#but god really let some kids use the magic stones and then tried to give their job to Anne lmao
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POV god tried to make you an unpaid intern right after you fought in a war (and won)
#my art#amphibia s3#amphibia fanart#amphibia#fanart#love them sm#this is a joke#but god really let some kids use the magic stones and then tried to give their job to Anne lmao#pls let them sleep
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I posted 22,731 times in 2022
That's 2,656 more posts than 2021!
285 posts created (1%)
22,446 posts reblogged (99%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@kydrakinetic
@draal-the-deadly
@theminecraftbee
@talesofarcadiaforever
@pacificwaternymph
I tagged 3,073 of my posts in 2022
#the arson human talks shit - 130 posts
#favourite - 126 posts
#ask game - 116 posts
#ask games - 116 posts
#thanks for the ask! - 74 posts
#gods and hunters - 47 posts
#writing tips - 43 posts
#tales of arcadia - 38 posts
#yes - 32 posts
#:) - 31 posts
Longest Tag: 139 characters
#'don't let her see your power in the daylight' could be a reference to the trollhunter amulet and sword of daylight and how jim needs to hi
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
Sometimes a family isn't a mom, dad, 2.5 children, and a white picket fence. Sometimes it's:
- A near 1000 year old punk wizard boy who needs a hug.
- A very sarcastic talking cat with poor eyesight.
- A plant goddess.
- An Akaridion warrior queen.
- Her little brother, who gives off pure aroace vibes and can build a mind reader in 2 hours.
- A short gremlin king with a very large conspiracy board.
- A dude who's a fan of hard rock, and has a warhammer.
- A very sassy blue child who needs 10 years of therapy.
- The troll history teacher that tried to kill the sassy blue child 10x over. He's also dating the sassy blue child's mother. Troll dad #2 of sassy blue child.
- The Mother Of The Sassy Blue child. Who for some reason didn't think that something was seriously up with her kid. (Plot Armour.)
- A guy who was there for comedy relief, but somehow got a bully redemption arc.
- Purple punk child who got posessed by former evil sorcerer lady once.
- Troll dad #1 of sassy blue child, he likes reading and burning books.
- A Troll covered in moss, he's the wingman and a former pacifist.
- Former evil sorcerer lady with a similar aesthetic to a Marvel Norse God, but actually had a point.
- Adoptive dad of punk wizard boy. Who says he doesn't care that much. But he cares A LOT.
279 notes - Posted January 5, 2022
#4
It's time for some Empires Propaganda...
Come watch Empires SMP Season 2! We have the following:
A little scrunkly goblin man who lives in caves and likes pickles and scams
A catwoman that actively commits crimes against humanity A totally normal human. Yep absolutely a human
A Princess in a pretty pink tutu that will fight entire monster armies (it's secret though hush)
The Sheriff who's definitely not a toy
The witch that got expelled from the academy for destroying reality as we know it
The Dungeon Master who keeps his dubious amounts of smooth stone inside a tomb
A 5ft 11ft god complex personified whose obsessions include dirty jokes, gold, and the word 'Lore'
A reality traveler who decides that trusting nobody and stealing clothes off of corpses is the best chance at survival
The self-appointed princess who decides to trust the little blue lights leading her into the dark cave is a smart idea to get a kingdom banner.
The hardwood seller, whose adoptive father is part rabbit and whose idea of father-son bonding is animal slaughter
Heterochromia but through nefarious skull means. And he's not straight
Pirate who asks nicely first before stealing any of your belongings
The one-night stand of a child who consistently has to deal with both of his 'daddy's' excessively worse-by-day dirty jokes
286 notes - Posted August 2, 2022
#3
"If your wondering why I use he/him pronouns for the allays, I just think of them as himbos"
Thanks, Pixl for this new mental image /pos
289 notes - Posted August 4, 2022
#2
Despite TOA being done, I am creating propaganda...
Come Watch Tales Of Arcadia! We Have The Following:
A magic amulet, which gives you really cool silver armour and a death sentence!
Cheeky Wizards x4
Murder board created by a small teen who has the ability to 'Tokyo Drift' a car
A literal hacker/Queen of an entire planet
Crispy
Jim Lake Jr, one of the best animated TV protags I've ever seen.
A hellfire of a movie
Magic Siblings :)
A dog who pisses explosions
MMMMMMMM GLORY
*enters Janus Order* *two aliens are playing techno music* *bones are everywhere* TEEN CENTER!!!!!
Getting possessed by eldritch wizards intent on destroying the world is completely normal.... IT'S FINE.
Strangely specific threats.
Really cool CGI animation.
"bUT A GnoMe IN A DOLLHOUSE??"
an insane amount of AUs
Haha what is this sadness? Why is everyone dying? *Play's STARSET's Unbecoming*
I suggest looking up the definition of 'Moppet'
The entirety of the word 'Buttsnack' being used so casually
"SHUT UP STEVE"
The Goblin Revolution
Jim Lake Jr, one second being the definition of a sweetheart. Two minutes later, "Hey Strickler. *spits in his mouth*"
The Breakfast Reckless Club
Steve's screams.
Troll Jim.
Toby being the bestest friend you could ever ask for
The murder of a highschool principal.
Assassins and Bounty Hunters galore.
See the full post
346 notes - Posted February 7, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
The defining traits of humanity are NOT sex, romance, and empathy.
The defining traits of humanity are our creativity, adaptability, and our boundless amounts of hubris.
As well as arson.
1,730 notes - Posted June 16, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review ��
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Hawkmoth was a bitch, and Marinette meant that with every fiber of her soul. Fu was also a bitch, and Marinette actually had good memories of the guy. Not many, but she had some. The fact that the guy got two ten-year-olds to become super heroes and fight a supervillain for him kinda soured those memories, though. But with Chat Noir not allowed to leave his house? Yeah, even as young as they were it only took about a year to find out who HawkMoth was and another year to take him down.
Except, that left Marinette alone. The final battle took her mom away, and Chat had to move out of Paris after his dad was arrested. Luckily Jagged allowed her and her papa to move into his house in Gotham, and everything was…
Well, it was okay. For about a month.
Then her dad was gone too, and she had no way to talk to Jagged, and the police were scaring her—
Yeah, that was the basic order of events that led to where she was now. Pushing fourteen years old, ex-superhero, protector of a magical box of gods, stealing the tires off of a very nice motorcycle.
Marinette was tempted to just take the whole thing, she loved bikes and knew she could drive it. But the thing had more security than she knew what to do with, and the fact that it belonged to Red Hood… she didn’t want to deal with trackers today, thanks. So the tires it was.
Should she maybe care more about the fact that she was stealing from a vigilante with a violent streak? Maybe. Did she? Hell no. For all she knew, maybe Red Hood was a bitch too. (Yes, she was still learning English slang. She was fluent by educational standards, but learning how to curse in a foreign language was fun and she still had a little bit to go. Her few street friends were very happy to help).
A shadow dropped down in front of her, and Marinette’s hero instincts kicked in. The tire iron she was using cut through the air, slamming right into the side of Red Hood’s knee.
—*—*—*—*—*
“Hood,” Batman’s voice grumbled over the comms, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone else who was on the comms. It wasn’t as gruff as he usually sounded, in fact it almost sounded like… he was trying not to laugh?
“Did you get gassed by Joker?” Dick asked before Jason got a chance to respond. “Need backup?”
“No,” Batman responded, sounding a little more composed. “Not a rogue. But Hood, I need you to join me at my location as soon as possible.”
Finally getting the chance to talk, Jason responded a little warily; “Sure, B. Wait,” he blinked at the location that was sent to him. “Isn’t that where my bike is parked?”
Batman didn’t respond at first, only the sound of labored breathing— again, as if he was trying not to laugh. “Just get here, Hood.”
Sighing, but not too mad since the night had been fairly quiet so far, Jason decided to humor the old man and head over. When he could see the cape-clad back of Batman, he easily leapt over the last roof and sauntered over.
“Okay, B,” he had his thumbs tucked in his pockets as he drawled. “What’s the issue?”
Batman was grinning. As in, actually showing amusement. And he just pointed down, straight at Hood’s bike.
Jason rolled his eyes under his helmet, turning to look. At first he didn’t see anything amiss, until he saw movement and looked harder. Oh. Oh, holy shit.
“Is that a kid?”
“Yep,” Batman’s grin grew.
“Is she… stealing my tires?” Hood was so, so glad he wore a helmet that hid his expression. Because… wow.
“Yep,” Batman finally lost his composure, chuckling. “This seems like Karma, don’t you think?”
“And you just watched her so you could rub it in,” Jason groaned, throwing his head back in exasperation. Of course he would. Nobody knew it (except the other heroes who knew him) but Batman was a petty little jerk when he wanted to be. He bought the whole Daily Planet just to spite Clark, for crying out loud.
“Don’t adopt her,” Batman said as he stood up, patting Red Hood’s shoulder. “It looks like she’s almost done.”
“Shit,” Jason hissed, looking down to see that she was, actually, very close to being done. She had already had one tire completely free by the time he had arrived, and now she was only seconds away from getting the other one completely free.
He took a quick assessment— she was tiny, and really thin. Definitely a street kid, he thought, though he didn’t recognize her. He knew most of the street kids that stole to get by, nowadays, which meant she must have been fairly new. But even though she seemed to know what she was doing, her small frame made her take longer unscrewing the tires than it normally would have taken. Sure that she wasn’t a threat by any stretch of the imagination, he jumped down. His plan had been to startle her a little by showing up out of nowhere, but he didn’t want to scare her too badly. Just make her jump a little.
But he had underestimated her, it seemed. Without wasting a second, she jumped up and swung her tire iron at his knee. He cursed, she was a lot faster than her had been expecting. He was able to move so that the weapon only clipped the side of his knee, his knee pad thankfully taking the worst of it. She still hit hard enough to make him stumble and hiss in pain though, which was an accomplishment.
That’s when she abandoned her weapon and her tires, darting to try and escape only for Batman to drop down and block her escape. Though really, it was the grin Batman had that scared the girl most of all, apparently, making her slowly back away from him.
“Please stop smiling,” she begged with a faint French accent to her words. “It is not natural.”
That made Red Hood laugh, already recovered and right behind her. He plopped a gloved hand on her head.
“I know, it’s creepy right?” He joked. “What’cha doin’ stealing my tires, kid? I kinda need them to drive anywhere,” he was careful to keep his voice light and devoid of any anger. He wasn’t really upset, all told. It would be hypocritical of him if he was.
She looked between the two vigilantes for a moment, clear intelligence behind those bright blue eyes as she seemed to consider something. Suddenly she pulled away from Red Hood and stepped away from his reach, straightening up and trying to look tall.
“My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she said as firmly as she could. “My father was Tom Dupain, he was killed in a mugging three months ago. We were living in a house that our family friend leant to us after my mother’s death six months ago, and we moved here from Paris. I haven’t been able to contact him, and the police… I don’t trust them,” she admitted, clearly seeing this as the chance she had been waiting for. “I have been living on the streets since my father died. I am sorry for trying to steal your tires, Monsieur Red Hood. But it was a risk I had to take.”
“Did you expect us to catch you?” He asked, crossing his arms as he re-evaluated the girl. She was a lot stronger than he had assumed earlier, both physically and mentally. She seesawed her hand to indicate ‘kinda’.
“Even if you didn’t, I could make good money off your tires,” she justified with a shrug. “To me, I would win either way.”
“Who is your family friend? Can he help you now, take you in?” Batman asked, moving forward and kneeling down to be closer to Marinette’s height. Neither he nor Jason had missed the part where she was an orphan, but they had expected that considering what they had caught her doing. And they both knew that she wasn’t likely to take any apologies they tried to offer very well. It was best not to show pity, or she might get angry.
Marinette frowned. “... Our family friend is Jagged Stone. He lets me call him Uncle Jagged,” she told them, clearly expecting the disbelieving grunts they gave. “I mean it! You can call him, he might even be looking for me! I—“
“We know,” Hood assured her, now kneeling down as well. Man, she was short. “Calm down, we know you’re telling the truth. Jagged has made several public announcements about his missing honorary niece, we just didn’t recognize your name right away. And Jagged doesn’t have access to very many pictures of you, those he does have the Mayor isn’t allowing him to show because that spineless jackass—“
“Language, Hood.”
“—Cares more about keeping bad press off the air than finding a kid, even if it’s a world famous rockstar who’s asking. That’s probably why you haven’t heard anything, the mayor’s keeping it off the radio and not many reporters are brave enough to take the story and get on his bad side.”
“Oh…” Marinette took a deep breath, fighting the tears that were threatening to rise up. “He has been looking…” she sniffled, curling in on herself a little. “Can you take me to him?”
“I think we can do that,” Batman agreed, standing up. “I’ll contact him. Red Hood, can you handle everything here until I give you a place to meet up with Jagged Stone?”
Jason nodded. “No problem, B. Come on, little rabid pixie. Step one of gettin’ you back to your uncle is to help me fix my bike back up.”
Marinette sighed, shoulders dropping. “All my hard work, undone…” she playfully complained. But in the end she didn’t argue or fight against it, she just sat down and helped him reattach his tires.
All the while, Jason’s family kept teasing him over the comms. Clearly they were also thoroughly amused by the cosmic display of karma.
“...Monsieur Hood,” Marinette asked once they were done repairing the motorcycle and he had given her his too-big extra helmet. He tilted his head a bit to show he was listening. She squirmed. “Can… can we stop by my hideout? I have something really important I have to get.”
Jason smiles gently under his mask. She might not have been a street kid for very long, but she really did bring back some memories for him. He got on his bike and held a hand out to her.
“Sure thing kid. Wanna grab something to eat after? Can’t have a reunion on an empty stomach.”
She gave him a lopsided smile— not quite overjoyed, but definitely hopeful and thankful. Maybe this was the end of her streak of bad luck, she could only hope.
“Only if you don’t mind, Monsieur Hood,” she agreed before taking his hand and letting him help her onto the bike.
“No skin off my back, pixie,” he assured her. Then they were off. He followed her directions until they got to an abandoned building about three miles away, not in a good part of town at all but at least not in crime alley. Marinette easily led him through the building, skirting around other piles of ratty blankets and up broken stairs until they got to the badly-maintained top floor. She led him over to an almost invisible door in the concrete wall that pulled out to reveal what was probably a broom closet once upon a time. It was crowded with what looked like junk and empty boxes, along with a few blankets and two or three changes of clothes that were clearly her’s. A few belongings scattered around— a book, a small pink purse, and… Marinette came out of the pile of mess holding what had clearly been a very carefully hidden box. She also grabbed the purse and slung it over her shoulder, but didn’t seem worried about anything else.
Jason frowned at the box. It wasn’t that big, but it was clearly made of old wood. There were intricate carvings that were painted pink, in a symbol that was itching at the back of his mind. He recognized that symbol, but from where?
“Ready to go, kid?” He asked as he thought about it, getting a nod from Marinette. Twenty minutes later they were at a Batburger, sitting in a shaded booth that couldn’t be seen from the street.
She never let the box out of her sight. She kept it on the seat next to her, and Jason noticed that she tried to keep one hand on it at all times. But when she spoke, now her French accent stood out to him even more than before. But why—?
And then it clicked. Paris. Hawkmoth. Ladybug, Chat Noir, magic artifacts called Miraculous. Wonder Woman had raised a fuss when the heroes disappeared, declaring that something was wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Then the magic users they trusted were called in, and returned from Paris with the grim news that the former Guardian of those artifacts had activated a failsafe and passed the guardianship on to someone else while erasing his own memories at the same time. But nobody knew who he could have passed it on to, so Batman had been given the green light to do all the research he and his team could into the Miraculous box to try and help track it down.
And here it was. The carvings were in pink now, which might have been the “cosmetic change” that Constantine had mentioned might happen when the box changed guardians. He had found the box full of super powerful magical artifacts… in the hands of a newly orphaned street kid who couldn’t have been older than fourteen at best.
What the hell?
“...” Red hood reached into his pocket and pulled out an old receipt and a sharpie. He scrawled on the back of the receipt and handed to Marinette. The girl was halfway into a bite of her burger when he did, and blinked at him owlishly before swallowing and cautiously reaching out to grab it. She frowned at the numbers scrawled there.
“What’s this?” She asked.
“My contact info,” he explained. “I won’t ask questions about why you have that box,” he watched her instantly stiffen but continued as casually as he could; “but it doesn’t matter. You can call me if you ever need help with anything, kid. Help with that box, help if you get in trouble in Gotham again, or even if you’re having a bad day. You can call me for whatever, got it? I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, if you can’t talk to anyone else in your life you can always call or text me and I’ll do whatever I can. Got it?”
“...” Marinette sniffled for a second and looked down at the table in silence for a second. “... what if I want your motorcycle?” she joked, but the watery tone of her voice gave her away.
Jason laughed, patting her head. “I need my bike, but we can talk about getting you your own once you are old enough to get a license. You almost done? Bats says that Jagged is ready to meet you, I can take you to him right now.”
“Yeah, lets go!” she was newly energized and shoved the last bite of burger into her mouth greedily. “And Red Hood?” She asked as they headed out to where he had parked.
“Yeah, kid?”
“Thanks.”
—*—*—*—*—*
Permanent tag list (I remembered it this time!)
@rosalineandrosemary @neakco @justanotherfanficlovinbitch @trippingovermyfeet @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @bigpicklebananatree @fantasylover-92 @prongs-flowers @jumpingjoy82 @prettylittlebutterflie @queenz-z @literaryhiraeth @waffelyunsure @deathssilentapproach-blog @waiting247 @theirlmikan @unoriginalmess
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Accidental Crime Boss Marinette
Okay so,, I have this AU in my head, right? (not surprised) and I’m lacking any real direction for it (still not surprised) but it basically goes like this:
Marinette moves to Gotham.
She’s drawn there for whatever reason and the kwami are saying something about balance and being a Guardian and her sacred duty and something but Marinette isn’t really listening. She’s too busy trying to find a shop front where she can open a bakery without having to worry about getting mugged every time she steps outside.
Chloé comes with her, obviously, because they’re friends and Chloé has a business degree she puts to good use actually running Mari’s bakery and online boutique while Mari gets to bake and fuck around basically. Adrien, Luka and Kagami are not there, but that’s mostly because they travel too much to settle down and keeping an empty apartment in Gotham is just asking for trouble.
Kagami is a world-renowned fencer and Luka travels the world for his music company. Not touring, but soaking up cultures and ways of life so he can make soundtracks to movies and tv shows. Providing the background and life to a film is more his style than touring the world ala his father, Jagged Stone.
Adrien is having the time of his life being Kagami’s trophy husband. He has no pressing responsibilities he doesn’t take on for himself and he gets to fuck with the world’s elite with little to no consequences. He spends most of his days donating far too much money to charities and orphanages and then causing minor scandals that land him on the cover of magazines.
He has much the same kind of ‘dumbass with a heart of gold’ persona to the media as Bruce Wayne does, only without the playboy bits.
(There is a wall in the back of the bakery, where Chloé and Mari carefully cut out and frame every headline and ridiculous picture Adrien has. He is very much delighted when he learns about his ‘wall of fame’.)
Anyway, Marinette finds herself with a bakery not overly far from crime alley, much to Chloé’s chagrin.
(“What do you mean it ‘just felt right’?! I swear to kwami, DC, you’re going to get us robbed and sold into slavery.”)
They do not get sold into salvery.
In fact, despite their less than stellar choice of locale, they do pretty well for themselves. The only problems they have (according to Chloé) is the army of children Marinette accidentally attracted.
When asked, Marinette tells everyone that it was an accident. Meanwhile, Chloé, standing behind her, will shake her head and insist there was literally never any other option for them the moment that first kid came in looking to nab some cash and a few pastries.
Mari lives by the phrases, ‘kindness breeds more kindness’ and ‘do unto others’ and all that other nice person shit. Chloé just lets Mari pseudo-adopt her strays and makes sure that they don’t steal anything too important in the time it takes her to gain their loyalty.
The kwami stay staunchly out of any arguments involving the kids (and eventually the homeless all along their street and every working girl in a five-block radius). They do so with a special brand of amusement that never means good things for either of them. (After all, the last time the kwami looked that amused, they moved to Gotham.)
The first kid is named Serrure, as Marinette comes to learn over the next month after he returns again and again, getting closer and closer like a feral cat. Other kids come during that time, all of them too small and too thin and too guarded for Mari's tastes. She wants to wrap them all up and tuck them into bed but she can’t. She has to be patient, has to be gentle. These kids are just as likely to bite her hand as they are to accept help.
Serrure becomes an almost permanent fixture at the bakery after that first month. Mari’s not quite sure what she did to get through to him, but she did, she supposes. He can’t be much older than eleven and looks nine, but after getting settled, she and Chloé discover this little slip of a boy is just as mischievous as Trixx and has all the dramatics of their favorite black cat.
The kwami, when talking about him, only refer to Serrure as Loki, even after Marinette scolds them for it. She eventually gives up trying to correct them, it’s not like Serrure talks to them anyway(yet)((that she knows of)).
There’s an apartment above the bakery, which is where Chloé and Mari and all her strays that grow to trust her enough live. It’s three bedrooms, and at first, Mari just buys as many bunk beds as she can fit into the spare room and calls it a day. The kids feel safe in her home, which isn’t too surprising. Everyone thinks the bakery feels safe, feels like home or comfort or whatever else eases their minds.
And Marinette should hopes so. She certainly put enough time and effort and magic and energy into the wards around this place for that to happen. To protect her and the children and all her strays that no one else will help.
But, she eventually amasses too many kids to fit into the one room. Chloé throws a fit about having to share with Mari again—“I had enough of that in university thank you very much”—but she relinquishes easily enough.
Mari buys more bunk beds, and Serrure has taken to sneaking into her room to curl up in her bed anyway, and sometimes the smaller kids who have nightmares will come in and pile on as well.
(There are only a few that Chloé will allow to do the same with her. It is considered a high honor and breeds a playful kind of jealousy that Chloé finds amusing. Mari scolds her for pitting the kids against each other.)
That only lasts them another two months.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Chloé tells her one day before the kids wake up. Mari is at the stove, cooking and baking for a small army while Chloé balances the books. “There’s not enough room for us all, DC, and the only reason someone hasn’t come barrelling down on us about the abundance of children is by the grace of your absurd amount of luck.”
“Well I can’t just kick them out, Queenie! What do you want from me?”
“Either we need to buy more real estate in this city—which I’d rather not do—or you open up the grimoire and start building pocket dimensions. I know you can. I’ve read the chapter.”
Marinette looks at her. “That is such a bad idea.”
They do the idea.
And then Mari adds about a thousand more wards to the bakery, carved into the wood and counter and anything that’s a permanent fixture. Doorways become particularly ward heavy, what with them being the entrances and exits to the hidden realms and children’s’ rooms.
The apartment above the bakery isn’t quite infinite but it gets pretty damn close some days.
This also means, of course, that all the kids definitely know about magic now. Some of them—Serrure—have known about it for a while she knows, but it’s different now. The kwami followed her around most of the time and she doesn’t keep them trapped in the Miracle Box like Fu did, but now that the kids know, they don’t bother staying hidden.
The children, at least, love them and the kwami adore them with all the ferocity a god can give. After Chloé gets over her ‘ew children’ phase, she throws herself into their education (on top of actually running the businesses Mari keeps, mind you). She has the help of the kwami, who act as personal tutors to the children, and it’s not long before the kids start to joke about her being the Principal.
(Some tried to call her Warden, but that joke didn’t last long.)
Marinette has also been telling the kids bedtime stories ever since this started. Old stories of the Guardian and Chosens who fought back the darkness, she shares all she knows of the Orders history with these kids and it’s not until Wayzz points it out to her does she realize what she’s doing.
“Ladybugs are known for renewal. It is no surprise that you are rebuilding what was lost.”
Rebuilding the Order using children was certainly not her intention but, well. She supposes there’s no place safer for her kids than what is shaping up to be the new Miracle Temple. It’s the only haven where they can learn to harness their Gifts and powers, it’s the only place where they can be surrounded by others like them without being thrust into superhero-dom.
Context: about a month into this whole circus, Marinette had realized there was a significant—almost all of them really—amount of metas and Gifted in her little hoard of strays. Which is… odd. Especially with how few metas there are in Gotham.
She had asked the kwami about it, and they have that amused look again. “You are their guardian.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re their guardian. True, you are the Guardian of us, of the ancient ways, but you are a guardian at your soul too. You protect what is yours, and they are yours whether you realise it or not. The children can sense that, so they flock to you.”
And, huh. She supposes that makes sense but that’s also really kind of strange and weird and she doesn't want to think about that anymore actually.
So things are… fine, Marinette supposes. The bakery is doing well, and she has about two dozen-plus helpers running around underfoot to help tend to the customers or run to the store or help in the back with the baking. And every kid of hers has new clothes, their street things thrown out for being too ragged and replaced with something fresh made by Marinette’s own hands.
She embroiders little fairy wings into the clothes normally, because that’s what her cloaked wards look like most times and the kids like it and its technically the logo for the bakery and there’s a million reasons she does it.
It is, perhaps, her first mistake.
(“It was certainly not your first,” Chloé will snark one dayin the future.)
Because now Marinette has an army of magical children learning to wield their powers and not fear them and they’re all wearing what can be considered her insignia and uh oh, it looks a lot like Mari is some sort of up and coming mob boss who uses kids and prostitutes and the homeless as runners. People on the street start calling her the Pixie, start referring to Chloé—her second in all things just as Chat had been her equal—as Wasp, as Yellowjacket, as the Unseelie.
(They cannot seem to pick a name for her, but Pixie is all but engraved in stone. Mari is not sure who coined it, and she doesn't think she wants to know.)
The first time the whole situation is brought to her attention, she punches the idiot who dared even imply such a thing so hard she knocks him out.
Because look. The kids are hers right? And she watches out for the people near her, makes sure the working girls are treated as well as they can be and offers the homeless extra food and a dry place to wait out the storm. She offers her hand and gives them all a place to rest, to eat, to exist without expectations or consequences.
She does that because she’s kind, because it hurts her to see people in need, to see them suffer, not because she’s hoping to gain something from it.
The fact that most of them repay her in gossip or information or bend her ear about the newest goings on in the corrupt elite or filthy underworld is strange, yes, but it’s nice to know what’s going on in the city, she supposes. And one time, Kathy, who works on the corner of Brookes and Gilmore, warned her of a drug raid that saved her an unnecessary trip to the police station so it’s not like it doesn't have it’s uses.
But mostly, Mari doesn't really think about all the information that’s unintentionally or otherwise passed onto her. She remembers it all, because it’s rude not to listen when people talk to her, but nothing comes of normally.
Not until Serrure—now twelve and well versed in the magic of illusions and glamors and knows almost as much about this city as her or the Bats—bursts into the bakery one day and grabs Mari away from the front counter right in the middle of a customer ordering. She should, perhaps, be a little angry at that but Tony, one of the older boys and just shy of sixteen, steps into her place almost immediately, so.
And then Serrure speaks and everything is pushed aside in favour of the next words to fall from his lips.
“Someone took Sophie,” he says and she nearly sees red.
After Serrure, Sophie has been here the longest. She is the youngest of them all, only seven, but oh so clever and kind and while she looks nothing like her, everyone calls her Mini-Mari. If Serrure is her beloved first son, Sophie is her treasured daughter.
She’s out the door in the next moment, storming her way to their base. She has Sophie and a handful of extra kids back by sunset, a little frightened, but no worse for wear. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it, besides making sure that the idiots who dared cross her never do so again, but word gets out.
Soon, her kids and teens and adults begin giving her more than just information, they begin giving her problems. Ones she’s meant to fix because she’s Pixie. She’s safety, she’s protection, she’s the one the people start to turn to for help.
And enter stage left, one Jason Todd who’s all snark and charm and smiles wrapped up in a nice leather bow and tall enough that Mari likely could climb him like a tree. If that was something she wanted, she guesses.
(She wants. She just won’t admit.)
He becomes a regular at the bakery and befriends most of her kids.
Mari’s wary when he first takes an interest in them. They’ve been hurt and a lot of them are still adjusting to being safe and it doesn't matter that this man is hot enough to burn, if he steps even a toe out of line with her kids she’ll make him wish he was never even born.
But, she stops worrying eventually. The kwami like him well enough, but seem to think something’s odd about him—but its Gotham, who isn’t strange?—and both Serrure and Sophie take to him like ducks to water and they’re both good judges of character.
