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#and yes I’d prefer him being alive
bottomvalerius · 7 months
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Idk who needs to hear this but um
Killing one queer, disabled character in a full cast of queer, disabled characters is not “burying your gays.” It’s just complicated (and imo good) writing.
🤷🏻🤷🏻🤷🏻
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may-be-rae · 1 year
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The Arcana Headcanons
Nights with the M6
Asra:
Asra tends to go to bed rather late. He’s not the type to get a full 8 hours, but instead takes a lot of smaller naps through the day. I’d say they’re usually in bed no earlier than 2:00 am.
He does take the time to eat with you and tuck you into bed. He’ll lay with you, kissing your forehead, holding you until you fall asleep. It’s only once your breathing deepens and steadies that he dares to pry himself away from you. He tells Faust to care for you in his absence.
Asra prefers to be awake at these hours because the stars and celestial bodies are something he finds deep inspiration in. His magic is the closest to him in these moments, and he enjoys dwelling in that presence. He’ll sit on the roof and either work on astrological charts or document spells. Sometimes, he’ll just lay there and simply meditate beneath the night sky.
Asra is also a habitual midnight snacker. It’s the time when his appetite kicks up the most. Their favorite is sesame crackers with either cheese or almond butter and preserves.
When Asra does come to bed, he tries not to wake you. He doesn’t wear nightclothes, but simply takes off his shirt and slides under the covers. If the weather is hot, he’ll strip to his undergarments.
They love to watch you sleep. (Yes, it did occur to him that that’s slightly strange, and he had to laugh at himself.) The little sounds and faces you make during dreams amuses them. “Sometimes you look like you’ve bit into a lemon.” He laughed one day.
Once asleep, he’s gone. Very heavy sleeper. They sleep on their stomach while hugging their pillow, and you’ve notice that he’ll smack his lips in his sleep. It’s terribly cute. Often whispers things between dreams and will sleep talk if you engage in his mutterings.
10/10 cutie pie
Nadia:
Nadia has a strict night routine that consists mostly of beauty regimens. It starts with a long bath, then a thorough brushing of her hair, and ends with skin care. She enjoys when you participate as she’s always ready to spoil you.
Afterwards, she goes into her tower for a private meditation. As much as she loves you, she requests to be alone at this time. It’s a time of deep self-reflection. Nadia is not only conscious of her physical health, but also her inner being. She puts on a brave face, but her time with Lucio made her so lost to her own self. Not to mention, she’d been asleep for so long…lost so many memories. You were the catalyst for Nadia to find herself again, but her past is still a heavy burden. The time in her tower is her own promise to to herself to never stop fighting.
When she returns from her tower, she’ll find you. Her mind and heart are tender in this moment, and she wants to be near someone she trusts. She’ll take you to a balcony that overlooks beautiful Vesuvia. The city market lights are just beginning to dim, and the dock is alive with ships mooring for the night. She’ll hold you with her head on your shoulder, sometimes sharing the reflections she had in the tower.
Hand in hand, you both will make your way to bed. She’ll wrap you in the covers before making herself comfortable. Even though she was once married, Nadia isn’t accustomed to sleeping with someone. She’d always avoided staying in a bed too long with Lucio, and when she did, she tried her best to maintain distance. You’ll often startle her with your affections. You go slow so as not to scare her, and soon enough she’ll snuggle into you.
Although Nadia does her best to be in bed by 10:00 pm, she does push that back if your cuddling lasts a little longer than anticipated. 🙃💕
Julian:
Julian does his best to be home by nightfall, but as a doctor, that’s a hard promise to keep. When emergencies arise, his heart is too soft to deny his patients, even if that means sacrificing his own needs and desires.
If he does return on time, his routine is fairly sporadic. He’ll cater it to whatever you’d like to do, whether that’s a night in or some fun at the Raven.
One constant is he takes a long bath before bed regardless of the time he comes home. He’ll sprinkle the water with salts, light incense, and dim the lights to a single candle. He finds this to do wonders for his senses, which tend to be overwound at the end of the day. Sometimes, you’ll overhear him singing Nevivon songs from his childhood.
After his bath, it’s often well past dinner. Since you worry for his health, he’ll take time for a snack. Most often, it’s a slice of rye or pumpernickel with butter.
Afterwards, he’ll read a book until he starts to nod off. Then, he’ll clamber into bed with you and try his best not to wake you with his limbs. He does indulge in a kiss though, usually to your temple or pressed into your hair.
Despite his tiredness, it’s still hard for him to fall asleep, but with you near, his thought are so much kinder. He’ll think of his day and the changes in his life. While there’s much less adventure…much less drama…his heart has always longed for stillness, for a place that he didn’t have to leave.
He’s a very happy man.
Portia:
Portia’s evening are much calmer than her mornings. After a long day at work, she comes home drained. And while her energy levels are still unmatched, they’re drastically lowered by Portia’s standards.
Despite her schedule, she’s much more faithful about coming home on time. Nadia is also insistent that her greatest assistant and confidant has a life outside of the Palace. She ensures Portia’s schedule is never overbearing.
When Portia returns, she greets everyone in a healthy round of hugs and kisses. There’s no point in trying to escape her suffocating affections. She swaddles you in a blanket and tackles you to the couch, nuzzling into your neck to plant tickling kisses.
After, the two of you will stroll through her gardens and pick any ripened produce. You’ll talk about each others day and laugh as Pepi chases butterflies.
By now, you can see the weariness on Portia’s features. She still insists on cooking since it’s something she enjoys, so you do your best to wash dishes as she goes to make clean up easier.
Once dinner is done, she drags you into the bath with her. You’ll help wash her long curls, and she’ll nestle into your arms. Over time, you’ll feel her breath become heavy and slow. You know it’s time to get your love into bed.
Muriel:
Muriel retires to bed early due to his early rise with the chickens. After dinner, you two will clean up the hut as he prefers to awaken to a clean space. Then, he’ll venture out to bathe and collect water for tomorrow. He enjoys it when you decide to join him.
There is a local waterfall deep in the woods that he bathes in. He brings his own homemade eucalyptus and rose soap. It’s a stark but lovely contrast to the usual myrrh.
Back home, you’ll sometimes offer to braid his hair. Since it’s coarser, he like to use a bit of rosemary oil. At first, this practice sent tension throughout his body, but in time he’s relaxed into you. It’s not uncommon to catch him dozing off in your lap. He’ll also offer to do your hair or give you a massage.
Afterwards, it’s very much time for bed. Muriel sleeps on the edge of the bed, so that you and Innana are safe to snuggle into him.
For some reason, he’s much bolder in his affections at this time. He loves the softness of you, loves tracing the gentle curves around your face. It’s so different from the contours he sees in himself. Again, at first, this made him horribly nervous. Would his callouses scratch you? Would he pull your hair too hard? But in time, it actually helped him be more comfortable and attune to his strength.
He realizes that he can be soft, too.
Lucio:
Lucio’s energy tends to manifest itself the most once the sun goes down. Want to visit Prakra? Let’s load up the horses. Craving another pumpkin bread? I’m sure Selasi won’t mind! You’ll have to somewhat force him into a night routine if you ever expect to get this man to stop.
You’ve noticed food is key to getting him to wind down. A nice hot meal that sits in his belly and weights his eyelids. Usually, it’s in the form of stew with fresh bread and dessert (he has an undeniable sweet tooth). While he’s balked that’s he can provide you much better cuisine from world class chefs, he secretly loves when you cook for him and you know how to satisfy his picky palate.
After dinner, he’s noticeably more docile. He’ll hold out his arms and ask for you to sit in his lap by the fire. He’ll nuzzle into you and chuckle when you play with his hair. It’s not uncommon for you to fall asleep in his arms.
Afterwards, he’ll carry you to bed. The two will help each other dress for the night and curl into the sheets. He appreciates it when you take his golden arm off for him. The glove’s purpose was to hide from his insecurities. When he takes it off, it’s a harsh reminder of how he really sees himself. You are so much kinder towards him than he is to himself.
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teecupangel · 6 months
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I had a thought earlier: What if Ezio was Desmond's Sage?
Basically, the usual setup with Desmond using the eye to contact Ezio in the library and offering to send him back in time to save his family, but due to the damage he's sustained from the Eye, he can't come with. Once this moment in the Grey is over, he would die. Ezio begs him to come with him, through any means possible. He refuses to leave behind the divine being he is the chosen Prophet for. The being who is going against Fate itself to give him his family back. Desmond just can't say no to Ezio and tries to see if there's anyway he could come with Ezio. He doesn't want to die if he can avoid it. It's then, through the connection with the Eye and the Apple, that he learns about Sages. With a few modifications for Ezio's safety, that could work. Instead of consuming Ezio's mind to take over, he would just live alongside him. When he tells Ezio of it, Ezio accepts.
.
.
When Ezio wakes up, it is to his childhood bedroom. Everything is how it was when he was 17. Is 17. It worked! His family is alive and well! Did the Sage thing work?
"Desmond, are you here?"
'Yes Ezio, i am.'
.
Just a thought i had. I imagine that Ezio could let Desmond have control of his body, but Desmond is pretty chill with just watching though Ezio's eyes.
Ezio would have mind conversations with Desmond, which worries his family a lot when they catch him just staring emptily though the air. That and his complete switch in behaviour.
There's probably so many routes to go here, but i'm too sleep deprived to think atm. XD
It doesn’t take long before Desmond realized that all the modifications he made for his consciousness to become part of Ezio had turned him to be the least invasive Bleed to ever be conceived.
Did this count as possession?
Was Ezio even a Sage or was Desmond simply a sentient Bleed?
Wait.
Did that mean that the Bleeding Effect mimicked the experiences a Sage goes through when they start ‘getting’ the Isu’s memories.
Didn’t that mean that there was a possibility that the Animus was based on the research the Isus made to create the-
“Desmond, as interesting as your thoughts are about this subject, I’d prefer it if you were to. Focus!” Ezio was unable to stop himself from raising his voice as he punched one of Vieri’s hired muscles as Desmond liked to call them. The man staggered as he took a few steps back and Ezio swiped his feet before stomping on his groin.
There was a few scandalous looks thrown his way at that attack and Ezio just shrugged.
It wasn’t his fault that Desmond’s skills in unarmed combat bled through to him during these situations and Desmond fought shamelessly dirty.
‘In my defense…’ Desmond quipped from his mind, ‘I was taught that honor and shame have no place when you’re getting ganged up by Templars.’
Ezio grunted as he dodged a punch aimed for his chest, quickly grabbing the wrist and pulling him forward to unbalance him before delivering a high knee strike, making the man gasp as Ezio kneed him on the throat.
Okay, that one was from one of Desmond’s Bleed, not Desmond himself.
But then again…
Desmond was his Bleeds and his Bleeds were him. When he thinks about it that way…
“Desmond…” Ezio gritted as he smacked an incoming kick from another man, quickly jabbing the man’s side before suckerpunching him.
‘Sorry, sorry. My brain’s wacky at the moment.’ Desmond said.
That was an understatement.
Desmond had been in Ezio’s body for only a few hours. They had went outside to try and get a lay of the land and found out the date by Vieri throwing a rock at Ezio and giving Ezio the scar on his lips.
So yeah…
Desmond was still not used to being this… entity inside Ezio’s mind.
“Don’t think too hard.” Ezio backhanded a goon’s cheek hard and fast enough that he was able to topple the surprised and hurt goon with his mind quickly making it known that it was a common technique Altaïr used to do. Ezio tried to focus as he said, “Let’s just get this over with then we can have our mental breakdown in our room, okay?”
‘Yeah, okay.’ Desmond answered and Ezio felt Desmond focus.
It was like his senses became clearer.
His body became lighter.
And…
He could predict everyone’s next move.
To borrow Desmond’s expression at the moment.
Holy shit.
(Desmond doesn’t know it but because he made Ezio his Sage, he is technically a being that has access to Isu senses which he can pass down to Ezio. Ezio’s human body can’t take much of it though so there’s a time limit and that is how Federico comes in and save them because Ezio and Desmond starts getting a headache after using it too much.)
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leaderpinhead · 3 months
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Leona - Checkmate
Prompt: Only One Bed
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“I know we just had to prove ourselves worthy to grace you with our gross herbivore presence, but now we have another issue.”
Leona snorted but otherwise pretended not to hear her. He used the excuse of being in the bathroom. Just like his sister-in-law, Yuu had no issues with continuing to nag him. “Do you think ignoring me will make the problem go away? I have enough experience to tell you life doesn’t work that way.”
Leona clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. When they drifted back down to the mirror, he caught the reflection of the prefect and her pet in the bedroom behind him. Grim circled in and out of the room from the balcony like he couldn’t get over the view of the dorm. The prefect stood at the foot of the bed with her hands propped on her hips and her gaze steadfastly fixed in the direction of the bathroom. Her brown eyes met his in the mirror without hesitation.
Leona quickly glanced away. Not because he was intimidated, but because he had inadvertently dropped the brush he held. Yes, that was his excuse.
“You’re the one who insisted on staying here,” Leona snapped. He tossed the brush onto the counter and prowled around the large bathroom. He moved out of the view of the mirror and tossed a towel onto the floor just because he felt like it.
“Now I see why your room is such a mess. I almost feel sorry for Ruggie having to clean up after you, but then I remember he benefits from it just as much as you do.”
Nagging—why were all women of every species such experienced naggers? “If you have a problem, why don’t you go room with the puppy?”
“I’d prefer Jack, but you know why that isn’t possible.”
Leona huffed, but he didn’t argue on the point. He did understand why. He might have made her fight to earn the right to room with him while Azul manipulated his contracts, but he had known letting her room anywhere else in the dorm wasn’t an option. He’d heard the whispers circulating the dorm as more and more students realized the prefect was a girl in disguise.
He was quick to put those other boys in their places, especially when the whispers made even his stomach churn.
Ruggie’s snickers reminded Leona of the hyena’s presence outside the bathroom. “You three have fun figuring that all out. I’ll be back to see who still alive in the morning. Shyeheehee.”
