked to his face again, but while his expression didn’t waver, he was looking anywhere but her- which in itself was a huge warning sign. He was clearly used to this behavior and as clearly wished it wasn’t happening.

“Adrien! Fancy meeting you here!” The brunette simpered, completely ignoring Marinette.

“It should hardly be a surprise to you, Lila,” Adrien answered calmly. “I’m sure you overheard Nathalie giving me my schedule for today after last night’s photoshoot.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at the emphasis on ‘overheard,’ turning slightly away from them to rearrange some of the jewelry on the table, trying to decide which piece would best suit the woman. She had warm coloring, so gold or brass toned, maybe copper… Marinette suppressed a smile as Lila sputtered a bit.

“You know I’m just concerned about your health, Adrien,” Lila finally cooed at him. Marinette could practically hear her pout. “Your father works you awfully hard, and I almost never see you outside of work.”

“If you’re so concerned about it, perhaps you should be a little more cooperative during our photoshoots so they don’t drag on for forever.”

The woman named Lila laughed, “But Adrien, you know your father relies on me to make sure all our pictures together are just to die for!”

By this time Marinette had finished straightening, and had picked out something she thought would suit the woman. There was currently a mania for ocean-themed jewelry, and an eight-stranded gold chain bracelet with an octopus charm would suit Lila. She picked it up and turned back to them, just in time to see Adrien looking pointedly away from Lila as the woman in question tried to plaster herself to his side, with her face tilted up in what was probably supposed to be an inviting way.

Marinette blinked at this blatant display, but she’d already decided to interfere, so she spoke up anyway. Ironically, Lila’s current position made the octopus charm even more fitting for her. Marinette could practically see the invisible tentacles she was trying to wind around her fellow model.

“This bracelet would suit you, Madame,” Marinette said, in her best salesperson tone. “The delicate gold chains compliment without overwhelming, and the charm in the shape of an octopus is the latest trend.” She draped the bracelet over a stand she’d made herself and held it out for her to see.

Lila looked at Marinette blankly, as if surprised to find her standing there. Her mouth opened a little, and she actually allowed an inch of space to open up between herself and her prey. Marinette noticed but tried not to show her satisfaction. She was conscious of Adrien turning his head to look at her, too, but she didn’t take her focus off the woman in front of her.

“Oh! Ah…” Lila’s posture and expression both softened, conveying apology. “I’m so sorry. How rude of me to ignore you like that.” One hand flew to her chest, presumably in embarrassment, but Marinette had seen that maneuver too many times before to believe it. She was simply trying to draw attention to her ‘assets.’ “I just saw my Adrien here, and everything else vanished! You know how it is when you’re in love,” Lila simpered, throwing an adoring look towards Adrien.

Adrien snorted. “We are not dating,” he said firmly, making eye contact with Marinette and gesturing between himself and Lila.

“Well… not officially,” Lila in a lowered tone, with a coy look and a wink.

“Not officially, and not at all,” Adrien clarified. “Not even a little bit.”

“That’s right!” Lila said brightly, smiling and winking again. “Not dating officially, or at all!”

Yet, despite agreeing with Adrien, she tried to cozy up to him again. Adrien leaned away from her.

Marinette narrowed her eyes. This could be a clever plot to throw sand in the eyes of the paparazzi, but she hardly counted as paparazzi, and it was hard not to notice the thinly veiled disgust in Adrien’s eyes.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she heard herself say. “I know all about that.”

----

For the second time in two days, Adrien was surprised to the point of being stunned by this woman. Most people, when confronted by Lila’s well practiced acting and lies, rolled over and believed every little thing out of her mouth. That was why he was so determined to make it clear to Miss Dupain-Cheng that there was nothing between him and Lila. Yet Lila, of course, had managed to make his firm declaration sound like nothing more than a cover up. She was trying to imply they were dating in secret, and he had been just about to deny that categorically when the woman he had a real interest in took charge of the conversation.

“Oh, don’t worry. I know all about that,” she said with a sweet smile. “I was trying to be discreet earlier, but now that you’ve shown you recognize me, I can be more open. Right, Adrien?”

Adrien quickly nodded, even though he had no idea what this woman was planning, and turned to see Lila’s reaction.

“Recognize you?” Lila asked in some hesitation. Adrien had to give her credit for acting. Anyone else would have put scorn in that question, trying to put this interloper in her place, but Lila didn’t know what she was up against, and was playing it safe with a sweeter tone.

“Of course!” MDC said (at some point he should really learn her first name). “Adrien talks about you all the time- you know, how professional you are at photoshoots, and how you play along like you really do like him. We’re both grateful, you know. In fact, why don’t I make you a gift of this bracelet? It’s the least I can do after you’ve selflessly taken so much of the heat off him.”

Adrien felt like proposing on the spot. He watched this woman whom he barely knew, whose night he had ruined, wrap the thin bracelet in tissue paper and produce a small velvet bag with her initials embroidered on it. She folded the tissue and put it inside the bag, drawing it shut, and then held it out to Lila with a kind smile. And all the while, Lila stood there, dumbfounded, with nothing to say for once. It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for him.

When MDC held out the little pouch, Lila reached for it, inadvertently releasing his arm. Adrien flexed it subtly to shake off her touch.

“Well… thank you. Although... I’m not really sure what I’m thanking you for,” Lila said, actually sounding genuine for once in her surprise. MDC raised her eyebrows.

“You, covering for Adrien and me, of course,” she replied, with the warmest of smiles.

Lila choked. Then she whipped her head around to glare at Adrien. Adrien called on all his experience and produced the warmest of smiles, though he felt another little zing of surprise himself. But he was more than happy to roll with it.

“You really are the best of friends,” he said, digging deep into his minimal store of fond memories for inspiration. “M and I…” he trailed off as he floundered for something to say to support the story she was building.