There’s a certain intuition they both have that reminds Marinette just a bit too much about herself and pure magic. Not for the first time does she wonder if they got such strong magic from their parents or if it cropped up in them randomly, fostered by fortune and chance and the magic that’s so deeply seeped into the bones of her bakery it’ll be here long after she’s gone.
And, okay, so she was a little right to be wary because Jason was mostly there to investigate her. Far too many people respect her and are loyal to her and she has a veritable orphanage in her pocket and also Harley and Ivy like her and it just- it doesn’t look good right?
But Jason’s a good detective and it doesn't take him long at all to see that Mari is just as sweet and kind and loving as she appears to be. Not long after that, Red Hood declares Pixie and all of hers, under his protection. She, of course, is more than capable of taking care of her and hers, and the underworld knows this, has seen it, but he does it anyway.
The news, of course, gets back to Mari and she is… confused. Why would the Red Hood do something like that? She’s heard talk of him being sweet on kids, but to claim her? They’ve never even met.
Bonus points for Jason being there when she’s told about it. He kind of raises his eyebrow at her because, huh, that was fast, and then spends the next few minutes talking up the Red Hood to her much to her utter bafflement.
He actually keeps doing that too, talking up the Red Hood. Mari thinks he has a crush on the man for the longest time because of it. Until he reveals he is Red Hood, then she just wants to punch his stupidly handsome face for being such an idiot.
Shit happens from there and things go down and the two spend a couple of months dancing around each other and intentionally and unintentionally ruling the criminal underworld and at one point Marinette definitely punches Bruce and Batman in the face—separately, much to Jason’s unending joy—and she also definitely adopts Duke/Signal as well because that poor boy needs to know he’s not alone.
And it’s just them being domestic and badass and lowkey raising an army of children and falling in love while the kwami and the kids and Chloé are all in the background just yelling at them to get together already!
Which, they do. Eventually. After all the secrets come out and Jason knows about the magic and Order and meets Mari’s other friends, ie Kagami, Luka and Adrien who are all intimidating for wildly different reasons. And Mari finds out that Jason died and came back (which earns him the nickname firebird btw) and that he was a Robin once upon a time but is now Red Hood and oh my kwami it all makes sense now.
Jason confesses like three times via classic Victorian romance novel quotes because he’s a fucking literature nerd but it’s not until he basically spells it out for Mari does she really understand. it’s all very sweet and heartwarming and then the pair duck into one of the empty pocket dimensions they have lying around and aren’t seen for three days.
(No one really goes to look for them tbh)
Chloé definitely teases them about early honeymoons and things but besides the two being even more ridiculously lovey-dovey than usual, life goes back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for them.
And they all live happily ever after the end.
#maribat#jasonette#my typewriter#batfam#crime boss mari#miraculous ladybug#dc#mlb x dc#i was possessed by the need to write this all down#i have so many random ass moments from this au#just scenes taht barely fit together#zero coherency#let me know if yall want that ig#?
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Bird Set Free | Ben Florian x Male Reader
Fandom: Descendants
Pairing: Ben Florian x Male Reader
Summary: A jealous Audrey comes after Ben’s boyfriend.
A/N: Another co write with my amazingly talented friend @inhumanshadows. If you haven’t checked them out what are you waiting for!?
…
Ben had caught your eye the moment you stepped out of the limbo from the isle.
You were one of the first vk's to arrive in Auradon.
At the time Ben was dating Audrey so you didn't think you had any chance.
That changed after the big turney game when he asked you privately if you wanted to go on a date with him.
That shocked you first off because he was a prince/future king and you were a villain kid.
Secondly you were a guy. You hadn't expected Ben to be into guys.
You said yes of course. Who wouldn't want to go on a date with Ben.
The date went great and you enjoyed it.
During the whole coronation debacle, you helped Mal and them stop Maleficent.
Once everyone was unfrozen, Ben pulled you into a kiss in front of everyone.
That was a surprise to everyone, but who was going to challenge the king and his boyfriend who just stopped maleficent? No one that's who.
While Adam was shocked he wasn't disappointed and Belle was really supportive of you two.
Ben's parents were your biggest supporters. "Love is love."
While the kingdom had accepted you two relatively easy, one person did not. Audrey.
You had a feeling Audrey wouldn’t like it.
But you figured she wouldn’t be too mad for long.
At least that’s how it seemed. Especially when she left school for a little “wellness retreat.”
Then the mess with Uma happened.
You knew she spelled Ben and that any actions he made weren’t consciously his own.
The entire cotillion was...intense.
You didn't let Uma use Ben any more than she had.
You quickly pulled Ben in for a kiss and pressed your lips to his.
There was a spark and energy there that you felt every time you kissed.
Pulling back, Ben smiled at you and you could tell it had worked. He wasn't spelled anymore.
Uma and Mal then got into a fight over her spell book.
After everything settled down the two of you enjoyed the rest of your night.
However there was still a part of you that was hurt seeing Ben with someone else even if it wasn't his doing.
Luckily, Ben quickly made sure that YOU were the one for him.
That led to him proposing to you with a promise ring a week later.
...
You said yes to that right away. No way were you letting that pass by you.
Of course, Audrey wasn't happy with that. But who cares, what could she do?
-You didn’t care. You were engaged and had much more pressing matters to attend to.
-Now the whole kingdom was just in your face about really anything and everything.
“when’s the wedding?!”
“How are you adjusting to life as the prince’s boyfriend??”
It was that constantly and it gets old quickly.
So you just focused on Ben and your friends.
Evie insisted on designing yours and Ben’s wedding outfits.
“I mean I won’t tell you no Evie.”
You had to remind everyone that it was only a promise ring and not an actual engagement ring. No one seemed to care.
Honestly with you two, it really was more of an engagement ring.
But that was for another day. Today was Jane's birthday.
Ben had some last minute work to finish so you went ahead of him.
"(M/N)! It's good to see you."
"Ben's on his way. He just had to finish something first. He's sorry for being late."
She waved you off. "No worries."
Then someone you hadn't expected showed up.
Audrey.
She was dressed differently and had maleficent staff.
That wasn't good.
Audrey laid her eyes on you and a wicked smile came over her face.
That REALLY wasn't good.
"Jane, go. Run!"
Jane nods and hightails it out of there.
Audrey starts to sing “Happy birthday” as waves of green smoke wash over the party area, all the guests falling into a cursed sleep.
You brace for an inevitable sleep... but it never comes.
Audrey stands before you, smile on her face.
“A sleeping curse is too good and too easy for you. I have other plans.”
She bangs the bottom of the staff on the ground and you’re surrounded by smoke.
Magic flows over you and when it clears... everything is bigger.
“Well aren’t you a pretty bird...” Audrey says before vanishing.
You run to the edge of the lake and see that she turned you into a raven.
A raven. Of course she turned you into a raven, just like diaval.
Your first instinct is to panic. You're currently a bird when just five seconds ago you were human.
After calming down a bit you realize the next best thing to do is go after Ben.
Ben! If this is what Audrey did to you what would she have done to Ben!?
Without another thought you flap your new wings and try your best to fly.
It's not pretty at first but you figure it out and soon are flying to your future husband.
When you do reach Ben...it's not fun.
Audrey had changed him as well, but instead of a bird he was a beast. Just like his dad.
When you tried talking with him you hoped he would be like how his dad was as a beast...or at least as you had been told.
You figured you'd get to talk with him and figure out a way to stop Audrey.
Ben tried to eat you.
Apparently Audrey's curse made Ben an actual full beast and not just looking like one.
There was only one thing left to do...find help!
Finding help wasn't easy. Everyone was either asleep or turned to stone!
Fairy godmother? Stone. Belle and Adam? Asleep.
Luckily you found Mal and them, along with Uma, Gil and Harry.
Unluckily, they just thought you were a raven.
Harry kept shooing you and threatening to hit you with the hook.
Gil wanted to pet you. So that wasn’t too bad.
And the others either thought you were gross or just a dumb bird.
Gil proves to have the braincell for the group when he suggested giving whatever made Dude the dog talk to you.
Mal did it to “make the conversation change”
"Finally! I've been trying to get your attention forever!"
They all go wide eyed when you're voice comes out of the bird.
"Yes it's me. (M/N). Audrey turned me into a raven and I went to find Ben but she changed him into a beast! You gotta help me save Ben!"
Of course, even though you were a bird, Ben is a king, your boyfriend and a beast right now. You were helping him first.
"Oh and Gil...can you scratch my head again?"
What? It felt good.
Then Jay, Harry, Gil and Carlos went with you to find your boyfriend.
You guys find beast ben and slowly try to get his attention.
He turns and stalks towards you all.
He looks as if he’s about to pounce when Jane pops out of the trees and sprays him with water.
Ben roars and stumbles back rubbing his face. He drops his hands and looks relatively normal.
“What did you hit him with, Jane?” Jay asks.
“Enchanted lake water. Breaks most enchantments. Figured it couldn't hurt.”
You let out a breath you hadn't realized you were holding.
"Oh thank gods. I was so worried babe."
Ben froze in place as he saw you talking.
"(M/N)?"
You flew over and landed on his shoulder.
"Hey Ben. Audrey got to me first. Thanks for not eating me earlier."
Ben would then pet you.
"I'm glad I didn't. That would be awkward...now how do we change you back? Jane?"
"I kind of used the last of the water."
You look Ben up and down and he smiles at you.
“Gotta say Ben, I like the fangs and beard. Could be cleaner but...”
“Oh really?” Ben asks.
That when Harry whistles. “Sorry to break up that tender moment... but we have an angry Audrey to pursue...”
"Right! We'll have to figure something out later. I promise! I'll make sure to get you back" Ben said.
You knew he would. Ben always did.
Returning to Evie's cottage, Uma seemed to be leaving in a mood.
Doug who had been asleep was now awake.
"Wait? How is he awake?"
"True love’s kiss."
You looked at Ben who looked back at you.
"Why didn't we think of that?!" you said.
Ben rubbed the back of his head with a nervous look.
"Sorry."
“it’s alright. Lots happening. We’ll try later. First we deal with Audrey!”
Cue Audrey sealing you all in the cottage.
Then mal and Uma break you guys out with some awesome cooperative magic.
You: “Aww you guys are friends again!”
Mal: “I’ll pluck your feathers...”
“Alright! Geez...”
Then everything with Mal came out.
It made your heart break. Ben,Your boyfriend, your future husband, made a decision with Mal to not bring over any more VK's.
You couldn't believe it. You didn't want to accept it.
"So...you didn't even want to talk to me about this?" You said to him.
"I'm a VK Ben! You're wanting to stop any one else from getting the chance that I did? That's so wrong!"
Now you really wish you had gotten that kiss earlier...cause this love didn't feel true anymore.
Uma, Harry and Gil left...and so did you.
"I need to think."
"(M/N) wait!"
Did you leave on Gil’s shoulder, slumped against him? Yes yes you did.
It was all very confusing and pretty shocking.
While you understood where they were coming from... it... it just hurt.
You all were back at the cottage, checking up on Dizzy and the twins.
You were glad they weren’t awake to hear about all that. They had enough on their plates.
“So what do we do now?” You ask, walking on a table, everyone seated around it.
Uma: “Nothing. Let Mal and Ben figure it out... they don’t deserve our help after that stunt.”
"I can't just sit by Uma. I'm mad...but not let Audrey go kind of mad. If anything I want just a bit of revenge."
Uma smirked at that.
"Good to know there's still a VK in there."
You extended your wings and fake bowed.
Eventually you all began heading back to the isle before Mal stopped you begging you all to help her.
"They were turned to stone. (M/N),Ben was turned to stone."
It didn't matter how hurt you were, you still loved Ben.
Without hesitation you hopped off Gil's shoulder and began flying back.
Arriving back at the cottage you saw them, Evie, Dude,Carlos, Jay and Ben...all statues.
You landed on Ben's out stretched stone arm.
"Oh Ben...What do I do?"
You sat there perched on Ben's arm, looking at his frozen face.
You regretted that the last thing you two did was fight.
Hopefully this would be fixed soon and you can apologize.
As if your wishes were answered. Ben and the rest were unfrozen and the people began waking up.
"Ben! Oh gods you're back! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry about how I left."
"(M/N). No I'm sorry. I should have asked you. I'm sorry I didn't."
With that Ben lifted his arm with you on it up and kissed your head.
In an instant you felt yourself changing and growing and soon you were back to being human.
You smiled and pulled Ben into a tight up.
"Forget waiting. Ben, I have no idea what's going to happen but I know I want to be with you. Let's get married."
He didn't disagree and your promise ring was now that engagement ring.
After making sure everyone was alright after everything that transpired you, Ben and Mal got to talking and came to a unanimous decision.
You all agreed it was time to take the barrier down and stop making the children of villains pay for their parents misdeeds.
You worked with the other VKs to make the process as fair and efficient as possible.
Ben pulled you away for a minute to hug you.
“I know we’re still working on the rest of the VKs but I was thinking we could meet with Evie to talk about wedding stuff?”
“of course... we have a lot to plan... together.”
Evie was excited when you told her.
Ben and you also enjoyed the planning, especially the cake.
Your wedding was going to be amazing.
#descendants#disney's descendants#disneys descendants#descendants ben#descendants ben florian#ben florian#ben florian x male reader#ben florian x male!reader#ben florian x reader
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Taking Chances Ch. 18: Girl’s Night (Heroes/Villains)
AO3
Prev
First
Teleporting back into her room in Gotham, Marinette flops onto her bed. Passing Kaalki sugar cubes and Tikki a cookie, she suppresses the urge to scream into her pillow. She was sick and tired of Hawkmoth. Sick and tired of being the one who has to fix everything. She just wanted one week with no Hawkmoth, no akuma attacks. But no. Of course not. Of course he just had to send out a stupid akuma every single day. Because why not. How’re people supposed to know he’s still being the main villain of Paris if he takes a freaking day off? Once she finds out who he is, she’s going to punch him in his stupid face. A knock on her door pulls her from her plotting ways to get back at Hawkmoth.
“Come in.” She sighs, sitting up and forcing a tired smile on her face.
“Marinette, your father wanted-” Selina starts, pausing as she looks her over. “Come on kitten, we’re having a girls day.” She says. Marinette raises an eyebrow. Sure she’d met Selina before, but they hadn’t really hung out yet.
“What?” She asks.
“You look exhausted and angry, sweetheart. Spending too much time with these boys isn’t going to help. So you’re gonna grab anything you need for an overnight trip and we’re going to go watch movies and eat junk food til we’re sick.” Selina instructs. Marinette grins, jumping up and shoving stuff into her backpack. She puts Kaalki’s glasses into her purse and lets her and Tikki fly in before she turns to Selina.
“Ready!” She says, practically bouncing up and down in excitement. It’d been ages since she’d had a girls day with anyone. She was so ready to just take a break and be silly.
“Well come on then. Harley and Ivy are going to adore you.” Selina says, slinging her arm around Marinette’s shoulders. Somehow, they manage to not see anyone on the way to Selina’s car. Which is weird, but it is a weekday so everyone probably had something to do besides sit around the manor. Pulling away from the manor, Selina flips on the radio, the new Jagged Stone song blasting full volume.
“Nice taste in music.” Marinette says with a wide grin. Selina smirks.
“I have to like the man at least a little, his designer is one of my kids after all.” She says. Marinette smiles, a warm feeling flooding through her. Selina didn’t have to accept her with open arms, she didn’t have to treat her like she was her own daughter. But she did, and Marinette was so thankful for that. Thankful that even so far away from her Maman, she still had a Mom there for her. The two nod along to the music, scream singing the chorus together as the car pulls to a stop in front of an apartment building. Marinette glances at the building, suddenly nervous. Would Harley and Ivy like her? Or would they just tolerate her for Selina.
“Don’t make yourself nervous, sweetheart. Harley and Ivy are two of the sweetest people I know. They’re gonna love you.” Selina says reassuringly, reaching over and squeezing Marinette’s shoulder. Marinette lets out a breath before nodding.
“Okay, let’s go.” She says, grabbing her bag and jumping out of the car. She follows closely behind Selina, not wanting to give anyone the chance to get between them. You could never be too careful in Gotham. They walk into the building and go straight into the elevator, Selina pushing the button and leaning up against the wall while they wait. Marinette bounces on the balls of her feet, excitement and nerves bundling together. The second the elevator stops, Marinette’s out, following Selina down the hall. She pulls out a key, winking at Marinette before turning and unlocking the door.
“Honey, I’m home!” She calls, and Marinette’s jaw drops. The apartment was quite literally covered in plants and vines. They were beautiful. She grins as one of the vines near her leans towards her, a small flower blooming at the end of it.
“And who did you bring with you?” A tall woman with red hair asks, walking into the room. The designer inside of Marinette instantly has a million questions about the woman’s outfit. It seemed to be made entirely of plants, but she could also tell that they were still alive. She had no idea how the woman had managed that, but she guessed that it was something that couldn’t be replicated for someone else.
“I’m Marinette. Nice to meet you!” She says with a wide smile. The woman, who Marinette assumes is Ivy, grins back.
“Nice to meet you, Flower. I see you’ve already made a friend.” She says, gesturing to the vine which was now wrapped around Marinette’s wrist. Marinette giggles.
“Well, I was hoping they liked me and that’s what this was. I have a garden back in Paris, and I’d hate to find out plants actually hate me.” She says. Ivy shakes her head.
“No worries there. They adore you, it’s a little odd if I’m honest.” Ivy says, dodging Selina who tries to flick her.
“Did I hear Selina?” Another voice asks, a short blonde woman walking into the room. Her hair was short and choppy, the small pigtails at the top of her head dyed pink. Marinette grinned at the woman’s outfit- a Gotham Amusement Pier t-shirt, Batman pajama pants, and hot pink fuzzy socks. She wondered if her dad knows that Harley Quinn has Batman pj pants….probably not.
“Yes, with a guest.” Selina says, plopping onto the couch and gesturing over to Marinette, who was still standing by her new vine friend.
“Hi! I’m Marinette, it’s nice to meet you.” She says, smiling and waving with her free hand. Ivy whispers something and the vine squeezes a bit before letting go, letting her move away from the door.
“Well aren’t ya just the cutest!” Harley squeals, running forward and giving her a big hug. “Didjya finally join your boytoy’s adopting habits?” Harley adds, still clutching onto Marinette. Selina snorts.
“No, he beat me to her. But she’s definitely mine, too.” She says, making Marinette’s face turn red. Harley coos at her, ruffling her hair before stepping back.
“So what brings ya here? Get annoyed with Bats already?” Harley asks. Marinette blinks in shock. Harley knows? She thinks about it for a minute, and realizes it just makes sense. They’d been fighting long enough and then he started his relationship with Selina, who was one of Harley’s best friends. It just made sense that Harley (who was extremely smart) would put two and two together.
“No, just thought that Mari could use a girl’s day. She’s been stuck with just the boys for over a week.” Selina explains. Harley gasps.
“The horror!” She says, making Marinette giggle. “Come on pumpkin, I’ve got the comfiest jammies ever. Oooo, and we can paint our nails! Ivy, find the movies, Selina, you’re on snacks. This is gonna be so much fun!” Harley orders, grabbing Marinette’s hand and tugging her along to one of the bedrooms, Selina’s laugh echoing throughout the apartment.
“I did bring pjs, ma’am.” Marinette says, once Harley stops tugging her and starts searching through a drawer.
“Bet that can’t be comfier than the ones I’ve got for ya! And call me Harley kiddo, or Auntie Harley if ya wanna.” She says, looking up from the drawer to smile widely. She looks back and cheers in victory, pulling out a pair of bright red pajama pants. Marinette snorts when she notices the logo all over the pants.
“Really?” She asks, giggling. Harley smirks.
“We’ll have to take a picture of us and send it to your old man. Really get ‘im riled up.” She says. Marinette nods excitedly, taking the Robin pants from Harley. This was gonna be awesome.
---
Bruce sighs, looking at the news report from Paris from earlier. The damned butterflies were hard to track. He was used to figuring out problems quickly, and this one was taking too long for comfort. It wouldn’t bother him as much if it was anywhere else, but it was directly impacting his daughter. She was being hurt daily, and she’d even died and now she was plagued with nightmares. All because of a man with some magic jewelry. God, he hated magic. A knock on the study door stirs him from his thoughts.
“Come in.” He says.
“Hey B, have you seen Mari? I was gonna ask her if she wanted to go get ice cream with me and Little D.” Dick asks, leaning against the door frame, Damian standing next to him with his arms crossed.
“Not since breakfast. There was another akuma attack earlier, but it wasn’t a bad one. She wasn’t injured.” He says, remembering the completely strange battle from earlier. It was some man with pigeons, and apparently this was the 34th time the man had been akumatized over pigeons.
“Did you not check her room after the battle?” Damian asks, eyebrow quirked. Bruce sighs.
“It was the pigeon one again. I assumed that she’d want to take a nap, if anything. She still hasn’t been sleeping well. Tim said she’s awake every morning when he comes up for coffee, whether it’s three or five, she’s up.” Bruce explains, frowning at the thought of his youngest daughter’s sleep habits. He certainly didn’t need another sleep deprived coffee addict like Tim. It wasn’t healthy.
“Well I already checked her room. She wasn’t there.” Dick says, and Bruce frowns, pulling out his phone to send a text to Tim and call Jason. One of them had to have seen her. She never left the house without telling one of the family, unless it was for a battle.
“What.” Jason says gruffly, Bruce is just grateful he answered. Up until a couple of months ago, Jason would have rather thrown his phone in the river than answer one of Bruce’s calls.
“Have you seen Marinette?” He asks, getting straight to the point.
“No? Why? What’s wrong?” Jason asks, and Bruce hears shuffling as Jason rushes around wherever it is he is.
“Nothing. I’ll call you back.” He says, hanging up. He glances down at his texts and notices Tim hasn’t seen her either. He frowns, but doesn’t panic yet. Pulling out his computer, he pulls up the tracker that was on each of his children’s phones. He scans the map, frowning when he sees that her phone is still in the manor. In her room. He stands and swiftly moves past his sons to get to his daughter’s room. He knocks, waiting for an answer. None.
“Marinette?” He calls, knocking again. “I’m opening the door.” He warns, pushing it open. He frowns at the empty room, nothing appearing out of place.
“Do you think she had to pop back to Paris for something?” Dick asks, coming up behind him. Bruce shakes his head.
“No, she would have told us. Suit up, she has to be somewhere in-” He stops as his phone chimes. He looks at it and feels all of the tension leave his shoulders.
Took our youngest daughter for a girl’s day, back tomorrow XO. Of course Selina had her.
“She’s with the Sirens. She’ll be back tomorrow.” Bruce says, suppressing a smile at the annoyed look on his youngest’s face. She was safe, and that’s what matters. Even if he was certain he’d have to listen to Damian complain for the entirety of patrol.
---
“Make all the boy moose go WAAAAAAAAA!” Harley says with the movie, laughing loudly. Marinette chuckles, passing Tikki a cookie in her purse before sticking another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth.
“I still like the first one more.” Selina says, taking a sip of her wine. Harley sticks her tongue out at her before turning her attention back to the movie.
“Do you think Mia is secretly a superhero?” Marinette asks, frowning in thought.
“What on earth are you talking about?” Ivy asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Even Harley pauses the movie to turn and stare at her.
“Stan Lee.” Marinette says with a shrug.
“Is that s’posed to mean something to me, kid? Cause I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” Harley says, obviously confused. Marinette huffs.
“Stan Lee makes a cameo in this movie. And Stan Lee is the creator of Marvel, right? He’s made a cameo in like, every single Marvel movie. So is Mia secretly a superhero? Is that why he’s in the movie?” Marinette rambles, almost flinging ice cream at Selina as she gestures crazily.
“Sweetie, how much sleep have you had in the past three days?” Selina asks after a few moments of silence.
“Not important. Is Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, Princess of Genovia, also a superhero? Does she secretly work for SHIELD? Or is she more like Iron Man, like a freelance superhero? Was she a hero in San Francisco too? Or did she take over a hero's mantle when she moved to Genovia? Cause she was really clumsy in the first movie and also super awkward, but now she’s less clumsy and she seems to be more put together, but are heroes really put together? I don’t think so. I think sometimes heroes pretend that they’re put together to make everyone else feel better when in all reality they’re seconds away from a breakdown themselves. Is Stan Lee coming to recruit her for SHIELD? Is that why he’s in Genovia? Does SHIELD have any jurisdiction there? Is there a Genovian branch of SHIELD?” Marinette rambles, suddenly stuck on the topic. Seriously, why is Stan Lee in Princess Diaries 2 if Mia isn’t a hero? Why would he-
“Kitten, take a breath.” Selina says, her hands on Marinette’s shoulders helping her to ground herself. Marinette takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She blinks a few times, instantly feeling bad.
“I’m so sorry.” She says, frowning.
“What for?” Harley asks, looking confused.
“For ruining girl’s night.” She says quietly. Selina pulls her into a tight hug and Marinette sinks into it.
“Sweetheart, you didn’t ruin anything. I don’t know everything that’s going on. But what I do know, is that you rambling out a conspiracy theory about the movie we’re watching is not ruining girl’s night. Trust me. One time, we invited your brother Dick, and he ate all of the cookies by himself.” Selina says, Marinette snorts. Of course he did. “Now that’s a way to ruin girl’s night.” She adds, squeezing her once more before leaning back.
“Let's watch something that we can just get lost in and not have to think at all.” Ivy suggests, looking through the stack of dvd’s. Marinette glances over, eyes instantly catching one of her favorite movies.
“Legally Blonde?” She suggests, Harley squeals.
“That’s it, you’re officially ours. Brucie can fight me.” She says, putting in the dvd. Marinette laughs, laying her head on Selina’s shoulder, grabbing a handful of popcorn. She could get used to nights like these.
Next Chapter
Bonus chapter: Harley Vs Bruce
Drawing of Harley and Mari’s pajamas
Tag list: @maribat-bdbwm @vixen-uchiha @stainedglassm @liquid-luck-00 @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @toodaloo-kangaroo @ritacrow-blog @deathssilentapproach-blog @kittenmywaythrulife @nerd-nowandforever @tazanna-blythe @jaybird-and-co @jumpingjoy82
#maribat#maribat bruce wayne#maribat marinette dupain cheng#maribat bio dad! bruce wayne month 2021#maribat bio dad bruce#maribat bio dad au#maribat jason todd#maribat dick grayson#maribat damian wayne#maribat tim drake#maribat selina kyle#maribat sirens#maribat harley quinn#maribat ivy isley#platonic dickinette#platonic jasonette#platonic timari#platonic daminette#day eighteen heroes/villains#mbdbwm2021#maribat fic#maribat fanfiction#ao3fic#fanfiction#crossover
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I spent a month reading harry potter fanfics and here’s what I learned
So for the past three and a half weeks, I’ve been doing basically nothing but reading Harry Potter fanfics and now I kind of just want to talk about them. No one cares but future me will! I tend to get caught in obsessions fairly easily (for instance, two months ago was comic books and last month was video editing and then k dramas). I’m feeling like my Harry Potter obsession is fading which makes me really sad cause it was a fun ride. I went from Drarry to Hinny, time travel to alternate realities, obscuris Harry to Dark!Harry, MCU AUs to Doctor Who AUs. I must’ve read more than 50 fics.