Leona’s ears flicked when Jack mumbled a farewell too. He heard the obvious click of the bedroom door. Soft shuffling signaled the prefect and Grim moving around his room. Leona fiddled with the tubes and containers he found on the sink counter. His nose wrinkled when he picked up one container. Why the hell had Ruggie bought him a warthog scented candle?
“If you’re planning on spending the night in your bathtub, then I guess our problem isn’t as big as I thought it was.”
Leona grumbled and tossed the offensive smelling candle into the wastebasket. He sighed when he caught the prefect still glowering at him in the mirror. Clicking his tongue again, Leona ambled out of the bathroom. He tipped his chin back and scowled down at the prefect. “You should learn to show some gratitude. I could’ve sent you straight back to your dorm to deal with Azul’s lackeys.”
Yuu’s chin tipped back to meet his gaze. His eyes narrowed. Did she think she could intimidate him? He might—on occasion—bow to his sister-in-law's nagging just to get her off his back, but he certainly wasn’t about to do the same for a little herbivore.
The prefect tipped her head without breaking his gaze. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have thanked you. Your benevolence is second only to Azul’s. After all, had you not given me—a magicless little girl with only her monster companion—the opportunity to fight a group of thugs who used magic more than their fists, I would not only be sleeping in front of the statues on Main Street tonight.” Yuu paused to show him the bandage wrapped around her elbow. “I would also have never earned this new battle scar.”
Leona rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “Battle scar? It was barely a scrape. You wouldn’t even have that bandage if Howl hadn’t been so dramatic about an infection.”
What he didn’t say was that he was actually impressed by their victory. Yuu had an almost uncanny instinct when it came to dodging magical attacks, not to mention the dexterity to perform the dodges. Grim’s offense was grudgingly impressive too, but his lack of focus would be his downfall. If Yuu hadn’t snapped at him to focus on one boy before moving to the next, they wouldn’t have won the duel. Leona hadn’t given them any handicaps either. Two of the boys were sophomores and the other a junior, meaning they had more experience than the average freshman when it came to a magical duel.
None of which he was about to admit to her.
“The point is that my scar has made me an official badass.” Yuu pointed at the bedding Jack had thrown down in the corner of the room. “As a badass, I refuse to sleep on the floor.”
Leona pointed at the couch sitting in front of the balcony. “Then take the sofa.”
“That sofa is barely long enough to fit Grim. Do you want me to suffer a hunchback?”
“It would add to your badass image.”
“It would also hinder me as I run around campus cleaning up all of your messes.”
Leona snorted. He ambled across the room to stand on the opposite side of the bed from Yuu. He relaxed his posture, and while he didn’t exactly match hers—hands on her hips and chin held high—he made it clear he wasn’t backing down. “My messes? Last I checked, you’re in this situation because your own little friends made a mess, and then you decided to throw yourself into the fire.”
“And as punishment, I frequently remind my friends of their bad decisions. Grim?” Grim made a noise from the balcony. “The sea anemone on your head makes you look dumb. Like a midget unicorn but without the badass part.”
Leona bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking at Grim’s howling displeasure. He took the prefect’s distraction as an opportunity to flop down into the center of his bed. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “Your problems aren’t mine. Just be grateful I’ve given you a place to stay.”
He was on the very edge of sleep when Yuu chimed, “You know, Cheka wouldn’t be very happy to hear his uncle made his fiancé sleep on the floor.”
Leona cracked open one eye. The prefect still hovered next to the bed, her eyes now wide to mimic some type of innocence. His tail agitatedly flicked to the side. “Seriously? You’re trying to play that card again? The brat has no idea about what he writes in his letters. I doubt he even knows what the word fiancé means.”
“Sade says she’s very excited to one day welcome me into your family.”
Leona’s tail flicked harder. Of course, his sister-in-law was communicating with the prefect too. Sade had probably adopted the girl already. She probably told the prefect to make his school life even more inconvenient too.
“I wonder what she would say about you making me sleep on the floor now,” Yuu continued. She did a little spin and took one step in the direction of the bedding on the floor. “How very uncouth for the son of a king. Making a poor little girl sleep on the hard floor while he sprawls across a bed that could easily fit three people his size. And her son is being so heavily influenced by such a role model? I’m sure she’ll be absolutely thankful when I tell her—.”
With a tiny growl, Leona rolled over to lay on the edge of the bed. He took one of his pillows and plopped it down in the middle of the bed. He turned his back to her and glared out at the balcony. “Stay on your side of the bed.”
Yuu hummed with satisfaction. Leona’s ears flicked as he listened to her drag the blankets and pillows over to the bed. His tail twitched when the mattress jostled to accommodate the new weight beside him. After the prefect called for Grim to join her, Leona made a point of reaching for the light switch on the wall next to his bed. His two temporary roommates continued to wiggle and mutter in the dark. He didn’t close his eyes until the wiggling and mumbling stopped and Grim’s snores started.
“Leona?” Leona emitted a tiny growl. He was starting to question ever entertaining Jack on the prefect’s current living conditions. “Thanks. For real this time. You’re not that bad when you’re not throwing a temper tantrum.”
Leona grabbed one of the pillows beneath his head and whipped it behind him. Yuu yipped when the pillow connected. Leona tucked the pillow back into place and ignored Grim’s yowls about being caught up in “their feud.” “Shut up already and let me sleep.”
Yuu couldn’t stand him having the last word, so she threw one of her pillows at him. More wiggling ensued, and Grim mumbled his complaints before his snores started again. Leona closed his eyes, but for once, sleep didn’t immediately come to him. His ears flicked in the prefect’s direction.
With a quiet huff, he carefully shifted onto his back. With the help of the soft moonlight drifting in through the open windows, Leona could easily see Yuu quietly staring up at the ceiling. Grim slept curled up on her chest, and her breathing had slowed to match the monster’s, though it still wasn’t enough to simulate a natural sleep.
Leona dragged a hand through his hair, his fingers encountering a flicking ear. “If you weren’t planning on sleeping, then what was the point of fighting over the bed?”
“I just wanted to see if Sade was right,” Yuu answered without hesitation. She kept her voice barely above a whisper. “Apparently, you’ve never told her no.”
“Because if I ever did, she wouldn’t stop nagging me.”
“I think deep down, you’re just a big cuddly kitten.”
Leona clicked his tongue. His tail flicked across the pillow barrier between them. “A big cuddly kitten? You have no sense of self-preservation, do you?”
“Well, I could’ve attempted stabbing Floyd in the eye with a pencil and kicking Jade in the shin, but a tiny voice in the back of my head reminded me I didn’t necessarily want to leave the campus the same way I arrived.”
Leona snorted to cover an aborted chuckle. He obnoxiously yawned. His tail flicked back and forth from his side to hers. “How do you expect me to get a decent night’s sleep while sleeping next to a mouth breather?”
“Sorry, but I’m still mastering the art of breathing through my ears.”
Leona flicked his tail hard enough to brush against her arm. “Smartass.”
“Better than being a dumbass, but mediocre compared to badass.” She fell silent, but her shuffling made Leona’s ears flick. Her quiet sigh was inevitable. “Sorry. Aside from the change in scenery, I tend to have a hard time falling asleep most nights. I don’t actually mind sleeping on the ground if it’s too disruptive for you.”
The desire to snap at her to do just that died on his tongue the moment he imagined the disappointed glare from his sister-in-law. With a loud sigh, Leona rolled off the edge of the bed. He clicked on the small lamp on his desk. He glowered down at the bed. Yuu squinted back at him, Grim now tucked up against her hip. Leona made a show of kicking out the chair beneath his desk and flopped into it. The prefect leaned up just enough to keep squinting at him from above the pillows.
He shoved the chessboard on his desk towards the corner closest to the bed. He arranged the black and white chess pieces on their respective sides. “You prefer white or black?”
Yuu didn’t miss a beat when she climbed over the pillow barrier to sit on the edge of the bed. She twirled the board around, so the black pieces were on her side. “Do you normally give people the option?”
“It’s a courtesy,” Leona drawled. He slouched into his chair and balanced his elbow on the desk to give his cheek a resting place on his knuckles. “A show of good sportsmanship.”
Yuu snorted. She twirled the board again to regain possession of the white pieces. “Because you're so good at showing sportsmanship-like behavior.”
“I’m not above kicking you out of the bed if you annoy me too much.”
Yuu hummed. She spun the board a few times before letting it rest at an angle where both sides were somehow equally stuck between them. Her head slightly tilted. “I don’t know how to play chess.”
Leona released a loud sigh. He pushed the corner of the board until he gained possession of the white pieces. His ears flicked when he picked up the faint noise of the rowdier students trickling in from the dorms below. “Watch closely then because I’m not about to have a three-hour tutor session with you.”
They were on their fourth game when Yuu began picking up how each piece moved, which wasn’t too bad since each game only took Leona four moves to win. He still beat her with the same four moves for the next three games, but her frustration over him casually checkmating her king made her a quick learner. The next time they reset the board, she moved her knight to intersect his opening pawn. He still won, but she at least lasted three more moves.
By the time Yuu began to yawn in earnest, Leona was begrudgingly enjoying himself. She had become braver with her queen and had attempted several times to use it like some martyr-like sacrifice to somehow checkmate his king. Her strategies were laughable as a beginner, but they were just odd enough to make her less predictable than a veteran. She’d come close to checkmating him once but hadn’t even realized it. He wasn’t about to casually offer her the information either.
On her next turn, she stared at the board long enough with drooping eyelids that Leona couldn’t help saying, “Just give me your king, so we can go to sleep.”
Her eyes snapped up to his. The soft light of the lamp made the golden freckles hidden in her brown irises flicker. “Never.”
Leona firmly checkmated her in the next two moves. She squinted down at the board while he fluidly stood. He reached above his head in a long stretch. “You’re done. Now get on your side so I can finally sleep.”
Yuu huffed, but she complied with his demand with minimum fuss. Leona watched her stretch out on her side of the pillow barrier without bothering Grim, who had somehow wiggled his way down to the foot of the bed. She snuggled up under the extra blanket until only her nose was visible. Her posture, even hidden under the blanket, was much more relaxed than it had been earlier, and her annoying mouth breathing didn’t sound as obnoxious.
Leona quickly flopped onto the bed when he realized he had been staring too long.
“Good night,” Yuu yawned. Her voice was muffled because of the blanket, but he easily detected the slurred cadence of her words like she was already on the verge of sleep. “Chess’s s’more tiring than walking ‘round the campus. You’ll have to play me again. ‘Cause I’m gonna get good ‘nough to beat you.”
Leona snorted and clicked off the lamp. A comfortably dry breeze from the window loosened the suddenly stifling air in the room. “We’ll see about that.”
“Gonna take your queen.”
“It’s the king you have to checkmate.” Leona waited for her snarky comment. He peeked over the pillow when none came. Yuu slept curled on her side facing him. Her mouth was parted, and a gentle snore escaped with each breath she took. Leona huffed and dropped his head on the pillow. He closed his eyes. “Annoying little mouth breather.”
He wouldn’t admit to waking up once in the middle of the night when he couldn’t detect her snoring. He huffed in mild amusement when he found she had somehow flipped herself around and had her face buried in Grim’s belly. He flopped back onto his pillow and didn’t wake up again he until heard Ruggie whining about morning practice.
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talesfromlissom · 7 months
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hello everything is fine? If requests are still open, I would like to know if you can do the reaction of the Decepticons (Megatron, Tarn, Overlord and Soundwave) with a Cybertronian s/o who is a cannibal and uses a fucinheira? Is she a powerful and insane warrior? If you don't want to write, ignore it, thank you.
Fandom: Transformers (IDW?)
TW: Violence, Implied Gore, Cannablism
Rules | Ask Box | Kofi
A/N: I don’t normally do IDW requests (haven't read it all, and I also assumed that's the universe you wanted), however I recognize these characters enough that I did the request anyways because my inbox has been the sahara desert for the past couple of months Anyways I loved this request, so thank you. And yes, everything is good. 
MEGATRON
 » He puts a leash on you, sorry. 
 » Your relationship is absolutely terrifying, a lord and his loyal guard dog that eats people
 » When he first discovered your cannabalistic tendencies, he was shocked at first. He mainly just cops it up as a habit not yet broken from your upbringing. He had to do various unsavory things to survive being a low caste member, so why were you any different? 
 » relationship wise your dynamic is pretty much what is said above. You parades you around like a trophy, and sometimes even feeds you the severed limbs/organs of his prisoners. You don't mind as long as your fed apparently.
 » A long time ago, (for shits and giggles) he had said that he would use you as an execution method. Mainly for individuals that betrayed him and Megatron didn’t feel like hunting them down himself. When he saw how enthusiastic you were he made it a thing. 
 » Nothing pleases him more than letting you out of the muzzle to go ‘hunt’ and seeing you bring back a limb, organ, or seeing your intake covered in energon. It does something to him. 
 » May or may not have a predator/prey kink now 
TARN 
 » Probably the one to give you the muzzle in the first place.  
 »  You’re definitely a member of DJD by the way, I’d imagine he’d name you after the capital of his home city.
 » You and him met when he was going after yet another Decepticon traitor. He had expected to find yet another snivling coward, or a fighter. 
 » What he found was a half eaten corpse with you hovering over it. You looked wild, disheveled, but there was a sense of intelligence in your optics despite how much bloodshed you caused. 
 » And you caused alot. 
 » (Similar to Megatron) If on the rare occasion that the DJD’s current target gets away he send you on the hunt. He always orders you to bring them back alive, but he never says if they have to come back with all their limbs in tact. 
 » He prefers to kill them himself, and alternates between letting Tesarus grind them into bits or letting you eat them alive. 
 » He once had Tesarus grind a deserter into paste, and then Tarn served it to you as some fucked up smoothie. 
 » He still laughs about it to this day btw 
OVERLORD 
  » Was most likely frightened of you at first. You were strong, probably insane because you flat out ate people without a care in the world. However, that wasn’t what frightened him. 
 » You were smart. Every kill you made was calculated and precise. It was always people that the others wouldn’t notice missing. You memorized their schedule, the type of energon they had, the amount of exercise they got. 
 » Your prey was carefully, hand selected. You had certain types of people that you went after to consume, and people you avoided like the plague. 