Once again MDC came to his rescue. “It’s so comforting to know Adrien has someone to ward off the opportunistic until my brand gets off the ground and we can go public. Naturally, neither of us want anyone thinking I’m only dating Adrien to get to his father, or his father’s company.”

“Right,” Adrien corroborated, sending MDC an even warmer- and far more genuine- smile. “M’s designs are amazing, and I want her to get the recognition and acclaim she deserves, instead of having people think Father is either using me to get her on his design team, or that she’s using me for the same purpose. Plus, you know how adamant Father is that I remain at least outwardly ‘available’ so my fans will stay happy and keep buying his clothes.”

Lila’s mouth tightened ominously, but once again, M (dang it, he really, really needed to learn her first name- maybe she had business cards around here somewhere?) defused her in the only possible way- she praised her.

“So really, thank you. I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. You know, most girls would totally take advantage of a situation like this, but… I know Adrien and I can trust you.” MDC smiled warmly and opened her arms, hugging Lila before she could do anything about it.

“Think nothing of it,” Lila said breathlessly. Adrien knew her well enough to know that her social instincts were currently at war. She probably wanted to verbally cut M into bite sized chunks, but M was also a person currently offering the praise and adoration she craved. “Of course, I... you know I’d do anything for Adrien.”

“Well, I appreciate you, too,” MDC said, finally stepping back. “We’ll definitely have to get together some time. Oooh, maybe you can join us for dinner some time! It’ll look less suspicious if it’s a group of three, don’t you think? Besides,” M said, with a little wink, “sometimes it’s just as well to have a chaperone, you know?”

Adrien had to hide a huge grin as Lila choked for the second time and started coughing. “Are you okay?” he asked, faking concern. “And oh hey, isn’t that Claudio over there?”

Adrien knew he was far from Lila’s only target, and the handsome Italian model was the perfect distraction.

“Oh yes, I think it is. Well, I guess I’ll just go over and say hello,” Lila said, once she recovered. “I know we were supposed to have lunch, Adrien, but I don’t think I can pass up the opportunity to speak my native language with someone instead.” She sighed, falling back into her usual persona. “I get so homesick sometimes.”

“You poor thing!” MDC cut in. “Yes, of course, go on! I’m sure Adrien would be only too happy to let you cancel at the last minute.”

“Well, it would look good for my cover, but I guess I’ll just have to make do with my actual girlfriend,” Adrien said, daring to move closer to MDC and reach out to gently touch her arm. She blinked before smiling up at him. Apparently this small display of affection was too much for Lila, though.

“Thank you for the bracelet,” she huffed and marched off, slowing and shifting to a swaying walk as she approached her alternative target. As she did, there was an almost imperceptible shift in the air...

@auyeahaugust

#mlauyeahaugust #auyeah2020 #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #au #secret dating

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lightsaroundyourvanity · 5 years

Text

the sparks between us, pg-13 [2/8]

RWBY. yang x blake. [ao3] [previously]

Winter flies them to Neiden, but as she reminds them again (as she reminds them several times), she won’t be staying. Team RWBY sits huddled in the hold for the short haul flight, and privately, Yang still feels like they’re all being shipped off to summer camp.

It was something she’d talked more about with Blake, and something they’d always landed on the same point on: Make work or not, if there was even the chance of someone needing real help, in real danger, they had to go. That was what being a huntress was about.

Once, Ruby had told Yang about a conversation she’d had with Dr. Oobleck, where he told her to look at hunts not as monsters to defeat but lives to be saved. Yang thinks that she’s starting to get that.

Yang’s thoughts and her eyes drift to Blake. Inevitably. She’s wearing a new coat, nose buried in the thick fleecy lining, and Yang melts into a smile. It had been fun to shop, to walk an unspoken lighthearted pact for an afternoon and watch Blake try on clothes. Yang remembers Blake sliding on a buckled leather jacket and feeling like her jaw must have dropped straight through the ground. She’d looked so… so…

Well. Hot. But hot feels inadequate for what Yang feels when she thinks about Blake. It’s like her heart thinks that Blake is hot. Yang wants to drink in how fucking beautiful Blake is, and she wants to hold her close and keep her warm. She wants to protect her and also kiss her senseless. She wants to know if Blake’s feeling it too, because it’s like a switch has been turned on inside Yang. It’s an awareness that started nipping at Yang when she saw Blake again back at Haven, has coming screaming to full volume as they’ve fallen back into step with one another these past few weeks.

It’s an absolute sureness that settled over Yang when her hand began to shake, and Blake was there to take it.

They never did get to talk.

“You know,” Ruby says thoughtfully, “This is almost like being at Beacon again.”

“Huh?” Yang has no clue what Ruby is saying.

“Not like, Beacon Beacon,” Ruby clarifies. “But like. What Beacon was supposed to be. If we’d actually made it to second year, I mean.” Ruby looks at the ground, realizing a beat too late how depressing her observation actually is.

“And we’re together,” Blake says. Ruby lifts her head. Blake smiles. “I get it.”

Yang feels a rush of love for Blake when she sees Ruby’s expression soften and cheer.

“I, for one, will be happy to fight something normal for a change,” says Weiss.

“Woah, Weiss is out for blood.” Yang laughs. “Atlas really does change you.”

Weiss’s eyes narrow. “You have no idea.”

Yang stops laughing. It’s true, there’s a new edge to Weiss in Atlas that she’s never seen before. Yang doesn’t think that it’s violent though, not really. It’s… frightened.

“It’s good we’re getting out of the city for a few days,” says Yang.

Weiss’s shoulders sag when she sighs. A beat, and then she straightens up. “Neiden is supposed to be a lovely town,” she says. “It has famous hot springs.”

“Had.” That’s Blake, with her social activist voice put on. “Tourism was driven down in the town after dust mines were founded and built by—” Blake cuts off abruptly.