I’ve learned that I hate Dumbledore
Snape makes for a great mentor but I will only like him with proper character development
also where did Snape being Draco’s godfather come from? I don’t think this was in the books? I’m not angry, just confused
I read a fic that was so sad that I was physically unable to finish reading it -- actually I read two of those, one of them was a DID fic and the other Voldemort adopted Harry
the Voldemort one is quite possibly the most tragic thing I have ever read and even though it’s been two weeks I still haven’t been able to recover -- I was only halfway finished too GOOD LORD
another fic I read that was so fucking depressing was a time loop situation where Harry literally couldn’t get out of and it ended tragically
obscuris Harry is interesting but I really only like the ones where Newt is actually involved but I couldn’t find any finished ones
I don’t like it when Harry’s appearance changes, it throws me for a loop
there was this one where Harry got sent back in time and his figure got disfigured and so he didn’t even appear like himself anymore
I just find it odd for Harry Potter not to look like Harry Potter, idk
I also have a headcanon that his hair is very curly rather than shaggy
I haven’t been able to find a fic where Harry goes back in time to the Marauders era and has the right amount of angst but the right amount of fluff
I’ve read some good ones where the Marauders travel to Harry’s time but like,,, it isn’t quite what I’m looking for? I’m gonna have to write it, aren’t I?
this doesn’t happen with irondad fics, literally everything you’ve ever wanted you can find it there
I read one where Harry did go back in time but she (fem!Harry) didn’t really interact with her parents or the Marauders that much, she became friends with Regulus instead
Regulus should’ve been in Gryffindor
I’ve not only read fics where Draco has been a Ravenclaw, Slytherin, but also a Gryffindor. I haven’t found one where he’s in Hufflepuff
I’ve read fics where Harry’s in every single house - the Ravenclaw one might be my favorite so far, it had to do with him going to a different timeline where there’s another Harry and he’s a major dick
Hufflepuff Harry one was funny, but it got distressing cause Dumbledore didn’t trust him and tried to get him expelled
actually the Hufflepuff one made my heart hurt cause Harry was put in the body of a Harry who isn’t the boy who lived and barely spoke and was basically like an even more traumatized Neville
Slytherin Harry is everything to me and he should’ve been in Slytherin
Ravenclaw Draco is something that can be so personal
I’m tired of reading Year One fics, I get it, there’s a stone, let’s move on
Year Four fics are my favorite however, there was one (which is my favorite) where Harry’s a necromancer and in the graveyard scene he calls corpses from the graves alive to help him get out of there it was so cool
I am partial to Harry/Draco but Harry/Luna is cute
there was a Pokemon Harry/Luna one that’s adorable and I’ve read it twice already
I like when there’s a ton of lore involved
especially Hogwarts lessons - like ancient runes can fucking get it, I love runes fics
there was an MCU AU one where I read Harry didn’t have his magic anymore, not as potent as it was, but he did have ancient runes
LISTEN I tried to get into Dark!Harry but after that Voldemort adoption one I can’t do it anymore, I will start crying literally right now -- he just wants to be fucking useful! He just wants to be loved! Is that too much to fucking ask for?
however Harry doing dark!magic but isn’t actually on the dark side is cool
Death Eater Spy Draco! It makes me distressed but also I am so here for it!
Jenkins if you’re out there I love you (if you get this reference I love you)
I read a ton of Avengers adopt Harry when he’s younger but I don’t care for younger Harry fics, I prefer when he’s a teenager and I don’t have to read the first few years at Hogwarts, it can get repetitive
Give me all the angst with Harry being a horcrux please, I’m living for the drama
Lily is not a fan favorite weirdly enough, when the Marauders are in fics she’s usually not there which is unfortunate because I just really want a good Harry/Lily bonding moment
one of the saddest fics I read was where harry, luna, hermione and neville find themselves in an alternate dimension where Lily and Remus are married and alive, James is a dick but has other kids, and every single person that had died in their world is alive
I don’t like it when there’s Ron bashing, he’s one of my favorites, but if I have to, I’ll read some of them
there was this Sherlock fic (listen, I went in fucking deep, it’s been a weird month) where fem!Harry is on the run from the Ministry because I don’t actually understand and Ron and everyone is out for blood for her
Eleventh Doctor/Harry is a pairing I was not aware of but I actually kind of love?
Master of Death Harry is fucking OP and I love him for that
mcu aus is something I never knew I needed
Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis is fucking everything
So is On Punching Gods and Absentee Dads, I realized it was the same author when I read in the author notes that the author was going to some volcano convention thing and I was like this is way too niche for it to be a coincidence
I’ve read Tony is Harry’s dad, Loki is Harry’s dad, Harry is just weird friends with Thor, ones where Natasha is Harry’s aunt
listen everyone is related to this boy
I will not read a fic if it doesn’t involve Harry, he’s my boy, he’s my love, I care only about him and him only I’m so sorry
you know that meme where people say nobody’s favorite character is harry potter, the titular character? Well meet me! He’s my favorite!
in battle of hogwarts fics, Remus almost always dies. Why is that? Why do you guys hate him so much? It’s always half and half for Fred, I never know if he’s going to live or not
In all of the good fics I’ve read I saw in the collections area of ao3 the same collection and I was like! You get me!
if it says Gammily’s Bookshelf on the fic, it’s gonna be a really fucking great fic let me just tell you that right now
Parseltongue gets me so riled up, I fucking love Parseltongue, it’s so cool
there’s a reason I usually filter out non/c*n but I decided to let it flow and I ran into a few that fucking d e s t r o y e d me why do you guys read shit like this, it broke my heart
that being said I read one that was really nuanced and actually really good but it’ll never be finished and I’m very mad about that
Either we have a better understanding of how goblins could be utilized than JKR or we’re just ignorant of how powerful they can be
weird coincidence that I’ve read two completely different fics where Harry thought having a threesome meant kissing three different people
Dumbledore’s a bitch and I hate him, every fic I’ve read so far agrees with me
there is a person out there that is CARRYING the bucky barnes/harry potter pairing on their back and I hope whoever that is knows how much I appreciate them
remind me never to click on a fic that hasn’t been updated since 2015 ever again, C’est La Vie I will miss you so
this is just a fucking quarter of the harry potter fics I’ve read but thanks for reading if you did, let me know if you want to know some of the titles
#harry potter#harry james potter#fanfiction#aus#alternate universe#reading#fics#fic recs#marauders#wolfstar#drarry#parseltongue#mcu#marvel cinematic universe#doctor who#my posts#ruth talks#rutherford's reviews#ao3#archive of our own#the marauders
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12 (giving them your coat when they’re cold) for the non-verbal "i love you" prompts 🥺 -ise
Lucretia couldn’t sleep. Typical. It was never easy sleeping when she had Bureau members out on a mission, let alone when it was her boys. Her family. Taako, Magnus, and Merle. She knew they were perfectly capable of reclaiming the Philosopher’s Stone; that fact didn’t do anything to loosen the ever-tightening knot in her stomach.
She’d already sent Angus to bed. They’d lost connection with the boys and it was senseless to keep a child up on Candlenights, worrying. He did that enough. He only agreed to go on the condition that Lucretia herself would sleep for a few hours. She knew better than to try to lie to Angus. She really did try to sleep, this was no grand deception.
Rather than do something productive with her time or attempt to sleep by magical means, Lucretia decided to walk the base. She did this when sleep eluded her. (It did that often). It was an effective way to clear one’s head.
She gripped the edges of her thick cloak and pulled the fabric taut around her to keep the bite of the cold away; she didn’t want to think too long about how the base was able to mimic the earthside weather so well. (Didn’t really want to think of the Millers at a time like that). So she focused on trying to remember Taako and Lup’s hot chocolate recipe. It would be a weak facsimile of the real thing; the twins had a knack for teaching people precisely how to prepare recipes that would never quite turn out the same as when the two of them prepared them.
“Keeps people coming back for more,” they had told her once.
(Lucretia didn’t want to think about how Taako’s admittedly baller macarons didn’t quite taste the same as usual.)
She was stirred out of thoughts of vanilla and cinnamon and simmering milk when a figure caught her eye. As she approached, she quickly realized Davenport was sitting on a bench, watching snow fall on the continent below.
“It’s awfully late, don’t you think?” she said.
Davenport looked up, startled. Gears turned behind his bright eyes as he processed Lucretia’s comment. He furrowed his brow and frowned at her. “Davenport?” he said, gesturing towards her.
She laughed quietly. “When you’re in charge, you’re allowed to be a hypocrite.”
He tapped his chin and looked off dramatically, as though he were planning some coup before chuckling. “Davenport,” he said with a wave of his hand.
She smiled, a little sadder than strictly necessary. (Didn’t want to think about all the times Davenport had shown her that a little hypocrisy was allowed when you were the one in charge).
“Can I sit with you?” she asked instead.
Davenport nodded and scooted over, patting the bench beside him.
“I’m worried about them,” she said as she eased herself onto the bench, keeping a hand on her staff once she was seated. The cold was always tough on her joints, a problem that has since been exacerbated in the past decade.
“Davenport,” he said solemnly.
Lucretia huffs out a laugh. “You know, I used to never really understand why –“ she cut herself off, making her own mental edits to that train of thought. “When I was younger, my dad used to sit up on our deck in all hours of the night, just worrying about our family. And I never understood it. But I understand it a bit more now,” she corrected herself. “Um, I don’t consider Bureau members family, that would be mighty weird. I meant that in more of a pseudo-work family way.”
Davenport nodded along to what she said, though he tilted his head at Lucretia’s mention of her family. Right. Because even in his limited capacity, Davenport was one hell of a listener. And he remembered Lucretia lamenting a few years about never really knowing her dad because he was away for work a lot when she was a kid and then died when she was only about eleven. Great going, Lucretia.
“Right. So it wasn’t my dad, per se, but he certainly was a father figure. And he –“ she stopped and fixed her gaze on Davenport. “Are you shivering? Gods wait, it’s so cold out here, where’s your jacket?”
Davenport shrugged nonchalantly and tried to keep his shivers under control.
Lucretia quickly unclasped her cloak and draped it over Davenport, the long folds of fabric enveloping the gnome. The air immediately bit through the fabric of her sleeves.
“Davenport!” he protested while pulling the fabric close to him.
“You’ll catch your death out here!” Lucretia said, crossing her arms. (She didn’t think about the fact that the voice in her head saying that wasn’t her own. Didn’t think that normally these roles were reversed).
The two sat in silence, staring down at the continent. After a moment, Lucretia rose with only a little effort. “Come on. It’s entirely too cold for either of us to hang around out here. Let’s make up some cocoa and thaw ourselves out. Besides, maybe we’ll have regained connection with the boys.”
Davenport nodded and scooted off the bench, the cloak pooling at his feet. It was a funny sight to see. Lucretia wanted to tell someone about it. Since she had no one, at that point, she didn’t. Instead, she led the way to the kitchen in one of the nicer dormitories and hoped it was well stocked with spices.
#oops this got a lot heavier than i originally anticipated!#thank you!!!#also thank you to hali for giving me the tools to create something so full of angst in so few words slfdkjslkdf#taz#taz balance#taz lucretia#taz davenport#the adventure zone#reese writes#tazb#the adventure zone balance
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MAIN MASTERLIST
tony stark x reader
Word Count: 2,700ish
Summary: After Tony and you break up, you get kidnapped by Loki. When you’re found, you’re not the same person you once were.
Warnings: mentions of rape and abuse, nightmares
You were an agent of SHIELD, assigned to be Tony Stark’s personal assistant due to him being Howard Stark’s kid. You two were always flirtatious, even up to the day he was kidnapped. You searched and searched for him, until you and Rhodey found him in the middle of the desert, three months after he had gone missing. You stayed by his side through everything. Helping him recover and defeat Obadiah, falling in love with each other along the way.
It wasn’t all lovey-dovey for the two of you though. Your relationship was built on heavy sarcasm and teasing, which often led to disagreements and/or nights of heated passion. You mostly fought about Tony’s decision making, especially during the time you didn’t know he was dying. During that time, the fights became more hurtful, either bring on the most heated passion you’d ever experienced or nights spent in different rooms. By the end of his disastrous birthday party, you decided that you were through. Leaving nothing but a voicemail for him, telling him that it was over.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” you voice clearly showed that you were crying. “But I can’t do this anymore. We’re too different, constantly trying to change each other and fighting. It’s not good for us. I’m so sorry, Tony, but it’s over."
You busied yourself in missions after that, ignoring your broken heart and his own desperate voicemails. You were at the SHIELD facility when the Tesseract formed a portal, allowing Loki through. He took both you and Clint as mind-controlled hostages. He used you for a bit before deciding that you were nothing more than a play thing to him, allowing his other controlled hostages to use you for their pleasure. You were beaten, raped, starved, spit on, and many other vile things. When they finally left you, in that cold dark ceil, you had no clothes or food. And you knew not where you were.
Tony was enraged when he found out that you had been taken, even more so when Loki wouldn’t give anyone your location. While having the chance to be near you, Loki was able to see in your mind the love you still had for Tony. And he couldn’t wait to taunt him with it.
When Tony arrived at Stark Tower to confront Loki, Loki used the Mind Stone to enter the billionaire’s mind. Causing him to see what he wanted him to see.
Tony was suddenly in his Malibu mansion. He quickly spun around, examining the place. It was the same, but different. There was clearly a woman living there with him. Tony walked around, seeing the stories of Iron Man saving the day framed on his walls. There were also a few picture of the two of you. He grabbed one, taking if off the wall to look at it. You both were all smiles, him in a tux and you in a white wedding dress. Tony’s mind was running a mile of thoughts a minute, when he heard singing. He followed the sound of singing he heard coming from the kitchen. When he entered, he froze at the sight of you cooking in the kitchen. You were there, safely in his kitchen. You turned to the side to grab something, allowing him to see that you were pregnant and that there was a ring on your left hand. His breath left him. When you finally noticed his presence, you turned and smiled widely at him.
“Hey, honey,” you walked up to him, giving him a sweet kiss. “How’s life down in the workshop?”
“It’s… It’s… I’m sorry,” Tony was in shock and very confused. “What’s going on here?”
“What do you mean? I’m making dinner.”
“I mean, like… what are you doing here? And how are you pregnant?”
“Umm… sweetie, do we really need to go over how babies are made? Cause when a mommy and a daddy—“
“No, I mean, you aren’t suppose to be here.”
“Did something happen down in the workshop today, Tony?” You rested a hand against his scratchy cheek. “Did you hit your head again?”
“No, I did not hit my head!” He stepped back, frustrated.
This wasn’t you. You shouldn’t be this sweet to him and you shouldn’t be here. You were no where to be found right now. There was no way you were at the mansion, and pregnant.
“But I’m afraid someone’s messing with yours,” Tony stated. “We aren’t together. You broke it off, left, because I was too much. We were too different.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tony. But I think you need to get some rest before dinner.”
“Yeah, Tony,” Loki’s voice mocked him. “Maybe you should get some rest. Maybe then you’d be fast enough to safe her.”
Quickly, the setting changed. Tony was now in a dark, cold cement room. He turned, slowly, analyzing every inch of the place, until his eyes landed on the scene behind him. A man was stand over you, zipping up his pants. While you, naked and bleeding, were shivering and curled up on the floor.
“Y/N!” He shouted, rushing towards you. But when he went to touch you, his hand went straight through you. “Y/N?”
The man left, leaving you there to cry on your own. Tony went to try and hold you again, but his arms went straight through you. It was breaking his heart to see you like this and not be able to do anything to help you.
“She fought, at first,” Loki appeared beside him, looking down at the two. “She’s quite the fighter. But then, she was slowly worn down. An interesting process to witness.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Tony muttered, standing up with his fists clenched tightly. He spun around, aiming to punch Loki, but he had disappeared. “Come out and fight!”
“Oh, I don’t need to fight when I’ve already won,” Loki chuckled. “If you hadn’t let her get away, then she would have been with you instead of with Barton, where I was able to get her.”
Tony growled, throwing himself at the god. He grabbed his clothes and pushed him onto the ground, causing the scepter to leave Loki’s hand. The illusion faded from around them, back to present day Stark Tower. The two fought, until Tony was thrown from the tower and saved by his suit. Tony fought harder than ever to end Loki and his army. When the army was defeated and Loki was detained, the Avengers set out to find their missing person, you. Using Clint, they went back to every location Loki had been hiding in. Finally finding you in the last possible location, a week later.
You were still naked and extremely thin, close to death. Tony immediately pulled you into his arms and flew out of the building, heading straight for the SHIELD hospital. You were taken out of his arms almost as soon as he landed. But he swore to never leave the hospital until you could.
It took you a few days to gain full consciousness and, even then, you weren’t yourself. You were more quiet, closed off. You flinched at the slightest touch from anyone. It pained Tony to see you this way. At first, you had refused to let him in your room. But one night, he was sitting just outside it and heard you screaming in your sleep. He rushed inside and brought you out of that dark place your tired mind had taken you. After that, you let him stay close by.
Tony made it his goal to see you smile again, to hear that laugh. He was willing to try anything to get you to feel better and open up to him, even if that meant embarrassing himself. He tried preforming obviously bad talent shows with various instruments, singing, and magic tricks. He tried reading to you and showing you funny videos. But nothing. It was like all the happiness, everything that made you, you, was sucked out of you.
When the doctor’s said that you were physically healthy to go home, he took you back to his place in Malibu. You didn’t even put up a fight. You slept most of the flight there, allowing Tony to make goals to help you heal and make you fall in love with him again.
Some how make you laugh and/or smile everyday.
Show his love through acts of kindness.
Limit his daily time down in the workshop. Unless you’re down there with him.
Stop taking life risking missions, or making life risking decisions, unless absolutely necessary.
Get you to talk. Even if it’s just getting you to tell him how much you hate him. He needed to hear your voice.
You stayed up in your room for the first week in the mansion. Tony didn’t question it, bringing the food and entertainment to you. While eating, he would talk about the inventions he was working on or the things his friends were up to. After the first week, you began joining him in the workshop, silently watching him work from the couch. One day, he brought a stool to sit beside him and offered it to you. It was clear that you were nervous to sit that close but you did it anyway. Finding your new spot in the workshop. He began to teach you things and explain what he was working on. He’d even offer for you do help, and was surprised when you shakily took the tool from his hand in acceptance.
That became your new routine. You’d eat and sleep up in your room, and then spend the rest of the time helping Tony in the workshop. You two were in the midst of working on fixing one of the arms of his suit, while it was on him, when the arm fired up and shot him back into the wall. You immediately covered your mouth, trying but failing to suppress the laughter bubbling in you. Tony groaned against the wall, rubbing his head, before he realized what was happening. He looked at you with so much pride, you almost were embarrassed and stopped laughing, but you continued anyway. Causing Tony to laugh along as well. A week after that incident, you began to talk. It wasn’t much, mainly just asking for a certain kind of food or for Tony to pass a toll. But it was progress.
During the weeks you were with him, Tony left notes around the mansion, reminding you that he cared. He’d stopped taking missions. Fury agreeing to it until you were yourself again. Which Tony was slowly seeing. There were still some hard days and nights. Days were you would go back to not smiling, laughing, or talking. Nights that were full of nightmares, no matter what. There was one night that was particularly bad. So bad, that it scared Tony.
He was getting settled into his own bed, not long after checking on you for the last time that night. This was the most good nights that you’d had in a row, making Tony feel like things were getting better faster than he originally thought. But he thought that too soon. Tony had probably been asleep for no longer than an hour when he woke up to your screams.
“Please! Don’t!” You screamed. “Stop! AAHH!”
Tony was up and sprinting to your room faster than he ever had before. He threw open the door to see you thrashing around and still screaming.
“Stop! Don’t touch me! Please!”
Tony raced over to your bed, sitting beside you. His hands found their place on your shoulders, trying to keep you from thrashing.
“STOP! LET GO OF ME!”
“Y/N, it’s just me,” he calmly said, trying to coax you out of the state you were in. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need you to wake up. Please, sweetheart.”
“Get off me!”
He tried to shake her shoulders as gently as he could, trying to wake her up without making it worse. “Y/N listen to my voice and wake up.”
Your eyes snapped open, but were clearly still panicked. You were breathing heavily and shaking beneath his hold. When you realized you were being pinned down, you began sobbing.
“Pl-please don’t hurt me…” you whimpered. “I’ll do anything… just please… don’t touch me…”
Tony held his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”
“You aren’t?”
It was clear to Tony that you were still stuck in that nightmare. “No, I’m not. I would never. I’m here to protect you.”
“All the others have hurt me… why are you different?”
“Because I care about you. And I would never do anything like that to hurt you.”
Tony patiently waited for your breathing to calm and for your body to relax. You were almost back asleep when you spoke up again.
“Tony?” You called quietly.
“Hmm?” He hummed from beside you, relieved that you were back with him.
“Thank you… for being here…”
He leaned down and held a kiss to your forehead as your eyes fluttered close. “Always, honey, always.”
While Tony was slowly seeing a positive change in you, you were seeing a change in Tony. He was less selfish, still sarcastic to no end and teasing. But he was caring, and showing that he cared more. It warmed your heart to see that he was working hard to better himself without changing too much of himself.
Before the two of you knew it, you were talking like normal again. Teasing him back and throwing a sarcastic comment his way every now and them. It felt like the old days, but with less fighting. It was so nice. Eventually, though, it would have to end. You were better and couldn’t live with Tony forever, especially since you two were no longer together. But the two of you longed to be together, you were just both afraid to voice that to one another.
It was the night before you were suppose to move out. Tony went looking for you, wanting to try and get his feelings out. He finally found you sitting in your designated spot in the workshop. You were staring out into nothing, twirling a screwdriver in your hand.
“Hey,” Tony called, coming up to you. “You okay?”
“Yeah…” You answered with a sigh. “Just not ready to leave yet…”
“You could always stay.”
You shook your head. “I can’t do that to you, Tony. It’s not fair. You need to start living your life again and I mine.”
“But what if this became my life. You here, with me.” Tony came around to stand in front of you. “I know we ended things badly. But I want to give us a second chance. We’ve both had some time apart and have experienced things that have changed us. We aren’t the same people we were when we were first Goethe. And I’d like us to try again. I understand if you don’t want to, but I couldn’t let you leave without you knowing how I—“
Tony was cut off by you grabbing onto his shirt and smashing your lips on his. He was taken by surprise, briefly, but quickly kissed back.
“What was that for?” Tony asked when they parted.
“That was to get you to shut up,” you answered. You let go of his shirt and moved around the table. “This is for staying by my side for all these months.” You pressed another kiss to his lips. “And this,” you whispered once you parted again, “is because I love you.” You brought Tony in for another long, passionate kiss.
“I love you too,” he whispered, panting after parting for the third time. “Now, are you going to stay?”
“I think I’ll stay for a little while longer,” you smirked. “See what life has in store for us.”
#Tony Stark fanfiction#tony stark#tony stark x reader#tony stark imagine#Iron Man#iron man fanfiction#iron man x reader#iron man imagine#marvel fanfiction#marvel imagine#avengers fanfiction#avengers imagine#the avengers x reader#avengers x reader
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Ok so... I know I already have a fic going on right now, But... me writing Harley and Ivy as moms/parents to Marinette got me thinking about other fics I could write, so hear me out.
Either Harley or Ivy as Marinettes bio mom... (or both due to a crazy person's experiment...) it will also be a Damianette fic so yeah.
Ok, here are the options:
A. Harley is with Joker... they have a 'special' night or something, and then Joker tried to kill Harley for the something-ith time, and she finally leaves him thanks to Ivy. Ivy and Harley have been friends for a little over 3 years, and Harley may have started feeling happier around Ivy for awhile, and only realized after being free of the Joker that she really loves Ivy, and they start dating like a week or so after that realization.
After some time Harley will wake up with morning sickness, she gets cranky not wanting to go to the docter, but they go anyway, and that's when she finds out she's pregnant. They get back and Harley is in and out of horror, excitement, and all the weird moods a soon to be mother goes through. After a talk with Ivy, they decide to keep the child, and then Marie Quinzel-Isley is born 8 months later. She will still have midnight hair and stunning vibrant light blue eyes, and she'll grow up learning tricks like slight of hand, gymnastics stuff, self-defense, the proper technique to use a bat, and the other usual child of rogues things... (like love for the environment, and extremely exotic pets...).
B. Harley is long over the Joker, and is with Ivy, they are known for their environment protectiveness, and the occasional theft thanks to something Selina drags them into. During two separate occasions, one with Harley getting kidnapped, and then like a week later Ivy, some villain gets their blood, and fusses both their blood, and with plot magic and unknown science, they create a child, when the vilian steels some sort of plant Ivy really loves (and can enhance the baby's meta-powers) Ivy and Harley stumble in on the villian preparing to give the baby some sort of weird something in a needle, they beat the life out of him, asking what the hell he's doing with some random kid. said villian will then tell them it's not just any random child, it's your child (insert some crazy laugh) he gets beat up more, because wtf? who makes a baby out of people's DNA without their consent?(ehem, Talia ehem!!)... anyway they see this child, and it just so happens that in the moment, the baby opens her eyes, and they fall in love with her, effectively keeping her and naming her Mary Quinzel-Isley.
Now for her powers:
For option A. She can just be born with abilities that are a good chunk above the average person. She will learn how to fight with anything and everything, and will be great at reading people.
For option B. She can have both above average physical abilities, and plant manipulation/communication, and will still be good at reading people to some extent. She will learn how to use anything to fight, and will be a little chaoticly creative ball of joy to be around.
and for either option she can also learn magic and stuff, or just have a natural affinity for it, and is also taught by the Riddler so she can kick butt and Riddle me the f-ck out of anyone.
Now on to the Miraculous part, which can be in either option A or B:
Marinette will spend most of her life in Gotham until the Bats start getting a little to curious as to why a mini Harley/Ivy is running around fighting both wannabe villians and on occasion some Teen Titans hero (Beastboy, they become buds after she kicks his butt for the 10th time. and will later be friends with Raven). Selina is also dating Batman so when Selina tells them the Bat is looking for Marinette, she gets stuck with taking care of Marinette until the heat dies down. So when Marinette is 10 she and her Antie Selina go to Paris, where family friends of Selina own a small yet wonderful bakery. Marinette is then introduced to Tom and Sabine, she later meets a crazy girl that lives on her skates named Alix Kubdel and they become friends, since she is kinda board with the school system there, she starts to take up hobbies, like Sewing, more gymnastics, and fencing, where she meets and befriends Kagami Tsurugi. The three are joint at the hip, and are always daring each other to do stupid and or silly things. Marinette always goes back to Gotham on both summer and winter break, but is alsmot never allowed to go out just in case the Bats find her... (almost) she sneeks out sometimes to hang out with Beastboy to see how he and the Titans are doing.
When Marinette is 12 thats when things get a little weird... as in she starts feeling extremely creative/(more)Chaotic at the same time when she's doing something. During one of her Creative/Chaotic moods/feelings she goes out for a walk, noticing a man that fell in the middle of the road, she instantly goes to help him up, leading him to the sidewalk. When she handed the man his cain, she gets a VERY sudden feeling of power, when she looks the man in the face she sees he is also slightly shocked. She wished him well and darted back to her house not looking back at the shocked man. on the way back she starts seeing things... like seeing the dark thoughts of everyone around her, as well as their life energy/force it overwhelms her, and when she gets back to the Bakery where her and Selina are staying she quickly greets everyone and goes to her room. She thought her room would be safe from the weird energy she was seeing but no. There on her desk would be a small box of either Chaotic energy or Creative energy (I'll let you decide which Kwami She gets, 🐞 for Tikki, and 🐈⬛ for Plagg(if you choose Plagg Selina will be happy, and Plagg will cackle with Marinettes' mom Harley...just saying)) anyway, she doesn't touch the box until the next day, most of the weird energy looking stuff is gone except for whats surrounding the small box. The Stone heart thing will still happen, (I can see either Alix or Kagami weilding Tikki, but more Kagami. Alix can still get Fluff if she doesn't get Tikki, but I'm not sure what Adrien will get in the future... Maybe Roar(So he's still a Catboy, or Tiger boy)) So they'll face Stone heart and so on, the rest of spring is crazy, she quickly realizes the old man was the one who gave her the box, found out where he was (due to the crazy energy around his shop, which for convenience is maybe 15 or so blocks away from the Bakery). She has a talk with him and tells him she leaves Paris every summer and winter break, and is then given Kaalki... (permanently bc... plot, and bc she is a special f-cking girl that could rule the whole world if she willed it damit!). So she becomes a hero, and she blows it during her visit to Gotham, and ends up telling her moms and antie about the tiny cat god ("OMG Kitten! I knew it!No wonder you started using more Cat puns around me!" - Selina at some point) and the tiny horse god ("Dey're so f-ckin' cute!" - Harley) So more shenanigans ensue.
•—–·★·–—
So these are my Ideas for a Harley and or Ivy Bio moms to Marinette fic, please let me know whether you want option A. or B., whether you want Marinette to have either Tikki🐞 or Plagg🐈⬛, and whether you want her to be called Marie, Mary or just Marinette Quinzel-Isley. Hope you're all having a wonderful day, stay safe, and saty positive. !BUG-OUT! 🐞💮🐞
#Harley Quin Bio mom#harley and ivy#maribat#fic ideas#mlb x dc#dc x mlb#marinette x damian#damian x marinette#damimari#damianette#maridami#chaotic marinette#badass marinette#maribat fic idea#maribat fic
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"Black Magic" *Part 4*
Whoooooo! Okay alright here's 4, I don't know if I can get 5 up tonight but at least you'll have the whole "day". [you'll see]
YA'LL enjoy this because....it's gonna come crashing down. I'm so sorry. Maybe I should leave it here tonight. Yeah I might.