  » At first he didn’t notice that various prisoners were going missing. He didn’t care, they couldn’t escape even if they tried. He didn’t really mind if the other Decepticons had dragged some loud mouthed Autobot out of their cells to give them a piece of their mind to be honest. 
 » And then he found a half eaten Autobot hanging from the ceiling, and that scared the hell out of him. He knew about your tendencies to devour your fellow Cybertronian, he just never thought he’d witness the aftermath. 
 » Afterwards you two come with a sort of unspoken agreement. You’re clearly settling for half cooked chow and he isn’t sure how long you’ll be satisfied with that. 
 » He keeps a close eye on you, and has a ‘list’ of your ‘most liked’ traits in a prey. Their energon type, the functionality of their frame, that sort of thing. If they happened to win enough fights, instead of Overlord giving his usual, ‘kill me or kill yourself’ dilemma, he rearranges it to ‘kill you or kill yourself’. 
 » You look completely unassuming to most, and you use that your advantage. 
 » Overlord loves seeing the look on people’s face when you don’t go for the kill, but instead open your mouth. The moment they see what’s inside they start screaming. 
 » He’ll never get tired of those noises. 
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greenhappyseed · 5 days
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did... shiggy just died i-. idk what to feel. So he is not coming bach huh..... :(. OFA is gone too....
I don’t know what to feel either, anon. We really have to wait and see what comes next. But I do think Horikoshi is trying to say something about rebirth, so the rest of this post is going to be something like an elegy for the Tomura Shigaraki we knew (and what that can mean for Izuku): Why rebirth? Why is Tomura doomed? Tomura’s entire existence was tainted by AFO. Tomura can change his name, change his hair color, kill the AFO vestige, etc., but it’s impossible for him to escape AFO. How society would view him or his “redemption” is irrelevant; it’s that HE now knows his entire life, from conception onwards, was never his own. For Tomura, a happy ending is being completely free from AFO, deciding things fully for himself, and knowing his decisions are his own. It’s not a happy ending to remove Tenko from Tomura’s origin trauma only to plunge him into Twice’s “am I really me” trauma.
What AFO’s final, awful reveal showed is that even if Tomura Shigaraki became Tenko Shimura again, it’s not a rebirth. The very first cells of “Tenko Shimura’s” being were stained by AFO since AFO manipulated Kotaro into conceiving Tenko. Tenko’s parents and childhood friends were totally under AFO’s thumb. “Tenko” has no path to freedom; he has to be rebuilt from ash, one way or another.
For my own aesthetic tastes, I would very much prefer for Tenko to have agency over this. If he was going to disintegrate, I’d prefer it to be a clear choice — like Katsuki and Toshinori choosing moves that brought them to the brink of death. I don’t like the idea that Tenko had no choice in life or death, and that disintegrating is just another indignity that AFO manipulated him into. But maybe his story was always destined to be a tragedy, no matter how hard he tried to fight it.
Of course, there are ways that the spirit/consciousness of Tenko Shimura could return in a new body, and many of them do have Tenko participating actively in the process:
Phoenix quirk — Tomura disintegrates to ash so Tenko can choose to be reborn free of AFO’s distortions. (Maybe fandom was right about this theory but wrong that the phoenix was Dabi!)
Overhaul or quirk awakening - It’s possible for Overhaul (who is very much still alive and in possession of his quirk factor) to reverse the disintegration. It’s also possible that Tenko can do it himself (or that Tenko gave Izuku a quirk to do it) since Decay is half of Overhaul. Personally I don’t believe this is likely because I think Decay disappeared when AFO took control of Tomura this final time? Unclear, the end got really rushed and messy on these details for me, but if Decay is gone then it’s hard for it to “awaken.”
Rewind - The MHA standby ever since Eri’s introduction. She doesn’t have her horn anymore, so it seems unlikely, but she still has her quirk factor. The thing here is Tenko’s agency and if he would want to be rewound back to the body that AFO built for him.
All For One - Yes, Tomura could have given Izuku a quirk when they touched. What if it’s actually…All For One? Yoichi said the AFO quirk could have been the kindest in the world…and Izuku did promise to “bring it all back”… so if Tomura’s parting gift was to give the raw All For One power to Izuku, then Izuku could Overhaul and Rewind his way into healing everyone. He could borrow any quirk needed (Recovery Girl? Erasure?) use it as a tool, and then give it back because of course Izuku wouldn’t keep a stockpile for himself (absent being told he could keep a quirk). FWIW, I’d be HIGHLY amused if this happens, because it sounds straight out of a DFO fic. :)
Aura Might/OFA shenanigans - The “heroic fire” of OFA has seemingly gone out before, only to re-emerge both in the same person and in other people. I could see Tenko emerging from this fire.
Wishing energy that twists fate - Izuku and All Might both lived when they were “supposed” to die, so it could happen for Tenko too.
However, Tenko returning in a physical, corporeal form is not the only kind of rebirth that can complete his arc. It pains me SO MUCH to say this, but there’s a real chance his body doesn’t come back. Tomura fought for someone to see what was swept under the rug and understand that hero society isn’t perfect. He wanted a hero who would save him and imperfect humans like him, and he got that someone in Izuku. (He actually got it in Nana too, because of Izuku.)
Izuku Midoriya taking Tenko’s message deep into his heart and influencing all the people watching him to care more about the misfits and “villains” that pro heroes can’t help is a form of giving Tenko a new life. In the same way that the vestiges extended their power decades beyond physical death, and the same way that Shirakumo’s heroic heart survived his death and Nomu-fication, Izuku can keep Tenko’s spirit alive long after his body died. Maybe Tenko’s spirit is a new type of “heroic fire,” and it’s up to Izuku to keep those embers burning. It’s all in Izuku’s rewound, notably non-decayed hands.
Looking at it with this framing, you can also say Izuku gets his win AND save. Because even if Izuku couldn’t save Tenko’s physical body — and how could he if Tenko was doomed before either of them were born? — choosing to carry on Tenko’s legacy IS saving everything he could of that crying boy. It’s also far more immediate and tangible for Izuku to take on Tenko’s legacy rather than being unwittingly thrown into the 200 year old OFA-AFO fight. There’s something so poignant and human about an ending with quirkless Izuku humbly fighting for what Tenko believed in compared to celebrity #1 Billboard ranked hero Izuku with OFA. After all, Tenko and Izuku are 2 sides of a coin. Tenko could have had Izuku’s role in another life if OFA kept passing in the Shimura family.
Even the fact that Izuku never told anyone outside of Ochako, Katsuki, and All Might that he wanted to save Tenko works in Izuku’s favor. Izuku can help the whole world become the people Tenko challenged them to be and they’ll never know they’re actually fulfilling the dreams of a villain. (‘Cuz they’d be too biased to do it otherwise.) Finally, you know all the complaints that Izuku’s character has been stagnant in MHA’s third act? That he hasn’t really been challenged in his ideals? Maybe that hasn’t happened yet because it’s just starting NOW.
After all, Toshinori modeled “All Might” after Nana’s ideals, and she wasn’t known to the population at large. Izuku could follow their footsteps by modeling his hero career after Tenko’s ideals. We’d have multiple generations of Shimuras posthumously changing society for the bettter.
Look, I understand how emotions are running high. I’ve loved this series for years and I cried reading this chapter. I personally don’t love it if Tenko is gone, even though I can make narrative sense of it. It’s a tragic and bitter-barely-sweet ending for poor Tenko, whose very dreams of being a hero were engineered to sow division in his family and break his psyche instead of lift him up.
But none of us will know what it all means for a few more chapters. We could still have several more chapters before we get Tenko’s real finale. It’s nearing the end, but it’s not THE end yet. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and as always, curate your fandom spaces lovingly.
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heyidkyay · 1 year
Text
Who can say no to bridezilla? |
Part one
I had to write another after seeing the love the last one got, thank you btw! I've actually missed writing a fair bit so I'm glad you enjoyed it.
> With this one, I started and just couldn't stop, so I might make it into a couple of parts? Maybe? Idk, let me know if that's something anyone would want:)
Summary: With no date to your sister's wedding, what are you to do? No worries though, she's already got it covered, well, sort of...
Masterlist
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"It's just annoying. I mean- don't get me wrong, I'm proper chuffed you're finally tying the knot and all, but it's just a shitty situation.” I huffed defeatedly as I leant up against the cabinet, watching as a grey sky crept by my kitchen window. 
“I know,” I heard my sister sigh, her voice soft even through the phone’s tinny speaker. “And I’m sorry, but you know what mum’s like, y/n/n. She’ll be devastated when she finds out you’re coming alone! That, and the fact that if you don’t end up bringing a plus one, all of my wedding photos will turn out uneven… And I really, really need this day to be perfect! I want you to think its perfect! To enjoy it! Not just be sat there on the sidelines, watching.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment as I ran a hand through my hair. It was in dire need of a good wash, but between my job and the stress of having recently moved, I hadn’t found the time to even sit down. Still, I could understand where my sister was coming from, and I really wanted her to have the picture perfect day she’d always dreamt of too. But, we both knew that she was laying it on thick now, and with me being the eldest, we both also knew I’d do just about anything to make her happy. This though, was a big ask.
“Listen, yes things ended badly between Alex and I, but now that it’s all finally over, I just don’t think I have it in me to try and force myself to find someone else to replace him. Not yet, anyway.”
Alex, being my most recent ex. We’d parted ways about three months ago now- though ‘parted’ definitely wasn’t the term I preferred to use. But how else was I supposed to describe him cheating and me having to walk in on it happening? With my best mate of all people, too. 
Yeah, that hadn’t been the easiest of transitions, especially since I’d also been flat-sharing with the pair of them.
But my sister knew all of this already.
“Mum will just have to worry about me being lonely a little longer, y/s/n, and I'll just have to prepare myself to deal with her constant fussing over me for the entire evening.” I attempted to cajole, not wanting to outright deny her. “As well as the rest of my life, I suppose.” I added unhelpfully under my breath.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my mum, God, she was just about the only person who truly understood me. That, and she’d done absolutely everything within her power to make sure that her kids had gotten everything she'd never had. She was an utter saint. But saying that, she could also tend to be a tad bit… overbearing. 
“Ah come on, she won’t be that bad!” My sister fired back before she then paused, as though she’d only just understood the words she’d spoken. I couldn’t not let out an airy chuckle when she sighed, “Alright, fair enough, she will be. But! If you just ask someone along, you won’t have to spend my entire wedding day avoiding her!”
I groaned, rubbing at my face.
“It’s been months since I ended things with Al- mum knows that, babe. I’ve had her on the phone almost every day since, hassling and FaceTiming me constantly to make sure I’m still alive. She even sends down little care packages in the post! Care. Packages. Y/s/n.”
I actually looked over towards the most recent arrival which had awoken me early the previous morning. It was still where I’d left it, chucked beside the foot of the sofa, barely opened. 
Again, I adored the woman, but she tended to be a fair bit dramatic. I could really see where my sister got it all from.
“Besides, how am I supposed to convince her I'm perfectly fine with someone I've only just met hanging off my arm?” I added, puttering on over to the sink to fill the kettle. I think I could feel another migraine coming on.
“I get it, y/n, I do. And I’m also sorry for suggesting it, but if I knew of an easier solution that would magically solve all our problems, then I would. But I don’t, and even though I want the biggest day of my life to go perfectly, I also want you happy.”
I could hear the sincerity in her voice and as I picked up my mug and tossed a teabag inside, I could also picture her sat at the dinning table back home, foot anxiously tapping away in an attempt to conjure up a better idea. She was a nitpicker, right down to the very bone, and I could only guess the amount of stress she was putting herself under in order to make sure that her wedding went off without a hitch for all those involved. 
After a few moments of shared silence, she spoke again, “To be honest, I can’t believe you stuck around as long as you did.”
My mind wandered back to all the time I’d wasted on Alex. We’d met growing up, he’d been our next door neighbour. We went through all of primary school despising one another, only to end up in the same friendship group come secondary. It didn’t take much more than that for us to suddenly become joined at the hip. He’d been my best mate, and when we finally got together, I’d pictured the rest of our lives spent with one another. 
He’d honestly really fucked me over in the end. I hadn’t just lost my boyfriend that day, but both of my closest friends, as well as a few others who’d taken his side in the awkward aftermath that came when most relationships ended. But that being said, I felt more at peace now than I had in a long while. With every relationship came troubles, and by the end of ours, I guessed we had more than most. That wasn’t me making excuses for him though- nah, he was still a massive prick.
“Yeah, me either.” I admitted, a breathy chuckle slipping from my lips as I softly shook away the rest of my thoughts. 
“I am proud of you though, for moving on as well as you have. Always knew he was an arse.” Came my sister’s voice and I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me.
I grinned, so very thankful for her.
“God, was he!” I agreed instantly, listening to her giggle as I laughed, “A right tit.”
“Oh!”
I blinked at the sudden exclamation heard from down the phone and furrowed my brow slightly as the last of my laughter tittered out, “You alright there?”
“Uh, yes! I’ve just had the most perfect idea!” My sister declared, not even giving me the chance to question her before she was off on a tangent. “Forget about having to chat anyone up, or having some godawful colleague of yours to pose as a fake date- I’ve already got the perfect person for you!”
I felt my mouth part slightly in confusion and was just about to speak up when she beat me to the punch, seemingly excited about whatever plan she’d formulated in her head.
“Right, okay, just listen. I know this guy, a friend of Adam’s, yeah? He’s been off of relationships for a little while now, not really looking for anything at the moment ‘cause he’s been away for a bit. Busy, and what not. But y/n, he’s a right charmer, proper looker, too! He also happens to owe Ad a big favour!”
I closed my eyes for a moment, frowning. “What are you getting at here, y/s/n?”
The huff that sounded then, all but echoed in my ear and I couldn’t not roll my eyes at her dramatics.
“He can be your date, y/n! I know he’d be well up for helping us out if I give him free-rein to do what he pleases, always up for a laugh, and he'll be able to keep mum off your back about finding someone new. Plus, I can guarantee you a good time because I just know that the two of you will instantly hit it off.”