“By Schnee Dust Company.” Weiss sighs. “I know. You can say it. My dad’s a… a…”

“Douche,” Yang supplies.

Unexpectedly, Weiss laughs. “Yeah.”

“Aren’t the Schnee mines pretty well protected already?” asks Ruby.

“They were emptied out. Years ago.” Weiss looks at the ground. “I guess Neiden doesn’t have much of anything anymore.”

Weiss’ words settle over the four of them. Yang is starting to feel depressed again. “Hey!” she says brightly. “At least they have us.”

Winter leaves them with a farewell, a soft look for Weiss, and instructions on how to reach her when they are ready to go home. Then they are left alone in Neiden.

It’s a small town: Quaint, but obviously run down. There’s one main road, cobbled and grown over with icy moss between the cracks. It’s lined with narrow, brightly painted rowhouses. Hand lettered signs advertise storefronts.

What quickly becomes apparent is that Neiden’s best feature is its landscape. The town is sheltered by snowy mountains on three sides. They make a dramatic sight, all jagged peaks stretching up towards the weak sunlight, and if Yang squints, she can see how this could have been a popular tourist town once upon a time.

“Weird that they’re having problems,” Yang comments. “You’d think with the mountains, this place would be pretty safe.”

“Maybe the Grimm have adapted,” suggests Blake.

Yang shudders. “Self-aware Grimm. I’ll pass.”

“I think some Grimm already are,” Ruby says quietly, thoughtfully. “The older ones.”

“Horrifying. Genuinely horrifying. Thanks for that, sis.”

“Are we going to look around, or are we going to keep giving Yang nightmares?” asks Weiss. “I am freezing.”

“Not nightmares,” Yang protests. “Concerns. Light ones. I’m not scared.”

But Weiss and Ruby have already moved ahead on the road. Yang lets out a noisy breath.

“I believe you,” says Blake. “No nightmares.”

And Yang would have her witty retort locked and loaded, but when Blake speaks, she also takes Yang’s hand, and everything snarky that Yang has ever thought disappears into a fog of Blake is holding my hand.

“Well. Maybe some nightmares,” she admits, begrudgingly.

“But none about sentient Grimm.”

“No. None of those.”

They both fall silent. Both know exactly what haunts Yang’s dreams – what haunts both of their dreams, really. Yang hates that even dead, Adam can hang between them. She wishes that she could scrub away every memory, every emotion, that he’d left behind, but that’s not how trauma works. The best she can do is to never let him win again.

“It’s getting better,” Yang says aloud.

Blake squeezes her hand, and Yang catches her eye. Yang might not understand her pain, but the striking intersection of regret and absolute relief? That, they both understand. Yang and Blake will retrieve the pieces that make it all worthwhile, a jeweler carefully pawing through shards of broken glass.

They catch up with Weiss and Ruby, hands a still knot between them.

It doesn’t take much asking to point them towards the lodge where the mayor is holding court, and even less to find him after that. The lodge is a sturdy, half-timbered building. Inside, one half of the room has been framed around an enormous hearth and mantle: Worn carpets and overstuffed seating dots the space. The other half of the room is set with long wooden tables and chairs, like a dining hall, and Yang wonders if the whole building is a repurposed remnant of the town’s former identities.

The mayor is friendly, but perplexed, which sends a ripple of confusion through the team.

“We have had more Grimm attacks,” he admits. “But there’s already a team of huntsmen protecting this village. Team BSTR.”

A child of ten or so stands at the mayor’s arm – his son? He tugs on his father’s sleeve, but is quickly brushed away. “You can ask them any questions you might have,” the mayor finishes.

Yang, Ruby, Blake and Weiss look in the direction he indicates. Sure enough, four huntsmen sit around the hearth, in various states of recline. One of them, broad shouldered and tawny haired, tosses popcorn into the air and catches it in his mouth. The girls exchange a glance and then troop over to Team BSTR.

“Sure, there are a lot of Grimm,” the team leader, Benedict, tells them. His voice is airy, and he keeps tossing popcorn while he speaks. “It’s nothing we can’t handle. Right, Salome?”

Salome has plum coloured hair that falls in loose waves. It matches her painted lips. She smiles, slow and predatory, and holds out her palm, where a small black flame ignites. She quickly crushes it out. “I think we’ve got it under control,” she says.

Ruby probes a few more questions, but soon she stands outside the lodge with Yang and the rest of the team again, baffled and at ends. “I don’t get it,” she says, “Everything seems fine here.”

“There’s still been a spike in Grimm activity,” Weiss points out.

“Yeah, but they have a team here.” Ruby shrugs helplessly. “If Atlas is stretched so thin, why wouldn’t Winter send us somewhere stretched a little… uh, thinner?”

“I told you, she was just trying to get us out of the way,” says Yang.

“I refuse to believe that my sister is that duplicitous,” Weiss snaps.

“Duplicitous? She works for James Ironwood.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means this whole kingdom is full of—”

“Excuse me? Are you ladies huntsmen?”

Yang cuts off abruptly. They’ve been approached by the boy from inside. The mayor’s son, Yang thinks.

“We are huntresses,” Weiss corrects him.

“Technically, we’re not even that,” Blake says quietly.

Yang elbows Blake in the side. “Be cool, babydoll,” she hisses under her breath.

The boy looks more confused than ever now. Ruby drops to her knees, looks him solemnly in the eye. “Yes, we’re huntresses. Do you need help?”

He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. “Not me, but um. You were asking my dad questions? About the Grimm?”

Yang crosses her arms over her chest. She’s ready for this kid to get to the point. But Ruby patiently urges him to continue.

“Um. It’s just that, like, my friend Ellery said she was going to send a message to Atlas? To try and stop him?”

“To stop who?” Ruby asks gently. Tension crackles in the air as everyone’s interest piques. They lean in to listen.

“The butzemann.”

It’s like the air has been let out of the balloon that holds them in place. Weiss actually lets out an annoyed sigh, and flashes of incredulity show all around.