Also-- WINK! When you see it you'll know. 😉
@bookishfanfic
@stars-in-the-skies-world
@omgsuperstarg
@chasingeverybreakingwave
@gibbs274
@milkshqke
@wanniiieeee
@word-scribbless
@objection-argumentative
@aprildecker-blog
@lolliepopsicle
@madamsnape921
@stars-trash-18
Part 3
Part 5
-----------------------------
“Well!” he wiped tears away from his face and then yours before he gathered up your trash and threw it away. “ I think that's quite enough of the melodramatic stories today. Now it's time to show you my favorite place,”
He took your hands and let you further deeper into the park. You had never been this deep into Central Park before you don't think you'd ever actually been in Central Park, you've just passed it. You were kind of a shit New Yorker.
“Where are we going?” You asked as he pulled you faster down some steps until you reached what you could only describe as a “Cave”.
“You'll see,” he smiled as you approached the cave. You both walked inside and before you was something you never thought you'd see.
“Oh my god…” You said breathlessly. Are those…?”
“Penguins” You heard a smile in his voice as you stared. In front of you with a long glass tank encased in the stone. It was full of happy, smiling, swimming, penguins.
“How... why….why is this here?”
“Well the zoo is right next door.” He explained. “And they accidentally made the penguin exhibit about a foot outside of the zoo's zoning area. So, while it is technically part of the Central Park Zoo, this one area is completely free to the public. It beats paying $50.” He laughed.
“Penguins are my favorite,” you said softly as you just continued to stare at them. It was true. You loved penguins since you were a little girl and you had no idea why. They were just so cute.
“Mine too,” he smiled, taking his arms and pulling you into his chest from behind. They look so happy. And they're in little tuxedos. Which I highly approve of,” He joked. You giggled in response.
“I like to come here when I've had a really long day or a really bad day in court.” He continued to explain. “And just sit here and watch them; and imagine how much more enjoyable life would be as a penguin. Look at them they're so happy and carefree, not a worry in the world.”
“God wouldn’t that be nice,” You sighed. “No rent, no bills, no annoying job.” you have laughed, giving him a nudge
“And.. They are also monogamous,” He stopped laughing and turned you to face him.
“What?” You stopped laughing as well, giving him a stunned expression.
“Did you know that when a male penguin fancies a girl penguin he will look everywhere until he finds the perfect rock or pebble as an offering to said female. And if she accepts it, then they're together until they die.”
“So.. basically like an engagement ring,” You whispered. Oh god.. what was happening?
“Yeah I guess so they get engaged and married. Without the wedding of course.” He nodded.
“Can you imagine that? I mean they’d be pretty prepared already in their little tuxedos” you laughed, hopefully trying to change the subject getting away from marriage although you didn't really know how. “Rafael…”
Okay surely even if he was under this spell, was there kind of some kind of backstory? Did he think you had been together for a very long time? There's no way he was going to propose after one day was he?
“Don't worry carino, I'm not proposing. He laughed, noticing the panic in your eyes. "I'm not that crazy.”
“Right you laughed and nodded your head. “Of course. Because we've only known each other so shortly….?” You tried to ask in a leading way.
“Right. But if we're being totally honest,” he took your hands. “I think I fell in love with you the moment you walked in the door on your first day.”
You silently gasped.. Could that be true? Was that him making that up in his head? Did he have memories before today? Did he have real memories before today? How far did this thing go? Could he actually really be saying that? Your mind started swimming.
“I..” You looked into his eyes, searching for sincerity. Obviously it was there but you didn't know if it was fabricated or real. But any real form of sincerity was moot at this point. Right?
“Really?” Was all you could say back.
“Yeah,” he smiled while he stroked your hair. “Really,”
That was it you couldn't take this anymore. You Broke down crying once again, and threw your arms around him. You were holding him so tightly, as if he was going to disappear in front of your eyes any second.
“Please Don't leave me, you sobbed. “Please don't leave me,”
“Hey hey hey,” He took your arms and pulled you over to a bench in the cave. Then he sat you down and put both hands on your shoulders.” I'm not leaving you. I'm not going anywhere, okay? Never,”
“You can't say that,” You sobbed. You completely threw any thoughts of keeping this under wraps out the window.
"Why not?” He looked at you quizzically.
“Because….because this isn't real!!” You kept sobbing.
“What…? Baby you have to calm down,” He started getting really concerned.
“I….” You tried to find the words to explain it without sounding crazy. Then you realized it didn't matter.
“I...my roommate Chloe she's a...well she, she made this...stuff, that I put in your coffee yesterday and it made you think you're in love with me.” You realized you had said explanation a little too loudly, as the very few other people that were in the cave with you gave you strange looks and started to walk away. You looked at Rafael who was just staring at you in disbelief and confusion.
“What are you talking about?” He half laughed. Baby look I don't know what you think you did. But if you're talking about what I think you're talking about--- magic isn't real.”
“Yes it is!” You continued to sob. “I didn't believe it either. That's why I did it. I thought on the off chance maybe it would work but I didn't really think it worked like this” you gestured between the two of you.
“What, make an actual connection between us? Has anything you said to me today been a lie?”
“No” You started to calm yourself down.
“And I can promise you nothing I have done today has been a lie, or fabricated in any way,” He wiped the tears from your face.
“So again, I don't know what you think you did, but my feelings for you are real. The only magic here is the magic of true love,”
“See who says that?!” you cried angrily. “Nobody says that for real, Rafael. Not unless they're--”
“Under some kind of magic spell?” Rafael asked sarcastically
“This isn't funny!”
“Okay so what you're just saying is that tomorrow I'm going to wake up, and just think you're a normal girl and what? Think today was a fluke?”
“No.. you're not going to remember anything.”
“I really doubt that,”
“It's true! Why do you think I said back at Maria’s that I need you to hold on to this day? I need you to remember this day? I wasn’t just saying that to be cute.”
“Okay well I'm taking you seriously now. I'm committing this day to my memory this entire day even with your nutty little break down here.” He took both of your shoulders and looked at you seriously.
“Because I'm going to prove to you that this is not some kind of magic spell. It's me and you and our real feelings. I told you I fell in love with you the day I met you, that was before today. That was three months ago!”
Could that be true? Could this have just fast forwarded the time that it would have taken you to get here? Is he really going to remember this?
“Okay” was all you could say.
“Okay.” He smiled, pulling you into him again and kissing your forehead while stroking your hair. “I'm never going to forget you Y/N. I could never forget you,”
“Okay,” you repeated, believing him a little more this time.
Rafael glanced at his phone. Oh God it's four fifteen already,”
“So…? Do you turn into a pumpkin at 5?” You joked.
“No but I did promise Olivia that I would drop off some paperwork. Do you mind?”
Oh God you really don't want to face Liv again, at the risk of exposing your secret. But what else could you do?
“Yeah I guess that's fine.” You shrugged.
It definitely was NOT fine.
-----
You walked into the NYPD police station nervously, as if you were a hooker doing a perp walk. You hoped that maybe since Raphael had calmed down maybe Olivia would just think this morning was a joke after all. You hoped he wouldn't say anything.
“Olivia!” He walked over to her desk and still had your hand in his.
“Hey Rafa.. what is this? I thought you weren't dating your intern?” She frowned.
“Oh I'm not ... Apparently I'm under her spell,” He laughed.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God what…. Why was he being so flippant about this? Oh God.
“...Excuse me?” She asked him seriously.
“Did you get her in on this Y/N? Pretend that she has no idea about us?” He asked you while still laughing. You wanted to crawl into a hole.
“I don't have any idea about-- didn't you say this morning that you were kidding?” Olivia looked at you angrily.
“What? I don't remember this morning.” Rafael looked confused.
Oh God maybe it was starting to wear off and then forget-me-nots were working oh God oh God oh god….
“What is wrong with you?” Olivia put both of her hands on her shoulders, then she looked at you. “Did you actually do something to him?
What? No, I didn't do anything!” You cried defensively, hoping she would back off.
“Liv back off she didn't do anything. Magic isn't real. What is wrong with you?” Rafael stood in front of you.
“Then explain how you feel right now???” Olivia crossed her arms.
“What are you talking about? We've been in love for months now!”
Oh shit. Oh GOD.WHAT?
“WHAT?” Olivia almost screamed.
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to overeat like this." He gave her a look.
“Oh that is bullshit.” She spat, and then looked at you over his shoulder. “You did something to him and I will damn sure figure out what it is,”
“Liv you need to seriously back off,” Rafael increased the space between the two of you.
Liv nodded, but mouthed to you over his head with a whisper. “I am going to figure out what you did and you're going to pay.”
You gulped and looked at Rafael who was still glaring at Liv. “Look Olivia, you need to get over whatever thing you have for me and just let me be happy.”
That was it! That was why she was so upset about this. She was in love with him too. Oh God. You suddenly wondered how accessible that spell that Chloe did was.
“I.. you.. we…” She stammered. “Here's your warrant,” Rafael tossed some papers at her and walked out the door with your hand in his. You looked back at Liv who was still fuming. That can't be good.
----
“Can you believe the nerve of her?” He scoffed as you walked out.
“Yeah totally,” You laughed nervously.
“I'm sorry about her. She doesn't know when to stop beating a dead horse,” He sighed.
“So you know she's had a thing for you? And you've never had a thing for her?”
“I mean there was a time when we first met that I thought maybe something could happen. But too much time has passed and I don't feel that way about her anymore, but apparently she still does.” He shook his head.
“And besides whatever feelings I thought I had for her went out the window the moment I saw
you,” he smiled, pulling you in for a kiss.
“Oh I mean since this morning,” he teased. But you knew he was right on the money.
“Haha. Can we please not joke about it?” You asked dejectedly.
“I'm sorry carino. Let's go get some dinner huh? Forget about this?”
“Yes please” You smiled.
---
He took you to his favorite restaurant Forlini’s and you two had an amazing dinner laughing, talking and discussing Broadway shows.
"Wait so you saw RENT with the ORIGINAL cast?!"
"Yeah…." He lightly chuckled. "I know, I'm super old."
"Oh I wasn't going to say that at all. I was going to say you are so lucky!!!!” You squealed.
“So you've never seen a show on Broadway?” He asked.
“Well...when I first met Chloe she was working as a PA for one of the directors of a show that had just gone to Broadway. It didn't last very long; it wasn't that great of a show. Except for the leading actor in my opinion,”
“Oh really?” he looked at you curiously. “What show?”
“It was called “Leap Of Faith”, I think? It was based on some movie about some televangelist creep con man, who fell in love with the sheriff and his heart turned to gold or some lame-ass thing like that. You rolled your eyes
“Oh really was it that bad?” he laughed.
“I mean, the songs were good and like I said the leading man Raul Esparza was amazing,” You smiled as you sipped your wine.
“Raul Esparza? You know when I was younger, people used to say that I looked like him.” He chuckled as he sipped his scotch.
“Really?? Nah I don't see it. You're way more handsome,” you smiled.
You continued to have a fabulous dinner so fun and easy, you almost forgot it was all fantasy. Before you knew it, Rafael was walking you to your door.
"Well I had a fabulous 'last’ 24 hours with you mi amor,” Rafael smiled.
“Yeah.. me too,” you said sadly.
“You sure you don't want me to come in?” He asked you with mischievous eyes.
“No, you better not.” You wanted so badly to let him, but you didn't want tomorrow to be jarring for him.
"Oh right I might wake up tomorrow and forget where I am," he teased, tickling you. You laughed while he was doing it, but the pain of really knowing he was right knocked you right back to sadness.
"Well good night beautiful. I'll see you tomorrow" He grinned.
"Yeah…." You smiled sadly thinking "not like this,”
He kissed you gently, but you pulled him in for a deep long passionate kiss, desperately memorizing every detail. His tongue, his mouth, his hands, his smell, his skin on yours.
"Wow, I should be under spells more often he chuckled. He gave you one last small kiss, and you held onto his hands.
"....Baby I'll stay if you want me to, you don't have to be so sad," He stroked your hair and gave you a reassuring smile.
"No…" you shook your head silently chastising yourself. "Let him go," you said mentally.
"No it's ok I'll see you tomorrow" you have him the bravest smile you could.
"Ok. Maybe tomorrow when you see you were being silly I'll sleep over," he winked, walking down the hall.
You slowly shut the door and fell down the floor sobbing.
Chloe came running out of her bedroom to check on you.
"Aw honey…."
"I love him Chloe,” you sobbed. “I didn't know how much or even if I really did before today but I really love him.”
“Oh honey. I can make more right now, even a bigger batch so it'll last longer!” She offered.
NO you shook your head sternly. "That's not fair to him"
"Well….it might be,” She gave you a hopeful look.
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on,” She picked you up and dragged you to her room.
She sat you on her bed as she went and pulled an ancient looking book from her shelf. You read the cover: “The Grimoire.”
“I borrowed it from my friend Maggie,” She explained. “Basically it's a master list of spells,”
“And she just let you borrow this?” You gave her a suspicious look.
“I told her it was an emergency.”
“Really?”
“Well! It was. Of the heart. She gets it she’s an empath and a romantic,” She assured you. “Anyway!” She turned to a dog eared page.
“Read” it she instructed.
You read the page: “ ‘Emotion Magnifier’....what is this?”
“It's the spell I used on Rafael.” She smiled.
“...What?”
“It wasn't really a love spell per say,”. She explained. “Those are frowned upon in the witch community. Y'know free will and all,”
“Wait so this didn't mess with his free will?”
“No ma'am! It just magnifies whatever somebody already feels. You just have to zone in on what emotion you want to draw out. So I used amorous feelings on Rafael,”
“So...that means...what exactly…?” You wanted to make sure you understood what she was saying.
“Well since he went so insane this morning, it magnified some already pretty strong feelings for you.” She smiled
“WHAT?!”
Your mind was spinning. Had he really been telling the truth about falling in love with you the moment he saw you? Has this actually just sped up the process of your relationship? Why hasn't he ever said anything? You've never really talked. How was this possible?
"So...what you're saying is…"
"He was clearly already smitten with you darling," She grinned even bigger at you.
"Oh my god….oh my god!!!!" You squealed. Maybe...maybe those feelings would be stronger than any potion, maybe he would remember today.
You went to bed that night with a hopeful heart.
-----
#rafael barba#rafael barba x you#rafael barba x reader#rafael barba fanfiction#law and order svu#law and order svu fanfiction
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Promises
Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Cassia Beryl (Fem!Demigod), Agnes/Agatha Harkness x Cassia Beryl (Fem!Demigod) [Non-romantic]
Summary: For as long as you've been existing, you posess powers of a God. The Greek God of the ocean to be specific. Knowing Wanda since Ultron. You vowed to protect Wanda. Keeping her promise to Vision before the mind stone was ripped from him. When you rescue Wanda's kids from a witch named Agatha Harkness, using your godly abilities, she begins seeing something in you that she hasn't seen in a very, very long time.
Warning(s): WandaVision Finale Spoilers
A/N: hi, I recently finished Wandavision and let me tell you I'm bittersweet. Cassia Beryl is my MCU Character!
--------------------------------------
As you peek around the corner, you notice two kids being held by some kind of purple magic string. If i can sneak over there I can get those kids out of there. And that’s exactly what you do. You bob and weave through backyard after backyard until you're directly next to the witch.
"This is Chaos Magic Wanda, and that makes you the Scarlet-"
You throw your trident that pierces right through the magic, disappearing. Your trident lands into the ground on the other side of the road.
"She really is special," you smirk, slapping the witch with water and picking up the boys
"Cass?.." Wanda calls out to you
"Hey Wans," you smile, turning to her
"Mom!" One boy said, running to her as you let them down
Mom? She's.. a mom? You were given a mission, from the Rambeau; Monica, to try and save Wanda from spiraling down into a Villain. You were pretty close with Wanda, considering how the two of you both joined after the Battle of Sokovia.
"Get inside boys!" She replies, "Go in your rooms!"
You watch Wanda's boys head into their house, you hold your hand out, your glove glowing. Your trident comes back toward you. You catch it with no recoil on the impact.
"It can't be...." Agatha says, breathlessly, looking at you
"Can't be what?" You ask
"I know those colored eyes anywhere," she replies, "You're-you're Poseidon's kid!"
"And? Your point is?" You snarl back, "I want NOTHING to do with my father!"
Angered, you propel water from your feet and use it to kick Agatha into towns Square. With Wanda in tow. You watch Wanda throw one of her Psonic power however, you notice how Agatha absorbs it rather than falling back.
"Wans?..." you call, noticing her black tipped fingers
"I absorb your magic," Agatha speaks, "It's kinda my thing."
You walk over to Wanda and feel her hands and try to rub off the black. Even with your water powers nothing came off.
"I'll handle this," you say before your neck is wrapped with purple magic and you're dragged back
As you turned around you feel your hands wrapped, unable to hydro kenesis.
"Cass!" Wanda calls
You wanted to let out a snarl but feeling the magic wrapped around your neck getting tighter.
"You and I have a lot to catch up on darling," Agatha smirks before she's finally knocked back by Wanda
Trying to gather your bearings, vision fuzzy, you begin falling. Expecting to hit the solid ground below you, you were wrong. But feeling a familiar, soothing feeling. It felt like a water current but you knew it wasn't water, cuz when you opened your eyes Wanda was standing in front of you.
"Are you hurt?" Wanda asks, her accent coming in
"I almost got choked to death," you laugh, getting up to stand by her side, "But other than that I'm dandy."
You look over and Wanda's hands are continuing to turn black.
"You built this town to feed your need to have Vision back," Agatha states, "You make these people feel your pain."
You and Wanda look over and you see a lady's eyes turn gold and then back to normal.
"Dottie?" Wanda asks, as she's walking over to the two of you
"My name is Sarah actually," she says, "I have a daughter, Eight years old. I can't see her, she's locked in her room, if you could let me see her please."
As Agatha 'frees' everyone from Wanda's unintentional mind control, they all begin ranting on about how they have families outside of Westview and how they wanna leave. You pull Wanda into your arms tk try and calm her down as she was beginning to break. However, she loses it and begins putting red magic around the people, excluding yourself.
"No, I'm sorry," she cries, releasing her magic from them
Without thinking, she begins releasing her magic against the barrier.
"Everyone out, now!" Wanda commands
As they begin running, you begin hearing military trucks...
"Hayward... that lying rat!" You yell
However, before you could reach them, they reached you. Westview Vision and Wanda's kids join up with you two. However, almost dissipating... Wanda closes the Hex, regaining their form.
"Boys, take care of the military," Wanda demands, as Vision becomes occupied with white Vision, "Mommy will be right back."
You follow Wanda as you both head for Agatha, "Wans, Can you reach into her mind and force her to show her greatest fear?" You ask, looking at her, "I'll keep her distracted. Apparently she has history with my father... Time to get a crash course."
Wanda smiles as she disappears as you land right in front of Agatha, "You have history with my father? Let's talk then."
You put your trident against your back. No tricks. Or maybe one trick.
"Your father, he-"
Before she could even start, Wanda flicks her magic into Agatha's temples. Taking the both of us back to her... trial?
"No no no no," Agatha shutters, "You tricked me!"
"Well, you should have remembered I want nothing to do with my father," you said
But you were also interested. Why was Agatha keen on talking to you about the father you never want contact with? Oh well, save it for later. You look around the dead corpses and realize there was a body of water nearby. Kinda made sense. But also not. However, once Wanda resurrected Agatha's coven members, they push you out of the way and gather around Wanda and begin bringing her o to the stake instead of Agatha who was free. You tried to get up but purple magic held you down.
"No! Wanda!" You call out
"You can't win Wanda," Agatha smiles, "You lack knowledge."
As you looked up you noticed a crown forming along Wanda's head... Your eyes gape in awe, you knew Wanda was capable of so many things. Reaching her full potential as someone with magical abilities is one of them. She launched at Agatha, bringing you guys back to reality. Free from the magic shackle, you launch yourself with Wanda as you two slam Agatha into the ground. However, Wanda's arms completely black.
"Mom!" The boys call out
You turn however Wanda pushed you back toward them as she begins lifting herself up into the air. The boys help you up as you three watch. As Wanda continuously throws magic after magic, you realize she's getting weaker; her attacks becoming less forceful.
"Auntie will be right back," you tell the two boys as you, with sheer willpower, must up all that you have, create a water vortex, lifting yourself towards Wanda.
"Wanda! Hang in there!" You call out to her
You realize she's just standing there, however, begin noticing runes all around the Hex. You don't say anything or do anything else but just watch as Wanda's complexion go back to normal. But, she began to re-take her magic. You couldn't make out what they were saying but you knew Wanda was doing.... You just sit in your vortex and watch in awe as you realize Wanda is becoming The Scarlet Witch.You realize she also has a new costume, and you fell in love with Wanda all over again.
"Wow..." was the only thing that came out of your mouth as you let the vortex go and watch Wanda land as Agatha lies on the ground.
"So, are you just gonna lock me up somewhere?" She asks, angrily
"Not somewhere, here." Wanda replies, "you have the role I give you; the nosy neighbor."
"You can't do this," Agatha, "You don't know what you've unleashed. You're gonna need me," she retorts back
"Will I?" Wanda replies, "I know where to find you if I need you. You have your role here now."
"No no please!" Agatha pleas
Before Wanda could mind control her again, you gently touch Wanda's outstretched hand. Wanda stands down, a little angered. Agatha smiles as you kneelt down to her. But the smile faded when you didn't smile back.
"Your history with my father...," you start, "I'll come around once I'm ready to talk."
You stand and turn to Wanda, signifying she can control her again. Thus, she does.
"Hiya hon," she says cheerfully, "Quite the getup hot stuff."
Not sure if she's talking to you or Wanda. As your back was turned to her. You watch Wanda as she embraces her boys and Vision.
"You'll make things right Wanda, just not for us," Vision smiles, "Lets go home."
They all nod in agreement as Wanda begins releasing The Hex. As they pass by you, Vision stops.
"You," Vision calls, you end up looking at him, "Would you like to join us?"
You smile and nod as Wanda slings her arm around you as you follow them to their home.
"Thank you Cass," Wanda says
"Always Wans," you smile
As you watch Wanda and Vision tuck Billy and Tommy [you finally learned their names] into bed.
"Thanks for saving us today," Billy states, looking at uou
"Cassia Beryl," you smile, "I'm a close friend of your mom's."
They smile as Wanda and Vision sit at their bedside. You standing at the doorway.
"Your mother and I," Vision starts, "Are very proud of you.
"The both of us," Wanda says, her accent slipping in
You heard her accent clearly. You loved Wanda's accent. You look out the window and sigh, realizing Wanda is gonna be alone again.
"Cassia is it?" Vision asks
"Yeah," you reply
"May I have a word with you? Alone?" He asks, looking at Wanda to stay with the boys for now
"Yeah, sure," you say, going downstairs
Once the two of you reach the main floor, you turn to Vision.
"You, I don't know you at all but you seem to have a close connection with Wanda. Before I'm gone, I must know your connection with her." Vision asks
You sigh, "I can't put it in words. However, I can show you my history with Wanda."
A single tear drops down and you catch it with your finger. It then turns into regular water.
"I hope this works," you whisper as you flick your memory water at Vision
"You know I could have stopped him myself, disarmed him, killed him," you say, "But I didn't do anything. We all played our pieces, some aren't going to end as pretty as you hoped."
[...]
"Can you play me a song Cass?" Wanda requests
"Always." You smile, grabbing Wanda's guitar as she seats herself right next to you
[...]
"Cass, I didn't mean to-"
"Save it Wanda," you sigh, "Besides, you've looked happier without me."
[...]
"Cassia, can you keep a promise for me?" Vision asks, pulling you into a corridor
"Of course Vision," You reply
"I need you to look after Wanda for me," Vision blurts, "Should anything happen to me, Wanda is going to need someone. I don't want her being alone. You're the second most person she trusts."
[...]
"Vision, I don't know how I'm going to look after her without you," you choke out on a sob
"It'll be alright Cassia," he says calmly, "You'll be able to figure it out."
[...]
"VISION NO!" You scream, scrambling up to your feet and attempt to save Vision again from Thanos. But he bsck-hands you into a tree, knocking you out
[...]
As you regain consciousness you see Wanda beginning to become dust. As half-consciouss as you were, you scrambled up to your knees and launched yourself with whatever energy you have left to reach Wanda.
"Wanda NO!!!" You scream as a last effort
She dusts right as you try to cup her cheek with your hand, a couple of dust. You open your hand and begin banshee screaming.
You let out a sigh once Vision comes to.
"The last five years were horrible," you sigh, "Trying to get my mind off of Wanda in said years, didn't help. She'd often be in my dreams. Hoping I could revive you or get her back."
"So in other words," Vision starts, "I left a promise to you that would look after Wanda after I'd be gone?"
You nod, blushing a deep red as soon as you look over Vision's shoulder; Wanda standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"W-Wanda," you stutter, "How long were you standing there?"
"Long enough." She smiles, but the smile faded as the Hex was getting even closer
You motion for Vision to Wanda in his final moments. You look on as Waves and Vision embrace.
"Before I go Wanda, I must know. What am I?" He asks
"You are Vision," she smiles sadly, "You are my sadness, my hope. But most importantly, you are my love."
He smiles as he kisses Wanda for the last time as the house begins going back to its original state. You felt tears run down your face as you watch Vision disappear.
"Goodbye Cassia," Vision says, "take care of Wanda for me. "
You ugly cry as you try to smile and nod at his request.
"So long darling," he finally says as he disappeared, the go far to its foundation
You regain yourself as you begin walking toward Wanda.
"You okay Wans?" You ask, hectic putting your hand on her shoulder
She sighs at your touch.
"Cass, make your own life worth while. I'm not worth it, " Wanda says
You meet her face, "Wans, your worth a million universes to me. Besides, I like adventure."
"Cass, you do know that once you go with me, you can't turn back right?" She asks
"I'm fully aware doll," you say, holding her hand, "Where you go, I go."
"You-you don't hate me? For leaving you?" She asks
You take her hand in yours and intertwine your fingers together, "I never did."
You place a gentle kiss on her forehead before you put on her hoodie as you begin leading her away from the foundation to leave Westview. However, you felt eyes on Wanda... Not the good kind either. However, you meet up with Monica.
"You don't hate me?" Wanda asks
"With your situation and your kind of power," Monica starts, "I'd bring back my mom."
"That makes two of us," you emphasize with Monica, "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," Wanda says,
"They'll never know what you've sacrificed for them," Monica states
"I don't think it'll change how they see me," Wanda adds, "Goodbye Monica."
You casually salute three fingers up to her and give her a smile. Wanda wraps her soothing red magic around you along with her arm slithering around your waist and you two turn to the edge of Westview.
"We're going to be okay Wans," You say
You weren't fully sure. But you were certainly going to give it your all to protect Wanda. For Vision. Real and Westview Vision.
Epilogue
You emerge from the waters that was right in front of your shared cabin with Wanda. It was way off grid. That's whats gonna stay that way. You look up and see Wanda holding a towel out to you. You first wipe your face dry and then your hair.
"I have tea warming up just for you love," Wanda smiles as she brings you inside, her fingers gently running along your bare back, "Your favorite."
Sometime later, you knock on the doorframe to your bedroom and peek around the door. As much as you didn't want to disturb her, you wanted to check on her and you wanted to see her as her true self. She smiles when she sees you. She stops her studies and walks over to you.
"You doing okay?" You ask
"Yeah I'm alright Cass," she smiles, kissing your nose, "I'm beginning to think Vis let you come with us is that smiles they're gone, I still have someone to look at."
"I think he was right," you put your forehead onto Wanda's, "I never want to let you go away from me again."