“What?” I squawk, far beyond perplexed. “You can’t just ask some randomer to pretend to be my date to your wedding, y/s/n! Are you actually insane?”
“He’s not some randomer though! I know him through Adam, and Adam’s known him since school!” My sister pestered, and I could practically feel her excitement bubbling up from down the phone. “He’s well lovely, nothing like He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named— Plus! When we were first introduced, I’d had the thought of setting him up with you, but well, you know, you were still with What’s-his-face and you seemed happy enough.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, to be frank. And went to say as much, when she cut me off again.
“Come on, y/n/n! It’ll be so great! And besides, who would it hurt? You’re both single, not looking for any sort of commitment, and both without dates to my wedding. Mum’ll be over the moon about it, too, once I let her know! And this way, I won’t have to fork out God knows how much on another two plus ones.”
“I’m really not sure about- hang on, he’s already going?” I questioned, confusedly. 
“He’s Adam’s best mate, of course he’s coming!”
“I thought Ad’s best mate was George?”
Her eye roll was implied when she retorted. “You can have more than one best mate, y/n. Look, you worry too much. I’ll have Ad phone him now and ask, yeah? If he agrees, I’ll get him to message you.” I was still beyond fucking baffled and could hear the obvious delight which lined my sister’s tone. “That settles it, I’ll do it right now. So talk to you later, yeah? God, I'm so excited! Love you lots!”
Then she was gone.
I let the phone fall away from my ear and stared down at the blank screen with vacant eyes.
What the fuck.
“What the actual fuck?” I found myself asking my empty flat aloud. I rubbed at my forehead tiredly before I ultimately tossed the device onto the pile of cushions perched on the nearest armchair, leaving it there to hopefully die, or something. 
Didn’t quite turn out that way though. I ended up fishing it out about an hour later when I’d started running a bath, needing it for it’s musical capabilities.
It was then, after the tub had filled and I’d slipped into its mountain of bubbles, that a notification disturbed the perfect playlist I’d curated. 
I grumbled as I pulled myself up and out of the water.
It was a text from an unknown number, I frowned as I unlocked the device.
“Oh, for fucks sake!”
I hadn’t actually believed that she would do it. Ask someone to be her sister’s fake date to her own wedding! But I really, really, really should’ve known better. 
And so I tossed the phone back on the side, submerging my body in its entirety back under the soapy water in hopes that I might just drown. She was so dead.
Maybe I’d been a tad bit hasty in scheduling the perfectly timed event of my sister’s impending death. 
Listen, I could admit when I was being a total drama queen, but my sister had well and truly pushed her luck this time around, and so I’d been quick in my judgement of the situation. Perhaps a little too quick.
Several weeks had passed since that day and in the time leading up to my sister’s wedding, I had spent a good portion of it texting Matty back and forth. 
That was his name, by the way- the poor bloke my sister had roped into accompanying me on her big day. And if I was being honest, I was rather grateful for the fact that she’d chosen to stick her big nose in where it wasn’t wanted and set the whole thing up. Though, I might have been better inclined to admit so if she’d been a whole lot more normal and just introduced the two of us in a much more conventional way.
When Matty had texted me that first night- rather delighted by the fact that he’d been gifted the privilege of a front row ticket to the shit-show I was still calling my life- I’d been dreading the entire thing. 
He had taken the utter piss out of me in all truth, and had then proceeded to rinse the shit out of the entire situation for all it was worth. But, strangely enough, he’d done so in the very best way. 
I can honestly admit that I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard as I have than when I’m messaging Matty. He was everything my sister had described and more.
He knew how to have a good laugh, when to flirt or to tease, and he was pretty open about the things that mattered most to him once you’d bartered your way past that overzealous ego of his. He also appeared to love music almost as much as me, which was honestly saying something. And he spoke highly of his family and friends, in length too when they had come up here and there in conversation.
I really hadn’t expected to have grown so close to him in the time we’d spent texting back and forth, but there was just something about him, in his nature maybe, that just made things feel so easy.
It was so, so strange, because I hadn’t even seen a picture of the bloke, and I’d only ever heard a few short snippets of his voice through the odd voicenote we'd shared here and there, but I’d openly call him a close friend to any one who now asked. It was as though we’d known each other for years. 
And I really wasn’t one to let many people in, I liked the small family I had created for myself, one full of friends I’d known for eons, and relatives that meant the world to me. So to have Matty slip by all of my defences so effortlessly, was something I thought a lot about.
“Oi,” Jamie suddenly prompted with a bright grin, a jabbing finger to my side untangled me from my thoughts. "You ready for the big day?
I’d been stood a little way a way from the chapel’s entrance, waiting for everyone else to arrive, and was seemingly a little lost in my own head. Apprehensive, maybe. Jamie had startled me slightly as I’d not even heard his approach, but I allowed myself to relax somewhat as I gave him the once over.
“Just about.” I replied with a teasing smile, “Clean up nice, Jim. Loving the suit.”
Jamie was my cousin, but we were so close in age I practically saw him as another brother. We’d grown up together, which also meant that he’d been close with Alex too.
Though, he’d actually been one of the few people who had taken my side after everything that happened, even with the two boys having been rather close since they were kids. I was glad to still have him, so glad, even if it did mean that I still felt a little guilty about the whole thing from time to time.
“Don’t look too surprised.” Jamie laughed at my light jab as he pulled me in for a short hug. “Though, you are looking good too, I suppose.”
I swatted at his shoulder when we parted. “Don’t be a twat, you know I’m the best dressed here.”
“Oh yeah…” He dragged out sarcastically, a small smirk playing on his lips. “Definitely ready to upstage the bride.”
I just rolled my eyes as I laughed. “Where is bridezilla anyway?”
“Just saw her with your mum, actually. They were fussing about something or other, but I reckon they ended up sorting it out.” Jamie replied with a small shrug as he pulled on his lapels.
I let my eyes roam around the surrounding area again for a brief moment as he did, skirting over the mass of maple trees, which were now in full bloom, and the familiar faces that crowded the gravel drive. 
“Exactly why I can never see myself going through with any of this.” I commented offhandedly, too preoccupied with the anxiety of finally meeting my so called date.
My gaze found Jamie’s again when he wearily voiced, “What- even when you were with…?” His voice held a hint of genuine curiosity.
I shrugged, in truth, I’d never really given it much thought, my wedding day. Even after having been with Alex all that time. I could just never see it happening for myself.
“Not really.” I said, “How about you though? Can you picture yourself all kitted out and waiting at the end of that aisle?”
Jamie laughed, his eyes squinted. “Not too sure about that. I mean I like the sound of it, spending forever with someone and all, but I dunno who’d be brave enough to have me.”
I snorted as I clapped my cousin’s shoulder in condolence. “They’d have to be a tad bit mental, Jim. But they’d also be fucking lucky too. You’re a gooden.”
“Love you.” Jamie smiled as he enveloped me in another hug. He was a lot taller than me now so he all but squished me into his side, but I couldn’t bring myself to mind even as I jokingly shoved him away.
“Stop, you’ll ruin my hair and makeup.” I scolded lightly, wrinkling my nose.
Jamie just chuckled, “Since when have you cared about any of that crap?”
“Never.” I grinned back at him in retort, “Just didn’t want you sliming all over me, snail-face.”
“You’re a right fucking weirdo, you know that?”
“I do, Jim, I do.”
I fixed the side of my dress whilst my cousin just rolled his eyes, seemingly content with waiting beside me now.
When I’d made sure that I was still somewhat presentable, mostly for both my mother and sister’s sake, I allowed myself to reevaluate the rest of the oncoming arrivers. Still no sign of that date of mine.
I sighed quietly, checking the time on my phone again to make sure I hadn’t missed a text.
“You all good there?” Jamie questioned quietly after a few minutes, I looked up to find him staring down at me with a concerned frown. 
I hummed, “Fine, why?”
“Just seem a bit nervous, not like you that.”
I huffed a light laugh before shooting my cousin a somewhat strained smile. “Yeah, maybe a bit. It’s just I’m waiting for my date to arrive and-”
As I uttered that sentence Jamie’s eyes all but boggled out of his head, “You never said nowt about a date!”
I gave him a sheepish grin, I hadn’t really mentioned Matty to anyone. Only having allowed my sister to pass on the message that I wasn’t turning up completely alone to my mum. I’d not given much thought to anyone else’s reaction.
“Um, yeah.” I replied, feeling a little uncomfortable upon having to mentally decide whether I should let Jamie in on the truth or not. The kid had always been a massive blabbermouth though, he just couldn’t seem to help it, but I knew he’d understand wholeheartedly. “It's new, but it’s going good…”
Jamie’s smile was wide enough that I could practically see either side of his molars, a megawatt sort of thing.
Immediately I felt my stomach churn. There was that guilt again.
“I’m well chuffed for you, y/n/n! Can’t wait to meet the lucky fella- when’s he set to get here? Didn’t you come together? Where’d you even meet him, anyhow? Does y/s/n know you’re bringing him along?”
Fucking hell, what was with the twenty-one questions?
I swallowed thickly. I hadn’t realise how hard this was all going to be. Was the rest of the day going to be like this? All consuming guilt?
“Er, should be here soon enough, I think.” I found myself saying, playing with one of the rings on my left hand. “Something came up last minute- his mum needed him. Urgent, you know how it is… and he’s a right mummy’s boy that one! So I suggested he just meet me here, and well, he was grateful. Felt really bad though. Promised he wouldn’t be late and all that.”
Jamie seemed to be eating it up and just kept nodding along, making me feel as though I had to continue on.
“We actually met through y/s/n, weirdly enough. She introduced us when I’d popped round to surprise her a while back. He’s close with Adam, best mates and that. We just hit it off I guess.”
I silently cursed myself and my ability to not know when to stop. fucking. rambling. But I was too nervous to think up a believable enough lie and so I’d decided to just tangent off from the truth. It was close enough, I figured.
“Awh, I’m so happy for you, cuz. Congrats!” Jamie said, obviously thrilled for me, as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Know why you’re so wound up now, your mum will be on your case all night!”
We shared a laugh. Because wasn’t that the fucking truth.
I tried my hardest to hide my slight grimace though as I allowed my cousin to congratulate me. During a few shared conversations with Matty, we had thought up a convincing enough plan, but now that it was time to put it all into action I wasn’t sure we’d actually be able to pull it off. Especially with the reminder that we’d be lying to my mum of all people.
“Oh shit, there’s Laura! Best head on over.” Jamie suddenly announced, his eyes focused on a brunette in the distance, far enough that I had to squint to even make out who he was referring to. 
But before I could comment or question Jamie’s twenty/twenty vision, my cousin was already bouncing on the balls of his feet, all but ready to run off.
He turned to me before he did though, squeezing my shoulder slightly. “Make sure you come find me with this date of yours, yeah? Gotta make sure he meets the mark.” I smiled, a little touched. “But I truly am buzzing for you, y/n. After everything, you deserve someone good.”
My chest ached and as my cousin gave me one final grin I couldn’t help but feel a little like the grinch, my heart had to have shrunk to half its size at the very thought of having just lied to Jamie. 
I couldn’t linger too long on the regret I felt though as my phone buzzed in my hand. Immediately I peered down at it, chewing on my lower lip. 
As the screen lit up, I frowned. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?
Matty had just messaged, but before I could even think up a reply I heard a few of the other guests around me start to whisper. I glanced up and over to where I then heard a muffled squeal. I pulled a face as I watched one of my younger cousins, Arielle who’d just turned fifteen, jump behind Jordan, her older brother. 
I shook my head and pivoted slightly, eyes scanning over the rest of the guests who had yet to make their way into the chapel. A few of the women were openly staring down the gravel drive, gossiping amongst themselves, and I couldn’t not follow their gaze.
I was really confused, everyone’s attention seemed to be drawn towards the figure who was wandering closer. He was decent looking, I supposed, clad in a fitted tuxedo he'd paired with a black bowtie and an uncaring expression, but he was no James Dean. So I couldn’t quite get my head round why they were all so bothered.
As he grew nearer, I took in what I could. The dark narrowed eyes hidden beneath a pair of furrowed brows, the cropped cut of the hair he’d greased back, the handful of silver rings which cluttered his fingers. What caused me to pause though was the cigarette, which hung effortlessly from his bottom lip. Because, shit. 
Instantly my focus moved back down to where my phone screen was now dimming and I quickly tapped at the home screen to view the last message I’d been sent. 
Keep an eye out for the oncoming smoker, alright x
My heartbeat quickened, and my gaze flitted back and forth between the approaching figure and the text. Surely it couldn’t have been anyone else.
“Sweetheart?” A voice called out with a sure northern twang, erupting goosebumps up both of my arms. I glanced up.
Sure enough it was him, he’d been the only one to ever call me that.
My throat grew dry, “Fuck me.”
“Little early for that, I reckon. Heard about there being an open bar though, buy me a drink and we can talk again later, yeah?” The man ribbed, smirking as he plucked the fag from his lip. He drew closer and I was taken back a bit from how confident he appeared, almost identical to the way he seemed over the phone. But now in tenfold.
"God, sorry.” I laughed, covering my face with the back of my hand as I shook my head to try and cover my reddening cheeks. “Didn’t expect, well- this.” I added, only furthering my embarrassment by vaguely gesturing towards him.
Matty’s grin dimmed almost immediately then, and I frowned.
“Hang on, you are Matty, right? The same Matty I’ve been messaging for weeks. The guy who texts me at all hours of the night going on about how ripe a banana has to be before you can eat it… and who sends me little voice memos of theme tunes he’s rewritten so that they sound aesthetically more pleasing?”
The man looked confused for a moment, and his brown eyes surveyed me before he ultimately chuckled. I blinked at the sudden change in behaviour.
“Guess you could put it like that.” Matty laughed once more, this time a little more airily. And God, did I want to listen to it on repeat. I’d thought about it once or twice, what it would be like to hear him laugh, to listen to him talk. “Hope you weren’t half-expecting some model to come waltzing in here. I mean, I’m fit but I can only do so much, babe.”