“The what?” asks Blake.

“The butzemann.” That’s Weiss. “It’s a fairy tale.”

“Are you telling me we came all the way out here for a crank call?” asks Yang.

“It’s not a fairy tale,” the boy says insistently. “I mean. Well, it is a fairy tale, but what happened to Ellery isn’t. I told her you wouldn’t believe us. No grown ups believe us. They just say that sometimes the Grimm come with bad dreams.”

And maybe it’s because if anybody believes in fairy tales, isn’t it them? And maybe it’s because every part of Yang’s being revolts at the idea of being called a grown up. But all of this strikes a chord with Yang. She meets eyes with Ruby, who gives the tiniest of nods. She believes the shorty, too.

“Tell us what happened,” says Ruby, “And I promise, we’ll listen.”

Here is the gist of it: A widening circle of kids have been spirited away to the caves on the outskirts of town, badly frightened, and then returned to their beds by dawn. The butzemann is the culprit they all swear by, a popular nightmare fable known for stealing bad children from their homes in the night and punishing them.

(“Has anybody been hurt?” Ruby asked. No, just scared. But Yang feels a tremor in her hand and knows that that’s enough.)

They had tried to tell their parents, but on the tail of every kidnapping had come a Grimm attack, followed by a now familiar band-aid. You were just dreaming. You know the Grimm bring bad dreams, sweetheart. Go back to bed.

It had been Ellery’s idea to write to the council in Atlas, but the mayor’s son who’d snagged the stationary that granted them dispatch access. If our parents and BSTR won’t help us, then maybe we can find someone who will.

And all this had pinballed its way down to team RWBY. How could they not help?

“I put glyphs around the caves he told us about,” says Weiss. She brushes melting snow from her ponytail and shuts the inn’s front door. “If anything touches them tonight, I’ll know.”

“What if Grimm walk through it?” asks Ruby.

“Not alive. Won’t engage.”

“What about an animal? Like if a bunny hopped in to get warm?”

“They won’t. Butzemann or not, there’s something going on there. Those caves were…” Weiss shudders. “Spooky.” She shrugs off her coat.

After sending their small informant home, everyone had decided that it was a threat worth checking out, if people were truly frightened. So Weiss had left to set a perimeter watch, and the rest of them had zeroed in on a place to spend the night.

“It’s kind of bogus that BSTR couldn’t do the same thing,” says Yang.

“They probably thought a bunch of kids weren’t worth listening to.” Weiss gnaws guiltily on her lower lip. “We thought they weren’t worth listening to.”

“Is it bad that a part of me hopes it’s still a kiddie hoax?” Blake asks. She’s returning from the front desk when she joins them. Two room keys are folded into her hand.

“What, between ragamuffin shenanigans and a monster so old he’s entered myth?” asks Weiss. “No, Blake. That isn’t bad.”

Blake’s answering smile is tired. The four of them drink in the odd moment, and then Blake holds up the keys. “Got our rooms,” she says. “Two doubles. How do we want to split up?"

“Yang?” Ruby asks, deference borne of habit.

Yang coughs awkwardly. Her eyes had been glued to Blake, but they dart towards Ruby now. She opens her mouth to speak, but only an awkward, “Uh…” comes out, as her eyes slide helplessly, helplessly, back towards Blake.

It all dawns on Ruby a beat too late. “Oh!” she looks from Yang to Blake. “Unless you two wanna…”

“Oh my god.” Weiss takes a definitive step forward, takes one of the keys from Blake, and grabs Ruby’s wrist. “Come on. Do not make this any weirder than it already is.”

And just like that, Weiss marches Ruby out of the room. Ruby grins and flashes Yang a thumbs up on her way out. Yang is halfway between preening and mortified when she turns back to Blake.

“Alone at last,” says Blake, which makes Yang giggle. It’s easy for others to mistake Blake’s thoughtfulness for a lack of sense of a humour, but Yang has always thought that Blake was funny, in a dry, understated sort of way.

Yang offers her arm to Blake. “Shall we?”

Blake rolls her eyes, but she rests her hand in the crook of Yang’s elbow and lets her lead away. They walk like this all the way to their room, and sure its cheesy, but Yang feels half gallant, half rock star all the same, steering the most beautiful girl in the world to her hotel room.

A part of Yang hopes, romantically, expectantly, that when they get inside the room, there will only be one bed. Oh no, Blake will say, batting her eyes. I guess we’ll have to… share.

Her fantasy is immediately disappointed when Blake opens the door and they find two neatly made doubles, as advertised. Yang sighs and flops onto the one closest to the door.

“This is fine,” Yang says, half to herself.

Blake collapses next to Yang and props herself up on her elbows. “This is so depressing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, not you! Just… this.”

“Yeah.” Yang kicks off her boots. “Something is off here.”

“Butzemann.”

Yang snorts. “Right. The monster under the bed.”

“You don’t believe it?” Blake shifts, leans closer to Yang. A lock of hair falls over her cheek, and Yang is struck with the irrepressible urge to brush it back, trace the strong lines of Blake’s jaw.

“I don’t know.” Yang’s fingers twitch. “Maybe.”

“It’ easy to ignore children.” Blake’s expression darkens. “That’s probably what draws the monsters in.”

It makes Yang think about what Blake must have been like when she was small: Passionate, defiant, and lonely. It makes Yang think about the monsters that Blake had drawn in, and want to spit venom and blood.

“Let’s pay very close attention, then,” says Yang, and she is rewarded by the tender light of Blake’s answering smile.

They brush their teeth side by side. Like an old married couple, Yang thinks, and her eyes meet Blake’s in the bathroom mirror. Blake smiles around her toothbrush. She leans over and spits into the sink, and Yang tracks the way Blake’s spine curves, the way her hair falls over her shoulders when she bends forward. Blake straightens up. She sees Yang see her, and one eyebrow raises, and one ear flicks.