#female reader#wanda maximoff#wanda maximoff x reader#wanda x reader#wandavison spoilers#marvel#demigods#poseidon#scarlet witch x fem!reader
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let's talk about severus snape. he's one of the most controversial characters the internet has to offer, with several blogs, channels and pages dedicated specifically to hating him, despite him having one of the most—if not the most—intriguing character arcs the series has to offer. so, as a result of me coming across far too many of said blogs, channels or pages, here's an extremely detailed explanation of why i like him and think he's easily one of my favourite characters :)
1. he's not that bad of a teacher.
just so you know, i'm a teenage girl fresh out of high school. so, my experience with teachers? still keeps me up at night :)
my family is pretty strict about religion. you can guess what that means. anything that was magic-adjacent, especially something that, god forbid, had an entire school dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry was a hard no if i wanted to have any sort of freedom over the media i paid attention to, and any opportunity to go about my life without being monitored to make sure i wasn't suddenly possessed or something. thanks to this, i ended up secretly reading the philosopher's stone in my last year of primary school. i would've been 11 at the time, just about to turn 12, so a little bit older than harry and co. going on what i'd heard from those who had already read the series, i went in expecting to absolutely despise this man. i went in expecting to read a demon. i finished the book and came out thinking... that really wasn't that bad.
my mom found out, so i didn't get to read the rest of the series until i ended up on the executive committee for my school's book club and my friends were appalled that i'd only read the first book. at this point, i'm still expecting him to get worse and... he just doesn't. when i was in primary school, i had multiple teachers break wooden meter-long rulers across my classmates' backs. the first time it happened, i was in infant year 2 (about 6/7 years old). i had teachers who would insult us, based on anything from hygiene to behaviour to intelligence if you looked at them wrong. my sister (who was three years ahead of me) had a teacher who kept her in hours after school was over because the teacher had a written a note in her workbook upside down, and when my sister corrected her, the teacher made her rewrite it, turning the book each time the note was written so it would never be done the correct way.
in secondary school, i had teachers who would actively humiliate us in front of the class if we didn't do as well as they wanted. i had teachers who would throw markers and whiteboard erasers at us if we did something they didn't like during class. i had a teacher who looked for a friend of mine who was petrified of attention and then mercilessly picked on her until she went to the bathrooms to cry. these are the kinds of teachers that i was used to. so, when i read harry potter and read snape, who would have probably been one of the nicer teachers i met in my lifetime, i thought to myself, he's really not that bad. he's just... strict.
antis claim that he traumatised every kid that ever went through his class, that he straight up abused them and... no. he didn't. all of them are comfortable talking back, they talk during his class, no one trembles when he walks past, except for neville, who usually bore the brunt of snape's anger because he was consistently messing up in a potentially lethal class.
after school, i hated the thought of formal education, so now i'm working until i feel ready to do university. coincidentally, one of my jobs is teaching maths and english to kids writing the end of primary and secondary school exams. given the sheer amount of annoyance i feel sometimes, i actually respect him for not being more harsh with them, especially when they're all running off into danger or exploding cauldrons.
he really isn't that bad of a teacher, and we know this, since his classes' owl results are said to be consistently good.
plus, he was written in the 90's when all this was okay behaviour for teachers. hell, compared to some of the teachers in text, given that he goes out of his way to make sure the students are always protected, he's a lot better than most people give him credit for.
2. i relate to him.
come on, the man grew up to be a dramatic, queer-coded, petty bitch who wears all black all the time and likely has at least one mental disorder. i'm a petty, emo bisexual with (actually diagnosed, don't worry) depression and anxiety and I'm in a theatre group. what did you really expect from me?
on a serious note, both of the schools i went to were considered "prestigious". i got into my primary school because of a teacher's recommendation (she was a family friend). the second school i got into was because i scored ridiculously high on the placement test that would determine which school i went to. in primary school, i was the poor, really awkward, really smart kid who got left out of everything, and my best friend was the only kid who was worse off than me.
in secondary school, i was just as smart as everyone else... but i was still poorer, and still more awkward and still got left out of everything.
i got that isolated feeling, that feeling of not being good enough, that feeling where life always seems to have it out for you and that's even though i still got dealt a better hand than snape ever did. so, i get it. i'm never ever going to have it as bad as he did, but i acknowledge what he went through and i sympathise, because i have a chance, but it only ever got worse for him.
3. i genuinely enjoy his character.
this dude went through absolute hell for basically his entire life. the best years he had were probably when he was neck-deep in the group of people who hated witches and wizards like him, but somehow managed to treat him better than the good guys.
all of that, and he still manages to be one of the most entertaining motherfuckers in the whole series, with one of the most interesting character arcs ever. it's the witty lines, the sheer dynamic of his character, the change from the twitchy, hypervigilant kid from the slums to the adult that managed to spy on the Dark Lord himself and save the wizarding world in the process, while still being a hot mess of a person. it's the managing to get shit done while everybody hated him and everything was going to hell. it's the everything, and i haven't even talked about how badass he is.
come on, potions prodigy turned master, exemplary duellist (cough, cough, winning 4-on-1 vs McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn, and leaving a scratch on nobody, while managing to not take a single hit himself, cough, cough), spellcrafter, spy and one of the only wizards to ever figure out unaided flight. dark arts master, proficient at healing (dumbledore would've been dead a lot sooner, if it weren't for him, most likely). he's one of the most powerful wizards of his time. i've said that any universe where he's actually a bad guy—or just legitimately loyal to the death eaters—is a universe where voldemort wins and this is why. if he was motivated by literally anything other than lily, the wizarding world was more than likely fucked.
the point is, i just think he's neat.
4. spite.
every time i appreciate snape, a snater feels like someone is walking over their grave. every time i appreciate snape, a snater turns blue out of sheer rage. every time i appreciate snape, a snater loses their mind looking for their non-existent reading comprehension.
the spite in my veins is tempered only by the broth of instant ramen and ungodly amounts of sugar, and i'm going to use them all in my mission to cause antis pain when they refuse to acknowledge their lack of critical thinking and analysis skills.
so, yeah. why do i actually like snape?
tl;dr: he's not that bad. for a teacher written in the 90's and compared to teachers i've had within the decade, the guy's just strict. sure, he's a dick (who i personally think is hilarious), but he always makes sure the students are safe and he didn't leave any lasting effect on any of the students. he's really not that bad of a teacher. and hell, he's not even that bad of a person. i fully admit that he was an asshole and i entirely believe he was prone to self-destructive behaviour, but he still tried to atone for his mistakes and he did, is the thing, even though the odds were stacked more or less completely against him. i like him because he entertains me, and because i relate to him, as a teen who went through some shit and probably would have joined up with some bad people if it weren't for my friends and family, and as a teacher who really can't stand my students sometimes. i also like him because it irritates people who don't like him :)
also, istg if any of you respond to this with "bUt hE was ObseSsED with LiLY and just WAnTEd to FUCK hEr," i'm crawling into your bedroom window with the most unrealistic, mangled interpretations of your favourite characters and making sure they haunt you in your dreams. meet me in the fuckin' pit, babe. reread the series, actually think about it and come with receipts that aren't Voldemort, because i don't think you want to have the same opinion as the character who canonically doesn't understand love, now, do you, sweetheart? when you do that, then, and only then, will i consider entertaining your bullshit :)
that's about it from me, thanks for reading!
#severus snape#pro snape#why do people like snape?#i can't speak for anybody else but here's me#i probably left something out since i haven't written a good essay since my literature exam#but it's fine#let me like my chaotic bastard son in peace please#snape#snapedom
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Prompt fill #9 for @dimension20alphabet:
Injury
The air smells of smoke, dust and blood.
Fabian is pretty sure that his left foot is broken, which sucks because he’s going to have a hard time kicking anyone’s ass without both his feet. Dancing will also be difficult.
He clutches his battle sheet and tries to pull his foot out of the rubble it got stuck between. If he gets his hands on the bastards who made this damn cave explode above them even their ancestors are going to have a headache waking up tomorrow.
But for that to happen, Fabian needs to get out of here.
“Fabian?”
Riz’ voice sounds hoarse and muffled and Fabian assumes that he’s somewhere behind another pile of rubble.
“I’m over here”, he answers and tries to make his voice sound casual and not like he wants to do something embarrassing, like whimper from the pain. Fabian can barely anything and breathing is hard because there is so much dust in the air.
“I’ll—let me see if I can get to you. You okay?”, Riz asks. Fabian doesn’t waste his breath to answer, he tries to push some of the rubble away from his ankle and lets out a wheezing breath. His mouth tastes like iron.
He can hear Riz try to move the rubble out of the way, but his arms are like tiny twigs so Fabian doesn’t see how he’ll get any of that shit to move. And Fabian, being uselessly stuck with his damn foot, can’t help him.
Fabian thought that splitting up the party was the smartest move, but now he regrets their choices because damn, they sure could use Kristen’s healing or Adaine’s magic or Gorgug’s insane muscles to move some of this shit.
The quest to defeat the Night Yorb hasn’t exactly gone well so far. Fabian feels like being stuck in a fucking cave with his foot broken and his mouth full of blood is the peak of bad luck that they have reached so far. He can only hope that the others had more success on their ventures.
But as far as he knows, they’re also stuck somewhere in here.
Fabian never specifically had a problem with small, closed spaces, but right now he feels like his chest is unusually tight and he could swear that the damn ceiling is getting closer while he’s desperately trying to get his foot unstuck.
The rubble behind him shifts and a few pained noises bring Fabian back to reality as a small, lithe shape wiggles itself through an impossible tiny crack made in the pile behind him as Riz appears, his head bleeding profusely and his face contorted in a mix of determination and pain.
“Are you okay?”, Riz asks again the second he scrambles through the hole he made. Fabian notices that his hands are also bleeding—probably from digging through all those stones. Something in Fabian’s chest feels like a nervous bird fluttering against his rib cage and it takes him a confused moment to realize that it’s his heart.
Riz has been different since they defeated the Nightmare King.
More self confident somehow. Less awkward. Scarily competent.
And he stopped wearing his hat.
Fabian has been feeling weird around him for a while, but the fact that this little Goblin dug himself through sharp rocks to get to him, bleeding and bruised and hurt, and the first thing he does is ask if Fabian is okay—it does things to him.
Fabian refuses to acknowledge this.
“My foot is stuck”, he says.
Riz—and he’s been Riz for a while now, at least in Fabian’s head, and not The Ball anymore—turns his huge, yellow eyes to the stones that are crushing Fabian’s foot between them.
“Got it”, Riz says and without doing anything about his bleeding head or his bleeding hands he gets to work, his small frame working tirelessly, determined, stubborn even. The rocks are big—way too big for Riz to actually lift them.
But Riz wouldn’t be Riz if he wouldn’t be a nerd even about stuff like this.
Using his sword as leverage he manages to roll the bigger ones off of the pile. While he works Fabian can see blood dripping down the sword and Riz’ face.
He swallows heavily.
“You’re bleeding”, he croaks.
“I know. I’ll take care of it in a second”, Riz answers.
He’s focused.
Fabian knows that, when Riz gets like this, there is no way to deter him from the task at hand. It sometimes happens for a project at school, or when he has a case he’s close to cracking. He disappears into his head and into his task at hand and it takes hours for him to appear again.
Fabian doesn’t know when exactly he started to catalogue all of Riz’ facial expressions and behaviors, but he has quite the collection so far.
Riz works in silence. Sometimes, when he gets like this, he starts mumbling to himself, but not this time.
He looks almost grim.
Fabian isn’t sure if it’s actually getting warmer in here or if that’s just him.
“Do you think the others got stuck as well?”, he says to distract himself from the heat crawling under his skin and the fluttering in his chest.
“Probably not. By my estimation they should be way further down already”, Riz murmurs and wipes some sweat off his forehead, which simply leaves a smearing of blood where his hand touches his green skin.
Fabian has no idea since when his damn brain finds it mesmerizing to see blood on his best friend’s skin, but here he is, staring at Riz because he looks weirdly... ragged? Badass?
Fabian is annoyed at himself.
When he finally feels the weight lifted off his ankle he pulls his leg out and makes a pained noise in the back of his throat that causes Riz’ concentrated gaze to turn to him. His yellow eyes remind Fabian of cats’ eyes in the dark and he swallows again as Riz comes over to him and touches Fabian’s face to turn his head to the side so he can inspect his wounds.
Fabian’s heart stumbles in his chest.
Gods dammit, this is completely ridiculous.
“You bleeding anywhere else?”, Riz asks and then his eyes find Fabian’s and they’re staring at each other. Fabian knows that Riz is in no headspace to think about kissing, but damn, Fabian does. Fabian’s stupid brain tells him to just grab Riz by the shoulders and pull him down, pull him on top of Fabian to minimize the space between them—
“Fabian? You got a concussion? Let me check your eyes.”
Riz gets even closer.
Fabian thinks he might die.
He thinks about the way Aelwyn made him feel back then, when he got so excited about kissing her again. Somehow that was nothing compared to how he’s been feeling about Riz for a while now. As Fig said, kissing someone you’re “madly in love with just hits different”.
“Don’t think so”, he manages and his voice sounds like sandpaper on stone.
“Okay. I have my healer’s kit. Just let me clean my hands real quick.”
Fabian watches how Riz procures water and his healer’s kit from his bag and starts washing his hands as good as he can before he tries to wrap bandages around both of his hands. He lets out a frustrated hiss.
“Let me—“, Fabian says and grabs Riz’ hands.
To be fair, Fabian never paid much attention when Cathilda or Kristen tried to teach him first aid because it never was of much interest to him—and now he definitely wishes he had listened a little closer. But it can’t be that difficult to wrap a tiny pair of Goblin hands in bandages to make them stop bleeding.
“You have to do, like, a kind of V-shape. Yeah. Like that. Not too tight, please. Yeah, that works.”
What Fabian didn’t really think through was that now he’s somewhat holding Riz’ hands. Which doesn’t exactly help his brain or his heart to calm down. At least his internal turmoil distracts him from the pain and the situation they’re currently in.
He remembers how Riz stole that healer’s kit on their very first day of school. He’s had it ever since and restocked it carefully for each of their adventures, taking great care to learn how to give first aid to his friends when everyone else was out of spells or they were separated.
“Thanks, Fabian”, Riz says once it’s done and he wiggles his fingers slightly, then turns his eyes back on Fabian’s face.
“I’ll take care of your head first and then I can check out that foot. Maybe I can—I dunno. Make a splint or something.”
“You—uh. You got really good at this”, Fabian says and turns his gaze upwards so he doesn’t have to focus on Riz’ yellow eyes right in front of him anymore.
“Thanks”, Riz mumbles and his bandages fingers touch Fabian’s face gently.
Fabian kind of wishes one of the rocks had just knocked him out.
This is pathetic.
He is Fabian Aramais Seacaster.
Maybe his confidence died briefly—or for a longer period of time—back on their Spring Break adventure, but he’s been building it back up! He’s a catch! He’s amazing!
Riz should be the one getting nervous because he’s allowed to touch Fabian’s handsome face.
“I think once we’re patched up you should take my sword and teleport through all that rubble and I’ll try to crawl back. We need to find the others.”
“You shouldn’t crawl back through that, The Ball”, Fabian says, thinking about Riz’s bloody hands. Riz shouldn’t get hurt on Fabian’s behalf.
Gods, Fabian has it bad.
“It’s fine. I’m smaller than you, so it’s easier for me. And I don’t think you should move too much with that brok—“
“I’m in—I have feelings. For you.”
Silence.
Fabian doesn’t dare to breathe. Two seconds ago it felt right to finally say it, but now he’s regretting all his life choices leading up to this, as Riz’ yellow eyes stare at him, his small fingers still on Fabian’s forehead, holding a piece of gauze against the wound.
“Wh—what?”
“Forget it—it’s uh—I probably do have a concussion. Nevermind!”
He can tell that Riz doesn’t buy it and also that Fabian’s words have ripped him out of his state of hyper-focus, something that Fabian has never managed to do before. Maybe he should feel kind of proud. But instead he feels sick to his stomach.
“Feelings? Like—uh—like...”
Fabian sees the confidence slip from Riz’ face like a mask he wore, and underneath is still the socially awkward kid handing people fucking business cards and vomiting inside of backpacks because he heard some clues.
“Yeah. Like that”, he says.
It’s hard to see in the dark, but Fabian could swear that Riz’ cheeks are tinted dark green.
“Really?”
His voice sounds very small now. Nervous. As if he expects Fabian to start laughing and say “Of course not, The Ball”. Which is probably fair. It’s not like Fabian ever managed to make his appreciation of his best friend very clear.
“Hm.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? What does that mean?”
“I—uh—I don’t. Um—this is—“
Riz laughs nervously and turns his head.
“I didn’t—um. Well”, he laughs again and sits down, hugs his knees and props his chin on top of them. “I kinda didn’t expect to ever hear that. From you. Um—yeah. It’s been... a long time. For me? I guess.”
Fabian’s brain short circuits and his heart does a very complicated dancing routine.
“You—what?”
Riz peaks up at him. Shrugs.
“I’ve kinda been in love with you since. I don’t even know. A long time.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. For real.”
“Okay, fuck this cave. Fuck this whole thing. We have to get out of here so I can fucking kiss your brains out. Give me your sword.”
Riz hides his face for a second and then he laughs, a shaky, nervous but also happy laugh. He does not hand Fabian his sword.
“First the wounds. Then the sword. Then—then the other stuff.”
“Fine. You better hurry up.”
“I will. Hold still.”
Fabian is still determined to kick everyone’s ass once they get out of this. But maybe he’ll also send them some fruit baskets to the hospital afterwards.
#fabriz#dimension 20#fantasy high#riz gukgak#fabian seacaster#fabian aramais seacaster#d20alphabet21#fanfiction#mi writes
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MCU Loki Ep 4 “Nexus Event” intensive analysis
Okay, new episode which is, thankfully, kind of better than the previous. But let’s start with order.
So we’ll start with Asgard, only we aren’t told it’s Asgard nor in which year we are. I hope the fact we aren’t told the year is meaningful, because otherwise it’s just lazy.
We see a child Sylvie playing with toy dragon and toy Valkyrie when Renslayer, at the time a young hunter and other hunters get there to capture her. We don’t know what little Sylvie did wrong. As far as we know she had no magic so, unless she actually did have magic and her adult version didn’t know, it’s not like she was a male Loki who shapeshift into a female so this can be her Nexus event.
She’s just a child playing.
Whatever, Renslayer and the others didn’t care she’s a child, they decide she’s the Variant they were hunting, grabs her and take her away.
At the TVA Renslayer holds her for her arm in what should be an uncomfortable grip for poor Sylvie and doesn’t even look at her or tries to reassure her in any way.
I remember, when we saw all this being done to Loki, wondering if the series would dig into police brutality. Sylvie sees a man getting dragged in, she’s scare she asks for someone to help the man, no one cares. She goes through the same routine Loki went through at the TVA. Mercifully we don’t see her being left naked but we see her being forced to wear the TVA prison uniform for Variants.
For all the people who though what Loki went through was funny and the TVA was justified in doing it, now I want you to look well at what they’re doing at this poor child. It’s the same thing. Is it still funny? Do they still lokk like the good guys.
She’s scared and, as far as she know, she did nothing wrong and, despite her young age, no one is showing her any sympathy.
She’s guilty of the same crime Loki committed, ‘crimes against the Sacred Timeline’. She’s handled the same. If you justified or excused or agreed with what was done to Loki for ‘crimes against the Sacred Timeline’, you were agreeing to what is happening to her now.
Being stripped of her rights, handled like an object for a crime she had no intention or idea she had committed because it was made up by some unknown authority.
Once in front of the judge Sylvie manages to escape to Renslayer’s grip and steal her tempad.
Now, I can excuse the escaping and also the stealing. Maybe Renslayer is inexperienced and maybe she didn’t expect dangers from such a young child but how did she figured she has to steal the tempad and how to use it?
Up till now how Renslayer has used the Tempad for was to recognize her as the Variant they were searching for. She shouldn’t know it’s the Tempad which opens the Timedoors or how to work it. Sure, we can assume it’s really easy to use it but it still makes no sense she knows she has to use it to open the timedoors.
Whatever, Renslayer remains frozen on the spot when little Sylvie escapes and I can wonder if she felt a bit of sympathy for her… only the scene is kinda weird because she looked angry and ready to strike when the Sylvie stomped on her feet so this sudden sympathy when she’s about to escape is out of place. They just stare at each other, NO ONE making an attempt to grab Sylvie before Sylvie escape through the timedoor which, differently from how it had done with Loki in Episode 2, immediately close behind her.
The scene switches to Renslayer who has her eyes closed as if this was her memory.
She then opens them and enter through a golden door, supposedly going to see the Time-Keepers.
We get a glimpse to the Time-Keepers and then the title.
In the next scene the door opens and Renslayer marches out of it, Mobius confirming she went to see the Time-Keepers. He asks her how she feels and she says she’s not well because she had to meet the Time-Keepers in a bad situation and it’s stressing enough to meet them when everything goes well so this is really terrible.
Now… I don’t know. Later in the episode it’ll turn out the Time-Keepers are fake so… didn’t she know? Is she pretending to be stressed for Mobius’ benefit?
She says the Time-Keepers are blaming her for the situation and for how Sylvie and Loki escaped. She doesn’t mention Loki tried to stop Sylvie from meeting the Time-Keepers.
In short although Loki tried to stop Sylvie and used the Tempad to escape only when Renslayer tried to kill them both, through the whole episode they’ll handle him as if he tried to escape with her or worse help her to kill the Time-Keepers.
Renslayers remarks how
The Time-Keepers are all that stand between us and full-scale calamity.
…basically fuelling their own Time-Keepers cult.
Mobius though is more interested in talking with C-20 but Renslayer, with a tragic performance, tells him she’s dead because when she was enchanted this scrambled her mind and basically she began to decline till death. Tissues anyone?
Even Mobius feels a slight scent of b*llsh*t at this story since C-20 seemed fine when he brought her back to the TVA but since he trusts Renslayer he swallows it.
Poor C-20 clearly either got pruned or reset, somehow they didn’t decide to make the smart thing and re-brainwash her, but just preferred to kill her off.
Renslayer persuades Mobius to keep C-20’s death a secret so as not to create panic.
By the way, NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE BOMBED TIMELINE AND NO ONE WILL TALK ABOUT IT LATER ON. It felt like the bombed timeline was merely something they did in Ep 2 to distract TVA and the viewers so that Sylvie could sneak in but nothing serious since it gets dropped so easily which is beyond disappointing. I mean, in Ep 2 it seemed to be such a huge problem and now… it’s nothing. All solved, all forgotten, just some extra work done in a short time.
Apparently, resetting the timeline in god knows how many points did nothing.
Really, that feel more like a dropped plot point or a plot hole than anything else.
For all that’s worth I find the acting between Mobius and Renslayer good. Every actor is working really hard in this series and I feel bad if it were to get lost into plot contrivances and plot holes.
Back to the story Renslayer pressures Mobius into tracking Sylvie and Loki.
The scene switches back to Lamentis. A lot more meteorites are falling but none of them close to Loki and Sylvie.
Sylvie is sit on a stone. Loki reaches her and apologizes. Because this episode wants him to be a narcissist but he again shows empathy to her.
Sylvie opens up to him, talking with him about her life.
Now is what Loki said about love being a dagger is something that’s not profound and pompous what about this that Sylvie says?
The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief.
It’s completely her speculation and gives her a sense of grandiosity. SHE’S IN A MISSION FOR THE UNIVERSE! THE UNIVERSE WANTS IT!
Don’t take me wrong, the TVA is keeping everyone prisoner but the universe didn’t create the Loki so as they could become its saviours.
We continue with Sylvie story. We’re supposed to swallow not only she figured the Tempad could open timedoor and how it worked but also how to recharge it and how to escape the TVA despite their many attempts to get her. Sylvie, who was already amazing for teaching herself how to enchant people, is set up to be even more amazing as she’s basically teaching herself everything and escaping from the TVA by centuries from when she was a young kid.
Who’s Tony Stark compared to her?
If this were to be a fanfic we would call her a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu.
She’s simply so awesome it doesn’t seem realistic for no reason at all especially compared to the other Loki Variant with her.
As Waldron is not a young girl writing for free I fear nobody will dare tell him he created a Mary Sue and people will only praise him for the oh so competent Sylvie.
And mind you, we need characters like Sylvie, who’re very competent.
Characters who’re sex fluid and bisexual and with a woman body and can still be strong and competent and above others… but the whole thing feels forced because she’s too good without a logic behind it, from figuring out it’s the Tempad that opens time door without never seeing it to do, to successfully escaping the TVA for so long.
When Loki managed to steal the Time Twister and use it, he has seen it being used previously more than once so it made sense he could use it and he had, to figure out how it worked, all the time Mobius spent discussing with B-15.
It made him smart to realize he could use it and he used it in a clever way but it wasn’t unbelievable because he had a grasp of how it worked, of what it could do.
Sylvie only saw it being used to identify her yet she guessed it was the thing that opened the Timedoors and how to make it work despite the Tempad having more than one function in basically a moment.
Then, although she apparently keeps on causing Nexus events everywhere she goes, she always manages to be one step ahead the TVA, escaping their grasp and, in all this, she also managed to recharge the Tempad using amazing power sources where Loki supposedly has no idea how it’s done. She fed herself, she learnt how to fight, she got herself a sword, she learn enchantment without having any basis whatsoever…
She’s the ‘superior Loki’ in a way, but why she should be superior to all the other Loki is absolutely random.
Anyway she says she grew up among ‘ends of the worlds’ and she will die in one of them, all while the scenery around them didn’t seem apocalyptic but romantic.
And mind you, the visual is really pretty but I feel the romance is misplaced, unnecessary.
And I’m still not sold in how they’re representing the moon.
Meanwhile Mobius is searching for them or better for a Nexus event that will lead him to them.
B-15, who hates variants, suggests they’re gone planning their next massacre… which isn’t true but if it were… can you blame them when you were the one who wanted to kill them in the first place and humiliated and belittled them? Should they have thanked you for your mistreatment?
She then asks about C-20 and Mobius says he has none so, worriedly, B-15 tries to urge him to… do something.
We go back to Loki and Sylvie and to the moon conveniently crumbling above them and yet not hitting them with them perfectly calm and enjoying the show.
Sylvie starts getting depressed.
Sylvie: Not long now. Do you think that what makes a Loki a Loki is the fact that we're destined to lose?
So okay, she feels she has lost but this is kind of a big leap. I mean, if the fact Loki was destined to lose is what made him Loki… then Thanos is Loki and Obadiah Stane is Loki and Red Skull is Loki and Killmongrel is Loki and so on.
Loki counters with something… interesting.
Loki: No. We may lose. Sometimes painfully. But we don’t die. We survive. I mean, you did. You were just a child when the TVA took you, but you nearly took down the organization that claims to govern the order of time. You did it on your own. You ran rings around them. You’re amazing!
Okay… so he knows he died in the sacred timeline. What’s his basis for saying they don’t die? The fact he survived to the wormhole? When he specifically wanted to die? Or that he survived through Thanos? Is the series ever going to touch that or we should pretend it never happened and Loki had a nice holiday with him?
Or a Time Charge hit the timeline in that point and erased that year Loki spent with Thanos?
Whatever, Loki is now busy admiring Sylvie for her efforts and being supportive… but it seems Marvel doesn’t want to count this as him being empathic and supportive with another being because she’s Loki… only episode 3 and the beginning of episode 4 went to great lengths to establish she’s not and hey, technically episode 3 is right in this.
I’ll point it out here and not later on because it’s probably important to discuss it immediately as it’ll come up later on a lot.
The identity of a person is made up by nature and nurture. Part of you is what you physically are, your genetic code that decide if you’re black or white, male or female or something else, human or a horse, tall or short, healthy or sick.
What you are will dictate part of what you will experience so it has a huge impact on you as it will decide part of your skills and part of your weaknesses.
Then, of course, there’s nurture.
Let’s pick twins. It’s worth to mention not all the identical twins share EXACTLY the same DNA because recent studies have proved mutation occurs in around the 15% of identical twins.
It’s also worth to mention that nurture begins really early. Even if we assume the two managed to keep the same genetic code, during development in the womb one twin might not receive the same amount of nutrients and this might affect his development.
And nurture will continue to affect them as they can even experience similar things (same parents, same house, same school) but there will be always differences that will end up affecting them.
Each twin is his own person, they’re not the same.
So now, Loki and Sylvie.
They’re clearly genetically not the same. What’s more we’ll see at the end there’s even a black Loki so basically this series doesn’t require the same genetic code for a Loki to be a Loki. So nature isn’t relevant here.
What about nurture?
We just learnt Sylvie’s story is completely different from Loki.