It was said jokingly and though Matty was probably one of the most vainest people I’d had the pleasure of meeting, I also knew that there was some genuine apprehension in his eyes. Almost like he’d been both dreading and craving this moment as much as I had. 
“Fuck off! Model.” I scoffed, and laughed alongside him as I shook my head. But then I peered around at the few who were still staring and was now suddenly hyperaware of them all. I didn’t really think too much about it as I stepped in closer to shield him somewhat. “Christ, Matty. Feels like you’ve just walked off an album cover or something, with the way you’ve got everyone leering at you.”
And wow. I watched in slight disbelief as Matty scratched at the back his neck with a small, almost bashful smile. I took note of the small hoop he had cuffed around his lobe.
“Piss off.” The man chuckled, finding his feet again as he realised the proximity we now held. “Reckon they’re all looking at you though.” He commented, looking me over with a sly smile. “Hann painted a good picture, but you’ve exceeded all expectations, darling.” 
I couldn’t help but smirk, regaining my usual confidence. “Spent a lot of time thinking about me, have you Healy?”
Matty’s tongue darted out to wet his lower lip, his unlit cigarette dangling between his fingers in the small space that separated our bodies.
“You’d know all about that, babe. Your first words, if I do recall, were 'fuck me'. And though I’d be happy to comply with your reasonable request, I don’t think Adam, or your sister, would very much approve of me taking you in front of all these lovely people.”
I hummed mischievously, eyeing him. Yeah, this was my Matty alright.
“Can’t say I’ll come to regret those words.” Then, before Matty could even think up another retort, I wound my arm around his and started leading us in towards the chapel. “Best play the part, yeah?”
And I had to dampen my grin when I heard the man’s joyous laughter sound beside me. Ignoring all of the other onlookers to sneak a peak over at him, I found myself loving the squinted grin he made as he tucked his cigarette behind his ear.
This night would definitely be memorable.
Part two >
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vaniloqu3nce · 1 year
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More about the wenclair kids, this post is dedicated to @krystal-maiden because they wanted to know more about the twins! If anyone wants to ask anything about them, I’d happily share my hyperfixations with anyone (:
Leonidas is a pack animal and prefers company. He follows his moms everywhere and whenever his uncles visit he will hold something they have hostage so they can stay longer. Leonidas was jealous that Wednesday AND Enid had brothers, so he asked for brothers for his birthday. He got two twin sisters instead.
When the twins came home, Leonidas tried to return them because he thought they got the wrong kids.
Vittoria and Naenia are not identical twins, in fact one look at them and nobody could tell they were twins at all. Vittoria is the spitting image of Enid and Leonidas save for her nearly black eyes. And Naenia is the spitting image of Wednesday, except her bright blue eyes which stare into the soul of anyone and everyone.
Naenia and Vittoria were born with their dominant gene being psychic, and because of their twinship they share a connection. If Vittoria cries, Naenia will start crying soon after. If Vittoria is hungry, Naenia will cry, if Naenia wakes up in the middle of the night and sits there quietly, Vittoria will wake up and start crying. If Naenia needs to be changed, Vittoria will start crying. Leonidas noticed this and immediately started trying to experiment to figure out the limits of this. Wednesday always manages to catch him before someone gets beheaded though.
Vittoria was smiling as soon as they left the delivery room. (They had to make sure Leonidas didn’t cut the breaks) Naenia didn’t stop crying unless Wednesday held her and they didn’t like to be separated. Leonidas spent the entire car ride pouting because he wanted brothers.
Naenia has a permanent glare, unless her face is relaxed, like when she’s inspecting Enid’s fangs or near Vittoria. (Naenia will play with Enid and Leo’s fangs as a baby) The first time she smiles is at Leonidas as he’s about to set her on fire, and he decides she is more useful alive (his heart melts and he realizes he’d protect his baby sisters with his life). Vittoria is a very happy baby so long as she’s entertained. She’s very curious and tries to get into everything Leo owns (annoy him to death) and thus starts their life long prank rivalry.
Yoko loves the twins and Leo, she insist they call her aunty or dad (Wednesday firmly disagrees even though she is their god mother). Frequently Yoko just pops into the house with gifts for the twins and Leo. Vittoria loves anything colorful to chew on and expensive (she seems to be able to smell what costs money). Yoko very quickly becomes Vittoria’s favorite and Naenia loves her fangs.
Leonidas always tries to ambush and kill Yoko but she’s much faster and stronger than he is. Yoko just thinks he’s adorable every time he tries to jump on her back with a toy knife. He makes it his goal to defeat her in combat (even though he won’t say it, he respects her a lot). And he likes that she protects Enid, Leo is very protective of his moms.
Naenia loves being around Leonidas, she smiles most as a baby when he watches horror movies with her.
Vittoria loves when there are a lot of people around to watch, she doesn’t like to be bored at all. She often spends time in Leonidas’s old carrier with Enid because she likes to move around. And because Naenia doesn’t like to be far from her, Enid buys a second one for Wednesday to use in public. She is appalled. She wears it anyway. They’re in their snood colors.
Enid: We can match!
Wesnesday: …Leo I think your mom is trying to send me to an early grave.
Leonidas: Grave digging! :D
Wednesday, nodding: Yes we do have to take them on their first grave robbing expedition, they’re getting about that age.
Enid: …they’re five months old.
Wednesday: By that age my father and my uncle had already taken me across the sea to slay my first kraken with them. It’s a bonding experience for family.
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driflew · 11 months
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hello hello i have another au cherri and i came up with! this one’s called blindsided and this is the backstory that sets up the rest of the storyline. ive posted two bits about it for six sentence sunday, but that’s basically all. so uh. woe no context one shot be upon ye 
Martyn’s out late.
That’s not necessarily unusual—Most nights, Ren wouldn’t even care. Martyn has a tendency to lose track of time, and he loves to wander almost as much as he loves Ren. It’s not uncommon for him to take an extra hour or so to get home after going out on this or that errand, usually with an interesting story or something extra tucked under his arm. Really, Ren hadn’t been worried at all… at least, not for the first hour.
It’s gotten dark now. Martyn was supposed to be home a few hours ago, and Ren is really starting to worry. He’s being unreasonable, he’s sure, but he flags down a member of his staff all the same.
“Could you run into town and find Martyn? He must’ve lost track of the time. Tell him he doesn’t have to come home, but I’d at least like to know what’s keeping him.” Ren bites his lip, wringing his hands. “I’d prefer it if he came home, though.”
The man nods. He turns and heads out the door without another word, leaving Ren to sit by himself. Town isn’t far, but Martyn likes to roam…
Ren picks up a book off the table and sits down. He’ll be here a while.
“My lord?” Ren starts awake at the sound of his title, book falling out of his lap. He doesn’t remember dozing off, but he scoops the book off the ground anyway.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the man says, but Ren smiles, waving him off.
“It’s fine,” Ren says, then looks past him. The hall is empty. “Martyn was busy, then?”
The man looks away.
“Your grace, uh,” the man stumbles. He glances over Ren, still seated at the fire, and then says, “He’s dead, sire.”
“…What?”
“He— there was a fight. I asked around for— for a while. A pirate engaged Martyn in the street and stabbed him in the back. The fight moved to an alley and, while I couldn’t find anyone who saw it, uh, he was heard, uh… people heard the scuffle. From the main street and from the buildings around it. When it stopped, he was carried away, and he was… they said he, um, didn’t look to be breathing, and there was a lot of, um— To confirm it, I visited the alley, still bearing proof of the fight, and it was. Bad. Even if he survived the fight, by now, with the pirates that took him, he’s certainly bled too much. I-I’m sorry.”
Ren says nothing, not for a long while. His mouth hangs open, his body still a mockery of the relaxed way he’d been leaning back in his chair.
That… can’t be true, can it? Martyn is strong. Surely he wouldn’t…
“Gather— gather as much of the staff as you can. We’re going to— we have to look for—” Ren stammers, climbing out of the chair. “The pirates, the ones who— what did they look like? If they have Martyn, I want him back.”
The man looks at him sadly, but nods. “I’ll gather the staff and meet you by the gate, and I’ll tell everyone what I heard.”
The search turns up nothing, but not for lack of trying. Martyn had been popular among the staff, and many of the men and women on the streets would call themselves his friends.
It is for precisely this reason no one will let Ren see the alleyway. He knows even without asking that he’s found the right one—all he has to do is follow the overpowering smell of copper and iron.
“It might have clues as to who did this!” Ren insists.
“We can review the clues,” says one of the posted guards.
“I would like to help,” Ren insists, “We don’t have time to be arguing about this. Martyn could still be alive.”
The two guards at the mouth of the alley share a glance, all pity. Ren bites his tongue to keep from snapping.
“Your grace, if I may,” the second guard says, “We’re trying to look out for you. It will only upset you to see the site of the crime.“
Ren considers saying that he’s already quite upset, thank you, but he doesn’t want to antagonize them into keeping him entirely out.
“I can handle myself,” Ren says, entirely without basis. “Let me through.”
They do, though not without another long, pitying glance.
Ren steps past.
For a moment, Ren thinks the alley may be paved with brick. The realization that it’s simply blood, splattered across half the alley, nearly knocks him over, but shock keeps him upright.
Well, that and the smell. Ren doesn’t think he could handle getting any closer to it by falling to his knees.
There’s plenty of proof here that the victim was… wasn’t mistaken. Martyn’s sword lies forgotten on the tiles, leather hilt stained a deeper brown.
There’s something lying in the thickest part of the puddle. Ren steps closer without a word, lifting his sleeve to his nose.
Martyn’s braid lies in the middle of the alley. He knows it intimately—he’d been the one to tie it just this morning, had placed the ribbon at the end himself. The cut is jagged and uneven, and it’s come loose on the end that would have… would have been attached to Martyn’s head. This, too, is covered in blood, just like everything else, and flakes off into Ren’s hand as he picks it up.
Ren holds it close to his chest, turning and leaving the alleyway without another word.
They don’t find him. Ren looks the entire night, braid clutched in one white-knuckle grip. He’s careful not to let it go, fearing that it may unravel if he isn’t. This is, he tells himself, a quality unique to the braid, and mirrors nothing and no one.
Ren is still holding it when he goes to sleep that night. It doesn’t smell like Martyn— at least, not exclusively. Hints of him are left when Ren pushes his nose into it, but they’re lost quickly to the smell of blood.
This smells like Martyn, too, of course, but is not a scent Ren ever thought he’d become familiar with.
He doesn’t change. Martyn is often the one who helps him, and he doesn’t think to ask anyone else. Not that it matters what he wears to bed tonight. Ren thinks sleep will be impossible, all alone in that bed for two.  
The truth is, Ren is so exhausted after searching for Martyn, he sleeps like the dead. As far as Ren knows, it’s the last moment of connection he and Martyn will ever have.
The braid’s come untangled when he wakes up, loose hair lying beside his pillow, held together only by a red bow.
Ren has no bow to hold him together, and for the first and last time after losing Martyn, he shoves his face into the fistful of hair and sobs.
It seems, for a while, like a random act of bad luck. Martyn was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s heartbreaking, and Ren doesn’t understand it, but at least it’s over.
He finds the box on his bed. It’s labeled with Ren’s name, signed by Martyn’s, but the handwriting isn’t his. It’s too nice, too neat.
One of his staff must have put it here, but why? They might be trying to cheer him up, but… Why does Ren feel so uneasy?
There’s something about the box that makes Ren want to turn and run. He no longer has anyone to hide behind, though, so he lifts the box.
It’s light. When he shakes it, he hears glass. When he opens it, he—
When he opens it—
When he—
Ren… doesn’t remember much about opening the box. He hears about it second hand, only when his staff thinks he’s out of earshot.
He was screaming for hours afterward, says one, and though Ren doesn’t remember, his throat is still sore.
He wouldn’t let go. It had to be pried out of his hands, says another. Ren looks down. There are bruises on his wrist he doesn’t remember getting.  
I heard his grace passed out after. Is that true? Ren’s head is still sore where the back of his head allegedly collided with the bed frame.
I haven’t seen him since. He hasn’t let anyone into his chambers and he doesn’t come out anymore. How is he supposed to let anyone in? Someone in this house left this on his bed. His bed, where he and Martyn used to sleep, and he has no idea who. It could be any of them. It could be all of them.
That’s so scary. Is it safe to stay? I’m thinking about leaving… Leave, then. Ren doesn’t want or need a single one of them.
Did you see what it looked like? Ren doesn’t need to eavesdrop for that. Martyn’s eye is something he’d known intimately before, had been able to speak to and understand without even a word. He’d recognize it immediately, even severed, even blank.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forget opening it. The box had been a flimsy cardboard, and had opened easily. There had been writing on the inside flap, more elegant than the text outside.
BACK DOWN, it had read, OR SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN.
And then he’d looked down.
When he thinks of Martyn now, it’s hard to remember anything except the glazed blue eye that had stared back.
If there’s a god out there, Ren hopes He’ll tell Martyn how sorry he is.
The thing is, it almost works. Ren hardly leaves his room, and when he does, he stays within the manor. Much of his staff leaves in that time, and of those left, he fires almost all.
The criteria is simple. Anyone whose whereabouts the night the box appeared he can’t ascertain beyond reasonable doubt, he sends away.
The staff consists of a few cooks, a few gardeners, a few maids, a few aides. Most of his attendants leave on their own—no one wants to be seen near Ren.
Despite the small staff, the manor workload gets lighter. Ren’s life ends the same day Martyn’s does.
It’s fear that drives him. They took his body, after all—there is nothing Ren fears more than receiving another piece.
It keeps him in bed. It keeps him awake. He won’t risk anything, not a toe out of line. He cows entirely, and it doesn’t save him. Every night, he sees it—a box on his bed, his hands reaching without his input, something staring back.
It takes a few months for sympathy to dry up. Ren’s back to doing only the bare minimum, running his estate and only his estate—staying exactly in his own lane. He hears his little staff whispering about it, though. About how it was bad, sure, but really, he’s supposed to be a duke. He can’t lie in bed moping forever. At this rate, they may as well give the title to someone else, someone less… fragile.
That would mean losing the manor, though. Losing their home, losing the place Martyn spent all his life. Losing the dream he and Martyn made together.