Yang feels her entire body flush: Her chest, obvious and bare at the collarbones in the thin orange camisole she wears to sleep in. Her fingertips. Her cheeks. Now it’s Blake’s turn to follow the line of Yang’s body with her eyes, a slow crawl up, up, up until she’s staring Yang right in the eyes, no mirrors, no glass, no walls between them. There’s something raw in that stare, and Yang feels yearning wash over her, a warm, burbling wave.

Yang leans deliberately close to Blake when she bends to spit into the sink. Her long tangle of hair brushes Blake’s arms, and Yang wears that the tips of her hair can feet Blake’s skin shudder. Yang pops up, swipes her thumb over her lower lip, and grins at Blake, stops just short of winking.

Blake actually swallows. A beat, a stammered good-night, and then Yang’s watching her twitch out, and the heat between them stretches in wavy lines, thoughtful and longing and aching.

When Yang climbs into bed, her heart is still hammering. Blake is huddled under a pile of blankets on the opposite double, and Yang clicks off the light. She lies flat on her back in the dark, wide awake. She listens to Blake’s even breathing and wonders if she is already asleep. It’s hard to tell. Yang doesn’t know how she possibly could be.

All Yang can think about is Blake in the other bed. Her body, curled up and perfect on its side. Her eyelashes, cresting over her cheek like the break of a wave. The mattress (lucky mattress), dipping under her weight. Yang wonders how she’ll ever fall asleep now.

“Yang?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you still awake?”

“Yeah.”

Yang hears the rustle and shift of Blake’s sheets across the room. She rolls onto her side and squints into the dark, and then – there, she catches it, the gleaming flash of Blake’s eyes.

“Do you…” Blake hesitates. Her breath catches. “Do you want to get into my bed with me?”

Oh, hell yeah. Yang kicks off the covers and pads across the room. Even her footsteps sound eager. She slides in next to Blake, propped up on her side. For a moment, all they can do is look at each other, wonder how their legs don’t twine together like magnets. Yang’s face is so close to Blake’s that she can feel their breath mingling in the space between them.

It’s almost too much – simultaneously, she and Blake breaks into soft giggles. They taper into a newer, more comfortable intimacy when Yang finally reaches out to Blake and brushes her hair off her face.

“Yang…”

“Yeah.”

This is the moment. This is their moment. Yang leans towards Blake. She tastes her before their lips even touch. She wants her before there’s even time to press skin against skin. Yang’s draws closer to Blake. Her mouth hovers close to Blake’s, almost grazing, almost whole. She wants to—She wants—She could—

A furious pounding on the door startled Yang so badly that she jolts backwards and rolls off the bed. She lands painfully on her ass, and there’s not even enough time to process it all – the pain, the loss, Blake still lying in bed, all tousled and tantalizing – before the door bursts open, and Weiss flurries into the room.

“The alarm went off and – why are you on the floor, Yang? Oh, never mind that. Something is going on at the caves. We have to go!”

Weiss exits as frenetically as she entered, leaving Yang and Blake, bewildered and flustered.

Another moment and Yang is on her feet again, and Blake is out of bed, the both of them throwing on weapons and clothes. They are huntresses, after all.

They allow themselves one shared glance –savored, curious– and then Yang races out the door, Blake on their heels, Ruby and Weiss already bolting ahead of them down the hall.

Something about monsters and beds.

#bumbleby #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #rwby #lightsflash

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paladin-pile · 6 years

Text

Shiro’s role in VLD and what that means for us.

I see a massive variety of opinions on Shiro these days, most of them negative, and I’m getting tired of it. I’m not posting this to be salty or argumentative. I’m here to explain why we should be grateful for this brilliant rep, this character with the most beautiful and inspiring story that should got down in history. Shiro is not the show’s “punching bag” or anything else, and in this meta I’d like to begin explaining my position on why Shiro’s story is exactly what the world, (that includes us) needs. No matter what your position, please take just a few minutes and read.

In my perspective, being a punching bag means that a character is being repeatedly hurt, beaten down, and being ground into lower and more painful places in life, for no reason, or for reasons that are for action purposes only, not contributing to a meaningful arc for the character. It might even be detrimental to their arc. The characters in the MCU are a perfect example if this. I like Marvel movies, and I love the characters, but as I watched through the movies I started to like them less and less because of how the characters were treated. It was hard to watch the people I cared about accumulate trauma on top of trauma that was never addressed. They were never allowed to rest, heal, reach a better place in their physical/mental/emotional states.

Sometimes in little things, yes, but not much. I just watched people get beaten to a pulp physically and emotionally. I cared about them, I want them to be okay, I want them to have hope and opportunity of meaningful connections, peace, and recovery. If Tony Stark or Steve Rodgers die in Avengers 4, I see that as a horrible end to horrible arcs for both of them. Steve has been fighting his whole life, never got to have a home and family, or deal with some of his issues. Tony has barely gotten a glimpse of a happy life with Pepper and a baby, and has grown so close to Peter. Peter has lost his parents, his uncle, and now he might lose Tony too.

Do you see what I mean here? If you’re familiar with the MCU you might see my point. This is because the movies exist to serve the comic book action, not the people. The action, the aliens, the robots, the fight scenes; that’s the whole purpose of these movies and they’re not going to take time to show us how Natasha is slowly recovering from her childhood trauma with help from Clint and his family. When we watch endless action-based stories like this, we tend to get depressed because we long for hope. Everyday in real life we see hopeless situations where the people we love get hurt and hurt again without any hint of things getting better, we don’t want to see that in our media.

But Voltron...Voltron is different.