As a result her powers are different from his own. Her skillsets, her reactions, her temper is different from his own. She has different goals and different wants. As Sophia Di Martino said, she’s Sylvie, not Loki.
She’s as different from him as another person could be.
To me she even looked more like Thor than Loki.
So really, how’s self admiration when she’s actually not him? The only way for it to be self admiration would be if Loki isn’t admiring her for her own accomplishment, but just because he was told she’s him. But in this case he wouldn’t have been babbling for ours about who’s the lesser Loki.
If all Lokis are made equal in his eyes and worth his admiration because Loki then there’s no point to discuss who among them is better.
In short it’s a damn mess.
Anyway Sylvie touches Loki and he’s kind of surprised, in fact he looks at his arm.
In “Thor” the touch of a Frost Giant could turn Loki into his original look but we know Sylvie has touched Loki already when she tried to enchant him and that’s not the problem.
I wish the trick were she has enchanted him but later Mobius will say the problem is that they had started swooning on each other which opens a huge can of worms but we’ll discuss them later.
So now back to Mobius we go and to the timeline which begins to branch, signalling problems on Lamentis 1.
We return to Loki who raises his eyes from his arm and he and Sylvie look at each other for a moment before returning to pay attention to the show of meteorites falling closer. They turn again to look at each other, holding hands this time and smiling.
Back to Mobius we go and to how the branching timeline seems to go on a perpendicular line rather quickly. It impresses Mobius as it’s apparently an unheard event.
Back to Loki and Sylvie we go and to how two TimeDoor open in front of them.
We don’t know if they jumped through them to survive or if the TVA came out, grabbed them and dragged them through and it doesn’t matter.
In the next scene we see that both Sylvie and Loki are collared, held by guard as they struggle and escorted through the corridors of the TVA, Mobius leading them.
They’re then parted and when this happens they look at each other.
As they walk Mobius begins to talk with Loki. Evidently Mobius has no idea that Loki had been trying to stop Sylvie when they were at the TVA and works on the assumption they were accomplices. Maybe. It’s not really clear on which assumption Mobius is working.
Loki accuses him to have betrayed him and Mobius counters it’s Loki who betrayed him.
Actually they’re both wrong, Mobius more than Loki.
For a betrayal to happen, there needs to be a break of trust.
Now, in regard to Loki, trusting Mobius was a mistake. Mobius picked him up from the trial because he needed him for a use and was never honest with him.
Meeting the Time-Keepers? Mobius can’t met them himself, how could he help Loki meeting them?
But whatever, Loki apparently trusted him so I take he feels betrayed by how Mobius had him arrested when he actually didn’t betray Mobius. He tried stopping Sylvie, he tried capturing her, he ended on Lamentis 1 because Renslayer tried to kill them both, he didn’t cause the timeline to branch on purpose, for most of his permanence on Lamentis 1 he wanted to leave the planet and stick to his own plan to bring Sylvie back to the TVA.
So Mobius arresting him clearly feels an act of betrayal to Loki. He doesn’t know Renslayer didn’t report he tried to stop Sylvie and the fact Mobius didn’t trust him to do what he was supposed to but handled him like a criminal likely hurt.
But, as I said before, for all Mobius can say, he’s not his friend, he’s not someone who would trust and support him, Mobius cares about the TVA.
And Mobius feel betrayed because he thinks Loki plotted against the TVA with Sylvie.
This is wrong for two reasons, the first and most obvious being that Loki didn’t plot with her, the second being that, although Loki seemed to have missed it, he was working with Mobius under coercion. The TVA wanted to prune him, Mobius saved him but in exchange Loki had to make himself useful. This was made clear in episode 2 as well. Mobius said if using Loki didn’t work he would delete him himself and he made Loki sure this was his last chance (before being deleted) and that he had to work to make himself useful while Mobius went and have lunch.
You aren’t entitled to expect genuine loyalty from someone when you tell them ‘if you don’t give me what I want I’ll kill you’. I hope no one has forgotten this little talk from episode 2:
Mobius: This is the final step. Your last chance.
Loki: Oh, and what does my desperate last chance require?
Mobius: Work.
Loki: Work?
Mobius: I need you to go over each and every one of the Variant's case files, and then, give me your... How do I put it? Your unique Loki perspective. And who knows? Maybe there's something that we missed.
Loki: Well, you're idiots. I suspect you probably missed a lot.
Mobius: That's why I'm lucky I got ya for a little bit longer. Let me park ya at this desk. And don't be afraid to really lean into this work. Here's a good trick for you. Pretend your life depends on it. I'm gonna get a snack.
Mobius made really clear if Loki didn’t give him what he wants he’s a dead man.
For some weird reasons Loki decided to still be loyal to him (okay, so he wanted to get to the Time-Keepers and might suffer of Stockholm syndrome), but the most logical thing, as many had pointed out, was escape from the TVA first chance he were to get as Sylvie has been doing.
Now… to be honest there are situations in which you could ask this from another.
If Mobius had told Loki ‘Sorry, I know this is unfair and I want to help you but I can’t do more or I’ll get killed too. So I’ll protect you but I’ve to ask you to protect me as well by putting up with this.’
This though would have required Mobius to prioritize Loki’s survival and consider the fact he needed Loki to catch the Variant as an excuse to keep Loki alive.
That’s not the case, Mobius made clear although he has sympathy for Loki, he prioritizes catching the Variant. He didn’t suffer any repercussion when things went wrong.
He’s absolutely safe, his only risk comes from the Variant but this was the same even prior to Loki getting involved.
Mobius is using Loki and, in exchange for using him, he let him enjoy the benefit of being alive, albeit belittled by others around him. As I said talking about Episode 2, they don’t have an equal partnership.
I hate how Mobius says this:
Mobius: You know, it occurred to me that you're not really the God of Mischief.
Loki: Oh, here it comes. The folksy, dopey insult from the folksy dope. What am I? The God of Self-Sabotage, yeah? The God of Back-Stabbing?
Mobius: Just kind of an asshole and a bad friend.
The worst part is that Mobius seems to genuinely believe he’s a good friend to Loki, opposed to Loki who’s a bad friend. He didn’t even listen to his reasons or asked him what had happened. When Loki tries to tell him something ‘the TVA is lying to you’, he merely assumes Loki is lying. Mobius has no idea what a friend is. He’s angry in the way a pet owner is angry when his dog peed on the carpet, he doesn’t view Loki as equal, which is the basis for being friends.
His idea to deal with Loki now isn’t to listen to him, it’s to punish him by having him being beaten and belittled, as well as tossed hurtful words about Loki’s worst fear, being left alone. He doesn’t even dirty his hands with doing it himself, he just traps Loki in a timeloop in which Sif slaps him, kick him in the groins and punches him telling him he is a ‘conniving, craven, pathetic worm’ and that she ‘hope you know you deserve to be alone and you always will be’, all this because Loki cut her hair.
Now, this is based on something the Loki of the myth did, and that Marvel also had Loki do more than once in the comics, either with Sif or with other characters. In the original version and in the Marvel version Loki didn’t just cut some locks from Sif’s hair as he did here, but basically turned her bald.
It doesn’t matter, yes he was an *ssh*le and yes, I think Sif had all the rights to be angry and call him names and beat him.
BACK THEN.
Loki hurt her, she hurt him back, they are even. That’s the end.
Even Sif knows as she doesn’t remain there to beat him further until all his bones are broken.
Of course this is not going to work because beating someone and calling him names doesn’t magically turn that person into a better person, that’s why many countries abolished corporal punishment and considered it an useless torture.
But this doesn’t mean it’s okay for Mobius to take that moment and traps Loki into a time loop so he can get beaten and humiliated to Mobius’ heart content until he says he’s bad, bad, bad, which in real life is equally useless because we know if you start beating a person and won’t stop until he says what you want him to say, people in the long run will say everything to make the beating stop, they even confess crimes they didn’t commit.
That’s why, in many states, if you arrest someone you can’t beat him until he confess and any confession obtained by beating him is null and void.
And I particularly loathe the framing of all this for more than one reason but let’s start digging with the first ones.
“Thor” side material established that Sif is a better fighter than Loki but sadly the idea a girl can’t hit as hard as a man rules so Sif beating Loki doesn’t feel as bad as, let’s say, Cull Obsidian punching him over and over. Some see as fun that a male can be beaten by a girl and hit on the crotch, a rightful demeaning which excuses what’s being done because she’s just a girl and if Loki can’t defend himself it’s his fault… which is a rather disgusting mindsetting.
The fact Sif was, ‘supposedly’ Loki’s friend is clearly chosen to draw a comparison with Mobius… which doesn’t really work really well because we never truly saw Sif and Loki being friends.
In “Thor” she was fast in thinking he was plotting the downfall of Asgard. If the idea is their relation turned sour because Loki cut her hair… well, this is up to speculation because we never saw it being friendly.
And anyway, even Sif knew when to stop while Mobius evidently doesn’t as he continues to let him be beaten, again without even doing the job himself, framing it as if it was all Loki’s fault.
If he had to beat Loki into submission I would have honestly preferred him to just take a whip and beat him, this framing in which he ‘remains innocent’ while his dog gets punished for peeing on the carpet honestly disgust him. But okay, if the series were to use it to make a point about ‘police brutality’ I would have been fine with it. Mobius wants a confession, wants to force Loki to comply and beat him. The viewers will be shown how wrong is this and the message will be that you shouldn’t do it.
It would be great if Mobius were playing the part of the Bernardo Gui of the TVA.
Bernardo Gui: Brother Salvatore... these torments will cause me as much pain as you. You can end it before we even begin. Open the gates of your heart, search the depths of your soul. [Name of the Rose]
Too bad that’s not the case.
The scene switches to Renslayer’s office.
This is how Mobius defines what he’s doing to Loki:
Mobius: He's softening in the Time Cell, but while he marinates, I thought maybe I'd interview the other Variant.
Please, don’t tell me you never heard this sort of excuses in movies that included police brutality. Or outright torture to make you confess you were an heretic or guilty of a murder.
He’s not being beaten into compliance, he’s softening. We’re making him better, we’re making him willing. We’re absolutely not making anything bad in having him being beaten over and over. Because if you beat someone over and over you’ll always have a honest confession, won’t you?
Bernardo Gui: Since the verdict of the Inquisition has been disputed by Brother William... we are obliged to extract the prisoner's confession to murder. Take him to the forge and show him the instruments.
Remigio Da Varagine: I'll confess anything you want, but don't torture me. I can't go through a night like Salvatore!
Bernardo Gui: Very well. Why did you kill them?
Remigio Da Varagine: Why? I don't know why.
Bernardo Gui: Because you were inspired by the devil?
Remigio Da Varagine: Yes... that's it. I was inspired by the devil. [Name of the Rose]
But I’m running ahead.
Mobius would like to talk with the other Variant, aka Sylvie. Would he also torture her psychologically or physically or it would look bad on him to abuse of a woman? We don’t know as Renslayer, rather cheerfully, refuses to let him speak with her. Nobosy should speak with her.
Mobius tries in another way:
Mobius: I mean, if there's a mastermind here, I don't think it's Loki.
The problem I have with this sentence is that it’s not said because geez, it makes no sense Loki willingly escaped with a variant into an apocalypse with no means to leave it, all to create a branch that would allow the TVA to detect them and capture them.
It’s not even said because Loki is his friend and wouldn’t do it.
Or any other logical reason why Loki wouldn’t have done it.
The implication here seems to be just that Loki doesn’t seem smart enough to be the mastermind of all this fiasco, because this is a fiasco, mind you, as they were captured and if they weren’t they would be dead.
Renslayer’s reply isn’t what Mobius wants.
Renslayer: Good. Then he should be the easiest to break. Work your Loki and figure out what caused that spike. Time-Keepers are watching, Mobius.
She at least calls things with their name as she says Mobius is supposed to break Loki. To break him to get the truth. She has figured Mobius is having him beaten and she’s okay with breaking him. Because a regime beat people into compliance.
Then she put pressures on Mobius by telling him the Time-Keepers are watching which reminds me of how, in the past, people used to say to scare others ‘Remember: God is always watching you!’ and it wasn’t meant to be encouraging, as he’s watching you to protect you, no, he’s watching you because if you mess up he’s ready to punish you.
Welcome to the Time-Keepers cult everyone.
Mobius leaves.
We move to B-15 who’s asking to another hunter Sylvie has beaten if she’s Okay because Sylvie is the superior Loki and of course she has managed to beat one of the hunters guarding her.
Mobius joins B-15 and saying the hunter hurt comments:
Mobius: They don't go gently, do they?
WHY SHOULD THEY?
Are you going gently with Loki? You’re having him beaten over and over and my guess is you’re not doing the same with Sylvie because the show thinks it would look bad if they were shown beating a woman over and over.
Anyway B-15 is right when she calls Loki his ‘Variant pet’, as I said that’s how Mobius sees Loki, as a pet who peed on the carpet.
Mobius goes on:
Mobius: You know, we brought in Kree, Titans, vampires. Why is it the two orphan demigods are such a pain in the ass?
I hate this question honestly because it implies two orphan demigods should just go down quietly, that they aren’t as terrible as Kree, Titans, vampires. Why are they opposing to the TVA, why don’t let themselves just be erased. Or reprogrammed as you let the TVA do to you, Mobius.
You know, there’s people that’s not thrilled with the idea you can kill or submit them.
But Hunter B-15 despite looking down on the Variants, is worried so she asks if Loki said anything to him.
Mobius replies Loki told him the TVA is lying him. Oh, think the audacity! The TVA which is so honest. The agency he can believe it’s real because he believes it’s real.
Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...
Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.
Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose.
Mobius: Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real.
Such a solid base. And Loki tells him they’re lying. No, really? His little personal cult, lying TO HIM?
Of course B-15 fears differently but she had an experience Mobius couldn’t share.
We go back to Loki who now is on the ground and is begging Sif to hit him no more. And a side of me facepalm.
Okay, as said before Sif was established to be stronger than him but he knows she’s coming. He could goddamn prepare and put up a fight instead than just stay there and get beaten which, I guess, is painful.
I’ll assume he can’t use his magic so I’ll forgive him for not using that but he could just take a flower vase, hit and crash it against Sif’s head when she enters.
Never mentioning that if he kept on getting punched and beaten, since HE doesn’t rewind, by now he should have a quite bruised check. Again, since Mobius wanted him beaten it would have made more sense if he just had whipped him but no, we needed to get this thing that supposedly tame the beating down so we don’t feel disgusted if we don’t think at it too hard.
Anyway Loki has enough and gives Sif what she wanted to hear.
Loki: Please, please, no more. Please, I beg you. I'm a horrible person. I get it. I really am. I cut off your hair because I thought it'd be funny. And it's not. Uh... I crave attention... because I'm... I'm a... I'm a narcissist. And I suppose it's... It's because I'm scared of being alone.
So let’s talk of all that’s wrong with this.
First of all Loki was coerced in saying this. It means goddamn nothing.
Second if this is meant to be the truth and someone doesn’t point out a little louder how the TVA is a fascist organization that deploy torture and anyway it’s bad to coerce people into saying the truth this way, it basically encourages to beat people to get them to be honest. Which is disgusting.
Third, it makes a HUGE deal of something that it’s relatively minor. I mean, Mobius wanted him to say he’s a horrible person? For cutting Sif’s hair?!? This is his worst crime, something Loki need to regret?
The TVA in Ep 1 was all about pinning on him the blame for the attack on New York but Sif’s hair, oh, cutting Sif’s hair is obviously worse. Only no, because it meant to happen in the Sacred Timeline so the TVA would have punished him hadn’t he done it.
So you can read this in two ways.
Either Mobius’ logic is dumb or the episode’s logic is dumb. If the story is trying to paint Mobius as an idiot and an hypocrite or he’s just trying to confuse Loki so that he’ll say everything and the opposite of everything and it doesn’t matter if it make sense or not fine, I’m cool, but if I’m supposed to run with this instead and think Mobius’ amazingly therapeutic way to get Loki to realize his faults and think at his behaviour and realize what he is, is to have Sif beat him into submission they’ll do better to think it twice.
Now… this part ‘I crave attention... because I'm... I'm a... I'm a narcissist. And I suppose it's... It's because I'm scared of being alone’ doesn’t make sense.
You don’t become a Narcissist because you’re scared of being alone. If you’re a Narcissist you crave attention and are scared to be alone but fears of loneliness doesn’t turn people into narcissists.
Now… is Loki a Narcissist? It’s kind of ridicule Loki would self diagnose it to himself, especially without any competence in psychology which on Asgard doesn’t seem to exist or they would know adopting a child and not telling him he’s adopted ends up badly in 99,9% of the cases. He’s probably using the term loosely but whatever, let’s run with it.
@lucianalight wrote an awesome essay (whose reading I recommend along with the others of the same series) explaining why he isn’t and Cinematherapy who can count on a real therapist, did a video explaining why he is. So who’s right?
Both and neither.
Let’s start with Cinematherapy as they employ a professional.
If you watch the video (recorded prior to the series) you realize they make a HUGE canon mistake right at the start. They assume Loki’s magical powers come from Loki being a Frost Giant.
That’s not bad will from their part, this is actually based on how they’ve watched the movies… and nothing else so they skipped all the additional side material and cut scenes. They didn’t watch the cut scene in “Thor: The Dark World” saying how Loki learnt magic from his mother nor read it in a side material publication or interview. They have no idea Loki’s sceptre was influencing him in “The Avengers” because that’s only written on Marvel’s web and not present in the movies and don’t seem to consider Loki in the year between “Thor” and “The Avengers” had to go through something terrible that could involve Thanos and torture or even death since that was only mentioned in interviews and in pretty vague terms. They consider “Thor: Ragnarok” part of the canon without considering how Taika Waititi deliberately, for his own admission, retconned it.
So their analysis uses the 5 movies and considers Loki in ‘perfect’ psychological state through the 5 of them. And it makes sense Cinematherapy analysis are meant to talk to casual viewers not to fans who knows everything about the movies.
@lucianalight instead considers all the side material included the cut scenes and the interview and discard “Thor: Ragnarok”. As a fan who well knows the story and the authors’ intentions she has access to a completely different set of information that Cinematherapy didn’t use in their analysis.
The result is that Cinematherapy and @lucianalight fundamentally looked at two different stories, albeit rooted on the same movies, and since they analyzed different material, they came up with contrasting analysis in which neither is wrong because they’re basically analyzing two different Variants of Loki.
But what’s the Variant we should look at to understand if the Loki of “Loki” is a Narcissist or not?
The real problem with diagnosing a character of fictional works is that said character is well… fictional. He can’t have a personality disorder, said disorder needs to be scripted into him by the writers… who often know very little of psychology, which is why I prefer to use trope to analyze characters than the effective mental disorders.
But with Loki we’ve a huge problem, because, in addition to the writers not being experienced about disorders, we’re talking about writerS, plural.
There’s more people writing Loki, and each of them can’t agree on how to interpret him.
So we have:
“Thor” in which Loki hardly presents traits of Narcissism.
“The Avengers” in which he presents them.
“Thor: The Dark World” in which he alternates presenting them, depending on the scene being written by Whedon or Don Payne (who also worked on “Thor”) and Robert Rodat.
“Thor: Ragnarok” in which he presents traits of Narcissism.
“Avengers: Infinity War” in which he doesn’t present them, if you read the interview, he’s just saying whatever comes to his mind to try to get a chance to kill Thanos and save his brother aware he can easily get killed… or in which he presents them if you don’t read the interviews and believes he’s persuaded he will come on the top.
If you mix the movies together and take them as they are without checking the additional material, the ones in which he presents traits of Narcissisms ends up colouring the view of the ones in which he doesn’t.
If you consider only “Thor” and “Thor: The Dark World” (the Don Payne and Robert Rodat part) which tried to keep the same continuity as the same scriptwriter was involved in both of them, he doesn’t.
I’ll be honest though, I think Marvel wants to slap that disorder on him.
They’ve discovered it’s oh so funny to have Loki feel so high and mighty and then be humbled down by having the Hulk smash him or Thor tossing him out of a spaceship or electrocuting him or Sif kicking him in his groins.
However I think Marvel is trying to milk their cow too much.
The scenes in which Loki is humbled work wonderfully in “The Avengers” because Loki genuinely felt high and mighty to the viewers to the point we didn’t expect him to be defeated, so seeing him being humbled down by the Hulk, by Hawkeye’s arrow, by Coulson shooting at him, were all powerful moves.
You didn’t expect them, Loki was a real threat in the movie and you’re as surprised as him when he gets defeated.
I mean when Hawkeye throws his arrow and Loki grabs it with no effort, it pushes you to think ‘oh, he’s too strong’ only for it to explode in his face.
You don’t get the same feeling in this series.
Loki is not strong nor particularly competent or bright. His words aren’t profound nor persuasive. His confidence seems baseless, his humbling down becomes expected, here, against Sif, he basically did NOTHING, except being beaten up. His verbal efforts to stop her were pathetic.
You aren’t surprised by Sif beating him, by Sif not being persuaded by his first weak attempts at stopping her verbally, his words aren’t convincing, his attempts at stopping her physically, inexistent.
It gets boring for the viewer as well as it ultimately gets ‘boring’ for Loki who, at a certain point says:
Loki: I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. "You. You conniving, craven, pathetic worm. You did this." Right?
He’s no more affected, it had become routine and it is for us too.
It’s a fail a wasted scene.
Overall I think Waldron doesn’t think highly of Loki. He views him as a Narcissist who thinks highly about himself but in truth is nothing special. A comic relief, an agent of chaos. At the same time… I’m not sure he knows what a Narcissist is, or that he’s thinking at the Narcissistic personality disorder because this Loki shows empathy. In this episode he showed he is not envious of Sylvie and his arrogant behaviour is a cover to cover up his weakness.
So honestly… whatever, I don’t care. No, okay, I do.
I’m sad because I see a lot of people working hard in this series, from the actors to Kate Herron who really love Loki and wanted this job but for me the plot of a story and the characterization of the characters are important and only Sergio Leone can pull out a masterpiece with a man with no name and a poor script.
Mind you, this episode is better than the previous in terms of plot but… overall is weak. I really, really hope the series will improve in Ep 5 and 6 because episode 3 & 4 just weren’t that great.
I really want Loki to have a great series but wanting it and getting it aren’t necessarily the same things.
Anyway back to the plot.
Although after Loki’s confession Sif doesn’t beat him and help him to get up this is what she tells him.
Sif: You are alone and you always will be.
Basically yeah, Loki’s confession meant nothing because he can’t change anything. He can’t get attention or company, not even behaving better. This is Sif’s message in the end. He’s pathetic and this time she doesn’t beat him up because it feels like beating a pathetic person.
Now, I’m not saying she should have forgiven him. Not this Sif. But the overall situation is warped. Although she didn’t mean to, she technically beat him nonstop, he had way more than enough, and if Sif hadn’t been trapped into a timeloop she would have known.
This Sif was used as a toy to do a job Mobius didn’t want to do personally.
It’s overall a sick situation and, since this Sif didn’t know she had been abusing Loki for only God knows how long, although she helps him to stand she rightfully doesn’t feel they’re even.
And though Loki had gotten a break from being beaten, it’s clear his admission ultimately did nothing good to him psychologically. If he’s alone and will always be as such… why should he care he hurts others? Why shouldn’t he take a bit of fun where he can?
And all this is psychological manipulation of course because then Mobius appears like a balm.
LOKI: There's not many people that can sneak up on me. (turns to see NATASHA STANDING THERE)
NATASHA: But you figured I'd come.
LOKI: After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate.
Now… I have not the slightest idea of what Mobius is planning to do here. He doesn’t trust Loki, he doesn’t really want the truth, whatever that can be, he wants a truth of his liking and this is not negotiable.
Loki tells him that he’ll give him info only if he’ll let him out of the place and stop beating him and he decides this means Loki previously wasn’t telling the truth because he’s not being submissive enough.
Mobius makes clear he wants to hear about the plan between Loki and the Variant and that he wants Loki to give him the answers he wants, not the truth. Which is stupid because instead he needs the truth.
When Loki tells him the truth, that he wasn’t partner with Sylvie, he’s dismissive of his answer.
Mobius: Yeah, I guess you don't do partners. Unless, of course, it benefits you, and you intend to betray them at some point.
Loki insists on not having a partnership with Sylvie.
Loki: It was a means to an end, Mobius. Welcome to the real world. Down there, we're awful to get what we want.
Mobius: Now I gotta have a prince tell me how the real world works?
I hate this mentality that has started to develop into Marvel movies as if royalty lived a fairy tale life and could have no idea of the real world, especially the part in which ‘we're awful to get what we want’ because it’s dumb. Royalty has an history of being awful to get what they want that’s as long as the start of civilization. If Mobius doesn’t know, maybe he is the one who has no idea how the real world work, how many wars had been declared because a king wanted the land of his neighbour or something else. How they could accuse people of betrayal or of imaginary crimes to get rid of them.
Laufey is a king and moved war to Earth. Odin is a king and drowned civilizations in blood.
T’Chaka is a king and abandoned his nephew so as to cover an unwanted truth.
The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree Empire took advantage of Carol Danvers, altering her memories.
And that’s just the Marvel universe. So really Mobius, are you sure that all royalty is the equivalent of Disney princesses who sings are lovely and have talking pets?
And then Mobius does a really STUPID question.
Mobius: Why don't you just tell me what caused the nexus event on Lamentis?
So the series has gone to a great length to establish people doesn’t know they cause a nexus event. They can’t see the sacred timeline they move at random and SLAM, sometimes they end up doing something they didn’t know they weren’t planned to do and it results in a nexus event. BUT THEY DIDN’T KNOW IT BEFOREHAND! SO HOW IS LOKI SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!?
But anyway they clearly weren’t supposed to be there so everything they do can create a disturbance if it’s not erased by the apocalypse. For example if they sent a missile to destroy the neighbour planet before Lamentis 1 was destroyed they clearly would affect the Sacred Timeline because the neighbouring planet wasn’t meant to get blasted away.
But still… they found them there, waiting for destruction with no means to escape and with no idea the TVA would have appeared because they broke the sacred timeline.
It’s kind of a giant warning sign they’ve no idea what they’ve done.
So Mobius demanding to know feels as if they had dumbed down Mobius as well.
Loki wants to play stubborn and he has good reasons since he fears for his life.
Loki: Let me say this again. I'm not going to tell you just so you can turn around immediately afterwards and prune me.
In reply Mobius decides Loki needs to be tortured by Sif some more.
So Loki does what Remigio Da Varagine did when Bernardo Gui promised to torture him, he tells Mobius what he believes Mobius wants to hear, that of course they were accomplices and of course they had a plan and he was in charge of it.
Only Mobius has decided that Sylvie is the better Loki so he doesn’t believe Loki is in control and, to test him, he tells him Sylvie was pruned.
This hits Loki as he has grown feelings for Sylvie. He tries to play it as he doesn’t care but Mobius guesses he’s affected.
On a sidenote the series painting Loki oh so transparent affects negatively Thor as well as Thor never seems to realize it when Loki is affected, which leads to the implication Thor is either dumb or doesn’t care or… he’s written by someone else who thinks Loki is better at masking his feelings.
Mind you, in the movies Loki has moments in which is feelings are on display for everyone to see but also moments in which they’re guarded. Here they simply are not. In the series his feelings are constantly on display as if he somehow has lost the ability to guard them even if he tries to.
Anyway Mobius decides that Loki caring for the variant means he got a crush on her. I wish I could say he’s wrong but this is what Waldron has to say on the topic:
“That was one of the cruxes of my pitch [for the series], that there was going to be a love story. We went back and forth for a little bit about, like do we really want to have this guy fall in love with another version of himself? Is that too crazy? But in a series that, to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki's first real love story. The look that they share, that moment, [it started as] a blossoming friendship. Then for the first time, they both feel that twinge of, ‘Oh, could this be something more? What is this I'm feeling?’ These are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another. That's a straight-up and down branch, and exactly the sort of thing that would terrify the TVA.” [Loki Writer Explains Episode 4's Sylvie Love Story Reveal]
Why there needs to be a love story? A romantic love story? Self-love is different from self-cest. Learning to appreciate yourself doesn’t mean you suddenly wants to date yourself.
Besides, if the whole point was having Loki fall for himself, then let Sylvie be him!
Sylvie is so different from him she could very well be a different person... and it’s actually worth to ponder a bit on this.