So Ren climbs out of bed. He gets dressed all on his own, dries his face, and vows not to let Martyn’s life have been wasted on him.
He has no choice.
It’s fear that drives him. Ren is afraid all the time. Afraid he’ll lose his home. Afraid he’ll waste Martyn’s life by not doing enough. Afraid he’ll receive another box by doing too much.
But Ren can’t be afraid. Not where anyone can see him.
So Ren is angry all the time.
They call him ruthless, volatile, cold as ice. He doesn’t think that’s fair—he’s never sent anyone a severed limb. But if they think he’s ruthless, maybe they’ll think twice before crossing him. Maybe if he’d been cold then…
He burns, constantly, fire seering at his heels to keep him running ever forward. There’s no safe place to rest, and so he won’t.
His dreams make sure of that.
Ren wakes up gasping, hands curled tight around something that isn’t real. Sometimes it’s an eye, sometimes it’s not. A finger, a hand, a tongue. A head, one socket empty, the other bright and intelligent and looking right at him—
He doesn’t think he’s dreamed of anything but that box for a year after he opens it. They die down a bit, but return every time Ren is stressed.
Ren is stressed all the time.
Tired, too, absolutely exhausted, not that it helps him get any sleep. He works in his office to avoid it, staying up late into the night managing this or that until he sees deeds and bills behind his eyelids instead.
He wants to move beds, but how could he? This was Martyn’s, too, was once the place he felt safest. He can’t leave it, even if it features so prominently in the worst moment of his life.
Hiding under their blankets like it’ll protect him, Ren has to wonder. What would Martyn think of him now?
He’ll never know, but the eye changes. He dreams of pity, an eye floating in a bottle of sympathetic tears. He dreams of accusation, bloody fingerprints staining the glass. He dreams of scorn, an eye that won’t even look at him. He dreams of love, rarely.
Theirs is not the bed he’s taken from, at the least.
No, King Ren is stolen from the castle, so as to be sure he never feels safe in any place he could conceivably consider home.
Ren sits on the deck of the ship, kneels at the feet of the Captain. When he looks up at the man who has stolen him from his new home, he finds himself eye level with a coat he knows very well.
The Captain speaks of assassination, then of ransom. Promises not to hurt the King, so long as he can get money for his life.
Ren wants to scoff, but he doesn’t. The only man who would have paid for his life is long dead, and the Captain wears a trophy of his murder tied around his waist.
Ren knows fear. He knows how to bury it, too, how to smother it in so much anger it boils him alive in his own bubbling, frothing blood.
He is so beyond the point of being afraid for his worthless, meaningless life. If he can make the Captain bleed, then it will all have been worth it.
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I wrote a poem about DRV3 from Kokichi's perspective heavily coded in Saiouma sorry not sorry.
Trustworthy? A lovely girl, full of potential Has committed a feverous crime.  Ironic how in her darkest hour, It’s the detective's time to shine. He does his job dutifully, With icy tears that frame his eyes She makes her exit beautifully, I did note, she didn’t cry. Now motivation is being handed out like candy to the masses They hide from it,  A misguided trust that compliance was once taught in these classes. Predictably, we’ve been betrayed And the weakest was sacrificed. But if she could, she probably would’ve  killed us all with just a kitchen knife. Luckily there’s no need to speak, No need to even think. Our detective has once again solved this  Tragic mystery. It isn’t enough for you to feel unnerved You should all be afraid. Cause’ I’m not sure we’re even on earth, And it’s the calm ones who’re less than sane.  In fact sane is the furthest thing From the next contestant up to swing Villainous wiles, all the while, He takes two lives mercilessly… Right in front of me.  How? How can they all still  spit and spew that awful word of trust? They don’t see how dangerous it is to let the calm one intermix with us? So. That girl? She’s a killer.  No, I swear it’s true! What’s wrong? Is it really that hard to believe, That all this time, your “friend” has been lying to you? It’s true for me too,  Though much less unexpected. Yes, people I’d trusted have plotted their own sorts of exits. I knew you wouldn’t listen to me,  But that’s really no matter. Only one of you needs to see, And he’s a knack for making every lie shatter. Whatever. I’m not afraid of anything This, I swear it’s true So shoot at me all you’d like Actually, I’m bulletproof. And I will make it out alive This is also true.  Even if only I survive… You heard that right, I’d kill all of you. Buuuuuuut, now I’m bored, so… I give up! This little game was fun… Now there’s no need for truths to be discovered so Please, just accept it’s done. How naive I had been to try To stop the evil deep within With stakes like these, is it really true that I… No, I need to win. So who did it… Me?  Or Him. Perhaps it’d of been better for you To never truly know. Because a beautiful lie, at least to me Has always been preferable.   O’ my greatest of muse, but of course you do You’ll always see right through, won't you? What happens after this, I’ll never know But honestly? Shuichi, I trust you.
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kiirotoao · 7 months
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I keep getting asked what I’d like to see / theories for s5, so I’m listing them here!
(In blurb form because I have too many lol)
MORE. WILLEL. OR. DEATH. I’d particularly love some parallels from s1, maybe Will talking to El in the void or something? Because
Will has powers!! I’d love to see him have some kind of time/energy/electrical/celestial powers to mirror his Will the Wise persona
JOPPER WEDDING OR DEATH ALSO THIS IS A NON NEGOTIABLE DUFFERS
Robin being a BAMF and impressing Vickie or vice versa (I’m currently more sold on Robin being the BAMF because if switched that’s just Ronance. Which also. Ronance endgame please and thank you???)
Stonathan endgame or at least bonding. Can you tell that the CGI snippets made me insane
Flickergate duh
Pocketgate!!! And specifically Mike confessing to Will, Will thinking it’s too good to be true, then Mike pulling out the letter to prove it in dear desperation
Based on the “6 little nuggets” anecdote, I think Steve might unfortunately be toast because he has his dream with The Party, y’know
There will be a dragon of some sort based on Will’s painting? Maybe like Vecna, the Mind Flayer, and the demogorgons will combine into one big ugly creature to defeat? Dramatic but I have no idea
The spores might also be more lethal and infect people? Or maybe cause widespread hallucinations? They were everywhere in that finale and that cannot be healthy. Yes I know that Hopper and Dustin didn’t suffer any side effects of them in s2 but Vecna’s still alive so I think maybe they could become a new force
I believe in the Kas theory! But not for Eddie. I’m between Kas being Will, El, or Mike
I hope that Nancy doesn’t end up with anyone or it’s implied that she, Steve, and Jonathan, are happy being single for that time until they completely understand themselves and what they want
Vecna appearing in nightmares!! I’d love to see the subconscious come into play and it would serve to flesh out our main cast even more than they already are (especially Mike Wheeler and his internal gay crisis)
Jonathan, Mike, Lucas, Erica, and Murray in the Upside Down please!! They have never been that’s why, and no, I don’t count the tunnels in s2 because they didn’t flip upside down to enter those so I don’t think it was quite the Upside Down
Full and integrated Hopper-Byers family scene at the end of the season. Like them playing Monopoly or something or just existing together in the same house. Being happy. Please dear God.
Will coming out to his mom or Jonathan or Dustin or Lucas or anyone, really
EVERYBODY WANT TO RULE THE WORLD BY TEARS FOR FEARS preferably in the ending scene but anywhere would suffice and I’m not saying this just because I love this song but the lyrics literally fit so well I don’t think I’ll recover if his song isn’t in s5
A gate may exist at the library - it’s in the center of the earthquake and it’s where Will was taken in s1. I think Henry may want to destroy it because it contains so much information
I’d love a s2 parallel where Lucas talks to his dad again. Maybe about Max, maybe about all the stress, something. More sweet parent moments
Based off of the Byler fights in episodes 3 (s3) and 2 (s4), I think maybe they’ll fight again in s5e1?
And then resolve by s5e5
Wherein Heros (Bowie’s og version) will play when Mike and Will kiss
I just really really want Dustin being the lord of the demodogs. Like d’Art returns and recognizes Dustin and they help to fight against Vecna like fighting fire with fire it’d be so epic you see the vision right?
I’d love to see a return of Kali!! Either as a friend or villain recruited/controlled by Vecna it’d be pretty cool either way
Max lives. Period
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hrodvitnon · 2 months
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Xenilla Arc HCs...
…or ideas- however you wanna slice it. 
I think the absolute essence of this arc hinges ride or die on the answer to the question “Does it end with Ozymandias dying?”. A lot of people seem partial to the answer being yes- I will straight up admit my biases here and say I disagree- but the answer can go either way.
If the answer is yes then I think the arc should theme around Godzilla coming to terms with the fact that his brother is gone and not coming back, and that he needs to stop comparing himself against Ozzy and be king in his own way. It would center very heavily on examining older characters like Tiamat, Mothra, Shimo, and Dagon and how they all have to move on and forward. A pretty bleak story with a sad ending. I admit there’s probably more ways to do this version of the story that I’d be down to hear if anyone wants to share.
If the answer is no then the arc should be about Godzilla and crew turning a blind eye to the insurmountable odds that stand between them and freeing Ozzy- a story seriously fraught with hardship, suffering, and anguish with a dim light at the end of the tunnel. The reason I prefer this route is I actually think it’s more true to Abraxas as a story as that’s how the original story played out. This would be very similar- except it’s Godzilla’s story instead of Vivienne’s. And the unadulterated cruelty and torment wouldn’t be focused on just her. Everyone who follows Godzilla down this path goes through some shit to get to the end. The rest of this post is written with this route in mind, but like mentioned earlier I’m open to hearing about a version of this story where Ozzy doesn’t walk away- I just struggle to find a good way to write that myself. 
However- one thing I don’t think should happen is a bait and switch. Genuinely I fail to see a satisfying end to this story if Ozzy’s baited to be able to survive but then doesn’t. Yes it would be angsty. Yes Goji would cry a lot. But I feel like you’d need to either write that extremely well or risk a very unsatisfying end. I just kinda fail to see a world where that can be pulled off with finesse. Again- fully ready to admit I’m biased here- would always be willing to hear others out on this, but idk man. 
Anyways- the additional excuse of a very weepy happy ending gives you ample breathing room to write the most horribly fucked shit imaginable. A concept I’m sure you’re familiar with. Xenilla would want to play with his food before he consigns him to infection. He knows the effect he has on Godzilla and he intends to relish every moment of it. Physical, mental, you fucking name it; he wants Godzilla to go through hell in his final days before he mercifully delivers him to Gigan’s Proliferation Chambers to be infected. A large part of this torment would be what he does to those closest to him. 
Big turning point in the arc; could happen about halfway through when the G-Team thinks they have a solid grasp on how to deal with Xenilla. The man himself shows up, wrecks Goji’s shit in front of everyone (maybe even drops him from the atmosphere like that one ask), and then kidnaps some of his closest companions to be taken to Gigan’s fleet. This could literally be anyone- but my idea is for it to be Abraxas, Mothra, and Rodan (could also throw in Leo or Ladon for some real cursed shit). They get taken right in front of Godzilla. Cue a rehash of Viv’s mental mindbreak when San got swallowed except with the King believing he’s just lost his wife and two best friends. 
While onboard the ship, couple of things happen. Everyone besides Abraxas goes through some kind of horrific experience and is additionally incapacitated by the Indoctrination radio waves permeating the ship. Abraxas is spared via San being granted immunity when Ghidorah used to live onboard, and she ends up being the key to getting everyone off alive. This is also partially an excuse to give her a fight with Gigan as a moment for her to fix one of Ghidorah’s most depraved acts (a very hard and very bloody fight, might I add). 
There ends up being serious consequences for this abduction. For one- everyone that does get taken ends up partially Indoctrinated. They can pretty easily shake off the worst effects as Abraxas would get them onto an escape craft within a day or two- but it’ll definitely leave mental scars. In addition, I think Rodan should end up partially infected. I think between Mothra and him, Xenilla would choose him to be infested because it would fuck Godzilla up more to see someone as carefree and quippy as Rodan utterly broken the parasite like he was- also because Mothra may have some unforeseen resistance to it being born of the Planet. This starts a subplot where Rodan is slowly getting more infected day by day and the return party needs to rush to find a way to cure him before losing him for good (this could also be how they find the cure they use on Ozzy later, more on that later). Very angsty all around- Rodan freaking out each time the cordies try to get control of him, everyone else worrying themselves into an early grave over him, etc. 
Subplot #2: Monarch believes the key to stopping Xenilla is somewhere in the Hollow Earth. So- they send a group of Kaiju down there to look for an answer; in my head the group consists of Kong, Dagon, Barb, and Battra. They end up being right and find an Iwi forge/refinery where the Gojiran/Zohar weaponry was forged. Through a task requiring human/Titan cooperation, they create an Ultra-Radiated weapon that they think can neutralize the parasite (again, more on this later). Thinking it could either be a knife or a spear. 
Whilst all this is happening, the few remaining Titans topside scramble in preparation as the world prepares for what could be a full-scale alien invasion. At this point- only like Goji, Tiamat, and Shimo would be left. They could all be having individual flashbacks to their most treasured moments with Ozzy whilst maybe even fighting off some advance enemies (Megaguirus or MOGUERA, anyone?). 
The final conflict would start with a 1 on 1 confrontation between Shimo and Xenilla. Reason being that she needs to buy time for the cure to be finalized and for Kong’s group to return. This could also be her first truly challenging fight in millennia and we could actually see her pushed to her limits. 
The actual fight begins when Godzilla rolls up all roars and challenges to Xenilla. He roars back- prepared to finally win this 1 on 1 and drag Goji back in a horrifically mauled state to be stuffed full of fungus- only for Godzilla to immediately halt his charge and shout ‘NOW, FATHER!’. Xenilla barely has time to turn around before he’s blasted point blank by a sub-atomic Oxygen Destroyer- only after the bombardment does the full Titan Vanguard roll up. Establishes that this fight is not for glory, to establish dominance, or to enforce Godzilla’s sovereignty. Godzilla is going to win and does not care how dirty he has to fight to do so. 