The problem is that people come to Voltron looking for a utopia (“If war was perfect this is what is should look like. If everything happened perfectly for so-and-so this is what I think it should be and its not so it’s evil,”etc). That’s not going to work. Voltron does a great job of showing realistic experiences that we can relate too, and still give us hope and inspiration. The character development and story arcs for each character are nothing short of brilliant. Please also keep in mind, some characters are more central than the others and will receive more focus, but everyone gets at least some meaningful things. What makes Voltron do this while other shows/movies don’t, is that Voltron is not about Voltron, it’s about the characters. The first season or two you might think it’s about the robots and the big fights, but I recall it was around season 5 that the realization hit me. “Holy shit this isn’t about Voltron, it never was.” What made me realize? Well, Shiro and Keith’s related arcs specifically. The entire plot revolves around how they revolve around each other. Pay some close attention to each plot point and ask how it relates to Keith trying to save Shiro or vice versa. But that’s beside the point of this post. I came here to talk about Shiro.

Shiro is the main character of Voltron. No contest. Everything revolves around him, is influenced by him, or is tied back to him somehow. It’s incredible to watch. The show starts with him and I’ll damn well bet it’ll end with him. He’s the fated, Chosen One that the whole show is on the shoulders of. So why don’t most people realize this?

Shiro isn’t a loud person, he shoulders a lot of his work in the background. We don’t see things from his pov very often. It’s easy for our attention to drift to the more outgoing, loud and chaotic characters, but that does not determine how important they are to the story.

Doing rep right is not, “This person is LGBT/poc/mentally ill character, therefore nothing bad can every happen to them.” That would be of no help to anyone at all. People need to see rep that goes through things that they do or even worse, and is still ok, who can still be happy and adapt and be strong and find meaning in life, be in healthy, wonderful relationships. People who can climb higher and shine brighter because of what they’ve been through, not in spite of it.

Remember the beginning where I described what it means for a character to be a punching bag? Shiro is none of those things. This sweet, earnest, and lovely boy has been through so much suffering. You’ve all seen it, or inferred it from what we did see. But never have I ever seen someone with such a mighty heart, or such resilience. He kept fighting, never lost hope, never gave up on the people and causes he cared about. He never got any less kind and selfless. He stayed loyal to what was right and never sought his own glory. And he has been abundantly rewarded for it. The MCU characters I talked about have gotten worse of the course of their arcs. Shiro has gotten better.

His life isnt perfect. It’s not a utopia. He has sustained a lot of losses, his path has changed direction in confusing and sometimes painful ways. But he takes it in stride. No suffering Shiro has been put through has been for nothing, and in this is the basis for my argument. It has all changed and influsned his character arc in positive ways. Even if it took a while for that to become apparent. He has been leveling up this whole time. Even things that seemed the worst turned out to be a blessing to both him and the universe.

Is he sad about no longer being a paladin? We will never know. Even if he was he is not one to dwell on it. He now has a bond with another mecha just like he had with black, one that’s his and only his. (One that's 100 times bigger than his old ship and way cooler, Voltron whomst?) He has his own path and his own crew, he’s working side by side with the people he considers family. He is showing signs of healing, of being happy. He’s just as much a part of the team as he was before. It’s the fandom who excludes him from their art and fics of the othes, the fandom who is casting him aside, not the show.

For someone to say “Oh Shiro’s arc is terrible and he’s being treated badly because look at these things that happened to him. Things he loved got taken away and now he’s lost and sad and feels useless and is getting knocked down a few pegs in life.” Where are you seeing this? What happens in our own lives when things change or painful things happen. Do we roll over and die? Say “oh my life will be miserable from now on because this or that happened?” No, and neither would Shiro.

We see Shiro growing. He is leveling up. He knows how to live and adapt and find meaning. I don’t think Shiro regrets or mourns anything for very long. His coping skills are very good since he came back form the “dead.” He may have feelings of sadness and loss. Of his arm, of people close to him like Adam or others, of the people lost on Earth. But roles? Jobs? Circumstances that he knows could have happened to anyone and he can’t change? He knows better than that. Have more faith in Shiro people. I have been more inspired and encouraged and blessed by his character and story than I have in any other media ever. I love him and I am grateful.

I understand that a lot of good folks who love Shiro have been genuinely concerned and confused. If you are one of those, please message me. I would love to talk to you. I know some folks have made posts mentioning specific events in the show that have influenced their perception and I was not able to address all the specifics in this post, only generally. Anyone is more than welcome do drop by my ask box and start a conversation!

#Shiro #voltron #vld #takashi shirogane #voltron s7 #pal meta #lets talk #Shiro is so underrated and misunderstood

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blueskyheadleft010 · 6 years

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A few stray thoughts [Wrapping up watching Voltron S7]

But okay, first off I want to say this is obviously spoilery so don’t like, don’t read.

Also, my opinion will probs be a bit contradictory to most of the tumblr voltron fans, but bare with me here, I just wanted to point out some interesting things...

Okay so first, I just wanted to say the the ‘Family Feud’ rip off ep made me want to gag, and the only thing I liked about it was Pidge being smart enough to fool ‘Bob the host’ into letting his guard down so she could attack him.

Also, why? was it even needed? at all???? Honestly, the whole ep was like an animated bad work of fiction, and I seriously cannot believe the writers would pull this kinda crap so late in the series.

Moving on, there were points in the show that had me excited but there was also low points were I just wanted the story to move on and I felt like they were trying too hard to connect crucial moments and ended up adding in random junk because they had no idea what to fill in.

For example, the druid fight and finding Kolivan could’ve been shortened way down and honestly nothing would’ve changed.

Also, can we just talk about how Kolivan was being held? And (possibly) waterboarded?!? When I first saw that I was like, ‘woah, holy shit guys. That’s not okay. That’s not an okay thing to do/show’. That was fucking terrifying to watch, and even if he wasn’t being treated that way, the fact alone that he was being held in the air by rope in a very painful position is very scary and if Kolivan was real I would’ve been seriously concerned how tf he lasted so long without losing circulation to at least his extremities.