As I said before Sylvie is genetically different from Loki. By logic this would mean more than Loki, she’s Loki’s fraternal twin from a parallel dimension. Only, if the TVA prunes whatever diverges by the sacred timeline this means she should have been pruned at birth because the sacred timeline has a male Loki. But no, she gets the time to grow up till… the Asgardian equivalent of 10 years old?
And only because back then she has somehow made something that didn’t fit with the timeline?
What was that, she was told she was adopted and, since her parents this time did things properly she felt loved instead than the monster parents tell their children at night and was about to grow up as a psychologically healthy girl?
Anyway, back to the problem, we’ll see at the end that, among the other Loki there’s also another Loki who clearly doesn’t have the same genetic code of Loki. No, I’m not talking of the Loki played by Deobia Oparei, Loki’s skin colour was supposed to be blue, it’s of course worth questioning why Odin went for black instead than white this time (does he come with an Asgard where everyone is a person of colour?) but it can be just the result of Odin’s magic. What I’m talking about is the Loki alligator.
Because normally who give birth to alligators aren’t frost giants but alligators… that or Asgard was populated by alligators. Or, that Loki was magically turned into an alligator but somehow I doubt it.
So anyway, if Loki might not share the same genetic code with his variants and not being pruned at birth… this works for Laufey too. This works for everyone.
Basically all the Variants could be completely different people who happen to share the same name.
In a way we know about the TVA work as much as we knew before episode 1. Sometimes they accuse someone deciding he broke the timeline… but sometime they don’t care if such break is done. Why? Because the Time-Keepers say so.
Great, whatever, I really don’t see the need of Loki falling in love for a version of himself who couldn’t be more different from himself than Sylvie is. At this point he could have fallen in love for anyone, even B-15.
Couldn’t they put in the show Verity Willis instead than Mobius and Sylvie?
The genuine friendship and appreciation they have in the comic which is also part of what saved Loki in the end was much better than the ‘friendship’ he has with Mobius or the abrupt crush for Sylvie.
And mind you, I like Sylvie as a character. I just don’t like what the series is doing with her.
Mobius too is well done as a character… but he’s the farthest thing from a friend for Loki.
Back to the story Mobius is having the time of his life because Loki is in pain for Sylvie’s supposed death since he has fallen for her.
Because friends obviously love it when you’re in pain when you believe your crush is dead.
Then he goes and say:
Mobius: No wonder you have no clue what caused the nexus event on Lamentis. Both of you are swooning over each other.
Wait so he knew Loki has no clue about what caused the Nexus event? And despite this he tortured Loki? And now he claims Loki has no clue because he and Sylvie were swooning over each other? Because that’s always what happened when a Nexus event happens, isn’t it? People swoon on someone else and don’t realize they’re causing a Nexus event. Loki was probably swooning on the Tesseract and Sylvie on her Valkyrie doll, right? The logic here is big.
Mobius: It's the apocalypse. Two Variants of the same being, especially you, forming this kind of sick, twisted romantic relationship. That's pure chaos. That could break reality. It's breaking my reality right now. What a incredible seismic narcissist. You fell for yourself.
Yeah, the sacred timeline is something that can bear people being turned into slaves, Jewish people being gassed into concentration camps, children being abused, terrorism, the destruction of Pompeii, New York being attacked by the Chitauri, Lamentis 1 getting destroyed, Bucky being turned into a slave of Hydra, Asgard being destroyed, Peter losing his parents, Thanos purging half of the universe, Tony Stark having to die when they could have just wiped away the Thanos that went into the future but God forbid two Loki were to commit selfcest. What are lives lost compared to selfcest?
Much, much better to wipe away half of all the living things than that.
Because…
“These are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another. That's a straight-up and down branch, and exactly the sort of thing that would terrify the TVA.” [Loki Writer Explains Episode 4's Sylvie Love Story Reveal]
Ah, okay, great, it’s just because they’re two beings of pure chaos. If it had been Captain America falling for a Variant of himself the timeline would have clapped at him. No really, I still hope you take back this somehow and say it was all to mislead us because for me it’s not a problem of selfcest. It’s a HUGE problem of something called LOGIC. What’s this “Alice in the wonderland”? Mobius continues being a good, supportive friend by mocking Loki when she tells him the Variant’s name was Sylvie. Really Loki, with friends like this you were better with Thanos calling himself your dad. Finally anyway Loki manages to have Mobius tell him Sylvie is still alive, which gives him some relief, then Mobius goes on.
Mobius: And was infiltrating the TVA, was that always sort of the grand plan?
Wait, is he implying that when Loki produced his first Nexus event he did it so he could infiltrate in the TVA? Because of course he would know that they wouldn’t prune him but Mobius would come to his rescue? What had Mobius been drinking? Then when Loki tells Mobius maybe the Time-Keepers need to be overthrown Mobius goes:
Mobius: I ought to box your ears.
Because of course, violence is the solution and Loki should only be grateful to the Time-Keepers who kidnapped him and want to terminate him, shouldn’t he? Mobius is simply terrible here… which I don’t like because in a while I’ll be supposed to feel sad for him.
Loki now tries to tell Mobius the truth… only Mobius doesn’t want to listen, he claims Loki already told him 50 lies in the past 10 minutes without even considering he called for them as he tortured Loki to get what he wanted to hear, not the truth and anyway, if Loki isn’t trustworthy why they’re having that discussion?
Plus he belittles everything Loki says by basically downplaying Sylvie. She’s his girlfriend, his female self. She’s not her own. And of course in addition to downplaying Sylvie he has to insult Loki’s feelings because that’s what friends are for.
Mobius: Whatever you want to call her. What, your female self that you have some demented crush on...
Honestly, if Mobius had had a crush on Loki I would have waved this as him being jealous and bitter Loki found someone else but he does not. He took possession of Loki, looked down on him as some sort of pet, tried to manipulate him into obedience and babbled of a friendship that clearly didn’t exist and that had no reason to exist even if he hadn’t acted as a jerk because they barely know each other.
Friendship is something earned over time, not something others own you because you save them from death provided they’ll work for you.
What in the world is the TVA idea of friendship?
Anyway Loki informs him they’re all Variants and all the truth connected to it.
For a moment it seems to work, Mobius seems to be affected.
But this isn’t a truth Mobius wanted to hear because it ruins the basis of the TVA and the TVA is…
Mobius: Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real.
So Mobius goes and call all of that a lie and since he hadn’t been a jerk enough he felt the need to play Odin’s role and remind Loki of his path in the sacred timeline.
Mobius: You two, what a pair! Gosh! Unbelievable. Wherever you go, it's just death, destruction, the literal ends of worlds.
What a friend, huh? Honestly I think he went for that line deliberately, because he has seen Loki’s life in the sacred timeline and saw Odin tossing a similar line to him and knows it hurt him.
Odin: Do you not truly feel the gravity of your crimes? Wherever you go there is war, ruin and death.
It’s also probably worth to mention this Loki hadn’t caused any of the ends of the worlds he’s been in.
Then he does what everyone expected, he decided he didn’t need Loki anymore and could get rid of him.
Mobius: Well, I'm gonna have to close this case now, 'cause I don't need you anymore. Yeah, or as you might say, our interests are no longer aligned.
Honestly I don’t like the idea of Loki falling for Sylvie but with people like Mobius around him… why am I complaining? Sylvie, who also attacked and belittled him, was much better as she didn’t go and called herself his friend at least. She was more honest than Mobius so congratulation Mobius, you beat the Goddess of Mischief.
On a sidenote the lines red and grey on the wall give me the feeling they’re in a circus tent. So yeah
Loki: The Time-Keepers have built quite the circus, and I see the clowns are playing their parts to perfection.
Anyway Loki is dragged away to be tortured by Sif again. Because Mobius hadn’t had him beaten up into submission enough before killing him. This is just sadistic.
This time Loki though is so angry he’s calm.
Loki: You know, of all the liars in this place, and there are a great many, you're the biggest.
Mobius: Why? 'Cause I lied about your girlfriend?
Loki: Oh, no. That I can respect. I mean, the lies you tell yourself.
Honestly I hate how Mobius continues to call Sylvie ‘his girlfriend’, not because I don’t like the idea of them paired together but because I get it’s Mobius’ way to belittle them both. She’s not her own person, not Sylvie, she’s Loki’s female self that he has some demented crush on. That’s all he makes her to be.
I don’t know what happened to Mobius in this episode. He seemed to have moral standards in Ep 1 & 2. He didn’t seem to enjoy hurting others for no reason. Now he does.
Well, at least Loki gets to call him on the lies he tells himself.
So, a break here. Great acting from both, good direction from Kate Herron, dumb plot.
The idea is that Mobius is questioning Loki to know what caused the Nexus event, right? But instead than his intelligence he uses physical torture. Now it would be fine if he needed to get a confession and didn’t care about the truth but he cares about the truth, he needs it to prevent future nexus events. Only no, he doesn’t care. Whatever.
Then he tries to see if Loki has feelings about Sylvie, which he does and jumps to the idea that Loki must love her because since they’re a male and a female there’s no other way to care for each other if not romantic love. He can’t view her as a sister or have pity of her, no it has to be romantic love and Waldron backs him up so it is and so this has to be what broke the timeline because… the timeline can tolerate any sort of crime but not selfcest committed by chaotic beings?
It must be this because if Mobius find something demented the timeline would as well, we’ve proofs… no we don’t have it is just speculation but Mobius read Waldron’s interview so he knows it’s true.
So Mobius has his answer, the timeline is against selfcest. Case closed. Logic thrown out of the window notwithstanding.
But then Loki really tells him the truth but Mobius doesn’t like it so let’s torture Loki some more. Because Mobius is so intelligent he can tell when Loki is lying, the series has already established it, so this has to be Loki lying right? And Mobius let him be tortured despite claiming he’s Loki’s friend and having tons of doubts about what C-20 saw and how Rendlayer is acting oddly because that’s what friends do. It has Thanos’ seal of approbation after all.
Whatever, let’s go on.
So we move to Hunter B-15 doing calming breaths as she’s clearly very upset. It’s worth to remember she was depicted as hating Variants the most. Her gaze falls on a poster recommending to capture all the variants and make sure to delete them all.
The fun part is that the guy on that poster remind me of the Mobius of the comics… but maybe it’s just me.
After this B-15 turns on her weapon and orders the ones guarding the entrance of the theatre in which they had put Sylvie to let her in. They don’t even discuss or hesitate, they just let her in.
Sylvie acts in the confident manner Loki used to act in “The Avengers” when he was prisoner of the Avengers.
Sylvie: Hello... Oh, I don't know. Your name's a number. Can't read it from here.
As she says so she moves closer. B-15 though put away her weapon, opens a timedoor and tells her to come with her.
Why they go away through a timedoor? Couldn’t they talk there? Isn’t it more risky as not only Sylvie could use this to escape but they might risk altering the oh so sacred timeline? Are there hearing devices in the theatre? Does the guards outside eavesdrop?
Whatever, we’re back to Renslayer’s office.
Mobius is thoughtful, Renslayer is happy because the case is closed. So Mobius really presented as excuse for the branch the fact that Loki and Sylvie supposedly fell in love? Because if Loki cares for someone is romantic love? He cried for Frigga too, for Asgard? Why it has to be romantic love for Mobius? Because Sylvie is a woman and Loki is a man and God forbid a man could care for a female in any other way that’s not romantic? Because the script said so? Couldn’t he care for her like a twin sister? She even acts like Thor here and there but she’s smarter than him. Would the timeline branch anyway?
Whatever, I guess I’m not meant to make questions but if the case is closed why he had to stuck Loki again in that timeloop to be beaten and humiliated? It’s not like Renslayer is checking him and even if she were or the Time-Keepers were which would have been the harm in letting him sit there like Sylvie is?
For which reason Mobius is trying so hard to break him? Revenge? He didn’t seem such a jerk in Ep 1 & 2 and now… why has he changed?
Anyway Mobius is beyond obvious acting weird despite Renslayer being all happy for the case closed and asking him
Renslayer: If you could go anywhere, anytime, where would it be?
She clearly mean for personal pleasure, maybe she plans on letting him have a holiday anywere he’d like but Mobius doesn’t seem to get it.
Mobius: I can go anywhere, anytime.
His reply hints he reduces everything to work, to going anywhere, anytime for work and while Renslayer tries to get him to open up he asks again why she didn’t let him interrogate ‘Sylvie’, which is a mistake as when in Renslayer’s office he usually calls the Variants just Variants, not by name, unless it’s necessary. Besides Renslayer doesn’t know the Variant’s chosen alias so she’s twice as confused.
Mobius has to explain ‘Sylvie’ is how Loki calls the Variant and Renslayer tells him it wasn’t so as to make sure it wouldn’t escape, and when Mobius says she wouldn’t have escaped (because Mobius is so good at keeping the Loki Variants close) she reminds him the other Variant did escape while in his care (yeah, twice, Mobius you aren’t as good as you like to present yourself).
Renslayer tries again to get him to answer her on where he’s like to go and he replies
Mobius: I like being here now, with you, doing the work.
Which is solely because he’s deadly scared of admitting he’d like to be some other place. He doesn’t like his life there, he loves jet ski and would like to ride one but he’s just scared to do so and finds comfort in the monotony of his own life. Which is beyond depressing and is part of the lies he tells himself.
Renslayer gives up and informs him she’d heard the Time-Keepers and they will personally oversee the Variant's pruning and they want Mobius to be there as well. I take that with ‘the Variant’ they mean Sylvie but later we’ll see Loki too is carried in front of them.
Why they want Mobius too though? To make sure he’ll stay put? To prune him as well because he’s being as suspicious as possible?
Mobius seems pleased he’ll finally met the Time-Keeper then oh so discreetly goes back on questioning Renslayer. On C-20 this time. Which obviously makes Renslayer even more suspicious.
She tries to deflect his question by pointing out how everything went well, the Time-Keepers are happy and yadda, yadda and Mobius insists again on wanting to know about C-20… because this was totally smooth and not suspicious at all.
And this is bad because this guy is the one who’s supposed to be at Loki’s same level if not above. If he’s so incompetent it reflects poorly on Loki too.
Yeah, he was very upset by C-20’s death so maybe this is messing him up but still he couldn’t be more obvious, insisting over and over when Renslayer clearly doesn’t want to tell him more. What does he expect, her to admit she lied? She’s not a Variant he can torture, or keep there until he gets the answers he wants, she’s basically his boss.
Anyway Renslayer, probably due to her fondness for him, confirms her previous version and tells him if he’s not allowed to meet the Variant that’s because she’s protecting him from facing the horrible fate C-20 went through.
I think this requires a bit of appropriate singing from another movie:
Shhh.. Trust me Mobius, Ravonna, knows best. Ravonna knows best. Listen to your Ravonna. She's a scary Variant that Sylvie. Ravonna knows best. One way or another. Something will go wrong, I swear. Stabbing, kicking, poison, punching. Stealing, and humiliating, the lies. Also large sword, a woman with pointy teeth. And stop, no more, you'll just upset me. Ravonna's right here. Ravonna will protect you. Darling here's what I suggest. Skip the drama, stay with Ravonna. RAVONNA!! Knows best! Ravonna knows best. Take it from your Ravonna. On your own, you won't survive. Sloppy underdressed, immature, clumsy, Please, they'll eat you up, alive. Gullible, nave, positively grubby. Ditzy and a bit, well, hmm vague. Plus I believe, getting kinda chubby. I'm just saying, 'Cause I wuv you. Ravonna understands, Ravonnas here to help you. All I have is one request. (singing ends) Mobius? Don't ever ask to see the Variant, again.
Evidently Mother Gothel… pardon Renslayer’s performance doesn’t fully win Mobius over.
Mobius: Yeah, if it's the truth.
Intelligence? Or, like with Loki he has already decided with answer he needs to get?
Renslayer now tries to distract him blaming everything on the time Mobius spent with the Lokis, implying that because they lie he came up to think she would lie too and then she gives him an inspirational speech about how their work matter and how they’re special friends.
Renslayer: When we're out there fighting for the fate of the Sacred Timeline we're also fighting for this. For us. Friends against time, allies to the end. You've seen all of existence, same as me. So, you know, friendship like ours is uncommon. And worth fighting for. Same as the Sacred Timeline.
So Mobius has friends.
Or at least he has Renslayer.
Does he plan to close her too in a timeloop for lying to him? Or, since she was used to always humour him (this is apparently the first time she told him ‘no’) he expected Loki too had to play on his tune, especially considering Loki isn’t his boss, and got upset when Loki showed a mind of his own?
Or is Renslayer who taught him who disappoint gets closed in a timeloop where he’s punched and insulted by doing this to Mobius?
I’d like to know.
Whatever, this speech persuaded Mobius so much he distract Renslayer suggesting to find a place for her new trophy only to swap the Tempads behind her back… and then oh so discreetly try to run away because this wouldn’t be suspicious at all.
Smooth, Mobius, smooth.
Okay, so B-15 took Sylvie to the Roxxcart apocalypse since now she knows the TVA can’t detect changes if they happen in an apocalypse.
Sylvie thinks she wants a fight but B-15 is instead tormented by what Sylvie had shown her when she possessed her.
Now, everyone, let’s refresh our memory on how enchantment works.
Sylvie: It depends on the mind. Most are easy and I can overtake them instantly. Others, the stronger ones, it gets tricky. I'm in control, but they're there, too. In order to preserve the connection, I have to create a fantasy from their memories.
B-15 was overtaken very easily with Sylvie fully in control of her as she moved her like a puppet and had her say what she wanted. So why in the world she needed to show her a memory? We saw how things worked with C-20, she used the memory to answer in kind to her questions believing she was with a friend. What she did to B-15 to make her move and say what she wanted, did she had a memory in which she was an actress and Sylvie read her the script?
I’ve no words, they gave the rule 1 episode ago, don’t they remember them anymore?
So anyway Sylvie tells B-15 the truth and B-15, the one who believes talking to Variant is a mistake and they should all be pruned as they’re cosmic mistakes immediately swallows what the Variant who’d been killing TVA agents non-stop tells her and volunteers to let herself be possessed again.
Because this wouldn’t be dangerous at all, I mean, surely Sylvie who has a grudge against the TVA and has been killing TVA agents won’t lie to her and wouldn’t just possess her to steal her tempad and escape leaving her to die in the apocalypse.
Yeah, surely because Sylvie, instead than possessing her, does as she request and shows her those memories and B-15 can be sure they’re true and not a trick because… she too read the script and know they’re true.
So B-15, who had been pruning, abusing and belittling other Variants like her, once knowing she’s a Variant says:
Hunter B-15: I looked happy.
With tears in her voice. Okay, so she also sides with Sylvie but… don’t take me wrong, different people react differently but let’s look for a moment B-15’s reaction at discovering she’s a Variant, a cosmic mistake.
B-15 was the one who hated Variants the most… but knowing she was one all she cares was she looked happy. What’s her problem she was miserable at the TVA? I didn’t notice. She just accepted she’s a Variant so easily… everyone else, even people who didn’t hate Variants will have more problems with it. C-20 was in shock, Mobius goes in denial, Loki basically went mad with grief when he discovered he was a Frost Giant.
B-15 mourns that she was happy and then asks for instructions to Sylvie.
I wonder if she’s the sort of person who can’t think on her own. She did what the TVA propaganda said because she never stopped to think about it, she got an easy to posses mind, and now she’s willing to do what Sylvie says because she can’t think at it on her own.
To be honest… although I feel what the TVA did to the people working there was pretty disgusting, I find hard on an intellectual level to empathize with someone who had been enjoying pruning and abusing Variants and now that she has discovered she’s one she doesn’t regret what she did to the others like her but mourn her old happiness.
Anyway I compliment Wunmi Mosaku for this scene. I’m not persuaded by how they decided she would just swallow she’s a Variant so easily, but still she played well the part.
Empathically, to see another being so grief stricken, causes me to react emotionally, even though logically I feel I shouldn’t care because they didn’t give me reasons to feel sorry for someone who was so happy to be an abuser and doesn’t regret having been one, she still managed to make me feel sorry for her character because her sadness was emotionally involving.
Really, good job, and good job to Kate Herron who played that scene well.
We switch to Mobius who hides among bookshelves to check Renslayer’s tempad.
I love the visual here, how it seems we’re pecking on Mobius by a hole but whatever, might be just me.
Renslayer’s tempad confirms C-20 died so Mobius is about to close it when he decides to check the classified report of the mission on Renslayer’s tempad. Renslayer conveniently recorded C-20 saying:
Hunter C-20: You're not hearing me. I was there. This was real, what I saw. This is a place that I've been. This wasn't the TVA. This was a memory. I lived down there. I went to that bar. I had friends. I had a whole life on the Sacred Timeline.
Interrogator: Calm down.
Hunter C-20: "Calm down"? I'm a Variant. So are you. So is every single person in this place. I'm ending this.
So yeah, Mobius, Loki didn’t lie to you, you moron, that excuse was way too dumb to be a lie.
Also C-20 never went mad as Renslayer said. Because it was Renslayer who lied to you, Mobius. Because in the real world people are awful to get what we want and maybe you should take lessons from a prince.
Just as to remark Renslayer knew this and not just because it’s on her tempad, she also appear on the screen, proof she was listening. To do what I don’t know.
We go back to Loki who’s just being beaten by Sif again because Mobius, his friend, couldn’t let him sit on a chair while he checked if Loki told him the truth. We also see how all this beating isn’t really breaking Loki.
Although he has previously apologized to Sif and accepted his fault, now he’s just annoyed he has to hear her saying such things over and over and beating him.
Because beating people doesn’t make them better.
On another side, since Loki knew what he had to tell to Sif to make her stop I wonder why he didn’t repeat it… or why he didn’t try to think of a plan. Whatever.
Mobius drops there with the dumbest question of the year:
Mobius: What are you doing?
Loki has a sarcastic reply for his idiotic question:
Loki: Passing the time.
No, really, Mobius trapped him there, what was he thinking Loki was doing, playing poker with Sif?
So now is Mobius’ time for another dumb question:
Mobius: Do you care about her?
I mean, after you called her his female self that he, a seismic narcissist, have some demented crush on, of course Loki wants to open his heart to you. Who wouldn’t?
Mobius tells him to shut up and then asks if he really think you deserve to be alone… as if this was Loki’s idea and not something Mobius’ tried to brainwash him into believing. Loki doesn’t reply which upset Mobius as when Mobius says ‘jump’ Loki should only say ‘how high?’, so Loki point out how MOBIUS TOLD HIM TO SHUT UP. Because Mobius is not making any sense and Loki needs to lampshade this.
Mobius asks him if he thinks he deserves to be alone.
Loki replies he doesn’t know which means his pretty words to Sif were all pretty words. He didn’t believe them, not fully. Thanks God.
So now the conversation starts to get surreal.
Mobius: You better figure it out quick, because the nexus event the two of you caused, whatever that connection is, can bring this whole place down.
Okay, I’m not following this, after belittling Loki’s relation with Sylvie now he’s trying to tell him he has to get together with her for the sake of bringing down the TVA? That’s why Loki has to get with Sylvie? Why he doesn’t have to believe he deserves to be alone? So now Loki’s crush is no more demented but a key to throw down the TVA?
What was sticking him with Sif then, an attempt at manipulating him into not getting in relationship with other Lokis? So Mobius knew already he and Sylvie had a crush on each other? Because it looked like he stuck Loki with Sif PRIOR to knowing it.
I’m lost but whatever, Mobius decide THEY have to do something so Loki remarks on the use of plural.
Mobius asks him to swear Sylvie didn’t implant whose memories in C-20.
It’s a dumb question as not only Loki could lie but Sylvie could have lied to him and anyway Renslayer lied so it’s not like she’s safe to trust either.
Loki vouches for Sylvie and Mobius asks:
Mobius: So, I just have to trust the word of two Lokis?
No, please, Mobius, don’t. You’ve wasted everyone’s time questioning Loki when you don’t believe him. Really, I don’t get why you wanted to use someone you don’t trust. What did you come there for if you can’t believe him?
At this Loki, who’s at first hurt, replies:
Loki: How about the word of a friend?
And okay, it has to be Stockholm Syndrome talking. That or masochism. Because friends don’t close you in a timeloop in which you get beaten and humiliated for all that time so really Loki, don’t be Mobius’ friend.
So now Mobius admits Loki was right about the TVA from the beginning, which was damn time and would have realized it sooner had he spared 5 minutes of his time on this and tells him if Loki wants to save Sylvie he has to trust him. Because Mobius never lied and manipulated him, no, really. You’re lucky Loki has Stockholm Syndrome so of course he’ll trust you.
So Mobius goes:
Mobius: Okay. You could be whoever, whatever you wanna be, even someone good. I mean, just in case anyone ever told you different.
Yeah, someone did. Should I refresh you, your memory Mobius?
Mobius: You weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That's how it is, that's how it was, that's how it will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves.
Or maybe you prefer this, which includes Sylvie too?
Mobius: You two, what a pair! Gosh! Unbelievable. Wherever you go, it's just death, destruction, the literal ends of worlds.
I mean, if this is Mobius’ way to apologize for all the things it tossed at Loki, it honestly sucks, and it gets worse because he’s merely doing because he needs him to cooperate with him because, guess what? As Loki told him from the start the TVA sucks and had been lying to him and he just didn’t want to see and has exchanged his own belief in the TVA for ‘truth’.
I mean, he’s probably being as sincere as he can be, as we know he has wondered if Loki could be good, but he has been so manipulative with Loki up until now that really, him saying Loki this when he needs Loki to trust him, only feels like him being manipulative.
Are we sure Mobius isn’t another Loki variant, one Renslayer wanted to keep as her pet?
Still I think Loki understood this was Mobius’ way to apologize as he smiles and follows him.
The moment they leave the Timeloop they find themselves face to face with Renslayer and four hunters.
And here it’s where the writer forgot Mobius too is supposed to be smart. For start because it didn’t dawn on him to remove Loki’s collar from him, to continue because when Renslayer points out she has something of hers he returns the Tempad, their only way to leave the place, to her.
I can explain this merely by going under the idea that Mobius still think that the fact they’re friends would push Renslayer to cover up for him, which clearly means he doesn’t know/understand her as much as he thinks.
Mbatha-Raw:
“She’s really worked hard to get where she is, so she’s not going to be reckless with the power that has been hard-earned for her. She, in some ways, is deeply indoctrinated with the ways of the TVA. She’s completely conditioned by their thinking and the idea of the Sacred Timeline, and the concept of free will is quite alien to her. She’s a believer. She believes in law and order, and it’s done quite well for her so far in terms of getting her to where she is. She’s not going to abandon her philosophy lightly.”
[‘Loki’: Owen Wilson Says Renslayer’s Betrayal of Mobius in Episode 4 Was ‘Pretty Shocking’
]
And in a way the situation we’re facing is really funny because Mobius believes Renslayer betrayed him… but she believes he’s the one who betrayed her. And this in a way mirrors Mobius’ relation with Loki.
To Renslayer Mobius had no right to doubt her, to question her decisions, to doubt the TVA even if the TVA is lying and she knows it. To her, Mobius is the dog who peed on the carpet.
Mobius instead somehow believed to be an equal friend, to whom she owed the truth, so he’s hurt by her acting as if he was just her disobedient dog.
She lied to him, manipulated him, demanded from him to be a loyal TVA supporter who only seek for her approbation and when he goes and doesn’t do this, she punishes him by pruning him. She doesn’t even try to beat him into submission again, she just get rid of him because her faith in her cult is more important than their ‘friendship’.
She’s a real Nazi in a way.
But the irony is that Mobius was the same with Loki and now he experiences what it means to be on the other side.
His emotional speech:
Mobius: What's the problem, Ravonna? You know where I'd go if I could go anywhere? Wherever it is I'm really from. Yeah, wherever I had a life before the TVA came along. Maybe I had a jet ski. That's what I'd like to do. Just riding around on my jet ski.
…it changes nothing in Renslayer’s mind, she’s like him, she doesn’t want the truth, the honesty, she wants submission but she’s not even going to waste time to work him into submission again. She probably plans to replace him with another Mobius Variant who’ll be more obedient this time.
Note that pruning him hurts her… but she has it done anyway, the way Mobius had oh so many branches pruned. Because that’s what they did at the TVA.
It’s a damn case of “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party”.
Mobius never thought he would be the one ending up pruned, being a Variant and ending up pruned was other people’s problem, Loki’s problem, not Mobius’, Mobius was one of the good guys, he was created by the TVA so such things wouldn’t happen to him.