Dagon is armed with Oxygen Destroyers, Kong’s got his new weapon, Godzilla’s all powered up, and Abraxas has a new little secret weapon up their sleeve I’ll touch on in a bit. Even so- Shimo’s already been worn down and doesn’t have a lot less in the tank. Her efforts mainly go into protecting the group’s first major plan: Barb. A lot of people seem to forget that her EMP blasts disable Titan powers- taking away Xenilla’s shields and devastating Coronal Rays. This works until it inevitably doesn’t, and the group goes through plan after plan similar in tactfulness to this until Kong or Mothra or someone gets a clean impalement with the new Zohar weapon. 
Should probably explain my idea of curing the parasite now. The key to curing the infection in my eyes is two-fold and relies on two things: Neutralizing the fungus and destroying it. You can’t do one without the other. To start with it’s destruction- I think the only really viable option is literally to burn it off the bone and cells it grows on. If you’ve ever heard of Radiosurgery, it’s a form of cancer treatment that utilizes extremely precise beams of gamma radiation to literally burn away cancer cells. Obviously this is very risky to preform as screwing it up could cause irreversible damage to bone or critical tissue- if this was a normal patient. Ozymandias is Gojiran- so radiation wouldn’t have any adverse effects on him specifically, but the parasite? It would probably take a lot- a very heavy dosage and very concentrated- but Ozzy’s body would be able to endure while the fungus would not. But the infection is tricky, cunning, it would start to defend itself in some way or even try to take Ozzy with it should it be threatened like this. This is where we find the need to neutralize it- and the one who may be able to do that is Abraxas. We know that Ghidorah communicated between the heads via psionics, and we’ve seen further communication from Ichi and Ni to Vivienne and San. Vivienne and San could talk back but they could never actually initiate conversation (or maybe they could? I actually kinda can’t remember rn). Another thing- despite being shielded from Indoctrination’s worst effects- they could still hear that goddamn infernal buzzing on the ship. In fact- they heard it so well they could commit it to memory… so much that they could think about it, ponder it, learn how it works…
I’ve read asks on here that mention 'Shaking off Reaper Indoctrination’, and that’s always felt a little weird to me- because that really isn’t something you just 'shake off’- it’s very clear in ME that the damage is permanent and not something very salvageable. However- what if the 'cure’ for Indoctrination is actually just another form of Indoctrination that undoes the programming on a psychic level. An Anti-Indoctrination method created by Abraxas after scrutinizing the actual frequencies of Indoctrination to see how it works. I think this would be a fantastic way to progress Abraxas’s character past where they were left at the end of Abraxas- going from one of Ghidorah’s most tortured victims, to the one who broke free of his control and defeated him, and now acts as an Anti-Ghidorah undoing all of his past sins. First defeating Gigan and then turning Indoctrination against them. So this becomes how Rodan, Mothra, and Ozzy are saved from being Indoctrinated- and also how Abraxas becomes possibly the most dangerous Titan on Earth- now knowing the secrets of Indoctrination and able to leverage that against their enemies. I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this I’ll cover in a separate ask just because this post is getting long. 
So the actual method of curing Ozzy is essentially to reverse-indoctrinate the parasite into going dormant whilst Ozzy gets pumped with Zohar to kill off the infection- but where, I hear you ask, could we get a constant stream of Zohar and enough of it to eventually burn every bit of the fungus away? If you answered Bahamut’s Proliferation (name I gave to Tiamat’s Liar; open to additional name suggestions). It’s constantly charging from the incoming Coronal Rays and through some Monarch tech, it can be repurposed as a Cordyceps curing facility for both Rodan and Ozzy. However- the curing process would not be short- the place would’ve just been drained by Godzilla a few years ago and the stream of Solar Energy wouldn’t exactly be fast. It could take weeks or even months for the fungus to be completely gone- and Ozzy would be in a coma the entire time.
As mentioned earlier- ending’s a fucking tear-fest all around. Despite all the hardship, Goji and his subjects pulled through another impossible situation. Just like Abraxas being freed from Ghidorah- Ozzy is freed from Xenilla. 
As always- really interested to what other have to say in regards to this; also expect that followup ask with how Abraxas’s Anti-Indoctrination would work.
---
Now that it’s explained, I feel more open to the idea of Ozzy living after a lot of pain and suffering on everyone; it feels like Gigan (and the narrative) expects our heroes to fail in saving him from a life of horrors in spite of all their efforts, and yet Abraxas is like “You know what? Fuck you. Un-funguses your lizard.” (Abraxas can indeed initiate “psychic conversations” with Ghidorah; they’ve definitely done it one or two times in Chapter 18, I remember that.)
I do wonder how well crafting weapons made from the Zohar will work; the AbraxasVerse Timeline posits the idea that the Zohar may be the planet’s core and that Ghidorah consuming it would basically destroy Earth from the inside-out, and we know Battra is going to HATE that. On the other hand, @zerm2v0hg also presented an idea that maybe the Scarred Apes under Skar King’s rule might have refined elements of Zohar for their own fucked-up purposes, and that Synthetic Zohar can be produced without potential planet-cracking ramifications... although the synthetic alternative may have ramifications of their own, who knows...
On the one hand it makes sense that the Fleet would have an enormous Fuck-Off HUEG LIKE XBOX ship dedicated for Gigan, but on the other I’m not so keen on the idea of Ghidorah having previously lived there because it clashes with a lore-dump I’d made about the Fleet; namely that Ghidorah is the source of no insignificant amount of generational trauma and its actions are antithetical to the Fleet’s belief about Experience being the key to a life well lived (one must experience as many things as possible both good and bad), because Ghidorah will kill anything and everything it can, meaning no survivors to tell of the Experience.
It’s been a while since I’ve really spitballed what exactly the relationship between AbraxasVerse Gigan and Ghidorah would be like, but I definitely recall they fought each other. A lot. They had a rivalry but unlike with Godzilla it was this weird interplay of violence and sadomasochistic... mutual appreciation? Like, Gigan comes to believe that Ghidorah completes him in the sense that he’s constantly improving his technique and cybernetics and weaponry after every fight; and Ghidorah appreciates Gigan because they LOVE a good fight and Gigan always provides a good scrap. The Fleet however is scared shitless of Ghidorah due of the whole galactic genocidal road trip schtick, and because it’s come damn close to actually killing Gigan, their living god, at times. 
Ghidorah also hates Little Ones, like the members of the Fleet, with the fury of a thousand suns. They don’t even have to look remotely like the Makers, they just bring up those terrible memories just by doing their own thing without realizing it. So Ghidorah having roomed with Gigan on his own personal ship seems a bit odd with that in mind.
“Welcome to my humble abode, Ghidorah! I’d like you to room with me while we travel the stars on a glorious crusade to spread the Word of Flesh and Metal.”
“THE FUCK DO WE NEED A ROOM FOR? OR A SHIP? WE CAN FUCKING FLY THROUGH SPACE. ALSO YOUR LITTLE ONES PISS US OFF. WE’RE GOING TO KILL THEM ALL NOW.”
“Ahh, that’s what I thought you’d say, you crazy fucking noodle! Can’t let you do that to my babies, they’re mine!”
(I know it’s not the intent and I’m sorry, but Titan-sized escape shuttles also make me giggle due to the mental image of the Earthborn Titans trying to figure out how anything works. “Hey, Rodan? I think we should start the engines. Like, right now.” “I CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THIS THING WORKING!” “NIGHT VISION ENGAGED.”)
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phoenixyfriend · 1 year
Text
Secrets
We can do author reveals for @spreadyourwingsexchange now! Mine was written for PaxDuane (@callacabforme)
Read on AO3
Relationships:
Jaster Mereel/Mace Windu, The Daughter | Winged Goddess/Jango Fett, Jango Fett & Jaster Mereel, Depa Billaba & Jango Fett, Depa Billaba & Mace Windu
Characters:
Jaster Mereel, Jango Fett, Mace Windu, Depa Billaba, The Daughter | Winged Goddess, Morai (Star Wars)
Additional Tags:
Time Travel, Romance, Hard of Hearing Jaster Mereel, Asexual Depa Billaba, POV Outsider, POV Multiple, Dreamsharing, Age Difference, (But all are consenting adults)
Summary:
Jaster worries Mace teaches Depa watches Jango lives
-------------------------
Jaster first notices something’s changed when Jango is fourteen. The shift in personality is sudden, but the kid is well into his teenage years and picking up more responsibility, even if it’s under supervision, so… maybe it’s normal.
Jaster keeps an eye on him, sure, but if it’s important, Jango will come to him, right? He’s basically an adult now, he can handle some things himself. Maybe it’s girl problems. Or boy problems. Or something.
He hopes that, if it is a crush, it’s not on Montross. Jango keeps staring at Jaster’s second, and it’s with a curiously blank look that Jaster can’t figure out. It could just as easily be… uh…
Actually, a crush on someone twice his age who is definitely going to reject him might actually be the best option. Well, no, the best option would be that Jango wants to learn a skill that Montross has and other people don’t, but both are still better than, say, Jango suspecting Montross of something, or Montross actually having done something, to Jango, that Jaster hasn’t noticed.
So really, Jaster is… it’s just Jango being a teenager, right?
He’ll keep an eye on it.
Jango will come to him when he’s ready.
--
So.
Montross betrayed them.
Jaster hadn’t seen it coming. Jango had. That might be the only reason Jaster’s alive right now.
There were worse reasons for Jango to have focused on Montross as he had, but not many. Not many at all.
“Are you alright?” Jaster asks, clapping a hand on Jango’s shoulder. Jango twitches under the gesture, looking away from the empty space he’d fixated on. There’s something in his eyes that Jaster would have called unfamiliar a few months ago, but knows too well now. Jango’s always had eyes that are too old for his age, but it’s been more, this past while.
“I’m fine,” Jango says, in that rough and stilted way he’d picked up from… somewhere.
Jaster has the right to worry. He just doesn’t know what it is that he’s worried about, entirely. “Ready to tell me how you knew about Montross?”
Jango’s eyes flick away for a moment, and then back to Jaster. “I’d prefer not to.”
“Ad’ika—”
“I’m not a child,” Jango says, fast and odd and Jaster is begging the stars to tell him what it is that’s changed his son so much.
“You’re my child,” Jaster says.
The look Jango gives him is indecipherable, searching and sad and something that Jaster doesn’t have nearly enough information to really read. “I know. It’s just uncomfortable to hear.”
“Jango—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jango says, firm and final and frustratingly distant. “Please respect that, buir.”
There is no answer he can give that he hasn’t already. “Alright, I’ll leave it for now. Just… you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
His son looks away from him, and hesitates. He fixes his stare on nothing, ready to just go back to zoning out as he had been, and says, “yes, sir.”
“Right,” Jaster says, and they both know that he isn’t buying it. He sighs, pats Jango on the shoulder again, and heads for the door. “Get some rest, son.”
“Will do.”
--
The first time Jaster sees The Habit, he thinks it’s something else entirely.
He passes by the door to Jango’s room, and pauses at the sound of a single, agitated voice. The door is open just a crack, enough for the voice to escape, and Jaster steps back to look through it. The room is lit, and Jango is alone.
The boy is pacing, gesturing as he speaks and pausing every little bit. Jaster only sees flashes of this, because he doesn’t want to risk opening the door or invading Jango’s privacy even more, and Jango’s pacing is taking him all over the room. There isn’t an answering voice, and Jaster can’t see a comm from this angle, or even hear the low buzz of a response.
Jaster’s hearing is kind of a mess, though. He’s been in the vicinity of too many explosions for his eardrums to still be in top condition, and he doesn’t bother with the aides unless he’s doing diplomatic work. He’s sure as hell not wearing them in his own home if he doesn’t have to.
Would be nice to have them now, to figure out what the heck is going on with his son.
Jaster catches snippets of what’s being said, but between the lack of visual help and the fact that Jango’s speaking away from the door as often as not, it’s not much.
Jango doesn’t seem distressed, he decides. He’s probably either talking to someone on a comm that’s out of Jaster’s narrow line of sight into the room, or practicing an argument of some sort. Either way, he’s fine. Probably.
Jaster leaves him to it.
--
It happens again. This time, the door is fully open, and Jaster sees him argue with thin air, dropping names he’s never heard, like Kenobi and Boba and Windu and Tyranus. He seems to circle back to the same spot with his gaze, high up against the wall, and addresses it as ‘ma’am.’
Jaster knocks on the door, this time. It’s open, after all. Jango starts with surprise, and turns to face him. “Buir?”
“Heard you talking,” Jaster says. “Figured if it was loud enough for me to hear, then there was something wrong.”
Jango looks away, a flush rising in his cheeks. “It’s nothing.”
“Who were you arguing with?” Jaster prompts.
“It wasn’t an argument,” Jango says, too quick to be true. He won’t meet Jaster’s eyes. “And it’s… nobody, really. I’m just trying to get my thoughts in order.”
“Practicing for a debate?”
Jango snorts. “Something like that.”
“With…?” Jaster tries.
His son winces, looking away. “The New Mando types, mostly.”
Jaster frowns. “We’re on good terms with Adonai.”
This earns him a shrug. “I have concerns on some things I’ve heard. It might not come to anything, but it’s better to work out how to phrase things ahead of time, isn’t it? If I have to speak?”
Jango is not a good public speaker. Jaster is passable, at least, but Jango is… a work in progress.
“Practice is good,” Jaster tells him. “Maybe close your door next time, though. Keeps people from worrying.”
“Will do, sir.”
Jaster can’t help but ruffle Jango’s hair when he passes him, narrowly avoiding the offended squawk he gets for the act. It’s childish, especially considering how grown up Jango’s been behaving, and the return to something even slightly resembling acting his age is reassuring.
--
The way that Jango fights is controlled, but often uncertain. It often seems like he doesn’t quite know how to manage his own body, as if the size of it surprises him every other day. Jaster keeps an eye on it, but Jango had a growth spurt pretty recently, and that should probably be enough of an explanation, right?
Sure, Jango’s mistakes seem more like someone who’s adjusting to a smaller reach than they’re used to, not a longer one, but that’s… that’s…
It’s fine, right? Jango’s spending a lot of time practicing his forms, which is good, and he’s keeping up with his studies, doing well, even, and he’s been shining in missions and strategy sessions, keeping his calm when he argues for a tactic or insists on gathering more information or whatever it is this time. Jango’s fine.