‘The Last Stand’ was where I began regaining my interest in the story as finally we got to see Sam back on Earth, and hot damn did he ever deliver the justice that the Garrison deserved.

I also liked Iverson not ending up being a jerk, and was honestly just trying to keep the peace and do the right thing. It was a huge improvement, and whether or not he deserved this change in character, he reminded the audience that people can change and become better, which is something I can get behind 100%. :)

(Lol, tho I totally predicted the lady commander being evil. She had her head too far up her butt to see the light of day. Doesn’t mean I agree with her dying tho :U)

Anyways, I love how Sam just ends up taking the reigns, being an overall wonderful/kind man, and laying down the law just flat out instead of trying to play nice and let Earth be mowed over by the Galra. (Would’ve liked to have heard from other global powers about what their thoughts were on this whole plan, but meh I guess that would’ve been too crazy to write with everything else going on.)

What I didn’t expect was how long they were going to focus on the Garrison arc, and like, all the people inside. Like, that’s fine I guess? but it made me worry that we were going to be seeing something like Go!Lion or have another voltron team or something, and really the only 2 people on the fighter team we knew were Keith’s rival? and Lance’s sister, but the other people might as well have just been random civilians because idk what their background was other than they were good pilots.

(also was the blond chick autistic or something? idk she just seemed a little less socially adept and more like a calculating computer, and god would I have loved it if they said she was and showed more about her and the other people because I can just sense a story behind them...)

It was cool seeing Earth tech and Altean tech work to make the Atlas, but seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?!? You just HAD to make another voltron toy to sell didn’t you Dreamworks? V_V

Why did you make Shiro be the pilot? Why did the Atlas have to become the new Castle of the Lions? How come Coran couldn’t help with anything aboard it? HOW COME THE SHIP DIDN’T FREAKING BLOW UP AFTER THAT FIRST SPACE SHOT?!?

All of this felt weird and odd, and like now that it is the new CotL, idk what to think. It’s just odd to have a bunch of military/space cadets running about on a ship and listening to young adults/teenaged voltron pilots tell them what to do to help in a war.

Also, how come we didn’t see anything about the humans as slaves in Galra encampments? Like, is humanity screwed now? The galara did blow up their satellites, how will Earth work the same?

This was literally 9/11-WWIV to them. Which is so bizarre.

The paladins literally came back to an Earth that, for all they knew, was completely obliterated, and they were just walking over corpses. (There had to be some. There was no way every human on that planet evacuated in time.) That thought alone is weird to think about in a Y7 kids production.

Not to mention the fact that this even happened at all?? Like, I get the fear of Earth being destroyed is a terrifying thing, but the writers just kept dangling it over our heads so much that for a bit I genuinely believed that the amount of bs going on against the heroes would just pile up and the Earth was just going to be fucking obliterated by how many holes were in their plans. The only thing keeping me from that was the fact that there would be no show if they did that, but that’s not a very comforting thought, nor does it make me want to root for everyone. What’s the point when you know how it’s going to end?

Idk, it was so out of place I felt like I was watching an entirely different show. Since when did the paladins ever fight like military pilots? Why and how were there random pockets of human resistance that could somehow communicate to each other? How tf did the Garrison come up with tech to stop the drones from sending out signals to each other? Why didn’t they use that to stop Sendak’s ships???

Granted, there was some solid planning (mostly from Sam) that was genuinely smart (like the mini satellites they used that were too tiny and so many that the Galra couldn’t shoot at them); but most of everything after ‘The Last Stand’ episodes became a giant martyr after giant martyr of the team defying the odds but not having time to catch their breath. And that last robeast? I get why they needed to show off where the Altean colony went to, but the fight was lackluster compared to fighting Sendak’s whole fucking army and winning. (Even Allura complains about this, showing how self aware this show actually is when they put their thinking hats on).

The fact that the robeast was even that fucking powerful in the first place was insanity and why would you even have an impossible to beat villain take down the most hard to kill heroic team anyways? Aren’t we trying to show how friendship saves the day? Why give Shiro that credit? What the hell does he have that the paladins don't?

Apparently a big fucking ship named Atlas. That’s what.

And now we move onto my biggest grievance: The deaths and near-deaths of characters.

Why. Just why?

It was so poorly done, and kinda random. Adam didn’t get the screen time the writers were building up for him. All of Shiro’s problems, his degenerative disease, his near death again after the clone body tried to reject him (which ‘thank you Shiro’ we ‘totally’ need to be reminded how much shit you went through when you were talking with Lance about it. Not cool), and then his new arm trying to kill him? Dealt with in like 5 seconds. False alarm! Shiro’s totally not gonna die this time! ( ͡ಠ ͜ʖ ͡ಠ)

But I think the worst one was at the end when Shiro is giving that speech to the humans with the lions standing behind him not online after we’d just seen them crash land on Earth in a fiery blaze, and honestly??? I thought they were dead.

Goodbye my sweet precious babies, you died protecting Earth and now the fucking Garrison is gonna end up showing those knock-off paladin cadets into the lions and things are gonna be okay again~!

No joke, that’s what I thought.

But then suddenly they’re fine? In a hospital??? Why???? WHAT?!?!?!?

Cue music overture with a montage of everyone’s families and friends coming to say hello to them (instead of explaining wtf happened to all of them) and lots of hugging and oh yeah we forgot about Matt so here’s two frames of him with his weird android girlfriend? thing and long ponytailed head.

Cute, real heartwarmer with Shay suddenly having an entire fucking Balmeran transport her to Hunk. (omg think of how that’s affecting Earth’s gravity atm, the ocean tides r gonna b so screwed over).

Anyways, I did begrudgingly like the new season; but only barely, and I was nowhere near as excited watching this one as I was with previous seasons. There was too much testing my suspension of disbelief, not enough breathers during the last bit, and just overall confusion from all the devastation and chaos caused by Sendak. (Where the hell is Haggar?????)