Now… this is the same problem I had with B-15.
We are supposed to feel sorry for Mobius and I probably would feel very sorry for him if he hadn’t been a complete asshole to Loki up till 5 minutes ago. I get maybe they were aiming to take advantage of Owen Wilson’s fans, who loved Mobius no matter what they do or to how Loki and Renslayer still mourn him because Stockholm syndrome pushes you to do this and your pet dog is always your pet dog even if you decide to shoot him down because, to you, he’s rabid but all I felt was that Mobius had got what he deserved, what he did to Loki was done to him.
And this is a goddamn shame because I would have been a lot sadder if Mobius hadn’t act in such a way in this episode.
I mean, yes, in episode 1 & 2 he was still manipulative but he had genuine moments in which he was sympathetic and didn’t want to gratuitously hurt people.
Mobius: What are you doing? Hey! These people are scared.
Hunter D-90: They're about to die. They should be scared.
Mobius: Okay. Not of us.
I love this scene because he just stood up for those people even if he had nothing to gain, just because he didn’t want the TVA to scare them even if they were about to die and would have been rest if they weren’t to die. This wasn’t manipulation, this was Mobius being a decent being and… and this episode just tossed it away.
His whole interrogation scene with Loki, from the moment he just had him beaten and belittled to ‘soften him’ to how he ends by having him beaten and belittled again even though the case is closed is nonsense and disgusting. That’s not what a decent human being would do.
On a positive note Mbatha-Raw is very good in the scene. It’s clear a part of her is suffering, yet another remains hard. She turns her face away because she can’t watch when Mobius is pruned, even the way she squeezed her eyes shut and then relaxed them but kept them closed is a nice detail and so is the way she looks at Loki, still hurt by Mobius’ disappearance but firm, how she takes long breaths after saying they’ve to wait for her, how she first looks down, as if ashamed then up, as if to ask the moral support of her gods or whatever and then closes her eyes and mouth as if to swallow it all and go on.
She’s good.
Mind you, I loved how Owen Wilson gave his speech and I love Tom Hiddleston’s reacting to him being pruned which interestingly opposes to Mbatha-Raw’s as he keeps his eyes wide open and he tries to reach for him where she instead close them and kind of tries to ‘hold away’ from him, her body posture close where Tom Hiddleston’s is open and then he closes his eyes, calm down and straighten up before facing her in a ‘it was your doing’ way. He let himself be carried away but he turns to look at her so as to keep eye contact with her and she’s the one who has to lower her gaze.
Now, I personally wish Loki wouldn’t mourn Mobius because really, Mobius wasn’t good to him, but since he’s supposed to do it, I can only say Tom Hiddleston’s performance here is good as well.
Very fitting also the background music, especially when Loki is escorted through the corridor and now he seems to be worn out as he waves a little as he walks and then… he stops, and I’m not sure if there’s a reason or he just waves a little for the sake of him being emotionally hurt and the guards have to steady him and then force him to resume walking. In itself that pause was good to animate a walking scene who otherwise would have been pretty boring… but I don’t know if there’s a reason for it beyond that. But well, Loki had been beaten up till now so maybe he has a right at also being physically worn out.
So anyway Renslayer go to see Sylvie and as soon as she does she claims someone was there with her and wants to know who. Well, I guess the fact Sylvie is soaked was a dead giveaway so really, they should have found her a hairdryer before sending her back there. Besides why not to get inside the Roxxcart where it’s dry, instead than outside?
I get that outside, under the rain, the scene came a lot more dramatic and so technically better but logic is king of important as well. Giving away that Sylvie was taken outside to chat, as Sylvie has no bruises on herself, is dumb. I mean, had B-15 given her a black eye they could have at least pass if for B-15 taking her revenge on her but like this… it’s so dumb…
In fact as soon as Renslayer discovers it was B-15, she decides she too had been compromised and people has to search for her. Not that it matters as they won’t find her. After all she has a Tempad and has learnt she can hide in apocalypses.
Sylvie smiles at her smugly because she is enjoying seeing Renslayer under pressure and how could she not? It was Renslayer who captured her.
Sylvie is then taken away but this time only by two guards because they’ve decided giving her more when the last time she managed to punch one is useless. No, actually Renslayer might have figured if Sylvie has remained in her ‘theater’ (yeah, she and Loki were put into rooms called ‘time theaters’) instead than escaping with B-15, she’s willing to let herself be dragged to meet the Time-Keepers.
Or not, the plot had the characters act in dumb or irrational ways way too often so I don’t know.
Sylvie is anyway taken in front of the same door in front of which Loki is waiting. I love how she whispers to him an ‘You okay?’ even if I would prefer it wasn’t because she’s also crushing on him but because she was touched by how he gave her appreciation and validation. Loki nods once, deeply, but doesn’t verbally replies which is kind of worrisome per se.
Renslayer says she’ll handle things from there and open the door of the golden elevator with her ‘electronic key’ meaning when Sylvie got there the first time, as she was without key, she wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Loki and Sylvie follow Renslayer while the guards remain behind.
Sylvie asks Renslayer is she remembers her and when she answers affirmatively, always calling her Variant, she asks her which was her Nexus event. To Renslayer who asks her what does it matter she replies:
Sylvie: It was enough to take my life from me, lead to all of this. Must have been important. So, what was it?
I feel bad for Sylvie because maybe she doesn’t remember Miss Minute’s video (by the way did Miss Minute had a reason to exist or we’re meant to forget about her?) in which they said to create a Nexus even it’s enough to be late for work. Maybe Sylvie wasn’t meant to be there to play but should have been in the Vault with Thor and Odin learning about how glorious was Asgard for having beaten the Frost Giants. Maybe she was just meant to play ball instead than dolls but in short, what destroyed her life didn’t have to be important because that’s the kind of jerks the TVA is.
They punish someone for doing something completely innocent without having any idea it was the ‘wrong’ thing, ‘wrong’ being a matter of perspective because I bet they pruned all the Lokis who didn’t sent the Frost Giants in the Vault or didn’t try to kill Thor or didn’t attack New York because THOSE WERE THINGS MEANT TO HAPPEN.
The TVA is not about morality, I wonder if it’s about the entertainment of the Time-Keepers.
Anyway Renslayer smirks and then tells Sylvie she doesn’t remember. Honestly I doubt she doesn’t remember and even if she did, she could have made up something but she just prefers to hurt Sylvie by implying her Nexus event was so unimportant it wasn’t even worth remembering.
The door open and they are in a bluish, foggy place. There are two guards giving them their back and two instead facing them and, in front of them there are the three space lizards known as the Time-Keepers. Hum… the impression I get is that the place is foggy because it’s freezing cold since there are white bits that seem ice but… I’m not sure as nobody seems to be feeling cold.
Renslayer announces to the Time-Keeper she had brought them the Variants.
Now I was thinking it was poor effects, as the space lizard talk in a mechanical way and are so still they seem robot and even when their face move as they speak they seem mechanical… but no, it’ll turn out they’re robot. Whatever, I’m running ahead.
The lizards ask them what they have to say before being killed.
Okay, so Loki says and I quote:
Loki: Is that the only reason you brought us here? To kill us? I've lost track of the number of times I've been killed, so go ahead. Do your worst.
And I am WAIT, YOU’VE BEEN KILLED BEFORE? EVEN IF YOU’RE STILL UNDER THE WRONG BELIEF THOR TOSSED YOU INTO AN ABYSS, WHICH HE DIDN’T AS HE WANTED TO SAVE YOU AND YOU LET GO DUE TO ODIN’S HIGHLY MOTIVATIONAL WORDS (really, Odin should write demotivational posters quote along with Mobius) THAT COUNTS ONLY AS ONE. YOU DIDN’T DIE IN “THE AVENGERS”. CAN WE HOPE THIS MEANS WE’LL BE REVEALED WHAT HAPPENED IN THE YEAR IN BETWEEN “THOR” AND “THE AVENGERS”? OR IT’S JUST TO BE MEANT RANDOM BABBLING? PLEASE, LET ME KNOW!
Anyway okay, back to normal.
The Time-keepers tell them they’re no threat to them and Sylvie counters she believes they’re scared. She tries to get closer but Renslayer uses the Time Twister so she can’t.
The Time-Keepers complains they’re just a ‘cosmic disappointment’ why I’ve no idea as it’s not like they created the Variants so the Variants aren’t supposed to please them, and tell to delete them.
Sylvie tries to protest she’s not done with them but Renslayer tries to use the Time Twister and only manages to stop her because B-15 all of sudden comes to rescue because the TVA did a horrible job at tracking her apparently. B-15 disables Loki and Sylvie’s collars, then she mockingly repeats the TVA motto ‘For all time. Always’, before handing Sylvie her sword that originally had been put as a trophy in Renslayer’s office.
The two guards behind immediately knock down B-15 who didn’t even bother bring her weapon or, if she had, didn’t pull it out. Renslayer orders to the four guards to protect the Time-Keepers, so now it’s Renslayers and 4 guards against Loki and Sylvie. Renslayer decides not to fight, to be honest because the guards evidently had been given a better version of the Supersoldier serum and can comfortably stand against Loki and Sylvie with no problems whatsoever.
Really, if I don’t get an explanation on why human Variants are all of sudden strong enough they can stand against Loki I’ll think those guys have never seen “The Avengers”.
In fact the 2 guards fighting Loki are about to overpower Loki who asks for Sylvie’s help as she’s holding against her 2 guards just fine and she hands him her sword. Meanwhile, despite being weaponless, Sylvie… kicks to unconsciousness? Is that what she did? a guard, steals his weapon and instead than prune his companion with it, she stabs her. Because, you know, this is cooler and rule of cool always win.
All while Renslayer watches because whoever rules at the TVA has never read the ‘Evil Overlord list’ rule 75 “I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.”
Actually there’s a huge list of rules the TVA ignored but this is the most important at the moment.
Anyway while the camera ignores Loki fighting with two guards in the background, we’re supposed to focus on Sylvie and Renslayer. Sylvie gives Renslayer a sporting chance letting her pick up a weapon. No idea why, really. Who cares about sport when you’re there to kill the Time-Keepers?
Besides, who cares about Loki? This is Sylvie’s moment to look cool.
Anyway Renslayer tells her this time she’ll finish the job, they fight, she ends on the ground, manages to turn their positions and punches Renslayer into unconsciousness, just in time for Loki to finish killing his guards. Why she didn’t kill Renslayer? Because the plot needs Renslayer to make troubles afterward so Sylvie, despite having a weapon and having used it to kill a guard, only punches Renslayer, which she should hate as much as the Time-Keepers, into unconsciousness.
Let me facepalm, please.
Now the Time-Keepers go:
Time-Keeper 1: You're a child of the Time-Keepers too, Sylvie. We can talk.
And okay, I’m not following this. Are they implying they created the Variants? Are they trying to pass themselves for Gods? Or it’s just Sylvie they created?
Sylvie tosses against one of the sword Loki gave her back, decapitating him. The Time-Keepers starts laughing as it turns out the Time-Keeper she decapitate was a robot.
I get “Wizard of Oz” feelings and I swear if it turn out this was created by an evil Loki Variant I’m gonna scream.
The Time-Keepers somehow deactivates, not sure if someone did it, or it was Sylvie pointing a weapon at them.
Sylvie picks up the head and, seeing it’s a robotic one and never having heard of Ultron and Vision, decides since they had robotic head they’re fake, mindless androids. Which yes, they have to be because we’re missing 2 episodes and they were beaten too easily but she’s not supposed to be aware of the episode count.
Whatever, Loki decides, I think, this would probably be a good moment to declare his love only they forget Renslayer is alive and she prunes Loki in front of Sylvie. At this point Renslayer forgets her warrior skills and Sylvie easily rips her weapon from her but, instead than pruning Renslayer as she asks, she informs her she’ll tell her everything. Meaning she will use her powers to force Renslayer to be cooperative.
The episode apparently ends, with the ending credit replaced by a love song, “If you love me” by Brenda Lee. Just in case you didn’t get Loki was about to make a Love confession.
When the ending… well, ends though, we see Loki opening his eyes and wondering if he’s dead and in Hel.
He’s told:
“Not yet. But you will be unless you come with us.”
As he looks up he sees four version of himself, a child, an old man, a POC and an alligator.
I can’t help but point out the costume the old Loki is wearing, despite being based on the one old Loki wears in the comics somehow feels like a poor cosplay.
Behind them the ruins of a city which, I bet, is New York. I wonder if they’re in an apocalypse created by the attack of New York succeeding.
And so the episode ends.
Now… this episode is, plotwise, better than the previous, as the previous was basically an excuse to get Loki and Sylvie to spend time together so as for them to fall in love. Oh and the revelation everyone in the TVA is a variant but really, Sylvie could have told Loki that in Ep 2 and we wouldn’t have missed anything big.
This one episode as, instead, a plot… but there are some things that just don’t add up and felt tossed there at random. I mostly mourn how the ruined Mobius’ character because this episode seriously damaged the sympathy I had for him, with that useless decision to have Loki belittled and beaten for… fundamentally nothing since he doesn’t believe him. Then he further insults him for falling for Sylvie before he decides to switch sides and no, Loki shouldn’t believe all the cruel things he told him because… hum… they weren’t true because Mobius is his friend. Not like how he said he was before, this time he’s really his friend the fact he needs him doesn’t matter, he’s not like Loki who uses people he’s one of the good guys of the TVA, you know, the ones who belittle and prune Variants unaware they’re Variants too.
Okay, I’m still very salty on this bit but I just didn’t enjoy the useless abuse of Loki.
It wasn’t funny, it had no purpose and it also ruined Mobius as a character.
It even impacted negatively on Sif which was fundamentally used to beat Loki up over and over when she already had, just for Mobius’ purposes, whatever they were.
Honestly I’m sick and tired of Marvel thinking that abusing of someone is a funny joke, especially if the one doing the beating is a girl.
The only thing it serves was to remark Sif had no love for Loki, which everyone seeing the movie could have guessed already.
Another thing I didn’t quite enjoy was how this is turning into Sylvie’s story. Is the purpose of this series pass the Loki baton to Sylvie?
We have the guards of the TVA being as strong as supersoldiers so far without explanation whatsoever, with Loki, who, in Asgard was trained to fight, in “Thor” could hold his ground against Frost Giants and even fight with Thor and who, in “The Avengers” gets punched by Cap and merely turns his face before he hits Cap with the sceptre and sent him flying and this not with magical powers but merely with his strength. And he does so TWICE, completely able to avoid Caps’ blows. Caps kicks him in the face and Loki remains standing and tosses him on the ground again.
Loki lets himself be arrested because:
a) Iron Man joins and he manages to send him on the ground by shooting at him and
b) because this was part of the plan.
Coulson shot him with a super powerful weapon and still Loki got up and left the Helicarrier on his feet. When Thor tried to hit Loki with his hammer, Loki could stop the blow by having it hit his sceptre without him even wavering on his feet.
And then okay, this Loki hadn’t lived through them but in “Thor: The Dark World” he could hold his ground against elves while in “Thor: Ragnarok” against Hela’s undead Asgardian soldiers.
And now we’ve those Variants of humans who can give him problems? Sylvie even gives him his weapon!
And all this while Sylvie, who had to learn to fight on her own, can hold her ground weaponless against two of them and save time to fight and beat Renslayer too?
Whatever, let’s hope we’ll get an explanation.
And then there’s the romance between Sylvie and Loki, which is useless or the whole idea Sylvie is Loki and all those other guys plus the alligator are Loki and I’d like to know what decides they’re Loki variants since they’re clearly genetically different from him… never mention one of them managed to get old when Loki supposedly died ‘young’ in the sacred timeline so what? The truth is he didn’t die in “Avengers: Infinity War” and grew old?
And why genetically different Variants of Loki were allowed to exist? How come this didn’t cause a Nexus event?
But whatever, let’s put aside my complains about the plot holes or the messed characterization and the nonsense dialogues and talk of the good stuff, like the acting or the director’s job or the music which really fit some scenes. There’s some really good stuff here.
And well, let’s mention the plot is not all to waste.
There were some good ideas in this.
To have the TVA agents discover they’re also Variants like the people they discriminated and pruned could have been great, I mean, one of the best scenes of “Thor” is Loki discovering he’s a Frost Giant so this could have been SO VERY COOL.
The Lokis forming a bond also had potential as idea on paper. If they were the same this could have pushed them to learn to appreciate themselves, if they were different, this could have pushed them to appreciate others. They didn’t need the romantic story and the idea they’re the same only they’re completely different so the fact they’re the same seems an idiocy.
Really, from a series who give space to a lot of female characters, who don’t just talk among them about men but about plot related issues, I don’t see why we need to pair together the two Lokis.
Mobius being Loki’s friend could have been great if he had acted as such and not as an abusive pet owner whose dog has peed on the carpet. But whatever, it could have been great to have Renslayer do the same to him, if this were to be acknowledged, if it were to be acknowledged how they both are poor friends.
Also Mobius’ death could have been a lot more moving if they hadn’t ruined him in this very same episode.
Seeing Sif again and learning of Loki’s past mischief? Could have been great if it wasn’t used for what turned into a torture scene or ‘police brutality’ who however wasn’t meant to be seen as bad as it was because it’s a woman who beat Loki.
Even the police brutality or the fascist agency could have been great plot point if it wasn’t they’re barely brushed over.
Loki reflecting on his behaviour could have been good if it wasn’t inserted into what was basically a torture scene.
Little Sylvie’s backstory could have been awesome if it had been realist, if this little escaping child had had knowledge of a Tempad and had had someone to help her.
I mean, there are some genuine good things in this plot… but then they got ruined by poor planning or poor explanation or abrupt character OOC.
It’s a pity.
We’ll see if episode 5 will redeem himself.
#mcu loki#loki#loki laufeyson#loki odinson#sylvie#mobius m mobius#ravonna renslayer#hunter b 15#hunter c 20#hunter u 92#9 worlds study#9 worlds study mcu loki
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Taking Chances Ch. 27: Princess (Royal/medieval AU)
AO3
Prev
The shrill akuma alarm wakes Marinette up the next morning and she sighs, rubbing her head gently before grabbing the bottle of painkillers that Dick had left next to her on the table.
“Don’t leave yet!” A voice calls from the other room. Marinette frowns, but listens, quickly taking a couple painkillers and letting herself wake up. Dick rushes into the room, nearly falling as he slides across the floor in his socks. He rushes over to her and kneels in front of her, staring into her eyes. She frowns.
“What are you doing?” She asks, too tired to try and comprehend what’s wrong with her brother right now.
“Checking your eyes and seeing how bad your concussion is so I know if I need to call Adrien to keep a closer eye on you for this fight.” Dick says, frowning slightly at something he sees. He reaches out and gently pushes a spot on her head and she hisses in pain.
“Hey, ya big jerk, that hurts!” She complains, giving him her best ‘Damian’ glare. He just rolls his eyes.
“This is serious kid, you got seriously injured last night.” Dick reminds her. She purses her lips.
“I know, and I promise I’ll take it easy later, but right now I really need to go.” She pleads. Dick sighs, but nods, standing up.
“Go kick some butterfly butt.” He says with a small grin. Marinette grins back at him, quickly calling her transformations and portaling away to Paris. She blinks in the bright sunlight, trying hard to push away any disorientation she has from the stupid concussion. I can do this, she thinks, glancing around to assess the situation. She frowns at her surroundings. She knew she was technically in Paris, she could see the Eiffel tower and Kaalki never misled her before. Well, not during an attack anyway. But where the giant modern buildings should be, there were small stone buildings with thatch roofs. Glancing around, she also notices a huge, stone castle where her school used to be. That should be fun.
“I am the Dark Knight, and I will not rest until I have Chat Noir and Ladybug’s Miraculous!” A voice shouts out above the rest of the noise. Marinette creeps over and just blinks at the fashion atrocity before her. She was going to slap Hawkmoth twice when she found him. Once, for terrorizing Paris for over a year. And again for the awful wardrobe choices he made. Seriously. And the Dark Knight? Isn’t that name trademarked, or something?
“Hey Bugaboo, what’s the plan?” Chat asks, landing beside her and leaning on his baton. She frowns.
“I don’t actually have one yet. I just got here.” She says, and this time he’s the one confused.
“But you always rush over.” He says, careful not to include anything about Kaalki. You never know who might be listening.
“I’ll explain later. Any idea where the object might be?” She asks, scanning the akuma. It’s power didn’t seem too awful. It had changed most of the structure in Paris, and now it was changing people’s clothes too when they got hit by the orange light. Some citizens were in what Marinette could only assume was the height of fashion during the Renaissance, whereas some citizens were draped in obvious “peasant” outfits. But there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for the difference. Just a difference.
“The satchel looks promising.” Chat says, and Marinette grins, a plan slowly taking hold in her mind. She’d just need two paper clips, a stick of gum and whatever her lucky charm was.
---
“Pound it.” Chat says holding out a fist. Marinette grins, returning the fist bump. “Did you have time to talk? You know, about why you were late?” Chat asks, and Marinette sighs but nods. They both recharge in an alley before swinging to sit on the top of the Eiffel tower.
“I fought an akuma alone, while you were out of town.” She says first, shrugging lightly. “I didn’t think about it, honest. I’d done it a million times before with Monsieur Pigeon. But the Bat got mad.” Marinette says, not wanting to risk calling him her dad while she’s masked in Paris. It just felt like it was asking for trouble.
“Cause you fought alone?” Chat asks, frowning.
“Well, that and I sort of jammed the Zeta tubes so that outsiders can’t come to Paris during an active akuma attack.” She mumbles under her breath, wincing at the noise Chat’s neck makes when he jerks around to stare at her dumbfoundedly.
“That’s insane. How’d you do it?” He asks and she simply grins.
“Spent enough time with Pegasus and Red Robin and Oracle. Add in a tiny bit of luck and boom. I win.” She smirks
“So you were late cause you’re grounded.” Chat says simply, a proud smile on his face as he thinks he cracked the code. Solved the mystery.
“Not quite,” Marinette says with a slight frown.
“Then what?” Chat asks. Marinette lets out a long sigh, glaring at Adrien to let him know she’s not happy about this situation, she does not want to talk to him about this. He’ll just get all worried.
“Well last night I was still benched from patrol because of the whole akuma attack thing but Tikki thought I should be ungrounded so I went out anyway and then the dude that stabbed me a couple months ago found me and the rest of the Batclan didn’t know that I was out so they couldn’t help me and I was all alone and then he knocked me out and I don’t really remember much except I woke up at Nightwing’s apartment and met Starfire and yeah that’s it.” She rambles, shooting him a smile and waving nonchalantly.
“I’m going to wrap you in bubble wrap. No, I’m going to make the Batclan do it.” Chat finally says, pulling out his baton.
“No, don’t! Batman doesn’t know. Neither does Hood or Red Robin. Only Nightwing and Robin know.” She says, swatting the baton out of his hand. The last thing she needed was for him to accidentally call her dad on her. She’d be in so much trouble.
“Geeze Bug.” Chat mutters under his breath, tugging her into a hug. She sighs and hugs him back, taking just a moment to relish being with her friend.
“I’m pretty sure Batman is narrowing down his Hawkmoth suspect list.” She mumbles, and Chat pulls back from her, staring into her face.
“Are you serious?” He asks, the relief on his face clear. Marinette nods, and Chat lets out a long sigh. One that Marinette could feel in her bones, because she was tired too. She also wanted to end this fight. Hopefully her dad would have a suspect soon.
---
Bruce Wayne was the world’s greatest detective. He had solved cases infinitely larger than this one, so he didn’t understand why he couldn’t find a damn lead on Hawkmoth. Actually, he understood perfectly. It was magic. God he hates magic. It’s unpredictable, and most of the time it’s more trouble than it’s worth. He sighs and sends a quick text to Dick, double checking that Marinette had made it back to his apartment okay. He knew his daughter was...upset with him for benching her and demanding she take someone with her to Paris. But they were all precautions, just to guarantee that nothing worse happened to her. She wasn’t invincible, no matter how much she seemed to think she was. He frowns at the text he receives back, quickly hitting call and waiting a few moments for Dick to pick up.
“Hel-”
“What do you mean she’s not at your place?” Bruce asks, not giving his eldest son a chance to talk.
“Well hi to you too, B.” Dick teases, and Bruce just knows he’s grinning. He lets out a sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Is she really not there? The akuma attack ended nearly twenty minutes ago and she’s not here either.” Bruce says, trying to think of where else she would go. Jason was even at the Manor, and hadn’t heard from her either.
“No, B, she’s not-” Dick pauses, then lets out a long sigh. “It’s B. He was wondering where you were.” He hears Dick say, and Bruce is surprised to hear his son’s tone. It was less carefree and more...like a father. He was a father, with Mar’i, but it was still odd to hear him use the tone on someone besides his granddaughter.
“I had to talk to Adrien.” He can barely hear her say and Bruce lets out a frustrated huff. Of course she was with the Agreste boy again. Honestly, he seemed nice enough until Selina pointed out the crushes that the two had on each other. Now, Bruce wanted nothing more than to lock him away. Far away.
“Can you please ask her if she’s coming home tonight?” Bruce finally says, listening to the silence on the other end. He wonders if they’d put the phone on mute or if Marinette was signing furiously the way he’d seen her do over a video call with Cass earlier in the week.
“We’re all coming. See you at dinner.” Dick says, hanging up almost fast enough for Bruce to not hear the protest from Marinette. Almost. Bruce walks to find Alfred, trying not to let the fact that his daughter doesn’t want to see him again get to him.
---
Marinette glares at her oldest brother as they walk into the manor. He just grins, acting as if he hadn’t practically forced her home. It’s not that she didn’t want to come home, but she knew she had a couple bruises and a lump on her head. She also knew that Damian was apparently barely holding himself back from hunting down Slade. She really didn’t need Tikki giving him any ideas.
“Welcome home, Miss Marinette. Would you like me to look at your injuries?” Alfred asks immediately walking towards her as he walks into the room. Marinette glances around, hoping her dad isn’t around before sighing.
“No thank you Alfred, I’m fine.” She reassures him, or she tries to. His face doesn’t look like he believes her.
“Yes, I’m certain a concussion is nothing to worry about. Especially since you’ve had so many.” He drawls, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Hey, whoa. You said this was your first concussion.” Dick says after urging Mar’i to fly off and find Jason or Damian or Tim. Marinette huffs.
“It is.” She says, crossing her arms.
“The concussions you sustain in the suit still count. Head injuries are not an exact science. Nor are they an exact magic cure, either. They often heal at an accelerated speed, but can still have long-lasting effects.” Alfred says and Marinette blinks. That was almost- Almost- information about the Miraculous. And only someone who knew about the Miraculous would know about the whole head injury thing. She blinks at him for a moment, running possibilities through her head. She sighs, realizing that if Alfred had been a holder, it was definitely for a Miraculous she didn’t have. She could just...feel it.
“I promise I’m fine, and if I start feeling any of those other concussion symptoms, I’ll come to you.” Marinette promises.
“And how did you get a concussion?” Her dad asks, practically materializing out of nowhere.
“Akuma attack. Miraculous cure can’t do a complete heal with concussions, it’s too, uh, dangerous. Not exact.” Marinette lies, trying hard not to do any of her tells. She doesn’t tense up, she doesn’t grin, she doesn’t look at someone else and giggle, nothing. She lies with a straight face, which honestly almost scares her more than getting yelled at by her dad. He just hums before nodding at her.
“Will you be staying here tonight? Most of us have patrol, but afterwards Tim suggested that we all watch a movie together.” Her dad says and Marinette tries hard to suppress her grin. There’s no way.
“Wow Tim, you really wanna have a full-family movie night?” She calls out, grinning at the surprised look on her brother’s face. Because of course her dad was the one to set it up, but of course he didn’t want anyone to know. “I think that’s super cool Tim. As long as we can watch some Disney princess movies.” She adds, laughing as Mar’i comes flying around the corner with wide eyes.
“Did someone say princess?” She squeals, flying straight into Marinette’s arms. Marinette grins at her niece and nods.
“Oh yes. Timmy has decided we’re gonna watch Disney princess movies as a family all night long!” She says, laughing as her niece cheers. She glances at her Dad and tries hard to hold back the snort that wants to come out at his exasperated look. Looks like it’s gonna be a Disney night for the Wayne household.
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