Jaster watches him test the weight of a practice sword, swinging it in a set of forms that look more Jedi than anything, but still decidedly Mandalorian, and still testing and hesitant and almost as if he were… trying to reverse engineer lightsaber forms.
Jango’s never met a Jedi. Jaster would know.
Even Jaster’s only ever met two. Jedi are rare, especially outside the Core.
With a stifled noise, Jango takes on an odd jump, awkward and high and decidedly not designed with armor in mind, and lands surprisingly well. Jaster looks at the sharp grin and the confident way his son rises to his feet, the kind of competent that Jaster should be proud of, should be happy with, should support in all ways.
And he worries.
--
Jaster makes a habit of passing by Jango’s rooms when they have downtime. He’s not hovering, and he’s certainly not suspicious of his own son, but he’s… a parent. Right. He’s a parent, and this is normal for an unsure parent who wants to figure out what their child is going through without prying too much.
Jango has many one-sided conversations. He never has them in public, certainly, and he definitely doesn’t seem to be noticing or reacting to things that aren’t there, but Jaster starts thinking more and more that it’s something to look out for. It’s never big things, not really, but there are moments where Jango just… isn’t right.
It’s been six months, maybe more, when Jaster does roundup after a mission and finds that Jango is at the very edge of the meadow they’d landed the gunship in, right at the treeline, and holding a conversation with a convor.
People have conversations with animals all the time, Jaster thinks, just a touch desperately. One of their medics has a tooka that she talks too like a baby, every day. One of his snipers carries around a snake whenever they’re off duty, wearing it like a scarf and asking it ‘do you believe this shit?’ whenever something even slightly inconvenient happens. Myles wrestles with his father’s akk dog every time he visits home, with the ever popular ‘who’s a good girl’ dropping from his mouth as easily as kisses for the mutt. That slicer that joined up a few months back treats zir carnivorous rabbit as a coding partner, explaining problems in the program until the process of talking it through has led zir to an epiphany.
It's normal to talk to animals. Loads of people do it.
Sure, Jango seems like he’s having more of a business negotiation than a pet conversation with the bird, but it’s still normal, right?
Even if the convor, seemingly wild, nods to something, waits for Jango to raise his arm, and then delicately hops on.
Jango talks to the bird in quiet murmurs for another half hour before they part ways, and Jaster doesn’t know what to think of it.
--
So his kid is weird, practicing arguments and reinventing lightsaber forms and talking to animals, all normal things done in a decidedly odd way. It’s fine. Jango can be as weird as he wants, so long as he’s being safe, or as safe as a mercenary can be, and working towards being happy. He’s got an injury right now, a large cut that needed stitches and cracked ribs that needed taping, but he’s fine. Jaster almost even believes it.
And then someone shows him a security feed from the galley, something people barely ever look at, even on duty, and it’s Jango. He’s having a meal, alone, in the early hours of the day cycle. Nightmares, maybe, or just an awkwardly shifted internal clock. It’s normal.
It’s normal, it’s all so normal, until he tries to reach for a bowl, stops with a wince as he strains his stitches, and instead floats the dish down.
“So,” the soldier says, low and slow, “did you know?”
“Not this,” Jaster says. He wonders how much of the last months—almost a year now, if he’s being honest with himself—can be explained by this. “Don’t tell anyone. I’ll handle this.”
“As Mand’alor, or as a father?” the soldier asks.
“As a father,” Jaster says, “and if that doesn’t work… we’ll see.”
(Continue on AO3)
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bylerfields · 1 month
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i just read your bottom mike points and its the most sense ive ever read on that topic, considering im a top mike truther. not so much dom mike, cos i think theyre equals, but your thing about mike chiling and come down to wills level was interesting. it makes me wonder how these dynamics would have played out if there was never this supernatural threat... i got the sense that mike still always led, because of how he approached will on the swings, and their little bickers in the whole group even, outside of monster stuff (like the ghostbusters venkman thing). mike being the de facto leader, soft version when with will, seemed like something that had simply always been. he's soft with will, but usually when he thinks will needs caring for. when will isnt in danger, i dont think mike is soft or chill necessarily. so its interesting that you see a matured, grown-into-himself and secure mike as 'chilling'.
and lastly, if they both come down and meet on this equal level of softness, how is that still evidence of mike being a sub? surely that would make them both soft vers?
but your points did make sense and i like that there are some bottomsub mike people out there who dont just see him as a babygirl
all really fair points anon!!
i think it’s just the way i see it or prefer, i guess? i don’t think i ever claimed that theres evidence of mike being a sub, since i’m of the strong belief that there’s no evidence for their sexual dynamic at all.
it’s really just how i prefer to think about it if i had to pick my favorite dynamic or what i’d lean towards when i’m writing.. lmao i think we’re pretty much on the same page tho, since i’m also a top mike truther who thinks they’re equals. so, sure, soft vers is a great description - but my personal preference is that mike is perfectly fine submitting to whatever will says and (for the reasons i said) will is perfectly fine not only asking for what he wants but also taking care of mike bc he wants mike to feel so good (which there is huge evidence for in s4). i’m not forcing others to see it this way, it’s just what i like 🥲 (also i should note that this isn’t the only dynamic i like when thinking of byler concepts, i like it all 😮‍💨 but when talking about which part of their canon dynamic is most satisfying/realistic to me i guess?)
(but i’d rather not have more people come to my inbox saying ‘well what you’re describing is actually still dom mike,’ because to me it’s not. i don’t see him that way as a default/usual assumed dynamic for them.)
to address what you said about mike’s behaviors being more dominant-leaning even outside of supernatural stuff, i guess my stance is that you can’t really separate it? like the way he was in s2 from the start was bc he felt crazy about el being alive or not. and him being the softer version with will is yes bc he has a sense of feeling like he’s taking care of someone, ((((((which i could argue isn’t a traditionally masc role but i won’t)))))) but also because it’s a safe place for him. i agree with you that he is 1000% the de facto leader of their group. he also paralleled joyce a lot in s1 with his persistence in getting will back and getting the others on board, while also being the gentlest and most nurturing of the boys with eleven.
what i love about mike is that he isn’t a violent person, like, at all - and it’s shown in the times that he does try and defend himself/others - it’s unnatural. i love that he can be the leader who people look to for guidance but not because he demands it, he just is. he’s the quietest in the party when theyre at the arcade in s2. there’s a common theme of will trusting and confiding in him where he wouldn’t with others. themes of nurturing, safe haven, emotional intelligence, follow mike before the clear shift in s2-3 when things start to become unmanageable for him. there are a lot of things that set him apart from dustin and lucas in s1 as far as typical masc traits and how they treat el (especially noticeable with lucas, since he and mike have pretty similar motive to get will back).
as far as him not being soft or chill w will when he’s not in danger, i guess we’ll have to agree to disagree? i’m thinking about “another 90 miles, why” and the softness in his tone when theyre on the couch, before will discloses that 001 isn’t dead. demanding and aggressive isn’t his default in a comfort setting. it’s just something that’s easy to pick up on for me, something i enjoy exploring more of, and a cool thing about fanfiction is that ability to have different interpretations or see qualities in characters that you focus on more while others choose different ones to expound on.
i’ve always said i think it’s presumptuous to assume the mike we see, with his clear multitude of external pressures, is the one he’ll be years from now. (will too, but mike is the focus here). and it’s really not far fetched when you look at how he is in his earlier days that he’s softer than the typical boy and would likely level back to that when settled and regulated.
thanks for the ask & i’m glad my take made a little sense 🩵 i mostly end up word vomiting when it comes to the mike topic
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msweebyness · 16 days
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Question for Class of Heroes!
Quasivan, how did you and Mylene White met each other? And what were your lives like before you met?
(One of my very first Class of Heroes shorts was about this! Linked here!)
QuasiIvan: Well…we met on our first day here at DuPont. I’d run off into the forest to be alone, because, well, people weren’t being all that welcoming to me…but then I heard the most beautiful voice singing. Just like an angel.
Snow Mylene: (Giggles) That was me. When I first met him, I was just immediately drawn to how gentle and sincere he was. He had the kindest eyes and the sweetest smile.
QuasiIvan: I was just shocked that she was talking to me, that she wasn’t…afraid.
Snow Mylene: How could I possibly be afraid of you, my gentle harmony? (She stands up on her tiptoes and kisses his forehead, making him blush)
QuasiIvan: We’d…both prefer not to talk about some people from our past.
Snow Mylene: Yes, we both had someone who would have preferred us dead than alive, the minister and my stepmother. But we’ve left those people behind, found better families, and we’re happier for it.
QuasiIvan: Much happier. (They rest their foreheads together)
@artzychic27 @imsparky2002
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why-what-no · 2 years
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Dating Bella Swan Would Include
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Pairing: Bella Swan x Reader
Warnings: Wuthering Heights. God, why did I make this so long.
Notes: Yes, I’m outing myself as a Twilight fan and a Bella simp, fight me. I could treat her right. (And no, I don’t support a lot of what SMeyer wrote in those books).
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When you first heard of Bella Swan, you didn’t really care. She was more of a conversation topic for the guys or the school gossips.
Even when she first arrived, snatched up by Jessica and her friends, you didn’t care at first.
She was just some classmate
Sure, she was cute. But definitely the shy type, clearly uncomfortable with the level of awe she was receiving from the guys in your classes.
You guys first spoke a few days after she arrived. She was in the parking lot, leaning against her car. A book in her hand with a title you recognized.
“Wuthering Heights, huh?” You tilted your head to get a better look at the book title.
She was surprised for a second, not used to people asking her about books. People asking her about anything she liked, actually. “Um, yeah, have you read it?”
“Yep.”
Bella sat up a bit. “Oh, what did you think?”
“Meh.” You shrugged, being honest. “Not great. Everyone kinda sucks. It’s cool that you like it though.”
“But that’s the point.” You were a little caught off guard by her sudden investment in your conversation of your dislike of the book. But also glad to see her animated about something. “The best thing about them is their love.”
“Obsession isn’t love.”
“It’s not obsession.” The pretty brunette argued, mildly stuttering-ly. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” The halfway triumphant face Bella made when she quoted the book was kind of cute if you were honest.
You chuckled. “Fair enough, I’ll give that book one thing, it had a few good quotes. Although I prefer that heaven quote, personally. You know… I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I’d fall asleep in his; and he said he couldn’t breathe in mine”
You grinned at her, waving goodbye as the bell rang.
Bella just stared after you. Other people in Forks were interested in her, but none except you actually talked to her about things she liked. Even if you didn’t like them as well.
She started to pay attention to you the next day, curiosity about Edward Cullen being replaced by curiosity about you.
Fighting through her anxiety, she approached you in the library the next day.
“What do you think of Jane Austin?” Bella immediate winced at her bluntness as you turned to her in suprise.
But, thankfully, you didn’t comment on that. “Umm, I only got halfway through Sense & Sensibility. So I can’t really say.”
She was a little crestfallen. “You didn’t like that one either?”
“No, I liked it. But I got really busy, and it was a library book. So I had to hand it in before it got due.
“Oh.” Bella had no idea why she was relieved that you liked that book. “You can borrow mine, if you want? I can… drop it off at your place. Tomorrow, maybe?”
While you didn’t quite know why she cared so much about it, you agreed. It was the weekend, and your parents were busy. So there was no problem about Bella stopping by.
Well, no problems except the rain. But for some reason she turned up anyway.
“You could have stayed home. I would’ve understood.” You chuckled helping her out of her jacket.
“I know.” She gratefully took the towel you handed her, giving you the book she had been hiding from the rain under her jacket. “I just… It’s a bit of rain.”
You knew she was lying, it was obvious from the way she looked outside that she wasn’t happy about the storm. You supposed there wasn’t much rain in Arizona. “Okay, well. How about you hang out here until the weather gets a bit better. I can turn on the movie?”
“The movie?”
“You know.” You held up her copy of Sense & Sensibility, obviously meaning that.
“Oh… sure.” She blushed a little. “Can I just call my dad first? Let him know I’m at a friend’s place?”
When Bella returned from the phone, the two of you curled up on the couch. Her eyes were focused on the movie, giving you a chance to look at her properly.
The two of you got much closer after that. When Cullen returned to bio class from wherever he had been, he saw that Bella had already moved to a back table with you
That family moved away soon after that, not telling anyone about it. You weren’t surprised, they had always been weirdos.
When you finally admitted your feeling for her, it was definitely awkward. And for a long moment, you were sure that she didn’t feel the same.
But to your relief, she did. She kissed you gently, like she was afraid of hurting you. Or of you disappearing on her.
So many things in her life were uncertain, with Bella always being the one to make other people lives easier.
But she didn’t have to do that with you.
Most dates included movie nights are your house, cuddling under a blanket.
You’d listen to her talk about the books and songs she liked, just like she would do for you. Bella usually wasn’t comfortable with questions and attention. But she liked knowing you were interested in what she had to say.
Charlie took it pretty well when Bella told him, as you had already been around their house a lot. He was a little surprised, but already liked you. He knew you cared about his daughter.
She normally liked to avoid school dances and stuff, but if you wanted to do it she would go just for you. Letting you pick her outfit, watching you dance with your friends while looking all nice.
When it came to Jacob, he was a little defensive around you at first. Still having a crush on Bella.
And at one point you had to shut that down, telling him that if he really cared about her he would grow up and let them just be friends.
He accepted your relationship after that, becoming your friend as well. In fact, once he got over Bella and found a girlfriend of his own, you four would do double dates sometimes.
You and Bella were a steady couple. You knew she had a hard time letting people look after her or letting herself be happy. But you reassured her that you were on her side.
She was so grateful that you had spoken to her all those months ago.
You guys planned your future. Neither of you wanted to get married too early, letting things happen naturally. But you guys went to Arizona for university, with Bella wanting to be an English teacher
Her mother loved you, just like her dad did. Both of them seeing how much happier Bella was now that you two were together.
Your future apartment was cozy. Filled with her books, maybe a pet, and all of your love for each other.
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