Overall the story seemed to be trying too hard, and I’m not happy with that. I want Season 8 to smooth over some of this, but I don’t have the highest of hopes. I honestly just want to see my paladin children happy and not fighting a war, and I don’t want to focus on random secondary characters anymore. I want fulfillment, I want the paladins to come to some sense of self satisfaction and growth, regardless of the shipping.

Season 7 took two steps forwards and two steps back with the character development. They progressed Hunk and Sam, but regressed Lance and the others a bit. Coran has officially become the doorstop, with Shiro getting a whole army to command, and random secondary cadets acting like their the lead characters of the show.

I don’t want that. I want the normalcy the show has had up till now. I just want back regular Voltron.

#voltron #vld s7 spoilers #vld s7 review #review #analysis #my thoughts #not my voltron #rambling

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samdotdocx · 3 years

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So, I watched 8 1/2, and whooo boi

Yes, I watched it for a class, but we all start somewhere. And what a place to start indeed; this is genuinely one of the most visually beautiful movies I've seen. But the narration; oh boy. There's that one post floating around somewhere that talks about Douglas Adams and how reading his writing was the first time the poster had actually understood what could be done with words; this movie matches that vibe. And I'm a little late to the game, but! Better late than never.

It goes without saying that the majority of the movie ‘8½’s points, which are nuanced and many, are conveyed subliminally. The lay person watching the movie doesn’t need to articulate to themselves what anything means; their understanding is not just influenced by, but created by nuances of the scene that the eye picks up on and connects with unconsciously. For example; the beach. Guido could just as easily have been flying over a park, or a canopy of trees. The beach though, despite connoting things like summer vacation or swimming, also places you in the sand, looking out over the water, knowing that you can go this far, and no further. It’s not the kind of feeling that can be articulated, but it informs our interpretation of Guido’s flight; on one hand, there is the freedom of the beach, related to carefreeness, but on the other, we have the danger of the open water, and Guido right on the edge of both. He could fly away and be free if not for the rope, but it is a restraint and an anchor at the same time, because if he flew away he might be free, but he’d also be alone, and at the mercy of the open ocean and sky. This, combined with the sentiment of the previous scene which demonstrated Guido’s feeling of being stifled and his need to escape, sets up the theme for the rest of the movie; Guido’s freedom in terms of his artistic and personal expression and desires, versus his safety in terms of maintaining the life he has built for himself. And later in the movie, the beach in his memory with Saraghina too is a place of similar confusion, but also similar freedom. The beach is an exploration, but also a hard limit, as we can infer from the ending of that scene, and the reprimand he faces in the next one, at 1.05.00. The people in his life have very specific expectations of him, and on one hand, he wants to live up to those expectations, but on the other, he’s not sure he can, or even if he actually wants to.

The film has a fluidity to it that is an integral aspect of the narrative. This is especially apparent when concerning the characters apart from Guido. The audience is meant to see things as Guido sees them; the story is technically about him, and the fluidity of the scene transitions adds to the snaking stream-of-consciousness quality of the narration, but it also serves to underscore Guido’s detachment from the world not only in a metaphorical sense, but also a literal sense. His focus, and therefore ours, lands so briefly and erratically on anyone else, but the moments that are chosen for the audience to see tell us so much about those characters. At the same time however, we never find out more about them. There is no exposition, because Guido never asks. And when they try to tell him something, he isn’t listening. We feel Guido’s restlessness, with conversations fading in and out of his range of concentration, the pieces of parallel stories that catch our interest, but are never pursued. Even the settings are mostly cluttered and busy, with elements that probably have endless meaning, but we never linger on them – with the exception of the photographs on his bed, which, being literally snapshots of people – women, specifically – taken out of context, are a neat parallel to the way Guido interacts even with real, live people. And all these other relationships become a foil to Claudia, the one person Guido has consistently been interested in, who he genuinely asks questions of; she is interspersed throughout the film and almost acts as a visual crescendo by the time she appears at 1.56.20. Claudia becomes a symbol of what Guido believes is his solution, even though he can’t quite pinpoint what his problem is. It’s not a coincidence that she appears just as everything is falling apart.

The overall mood of the film to me is one of confusion, and this feels deliberate. Guido is the only one here, it seems, who is lost. Lost in traffic, lost in a crowd, lost his direction. We know from Guido’s flashbacks that he is used to being the centre of attention, the centre of a crowd, and in many ways he still is, but the tone of that attention is very different. Guido’s flashbacks are bright and rose tinted, whereas in his waking hours – though the intention behind the attention is largely the same, though he is still the one who’s attention everyone is vying for, Guido is overwhelmed by it. Not by the attention itself, but the quality of it, and Guido himself can’t seem to understand why it is he’s feeling and behaving this way. He himself thinks he has everything he wants – or at least, everything he can reasonably have. It seems fairly simple, and fairly obvious, what he wants in his ideal life; he may not be getting any prizes for feminism, but there’s a part of him that knows that, and that part keeps it all a fantasy. He may come across as a bit of a Casanova, but he’s never been outright misogynistic. In fact, he’s generally quite sweet in his interactions with both his wife and his mistress. He knows he can’t really have what he wants. His project, the film, then, if not just a means for Guido to muddle through his confusion as to how to deal with the women in his life, becomes a larger reflective exercise – as is obvious, even to the characters in the story. His entire professional standstill, his childhood, his complicated feelings over his parents, everything; the plot meanders, as does Guido. “What do you want?” everyone seems to be asking him, but he has no idea other than ‘Not this’. “What’s the point here?” He doesn’t know.

#eight and a half #federico fellini #I am not condoning or excusing Guido's philandering ways or power fantasies #you know #its weird #the general vibe of the movie and the individual vibe of Guido are so different #like #can you imagine meeting the dude irl #probs just deck him #spam-by-sam

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